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.

Silicon.com carries news of a fake but very official-looking security advisory forum that mimics a Microsoft forum, warning users of a virus that will devastate a user’s BIOS. The page links to what claims to be a security software patch, but in reality is a trojan that could be used to launch remote DoS attacks.

CNET News.com: “After years spent goading Netscape Communications and Microsoft into complying with guidelines
recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), standards proponents say they are
turning their attention to companies that make Web authoring tools. Topping the hit list now are the
likes of Macromedia and its popular Dreamweaver authoring tool; Adobe Systems and its GoLive
product; and Microsoft again, for its low-end but widely used FrontPage software.”

From USA Today: “A government payroll computer center in Denver is fraught
with security problems, raising the possibility that criminals could steal or alter
records, congressional investigators said Tuesday.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, faulted the
National Business Center for not adequately securing its computer network, not
investigating suspicious access patterns and having lax physical security.”

Fujitsu Technology Solutions plans to introduce the world to its new Primepower 2000 next Monday, a high-end Unix server that can accomodate up to 128 Sparc64-GP processors. With twice the number of processors found in Sun’s top of the line models, and more than five times the processors in IBM’s high-end devices, Fujitsu hopes to steal some of the thunder from those enterprise market giants. In a rapidly shrinking corporate market, however, its success is anything but ensure. Full story at CNET News.com.

An AP item on Wired News reports that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has decided to delay its high-speed data delivery wireless license auction. Initially scheduled to take place in September, the agency says it will now postpone the auction to address questions raised by other parties. What questions are being raised by what parties is left as an excersize for the reader’s imagination.

sil writes “Thought I’d post the following document in hopes anyone who is under attack can look to in order to minimize the effects of a Denial of Service attack. The article is not an RFC, merely a supplement for administrators to take immediate action during an attack. Information included contain how-to’s for the following routers, firewalls, and operating systems: Cisco, Nortel, Netscreen, 3COM, Lucent, Cabletron, Foundry, Redback, Extreme, Arrowpoint, Checkpoint, Solaris, BSD, Linux, AIX, and IRIX kernel tweaks. Definitely something to have bookmarked in case of an emergency. Stopping DoS attacks“

CNET News.com: “Whois, a database that contains personal contact information of people who register Web sites, is
the subject of an oversight hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee on Thursday.

People representing privacy groups, trademark holders, copyright owners and software makers
will testify before the committee, which is using the event as a fact-finding mission. There is no
specific Whois-related legislation planned.”

More than 60
KDE developers from all over the world gathered at the KDE booth during
LinuxTag
2001. Among them were KDE developers from the United States, Austria,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Special guest-star from the
US was Noatun-developer Charles
Samuels, who will probably release KJetLag (which consists of lots
of sleep() calls) soon after he returns to the US this week ;-).On six TFT
equipped demopoints, KDE developers displayed the latest stable version
of the award-winning KDE desktop, theKOffice
office suite and the KDevelop development
IDE. They also offered a preview of KDE
2.2 Beta 1, KDevelop 3.0 pre-alpha (a/k/a Gideon)
and Reaktivate. The latter
enables Konqueror, the KDE web
browser and file manager, to embed ActiveX
controls, such as the popular Shockwave
movies, for which to date no native Linux/Unix solution exists. The well
decorated and overcrowded 24 square meter KDE booth and its crew enjoyed
the feedback and interest of several thousand visitors, among which remarkably
many stopped by to talk to the KDE women
team.

The event was highlighted with several KDE-related talks and workshops.
These included a presentation on “Universal Components” by KDE founder
Matthias Ettrich;
a tutorial on “Developing a GUI Using Qt” by Jesper K. Pedersen of Klarälvdalens
Datakonsult AB; a presentation on “aRts
und Brahms – Multimedia
in KDE 2.x” by Jan Würthner and Stefan
Westerfeld; and, last but not least, a presentation entitled “KDE 2.2
– Your Personal Desktop”, by KDevelop developer Ralf
Nolden.

In addition to the lectures, developers hosted several workshops on
KDE development. Particularly noteworthy was Michael
Goffioul‘s presentation on CUPS
and the KDEPrint System, of
which a KPresenter slide
show is available for download.

A considerable number of well known representatives of the Linux community
attended the KDE booth, including people from Prolinux,
LinuxUser and LinuxMagazin,
and Tuomas Kuosmanen (a/k/a “TigerT”). Rob
Malda (a/k/a CmdrTaco of Slashdot
fame), frequently popped by the KDE booth and proudly displayed the latest
KDE beta on his laptop.

In addition, on Thursday Margareta
Wolf, State Secretary of the German Federal
Ministry of Economics and Technology, expressed her interest when she
obtained
information on current issues concerning Linux and the KDE project, but
also shared here concerns about pending patent legislation in the EU and
its potential impact on the development of Open Source Software.

Several sets of photos from the event and the KDE booth are available:

• Tackat’s photos
• Rob
  Kaper’s photos
• LinuxTag team
  photos
• Winfried Trümper’s photos
  (KDE photos)
• Deti
  Fliegl’s photos

The KDE-events-team would
like to thank all KDE developers and others who contributed to the event
for once more making LinuxTag 2001 a huge success for KDE. Specifically
we’d like to thank:

• Klarälvdalens Datakonsult
  AB, TrollTech AS and others
  for providing the admission charge for the LinuxTag social event;
• SuSE for providing the five TFT monitors,
  hotel rooms and miscellaneous hardware;
• The KDE League for paying for promotion
  material and KDE t-shirts;
• RedHat for supplying three demo points;
  and
• Frontsite for the “dragon food”;

and of course we’d like to thank the people who organized LinuxTag 2001.

About LinuxTag

LinuxTag is the largest Linux and Open Source exhibition in Europe. This
year 15,000 visitors and 110 exhibitors (among them more than 30 free software
projects) attended. The event was hosted in Stuttgart, Germany from July
5 through July 8.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers
worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment
employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE is working
proof of the power of the Open Source “Bazaar-style” software development
model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even
the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE
FAQ, screenshots,
KOffice information, developer
information and a developer’s KDE
1 – KDE 2 porting guide. Much more information about KDE is available
from KDE’s web site.

Metatheme 0.6.0, a.k.a “Braintree” is now available for download. The utility enables users to save and restore snapshots of their system’s current theme configuration. Features include one-click changing of background images, Gtk+ themese, Sawfish windo manager themese, and more. New goodies in this verson include an overhauled user interface, “no more hacky metatheme-instealler,” and the introduction of a new plugin API to handle GUI editor configurations. Read on for the complete release message from Ximian’s Richard Hestilow:

                  From: Richard Hestilow 
                  Date: 09 Jul 2001 12:11:17 -0400

                  Metatheme 0.6.0 Release Notes

                  Hello theme lovers!

                  Metatheme 0.6.0, code-named "Braintree", has been released.

                  What is metatheme?
                  ------------------

                  Metatheme provides a way for users to save and restore snapshots of
                  their system's current theme configuration. This allows one-click 
                  simultaneous changing of background image, Gtk+ theme, Sawfish window
                  manager theme, and so forth.

                  What has been changed in this release?
                  --------------------------------------

                  * Complete user-interface revamp by Anna Dirks.
                  * No more hacky metatheme-installer. Future theme dependencies will be
                  handled via Red Carpet. Additionally, theme creators can simply
                  distribute
                  all components of their theme in one single directory.
                  * New plugin API to handle GUI editor configuration.
                  * New example theme "Ximian South" by Jakub "jimmac" Steiner.
                  * Bug fixes galore.

                  Requirements:
                  -------------

                  control-center, gal, libxml

                  Availability:
                  -------------

                  * Binary packages in Red Carpet channel "Ximian Preview"
                  * Source tarballs:
                          ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/metatheme/metatheme-0.6.0.tar.gz
                          ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/metatheme/ximian-south-meta-0.1.0.tar.gz
                          ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/metatheme/metatheme-0.6.0.tar.gz (once the mirrors sync)
                          ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/metatheme/ximian-south-meta.1.0.tar.gz (once the mirrors sync)
                  * GNOME CVS: module metatheme

                  How to install the Bonus Example Theme if you are not using red-carpet
                  -------------------
                  Untar ximian-south-meta-0.1.0.tar.gz/ to ~/.metathemes or
                  /usr/share/metathemes.