Exclusive Women working on Debian have been getting death threats from a nut job who believes they're killing free software.…

Reuters - A massive, out-of-control wildfire bearing down on the scenic coastal town of Big Sur was exhibiting "extreme fire behavior" that had authorities fearing for nearly 1,800 homes and businesses in its path and ordering residents to get out.

News reports this week that the U.S. Department of Justice is formally reviewing a proposed advertising deal between Google and Yahoo came as no surprise to some tech trade groups and advocacy groups based in Washington, D.C.

A Washington Post story Wednesday saying the DOJ had launched a formal investigation of the ad deal wasn't much of a shocker to Google and Yahoo, either, as the two companies had voluntarily delayed the implementation of the deal for more than three months in recognition that the DOJ would look at the antitrust implications.

A DOJ spokeswoman said Wednesday that the agency has acknowledged since mid-June that it was looking into the deal. A public confirmation that the DOJ is examining the deal amounts to a "formal investigation," she said.

Google said it is cooperating with the DOJ.

"We are continuing to have cooperative discussions with the Department of Justice about this arrangement, and voluntarily delayed implementation for three and a half months in order to give them time to understand the agreement," said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman. "That process is continuing exactly as expected. We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process."

Google and Yahoo announced June 12 a deal to run some of Google's advertisements alongside Yahoo search results. The announcement came just hours after a proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft fell through, although Microsoft has continued to express interest in such a deal.

Google and Yahoo had run a test of the advertising program in April.

Still, with recent news of the DOJ investigation, representatives of two tech trade groups said they expected the agency would look into the deal.

"Even though serious antitrust problems are unlikely, it was appropriate for the parties to offer up a delay while regulators review the deal," said Ed Black, CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that has raised concerns about anticompetitive behavior in the tech industry. "This is a good provision to help everyone understand the facts surrounding the deal and make sure there is no harmful impact on competition or consumers."

A formal review was "inevitable," added Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, a trade group often aligned with Google competitor Microsoft. The deal is between the number one and number two companies in the "crucial" online ad market, Zuck added.

"It's a very complex deal in a very complex market," Zuck said. "The deal raises a lot of questions that the DOJ must answer before letting it go."

Google has worked hard to structure a deal that would meet regulatory approval, he said. "The big question is whether Google could ever do enough to satisfy competition concerns over the consolidation of number one and number two players in the market."

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), an advocacy group focused on consumer privacy, called on the DOJ to reject the Google-Yahoo deal.

"Google has reached way beyond the proverbial tipping point when it comes to its dominance of the interactive ad business," said Jeffrey Chester, the group's executive director. "Yahoo's agreement to the deal is a desperate move acknowledging they can no longer compete with Google. The DOJ -- even a Bush Administration business-friendly one -- shouldn't permit Google to operate a key part of Yahoo's business."

Earlier this month, CDD asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate how the deal could affect consumer privacy. "Privacy is at risk, as Google gains access to even more consumer data," Chester said.

A Trojan horse program that has been around for about six years is now being used to steal system-administrator passwords, including those at banking and brokerage houses, according to security researchers. And it could be that six years from now we'll still be talking about Microsoft's aim to buy Yahoo's search business, which could involve obtaining the entire company and breaking it apart. Meanwhile, early adopters will undoubtedly be out in force on July 11 to be among the first to buy the new iPhone 3G.

1. Report says Microsoft readying new try for Yahoo: Bill Gates said on his way out of his full-time gig at Microsoft that he thought a deal for his company to buy Yahoo was unlikely, but a couple of days later the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft is looking for partners -- Time Warner and News Corp. were named -- to help it obtain Yahoo's search business. So, to quote baseball legend Yogi Berra, "It ain't over 'til it's over." And this one clearly ain't over yet.

2. Trojan lurks, waiting to steal admin passwords: The Coreflood Trojan horse program lurks until a system administrator logs on to an infected computer and then steals the password, using a Microsoft administration tool to spread malware on the network. The malware is being used to swipe banking- and brokerage-account usernames and passwords. So far, criminals have infected hundreds of thousands of computers with Coreflood, including more than 14,000 in one global hotel chain.

3. iPhone 3G set for 8 a.m. debut on July 11 and AT&T dishes on iPhone rate plans: AT&T announced prices for iPhone 3G service, which are, of course, more costly than plans for earlier iPhones. The carrier also announced that the new iPhones will be on sale at 8 in the morning, local time, on July 11. That's earlier than Apple retail stores open, though someone who answered the phone at the flagship San Francisco Apple Store wouldn't say if the opening will be moved up two hours and suggested that a reporter ring back later. (There has to be some element of the launch that maintains an air of secrecy, eh?)

4. Microsoft eases hardware terms for XP on low-cost PCs: Although June 30 marked the end of Microsoft offering most licenses for its Windows XP operating system, the company is still pushing the OS for use in low-cost PCs and it has eased hardware restrictions. Low-cost PCs with touchscreens, larger screen sizes and bigger hard drives now are eligible to use XP.

5. Oracle reveals BEA roadmap: Since Oracle closed its $8.5 billion merger with BEA, questions have abounded as to how the two companies' technologies will mesh -- or if they will even mesh at all. This week, Oracle finally laid out its plans of what to do with BEA's technology, saying it plans to make BEA's application server Oracle's strategic Java container and pledging continued support for BEA customers.

6. Long-awaited JBoss AS 5.0 moves closer to release date: The release candidate of the long-awaited JBoss Application Server 5.0 will be out soon, according a blog posting from the chief technology officer of Red Hat's JBoss division. Product development started three years ago and stretched out as the company decided to make more changes to the next version.

7. DOJ continues probe of Yahoo-Google partnership: The U.S. Department of Justice continues to investigate the proposed advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google, a DOJ spokeswoman said this week. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the DOJ had just initiated a formal antitrust investigation around the proposed deal, but the spokeswoman said that the probe under way was begun June 16. Regulatory scrutiny was widely expected.

8. Adobe, Google, Yahoo enabling Flash searches: Yahoo and Google are working with Adobe to facilitate Flash pages being returned as search results. The move could mean that millions of rich Internet applications that had previously been all but invisible to search engines will now become serachable.

9. Mozilla's Firefox 3 sets geeky world record: The 8,002,530 downloads of Firefox 3 in the first 24 hours after the browser's release made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloads in that time period. Mozilla set out to achieve the first-ever such record. "Our community members came together and not only spread the word, but also took the initiative to help mobilize millions of people to demonstrate their belief that Firefox gives people the best possible online experience," said Mozilla Vice President of Marketing Paul Kim. Or maybe they just wanted to be part of setting the record ...

10. Gartner: Seven cloud-computing security risks: Cloud-computing customers need to ask hard questions about security and should think about getting a third-party security assessment before choosing a vendor, analyst firm Gartner recommends. A Gartner report, "Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing," lays out the areas of security concern.

IBM may have corked the wails of antitrust outrage coming from the diminutive mainframe vendor Platform Solutions (PSI) by purchasing the upstart, but the European regulator genie has already slipped out the bottle.…

Microsoft will release four security patches for its Windows, Exchange, and SQL products next Tuesday, all rated "important."

The Exchange and SQL flaws are "Elevation of Privilege" bugs, meaning that an attacker could theoretically exploit them to get administrative access to a PC. One of the Windows flaws is labeled a "spoofing" bug, meaning that it could help hackers trick the user into doing things like visiting malicious Web sites.

The fourth update fixes a Windows flaw that could allow an attacker to run unauthorized code on a victim's PC, Microsoft said. Normally, this type of flaw is rated "critical" by Microsoft, but in this case the bug was probably given a less-severe rating because it doesn't work without the user first taking some extra actions or adding special software or drivers, said Eric Schultze, chief technology officer at Shavlik Technologies.

This remote code execution flaw affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

The SQL vulnerability affects Microsoft's SQL Server software and the internal SQL software that ships with some versions of Windows. It does not affect Vista or XP users, but it does exist on the Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 products.

Microsoft published a note on the upcoming security patches on its Web site on Thursday. Unless it is forced to rush out an emergency fix, the company releases its security patches on the second Tuesday of each month.

Microsoft also said Thursday that it is planning to upgrade the Windows Update software it uses to deliver bug-fixes to PC desktops.

The upgrade will speed up the software download process, said Windows Update Product Manager Michelle Haven in a blog posting. "Weve invested heavily in reducing the amount of time it takes the Windows Update agent to scan to see if new updates are available," he wrote. "In this case, weve seen some instances of the scan times on some machines decreasing almost 20 percent."

Microsoft plans to make further changes to the Windows Update software and back-end infrastructure over the next few months, Haven said.