Security
Businessweek, 9/8/03: Epidemic
Crippling computer viruses and spam attacks threaten the information economy. Can they be stopped?
David Farber, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, was sitting down to lunch with his wife at Taquería Moroleón, a Mexican restaurant in Kennett Square, Pa., on Aug. 21, when his cell phone started vibrating. An e-mail had landed in his cell-phone inbox. Yet as soon as he had cleared the e-mail, the phone vibrated again. And again. And again. He could hardly get a bite in edgewise. Farber was yet another victim of a now-famous computer virus, called SoBig, that turned computers worldwide into drones pumping out millions of e-mails bearing malicious code. It was a digital snowball effect. Farber's conclusion: "We're losing the battle against computer viruses."
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Security Pipeline, 8/29/03: Microsoft PC Satisfaction Security Software Gets Positive Early Reception
By Paula Rooney Courtesy of CRN
Microsoft's PC Satisfaction software trial is getting a positive reception from partners tired of putting out Windows XP security fires as of late.
But many question how this will play out in the Windows XP code, and what it means for ISV partners like Symantec and Network Associates' McAfee.
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C|net, 8/29/03: So long Sobig? Not so fast
By Steven Musil
Think the threat of the nasty Sobig mass-mailing virus has passed? Think again.
Security researchers believe that the creator of the Sobig mass-mailing computer virus won't stop with Sobig.F--the money may be too good. The Sobig viruses, the first of which started spreading in January, are designed to load special software that can make spam anonymous on people's PCs. The tens of thousands of computers infected by the virus can then be used by bulk e-mailers to send unsolicited messages that can't be tracked.
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Associated Press, 8/29/03: Arrest Coming Today in Internet Attack
By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON - U.S. cyber investigators have identified a teenager as one author of a damaging virus-like infection unleashed weeks ago on the Internet, a U.S. official confirmed.
Authorities expected to arrest the 18-year-old, accused of writing a version of the "Blaster" computer infection, on Friday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Leadership
Wharton School of Business, 8/27/03: The Move from Tall to Flat: How Corporate Hierarchies Are Changing
…
Companies, in short, are going from tall to flat.
When they do, they are changing the way they compensate their managers. “Pay and long-term incentives are becoming more like a partnership,” says Wulf and Rajan’s paper, titled The Flattening Firm: Evidence from Panel Data on the Changing Nature of Corporate Hierarchies. At lower levels, managers of flatter firms earn less than at comparable hierarchical companies, but at higher levels they make more.
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Otherwise
The Wall Street Journal, 8/29/03: Just Add Tonic
To Spark Sales, Makers Push 'Handmade' Vodka, Gin; Our Summer's End Test
By RAYMOND SOKOLOV
You know you're in ethereal company when you pick up a bottle of the Jewel of Russia vodka with its silver-dollar-size red-wax seal stamped in Russian and embossed with an onion-domed church. In smaller letters on the back, a label asserts: "You are holding a bottle originally created over 300 years ago in the days of Peter the Great of Russia." An attached leaflet quotes the aptly named Wine Enthusiast magazine review: "...just a faint taste of sweet butter lurks here."
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