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Verizon Wireless, which was also being sued in California, has already settled its case, agreeing to pay $21 million to settle all claims against the company. And after the decision against Sprint, there's a chance that cases against T-Mobile and AT&T could also be settled.

Wireless operators impose the fees, which can be as high as $200 per line, on customers who cancel service before their contracts have expired.  Phone companies say they must impose these fees to recover the cost of subsidizing handsets and for guaranteeing low monthly service charges. But consumer advocates don't buy that argument, and they say the fees are excessive and restrict customers' ability to switch services.

Wireless operators say they are adapting their practices to customers' concerns, and they have begun adjusting their fees to prorate them so that customers who terminate later in their contract pay less. Verizon Wireless was the first to offer pro-rated early termination fees. And now AT&T and T-Mobile offer prorated rates. Sprint Nextel said it will offer prorated fees later this year.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has refused to show up for a hearing on possible constitutional violations of a government program that allows customs officials to search, seize and/or copy the contents of laptops and smart phones.  Under the current program customs officials can do this even if they have no reasonable suspicion of any criminal activity.

There is a lot of talk about the viability of the CIO role, but sometimes, a CIO can make all the difference. And, as it turns out, this is particularly true with SOA implementations. A new CIO coming on board during a business and IT reorganization often made the difference between SOA failure and SOA success

A Cigna Architecture Director said the company's SOA started four years ago with a "technical focus mostly based on integration," but within two years, the SOA implementation had faltered. One big problem: It was seen as "an IT thing." It took a new CIO to move SOA from "an IT thing" to a "business-enabling thing."

It is impossible to deny how important disaster recovery and business continuity are in today's digital economy. Without systems in place to keep applications and data flowing after a natural disaster or other interruption, an enterprise risks losses that extend far beyond a manufacturing plant or data center. It is possible to incur ongoing financial problems, damage to a firm's reputation, and possible regulatory and legal sanctions. In a worst - case scenario, a company can find its existence threatened.

To be sure, an online retailer cannot conduct business if its e-commerce application, database and customer records are unavailable. A bank that cannot dispense money from ATMs and a hospital that cannot access electronic patient records is at risk - but so too are its customers. Not only can the resulting damage to a company's reputation lead to lost revenues, it can endanger pubic health or welfare. And these days, no industry or company is immune.

(Computerworld)  Google Inc. has found itself immersed in a blogger brouhaha after its Blogger subsidiary shut down the postings of several political bloggers opposing the election of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.

At least seven bloggers who use the Google self-publishing blog service noted that their sites were shut down last week. The blogs were reinstated by Monday, and some of the bloggers posted an e-mail apology from Google.

A blogger who blogs about her support for Sen. Hillary Clinton for president at a site called Blue Lyon, posted the e-mail apology sent to her by Google. In the note, Google said that the Blogger spam filters caused some accounts "to mistakenly be blocked from creating new posts."

Google went on to note that the company believes that the mistake may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the Just Say No Deal network of anti-Obama blogs, which caused Blogger's system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam.

A hardware vendor performed a survey of nearly 145,000 desktop and laptop PCs within businesses to determine how they compared to MicrosoftÂ’s recommended hardware requirements for Windows Vista:

Recommended Minimum Requirements (Premium-Ready PCs):

• 1 GB RAM
• 1 GHz microprocessor
• 40 GB hard drive
• 15 GB free hard drive space

The survey concluded that:

• 69.5% of machines do not have the required RAM
• 62.4% of machines do not have the required hard drive
• 18.4% of machines do not have the required free hard drive space
• 6.7% of machines do not have the required processor speed
• 79.9% of machines do not meet at least one of the above listed requirements
• 93.8% of companies have at least one machine that does not meet the above requirements

(Computerworld) Some offshore outsourcers that want more IT work from companies in the U.S. are expanding their operations here, with the latest example being Brazilian vendor Politec SA.

Brasilia-based Politec, which has about 7,000 employees and $300 million in annual revenue, currently provides outsourcing services primarily to companies in Latin America. The vendor has just 50 employees in the U.S. now. But by 2010, it intends to have as many as 800 people working in development centers in Atlanta, New York and the Miami area, said Dalton Luz, Politec's vice president of corporate affairs.

In April, Politec received an $80 million investment commitment from Mitsubishi Corp., and Luz said the financial infusion is increasing its ability to expand internationally. He added that most of the people who staff the planned U.S. offices will be hired locally.

Brazil's total outsourcing market is about $8 billion annually, according to the Everest Group, a Dallas-based outsourcing consulting firm. But the offshore component - meaning services delivered to companies based outside of Brazil - amounts to only about $700 million, Everest said. By comparison, the company added, India's offshore market reached about $40 billion last year. Everest is forecasting that the offshore business in Brazil will increase to $1.25 billion within two years.

Execurives are getting targeted by "whale phishing" attacks — malicious e-mails and Web sites designed to coerce them into giving up valuable personal and business data. How are you going to protect your top managers? And while you are  thinking scary thoughts, have you taken adequate steps to protect all your employees from the aggressive and adaptive Storm worm, which exploits e-mail and Web 2.0 vulnerabilities to propagate spam-churning malware across business networks? And do you have measures in place to prevent staff from accidentally "leaking" sensitive customer data in e-mails, a crucial element of compliance with PCI, HIPAA, and global privacy regulations? What need to know information about whale phishing, the Storm worm, and e-mail leakage, plus details on a cutting-edge solution that can protect your staff, executives and data from all three are you missing? more info

(Computerworld) Chengdu, near the epicenter of the massive earthquake, is as wired into the global economy as any U.S. city. As soon as the massive earthquake struck, news from the capital city of the Sichuan province in China traveled via Twitter and blogs and into corporate e-mail accounts.

Chengdu may not be as widely known as the other major Chinese cities, but its IT services operations are on the radar of many U.S. firms. The 7.9 magnitude earthquake near Chengdu, similar in magnitude to the earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1906  affected a fast growing software development center.

The worldwide shift from stationary desktop computers to highly-portable laptop and tablet PC computers offers organizations increased productivity, flexible work schedules and greater work/life balance. Driven by the need for increased productivity and the ability to present up-to-date information at a momentÂ’s notice, secure mobile computing can be an organizationÂ’s greatest strength. However, research indicates that lost or stolen laptop computers cause nearly 50% of public data breaches.  With recently expanded state data breach legislation, even a single lost or stolen computer can expose organizations to the negative publicity and increased costs associated with public data breaches.

To protect themselves, many organizations have developed sophisticated IT asset use policies while others have combined policy with encryption technology in hopes of better securing computers and the sensitive information they contain. While these are necessary steps, organizations still struggle to compensate for the human factor.

According to a recent survey of 1,400 enterprises, more than 60% of data breaches are the work of those operating within the firewall – insiders such as employees, contractors and others with ready access to sensitive information. Accidently or by design, employees will always be the weakest link in computer security strategies that rely on their diligence to provide consistent protection.

Rather than imposing strangling IT asset policies aimed at forcing end users to comply, endpoint security strategies use centrally-managed technology to ensure that mobile devices such as laptops secure themselves. Using readily-available computer theft recovery, remote data delete and Internet-based IT asset management, organizations can free end-users from computer security responsibilities while ensuring maximum protection for computers and the information stored on them.

(C/Net News) A technical glitch in an upcoming BlackBerry release will prevent an iPhone-Blackberry showdown in June, according to Fortune. AT&T will delay the launch of the BlackBerry 8900 from June to August after concerns about call quality, the magazine reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources. The 8900 will be Research in Motion's first 3G BlackBerry for AT&T, and it had been expected to make its debut right around the same time as Apple is expected to launch a 3G version of the iPhone. UPDATED 6:10pm PT - The device would be the first 3G BlackBerry for AT&T's network, in response to the BlackBerry 8830 Global Edition which was launched last year and runs on Verizon's 3G EV-DO network.

The process of developing a disater recovery & buisness conintuity plan requires that you:

• Provide management with a comprehensive understanding of the total effort required to develop and maintain an effective recovery plan;
• Obtain commitment from appropriate management to support and participate in the effort;
• Define recovery requirements from the perspective of business functions;
• Document the impact of an extended loss to operations and key business functions;
• Focus appropriately on disaster prevention and impact minimization, as well as orderly recovery;
• Select project teams that ensure the proper balance required for plan development;
• Develope a contingency plan that is understandable, easy to use and easy to maintain; and
• Define how contingency planning considerations must be integrated into ongoing business planning and system development processes in order for the plan to remain viable over time.

According to reports published in Australia Chinese hackers are scheduled to attack media sites in the West that are publishing pro Tibet stories.  Web sites that are targeted include, CNN FOX News and the BBC.

So far it is nothing more than Anonymous has done in its efforts to protest against Scientology, but nationalistic Chinese hackers have issued a call for a distributed denial of service attack against CNN to coincide with the street protests.

While there is no apparent link between Anti-CNN and the hackers calling for the denial-of-service attack, the team at The Dark Visitor, who have been tracking Chinese hacking activity for some time, believe that it may be members of the Red Hacker Alliance that are pushing for the online attack to accompany the physical demonstrations.

(Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. has dropped two strong hints in the past two days that the next version of its Windows operating system will arrive in 2009, shaving up to a year off previous expectations.

It could also be a signal that Microsoft intends to cut its losses with Windows Vista, which has been poorly received or shunned by customers, especially large companies.

Microsoft has long said it wants to release Windows 7 about three years after Vista, which was released to manufacturing in November 2006 but not officially launched until January 2007. Given Microsoft's recent track record - Vista arrived more than five years after XP -- most outsiders had pegged sometime in 2010 as a safe bet for Windows 7's arrival.

There is no question that today massive databases provide immeasurable benefits for organizations. They make it easier to manage accounts, they provide the tools to engage in highly targeted marketing campaigns, and they provide insights into customer value and profitability.

But there is a dark side to maintaining vast electronic records: the vandalism or theft of data can wreak havoc on an organizationÂ’s reputation; it can torpedo revenues and lead to severe sanctions and fines.

Protecting data is an extremely serious matter. Information security has become a high risk area. These days, a glance at the headlines offers chilling evidence that data theft is a growing problem.
more info

(Computerworld) Members of the ISO standards body have voted to approve the Microsoft Corp Office Open XML document format as an international standard, according to unofficial tallies being circulated on the Internet.

ISO does not plan to announce the results of a second round of balloting on the Open XML standards proposal until later. But the organization sent the results to national standards bodies yesterday. And Microsoft claimed victory today, issuing a press release saying that Open XML appears have won approval as a standard in the voting, which ended on Saturday.

IDC came out with a new report estimating that data requirements are increasing by about 60 percent a year, averaging about 45 gigs per person now for a total "data universe" of about 281 exabytes. And in three short years, that universe will exceed 1.8 zettabytes (that's 1.8 x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes).

While numbers like those tend to send cold shivers up the spines of storage professionals, there are a couple of things to keep in mind: 1) The remedy isn't necessarily more storage hardware, but more efficient means of managing data; and 2) the study was backed by EMC, which just introduced new data management tools for the Centera operating system. A parsing of the numbers reveals that only 35 percent of today's data is generated by the enterprise, with only 5 percent directly attributable to the server farm. The vast majority of it comes from individuals, largely in the form of increased video and image traffic.

Internet & IT Job Descriptions HandiGuide 2008 has just been released Over 210 Job Descriptions in a new easy to read and modify format.  Available in PDF, WORD 2003, and WORD 2007 formats.  Styles sheets used to maximize the ease of use.  The CIO, CTO, CSO job descriptions have been updated to comply fully with Sarbanes-Oxley and the new ISO Security Standards.  New job descriptions include Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and Director of Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance.
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