8 December – Five Stories You Need to Read

The Los Angeles Times reveals that “Russia’s Interior Ministry accused executives of IBM Corp. on Thursday of stealing money from the country’s $57-billion pension fund.”

Forbes.com reports that thousands of legitimate Web sites have become the victims of a new Google policy to wipe out questionable advertisers.

According to eWeek.com, Microsoft has hit back at critics, including IBM, the only member of Ecma International which voted against approving the software company’s Office OpenXML format as an Ecma standard.

BBC News points to a new trend in cyber crime discussed in Mc Afee’s Virtual Criminology report:  “Some criminal gangs are paying students [to act as hackers] while they study to ensure they have a pool of tech-savvy workers to call on.”

The Wall Street Journal writes that “ICANN said it has signed a contract to create Internet addresses ending in ‘.asia’ as a way to unify businesses and other users in the Asian-Pacific region.”