AV engine planned for cellphones

NTT DoCoMo and Network Associates are jointly developing a compact anti-virus (AV) engine for mobiles, based on Network Associates` McAfee security technology, reports Hardware Zone. The companies will incorporate mobile-specific security technologies in handsets for NTT DoCoMo, targeted for the end of 2004.

Current mobile phone service is secure, the site reports, as it is a closed network. However, future mobile communication services are projected to expand globally with increasingly diverse functionality, while the mobile handset architecture will become more unified in terms of the operating system, standardisation and open specifications.

Symantec is releasing a new version of its Ghost software for managing PCs, designed to let IT administrators apply patches en masse, reports CNet. Ghost 8.0, out today, tries to eliminate much of the grunt work associated with updating software on desktops or notebooks in medium-size to large companies.

With Ghost 7.0, administrators update desktops and notebooks from a central location more or less simultaneously by sending out a completely new version of an application or an operating system. "Now we can apply patches, even shortcuts, to a desktop," says Symantec.

"Romania is one of the leading places for cracking activities," eWeek quotes Gabrielle Burger, from the FBI`s office in Bucharest, as saying.

The site says law enforcement documents obtained by AP portray a "loosely organised but increasingly aggressive network of young Romanians conspiring with accomplices in Europe and the US to steal millions of dollars each year from consumers and companies".

Their "specialities include defrauding consumers through bogus Internet purchases, extorting cash from companies after hacking into their systems, and designing and releasing computer-crippling worms and viruses".

With more than $32 billion in sales last year, Microsoft doesn`t usually worry about losing one customer. But this one may be different, reports AP.

In a memo sent last month, Massachusetts administration and finance secretary Eric Kriss instructed the state`s CTO to adopt a policy of "open standards, open source" for all future spending on IT.

The service says although the directive probably wouldn`t completely cut out Microsoft from the state`s $80 million technology budget, it may be the clearest example yet of a US state government taking sides against Microsoft.