As good a place as any for some "late breaking news."

Real Player has released a "fix" for one of the vulnerabilities recently found in their media players. Recent news has implied that there may be additional ones, and similar holes have been found in virtually all of the popular "multimedia players." The hole that's patched only happens if you've installed one of their options, and applies only to certain versions. If you have Real Player on your machine, you may want to see if you're affected by this one at:

RealPlayer fix.

General interest - with unknown implications. Cisco Systems has been hacked and apparently all of the current version of their ISO source code has been copied. Portions of the source code have been released on the internet, so is available to hackers to look for holes. Since Cisco's ISO controls about 60% of the servers on the net - including some home users - the potential may be huge but has not been fully evaluated. Since the Cisco theft was current version info, the potential may be more serious than for the recent theft of Microsoft NT code. (The NT code stolen was an older version.) Cisco has released at least one fix that's probably based on a vulnerability they expect the hackers to find and try to exploit soon. (Major users were notified before the "public release" of the admission that they were hit. Check with Cisco direct if you might be affected.

General web disruption may be expected due to the shutdown of several major systems. Hackers have apparently targeted a "large number" of major academic and research company sites, and have achieved "a number of unauthorized accesses." Several sites are down for patching of holes. There is no indication that the "hacks" did any damage (they say), and they appear to be mostly "just to prove I can" kinds of things; but the ability to enter these sites potentially puts very large systems at risk of being used for things like DoS attacks. Many of the sites affected include "backbone" servers for the net, so the maintenance may affect traffic in general. Waiting for better evaluation on this.

John