See which Active Directory-focused products earned top honors in TechTarget’s annual Windows Products of the Year rankings.

A man who claims he has been receiving unsolicited emails from a US company for two years is now being sued by them, for branding them spammers and reporting their actions to ISPs. Jay Stuler is now on the receiving end of a lawsuit from New Hampshire firm Atriks, which alleges Stuler caused financial harm to the firm and caused it to lose contracts. The suit also states that Stuler had been making defamatory statements, including calling CEO Brian Haberstroh a "criminal" and the company "a notorious spam gang", which the suit denies.

After canceling a minor version of Exchange Server that was expected this year, Microsoft is now focused on making the next major version, code-named "E12," a deliverable in the 2006-2007 time frame. E12 will include 64-bit support; new Web services programming interfaces; improved scripting and security; improved search functionality; and more e-mail/voice-mail/fax integration, according to company officials.

The Honeypot Project has added fuel to the debate over which is more secure–Linux or Windows–with findings that unpatched Linux systems can be on the Internet for months before being successfully attacked while Windows systems have been compromised in as little as hours. The international non-profit security organization didn’t set out to show that Linux is more secure than Windows. Instead, the group set out to ask the question: "Why is no one hacking Linux anymore?"

Although the threat of cyber-terrorism exists, the greatest risk to Internet communication, commerce and security is from cyber-crime motivated by profit. The Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports that electronic assaults are growing more sophisticated — and lucrative. Attacks have evolved from cracking passwords into vast coordinated attacks from thousands of hijacked computers for blackmail and theft.

This download contains the latest ExBPA.Config.xml and ExBPA.chm files. Use this package to update your existing installation of the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer.

Google has added new features to its Picasa digital photo service, including the ability to e-mail pictures via its Gmail service. Google bought Picasa last summer to improve photo-publishing on Blogger, its blog service. The latest Picasa update, which is free, also features faster photo posting to Blogger.

As Wi-Fi networks become popular in American homes, more people are exposed to dangers such as spyware, and the need to secure systems against those threats becomes more urgent. But for many ordinary owners, the complexity of dealing with a wireless network is leading them to put security on the back burner. If technology providers can’t come up with products that will change that attitude, then the problem can only get worse.

SearchWin2000.com, has selected GFI’s server-based anti-spam product, GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP, as winner of the Messaging category of its "2004 Products of the Year" awards. Winners were selected for their innovation, performance, ease of integration into existing environments, ease of use and manageability, functionality and value.

The FBI has effectively abandoned its custom-built Internet surveillance technology, once known as Carnivore, designed to read e-mails and other online communications among suspected criminals, terrorists and spies, according to bureau oversight reports submitted to Congress. Instead, the FBI said it has switched to unspecified commercial software to eavesdrop on computer traffic during such investigations and has increasingly asked Internet providers to conduct wiretaps on targeted customers on the government’s behalf, reimbursing companies for their costs.