Mobile hackers sighted

Mobile hacking made it into the headlines this week after US service provider T-Mobile installed a firewall on its GPRS network in response to users complaining their systems had been probed by hackers when using the high-speed services.

TheRegister reports that the issue came to light after Mike Palmer, technology director for the broadcast division of AP, spotted numerous probes against his PC while using T-Mobile`s GPRS network. Apparently as many 100 users complained of the same issue.

Like DSL broadband, GPRS networks offer an always-on connection which in turn increases the need for a firewall. "GPRS is an always-on service, with your IP address being propagated to a greater or lesser extent throughout the wireless network," says Neil Barrett, technical director at Information Risk Management. "I`m not aware of any personal firewall products for GPRS-enabled handhelds, and I`d have to suggest there`s a market there waiting for someone to rip into."

Since GPRS services are normally paid for by the volume of traffic used, hacker probes could end up costing end-users money as well as threatening their security. [TheRegister]

Microsoft has a new policy to discourage its business customers from switching to Linux or other open source alternatives. Called Open Value, the new offer is part of the software giant`s Licensing 6 volume licensing programme, reports ECommerce Times.

"Microsoft sales reps have been instructed to be on the lookout for any businesses that are migrating some of their machines to the Lindows OS," says Yankee Group analyst Laura Didio. "If [the sales reps] think there`s a real threat of some pretty large numbers of defections to open source, they can request authorisation from Microsoft higher-ups to offer steeply discounted pricing."

Didio says that in some cases, the discounts may be as high as 50%. [ECommerce Times]

Dell South Africa is shipping the PowerEdge 1655MC, a new server blade that packages the performance of up to 12 Intel Pentium III processors.

As the first in Dell`s modular server line, the PowerEdge 1655MC is made up of six dual-processor server blades, SCSI hard disk drives with integrated hardware RAID, hot-plug redundant power supplies and cooling fans, an integrated management card and redundant Ethernet switches.

Dell says the single enclosure approach lowers hardware expenses associated with comparable dual-processor, 1U rack servers.

This week in TechNiche:
Wireless data services not appealing
eBay scam hits hard
Sun intensifies battle with Microsoft