Monday, November 6, 2000		Latest in IT world

Lucent site hacked

AFTER Microsoft it was the turn of Lucent Technologies. Their site was hacked by some pro-Palestine group, a day after the FBI had warned about the possibility of cyber attacks in the USA. The FBI has indicated that there could be more attacks on US sites by hackers from West Asia. Like many US companies, Lucent does business in Israel and has been identified as a target by Unity, a pro-Palestinian group. Any company that is perceived as having ties with Israel is likely to be on the hit list of cyber attackers. Palestinian hackers have so far attacked at least 30 sites and pro-Israeli attackers have hit at least 15 sites.

The cyber war between these two countries has been on for quite a while leading to attacks on important Israeli and Palestinian sites. Some of these include Bank of Israel, office of the Israeli Prime Minister, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Palestinian sites that have been hit by cyber attacks include Palestinian National Authority—the official Palestinian government body—and that of the Palestinian organisation Hamas.

The dotcom bubble has finally burst. Another popular site, MyLackey.com, has finally closed its operations after 16 months of service. This Seattle-based online service site announced the laying off of its entire staff despite a rise in revenue. This is yet another site that has to closed operations due to dearth of funds to support market expansion. The company had exhausted the US $8 million invested in its operation and thereafter raised another US $6.5 million to continue services. Last April, MyLackey.com provided services in Washington, Seattle, Portland, etc, and had planned to expand to seven other cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Amazon.com, the biggest online bookstore and also the number one Internet retailer, unveiled its Japanese site ‘Amazon.co.jp’ to make its presence felt in the promising Japanese market. It happens to be the fourth Amazon site outside the USA and the first in Asia. It would offer 1.7 million titles on its Japanese-language Web site now. But by the next year, this Amazon site will add another 1.1 million Japanese titles and 600,000 English titles. The company plans to adopt the same strategy as it adopted in the USA and would also include videos, CDs, electronic goods, tools, kitchenware on its site in the time to come. The US dotcom major plans to tap into Japan’s estimated 350 billion yen ($3.2 billion) market for e-commerce as the Japanese users prefer to buy books and magazines online.