Friday, July 25, 2008

5 easy ways to commit career suicide

BANG!


Without warning, the rifle discharged, tearing a hole through the floorboard
of the car of an Army colonel. The rifle belonged to a young lieutenant who
had been invited to go hunting with the colonel.

Though no one was hurt, the incident left everyone in the car shaken. Worse,
the lieutenant hindered his own promotion, according to executive coach Bruce
Sillers, who was a member of that same battalion at the time of the incident.

You may never have committed as grave a faux pas as this lieutenant, and if
so, be thankful. Nonetheless, we're all capable of making mistakes that can
send us straight to the career doghouse. Here are five big no-nos to watch out
for.

1. Sending inappropriate e-mail

Most of us are bright enough to realize that chain letters or off-color jokes
have no place in business communications. Where most office workers get into
trouble is with the over-hasty e-mail reply.

Ever read an e-mail too quickly and fired off an angry reply, only to discover
later that you had misinterpreted the first sender's message? You end up not
only wasting everyone's time, but poisoning your work relationships -- perhaps
permanently.

Before you reply to an e-mail that has elevated your blood pressure, apply
one of these useful tests: Ask yourself, "Would I feel comfortable explaining
my response on a witness stand?" or "Would I want my response to be
published on the front page of The New York Times ?"

If the answer is no, take time to cool off. Store the message in a drafts folder
and review it later. Are you sure this is what you want to say, especially if
you're directly insulting the recipient? Can your words be interpreted more
negatively than you intended? And finally, would you want this message to find
its way to your boss -- or to the HR director?

By the way, don't rely on any "unsend" feature, either. That feature
will fail when you need it most. And be very careful of hitting Reply All --
or your supposedly personal conversation could be the talk of the office.

2. Putting down co-workers

Having done a significant amount of work for a particular client, I decided
one day to try to expand my presence there. I called an executive in another
part of that organization, introduced myself and said that "Carl"
(a fictitious name for the IT executive with whom I had been working) was pleased
with my work.

That executive responded, "Why should I care what Carl thinks?"

Not smart -- especially when said to someone outside the organization. If Carl
had heard about this remark -- and these things do get around -- it could have
created a

Microsoft to buy data-warehouse appliance vendor

Microsoft continues its shopping spree to bolster its SQL Server database platform to make it more suitable for large-scale enterprise deployments. On Thursday the company said it plans to buy DATAllegro, a privately held maker of data-warehouse appliances.

The terms of the deal, which comes on the heels of one announced last week to purchase data-quality technology vendor Zoomix, were not disclosed. Microsoft will retain most of the 93 DATAllegro employees, who will continue to work out of their existing office in Aliso Viejo, California.

DATAllegro provides data-warehouse appliances, which combine data-storage functions with business-analytics software. According to the company, its appliances allow companies to rapidly query large volumes of data and have the flexibility and scalability enterprises need, but at a cost-effective price.

The acquisition will allow Microsoft to "compete with the highest-end enterprise data-warehousing solutions," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft’s server and tools business, at the company’s analyst meeting in Redmond, Washington. "It will scale well beyond what Oracle can do today," he claimed.

Microsoft plans to use DATAllegro's technology to extend the capabilities of SQL Server for enterprise customers, making it easier and more cost-effective for them to manage and mine data. The company is expected to reveal more details about what it plans to do with DATAllegro's technology in October at its Business Intelligence Conference, according to IDC analyst Dan Vesset.

Microsoft may run into some challenges when integrating DATAllegro's technology with SQL Server. One technical challenge will be to replace the open-source Ingres database that the acquired company's appliance is based on, wrote Forrester analyst James Kobielus in a research note released Thursday.

Another will be to convince customers to use SQL Server in favor of Ingres, he wrote. "Clearly, that migration to SQL Server may alienate a substantial portion of DATAllegro’s existing customer base," Kobielus wrote, adding that it also will likely raise the price of Microsoft's version of DATAllegro's appliance.

However, on the plus side, Microsoft will provide what "DATAllegro has most critically lacked -- global sales, marketing and support -- "in spades," he wrote.

Muglia said an offering based on DATAllegro will be proof of Microsoft’s commitment to meet enterprises' high-end data-warehousing requirements at a competitive price.

Managing and getting relative business intelligence from data has always been a problem for business customers, particularly large enterprises, and customers long have used data warehouses to store and manage large quantities of data.

The data-warehouse appliance market, which combines storage and management with analytics, has been growing over the past several years because it provides an all-in-one package, Kobielus wrote.

"Over the past several years, the DW [data warehouse] appliance -- a preconfigured, pre-optimized bundle of hardware and software components -- has become the predominant go-to-market approach among both established and start-up DW solution providers," he wrote.

Microsoft's purchase of DATAllegro signals that there will be more consolidation in the data-warehouse space, with large enterprise data-warehouse vendors snapping up smaller, niche players, both Kobielus and IDC's Vesset said in separate research notes.

According to Kobielus, Forrester expects that incumbent enterprise data-warehouse vendors, such as Oracle, SAP and Hewlett-Packard, will follow Microsoft in the coming year to make strategic acquisitions in the market. Other pure-play companies still up for grabs in this space include Greenplum and Dataupia, he wrote.

Microsoft expects the deal to buy DATAllegro to close at the end of this month or the beginning of the next.

iPhone 3G Windows hack appears

Hackers have followed up the recent release of an unlocking tool for the Mac with the release of the equivalent software for Windows users.

The software - WinPwn - jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and the iPod touch.

This process which enables installation of non-Apple-approved third party applications and lets users employ the device on non-Apple-approved carrier networks.

The site offering the unlocking software for Windows users was down earlier on this morning.

Forrester: Vista is like 'new Coke'

Fewer than one in eleven of the PCs being used in large or very large enterprises runs Windows Vista, according to survey results released Wednesday by Forrester Research Inc.

Of the 50,000 enterprise users surveyed by the Cambridge, Mass. analyst firm, 87.1% were still running Windows XP at the end of June, compared to 8.8% for Vista. According to author Thomas Mendel, that implies that the majority of PCs upgraded to Vista were those running older versions of Windows, such as Windows 2000 or 98.

"Vista is 'new Coke,'" Mendel wrote, comparing Microsoft's flagship OS to the ill-fated soft drink. Enterprises still on the fence about Vista would be wise, he said, to "consider following the lead of Microsoft's important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista."

Mendel's comments undercut the momentum for Vista claimed by Microsoft, which says it has sold 180 million licenses for its 18-month-old operating system to PC makers and end users.
Vista still has double the share of Macs among big businesses, however. The share of Macs grew from to 4.5% in June from 3.7% in January 2008. 80% of those are Intel-based Macs.

Linux's share of desktops, meanwhile, fell significantly, according to Forrester, to 0.5% in June from 1.8% in January.

As a result, enterprise application developers only need to "develop exclusively for Windows XP and Vista. Forget about Macs unless you're aiming at a specific business vertical where Mac use is prevalent."

Forrester's study examined the Web browser as well as the desktop environments of the 50,000 users, spread out among 2,300 companies. It found that 19.4% of enterprise users are using FireFox, up from 16.8% at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Microsoft Internet Explorer's (IE's) share only slipped slightly, from 79.1% in January to 77.6% at the end of June.

"At least make sure that applications work on Firefox as well as IE -- this is a must," Mendel wrote.

Apple Inc.'s Safari owns only a small slice of the market -- 2.4%, according to Forrester.

Both Flash and Java were nearly ubiquitous. Flash Player version 9 was on 97% of desktops, while Java was on 99.9% of them. But application developers shouldn't try too hard to jazz up their apps with Flash elements -- "business users don't want to hunt for navigation nor do they crave excitement," Mendel wrote.

Forrester also discovered that despite ever-increasing screens and screen sizes, the largest slice -- 34.1% -- of business users are using screens between 15 and 17 inches in size with resolutions of 1024 by 768 pixels; another 25.2% use screens between 17 and 19 inches in size with resolutions of 1280 by 1024 pixels.

Study: U.S. agency workers surf for porn, gambling

Employees at the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) spend significant time on sexually explicit and gambling Web sites and even more time shopping and playing online games while at work, according to a report released Wednesday.

Employee time spent at Internet auction and gaming sites cost the agency an estimated 104,221 hours in lost productivity in a year, according to the report, released by the agency's Office of Inspector General. The estimated cost in lost productivity to the DOI is more than US$2 million a year, the inspector general's report said.

In reviewing one week of computer use logs at DOI, the inspector general found more than 4,700 log entries to sexually explicit or gambling Web sites, which are prohibited in the DOI's Internet use policy. In addition, the inspector general found more than 1 million log entries, from 7,763 DOI employees who accessed online gaming and auction sites, the report said.

The continued access to porn and gambling sites is "due to a lack of consistency in department controls over Internet use," DOI Inspector General Earl Devaney wrote in the report.

Surfing porn and gambling sites not only wastes time, but it also could expose the agency's computers to malware such as viruses or keystroke loggers, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Web security firm Finjan Inc. Porn and gambling sites "usually are the first ones to distribute malicious code," he said.

A DOI spokeswoman didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the report. The agency sent a memo to all employees last week, reinforcing its Internet use policy.

The DOI, the agency that focuses on protecting U.S. natural resources, does not expressly prohibit employees from going to online auction and gaming sites, the report said.

One employee computer had spent close to 14 hours at two Internet gaming sites during the week, another had spent about 12 hours at one gaming site, and a third had spent nearly 10 hours at a gaming site, the report said.

Despite three recent cases in which child pornography was found on DOI employees' computers, the agency has no system-wide infrastructure for Internet monitoring and blocking, the report said. Four of the agency's six bureaus surveyed in the report are using monitoring and blocking software programs "to varying degrees and with some success," the report said.

In the Bureau of Reclamation, the value of the blocking and monitoring software is "questionable," the report said. The inspector general found 148 computers in the bureau that had accessed sexually explicit Web sites during the week.

In DOI's Office of Surface Mining, it appears that Internet use reports are generated only when a supervisor requests one, "rendering the system useless for any real proactive measures," the inspector general said.

The DOI has taken only 177 disciplinary actions against employees for inappropriate Internet use since 1999, the report said. "The low number of disciplinary actions reportedly taken ... compared to the thousands of hits we found indicating user activity at inappropriate sites suggests that employees are not being held accountable," the report said.

The DOI should develop a unified approach to address inappropriate Internet use, including a more consistent use of disciplinary action, the inspector general recommended.

Planting seeds of sustainability on Facebook

Two Canadian university students hope to plant the seeds of sustainability on Facebook with an application that monitors power consumption and uses peer pressure and the spirit of friendly competition inherent among many gardeners to foster energy conservation.

Kevin Muise and Jin Fan of Simon Fraser University in B.C. are hoping their application -- along with a strong dose of peer pressure, and a spirit of friendly competition -- will motivate people to save energy big time.

Dubbed GreeNet, the application offers users vital information about their energy consumption patterns. Metrics are generated using data from electricity providers.

But the GreeNet system does more than dish out dull facts and stats.
It has a powerful visual component.

The system creates a "virtual garden" based on energy usage patterns. So user participation in energy-saving activities actually causes the growth of virtual foliage and flowers within that space.

That way, application users can visualize -- in a very vivid way -- the impact of their "green" behavior.

Apart from everything else, using GreeNet is a lot of fun, its creators say. That's because users get to grow an online garden on their Facebook page, with each energy-saving action triggering the growth of virtual trees and flowers.

"It's just like actual gardening," says Muise. "You see other people's gardens growing beautifully and get the urge to improve your lawn."

The GreeNet application, designed by Muise, an M.A. student, along with third-year undergraduate Fan, placed second in interface design at the recently concluded Imagine Cup technology innovation competition.

The annual contest, sponsored by Microsoft Corp., brought together around 210,000 young technologists from more than 100 countries.

Participants showcased solutions to real-world problems, according to Daniel Shapiro, product manager for platforms at Microsoft.

The contest, he said, encourages young people to come up with innovative projects that go beyond current mainstream initiatives.

Muise and Fan their motivation to work on GreeNet came from an awareness that global warming is one of the most daunting issues facing humankind today.

The two students also believe social networking sites, such as Facebook, are among the most effective vehicles for reaching out to the greatest number of people, and generating viral campaigns.

In GreeNet, each community member starts by planting a virtual seedling. That seedling will be connected to a monitor that tracks the member's hydro consumption.

The tree's growth is inversely proportionate to the member's energy consumption. As consumption decreases the tree grows, as consumption grows the tree shrinks.

Rather than seeing bland figures of their kilowatt/hr. consumption, users are treated to a visual representation of their energy usage.

The students hope this visual display, as well as seeing the progress of their peers will encourage users to alter their behavior and reduce energy consumption.

Community members can also populate their page with different colored flowers representing various social networking and energy conservation efforts.

For example, pink flowers could represent messages the user posts on the site, yellow could stand for media links, and each violet flower could symbolize an energy saving device purchased by the member.

But for GreeNet to work, Muise said, it needs the buy-in of an energy service provider. "We have opened discussions with B.C. Hydro to get the application linked to their customers billing system".

Once the link is established, the students believe it will be easy to get hydro customers to go online and sign up with GreeNet, as a large number of the users already pay their hydro bills over the Internet.

The interface also provides several marketing and advertising opportunities for green-oriented businesses.

GreeNet can serve as a space for highly targeted online ads appealing to the environmentally conscious consumer.

The application's ranking feature ties in with the business model for selling environmental products and services online. Users can compete with one another in showcasing their violet flowers, which represent energy saving products they've purchased.

There are many free online energy calculators and individual consumers as well as small and large businesses have used them to cut power bills.

Leonard Machler, an independent bio-chemistry research analyst running a consulting firm in Toronto uses the EcoAction Calculator developed by Earth Day Canada.

Machler says he started using the calculator last year to track his lifestyle. The application helped him halve his green house gas emissions, from five tons to 2.5 tons a year.

"I was able to save hundreds of dollars in one year. An organization can use this tool to cut energy expenses by the thousands."

Machler believes applications such as EcoAction and GreeNet are on the right track when they use visual images to represent users' energy consumption.

"If something is presented to you in a graphical manner, it's easier to grasp its impact."

Muise and Fan believe social networking sites that engage users and encourage them to connect with other people are creative and effective channels of disseminating information and ideas.

"If you want to instigate change, you need to talk to the youth. They are the people who one day will be the decision makers," Muise said.

"And if you want to catch young people's attention, you need to speak to them where they are -- at that's in sites such as Facebook."

Facebook's appeal to youth and its potential for viral marketing, give it a big advantage over other media, according to a Toronto-based online marketing specialist.

"Facebook is like an Internet within the Internet. Its opportunities are limitless," said Colin Smillie, a managing partner at RefreshPartners, a boutique marketing company specializing in the use of social media.

Smillie believes larger organizations, such as banks and automakers, should develop a greater Facebook presence to gain access to the site's demographic groups.

"Imagine a young consumer inviting 50 or more of his friends to download an application that's ties in with your product and those 50 kids inviting their own friends to do the same!"

Links to vendors of environmentally friendly products and services will also open up various marketing possibilities.

Sony announces blue-laser data storage format

Sony Corp. has announced development of a blue-laser based optical disc system for data storage and says it should be available by the end of this year.

The system, which has yet to be named, is technically similar to the Blu-ray Disc format that was developed by a consortium of nine companies led by Sony, although it is incompatible. The data storage technology was announced Tuesday by Sony and is on display at the AIIM storage and content management conference in New York this week.

"It's for professional use and Blu-ray is for consumer use so there is no compatibility," said Aki Shimazu, a spokeswoman for Sony in Tokyo. She said that because the new system was not compatible with Blu-ray, Sony would not have to consult with other members of the consortium and it would have sole control over the system.

The main difference between the two formats comes in the data transfer rate. Blu-ray, which is aimed at consumer recording of high-definition television, can record data onto the discs at a rate of up to 36M bps (bits per second) to match the data rate of digital television. However, Sony's new data storage system can record data at 9M bytes per second or double the rate of Blu-ray, said Sony in a statement.

The first version of the format will be based around a single-sided, single-layer optical disc and will have a capacity of 23.3G bytes and rewritable and write-once versions will be available, said Sony. The disc is 12 centimeters, just like CDs or DVDs, and is encased in a cartridge to protect the media.

Blue laser systems are able to store more data than DVDs because of the shorter wavelength of blue light. This means the laser, which is used to record data on the disc, makes a smaller spot on the recording layer and in turn that means that the space needed for each bit of data is smaller. Thus more data can be crammed onto the disc.

The company's roadmap extends to a 50G byte capacity version by 2005 and a 100G byte capacity version at an unspecified point in the future and data transfer rates are expected to rise too. With the second generation disc they are predicted to double to 18M bytes per second and then double again, to 36M bytes per second, when the third generation version is launched.

To support the fast data transfer, initial drives will have an Ultra-wide 160 SCSI interface, said Sony. Samples of the drive and media will be available from the middle of this year for around US$3,000 each for the drive and $45 for the media.

The Tokyo company is aiming the new system squarely at the professional market, at least initially, and users of magneto optical disc systems and in this respect they are not alone.

Plasmon said Monday it will offer drives for its new blue-laser based UDO (Ultra Density Optical) format that include legacy support for magneto optical devices. Targeted at the same market as Sony's new system, UDO is also similar to Blu-ray and based around cartridges that are dimensionally identical to current magneto optical cartridges.

First generation UDO will support discs with a capacity of 30G bytes and a transfer rate of 8M bytes per second. Like Sony, Plasmon is also trying to sell the system based on future promises of higher capacity discs. Its roadmap extends to 60G byte and 120G byte discs.

CG girls gone wild

It's the latest in augmented reality - where computer images and the real world mix - but for many Japanese otaku, or geeks, it's destined to become another way they can interact with virtual girls. [ Watch the video ]

This system is from Geisha Tokyo Entertainment and involves a Web cam recognizing a 2D bar code on a small cube. When it sees the cube a CG-character appears on screen. Leave her alone and she'll get bored, sit around and even clean your desktop if you're lucky...


But bring another coded cube close-by and you can interact with the character. You can poke her and annoy her in various ways and even strip her down to a skimpy bikini. She'll complain at this abuse but still comply so if you're feeling guilty you can give her a present represented by another coded cube. She get happier when she sees the present and positively adore you when she finds out its a teddy bear.

If you think its too low-brow consider this: the company was formed and is largely staffed by graduates of the University of Tokyo, Japan's top university, and this first software is more about exploring the market and perfecting the technology before they go on to tackle bigger entertainment projects using augmented reality.

Alice should be arriving in October in Japan and the company has plans to put the software on-sale overseas including the US and China.

Pwnage 2.0 iPhone jailbreak software calls

The iPhone Dev team has managed to create unlocking/jailbreaking software for iPhone 3G within a few days of that product's release.

The team has published software - Pwnage 2.0 - which lets any iPhone or iPod touch user unlock the device, a process which enables installation of non-Apple-approved third party applications.

The Pwnage software can also unlock the iPhone for use with other networks, the team said, "Just to clear up some confusion over what this actually does: yes, it jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod touches. We only support the 2.0 firmwares," the team explained.

The scale of international demand for the iPhone in countries in which the device isn't available is illustrated by the fact that by February 2008, estimates of the number of unlocked iPhones in circulation around the world ranged from 800,000 to 1.5 million.

Installing unauthorized firmware on an iPhone voids the warranty and can render the device useless.

Software group weighs piracy lawsuit against eBay

A trade group representing hundreds of software vendors is considering a lawsuit against eBay for what it calls widespread sales of counterfeit software on the auction site.

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) has offered eBay several suggestions for stemming the sale of pirated software on its site, but the auction giant has rejected most of those ideas, said Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of the SIIA's antipiracy division. "We are at our last straw here," Kupferschmid said Friday. "If eBay continues to stiff-arm us ... then we will certainly consider litigation as an option."

The SIIA doesn't have immediate plans to file a lawsuit, but its members talked about the possibility during a meeting in May, Kupferschmid said. The lawsuit would likely accuse eBay of secondary copyright infringement, he said.

An eBay spokeswoman wasn't immediately available for comment, but eBay has defended its efforts to police against software piracy. EBay has put volume restrictions on software sellers, and it has eliminated most short-term software auctions, Nichola Sharpe, an eBay spokeswoman, said in March.

EBay's VERO (Verified Rights Owner) program, in place since 1998, allows rights owners to contact eBay and have items removed from auction listings. "We can't be the experts on what's fake or not," Sharpe said in March. "We're not the experts on counterfeits."

Earlier this month, in a similar lawsuit against eBay, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that eBay has taken sufficient steps to protect against sales of fake Tiffany jewelry items.

EBay pulled Tiffany items suspected of being counterfeit as soon as they were reported to the auction site, Judge Richard Sullivan said in his ruling. Trademark law does not require eBay to preemptively remove listings of Tiffany jewelry suspected of being fake, the judge said.

Sullivan's ruling came two weeks after Tribunal de Commerce in Paris fined eBay €40 million (US $62.7 million) for allowing the sale of Louis Vuitton Malletier and Christian Dior Couture counterfeit goods. EBay has said it will appeal the decision and spends about $20 million a year on efforts to remove counterfeit products from its site.

An SIIA lawsuit would likely focus on copyright infringement instead of trademark infringement, unlike the Tiffany case, and there's a more established track record of secondary copyright infringement lawsuits, Kupferschmid said. Trade groups representing the U.S. music and movie industries successfully sued peer-to-peer services Grokster and Morpheus in a case that ended up with the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, and the music industry was successful in its attempt to shut down the original Napster music-sharing service.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and other copyright law sets out strong standards for secondary copyright infringement, Kupferschmid said. U.S. copyright law allows lawsuits for vicarious infringement, when the defendant has the ability to stop infringing activity and has a direct financial interest in the infringement.

The SIIA has asked eBay to end one-day and buy-it-now auctions of software, and the group has asked to buy a banner ad on eBay aimed at educating consumers about software piracy. EBay has so far rejected both of those ideas, but it has recently told SIIA it is reconsidering some of the trade group's suggestions, Kupferschmid said.

Ending buy-it-now and one-day auctions would allow SIIA to better track software sales on eBay, he said. SIIA has several staff members and a proprietary software program that attempt to flag infringing software on eBay.

Ending short-term auctions on software "would go a long way toward addressing most of our concerns," Kupferschmid said. "Until they actually do what we're requesting them to do, I still consider it a rejections."

This year, the SIIA has filed 32 lawsuits against eBay sellers accused of marketing counterfeit software. This week, an Oregon man was sentenced to four years in prison for identity theft and for selling counterfeit software on eBay, after the SIIA complained about him.

AOL to shut down Xdrive, other services

AOL will phase out several online services as the Time Warner unit continues to struggle in its transition from a business model based on subscription fees to one based on advertising revenue.

AOL will put out to pasture Xdrive, a hosted-storage service for individuals; AOL Pictures, a photo sharing and management site; and Bluestring, designed for sharing photos, music and videos, according to an internal memo obtained by technology news site TechCrunch.

In the memo, AOL Executive Vice President Kevin Conroy said these and mobile services AIM World and MyMobile will be "sunset" because they haven't gained enough popularity. A source close to AOL said the leaked memo is legit and that it was intended solely for Conroy's team.

AOL's popularity problem among end users and advertisers seems widespread, judging by the anemic growth AOL achieved in advertising revenues in the first quarter: 1 percent, when compared with the same quarter last year.

AOL has been on a years-long shift away from its traditional business, based on charging people for dial-up Internet access service and for exclusive online content. It has been trying to move to a model based on online advertising, which has been experiencing strong growth in the past five years.

However, while some of its services are undeniably popular, like its AIM instant messaging, AOL has failed to develop innovative services in growth areas, resorting to acquiring or creating many "me-too" services in markets where dominant players are already entrenched.

For example, AOL Pictures, its original photo upload and management service, couldn't compete against more technically advanced competitors like Flickr, which was founded in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo the following year. Meanwhile, Bluestring seems very similar to much more popular services like Photobucket, Slide and RockYou.

Unable to gain an edge through technical innovation, AOL has been investing heavily on acquiring advertising service providers like Advertising.com, Tacoda, Third Screen Media, Quigo, Lightningcast and AdTech, hoping to capture a piece of the action that way, but that strategy doesn't seem to be working too well either.

In its first-quarter earnings announcement, Time Warner stated that AOL's ad business had done well in sales to external sites and in paid search, but that it had been hurt by a decline in display ads.

AOL's ad revenue growth fell way below the U.S. rate. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), U.S. online ad revenue grew 18.2 percent in the first quarter.

This is the latest trimming of online services at AOL, which last year eliminated about 50 of them, as the company has become much more selective about maintaining only products that directly support the online advertising strategy, the source said.

AOL will try to sell Xdrive, AOL Pictures and Bluestring so that existing users of those services will be able to transition to a new provider, but if no buyer is found, the products will be shut down by the end of the year, according to the source.

If the services are closed, AOL plans to either burn end users' content into CDs and DVDs and send it to them or walk them through how to save the photos, videos and other media to local hard drives, the source said.

According to the memo, AOL also plans to merge its Video Portal with its AOL Programming Video Experiences by the beginning of the fourth quarter, as well as try to boost the online ad revenue generated by the AOL browser toolbar, desktop software, Webmail service and Truveo video search engine.

Open Web Foundation formed

InfoWorld — The Open Web Foundation, a non-profit organization intended to help create an "Open Web," was announced Thursday at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) in Portland, Ore. Specifically, the organization is dedicated to the development and protection of non-proprietary specifications for Web technologies. The effort was announced by David Recordon of blogging tools maker Six Apart.

As described on its Web page, the foundation "is an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications. Following the open source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation, the foundation is aimed at building a lightweight framework to help communities deal with the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specification."
The foundation is attempting to break the trend of building separation foundations for each specification. Details regarding membership, governance, and intellectual property rights will be posted in the coming weeks.

Individuals such as Geir Magnusson, a vice president and board member at Apache, and Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly Media, are participating in the Open Web Foundation. Organizations that support the foundation include Facebook, Google, Yahoo, MySpace, BBC, O'Reilly, Plaxo, Six Apart, SourceForce, and Vidoop.

AdaptiveMobile sees Sharp Rise in Volume of Mobile Network Virus Attacks

http://www.adaptivemobile.com/ — AdaptiveMobile today recommended to mobile operators that they step-up security for their subscribers, as they witness a steady rise in attacks. Recent analysis of data from AdaptiveMobile’s mobile operator customers suggests that two virus variants – CommWarrior and Beselo – are causing particular damage. While CommWarrior only affects Nokia Series 60 phones, Beselo attacks all smartphones, spreading via Bluetooth and MMS as a Symbian SIS installation file and is growing at four times the rate of CommWarrior.

One major operator has seen a rise in virus attacks from 0.5 percent of all messages to six percent over the last 12 months. On average, this operator receives 100,000 virus incidences a day, up from 70,000 in just one year.

Gareth Maclachlan, COO of AdaptiveMobile, comments: “It’s a worrying trend that’s not going to slow down yet. Fortunately, most subscribers are not infected as viruses are still immature and of limited virulence; but those who do get infected can lose up to 100 EUR a day from the MMS being sent by the virus. As these are typically corporate users with the latest phones, and who do not scrutinize their bills, operators are concerned that their best customers will churn if a competitor offers a solution.

“Protecting its users should be the first priority for any mobile phone provider. As infection rates continue to rise and higher proportions of customers are left at risk, mobile phone security will become a key differentiator for customer creation and retention – particularly among large organizations keen to ensure their staff is properly protected. The battle is heating up – and mobile operators have to make sure they are competing effectively.”

About AdaptiveMobile:

AdaptiveMobile (www.adaptivemobile.com) is the leading mobile security provider of unified customer protection for enterprises and individuals. The company offers comprehensive proactive protection from the increasingly prominent threat of mobile viruses, malware, inappropriate content, unsolicited communications and spam at a corporate and consumer level. AdaptiveMobile’s software works across all bearers, all technologies and all media.

AdaptiveMobile was founded in 2003 and boasts some of the world's largest mobile operators as customers and the leading security and telecom equipment vendors as partners. The company is headquartered in Dublin with offices in the North America, Europe, South Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

MobileMe fracas continues

Macworld.co.uk —
Apple's MobileMe migration continues to be troublesome, with the company last night confirming at least some problems that could be attributed to one of the MobileMe email servers.

In a note distributed last night, the company admits: "On Friday, July 18, 2008 (2008-07-18) we experienced a serious issue with one of our MobileMe mail servers. This issue is currently affecting approximately 1% of MobileMe members. Affected members are unable to send or receive email at www.me.com or access email using any email client software such as Mail on a Mac or Microsoft Outlook on a PC."

The company - which recently offered 30-day extensions on the period paid for by existing subscribers to compensate for the seriously troublesome migration - has also been forced to apologise for this all-new problem.

"We understand this is a serious issue and apologize for this service interruption. We are working hard to restore your service," the company informs.

The company claims all other MobileMe services are functional, but complaints continue to emerge from service users.

Parts of San Francisco network still locked out

The high-profile troubles on the city of San Francisco's computer network continue, despite a dramatic jailhouse intervention by the city's mayor this week.

While the city has regained control of the five devices at the heart of its FiberWAN network, which carries data between city government buildings, administrators are still locked out of the city's voice over Internet Protocol system and local area networks within the Sheriff's Department and the Recreation & Park Department. Assistant District Attorney Conrad Del Rosario revealed the ongoing problems Wednesday at a bail hearing for Terry Childs, the former network administrator with the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) who is accused of holding the city's networks hostage for the past 10 days.

[ Related reading: San Francisco's mayor gets back keys to the network ]

During that time, the networks have functioned normally, but IT staffers have been unable to make administrative changes to some of the city's critical routers and switches.

Childs' attorney, Erin Crane, had moved for a reduction in the US$5 million bail set in the case. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lucy McCabe denied that motion Wednesday.

[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]

Childs' defense has portrayed him as a capable engineer, surrounded by incompetent management, who simply didn't trust anyone with the administrative passwords to the five network devices at the heart of the FiberWAN. On Monday, Childs had a secret meeting with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom where Childs turned over the passwords.

Del Rosario argued against any reduction of bail, noting that Childs handed over the passwords only after a scheduled July 19 power outage at the city's One Market Street data center failed to take down the FiberWAN. Because Childs did not store network configuration files on the routers' hard drives, a power outage would wipe this information out of memory, disabling the network until it was reconfigured, he said.

[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]

The assistant DA said it was "extremely suspicious" that Childs only communicated with the mayor after the network did not go out of service.

In court filings, prosecutors say they do not know where these critical router configuration files are located.

As the city's principal network engineer, Childs worked on about 1,100 networking devices throughout the city, Del Rosario said. Even with the FiberWAN passwords, there are still questions about the rest of these systems. "We do not know whether we have control of these devices," he said.

Crane said that her client was the victim of jealous co-workers who were upset because his good work made them look bad. "I think the entire thing is specious," she told the judge. "This is a DTIS management problem."

This is not Childs' first time in criminal court. He also served four years in Kansas prison on aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary charges, prosecutors said. Those charges stem from an incident that occurred when Childs was 16 years old, Crane said.

The court also ordered Childs to stay away from several of his former co-workers, including Jeana Pieralde, the DTIS director of security who was allegedly so afraid of Childs that she locked herself in a room in the data center, and his former supervisor Herb Tong, whom Childs felt was undermining his work at the department.

Prosecutors say that police found bullets when they searched his Pittsburg, California, home on July 13.

In a brief appearance before reporters after the hearing, Crane said that she and Childs were "deeply disappointed that bail had not been reduced."

Childs' next scheduled court date is a Sept. 24 pretrial hearing.

Google launches Wikipedia rival

Google has launched Knol, its user-generated online encyclopedia, which it announced in December but had kept under wraps in private testing.

Although its goal and approach are similar to Wikipedia's -- to tap the collective knowledge of Internet users within an encyclopedia format -- Knol is different in several ways.

Knol will encourage writers to use their real names and stand behind their articles, and will give them the possibility to generate income from their work via Google ads.

"Every knol will have an author, or group of authors, who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good," wrote Knol product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally in an official blog posting Wednesday.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a culture of anonymity in which contributors rarely use their real names, and no ads appear on the site.

In addition, Knol apparently will have more controls over submissions and edits than Wikipedia. In Knol, readers can suggest changes to articles, and the authors have the final word on whether to accept or reject the feedback. "This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it," the Google officials wrote. Readers will also be able to rate articles and write reviews of them.

In Wikipedia, anyone can make changes to articles and have them appear instantly online.

Although in the blog posting knols are described as "authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects," a Google spokesman said that anyone can write an article.

"Google will have no advance knowledge of the content of a knol and we will not be doing editorial screening of content posted by users and authors," he wrote via e-mail.

In addition, Google will encourage authors to use their real names, but will not require it, he said. Google will give authors the ability to have their identity confirmed via a telephone or credit card verification process. Articles penned by these authors will appear with a "verified" stamp, he said.

EMC revenue, profit defy economic woes

EMC's revenue grew 18 percent in the second quarter ended June 30, a result the company attributed to massive growth in the data enterprises need to store.

The company brought in US$3.67 billion worldwide in the quarter, up from $3.12 billion a year earlier. Revenue even rose 10 percent in the U.S., defying the country's economic woes, while gaining more in all of EMC's other regions around the world. The results beat expectations of analysts, who had predicted revenue of $3.56 billion, according to a Thomson Financial survey.

[ Related reading: VMware Q2 revenue up 54 percent, but slightly misses Street ]

"Despite continued economic uncertainty at the macro level, we believe spending on information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure technologies will continue to grow," said Joe Tucci, EMC's chairman, president and CEO, in a prepared statement.

The sales gains boosted EMC's profit as well, with net income reaching $377.5 million, or $0.18 per share, up from $334.4 million, or $0.16 per share, in last year's second quarter.

Information Storage, the company's largest business, saw revenue grow 14 percent to $2.87 billion. EMC said high points included midrange storage systems connected to Internet Protocol networks, as well as consulting and implementation. Meanwhile, the company's RSA security division had a 15 percent gain to $144 million, EMC said.

EMC derived a record 48 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S. in the quarter. The news was particularly good there, as both Asia-Pacific and Japan and Europe, Middle East and Africa had 27 percent gains in revenue from a year earlier. Latin America revenue grew 24 percent.

On Tuesday, VMware reported revenue growth of 54 percent from a year earlier, to $456 million. But that result fell slightly short of analysts' expectations.

The storage industry as a whole seems to be thriving despite economic weakness. Shipments of hard-disk drives hit 137 million units in the first quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, research company iSuppli said Tuesday.

Following the results, EMC's shares were up $1.24 to $13.70 in early afternoon trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Luxoft Acquires Romania’s ITC Networks

Acquisition of leading Romanian IT player increases Luxoft’s global delivery capability and telecom expertise

New York, NY; July 22nd 2008 - Luxoft, a global provider of high-end application and product development services, today announced it has acquired Bucharest-headquartered ITC Networks (ITCN), a leading Romanian software outsourcing provider specializing in the telecommunications industry. The combined company will have more than 3000 employees worldwide and an annual revenue run rate of over $150 million.

The acquisition of ITC Networks, which follows Luxoft’s April announcement of a new office opening in Vietnam, further expands the company’s global footprint. ITC Networks’ large scale delivery capability within the European Union, with its shared legal framework, ease of travel, and convenient time zones, makes Luxoft’s service offerings even more compelling for the European clientele. The deal also strengthens Luxoft’s expertise in the telecom industry, expanding its client portfolio with companies like Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks and others. In turn, existing ITC Networks clients will benefit from Luxoft’s best-of-breed processes and methodologies, financial stability, global delivery locations, and economies of scale.

“This acquisition is another step in Luxoft’s growth and strengthening of the company’s global presence,” said Dmitry Loschinin, President and CEO, Luxoft. “The tremendous telecoms aptitude of the combined team, prominent European Union location and shared commitment to engineering excellence will serve Luxoft, its clients and ITC Networks’ clients well for years to come.”

Doru Mardare, Managing Director of ITC Networks concurred. “This acquisition is a great boost to ITC Networks. We see full synergy with the Luxoft team in terms of our respective corporate cultures, ability to develop successful long term partnerships with leading global clients, and deep telecom industry expertise. We are looking forward to becoming part of a global entity, especially one that is growing as quickly as Luxoft.”

James Reeves, Vice President of R&D and World-Wide Customer Service Trapeze Networks, a client of ITC Networks, commented, “We are excited to work with such a world-class, global organization like Luxoft and are confident that this acquisition will further strengthen our relationship.”

About Luxoft
Luxoft, a member of the IBS Group, is an emerging global leader in application and product engineering outsourcing services for enterprise IT organizations and software vendors. Luxoft builds lasting partnerships with its clients, such as Boeing, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Dell, IBM, Sabre and other global leaders, based on the culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and deep domain expertise. Luxoft offers global delivery capability through its network of state-of-the-art delivery centers in North America, Central & Eastern Europe, and Asia. Luxoft’s customers benefit from the right mix of technology skills, industry knowledge, best-of-breed processes and methodologies, and a choice of engagement models.

Luxoft is the recipient of the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Global Outsourcing Growth Excellence & Customer Value Leadership Award, as well as the Applied Innovation Award from the IAOP and Wipro, ITAA and Forbes (together with Deutsche Bank). For more information visit: www.luxoft.com.

About ITC Networks
ITC Networks is a specialized provider of software engineering services for the telecommunications industry. ITC Networks’ range of services includes system and application development, re-engineering, software testing and test automation, maintenance, and support. ITC Networks is differentiated by its deep domain expertise, well defined processes and highly skilled engineers. ITC Networks’ satisfied clients include such industry leaders as Nortel Networks, Avaya, Trapeze Networks, and others. For more information please visit http://www.itcnetworks.ro

Nokia claims victory over Qualcomm in ongoing patent battle

The German Federal Patent Court ruled Wednesday that a Qualcomm GSM patent claim against Nokia is invalid, said the Finnish phone giant.

"This is the third court to conclude that Qualcomm’s patent claims against Nokia are without merit. The United Kingdom High Court, and the U.S. International Trade Commission, have both ruled asserted Qualcomm GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) patents to be invalid," said Nokia spokeswoman Anne Eckert.

Today’s decision is further evidence that Qualcomm does not have relevant and valid GSM patents and that it overstates its role as a wireless innovator, according to Nokia.

Nokia and Qualcomm are embroiled in a bitter battle that started back in 2006, at the heart of which is a licensing agreement between the two that expired in April last year.

"Nokia will be happy this ruling went their way, but this is not the end of this story by any means," said Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight.

The two companies are already gearing up for another trial in Delaware, which starts on Wednesday, and in Germany yet another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22.

The stakes are very high; any fraction of a percentage in a final settlement between Qualcomm and Nokia will have a big impact, since Nokia sells such a large number of phones, according to Wood.

Qualcomm wasn't available for a comment.

But in the report for its second quarter 2008 Qualcomm wrote that as result of the dispute, it is not recording royalty revenue attributable to Nokia’s sales after April 9, 2007, until a court awards damages or the disputes are otherwise resolved by agreement with Nokia.

AT&T income growth spurred by iPhone, mobile revenue

AT&T reported growth in both its net income and revenue for the second quarter of 2008, with interest in Apple's iPhone spurring strong mobile and mobile data numbers.

AT&T on Wednesday reported net income of US $3.8 billion for the second quarter, up 31 percent from the $2.9 billion it reported in the second quarter of 2007. Adjusted net income was up slightly, from $4.3 billion to $4.5 billion, with the adjusted numbers excluding expenses related to AT&T's recent mergers.

Revenue for the second quarter was $30.9 billion, up 4.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 or up 3.6 percent using adjusted numbers. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.76, meeting expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

AT&T has an exclusive agreement to provide mobile service for the iPhone in the U.S., and company officials said their deal with Apple has helped drive the growth. Apple released a new version of the iPhone, called iPhone 3G, on July 11, but strong sales of the new device didn't count on AT&T's second-quarter numbers, as the quarter ended June 30.

"AT&T is all about deploying and enhancing premier networks and products to deliver this world to both business and consumers," Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "The Apple iPhone 3G is a dramatic example of this transformation."

Sales of the iPhone 3G have been "everything we had anticipated and more," he added.

Even without the iPhone 3G to boost the quarter's numbers, AT&T reported that mobile revenue increased by 15.8 percent to $12 billion, with mobile service revenue up 14.8 percent.

Wireless data revenue was up 52 percent to $2.5 billion, AT&T said. Text messaging volumes on AT&T's mobile network tripled from the second quarter of 2007.

Wireline voice revenue was down 8.3 percent to $9.5 billion, but wireline data revenue was up 5.4 percent to $6.1 billion.

AT&T also reported that 170,000 new customers signed up for its U-verse TV service, which delivers television service over Internet Protocol networks. AT&T now has 549,000 U-verse TV subscribers, the company said.

Abaca Receives Network Products Guide 2008 Product Innovation Award

Abaca Technology Corporation, an innovator in email protection and messaging security, announced today that Network Products Guide, a Silicon Valley Communications publication and a world leading publication on technologies and solutions has named Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway™ VPG 1500, a winner of the 2008 Product Innovation Award. This annually venerated award recognizes and honors vendors from all over the world with innovative and ground-breaking products that are bringing essential and incremental changes and are setting the bar higher for others in all areas of information technology.

Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 is a virtual email security appliance and software solution that delivers unprecedented email protection against spam, viruses, phishing attacks, DoS attacks, directory harvest attacks and spoofing with zero tuning. Combined with Abaca’s ReceiverNet™ Service, the Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides secure, managed access to the Abaca ReceiverNet Protection Network and guarantees a minimum of 99 percent accuracy.

Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway provides all the benefits of the Abaca Email Protection Gateway appliance with the added benefits of virtualization including: maximization of existing hardware investments; standardized hardware for improved manageability, availability, flexibility, and cost savings; and simplified backup and disaster recovery. The Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 supports up to 1,500 licensed email users. To read more about this product innovation, please visit www.networkproductsguide.com/innovations/

“The goal of any product innovation must always remain a positive change, making or improving solutions better than before,” says Rake Narang, editor-in-chief, Network Products Guide. “Innovative products such as the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 are bringing improvements in email security through virtualization."

“Network Products Guide’s recognition of the Abaca Virtual Email Protection Gateway VPG 1500 further validates our solutions as excellence-in-class and ahead of the curve in email security,” said Leo Jolicoeur, CEO at Abaca Technology Corporation. “Product innovation is key to our continued commitment to meeting our customer needs and providing them with solutions that are ground-breaking.”

About Network Products Guide Awards

Network Products Guide published from Silicon Valley is a leading provider of products, technologies and vendor related research and analysis. You will discover a wealth of information in this guide including product innovations, roadmaps, industry directions, technology advancements and independent product evaluations that facilitate in making the most pertinent technology decisions impacting business and personal goals. The guide follows conscientious research methodologies developed and enhanced by industry experts. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com.

About Abaca Technology Corporation

Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and messaging security. Abaca’s next generation technology, ReceiverNet™, offers a revolutionary approach in the fight against spam — providing an unprecedented level of performance and guaranteeing a minimum of 99 percent accuracy. Abaca has created a portfolio of advanced products and services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and phishing attacks. Abaca is a privately held company headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information about Abaca, please visit

Brocade deal to help drive data-center transition

Brocade Communications Systems' planned US$3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks is a major strategic move in a brewing war over the future of data-center connectivity, industry analysts said Tuesday.

The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, would combine a maker of Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) switches for data centers and a specialist in enterprise Ethernet LANs, two technologies that are headed toward a merger themselves.

[ Related reading: Brocade to buy Foundry for $3 billion ]

The future of data centers lies with Ethernet, because it's relatively inexpensive, keeps scaling up to higher speeds and is ubiquitous throughout the rest of enterprise networks, analysts say. Virtualization and data-center consolidation are helping to drive the need for Ethernet's growing speeds. The idea is to create a "unified fabric" that spans both the data center at the enterprise's core and the LAN where client systems are located. But there are two main ways to bring Ethernet to data centers with the features needed there.

Both Brocade and Cisco are pushing FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), an IEEE standard expected later this year that would combine characteristics of both systems. By mapping Fibre Channel traffic over Ethernet networks, it will let enterprises take advantage of Ethernet speeds of 10G bps (bits per second) and up while keeping the latency, security and traffic management benefits of Fibre Channel. FCoE will also smooth the migration to Ethernet by letting the two technologies coexist in a single switch, so existing SANs (storage area networks) can stay.

The alternative is iSCSI, (Internet Small Computer System Interface) which some smaller enterprises have adopted because it can be used with conventional Ethernet switches and without in-house Fibre Channel expertise, said Bob Laliberte of Enterprise Strategy Group. Its main proponents have been storage vendors, he said.

Although it will take years for current Fibre Channel SANs to be replaced, one of the two is likely to win out, analysts said.

"There's a major religious war between FCoE and iSCSI," said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. They represent completely different technical approaches to combining Ethernet and storage transport protocols. "Reasonable people will disagree," he said.

Like Fibre Channel, FCoE does not use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), the basic communication protocol of the Internet and Ethernet networks, instead making up for it with other tools. Of the two approaches, only FCoE requires expensive, specialized switches, Passmore said, but it's more attractive to many organizations because it allows for a smoother transition from existing architectures, he said.

Enterprises could eventually lose out by choosing the technology that loses, but FCoE and iSCSI will probably coexist for years, Passmore said.

A unified fabric could save users money as well as complexity, Passmore said. For example, instead of having one network connection to the LAN and another to the SAN that it taps into for data, a blade server could have just one set of connections.

"That would greatly simplify the user's network infrastructure and require fewer switches," Passmore said.

Security is the main potential concern about having a common type of network across data centers and LANs, he said. Having two completely different networks as is traditionally done has built-in security benefits. But costs and benefits always have to be balanced in adopting new technologies, he said.

Brocade's purchase of Foundry will create a second powerful vendor of FCoE, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. So far, Cisco has been the only company with both the vision and the technology to create a unified fabric, he said. Brocade had the vision and now is gaining the Ethernet goods, Kerravala said.

"If the concept of unified fabric really does come true, there are really only two vendors," Kerravala said.

San Francisco's mayor gets back keys to the network

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom met with jailed IT administrator Terry Childs Monday, convincing him to hand over the administrative passwords to the city's multimillion dollar wide area network.

Childs made headlines last week when he was arrested and charged with four counts of computer tampering, after he refused to give over passwords to the Cisco Systems switches and routers used on the city's FiberWAN network, which carries about 60 percent of the municipal government's network traffic. Childs, who managed the network before his arrest, has been locked up in the county jail since July 13.

[ Related reading: IT admin locks up San Francisco's network ]

On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane. Newsom is ultimately responsible for the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) where Childs worked for the past five years

Mayor Newsom secured the passwords without first telling DTIS about his meeting with Childs, according to DTIS chief administrative officer Ron Vinson, who added, "We're very happy the mayor embarked on his clandestine mission."

[Related reading: IT administrator pleads not guilty to network tampering ]

The department now has full administrative control of the network, he said in an interview Tuesday night.

It's likely that Childs had a lot to tell the mayor when the two met.

Childs' attorney has asked the judge to reduce Childs US$5 million bail bond, describing her client as a man who felt himself surrounded by incompetents and supervised by a manager who he felt was undermining his work.

"None of the persons who requested the password information from Mr. Childs ... were qualified to have it," she said in a court filing.

Childs intends to disprove the charges against him but also "expose the utter mismanagement, negligence and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger," his motion reads.

Vinson dismissed the allegations. "In Terry Childs' mind, obviously he thinks the network is his, but it's not. It's the taxpayers'," he said. "The reason he's been sitting in jail is because he denied the department and others access to the system."

The court filings help explain just how this happened.

According to an affidavit from James Ramsey, an inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, he and other investigators discovered dial-up and DSL (digital subscriber line) modems that would allow an unauthorized connection to the FiberWAN. He also found that Childs had configured several of the Cisco devices with a command that would erase critical configuration data in the event that anyone tried to restore administrative access to the devices, something Ramsey saw as dangerous because no backup configuration files could be found.

This command, called a No Service Password Recovery is often used by engineers to add an extra level of security to networks, said Mike Chase, regional director of engineering with FusionStorm, an IT services provider that supports Cisco products.

But without access to either Childs' passwords or the backup configuration files, administrators would have to essentially re-configure their entire network, an error-prone and time consuming possibility, Chase said. "It's basically like playing 3D chess," he said. "In that situation, you're stuck interviewing everybody at every site getting anecdotal stories of who's connected to what. And then you're guaranteed to miss something."

Without the passwords, the network would still continue to run, but it would be impossible to reconfigure the equipment. The only way to restore these devices to a manageable state would be to knock them offline and then reconfigure them, something that would take weeks or months to complete, disrupt service and cost the city "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars," Ramsey claims.

Crane argues that these monitoring devices were installed with management's permission and were critical to the smooth functioning of the network. They would page Childs when the system went down and allow him to remotely access the network from his personal computer in case of an emergency.

In interviews, current and former DTIS staffers describe Childs as a well respected co-worker who may have gone too far under the pressure of working in a department that had been demoralized and drastically cut as the city moved forward with plans to decentralize IT operations.

About 200 of the department's 350 IT positions had been cut since 2000, mostly to be relocated to other divisions within city government, said Richard Isen, IT chapter president with Childs' union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21.

Despite his conflict with some in the department, Childs has a lot of support there, Isen said. "There is a lot of sympathy, only because there is a basic feeling that management misunderstand what we actually do and doesn't appreciate the complexity of the work."

(Paul Venezia is Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld)

Sun moves to indirect sales for most US customers

Sun Microsystems is moving to an indirect sales model in the U.S. for all but about 300 of its largest customers, a step designed to help boost its flagging revenue.

The change means customers who aren't among Sun's biggest U.S. accounts from a revenue perspective will be switched to one of its reseller partners in the coming months, said Tom Wagner, vice president of Sun's North America partner sales organization, in an interview on Tuesday.

"Effectively we're going to go 100 percent 'channel' below the top 300 or so accounts," he said. That means Sun will depend wholly on its partners to generate leads, architect systems, close deals and provide much of the support and services for those customers.

The move will likely be welcomed by Sun's 600 or so channel partners in the U.S. because they will no longer be competing with Sun for business. Sun believes it will give them more motivation to attack areas of the market where Sun's "share of the wallet" is low today, and allow Sun to scale its sales efforts to target those accounts, Wagner said.

It is less clear how the move will be received by customers. "At the end of the day it'll be a 'wait and see' in terms of the customer reaction," Wagner said.

"We have a portfolio of partners who play pretty high up in the value stack and who we believe can provide quality technical support and system engineering resources," he said. But he acknowledged that some customers may have "very specific demands about how we handle their accounts."

"We'll have to deal with that when it comes to it," he said.

The so-called Partner First initiative is limited to the U.S. today and Sun didn't announce any plans to extend it overseas. Companies will sometimes try a new strategy in one region and roll it out worldwide if it's successful.

Sun does about two-thirds of its business through channel partners today and the proportion outside the top 300 accounts is roughly the same, Wagner said. "We're turning over what we believe is a fairly significant amount of our existing business" to the channel, he said.

The plan was announced internally on July 11 and relayed to Sun's partners through a conference call last week, Wagner said. The goal is to complete the transition by the end of this quarter or early next, which means by September or October.

The change comes at a time when Sun is struggling to grow its business as fast as competitors. Last week it announced that revenue for the June quarter will probably be lower than what it reported a year ago, although the preliminary figures were roughly in line with analyst estimates. It will report its full results on Aug. 1.

Sun is also restructuring and announced in May that it would lay off 7 percent of its workforce, or about 2,500 staff. Wagner said he couldn't comment on whether the new sales plan is related to the layoffs, but one industry analyst said that's likely to be the case.

"This will help to streamline their operations. It will result in lower headcount," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, in Beaverton, Oregon.

Sun may also end up handing over a larger proportion of its professional services revenue to the channel, Olds said.

"The challenge will be ensuring that they get the shelf space with these partners, and that they invest enough to make sure they're well represented in the field," he said.

Sun will make "targeted investments" in partners or recruit new ones as necessary, Wagner said. The company is also changing the way it supports its partners. In the past, managers were allocated to a particular region and had little incentive to help partners grow their businesses in other parts of the country. It is changing so that Sun's managers now have an incentive to help the partners they manage nationwide.

Wagner wouldn't be pinned down on which areas Sun hopes to get more business from. The company is strongest today in the telecommunications, financial and federal government sectors, and is pursuing a bigger share of the healthcare and education markets, as well as that for mid-market customers.

"We believe we have a value proposition for just about anyone out there," Wagner said
.

NAND flash memory downturn to continue

A global glut of NAND flash memory chips, which store songs, photos and other data in gadgets from iPods to digital cameras, will continue for at least the next few months because companies have been slow to rein in production, according to DRAMeXchange Technology.

The market researcher, which is based in the heartland of the global memory spot market in Taipei, predicts the NAND flash supply will grow 149 percent this year despite worsening prices for the chips. The problem is that chip makers such as Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor and SanDisk's partner, Toshiba, have not moved fast enough to cut production.

The good news for users is that companies will be able to offer more NAND flash storage capacity for a lower price, or offer better deals on existing products such as flash memory cards and MP3 players. Low NAND flash prices could also spur companies to lower prices on hot products such as SSDs (solid state drives) in hopes of growing the market for the drives.

Prices of NAND flash memory dropped 20 percent on average in the month of June, DRAMeXchange said, and an upturn for the market may not be in the offing until as late as September.

The NAND flash market has been so bad that the creator of the chips, SanDisk, on Monday reported a surprise loss of US$68 million for the second quarter. The company blamed the supply glut for its problems, pointing out that it sold a record amount of flash, 120 percent more than the same time last year, but that prices are down 55 percent compared to then.

SanDisk also said NAND flash prices may worsen in the third quarter. The company's Nasdaq-listed stock fell US$4.31, or 24 percent, to end Tuesday at $13.62 as a result of its earnings news.

To counter the deteriorating market, SanDisk will delay the start of production at a new joint venture chip factory until April 2009 and put plans for another factory on hold until market conditions improve.

Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer notes that SanDisk's plans to delay building new production lines are a positive for the NAND flash industry and rivals are likely to follow. SanDisk and partner Toshiba account for around a third of the global NAND flash supply, he said in a report.

McAfee: SMBs underestimate cybercrime risks

The latest survey from security vendor McAfee has found that small to medium-size businesses in North America and Europe wrongly conclude their revenue is too low to draw the attention of cybercriminals.

SMBs are in fact rich hunting ground for hackers, McAfee said. Although there may be less money or data to steal, the attacks are also less likely to gain the attention of law enforcement organizations such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Lots of small attacks add up to large amounts of revenue," according to the survey, which polled 500 companies in the U.S. and Canada. There are an estimated 7.4 million SMBs in North America.

McAfee's study this year focused on North America, whereas last year it surveyed 600 European SMBs. However, the conclusions of the two studies are similar.

About 45 percent of North American businesses felt they did not have valuable data to steal. Last year, 58 percent of European businesses gave the same response.

In the U.S., 39 percent of businesses with up to 1,000 employees reported spending an hour or less a week on IT security. The figure is higher for Canadian businesses: 44 percent.

Part of the problem is that attention to security takes time, and SMBs have fewer resources. Many don't have an employee dedicated full-time to IT security. But McAfee argues that SMBs could face critical shutdowns in business as a result of weak security.

Every business retains employee data, which could be valuable, the survey said. Also, every business is hit with spam, which often is laden with malicious data-stealing programs.

McAfee said it expects hackers to increasingly go after VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems, virtual systems as well as mobile devices. McAfee's advice: patch regularly, filter e-mail and use antivirus software.

With DNS flaw now public, attack code imminent

One day after a security company accidentally posted details of a serious flaw in the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), hackers are saying that software that exploits this flaw is sure to pop up soon.

Several hackers are almost certainly already developing attack code for the bug, and it will most likely crop up within the next few days, said Dave Aitel, chief technology officer at security vendor Immunity. His company will eventually develop sample code for its Canvas security testing software too, a task he expects to take about a day, given the simplicity of the attack. "It's not that hard," he said. "You're not looking at a DNA-cracking effort."

[ Related reading: Details of major Internet flaw posted by accident ]

The author of one widely used hacking tool said he expected to have an exploit by the end of the day Tuesday. In a telephone interview, HD Moore, author of the Metasploit penetration testing software, agreed with Aitel that the attack code was not going to be difficult to write.

The flaw, a variation on what's known as a cache poisoning attack, was announced on July 8 by IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky, who planned to disclose full details of the bug during an Aug. 6 presentation at the Black Hat conference.

That plan was thwarted Monday, when someone at Matasano accidentally posted details of the flaw ahead of schedule. Matasano quickly removed the post and apologized for its mistake, but it was too late. Details of the flaw soon spread around the Internet.

And that's bad news, according to Paul Vixie, president of the company that is the dominant maker of DNS software, the Internet Systems Consortium. Vixie, like others who were briefed on Kaminsky's bug, did not confirm that it had been disclosed by Matasano. But if it had, "it's a big deal," he said in an e-mail message.

The attack can be used to redirect victims to malicious servers on the Internet by targeting the DNS servers that serve as signposts for all of the Internet's traffic. By tricking an Internet service provider's (ISPs) servers into accepting bad information, attackers could redirect that company's customers to malicious Web sites without their knowledge.

Although a software fix is now available for most users of DNS software, it can take time for these updates to work their way through the testing process and actually get installed on the network.

"Most people have not patched yet," Vixie said. "That's a gigantic problem for the world."

Just how big of a problem is a matter of some debate.

Neal Krawetz, owner of computer security consultancy Hacker Factor Solutions, took a look at DNS servers run by major ISPs earlier this week and found that more than half of them were still vulnerable to the attack.

"I find it dumbfounding that the largest ISPs ... are still identified as vulnerable," he wrote in a blog posting. "When the [hackers] learn of the exploit, they will go playing. They are certain to start with the lowest hanging fruit -- large companies that are vulnerable and support a huge number of users."

He expects that users will see attacks within weeks, starting first with test attacks, and possibly even a widespread domain hijacking. "Finally will be the phishers, malware writers and organized attackers," he wrote in a Tuesday e-mail interview. "I really expect these to be very focused attacks."

Most ISPs will have probably applied the patch by the time any attacks start to surface, and that will protect the vast majority of home users, said Russ Cooper, a senior information security analyst with Verizon Business. And business users who use secure DNS-proxying software will also be "pretty much protected" from the attack at their firewall, Cooper said.

"If anyone actually tries to exploit this, the actual number of victims will end up being extremely small," he predicted.

HD Moore said he didn't exactly see things that way. Because the flaw affects nearly all of the DNS software being used on the Internet, he said that there could be lots of problems ahead.

"This is a bug we'll be worrying about a year from now," he said.

Coverity™ Introduces New Static Analysis Solution for C#

Coverity™, Inc., the leader in improving software quality and security, announced Coverity Prevent™ for C#. The product utilizes a new analysis engine developed by Coverity’s research and development lab that is designed specifically for detecting defects in applications built on Microsoft’s .NET framework. Prevent for C# expands the language coverage of Coverity’s static analysis products, and brings the company’s proven expertise in automatic defect detection to developers programming in C#. Over 450 development organizations currently use Coverity Prevent to ensure the quality and security of their C/C++ and Java code.

“To remain competitive, software development team leads need to stock their developer’s tool-box with advanced technology to maintain or improve productivity that helps them deliver higher quality code to everyone upstream,” said Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke, a technology analyst firm. “As a language, C# is playing an increasing role in failure-intolerant devices, particularly in the embedded space. Coverity's expertise in static analysis will be a welcome addition to the tool-box of any C# developer.”

Unlike other static tools that simply extend existing analysis capabilities to encompass a new language, Prevent for C# is based on an entirely new analysis engine designed and optimized for Microsoft .NET-based applications. It seamlessly handles features of the C# language such as operator overloading, properties, and idioms for iteration and resource management. Prevent for C# also automatically finds third party .NET assemblies to ensure a complete analysis result, no matter how complex the application.

Coverity Prevent for C# automatically analyzes large, complex C# code bases and detects critical, must-fix defects that could lead to system failures, memory corruption or performance degradation. Because the product is the only C# static analysis tool to deliver 100% path coverage, it delivers the most comprehensive and accurate C# source code analysis. Prevent for C# requires no changes to existing build processes or code, and easily integrates into existing build processes and requires little or no additional hardware. Key capabilities of Prevent for C# include: Detect Critical Defects - Automatic detection of defects in C# source code that can cause crashes, performance degradation and incorrect program behavior

* 100% Path Coverage - Analysis of every path in C# code bases, ensuring that all possible execution branches are followed
* Low False Positive Rate - Accurate, actionable results help developers immediately begin improving the quality and security of their code
* Flexible Workflow - Defect Manager product interface allows teams to collaboratively view analysis results, triage defects, assign ownership, and provides comprehensive workflow capabilities
* Highly Scalable - Millions of lines of code can be analyzed in a matter of hours

“Coverity developed Prevent for C# in response to requests from our existing customer base and the growing use of the .NET application framework in mission-critical systems where software defects can be tremendously costly,” said Andy Chou, chief scientist and co-founder at Coverity. “Delivering new technology so that our static analysis product line covers C, C++, C# and Java is a significant milestone on our roadmap for our flagship static analysis solution.”

About Coverity

Coverity (http://www.coverity.com), the leader in improving software quality and security, is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco. Coverity’s groundbreaking technology enables developers to control complexity in the development process by automatically finding and helping to repair critical software defects and security vulnerabilities throughout the application lifecycle. More than 450 leading companies including ARM, Phillips, RIM, Rockwell-Collins, Samsung and UBS rely on Coverity to help them ensure the delivery of superior software.

ISP responds to lawmaker concerns about ad tracking

Embarq, an Internet service provider based in Kansas, has suspended its test of a targeted advertising service that tracks subscribers' Web habits as a way to deliver relevant ads.

Embarq, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers made public Tuesday, said it has no plans to deploy a controversial behavioral ad service from NebuAd. Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Embarq CEO Tom Gerke last week, questioning the ISP's use of the NebuAd service, which has prompted an outcry from privacy advocates.

"Embarq has no plans for more tests or for general deployment of this technology, until such time as the privacy questions that have been raised recently have been addressed," said the Embarq letter, signed by David Zesiger, the company's senior vice president for regulatory policy and external affairs.

NebuAd's targeted ad system tracks user behavior in order to deliver more relevant ads and allows ISPs to profit from online advertising, but some privacy groups have accused the company of illegally wiretapping ISP subscribers' connections and of using common Internet attacks to deliver its service.

NebuAd's service first raised concerns earlier this year, when another ISP, Charter Communications, announced it was testing the service. Charter later announced it had suspended the test due to privacy concerns.

The lawmakers' letter came from Representatives John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; and Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the full committee. The lawmakers raised concerns that the targeted ad service violated privacy and that Embarq had not notified its customers of the NebuAd test.

But Zesiger's letter says that Embarq, which provides voice and Internet service to customers in 18 states, did notify its subscribers of the test. Two weeks before the test began, Embarq posted a notice on its Web site saying it would use personal information to deliver targeted advertising. The notice included a link to a page where subscribers could opt out of this "preference" advertising.

"By opting out, you will continue to receive advertisements as normal, but these advertisements will be less relevant and less useful to you," the notice said.

The Embarq test was brief and did not collect information that could be linked to individual subscribers, Zesiger added. "Embarq put in place a number of clear protections around its test," he wrote.

The test complied with U.S. Federal Trade Commission guidelines on the collection of personal data, Zesiger added. "It appears that industry standards in this area are evolving rapidly toward a more robust form of notice and choice," he said. "Embarq ... not only welcomes, but fully intends to apply any such evolved standards."

Yahoo's profit down in Q2

Yahoo reported a modest revenue increase and a considerable drop in profit for its second quarter, along the way missing Wall Street's expectations in both categories, results that are unlikely to please its nervous shareholders.

Although Yahoo managed to defuse Carl Icahn's proxy fight this week, a rare victory in its monthslong, tumultuous sparring match with shareholders and suitor Microsoft, its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, will probably do little to dispel doubts over its ability to survive as an independent company.

[ Related reading: Yahoo settles with Icahn on board members ]

Yahoo had revenue of US$1.798 billion, a 6 percent increase from 2007's second quarter, the company announced Tuesday. Deducting the commissions it pays to its ad network publishers, Yahoo had revenue of $1.346 billion, up 8 percent but short of the $1.374 billion consensus expectation from financial analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Net income fell to $131 million, or $0.09 per share, from $161 million, or $0.11 per share, in 2007's second quarter.

[ Related reading: Yahoo rejects MS proposal, seeks bid for entire company ]

On a pro forma basis, taking into account one-time items, net income was $139 million, or $0.10 per share, a penny short of analysts' consensus expectation. Yahoo had pro forma net income of $163 million, or $0.12 per share, in 2007's second quarter.

Still, Yahoo President Sue Decker said in a statement that the company made significant advancements in its turnaround strategy during the quarter. "We remain confident that our efforts will lead to a stronger and more profitable Yahoo," she said.

[ Related reading: Senate panel to hold hearing on Google-Yahoo search ad deal ]

Yahoo, which has been struggling on the financial and technology fronts for the past two years, has been embroiled in a corporate soap opera since Microsoft announced a bid to acquire the company in February.

That bid collapsed in May, leading to accusations from shareholders, including Icahn, that Yahoo's managers and board had purposely sabotaged the negotiations in order to protect their own financial interests, violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

Yahoo's management and board have denied the accusations, which have led to shareholder lawsuits, saying they negotiated in good faith and that ultimately it was Microsoft's decision to walk away. In the meantime, Yahoo has seen a steady parade of high-profile executives leave the company in recent months.

Yahoo this week managed to reach an agreement with Icahn, who had proposed an alternate slate of director candidates for the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting in order to unseat the entire board. By expanding the board and granting Icahn three seats, Yahoo convinced the billionaire investor to call off the plan. Icahn had indicated previously that his intention was to unseat Jerry Yang as Yahoo CEO and attempt to lure Microsoft back to the negotiating table, a possibility that now seems remote.

An attempt by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo's search advertising business also fell through, as Yahoo instead opted for an alternate deal to outsource part of that business to rival Google.

VMware Q2 revenue up 54 percent, but slightly misses Street

VMware reported revenue that slightly missed analyst expectations for its 2008 second quarter, a crucial period during which the virtualization leader ousted its cofounder from the CEO spot and lowered its revenue forecast for the year.

Revenue for its second quarter, which ended June 30, was US$456 million, an increase of 54 percent from the same period last year. However, consensus estimates from Thomson Financial analysts expected the company to fare slightly better, predicting $458.6 million in revenue for the quarter.

[ Related reading: VMware replaces CEO, shares plummet ]

Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income for the quarter was $92 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, which was in line with analyst estimates. GAAP operating income for the quarter was $61 million, compared with $47 million for the same period last year. VMware's cash exceeded $1.5 billion, and deferred revenue was $721 million as of June 30, the company reported.

In the U.S., revenue for the quarter was up 43 percent to $240 million, and international revenue grew 68 percent to $216 million. Service revenue -- which includes support, subscription and professional services -- jumped 85 percent to $172 million, while revenue from software licenses was up 39 percent to $240 million.

On July 8 VMware replaced cofounder and then-CEO Diane Greene with former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz. A company statement hinted that Greene did not leave of her own volition.

VMware at the time also said its year-over-year revenue growth would be "modestly below" a previous estimate of 50 percent. On Tuesday, VMware said it expects revenue for 2008 to grow 42 percent to 45 percent from last year, which means it could be as much as 7 percent less than the company's original forecast.

VMware faces some of its toughest competition yet from its new CEO's former company Microsoft, which released its Hyper-V virtualization software for its Windows Server 2008 OS last month. Citrix Systems' XenServer software also is putting the heat on VMware, a subsidiary of EMC that made its initial public offering not quite a year ago. Microsoft and other companies are aiming to commoditize virtualization, VMware's bread and butter, as part of the OS.

Mozilla to release first Firefox 3.1 preview Friday

Mozilla Tuesday set Friday as the ship date for the first preview edition of Firefox 3.1, the fast-track update it hopes to polish off by late this year or early in 2009.

In a meeting Tuesday, Mozilla developers and managers nailed down details of Firefox 3.1, including the release date for the first alpha. Previously, Mozilla had tentatively scheduled the alpha for sometime this month.

"Still on track for Friday release," said the notes posted online after the morning meeting.

Mozilla froze the Firefox 3.1 code Monday and will begin to assemble builds of the preview Tuesday, the notes continued. Only the US-English version of the browser will be tested before it's posted to Mozilla's servers.

Although the alpha is a work in progress -- numerous features Mozilla wants to ship with the final won't make it into the first preview -- several changes will debut Friday, including improvements to the location bar and enhanced Ctrl-Tab tab switching that presents thumbnails when cycling through open tabs.

The new Ctrl-Tab presentation and behavior -- on the latter front, pressing Ctrl-Tab switches between current and last-viewed tabs rather than simply moving to the next tab to the right -- was, like many of the features slated for Firefox 3.1, originally meant to be included with Firefox 3.0.

In May, when Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's chief engineer, first talked about Firefox 3.1, he said that the update would comprise features that didn't make it into the June release, but were "nearly complete."

The list of features being considered for 3.1 range from support for offline storage by Web apps to adding support for the Cross-Site XMLHttpRequest (Cross-Site XHR) specification, a still-under-development specification that Microsoft Corp. recently said it is also investigating.

Colorado 'Spam King' walks away from prison camp

Convicted penny-stock spammer Eddie Davidson walked away from a federal minimum-security prison camp in Colorado on Sunday, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.

Davidson, 35, had been serving 21 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to criminal spam charges in December. He is now considered an escapee and is being pursued by U.S. marshals, with help from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and local police.

He earned millions of dollars between 2003 and 2006 by operating a spamming operation, called Power Promoters, out of his home. He would change the header information in his messages to make it appear as if they had come from legitimate companies such as AOL and then send them out to hundreds of thousands of addresses.

Davidson sent the messages on behalf of an unnamed Houston company, court filings state. He was asked to promote about 19 penny-stock companies, including one called Advanced Power Line Technologies in 2006 and 2007. He would earn fees based on the trading volume of the stocks he was promoting.

The business was lucrative: The Houston company paid Davidson about US$1.4 million for his services, court documents state.

Between 2003 and 2006, when his primary source of income was spam, bank account deposits into Davidson's account totalled about $3.5 million.

Davidson, of Bennett, Colorado, had been incarcerated at the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs.