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Ofcom consumer panel raises concerns over 'broadband tax'

Dinah Greek — 2009-07-10T16:08:00.000Z

Dinah Greek, Computeractive, Friday 10 July 2009 at 16:08:00

Care has to be taken to ensure the vulnerable and people on low income are not adversely affected says Ofcom

The Government must carefully assess the impact that the proposed broadband levy may have on people on low incomes, warned the head of Ofcom’s Communications Consumer Panel (CCP).

Anna Bradley said the Panel had already heard rumblings of discontent from consumers about the proposed charge and believed that, to avoid paying, some people may disconnect their landline phone.

Speaking at the Westminster Media Forum yesterday, Ms Bradley voiced her concerns about how well the levy had been thought out. She told Computeractive that: “We haven’t seen the Government’s assessment of this yet and want to examine it to understand how it reaches its figures.

"It may be the only way to raise the funds but there could be other means, so it has to be carefully investigated; especially with the current economic problems. Some people may be badly affected by such a charge; even though it is a small amount.”

The charge Ms Bradley was talking about was proposed in last month’s Digital Britain report headed by Stephen Carter. In the report Lord Carter suggested a £6 per year ‘tax’ on the phone lines to people’s homes.

The aim is to start a fund that would help pay for the infrastructure necessary to deliver next-generation broadband to areas of the country internet service providers (ISPs) feel are commercially unviable.

The report said it could raise about £150- £175m per year, for the Independent Next Generation Fund. This will be administered by Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator and operators could bid for to roll out super-fast broadband - with speeds of up to 100Mbits/sec.

Ms Bradley said that the CCP would be looking carefully at the proposal over the coming months.

French Revolution execution records go online

Dinah Greek — 2009-07-10T14:16:00.000Z

Dinah Greek, Computeractive, Friday 10 July 2009 at 14:16:00

Now you can seek them here, with the help of Ancestry

Records providing a harrowing insight into the executions carried out during the French Revolution have been put online by Ancestry.co.uk.

The genealogy website said the French Deaths by Guillotine, 1792-1796 will be of particular interest to the British descendants of the 32,000 French citizens who fled to Britain during that period; colloquially known as The Reign of Terror.

The list of more than 13,000 people not only includes the names of individuals sent to the guillotine but also those condemned to be executed by hanging, firing squad and even drowning; including their occupation, age, residence of the victim and the date of the execution.

Olivier Van Caster, Ancestry.co.uk’s managing director said: “The French Revolution was a brutal and gruesome period of history, with repercussions that were felt both in France and across the world socially, culturally and politically.

“The collection will be of huge interest to the six million Brits with French ancestry, who may be able to trace a severed link to an aristocrat or a revolutionary.”

Although between 20,000 and 40,000 ‘enemies of the revolution’ were executed between 1793 and 1794 alone, Ancestry’s details have been taken from a six-volume work – the ‘Dictionary of individuals condemned to die during the Revolution’.

This detailed record was compiled in 1796 by French journalist and newspaper publisher Louis-Marie Prudhomme; who, despite his outspoken views and imprisonment, managed to avoid the guillotine.

Included in the records are key characters from this period of violence that occurred for 50 months from the start of the French Revolution, such as King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Maximilien Robespierre.

Government honours veterans of Bletchley Park at last

Iain Thomson in San Francisco — 2009-07-10T01:30:00.000Z

Iain Thomson in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Friday 10 July 2009 at 01:30:00

Surviving veterans of the code-breaking facility to receive badge of honour

The surviving workers from the Bletchley Park cryptography unit are to be honoured, nearly 70 years after the unit was formed.

The Bletchley Park code breakers, known as Station X during the Second World War, were never officially recognised for their invaluable work in deciphering German, Italian and Japanese military codes – work this is thought to have shortened the war by more than two years and saved millions of lives.

All staff were banned under the Official Secrets Act from even discussing the location of their military service until the 1970s and the site itself was nearly dismantled in the interests of secrecy. Winston Churchill called the staff "my geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled".

Now, at long last, military and civilian workers will receive a special commemorative badge from the government in recognition of their vital war work.

“These people made an enormous contribution to the outcome of World War Two, the 20th century and freedom in the West,” said Simon Greenish, director of the Bletchley Park Trust.

“After many years of having to keep their critical wartime work top secret, it is tremendous that this contribution has finally achieved recognition.”

Heroes of Bletchley included Tommy Flowers, who built one of the world’s first programmable computers, Colossus, largely using his own funds, and Dr Alan Turing, who designed the bombe cryptanalysis machines.

Flowers received an MBE and an award of £1,000 for his work while Turing was arrested for homosexuality in 1952 and committed suicide shortly afterwards, having received no official recognition for his work in his lifetime.

Foreign secretary David Miliband said: “I am delighted that the vital and secret work of Bletchley Park in the Second World War is being recognised.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to all who served at Bletchley Park and its outstations. I am proud to acknowledge their ingenuity, skill and determination, which helped our country in its time of greatest need.”

Conficker still dominating attack landscape

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-10T02:12:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Friday 10 July 2009 at 02:12:00

Botnet accounted for two-thirds of attack traffic in Q1

The Conficker botnet was by far the largest source of online attacks on the web in the first quarter of 2009, according to web services provider Akamai.

The company's quarterly State of the Internet report found that in the first months of the year, Conficker accounted for some two-thirds of all attack traffic.

First appearing in late 2008, Conficker spread throughout the web in 2009. By March, the worm touched off a media firestorm when researchers noted that many of the infected machines were programmed to dial an instruction server on 1 April.

Though no major attack occurred, the incident earned Conficker a fair amount of notoriety among IT professionals and home computer users alike.

Of the attacks that did occur in the first quarter of the year, most were from China and the US. According to Akamai, roughly half of all internet attacks originated from one of the two countries.

Akamai also revealed its findings on broadband speeds. Much like an earlier report from analyst firm Futuresource, the company placed Japan and South Korea as the countries with the fastest broadband speed.

The company also pegged Sweden as having the fastest broadband speeds in Europe, followed by the Netherlands and Romania.

Will Digital Britain survive the next election?

Dave Bailey — 2009-07-10T11:23:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, Computing, Friday 10 July 2009 at 11:23:00

Experts at a London forum examined the question marks over the future of the government's vital strategy

Experts have already started to question whether or not the government's Digital Britain strategy would survive the next general election.

At a Westminster Media Forum event yesterday to discuss the network infrastructure rollout outlined in Lord Carter's report, the final topic under debate considered whether the momentum generated by Digital Britain can be sustained.

"Will Digital Britain survive?" said chairman for the session, KPMG media partner David Elms.

Although most people presenting at the forum suggested the strategy would survive, some presentations hinted at problems delivering the network infrastructure that underpins the plan.

A ComRes poll for UK online centres suggested that less than half of MPs (46 per cent) and 38 per cent of local councillors think that digital investment will help.

The major problem identified at the forum was the implementation of the two major broadband infrastructure elements of Digital Britain – the 2Mbit/s universal service commitment and the optical-fibre next-generation access (NGA) rollout.

Even BT, the senior partner in the endeavour, was not totally convinced of the economic case for rolling out optical-fibre network connectivity, even though the company has already started operational pilots in Muswell Hill, north London and Whitchurch near Cardiff.

"In the case of NGA, I'm glad the government has recognised that the commercial case for investment across the whole country just isn't there, indeed in the current climate it's still a pretty fragile case for even the more commercial areas," said Emma Gilthorpe, BT Group industry policy and regulation director.

Another major problem identified at the forum was pointed out by Alcatel-Lucent's UK & Ireland director Andy King – that UK-wide NGA rollouts will include both national and local infrastructure and it is vital these networks can inter-operate by common interfaces.

"If commonality is not achieved, there is a very real risk that local networks will be relegated to providing niche services only, which will dramatically restrict their viability and be detrimental to the UK aim of providing end-to-end next-generation access and network coverage," said King.

And the recent announcement by the Conservative party that it would scrap UK communications regulator Ofcom if the Tories get into power could scupper major parts of the project's management, with which Ofcom has been tasked.

For example, Ofcom is responsible for reviewing how the network infrastructure detailed in the report is proceeding, managing extended 3G mobile spectrum licences, and taking the lead in reducing unlawful file sharing.

Google OS does not threaten Microsoft - yet

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-09T10:29:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 10:29:00

Chrome operating system will not arrive in time to disrupt Windows 7, says analyst

Google's plans to develop a Chrome-based operating system will not pose any immediate threat to Microsoft, according to industry analyst Charles King.

The founder and principal analyst at Pund-IT said in a report that, although Chrome OS is aiming to compete with Windows 7 in the netbook category, Microsoft should enjoy an advantage in the near term.

Google introduced Chrome OS on Wednesday, estimating that the first products to use the operating system would hit the market in late 2010. But King noted that Microsoft will have had plenty of time to establish its own offering by that time.

"Underestimating Google is a mistake by nearly any measure, but we would suggest that expecting to compete effectively against Microsoft in markets where it has enjoyed a 12-plus month headstart is also foolish in the extreme," said the analyst.

"Depending on how or whether Chrome OS catches fire, Microsoft has the wherewithal to price the netbook version of Windows 7 and its associated applications very aggressively."

When Google does reach the market with Chrome OS, King said that the key to the operating system's success will not be how well it stacks up against Windows 7, but how well Google can work with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

If the company can get hardware vendors onboard, King suggests that Chrome OS has the potential to disrupt the entire computing industry.

But the analyst warned that Google has plenty of challenges to overcome before it can make a mark in the operating system market.

"Google deserves polite applause for Chrome OS, and we look forward to what OEMs and other potential partners might do with it," said King.

"But during the year or so before Google netbooks become commercially available, the most important question to consider is whether Google can really offer anything to users that Microsoft, Apple and others cannot."

Broadband penetration set to hit 500 million

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-09T01:56:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 01:56:00

DSL still leading the way as new markets emerge

Global broadband internet connections will reach 500 million by next year, according to new research from Futuresource Consulting.

The analyst firm said that DSL connections are still by far the most popular form of broadband connection. Some 60 per cent of homes use the phone-line broadband method, while just 20 per cent use cable connections.

The fastest broadband speeds were found in Japan and South Korea, where the average connection rate was roughly 30Mbit/s. The US, by comparison, logged an average speed of just 2.7Mbit/s.

Sweden posted the fastest broadband speeds in Europe, with an average connection of 14Mbit/s.

Futuresource believes that much of the future growth will take place in developing markets, rather than developed countries where broadband is firmly established.

"Although markets in many developed countries are becoming saturated, alternative hotspots are starting to emerge. Our research shows that Africa and the Middle East will experience spikes this year that equate to 33 per cent growth," said Futuresource senior market analyst Patrik Pfandler.

"Longer term, India is the country to watch out for over the next four years. With one of the lowest household penetration rates for fixed broadband at the moment, at just over two per cent, or five million subscribers, the market is projected to grow five-fold by 2013, to almost 25 million lines."

McAfee warns of new Mac malware attack

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco — 2009-07-09T01:46:00.000Z

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009 at 01:46:00

'MacCinema' program loads systems with a Trojan

Researchers at McAfee Avert Labs have warned that a new malware attack for Mac OS X systems has been spotted in the wild.

Known informally as 'Puper', the Trojan disguises itself as a video program for OS X systems called 'MacCinema'.

The attack appears as a disk image which launches an installer application for the fictional MacCinema software. Once the installer completes its task, the user becomes infected with a script file named 'AdobeFlash'.

The malicious script then launches itself every five hours, and attempts to download and launch other malware on the infected system.

This latest attack is similar to others which have targeted OS X users in recent months, often enticing the user to download and install the malware by posing as a video player or 'codec' plug-in required to view movie files.

Other attacks have bundled Trojan installers with pirated software. One such attack was used to construct an all-Mac botnet.

Researchers have warned that, while levels of Mac malware pale in comparison to Windows, users should still adopt basic security measures, such as keeping an updated system and avoiding suspicious downloads or file attachments.