Microsoft finds defender in US Justice Department
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WASHINGTON -- Nearly a decade after the Clinton administration began a landmark effort to break up Microsoft , the Bush administration has adopted a different course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent rejection of a complaint by Google.
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Months after launching a federal investigation, authorities yesterday arrested a Connecticut man for selling the source code for Microsoft&#39;s Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 operating systems over the Internet.
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The top antitrust official at the U.S. Justice Department last month backed Microsoft Corp. by urging state prosecutors to reject a confidential complaint filed by Google Inc., The New York Times reported on Sunday.
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A 27-year-old Connecticut man was arrested today on charges he offered online to sell the source code for Microsoft's Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 programs.
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(InfoWorld) - A California attorney claims he has unraveled part of the mystery behind a questionable software program and is prepared to go to court. Attorney Joseph M. Bochner filed a class-action civil suit last September in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County against two men the suit alleges are behind Winfixer, a purported security software. The lawsuit names Marc J. Cohen of Florida, and was amended last week to add James Reno of Ohio as an additional defendant, Bochner said. It seeks compensation and a halt to the distribution of Winfixer, among other remedies. The suit was filed on behalf of Beatrice Ochoa, a mother of two who paid US$39.95 for Winfixer after it badgered her with repeated pop-up warnings that her computer had security threats. The program eventually rendered her computer's hard drive unusable, Bochner said. The suit counts another 100 anonymous victims. "All of these people are being defrauded and they're just ordinary folks," Bochner said. "They buy a computer, they surf the Internet, they're not doing anything unreasonable and suddenly they're defrauded." Indecision over whether Winfixer is a legitimate product may be the reason it still pervades the Internet. Winfixer has been a moving target for security experts, at times going by the names ErrorSafe, WinAntiSpyware, WinAntiVirus, SystemDoctor and DriveCleaner. Security software from vendors such as Sophos PLC and Symantec Corp. will detect it, but give users the option of whether they want to remove it. Sophos calls it "adware" that hypes security threats and then implores users to buy the software. Microsoft Corp., however, pulled no punches last month whenÂ Winfixer ads began show up on its instant-messaging program, calling it "malware," a shorter term for "malicious software." Experts have also seen it install itself on computers via security vulnerabilities in browsers or OSes. However, the lawsuit could face hurdles in court. Web sites are frequently registered under false names or under stolen identifies and the real owners can be difficult to trace, said Sandi Hardmeier, a computer security authority who writes about Winfixer on her blog "Spyware Sucks." Proving the link to the alleged perpetrators, their connections to Winfixer all the way through to the effects on Ochoa's computer will be very difficult, she said. "Forensics is everything," she said. Bochner acknowledges it's hard work to track down fraudsters who use the Internet's anonymity to commit crimes, but the criminals are real people who can be located. Bochner said he has compelling documentation to link the defendants named in the suit to Winfixer. By researching IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that hosted the versions of Winfixer and their owners, Bochner alleges he has uncovered a fraud based in the U.S. that has escaped law enforcement scrutiny. Reno ran a Web hosting company called ByteHosting Internet Service LLC with a postal address in Amelia, Ohio. Bochner said at one time, a support number for Winfixer support also rang through to ByteHosting, which led in part to Reno being added to the suit. Reno, along with other co-defendants and ByteHosting, was sued by Symantec Corp. in 2004 for allegedly creating pop-up ads that told consumers their Symantec software was about to expire. The ads then directed users to fake software that looked similar to Symantec products. Court records show Reno and Symantec reached a confidential settlement in December 2004. Cohen was named for his connections with vipfares.com, a now-defunct travel Web site, Bochner said. At one time, the Winfixer software would hijack the user's browser and suddenly show vipfares.com, he said. Efforts to reach Cohen and Reno for comment were unsuccessful on Wednesday and Thursday. However, Cohen's attorney, Judy Silverstein, appeared on a San Francisco TV news program on Feb. 26 regarding Winfixer and her client. Silverstein said, "His [Cohen's] position is he's done nothing wrong. He's done nothing improper or illegal, and he's had no ownership interested in those Web sites." Bochner said he has turned over some of his research to law enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service along with California authorities. While researching IP addresses that linked to Winfixer, Bochner said he suddenly came upon a database detailing sales of Winfixer and the other versions of the programs. The multi-gigabyte database -- apparently left unsecured and open to the Internet -- contained names, addresses, credit-card numbers, transaction amounts and the version of Winfixer that was sold, he said. For example, on Jan. 20, 2006, the data showed 2,351 sales to users worldwide, with an average transaction amount of $40, Bochner said. The database covers transactions made from January 2005 through January 2006. One of the records shows a transaction made by someone who lives across the street from his law office, Bochner said. The data, while incomplete, allows a view of the fraud ring's broad reach and scope, he said. "I think this is far larger than anyone has ever expected," Bochner said. "It's not inconceivable that these people have made $150 million or more over the last few years." Â
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will make changes to its desktop search program following aÂ complaint to the U.S. Department of JusticeÂ (DOJ) by Google. Google suggested in a white paper submitted to the DOJ earlier this year that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to utilize non-Microsoft desktop-search software. Microsoft has reached an agreement with the DOJ to make it easier for end users to employ desktop search programs made by rival software developers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Microsoft will also provide more documentation and information to developers about how to make those search programs run smoothly, it said. The changes will be included in Microsoft's firstÂ Vista update, called Service Pack 1, slated to be released later this year, the report said. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Microsoft had agreed to make the "significant changes" in Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case. Brown's office intervened in the wake of reports that Microsoft's new operating system included a desktop search function called "Instant Search" that violated terms of its agreement to open its products to more competition. Google, which offers the most popular search engine on the Internet, said "Instant Search" is a "Microsoft middleware product," which is subject to the federal agreement in the antitrust case. The State of California contended that Vistaâs desktop search feature is a functionality that did not exist in prior Windows operating systems and is therefore covered under the agreement. Brown said Microsoft will provide users and computer manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, with greater flexibility to choose and access competing desktop search products. The agreement was included in a joint status report that was filed Wednesday with federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., who presided over the 2002 agreement in the case. "This agreement -- while not perfect -- is a positive step towards greater competition in the software industry," said Brown. "It will enhance the ability of consumers to select the desktop search tool of their choice." "Microsoft believes that Google's complaint is without merit," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in the status report. "Nevertheless, Microsoft worked with the Plaintiffs in a spirit of cooperation to resolve any issues the complaint may raise." Google said the search changes are welcome but more needs to be done. "Microsoft's current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer. "These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers." Microsoft was found to be operating an illegal monopoly in software by another U.S. District Judge in Washington. Microsoft entered into a settlement agreement with the federal government and attorneys general for several U.S. states to abide by certain rules to allow more competition. Microsoft had originally denied that its own desktop search interfered with non-Microsoft indexing software, noting that its search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty. The Redmond company also seemed to have the DOJ, its former antitrust foe, on its side: Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official,Â recommended that the DOJ and state attorneys general rejectÂ Google's complaint, according to a New York Times report earlier this month. As part of the desktop search agreement, software vendors will be able to register their products as alternatives for the Vista search. The default search selected by the computer user or OEM will launch whenever Vista launches a search result window, and the default search will have space in Vista's start menu. Microsoft will also tell software vendors and OEMs that the desktop search index in Vista is designed to run in the background and "cede precedence over computing resources to any other software product, including third-party search products," the DOJ said in its portion of the status report. "Microsoft will emphasize that there is no technical reason why OEMs and end-users cannot, if they choose to, install additional desktop search products on their systems." The plaintiffs in the case, including 17 states that sued Microsoft for antitrust, are "collectively satisfied that this agreement will resolve any issues" in the Google complaint, the DOJ said. Elsewhere in the status report, the DOJ said a technical committee overseeing Microsoft's compliance has hired two consulting firms to check Microsoft's procedures for identifying communications protocols that it is required to disclose to independent software vendors who want to make their products interoperable with Microsoft's. In March, Microsoft and the plaintiffs reached an agreement to address concerns over the belated discovery of protocols that plaintiffs believed needed to be disclosed. The technical committee will extend a royalty-free program for software vendors to receive the protocols, the DOJ said. The royalty-free program will continue 18 months after the date the committee decides the protocol documentation is substantially complete, and the technical committee can extend the program if it believe Microsoft isn't making progress on the documentation, the DOJ said. But Microsoft is on schedule with a plan to fix technical documentation used by other software vendors, the DOJ said. Errors in the technical documentation have prompted repeated complaints from the antitrust plaintiffs in recent months, but the DOJ said Microsoft has been able "to keep up with the flow of new technical documentation issues." This story was updated on June 20, 2007
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A European Commission official due to take charge next month of theÂ antitrust case against MicrosoftÂ has been offered a job by a Brussels-based consultancy that lists the software vendor among its clients, the Commission and Microsoft said Thursday.
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The announcement was called a breakthrough in the US Justice Department&#39;s long investigation into price-fixing allegations in the semiconductor industry.
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Microsoft  is helping law  enforcers hunt down criminals who try to steal bank account  details on the Internet and has initiated 129 lawsuits in  Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. software company said.
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Microsoft filed the seven lawsuits in Washington State Superior Court in King County against unidentified &quot;John Doe&quot; defendants.
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Micron Technology Inc., the world&#39;s No. 2 maker of computer-memory chips, struck a deal with the US Justice Department to shield it from sanctions after a probe found some employees engaged in price fixing.
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By DIANA GRAETTINGER; OF THE NEWS STAFF  MACHIAS - A 4th District Court judge gave a court-appointed defense attorney permission to hire a local computer expert in a case involving a man who faces multiple charges of possession of sexually explicit material.
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New appointee had key role in company's pretexting scandal as an external counsel.
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A 27-year-old Seattle man is accused of a series of federal crimes including mail fraud and identity theft.
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An appeals court ruling shows that the Justice Department has at least one witness in its developing antitrust case.
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A 27-year-old Connecticut man facing felony economic espionage charges for allegedly selling a copy of Microsoft&#39;s leaked source code for $20 says he&#39;s being singled out only because the software giant and law enforcement officials can&#39;t find the people
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Eleven people from across the US were indicted on Wednesday over alleged software piracy offences following the largest seizure of counterfeit Microsoft software to date.