From ZDNet: “Dell Computer said Monday that it is offering removable plates for its new Inspiron 4100 notebooks in 18 colors, patterns and textures. The QuickSnap Color Inserts range from Iridescent Jade, Burlwood and Antique to Denim, Fishskin and Snakeskin.”

Kelly McNeill writes “In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, many have expressed a need for increased security. While passports are a relatively effective means of identifying travelers, they have been only marginally effective at keeping individuals out of locations where they are not welcome. Last Thursday, Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, expressed his belief that the world — and especially the United States after the recent attacks — needs a new identification system to supersede the standard passport to increase security.”

Wired.com reports that some security experts think “SirCam will unleash a payload on Oct. 16 that wipes out all files on infected machines — but others say there’s a major error in the worm’s programming and widespread damage is unlikely.”

Kelly McNeill writes, “The clarion call keeps sounding: Open source must build a better Windows than Windows, a better MS Office than MS Office. Open source must storm the desktop now or it will die — or so we are told. What nonsense. Open source was alive and well long before the desktop PC was invented, and will still be thriving long after the desktop becomes ancient history. Since when did Open source switch from innovation to imitation? Of the many great achievements of open source, most have been brand new ideas rather than cheap copies of others. Let’s take a look at a few of the achievements.” It’s at osOpinion.com.

From CNet: “The Department of Justice is digging deeper into whether the recording industry has
engaged in unfair licensing practices regarding online music, in a preliminary investigation
into the possibility of antitrust violations.”

CNet reports that the number of Internet attacks reported by companies looks likely to double in 2001, at least according to the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center. CERT counted 35,000 such attacks in the first nine months of the year.

Reuters reports that Transmeta has announced a new
Crusoe chip that it said uses one-third the space on a notebook’s motherboard than its
current processors do.

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/linux-2.4/. Intermediate diffs are available from http://www.bzimage.org. From Cox: “This tree doesn’t compile for SMP with gcc 3.*. The problem appears to be the P6 safe spin_unlock code. Right now I don’t see why so if you want to build with 3.* you have to figure that out too 8)
“

2.4.12-ac3
o Switch mpt fusion driver to use set_current_state
(Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Ext3 file system update and related fixes (Andrew Morton,
Stephen Tweedie)
o ASM m68k include updates (Richard Ziclicky)
o Netwinder audio update (Russell King)
o SA1100 documentation update (Russell King)
o ARM keyboard updates (Russell King)
o ARM include updates (Russell King)
o Fix a pcmcia/ds.c return on error case (Russell King)
o Small ARM core updates (Russell King)
o Philips USB camera driver update (“Nemosoft”)
o Add XScale pci ident (Russell King)
o SA1100 frame buffer update (Russell King)
o Update floppy.c for N_FDC=1 case (Russell King)
o Update floppy parameter support (Russell King)
o Bring -ac usb device locking in line with Linus (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
tree
o USB initialisation fixes (Linus Torvalds)
o Use set_current_state in wireless drivers (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Megaraid driver v 1.18 (Atul Mukker)

2.4.12-ac2
o Fix the reiserfs buffer accounting bug (Chris Mason)
o VIA rhine oops fix (Urban Widmark)
o Fix ppc build, add license tags (Paul Mackerras)
o Fix partition size handling bug (Al Viro)
o Handle BIOSes that slow the CPU more sanely (me)
o Fix pm.h include in pc_keyb.c (Mike Borrelli)
o Document some of the APM code (me)
o Reapply reiserfs big endian support (Jeff Mahoney)
o Fix misleading bootflag reporting (Thomas Hood)
o Fix a reporting bug in the promise driver (Alexander Yurchenko)
o Switch bits of scsi to use set_current_state
(Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Switch cdrom drivers to set_current_state (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Add license tags to reiserfs (Dirk Mueller)
o SA1100 fixes (Russell King)
o Fix usb config typo (Tom Rini)
o Eurotech PC104 watchdog (Rodolfo Giometti)
o Add support for the VIA C5 processor (Dave Jones)
o Add Dave Jones to maintainers file (Dave Jones)
o Switch paride drivers to set_current_state (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Switch USB drivers to set_current_state (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Switch most of drivers/char to s_c_s (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Back out a bogus aci change (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Switch sound to use set_current_state (Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
o Cache reporting errata handling (Dave Jones)
o Merge some identical vm operations (Christoph Hellwig)
o Fix init/version.h comments/format oddments (Daniel Dickman)

Network World Fusion has a story about a computer forensics expert saying the data “scrubbing” features in Windows XP will make it impossible for law enforcement to find digital evidence on computers.

From EET.com: “A security processor startup with a design team
composed of engineers from Compaq Computer Corp.’s former Alpha
operation has introduced a new encryption chip that it claims will shatter
the current standards for high-end encryption.”