File-sharing services go to court again

A US federal appeals court yesterday heard arguments as to whether file-sharing services like Napster and Kazaa should be kept from allowing unauthorised song and movie copies to be swapped online for free.

Reuters reports that lawyers for the entertainment industry told a three-judge panel that these services should be ordered to apply software filters that would prevent the online trading and copying of copyrighted songs and films.

Attorneys for the peer-to-peer networks countered that using filters would effectively shut them down. They argued that it is up to lawmakers to extend copyright law to cover the Web.

Microsoft has released a security bulletin providing fixes for three major security flaws in its Internet Explorer (IE) browser, reports the Washington Post.

The biggest flaw allows malicious users to mask the Internet address of a fake Web site. The other weaknesses could let hackers take over any computer using IE and running Windows XP, NT or 2000.

Though Microsoft announced last year that it would release patches to fix on a monthly schedule, the company broke from that routine to issue the bulletin on the software weaknesses a week early.

Apple has released an update to its Safari Web browser, according to MacCentral. The new version, Safari 1.2, also includes several features requested by users.

Users can now use a personal certificate, generated by a certificate authority, to securely authenticate to supported Web sites.

Other features include full keyboard access to provide increased accessibility for navigating Web pages without the use of a mouse and resumable downloads to allow users to continue interrupted downloads without having to re-download the entire file.