Week in review: Getting back to work

Recent evidence suggests that the tech economy may be improving and that more of us working, but what are we really doing when we are supposed to be laboring?

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that payroll employment in computer and electronic products manufacturing rose by 7,400 in June to 1.34 million. The field of computer systems design and related services added 5,200 payroll jobs, for a total of 1.18 million.

In another sign of a possible turnaround in tech employment, a report said job cuts announced by tech companies in the second quarter fell 33 percent from the first quarter. But the study cautioned that the pace of tech sector downsizing is still ahead of the rate a year ago.

Companies in the telecommunications, computer, electronics and e-commerce industries announced 39,720 job cuts last quarter, down from 59,537 job cuts in the first quarter of 2005. However, this second-quarter figure was 16 percent higher than in the same quarter a year ago.

Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard executives are expected this weekend to put the final touches on a reorganization that could result in the loss of about 15,000 jobs. The job cuts will then be announced on Monday, a source familiar with the company said.

The layoffs are part of CEO Mark Hurd's cost-cutting measures to bring HP's spending more in line with that of its rivals.

For those who are working, working doesn't seem to be a priority. Surfing the Internet seems to be the most popular form of loafing on the job, according a study on wasted time at work by compensation specialist Salary.com and Web portal America Online.

"Obviously the people that were surveyed are just not trying hard enough. Like most network engineers I find that it's possible to go days, even weeks without doing any real work at all."
--Andrew Bright

Through a Web survey involving more than 10,000 employees, the report found that personal Internet surfing ranked as the top method of cooling one's heels at work. It was cited by 44.7 percent of respondents as their primary time-wasting activity, followed by socializing with co-workers (23.4 percent) and conducting personal business (6.8 percent).

The average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per day, not counting lunch, according to the report. That's far more time than the roughly one hour per day employers expect the average employee to waste, the report said. The extra unproductive time adds up to $759 billion annually in salaries for which companies get no apparent benefit, the report said.

Far from flawless
Hackers are actively exploiting two serious security vulnerabilities in Windows, Microsoft warned as it released "critical" alerts about the flaws. One of the problems affects the Microsoft Color Management Module, a component of Windows that handles colors. The other relates to the JView Profiler, part of Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine.

The vulnerabilities could be used to commandeer a PC. An intruder could take advantage of the JView Profiler flaw by crafting a malicious Web page and persuading a user to visit the site. As for the Color Management Module vulnerability, people could fall victim to an attack by viewing a malicious image.

Meanwhile, two serious security flaws in a technology widely used for network authentication could expose a swath of software products to hacker attack, experts have warned. The flaws could allow an online intruder to crash or gain access to computers running Kerberos, a freely available authentication technology that was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT rates both flaws "critical," according to two advisories. The university also made available patches to fix the problems and stated that exploitation of the bugs by attackers "is believed to be difficult." Several software makers have already released updates to their products to address the problem.

Several vulnerabilities were identified in Cisco Systems' products this week that could lead to denial-of-service attacks. The most noteworthy flaw was reported Tuesday when Cisco warned that hackers could cripple its IP telephony networks by exploiting flaws in its CallManager software, an essential component of Cisco's IP telephony technology, which is used for call signaling and call routing.

By exploiting the discovered vulnerabilities, an attacker can trigger an overflow in memory within a critical CallManager process. This can result in a denial-of-service condition, which will cause the CallManager server to shut down and reboot. Cisco has issued a patch for the vulnerability.

The evolution will be televised
Millions of American television sets that receive only analog over-the-air broadcasts could go dark if not upgraded by Jan. 1, 2009. That deadline was suggested in a pair of hearings by members of the U.S. Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The committee is preparing legislation that will require all American televisions to run on digital signals by the end of 2008. That would free up the analog, or 700 MHz, spectrum for other uses, such as broadband services and communications for emergency workers. Under current law, analog television would be cut off on Dec. 31, 2006, or when 85 percent of households are capable of receiving digital signals, whichever comes sooner.

The DVR landscape may be changing as well. Software maker Forgent