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The Associated Press is reporting that ICANN may consider shutting down the Whois system, which lets Internet users search for domain name registration information, because of disagreements over how it works. Privacy advocates in favor of shutting down the database feel that individuals should not be forced to give out private information — which is then potentially available to spammers or scam artists — in order to register a domain name on the Internet. Those who want to keep the Whois database operational, feel that it is a valuable tool for doing business and making sure you know who you are dealing with.

As the AP writes, the Whois database has many uses, “Law-enforcement officials and Internet service providers use it to fight fraud and hacking. Lawyers depend on it to chase trademark and copyright violators. Journalists rely on it to reach Web site owners. And spammers mine it to send junk mailings for Web site hosting and other services.” There have also been reports that some registrars use Whois search data to register domains that could be lucrative in the domain aftermarket, a practice the New York Times likens to insider trading.

Some proponents of the “sunset” plan that would end the Whois database, don’t necessarily want it shut down. Ross Rader, an executive at Tucows who is the chief sponsor of the plan, has indicated that he only wants to force discussion on the issue. “What removing the status quo will do is force all of the actors to come together without the benefit of a status quo to fall back on and say, ‘We are now all screwed. What will we do?’” Rader told the AP. “It will lead to better good-faith negotiations.”

My opinion is that nixing the Whois database would be a mistake. There are certainly better ways to conceal contact information, or to keep spammers from scraping the information, but the database has a lot of practical applications and is very helpful to a large number of honest users. I often use it to track down information on web site owners for stories, or to verify information about a web site I may be considering doing business with, for example. Losing it would negatively impact a substantial number of people. “The sense of shock that would settle around certain people would be rapid and immediate,” said Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller. I agree.

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This Crysis demo includes one singleplayer level, and the Sandbox2 Editor.

A couple videos to view while you’re downloading the whopping 1.77 GB demo file.

Symantec and Microsoft announced Tuesday at the RSA Conference Europe 2007 that they will join the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SafeCode), a not-for-profit organization aimed at increasing trust around IT. Other members include EMC, SAP and Juniper Networks.

Commenting on questions about the recent argument between his company and Microsoft over Vista application programming interfaces (APIs), Ilias Chantzos, Symantec’s government relations manager for EMEA, said that the two organizations would cooperate in SafeCode to benefit customers.

“We have a multifaced relationship with Microsoft, and we are keen to work with them. That will ultimately benefit our customers. I see this relationship as complementary rather than competitive,” Chantzos said.

Last year, security companies, including Symantec and McAfee, complained that Microsoft had locked them out of the Windows kernel. The security companies claimed that a kernel shield developed by Microsoft, called “PatchGuard” and intended to stop hackers attacking 64-bit versions of Vista, blocked their security products too.

Microsoft eventually agreed to provide security companies with access to the 64-bit APIs but didn’t actually provide access until two months after it had officially relented.

Microsoft had long maintained that a complete lock on the kernel would provide the best operating system security and stability, but it made concessions in response to antitrust concerns raised by officials in Europe and Korea.

Full Story

The security experts at Agnitum, the leading firewall provider, today announced the launch of the Outpost Pro 2008 product line, which opens with two Vista-compatible products: Outpost Firewall Pro (OFP) and Outpost Security Suite Pro 2008 (OSS). This new generation of Internet security solutions caters to individual users as well as small and medium businesses deploying the latest or older Microsoft operating systems.

Both the security suite and the personal firewall products are based on a new platform, utilizing a revamped, Vista-style graphical interface and lots of new and improved features. While providing even more security, Agnitum also managed to optimize performance, making both products very lightweight for users’ systems.

Moreover, the new products are not just a set of features, but a set of everyday security services. All registered users receive the following benefits with round-the-clock security care:

* Daily anti-virus updates;
* Spyware definition updates;
* Firewall rule distribution;
* Application fingerprinting;
* Host Protection updates;
* Web site blacklist updates; and
* Ad network updates.

Mikhail Penkovsky, global vice-president for Sales and Marketing, explained:

“Our key message with this new product line is not about the software itself, but also about everyday services delivered to all registered users. Nowadays it is not enough to update just virus or spyware signatures, you should take care of other key security areas as well. Agnitum does just that: besides virus and spyware definitions updates we deliver five additional services that make your protection more flexible and versatile. Our qualified engineers took care of seven areas to make all modules (firewall, antivirus, anti-spyware, host protection, and web control) of our security suite work more efficiently. And this is for less than 14 cents a day for new users and about 8 cents a day for renewal licenses, not to mention the software itself.”

Full Press Release and List of Features

Looks like the products are currently on sale – not bad for 2 years protection. Of course, if you’d prefer to try before you buy they have that covered, too:

Free full-function 30-days trial version

One week after suffering a major blow to its infamous “1-Click” shopping patent, Amazon.com has been awarded what’s sure to be seen as its latest bit of highly obnoxious IP. The company has been awarded a patent on the practice of “including a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting.”

According to the text of the patent, it covers a technology serving the following circumstances: “a user wishing to search for ‘San Francisco Hotels’ may do by simply accessing the URL www.domain_name/San Francisco Hotels, where domain_name is a domain name associated with the web site system.”

There’s smart conversation about the patent’s flaws over at Slashdot, as usual, but the problems here are probably obvious. Filed in August of 2004, the practice no doubt touches on any number of “prior arts” and it’s fairly obvious. Non-obviousness – which you can probably search for via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/non_obviousness (if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Amazon) is a key criteria in the granting of patents.

Amazon may in the end be one of the leading factors in the eventual overhaul of the internet technology department at the US Patent office.

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Battlestar Galactica is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 9am GMT. The game is inspired by the hit television series and let’s players be the hero and defend Galactica or join the dark side and be a Cylon.

You pilot ships and battle in space. The game is available worldwide for 800 MS points.

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Download NT Toolkit 1.94 (MG)

The NTToolkit is a set of small and useful utilities designed to help network administrators with their daily administrative tasks. The NTToolkit is freeware and constantly enhanced.

The Event Message Browser lets you view all available event messages that may be logged on your system. You can simply select an event log (e.g. Application) and select one of the available event sources from that log (e.g. ntbackup) and then review all the available Event IDs from that source. You can also use the Event Message Browser to generate test messages in the event log.

Password Assistant is a GUI application that lets you update passwords of user accounts on multiple Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP machines. A good example is updating the Administrator password on all of your workstations.

You can obtain computer names to update from the network neighborhood (with a filter option) or from a text file. The update process can also be logged to a text file.

NetSend is an application with a graphical user interface that allows you to send a text message to a remote Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer that is running the Messenger service (activated by default).

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