Download our latest podcast here.
Apple argues against jailbreaking in court
Apple’s iPhone marketing chief squared off against the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others Friday as the U.S. Copyright Office considers whether to allow an exemption to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that would permit jailbreaking. Vice President of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing Greg Joswiak testified Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, California, as the Copyright Office held the first in a series of hearings on possible exemptions to the nation’s copyright law. The office holds these hearings every three years. In the past it has granted copy exemptions to people such as college film professors who want to make compilations for their students or users of obsolete software who need to copy their programs to new media formats. The Copyright Office isn’t expected to make a decision on the jailbreaking issue until October
Netbook processor maker sets sites on servers
Via Technologies may try to extend the use of its Nano processors from netbooks to servers in a potential challenge to Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, although the battle will be an uphill one, analysts said. Via introduced a new Nano-based motherboard on Thursday for multimedia servers. It is Via’s first server product based on the Nano chip, and some analysts said it could mark the start of an effort by Via to expand the chip’s role in servers. The Nano consumes less power and generates less heat than most server chips, but it is also less powerful. It runs at a maximum clockspeed of 1.6GHz and is available in only a single-core edition. But some analysts say the chip could have potential in some types of servers. Via could offer the Nano as a co-processor to offload specific server workloads and tasks, or it could group the chips together in a blade server to act as the primary computing engine.
LexisNexis admits use by fraudsters
LexisNexis acknowledged Friday that criminals used its information retrieval service for more than three years to gather data that was used to commit credit card fraud. LexisNexis has started warning about 32,000 people that “a few” customers used its service to help them illegally obtain credit cards. “These individuals were operating businesses that at one time were both ChoicePoint and LexisNexis customers,” the company said in a notification letter that it began sending out Friday. To perpetrate the scam, the fraudsters would set up fake mail boxes and then use information obtained on LexisNexis to open credit cards in the victims’ names. The criminals were able to obtain names, dates of birth, and even Social Security numbers from the data broker.
IT director of organ donation broker charged for hacking
The former IT director for a nonprofit organ and tissue donation center pleaded guilty to a charge that she broke into the organization’s computer network and deleted organ donation database records, invoice files, and database and accounting software, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Danielle Duann, 51, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to a charge related to illegally accessing the computer network of LifeGift Organ Donation Center in Houston. Duann was indicted in June on one count of causing damage to a protected computer. LifeGift is the sole provider of organ procurement services for more than 200 hospitals in parts of Texas.
…And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I’m Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.