Also: Cisco CTO questions future of WiMAX; Novell heir apparent leaves company; companys sues Cisco over patent infringement; Verizon, Nextel settle legal scuffle; and more.
A group claiming to have the source code for a Cisco firewall product is selling the code on a Web site for $24,000. The group, known as the Source Code Club, is believed to be a loose federation of hackers. The SCC says it is offering source code and all the files necessary to create a usable Cisco PIX 6.3.1 image. The SCC previously offered source code to other products, including Enterasys Networks’ Dragon intrusion-detection system product and the source to Napster file-sharing software. While experts say there is no way to prove the SCC’s PIX code is genuine, the incident is the second of its type for Cisco this year. In May, a hacker group posted chunks of Cisco IOS source code after it was stolen from an unsecure server inside the vendor’s network.
The WiMAX wireless broadband standard remains a broadband question mark, said Cisco CTO Charles Giancarlo, who spoke last week as a keynoter at the Next Generation Networks conference in Boston. He told the audience Cisco sees a very uncertain future for WiMAX, which has been touted as a less-expensive alternative to the 3G cellular networks being carriers are rolling out. “Why would anyone build two parallel [wireless broadband] networks?” he asked. “I still maintain that the case for WiMAX is challenging at the moment.” On the other hand, he said, ultrawideband wireless looks more promising as a very short-range, high-throughput technology to handle videostreams or even data exchanges between rack-mounted computers.
Novell Vice Chairman Chris Stone, presumed heir apparent to Chairman and CEO Jack Messman, has left the company to pursue other opportunities, according to a statement from Novell. Stone rejoined Novell in March 2002 after a two-year hiatus as CEO of supply-chain management company Tilion. He is credited with driving Novell’s Linux strategy. No successor has been named, but sources indicate that Messman will rely on some of the talent the company picked up from the acquisitions of Ximian and SuSE to lead the company.
“We thank Chris for his service to Novell over the past two and one-half years,” Messman said in a statement. “He made significant contributions to changes in our strategic direction, and his vision and energy will be missed. We wish him well.”
A Miami Beach, Fla., company last week sued Cisco for alleged patent infringement, charging the networking giant with stealing its routing technology. ConnecTel says Cisco is using without compensation a set of technologies that ConnecTel founder Allen Kaplan invented in the 1990s, according to a copy of the complaint the company’s attorney provided. At the heart of the complaint is an intelligent data-routing system that can choose the best data path and transmission method in real time, based on multiple factors, including bandwidth, availability, security and the user’s priority, according to the complaint. Kaplan applied for patents on the technology in 1996, says Daniel Perez, an attorney at Winstead Sechrest & Minick P.C. in Dallas. Cisco couldn’t comment on the suit because it has not yet seen the complaint, according to company spokeswoman Penny Bruce.
Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications last week said they have reached an agreement to resolve all their legal disputes. The companies are dismissing their pending lawsuits against each other and are releasing each other from all other existing claims. Nextel also agreed to forego any trademark and other ownership rights to the phrases “Push To Talk,” “PTT,” and all related “PUSH” names. Both parties retain the rights to use those terms in connection with their services marketing. Nextel sued Verizon in September 2003, alleging deceptive marketing of its PTT service. Nextel took issue with Verizon’s claims that its PTT service was “available on the best, most reliable network.” Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Space station astronaut Leroy Chiao last week became the first American to vote for president from outer space. Chiao cast an encrypted ballot via e-mail from the international space station 225 miles above earth. The e-mail traveled down via satellite link to Mission Control in Houston and then to the Galveston County clerk’s office in Texas, where Chiao resides. Chiao declined to name the candidate for whom he had voted.
