Computer World reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) is warning it can not keep pace with rapid changes in the information technology sector, and is seeking the help of the industry to help it keep up.

Linux World looks at how standards for Linux can be achieved without the help of the Linux Standards Committee. Is this a non-standard way of achieving standards?

Posted at LWN.net: “The last few weeks have been quite eventful. 1.4.1 b1 was released and work
is progressing on a final release. Paris and Brussels were hives of Midgard
activity with LinuxWorld, OSDEM and the Midgard Developer’s meeting all
happening. All reports are that Alexander, Emile and Ami were excellent. In
Hong Kong Alan Knowles has released a second version of the Linux Center’s
excellent Framed Admin site. Lastly Henri has started a discussion, mostly
on the list, about the future role of the non-profit Midgard Ry which owns
the Midgard core code.”

From InternetWire: Wechsler Harwood Halebian & Feffer LLP has been retained to investigate claims
or filed class action complaints claims involving the securities of the above companies (including VA Linux, NewsForge’s parent company) on behalf of
investors.

ApacheWeek has several items, including this one: “The past week has seen more work toward getting Apache 2.0 running on the production server at www.apache.org. This culminated
on Thursday evening as Ryan Bloom announced that the code had been up and running for three hours without any problems. The
server appears to have been switched back to running Apache 1.3 at the time of writing, although it is not currently clear why.”

Posted at LWN.net: “A problem with the library could allow access to write or overwrite
restricted files.
Upon execution of SUID and SGID applications, the library allows a user
to preload libraries in the environment variable LD_PRELOAD providing
the variable does not contain forward slashes. A special check is also
performed to ensure the library being preloaded is SUID.”

A CRN.com columnist talks about the popularity of Linux by citing a December 2000 study saying more than a third of
solution providers in North America are plugging in Linux
solutions.

“The research, which garnered 7,556
responses, found 41 percent of
solution providers pointing to Linux
as one of three primary operating
systems that their company resells,
specifies, recommends or approves.
In comparison, 89 percent cited
Windows NT Server and 48 percent
named NetWare (all versions).”

CNet reports: “A well-known hole in Microsoft’s Web server software lets vandals easily access
parts of Web sites belonging to big names such as The New York Times, Intel and Compaq
Computer, one cybergang member said Friday.

Calling himself ‘The-Rev,’ the vandal said his duo known as Sm0ked Crew targets Web sites that
haven’t been adequately secured.”

At LWN.net: SuSE distributions contain the ssh package in the version 1.2.27. No
later version is provided because of licensing issues. (Go figure!) SuSE maintains
the 1.2.27 version in a patched package. Three new patches have been added
that workaround three independent security problems in the ssh package

CRN.com reports that IBM will reinforce, at tis upcoming PartnerWorld Feb. 25-28
in Atlanta, its “strategy of leveraging mainframe
technology and Linux across its eServer line.”