Wayne Rash

WASHINGTON—The second day of meetings at the Federal Trade Commissions E-mail Authentication Summit began on a hopeful note Thursday, with FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz saying that, through a combination of new technologies and cooperation, spam can be defeated. “This is a goal we all share, and one that is attainable through cooperation and creativity,” Leibowitz […]

WASHINGTON—Patch management, compliance and vulnerability management all vied for the attention of attendees on Monday at the Computer Security Institutes annual Computer Security conference here. However, some security professionals worried about a new digital divide: large enterprises that can afford security and small companies that cant. “Im trying to help small facilities do HIPAA [Health […]

LEESBURG, VIRGINIA—The first felony convictions for spam in U.S. history were handed down when a jury in America Online Inc.s home county convicted a pair of North Carolina spammers on Wednesday, recommending that one be sent to prison. Jeremy Jaynes was sentenced to nine years in prison, while his sister, Jessica DeGroot, was fined $7,500.00. […]

Despite dire predictions of chaos and worse, the influx of electronic voting in precincts across the United States on Election Day was more notable for its lack of problems than for any voting catastrophe. And where there were problems, people for the most part still voted. The massive move to new types of voting machines […]

As you can see from the story about the new government-sponsored citywide Wi-Fi network in Rio Rancho, N.M., the move to treating data networks as a public utility seems to be growing. Already, cities around the United States are starting to explore the idea of at least limited sponsorship of wireless networks. In some places, […]

“Were a very tech-savvy community,” said James Palenick, city administrator for Rio Rancho, N.M., explaining why his city of 63,000 was working to provide Wi-Fi access to its citizens. “Weve always wanted this to provide economic growth,” he said. “It sends a very important message to the country and the world.” And of course, it […]

A British Internet services site has charged that the Bush re-election campaign has begun blocking access to the site by users outside the United States. Netcraft Ltd. based in Bath, England, on Wednesday reported that efforts to reach www.georgewbush.com resulted in an error indicating that their access was denied. The company also reported that attempts […]

AOL Instant Messenger users in battleground states and in the Washington, D.C., metro area are receiving a new kind of campaign advertisement designed specifically for broadband users with always-on connections. The November Fund, a 527 group largely funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that claims to be “dedicated to telling America the truth about […]

The good news is that Microsoft and Cisco Systems are working on a plan to make VPN use safer by making their respective standards compatible, and eventually interoperable. Thats also the bad news. As the companies present the plan, they would make it so that Microsofts NAP (Network Access Protection) would work with Ciscos NAC […]

A leading provider of e-mail security products for Microsoft Exchange is giving away what it says is the first available SPF support for Windows. GFI Software Ltd., a San Gwann, Malta-based mail security company, has begun shipping free versions of the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) as well as a blacklisting module as part of a […]