Oracle reassures free software movement

Oracle has used its recent announcements on the merger with Sun to reassure the open source movement that its motives are pure, says Computing.co.uk.

The company was keen to reassure those who campaigned against its merger on the basis of the company's commitment to open source code, and said it will up the service and support levels it offers.

"Over the past seven to eight months, there has been a lot of uncertainly in the Sun user base," says Douglas Myhill, head of alliances at Morse.

Underscoring a little-known Web vulnerability, hackers are exploiting a weakness in the Mozilla Firefox browser to wreak havoc on Freenode and other networks that cater to users of Internet relay chat, reports The Register.

Using a piece of javascript embedded into a Web link, the hackers force users of the open source browser to join IRC networks and flood channels with diatribes that include the same Internet address.

As IRC users with Firefox follow the link, their browsers are also forced to spam the channels, giving the attack a viral quality that has caused major disruptions for almost a month.

Tens of thousands of fraudulent e-mails were sent out ahead of Sunday's tax return deadline, writes the BBC.

Recipients are told they are due a tax refund and asked to fill in an online form with bank or credit card details.

Victims have their accounts emptied or card limits used, and risk having the details sold to other criminal gangs.

Matthew Delorey, of Massachusetts, was arrested last week, accused of selling hacked Comcast cable modems that would allow buyers to have free Internet access, states After Dawn.

Delorey has also been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of wire fraud, each of which has a maximum sentence of 20 years and a fine of $250 000.

The alleged hacker sold the modems via Massmodz.com, which has since been taken down. The modems were modified to have the MAC addresses spoofed, technically stealing Internet access from paying customers.