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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, April 28, 2000, 2:24 PM -0400
From: cyberscape <cyberscape@faulknerinfo.com>
To: @unspecified-domain
Subject: Faulkner's Cyberscape Digest 04/28/00








CyberScape Digest 

CyberScape Digest is a weekly roundup of top internet stories. This issue
covers events from Monday 04/24/00 through Friday 04/28/00. 


__________________________________________________


Microsoft Prepares for Battle as Lawsuits, Stock Hit the Fan
Rumors early in the week that the Department of Justice planned to
recommend splitting Microsoft into two companies as punishment for its
antitrust violations sent the software giant's stock into a temporary
nosedive. Microsoft responded to the rumors by calling the proposal
"extreme and radical." More details came to light: the DoJ and the 19
states involved in the suit were expected to propose on Friday that
Microsoft be broken up into an operating system company and an applications
company. The Internet Explorer browser, the heart of the original dispute,
would go to the applications company, though the OS company would keep some
rights to IE. Microsoft will file its reply and suggest its own remedies by
May 10. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling that Microsoft is a monopoly
and abused its monopoly power, meanwhile, lends support to a number of
private antitrust suits against the company. Perhaps to keep the mess to a
minimum, a panel of judges ruled that at least some of these private
antitrust suits--about 27 of them--will be handled by one court, located in
Baltimore. The suits were originally filed in 17 different jurisdictions.
The company faces a total of nearly 140 private antitrust suits, filed in
38 states. Microsoft might need to dig into its own pockets for the legal
bills relating to those lawsuits. The software giant and its general
insurer, Zurich American Insurance, are suing each other over the issue of
whether Microsoft's liability insurance covers antitrust matters. At least
the court matters didn't completely distract Microsoft from its main
business. The company shipped the second test version of its SQL Server
2000, data base software designed to store and manage Web content and other
information. It also unveiled a joint venture with Xerox. Dubbed
ContentGuard, the Internet firm will offer a software package that protects
books, documents, music, software, and other content online. Microsoft will
hold a minority stake in the venture..  


__________________________________________________


Still Strong Interest in B2B, Online Marketplaces
While not moving at the frenetic pace seen earlier this year, many
companies continued to show interest in establishing online exchanges, B2B
or otherwise. Six airlines formed an online marketplace to connect carriers
with sellers of fuel, engine components, and maintenance services. The six
airlines, which include Air France, American Airlines, British Airways,
Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines, figure that the
as-yet-unnamed company will handle up to $32 billion in purchases. The
WorldWide Retail Exchange, a B2B marketplace for the retail industry,
gained two new members: Best Buy and Jusco. Hoping to cash in on all this
activity, Andersen, iPlanet, and Sun teamed up to create a joint venture
focused on providing e-procurement software, services, and online
marketplaces. Andersen will be the majority owner of the yet-to-be-named
company, which will purchase up to $300 million of hardware, software, and
services from Sun and iPlanet over the next three years. A more prosaic
industry also staked its claim to an online marketplace. Three real estate
services teamed up to create an online purchasing site that will help real
estate brokers with the selling and maintenance of office building. The Web
site will sell everything from light bulbs to janitorial equipment and
offer a range of services. Founding members include CB Richard Ellis
Services, Jones Lange LaSalle, and Trammell Crow. 


__________________________________________________


America Online Faces Attacks, Makes Deal, Aids Drkoop
Tribal Voice and iCast filed documents with the Federal Communications
Commission objecting to America Online's near-lock on the instant messaging
market. The two rival instant messaging companies want the commission to
prohibit AOL's merger with Time Warner unless AOL agrees to open its
instant messaging service so that other messaging services can connect with
AIM. They're not the only ones upset about the AOL-Time Warner merger.
Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, the Media Access
Project, and the Center for Media Education argued in a filing to the FCC
that the merger would reduce the number of voices available to the public,
and thus not be in the public interest. One of their concerns was that the
merged company could set its own proprietary standards for services such as
e-mail and instant messaging, which the consumers' groups believe should
have universal standards to encourage competition. All of this complaining
didn't seem to faze AOL at all, however. Catering to the baby boomer
market, the ISP built on its content agreement with Third Age Media. Third
Age agreed to create content for two community areas of AOL's Web site, as
well as host forums, chats, a Baby Boomer Community Center, and other
discussion areas. AOL also played doctor for ailing health Web site
Drkoop.com. Although it's the second most visited health site on the
Internet, it reported that it only possesses enough money to keep it going
until the end of August. When AOL learned of this, it let Drkoop out of a
four-year, $89 million marketing deal on which Drkoop still owed $65
million. Instead, the deal will continue for one more year and AOL will
take a 10 percent stake in the company. 


__________________________________________________


Taking Stakes--and Sometimes Whole Companies
Bank of America wants to get into electronic payments in a big way. The
financial institution agreed to pay $395.6 million for a 16 percent stake
in CheckFree and to work with CheckFree to provide electronic payment
methods for BofA's customers. In addition to bills, users will be able to
make purchases, pay for auctions, and perform money transfers online with
the service. QUALCOMM put up $144 million to purchase a 10 percent stake in
free ISP NetZero. NetZero will distribute QUALCOMM's Eudora as the
preferred e-mail program to its users as part of the deal. Lycos agreed to
purchase a 10 percent stake in AutoWeb.com; the two companies will build
and jointly operate an online automotive channel. Transmeta managed to
raise $88 million from a whole slew of new investors, including America
Online, Compaq, and Gateway. Online recruiting service HotJobs.com put up
stock valued at $45 million to purchase staff management software maker
Resumix.   


__________________________________________________


AT&T Makes History With Wireless Stock Offering
Wall Street's last couple of weeks seemed an inauspicious backdrop for an
initial public offering of stock, but AT&T braved it nonetheless. After
all, who would want to miss getting in on a public offering of tracking
stock for AT&T Wireless Group, with everyone and everything going mobile?
The offering raised more than $8 billion, giving the wireless spin-off a
stock market value of more than $56 billion. While the stock rose less than
eight percent on its first day of trading, it still qualified as one of the
largest IPOs in US history. 


__________________________________________________


Doing the Deals: Internet Companies Form Alliances
A number of companies busily teamed up with each other to extend their
offerings, create new services, and do all the usual sorts of things
companies do when they ally with each other. Covad and BellSouth shook
hands on a line sharing agreement that lets Covad provide DSL service in
BellSouth's nine-state territory. Covad hopes to move forward with DSL
implementation in the territory by the end of July. Online auctioneer eBay
made two deals this week. First, it got together with The Internet Antique
Shop to create a virtual antiques mall on eBay's Web site. Then, it
reported that Wells Fargo agreed to acquire 35 percent of BillPoint from
eBay. BillPoint is a service that allows eBay sellers to accept credit
cards; Wells Fargo's involvement will allow the auctioneer and the bank to
focus on what each one does best. Gateway and Verio teamed up to offer
e-commerce products and services to small- and medium-sized businesses. The
first set of services, available from Gateway via its Web site, Gateway
Country stores, and Office Max store-in-store locations, include Web
hosting and personalized domain name registration services; DSL and other
forms of Internet access will come along in June. Speaking of Internet
access, EarthLink agreed to allow users of PlanetWeb's iEnhance Internet
platform to access the Internet through EarthLink's network. Sega's
Dreamcast game console and certain Internet appliances use the iEnhance
suite of software and services, which includes e-mail, chat, and browsing
capabilities. Finally, anyone who doesn't think the Internet makes for
strange bedfellows should look at the alliance between the US Postal
Service and PostX. The USPS sold two million electronic postmarks to PostX.
The postmarks bear the USPS name and attach to e-mail to show when it was
mailed. The alliance is particularly strange because PostX used to question
why businesses engage in the wasteful practice of using the USPS for
official communications. 


__________________________________________________


Scorecard! Scorecard! Can't Tell the Legal Action Without a Scorecard!
For those wanting a break from watching the Microsoft antitrust trial wind
down, this week offered a number of diversions. First, Mafiaboy's
situation took an interesting turn. Regular readers will recall that the
Canadian youth was arrested by the Canadian police and accused of taking
down the CNN Web site last February, when a number of prominent Web sites
succumbed to DDOS attacks. The police had placed a wiretap on Mafiaboy's
home to gather evidence for the case--and caught the boy's 45-year-old
father on the phone apparently conspiring to assault a business colleague.
The police arrested both the father and his alleged co-conspirator. Second,
rapper Dr. Dre carried through with his threat to Napster to sue the
Internet firm if it did not remove all copies of his work from its
directory. Rather than pursue a separate suit, Dr. Dre is joining heavy
metal rock band Metallica in its suit against Napster. Napster's software
lets users logged onto the Internet download digital music from each
other's hard drives, raising all sorts of copyright issues--as the RIAA
noted when it launched its suit against the company not too long ago. For
those interested in some out-of-court action, Yahoo! set a record in
bringing its domain name dispute to ICANN for arbitration under its Uniform
Domain Name Dispute Resoluion Policy. Seems that 37 registered domain names
bear what Yahoo considers a confusing resemblance to its own name,
including SeattleYahoo.com and Youhoo.com. The matter represents the
largest number of disputed domain names brought to be tried under the
policy in a single case. Lest one think Yahoo!'s case is frivolous, many of
the domains seem to be registered to the same person and contain
questionable registration information in Network Solutions' master data
base. Mobile users of the Internet should take note of Phone.com's suit
against Geoworks. Geoworks says it holds patents that cover devices,
applications, and content that use the Wireless Application Protocol.
Phone.com's suit is aimed at preventing Geoworks from enforcing its patent.
Phone.com states that the patent claim is "invalid and unenforceable."
Finally, for those who want to watch the courts in action, KVBC of Las
Vegas started a live Webcast this week of a murder trial. The Webcast is a
live courtroom feed, and offers neither commentary nor analysis during the
trial. 


__________________________________________________


Census Barely Underway--and Already Online
FreeDemographics.com, a subsidiary of SRC LLC, began offering a service
many marketers might give their eyeteeth for. The company posts data from
the US Census--not just the 1990 census, but the 2000 census. The latter
information makes its way to the Web site within 24 hours after the Census
Bureau releases it. Further, the site allows users to define the data by
small geographic areas (such as Huerfano County, CO, population 6952). The
site presently contains information from the Census' "dress rehearsal," a
pre-census test. As is true with all US Census data, names and identities
are kept secret, by law. Users can so finely define the area they want to
cover, however, that a skillful person may be able to match the information
with names and addresses--which raises privacy issues. 


__________________________________________________


UPS Starts Delivering More than Just Packages
Complementing its package delivery business, UPS unveiled an electronic
bill payment service. The service will allow businesses to pay for goods
being shipped through UPS electronically; buyers can also request that the
payment not be sent to the seller until the condition of the goods are
checked. For instance, a portion of a payment can be withheld if the goods
arrive damaged. The electronic bill presentment and payment services (EBPP)
will be available to businesses through UPS Capital, the delivery company's
wholly owned financial services division.  


__________________________________________________


Justice Department Begins Another Antitrust Investigation
The Department of Justice opened an investigation into anticompetitive
practices in the online real estate industry by requesting information from
Homestore.com, a real estate site, and the National Association of
Realtors, partial owners of the site. The DoJ wants to determine whether
consumers and competitors are harmed by Homestore's exclusive listing
agreements with brokers and real estate groups. Homestore and the NAR claim
that they have not violated any laws, and that they are fully cooperating
with the DoJ. Their competitors, including Microsoft's HomeAdvisor.com,
allege that the agreements are anticompetitive. 


__________________________________________________


Internet Companies Offer New Services
Internet rewards company beenz.com plans to expand its system into the
"real world" with a beenz MasterCard debit card in the US and the UK. The
card will enable beenz users to convert their beenz into cash and spend it
as one would spend money from any debit card account. Somewhat more
conventionally, General Electric got together with CompuBank to enable
online banking on its GE Financial Network site. GE is also expected to
partner with Netstock.com to allow users to purchase small lot stocks
online. Loudcloud unveiled My.Loudcloud, a Web portal that will offer
network management information to Loudcloud customers. EarthLink offered,
not a new service, but a new bargain: it will provide free installation for
its high-speed DSL service, which will save customers of the service about
$300. Palm, meanwhile, is working to speed access and conserve bandwidth
for its Palm.net users by using net caching appliances from Net Cache.
Priceline expanded its "name-your-price" car shopping service to 48 states.
The service lets users pick the car, options, and price they wish to pay,
as well as where they want to go to purchase the car. A dealership can
respond by either accepting a user's offer or making a counteroffer. PSINet
said it will begin offering its Jyra In-Site monitoring service in Europe
and the US. The service assesses a Web site's performance, and thus helps
e-commerce companies discover whether their site's performance is affecting
their revenue. 


__________________________________________________


Look Who's Going Wirelessly Online
Online auctioneer eBay plans to take advantage of Europe's widespread cell
phone use by allowing German and UK users of its Web site to place bids for
goods via WAP, standard SMS services, and other cellular platforms by July
of this year. eBay Germany and eBay UK will work with mobile phone firms
such as Nokia to bring this about. France, Italy, and Scandinavia will
receive this service, dubbed "eBay Anywhere," at a later date. Wireless
carrier Nextel, meanwhile, will venture from voice to data with its Nextel
Online Internet access service. Starting in 43 markets and going nationwide
by the end of June, Nextel Online will be available for a $14.95 per month
flat fee, in addition to the standard monthly voice service fees. Nextel
teamed with Phone.com to offer the service. Finally, online retailer Value
America linked up with MobileShift to start offering wireless services to
its customers. MobileShift's e-commerce gateway enables users of wireless
handhelds to shop for products. MobileShift will receive a share of the
revenue from the service as part of the deal. 


__________________________________________________


Internet Flu Season: Watch for Viruses, "Hacking" Cough
As expected, the Chernobyl computer virus, which activates every year on
the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, hit Asia
hardest--specifically, South Korea. The virus reportedly wiped hard disks
on hundreds of PCs in that country. This year's outbreak was not as bad as
last year's, however, when up to 300,000 computers took damage from the
virus, mostly at large companies. This year, most of the infected machines
belonged to individuals or small companies. Kapersky Labs gave computer
security folks another date to worry about: July 14. That's when a new
virus, Win95.Smash, will activate. Of Russian origin, Smash spreads on
Windows 95/98 machines. When it activates, it displays a message stating
that the victim's computer has been infected, then reboots the
computer--wiping out all data on the PC's hard drive in the process. The
virus uses a polymorphic engine that hides the virus code by mutating
decryption loop, thus making it more difficult to detect and delete.
Above.net found itself battling something worse than a nasty virus: a
direct attack on its system. While the hacker didn't use a distributed
denial-of-service attack, which brought down eBay, Amazon, Yahoo!, and
several other major Web sites in February, the attack produced the same
effect: it overwhelmed Above.net's systems. The attack began Tuesday
morning, and caused sluggish service and outages for the Web site hosting
company's customers. By midafternoon that day, Above.net restored service
to most of its customers--which include prominent sites such as AOL. The
FBI is investigating the attack. Paul Vixie, senior vice president for
Above.net's parent company, has said that Above.net plugged the security
hole that allowed this attack to happen. Speaking of security holes, a
rather embarrassing--and potentially very dangerous--security hole was
reported in by Internet Security Systems in Red Hat's 6.2 version of Linux.
Red Hat's Piranha software, which lets several machines share a task,
protects who controls the software via password. However, the part of the
software that checks the password will also run commands from an attacker,
including ones that will allow the attacker to deface or destroy a Web
site. Red Hat has released a patch for the problem. Red Hat's not the only
one turning red over a security hole in its software. QUALCOMM warned about
a vulnerability in its Eudora e-mail software. As users of Eudora know, the
system pops up with a warning before opening an executable file attached to
an e-mail message, asking if the user really wants to run the file. Bug
hunter Bennett Haselton reported discovering a way that an e-mail can
prevent that warning from appearing. QUALCOMM said it would close the hole
in version 4.3.2 of Eudora for Windows, which won't be out for a few weeks
yet. Meanwhile, users of Windows Eudora 4.2 and higher can copy the
following into a  Eudora composition message and click on the "OK" button
that will follow:
x-Eudora-option:WarnLaunchExtensions=exe|com|bat|cmd|pif|htm|do|xl|reg|lnk|
. Other Eudora users are advised to locate the "Eudora.ini" file in their
Eudora program and add
"WarnLaunchExtensions=exe|com|bat|cmd|pif|htm|do|xl|reg|lnk| after the line
containing the text "Settings." 


__________________________________________________


Outage Ticker: Sprint, Covad, Pacific Bell, AT&T, Qwest
So many problems were reported this week that it's simplest to go in
chronological order. At 10:30 AM on April 20, Sprint reported an outage on
its sdn-bb10 router in Pennsauken, which caused a temporary loss of
connectivity. On April 21, a Metro subway line fire in Washington, DC,
reportedly damaged some fiber belonging to unnamed telecommunications
companies. Fiber repair crews were not permitted to make repairs until
Sunday due to unsafe conditions. Reports also came in on the 21st that
Covad experienced switch problems affecting its DSL service, causing
several outages this month; PacBell experienced DSL problems on the West
Coast, and New York experienced DSL problems between April 20 and 24
reportedly related to AT&T and Qwest. On Monday, between 12:01 AM and 7:00
AM, Sprint performed emergency maintenance on its sl-gw9, sl-gw15, and
sl-gw16 routers in New York City. The router was taken offline during the
maintenance. Additionally, Sprint gave advance warning about several
repairs it completed this week. On Tuesday, between 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM
(Central Daylight Time), it performed maintenance on its sdn-bb10-ana and
sdn-bb11-ana routers to roll fiber onto new Optical Distribution Units.
When asked about the apparently increased activity, a Sprint spokesperson
said that the company typically tries to perform its maintenance and
network upgrades in the early morning hours on Sunday, and that the
weekend's activity was not unusual. 


__________________________________________________


Cyberscape Delight: Need More TLAs? Check Here
While all fields use their own special jargon, something about high
technology seems to breed acronyms--those multiple-letter abbreviations for
longer phrases. Many Internet users make up new acronyms for fun, or for
quick typing convenience, which is where terms like LOL (laugh out loud)
and IMHO (in my humble opinion) came from. While nobody knows all the
acronyms floating around out there, some Web sites make an effort to
catalogue them all. Mountain Data Systems features The Acronym Finder, a
searchable data base of more than 138,000 acronyms, with an emphasis on
computers, technology, and the military. TAF adds more than 100 new
acronyms every day. Users can even conduct a reverse search; enter a
keyword and the data base will return a list of acronyms which use that
word. For those who have far too much time on their hands, the Web site
also features a random acronym generator. 


__________________________________________________



*** Terri Wells, Faulkner Information Services *** 



__________________________________________________


CyberScape Digest, Copyright 2000, Faulkner Information Services. All
rights reserved. 




---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



Missy Harvey
Computer Science Librarian
Engineering & Science Library
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA  15213

http://www.library.cmu.edu/usr/missy/

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