Porn spam on the rise

Phillip Zimmerman, author of encryption program Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), says current owner Network Associates should open source the code as an alternative to it "dying on the vine". Zimmerman says that in its current maintenance-only status, PGP is "locked in an intellectual prison" and no one can get to it. Zimmerman says that ideally he would like to buy back PGP from Network Associates but he doesn`t have the money. Zimmerman sold PGP to Network Associates in 1997, but the company has given up trying to make it profitable and has put it up for sale. [More]

A survey conducted by Brightmail, an anti-spam firm, reveals that sex spam has increased by 100% and now accounts for 8% of all unsolicited e-mail. According to the survey, e-mails about products and services represent 27% of all spam. Internet or computer-related messages represent 13% of all spam, while Nigerian appeals for assistance occupy 6% and leisure activities such as winning prizes, gambling and discounted travel make up 3% of messages received. A complementary study from e-mail solutions firm Quris notes that 74% of respondents claim that spam causes a noticeable increase in their personal e-mail, and two-thirds felt they received too much mail.

Regarded as a sign of sweeping changes to come, HP has closed down a Compaq assembly plant in New Jersey. An HP spokesman noted that it "didn`t have the sufficient scale to achieve the level of cost-effectiveness" that the merged company has targeted. The 300 employees affected will be offered positions at HP, or 12 weeks severance pay.

Linux distributor Mandrake has come out blazing against the UnitedLinux initiative, saying the claim that the Linux community is fragmented is rubbish and that the Linux OS is not going to suffer the fragmentation fate of Unix in the 1980s. In a strongly-worded release, the company said yesterday that the idea that there should only be one version of Linux is a "very narrow view". Equating the Linux industry to the motor manufacturing industry, the Mandrake release said there is always enough place for as many distributions as developers see fit. "Plus, there are always lots of people who feel the need to `tune` their cars themselves," the company said. [Full release]

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