The top U.S. veterans affairs official said on Thursday he could not be certain a recent computer theft did not include more private data on military personnel than had been reported so far. What began two weeks ago with the reported theft of computer equipment containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of 26.5 million U.S. veterans, widened on Tuesday after the Veterans Affairs Department said the theft included confidential data on 2.2 million active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops. The reason for the uncertainty was that one of 17 disks a department employee had in his home was apparently unreadable and officials could not be certain that data from it were not downloaded on the computer and external hard drive later stolen from his home.

A dispute over the cost of Internet domain names has spilled over onto Capitol Hill, where allegations of monopolization and unreasonable price hikes surfaced in a congressional hearing on Wednesday. The dispute arises out of a lawsuit settlement reached on March 1 in which ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) gave VeriSign the right to raise fees on .com domains by 7 percent annually. The settlement, approved by ICANN’s board by a 9-5 vote, ended a legal spat that started with VeriSign’s controversial move to take control of all unassigned .com and .net domain names in 2003.

Ubuntu was awarded a PC World 2006 World Class Award, identifying it as one of PC World’s 100 Best Products of the Year. Winners were announced in the July 2006 issue of PC World. Ubuntu, which has become one of the world’s most popular Linux distributions in recent years, launched its latest version on June 1. The new release, entitled Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support), has a specific emphasis on the needs of large organizations with both desktop and server versions.

Dell is using the unveiling of new servers to launch an aggressive campaign designed to show that it is more than simply a box maker. The Round Rock company is rolling out three new PowerEdge servers powered by Intel’s dual-core "Dempsey" Xeon processors and, later this year, by the Xeons code-named Woodcrest. In addition, the company in late June will introduce the next generation of its blade servers, the PowerEdge 1955, again first with Dempsey and then with Woodcrest, according to Jay Parker, director of worldwide marketing for the PowerEdge server line.

The Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs, R. James Nicholson, will announce a VA-wide recall of all laptop computers June 8 in a 10:00 a.m. hearing at the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee. According to Rick Weidman, executive director for Policy & Government Affairs, this recall will cover every laptop computer in the agency. Weidman said that in meetings he had with Nicholson Wednesday evening this recall was not mentioned to him or to others in the veterans’ community; however, he said that his office was notified this morning.

Webify Solutions, provider of service oriented business software for the healthcare industry, announced the latest version of its Webify Healthcare Fabric 4.0. Webify Healthcare Fabric 4.0 is the first fully integrated business services lifecycle management product tailored specifically for the healthcare industry. The platform allows customers to source, assemble, deliver and govern business services and service oriented business applications.

There’s an obscure LotusScript reserved variable called lsi_info. If you’re not sure what it can do for you (and it can do a lot), read this article by Senior Technical Editor Mick Moignard.

Read this DominoPower article.

McAfee announced it has acquired Preventsys, a move designed to expand its security and compliance lineup. Preventsys markets its Security Risk Management System to large corporate customers. The acquisition is intended to bolster McAfee’s other risk management products, such as Foundstone, which it acquired two years ago for $85 million. Preventsys’ software is designed to consolidate security data from a multitude of vendors’ tools and display the information on one dashboard or screen.

AOL is preparing to enter the security fray with a new software bundle that it plans to market to the general public, not just its subscribers, CNET News.com has learned. The software, dubbed "Total Care," is expected to be available to software testers in the coming weeks, a source familiar with AOL’s plans said. The product will include security and PC care features, matching Microsoft’s recently launched Windows Live OneCare product and upcoming products from Symantec and McAfee, this person said.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been hit with a class-action lawsuit following the theft last month of a device containing personal information on about 26.5 million veterans. Five organizations and several individuals have asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the agency to individually inform everyone affected and to pay $1,000 each to anyone whose privacy has been harmed, Vietnam Veterans of America said Tuesday. The suit also seeks to prevent the department from using the data until safeguards have been put in place.