Bill Lindner

Government antitrust attorneys are reportedly still receiving complaints from hardware makers and other companies about Microsoft business practices, even as the software giant has stepped up its efforts to cooperate with those state and federal ... authorities overseeing its antitrust consent decree. In a recent court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and numerous other states said complaints were received from several companies that manufacture and sell a variety of products that work with Windows. The department has been enforcing the consent decree for more than six years. (Source ... (view more)

A 29-year-old New Zealand man reportedly got more than he bargained for when he bought an MP3 player from an Oklahoma thrift shop. When Chris Ogle hooked up his MP3 player to sync with his computer, he found 60 files containing military information ... including the names and personal details of American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq including: cellphone numbers, information that appeared to be from a mission briefing, details of military equipment deployed to the bases, and social security numbers. (Source: tvnz.co.nz ) Files found were marked with a warning saying the release of ... (view more)

Documents unsealed by a federal court in the "Vista Capable" lawsuit reportedly reveal that Microsoft would have to come up with as much as $8.5 billion to settle accounts with customers affected by its 2006 "Vista Capable" marketing debacle. Keith ... Leffler, a University of Washington economist and expert witness for the plaintiffs, estimates that it would cost a minimum of $3.92 billion to as much as $8.52 billion to upgrade the 19.4 million PCs that were sold as Vista Capable to hardware capable of running premium versions of Windows Vista. (Source: computerworld.com ) Leffler said in a ... (view more)

Payment processor Heartland Payment Systems reported that it was the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008. For unknown reasons, the breach was reported on January 20, 2009 -- inauguration day for the incoming President ... Obama administration. Tens of millions of credit and debit card transactions may have been breached, making the Heartland incident one of the largest data breaches ever reported. (Source: washingtonpost.com ) Heartland believes the intrusion is now contained and that no merchant information or cardholder Social Security numbers were compromised. ... (view more)

Recently unsealed documents relating to the ongoing "Vista Capable" class-action lawsuit revealed that a group within Microsoft recommended in 2005 that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista be released without the "Vista" name due to concerns ... over "user product expectations." The lawsuit claims that Microsoft misled consumers with its "Vista Capable" marketing program in the months leading up to the January 2007 release of Windows Vista. Part of the allegations in the lawsuit contend that Windows Vista Home Basic is not the "real" Vista because it lacks the ... (view more)

The tech industry is beginning to feel the heat from a financial meltdown that has been burning the rest of the world for months. Microsoft recently announced that it would lay off up to 5,000 employees -- 5 percent of its work force -- over the ... next 18 months, starting with 1,400 jobs immediately. Chipmaker Intel is also reportedly laying off between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs while closing five plants in the U.S. and Asia in response to falling computer sales. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) The announcement came a week after reporting a 90% dip in profits for the last three months of 2008. Facilities to be ... (view more)

China is reportedly using an increasing number of paid "Internet commentators" to scour the Internet for bad news so they can try to negate it in an attempt to control public opinion. Chinese leaders are aware that the Internet is a place where ... views can be freely expressed so they pay close attention. They use these "Internet commentators" to spread their propaganda by posting comments on websites and forums, trying to spin bad news into good news in attempts to shape public opinion. China's Communist Party leaders have tried to control this for years via the media. Since extending ... (view more)

A malicious Internet worm known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks and PCs without the latest security updates, is infecting machines by the millions. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) The worm was first ... discovered in October 2008 and a security patch by Microsoft was issued at that time. However, a recent, new strain of the worm was developed and has managed to infect an estimated 9 million machines with 1 million new infections per day. (Source: sfgate.com ) Microsoft says the worm works by searching for a windows executable file named "services.exe ... (view more)

Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications has reportedly issued instructions on using open source software products at its state agencies. According to the issued instruction, by June 30, 2009, 100 percent of the servers for government IT ... divisions must be installed with open source software; 100 percent of the staffs in these IT divisions must be trained in the use of the open source software products and at least 50 percent of those must be able to use the open source software proficiently. IT divisions at government agencies are comprised of the IT departments of ministries and ... (view more)

David Gewirtz, author of 'Where Have All the Emails Gone?' reportedly wrote an open letter to President-elect Obama asking that his administration please treat the White House computers like crime scene evidence. By failing to preserve official ... emails, the Bush White House has technically committed a federal crime by violating the Presidential Records Act and The Federal Records Act. The first few weeks of the Obama Administration taking office are going to be critical in preserving that information. Forensic evidence needs to be gathered before it's lost in the flurry of incoming activity. ( ... (view more)