Neowin.net

Well.. first off I want to show some appreciation to Hosttyme for supporting us throughout our decided downtime. They have been an immensly supportive with some server issues we've been having. Despite the flood of emails that came from this community accusing them of "closing us down" they have shown great strength and support.

We decided to close temporarily to try and track down some serious issues we were having with the server. There are still problems relating to PHP and Mysql but we still have plans to resolve these at off-peak times for the server. We cannot be completely sure of a permanent solution but we do know now that our user base hits around 600 at any one time when we send them direct to the forums.

We plan to try PHP 4.1.2 (recommended by vbulletin team member) and MySQL 4.0.2 together initially, if this is no good then we will go back to 4.1.2 with MySQL 3 (a situation that worked before all the upgrading)

We used Invisionboard for a time, I like the board but it doesn't do what we require, so despite the fast changeover we reverted back to vbulletin. We will re-evaluate the situation with v1.1 of Invision & VB3 (beta) that is due in September. We have a license that is good thru Sep 2003 so we will use it if we can.

Additionally there are so many people I want to thank. Brad of Stardock, Gorman & iMike of Deskmod for their server knowledge, eva2000 on vbulletin who seems to have a wealth of knowledge (or knows where to get it) and the many many people who sent us emails of support and appreciation. Lets also not forget the staff that setup a temporary site where Neowinians could get together for a status report and the IRC channel that kept crashing because it overloaded with Neowin users. You all rock I also want to thank the many sites that reported on our status. The amount of sites that reported this (even some I didn't know existed) really showed us how we are appreciated even by sites that might also be consider competition in other circumstances.

Thankyou everyone

Neowin Staff

MICROSOFT SAYS IT'S OLDER AND WISER

A Microsoft official said there were "lessons that can be learned" from the FTC action and that the company would improve its description and disclosure of Passport's features.

"We've learned from the dialogue with the FTC and we will work to meet the high bar they are setting," said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith.

Tracking information collected by Passport would only be used for customer service needs and would be purged after 10 days in most cases, he said.

Activists who asked the FTC last summer to examine Passport said the settlement was the most significant victory for online privacy to date.

"Frankly, we're pleased," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which led the consumer coalition. "In some areas the FTC went further than we anticipated."

Jason Catlett, president of privacy consulting firm Junkbusters Corp., said the most significant aspect was that the FTC decided to investigate in the first place.

"Finding that Microsoft has bad security is like shooting at a sitting duck," Catlett said. "What is significant is not that they hit the duck, but that they took the shot."

Microsoft, hit by break-ins to its network and criticism over its security, made "trustworthy computing" its top priority earlier this year after chairman Bill Gates called for more emphasis on security.

Smith said the company built Passport on what it thought was the most secure technology available at the time.

The Association for Competitive Technology, a technology group that has supported Microsoft in the past, said the agreement seemed excessive but would set new standards for the entire industry.

Passport faces pressure on other fronts. European Union authorities have taken at a hard look at the service, concerned that it does not comply with privacy laws and tell users how their personal information is used.

A group of high-tech firms calling itself the Liberty Alliance, led by Sun Microsystems Inc is planning a similar identity service.

Most Passport users signed up involuntarily when they set up a free Hotmail account, or bought the new Windows XP operating system, and few are active users, said Gartner analyst Avivah Litan. The settlement could help Microsoft by building trust in the system, she said.

"Consumers use Passport right now because they have to," Litan said.

One FTC source said Microsoft was eager to settle the case because it did not want further problems with Passport, which is at the core of the company's .NET initiate to move to Internet-based services.

"They caved," the source said.