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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 8 declined, 1 accepted (9 total, 11.11% accepted)

Caldera

SCO v. Novell Goes to the Jury->

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "Closing arguments in the six and a bit year old slander of title case between SCO and Novell occurred today and the case is finally in the hands of the jury. It's been an interesting case, with SCO alternately claiming that the copyrights to UNIX did get transferred to them, and that the copyrights should have been transferred to them.

Judge Ted Stewart said, after the jury left to begin to deliberate, that in all his years on the bench, he's never seen such fine lawyering as in this case.

We're not going to find out the results until at least Tuesday, however, as one jurist is taking a long weekend. Great lawyering notwithstanding, we can all hope next week that the energizer bunny of all spurious lawsuits will finally go away."
Link to Original Source

Security

Can an eCommerce Site Without SSL Be Secure?-> 4

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "I recently decided to try out the SecureSpot feature of my router. I signed up for a trial account, decided I liked it, and was about to submit my payment for the service when I noticed something peculiar. The protocol was http, not https. The little lock icon on my browser was grayed, and the browser's information dialog on the site said in no uncertain terms "your connection to this web site is not encrypted". I went back to the original login page for SecureSpot, and it too seems to lack any indication of SSL. I'm a little worried at this point, as the SecureSpot control panel lets me configure my router. Have my family's privacy settings, and worse, have my router settings and passwords all been sent over the wire in the clear? And what about people's credit card numbers? I examined the page source for each page, and they both seem to use a standard html POST with some JavaScript sanity checks. About the only secure element I can see on either page is the VeriSign gold seal they each sport proclaiming the site secure.

BSecure actually runs the service for D-Link, so I e-mailed both of them. D-Link's reply was a terse "the site is secure and your information will not and has not been exposed." My question simply is, is the site secure? And if it is secure, how are people to know it is if your browser can't tell?"
Link to Original Source
Security

D-Link/BSecure Has eCommerce Site But Forgot SSL!->

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "Did D-Link and BSecure set up an eCommerce web site and simply forget to use SSL? Yesterday I decided to activate the SecureSpot family web filtering feature on my D-Link router. I signed up for a free trial account since the service was perfect for my family, I went right to the checkout page to pay for a year's worth. I was just about to hit the "submit" button when I looked at the URL [note: SecureSpot account needed] and noticed it had "http:" as the protocol, and not "https:". The lock icon that depicts a secure site was greyed out too. I went back to the original SecureSpot login page, and it too is lacking SSL. So the control panels where I'm setting my family's privacy settings and passwords are all being sent accessed in the clear? I keep thinking I'm missing something. Surely they wouldn't put up an eCommerce site for a security product of all things and just forget to use SSL. Clicking on Firefox's security icon, though, brings up a dialog informing me that the page indeed is not encrypted. I crawled through the page source, thinking that maybe some use of frames was hiding a real SSL page in there somewhere. But the only encrypted element of the page was the VeriSign Gold Seal logo graphic that proclaimed it secure. Is this a candidate for the correct use of the word "irony"?"
Link to Original Source
Security

D-Link/BSecure Credit Card Checkout Without SSL->

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "Yesterday I decided to activate the SecureSpot feature on my D-Link router. I signed up for a free trial account, and loved the service. Perfect for my family. So I went right to the checkout page to buy a year's worth of service, and just about hit the "submit" button when I looked at the URL and noticed it had "http:" as the protocol, and not "https:" The lock icon that depicts a secure site was greyed out too. I went back to the original SecureSpot login page, and it too is lacking SSL. So the control panels where I'm setting my family's privacy settings and passwords, all being sent in the clear? I keep thinking I'm missing something. Surely they wouldn't put up an eCommerce site for a security product of all things and just forget to use SSL. Clicking on Firefox's security icon, though, brings up a dialog informing me that the page indeed is not encrypted. I crawled through the page source, thinking that maybe some use of frames was hiding a real SSL page in there somewhere. But the only encrypted element of the page was the VeriSign Gold Seal logo graphic that proclaimed it secure. Is this a candidate for the correct use of the word "irony"?"
Link to Original Source
It's funny. Laugh.

For Sale - One Nearly-New Infant

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "The BBC is reporting that a couple in Germany advertised an infant for sale on eBay. The advertisement read:

"Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28in (70cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller."
The parents, for their part, say the advertisement was just a joke. The mother said she just wanted to see if anyone would make an offer. The German authorities weren't laughing, though. They have taken the infant away from his parents on suspicion that they were actually trying to traffic the child and are forcing the mother to undergo psychiatric tests. Apparently in the two hours the advertisement was up, there were no bids."
Microsoft

19 Coutries File OpenXML Contradictions

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "The deadline for filing contradictions on the Microsoft OpenXML ISO bid, and the results are in. A total of 19 countries have filed, comprising most of the free world, although the United States seems to be absent from the list. From Andy Upgrove's Blog on the subject:

This may not only be the largest number of countries that have ever submitted contradictions in the ISO/IEC process, but nineteen responses is greater than the total number of national bodies that often bother to vote on a proposed standard at all ... All in all, not a very auspicious start for OOXML. And not one that augers well for a very fast Fast Track experience. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft deals with this slap in the face.
"
Microsoft

Microsoft's Open XML Standard Delayed

Submitted by
Excelcia
Excelcia writes "ComputerActive is reporting that Microsoft's bid to get its Open XML format approved as an ISO standard has been delayed by at least three months. From the article:

The British Standards Institute, which represents the UK with the International Standards Organisation, has issued what is called a "contradiction" to Microsoft's specification.
... A spokesman for the BSI could give no details of the organisation's contradiction but he said it meant the next stage of the application would not proceed for 90 days, because ISO has to consider the submissions from member countries.
No word yet on whether any other national standards organizations have followed suit."

disbar, n: As distinguished from some other bar.