A 23-year-old Oregon man has pleaded guilty to charges that he used identity theft to set up bogus accounts on eBay, where he sold counterfeit software with a retail value of more than $1 million, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Jeremiah Joseph Mondello of Eugene, Oregon, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count each of criminal copyright infringement, aggravated identity theft and mail fraud before Judge Ann Aiken in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. He faces up to 27 years in prison and a fine of $500,000, the DOJ said.

Mondello initiated thousands of separate online auctions, using more than 40 fictitious user names and online payment accounts to sell copies of counterfeit software between December 2005 and October 2007, the DOJ said. Mondello made more than $400,000 from the sales, the DOJ said.

Mondello also admitted to stealing personal information as a way to set up online payment accounts in the names of his victims, the DOJ said. He used a computer keystroke logger to acquire victims' names, bank account numbers and passwords, the agency said.

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) began investigating Mondello in 2007 and later turned over information to the DOJ, the trade group said.

The SIIA used its proprietary Auction Enforcement Tool to identify Mondello through his eBay seller ID. The trade group found that Mondello was likely using several other eBay IDs, the group said.

The Mondello case is "a huge victory in the fight against software piracy on eBay and other auction sites," said Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA's senior vice president of intellectual property policy and enforcement. "He was doing a lot of other things that were just as bad, if not worse, than piracy."

Mondello, through the use of multiple IDs, was making it appear he was "great, reliable seller, when in fact, he was not," Kupferschmid added.

In addition to the Mondello plea, SIIA announced Thursday it has filed nine lawsuits against eBay sellers suspected of trafficking in pirated software. The trade group has filed 26 cases against online sellers this year.

The new SIIA lawsuits were filed against sellers based in North Carolina, New Jersey, California, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, and New York.

Apple's U.S. network partner AT&T is now limiting iPhone sales to one unit per customer.

AppleInsider reports the company despatched an internal memo to its retail staff to impose the new limit, conceivable designed to stretch out available stock pending release of the new version iPhone.

"Effective May 14, 2008, customers can only purchase one iPhone at AT&T stores," reads a copy of the memo obtained by AppleInsider. "The prior limit of three iPhones is no longer in effect."

Requests for multiple purchases must now be approved by a director or general manager, AT&T said.

Macworld UK is an InfoWorld affiliate.

The same question people used to ask about PCs can be asked of social networks: Were our lives easier or harder, better or worse, simpler or more complex, before they came around? The answer is yes. For some folks, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace seem nearly as indispensable as e-mail, but creating and maintaining these virtual circles of friends turns out to be quite a bit of work, often unnecessarily so. Here are the 10 things that bug me most about today's social networking services.

10. MySpace KitschUnlike Facebook, which adheres to a relatively rigid blue-on-white, three-column design, MySpace lets you decorate your page with background images, themes, and unconventional layouts. That flexibility provides just enough rope for many MySpacers, and the results range from ugly to completely unreadable. Some MySpace pages are so poorly designed that they can crash the hardiest browser--and this alone has caused many social networkers to flee the aesthetic chaos of MySpace for the relative calm of Facebook. Thankfully, some enterprising script authors have come up with scripts that tone down the MySpace bling and clutter: One of my favorite MySpace scripts puts a button on the screen that turns custom page styles on and off with a single click.

9. The Worms Crawl InOne of the benefits of social networking is that your communications with fellow networkers bypass your normal e-mail inbox, providing a measure of safety against viruses, worms, and other malware -- or so everyone thought. In 2006, however, Google's Orkut service (which is hugely popular in Brazil) was hit by the MW.Orc worm, which masquerades as an image file in a user's scrapbook and propagates to the profiles of other users, stealing personal data along the way. Despite attempts to block such infections, a new family of worms written in JavaScript attacked the service in late 2007, and the problems continue today. Of course, the issue isn't confined to Orkut; we've heard numerous stories of social networkers catching bugs from social networking sites outside Brazil, too.

8. LinkedIn Is UpTightAlmost anything goes on MySpace, but not so on LinkedIn, where the strictly-business motif discourages personal expression outside of a photo (a fairly recent innovation), a status line, and standard résumé entries. Sure, the whole point of LinkedIn is to put your most professional foot forward, but really, LinkedIn, couldn't we loosen the necktie just a little? LinkedIn may never support psychedelic backdrops or party photos, but it could do a lot more to help you project something more than an utterly antiseptic persona.

7. Mobile Social Networking Still Kinda WeakImagine receiving real-time, location-based status messages from your friends as they make the rounds of the local bars and restaurants. Although Facebook, MySpace, and other services are gradually adding mobile-phone features, that kind of mobile social networking is still just a dream for a number of reasons. First, to be successful, it has to work across multiple wireless carriers and social networks--no easy feat. Second, services such as Dodgeball require you to actively post location updates before your friends can find you. Until GPS-equipped phones can update networks with location information automatically, it's still easier just to call.

6. Ning: Too Much PornNing, which lets you set up your own custom social network, has attracted attention for its ability to create communities that are more functional than those created through competing services from Google and Yahoo. Nonprofits, support groups, and hobbyists have found their homes on Ning. But, as with many new neighborhoods on the Web, the seedier side of the culture is often the first to move in. As on Second Life, pornography reportedly comprises a significant percentage of the communities Ning hosts. Flickr faces a similar issue, but it shields unsuspecting visitors from seeing adult content through default filters (that is, you must actively opt out of the filter). Ning offers no such setting, which makes the site tough to recommend to schools and families.

5. Do I Know You?Facebook started out as a way for college students to put faces to names: "Hi, I think we took Poly Sci together last semester, and you're friends with my friend Brittany. Would you be my Facebook friend?" Now that Facebook is a global phenomenon, exchanges can go more like this: "I don't know you, and we have no friends in common. I live in Colorado, you live somewhere far away. And yet you'd like to be my friend and show me your baby pictures. And you want to see mine. Hmmm, let me think about that ... request denied." Not only is it okay to ignore friend requests from people you don't know, your privacy may depend on it.

4. Thanks for the Add! Here's Some SpamSlightly more annoying than random friend requests from total strangers is the increasing presence at social networking sites of good old-fashioned spam--you know, the kind where somebody is actually trying to sell you something. On Facebook, MySpace, and many other sites, you can expect to receive all kinds of unsolicited commercial and noncommercial requests, promos, and e-mail messages in your inbox. All manner of enterprises, from fledgling rock bands to escort services to professional headhunters, are trying to use these newfangled social network things to drum up business, and that means spam.

3. Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Too Hard)Late last year I realized that I'd read one too many inspirational peace, true love, and happiness-through-vegetarianism bulletin posts from some random friend on MySpace, and I decided that I'd had enough. I decided to cancel my account. I wanted to disappear from the scene--to commit "MySpace Suicide." But I quickly found out that it wasn't as easy as clicking a Delete Account button. Perhaps to protect accounts from unauthorized deletion, some services require you to send a formal cancellation request--LinkedIn requires you to contact customer service, for example. MySpace does let you delete your own account, but only if you still have access to the e-mail account you used to set it up. Unlucky for me, I had changed ISPs during my two years of MySpace membership, and I no longer had my old e-mail address. So began a four-week account-cancellation process, culminating in my actually having to e-mail MySpace a picture of me holding a piece of paper with my MySpace user name scrawled on it. I might have been better off just leaving the account active and deleting all the data and content it held.

2. Zombies, Pirates, and Other Pointless Facebook ApplicationsFacebook applications allow my friends to share their movie tastes, opinions, news picks, and other items with me, but accepting these tidbits requires me to install each corresponding app in my own profile (at which point it has access to my personal information). One app informs me that a friend has just urinated on me, poked me, or vampire-bit me. An alarming number of my female friends want me to know them by their stripper names. Why my friends devote so much time to these curious little apps I haven't figured out, but I know that cumulatively they've begun to demand way too much of my time.

To make matters worse, Facebook applications promote themselves, too, trying to get in touch, and even peppering me with spam. If you're encountering the same thing, you can fight back. To make silly apps go away, open the application invitation and click on the Block [application name] link in the bottom-right part of the window. Or, you can banish all applications from your Facebook experience by installing the Facebook custom app hider Greasemonkey script.

1. Multiple Social Network Syndrome (MSNS)With the advent of social networking, my e-mail traffic has gotten worse, not better. Here's an e-mail telling me that my brother has sent an e-mail within Facebook. Another message informs me that Susie has updated her profile at Friendster. Another announces that Bob over at FriendNet has just brushed his teeth. Another proclaims that Dave has written the latest installment of his ingenious blog at MySpace. Somebody at Facebook has just poked me. Someone else has bought some new bling. And on and on and on. To reply or act on any of these events, I'll have to bring up one of the 12 social networks I've been sucked into joining, log in, and then view the ads there. All of that, of course, necessitates a lot of extra clicks and keystrokes, and after a while, I find that I don't really like my friends anymore.

The major social networking sites are very aware of such frustrations, and are taking steps to increase their ability to interact with one another. MySpace recently announced that it will let its users push their bio information out to other sites such as eBay, Photobucket, Twitter, and Yahoo. Not to be outdone, Facebook has announced its own plans to do the same thing with partner sites.

That's all good, but I'm not holding my breath for the day when I can share data and content directly between my MySpace account and my Facebook account. Still, it's a positive sign that the big players are acknowledging that social networking is about bringing folks together online, not confining them inside large walled gardens.

PC World is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Apple has confirmed it has sold out of tickets for WWDC 2008. The news is confirmed on the company's WWDC page on its developer's Web site.

To compensate developers now unable to make the event, Apple will make videos of sessions taking place at the show available for purchase.

"You can still get all the great content from WWDC 2008. Session videos will be available to purchase on iTunes shortly after the conference. More details will be available soon," the company's Web site informs.

[ See related story:  Steve Jobs to keynote WWDC ]

"Response to this year's WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK," Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld.

WWDC 2008 will begin on Tuesday 9 June with a keynote speech from a team of executives led by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. This year's WWDC is the first to offer in-depth developer-focused sessions on both Mac and iPhone development.

Anticipation for WWDC this year is at its highest, with Apple also expected to introduce its next-generation iPhone at or around the show.

Macworld UK is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Windows developers are confirming the results of a survey released yesterday that found fewer than 1 in 12 programmers currently writing applications targeting Windows Vista.

"None of our customers are saying, 'G******it, we need those WPF controls now!'" said Julian Bucknall, CTO for Windows programming tools maker Developer Express, referring to one of Vista's most highly touted features, its new graphical subsystem, Windows Presentation Foundation. Rather, "we find most are still sticking with ASP.Net and Windows Forms applications."

True to Microsoft's form, ASP.Net and Windows Forms and most of Windows XP's other legacy technologies still work fine in Vista. (The converse is also true: many Vista features can be installed as add-ons to XP.)

But as in every upgrade cycle, Microsoft runs the risk that developers may bypass the latest technologies -- in Vista's case, WPF, the XPS printing format that Microsoft is touting as a rival to Adobe 's Portable Document Format (PDF); Windows Sidebar 'gadgets,' and others -- in favor of those further down the road, such as those expected in Vista's successor, Windows '7'.

"Microsoft tends to dump ten new technologies on us, but only 2 or 3 really stick," said Michael Krasowski, vice-president of PDSA Inc., a Microsoft-focused 20-developer firm in Tustin Calif., citing the Windows DNA Architecture as an example.

Microsoft Corp. undoubtedly wanted to avoid its current predicament. It has been publicly talking up features in Vista since 2003 -- half a decade.

But such "overmarketing," as Krasowski calls it, can rebound. Experienced developers have become jaded towards the third-party apps Microsoft trots out as exemplars of Redmond's latest technology -- "demoware," he calls them -- that sparkle with flashy animation and video.

"You can't write an enterprise app like a demo. It'd be all soft and weak under the hood," he said. "We'd never put all that stuff in because it couldn't support 100 concurrent users."

Some say it's premature to declare Vista a flop with developers. For one thing, despite the 140 million copies Microsoft claims to have shipped, the market hasn't reached a tipping point yet.

"I can???t see targeting something only to Vista when you have XP and Windows 2003 out there in huge numbers," said Dave Noderer, a Microsoft MVP who runs the Florida .Net User Group as well as his own software development firm, Computer Ways in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Others point out the symbiotic relationship between most Windows developers and the large enterprises that hire and pay them. Enterprises are proving even slower than the rest of the market at moving off XP, say analysts such as Forrester Research.

"Large enterprise don't transition overnight to the newest platforms," said Shannon Braun, a Microsoft MVP and Minneapolis-area-based programming consultant. "To me the adoption pace [of Vista by developers] seems pretty normal."

"Vista is too bleeding-edge -- not for us, but for our clients," Krasowski said. PDSA's clients include large, blue-chip customers such as Kaiser Permanente and Boeing Inc. "They're all leery of Vista."

And why shouldn't they be? According to data released this spring by migration software vendor AppDNA, about a fifth of enterprise applications running on XP break when moved straight to Vista, mostly due to pre-XP-era code still lingering in the app. That increases to nearly half for apps migrated from 32-bit XP straight to 64-bit Vista.

Another reason is that Microsoft, in an attempt to catch up to the Mac, emphasized consumer-y aesthetic features with Vista, with WPF, Aero and the DirectX 10 3-D graphics rendering engine all aimed at making Vista or its apps more pleasing to the eye.

More attractive apps are more user-friendly apps, says Microsoft, and that translates into increased user productivity. But that message remains a hard sell to enterprises, who demand their apps stay "lean and mean," said Krasowski, not get "confused and cluttered."

Others say learning how to take advantage of Vista's new visual features remains daunting. Improving data presentation is "a good thing to do, but there is a lot of hacking through the undergrowth first," Bucknall said. "I don't think a lot of developers know how to get to that stage."

Noderer is optimistic. While XP-era technologies such as Windows Forms "will be around for many years to come," he said, Vista-era ones such as WPF "will slowly rise as the way to do Windows applications."

But others think that the rise in popularity of server-delivered business apps -- coupled with Microsoft's recent moves to make its Internet Explorer 8 browser behave more like other Web browsers -- could make Vista's client-side graphics-enhancing features irrelevant.

"98% of the apps we write are for the Web," Krasowski said. "They're more flexible and easier to maintain. Many of our clients are migrating from apps written in VB6 or .Net."

Heather Havenstein contributed to this story. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Carl Icahn released his letter to the Yahoo board on Thursday. Here is the full text of that letter:

Carl C. IcahnICAHN CAPITAL LP767 Fifth Avenue, 47th FloorNew York, NY 10153

May 15, 2008

Roy BostockChairmanYahoo! Inc.701 First AvenueSunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Mr. Bostock:

It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft. It is quite obvious that Microsoft's bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative to Yahoo's prospects on a standalone basis. I am perplexed by the board's actions. It is irresponsible to hide behind management's more than overly optimistic financial forecasts. It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo's closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer. I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet.

During the past week, a number of shareholders have asked me to lead a proxy fight to attempt to remove the current board and to establish a new board which would attempt to negotiate a successful merger with Microsoft, something that in my opinion the current board has completely botched. I believe that a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo is by far the most sensible path for both companies. I have therefore taken the following actions: (1) during the last 10 days, I have purchased approximately 59 million shares and share-equivalents of Yahoo; (2) I have formed a 10-person slate which will stand for election against the current board; and (3) I have sought antitrust clearance from the Federal Trade Commission to acquire up to approximately $2.5 billion worth of Yahoo stock. The biographies of the members of our slate are attached to this letter. A more formal notification is being delivered today to Yahoo under separate cover.

While it is my understanding that you do not intend to enter into any transaction that would impede a Microsoft-Yahoo merger, I am concerned that in several recent press releases you stated that you intend to pursue certain "strategic alternatives". I therefore hope and trust that if there is any question that these "strategic alternatives" might in any way impede a future Microsoft merger you will at the very least allow shareholders to opine on them before embarking on such a transaction.

I sincerely hope you heed the wishes of your shareholders and move expeditiously to negotiate a merger with Microsoft, thereby making a proxy fight unnecessary.

Sincerely yours,

CARL C. ICAHN

SLATE BIOGRAPHIES

Lucian A. BebchukLucian Bebchuk is the William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance and Director of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School. Bebchuk is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Inaugural Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Network. Trained in both law and economics, Bebchuk holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.A. and Ph.D in Economics from the Harvard Economics Department. He joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1986 as an assistant professor, becoming a full professor in 1988, and the Friedman Professor of Law, Economics and Finance in 1998. Bebchuk has written extensively on corporate governance, corporate control, and corporate transactions. He has published more than seventy research articles in academic journals in law, economics, and finance. Upon electing him to membership in 2000, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences cited him as "[o]ne of the nation's leading scholars of law and economics," who "has made major contribution to the study of corporate control, governance, and insolvency." He is the 2007-2008 President of the American Law and Economics Association, and a former chair of the Business Association Section of the American Association of Law Teachers. Bebchuk's recent writings include Pay without Performance: the Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation (Harvard University Press, 2004, co-authored with Jesse Fried), "The Case for Increasing Shareholder Power" (Harvard Law Review, 2005), "The Costs of Entrenched Boards" (Journal of Financial Economics, 2005, co-authored with Alma Cohen), and "The Myth of the Shareholder Franchise" (Virginia Law Review, 2007). Bebchuk has been a frequent contributor to policy making and public discourse in the corporate governance area. He has appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, the House Committee of Financial Services, and the SEC. He has published many op-ed pieces, including in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Financial Times. He was included in the list of "100 most influential people in finance" of Treasury & Risk Management and the list of "100 most influential players in corporate governance" of Directorship magazine.

Frank J. Biondi, Jr.Since March 1999, Mr. Biondi has served as Senior Managing Director of WaterView Advisors LLC, an investment advisor organization. From April 1996 to November 1998, Mr. Biondi served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Studios, Inc. From July 1987 to January 1996, Mr. Biondi served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom, Inc. Mr. Biondi is a director of Amgen Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Hasbro, Inc., The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation and Seagate Technology. Mr. Biondi is a graduate of Princeton University and earned a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University.

John H. ChappleJohn Chapple is President of Hawkeye Investments LLC, a privately-owned equity firm investing primarily in telecommunications and real estate ventures frequently working in conjunction with Rally Capital LLC. Prior to forming Hawkeye, John Chapple worked to organize Nextel Partners, a provider of digital wireless services in mid-size and smaller markets throughout the U.S. He became the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Nextel Partners and its subsidiaries in August of 1998. Nextel Partners went public in February 2000 and was traded on the NASDAQ Exchange. In June 2006, the company was purchased by Sprint Communications. From 1995 to 1997, Mr. Chapple was the President and Chief Operating Officer for Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment in Vancouver, B.C. During Mr. Chapple's tenure, Orca Bay owned and operated Vancouver's National Basketball Association and National Hockey League sports franchises in addition to the General Motors Place sports arena and retail interests. From 1988 to 1995, he served as Executive Vice President of Operations for McCaw Cellular Communications and subsequently AT&T Wireless Services following the merger of those companies. From 1978 to 1983, he served on the senior management team of Rogers Cablesystems before moving to American Cablesystems as Senior Vice President of Operations from 1983 to 1988. Mr. Chapple, a graduate of Syracuse University and Harvard University's Advanced Management Program, has 26 years of experience in the cable television and wireless communications industries. Mr. Chapple is the past Chairman of Cellular One Group and CTIA-The Wireless Association, past Vice-Chairman of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and has been on the Board of Governors of the NHL and NBA. Mr. Chapple serves on the Syracuse University Board of Trustees currently as Chairman and the Advisory Board for the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He is also on the Board of Directors of Cbeyond, Inc., a publicly traded Atlanta-based integrated service telephony company; Seamobile Enterprises, a privately held company providing integrated wireless services at sea; Telesphere, a privately held VOIP (voice over internet protocol) company based in Phoenix, Arizona; and on the advisory boards of Diamond Castle Holdings, LLC, a private equity firm based in New York City and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at University of Washington.

Mark CubanSince early 2000, Mr. Cuban has been the majority and controlling owner of the National Basketball Association franchise, the Dallas Mavericks. In 2001, Mr. Cuban co-founded HDNet, an all high-definition television network on DIRECTV that broadcasts high-definition sports, movies and other entertainment. Prior to his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks, Mr. Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com in 1995 and served as its Chairman of the Board until it was sold to Yahoo! in July of 1999. Before Broadcast.com, Mr. Cuban co-founded MicroSolutions, a national systems integrator, in 1983, which was later sold to CompuServe Corporation in 1990. Mr. Cuban is an active investor in cutting-edge technologies and various industries, including the entertainment industry.

Adam DellSince January 2000, Mr. Dell has served as the Managing General Partner of Impact Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on information technology investments. He also serves as Managing Director at Steelpoint Capital Partners, a private equity firm with offices in New York and California. From October 1998 to January 2000, Mr. Dell was a Senior Associate and subsequently a Partner with Crosspoint Venture Partners in Northern California. From July 1997 to August 1998, he was a Senior Associate with Enterprise Partners in Southern California. From January 1996 to June 1997 Mr. Dell was associated with the law firm of Winstead Sechrest & Minick, in Austin, Texas, where he practiced corporate law. Mr. Dell's investments include: Buzzsaw (which was acquired by Autodesk), HotJobs (which was acquired by Yahoo!) and Connectify (which was acquired by Kana Software). Mr. Dell has been a director of XO Holdings, Inc., a telecommunications services provider, since February 2006, and of its predecessor from January 2003 to February 2006. In addition, Mr. Dell currently serves on the boards of directors of the Santa Fe Institute, MessageOne and OpenTable. He also teaches a course at the Columbia Business School on business, technology and innovation and is a contributing columnist to the technology publication, Business 2.0. Mr. Dell received a J.D. from University of Texas and a B.A. from Tulane University.

Carl C. IcahnMr. Icahn has served as chairman of the board and a director of Starfire Holding Corporation, a privately-held holding company, and chairman of the board and a director of various subsidiaries of Starfire, since 1984. Since August 2007, through his position as Chief Executive Officer of Icahn Capital LP, a wholly owned subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises L.P., and certain related entities, Mr. Icahn's principal occupation is managing private investment funds, including Icahn Partners LP, Icahn Partners Master Fund LP, Icahn Partners Master Fund II L.P. and Icahn Partners Master Fund III L.P. Prior to August 2007, Mr. Icahn conducted this occupation through his entities CCI Onshore Corp. and CCI Offshore Corp since September 2004. Since November 1990, Mr. Icahn has been chairman of the board of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc., the general partner of Icahn Enterprises L.P. Icahn Enterprises L.P. is a diversified holding company engaged in a variety of businesses, including investment management, metals, real estate and home fashion. Mr. Icahn was chairman of the board and president of Icahn & Co., Inc., a registered broker-dealer and a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers, from 1968 to 2005. Mr. Icahn has served as chairman of the board and as a director of American Railcar Industries, Inc., a company that is primarily engaged in the business of manufacturing covered hopper and tank railcars, since 1994. From October 1998 through May 2004, Mr. Icahn was the president and a director of Stratosphere Corporation, the owner and operator of the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which, until February 2008, was a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises L.P. From September 2000 to February 2007, Mr. Icahn served as the chairman of the board of GB Holdings, Inc., which owned an interest in Atlantic Coast Holdings, Inc., the owner and operator of The Sands casino in Atlantic City until November 2006. Mr. Icahn has been chairman of the board and a director of XO Holdings, Inc., a telecommunications services provider, since February 2006, and of its predecessor from January 2003 to February 2006. Mr. Icahn has served as a Director of Cadus Corporation, a company engaged in the ownership and licensing of yeast-based drug discovery technologies since July 1993. In May 2005, Mr. Icahn became a director of Blockbuster Inc., a provider of in-home movie rental and game entertainment. In October 2005, Mr. Icahn became a director of WestPoint International, Inc., a manufacturer of bed and bath home fashion products. In September 2006, Mr. Icahn became a director of ImClone Systems Incorporated, a biopharmaceutical company, and since October 2006 has been the chairman of the board of ImClone. In August 2007, Mr. Icahn became a director of WCI Communities, Inc., a homebuilding company, and since September 2007 has been the chairman of the board of WCI. In December 2007, Mr. Icahn became a director of Federal-Mogul Corporation, a supplier of automotive products, and since January 2008 has been the chairman of the board of Federal-Mogul. In April 2008, Mr. Icahn became a director of Motricity, Inc., a privately-held company that provides mobile content services and solutions. Mr. Icahn received his B.A. from Princeton University.

Keith A. MeisterSince March 2006, Keith Meister has served as Principal Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc., the general partner of Icahn Enterprises L.P., a diversified holding company engaged in a variety of businesses, including investment management, metals, real estate and home fashion. Since November 2004, Mr. Meister has been a Managing Director of Icahn Capital LP, the entity through which Carl C. Icahn manages third party private investment funds. Since June 2002, Mr. Meister has served as senior investment analyst of High River Limited Partnership, an entity primarily engaged in the business of holding and investing in securities. Mr. Meister also serves on the boards of directors of the following companies: XO Holdings, Inc., a telecommunications company; WCI Communities, Inc., a homebuilding company; Federal-Mogul Corporation, a supplier of automotive products; and Motorola, Inc., a mobile communications company. With respect to each company mentioned above, Carl C. Icahn, directly or indirectly, either (i) controls such company or (ii) has an interest in such company through the ownership of securities. Mr. Meister received an A.B. in government, cum laude, from Harvard College in 1995.

Edward H. MeyerMr. Meyer serves as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Ocean Road Advisors, Inc., an investment management company. From 1970 to 2006, he served as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Grey Global Group, Inc., a multi-billion dollar global advertising and marketing agency. Mr. Meyer serves as a Director of Harman International Industries, Inc., Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., National CineMedia, Inc. and NRDC Acquisition Corp. Mr. Meyer holds a B.A. in Economics from Cornell University.

Brian S. PosnerBrian S. Posner is a private investor. From 2005 through March 2008, he served as Chief Executive Officer and co-Chief Investment Officer of ClearBridge Advisors LLC (and its predecessor company, CAM North America), an asset management company based in New York with approximately $90 billion in assets and a wholly owned subsidiary of Legg Mason Inc. Prior to ClearBridge Advisors, he was a co-Founder and the Managing Partner of Hygrove Partners LLC, a hedge fund company that was formed in 2000. Prior to ClearBridge Advisors and Hygrove Partners, he served as a Portfolio Manager and an Analyst, first at Fidelity Investments from 1987 to 1996 and then at Warburg Pincus Asset Management/Credit Suisse Asset Management from 1997 to 1999. At Warburg Pincus Asset Management/Credit Suisse Asset Management he was a Managing Director and served as the Senior Investment Manager of the Value Equity Group, co-Portfolio Manager of the Warburg Pincus Growth & Income Fund, and Portfolio Manager of the Warburg Pincus Institutional Value Fund and the Warburg Pincus Trust, Growth and Income Fund. Prior to the acquisition of Warburg Pincus Asset Management ("WPAM") by Credit Suisse Asset Management in July 1999, he was co-Chief Investment Officer, Director of Research, Chairman of the Global Asset Allocation Committee, and a member of the Executive Operating Committee at WPAM. At Fidelity Investments, he was the Portfolio Manager of the Fidelity Equity Income II Fund from 1992 to 1996 and the Fidelity Value Fund from 1990 to 1992. He also managed the Select Life Insurance, Select Property Casualty Insurance and Select Energy Portfolios. From 1987 to 1990, he was an Oil, Insurance, and Financial Services Analyst. From August 2000 to April 2003 he served on the Board of Directors for Sotheby's Holdings, Inc. He currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Northwestern University and the Board of Visitors for the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. Mr. Posner received his undergraduate degree in history from Northwestern University in 1983 and his M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1987.

Robert K. ShayeRobert Shaye is Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of New Line Cinema. As the Founder of New Line Cinema and a filmmaker himself, Robert Shaye has spent more than 40 years developing and distributing films that reflect a wide array of cultural movements, creating new paradigms for the motion picture business, and most importantly, entertaining millions of moviegoers. Since he founded New Line in 1967, Shaye has guided the company's growth from a privately-held art film distributor to one of the entertainment industry's leading independent studios and a veritable box office force. He has been involved in such films as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rush Hour, Austin Powers and Seven. A University of Michigan graduate with a degree in business administration and a J.D. degree from Columbia University Law School, Shaye is also a Fulbright Scholar, member of the New York State Bar, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Motion Picture Pioneers, and the American Film Institute.

"Virtualization is a how, not a what," says Jerry Chen, VMware's senior director, enterprise desktop. The truth of this statement -- and the extent to which some people in the virtualization community forget this truth- struck me Tuesday, after I got an update from Chen on VMware's strategy and plans for desktop PC virtualization.

For the most successful IT teams, virtualization is a how. It's how you cut datacenter costs; it's how you provision new PCs faster to the business than ever before; it's how you get to say "yes" to many business-side requests that used to take months and thus used to require a "no." Desktop virtualization could be the how to another classic IT problem: Desktop PCs still take much too much time and money to manage.

The security and management-related benefits of desktop virtualization are easy to understand for industries like financial services and healthcare, which, not surprisingly, are two of the markets where VMware is having early success. (Government and education are also buying into the idea, Chen says.) Retail companies with many branch offices, knowledge firms like law firms, and even some manufacturing companies are starting to be verticals where VMware is selling desktop virtualization more, Chen says.

Still, when you consider the three main types of virtualization, server, storage, and desktop, desktop lags in adoption behind the other three, to date. In CIO's latest survey of enterprise IT leaders on virtualization, 25 percent of you said you are currently using virtual desktops; 13 percent plan to do so within a year, and 21 percent plan to do so within one to three years. But 37 percent of respondents have no plans to use virtualized desktops.

Sure, you've been stung by previous technology vendor promises to simplify PC management. It would be hard to find an IT leader who hasn't been; it's just a matter of how badly you've been stung. VMware faces this legacy.

But two desktop virtualization technology improvements, currently in the works and demonstrated at the recent VMworld show in Cannes, could make desktop virtualization a much more appetizing proposition for enterprise IT.

The first is what VMware calls "offline VDI" (virtual desktop infrastructure), and it means new flexibility for users of VMware's desktop virtualization technology. Users will be able to work offline then check back in with the server and stream changes back to the VM. On the management side, IT will be able to manage desktop and laptop users in a more similar way, Chen notes.

The second improvement, scalable virtual images, is a technique that VMware believes will reduce management overhead and storage costs, for all those VMs for users. Desktop virtualization users will have a "master" virtual machine with "child" VMs that store only the differences in that individual user's VM as compared to the master. This means much less storage space is required per user. It also means when you roll out a new app or patch, you just update the master.

As for when exactly we'll see these technologies roll out, Chen won't say just yet. But there's no question that VMware moves a lot quicker than its "new" rival, Microsoft .

But what hurdles does VMware still face as it tries to sell enterprise IT on desktop virtualization? With the long-simmering resentment about how hard it is to manage Microsoft Windows desktops, and the current skepticism of Vista, what else is holding up IT acceptance of desktop virtualization?

Multimedia formats like rich video still have some performance issues in a virtualized desktop environment, Chen says. New graphics and monitor technologies may help. Also, IT works on long-cherished desktop PC refresh cycles, so widespread change on user desktops doesn't happen fast, he notes.

But working in VMware's favor, Chen believes, is the fact that we've moved out of what VMware calls the consolidate phase (that first wave of virtualization) and into the automate phase. If you talk to an IT leader about virtualization now, it's all about management and automation, Chen says. That's not surprising: Who do you know that wouldn't like to know how to reduce PC management costs, improve security and simplify management?

VMware is also counting on the fact that IT wants a set of management tools that cover virtualized servers and virtualized desktops in one. So is Citrix (known for its thin client roots,) which is going to be making a lot of hype and noise at its user conference being held in Houston next week.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two current and two former officers of semiconductor vendor Broadcom for their alleged participation in a supposed five-year scheme to backdate stock options granted to almost all of the company's employees.

The SEC's complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that Broadcom's current Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Henry Samueli, current General Counsel David Dull, former CEO Henry Nicholas, and former Chief Financial Officer William Ruehle participated in a scheme lasting from 1998 to 2003 to fraudulently backdate stock option grants, resulting in the company failing to record billions of dollars in compensation expenses.

The complaint also accuses the four men of falsifying documents to cover up the backdating, the SEC said.

Two Broadcom spokespeople weren't immediately available for comment Wednesday.

Broadcom restated its financial results in January 2007 and reported more than $2 billion in additional compensation expenses. The SEC has brought backdating charges against several tech vendors in recent years.

The Broadcom executives "perpetrated a massive, five-year scheme that involved fraudulent backdating of dozens of option grants, falsifying corporate records, intentionally false accounting, and lying to shareholders," Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. "This egregious misconduct resulted in the largest accounting restatement to date arising from stock option backdating and warrants the significant sanctions sought from these individuals."

The four executives made it appear that the options were granted at times when Broadcom's stock was selling for low prices, although the options weren't granted at those times, the SEC said.

Nicholas and Samueli served on the two-member option committee that had authority to approve options to employees and all but the most senior officers, the SEC said. The option committee approved up to 88 grants during the time period in question, but in many cases, the committee didn't hold meetings or make decisions on the dates the grants were supposedly approved, the SEC said.

Instead, Ruehle allegedly selected most of the grant dates retroactively based on a comparison of Broadcom's historical stock prices, and Nicholas and Samueli allegedly concealed the backdating by signing false committee written consents stating that the grant had been approved by the retroactive date, the SEC alleged.

In addition, Nicholas, Samueli, and Ruehle decided on option grants to Broadcom's senior officers and used hindsight to select the dates for them, instead of having an independent compensation committee approve those grants, the SEC alleged.

Dull allegedly knew about the backdating scheme and was involved in the preparation and approval of false board and compensation committee meeting documents to conceal two backdated grants in 2001, the SEC said. In one case, the officers awarded him options to purchase 300,000 shares, the agency said.

Ruehle received options worth more than $100,000 and Dull received options worth more than $1.8 million in the backdating scheme, the SEC alleged.

The SEC charged Nicholas, Samueli, Ruehle, and Dull with violating or aiding and abetting violations of the antifraud, record-keeping, financial reporting, and internal controls provisions of the federal securities laws.

The SEC also alleged that Nicholas and Ruehle violated the proxy and false statements to auditors provisions and signed certifications required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that were false and misleading concerning Broadcom's 2002 through 2005 periodic reports. In addition, the SEC alleged that Ruehle and Dull violated the securities ownership reporting provisions.

The agency is seeking several penalties, including civil fines, the barring of the men from serving as officers or directors, and the reimbursement of bonuses and profits from stock sales by Nicholas and Ruehle, the SEC said.

Previously, the SEC has brought enforcement actions against Broadcom and Broadcom's former vice president of human resources, Nancy Tullos, in connection with the alleged backdating scheme.

A security researcher has developed malicious rootkit software for Cisco Systems' routers, a development that has placed increasing scrutiny on the routers that carry the majority of the Internet's traffic.

Sebastian Muniz, a researcher with Core Security Technologies, developed the software, which he will unveil on May 22 at the EuSecWest conference in London.

Rootkits are stealthy programs that cover up their tracks on a computer, making them extremely hard to detect. To date, the vast majority of rootkits have been written for the Windows operating system, but this will mark the first time that someone has discussed a rootkit written for IOS, the Internetwork Operating System used by Cisco's routers. "An IOS rootkit is able to perform the tasks that any other rootkit would do on desktop computer operating systems," Muniz said in an interview.

Rootkits are typically used to install key-logging software as well as programs that allow attackers to remotely connect with the infected system. However, the most notorious rootkit of all, distributed by Sony BMG Music, stopped unauthorized CD copying.

A Cisco rootkit is particularly worrisome because, like Microsoft's Windows, Cisco's routers are very widely used. Cisco owned nearly two-thirds of the router market in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to research firm IDC.

In the past, researchers have built malicious software, known as "IOS patching shellcode," that could compromise a Cisco router, but those programs are custom-written to work with one specific version of IOS.

Muniz's rootkit will be different. "It could work on several different versions of IOS," he said.

The software cannot be used to break into a Cisco router -- an attacker would need to have some kind of attack code, or an administrative password on the router to install the rootkit, but once installed it can be used to silently monitor and control the device.

The rootkit runs in the router's flash memory, which contains the first commands that it uses to boot up, said EuSecWest conference organizer Dragos Ruiu.

Muniz said he has no plans to release the source code for his rootkit, but he wants to explain how he built it to counter the widespread perception that Cisco routers are somehow immune to this type of malware. "I've done this with the purpose of showing that IOS rootkits are real, and that appropriate security measures must be taken," he said.

Security researcher Mike Lynn offered a similar rationalization for his controversial 2005 Black Hack presentation showing how to hack into a Cisco router and run a small "shellcode" program.

Lynn's presentation was "very shocking because, until then, nobody thought you could actually build exploits for Cisco," Ruiu said. "This rootkit is the next step."

Within hours of his 2005 Black Hat talk, Lynn was sued by Cisco, which claimed he had exposed trade secrets in violation of his Cisco end-user license agreement.

Cisco's suit was quickly settled, but Muniz and his employer clearly have Lynn's experience in mind as they ready for next week's conference. They declined to provide technical details on the presentation ahead of time. "We're still in the process of putting the whole presentation together, and we also need to work with Cisco before we talk to anybody," a Core spokesman said. "The big concern is making sure that everything is cool with Cisco."

Cisco declined to comment for this story.

Jennifer Granick, the Electronic Freedom Foundation lawyer who represented Lynn in 2005, said that Cisco could bring these trade-secret claims against Muniz, but because the technical community reacted so negatively to the 2005 lawsuit, she believes that this may not happen. "Cisco thinks of itself as really researcher-friendly," she said. "I think they will be very careful before filing legal action."

Still, the rootkit comes at a sensitive time for Cisco. Last week, the New York Times reported that the FBI considers the problem of fake Cisco gear a critical U.S. infrastructure threat.

In late February the FBI culminated a two-year investigation by breaking up a counterfeit Cisco distribution network and seizing an estimated $3.5 million worth of components manufactured in China. According to an FBI presentation on Operation Cisco Raider, fake Cisco routers, switches and cards were sold to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps., the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and even the FBI itself.

The U.S. Department of Defense has expressed concerns that the lack of security in the microelectronics supply chain could threaten the country's defense systems, and the idea that an attacker could sneak a rootkit onto a counterfeit Cisco system has security experts worried.

Cisco routers are typically compromised by hackers who are able to guess their administrative passwords, said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer with the SANS Institute. But there are few tools around to check these systems for signs of hacking. "How would you find out?" he said. "That's the big problem."

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has taken a first step toward re-auctioning a band of spectrum that failed to sell in the 700MHz auctions that ended in March.

The FCC on Wednesday voted to ask for public comments on how to re-auction the D block, a 10MHz piece of spectrum that commissioners had wanted to pair with another 10MHz controlled by public-safety agencies. The FCC would have required the winner of the D block to build a nationwide wireless voice and data network to be shared by public-safety agencies and commercial users, but the agency failed to receive the minimum $1.3 billion bid it wanted.

The agency raised several questions about the D block in the notice of proposed rulemaking approved Wednesday. Commissioners asked whether it was still appropriate to keep the public/private partnership, in which the spectrum winner would have worked with the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST), a coalition of 15 public-safety groups that controls the second 10MHz block that would have been paired with the D block.

The FCC's notice also asks for ideas on how to auction the D block if it's not paired with the public-safety spectrum.

The FCC also asked the public what fees are appropriate for a combined network. Some advocacy groups criticized the PSST and advisor Cyren Call for suggesting they want an annual $50 million lease payment from the D block's winner in exchange for use of their 10MHz. The FCC also asked whether for-profit organizations should be involved with the PSST.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin said he still supports the concept of a public/private partnerships, but he was pleased that the notice "turns a critical eye on the specific parameters of the partnership, and ways to ensure the commercial viability of this endeavor by providing greater certainty to all parties involved."

The FCC needs to deal with the public-safety spectrum issue "thoughtfully and quickly," Martin added.

The D-block auction was watched closely because many U.S. lawmakers and public-safety officials pushed for a nationwide network to be created after many emergency responders couldn't communicate with each other during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Police and fire departments in neighboring cities often use different communication devices on different blocks of spectrum and a nationwide network for them has been a top priority of the FCC and several lawmakers.

Commissioner Michael Copps raised concerns there are "daunting technical issues" that need to be addressed with the public-safety network, but the FCC hasn't appointed a technical advisory council to help with that task.

The best solution for public safety agencies would be a network funded by the U.S. Congress, but the cost takes that option off the table, added Copps, a Democrat.

"In the seven years since 9/11, three years since Hurricane Katrina, and one year since we began the most recent auction of the 700MHz spectrum band, we have learned two hard and disappointing lessons," Copps said. "First, that America desperately needs to improve the communications tools available to its heroic first responders. And, second, that achieving this task is not going to be easy."

Bids for the 700MHz spectrum totaled $19.6 billion. The D block received one bid for $472 million.

Many telecom experts see the 700MHz spectrum, which U.S. television stations are required to abandon by February 2009, as optimal for long-range wireless broadband services. Wireless signals in the 700MHz band travel three to four times farther and penetrate obstacles such as buildings more easily than wireless signals in higher-spectrum bands.