It's one of the Web's biggest security problems that nobody's talks: The FBI is starting to tackle the Web-wide problem of computer zombies. Unbeknownst to most victims, hackers infiltrate users' computers issuing a directive to go to a given Web site. Once the hacker has created a network of zombies, he directs each of them to a single Web site to overwhelm their servers, which sometimes leads to a shutdown. Called a denial of service attack, the FBI says these zombie or bot armies, which can also be used to spread spam or steal user IDs, are "a growing threat …

AT&T has flexed its Web censorship muscle in becoming the first major Internet service provider to take steps to block Internet piracy on its network. It's quite a surprising reversal for a company that has consistently maintained that the illegal downloading of copyrighted music and movies over its network is not its responsibility. Net Neutrality groups are no doubt preparing a response. "What we're trying to do in our piracy initiative is to try to come up with a network-based solution," said AT&T head of external and legislative affairs Jim Cicconi, who dropped the bomb at a Digital …

It's been hinted, but telecom giant Sprint Nextel, which has taken a leading role in the development and deployment of WiMax technology, could soon form an alliance with WiMax pioneer and competitor Clearwire. WiMax promises the delivery of broadband wireless technology over huge areas using a single access point. But it's seriously expensive to build, which is why Clearwire is continuously in need of funding. About a year ago, Intel Capital, the investment arm of the semiconductor giant, provided $600 million of a whopping $900 million round of private funding for the WiMax provider. The unprofitable company, which …

Are we trending towards the virtual office? That may depend on how IBM's latest experiment goes. Forget Second Life, IBM is producing something called Innov8, a virtual world video game that could best be described as "Second Office." And it's coming soon, according to a movie-trailer-like video promotion spotted on YouTube. It looks like Innov8 is striving to be the ultimate training tool, used to help tech managers better understand the various responsibilities taken on by a business leader, such as running a call center, operating a brokerage account, or processing an insurance claim. The game's primary purpose is …

Never mind Net Neutrality: Google and its merry band of non-evil doers want the Federal Communications Commission to impose "open access" on the winners of the government's latest spectrum auction, claiming that Big Telecom's thus-far closed-off approach to wireless technology is anti-competitive. CNET reports that a key debate will take place this morning at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing about whether open access rules should be imposed on at least some of those who win spectrum licenses through the latest auction. Radio Spectrum is the stuff that makes wireless networking possible. Telecom companies need it to make your cell …

If you're a somewhat forward-thinking user of Google Earth or Microsoft's Virtual Earth, then you've probably wondered how much these programs could improve in the next five to 10 years. How long until we can zip through virtual representations of cities, a la the University of Virginia's recently released digital recreation of Rome? Not long, thanks to Microsoft and newcomer Everyscape. Forget Google's Street View. Microsoft's latest project, Photosynth, creates virtual 3D models by taking and processing massive numbers of photos of a given location into a single 3D image. Once the image is created, users can do …

What's wrong with Yahoo? That question has unfortunately been asked one too many times in the last 18 months. Yesterday, the company held an angry shareholder meeting during which CEO Terry Semel was chided for his massive pay package and inability to improve the company's under-performing stock price. Indeed, since the infamous Jerry Maguire-like "Peanut Butter Manifesto" last fall, Yahoo has gone from being spread too thin to, well, utter confusion as the company struggles to figure out where its core business units are headed. The "Peanut Butter" memo was spread (sorry) internally, but the latest call to task …

The iPhone is coming, and everyone's excited--but all those little "catches" that have been overlooked in the excitement are starting to surface. For example, Apple on Tuesday warned prospective users that the expensive new mobile device can't be all that it can be without an iTunes account. And somewhat understandably--you can't imagine that too many new iPhone subscribers will purchase the device without previous iPod experience. For the few that do--most likely users of the Microsoft Zune and other competitors, it will require registering for (and thus downloading onto your computer) the Apple media store, which is required for …

So-called "widgets" (no, not the economics term for "product") could become major drivers of advertising on social media sites, says The Wall Street Journal. In the Web 2.0 world, "widgets" refer to interactive photo, video and music tools that allow everyday users to post content--movie trailers, photo slide shows, music playlists--to their site or social networking profile. New research from comScore shows that consumers are increasingly interacting with this type of broadband content: in April, nearly 178 million people Web-wide viewed content made with these so-called widgets. The comScore report is one of the first to measure the reach of …

Maybe it's what Google intended all along, but the San Jose Mercury News says the search giant's $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube is less about content than being able to test and improve its video search technology. Sure, content filtering technology is a way to fingerprint material that shouldn't be there--but it also requires that media companies feed Google more video content to be held in a large database. With Google's content filtering technology, media companies hand over material used for tracking down unauthorized content that Google holds in a database. For example, HBO would hand over its "Sopranos" …