Security Implementer Exam Now Available

<font size="3">Security Implementer Exam Now Available </font>

On Friday, February 13, Microsoft released Exam 70-299, Implementing and Administering Security in a Windows Server 2003 Network. The exam counts as core credit toward the MCSE: Security on Windows 2003 and an elective for the MCSA/MCSE on Windows Server 2003 tracks.

Exam 70-299 is aimed at entry-level administrators who have about six months or a year of experience implementing and monitoring security issues on the desktops and on servers in a fairly complex Windows network. According to the exam guide, the exam tests candidates' abilities to configure and troubleshoot access to applications and systems, manage patches and hotfixes, and create and apply security policies through security templates.

Rest of Story: MCPMag

Order the Windows Security Update CD

<font size="3">Order the Windows Security Update CD</font>

The Windows Security Update CD will be shipped to you free of charge. This CD includes Microsoft critical updates released through October 2003 and information to help you protect your PC. In addition, you will also receive free antivirus and firewall trial software.

This CD is only available for Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE).

View: Order the Windows Security Update CD UK Only | Worldwide

BBC ponders P2P distribution

<font size="3">BBC ponders P2P distribution</font>

The BBC is to make its programme archive available over a peer-to-peer network, it said at the International Broadcasting Convention last weekend.

BT, meanwhile, has confirmed that it is in talks with the BBC to find a way "of ensuring that their plans have a positive impact on broadband Britain".

The BBC plans to develop a "super electronic programme guide", which allows users to record content as they do with a personal video recorder, New Media Age reports.

The announcement comes after confirmation that Auntie* will be making its archive accessible via the Internet, and clarifies the mechanism by which this will happen.

The BBC's new media director, Ashley Highfield, said that a P2P network will allow the BBC to handle the volume of traffic it expects when the Internet Media Player (IMP) goes live. The IMP will enable users to download or stream...

Microsoft to offer rival CDs

<font size="3">Microsoft to offer rival CDs</font>

Microsoft is offering to include CD-ROMs of rival software in an effort to settle its competition case brought by the European Commission.

The EC believes Windows Media Player was unfairly bundled with the Windows operating system. It asked Microsoft to either remove the media player from machines or include rival programmes.

Rest of Story: The Register

A Microsoft certificate at eight

<font size="3">A Microsoft certificate at eight</font>

“I want to build a computer that will respond to brain waves and dispense with the need to use hands,” says Mridul Seth, his fingers almost a whir as he punches the keys of a laptop.

Fresh from Bangalore where he successfully passed Microsoft’s online test on the software programmes devised by the firm, Mridul logs in to a site on Sikkim.

Within seconds, the screen changes to the site’s homepage, then to another on the hill state’s telecommunication.

“There is a lot more to do. Computers are like a gateway to a larger world for me,” says the shy eight-year-old designer of the two portals on the state that is also his home.

Later, as he prances about in the lawn with some other children without a trace of the earlier seriousness, it is difficult to believe he is the youngest Microsoft Certified Software Engineer, one of the most sought-after degrees for software...

MS partner fingered in Windows code leak

<font size="3">MS partner fingered in Windows code leak</font>

Yesterday's Windows source code leak tracks back to long-term Microsoft partner Mainsoft, according to Betanews. An analysis of the code finds numerous references to Mainsoft's MainWin product, while a post-crash core dump file provides a possible smoking pistol pointing to a Linux machine likely to have been used by Mainsoft technology director Eyal Alaluf.

Mainsoft tells the world that "Mainsoft has unprecedented access to Microsoft Windows source code enabling the industry's highest level of Windows compliancy on Unix" - quite.

The company was one of two Unix-Windows interoperability specialists which had access to Windows source code under the WISE (Windows Interface Source Environment) programme, the other being Bristol. This three-cornered relationship and the circumstances which led Bristol to mount an antitrust suit against Microsoft are...

MS Windows source code escapes onto Internet

<font size="3">MS Windows source code escapes onto Internet</font>

Microsoft has suffered what appears to be a severe leak of Windows source code, with a file circulating on the Internet appearing to consist of several million lines of code from around mid-2000. The source code seems to relate to NT4 and Windows 2000, and in a statement the company has conceded that "portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code were illegally made available on the Internet.

"It's illegal for third parties to post Microsoft source code," the statement continues somewhat redundantly, "and we take such activity very seriously."

The impact of the leak is however massively more important for Microsoft than it is for the rest of the world, as it effectively blows the company's 'security via obscurity' approach to smithereens. Over the past year or so it has, with much pomp and ceremony, unveiled its shared...

BT Yahoo! ate my email

<font size="3">BT Yahoo! ate my email</font>


BT reckons that "a couple of thousand" customer have been hit by a snag that has left users of its ISP services without email.

The monster telco is currently migrating some 1.8 million users over to its BT Yahoo! platform following a tie-up between the two companies announced last year. The migration began early in January and is expected to be completed by the end of April.

As part of the move, punters get a new BT Yahoo! Mail service which includes spam and anti-virus filters bolted on to the system.

And, according to one reader, the spam filters worked instantly.

But as he explains: "My initial delight that I received not a single spam instead of the usual 50 every morning was wiped out when I realised I wasn't receiving any normal emails either - well, drips and drabs, but soon I was getting phone calls from friends asking why I hadn't replied to them."

And he's not alone....

Microsoft to end NT4 support

<font size="3">Microsoft to end NT4 support</font>

Support for all NT4 software will definitely end later this year - with no more extensions, according to Microsoft.
NT4 Enterprise Edition will be supported until 30 June and NT4 Server until 31 December. Microsoft has already extended the support life of NT4 twice.

"We'll upset more customers by extending than we would by cancelling support," said Bruce Lynn, business group leader for Microsoft's UK server division.

"I've seen so many internal emails on this, it's a big source of debate. But if we don't stick to the support dates we gave last time the cost to our reputation would be great.

They really mean it this time ...

News Source: vnunet.com

Taiwan-Based Braindumpers Arrested

<font size="3">Taiwan-Based Braindumpers Arrested</font>

The China Post is reporting today that four Taiwanese citizens have been arrested for selling IT certification exams questions through the Internet and for taking exams for other individuals.

According to the story, the four in custody -- Tung Pei-chang, 41; Hsu Ching-ping, 27; Hsiung Chih-yuan, 34; and "a man surnamed" Chang, 34 -- were arrested yesterday in various locations throughout Taiwan. Charges are fraud and copyright law.

The China Post article said that the groups sold the questions through the Web sites Test4U.net, TaipeiITtest.net and OPASScertification.net since 2001. According to the report, the sites boasted that the questions they sold were taken directly from Pearson Vue and Prometric test centers in various countries worldwide. The sites are currently offline.

News Source:...