Larry Ellison’s Team Oracle has won the 2013 America’s Cup, with the sailing competition coming down to a final deciding race after Oracle and Emirates Team New Zealand ended up neck and neck. The deciding race, the nineteenth in the America’s Cup series this year, saw Oracle Team USA pip its New Zealand rivals to […]
Oracle has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against two IT service providers, Maintech and Terix. According to the lawsuit, the two companies have provided illegal support for Oracle’s Solaris OS software, having encouraged customers to cancel their Oracle support subscriptions.
The filing from Oracle states that both of the service providers led customers to believe that they’re authorized to provide support for Oracle’s software, which includes software updates. Furthermore, says Oracle, the two companies acquire the software updates in an “unathorized” manner that includes the use of login information that has expired.
Not surprisingly, both Maintech and Terix have denounced such claims. Said Terix’s CEO Bernd Appleby: “Oracles [sic] complaint is without any basis in either law or fact. Terix fully respects and diligently strives to protect the intellectual property of any third party. Terix acts only as an authorized agent of the end-users, pursuant to their rights, to facilitate support services.”
Terix goes on to state that all the users named in the filing had valid Oracle rights and licenses, among others, with their login info only being used for their own issues. For its part, Oracle is seeking an injunction – both preliminary and permanent – against both companies, as well as payment in the form of damages, restitution, and return of any and all intellectual property.
This isn’t the first time companies have been accused of providing unauthorized support for Solaris software, and is a further push on Oracle’s part to stomp on third-party vendors that pose a threat to its support revenue stream. Such third-party vendors, however, feel that there is nothing wrong with their services, and contend that they work within the rights of the customers.
SOURCE: Network World
Oracle files lawsuit against companies offering illegal tech support is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This week Larry Page stepped on stage at Google I/O 2013 during the one keynote of the multi-day event, speaking about how the company must continue to create and advance without getting distracted the negative elements that appear in competition. He made mention of the film The Internship as a good program to get the world out of the mindset that computer science is an odd, untouchable environment: “computer science has a marketing problem.”
He spoke on how technology should be used, specifically on how technology should be getting out of the way. Page’s mention of how “we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible and what’s next” lead into his assurance that having to turn off multiple smartphones before he stepped onstage was absurd: it should be simpler than that.
“Technology should do the hard work, so you can get on and live your life. We’re only at one percent of what’s possible, and we’re moving slow relative to the opportunity we have.” – Larry Page
Reminding the audience that “software should run everywhere, and easily,” Page made it clear that he’s not a fan of the “trouble” they’ve had with Microsoft in the past – this referring to patent issues and licensing matters of all kinds.
“Every story I read about Google is about us vs some other company, or something else, and I really don’t find that interesting. We should be building great things that don’t exist. Being negative is not how we make progress.” – Larry Page
This chat showed more than what was spoken about by Page. It was a show of power, or a show of what might be seen as courage in Page’s willingness to stand in front of the developer and press and take questions. Questions, in this case, not in any way pre-screened or filtered.
Page mentioned not just Microsoft, but Oracle – how it wasn’t pleasant to be in court with them. He made it clear that “the right solution to education is not randomness” with regard to Google Search making informed decisions on what people should see in search results. Page’s session was an attempt to show Google as a friendly, real, human group here in 2013.
Larry Page talks simplicity in future technology at Google I/O 2013 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Steve Jobs believed that innovation was fostered by hiring the right people and not by how many R&D dollars the company had. He made comparisons between Apple and IBM, when the original Mac came out IBM was spending a lot more on R&D, but the Mac held its ground firmly because it was a good product. Apple is certainly living by that motto, hiring the right people, but the right people don’t work for free. In fact Apple employs four of the top five best paid executives in the entire country.
Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Willams and Peter Oppenheimer are the four top earners at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, this list has been made on the fiscal 2012 compensation figures for about 80% of S&P 500 companies. The compensation that Apple doles out for these four executives is largely in stock, thus surging their net worth on paper. Bob Mansfield is at the top of this list, he’s Senior Vice President of Technologies, and had a base salary of US$805,400 in 2012 while being awarded US$85.5 million in stock options. The only other American executive that earned more than these four Apple employees is Larry Ellison, of Oracle fame, who was also a close friend of Steve Jobs. He pulled in US$96.2 million in 2012.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sharp Fall Off Expected In Spring iPhone Sales, AppGratis Starts Petition Hoping To Revert App Removal, 
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Google has spent the past couple years facing down antitrust accusations in Europe for pushing its web services over those of competitors. But, just as that case is coming to a close, the New York Times now reports that new anti-competitive allegations have been levied against Android. This new complaint was filed by a group called Fairsearch — whose members include old EU foes Microsoft and Nokia, plus Oracle and a host of travel booking websites — and claims that Google’s using Android as a way to deceive consumers into using Google apps instead of competitors’ software. The problem, as Fairsearch sees it, is that Google forces OEMs who use Android to unfairly place apps like YouTube and Gmail in prominent places on the desktop. Of course, this new complaint is just the beginning, so we’ll have to wait and see what the European Commission’s investigation into the matter uncovers, and how the folks in Mountain View respond.
Filed under: Microsoft, Nokia, Google
Source: New York Times
Another day, another Java security alert. In this case, Oracle has released Security Alert CVE-2013-1493, which highlights two vulnerabilities that are particular to Java in browsers. The patch for these issues was originally slated for release in April as part of Oracle’s Critical Patch Update for Java SE. Because the vulnerabilities are being exploited in the wild, however, the company has elected to push out the updates now.
According to Oracle, the two vulnerabilities do not pertain to Java on servers, standalone desktops applications, or embedded Java apps. One of the two issues is being actively exploited in the wild, however, used to install McRat on the victim’s computer. McRat is a trojan that downloads and executes other files.
Oracle urges users to download the update asap, which can be done most easily via auto-update, or by heading over to Java.com and grabbing it manually. In addition, the company reminds users that it recently changed Java’s security level to “High” to help fight against malicious activity. As such, users will need to give an applet permission to run, and need to use judgement when doing so.
In addition, Apple has rolled out an update for OS X 2013-002 that improves security, among other things. The update works by uninstalling the Java applet plug-in Apple provided across all browsers. When the user needs the applets, they’ll need to click “Missing plug-in,” which will take them to the latest Java applet plug-in version to download and install.
[via Oracle]
Oracle rolls out patch for Java vulnerabilities, Apple responds with update is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Java zero-day exploit has been making the rounds lately, hitting both Facebook and Apple just recently. However, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. A newly discovered zero-day vulnerability in the most recent versions of Java 6 and Java 7 has been discovered, and it allows attackers to install malicious software on vulnerable PCs, specifically a new “McRat” trojan.
Security firm FireEye has detected the vulnerability, and they have “observed successful exploitation” against browsers that are running Java 1.6 update 41 and Java 1.7 update 15. These are the two most recently released versions of Java 6 and Java 7. The vulnerability allows the install of a remote-access trojan called McRat.
However, the attack is only triggered when people with an infected version of the Java browser plugin visit a website that has been infested with the malicious code. Plus, FireEye says that the exploit “is not very reliable,” since it just simply tries to overwrite a large chunk of memory. In other words, hackers can succeed in downloading malicious code onto victims’ computers, but most of the time it fails to actually execute.
FireEye suggest disabling Java until a patch has been applied, or if you don’t use Java, you can simply uninstall the plugin altogether. Last month, Apple employees were targeted by a Java zero-day exploit, and while a handful of company computers were breached into, the company says no personal data was stolen. The same goes for Facebook, which experienced the exploit a few days before.
[via Information Week]
Java zero-day exploit strikes again is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Apple has pushed out a new Java update to address the malware loophole that saw hackers attempt to extract data from the company, stripping out the Apple-provided browser plugin in the process. The update, which follows Apple’s confirmation that a “small number” of its systems had been compromised by an unknown hacking group, basically removes the Java applet plugin from all browsers on an OS X 10.7+ machine.
If the user subsequently wants to access Java applets, they’ll see a “Missing plug-in” warning in the page; clicking that will go to Oracle, to download the newest official version. In the process, the update also removes the Java Preferences application, which Apple says is no longer required.
The malware response follows the identification of several loopholes in Java, one of which allows the hackers to compromise some of Apple’s own systems. “Multiple vulnerabilities existed in Java 1.6.0_37,” the company writes in its security alert, “the most serious of which may allow an untrusted Java applet to execute arbitrary code outside the Java sandbox.”
A Java flaw is believed to have been at the root of Facebook’s hack incident earlier this month, with the social network’s own systems targeted. Oracle itself documented the problem back at the start of February, reacting to security warnings which saw several firms recommend all Java implementations be shut down as a precaution.
Apple maintains that “there was no evidence that any data left” the company, and has pushed out the new update as both a standalone patch and via the Software Update tool in OS X.
Update Java warns Apple after Mac hack is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Oracle has rolled out its February 2013 Critical Patch Update for Java SE, which addresses dozens of security vulnerabilities. The patch was originally slated for release on February 19, but because of an active exploitation problem that was targeting Java in browsers, the company elected to roll it out early.
The patch update fixes 50 security issues, 44 of which concerned Java in browsers and applets. One of the other fixes concerns the installation of Java Runtime Environment; beyond that, the company says there are additional “in-depth fixes.” Three of the fixes involve both server and client Java deployment, while two of the fixes are for the deployment of JSSE (Java Secure Socket Extension).
Java is notorious for the security risks it poses, which Oracle says is due to its popularity, which makes it a target. Twitter recommended that users disable Java earlier today when it announced that it had been attacked, and Mozilla recently announced that it will be disabling all plugins – including Java – by default to help keep users safe.
The February 2013 Critical Patch Update includes fixes already available through Security Alert CVE-2013-0422. Users can download the update from the Oracle website, or by clicking here. According to Oracle, this update primarily only concerns Java FX and Java client deployments, which is the case with most updates it releases.
[via Oracle]
Oracle releases Java SE’s February 2013 Critical Patch Update is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Remember that big zero-day Java vulnerability the Department of Homeland Security was all worried about? Well, Oracle fixed it. Oh wait, no. That latest Java fix still has a big ol’ hole. It’s time to abandon ship, folks. More »
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