“There is no doubt that the Hacker Ethic is the Finnish ethic too. The cascade of free-software applications that have come out of Finland over past two decades – not just Linux, but anonymous remailing, Internet Relay Chat, and others – emerge from a specific social context. To explain it, you need to look how the Finns deploy their power and money in public services.” Guardian Unlimited’s Pat Kane examines the Finnish obsession with Open Source technology.

The Register: “It’s been a bad week for Internet Explorer users as the second potential devastating
vulnerability in as many days has been discovered by security researchers.

Flaws in the way IE renders binary attachments in HTML email could be used to
trick users into running malicious code on their machines, Microsoft has admitted.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “Catholic University boots out Napster’s planned pre-march forum at the Columbus School of Law due to rules violations. But is that the real reason? More at MP3wire.net.“

ZDNET.co.uk: “Sharp Electronics has announced that its new personal digital
assistants (PDAs) will use an embedded Linux operating system and
will run Java applications. This could attract more corporate custom
from firms that are using rival PDAs such as the Psion or Palm.”

Reuters at CNET: “Some Hewlett-Packard monitors could electrically shock users, the company said
Thursday, offering to replace problem monitors.”

Wired: “With online advertising dollars shriveling up and dying, more and more websites are returning to an old model that didn’t work the first time: subscriptions. Is it desperation, or will it succeed this time?”

TheCliq: “CLIQ 2001 is now in full swing! We’ve lined up anoter full set of conference speakers and Birds of a Feather (BoF) Sessions, including our
keynote speaker David L. Sifry, CTO of Linuxcare, to help the Rocky Mountain region once again answer the questions.”

Reuters via Yahoo: “Microsoft Corp put more firepower in the arsenal of its new Xbox videogame console with 11 game titles to be created by Japanese software developer Sega Corp for its autumn launch, chairman Bill Gates said on Friday.”

MSTechnet: “In mid-March 2001, VeriSign, Inc., advised Microsoft that on January 29 and 30, 2001, it issued two VeriSign Class 3
code-signing digital certificates to an individual who fraudulently claimed to be a Microsoft employee. The common name
assigned to both certificates is ?Microsoft Corporation?. The ability to sign executable content using keys that purport to
belong to Microsoft would clearly be advantageous to an attacker who wished to convince users to allow the content to
run.”

Wired: “A new program called Share Sniffer makes file trading easier than ever before — and more dangerous.”