Net Know-It-All

1. Which U.S. president created the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), an advisory group of up to 30 leading technology industry chief executives?

2. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed by Congress last year in an effort to help clean up corporate financial reporting has gotten the attention of public companies, including their IT departments, which have been charged with helping companies comply. Which state does Senator Paul Sarbanes represent? 

3. Which one of these is the name of a new mass-mailing worm that affects Windows machines, can be used to capture end-user keystrokes and give hackers a back door to data? 

4. Which company has agreed to buy MPLS edge switch maker Vivace for $135 million? 

5. Microsoft’s MSN UK recently made headlines for its plans to build an Internet-enabled product of what kind? (Note: At press time, debate raged over whether Microsoft is really doing this or if the company was playing a hoax.)

6. Which company has acquired other firms called Illuminet Holdings, H.O. Systems and Signio? 

7. Which company was launched by Sergey Brin and Larry Page? 

8. Former tech industry investment banker Frank Quattrone was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on charges of obstructing justice and trying to destroy evidence involving his company’s methods for distributing stock from hot IPOs. Which company was he with at the time? 

9. Phillip Anschutz recently agreed to give up $4.4 million in profits from improperly received IPO shares. Which company was he chairman of at the time of the events? 

10. A man was arrested in New York last week on charges that he stole others’ identities and used them to send hundreds of millions of forged spam messages. Police believe he is the notorious e-mail marketer known by which one of these names?