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Black Hat security conference highlights DNS Flaw

It seems as though 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies have had to patch their networks, this fix was a direct result of a security flaw. The flaw allowed cyber criminals to redirect visitors to counterfeit or malicious Web sites. This patch still leaves Internet users vulnerable to a large number of infrastructure providers who have yet to fix this security risk.

This data has been highlighted at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, it was Dan Kaminsky, the Seattle based IOActive researcher who first discovered the risk. Kaminsky said that bad guys would be able to corrupt records that they could find in the domain name system (DNS). They will then be able to fill them in with inaccurate information.

It was on July 8 that a number of companies that included Microsoft, Cisco, Sun Microsystems along with a dozen others had to ship software updates to fix this fault in the DNS design.

DNS is the communication standard, it acts as what could only be described as a phonebook for the Internet.

Kaminsky said that while some 120 million which is about 42 percent of broadband users are now protected by this patch, just half of the DNS servers are now protected by this patch. In his time on the floor at the Black Hat conference Kaminsky described the many ways that a bad guy was able to steal your personal and financial data from the Internet.

For a full report on this visit: The Washington Post

Comcast still maintain innocence after FCC verdict

On August 1, the FCC concluded that Comcast had violated federal policies. The cable operator was found guilty of interfering with customer’s use of peer-to-peer applications. Comcast still do not find anything wrong with this and still maintain that they are innocence.

Comcast have said that their practices are consistent with industry practices; Sena Fitzmaurice said that they did not block access to Websites or online applications; these include peer-to-peer services.

Comcast managed to escape a fine from the Federal Communications Commission, but they have imposed a deadline on the cable operator. Comcast are now considering all their legal options.

The Comcast case goes back to last year when the FCC received a complaint that the cable operator had an unfair bandwidth policy. According to the complaint, Comcast was altering peer-to-peer connections.

Comcast did say that some broadband users tend to use a huge amount of bandwidth, this then overwhelms the network. This kind of usage threatens to harm the online experience for others.

Comcast has to submit to the Commission’s Order, a compliance plan describing how it intends to put a stop to these practices. They have 30 days to do this.

July: T-Mobile USA will offer to pay off your mortgage

As we know T-Mobile USA are now starting up a new home phone telephone service, and they are making a huge push to promote this. T-Mobile are doing all they can to sign people up to their new service, and you would not believe some of the promotions that they are offering. In July T-Mobile are offering to pay off your mortgage or take over your rent payments, not only that, they are also giving away two new homes.

The new service is called T-Mobile @Home and will be launched today June 25. What this service allows you to day is switch over their existing home phone numbers quickly, and then they will be able to start receiving calls over a broadband connection cheaper than before.

Many people will be thinking, “how come T-Mobile is late to the ball game on this”, Vonage (VG) pioneered this service back in 2001. When you look at this kind of service today, some of the big providers are already doing it like Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T). T-Mobile have a different goal for their new service, they do not wish to become a major force in a dwindling home phone services, T-Mobile what’s to deliver a blow to wireless competitors.

According to Business Week, the U.S. wireless market has been saturated, service providers in the business have to do what ever they can to steal customers from each other, and this is done by offering the best deals. Looking at T-Mobile’s deal, it seems as if they are offering the sweetest.

T-Mobile @Home at $10 per month is just half the price of Vonage’s lowest-priced plan, and when you think that an average telco phone-line user pays at least $65 per month, it seems that T-Mobile are certainly offering a sweet deal.

New launch of Blinkx Broadband Television, interact with TV: Download Now

A great new service has just been launch by the name of Blinkx Broadband Television (BBTV) which you can download right now. A new web service where you can interact with TV.

Blinkx is California-based and is the world’s largest video search engine which will allow you to search more than 18 million videos across the web; the question is “How good is it?

It will however give you high picture quality videos on a full screen unlike the small screen typical of much online video and in addition all users will be able to interact with the videos they are watching.

The new BBTV service will create a speech track of the video which also allows users to go to certain points just by searching for a particular word, you will be able to click on these certain words in the transcript for additional information on people or places featured, while the videos also link through to other websites which have related information.

Source – Product Page

YouTube users will be able to login directly from their TiVo Series3 TiVo HD

This could be great news people, especially those who have YouTube accounts; a new press release that recently popped up is letting everyone know that Tivo owners will be able to login into their YouTube accounts straight from their Tivo machine that is connected to broadband.

This service will work with the TiVo Series3 and the new TiVo HD.

Please read the full press release below. Please let us know what you think of this new service.

PRESS RELEASE:
TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television

ALVISO, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced an agreement with YouTube(TM) that will offer access to YouTube videos directly from the TV via a TiVo DVR. The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with (TM) DVRs, including the new HD TiVo.

Every day hundreds of millions of videos are viewed on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded. Upon launch of the TiVo-YouTube service, TiVo users will be able to search, browse and watch these videos directly on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs. The combination of having the YouTube experience with the convenience and familiarity of TiVo’s intuitive user interface will provide TiVo subscribers with the ability to discover and enjoy the most shared and most discussed web videos in the world on their televisions. Importantly, users will be able to log into their YouTube accounts directly from their TiVo boxes and access their favorite YouTube channels and playlists.

“We’re delighted to be working with the world’s leading online video community so that TiVo subscribers can access YouTube’s popular content on the TV via the TiVo DVR,” said Tara Maitra, Vice President and GM of Content Services at TiVo Inc. “Being able to make available YouTube videos to the TiVo subscriber base using one device, one remote and one user interface is another major step in our commitment to combine all of your television and web video viewing options in one easy to use service.”

Powerline incorporated into En-Compass socket by En-Twyn

The London based company En-Twyn have set up shop in Germany to show the En-Compass. It differs from other Powerline systems as all of the connections are concealed within the socket, rather than on the outside.

It works just how you would think, the Ethernet signals travel over the existing wiring set up in your home. The product is presently still in the prototype stage and is not available. We will update you when there is more information.

Source

Could Tiscali Be Selling Broadband Business?

It looks as if the two million customers that Tiscali have could be ringing another ISP, if the reports are true that the business is for sale. The company is facing a shake up after the departure of CEO, Tomasso Pompei and his replacement Mario Rosso.

“Explore options to create value for shareholders connected with the process of consolidation taking place in the European telecommunications sector”. Is what the company says it is now going to do. A lot of people are already translating this to mean that the company will be for sale, how will the customers be affected?

Source

Comcast’s BitTorrent, P2P and Traffic Shaping: FCC kicking butt

Many people have been complaining about Comcast and the fact that they are throttling P2P application. This BitTorrent traffic controlling has become a subject that has got the attention of the FCC; it seems as if the Read more

Tiscali COD4 P2P Update on Sony PS3: still connecting problems in Call of Duty 4

With still 8 days to go before I’m connected to BT Broadband, I thought I would give you an update on the Tiscali COD4 P2P problem.

I am able to get into games now when searching (although very slow at times), but trying to invite friends to games that are on Tiscali or if they try and invite me in is near impossible…it works rarely even to the point of switching off and walking away in frustration Read more

Tiscali P2P Update & Mac Code: Sony PS3, Error 33 on Call of Duty 4 (COD4)

This is an update to the news the other day about Tiscali’s P2P problems and how they stop Sony PS3 gamers getting on Call of Duty 4 in evenings. We had over 8000 page views to that story and many comments.

After trying to get online gaming in COD4 the other day again and taking over 2 hours until around 10pm when I got in, I thought, “enough is enough”.

I had a read through the 41+ pages in the Tiscali forum again and could see know one was getting anywhere and in fact many were moving to another broadband provider Read more

Get a Lap Top with 3 at PC World

PC World have announced that they will be launching a new promotion and that is you may get a free or discounted lap top when taking out a 18 month contract with 3 for your broadband. There are a range of 10 lap tops that a customer can choose Read more

Tiscali stops all Sony PS3 owners playing Call of Duty 4 (COD4) Online

Its hard to know where to start with this issue, simply put Tiscali are stopping all Sony PS3 owners playing Call of Duty 4 Online at certain times (mostly the whole evening up to 12 midnight).

I first looked into this when I could not connect to games on my Playstation 3 and got “error 33” with Call of Duty 4, and also having many other connection problems in the game.

After a little research I found out I was not the only one with these problems and even more amazingly nearly everyone was a Tiscali or Pipex (owned by Tiscali) customer.

I have read all 41 pages on a Tiscali forum, which shows many of the ISP’s users moving away to another broadband provider and getting their Mac codes.

It looks like the issue is COD4 uses P2P to find games and Tiscali are blocking this at certain times Read more