NetPresence

The people that make the switches, hardware and software that drives the Internet are investing heavily in research designed to turn “the Net”  into “an intelligent, application-aware hub,” according to reports at Information Week.

The prize for making a smarter, faster networks is a larger part of the computing dollar. The strategy is to gain control of the wide range of applications that are served up over the Internet at places like Google Docs and a myriad of other places. The phenomenon is an important part of what is known as “cloud” computing.

Writing for Information Week, Ashish Nadkarni says server virtualization is driving the bus that Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, VMware, Brocade and IBM hope lay claim upon.

Read the article here.

Charging Intel with anti-competitive practices and bullying PC manufacturers, the Federal Trade Commission sued the chip maker on Dec. 16. Citing a litany of practices designed to eliminate competition, the FTC claimed Intel was in violation of federal law.

Among the targets of Intel’s alleged strong-arm tactics are  computer manufacturers including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. On news of the FTC action, Intel Corporation shares closed down more than 2 percent Wednesday at $19.37 a share.

Read the entire story at Information Week’s Web site.

Michigan-based spam purveyor Alan Ralsky Monday (Nov. 23) pleaded guilty to a variety of  charges based on e-mail schemes and was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Nov. 24. Three of his associates also drew prison sentences.

Alan Ralsky

Dubbed the “Godfather of Spam” Ralsky had been under indictment for a multi-million dollar international fraud and money laundering scheme. Ralsky, 64, his son-in-law Scott Bradley, 38, and associates John S. Brown and How Wai John Hui all received prison time.

They were convicted on bank fraud, mail fraud, and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Reported in The Washington Post and in Information Week.

Canadian researchers hired by the exiled Dalai Lama have discovered an extensive computer spying operation that has pilfered documents from hundreds of office computers around the world.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have found evidence that about 1,300 computers in 103 countries had been penetrated by a computer spying operation apparently centered in China. Targets of the spying included embassies, various government offices and even some businesses. 

The spy operation is still functioning, and appears to have concentrated on gathering intelligence from Asian governments, including the Tibetan government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama.

The cyber-conspiracy group is called “GhostNet” according to reports in The New York Times.

As the popularity of social networking software penetrates  the workplace, Jive Software revealed a strategic plan on March 10 to lead deployment of social business software in the enterprise market. Citing 70 percent growth and use by more than 200 big named companies, the software firm claims it is in a unique position to thrive during difficult economic times.

Jive CEO Dave Hersh said in a news release, “the bad economy is driving executives to invest in new ways get business done.” He added “Social Business Software is the first new application category to appear in over a decade that delivers a real breakthrough in cost, productivity, and competitive advantage. ”

The announcement made enough waves in the business technology sector that it became the subject of a lead article in the Business Tech section of Cnet News.

In its press release, Jive cited research projections that more than 30 percent of large organizations in the U.S.  will have made social software available to its employees by 2012.

A “human error” at that paragon of automation known as Google brought the mighty search engine to its knees on the last day of January, 2009.

Google's own Jan. 31 update overloaded the search engine.

The problem started when the search engine company implemented a more or less “routine” update of the scripting that matches search results against a database of Web sites reported  to contain malicious software.

According to the official Google
Blog, the snafu ensued when a programmer checked the URL designation of “/” – basically labeling the entire Web as potentially dangerous. The Google Blog records,  ”the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs.” 

Google secured its position as pre-eminent search engine by developing search reporting logic that orders search results according to matching sites with the highest number of links. Their news aggregator site similarly lists top news stories according to those that have the highest number of links from known news sites.