LinuxSecurity: “Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC (MAPS), a private, antispam group, and Experian eMarketing Inc. have settled a lawsuit over Experian’s listing on
the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL). Both sides announced the settlement late Wednesday.”

Wired: “The world’s most notorious hacker — now a fledgling actor — warns his colleagues to assume a low profile these days.”

ZDNET: “Sharp is preparing to release a handheld computer in the United States that uses a version of the Linux
operating system, according to sources.

In the coming weeks, sources said, the consumer-electronics maker is expected to make the handheld available to
developers. A consumer version is expected in the first quarter.”

Usenix.org: “The USENIX Board of Directors has decided to alert our membership that bills pending before the U.S.
Congress or in committee appear to have a detrimental impact on computer professionals.”

Kelly McNeill writes: “Unfortunately, all is not well with the new version of Apple’s iDisk. According to security experts at Open Door Networks, iDisk under Mac OS X 10.1 is significantly less secure than under previous versions of Mac OS X. In Mac OS X 10.1 your iDisk is usually accessed using the WebDAV protocol rather than the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) used previously. Like AFP, WebDAV is supposed to not send your password over the Internet, so in that respect it should be as secure as AFP. However, the implementation of WebDAV in Mac OS X 10.1, as used with iDisk, violates the WebDAV specification and sends passwords in a way that makes them easy for hackers to discover.”

ZDNET: “Bowing to customer pressure, Microsoft has backed off a controversial licensing provision that forced some
customers to pay twice for the software they purchased.

Microsoft quietly introduced the change on Oct. 1 in conjunction with another sweeping licensing revision that,
according to research firm Gartner, raised software costs for many customers from 33 percent to 107 percent.

“The message here is customer pressure works, and the government scrutiny helped,” said Gartner analyst Neil
MacDonald.”

DebianPlanet: “I am trying to install a debian system that needs to be booted with a 2.4 kernel. I followed the instructions
found on the README.txt file of the boot-floppy, but the kernel panics after inserting the boot floppy.

Is there anyone who can tell me how to create a debian boot-floppy with this 2.4.x kernel?”

Kelly McNeill writes: “More problems surfaced Friday for Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker AMD, which announced that its net loss for the quarter ended September 30th could approach US$220 million, including one-time restructuring charges connected with layoffs and plant closings of between $80 million and $110 million. Excluding the one-time charges, a pro forma loss of $110 million represents a per-share deficit of 31 cents, rather than the 12 cents per share loss that analysts had been predicting.”

ComputerWorld: “The vulnerability affects Microsoft Excel 2000 and 2002 for Windows and
PowerPoint 2000 and 2002 for Windows, as well as various versions of the
software for the Macintosh platform, according to a Microsoft advisory
posted Thursday.

Patches for the affected software are available immediately and should be
applied as soon as possible, Microsoft said in its advisory.”

Slashdot: “al3x asks: ‘When I first got into Linux nearly five years ago, the new releases of competing window managers (like Blackbox,
Enlightenment, Sawfish, etc.) were a constant thrill, and great strides were made with every release. I can’t count the number
of nights spent trying to get that sexy new E build to work, and what fun it was! But these days, window manager
development seems to be stagnating. The last stable release of Enlightenment is from last year. Sawfish hasn’t done much
of anything in months, nor has Blackbox. WindowMaker had a recent update, but not with any exciting new features (it is rock solid, however).
Now, verging from the paths of window manager favoritism or “they haven’t been updated because they just work,” why has development in this
arena slowed to a crawl, and what’s on the horizon?'”