Oracle CSO trashes PCI rules
In an unusual move, Oracle chief security officer Mary Ann Davidson has called on vendors of payment application software to join her company in opposing specific security vulnerability reporting requirements of the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
In a lengthy, sharply-worded blog post late last month, Davidson lashed out at the PCI Council for allegedly not responding to Oracle's repeated requests that it reconsider its policy of requiring software vendors to share detailed vulnerability data even in circumstances where patches haven't been released.
"Established industry practice concerning vulnerability handling avoids the risks created by the [PCI Council's] vulnerability disclosure requirements," Davidson said. Read more...
Windows XP support ends two years from now
Support for Windows XP will end two years from today, on April 8th, 2014*.
XP was shipped to OEMs on August 24th, 2001 and reached average punters on October 25th.
Plenty bought it and plenty still run it: Gartner's July 2011 assessment of the global OS population suggested "Windows XP Home and Follow-Ons" had 68 million users, while XP Professional ran on 144 million machines.
A more recent Gartner study, the March 2012 Client OS and Office Survey reported 79% of business desktops and 45% of notebooks ran XP, based on responses from a 147-strong, self-selecting, group at its October 2011 US Symposium event. While the analyst firm notes that's not the most scientific of samples, the respondents represented organisations with a combined three million PCs in service. Read more...
Cisco Jawbreaker: Refocused or retired?
So with word circulating around the industry of a possible Cisco spin-in developing a cloudy switch for SDN (software-defined networking) and/or distributed data storage, what's the status of Cisco's "Jawbreaker" fabric switching project?
Sources in the fabric and SDN industry say Jawbreaker, which was to be a merchant silicon-based response to Juniper's QFabric, has either been:
- Refocused toward the enterprise campus as a Catalyst switch adjunct
- Repositioned into Insieme, the not-so-stealthy startup spin-in run by Cisco's top three engineers -- Mario Mazzola, Luca Cafiero and Prem Jain
- Or killed entirely due to the apparent challenges Juniper's facing with QFabric. QFabric's lengthy trial and ramp cycle no longer requires a competitive marketing response from Cisco, some sources believe.
Emerging software tools help boost IT spending projections
Overall U.S. tech spending is forecast to grow by 7.1 percent this year and then by 7.4 percent in 2012, according to Forrester Research.
The strongest growth area will be software management tools, and much of that growth will come from cloud-based products.
Overall financial management, human resources management, e-purchasing, CRM, and business intelligence software will collectively grow by 11.4 percent through 2011, and 12 percent next year, Forrester said. Read more...
Hackers claim attack on UK Home Office website
Britain's Home Office confirmed Sunday that its website was attacked overnight after hackers claimed responsibility for shutting it down.
The hackers also claim they attacked the Justice Ministry website and warned of further attacks every Saturday on U.K. government websites.
The alleged hackers — who claim ties to Anonymous, the hacker collective — said on Twitter they launched Saturday's denial-of-service attacks and brought down the websites to protest "proposed draconian surveillance measures," Britain's extradition policies and "derogation of civil liberties." Read more...
“The Hacker Company”: Facebookers Snag A Vintage Sign For New HQ
It all started last April when former Facebook engineer Chris Putnam (of 
fame) was visiting his girlfriend’s mom in Lake City, FL and saw the striking sign — ‘The Hacker Company.”
Putnam, who had left Facebook in August 2010 to do his own thing, felt an immediate affinity for the sign, after all, he actually had been hired by Facebook after hacking the site so hard it got co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’ attention. “I’ll always feel pretty close with the culture and all my friends there, so I immediately thought ‘Man, this should be on FB’s campus,’” Putnam said. So he posted a picture of it to Facebook with the caption, “Facebook NEEDS this sign.” Read more...
iPad Wi-Fi issues may be linked to power management
The Wi-Fi reliability problems reported by iPad owners can probably be solved with a software update, a hardware expert said Friday.
"It's unlikely that hardware is the primary cause of the [problem]," said Aaron Vronko, CEO of Michigan-based Rapid Repair, a repair shop and do-it-yourself parts supplier for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. "This is probably a software problem, or a hardware quirk that software must negotiate." Read more...
Apple’s digital divide in China: 21 million iPhones and iPads, but urban areas dominate
Lots has been written and said about the growth of Apple and its products in China. While Apple CEO Tim Cook is focusing on China, which he recently visited and has continually heralded as a key market for the company, it is notable that a number of reports have shown Android devices considerably more prevalent in the country.
Recent data from Statcounter, among others, shows that Android is set to become the country’s single largest mobile operating system (accounting for all device types), with more than double the devices of iOS. Read more...