Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an email archiving problem at the White House. The prosecutor in the criminal case against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff said in a Jan. 23 letter that not all email was archived in 2003. Lawyers for defendant I. Lewis Libby accused prosecutors of withholding evidence the Libby camp says it needs to mount a defense.

Microsoft’s Atlas Asynchronous Java and XML development tool drastically lightens the load of AJAX-style development, said a speaker at the VSLive conference. Atlas, an upcoming Microsoft technology currently available as a CTP (Community Technology Preview), is an extension to Microsoft’s ASP.Net 2.0. said Atlas provides all the functionality of AJAX; it greatly reduces complexity; and it "brings true object-oriented development to the client." In addition, Atlas provides cross-browser compatibility.

Microsoft’s anti-malware engineering team has joined the chorus of calls for computer users to be on high alert for an email worm that uses social engineering tactics to deliver a destructive payload. The company issued an official security advisory to back up a warning from its anti-malware researchers that the worm–known as Kama Sutra, Blackworm, MyWife.E, Nyxem.E–is programmed to permanently corrupt a number of common document format files on the third day of every month.

PC firmware, a murky world of interwoven software code that dates back to the original IBM PC and its clones, is about to be modernized. In a move that experts say promises to lead to fewer headaches for IT staff by creating more stable and manageable desktops and notebooks, the PC industry has begun transitioning to the United Extensible Firmware Interface. Dubbed UEFI, the interface offers a standardized way for a PC’s firmware, the underlying software that controls its hardware, to interact with the operating system. The new interface offers a standard method for loading an operating system, as well as running pre-boot applications.

IT employees are more loyal to their companies than they were three years ago, according to a study by Walker Information, and the dedication of workers in corporate IS departments has increased significantly as well. Walker’s biennial Report on Loyalty in the Workplace surveyed more than 2,500 IT workers from a variety of industries about their experiences in and attitudes toward their jobs. The study defines "truly loyal" staffers as those who said they were committed to their companies and planned on staying for at least two years. The number of truly loyal employees within corporate IS departments jumped nearly 30 percent since 2003, when Walker published its previous survey.

In an effort to stem the fast-growing tide of Web application security breaches, Acunetix announced that it is offering free Web site security audits to 5,000 enterprise organizations. The company believes that these audits will prevent hundreds of security breaches that would otherwise have led to valuable customer details, credit card numbers and proprietary corporate data being exposed. The free security audits will be performed by Acunetix staff using Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner, a comprehensive tool that automatically audits Web sites for SQL injection, cross site scripting, Google hacking and other vulnerabilities. Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner simulates numerous hacking techniques such as SQL injection, cross site scripting and more to identify vulnerabilities. As the scan is being completed, the software produces detailed reports that pinpoint where vulnerabilities exist. By automating scans, Acunetix allows enterprises to conduct a thorough and complete vulnerability scan quickly and cost effectively. This special offer is available for a limited time.

Microsoft is combining its Exchange email server group with the unit that handles corporate instant messaging. Microsoft’s Exchange unit will be combined with its Real-Time Collaborations unit to form a new Unified Communications Group. The shift merges Exchange–the company’s server software for handling corporate scheduling and email–and the RTC’s product offerings, including the Live Communications Server, which allows employees to monitor other worker’s IM status to communication instantly via text or voice message.

The U.K. High Court has ordered 10 Internet service providers to hand over information of 150 customers accused of illegally sharing and downloading desktop software on the Web. The illegal file-sharers were identified after a 12-month covert investigation by the Federation Against Software Theft called Operation Tracker. The federation, a software industry group that fights piracy, said it also suspects that some of the individuals were using their employers’ corporate networks for trading the software illegally. The individuals all use false names but the federation has now secured the court orders that will force the Internet service providers to hand over personal details, including names, addresses and dates of birth, of the 150 individuals.

Under fire after censoring a Chinese blogger, Microsoft announced a new policy for dealing with government requests to block content that violates local laws. Microsoft’s new MSN Spaces policy states that the company will remove content only when it "receives a legally binding notice from the government indicating that the material violates local laws" or when the content violates MSN contract terms. When it does take down content, it will only be done in the country issuing the order, and the company said it will also "ensure that users know why that content was blocked."

Microsoft has released the latest beta version of its Internet Explorer 7 software, giving developers working on its XP operating system an additional preview of the browser’s new features. Dubbed as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, the company is making the test version of the application available for download from its Web site while confirming that a final release of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP will arrive as expected sometime during the second half of 2006. The company also took the wraps off of another additional feature expected in IE 7, Microsoft Windows RSS Platform for Windows XP. In addition to the new RSS tools for developers, Microsoft also claims that the IE 7 beta boasts much improved support for AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), an increasingly popular technological approach for speeding browsers’ ability to process user commands.