The Federal Trade Commission reached an $8.2 million settlement with the operator of a reputed scareware operation. – The purported head of a rogue
antivirus operation has agreed to pay roughly $8.2 million to
the Federal Trade Commission to bring a 2-year-old case to a close.
According to the FTC, Marc D’Souza and his father, Maurice D’Souza, will pay
the money to settle accusations that they profited from…
The company announces an expansion of its virtualization and cloud offerings in the government IT space. – Reflex Systems, a provider of virtualization systems management solutions,
announced it is expanding its federal government initiative to meet growing
demand for Reflex Virtualization Management Center (VMC).
Reflex whose offerings include VMC, vTrust Security,
vWatch Monitoring and vProfile Con…
Current and former members of the U.S. military were issued new bank account numbers and credit cards after attackers accessed a database containing bank account information at the Pentagons credit union. – An infected laptop was used to access the systems at the
Pentagons credit union, exposing the financial records of the members of the
United States military, according to a Kaspersky Lab report.
The Pentagon Federal Credit Union notified the New Hampshire
Attorney General of the breach, and said…
A survey by Unisys and MeriTalk found that although the federal government spends more than $35 billion maintaining legacy applications, modernization efforts are running behind. – The federal government spends about half of its annual IT budget maintaining older legacy applications, and that almost half of all the applications are based on legacy technology that needs to be modernized, according to a recent study.
However, the problem, according to the survey conducted by th…
News Analysis: The Federal Communications Commission’s newly adopted rule enforcing limited network neutrality faces dim prospects for a long existence in the face of strong industry and congressional opposition. – The
new Federal Communications Commission rule approved Dec. 21 on a 3-2 party line
vote imposing limited network neutrality on Internet service providers
dissatisfied even its supporters and is likely to be nullified by lawsuits and
congressional action before it has a chance to take practical …
Even as the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to approve the order for preserving an open Internet, the commissioners all appeared dissatisfied, saying the rules either didnt go far enough or went too far. – As expected, the Federal Communications Commission adopted the net
neutrality regulations in a 3-2 vote at its meeting on Dec. 21. However, its
clear that even amongst the majority, the commissioners were not satisfied with
the rules.
The voting followed party lines, with the three Democratic co…
Even as WikiLeaks supporters fought back anti-WikiLeaks companies and tried to keep the momentum going, the federal government ordered new rules to prevent future breaches. – As cables continue to trickle out of WikiLeaks in the second week since the
site began posting, it appears that WikiLeaks and the United
States government have learned some hard
lessons.
quot;Previously with security breaches, the focus has been on the outside
threat, quot; said Darren Hayes, …
Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina leader said that country should be organized into four federal units. Čović made the statement in Banja Luka, RS, a suggested the seats of these units to be in Sarajevo, Banjaluka, Mostar and Tuzla.
Open-source software is growing in popularity as government IT managers are selecting open-source stacks as part of their data center consolidation strategy. – As federal agencies consolidate data centers,
both government IT managers and service providers are increasingly
looking at open source software stacks to ease the transition,
according to the IDC Government Insights report released on Dec.
6.
Data Center consolidation also involves
quot;mi…
While Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachoswski may have intended to clarify the FCC’s net neutrality position with the new plan, it ignored or sidestepped some key questions. – The Federal Communications
Commission’s new net neutrality framework clarified some points from its 2009
plan, but the latest proposal still is receiving scant support in Congress
and from Internet service providers.
FCC chairman Julius
Genachowski offered a sneak peek at the draft
net neut…
Is this the automotive industry equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas or is it an unpalatable measure whose time has come?
Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl has called for a hefty increase to the US Federal Gas Tax. He’s arguing that it would be right as a means to nudge the industry towards a more fuel-efficient future. I recall Bill Ford making similar comments not so long ago.
It would also raise a lot of much-needed tax revenue for Uncle Sam.
As for the US fiscal deficit, well, no easy answers there and tackling it – through reduced public spending and/or higher taxes – is bound to bring some pain. We also have that uncomfortable conundrum here in Britain (and we are used to high taxes at the petrol pump which are basically a blatant tax grab that goes into the general government spending kitty, not ring-fenced for transport infrastructure, which was the original intention).
Maybe a higher tax on petrol in the US, while not exactly a pleasing prospect for many, would at least bring some longer-term positives and be preferable to some other options under consideration. It’s a policy option that at least deserves to be debated and in the mix.
Has its time come? As Jeremy Anwyl notes, probably not, but it is no longer crazy talk.
Wesley Snipes will be spending the holidays behind bars. On Wednesday, the US Marshal’s Office in Orlando, Florida ordered the Blade star to report to the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Lewis Run, Pennsylvania by noon on Dec. 9 to begin his three-year sentence for income tax evasion. Snipes, 48, was convicted in a Florida [...]
In a white paper titled, Implementing New Hardware-Based Information Security Capabilities, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) outlines its planned shift to desktop virtualization using Intel® vPro™ technology and Citrix® XenClient™. DIA’s goal is a secure, cost-effective client environment for its defense analysts. The white paper states that new hardware-assisted virtualization technologies appear promising in their ability to provide high levels of performance and security and greater management ease.
For those who think that the resistance to TSA groping and naked body scanning is over-the-top, take a look at this video and these quotes.Scanning and invasive pat downs might be a necessary evil if there were no alternatives, but there are alternativ…
ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani directed the Minister for Religious Affairs and Minister for Science and Technology to stop giving statements against each other, as an inquiry had already been initiated to fix the responsibility of malpractices in the Haj arrangements.
Following Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Azam Khan SwatiÂ’s statement holding Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, responsible for all the mismanagement and corruption during the current Haj and a tit-for-tat by the latter by filing damages sue against the former, Prime Minister Gilani intervened in the matter and directed both the ministers to stop washing each othersÂ’ dirty linen in public to the disadvantage of the already corruption-tainted Government.
Sources aware of the development informed TheNation that Premier Gilani during his telephonic contact with Hamid Saeed Kazmi further directed him to keep his hands off in the blame game and let the matter be settled with Saudi Government at government-to-government level.
In his chat with Azam Khan Swati, the PM asked him to avoid giving any further statement against the person of Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and let the inquiry report come on the overall mismanagement and malpractices in the Haj arrangements.
The sources further said that Hamid Saeed Kazmi briefed the Prime Minister about some of the issues relating to Haj mismanagement and the problems faced by the Pakistani pilgrims but Premier Gilani directed him to present a detailed report to him covering all the issues relating to the subject.
It is pertinent to mention here that Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, had served Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Azam Swati, with Rs100 million defamation notice for levelling allegations against him regarding the Haj scandal.
According to media reports, Hamid Saeed Kazmi said that if Azam Swati had any proof he should make it public and charged that following the passage of 18th Amendment a number of ministries would be abolished and that was the reason a few of the ministers were eying on his Ministry and wanted his ouster.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Azam Khan Sawati, a JUI-F leader, was the first to hold Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, for lousily handling the Haj affairs.
Agencies add: On Sunday, while addressing a ceremony in Mansehra, Swati demanded removal of Federal Minister Saeed Kazmi for poor arrangements and corruption scam during Haj.
“He (Kazmi) is responsible for robbing the pilgrims and mismanagement, and he should be removed,” he remarked while adding that no official could even imagine to do anything wrong without the consent of the minister concerned.
Premier Gilani asked Kazmi to refrain from issuing statements to media, saying, “It is a critical issue and we don’t want any kind of confrontation,” adding, “These statements are contrary to the country’s integrity.”
The prime minister said shifting of responsibility and the ongoing blame game were unacceptable, adding that the Foreign Ministry would in future coordinate all the arrangements for the Haj as had been decided by the cabinet.
He expressed profound appreciation for the excellent arrangements that the government of the Saudi Arabia has always made for the pilgrims. But promised to deal the corrupt elements with an iron hand.
A bill aimed at driving down federal office rental and commuting costs, giving more flexibility to government workers, and cutting pollution emissions has passed the Houses of Congress. If signed into law, remote worker and mobile technologies are poised to see a boom. – If
you’ve ever driven in or around the horrendous traffic of Washington D.C., then we’ve got some
good news for you.
A
bill that has been in the works since 2009 and would allow more federal workers
to work from home is on the desk of President Obama. Known as the quot;telework quot;
bill, th…
The U.S. House today passed the telework bill, requiring executive agencies to support the option of employees working remotely as much as possible. The Federal government has trailed the private sector in adopting a mobile workforce, but its need to compete for talented new hires, and to ensure continuity of operations despite man-made and natural disasters, made the benefits of telework compelling. State and local governments may follow the Federal government’s example in shifting employees from desktop to notebook computers.
A Malaysian has been hit with federal charges for hacking financial institutions and possessing thousands of stolen credit card numbers. – A Malaysian man was charged today by a federal grand jury with hacking into
a Federal Reserve Bank computer network and possessing more than 400,000 credit
and debit card numbers.
Lin Mun Poo, 32, was arrested shortly after his arrival in the United
States Oct. 21 and has been in custody
sinc…
