World News | Latest News: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Apple to unveil own cloud service

31 May 2011 Last updated at 13:11 ET

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will announce a range of new products, including a widely anticipated cloud service, at its developer conference next week.

iCloud is likely to offer services rivaling that of Google and Amazon.

Attendees will also see Lion, the latest version of Apple's Macintosh operating system, and an upgraded version of mobile system iOS.

Mr Jobs, who is on medical leave, has not appeared in public since March.

Details of the products on show came via an Apple press release ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) - an unusual step for a company which is usually very secretive ahead of its flagship event.

Fierce competition

Rumours of the iCloud have been circulating since it was reported that Apple bought the "iCloud.com" domain name in April.

Analysis

Two things stand out from Apple's announcement about next week's event.

First, the news that Steve Jobs will take to the stage. Apple's charismatic boss has been on sick leave for months, so this appears to be welcome evidence that he is in reasonable shape.

Then, as well as confirming that the conference will see the unveiling of the next generation of Mac OSX, there's the revelation that iCloud - "Apple's upcoming cloud services offering" - will also be on show.

While the music industry has been buzzing for months, even years, with speculation that Apple would launch a streaming music service, it is unusual for a company that guards its secrets so jealously to give us even this much detail in advance.

The eyes of Google, Amazon and Europe's Spotify will be on Steve Jobs' keynote on Monday.

They will all be wondering whether the company that has dominated the digital download market now has plans to take control of the cloud too.

However, it is unclear whether the iCloud will be a purely music streaming tool or if it will be a wider cloud service for storage such as the one offered by, among others, Dropbox.

Amazon and Google have already launched streaming music services, but so far have not managed to get big record labels on board - meaning they can only offer streaming of tracks already owned by the user.

Unconfirmed reports have hinted that Apple have managed to seal deals with several labels.

If true, this would make it a fierce competitor to Spotify, an already well-established music service with over 10m members.

Spotify is not yet available in the United States.

Last year, Mr Jobs said Lion - the eighth version of its Mac OSX operating system - would bring "many of the best ideas from the iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones".

Also on show will be the fifth version of iOS, the software which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

However, official details about the next iPhone have yet to be publicised.

UK beefs up cyber warfare plans

31 May 2011 Last updated at 08:22 ET

'Cyber' soldiers will be put alongside conventional troops as the government puts cyber attacks on an equal footing with other conflicts.

The news comes as US defence firm Lockheed Martin admitted it came under a significant cyber attack last week.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it will recruit hundreds of cyber experts to shore up UK defences.

It is part of a �650m fund set aside by the government for dealing with cyber security.

"Our forces depend on computer networks, both in the UK and in operations around the world. But our adversaries present an advance and rapidly developing threat to these networks," said the MoD in a statement.

"Future conflict will see cyber operations conducted in parallel with more conventional actions the sea, land and air operations," it added.

It will see a growing band of cyber experts deployed by the armed forces to protect vital networks.

"We expect to significantly grow the number of dedicated cyber experts in the MoD and the number will be in the hundreds but precise details are classified," said an MoD spokesman.

"As with all personnel they will be expected to serve wherever necessary to do their jobs and this could be in the UK or in operational theatre," he added.

Cyber spies

MoD networks receive around 20,000 malicious e-mails each month, around 1,000 of which are deliberately targeting them.

There has also been a flurry of attacks aimed atother sensitive targets in recent months.

Defence firm Lockheed Martin, which makes weapon systems that are sold around the world, was the latest to be hit.

During a cyber attack last week, the firm said it took counter measures "almost immediately" and stressed that none of its programmes had been compromised.

The Pentagon is now investigating the incident.

The UK's National Cyber Security Programme was announced as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review in October 2010.

It will see a number of government departments working with industry and universities in order to achieve the following:

Reduce vulnerability to cyber espionage
Improve ability to detect and defend against cyber attack
Incorporate cyber into mainstream Defence concepts and doctrine
Ensure the UK's critical infrastructure, vital government networks and service are resilient from attack.

The US is also taking a tougher line on cyber attacks and plans to issue detailed plans next month.

This week the Pentagon said that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, to which it may respond using traditional military force.

Security firm MacAfee recently found that eight out of 10 countries around the world had had critical networks targeted by hackers during 2010.

The Stuxnet worm has become the most high-profile piece of malware with the potential to harm key infrastructure.

Analysis of the malicious computer code suggests it was designed to take control of machinery in Iran's nuclear facilities.

Some have pointed the finger at the Israeli secret service as the source of the malware. Both Israel and the US have been highly critical of Iran's nuclear programme.

Google to track dengue fever hubs

31 May 2011 Last updated at 08:09 ET

Google is using search patterns about dengue fever in an attempt to help health officials prepare for outbreaks.

It hopes to develop an early-warning system by monitoring dengue-related search terms by users in Bolivia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Singapore.

Google said that its results are collected in real-time, whereas official data can take weeks to be analysed.

In 2009, Google used a similar approach to track the spread of flu.

"Using the dengue case count data provided by Ministries of Health and the World Health Organization, we're able to build a model that offers near real-time estimates of dengue activity based on the popularity of certain search terms," Google software engineer Vikram Sahai wrote in a blog post.

"Google Dengue Trends is automatically updated every day, thereby providing an early indicator of dengue activity."

The project was developed together with Boston's Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The methodology for the project has been shared in an article for the Public Library of Science's journal on neglected tropical diseases.

Real correlation

The tool is part of Google Correlate, a new service which connects search analysis with data collected in real life.

Correlate was created following Google's success with Flu Trends in 2009, a tool which tracked searches for flu-related searches worldwide.

Public health officials were able to use the data to distribute vaccines and treatments more effectively.

Google published a report in Nature, the highly-respected journal, and soon received attention by other researchers hoping to use the service to monitor other issues.

Correlate, launched last week, allows experts to upload their own data sets to compare against Google searches.

The software highlights when the real world data and online searches share the same patterns, such as flu outbreaks occuring at the same time as a large number of searches for "treatment for flu".

Professor Peter Sever, an expert in disease prevention from Imperial College London, said the tool could prove very useful for researchers that currently collect data using slower methods.

"It will of course be highly selective because you'll be picking out the people who are using Google, but of course year on year that's an increasing proportion of the population anyway," he said.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Cyber-attack hits Lockheed Martin

29 May 2011 Last updated at 02:39 ET

US defence firm Lockheed Martin says it has come under a significant cyber-attack, which took place last week.

Few details were available, but Lockheed said its security team had detected the threat quickly and ensured that none of its programmes had been compromised.

The Pentagon said it is working to establish the extent of the breach.

Lockheed makes fighter jets, warships and multi-billion dollar weapons systems sold worldwide.

Lt Col April Cunningham, speaking for the US defence department, said the impact on the Pentagon was "minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect".

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it detected the attack on 21 May "almost immediately" and took counter-measures.

As a result, the company said, "our systems remain secure; no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised".

But they are still working to restore employee access several days after the attack took place.

Lockheed Martin is the world's biggest aerospace company and makes F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets as well as warships.

Council takes Twitter to US court

29 May 2011 Last updated at 12:07 ET

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Councillor Ahmed Khan claims his human rights have been breached

An English council has taken Twitter to court in the US in a bid to discover the identity of a blogger behind allegedly libellous statements.

South Tyneside Council went to court in California after three councillors and an official complained they were libelled in a blog called "Mr Monkey".

Twitter said it could not comment on individual court requests.

But the councillor at the centre of the row said Twitter had already handed over his account details.

Media law experts suggest the case may prompt more UK citizens to take action in the US, where Twitter is based.

Independent South Shields councillor Ahmed Khan is suspected of being the author of the blog, which has made a series of unfounded allegations against council leaders.

Mr Khan, who denies being the author, said he was told by Twitter in May that his account details had been disclosed after a subpoena was lodged with the Californian court.

He said: "I don't fully understand it but it all relates to my Twitter account and it not only breaches my human rights, but it potentially breaches the human rights of anyone who has ever sent me a message on Twitter.

Is this a landmark moment for free speech online, with Twitter handing over confidential details of a user for the first time?

Probably not. Twitter - like other major American web firms - complies with US court orders and requests from law enforcement agencies.

We know, for instance, that the US government sought to obtain details from Twitter of people connected with Wikileaks.

That case is still under way, because the targets were notified by Twitter and chose to fight. The South Tyneside councillor decided not to go to court and details of his account were handed over back in April.

But it seems unlikely that this was a first, for Twitter or the wider web. Google, for instance, issues an annual transparency report which reveals that in just six months last year, it received more than 4,000 requests for user data from US agencies and more than 1,300 from Britain.

So what are the implications for the Ryan Giggs case? Again, it's not clear this makes a difference.

Whereas the South Tyneside case involved a defamation suit brought in a US court, the footballer's lawyers are trying to get a UK court order imposed on a US company. Which is, as someone close to the case put it, a very complex business.

"This is Orwellian. It is like something out of 1984."

He admitted being a critic of some council policies, adding: "People who had the courage to come forward and expose possible wrongdoing within South Tyneside Council will not now do so.

"I also think that constituents who have used Twitter to engage with me, to air any problems or concerns that they have, will also think twice before doing that."

The Mr Monkey blog has made a number accusations against the council's Labour leader Iain Malcolm, as well as David Potts, the former Conservative leader who now serves as an Independent councillor, Labour councillor Anne Walsh and Rick O'Farrell, the council's head of enterprise and regeneration.

They are all named on papers delivered by the council's lawyers to the Superior Court of California.

A spokesman for South Tyneside Council said: "This legal action was initiated by the council's previous chief executive and has continued with the full support of the council's current chief executive.

"The council has a duty of care to protect its employees and as this blog contains damaging claims about council officers, legal action is being taken to identify those responsible."

He said he had no knowledge of councillors attending court hearings in the US or whether Twitter had as yet handed over any confidential information.

'Seedy little blog'

A spokesman for Twitter said: "We cannot comment on any specific order or request.

"As noted in our law enforcement guidelines, it is our policy to notify our users before disclosure of account information."

Lawyers challenged Twitter in the High Court in London to reveal the identities of its users who violated a super-injunction involving Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs.

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Media lawyer Mark Stephens says he is unaware of anyone from the UK taking action like this before

MP John Hemming named the star in Parliament as the footballer who had used a super-injunction to hide an alleged affair, after Mr Giggs' name had been widely aired on Twitter.

Media lawyer Mark Stephens, who represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, said: "I am unaware of any other occasion where somebody from this country has actually gone to America and launched proceedings in a Californian court to force Twitter to release the identities of individuals.

"The implications are that people who have had their name released can actually now go to California and begin proceedings.

"Local authorities cannot sue for libel and, if individual councillors have been defamed, they should take proceedings at their own cost."

Mr Potts said: "This is a deeply tawdry, perverted and seedy little blog that has been in existence for quite a while.

"It's no longer active, as I understand, but the information is still on the internet for all to see.

"This was a blog that didn't just affect councillors, it also affected council officers.

"We have a duty of care, as any employer does whether public or private, to defend not only our commercial interests, but also the interests of our employees."

Friday, May 27, 2011

UK rural broadband plans move on

27 May 2011 Last updated at 03:28 ET

Homes in Devon, Somerset, Norfolk and Wiltshire will get super-fast broadband, the government has said.

Making sure rural areas have fast net services is part of a wider drive to make the UK the best place for broadband by 2015.

Each county will receive a portion of the �530m fund the government has set aside to fund rural broadband.

The Department for Culture said that all the UK's local authorities will receive funding in the next few years.

"This is part of our plan for virtually every community in the UK to have access to super-fast broadband," said culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The government acknowledges that its �530m pot - which is money left over from an earlier digital switchover fund - will not be enough to give the entire country fast broadband.

Private investment will also be needed.

Fibre homes

The successful counties were among 18 which originally bid for the money.

Devon and Somerset will receive around �30m, Norfolk �15m and Wiltshire �4m and they will then choose a contractor and technology best suited for their needs.

The government anticipates that the technologies will be a mix of mobile, satellite and fibre connections.

Wiltshire Council has already pledged to spend �16m on broadband services across the county.

The government announced the first tranche of its rural broadband plan in October 2010, setting up three pilots in North Yorkshire, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Cumbria and Herefordshire.

It has been accused of being far too slow to get the trials up and running. So far none are live and only two have begun the process of finding a firm able to offer services.

Fujitsu has pledged to build a super-fast network across the whole of rural Britain. It has said it will offer fibre-to-the-home technology to around five million homes. That could provide homes with speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second).

In order to do so it will rely on using BT's infrastructure - the ducts and poles that provide telephone and broadband services around the UK.

Ofcom has forced the telco to open up its network but some have argued that the prices it is planning to charge for access are too high.

Revised pricing is expected in June.

According to BT, Fujitsu has yet to join its ducts and poles trial.

WWII code-breaker will run again

27 May 2011 Last updated at 05:56 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Wrens working with an engineer on the replica Tunny machine

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The working replica of the Tunny machine in action

The National Museum of Computing has finished restoring a Tunny machine - a key part of Allied code-cracking during World War II.

Tunny machines helped to unscramble Allied interceptions of the encrypted orders Hitler sent to his generals.

The rebuild was completed even though almost no circuit diagrams or parts of the original machines survived.

Intelligence gathered via code-cracking at Bletchley underpinned the success of Allied operations to end WWII.

Time synch

Restoration work on Tunny at the museum in Bletchley was re-started in 2005 by a team led by computer conservationists John Pether and John Whetter.

Mr Pether said the lack of source material made the rebuild challenging.

"As far as I know there were no original circuit diagrams left," he said. "All we had was a few circuit elements drawn up from memory by engineers who worked on the original."

The trickiest part of the rebuild, he said, was getting the six timing circuits of the machine working in unison.

The Tunny machines, like the Colossus computers they worked alongside, were dismantled and recycled for spare parts after World War II.

The first Tunny machine was built in 1942 by mathematician Bill Tutte. He drew up plans for it after analysing the encrypted radio signals Hitler was sending to the Nazi high command and that the Allies had intercepted.

These orders were encrypted before being transmitted by a machine known as a Lorenz SZ42 enciphering machine.

Bill Tutte's work effectively reverse-engineered the workings of th SZ42 - even though he had never seen it.

Tunny worked alongside the early Colossus computer, which calculated the settings of an SZ42 used to scramble a particular message. These settings were reproduced on Tunny, the enciphered message was fed in, and the decrypted text was printed out.

By the end of WWII there were 12-15 Tunny machines in use and the information they revealed about Nazi battle plans aided the Russians during the battle of Kursk and helped to ensure the success of D-Day.

"We have a great deal of admiration for Bill Tuttle and those original engineers," said John Whetter.

"There were no standard drawings they could put together," he said. "It was all original thought and it was incredible what they achieved."

One reason the restoration project has succeeded, said Mr Whetter, was that the machines were built by the Post Office's research lab at Dollis Hill.

All the parts were typically used to build telephone exchanges, he said.

"Those parts were in use from the 1920s to the 1980s when they were replaced by computer-controlled exchanges," he said.

Former BT engineers and workers involved with The National Museum of Computing have managed to secure lots of these spare parts to help with restoration projects, said Mr Whetter.

The next restoration project being contemplated is that of the Heath Robinson machines, which were used to find SZ42 settings before the creation of Colossus.

That, said Mr Whetter, might be even more of a challenge.

"We have even less information about that than we had on Tunny," he said.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Rural areas get faster broadband

26 May 2011 Last updated at 19:11 ET

Homes and businesses in four rural English counties are to get superfast broadband connections.

Devon and Somerset will share �30m of government funding for the roll-out, Norfolk will get �15m and Wiltshire �4m.

Each area will also get cash from their council and private investors.

A further announcement is expected later this year on superfast broadband funding for every local authority in the country.

At the moment, the average speed of broadband in Somerset is 3MB per second, whereas superfast broadband is at least 10 times faster.

'Digital divide'

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "Broadband is becoming just as essential to homes and businesses as electricity and telephone lines and it is now only a matter for time before people in these three rural areas have access to the connection speeds more commonly associated with towns and cities.

"This is part of our plan for virtually every community in the UK to have access to superfast broadband."

The next step is for each local authority to tender for contractors to carry out the work. It is anticipated the necessary infrastructure will be in place within a year.

The government has pledged to make the UK the best place for super-fast broadband in Europe by 2015.

Apple fights fake security makers

26 May 2011 Last updated at 06:37 ET

Apple is releasing a security update that removes fake security software that has caught out thousands of Mac users.

Once installed, the fake MacDefender, MacProtector and MacSecurity programs pretend to scan a machine and then ask for cash to fix non-existent problems.

The gang behind the programs used search sites to help catch people out.

The clean-up plan starts as the creators of the fake programs release a version harder to avoid.

Fake fix

In a message posted to its support forums, Apple has warned users about the fake security software, also known as scareware.

It said a phishing scam had targeted Mac users by redirecting them to sites that warned them that their machine was infected with viruses.

Apple said it would release an OS X update soon to find and remove MacDefender and its variants. The message also gave advice about how to remove the software if they had already fallen victim.

MacDefender and its variants are thought to have caught some people out because the default security settings on the Safari browser allow it to download and queue itself for installation.

Those who install it can end up paying more than $70 (�43) to remove the non-existent viruses the scareware claims to have found.

As Apple was releasing its fix for Mac Defender, the gang behind it had started distributing a new version.

Like older versions, the new one - called Mac Guard - is being spread by tying it to popular phrases typed into search engines.

Mac Guard also gets round one of the factors that limited the spread of Mac Defender as it no longer needs a user's permission to be installed.

Security firm Intego issued a warning about the variant and said those who use the Safari browser should disable a setting that lets "safe" files be installed automatically.

Skype hit by global service crash

26 May 2011 Last updated at 11:24 ET

Skype has moved quickly to fix problems that hit users around the world.

Many people started to report that they had problems making calls via the net-based phone system earlier today.

The problem did not seem confined to one group, with users on machines running Windows, OS X and Linux all reporting trouble.

Skype issued advice about how to get its service going, while it worked on a permanent fix.

Messages about problems getting Skype to start up began to be posted on social networking sites such as Twitter soon after it sent out a software update.

The update made it impossible for many people to sign in and make calls.

Skype posted an update about the outage to its blog, saying a "small number" of people have had problems and detailing how to get the service running again.

Skype said the problem predominantly affected Windows users, but it also posted advice for OS X and Linux users. All the solutions revolved around the deletion of a file called "shared.xml".

It also said it had identified the problem and would issue a fix "in the next few hours".

The large number of people turning to the Skype.com website for advice and information also briefly knocked that offline.

The outage comes two weeks after Microsoft confirmed that it was paying $8.5bn (�5.2bn) for the firm.

The swift response stands in contrast to the speed with which problems that plagued Skype in December 2010 were solved. That led to the service being offline for almost two days.

An investigation showed that a software bug and overloaded servers were responsible for that incident.

O2 comes top in broadband study

26 May 2011 Last updated at 02:47 ET

Mobile broadband provided by O2 loads webpages quicker than any other UK network, research by Ofcom has found.

The regulator carried out 4.2 million speed tests across the country.

It found the average download speed across all networks was 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), rising to 2.1Mbps in better coverage areas.

The report said speed varied greatly depending on location, and that consumers should check coverage before signing up to tariffs.

Orange fared worst in the research with its average download speeds slower than any other network.

T-Mobile also came out slower than Vodafone, 3 and O2.

O2's chief technology officer Derek McManus said: "Our customers are seeing the benefit from the huge investment we have made in our network. We always aim to deliver the best network experience for our customers and these results are another indicator that we are doing just that."

Everything Everywhere - the name given to the partnership between T-Mobile and Orange - declined to comment on Ofcom's findings.

The report, carried out in conjunction with monitoring specialists Epitiro, ran from September to December last year and dealt with datacards and dongles, but not smartphones.

Ofcom said it hopes to run tests on smartphones soon.

As well as achieving success in the download speed tests, O2 also recorded a lower average latency than 3, Orange and Vodafone.

Latency is calculated by the time it takes for a data packet to travel from a user's PC to a third-party server and back again.

Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards said: "This research gives consumers a clearer picture of the performance of mobile broadband dongle and datacards as consumers use these services to complement fixed-line services or sometimes as their principal means of accessing online services."

"Start Quote

It's clear from the research that mobile broadband is a good service"

End Quote Hamish Macleod Mobile Broadband Group

Usage rise

Consumer research showed that 17% of UK homes are now using mobile broadband to access the internet.

Of these, 7% use it as their only means of getting online - a 4% rise since 2009.

The research discovered the average download speed for consumers was 1.5 Mbps, which produced an average load time of 8.5 seconds for a "basic" webpage.

This compared to an average of 6.2 Mbit/s for fixed line broadband, Ofcom found.

However, in areas with good 3G coverage, Ofcom found the average mobile speed rose to 2.1Mbps, dropping to 1.7Mbps at the peak times of between 8-9pm.

On the whole, urban areas performed better than rural areas due to better 3G availability.

The report noted that coverage in cities was highly variable "with no guarantee of good performance" in city centre locations.

Hamish Macleod, chairman of the Mobile Broadband Group, told the BBC that he feels the report paints an unfair picture of mobile broadband by comparing it to fixed rate speeds.

"We recognise this is a useful exercise for Ofcom to do.

"Where I am at issue with Ofcom is the way they have made headline comparisons between fixed broadband and mobile broadband just by using averages.

"It's clear from the research that mobile broadband is a good service, that individual customers can either use it as a complement to fixed broadband or alternatively as a relaible stand alone service."

Mobile broadband speeds will remain well below that of fixed broadband speeds until the next generation of mobile coverage - 4G - is rolled out across the UK- a process is expected to begin in 2013.

Everything Everywhere will start the first public trial of 4G in September this year.

Consultation has begun into how the 4G network will be allocated to operators, with an auction due to open early next year.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Web pioneers warn on regulation

25 May 2011 Last updated at 17:36 ET

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt have warned governments worldwide not to over-regulate the internet.

Mr Zuckerberg said governments cannot cherry pick which aspects of the web to control and which not to.

The two are leading a group of internet pioneers to the G8 summit in France.

The delegation will deliver recommendations thrashed out at the first e-G8 gathering in Paris this week.

Although e-G8 had the blessing of President Sarkozy, world leaders are under no obligation to listen to its findings.

The comments by Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Schmidt reflect growing concerns in the industry about government censorship.

"People tell me on the one hand 'It's great you played such a big role in the Arab spring [uprisings], but it's also kind of scary because you enable all this sharing and collect information on people'," said Facebook's founder.

"But it's hard to have one without the other. You can't isolate some things you like about the internet and control other things that you don't."

Mr Schmidt echoed his sentiments: "Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences".

'Public good'

One of the most hotly-debated subjects at the e-G8 was protection of intellectual property on the internet.

In sometimes heated discussions, senior figures from the music, TV and film industries faced criticism from proponents of internet freedom.

Critics claimed that the event was designed to promote the views of rights holders, seeking to lobby governments for tougher copyright laws.

Professor Lawrence Lessing of Harvard Law School warned delegates: "We should say to modern democratic governments, you need to be aware of incumbents bearing policy fix-its.

"Their job is profit for them. Your job is the public good."

Echoing the views of many participants, Professor Lessing suggested that governments should exercise light touch regulation or risk damaging the still-young internet.

Others made the case that if politicians remained hands-off in the belief that it would help innovation, then existing industries such as music and film would suffer.

James Gianopulos of Fox Filmed Entertainment said governments needed latitude to legislate, as in the case of the French three-strikes law designed to target illegal file sharing.

"The political process is imperfect," Mr Gianopulos told the BBC.

"Private entities, individuals and industries are more likely to come to an agreement if they know that the next step is the litigation or legislation process."

Cookie law deferred for one year

25 May 2011 Last updated at 08:20 ET

UK websites are being given one year to comply with EU cookie laws, the Information Commissioner's Office has said.

The UK government also sought to reassure the industry that there would be "no overnight changes".

The EU's Privacy and Communications Directive comes into force on 26 May.

It requires user's consent before using cookies - the text files that help organise and store browsing information.

Technically all firm must comply with the law but the UK has said that it needs more time to find a workable solution.

The government said that it was looking for a "business-friendly" solution and believed in light-touch regulation.

"We recognise that some website users have real concerns around online privacy but also recognise that cookies play a key role in the smooth running of the internet," said communications minister Ed Vaizey.

"But it will take some time for workable technical solutions to be developed, evaluated and rolled out so we have decided that a phased in approach is right," he added.

Do Not Track

The government has formed a working group with browser manufacturers to see if a browser-based solution to the issue can be found.

Microsoft's IE9 browser already offers a setting to protect users from services which collect and harvest browser data and both Mozilla's Firefox browser and Google's Chrome are working at integrating so-called 'Do Not Track' technologies into their offerings.

A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport admitted that there may be "other technical solutions" but that the browser solution was the only one it was currently pursuing.

Grégory Roekens, chief technology officer for marketing firm Wunderman, agreed that in-browser functionality would work best for consumers and website owners.

"It would be less intrusive that a free-for-all that lets website owners come up with their own solution," he said.

Cookies can be used for a variety of purposes. They can be used by third-parties to analyse consumer browsing habits but they can also be useful to users, remembering payment details when buying products online, for example.

Privacy groups, which pushed for greater regulation on cookies, want to see users able to give consent to every cookie presented to them.

Challenging

Such multiple consent forms would have a disruptive effect on the browsing experience, argue online firms.

"We need to think about the end users," continued Mr Roekens. "We need to make sure we don't have pop-ups appearing everywhere."

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has been charged with enforcing the new rules, when they are drawn up.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham admitted he is torn between the needs of industry and the rights of consumers.

He said that the new rules on cookies were "challenging".

"It would obviously ruin some users' browsing experience if they needed to negotiate endless pop-ups - and I am not saying that businesses have to go down that road," he said.

"Equally I have to remember that this law has been brought in to give consumers more choice about what companies know about them," he added.

Mr Graham said that the one year's grace he was offering to UK online firms "did not let everyone off the hook", hinting that he would take a dim view of firms which had done nothing by this time next year.

He also said that the ICO website was taking the lead by introducing a header bar giving users information about the cookies it uses and offering choices about how to manage them.

"I am not saying that other websites should necessarily do the same. Every website is different and prescriptive and universal 'to do' lists would only hinder rather than help businesses to find a solution that works best for them and their customers," he said.

Google to show off mobile wallet

25 May 2011 Last updated at 05:16 ET By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

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Watch: Rory Cellan-Jones demonstrates how it can work

Google is set to introduce a mobile payments platform that will turn its Android smartphones into a digital wallet.

At an event in New York on Thursday, the tech giant is expected to show off the technology called near field communication or NFC.

The technology allows devices to 'talk' to one another wirelessly.

Consumers wave their phones in front of a reader at a checkout to pay for a purchase or to receive special offers.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the programme will initially be launched in New York and San Francisco before being extended more widely across the US.

Retailers who are said to be taking part include deparment store Macy's, American Eagle Outfitters and Subway fast-food chain.

While Google has made no comment on the reports, it has sent out invites to the press asking them to attend an event at its New York offices where it will show off its "latest innovations".

Mobile network operator Sprint is also expected to take part.

In January Google chairman Eric Schmidt wrote in a guest edition of the Harvard Business Review that mobile money is a key part of Google's strategy for 2011.

"Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world�and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that," said Mr Schmidt.

Demand

Research firm Forrester has said it expects 40-50 million NFC equipped phones to be sold in 2011.

Apple is reportedly planning to include the technology in its upcoming iPhone 5 which is expected to be unveiled at its developer conference next month.

Microsoft is also said to be making plans to incorporate NFC in future Windows phones as is BlackBerry maker RIM.

Samsung and Visa have said they will facilitate mobile payments via NFC on smartphones during the summer Olympics in London next year.

"Google's Nexus S device that it recently announced is the first Android powered device supporting NFC and we expect NFC is going to increasingly become a default feature of every smartphone that is sold over the next couple of years," Charles Govlin, principal analysts at Forrester told BBC News.

Market researcher Gartner said with the total value of mobile transactions reaching $245 billion in 2014, demand for mobile wallet services will be huge.

But not everyone is convinced that contactless payments using a phone will replace cash.

"In my view, while I think it is clear that potentially these phone-based transactions will be widespread, it will happen slowly. One reason being that consumer behaviour changes very slowly," said Mr Govlin.

"The big beneficiary here will be Google, a company that is all about information. The metadata involved in such transactions could allow Google to serve ads and make you a more valuable target for advertisers," he added.

Last week the first NFC service was announced in the United Kingdom involving Orange and Barclaycard.

Mobile wallet services have been available in Japan for a number of years.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Volunteers sought for 4G trial

24 May 2011 Last updated at 21:26 ET

Volunteers in an area of Cornwall are being sought to trial new high-speed 4G broadband as part of a joint project by Everything Everywhere and BT.

The trial, from September to December in South Newquay, will be focusing on offering broadband in expensive-to-reach rural areas.

It will be the first chance for UK customers to test 4G technology, which is set to roll out nationally by 2014.

UK networks will bid for use of the 4G spectrum early next year.

The auction will follow a consultation period that has already begun into how the 4G spectrum will be distributed among networks in the UK.

For the Cornwall trial, Everything Everywhere - the name given to the partnership of T-Mobile and Orange - and BT have been granted part of the 800Mhz spectrum for test purposes.

The spectrum is currently being used across the UK for analogue television but is in the process of gradually being switched off.

Black spots

The trial will act as an experiment to see if 4G LTE could provide a cheap solution to getting high-speed internet to places currently regarded as black spots with slow or no broadband connection.

LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution, is a particular type of 4G system that allows data download speeds of 100 megabits per second while on the move, and faster speeds for stationary wireless connections.

"Start Quote

They're trying to avoid digging up the roads, so that removes the large cost of getting superfast broadband to those rural areas"

End Quote Sebastien Lahtinen Thinkbroadband.com

This faster capability means that rather than providing physical cabling to less urban areas, BT will instead be able to use masts from Everything Everywhere to distribute its broadband wirelessly.

"Instead of building two networks, we're trying to do it with one," explained Emin Gurdeneli, VP of network services at Everything Everywhere.

"The customer will enjoy a broadband service at their premises, at their home etc, as if they had acquired it in the usual way. What will be different is our delivery mechanism."

The trial is being supported by Nokia, Siemens and Huawei, as well as the Cornwall Development Company.

People living in the St Newlyn East area of South Newquay have been asked to register their interest in the trial via a website. They will receive all the necessary equipment.

Half of the people in the trial will have their homes fitted with modified wireless routers, which will be able to pick up the area's 4G connection to give the household access to the internet.

The other half will be given 4G dongles with which to try out the connection on individual devices such as laptops.

'Next generation'

Speeds of uploads and downloads will be measured to determine the technology's success. Until now, 4G LTE's capabilities in the UK have been measured only in laboratory conditions.

Sebastien Lahtinen, from thinkbroadband.com, says money is a large motivator behind the trial.

"They're trying to avoid digging up the roads, so that removes the large cost of getting superfast broadband to those rural areas," he told the BBC.

He added that the 4G broadband could provide those in the trial with faster connections than most current fixed-line broadband customers.

"It has the potential to jump them into the next generation world."

However, the UK still lags behind other countries with its 4G rollout. Germany, Sweden, Japan and the US already have public 4G networks in use.

Sarkozy questions 'neutral' net

24 May 2011 Last updated at 07:32 ET

By Iain Mackenzie Technology reporter, BBC News, Paris

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Internet bosses are meeting in Paris at a two-day forum arranged by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, as Christian Fraser explains

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has opened the first ever e-G8 forum in Paris.

The event brings together leading figures from the technology industry to discus the impact of the internet.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and Google's Eric Schmidt are among those due to speak.

Critics have claimed that the e-G8 is too focused on handing net control to companies and governments.

Moral rules

Addressing those concerns, President Sarkozy said that states were subject to the will of their citizens who were currently engaged in a revolution, empowered by the internet.

"The global revolution that you incarnate is a peaceful one. It did not emerge on battlefields but on university campuses," he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy addresing eG8 delegates in Paris

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy tells internet heads at the eG8 conference in Paris that they do not live in a parallel, moral-free universe

However, President Sarkozy claimed that countries could not remain neutral and allow completely unchecked internet use.

"The world you represent is not a parallel universe where legal and moral rules and more generally all the basic rules that govern society in democratic countries do not apply."

In the past, the French President has been characterised as someone who favours the rights of content creators and rights holders over internet users.

France has passed one of the toughest laws to crack down on people who download content without paying for it, with a three-strikes-and-out law for illegal filesharers.

Repeat offenders face a range of punishments, including disconnection from the web.

No harm

A number of prominent rights-holders including News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch and BBC director general Mark Thompson were also due to speak at the event.

Addressing delegates, Mr Sarkozy said the role of government regulation was to promote creativity and prevent criminality, but he also acknowledged the claims of his critics.

"I know and I understand that our French idea of copyright laws is not the same as in the United States and other countries.

"Start Quote

It is too soon to regulate the beast"

End Quote Jeff Jarvis Media commentator

"Nobody can have his ideas, work, imagination and intellectual property expropriated without punishment," he said.

American media commentator Jeff Jarvis challenged President Sarkozy, during a question and answer session, to sign-up to an oath to "do no harm" to the internet.

The suggestion was met with some indignation, with the President suggesting that asserting controls on illegal activity could never be regarded as harmful.

Speaking to the BBC afterwards, Mr Jarvis said that President Sarkozy's comments betrayed the true intent of many world leaders.

"At least Sarkozy acknowledged that he doesn't own the internet and his government doesn't own the internet. Nonetheless, he is claiming sovereignty here and so will the G8 and I have fear in that.

"Perhaps out of best intentions they will try to change the architecture of the internet and how it operates, but we don't even know what it is yet. It is too soon to regulate the beast," he said.

Robots develop their own language

24 May 2011 Last updated at 05:32 ET

Robots are developing their own language to help them navigate and improve their intellectual ability.

The Lingodroid research project lets robots generate random sounds for the places they visit in both simulations and a real office.

The "words" are shared and the robots play games to establish which sound represents which location.

The lexicon has proved so sophisticated that it can be used to help robots find places other robots direct them to.

The machines are being allowed to generate their own words because human language is so loaded with information that robots found it hard to understand, said project leader Dr Ruth Schulz from the University of Queensland.

"Robot-robot languages take the human out of the loop," she said. "This is important because the robots demonstrate that they understand the meaning of the words they invent independent of humans."

One set of the trials with Lingodroids sees wheeled robots fitted with a camera, laser-range finder, and sonar used to map their world - roaming around at an office at the University. The robots also have a microphone and speakers onboard so they can communicate with each other.

The wheeled robots travel about and, when they reach a place that does not have a name, they generate a random combination of syllables that represent that place.

When that robot meets another robot it tells it about the places it has been. Slowly, as the robots travel and talk, they narrow down their lexicon of place names until a mutual gazeteer of their world has been generated.

The robots generated place names such as "kuzo", "jaro" and "fexo".

Each location was broadly tied to the sensory horizon of the sonar and laser-range finder they have on board, said Dr Schulz. Each chunk of territory was typically a couple of metres in diameter, she said.

This enabled the names to be used as rough distance measures and allowed the robots to play other games which communicate distance, travel time and direction.

Some games involve swapping sounds but others, such as the "go-to-game" involve the robots trying to meet up at a distant location.

The power of the language being created by the Lingodroids was starting to become apparent, said Dr Schulz.

"They enable the robots to refer to places they haven't been or even places that they imagine beyond the edges of their explored world," she said.

Dr Schulz said work was continuing to enable the robots to generate and understand more place names and make their appreciation of their geography more subtle.

Brussels readies net piracy purge

24 May 2011 Last updated at 05:15 ET

Europeans who pirate pop songs or movies online could face a new crackdown as Brussels proposes updates to intellectual property laws.

The re-written strategy may draft ISPs into the battle against those who pirate and share content online.

Critics said the strategy threatened to harm privacy in the name of identifying persistent pirates.

The European Commission will publish its strategy for updating IP laws on 24 May.

The refreshed Commission strategy aims to standardise the way all member nations treat patents, trademarks and copyright. It also plans to bring in new customs regulations to cover the treatment of suspected counterfeit goods.

Copyright laws needed revising, said a Commission statement, because the different ways they were handled in member states was hampering economic growth. Many online entertainment services held back from launching their services throughout the region because of the difficulties, it said.

Four times as much legal music is downloaded in the US than in the EU because copyright is easier to sort out in America, it said.

Jobs are being lost because of growing production of counterfeit goods while the pirating of creative works also hit national budgets through lost tax revenue, said the statement.

Diametric opposition

Details of the strategy have leaked out and reveal that the Commission plans to make greater use of intermediaries such as ISPs to tackle copyright infringement at source.

Online rights and consumers groups have criticised the revamped strategy and its focus on copyright infringement.

BEUC, an umbrella group that represents consumer groups across Europe, said the IP strategy was "woefully out-dated" in the way it treated copyright.

Peter Bradwell, a campaigner for the UK's Open Rights Group, said the broad crackdown being suggested was misplaced.

"Currently they are in danger of weakening privacy in favour of rights holders," he said.

The strategy could prove problematic for the UK government, said Mr Bradwell, if it adopts the recommendations of the Hargreaves report.

Written by Professor Ian Hargreaves, the report aims to update UK copyright laws and recommends legalising some copying of music and films.

Many of its conclusions were "diametrically opposed" to those in the Commission's strategy, he said.

"The UK government is going to have its work cut out to implement Hargreaves given the direction that the European Commission is pursuing," said Mr Bradwell.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Courts 'could target' Twitter UK

23 May 2011 Last updated at 10:53 ET

Twitter's decision to open a UK office could leave it more vulnerable to prosecution over what its users write.

Lawyers who spoke to the BBC agreed that the move meant the company may no longer be able to claim to be solely US-based and immune to English law.

The micro-blogging site is the subject of a High Court legal challenge in relation to the naming of a footballer who had obtained a privacy injunction.

Twitter has so far declined to comment on the case.

Until recently, Twitter's operations were largely confined to Silicon Valley in California.

Last month, the company began advertising for staff to work at new European headquarters in London.

Among the posts on offer are Account Executive and Communications Manager.

Vulnerable

Many legal experts believe that having a physical presence in the country would potentially expose Twitter to local sanctions.

Kim Walker, a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons said: "Opening an office in the UK would unquestionably make Twitter more vulnerable to lawsuits.

"The law enforcement authorities would be able to argue that it is Twitter UK which has been involved in the contempt of court or which has published the defamatory statement, so is directly responsible for the misdeed."

Mr Walker suggested that the company could claim its UK office existed for specific purposes, such as sales and marketing, and was not directly involved with the business of tweeting.

"Start Quote

Opening an office in the UK would unquestionably make Twitter more vulnerable to lawsuits."

End Quote Kim Walker Pinsent Masons

However, he warned that the argument might not convince the courts.

"If Twitter has any assets in the UK - assets in this instance is a fairly loose term, and covers staff as well as buildings and equipment - then those would be at risk if it chose not to obey rulings imposed upon it by the High Court."

That view was echoed by Simon McAleese, a defamation lawyer based in Dublin, where many US technology companies have their European headquarters.

"It is back to the very basic rule that possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you have possessions and staff then you are going to be very vulnerable to the laws of that jurisdiction," he told BBC News.

The exact nature of Twitter's London office, as well as the number of staff, is not yet known.

Access only

Industry insiders told the BBC that while lawyers may have strong views on the matter, it would take a test case to properly establish the law's authority.

They also pointed out that, although UK injunctions do not apply in the United States, individuals who feel they have been defamed are free to raise a legal action in the American courts.

Even among those lawyers who believe the law is clear-cut, there was doubt that a real-world action would be straightforward.

"Twitter would say their site operates in the States and they are simply facilitating access," said Paul Tweed, a senior partner at Johnson's Solicitors.

Mr Tweed suggested that internet companies, operating in the UK, might seek to limit their potential liability by leasing rather than buying property and limiting staff numbers.

He warned that similar cases would continue to appear if the issue of internet jurisdiction was not addressed at a higher level.

"We have to get some sort of international arbitration set up which the Americans would need to be involved in," said Mr Tweed.

Twitter was unavailable to comment on the story at the time of writing.

Sony eyes annual loss of $3.2bn

23 May 2011 Last updated at 08:50 ET

Japanese electronics giant Sony says it expects to report an annual loss of $3.2bn (�2bn), after previously predicting a return to profit.

Sony had earlier indicated it would make a $860m profit in the financial year to the end of March.

It said the loss was largely due to writing off $4.4bn related to a tax credit booked in a previous quarter.

The firm has been hit recently by March's earthquake and tsunami, and a series of computing hacking attacks.

Among its range of products, Sony makes PlayStation video games and Vaio computers.

The earthquake and tsunami on 11 March hit plants in north-east Japan, which affected the firm's supply chain, and in the wider economy led to fall in consumer spending.

Sony is aiming to have resolved the hacking issues that caused the shutdown of its PlayStation Network by the end of May.

Cyber attacks involved the theft of personal data that included names, passwords and addresses from more than 100 million accounts.

It now says said the data breach will result in a $170m drain, at least, on operating profits in terms of insurance and damages costs.

Laser smashes data rate records

22 May 2011 Last updated at 19:33 ET

Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second.

At those speeds, the entire Library of Congress collections could be sent down an optical fibre in 10 seconds.

The trick is to use what is known as a "fast Fourier transform" to unpick more than 300 separate colours of light in a laser beam, each encoded with its own string of information.

The technique is described in the journal Nature Photonics.

The push for higher data rates in light-based telecommunications technologies has seen a number of significant leaps in recent years.

While the earliest optical fibre technologies encoded a string of data as "wiggles" within a single colour of light sent down a fibre, newer approaches have used a number of tricks to increase data rates.

Among them is what is known as "orthogonal frequency division multiplexing", which uses a number of lasers to encode different strings of data on different colours of light, all sent through the fibre together.

At the receiving end, another set of laser oscillators can be used to pick up these light signals, reversing the process.

Check the pulse

While the total data rate possible using such schemes is limited only by the number of lasers available, there are costs, says Wolfgang Freude, a co-author of the current paper from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

"Already a 100 terabits per second experiment has been demonstrated," he told BBC News.

"The problem was they didn't have just one laser, they had something like 370 lasers, which is an incredibly expensive thing. If you can imagine 370 lasers, they fill racks and consume several kilowatts of power."

Professor Freude and his colleagues have instead worked out how to create comparable data rates using just one laser with exceedingly short pulses.

Within these pulses are a number of discrete colours of light in what is known as a "frequency comb".

When these pulses are sent into an optical fibre, the different colours can add or subtract, mixing together and creating about 325 different colours in total, each of which can be encoded with its own data stream.

Last year, Professor Freude and his collaborators first demonstrated how to use a smaller number of these colours to transmit over 10 terabits per second.

At the receiving end, traditional methods to separate the different colours will not work. In the current experiment, the team sent their signals down 50km of optical fibre and then implemented what is known as an optical fast Fourier transform to unpick the data streams.

Colours everywhere

The Fourier transform is a well-known mathematical trick that can in essence extract the different colours from an input beam, based solely on the times that the different parts of the beam arrive.

The team does this optically - rather than mathematically, which at these data rates would be impossible - by splitting the incoming beam into different paths that arrive at different times, recombining them on a detector.

In this way, stringing together all the data in the different colours turns into the simpler problem of organising data that essentially arrive at different times.

Professor Freude said that the current design outperforms earlier approaches simply by moving all the time delays further apart, and that it is a technology that could be integrated onto a silicon chip - making it a better candidate for scaling up to commercial use.

He concedes that the idea is a complex one, but is convinced that it will come into its own as the demand for ever-higher data rates drives innovation.

"Think of all the tremendous progress in silicon photonics," he said. "Nobody could have imagined 10 years ago that nowadays it would be so common to integrate relatively complicated optical circuits on to a silicon chip."

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Paper names Twitter claims player

22 May 2011 Last updated at 09:36 ET

A Scottish newspaper has named a footballer accused of being linked to a privacy injunction by users of social networking website Twitter.

The Sunday Herald is the first mainstream UK publication to do this.

Its front page has an image of a man whose eyes are covered with a black bar which features the word "censored".

It comes after Twitter users reacted to a footballer's bid to find out who is putting information about him on the website by posting new messages online.

The player, who an injunction says can only be identified as CTB, is involved in proceedings against former Miss Wales and ex-Big Brother star Imogen Thomas and the Sun newspaper.

'Unsustainable'

In recent weeks there has been heightened scrutiny of gagging orders such as injunctions and so-called super-injunctions - court orders that prevent the media from revealing even the fact that an injunction has been granted.

In its editorial explaining the move, the Scottish Herald said it named the sportsman being linked to the injunction on Twitter because it was "unsustainable" for newspapers to be prevented from sharing information which is easily available on the internet.

It said: "We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer concerned of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.

"The issue is one of freedom of information and of a growing argument in favour of more restrictive privacy laws."

The paper also says the injunction "holds no legal force in Scotland, where a separate court order is needed".

As of 1430 BST on Sunday the Herald's website was not carrying the name of the footballer or the picture used on the front page of its printed newspaper.

'Out of control'

There has been widespread speculation on social media websites in recent days naming high profile individuals who have allegedly used the English courts to protect their identities.

On Sunday it emerged that the attorney general is being asked to consider prosecuting a journalist who allegedly broke a privacy order on Twitter.

The unnamed writer allegedly named a footballer, who is accused of having an affair, known in court papers as TSE.

The attorney general's office said it would "consider the matter carefully" but had not yet received the request.

On Friday, the findings of a year-long inquiry by a committee of judges and lawyers into the use of injunctions and so-called super-injunctions were revealed.

The committee's report said super-injunctions were now being granted for "short periods" and only where "secrecy is necessary".

Committee chairman Lord Neuberger, who is the most senior civil judge in England and Wales, said the internet "does add to difficulties of enforcement at the moment".

He said the internet had "by no means the same degree of intrusion into privacy as the story being emblazoned on the front pages of newspapers", which "people trust more".

However, he warned that modern technology was "totally out of control" and society should consider other ways to bring Twitter and other websites under control.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Footballer sparks Twitter storm

21 May 2011 Last updated at 07:02 ET

Hundreds of Twitter users have reacted to a footballer's bid to find out who is putting information about him on the website by posting new messages online.

The player, who an injunction says can only be identified as CTB, is taking action against ex-Big Brother star Imogen Thomas and the Sun newspaper.

He has now obtained a High Court order asking Twitter to reveal details of users who had revealed his identity.

Twitter has not commented but hundreds of users have repeated his name online.

'Fully entitled'

Papers lodged in the High Court against Twitter and "persons unknown" request disclosure of Twitter users said to have published confidential details.

The order against the US-based micro-blogging website requires Twitter to disclose the requested information within seven days - or within the appropriate time required by the law in California, where it has its headquarters.

Lawyers at Schillings, who represent CTB, have issued a statement clarifying the action it has taken.

It said it was not suing Twitter but had made an application "to obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a small number of individuals who may have breached a court order".

ANALYSIS

Once again Twitter finds itself centre stage in the debate over privacy.

Two weeks ago, one Twitter follower made a concerted attempt to challenge the law by pulling together, in a short burst of tweets, the names of celebrities thought to have taken out gagging orders.

Jemima Khan poured petrol on the flames by tweeting a denial, giving broadcasters and newspapers a legitimate peg to run the story.

Websites such as Twitter have put a huge strain on the ability of the courts to enforce gagging orders and it has been widely assumed there is no legal redress against them.

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this week that digital media had made an ass of the law and it was hard to enforce injunctions against Twitter because it was incorporated in the United States.

Now it seems the law is about to be tested.

It comes days after a High Court judge said the footballer was "fully entitled" to anonymity.

Justice Eady has reserved judgement on lifting the injunction after a private hearing with the man's lawyers, the Sun and former Miss Wales Imogen Thomas in London.

However, since news of the disclosure order became public on Friday hundreds of people have tweeted information revealing the footballer's identity.

One message being re-tweeted on the micro-blogging site, stated: "xx xx is suing Twitter. I can't Imogen why."

The legal move by the footballer comes two weeks after a Twitter user tried to unmask some celebrities who have obtained privacy injunctions to prevent publication of details of their private lives.

The Twitter user claimed to "out" a number of UK public figures, although the tweets appeared to contain errors.

Media commentator Steve Hewlett said CTB's lawyers were, in all likelihood, "trying to establish the real identity" of that user.

He said the privacy injunction preventing CTB's identity being revealed had been challenged on the grounds that it was already in the public domain because it was already available on the internet.

Mr Hewlett said "arguing that it's in the public domain because it's already on Twitter" would "put you in a very serious position in terms of contempt of court" if it transpired that "you had anything to do with putting it on Twitter".

There are precedents for legal action to find out the names of individuals behind some Twitter accounts.

'Everybody knows anyway'

Publicist Max Clifford told the BBC that while leaked information on Twitter has a limited impact, journalists can try to use it as leverage.

"It appears to be out of control. It's a strong bargaining chip as journalists want to say, 'Everybody knows anyway,'" he said.

Mr Clifford said some kind of balance must be struck to protect privacy and freedom of speech.

The publicist said: "Super-injunctions and injunctions are purely a law for the rich, and purely there to protect the rich.

"What you need is some halfway house between the invading of people's privacy and freedom of the press and information both of which are vital in a democracy."

Twitter has been resisting attempts by the US government to subpoena information on a number of users in relation to the Wikileaks affair.

Media lawyer Nick Lockett said the legal action against Twitter may not have much effect.

"What will have to be established is that Twitter was subject to the jurisdiction of the court," he said. While UK courts claim worldwide jurisdiction this has often proved hard to enforce.

In the case of the US, said Mr Lockett, the situation was complicated by the Communications Decency Act which grants immunity from prosecution for providers of "interactive computer services" under certain circumstances.

Lawyers acting for CTB may struggle to prove that Twitter does not deserve this immunity, said Mr Lockett.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

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