ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100076
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
A glitch that only a computer could love
WASHINGTON - Meaningless numbers flashed on the pagers of roughly 100,000 SkyTel Corp. customers Thursday because of a technical glitch.
The problem occurred when a new customer's personal identification number turned out to be the computer code used to send news items to thousands of pagers, said Anne Marie Potts, spokeswoman for Mtel Corp., the parent company of SkyTel. SkyTel has a total of 1.5 million customers nationwide.
When the new customer's pager was activated, it disabled the company's security system. A test numerical message from the newly activated pager then went to more than 100,000 customers nationwide, Potts said.
That test page generated a stream of return pages, also numerical, which also were broadcast to the customers. The problem lasted for about three hours, Potts said.
-Associated Press
GM, VW settle secrets lawsuit
DETROIT - General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG reached a settlement Thursday of GM's lawsuit alleging that VW stole trade secrets. Under the deal, VW will pay the world's largest automaker $100 million.
GM and Volkswagen said in a joint statement that VW also agreed to buy at least $1 billion worth of parts from GM over seven years in exchange for dismissal of the suit.
The central figure in the case, Jose Ignacio Lopez, still faces criminal charges in Germany; the entire matter also remains under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.
The dispute began when Lopez, about to be promoted to GM chief of North American operations, moved overnight with seven other GM executives to Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker. He is accused of stealing thousands of pages of documents and computer diskettes and has been given much of the credit for VW's recent turnaround.
-Associated Press
Indictment alleges CSX insider deal
BOSTON - A federal grand jury indicted a Massachusetts man late Wednesday for allegedly using insider information to make $400,000 on CSX Corp.'s offer to buy freight railroad Conrail, the Boston U.S. attorney's office said.
Elies Fenjiro, who allegedly used the information to buy Conrail options the day before CSX's October offer for Conrail, was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, misuse of and false representation of Social Security account numbers, and making false statements to federal agents. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said she didn't know who supplied Fenjiro with the information.
- Bloomberg Business News
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB