International Data Group reports on a presentation made at the Black Hat Conference in Los Vegas, Nevada, in which the world was warned of future worms which may be able to evolve and communicate with other versions of itself.

The Massachussets Institute of Technology is reporting that it has filed a lawsuit against an AOL Time Warner company in U.S. District Court in Boston over the use of one of its trademarks. The suit names CNet and Time Inc. for violation of its “Technology Review” trademark in the recent release of a magazine by that name.

BSD Today reports on the release of NetBSD 1.5.1, a patch revision for 1.5 containing over a hundred fixes from bugreports from version 1.5.

The Standard reports on what could be the last step in a bloody war between Napster and the recording industry. The presiding judge in the ongoing case has ordered Napster remain shut down until they can guarantee no copyrighted material will be exchanged, though the ruling does not prevent similar services from operating.

PC World reports that Samsung is planning to release 128M DDR-RAM chips capable of operating at 300MHz, above the company’s earlier estimate of 64M for these chips by the time of mass-production.

Kelly McNeill writes “Why is everyone whining about lagging adoption of wireless data services? Well, they have a lot of reasons. Bandwidth. Devices. Interfaces. But behind those frustrations is a lack of compelling applications that might convince users to tackle the medium’s other weaknesses. Now, platform provider Pure Matrix is suggesting that if compelling applications are what users need, they should build ’em themselves.”

Linux Journal explains what PortSentry is, why people should use it, and how to use it. PortSentry is a program to catch port-scans of a system, as that is often the first step in a break-in attempt.

The USENIX Association announced today
that its signature conference suffered no change in attendance despite
a
sagging technical industry.

Shrinking training budgets and massive layoffs have depressed
conference
attendance industrywide, with many events reporting drops in
registration anywhere from 15 to 30 percent from last year. However,
the USENIX Annual Technical Conference, held late last month in Boston,
reported only a five- percent decrease, bringing in over 1,750
technical
professionals. International registration totaled nearly 14 percent,
with 35 countries represented in attendance demographics.

“The strength of this conference is a very important factor,” said
Yoonho Park, USENIX Annual Tech 2001 Program Chair. “We were certainly
in an area where USENIX makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.
People have been coming to this conference for a long time and I’m sure
they made a ruckus to their managers about attending this year.”

“Not everyone was employed,” added Carla Ellis, Annual Tech 2002
Program
Chair. “They came regardless.”

The conference provided an intellectually challenging program with two
tracks of technical research presentation, including the popular
FREENIX
track, sessions dedicated to open source research and advances.
Presenters included industry luminaries such as Keynote Daniel Frye,
Director of IBM’s Linux Technology Center, Security gurus Steven
Bellovin and Avi Rubin, and Compaq’s James Gettys. Longtime USENIX
members, Avi Rubin, Margo Seltzer, and Keith Bostic also announced the
release of their new books at this conference.

“We orchestrated it so that my book signing would be right after my
invited talk,” said Avi Rubin, a member of USENIX Board of Directors.
“I
really think this is the right place to do promotions considering the
combination of the size of the audience and the technical bent that
they
have.”

The Annual Technical Conference is the first of USENIX’s major annual
events, which include the Security Symposium in Washington, DC, in
August; the Annual Linux Showcase and Conference in Oakland in
November;
and the unique conference LISA 2001, The Systems Administrator’s
conference.

“If you want to know what is going on in the industry in the next three
to five years, go to a USENIX conference and hear what the argument is
in any given year,” said Clem Cole, FREENIX Program Chair for Annual
Tech 2001. “This is where industry and research begin to come
together.”

Detailed information on upcoming USENIX events is available on the Web
at www.usenix.org/events.

About the USENIX Association
USENIX is the Advanced Computing Systems Association. For over 25
years, it has been the leading community for engineers, system
administrators, scientists, and technician working on the cutting edge
of the computing world. USENIX conferences are the essential meeting
grounds for the presentation and discussion of technical advances in
all
aspects of computing systems. For more information about the USENIX
Association, visit http://www.usenix.org.

White-Hat Security Arsenal: Tackling the Threats By Aviel Rubin,
published by Addison Wesley. For more information or to purchase the
book, see www.white-hat.org.

Berkeley DB by Sleepycat Software, Inc. (co-written by Margo Seltzer
and
Keith Bostic), published by New Riders, contact Mike Olson,
mao@sleepycat.com or see www.sleepycat.com.

CNET News.com: “Anonymous posters to Internet message boards can keep their identities under wraps in most
cases, a New Jersey state appeals court has ruled. In a victory for online anonymity, the court
said people who posted messages critical of Dendrite International do not have to reveal their
names.”

The Register reports a European Commission committee has decided that Internet users don’t have the right to a spam-free mailbox. Instead of adopting an opt-in plan that would prohibit companies from sending commercial e-mail messages without explicit permission from the recipient, the EC’s Citizens’ Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs Committee has decided to back opt-out. That method requires consumers to be reactive, requesting to be removed from each and every mailing that marketers decide to send their way.