Third of adults 'use smartphone'

3 August 2011 Last updated at 19:01 ET

One in three adults in the UK now uses a smartphone, according to a report by the telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Apple's iPhone was said to be the most popular brand. However, teenagers appeared to favour RIM's Blackberry devices.

The report notes that the increased uptake of smartphones has led to a dramatic rise in mobile internet use.

Facebook was the most visited website on handheld devices, with 43 million hours spent on it in December 2010.

Ofcom's annual Communications Market Report combines the regulator's own research with work carried out by other industry analysts.

The 341-page document provides a comprehensive snapshot of the UK's TV, radio, internet and telecommunications consumption.

On mobiles, it said that 58% of adult males owned a smartphone compared to 42% of females. Among teenagers the trend was reversed with 52% of girls using smartphones against 48% of boys.

Although Apple's iPhone was a favourite device for 32% of adults, among teens its popularity was dwarfed by the Blackberry, which 37% of young people identified as their preferred brand.

Trending online

Ofcom's analysis of the country's online habits is based on a survey of 2,481 adults who have access to a broadband connection.

Among those who took part, the most popular use of the internet was sending and receiving email (89%).

More people turned to their computer to do online banking (61%) than used it to watch television (45%).

And younger people were the least likely to be worried about their privacy while going online. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, 6% said they had concerns.

The figure rose among older users with 13% of 55 to 64-year-olds expressing reservations.

Winners and losers

The report also examines the type of websites or online services that people are spending their time on, based on research carried out by UKOM/Neilsen.

The biggest growth area, between April 2010 and April 2011, was games, which increased by 23%.

News websites took a 33% dive on the previous year, as did adult sites whose use fell by 13%.

Away from the internet, there were also noteworthy changes around the use of broadcasting technology.

Time-shifted TV viewing, using digital video recorders, made up 14% of all viewing time in 2010, 1% lower than the previous year.

Sales of 3D capable televisions appeared to be relatively sluggish, with 125,000 sets sold in 2010, compared to 1 million internet-enabled TVs.

Radio fared well, according to Ofcom, as total listener hours hit 1.04bn per week, up 2.1% on 2009.

By the beginning of 2011, a quarter of radio listening was done on a digital platform, said the regulator.

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US snares global child porn ring

3 August 2011 Last updated at 16:47 ET

The US has charged 72 people it alleges were part of a global child pornography network used to share photos and videos of sexual abuse.

Announcing charges after 20 months of Operation Delego, senior US officials said some 600 users of a site known as "Dreamboard" had been investigated.

Attorney General Eric Holder said some images on the site showed the abuse of infants and young children.

The US has 43 of those charged in custody, with nine held overseas.

The 20 others charged as part of the US probe remain at large, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, and are known only by their internet pseudonyms.

'Demented dream'

Ms Napolitano described the amount of pornographic material seized as equivalent to 16,000 DVDs.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

This was nothing short of a nightmare"

End Quote Eric Holder US Attorney General

Authorities have arrested people in 13 other countries: Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Qatar, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Members of Dreamboard traded graphic images and videos of adults molesting children aged 12 and under, often violently, the US Department of Justice said.

Collectively the members of the site created a massive private library of images of child sexual abuse.

"The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the pre-eminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation," Mr Holder said.

"But for the children they victimised, this was nothing short of a nightmare."

Of the 52 individuals arrested under the US investigation, 13 have pleaded guilty, a justice department statement said, including two bulletin-board administrators in Canada and France.

Operation Delego represents the largest prosecution to date in the US of those who have participated in an "online bulletin board conceived and operated for the sole purpose of promoting child sexual abuse, disseminating child pornography and evading law enforcement", the statement said.

Dreamboard was created in 2008 and shut down in early 2011 when it became evident the US government had launched a probe into the online network.

The charges being handed to members of the website carry sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison.

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Germans question tagging privacy

3 August 2011 Last updated at 13:17 ET

Facebook is being accused of violating German privacy laws with its facial recognition system.

Hamburg's privacy commissioner said that the technology was collecting users' biometric information and ordered the data be deleted.

The commissioner has the power to levy a fine of up to 300,000 euros (�261,000).

Facebook said it would be considering the claim, but rejected the accusation that it had broken the law.

In a statement, a company spokesperson added: "People like the convenience of our photo tag suggest feature which makes it easier and safer for them to manage their online identities."

Private database

Facebook introduced facial recognition to its photos application in June. The system suggests the identity of users' friends while they are tagging images.

The site came under fire at the time based on the erroneous belief that the technology could be used to identify strangers.

In reality, it is restricted to a user's friends.

However, the concerns of Hamburg's information commissioner, Dr Johannes Caspar, centre around the fact that the social network is building a private database of faces.

"The risks of such a collection of biometric data is immense," said Dr Caspar.

The commissioner's office told the BBC that it would be seeking an explanation from Facebook and that if no satisfactory response was received it would pursue an official hearing.

It is not the first time that Dr Caspar's office has tackled Facebook over privacy-related issues.

In July 2010 the commissioner initiated legal proceedings over the use of email addresses belonging to people who hadn't joined Facebook. Their contact details were being uploaded to the site by friends who were members.

As a result, Facebook changed the feature in Germany to notify users that the site might use the contacts to send unsolicited messages to their friends.

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'Biggest' cyber attack revealed

3 August 2011 Last updated at 08:45 ET By Daniel Emery Technology reporter, BBC News

IT security firm McAfee claims to have uncovered one of the largest ever series of cyber attacks.

It lists 72 different organisations that were targeted over five years, including the International Olympic Committee, the UN and security firms.

McAfee will not say who it thinks is responsible, but there is speculation that China may be behind the attacks.

Beijing has always denied any state involvement in cyber-attacks, calling such accusations "groundless".

Speaking to BBC News, McAfee's chief European technology officer, Raj Samani, said the attacks were still going on.

"This is a whole different level to the Night Dragon attacks that occurred earlier this year. Those were attacks on a specific sector. This one is very, very broad."

Dubbed Operation Shady RAT - after the remote access tool that security experts and hackers use to remotely access computer networks - the five-year investigation examined information from a number of different organisations which thought they may have been hit.

"From the logs we were able to see where the traffic flow was coming from," said Mr Samani.

"In some cases, we were permitted to delve a bit deeper and see what, if anything, had been taken, and in many cases we found evidence that intellectual property (IP) had been stolen.

"The United Nations, the Indian government, the International Olympic Committee, the steel industry, defence firms, even computer security companies were hit," he added.

China speculation

McAfee said it did not know what was happening to the stolen data, but it could be used to improve existing products or help beat a competitor, representing a major economic threat.

"This was what we call a spear-phish attack, as opposed to a trawl, where they were targeting specific individuals within an organisation," said Mr Samani.

"An email would be sent to an individual with the right level of access within the system; attached to the message was a piece of malware which would then execute and open a channel to a remote website giving them access.

"Once they had access to an organisation, they either did what we would call a 'smash-and-grab' operation, where they would try and grab as much information before they got caught, or they sometimes embedded themselves in the network and [tried to] spread across different systems within an organisation."

Mr Samani said his firm would "not make any guesses on where this has come from", but China is seen by many in the industry as a prime suspect.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying it was "very likely China was behind the campaign because some of the targets had information that would be of particular interest to Beijing".

"Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia," Lewis said.

However, Graham Cluley - a computer-security expert with Sophos, is not so sure. He said: "Every time one of these reports come out, people always point the finger at China."

He told BBC News: "We cannot prove it's China. That doesn't mean we should be naive. Every country in the world is probably using the internet to spy.

"After all, it's easy and cost-effective - but there's many different countries and organisations it could be."

Mr Cluley said firms were often distracted by the very public actions of LulzSec and Anonymous, groups of online activists who have hacked a number of high-profile websites in recent months.

"Sometimes it's not about stealing your money or publicly leaking your data. It's about quietly stealing your information, which can have a very high political, military or financial value.

"In short, don't let your defences down," he added.

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Internet Explorer story was bogus

3 August 2011 Last updated at 06:50 ET

A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ that people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.

A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.

It later emerged that the company's website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.

It is unclear who was behind the stunt.

The story was reported by many high profile organisations including CNN, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Forbes.

Questions about the authenticity of the story were raised by readers of the BBC website who established that the company which put out the research - ApTiquant - appeared to have only set-up its website in the past month.

Thumbnail images of the firm's staff on the website also matched those on the site of French research company Central Test, although many of the names had been changed.

The BBC contacted Central Test who confirmed that they had been made aware of the copy but had no knowledge of ApTiquant or its activities.

Research claims

ApTiquant issued a press release claming that it had invited 100,000 web users to take IQ tests and matched their results with the type of browser they used.

It also supplied extensive research data.

The results claimed to show that Internet Explorer users were generally of lower intelligence.

The BBC sought alternative views for the original story, including Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory, who said: "I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users."

No-one on ApTiquant's contact number was available for comment.

Graham Cluley, senior security consultant at Sophos examined the source material for the BBC after concerns were raised.

"It's obviously very easy to create a bogus site like this - as all phishers know it's easy to rip-off someone else's webpages and pictures," he said.

Mr Cluley also looked at the pdf file containing the data that many people had downloaded from a variety of sources and said it did not appear to contain malware.

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