According to IDG, port scanning and other virtual doorknob-jiggling has increased by 280% in the last thirty days. Experts in IT management warn that even more sophisticated cracking attempts are around the corner, so batten those hatches.

“Recently at LinuxWorld in New York, LynuxWorks
offered a sneak preview of a capability the company
promised a little over a year ago — application binary
interface compatibility of the company’s proprietary
real-time operating system (RTOS), LynxOS, with
Linux. Well, whether or not LynxOS is truly ABI
compatible with Linux remains to be seen — but at least
it appeared to pass the “Quake Test.”” Story at ZDNet.

From ZDNet News.com: “Rebel.com released on Tuesday the first server based on a
Transmeta chip. Other manufacturers are expected to follow in
the coming months.

The Ottawa-based start-up hopes to capitalize on a trend toward server
size-reduction with its NetWinder 3100. Weighing about 2 pounds, the
server is designed to fit into dense racks designed to hold several
servers at once.”

“Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it plans this year to launch
software, code named Stinger, aimed at setting the standard for
multimedia-enabled phones as well as leveraging the strength of its
Windows software.

The announcement was timed to coincide with the world’s largest mobile phone conference to be
held this week in Cannes, France.” From ZDNet news.

Microsoft and its incredible FUD machine pay a visit to New Orleans this week. The mission: Steal as much attention as possible from the AppWorld conference, at which Oracle plans to debut a few software tools that will seriously compete with Microsoft’s .Net offerings. The plan: Start by calling Oracle CEO Larry Ellison names, and make indirect allegations of consumer fraud. ZDNet has the full story.

ZDNet reports: “Apple Computer said it has started shipping the 733MHz Power Mac, its top-of-the-line desktop
machine that includes a SuperDrive capable of reading and writing both CDs and DVDs.

The new Power Mac, which Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL) announced at last month’s Macworld
Expo in San Francisco, helps Apple narrow the megahertz gap between its computers and those
that use Intel processors.”

PC World reports from Geneva: “Pushing for uniformity in the handling of Internet domain name
disputes, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is tackling
cybersquatting and other issues in a conference here this week with
representatives from 66 country domain registrars.

The agenda focuses on key policy issues related to intellectual property
conflicts in country code top-level domains. Those are the domains used for
countries like “.uk” for the United Kingdom and “.fr” for France. WIPO will also
present its “Best Practices for Intellectual Property Dispute Prevention and
Resolution.””

From Slashdot: “An AC sends us this interesting piece – “I recently came across this not-so-new interview with Ted Hoff, the inventor of the first CPU in the world – Intel4004. It’s fascinating reading: the birth of the chip, the dispute over credibility, patent filing and his later life with Atari.””

New vixie-cron packages are available that fix a buffer overflow in the ‘crontab’ command; this could allow certain users to gain elevated privileges. It is recommended that all users update to the fixed packages. Full details at Help Net Security.

From ZDNet eWEEK: “Microsoft Corp. representatives assert that Platforms Group Vice President Jim Allchin was “misunderstood” when he expressed concerns last week about the long-term industry effects of open-source software. “Jim was not misquoted,” a company official said, referring to an interview in which Allchin was said to have warned that “open source is an intellectual-property destroyer.””