Saxophonist - Slashdot User

Submission + - Did Microsoft alter Windows sales figures? (informationweek.com)

Submitted by Saxophonist on Monday November 15, 2010 @10:23AM

Saxophonist writes: InformationWeek claims to have analyzed Microsoft's most recent Form 10-Q and observed that a reported increase in earnings for the Windows unit may be due to accounting trickery rather than actual sales growth. Microsoft apparently increased its reported revenues for its Windows, Server & Tools, and Office units at least partly through shifting revenues from other units. While there may be nothing "to suggest the company's revisions violate any accounting rules," the actual growth in Windows sales was likely nowhere near the high double-digit percentage growth claimed. InformationWeek speculates that revenues from Xbox and Surface may have been among the revenues shifted to the other divisions.

Submission + - Cell Phone Encryption Exploit Demonstrated

Submitted by Saxophonist on Thursday February 21, 2008 @08:28PM

Saxophonist writes: Two individuals presenting at the Black Hat security conference in Washington, D.C., demonstrated an efficient way to break the encryption on cellular telephone signals that use the GSM protocol. David Hulton and Steve Muller claim that one such method can be done in about half an hour with $1,000 worth of hardware. They plan to release that method for free, but they have another, faster method that they plan to sell for $200,000 to $500,000. They claim that this faster method can decrypt a signal in about thirty seconds.

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