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Microsoft, eBay, PayPal and Visa have joined a new antiphishing initiative spearheaded by WholeSecurity, the companies said Monday. Dubbed the Phish Report Network, the effort will attempt to slow the spread of phishing attacks by reporting deceptive Web sites to a central database operated by WholeSecurity, an IT security company based in Austin, Texas. Once a site has been reported to the network and confirmed as fraudulent, the organization notifies all of its members about the URL, allowing companies to block the suspect site and encourage their customers to follow suit. Phishing schemes typically consist of e-mail messages that appear...

Figures highlight widening imbalance in global growth TOKYO The Japanese economy slipped into recession last year, as consumer spending weakened and exports stalled, government data showed on Wednesday. . Gross domestic product contracted at an annual pace of 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, a sharp contrast to the 0.5 percent growth predicted by economists, as inventories of some electronics goods piled up and consumption remained weak despite a rosy job outlook. .Coming a day after a report that the euro-zone economy barely grew in the fourth quarter as the German economy unexpectedly contracted, the Japanese data suggest widening imbalances...

CANNES/HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal on Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music on-line and play it back on their handsets. In a comprehensive agreement, which involves a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets. In return, Microsoft, will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers. "Users can synchronize their music collection with their mobile device," Nokia said in a statement. "This agreement...

Microsoft, showing its endurance in the mobile phone business, is expected to announce on Monday a partnership with the largest contract electronics manufacturer, Flextronics of Singapore, to make low-cost smart phones that run on Microsoft's mobile operating system. . The device, in a so-called candy-bar design, will have the interactive features of a smart phone at the price of many standard mobile phones today, Microsoft executives said in advance of the opening on Monday of the 3GSM World Congress, the mobile phone industry's annual trade show in Cannes. . Microsoft began making software to power mobile phones five years ago...

The Boeing Co. won an order worth $630 million for 10 737-800 models from Royal Airways Ltd., an Indian airline seeking to resume operations after being grounded for eight years, the airline said yesterday. The deal includes options for 10 more aircraft, Royal said in a statement at an air show in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. The value of the order is based on list prices and doesn't include discounts that Boeing often provides. The order is the first for Boeing from an Indian discount carrier after Deccan Aviation Pvt and Kingfisher Airlines signed agreements last year to...

FOR all the problems he has had with the US economy, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, can be excused from wondering if his watch stopped when he crossed the Atlantic. He has been used to an American economy growing at 4%-plus. By contrast, the eurozone struggles to make even 2%. Given this backdrop to his keenly awaited Adam Smith lecture at St Bryce Kirk, Kirkcaldy, this afternoon, it will be tempting for Greenspan to remind us of some great truths derived from The Wealth of Nations. These are that free trade, liberal markets and the rule of law...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today became the latest Microsoft executive to say some vague but intriguing things about company's plans for the next-generation Xbox console. (See this earlier post and the second item in this article.) His comments came in response to questions from the audience during an event for minority high-school students this morning on the company's Redmond campus. Here's what he said in response to the first one:"When you see the new Xbox, you're going to think it's un -- well, let me say it politely -- unbelievable. Just unbelievable. The Rumors are that we'll see that product...

Verizon Communications Inc. plans to use Microsoft Corp. technology for its rollout of television service over a new fiber-optic network, becoming the third major telephone company to help fulfill Microsoft's long-stymied bid to barge into the TV business. .................................................... Verizon, which is spending billions to replace its copper phone lines with speedy fiberglass cables, also expects to exploit the technology's Internet-based capabilities to roll out more advanced interactive services down the road, the companies planned to announce Monday. The deal with Verizon comes on the heels of a contract from SBC Communications Inc. to use Microsoft's platform to launch that...

Microsoft Corp.'s 2001 antitrust settlement with the Bush administration hasn't reduced the dominance of the company's Windows personal computer operating system, a Justice Department lawyer said yesterday. There has been "no demonstrable change in the operating system marketplace," government lawyer Renata Hesse said in Washington in response to a question from the federal judge overseeing the accord. "Microsoft continues to have a large share in that market." The 2001 agreement resolved a suit that at one point threatened the world's largest software maker with a breakup ................................................... Kollar-Kotelly, who approved the settlement in 2002, said she wasn't concerned about Microsoft's...

It hasn't been a good week for Firefox and its fans. First, the Danish security company Secunia warned that it had uncovered a vulnerability in Firefox and other browsers that can allow the URL displayed in the address bar and the SSL certificate to be spoofed, which means the browser and others are vulnerable to phishing attacks. The flaw affects all browsers built using the open-source Gecko browser kernel. And this time around, Internet Explorer is not vulnerable to the attack. Making matters worse, a few days after that, a security researcher found a trio of security bugs that affect...

A small U.S. software development company is growing fast in part by mopping up offshoring messes. Chicago area-based Decision Design doubled its revenue last year to $5 million, with a chunk of the business stemming from clients unhappy with projects they sent overseas. Through a strategy that includes locating U.S. facilities outside of high-rent areas, Decision Design says that it is cost-competitive with offshore companies, offering workers familiar with U.S. business practices and culture. The 20-person company on Monday announced new offices in Pleasanton, Calif., that should hold another 10 or more employees. "The additional space should be adequate to...

Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin may have some new competition--and not just from Bangalore, Shanghai and Singapore. The latest kids on the tech block are places like Twin Falls, Idaho; Oklahoma City; and Jonesboro, Ark. These are among the smaller cities or rural areas of the United States where information technology companies have been locating or expanding facilities. The companies, ranging from IT services start-up Rural Sourcing to computer giant Dell, can save on wages in these communities, thanks partly to inexpensive housing there. And in some cases, the companies are pitching operations in midsize America as an alternative to...

Hating the French may have become a cliched American pastime by now, but shareholders in Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) have more reason than most of us to ask for the freedom fries. Today we got word that Google is still considering taking a swing back at the French after a court ordered the firm to pay up $260,000 for infringing on trademarks owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (OTC BB: LVMHF). (Note to French: That's no way to name a company.) By infringement, the court means allowing the placement of ads at the top of search pages generated from the...

American Donald Young has become the youngest junior to win a grand slam title after defeating first seed Kim Sun-Yong of South Korea to win the Australian Open boy's title in Melbourne. The second seed dispatched the Korean 6-2, 6-4 in only one hour and 11 minutes to claim his first grand slam victory. Aged at only 15 years 191 days, he now becomes the youngest number one in the history of junior world rankings, an achievement that was still sinking in for the exuberant American in the aftermath of his landmark win. "I've wanted to be number one since...

SuSE releases critical patches by Derek Sooman on Mon 07 Feb 2005, 12:11 PM Novell owned SuSE has released a number of patches, which they claim to be "highly critical". The patches in question are to address several vulnerabilities that have been found to exist in SuSE' eMail Server 3.x, Linux Database Server, Linux Enterprise Server 9 and Linux Office Server. Resultant exploits include cross-site scripting attacks, remote system access, exposure of sensitive information, spoofing and denial-of-service attacks, so if you are a SuSE user, you should get downloading and patching right away. However, there have been some concerns over...

All non-Microsoft browers include a flaw that allows URL spoofing using Unicode characters, which can be exploited by phishing scams seeking to steal login information for online banking accounts. The spoofing flaw, which is demonstrated on the web site of the Shmoo Group, works in the Firefox, Mozilla and Opera browsers, as well as the Safari browser for Macs. The spoof exploits flaws in how the browsers interpret Unicode characters. A link using Unicode characters to replace the letter "a" in "Paypal" will display as www.paypal.com in the browser, but send users to www.xn--pypal-4ve.com - which then displays "www.paypal.com" in...

A pint-sized linux guru who installed her first Debian server before her tenth birthday is to speak at this year's linux.conf.au Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Garbee may not know as much about Linux as her father Bdale Garbee, Linux CTO for HP and former Debian Project Leader, but that won't stop her from presenting at linux.conf.au 2005. Elizabeth, who has had a computer since she turned two, has been running Debian since the time she was nine. According to her bio on the conference speaker’s list, her installation of Debian GNU/Linux on a server before she had reached 10 years of age...

If you asked anyone in Puerto Rico what the No. 1 problem on the island is, they more than likely would respond without hesitation, crime. The fact is more murders occur in Puerto Rico than anywhere in the mainland U.S., according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Once again, Puerto Rico–with a population of 4 million–ended the year with an alarming homicide rate, higher than the three-largest cities in the mainland U.S. With 790 murders reported during 2004, the island had a higher murder rate than New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. For the third-consecutive year, the number of murders...

Germany's jobless total rose above five million in January for the first time since the 1930s, a labor office source has said, highlighting the main thrGermany's jobless total rose above five million in January for the first time since the 1930s, a labor office source has said, highlighting the main threat to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's 2006 re-election bid. ............................ According to official historical figures obtained by Reuters the unadjusted figure of 5.037 million would put the country's unemployment at the highest level since 1933, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party came to power. "We are getting towards the dimensions...

Microsoft on Monday replaced Yahoo's search technology with its own homespun software and will kick off a huge advertising campaign to supplant Google in consumers' hearts. As expected, MSN, a unit of the software giant, has taken its Web search technology out of the laboratory, and placed it on MSN's newly redesigned home page in 25 countries. Two and a half years in the making, MSN Search will now be the focal point of the updated, lighter-weight site; and it is the subject of Microsoft's newest ad campaign, which includes television, print, Internet and outdoor promotions. MSN Search Vice President...