Notes from the field: An email security alert from a Thailand-based Web host has Cringely a bit confused, not to mention a little jumpy. “Given the current state of Net security — a term that’s rapidly becoming an oxymoron — I have good reasons to be nervous,” he writes in The gathering storm. Storm, as in the “insidious and scary nasty bit of code,” known as the Storm Worm. “The Cold War ain’t over, it’s just moved online. This time it isn’t about geopolitics, it’s about money — and so far, we’re losing this war.” Operating systems: When Apple makes its OS X Leopard available on Oct. 26, Tom Yager, and others, will be able to “finally speak out about that which we have sworn to hold secret.” Apple OS X Leopard: A beautiful upgrade. Yager even goes so far as to write that the OS is “an engineering achievement that dwarfs iPhone, iPod, Windows and Linux … I know it’s difficult for people who don’t use Macs to understand why an operating system gets us so worked up.” But Leopard, to Yager, is a big deal, albeit one that’s underhyped compared to iPhone. “Leopard is beautiful, not merely in appearance but in design, all the way down to its certified Unix core.” Okay, okay for more gushing you’ll just have to read the piece yourself. The news beat: Oracle fixes 51 security vulnerabilities spanning a range of products, including 27 in its database, with the latest patch. SAP buys Yasu Technologies and plans to integrate the acquired technology into its forthcoming first BPM product, due early next year. A Trojan imitates Skype to steal passwords and other login credentials stored in IE. And Microsoft moves up a rung on the R&D spending ladder, according to Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study, which also ranks IBM, Intel and Siemens among tech’s biggest spenders. Security