Wednesday, July 27, 2011

French downloaders face grilling

The body responsible for administering France's "three strikes" anti-piracy law has summoned a group of web users to explain their file sharing habits.

Hadopi takes its name from the 2009 legislation which permits authorities to fine copyright infringers, or to cut off their internet connection.

The move is the most significant enforcement action since French politicians passed the law.

However, the 10 individuals named in the action are not obliged to appear.

France's "three strikes and out" legislation empowers Hadopi to identify suspected illegal file sharers and write to them, demanding they stop.

Those who do not comply after several letters can be disconnected from their internet service provider and blacklisted from obtaining services from another ISP.

In the UK, the Digital Economy Act makes some similar provisions, although the exact nature of possible sanctions has yet to be fully explained.

The blanket term "technical measures" is used to cover a range of potential consequences ranging from enforced slowdown of internet connections to disconnection.

Legal action

Hadopi said that in the last nine months it has been tracking 18 million French IP addresses.

It has sent a total of 470,000 first warnings by email, with 20,000 users receiving a second warning through the mail.

About 10 people who appeared to ignore the two warnings were asked to come and explain their actions to the agency.

After the meeting, Hadopi will decide whether to pursue legal action.

It will then be up to a judge to rule if a user has broken the law.

"The judge may impose a fine of a maximum of 1,500 euros (�1,326) and also disconnect the user from the internet for a maximum of one month," said a Hadopi spokesperson.

"Alternatively, he may decide to fine the user without the disconnection penalty - or simply let the user go."

But Jeremie Zimmermann from French citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) thinks that it is unlikely that anyone will ever be charged.

"Start Quote

For Hadopi it's now about this strategy of intimidation - they're sending out warnings to make people believe that file-sharing is bad, but that's as much as they can do"

End Quote Jeremie Zimmermann La Quadrature du Net

"Hadopi is hoping that people will come and confess, that they will say that they have indeed downloaded copyrighted material," he told BBC News.

If the person does not confess or does not even show up, the only evidence the agency can present before the judge is a series of numbers - a particular computer's IP address, he said.

This poses several problems, believes Mr Zimmermann.

Firstly, hackers can easily break into a user's wireless hotspot and stream illegal content to a particular IP address using a different computer.

"We have no idea how this data has been acquired," said Jeremie Zimmermann. He expects that securing a conviction difficult, if not impossible.

Hadopi disagrees. "It's not only about the IP address," said its spokesperson.

"What we have to show is that the person has been warned that there's something wrong going on with his internet usage - that there's been illegal file-sharing - and that he has not done anything to protect himself from it after the first warning.

"So the evidence is the second warning received by the person."

Connection 'hacked'

The first person to respond to Hadopi's "invitation" has already declared his innocence.

Robert Tollot, a 54-year-old high school teacher from the region of Loire, will present himself to the Hadopi officials in Paris in September.

He told the French media that he had never downloaded any copyrighted material and that his wi-fi connection was hacked.

"He's absolutely furious, and it can turn out really badly for Hadopi as others will hear about his case and will prepare accordingly," said Mr Zimmermann.

"This law is absolutely useless," he added.

"For Hadopi it's now all about this strategy of intimidation - they're sending out warnings to make people believe that file-sharing is bad, but that's as much as they can do."



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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

ISPs still 'mislead' on broadband

Broadband speeds in the UK now average 6.8Mbps (megabits per second) but there is still a huge gap between advertised and actual speeds, according to Ofcom.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but few achieve this.

Ofcom's biannual report into the state of the broadband market urged changes to advertising.

Virgin Media accused rivals of misleading the public.

The report found that the average broadband speed has increased 10% in the last six months as more people try out fast services.

But the gap between advertised and actual speed has widened in the same period. The average advertised speed was 15Mbps, 8.2Mbps faster than the average actual speed.

It also found that more than a third of customers on services advertised as "up to" 24Mbps actually received speeds of 4Mbps or less.

"The research is still telling us that some consumers are not receiving anywhere near the speeds that are being advertised by some ISPs," said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards.

The watchdog is urging changes in advertising guidance "so that consumers are able to make more informed decisions based on the adverts they see".

Superfast broadband is now available to 57% of UK homes, the report finds.

But three-quarters of broadband services are still delivered via copper-based ADSL technologies, which will always have speed limitations based on the distance between the home and the telephone exchange.

Other factors that slow down a connection include the quality of the wiring in a house and the time of day that the service is used.

Virgin Media is the only ISP able to come close to advertised speeds because cable services are not influenced by distance.

It has spearheaded the campaign to change the way broadband is advertised.

Jon James, executive director of broadband for Virgin Media, said: "The gulf between what's advertised and what speeds customers get continues to grow."

"We remain concerned that people paying for fast broadband are still being misled and believe it is absolutely essential that consumers have all the information they need to make an informed choice," he added.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is currently reviewing broadband advertising. Its report is expected in the next few months.

In a bizarre twist, last month it ruled that Virgin Media's campaign against false advertising itself broke advertising rules.

Andrew Ferguson, co-founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband thinks more needs to be done to explain the differences between cable and ADSL but is not sure changes to advertising is the correct way.

"Adverts will shift to lifestyle advertising rather than actual facts, and some people may be denied access to products because they would drag the average speed down," he said.

Ofcom has introduced a code of practice to help inform the public about their likely speed before signing up to a service.

It recommends that broadband customers should be given a speed range rather than a single estimate of the maximum speed on their line.

It also suggests that users be allowed to leave their provider without penalty if they receive a maximum speed which is significantly below estimates.

So far, Virgin Media, BT, O2 and Sky have signed up to the code.

Michael Phillips, of comparison website broadbandchoices, is not sure the code goes far enough.

"Ofcom's code of practice has made some steps in the right direction, but without some more careful thought, there's still room for a lot of confusion.

How will my mum know if a service offering 1Mb - 6Mb is better or worse than one providing 2Mb - 5Mb? She needs to know what speed she's most likely to receive most of the time," he said.

He thinks that 'typical speeds' should be made "the gold standard for speed advertising in the same way that banks use 'typical APR' percentages".



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Action urged on mobile notspots

The upcoming 4G mobile auction should be used as an opportunity to upgrade the UK's mobile infrastructure, says an advisory group.

The Communications Consumer Panel said regulator Ofcom should obliged operators to extend services to rural areas.

It also suggested the money made by selling off the airwaves could be used to upgrade rural coverage.

It estimates that three million people live in mobile "not-spots".

The panel said it did not believe that new 4G services would extend beyond existing coverage.

4G is the next-generation for mobile services, offering faster speeds, crucial as more people use smartphones to surf the web.

The panel is suggesting that Ofcom run a "reverse auction" after the initial sell-off, in which operators can bid for money to extend their services in rural areas.

Valuable spectrum

The 4G auctions begin next year with services likely to start rolling out from 2013.

There is a great deal of interest in the spectrum - which has been freed because of the switch to digital TV - as it operates in the low frequency 800MHz band.

This spectrum will be particularly good at penetrating buildings and will allow operators to offer better in-building coverage which is becoming an increasing problem as people use their smartphones at home.

The money freed up by the 4G auctions must be ploughed back into notspots, said the panel.

HOW TO BE A PART OF THE UK MOBILE MAP

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It estimates that the UK needs an extra 1,400 base stations to improve rural coverage.

"This is a critical moment, and we have a unique opportunity to resolve the persistent problem of inadequate mobile coverage," said panel chair Bob Warner.

"Most places that were mobile coverage notspots 10 years ago are still notspots today, and the spectrum auction represents perhaps the only chance we have in the next decade to improve coverage in the nations and for rural communities," he added.

The BBC is conducting its own survey into notspots using an app developed by network analysis firm Epitiro.

Ofcom has said that mobile coverage is one of its priorities and is conducting its own research into the problem.

One of the biggest blackspots for mobile coverage is on rail networks.

Research conducted for Ofcom last year found that on the East Coast mainline the probability of maintaining a 15 minute phone call was as low as 10% for two operators.



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Mozilla stars work on mobile code

The creators of the Firefox web browser have started developing an operating system for mobiles and tablets.

Although the project will draw on some parts of Google's Android mobile operating system much of the code will be freshly written.

Once finished the operating system will compete with Android as it will run on the same devices.

The project team said all code development would be done in the open and shared as soon as it was written.

Called Boot To Gecko the code creation is being overseen by the Mozilla Project which created the Firefox browser. It was announced on the Mozilla discussion forum by researcher Andreas Gal.

Gecko is the rendering engine that powers the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email program. A rendering engine interprets the code on webpages and displays it in the right format on screen.

With B2G, the Mozilla developers aim to get applications running without the need for the browser, effectively creating a web-centred operating system.

It will draw on some core parts of Android but aims to add a wrapper around it that is much more open than the one created by Google. If successful, the project will face stiff competition from Google's Android and Chrome as well as Apple's iOS and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

The Mozilla team admitted that the project was in its "infancy" but said it already created some basic software from building blocks that are similar to those needed to get the OS running.

The team said they were publicising the project to root out experts in the Mozilla community and elsewhere who could help and encouraged them to get in touch and sign on.

Mr Gal said the project had set its sights high and wanted to do it "the way we think open source should be done".

Its ultimate goal, he said, was "breaking the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile device world".



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Monday, July 25, 2011

Hackers hit Italian cyber-police

Hackers have started to release gigabytes of secret documents stolen from an Italian cybercrime unit.

The 8GB of files has allegedly been taken from the network of the Italian CNAIPIC which oversees the country's critical IT infrastructure.

In a message announcing the release, the Anonymous hacker group said it received the files from a "source".

The attack on CNAIPIC is thought to be in retaliation for arrests of Italian members of Anonymous.

Links to the first few confidential files purportedly stolen from CNAIPIC were placed on the Pastebin website. Anonymous claims the files were taken from the evidence servers of CNAIPIC (National Computer Crime Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection).

The documents include information about government offices such as Australia's Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Agriculture as well as data about private firms Gazprom, Exxon Mobil and many others.

Preview images also shared by Anonymous reveal the management structure of CNAIPIC, pictures of staff and a long list of all the documents that have been taken.

CNAIPIC has yet to respond to requests for comment.

Officers from Italy's cybercrime division carried out a series of raids on homes of suspected Anonymous members in early July. Three people were arrested as a result.



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RIM to cut 2,000 jobs in shake-up

Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion has said it is to cut 2,000 jobs as part of a shake-up of its operations.

The planned job cuts would account for 11% of the Canadian firm's workforce.

The firm also announced that its chief operating officer (COO) Don Morrison is planning to retire.

He will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, currently COO of products at the firm, who will take on an expanded role including products and sales.

The news comes after RIM announced in June that it had missed its lowered profit forecasts and reduced its predictions for the full year.

The company's share price has fallen by more than 50% since the start of the year.

RIM made a net profit of $695m (�430m) in the three months to 28 May, down from $769m in the same period last year.

It had warned in April that its profits would be low because of reduced shipments of its Blackberry phones.

Blackberry has been overtaken in the smartphone market by sales of phones running Apple and Google Android operating systems.

Focus on growth

In a statement, RIM said it needed to make the changes in order to "focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities".

RIM has already announced a cost-cutting programme, which includes job cuts, but had not given full details.

As well as cutting costs the company hopes the changes will increase the speed at which it can bring products to market.

The smartphone manufacturer has not yet announced any one-off expenses as a result of the programme - such as redundancy payments.



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China shuts down fake Apple shops

China has moved to shut down several fake Apple stores found in Kunming city.

Three of the elaborate fake stores, which mimicked the look of the real thing, came to the world's attention after being exposed on a blog.

Following the publicity, trade officials investigated and found five stores in Kunming posing as official Apple retail outlets.

Two of the five have now been closed as their owners lacked a business licence.

The BirdAbroad blog, written by an American woman living in Kunming, wrote about a visit to one fake Apple store which superficially resembled the official outlets.

In the article, the blogger wrote about conversations with staff, many of whom were convinced they worked for the US electronics firm.

Chinese officials investigated the shop visited by BirdAbroad but it was not one of those closed down. It has a licence to trade and is selling genuine Apple products.

Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit shops.

On her blog, BirdAbroad described the store as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen".

She describes how convincing the shop was at first glance because so much trouble had been taken to copy key elements of a real Apple store.

For instance, it has a winding staircase, upstairs seating area and employees wearing blue T-shirts and chunky ID lanyards.

Shoddy construction

On closer inspection, wrote BirdAbroad, the store did not seem to be constructed to a particularly high standard.

The stairs appeared to be poorly put together, the walls were not painted properly and, most damning, it had the words "Apple store" written on the shop front.

"Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit," wrote BirdAbroad.

Research by the blogger revealed that the only official Apple stores in China are in Beijing and Shanghai.

A further check revealed that none of the three stores she found are mentioned on Apple's list of official resellers known to be trading in Kunming.

What was also unclear was where the fake store had got the Apple products on sale - whether they had come from an Apple distributor or a grey market source.

The blog entry mentioning the visit to the fake store has proved hugely popular and has gathered more than 500,000 visits in less than 48 hours.



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Friday, July 22, 2011

Sony insurer seeks hack opt-out

Sony faces a court battle over how it will pay for legal claims made in the wake of a massive data breach.

One of the company's insurers has asked a judge to rule that it is not liable for losses related to the cyber attack.

In April, Sony discovered that hackers had gained access to 77 million accounts on its PlayStation Network.

The firm agreed to pay anyone who lost-out financially as a result of the incident, but it is still being sued by a number of users.

PlayStation Network was shut down worldwide for more than a month while Sony reviewed its security procedures.

Claim game

Zurich American Insurance has now gone to court in New York seeking a declaration that it does not have to help Sony with current or future legal action related to the data breach.

Legal papers filed by Zurich reveal that 55 separate class action lawsuits are pending in the US because of the breach.

Also underway are investigations by state and federal regulators that could also end-up before the courts.

Sony has made claims on several of its insurance policies, including one with Zurich, to help pay its legal bills and provide compensation.

However, Zurich argues that the policy it set up for Sony does not cover the part of the business that suffered the breach or the sort of damage the theft caused.

Specific clauses in the policy also rule out Zurich providing cover, it said.

Sony declined to comment because the matter is the subject of pending litigation.

In financial statements, Sony said it expected costs for the breach to top 14bn yen (�109m) this year. The figure does not include any costs for compensating customers.



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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Microsoft reports record revenue

The US technology giant Microsoft said its annual revenues hit a record of $69.94bn (�43.4bn).

Sales of the company's Xbox 360 videogame console and its Office software helped fuel the growth.

Net income at the world's biggest software maker jumped 23% to 23.15bn for the year.

The figures, which beat earnings estimates, also showed final quarter revenues reached a record high of $1.37bn, leading to profits of $5.87bn.

Sales rose 8% to $17.37 billion, a boosted chiefly by sales of Office, Xbox and server software behind Microsoft's push into cloud computing.

Microsoft's business division, which sells the Office suite of programs, including Outlook, SharePoint and Excel, was the company's biggest seller in the quarter, increasing sales by 7% to $5.8bn.

The company's online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN internet portal, increased sales by 16.5% to $662m, but saw losses increase to $728m as it struggles to fight competitor Google.

One weaker spot was sales of its widely-used Windows product, which are slowing as tablet PC sales eat into demand for traditional PCs.

On Wednesday, chipmaker Intel warned that PC sales would not be as strong as it had expected this year.

Microsoft is itself expected to enter the tablet market next year with the launch of its next operating system, code-named Windows 8, which will be compatible with the low-power chips commonly used by tablet and mobile phone makers.

Microsoft is the latest technology company to exceed profit expectations.

Google, Apple and IBM all reported strong earnings recently.



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Fake Apple stores found in China

An American blogger has discovered three fake Apple stores operating in Kunming city, China.

Pictures of the stores, their staff and a description of a stroll around them was posted on the BirdAbroad blog.

In the article, she writes about conversations with staff, many of whom were convinced that they were employed by the US electronics firm.

Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit shops.

On her blog, BirdAbroad described the stores as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen".

She describes how convincing the shop was at first glance because so much trouble had been taken to copy key elements of a real Apple store.

For instance, it has a winding staircase, upstairs seating area and employees wearing blue t-shirts and chunky ID lanyards.

Shoddy construction

On closer inspection, wrote BirdAbroad, the store did not seem to be constructed to a particularly high standard.

The stairs appeared to be poorly put together, the walls were not painted properly and, most damning, it had the words "Apple store" written on the shop front.

"Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit," wrote BirdAbroad.

Research by the blogger revealed that the only official Apple stores in China are in Beijing and Shanghai.

A further check revealed that none of the three stores she found are mentioned on Apple's list of official resellers known to be trading in Kunming.

What was also unclear was where the fake store had got the Apple products on sale - whether they had come from an Apple distributor or a grey market source.

The blog entry mentioning the visit to the fake store has proved hugely popular and has gathered more than 500,000 visits in less than 48 hours.



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