The Microsoft Passport universal-login service is undergoing a major upgrade under the Windows Live umbrella. The plan is to rebrand the Passport Network as Windows Live ID to serve as the authentication system for Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live, MSN and other Microsoft online services. According to a blog entry by Trevin Chow, program manager in Microsoft’s Windows Live Identity Services team, current implementations of Passport will be compatible with the new Windows Live ID.

Microsoft is accusing some competitors of exactly the same thing of which they have criticized the software company: pushing an exclusive standard to the detriment of all others and not enabling choice. These sharp words from Microsoft follow the formation last week of the OpenDocument Format Alliance, a coalition of more than 35 organizations from across the world whose goal is to enable governments to have direct management and greater control over their documents. The alliance–whose supporters include many of Microsoft’s Linux and open-source foes such as Corel, IBM, Novell, OpenOffice.org, Opera Software, Oracle, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems–is essentially positioning the XML-based ODF (OpenDocument Format) as the alternative to other document formats like Microsoft’s OpenXML, which is the new file format that will be used in Office 2007 when it ships later this year.

The author of the Hacker Defender rootkit said he’s taking a break from developing the popular hacking tool–but that he may soon return to developing new rootkit programs. The author, who uses the name "Holy Father," posted a message on the Hacker Defender Web site calling a truce with security companies that make anti-rootkit technology. However, in an e-mail exchange with eWEEK, "Holy Father" said he isn’t throwing in the towel, and that he may return to rootkit development after taking a break from Hacker Defender to work on other projects.

Cybercriminals are stepping up smaller, more targeted attacks as they seek to avoid detection and reap bigger profits by stealing personal and financial information, according to a report issued Monday. Symantec’s Internet Security Threat report said during the second half of 2005 attackers continued to move away from broad attacks seeking to breach firewalls and routers and are now taking aim at the desktop and Web applications.

After years of jealously guarding access to its AOL Instant Messenger network, America Online is openly flirting with third-party developers looking to connect to its AIM service. The Dulles, Va., company has launched Open AIM, a free developer kit that allows the creation of plug-ins, mashups and third-party applications that connect to AOL’s 63 million AIM users. The Open AIM program gives smaller companies, Web communities and developers access to the code base of AIM Triton, AOL’s next-generation IM client, and the ability to create their own versions of the AIM service.

Microsoft has broadened the group of testers for the first beta of its upcoming Exchange "12" email, calendaring, and unified messaging server, releasing a Community Technology Preview to its 200,000 global TechNet and MSDN subscribers. "The CTP is a Beta 1 release, which is still a private beta, but the second beta for Exchange 12, due this summer, will be publicly available, and anyone can then review the code," Megan Kidd, a senior product manager for Exchange, told eWEEK. The Exchange team has received a good deal of feedback since it released the first Exchange 12 beta last December, particularly around two features: local continuous replication and cluster continuous replication.

AOL said it will not charge legitimate not-for-profit organizations and advocacy groups to have their emails authenticated and delivered to consumers. The decision addresses an outcry from political and civic activist groups, which said AOL’s plans to charge mass senders of email a fee to reduce junk mail amounted to an "attack" on the "free existence of online civic participation." The company said that it is seeking to make it "crystal clear" that nonprofit groups would have all their emails delivered, including enabled Web-links and images, contrary to recent criticism in the media by advocacy groups.

Time Warner’s AOL plans to sell programming on its Web site by the middle of this year, a top executive said, as it hastens to secure a place in the market for video-on-demand over the Internet. The pay-per-download service will expand its existing free, advertising supported video-on-demand service, the company said. The market for online media is booming after Apple Computer began offering shows for sale on its popular iTunes digital music and videos service last year. The expansion of AOL’s video service, which will combine free Warner Brothers-produced TV shows and pay-per-download shows from established programmers together with user-created video clips, aims to address complaints about the rigid pricing structure and the mix of available programming on iTunes.

Invoking the Patriot Act and other surveillance laws, Federal law enforcement has tried to track the location of cell phones without providing any evidence of criminal activity. The Justice Department’s surveillance requests were denied. Cell phones constantly broadcast their location even when no call is in progress. The FBI and other police agencies often seek access to that location-tracking information, which can reveal the cell phone owner’s movements. But only in the last few months have judges begun to scrutinize what have traditionally been routine tracking requests and concluding that police must show at least some evidence of actual criminal activity.

PC maker Gateway announced GatewayShield, a new catch-all name for the various security components it delivers with its products. Customers can buy a new GatewayShield-protected system or select individual options for their existing computer. Under the new name, Gateway is offering notebooks and desktops with the Trusted Platform Module. TPM is a security chip that enables a variety of security features, including authentication, protected storage and secure email. Gateway will ship the PCs with software from Wave Systems to use the TPM features. The security focus further includes LoJack-style technology to help customers track down lost or stolen laptops, data replication and recovery software and a Gateway Complete Security Suite II that contains antispyware software, among other applications.