Tuesday, January 18

iSky.net hopes to offer two-way, high-speed Internet satellite modems in the US by the end of 2001.

ZDNet examines how the AOL-Time Warner deal could speed up broadband delivery. On a different page, ZDNet examines how the AOL-Time Warner deal could delay broadband delivery.

Security and privacy

Distributed.net has broken a 56-bit encryption key three months after the company which created the key issued a challenge to the Internet community to break it. More than 38,000 people contributed CPU cycles to break the key.

MSNBC looks at an old security hole in Microsoft SQL Server that can be used to steal credit card numbers off of e-commerce sites.

The (US) spook bureau the National Security Agency has contracted Secure Computing Corp. to develop a secure version of Linux.

A gang of British hackers has broken into a number of companies and is trying to extort a ransom.

---

Friday, January 21

Wired reports on the slings, arrows, and sweet rewards of DSL.

Global Internet traffic has exceeded 350,000 terabytes per month. That's 350,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data per month, or 350 petabytes. (Thanks to Richard L Wacker for correcting my original extrapolation to bytes.)

With the AOL-Time Warner deal on the table, CNET looks at the Excite@Home merger, which was also designed to marry broadband Internet access with content.

The town of Halfway, Oregon is changing its name to Half.com in return for corporate sponsorship of the town's technology efforts.

Computer security and privacy

Famed computer hacker/cracker Kevin Mitnick will be released today. The terms of his parole prevent him from using computers or cell phones, similar to what fellow convicted hacker Kevin Poulsen describes in "The Amazing Modemless Man." Mitnick will be featured on CBS' 60 Minutes this Sunday.

Zero Knowledge is the latest attempt to provide anonymous Internet surfing. The service provides anonymous identities and obscures your IP address.

E-commerce

IBM's web site was briefly selling ThinkPad laptops for $1. IBM canceled all of the orders and offered affected customers free shipping, but some customers are contemplating a lawsuit.

E-tailer Beyond.com is reorganizing to focus on business-to-business e-commerce. The company will cut about 20% of its workforce.

A study from Insight Research reports that two-thirds of e-commerce sales this year will be driven by traditional paper catalogs.

Previous week