Study Projects Broadband Sign-Ups to Fall by 12 Percent in 2009, Economic Downturn Blamed

The result of the economic downturn will force cable industry and telephone companies to face some unsettling prospects in terms of customer growth and revenue increases, according to a forecast by research firm, Pike & Fischer. According to the report released today, Pike & Fischer anticipates approximately 5.7 million U.S. households to become new high-speed Internet customers this year, marking a 12% decline in subscriber growth compared to 2008. The report also suggests that the cable industry will capture about 75% of new broadband subscribers. more»

Gaza Conflict Spilling Over Into the Internet, Cyberwar Underway

Whatever your personal perspective of the rights and wrongs of the current Arab-Israeli war in Gaza, there is a second front being fought on the Internet, says Jart Armin of HostExploit.com in a blog post today. "This form of warfare is a battle of words and often vivid imagery engaged by hackers from either side of the divide." more»

Apple Taking on Google With Cloud Computing Plans

Apple has unveiled details of a new "cloud computing" initiative that will see it put many of its software and services online, taking on the might of Google in the process. The announcement of the public test version of iWork.com came at the Apple Macworld expo in San Francisco. The service, which will rival Google's "Docs" application, is free but will cost money when Apple has finished it. more»

British Telecom's IPTV Division Growing Slowly But Surely, Says Chief Executive

British Telecom's IPTV division, BT Vision, has just celebrated its second anniversary with 350,000 user although called by some critics as a slow growth. In a Telegraph interview, Dan Marks, BT Visions' chief executive has defended the company's progress saying: "What do you mean it isn't catching on? ... We've had extremely rapid growth compared to other platforms, look at the early days of cable or Sky". BSkyB took two years to sign up its first 300,000 customers, he claims. According to the latest figures released by Ofcom, the communications regulator, BSkyB now has more than 9m pay-TV subscribers and Virgin Media is also streaks ahead with 3.6m households signed up. more»

Data Breaches Up Almost 50 Percent in 2008 as Compared to 2007

Businesses, governments and educational institutions reported nearly 50 percent more data breaches last year than in 2007, exposing the personal records of at least 35.7 million Americans, according to a nonprofit group that works to prevent identity fraud. Identity Theft Resource Center of San Diego is set to announce today that some 656 breaches were reported in 2008, up from 446 in the previous year. Nearly 37 percent of the breaches occurred at businesses, while schools accounted for roughly 20 percent of the reported incidents. more»

Malaysia Wants to Handle Internet Related Crimes via 'Cyber Court'

Malaysia is considering establishing a "cyber court" to deal with the increasing number of crimes related to the Internet and blogging, a report said Tuesday. Communications Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor said more than 30 Internet-linked cases had been submitted to the country's attorney general in the past three years. "If in future if we cannot cope any more due to too many cases, we may need to have a cyber court," he said, according to the official news agency Bernama. more»

UPDATEDChina Determined to Purify the Internet, Cracks Down on Google and Other Major Websites

The Chinese government broadened its recent effort to limit pornography on the Internet by criticizing 19 Internet companies by name Monday, including Google and Baidu, the providers of the two most popular search engines in the country. A statement posted by early Monday afternoon on a government-run news site said the Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies would work together "to purify the Internet's cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors." A similar statement had been issued Dec. 5 but attracted little attention. more»

ICANN Releases 10th Year Annual Report

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has released its 2008 Annual Report marking the organization's 10th year anniversary. The 133 page report covers in detail the organization's accomplishments during 2008, including three major initiatives ICANN has undertaken this year: the process for introducing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet; the introduction for the first time of internationalized domain names (IDNs); and an extensive Improving Institutional Confidence consultation, to enable the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the United States government in September 2009. more»

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Browser Drops to 68.15% Market Share, Lowest in Years

The latest data Relevant Products/Services from Net Applications indicates that Internet Explorer lost market share in December to browsers from Mozilla and Apple. According to the Web metrics provider, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's browser market share has declined by more than six percent since February 2008. The browser held a 68.15 percent market share in December - its lowest in years. By contrast, Mozilla Firefox's market share rose one-half of a percentage point from November and has climbed more than four percent since February to reach 21.34 percent in December. more»

Domain Name Disputes Doubled Since 2003, Origin of Most Cases in US

Domain name disputes have been on steady rise for the past several years and have more than doubled since 2003. As reported today by Pingdom, while there was a period between 2000 and 2003 when the number of domain dispute cases declined, they have been continuously increased since 2003 with most cases involving more than one domain name. more»

Cybersecurity Rapidly Growing Part of U.S. Budget, Lockheed and Boeing Heavily Involved

Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., the world's biggest defense companies, are deploying forces and resources to a new battlefield: cyberspace. The military contractors, eager to capture a share of a market that may reach $11 billion in 2013, have formed new business units to tap increased spending to protect U.S. government computers from attack. more»

Experts Concerned Economic Downturn Getting in the Way of Patching Critical DNS Flaw

The discovery of a major DNS flaw in mid-2008 landed the technology in many headlines, but with economic concerns weighing on many in IT, industry watchers worry that revamping systems and security around domain name servers could be put on hold in 2009. The vulnerability discovered by director of penetration testing at IOActive Dan Kaminsky motivated numerous vendors to upgrade their products to protect enterprise networks against cache poisoning and other DNS attacks, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS). IT directors were encouraged to upgrade their DNS systems to guard against potential threats... more»

UPDATEDResearchers Demonstrate How to Launch Undetectable Phishing Attacks

With the help of about 200 Sony Playstations, an international team of security researchers have devised a way to undermine the algorithms used to protect secure Web sites and launch a nearly undetectable phishing attack. To do this, they've exploited a bug in the digital certificates used by Web sites to prove that they are who they claim to be. By taking advantage of known flaws in the MD5 hashing algorithm used to create some of these certificates, the researchers were able to hack Verisign's RapidSSL.com certificate authority and create fake digital certificates for any Web site on the Internet. more»

Telcos Pushing to Benefit From New US Administration's Broadband Funding

President-elect Barack Obama's call to improve the nation's broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up. Lawmakers in Congress want a plan that will create jobs over the next two to three years while also tackling the longer-term goal of improving the availability and quality of high-speed Web access in the U.S. The U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. more»

British Cabinet Minister Proposes New Ratings System for Internet

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Andy Burnham says he believes that new standards of decency need to be applied to the web. He is planning to negotiate with Barack Obama's incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites. The Cabinet minister describes the internet as "quite a dangerous place" and says he wants internet-service providers (ISPs) to offer parents "child-safe" web services. more»