Rivals unite to oppose Internet voting

Organisations for US citizens living abroad have united against the Pentagon`s planned Internet voting system for the presidential election.

The Washington Post reports organisations from the rival Republican and Democratic parties have issued a joint letter urging a halt to the program. The letter says concerns about the security of the online ballots could place the entire election in doubt.

The Pentagon`s Federal Voting Assistance Programme is sponsoring the $22 million Internet voting experiment. Fifty counties in seven states have signed up, and about 100 000 ballots are expected to be cast by military and civilian overseas residents.

The experiment suffered a setback a week ago when four computer security specialists released a report saying that the Internet and personal computers running Microsoft Windows are so inherently insecure that online voting would be subject to hacking.

The Pentagon says it will continue reviewing security concerns, but intends going ahead with the plan.

Microsoft says it is fixing a flaw in its Internet Explorer (IE) browser that makes it easy to mask the real address of a Web page displayed on the browser.

Computerworld reports Microsoft will soon release a software update for IE that will remove a feature that is being exploited in scams that use spoof Web sites to harvest personal information from unsuspecting Internet users.

Microsoft says the advance notification is aimed at giving users and Web designers the chance to review and update Web sites.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has identified more than one million IP addresses that provide open proxies which spammers can use to hide their identities, and is alerting server owners that they might be inadvertently helping spam.

PC World says the FTC and 36 other government agencies from 26 countries have launched Operation Secure Your Server. The effort calls for the agencies to send e-mail to owners of tens of thousands of servers, asking them to check their server configurations for possible open relays or proxies.

The report says an open proxy or relay is one way a spammer can co-opt another server address when sending unsolicited e-mail. Identifying and taking advantage of open relays is also a favourite tactic of some viruses and worms.

Computer Associates subsidiary, ACCPAC, this month celebrates its 25th anniversary and marks its progress from a single general ledger accounting program to its current set of business management software.

David Hood, ACCPAC president and CEO since 1999, says today accounting software has a different role to the one it had in the early days of small and medium-sized business automation.

"Accounting is no longer a standalone entity. It`s the heart and pulse of the business through which other business applications, such as customer relationship management, human resources, manufacturing and warehousing must integrate to provide even greater business benefits."