Spotlight Features

A report from a group of Internet experts indicates a U.S. anticensorship Internet access program is employing keyword filtering for the foreign Web surfers it serves, resulting in overblocking, which many argue is a form of censorship in itself. What may be worse is that the U.S. International Broa...

In mid-March, BJ's Wholesale Club announced it was investigating a security breach that involved theft of credit card information from its computer network. Company officials ordered an exhaustive review of the retail outlet's state-of-the-industry technology systems with a leading computer security...

Barcodes, those familiar sets of lines on items from DVDs to refrigerators, eventually may go the way of the typewriter, the black-and-white television and the dodo. Radio Frequency Identification technology promises to replace bar coding and make it easier for suppliers, distributors and retailers ...

It may seem simple, yet it is often overlooked. When it comes to choosing the right Internet hosting provider, the majority of business owners know very little about making the best decisions. What makes a good Internet host for a business Web site? What makes a bad one? How can the wrong host harm ...

Software can kill you. Don't think so? Talk to the family members of 21 deceased patients treated at the National Cancer Institute in Panama in November 2000. The cancer patients died after being overdosed by a Cobalt-60 radiotherapy machine. The technicians who entered patient and medication data i...

Like most countries boasting modern telecommunications systems, Australia has been implementing Voice over IP (VoIP) services. After a slow start, what began as a mild flirtation is now becoming an embrace, although use of VoIP technology is still in relatively early stages compared with market expe...

Despite aggressive tactics by U.S. agencies to crack down on illegal software warehouses, distribution of illegal software continues to rival legitimate software retail sales. Studies by industry watchdogs show that while worldwide software piracy has declined steadily from a rate of 50 percent to a...

The old adage about there being "safety in numbers" no longer applies, at least not in the world of IT security. Microsoft platforms are not only the most widespread, but also the most attacked. About that much, most -- but not all -- commentators agree. The mi2g Intelligence Unit issued three bulle...

When most people think about IT forensics, if they think about it at all, they likely imagine a scenario out of the hit TV series CSI. "They make it seem like there's a button that says 'find evidence,'" Robert Shields of forensics software vendor Guidance told the E-Commerce Times. "The way they po...

Let's do some arithmetic. Multiply the number of different hardware platforms in current use by the number of operating systems that have a reasonably large user base. Subtract the systems that simply won't work together. Multiply the result by the number of applications, servers and databases used ...