Spanish police say DDoS suspect used a van as a mobile office

The man suspected of participating in a large DDoS attack on an antispam organization that caused intermittent Internet hiccups drove around Spain in a van he used as a mobile office, Spain's Interior Ministry said Sunday.

The van was equipped with "various antennas" that were used to scan frequencies, the ministry said in a news release. On Thursday, Spanish police arrested a 35-year-old Dutch man in Barcelona suspected of conducting cyberattacks against Spamhaus, a nonprofit group that develops widely used lists of networks identified as sending spam.

Spanish police published a video of a sparse residence they raided. Images showed the room was strewn with wires and computer equipment, including routers, a Mac Mini computer, laptops, an antennae and a single cot with the book "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson on it. Also shown were several rubber stamps, two of which were emblazoned "NATO secret" and "NATO unclassified."

The man has been identified by an official close to the investigation as Sven Kamphuis, who has denied involvement. Dutch authorities only identified the suspect by the initials "S.K." for privacy reasons. Kamphuis has said he believes the attacks originated with members of Stophaus, a group aiming to shutdown Spamhaus for its antispam work.

The DDoS attack was estimated to peak at more than 300Gbps, making it one of the largest attacks on record, but computer security experts disagreed somewhat over its broader effect on the Internet. The attack caused problems for some European Internet exchanges nodes, or places where ISPs link to transfer traffic to one another.

The Interior Ministry, which did not name the suspect, said they seized two laptops and documents from the residence. At the time of his arrest, the man, from Alkmaar, Netherlands, claimed to be the minister of telecommunications and foreign affairs of the Republic of CyberBunker, Spanish police said.

CyberBunker.com is a hosting provider based in a former military facility in the Netherlands. It specializes in so-called "bulletproof" hosting, or one that resists law enforcement efforts to remove certain content from the Internet. It claims it has no involvement in spam and does not allow SMTP traffic, the protocol used to send email.

Kamphuis runs a network provider called CB3ROB, which provided services for CyberBunker. CB3ROB had been blacklisted by Spamhaus for activity related to spamming botnets and extortion scams.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Google to discontinue Meebo social toolbar in favor of Google+

Google plans to shut down in June the Meebo Bar for receiving and sharing personalized content from websites in favor of Google+ tools for interaction between websites and users.

The Internet giant acquired Meebo in June last year. Besides offering a toolbar that offered personalized content as well as displayed advertisements, with connections to Twitter and other social networks, Meebo, set up in 2005, also offered an instant messaging application.

In July last year, Google decided to shelve Google Talk Chatback which allowed websites to embed a widget to engage with their visitors. "It's now outdated, so we're turning off Chatback and encouraging websites to use the Meebo bar," Google said in a post announcing the discontinuation or merger of over 30 of its products.

It is now the turn of Meebo to be retired. It will be discontinued on June 6, as the team working on Meebo has decided to focus its resources on initiatives like the recently launched Google+ Sign-In, which includes interactive posts and over-the-air app installs from publisher websites, and Google+ plug-ins such as the +1 recommendation button, the Meebo team said on the Meebo website.

The Meebo Bar was launched "to bring community, engagement, and revenue to publisher sites," and this will continue to be the focus of the team, it added.

Website publishers have been informed that after June 6, the Meebo Bar will stop loading on their sites. The inactive Meebo code is recommended to be removed from the site as a general code housekeeping task. The creation of new Meebo Bars has been disabled. Meebo Bar Dashboard and analytics will be available until June 30, though websites will not be able to change toolbar configurations after June 6.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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McAfee spots Adobe Reader PDF-tracking flaw

McAfee said it has found a vulnerability in Adobe Systems' Reader program that reveals when and where a PDF document is opened.

The issue is not a serious problem and does not allow for remote code execution, wrote McAfee's Haifei Li in a blog post. But McAfee does consider it a security problem and has notified Adobe. It affects every version of Adobe Reader, including the latest version, 11.0.2, Li wrote.

McAfee recently detected some "unusual" PDF samples, Li wrote. McAfee withheld some key details of the vulnerability, but did generally describe it.

The issue occurs when someone launches a link to another file path, which calls on a JavaScript API (application programming interface). Reader warns a user when they are going to call on a resource from another place, such as a link on the Internet.

If the external resource does not exist, the warning dialog does not appear, but the API returns some TCP traffic, Li wrote. By manipulating a second parameter with a special value, the API's behavior changes to reveal information. That could include information such as the location of a document on a system "by calling the JavaScript 'this.path' value," Li wrote.

"Malicious senders could exploit this vulnerability to collect sensitive information such as IP address, Internet service provider or even the victim's computing routine," Li wrote. "In addition, our analysis suggests that more information could be collected by calling various PDF JavaScript APIs."

Li suggests the problem could be used for reconnaissance by attackers.

"Some people might leverage this issue just out of curiosity to know who has opened their PDF documents, but others won't stop there," Li wrote. "An APT [advanced persistent threat] attack usually consists of several sophisticated steps. The first step is often collecting information from the victim; this issue opens the door."

McAfee suggests that Adobe Reader users disable JavaScript until a patch is released. Adobe officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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CISPA legislation appears doomed in U.S. Senate

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LivingSocial gets hacked, 50 million users told to reset passwords

More than 50 million users of the daily deals site LivingSocial are being asked to reset their passwords after hackers attacked the company's servers and potentially made off with personal data.

The cyberattack "resulted in authorized access to some customer data on our servers," including names, email addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords, LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy said in an email to employees and in a separate email being sent to customers.

The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected, nor was the database that stores merchants' financial and banking information, the Washington, D.C.-based company said.

Although decoding users' passwords "would be difficult," the site says it is taking "every precaution" by expiring its users' passwords and asking them to create a new one. Emails are being sent this afternoon to the more than 50 million users whose data may have been compromised, a LivingSocial spokesman said.

LivingSocial says it has 70 million members worldwide. Customers in Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines aren't being contacted because the company uses different computer systems in those countries, it said.

The group behind the attack has not been identified. "We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue," LivingSocial said on its website.

The hack may have resulted in users' accounts on other sites being compromised. "We also encourage you, for your own personal data security, to consider changing password(s) on any other sites on which you use the same or similar password(s)," O'Shaughnessy said.

"We need to do the right thing for our customers who place their trust in us," O'Shaughnessy said in the employee email, adding, "We'll all need to work incredibly hard over the coming days and weeks to validate that faith and trust."

The hack follows a slew of attacks on Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft and other companies. LivingSocial said it is "redoubling" its efforts to prevent future breaches.

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Fedora 19 alpha offers a peek at what's coming

It's been about three months since the release of Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow," but this week afforded the first glimpse at the next version of the popular Linux distribution.

Arriving just a week behind schedule, the alpha version of Fedora 19, code-named "Schrödinger's Cat," comes packed with several new features as well as an assortment of updated packages.

It's not intended for production use, of course. Rather, the alpha software is available purely for testing purposes. Still, if you want to take it for a whirl to see what's coming in the final release due in July, it's now available as a free download. Here are some of the highlights of what you'll find.

1. Classic desktop options

Included among the desktop environments available in the Fedora 19 alpha are GNOME 3.8, KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.10, and MATE 1.6. One result is that those who prefer the classic GNOME 2-style experience will have multiple options, including both MATE and GNOME 3.8's "classic mode." Though there was speculation early this year that Cinnamon might be offered by default in Fedora 19, this alpha release offers no evidence that that will be the case.

2. Multiple niche flavors

In addition to the main Fedora 19 OS, there are also a number of what the project calls "spins" with hand-picked application sets or customizations tailored for specific interests. Examples include a Design Suite Spin, a Robotics Spin, and a Security Spin. Other available desktop environments include Xfce, Sugar on a Stick, and LXDE.

3. 3D printing support

Also evident in this alpha release is an effort to bring 3D printing tools to Fedora and make the OS a competitive choice for users of 3D printers such as RepRap without requiring that they download binary blobs or run Python code from Git. OpenSCAD, Skeinforge, SFACT, Printrun, and RepetierHost are among the new tools included for this purpose.

4. Developer tools

Last but not least, targeting developers and programming enthusiasts, Fedora 19 includes tools such as Developer's Assistant, OpenShift Origin, Node.js, Scratch, and Ruby 2.0.

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US lawmakers plan sweeping review of copyright

A key U.S. lawmaker has unveiled plans for a comprehensive review of the laws surrounding copyright in the United States to determine whether they are still relevant in the digital age.

Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday that his committee will begin its review in the coming months. When the review is finished, the committee could propose revisions to the current copyright law to help it better apply to an era where almost every citizen has become a publisher.

"There is little doubt that our copyright system faces new challenges today," he said, according to a transcript of remarks delivered at the Library of Congress. "The Internet has enabled copyright owners to make available their works to consumers around the world, but has also enabled others to do so without any compensation for copyright owners."

America's copyright laws have been occasionally updated to accommodate new technologies since the first Copyright Act was passed into law in 1790. But the quick pace of technological change has meant the current law, enacted in 1976, fails to directly address copyright and how it applies to technologies that are commonplace today.

"It is my belief that a wide review of our nation's copyright laws and related enforcement mechanisms is timely," said Goodlatte. "I am announcing today that the House Judiciary Committee will hold a comprehensive series of hearings on U.S. copyright law in the months ahead. The goal of these hearings will be to determine whether the laws are still working in the digital age."

The review has been welcomed by groups representing both content creators and consumers, something easy to do when it's still unclear in which direction the review will go.

"We welcome a public conversation about modernizing the copyright laws," said Cary Sherman, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in a statement. Sherman agreed the law needs to change to keep up with digital technology, but he called for any review to be balanced between the rights of content creators and consumers.

"We share the view that our laws must be modern, streamlined and ensure that all creators are paid a fair market rate for their work," he said. "They must work more efficiently -- not only for creators, but for users and service providers as well. At the same time, a right with no recourse is no right at all. Laws like the DMCA must work for creators too, to allow digital music services to flourish."

Public Knowledge, a group that examines copyright issues from the consumer standpoint, also welcomed the review.

"We welcome the Chairman's proposal to examine how best our copyright laws can, as the Constitution requires, promote the progress of science and the useful arts," Sherwin Siy, the group's vice president of Legal Affairs, said in a statement. "As such, we hope that Congress and the Copyright Office will work to balance the interests of artists with those of their audiences and the public in general, ensuring that the ultimate goal of the law is met in promoting innovation and creativity."

Goodlatte's announcement comes a month after Maria Pallante, the current U.S. registrar of copyrights, called for a review of the current copyright act.

Speaking at Columbia Law School on March 4, Pallante outlined a number of issues that she thinks should be examined. They include what constitutes an identical copy in the digital age, the balance between enforcement and free expression, and licensing. Later in March, she delivered the same message before the House Judiciary Committee.

"There's a whole bunch of things that Ballante has proposed, and they run the gamut," said Sina Khanifar, a digital rights activist and founder of FixtheDMCA.org. "I think she is very much looking for broad reforms across the base of copyright."

Khanifar works on issues related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enacted in 1998 and the last major revision of copyright law in the United States. Several controversial sections of the DMCA have made it something of a rallying cry for those campaigning for a new copyright regime.

The controversial parts of the law include Section 1201, which makes it a crime to circumvent technological measures protecting copyrighted material.

Khanifar and others say the language is over broad for a provision that was intended to make cracking digital rights management technology a crime. The section has been cited in arguments for keeping consumers from circumventing any kind of software lock, including recently in cases over the unlocking of cellphones.

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

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Wireless networks may learn to live together by using energy pulses

Researchers at the University of Michigan have invented a way for different wireless networks crammed into the same space to say "excuse me" to one another.

Wi-Fi shares a frequency band with the popular Bluetooth and ZigBee systems, and all are often found in the same places together. But it's hard to prevent interference among the three technologies because they can't signal each other to coordinate the use of the spectrum. In addition, different generations of Wi-Fi sometimes fail to exchange coordination signals because they use wider or narrower radio bands. Both problems can slow down networks and break connections.

Michigan computer science professor Kang Shin and graduate student Xinyu Zhang, now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, set out to tackle this problem in 2011. Last July, they invented GapSense, software that lets Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee all send special energy pulses that can be used as traffic-control messages. GapSense is ready to implement in devices and access points if a standards body or a critical mass of vendors gets behind it, Shin said.

Wi-Fi LANs are a data lifeline for phones, tablets and PCs in countless homes, offices and public places. Bluetooth is a slower but less power-hungry protocol typically used in place of cords to connect peripherals, and ZigBee is an even lower powered system found in devices for home automation, health care and other purposes.

Each of the three wireless protocols has a mechanism for devices to coordinate the use of airtime, but they all are different from one another, Shin said.

"They can't really speak the same language and understand each other at all," Shin said.

Each also uses CSMA (carrier sense multiple access), a mechanism that instructs radios to hold off on transmissions if the airwaves are being used, but that system doesn't always prevent interference, he said.

The main problem is Wi-Fi stepping on the toes of Bluetooth and ZigBee. Sometimes this happens just because it acts faster than other networks. For example, a Wi-Fi device using CSMA may not sense any danger of a collision with another transmission even though a nearby ZigBee device is about to start transmitting. That's because ZigBee takes 16 times as long as Wi-Fi to emerge from idle mode and get the packets moving, Shin said.

Changing ZigBee's performance to help it keep up with its Wi-Fi neighbors would defeat the purpose of ZigBee, which is to transmit and receive small amounts of data with very low power consumption and long battery life, Shin said.

Wi-Fi devices can even fail to communicate among themselves on dividing up resources. Successive generations of the Wi-Fi standard have allowed for larger chunks of spectrum in order to achieve higher speeds. As a result, if an 802.11b device using just 10MHz of bandwidth tries to tell the rest of a Wi-Fi network that it has packets to send, an 802.11n device that's using 40MHz may not get that signal, Shin said. The 802.11b device then becomes a "hidden terminal," Shin said. As a result, packets from the two devices may collide.

To get all these different devices to coordinate their use of spectrum, Shin and Zhang devised a totally new communication method. GapSense uses a series of energy pulses separated by gaps. The length of the gaps between pulses can be used to distinguish different types of messages, such as instructions to back off on transmissions until the coast is clear. The signals can be sent at the start of a communication or between packets.

GapSense might noticeably improve the experience of using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee. Network collisions can slow down networks and even cause broken connections or dropped calls. When Shin and Zhang tested wireless networks in a simulated office environment with moderate Wi-Fi traffic, they found a 45 percent rate of collisions between ZigBee and Wi-Fi. Using GapSense slashed that collision rate to 8 percent. Their tests of the "hidden terminal" problem showed a 40 percent collision rate, and GapSense reduced that nearly to zero, according to a press release.

One other possible use of GapSense is to let Wi-Fi devices stay alert with less power drain. The way Wi-Fi works now, idle receivers typically have to listen to an access point to be prepared for incoming traffic. With GapSense, the access point can send a series of repeated pulses and gaps that a receiver can recognize while running at a very low clock rate, Shin said. Without fully emerging from idle, the receiver can determine from the repeated messages that the access point is trying to send it data. This feature could reduce energy consumption of a Wi-Fi device by 44 percent, according to Shin.

Implementing GapSense would involve updating the firmware and device drivers of both devices and Wi-Fi access points. Most manufacturers would not do this for devices already in the field, so the technology will probably have to wait for hardware products to be refreshed, according to Shin.

A patent on the technology is pending. The ideal way to proliferate the technology would be through a formal standard, but even without that, it could become widely embraced if two or more major vendors license it, Shin said.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com

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Mt. Gox delays plan to support virtual currency litecoin

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has temporarily shelved plans to support a competing currency, litecoin, the company said Thursday.Mt. Gox, which is the largest bitcoin exchange, has been battling ongoing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that caused it to delay launching an exchange for litecoin, a lesser known virtual currency designed to improve on some of bitcoin's weaknesses.The Tokyo-based exchange said in a news release it was planning to support litecoin two weeks ago "but events derailed that plan. Right now we are focused on overall stability of the exchange and will launch LTC [litecoin] when we are ready. Otherwise we could be further complicating things."Bitcoin's price has seen dramatic swings since January, in part due to continued attacks that Mt. Gox believes are intended to manipulate its price. Attackers have conducted DDoS strikes on Layer 7, which is the application protocol layer including protocols such as HTTP, FTP and SMTP.The attacks are hard to detect and "make it difficult to distinguish malicious traffic from normal traffic," Mt. Gox said.Mt. Gox employes the services of Prolexic, a company based in Florida that runs a network of data centers designed to filter malicious traffic. Mitigating a DDoS attack takes some time, however, and Mt. Gox has experienced outages during attacks.Mt. Gox's decision to support litecoin marks increasing interest in virtual currencies. Similar to bitcoin, litecoin uses a peer-to-peer network that harnesses the computing power of the network to generate new coins, known as "mining," and to confirm that transactions are legitimate.One of bitcoin's weaknesses is that it can take upwards of three hours to confirm a transaction, although most are verified by the network within an hour. Litecoin's network provides verification of transactions in less than three minutes, according to the project's website. Litecoin mining can also be done on consumer-grade hardware, whereas bitcoin mining now requires advanced, specialized hardware to be efficient.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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ZTE agrees to Android, Chrome patent licensing from Microsoft

Microsoft has inked an agreement with China's ZTE for its Android and Chrome patent licensing program.

Financial details of deal were not disclosed. But the agreement gives ZTE access to Microsoft patents covering phones, tablets, computers and other devices running Google's Android and Chrome operating systems.

ZTE joins others, including Samsung, HTC and Acer, that have also signed up with Microsoft's patent licensing program. Last week, manufacturing giant Foxconn entered into a similar agreement and is paying royalties to Microsoft for access to its patent portfolio.

Both Android and Chrome are Google-developed operating systems. But according to Microsoft, the two operating systems also use technologies patented by the company. Previously, Microsoft has filed lawsuits against Android device makers for patent infringement.

Microsoft's Android and Chrome licensing program is meant to help gadget vendors avoid further litigation with Microsoft. So far, the company has reached licensing deals with nearly all of the world's largest Android smartphone vendors and manufacturers, said Microsoft vice president Horacio Gutierrez in a company blog post.

"In fact, 80 percent of Android smartphones sold in the U.S. and a majority of those sold worldwide are covered under agreements with Microsoft," he added.

But two major holdouts still remain. Chinese company Huawei, the world's third largest smartphone vendor, along with Google and its Motorola Mobility business, have yet to sign on.

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FireEye finds Gh0stRAT cyberespionage campaigns continue

A well-known cyber-spying tool called Gh0st RAT is still being employed in stealthy malware attacks, according to a new report from security firm FireEye.

FireEye, which specializes in malware detection, released data it collected from hundreds of its customers during 2012. It looked at 12 million different reports of suspicious activity, around 2,000 of which were classified as "advanced persistent threats" (APTs), the security industry's term for sophisticated, hard-to-detect attacks aimed at the long-term infiltration of organizations.

Most of those 2,000 incidents employed Gh0st RAT, a remote access tool believed to have been developed in China that allows attackers to steal information from a victim's computers. In 2009, researchers with the Information Warfare Monitor, a computer security research project, and the University of Toronto reported an extensive cyber espionage campaign using Gh0st RAT that targeting more than 1,000 computers in 103 countries.

Gh0st RAT is "a real important part of many types of APT campaigns because it is an effective tool," said Rob Rachwald, FireEye's senior director of market research.

FireEye's report broadly looks at how attackers extract information from victims and control their malware on infected computers, or "callback" activity. Their data from 2012 shows that attackers are using command-and-control servers to deliver instructions to malware in 184 countries now, a 42 percent increase over 2010.

South Korea has a concentration of callback activity. The servers of technology companies tend to be targeted by hackers to communicate with their infected machines. "I think the fact that they've been traditionally one of the most connected nations in the world is probably another driver for this," Rachwald said.

FireEye's report said "in a sense, South Korea is plagued by RATs [remote access tools]. It is clear from the 2012 data that South Korea is one of the top callback destinations in the world and that some of the country's callback activities are associated with more targeted attacks."

Hackers were also inserting stolen information into JPEG image files in order to make the data look more like normal traffic. The malware also used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to place instructions for infected machines, FireEye said.

The company noticed other changes in hackers' behavior. Usually, command-and-control servers were located in a different country than the victim. Now they are locating the command infrastructure in the same country in order to make the traffic look normal.

But for some countries, hackers didn't bother with control servers in a target's country. Canada and the U.K. both had high percentages of callback traffic going overseas. Attackers perhaps didn't do that in those countries because "they knew they weren't going to get detected," Rachwald said.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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AMD unleashes Radeon HD 7990: A dual-GPU graphics card beast

One thousand dollars. That's how much AMD anticipates it will cost you to acquire a video card packing two of its most powerful GPUs on a single dual-slot PCB. AMD has provided us with  reference design hardware, with retail cards expected to follow by the end of the month. So consider this a hands-on preview of the Radeon HD 7990. We'll follow up with an official review as soon as we get a card that people can actually buy.

The Radeon HD 7990 has a massive heatsink that runs the entire length of the card. Three amazingly quiet fans keep everything cool.

The Radeon HD 7990 is essentially two Radeon HD 7970 cards melded into one. You might call it CrossFire on a card. Each 28nm GPU packs 4.3 billion transistors (8.6 billion in total) and a total of 4096 stream processors to deliver compute performance of a staggering 8.2 teraflops: That's 8.2 trillion floating-point operations per second. And each processor has a 384-bit interface to 3GB of GDDR5 memory (that's 6GB in total), so games with large memory footprints perform extremely well on this card.

See that edge connector near the card's mounting bracket? That will enable you to build a quad-GPU monster system by running two of these cards in CrossFire mode.

The card is capable of supporting up to five displays simultaneously, even if they don't support DisplayPort multi-streaming, thanks to the presence of four Mini DisplayPort connections and one DVI port. AMD's Eyefinity technology can support up to six DisplayPort monitors (provided at least one supports multi-streaming), although it's unlikely that you could run six high-resolution displays at once.

That's because the DisplayPort standard is capable of delivering maximum bandwidth of 21.6 Gbps. Four 1920-by-1200 displays with color depth of 30 bits per pixel and a refresh rate of 60 frames per second would consume most of that bandwidth. And as I discussed in my earlier DisplayPort multi-streaming primer, playing games with more than three monitors isn't the best experience because it leaves a bezel in the middle of your view.

Four Mini DisplayPort connections, one DVI port, and AMD's Eyefinity technology deliver plenty of multi-monitor options.

The new king of the hill

With the Radeon HD 7990, AMD seizes the title of most powerful consumer video card from Nvidia, which earned the title only last February when it shipped its GeForce GTX Titan. That card, which is based on a single GPU, is capable of delivering compute performance 4.5 teraflops, which was considered remarkable at the time. Even in a tri-SLI configuration with three Titans in one system, you'd get "only" 13.5 teraflops. With two 7990s in Crossfire, you'd be swinging 16.4 teraflops.

We had an opportunity to benchmark a number of recent games on the Radeon HD 7990 and were impressed with the performance it delivered, especially at very high resolutions. Our test bench consisted of a 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-2600K and 32GB of DDR3/1600 memory installed in an Asus P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt motherboard. At resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels—such as what you'd get with a mainstream 23- or 34-inch display—the card delivered DiRT Showdown at its Ultra quality setting at a whopping 110.2 frames per second.

Should you decide to add a Radeon HD 7990 to your rig, make sure it'll fit: The board measures a full 12 inches long.

Moving up to a more resource-hungry game, the Radeon HD 7990 proved capable of delivering Bioshock Infinite at 1920-by-1080 pixels and Ultra quality settings at 111.6 frames per second. When we connected the PC to a 30-inch panel and cranked the resolution to 2560-by-1600 pixels, Bioshock frame rates dropped to a still imminently playable 74.5 frames per second. And if you're interested in an immersive three-panel experience, AMD claims its card can deliver the game at Ultra quality and 5760-by-1080 resolution at 59.7 fps. (Note: AMD used a different CPU, motherboard, and memory configuration for its internal tests than we did.)

But can it play Crysis? 

Because no discussion of video card benchmarking would be complete without mentioning Crysis, we benchmarked Crysis 3 at its Ultra preset at resolution of 1920x1080 pixels: The card delivered the game at 37.1 frames per second. And when we boosted the resolution up to 2560-by-1600 pixels and played the game on a 30-inch panel, frame rates dropped to a still-playable 29 frames per second.

Origin PCOrigin PC will offer Radeon HD 7990 cards across its entire desktop line starting immediately.

Moving to synthetic benchmarks, the Radeon HD 7990, produced the Heaven DirectX 11 benchmark at its Ultra preset and resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels at 66 frames per second (a score of 1664), and at 2560-by-1600 resolution at 38 fps (a score of 972). The card's 3DMark DirectX benchmark scores were 138073 for Ice Storm (which is limited to a Direct3D 9 feature set and is therefore the least demanding 3DMark test), 23314 for Cloud Gate (which is limited to a Direct3D 10 feature set), 10707 for Fire Strike (a full DX 11 benchmark), and 5756 for Fire Strike Extreme (a quality preset designed for testing multi-GPU systems).

We would have preferred to report our performance findings in comparison with Nvidia's Titan video card, but Nvidia didn't provide one in time for our deadline. We hope to be able to publish comparative numbers based on retail samples of both cards.

As I said at the top of this story, AMD says retail Radeon HD 7990 boards won't be available for another couple of weeks. But literally moments before I filed this story, I learned that boutique PC manufacturer Origin PC will be offering the 7990 as an option in its Genesis full-tower desktops, Millennium mid-towers, and Chronos small-form-factor systems. Other shops specializing in high-end systems are sure to follow.

Nvidia, the ball is in your court!  

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Microsoft says Office 365 adoption accelerating, but questions remain

When Microsoft reported its third-quarter financial results last week, company officials trumpeted several metrics about sales and adoption of Office 365, the cloud subscription suite for email and collaboration.

Specifically, Microsoft said that Office 365 "net seat additions" grew five times compared with the same quarter last year, and that 25 percent of the company's enterprise customers now have Office 365, which is now on a US$1 billion annual revenue run rate.

However, Microsoft isn't saying how many Office 365 seats it has sold. Moreover, the 25 percent enterprise adoption stat includes both instances where the suite has been widely deployed and scenarios where it may be used in a limited fashion.

"It's a big claim to say 25 percent of enterprises are using Office 365," said Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst.

CFO Peter Klein highlighted several times during the earnings conference call the Office 365 metrics, saying they reflect strong momentum and indicate that the suite "is really starting to get scale."

However, when he was asked during the question-and-answer part of the call if he could give a concrete number for users, he declined.

With this Office 365 momentum statement, Microsoft is trying to continue the buzz around the suite, which it sees as the future of its on-premises server products like SharePoint, Lync and Exchange, and of its desktop productivity applications likes Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

As customers who have those products installed in their servers and PCs are faced with the need to upgrade them, Microsoft wants to be there with its Office 365 cloud-hosted option, and prevent Google from swooping in with its rival Google Apps cloud suite.

However, the momentum claim would carry more weight if Microsoft backed it up with more specifics.

"It would be nice if Microsoft gave more detail because one out of four customers haven't moved to Office 365 to a large extent," Gartner's Silver added. "What you're seeing is probably a lot of trials. It's hard to tell what that number means."

One should also take into account that in the past six to nine months, Microsoft has offered various Office 365 incentives to channel partners and special prices to enterprise customers and consumers. It remains to be seen how sales and adoption will be affected once the incentives and offers end.

Another factor that could be boosting Office 365 adoption is upgrade migrations to it from several of its legacy cloud collaboration and communication suites like Office Live Small Business (OLSB), Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Live@Edu, all of which Office 365 has replaced or is in the process of replacing.

In addition, Office 365 comes in many different versions, packages and prices that range from an email-only option to jam-packed bundles that can include the cloud-hosted versions of Exchange, Lync and SharePoint, as well as the desktop productivity applications delivered and updated from the cloud.

Thus, it's hard to know with precision not only how the suite is being used and to what extent which of its versions and specific components are proving more or less popular, said T.J. Keitt, a Forrester Research analyst. Some customers could be using only one component while others could be using several, he said.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft defines "enterprise customer" as companies with 250 employees or more, so the stat doesn't necessarily give a snapshot of the suite's rate of adoption in very large organizations with tens of thousands of employees.

At Forrester, the definition of "enterprise organization" is one with more than 1,000 employees, Keitt said. Lowering the bar to a minimum of 250 employees allows Microsoft to qualify many more companies as enterprises for the purpose of this stat, he said.

Microsoft has been clear from the start that Office 365, which began shipping in the summer of 2011, has been particularly successful among smaller companies, specifically those with 50 users or less, which account for about 90 percent of its customer base.

"I don't doubt there's growth and interest. Just from what we see in our client inquiries, there are a lot of businesses that are seriously considering Microsoft's Office 365 and Google Apps for cloud collaboration and communication," Keitt said.

Microsoft has also done a good job of publicizing large Office 365 deployments among businesses, government agencies and universities, he said. These featured case studies involve tens of thousands of users, and even in some cases more than 100,000 users.

What's not exactly clear is which type of company is driving the growth. "Is it the midmarket? Or a combination of the midmarket and large companies?" he said.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

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Machine-to-machine systems resurrect a mobile rivalry

Just as the mobile world seems to be finding peace and harmony around LTE, the age-old feud between GSM and CDMA is flaring up again.

Now, the battleground is M2M (machine-to-machine) communications, the emerging use of wireless to link devices such as smart meters, medical devices and vehicles. Though many M2M applications are new, they don't all need the latest networks. The older 2G networks that were at the center of the GSM-CDMA rivalry are perfectly adequate for simple M2M data transfers, so carriers are angling for contracts to serve M2M customers.

Sprint Nextel says its CDMA 2G network is here for the long term, unlike those of some GSM carriers. That's important because M2M applications tend to remain online far longer than most other uses of mobile. On Monday, Sprint said it was expanding its collaboration with Swiss component maker U-blox to help extend the lives of existing 2G M2M products.

Sprint's piece of the pitch is that it plans to keep operating its 2G network, which runs on so-called CDMA2000-1x, through at least 2020. It will even keep investing in the 2G technology, implementing 1x-Advanced, a Qualcomm technology for carrying voice traffic more efficiently and freeing up more capacity for data, said Russell Mosburg, Sprint's director of M2M solutions engineering.

By contrast, the biggest GSM networks in the U.S. are both in the crosshairs of spectrum "refarming" initiatives, in which carriers reuse frequencies for other types of networks. AT&T said last August that it would discontinue its 2G GSM and EDGE networks by Jan. 1, 2017, and reuse the spectrum for 3G and 4G systems. T-Mobile USA is refarming a portion of its 2G spectrum for HSPA+, a fast 3G technology, in a project set to continue through this year.

U-blox's role will be helping manufacturers make the switch to CDMA and Sprint by introducing a CDMA modem, certified for use on Sprint's network, that can be easily swapped in for GSM parts, Mosburg said. The new U-blox FW75 C200 modem is pin-compatible with its MC75i GSM module and with GSM modules from other vendors, using standard industry form factors, Mosburg said.

Sprint's partnership with U-blox isn't exclusive, so in theory the company could also make CDMA modems to be certified for use on Verizon Wireless. That carrier will keep CDMA2000-1x online "through the end of this decade," Verizon spokesman Tom Pica said.

Sticking with either of the 2G technologies instead of moving up to 3G or 4G can help to keep the cost of M2M deployments lower, in terms of both equipment and monthly service cost, IDC analyst Will Stofega said. And many M2M applications don't require 3G or 4G because they deal with small bits of information, such as numbers on power use from a smart meter or location and engine condition from a vehicle.

"The modules are dirt cheap," Stofega said. "There's an order of magnitude once you start to go up" to 3G or 4G technologies, he said.

GSM components for M2M, which have been produced in the highest volume because GSM is more widely used than CDMA around the world, typically cost less than $20, Sprint's Mosburg said. CDMA parts are in the low-to-mid $20 range and have certain advantages over GSM in security and other areas, he said.

By contrast, 3G parts cost $35-$45 and those equipped for LTE may cost $100 or more, Mosburg said. In addition, service on the faster networks would cost more each month for the life of the M2M deployment, he said.

To keep these savings in perspective for enterprises, the process of going out to each site with M2M gear and swapping it out would incur a massive cost that would probably dwarf most other factors, IDC's Stofega said. Some enterprises at that point might choose 3G equipment to future-proof their investment, he said.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com

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Malware hijacks Twitter accounts to send dangerous links

Twitter users in the Netherlands are being targeted by a piece of malware that hijacks their accounts, according to security vendor Trusteer.

The software vulnerability lies on the client computers of people using Twitter and not Twitter itself. Once a computer is infected, the malware injects JavaScript into the victim's browser when they're on their Twitter account page. The malware steals the user's authentication token, which allows it to make calls to Twitter's API (application programming interface) and post tweets.

Dana Tamir, Trusteer's director of product marketing, wrote that the malware had been used in the past to steal user credentials for financial accounts but has been modified for Twitter.

The malware tweets messages in Dutch such as "Our new King William will earn even more than Beatrix. Check his salary" and "Beyonce falls during the Super Bowl concert, very funny!!!!" along with links.

Although Trusteer said it did not follow the links, it is suspected the links are malicious and aimed at infecting new users. The links are shortened URLs, making it impossible to tell where the links lead.

Hackers will send malicious links to potential victims that, if followed, will land them on a website that tries to attack the person's web browser, looking for vulnerabilities in which to exploit and deliver malware.

"This attack is particularly difficult to defend against because it uses a new sophisticated approach to spear-phishing," Tamir wrote. "Twitter users follow accounts that they trust. Because the malware creates malicious tweets and sends them through a compromised account of a trusted person or organization being followed, the tweets seem to be genuine."

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, 'throttles' trading to tame price swings

The largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, is in a continuing battle with miscreants trying to manipulate the price of the virtual currency.

Early Monday, Mt. Gox wrote on its Facebook page that it was once again struggling with a very large distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. The exchange said earlier this month it has been hit by attacks upwards of 80Gbps, which it believed were intended to swing bitcoin's price.

The virtual currency can be bought on exchanges around the world. But Mt. Gox's market tends to set the price of bitcoin since it is has the highest volume of trades and users. Confidence in the bitcoin market is somewhat dependant on Mt. Gox's ability to keep its exchange running smoothly.

Mt. Gox, based in Tokyo, said it was working hard to mitigate the attack and said it is close to implementing better defenses. The company already uses a Florida-based security firm called Prolexic that specializes in mitigating DDOS attacks.

When Mt. Gox's website slows or goes offline, trading becomes more uncertain. The price for a single bitcoin may not be updated as frequently, causing people to trade on relatively old information.

Traders may also suddenly sell large volumes of bitcoins, causing a panic and driving the price down. Mt. Gox has said it is working on a new trading engine that will run separately from its front-end website, making it less vulnerable to DDOS attacks.

Miscreants are also trying to manipulate the virtual currency's price by using Mt. Gox's API (application programming interface) to submit trades for very small fractions of bitcoins. It is possible to watch real-time trades on Mt. Gox through services such as Clark Moody's website, which shows Mt. Gox's order book, or the prices at which people want to either sell or buy bitcoins.

During heated trading, it is possible to see a rapid influx of very small quantities of bitcoin on both the buy and the sell side. A sell order for .0111 of a bitcoin, for example, would represent US$1.33 if one bitcoin is trading for $120.

It doesn't appear that buying or selling a $1.33 slice of a bitcoin would be very practical given the small economy so far for bitcoin services, although the market is growing. But entering lots of small sell orders, for example, can give the impression that bitcoin's price is falling even if it doesn't represent the broader market sentiment. Traders can submit more than one transaction using Mt. Gox's API.

Gonzague Gay-Bouchery , who heads marketing for Mt. Gox, said the exchange is slightly limiting the number of mini-transactions a trader can submit and capping the transactions during high trading times.

Mt. Gox has put in place elastic "throttles" that will allow some small trades but automatically limit the trades depending on the needs of its trading engine, Gay-Bouchery said.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Anonymous calls for Internet blackout to protest CISPA

Hacking group Anonymous asked websites to black out their front pages on Monday, in protest against legislation in the U.S. that would allow online companies and government agencies to more easily share personal information.

The protest against the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), meant to start from 6 a.m. GMT, appeared to have little traction early. Anonymous-related accounts called for action on Twitter using the hashtag "#CISPABlackout" and a spattering of minor sites blocked access, including the popular "Funny" category on Reddit.

CISPA is meant to encourage better sharing of information during active cyberattacks. It allows U.S. intelligence agencies to share classified data on cyberthreats with private firms, something that is currently prohibited. It also protects firms that voluntary share cyberthreat information with other firms or the government from privacy lawsuits by users.

Critics say it would allow private companies to share a broad range of customer data with each other and the government. Privacy advocates have also pointed out that it doesn't require such companies to scrub unnecessary customer information from what is shared. The bill was approved last week in the U.S. House of Representatives, though it must still be passed by the Senate, and advisors to President Barack Obama have promised a veto.

"It's the online equivalent of allowing a police officer to enter your home and start rummaging through your personal files without the permission of a court," the message from Anonymous said.

CISPA has been linked to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill introduced to combat copyright violations in January 2012. Major websites including Reddit and the English version of Wikipedia stopped services to protest SOPA, with many others voicing their opposition, and it was eventually abandoned.

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10 tips to secure funding for a cybersecurity program

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Google comes clean(er) about Glass: What you need to know

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Trojan horse malware destroys delivery files to hide its tactics

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Review: MobiTexter lets Android phone owners text from their PCs

If you have a friend who communicates only by text—but your fingers fumble at phone keyboards—MobiTexter could be the answer. This service works with an app on your Android phone to let you text from the comfort of your computer browser.

Once you install the app on your Android phone, you register your Google account with it, then head over to your PC. From your browser, MobiTexter asks for access to your Google account, including your contacts. After you grant it permission, the site links you right to the main texting tools.

MobiTexter's Web interface is basic, but serviceable. It automatically pulls in your most recent text message conversations, which are displayed in a list on the left side of the page. On the right, you have fields for entering new individual or group texts.

MobiTexter's Web app is clean and uncluttered, as a text app should be.

Like rival DeskSMS, MobiTexter limits you to 160 characters per message, and displays incoming messages in small pop-up windows. And while it does display messages in conversation threads, it doesn't automatically add incoming messages to those threads, which is unfortunate. It makes it harder to reply naturally when the message to which you're replying doesn't show up in the conversation view.

I also wish that MobiTexter supported MMS, so you could send pictures and videos. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Still, MobiTexter is free and is a reliable way to send and receive basic texts on your computer.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software after installing the Android app.

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Smaller Windows 8 tablets will be huge

Microsoft has confirmed that smaller Windows 8 tablets will come to market in the near future. These will fill a gap in the Windows ecosystem and boost demand for Windows 8 by addressing key downsides to the early Surface tablets.

Windows tablet sales seemed to start off impressively, but the overall results so far are mediocre at best. Microsoft isn't sharing the numbers, but recent reports suggest that 1.5 million Surface tablets have sold, with 400,000 of them Surface Pro. The Surface Pro sold out almost instantly, but without actual sales data, it's hard to know whether that's impressive.

Surface Pro was hot when it launched, but overall sales are disappointing.

Windows 8 tablet failings

If one thing has hampered the success of Windows 8 tablets, it's price. The Surface RT is an impressive piece of hardware and a worthy tablet competitor, but it costs the same $500 as the entry-level model of the extremely popular iPad—and nearly double the price of the Amazon Kindle Fire 8.9 HD. Starting at $900, the 10.6-inch Surface Pro is astronomical for a tablet. Even though it's really a tablet-ultrabook hybrid of sorts, it is perceived as a tablet.

Another related handicap of Windows 8 tablets is size. Led by the original Amazon Kindle Fire and followed by the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus and iPad Mini, the 7-inch tablet market has exploded. The fact that smaller tablets tend to cost about half as much as their larger counterparts has a lot to do with that.

Windows 8 backlash

Windows 8 has been blamed for a steep drop in PC sales, with the primary culprit being the missing Start button. However, recent PC sales data doesn't include tablets—not even those like the Surface Pro, which is literally a PC running the full Windows 8 OS. IDC's latest research did not count anything with a fully detachable keyboard as a PC.

IDC says PC sales dropped 14 percent in the most recent quarter.

Contrast that with Microsoft's quarterly financial report this week, which shows Windows holding its own in spite of lagging Windows 8 demand.

The upcoming Windows 8.1, codenamed "Windows Blue," will spark demand for Windows. A number of rumored, key updates and changes are based on leaked builds. For example, Windows Blue might boot straight to the more familiar Windows 7-esque desktop mode, and even return the Start button.

Smaller Windows 8 tablets

What will ignite sales of both Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 tablets? Smaller, more affordable Windows 8 tablets.

A Windows 8 Pro tablet can replace a traditional desktop or laptop PC because it is, in fact, a full PC. Tablets running Windows RT, on the other hand, can arguably replace a traditional PC for many users, but they can't run legacy Windows software. For those who aren't looking to replace their PC, though, a smaller tablet makes much more sense.

The Surface Pro is only marginally smaller, thinner and lighter than most Windows notebooks or even ultrabooks. Businesses and consumers who have already invested in a Windows laptop gain little value from purchasing a Windows 8 tablet.

A 7-inch Windows 8 tablet in the $200 price range would change everything, driving adoption of Windows 8. It would fill a gap between smartphone and laptop, and provide the consistent Windows experience alongside tools like Microsoft Office. There's the rumored benefit that Windows Blue will automatically sync apps and settings between the desktop or laptop and the tablet. A stylus or digitizer would sweeten the deal.

"It's a (good) sign that the new Microsoft is aggressively and proactively going to play in every new hardware segment," says Onuora Amobi, chief editor of the WindowsBlue blog. "They'll stop to figure out if it's a good decision later. That's a good strategy."

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Yahoo slims down, again, trashing Deals, SMS Alerts

Yahoo is giving itself a bit of a makeover. Earlier this week it launched two new mobile apps for email and weather; now it's ditching numerous longstanding products, including Deals and SMS Alerts, in an attempt to sharpen its focus, the company announced Friday.

Effective April 30, the following products will be no more: Upcoming, an event discovery service; Deals, for finding bargains, coupons and retail sales; SMS Alerts, which lets users stay up-to-date on a slew of topics; Kids, which features games and educational resources; and Yahoo's Mail and Messenger apps for feature phones.

Also, as of June 3, the older versions of Yahoo Mail, including Yahoo Mail Classic, will no longer be available, the company said. In their stead, users can switch to Yahoo's new Mail system, "which is fast and easier to use," Yahoo said.

The moves are all part of the company's ongoing efforts to restructure its product offerings in a bid to re-engage users in an era of smartphones, always-connected mobile devices and social apps. Yahoo, unlike Google, Facebook, Twitter or Apple, does not currently have any dedicated social network or mobile devices of its own.

Still, the company is committed to demonstrating value to users, even when it means getting rid of less popular products. Just last month, Yahoo also scrapped more than half a dozen other media products, including Avatars, Yahoo Clues and Yahoo Sports IQ.

"Like we announced last month, we want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day," Yahoo's Jay Rossiter, executive vice president, platforms, wrote in a blog post. "That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits," he wrote.

And, "by making tough decisions like these we can focus our energy on building beautiful products for you like the two we introduced this week," he added. Those two, the Weather app for iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch, and the Mail app for iPad and Android tablets, were unveiled Thursday. Both apps are designed to provide a cleaner, more visually engaging experience than what users may have been used to previously.

Yahoo's efforts may be paying off. On Twitter, some users have already fully embraced the new mobile weather app.

"Yahoo's iPhone weather app is beautiful, love that Marissa Mayer is raising the bar," one person tweeted on Friday.

Yahoo is currently in the "second sprint" of its rebuilding efforts, Yahoo CEO Mayer said during the company's first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. The first sprint was to improve Yahoo's in-house talent; now the company is focused on winning back users with new products and boosting its revenue in the process.

Mobile, in particular, will be a top priority for Yahoo in 2013, Mayer said earlier this week.

But Yahoo is also looking to improve some of the products it already has. In February, the company rolled out a revamped version of its homepage featuring what the company is calling an "infinite news feed," which continuously scrolls down with a string of stories. The page also employs larger photos and a personalized news feed.

Facebook's recently redesigned News Feed offers some similar features.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

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Wipro's IT services business posts slow growth in difficult market

Indian outsourcer Wipro reported slow revenue growth in its IT services business, reflecting a continued volatility in the outsourcing market.

The company said Friday that revenue for its IT services in the first quarter was US$1.6 billion, up by 3.2 percent from the same quarter last year. For its fiscal year ended March 31, revenue was $6.2 billion, a 5 percent increase from the previous fiscal year.

Wipro and other Indian outsourcing companies are contending with an uncertain market for outsourcing, with wild swings in customer demand from quarter to quarter, analysts said.

Cross-currency volatility also affected Wipro's financial performance, the company said.

Wipro's IT services revenue grew higher in rupees at 13 percent in the quarter and 19 percent for the year . The company does not break out profit figures for its IT business.

To focus more on its IT services business, Wipro announced last year a demerger of its non-IT businesses in consumer care and lighting, which came into effect on March 31.

The company added 2,907 staff in the quarter, taking the total to 145,812 employees, and added 52 new customers.

It has forecast IT services revenue of up to $1.6 billion in the current quarter.

India's largest outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services, reported earlier this week that its revenue in the first quarter increased by 14.8 percent year-on-year to $3 billion, while net profit in the quarter grew 13 percent to $663 million. India's second largest outsourcer, however, reported profit fell by about 4 percent year-on-year to $444 million, even as revenue grew 9.4 percent to $1.9 billion, citing volatility in the outsourcing market, and delays in customer purchase decisions.

While growth is returning to the market, in the short-term outsourcers are seeing big market shifts from one quarter to another, said Siddharth Pai, president for Asia-Pacific for Information Services Group.

Wipro's earnings numbers are based on international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Cloud boosts SAP revenue, even as demand falls in Asia

SAP reported strong growth in cloud subscription and support revenue in the first quarter, even as the company saw a decline in software and cloud subscription revenue in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region.

The business software company said Friday that total revenue grew 7 percent to €3.6 billion (US$4.6 billion), according to IFRS (international financial reporting standards).

The company's profit for the quarter was €520 million, an increase of 17 percent from a year earlier.

Software and software-related service revenue was €2.9 billion, up 11 percent year on year, while revenue from software and cloud subscriptions grew 19 percent to €794 million. Support revenue grew 8 percent year on year to €2.1 billion.

Revenue from HANA, the company's in-memory database, tripled year on year, adding €86 million to software revenue in the quarter. SAP also reported double-digit growth in its mobile business.

But the highest growth was in the company's cloud business. Its cloud subscription and support revenue was €137 million, up 373 percent year on year. SAP, however, holds that the cloud subscription revenue for the quarter is not a correct measure of performance in the cloud computing market as SAP cloud subscription and support revenue includes only proportionate revenue recognized in the quarter of multi-year, non-cancellable cloud subscription contracts entered with customers.

The "deferred cloud subscription and support revenue," which includes committed future cloud subscription and support revenue already paid by the customer for subsequent quarters of the year, was €344 million, up by over 100 percent from the same quarter last year.

The 2013 revenue and profit figures include the revenue and profit from SAP's acquisition of cloud-based human capital management tools company SuccessFactors and cloud-based e-commerce vendor Ariba. The comparative first quarter numbers for 2012 only include SuccessFactors starting on Feb. 21, and do not include Ariba as the acquisition did not occur until Oct. 1, SAP said.

The company has forecast full-year 2013 non-IFRS software and cloud subscription revenue will grow in the range of 14 to 20 percent at constant currencies, helped by full-year non-IFRS cloud subscription and support revenue of around €750 million at constant currencies. It expects non-IFRS software and software-related service revenue in the year to increase in the range of 11 to 13 percent at constant currencies. The company also expects non-IFRS operating profit in the year to be in the range of €5.85 billion to €5.95 billion at constant currencies, up from €5.21 billion in 2012.

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Assange to Google's Schmidt: 'I don't use email'

Wikileaks' latest release is billed as a transcript of a "secret meeting," but it may more accurately be termed a promotion.

The site on Friday released a five-hour transcript of a June 2011 meeting between Julian Assange, one of the whistle-blowing site's founders, and Eric E. Schmidt, Google's executive chairman.

The meeting was also attended by Jared Cohen, who was an advisor to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cohen has been working with Schmidt on a book called "The New Digital World" due to be released next Tuesday.

At the time of the chat, Assange was staying in Norfolk, England, with Vaughan Smith, the founder of the journalism organization the Frontline Club while his extradition case continued. Assange remains in the U.K. today, holed up in Ecuador's London embassy although Britain has approved his extradition to Sweden related to sexual assault allegations.

The lengthy transcript of the meeting with Schmidt offers an interesting fly-on-the-wall account of a wide-ranging conversation between two technology luminaries, with Assange recounting anecdotes of his Wikileaks work and weaknesses in computer security that have rendered Wikileaks much less active.

Assange told Schmidt that the system for issuing SSL certificates -- which cryptographically verify that a web site is legitimate -- is flawed. Hackers have been able to break into companies that issue the certificates and generate their own, which could compromise the secrecy of submission to websites such as Wikileaks.

"The browser-based public key system that we have for authenticating what websites you are going to, it is awful. It is truly awful," Assange said. "The number of people that have been licensed to mint keys is so tremendous."

Near the end of the transcript, Schmidt asks Assange how he is able to communicate with Wikileaks' staff. Assange goes on to say he tends to meet people in person.

"I mean I assume you can do email and all that, no?" Schmidt asks.

"I don't use email," Assange responds.

"Why not, because it's...?" Schmidt asks.

"Too dangerous," Assange said. "And encrypted email is possibly even worse, because it is such a flag for end point attacks ... but we do have encrypting phones. Unfortunately they don't work in all countries, but the SMSs work in all countries."

Assange also recounted an amusing story of a Wikileaks volunteer who was being stalked.

In 2008, the Wikileaks staff member was approached in a supermarket parking lot by a person Assange claims in the transcript may have been with British intelligence. The confident, well-dressed agent told the Wikileaks volunteer that it would be in his best interest to have a chat over coffee, which Assange said was "a clear threat."

The agent, Assange said, was told by the Wikileaks worker that he "wasn't interested in men. See you later! Sorry buddy!" according to the transcript.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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US Bitcoin exchange BitFloor shuts down again

The largest Bitcoin exchange in the U.S., BitFloor, has closed again, this time due to issues with its bank account, according to its founder.

Roman Shtylman wrote that the exchange's "US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past."

"As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds," he wrote, adding that over the next few days he will work to refund deposits but that people should be patient. The exchange will be shut "indefinitely."

Efforts to reach Shtylman were not immediately successful.

Shtylman told IDG News Service last week that his exchange, which lets people buy the virtual currency, experienced technical problems and saw its highest trading volumes and number of users ever.

The price of bitcoins surged to US$266 on April 10. However, ongoing cyberattacks and technical problems with the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox in Tokyo, shook confidence in the fledgling currency, driving its price down to around $100. Bitcoin has seen continued volatility this week, dropping as low as $50 per bitcoin.

While Bitcoin's surges and falls may have benefited some speculators, it is likely to have posed challenges for entrepreneurs trying to craft businesses centered around the currency, which can be transferred for free around the world using peer-to-peer software.

BitFloor lost about US$250,000 in September 2012 after hackers breached its network and stole around 24,000 bitcoins. Shtylman said at the time BitFloor did not have enough funds on hand to cover the losses, but he promised to revive the exchange with the intent of repaying victims.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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China's ZTE finds some positive in security concerns, wants to boost brand

Chinese handset maker ZTE put a positive spin on the recent U.S. scrutiny of its networking business, stating that the controversy at least gave the company some publicity and name-recognition.

"The publicity around it caused some to pay close attention to ZTE, and ask 'What kind of company is ZTE?'" said company executive vice president He Shiyou on Thursday. "Last year, when we were in Europe, many people were paying attention to the concerns."

ZTE is the world's fifth-largest smartphone maker, and the company has big ambitions to become a well-known handset vendor in the U.S. Last year, however, the company and its networking equipment business came under fire from a U.S. congressional committee for the company's alleged close ties to the Chinese government. Although ZTE has denied the claims and said its networking gear is safe to use, U.S lawmakers are worried that purchased ZTE gear could expose the nation to cyberespionage or hacking attacks from China.

The U.S. scrutiny of ZTE may have had more to do with politics than actual security, according to analysts. But the Chinese company is still in contact with U.S. authorities to try and resolve any misunderstandings, said He in an interview with journalists.

ZTE expects it could take some time for the U.S. market to recognize Chinese vendors, but customers shouldn't be discouraged from buying its smartphones.

"Our phones have no security problems. Firstly, most of our chips come from the U.S. chip vendors. Our operating system software also comes from the U.S.," he said, pointing to ZTE's Android and Windows Phone handsets. "If our phones have a security problem, that means the U.S. has a security problem."

ZTE has made a business of selling low-end handsets. But earlier this year the company unveiled two new premium smartphones a part of its new high-end "Grand" series. The Grand S and Grand Memo are slated to arrive in the U.S. later this year, He said, without giving a specific date.

ZTE's Grand series is part of the company's move away from selling budget phones, in favor of pricier handsets that can earn more revenues. The shift in business model is especially important in China, where low-end handset sales are surging, but competition is fierce with dozens of smaller vendors trying to tap the market.

"It's a very brutal competition," He said. "For ZTE, in the low-end market, the company faces huge pressure. Everyone can see it. So we are adjusting our products."

More than a third of the revenues for ZTE's handset business comes from China. The company must innovate in its products, sales channels, and even the way it brands itself, otherwise ZTE risks stagnating, He said.

To set itself apart from the competition, ZTE will launch a new phone running Mozilla's upcoming Firefox OS. Called the ZTE Open, the handset is slated to arrive in Spain, Venezuela and Colombia in mid-2013.

While the Firefox OS is still in its early stages, vendors are hoping a rival mobile operating system will emerge to challenge Android and Apple's iOS, He said. Open source HTML5 operating systems such as Firefox, or the Samsung-backed Tizen, could one day become a third alternative. But so far, Microsoft's Windows Phone OS has yet to succeed in the market, he added.

"Microsoft could succeed to become the third major operating system, but it won't be just them competing for it," He said. ZTE plans to continue releasing Windows Phone handsets. But in the end, consumers and the industry will decide which operating systems come out on top, he added.

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