Daily Report Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Daily Highlights


The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency has launched the innovative IdentityTheftActionPlan.com Website, designed to help citizens prevent, detect, and respond to America's fastest growing crime. (See item 9)
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The Associated Press reports a computerized air traffic system experienced a temporary outage in South Florida, forcing controllers to ground some flights and resulting in at least four instances in which planes almost came too close together. (See item 12)
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Reuters reports a group of U.S. and British researchers predicted on Monday, December 4, that infected poultry imported by Brazil, Canada, or Mexico would be the most likely route for bird flu to spread into the Americas. (See item 27)

Information Technology and Telecommunications Sector

34. December 05, VNUNetFirms will need at least 12 months to test Vista. Microsoft's Business Value launch last week should be a wake up call to enterprises to kick off the "significant planning and testing" programs that they must undertake before rolling out Windows Vista and Office 2007, according to Gartner. The analyst firm urges organizations to start these testing processes immediately. A new briefing written by analysts Michael A. Silver, Stephen Kleynhans and David Mitchell Smith estimates that testing will take at least a year for most firms. Gartner noted that Microsoft "surprised" many of the companies creating add−ons to for Windows Vista by meeting its goal of releasing Windows Vista to manufacturing in 2006. "Because of this, much of the ecosystem in terms of drivers and applications is not yet ready to support Vista," said the analysts.
Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2170255/firms−least−months −test−vista

35. December 04, IDG News Service — Washington gets $1 million settlement in first spyware case. Washington's attorney general has settled the first case prosecuted under the state's 2005 Computer Spyware Act. The settlement, announced Monday, December 4, involves anti−spyware vendor Secure Computer LLC. The White Plains, NY, software company was accused of marketing its product via deceptive spam and pop−up ads, which offered free spyware scans that always detected a problem with the computer that was scanned. The company and its president, Paul Burke, will pay $725,000 in legal fees and $200,000 in penalties, and will reimburse Washington state customers $75,000, said Paula Selis, senior council with the attorney general's office.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/12/04/HNspywaresettle_1. html

36. December 04, IDG News Service — EU official touts need for a competitive telecom market in Telecom World keynote. At a global event once known for long−winded, diplomatic speeches delivered by heads of state−owned telephone companies, Viviane Reding, European Union (EU) Commissioner for Information Society and Media, was brief and blunt in her keynote speech Monday, December 4, at the opening of the Telecom World conference and exhibition in Hong Kong. Speaking to a mixed audience of government officials and corporate executives, Reding said "competition drives growth −− not monopolies." Key to creating a competitive telecom market is, among other things, the development of alternative infrastructure, such as cable and wireless networks, which can compete with the public networks of entrenched incumbents, according to Reding. Regulators can play a big role in this process by supporting the development of competitive networks, she said. Internet Protocol (IP) technology is another tool regulators could use to foster competition. With platform−neutral IP, they could establish a "functional separation" between the "passive network," or underlying infrastructure consisting of cables and components, and the "active network" comprising the many different services that run on top. A functional separation could make competition much more effective in a services−oriented environment, but such a separation would have to be done "in a careful way," she warned.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/12/04/HNeunewregulatory_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/12/04/HNeunewregulatory_1.html