Bug-Riddled Windows Apps Confirmed A r’cccnt ne\xs item in the Hoston (;tot>c pointed out v.h;it nian!~ of us lla\Y atlucty SW-

paed. Tti;lr is. ni;ui!~ lexling softww-e pro- t~lenis for \,‘indow3 xc’ Wriddled bit17 defects tliat can c‘xiix ever!.- thing from sluggish pfr- forniancc- to :I shutdo\vn of the entire s\3tcni.

This rev~tation comes from a software qualit) :issurancc company in Newton, MA. I ISA called Turning Point Sotim-are. This company tats soft- ware and found 300 bugs in 10 populx Windows ‘15 programs Some- HO were severe enough to c;lusc malfunctions or

computer to wish. I ‘n- fortiinatcl~, now of the guilt!. parties were rc- ~xxled. ‘I’hc comp;in~ rc- asserts the ncect for txttcr softwxe qualit!. control ~ basically the!. Ashould product’ txtter programs.

The softva-c- pro\i- drrs are under great txessurc lo turn out pro- duct 011 sc11edu1c md

tend to cut corners and therchy turn out inferior programs. For instxncc problems discovcrcct during beta testing were simph. not fixed hecausc

to 11ak done so woutd

tuvc miss4 the launch ttatc.

Italian Software - Over Half is Pirated A report by the ISiisincss Sofwxc Alliance (WA) 2nd Software Publishers Association (SPA) h;ls x- judged that 55% of the softwxc sold in Itat!. ~v;is illegal resulting in ;i loss of some 580 t~iltion tire ( t ‘SSS t.3 million).

t%SA’s Klitan office said that Italy ranked fourth place in Europe based on pir;icy of softwxe.

Italy is ranlxd behind (;reecc with 78’!% tretw~d > c \vith ‘O”,) :md Spain kvith 65’:~ t towe\w, in terms of lost rcvcnue Italy is rankett third behind Ger- iiix~y \\.ith 850 billion

tire and France \vitti 7OO IGttion tire.

The amount of plratc softkvarc iii Itat!, h;~s frklt- cn from 6 I “,, in 1996 nixinly chic to incrcList4 :~~3rencss :ind polic:c x- tion.

Hut the l~rot~lcni is still cnormoiis and sni:~lt to medium-sized comp:i- nits - which form the majority of Italy‘s ciitf’c- prcncurial biisincsscs - had not realiscd that the sot&xc they \\xw using ~2s pirated hut the! xc now more xv’irc. ‘ ‘

NEW AUDIT PRODUCTS Digimarc <:trrp. of Port- twgc dc~~ctopcrs. photo- 1 ;I 11 ct. OR. I:SA. has graphic 1ihr;iries and the launched MarcSpider like to zisccrtain lcgat \\l-tiich it ctxims to Ix o\vnership of images and the first sen3cc to starch horn* they xc migrating the W’cb for digitall!. arounti the lnrernct. ~vatermarked images.

I) i g i iii a r c u’ 0 r k c d It will thus help w.et-, kvith l)at:ll!~tics (Da)-ton.

Ott. I6.A) to dc\Ytop tt1c

klarcSpidcr (SW ww\v.di- giniarc.coni ).

SccurlT. Sutton, I.h;,

h;ls ~m~~oiniccd that its TeleVault on-line data back-up, storxgc and ar- chi\.ing sjxtem, now sup-

ports Apple networks. ‘l’hc system cnabtcs users to free up large ;imwnts 0 f hard disk s p ;I c c

through off&c dat;l sto- rage w+iich can be x- ccssed \+.hen rqnircd. It is finding great disc for users of kirge fitcs SLICI~ as

graphics. audio and vi-

deo. (hohgarrcttic~ sccur- it.s~curicor.co.Llk)

(:!,tink. t$asingstokc, I‘K. is helping encq~ption harclwarc ;mct soft\\xrc suppliers csport sl rang

encryption tcchnolog), \\,ith the go\wnniciit -q- pro\xxi CyKey kc?, rc’-

co\‘cr)’ mechanism. t’hc ctcsign of <:),I<t-!. is tx:ing maclc av;iilabte Co comp;t-

nits so 3s to :ittok~~ tlicm

to quickI\. oklin pcrmis- sion to csport. The [IS 1)cp;irtnient of (:om- mcrcc has also siipportcd (:)link’s efforts t>j. 2llt,w- ing snpplit’rs to pig!-- txtcklc! off of <;vtink‘s License Esccpriol; h,Ilt.

(davidin: c~tink.w.uh).

0 u Computer Audit Update l June 1997 (‘ 1997, $17.00 Elsevier Science Ltd.