The Anti-Anti-Virus
Symantec is beating back a worm that
attacks
its anti-virus software. But in this case the hackers aren't exactly Johnny-on-the-spot:
Symantec finished a patch for the flaw back in May, so the worm only attacks
systems that haven't been fixed. Best get to patching!
IT Gone Bad, and Got Busted
The October cover story for Redmond magazine talks about bad IT people taking
advantage of their access to information. The stories are scary, and should
serve as a lesson: IT folks should play it clean, and smart IT managers should
protect assets from other IT people as much as from end users. Read the story
here.
Not all bad IT people get away with it. An ex-systems admin tried to get back
at former employer UBS PaineWebber by sabotaging
the computers and making money from what he hoped would be a dramatic stock
drop. The sabotage worked and 1,000 computers lost their files. However, the
stock held up better than Dick Clark. As a result, Roger Duronio got caught
and is now sentenced to eight years in the pokey.
Internet Addiction = $5 Million
How's this for nerve? Former IBM employee James Pacenza admittedly spent hours
at Big Blue not working, but trolling the Internet, cruising some of the more
licentious and lascivious spots.
When he got fired, it wasn't his fault. It
was IBM and his boss' fault because they never dealt with his Internet addiction.
Boohoo! Pacenza went through so much hassle that he clearly deserves the $5
million his lawyer is asking for.
What would you give Mr. Pacenza? Tell us at [email protected],
and try to keep it cleaner than Pacenza's Web cache!
Time Magazine Sucks Up to Everyone (with a 'Net Connection)
Time magazine doesn't make a lot of mistakes. I know firsthand how its fact-checking
works and it's pretty darn rigorous. But one thing I have long been unimpressed
with is its Person of the Year. Looking back, a couple of winners are more obscure
than your college rock band (admit you had one!).
And too often it just picks the easy choice, like the president of the United
States, which it has chosen 19 times! But this year, the choice is strange and
fawning: the
person of the year is YOU.
I guess the idea is that blogs, social networks and sites like YouTube make
us all the center of attention -- we drive the content.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Russia is changing by the minute, North Korea
is rattling sabers, Israel is under increasing threat, disease and hunger is
ravaging the Third World and, oh, the Middle East is a heartbeat away from all-out
chaos -- and Time thinks blogs are the biggest thing that happened in 2006?
Are blogs changing your world? Let us know (and not just by sending a link
to your blog) by writing to [email protected].
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.