U.S. Federal Law

This column may require a little patience on your part, but I think it will be worth it in the end. Let's start with a simple premise: within a year, nearly everyone reading these words will be deeply impacted by Sarbanes-Oxley, yet many have never heard of it. The purpose of this note is to offer you a preview of what's to come. In other words, a wake-up call. First of all, who or what is Sarbanes-Oxley? Simply put, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) is the federal law that was put in place last year in response to the scandals at Enron, MCI, and other large public corporations. The law contains a wide variety of provisions around improving corporate ethical behavior, including assurances that companies' financial statements accurately reflect the state of their business. And it puts teeth into those provisions with heavy fines and prison for senior executives if their ... (more)

Breaking News: $92 Million Settlement in Kodak-Sun Java Patents Case

Related Links: Java Costs Sun $92 Million Java Patents: "Software and Patents Kodak Wins vs Sun The trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Rochester involving Eastman Kodak Co and Sun Microsystems will no longer be entering its penalty phase, as it was otherwise expected it would today. The parties agreed instead this morning to an out-of-court settlement, under which Sun has agreed to pay Kodak $92 million for a license with respect to the three US patents Java has been found to breach.. Accordingly, Judge Michael Telesca has signed an order forma... (more)

Information Security Assurance

Information security assurance is a topic that has developed quickly over the last few years. Drivers for its rapid development include the development of computers at the pace of Moore's Law during the information revolution of the last century. Motivation for interest in the topic stems from the more recent Internet revolution, the focus on critical infrastructure related to Homeland Security, the increased emphasis on corporate governance, and the increasing awareness of privacy matters as society recognizes the dangers that accompany IT advances. No wonder we occasionally se... (more)

A streaming media player for the rest of us

After my less than satisfying visit to the land of Linux streaming media viewers just a few weeks ago, I was a little reluctant to try another, in spite of the readers who suggested I look at Xine. I shouldn't have been. I found the Xine experience satisfying in every aspect. Xine installation is quick, easy, and well documented. On my Red Hat 7.2 desktop box with its 1-GHz Athlon CPU, 512 megabytes of RAM, and a GeForce 2 MX video card, I got video that rivaled anything I've seen, even in full-screen mode. I downloaded xine-lib-0.9.8.tar.gz and xine-ui-0.9.8.tar.gz source code ta... (more)

How Apache & Plan 9 will defeat Microsoft's Passport

(LinuxWorld) — Linux gets a lot of press these days, but much of it appears condescending and is more about the phenomenon of its emergence and growth than it is about the value and use of the technology. That may be about to change, and for the better. As a group, the so-called "mainstream press" often appears to favor Microsoft and show an appalling lack of technical depth in its enthusiastic repetition of the latest Microsoft press release. There’s been a lot of speculation on why this is and whether it even happens. So far, no definitive research provides answers ... (more)