Millions of web users are being asked to reset their passwords as concerns spread over a major hacking attack.
Yahoo, Twitter and LinkedIn have asked users to change their details, days gossip site Gawker was hacked.
Online game World of Warcraft, which has more than 12 million subscribers, has also asked some users to reset their passwords.
Blizzard, the company behind the game, said it was an attempt to "minimise the effects" of the Gawker breach.
Although thousands of Twitter accounts were compromised after the attack, there have been few other reports of damage directly linked to the breach.
Many companies, however, have taken steps to identify users at risk and warn them before an exploit can take place. A spokesman for LinkedIn said it necessary to take "proactive security measures" to screen users thought to be in danger.
Defence mode
The attack on Gawker, which runs one of the world's most popular blog networks, was carried out over the weekend by an organisation calling itself Gnosis.
The group - which says it was making a protest at the site's perceived "arrogance" - subsequently published account details of 1.3 million Gawker users online, including a significant number of passwords.
Analysis of the breach has triggered a widespread defensive response because it emerged that many users had chosen common words and codes that left them wide open to abuse.
Documents show that the most popular password among Gawker users was "123456", followed by "password" and "12345678".
Other common terms, used by hundreds of people, included "monkey", "qwerty" and "consumer".
Although security experts warn against the use of passwords that are easy to guess, research suggests such behaviour is increasingly common online.
A further 48% said they used just a handful of different codes, while just one in five said they never used the same password twice.
The firm's Graham Cluley said that the domino effect evident among web companies exposed a number of significant issues.
While it was important to remind users that their passwords should be changed regularly, he said, the warnings sent out to users did not always address the central issue of poor password choices.
"The bad guys already have databases of the most common passwords, and they look a lot like this," he said.
"It's no bad thing to try and help, but websites should give users more information about how to create a secure password."
Mobile operator Three has scrapped its mobile data caps in an effort to gain more smartphone customers.
It said users needed all-you-can-eat data plans in order to make the most of their devices.
Demand for data is increasing as more people use their handsets to connect to the web as well as make voice calls.
Experts say it could force other operators to rethink data limits, introduced this year as networks struggled to cope with demand.
But it could put also put strain on Three's network.
"It is a bold move by Three and goes against the prevailing tide set by other networks who are trying to rein in data usage," said Ben Wood, an analyst with research firm CCS Insight.
"This is great news for prolific mobile data users but Three will need to be careful it does not end up attracting all the extreme users who have proved a real headache to rival networks with their excessive data usage."
Mobile operators, including Three, introduced data caps in the summer over fears that some users were consuming so much data it was putting unacceptable strain on networks.
Most operators offers data caps of around 500 megabytes (MB) a month for basic phone tariffs.
Three offered the highest data cap at 1 gigabyte (GB) per month.
"We were typically seeing people using around 400 to 500 megs at the moment but there was a large number who regularly go over the 1 gigabyte limit, enough to warrant us doing this," said a spokesman for Three.
Now users of its One Plan tariff can get 2,000 any-network voice minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes, 5,000 texts and any amount of data for �25 a month.
Such aggressive pricing is historically easier for Three, said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Forrester.
"Three is still one of the smaller operators and is working to acquire customers," he said.
Data notspots
Taking away data caps will make things easier for consumers, some of whom have fallen foul of data caps and ended up with huge bills.
"The latest smartphones stretch far beyond the capabilities of a traditional handset. All-you-can-eat tariffs will give users the freedom to explore these to the limit without the fear of running up extortionate bills," said Ernest Doku, a communications expert from comparison site uSwitch.
It will also lay down the gauntlet to other operators.
"It will be interesting to see how the competition will react. They will certainly not find it easy to handle the same influx of traffic as Three's data-savvy 3G infrastructure - nor will they be willing to give it away for free - making it difficult to see them follow suit with all-you-can-eat alternatives," said Mr Doku.
As mobile phones become the conduit to a world of apps, maps, social media updates, e-mail, music and video calls so there is increasing attention on how quickly the mobile network works.
The UK's 3G networks are notoriously patchy with mobile data speeds varying from provider to provider, town to town and even from street to street.
In an attempt to map the UK's data blackspots, comparison site Top10 is offering a web and iPhone app for customers to see and record their 3G speeds.
Initial data, based on 1,000 speed tests, shows that Vodafone offers the fastest connections, with an average of 3.04Mbps (megabits per second), compared to 2.61Mbps for 02 and 2.61Mb for Orange.
Three averaged 1.48Mbps and T-Mobile came bottom of the league table with an average of 1.40Mbps.
Mr Fogg predicts that operators could start offering tariffs based on speeds, with higher data rates being made available to those on premium packages.
14 December 2010Last updated at 18:54 ETBy Maggie ShielsTechnology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
An IBM supercomputer will take on two human contestants in a TV showdown of artificial intelligence.
IBM's supercomputer Watson will compete in an edition of the popular US quiz show Jeopardy on 14 February for a prize of $1m (�634,000).
It is reminiscent of a 1997 contest between an IBM computer and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
The TV show is an important test for Big Blue's work in the field of artificial intelligence.
"The big challenge we see here is helping people really appreciate the power and limits of the technology we are developing with Watson," Dr David Ferrucci, IBM's chief scientist of Watson computing told BBC News.
The aim is to have Watson, which was named after IBM's founder Thomas J Watson, to mimic human intelligence by deciphering and answering questions without being connected to the internet.
Watson is a new question-answering system based on natural language.
"What I see is the potential for computers to help us with our tremendous frustration in dealing with the huge glut of information that is doubling every year," said Dr Ferrucci.
"Just imagine being able to converse with a computer in an intelligent dialogue to help you understand and leverage all that information out there, so that people can focus on solving their problem and not get overwhelmed by information. That is what Watson is about."
IBM said that the technology could be applied in a number of areas such as health care for accurately diagnosing patients, parsing legal documents, or to solve customer problems at technical support centres.
Ultimate test
Jeopardy is seen as the ultimate challenge in the artificial intelligence world because the game's clues involve analysing subtle meanings, irony, riddles and other complexities where humans excel and machines do not.
Dr Ferrucci said the tough part for Watson is that it has to "know what it knows with utmost confidence".
"Otherwise if it buzzes in and gets the answer wrong that is bad on Jeopardy because you lose money and lose the game."
Watson has been preparing for its big moment in the spotlight by playing against previous Jeopardy winners. To date it has played 55 games but IBM is keeping mum about how well Watson performed.
The contestants willing to pit their wits against Watson are Ken Jennings who won 74 games in a row - the most consecutive victories ever - and Brad Rutter, who scored the most money with winnings of more than $3m.
IBM said it would donate its winnings to charity while Mr Jennings and Mr Rutter said they would give half of their prize money away.
"Whether we win or lose we are reasonably confident going forward in the competition and I think it is important to play competitively," said Dr Ferrucci.
The showdown will be spread over three days that will air on TV from 14-16 February.
It is not the first time that IBM has pitted man against machine. The most famous head to head battle was in 1997 when a computer called Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov.
To compete at chess, the company built an extremely fast computer that could calculate 200 million chess moves per second based on a fixed problem.
Yahoo has confirmed that it is cutting its workforce by 4% or 600 people.
The internet firm has now announced redundancies four times in three years, as it cuts costs to try to lift profits that trail bigger rival Google.
The redundancies also follow after Google recently announced a 10% pay increase for every member of staff.
In 2008 Yahoo rejected a $47.5bn (�30bn) bid from Microsoft. Today its market capitalisation - the combined value of its shares - totals $21.68bn.
Yahoo said in a statement: "Today's personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion, and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace."
The company's revenues have risen by less than 2% so far this year, compared with growth of 23% at Google.
Maggie Shiels, the BBC's technology reporter in Silicon Valley, said: "The Yahoo job cuts come in stark contrast to what is happening in Silicon Valley as a whole, where companies like Google and Facebook have embarked on an aggressive hiring spree.
"Undoubtedly some of those employees who have been given pink slips are likely to see job offers landing in their email boxes amid a fierce battle for talent in the Valley.
"As for the prospects of Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz, these cuts are only likely to intensify pressure on her and increase criticism of her role in failing to improve the fortunes of the once mighty internet company."
Yahoo had 14,100 employees at the end of September.
The UK's national security adviser Sir Peter Ricketts has warned that government websites could become the next target for pro-Wikileaks hackers.
He told civil servants that websites used to file tax returns or claim benefits could be the most vulnerable.
So far attacks from the Anonymous group of hacktivists have concentrated on firms perceived to be anti-Wikileaks.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange faces an extradition hearing in London on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister told a press briefing that Sir Peter had spoken to permanent secretaries about the security of government websites in the light of pro-Wikileaks attacks.
"The priority would be websites that dealt with information that belonged to members of the public such as the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] and HMRC [Revenues and Customs], he said.
The government did not want to speculate on the scale of the problem.
Data flood
UK web attacks could be likely because Mr Assange is due in court in London later. He is wanted by authorities in Sweden for questioning over two sex crimes. He denies the crimes and will fight extradition, his lawyer said.
His mother Christine Assange, who has visited him in prison, said he remained committed to the ideals of Wikileaks.
Many of us are law-abiding citizens of our respective countries around the world"
End QuotePhill MidwinterAnonymous member
She also passed on his thoughts on the firms which have withdrawn services from the whistle-blowing site.
"We now know that Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and others are instruments of US foreign policy. It's not something we knew before," Mr Assange said.
The US government has denied that it wrote to individual firms, asking them to stop doing business with Wikileaks.
To date, members of Anonymous - a loose-knit group of net campaigners - have focused their distributed denial-of-service attacks on these firms rather than governments.
The attacks, which flood websites with so much traffic that they fall over, have had some success.
Both Mastercard and Visa, which have stopped processing payments to the Wikileaks site, experienced web outages last week.
The attacks are co-ordinated via an online tool which members of Anonymous are being encouraged to download.
The tool, which volunteers people's computers to become part of the attack, has now been downloaded more than 80,000 times.
The attacks are a protest against attempts to close down Wikileaks and end the publication of 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables.
'Cyber mob'
Some have described the fight between Anonymous, Wikileaks and the US government as the "first infowar".
But security experts have downplayed the conflict.
"It was a demonstration, a protest, nothing more than political theatre - entertaining and influential but not war," James Lewis, a specialist in cybersecurity at the Washington think-tank the Centre for International and Strategic Studies, CSIS, told BBC News.
Allan Friedman, a research director at the US Brookings Institution's technology innovation centre, agreed.
"It's very much not a cyberwar. If we are calling it war, we are devaluing what war is. It's a cyber mob.
"Mobs can be destructive but they tend not to have a long lasting impact."
Some members of Anonymous are also keen to distance themselves from the attacks.
"Many of us are law-abiding citizens of our respective countries around the world," Anonymous member Phill Midwinter told BBC News.
"We're currently involved in more forward-thinking projects that help to spread our message of internet transparency in a more open and productive manner," he added.
[Ecured's] philosophy is the accumulation and development of knowledge, with a democratising, not profitable, objective, from a decolonizer point of view"
End QuoteEcured homepage
According to Ecured, it was developed "to create and disseminate the knowledge of all and for all, from Cuba and with the world".
"Its philosophy is the accumulation and development of knowledge, with a democratising, not profitable, objective, from a decolonizer point of view."
The entry on the United States, for example, describes it as the "empire of our time, which has historically taken by force territory and natural resources from other nations, to put at the service of its businesses and monopolies".
"It consumes 25% of the energy produced on the planet and in spite of its wealth, more than a third of its population does not have assured medical attention," the article says.
The BBC's Michael Voss in Havana says relations between these two former Cold War foes have marginally improved under US President Barack Obama, but the decades-long trade embargo remains firmly in place.
Ecured claims that the US has always wanted to take over the Caribbean island. The entry says US leaders have looked upon Cuba "like those who admire a beautiful fruit that will end up falling in their hands".
Fidel Castro, who was succeeded as Cuban president by his brother Raul in 2008, "writes and participates in the struggle of ideas at a global level" and "influences important and strategic decisions of the Revolution".
Raul Castro is meanwhile described as a "revolutionary combatant, political leader, statesman and military chief".
Mobile phones could soon be helping re-assure Kenyans and Ghanaians they are getting genuine medicine.
A pilot scheme in the two nations has begun putting unique scratch codes on more than 500,000 medicine bottles and packets of pills.
When the code is texted to a free phone number, a return message will reveal that a drug is genuine.
The scheme hopes to boost efforts to tackle diseases such as malaria and combat the rise in fake medicines.
Security alert
About 700,000 people suffering from malaria and tuberculosis die every year around the world because of fake drugs, suggest statistics from think tank International Policy Network
Globally, about 10-15% of all drugs are believed to be fake but in some parts of Africa this rises to 50%. The problem is made more acute in Africa because some fake medicines being offered to the sick are watered down versions of the real thing and dent the efficacy of the full strength drug.
"Some genuine medicines have lost their potency because of the counterfeiting," said Gabriele Zedlmayer, a spokeswoman for HP which is a partner in the labelling scheme.
This can be a particular problem with malaria as the disease is so widespread in sub-saharan Africa where it is the leading cause of death.
The scheme is being backed by governments and drug companies who have pledged to publicise how it works in pharmacies, surgeries, hospitals and community centres.
Painkillers, anti-malaria drugs and amoebicides from pharmaceutical firms May & Baker in Kenya and Kama in Ghana will be the first to get the scratch-off labels.
Such a scheme was very important in Africa where about 80% of medicines are generic, said Bright Simons, founder of non-profit group mPedigree which developed some of the technology to underpin the pilot.
By using the codes, people would get to know pharmacies, hospitals and other outlets they can trust, he said.
Mobiles were the best way for people in Kenya and Ghana to find out about their medicines because they were so ubiquitous said Mr Simon, adding that even those who do not own a handset themselves can get access via friends and family.
Each packet or bottle has a scratch-off code that can be used only once, said Mr Simons. The security system behind the scenes flags any attempt to re-use codes. As well as letting people know they are getting genuine medicine, it will also alert people when fake medicines are being peddled.
If the pilot proves successful, the scheme will be extended to cover more than six million bottles and packets in the next 12 months.
"This is just the first step," said Ms Zedlmayer. "It can be applied to any kind of medication."
13 December 2010Last updated at 08:35 ETBy Jonathan FildesTechnology reporter, BBC News
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Wikileaks' former second-in-command is gearing up to launch an alternative to the high-profile website.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who left the site after disagreements with its founder, plans to launch Openleaks in the coming months.
The technology, which can be embedded in any organisation's sites, will allow whistle-blowers to anonymously leak data to publishers of their choice.
Its founders say it will address problems they had with Wikileaks.
"We felt that Wikileaks was developing in the wrong direction," Mr Domscheit-Berg told BBC News. "There's too much concentration of power in one organisation; too much responsibility; too many bottlenecks; too many resource constraints."
He said that the team did not want the responsibility of deciding what was or was not relevant and what would be good for the organisation as a whole to publish.
"This is the wrong question and should never be asked."
Network effect
Unlike Wikileaks, Openleaks will not publish or verify material; leaving that role to newspapers, "NGOs, labour unions and other interested entities".
"We are trying to build a community of various organisations that need or have use for anonymously submitted information," former Wikileaks member Herbert Snorrason told the BBC.
Mr Domscheit-Berg, said the decision to be a "conduit" rather than publisher was made because of the team's experience at Wikileaks.
"That was another constraint we saw - if your website becomes too popular then you need a lot of resources to process submissions," he said.
Instead, Mr Domscheit-Berg said the organisation would be a "technology provider", supplying anonymous online drop boxes for organisations.
"[Openleaks] aims to provide the technological means to organisations and other entities around the world to be able to accept anonymous submissions in the forms of documents or other information," said Mr Domscheit-Berg.
This would form a distributed network of submissions pages across the web, powered by Openleaks technology for keeping sources anonymous and documents secure.
Whistle-blowers would be able to submit documents to an organisation's site, which would then be available for them to use for an exclusive period, specified by the source.
"If after that time you choose not to publish the document yourself the document will be shared with the rest of the subscribers in the system," said Mr Domscheit-Berg.
"If you choose not to publish it, many other parties will receive the document - and we are pretty sure that one of them will publish it."
We do not think that Openleaks will be in Wikileaks shadow"
End QuoteDaniel Domscheit-Berg
In addition to the technology, he said, Openleaks will offer legal advice to organisations about dealing with and publishing sensitive material.
Initially, the team will work with a handful of small organisations, with the aim of growing the project slowly.
Over time, he said, the group hopes the network of participating organisations will become more "diverse, complex and dynamic", which will afford more protection when dealing with sensitive material.
"With each new entity you are adding more nodes to the network; you're adding more complexity to the network so everyone is protecting everyone else."
The result, he said, would be "technically and legally very powerful".
'Evolutionary step'
The project was born out of an idea for a "Wikileaks button" that was developed before Mr Domscheit-Berg left the organisation. All of the team behind the project have now left Wikileaks because of disagreements about how the site was run.
"One of the main issues we see with Wikileaks today is that it has become too much about the project," said Mr Domscheit-Berg, who said he still supports Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
"It has become too much about self-promoting the project and self-promoting people involved with the project which is rather distracting from the content of the documents."
Mr Assange, in particular, has been criticised for his high-profile role; something he has said was necessary.
"I originally tried hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in our activities," he recently told the Guardian newspaper.
"In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good."
One problem Openleaks may face is increased competition amongst a raft of established sites and new competitors - including Brusselsleaks - for documents from leakers. It may also need to establish its credibility, alongside the highly successful Wikileaks.
But Mr Domscheit-Berg does not think this will be a problem.
"I believe lots of people are aware of some of the issues that Wikileaks has right now and there is already some critical debate."
He said the site was already "drowning in contact requests" and that it would be targeting different material - for example documents from councils that local newspapers may be interested in.
"Way more people are sceptical about the direction Wikileaks are heading and see what we are doing as the right step into the future. So, I don't think credibility will be a problem."
To build further trust, he said, the group would establish a foundation in Germany to handle and publish its finances.
In addition, he said, the model they had chosen to use would mean that Openleaks would rarely be in the spotlight.
"We're not aiming for any front pages," said Mr Domscheit-Berg. "If anything at all, this organisation is to enable others to do that."
It has now launched a website which will detail the evolution of the project before it goes live in the coming months.
"We do not think that Openleaks will be in Wikileaks' shadow," Mr Domscheit-Berg said. "We are a completely different approach. We do not see ourselves as competitors - we are the next evolutionary step."
Hundreds of thousands of Twitter users had seen their accounts compromised and messages sent promoting an Acai Berry diet.
"It's all too common that people use the same password for multiple accounts," Rik Ferguson, a security researcher at Trend Micro told the BBC.
Anybody that has had their Gawker account details published can expect to be targeted by other hackers, said Graham Cluley, a consultant at security firm Sophos.
"Every identity thief, hacker and spammer out there will be attracted to that password file," he said.
The impact would have been more serious if compromised accounts had linked to sites containing bank-credential-stealing malware, he added.
Users could protect themselves by creating complex passwords for each online service that needed a password, said Mr Ferguson.
Complex passwords can be made easy to remember, he said.
He suggested taking a the first letters from the words in a phrase a user is likely to remember, such as "I wandered lonely as a cloud".
Some letters can be replaced by symbols, perhaps using "@" instead of "a".
Finally, adding the first and last letter of the website being visited to that phrase creates a unique but memorable password that is hard to guess, he adds.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has had his lawsuit against a number of tech and online retail firms thrown out.
In August, Mr Allen claimed the firms - including Google, eBay, Apple and Facebook - had infringed patents held by his firm Interval Licensing.
But a federal judge said Mr Allen had failed to "indicate with any specificity" which products violated his intellectual property rights.
A spokesman for Mr Allen said he would be filing an amended complaint soon.
Spokesman David Postman also called US District Judge Marsha Pechman's decision "purely procedural".
Others firms named in the lawsuit were Yahoo, Netflix, AOL, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples.
Charity pledge
Mr Allen said the firms had infringed a number of web technology patents held by Interval Licensing.
The patents concern using web browsers to find information; letting users know when items of interest appear; and enabling adverts, stock quotes, news update or video images to pop up on a computer screen while the user is engaged in another activity.
Interval had not named a precise figure for damages.
Mr Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, and later started Interval in 1992.
At its height, the company employed over 110 scientists, physicists and engineers.
Mr Allen, who made billions of dollars from his Microsoft shares, recently pledged most of his $31.5bn (�19.8bn) fortune to charity.
Last year, he revealed he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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