ANDREW FASTOW’S allegation that the NatWest Three were involved in the financial deceits which brought down Enron does not mean the men are guilty. But it does mean that they have a case to answer — a case which is rightly being tried in the US. <br/> <br/> The US has had no particular beef with British businessmen. It seeks out suspects of white-collar crime whoever they are, wherever they are. Kobi Alexander, the chief executive of Comverse Technology, was apprehended this week in Namibia, ending his two-month flight from American law enforcers seeking to prosecute him for the back-dating of stock options. The “perp walk” — the US practice of hand-cuffing and frog-marching a multi-millionaire American executive out of his office and into a waiting police car in full view of the waiting, tipped-off camera crews — has become a regular feature of the nightly news in the US. Foreigners who do business in America know full well that the Land of the Free is not nice to criminals, nor even criminal suspects. <br/> <br/> The public outcry over the extradition of the NatWest Three — Gary Mulgrew, David Bermingham and Giles Darby — has from the outset felt like a misplaced, sometimes mendacious venting of national frustration at Washington. <br/> <br/> The fact is that this case has nothing to do with the war in Iraq, with the presidency of George W. Bush, with Tony Blair’s Atlanticist inclinations. Even the esteemed British chief executives and chairmen who signed up to the letter calling for fair trials abroad looked like suckers: their campaign seemed to put patriotism, even a huffy anti-Americanism, before the due process of law. <br/> <br/> Certainly, they had a just complaint: the British Government agreed an extradition treaty without securing reciprocity from the US. But, for that, more fool the British Government. It knows a pledge from the Administration will not necessarily be honoured by Congress, particularly involving the issue of extradition. <br/> <br/> Fastow’s claims against the three British men may be suspect. The quiet chief financial officer of Enron has made a second career for himself shopping his old acquaintances. In 2002, he was indicted on 78 counts of fraud, money-laundering and conspiracy. Thanks to his “co-operation with the authorities”, he has been sentenced to six years in prison. <br/> <br/> Nonetheless, Fastow’s legal deposition describes a “close, personal relationship” with Mulgrew. Enron collapsed in 2001, undone by an intricate, ingenious web of financial fraud. Fastow claims that, in his financial dealings with the men as late as 2000, they “knew what I expected”. The deposition seems to skewer the argument that the men should be tried in Britain. They may have to face allegations of defrauding their former British employers too, but if they played a part in Enron’s downfall, then they have a case to answer in America as well. There is a principle at stake, one which underpins global capitalism and one which is as dear to every Briton as it is to every American: respect for the due process of law.

The recent hike in royalty rates for internet radio stations put many smaller stations out of business. Now it looks as though it will also kill AOL and Yahoo's radio services, which the two companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire.

Video: Web pioneer discusses science of the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee, considered to be the father of the Web, speaks with scientists and Silicon Valley executives at HP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., about where he sees the Internet going in the next five years.

The search and advertising company is a force to be reckoned with across the Web. Now it's looking to do the same in alternative energy (along with many others, large and small).

Critical vulnerabilities in common PC software, including both applications and operating systems, continue to grow in number and stand as the leading cause for concern in the IT security landscape today, according to training experts at the SANS Institute.Holes in so-called client-side applications, including Web browsers, e-mail clients, productivity suites, and media players, have become particularly worrisome over the last year, according to SANS, which highlighted the issue as part of its annual report on the top 20 Internet security risks for 2007.As hackers have shifted their attention further away from operating system flaws and drilled down to applications-layer vulnerabilities they have found a seemingly endless wealth of possibilities for infecting PCs with everything from spyware to botnet programs, SANS researchers contend.Unless something can be done to improve software developers' coding habits or better test popular applications for such issues before they land on end-users' machines, attackers will be able to continue their successful assaults against enterprise networks and devices for the foreseeable future, said Rohit Dhamankar, project manager for the Top 20 report at SANS and a senior manager of security research for TippingPoint.?"There's just been such a dramatic rise in the numbers of vulnerabilities found in applications like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office and a number of media players that attackers are having their way," said Dhamankar. "Enterprises are bolstering security, but desktop users still pose a massive risk if they can download anything they want from the Web; the attacks are also growing in sophistication to the extent that many can defeat antivirus and other security systems primarily by obfuscating their code."Some of the most powerful tools that hackers have adopted in hunting for potential targets are the same industrial-strength applications fuzzing tools that software vendors themselves are using to search for holes in their products, said the expert.Enterprises could do themselves a favor by enforcing stricter policies that dictate the types of applications that end-users are allowed to put on their work machines and using technical means to ensure that those rules are being followed, Dhamankar said.Other SANS researchers noted that while companies may not want to tell end-users that they cannot utilize media players, messaging clients, and other applications that have moved into the business world from the consumer sector, they could help themselves out by limiting the variety of client-side applications that people may choose from."IT departments can't focus on all the applications of the world, but they can choose several and keep their eye on those while allowing end-users some freedom," said Amol Sarwate, research manager at Qualys who studies vulnerability patterns for SANS. "What companies need to do is enforce standards for applications usage and utilize technical means to block unwanted software, devices, and even wireless access points."While many businesses have already realized that they need to shift more of their efforts toward defending client-side vulnerabilities, most have failed to embrace a proactive approach versus simply keeping track of publicly-reported flaws and patching those issues said Sarwate.Enterprises need to think about future security issues It will be particularly important for firms to examine the additional security issues that will be introduced in the coming years with broader adoption of technologies including VoIP (Voice over IP), according to the expert."The key is for people to start thinking ahead of these client-side vulnerabilities to understand what the next big thing may be. Things like VoIP need to be examined for their security implications," said Sarwate. "Many companies are already adopting these tools because of all the advantages they offer, but there will be many attacks carried out against these systems as well."Among the advice that SANS is offering organizations hoping to improve their client-side security coverage is to mandate secure configurations at installation time for all applications, to constantly verify patching and upgrading of both applications and system software, to scan for new vulnerabilities frequently, and to keep their security systems up to date.Other leading areas of concern highlighted by SANS in its report included critical vulnerabilities in Web applications that allow for cross-site scripting attacks or for computers to be otherwise compromised simply by pointing their browsers at poisoned URLs."Gullible, busy, accommodating computer users," including executives, IT staff, and others with privileged access also remain a major weak point for enterprise security, according to SANS, as these seemingly more seasoned users of computers and software are still falling for increasingly targeted spear-phishing campaigns in large numbers.One of the best ways to educate users about the problem is for organizations to create fake spear-phishing threats and send them out to internal users to determine which individuals might be most likely to fall for the schemes and follow up with additional training, the group said.Critical vulnerabilities in the software and systems that provide the operating environment and primary services to computer users, or server-side software, remain another area of leading concern, according to SANS.Problems in Microsoft Windows services, Unix and Mac OS services, back-up and AV programs, management servers, database software, and VoIP technologies in particular are proving troublesome, according to the report.Many of those issues can be addressed by following the same advice offered for solving client-side vulnerabilities, SANS said in the research.

Google launched a location service for mobile users on Wednesday that doesn't rely on GPS.Google Maps with My Location, currently in beta, locates users who don't have GPS-enabled phones based on their location to nearby cell towers. The result isn't as accurate as GPS but works for people who lack the positioning technology in their phones."It helps users speed up search by showing the general neighborhood they're in," said Steve Lee, product manager at Google for the service. Without the location service, users must type in their address or neighborhood in order to find nearby businesses using Google Maps.Google Maps with My Location will use GPS data to locate the user if the phone has the capability. But even for users of GPS-enabled phones, the cell location service might be useful, Lee said. That's because the cell tower feature works better indoors than GPS, it doesn't drain the phone battery as quickly and can bring up a result quicker, he said.The service could be useful to a person who might be traveling in an unfamiliar city and looking for restaurants or other businesses. A user pulls up Google Maps and hits the zero key on the phone. A blue dot will appear on the map in the user's location. If the service used GPS in the phone, the blue dot will be solid. If the service used cell towers to determine the location, the blue dot will have a halo around it, indicating that the location isn't precise. The user can then search for nearby businesses.Google says the cell tower technique will locate the user within about 1000 meters. It doesn't use triangulation, which calculates a user location based on the user's distance to three nearby towers. Instead, it essentially shows the range of the tower that the user's phone is connecting to.But the accuracy should improve as more people use the service, Lee said. That's because Google is keeping a database of location queries, minus any personal information like individual phone numbers or names. That will allow Google to learn more precise information about the range of each tower so that it can deliver a more accurate location area to users. The coverage area of cell towers can vary from about a quarter of a mile to several miles based on whether the tower is in an urban or rural area.For now, Google Maps with My Location doesn't feature any advertising, but it could in the future. "This product makes a lot of sense for advertising," Lee said.In order to use the service, phone owners must download a free application from Google. The application will work on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones as well as many phones that support Java. A few notable exceptions include the Samsung Blackjack, Moto Q, and Palm Treo 700W, which don't support the APIs Google requires to find cell towers, Lee said.

Enterprise content management and social networking form a natural nexus that is already taking tangible form, a software executive said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Gilbane Group's annual conference in Boston."People have real requirements to secure information, but also have a demand to interact with people," said John Newton, CTO of Alfresco, an open-source content management software maker. "We are starting to blur the lines between what's inside the enterprise and what's outside the enterprise."Panelist David Mendels, senior vice president of Adobe's enterprise and developer business unit, echoed the idea. "The biggest single shift we're seeing is from the infrastructure of content management to humans -- to how humans engage with it," he said. "The real question is, what experiences are you going to build for your end-users, and how are you going to securely connect that back to your back-end systems?"David Boloker, CTO of the company's emerging Internet technology group, touched upon security concerns as well. "When you end up in the Facebook world or the Web world, you have to ask yourself, is that information correct? Do you have to annotate it, do you have to clean that information?""There are people out there who will try to take your information or plant a worm," he added.Mendels predicted that enterprise rights management software for securing content will see wider use. "We've talked about this for a while, but I think we're really on the cusp of it starting to accelerate," he said.Beyond addressing bottom-line concerns, such as security, enterprises will soon be compelled to apply social-networking principles in a wider range of areas, said Andy MacMillan, vice president of product management in Oracle's enterprise content management division. "The Web is going to lead the way, but pretty soon, you're going to be talking about the call center, the checkout kiosk at the airport -- how do I personalize those things?"Panelists took questions following the main discussion. One audience member asked them to render an opinion on content management's adoption rate around the world.Newton said lower-cost options have diversified the roles of content management software: "We see content management being pulled into types of applications it normally wouldn't have been before.... It's changing -- it's much more democratized. It's not so much about compliance."Mendels said hosted content management services, such as Adobe's Share and Buzzword offerings, will see faster growth outside the U.S., particularly among SMBs.Panelists at one point peered into their respective crystal balls. Mendels said Adobe's goal moving forward is "creating applications and experiences that keep people in context."Ideally, he said, the current practice of jumping among e-mail programs, instant messaging services, and the phone would be no more. "We see a world where you should have all those experiences tied to one document," he said.Mendels gave the example of a person sending an e-mail that prompts the recipient to return the query by phone. "Instead of picking up the phone and calling you, the document can call you," he said.Boloker pointed to mashups, saying they represent a new "application paradigm we're all walking into." IBM is working on a drag-and-drop mashup development environment called QEDWiki, which Boloker demonstrated for IDG News Service following the panel discussion.MacMillan said enterprises must now focus on not just cataloging their structured and unstructured data, but also applying analytics against it. "I think the next big step for content management from the infrastructure layer is to turn BI loose on it," he said.But Newton's take centered more on philosophy than a given technology. The Web 2.0-social networking boom has unleashed a "wave of creativity" that stands in contrast to "introverted, left-brain thinking" types, in Newton's view. "What our industry needs to do is get out of our left-brain, introverted mindset," he said.

IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos.The suit, filed Nov. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, accuses Shentech of trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices.IBM says that a consumer in Ohio bought a battery from Shentech for a ThinkPad laptop. The battery overheated and caught fire, causing damage to the laptop, IBM said. The user reported the problem to Lenovo, which licenses the IBM trademark. After examining the faulty battery, IBM discovered that it was not a genuine IBM battery, the company said in the suit.IBM then ordered 12 batteries from Shentech and found them all to be fakes, IBM said.IBM asks the court to require Shentech to turn over all of the batteries so that IBM can destroy them. IBM also asks for all the profits that Shentech earned from the sale of the batteries. In addition, IBM wants treble damages or $1 million per counterfeit mark per type of item sold.The Shentech.com Web site continues to list ThinkPad batteries for sale as well as a host of other electronic devices and components. Shentech appears to be a Web-only operation with a mailing address in Flushing, New York. It describes its secret to success as its "ability to provide cutting edge computer technology parts at bargain prices."No one from Shentech could be reached immediately for comment.

U.S. employers may have noticed a slight spike in productivity Wednesday as a computer glitch blocked access to online reviews site Yelp.com.The outage lasted from around 9 a.m to 11 a.m. Pacific Time, and blocked visitors from some companies, including Bank Of America, Kaiser Permanente, and Visa, according to posters at Yelp's discussion forums. Access at IDG's West Coast offices was also blocked.Yelp is a popular source of user-generated restaurant, entertainment, and business reviews in the Bay Area, and some companies have blocked access to the site to prevent employees from reading and contributing reviews during office hours.The glitch didn't shut down the Web site, but many visitors to the site were greeted with a "403" error telling users that they did not have permission to access the server. This type of error is returned by Web servers when someone tries to visit a restricted area of the site.Yelp wouldn't explain exactly what went wrong, except to say that it was a glitch caused by an update to the Web site that was pushed out Tuesday night. Most Yelp users had no problem visiting the site Wednesday, said Yelp spokeswoman Stephanie Ichinose. "It was a very narrow isolated incident that's now been rectified."That probably comes as welcome news to some.Yelpers were at first worried that their companies had moved to block access to the popular service. "Seems like a lot of filters at work added yelp to their list of blocked sites now," wrote one poster named Euge l. "I've heard of a handful of daily day time posters in the west coast have been blocked as well as the east coast. Is this the end of day time yelp?"

Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Belgium have the worst telecommunications regulators in Europe, according to a study carried out for the European Competitive Telecom Association (ECTA), an industry group that promotes the interests of new entrants into the market.The annual study, available on ECTA's Web site, compares the telecom regulatory environment and the application of the current legislative framework in 19 European countries. Top of the class were the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and France."This year’s results show that countries where regulators have taken action to enable competition to flourish, including the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, have seen strong performance in their telecom markets. However, others including Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece have fallen behind," ECTA said in a statement.It added that "institutional weaknesses" may be preventing Germany, Belgium, and Finland from reaching their full potential.The study, dubbed the 2007 Scorecard, shows the impact of weak competition on consumers."If you are paying high prices for broadband, it may be because your regulator has not been able to open the market to competition," said Innocenzo Genna, chairman of ECTA, in prepared remarks at a conference in Brussels on Wednesday.ECTA supports the European Commission's plans to change telecom rules. In particular, it backs moves to allow regulators the power to break up an incumbent operator if it isn't giving rival service providers fair access to the infrastructure, such as the "local loop" of telephone lines that lead directly into people's homes and offices.Meanwhile, the Commission took Bulgaria to court on Wednesday for failing to police its telecom market "independently and effectively." Bulgaria joined the European Union at the beginning of this year, but it was supposed to have applied all the E.U.-wide rules concerning market access and fair competition in the telecom sector before its arrival.Viviane Reding, commissioner for telecom at the European Commission, attended the ECTA's conference in Brussels. In her keynote speech, she thanked ECTA for supporting the reforms she is trying to push through, but she warned that it will be a "hard fight" ensuring that the changes she has proposed get adopted.As well as proposing that functional separation should be introduced as a remedy to instill fair competition, she also called for the creation of an E.U.-wide telecom market authority to ensure that all national regulators apply the same rules in all markets. Functional separation calls for operators to set up separate units to manage and sell network services."We shall have to fight hard in the coming months to ensure that this vision of a competitive single market for the telecom sector becomes a reality. I count on your continuing support," Reding said.

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