Seattle's Asta Networks files for bankruptcy protection
The company continues to operate as it seeks loans for additional financing. It has until Aug. 19 to find such funds before officially entering Chapter 11 proceedings.
The venture-capital firm Atlas Ventures is an investor in Asta Networks. Atlas focuses on products that could help companies combat "denial of service" attacks where hackers can essentially prevent users from accessing a Web site.
MSN News loses 3rd exec as general manager resigns
REDMOND — Defections continued last week in Microsoft's MSN News division when MSNBC.com General Manager Ona Karasa left to pursue other opportunities.
Founding editor Merrill Brown resigned in June, and at Microsoft's online magazine Slate, founding editor Michael Kinsley resigned in February.
Karasa was named manager in December. She was previously vice president of design and technology.
Scott Moore, general manager of the MSN News division, is assuming Karasa's role until a replacement is hired, spokesman Peter Dorogoff said.
Flaw could let people decode sensitive e-mail
NEW YORK — Snoopers on the Internet could decode sensitive e-mail messages simply by tricking recipients into hitting the reply button, computer-security researchers warned today.
The flaw affects software using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most popular tool for scrambling e-mail.
Researchers at Columbia University and Counterpane Internet Security found that someone intercepting an encrypted message could descramble it by repackaging the message and passing it on to the recipient. The message would appear as gibberish, possibly prompting the recipient to request a resend.
If the recipient includes the original text with that request, as many people do, the interceptor could then read the original message.
Jon Callas, principal author of the OpenPGP standard at the Internet Engineering Task Force, said the vulnerability is serious but very difficult to exploit.
And, he said, many PGP software packages compress messages before sending. Researchers found that such compression can sometimes thwart the unauthorized decoding.
Nonetheless, recipients of PGP e-mail are urged to avoid including full text of messages when replying.
Compiled from Seattle Times business staff, The Associated Press and Reuters