Stories by Stephen Bell

Internet governance debate heats up

The debate on future governance of the internet is heating up, with a United Nations ICT taskforce convening a “global forum” late last month on the subject and those prominent in the IT and political worlds having plenty to say around the edges.

Recruitment crunch coming

U.S. consultant and author Tom DeMarco has warned of major shortages to come in skilled IT graduates.

Virus-fighting needs better boundaries: Sophos

A tightening up of the standards applying to MIME boundaries — which separate parts of an email — would help fight viruses, suggests Paul Ducklin, Sydney-based head of technology for the Asia-Pacific region for Sophos.

Software gets HDS to shortlist

Getting software to help you structure proposal documents properly pays off — at least that’s the early experience of data centre HDS in its first job using Pragmatech’s proposal formulation tools.

Too many cooks spoil the standard: BEA

ICT standards are more effectively promulgated through a small “focused” group of a few partners than being immediately made the province of an industry-wide consultation exercise or handed immediately to a formal standards body.

NZ readies e-vote pilot as US wavers

As misgivings about online voting systems grow in the US, New Zealand’s chief electoral office intends pressing ahead with an e-voting pilot in one electorate for the 2008 general election.

Train your IT staff in forensics, academic says

Controversial measures to force passwords and encryption keys from suspected computer criminals may not always be necessary, if workplace staff are as well-trained in evidence gathering as Professor Henry Wolfe would like them to be.

Ignoring spammers may encourage them: Brightmail

You can’t win with spammers. It’s stupid to reply to them, you can’t “unsubscribe” without attracting more spam and now it appears ignoring or filtering them is counter-productive too.

Community grants go online with .Net

New Zealand's community grants have gone fully online, meaning those wanting funds from lottery earnings can register their organisation, select a grant scheme and fill in an application form entirely electronically.

Architecture 'good for governance'

The biggest risk in IT development is the lack of a clear link through which business knowledge can be translated into technical IT knowledge, says software architect Nitish Verma.

Civil society goes its own way at info summit

Preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society still look to be in some disarray, with the Civil Society lobby at the conference drafting its own "vision document".

Flood of rugby info at cup

Obsessed rugby fans and deadline-pressed journalists are being well served with game information at this year’s Rugby World Cup.

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