Timothy Dyck

Integrity Stops Security Leaks Imagine how hard it would be to defend a hockey net if it were moving randomly around the ice surface while slap shots were coming from every direction. Thats what its like trying to keep secure a corporate network perimeter that includes laptop-equipped mobile workers. Mobile laptops get connected to all […]

Tightening Security Screws Zone Labs Inc.s ZoneAlarm Pro originally set the bar for Windows client firewalls because it could define on a program-by-program basis which applications could send network traffic. ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0 goes further to block malicious program network activity by adding program integrity and component DLL checks. It also adds a variety of […]

eWEEK Labs has discovered that Microsoft Corp.s Internet Explorer Version 5.0 and higher—as well as the companys IIS Web server—has a significant security incompatibility with other major Web browsers and with the Apache Software Foundations Apache HTTP Web server. The incompatibility lies in how Microsoft has implemented digest access authentication, a World Wide Web Consortium […]

As weve seen in our OpenHack online security tests, Web application security is the most difficult part of online security to do right. Its well-understood how to use firewalls, transport-layer encryption and OS hardening to protect network infrastructure. Whats not well-understood is how an organizations custom applications can be made equally secure. For example, has […]

Quest Softwares Benchmark Factory database, Web, mail and file server benchmarking tool has long been a favorite of mine in tests, for its polished interface, ease of use, programmability, real-time feedback, detailed performance reports and trouble-free agents. Version 3.1 shipped last month and gains a number of enhancements, most notably support for importing a Microsoft […]

X86-based PCs dont scale well in the data center, and IBM is doing a better job than anyone else at helping customers keep the key PC benefits of unmatched software selection and ready administrator and developer availability without the associated PC hardware pain. The PC problem boils down to manageability. Administrative, organizational and security requirements […]

This year, as with last year, we used a secure Web site to gather entry information for the eWeek eXcellence Awards program. The Web application was written in JavaServer Pages and runs on Apache Software Foundation Inc.s Tomcat 4.0.1 application server. All data was stored in an IBM DB2 7.2 database. The biggest change to […]

In what will be a major, precedent-setting case, the state of New York sued Network Associates earlier this month to end the restrictions that the company claims over its users, restrictions that block publication of benchmark results as well as unauthorized product reviews. New Yorks attorney general attacks these censorship clauses on several grounds (the […]

While researching Waveset Technologies Waveset Lighthouse user directory management system (a finalist in this years eWeek eXcellence Awards), I found the companys free Windows directory Risk Assessment Utility. Risk Assessment Utility is a teaser for Wavesets commercial products, but its useful on its own. It examines Windows 2000 or NT domain databases (we tried it […]

Online exclusive (July 2003 version 1.1 update): Dig deeper into the eWEEK Labs/PC Labs database benchmark by downloading our version 1.1 database configuration and tuning scripts, JSP code, ASP.Net code and spreadsheets containing expanded benchmark results (582 KB .zip file). This file was updated in July 2003 to add a more detailed readme.txt, include PC […]

A big part of tuning the performance of a Java application server is tuning the Java VM in which the application server runs. On some platforms, organizations will have a choice of Java virtual machines. Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM both produce their own VMs for several operating systems, and other platform vendors also make […]

My favorite SSH client, Simon Tathams Putty, was updated in January to support Version 2 of the Secure Shell protocol, bringing it up-to-date on the latest SSH protocol. (Version 1 of SSH has critical security weaknesses, so SSH servers are best configured to allow only SSH Version 2 clients.) Putty 0.52 (available for free download […]