Timothy Dyck

As this story goes to press, just a few days remain in eWeeks OpenHack 4 security test. No one has accomplished any of the four remaining hack challenges, but a vulnerability has been spotted in site code. The number of attacks on the www.openhack.com site has dropped off significantly from the beginning days of the […]

An irony of Javas success in the application server space is that non-Java developers have been shut out of that strategic middle tier. IBMs WebSphere Studio Enterprise Developer 5.0 development tool, released in an Early Availability version at the end of September, provides z/OS (zSeries Operating System) developers who know COBOL, z/OS assembler, PL/I (Programming […]

As Ive followed Microsofts Tablet PC announcements over the past months, and as I watched the Webcast of the platform launch yesterday, Ive seen a steady shift toward emphasizing Microsofts ink data format over real handwriting recognition. What this says to me is a) the company is busy working to lower expectations on how well […]

IT staff can make almost any software system secure with enough pain and wizardry, but getting great security with hardly any effort at all is true magic. Thats the attraction of the Internets most secure operating system, OpenBSD. The latest release of OpenBSD, Version 3.2, started shipping Nov. 1. Relative to its security history, OpenBSD […]

Excelons Stylus Studio 4.5 XML editor is a versatile development environment for XSLT template files. The $399 editor, which shipped earlier this month, now has a WYSIWYG Web page editing view for XSLT files. It requires Windows 2000, NT or XP. I could edit the source XSLT view or the rendered Web page view, and […]

Two hours and 20 minutes after eWEEKs OpenHack 4 security test began, a wedge was driven into its defenses. The site is bloody but unbowed, and four hack challenges remain. Kudos (and a $500 prize) go to Jeremy Poteet, chief technology officer of Technology Partners Inc., an IT consultancy in Chesterfield, Mo. Poteet discovered two […]

On Nov. 1, the next release of OpenBSD, the Internets most secure operating system, comes out. OpenBSD has had a bad summer for security, with its first remote hole in six years, but this new release again demonstrates the way the OpenBSD development team obsesses over security. OpenBSDs record—one remote hole in the default install […]

OpenHack 4 was designed to test the strength of Web application development techniques. To illustrate these techniques, eWeek Labs asked Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to recode an application we built, with each vendor using the programming techniques and security mechanisms it recommends to its customers. The application—the user-facing part of eWeeks eXcellence Awards Web […]

With OpenHack 4, eWeek Labs and a group of technology providers are again entering the security ring to test enterprise systems fortitude under real-world conditions. Each of the past three OpenHack tests was a challenge to hackers to take down an e-business Web site built, secured and monitored using common enterprise applications—and a unique opportunity […]

Putty, my favorite secure shell and Telnet client for Windows, was updated to Version 0.53 Oct. 1, adding support for remote VT100 terminal printing and the ability to convert private keys generated by OpenSSH into its own private key format. The software also now has a nice Windows installer and can connect through a variety […]