Money meltdown, Ozzie's cloud, security worries

At least those of us who are fans of professional baseball have the playoffs to take our minds off the grim news this week (at least that's the case for fans of the teams that are winning). The U.S. financial system meltdown smacked world markets and set off a whole lot of worry, which tended to overshadow all the other news.

1. The IT worker's Wall Street meltdown worry list and bailout roundup: It seems we've all had more questions than answers in recent weeks about the U.S. financial crisis and slumping global economy. Which financial institutions will melt down next? What will be the effect on the IT industry? Is our money safe? What about our jobs? Answers to such questions as well as a roundup of related news, including numerous stories regarding the likely fallout for IT, can be found at this story link.

2. Vendors fixing bug that could crash Internet systems: Patches are being developed for a set of security flaws that could be exploited to easily knock servers offline. Technical details of the flaws have not been publicly released, but experts who uncovered them have said the vulnerabilities can knock offline Windows, Linux, firewalls and embedded systems using a denial-of-service attack. In other security news ...

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At least those of us who are fans of professional baseball have the playoffs to take our minds off the grim news this week (at least that's the case for fans of the teams that are winning). The U.S. financial system meltdown smacked world markets and set off a whole lot of worry, which tended to overshadow all the other news.

1. The IT worker's Wall Street meltdown worry list and bailout roundup: It seems we've all had more questions than answers in recent weeks about the U.S. financial crisis and slumping global economy. Which financial institutions will melt down next? What will be the effect on the IT industry? Is our money safe? What about our jobs? Answers to such questions as well as a roundup of related news, including numerous stories regarding the likely fallout for IT, can be found at this story link.

2. Vendors fixing bug that could crash Internet systems: Patches are being developed for a set of security flaws that could be exploited to easily knock servers offline. Technical details of the flaws have not been publicly released, but experts who uncovered them have said the vulnerabilities can knock offline Windows, Linux, firewalls and embedded systems using a denial-of-service attack. In other security news ...

3.. Researcher finds evidence of massive site compromise: Criminal gangs have obtained administrative log-in credentials for more than -- sit down -- 200,000 Web sites and have launched attacks from those domains using a hacker exploit kit, according to Ian Amit, director of security research at Aladdin Knowledge Systems. He infiltrated a server of a customer of Neosploit, a hacker tool kit used to carry out exploits on browsers and Web software, and discovered that several hacker groups have contributed to an enormous pool of usernames and passwords for sites.

4. Microsoft will float cloud OS this month: Microsoft will debut its secretive "Cloud OS" project led by Ray Ozzie at its Professional Developers Conference later this month. Developers will see the APIs (application programming interfaces) and services that are part of the cloud-based application platform, which is code-named Red Dog.

5. Nokia takes aim at Apple with touch-screen phone: Nokia showed off its first touch-screen phone, the 5800 Xpress Music, which will be released by the end of the year. The phone looks a lot like an iPhone and is expected to offer competition for the popular Apple smartphones. Nokia's touch-screen phone runs on Symbian's Series 60 OS, which the Finnish company said it has modified so that it's more user-friendly.

6. Facebook boycott called as millions blast new design: A group of Facebook users is calling for a two-day boycott of the social-networking site on the weekend of Oct. 18-19 to protest its new design. Despite the unwieldy name "1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout," the group had attracted nearly 2.7 million people by early in the week. The groups "Petition Against the New Facebook" and the more direct "I hate the new Facebook" had 1.6 million and 1.5 million supporters, respectively. The groups undoubtedly have some overlap, but even so that's a lot of unhappy people.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.