News Wrap: Mobiles, MSN, Modems, Ericsson

A phone engineer who ran a legitimate company has been jailed for 30 months in the UK's biggest ever communications fraud case.

Radomir Lukic was convicted of defrauding BT Cellnet of over £3m through the sale of modified Sim cards, allowing users to make unlimited calls for free. He was also found to be guilty of selling decoders to get free cable TV.

Although Lukic ran a legitimate company called Radcom, he sold modified phones for around £250 as well as selling on the internet software used for the modification.

Microsoft's MSN boss quits

Brad Chase, head of Microsoft's online operation MSN, has announced that he is stepping down from his position after 13 years with the company. An internal email from Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer reveals that Chase will be moving on to "pursue some new challenges".

Chase was a part of the group involved in the launch of Windows 95 and the original Internet Explorer. He also testified for the company during the antitrust trial. He will be leaving just as some of the company's online ventures are moved to another sector under the .Net banner.

Ballmer also added in the email that AOL had become the company's "greatest competitive challenge".

Flaw found in high-speed modems

Researchers have found a glitch in a popular brand of high-speed modem, which could allow a hacker access to their machine and compromise sensitive information.

Security watchdog Cert released an advisory note yesterday revealing that Alcatel's Speed Touch Home ADSL modems and the 1000 Network Termination Device were at risk.

The products both feature a function that allows a user to remotely upgrade the firmware, or software embedded in the modem's hardware. But a hacker can remotely compromise this facility and install malicious code or sabotaged firmware, leading to "unauthorised access, unauthorised monitoring, information leakage, denial of service, and permanent disability of affected devices," Cert said.

As a precaution, Alcatel recommends using a firewall with the modem.

Ericsson withdraws its only next generation phone

Problems with Ericsson's only next generation GPRS handset have caused the company to recall phones across Europe. The R520 model is believed to have a settings error that results in a shorter battery life for the handset: all versions of this model distributed in Europe will be affected and have been recalled.

The R520 was the company's first handset to provide both GPRS and Bluetooth connectivity, but analysts have said the product was suffering because of the implementation of immature Bluetooth technology. Ericsson, however, maintains the recall is due to a battery error.