ISPs tussle over broadband access

5 April 2011 Last updated at 08:58 ET

Internet service providers have asked the government to intervene over the price being set to give them access to BT's physical infrastructure.

Giving rivals access to BT ducts and poles is seen as a crucial element to get fast broadband to rural areas.

But ISPs argue that the prices set by BT are four to five times higher than their underlying costs.

BT said that its prices were reasonable and laid down the gauntlet to rivals.

"The fact is our proposed prices for duct access compare very well with European averages," the telco said in a statement.

"BT is the only company who has installed broadband equipment in exchanges serving the last 10% of the UK and so we would question whether these companies are genuinely interested in serving rural Britain given their track record.

"It is highly ironic that we are being criticised by some companies who provide little or no wholesale access to their assets," it added.

BT set the price for duct sharing in January. Prices vary but start at �0.95 per metre, per annum.

For the sharing of overhead poles, Openreach proposed a price of �21 per pole attachment.

Policy failure

But ISPs believe the prices are far too high.

In a joint letter to communications minister Ed Vaizey, ISPs warn that plans to open up BT's ducts will not work if the price isn't cut.

The letter, signed by Virgin Media and TalkTalk among others says the Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) trial, which is one of the current government's key broadband policies, "will be a commercial and policy failure if Openreach does not revise its prices".

Openreach is the BT spin-off responsible for maintaining the telco's network.

Virgin Media told the BBC: "It would be more cost effective to build an entirely separate duct and pole network in parallel with BT's existing network".

So far one one company has signed up to the duct-sharing scheme.

BT said that it was "disappointing that this letter was shared with the media several hours before ourselves".

"It's a shame that some of the companies involved seem keener to spend more time talking about this process than actually working on it.

Fibre plans

The news comes as BT cranks up the speed on its copper network, to deliver up to 20Mbps (megabits per second) to 80% of UK homes by the end of the year.

Few households are likely to get top speeds because of the limitations of the ADSL technology.

Ofcom estimates that the average speed for an "up to 20Mbps" package is 6.2Mbps.

The telco has also revealed that its Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology now reaches four million homes.

Some 30 ISPs are offering customers FTTC, buying it wholesale from BT.

It offers speeds of up to 40Mbps and is now available to more than 4 million homes and businesses.

By 2015, BT has pledged to offer some form of fibre broadband to two-thirds of homes in the UK.

To ensure the final third does not miss out, the government has set aside a �530m fund, drawn from the BBC licence fee that was originally earmarked to help the transition to digital switchover.

Four pilots areas intended as testbeds for rural broadband are due to be allocated at the end of April.

The government has also invited councils to bid for some of the money.

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Google goes shopping for patents

5 April 2011 Last updated at 04:56 ET

Google has made a $900m bid for the patent portfolio of Nortel Networks, the bankrupt Canadian telecom equipment maker.

The patents could help arm it against potential lawsuits aimed at its Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system.

Patents are becoming highly prized pieces of intellectual property.

Experts told the BBC they believe the final price could go well over $1bn and may be as high as $2bn.

The amount of money being put up illustrates how fierce the patent wars have become as companies like Apple, Google, Nokia and HTC become embroiled in lawsuits.

Google is not convinced that all the litigation is justified.

"The patent system should reward those who create the most useful innovations for society, not those who stake bogus claims or file dubious lawsuits," said Kent Walker general counsel for Google in the firm's blog.

'If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community - which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome - continue to innovate," he added in a blog post.

Google's $900m bid is a "stalking horse asset sale agreement" which means other companies interested in the 6,000 patents on offer have to put more money on the table.

The sale will include patents and patent applications for wired, wireless and digital communications technology.

"This is an unprecedented opportunity to acquire one of the most extensive and compelling patent portfolios to ever come on the market," said George Riedel, Nortel's chief strategy officer.

'Patent weakness'

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

I think many of these lawsuits are meant to slow down innovation especially when they come from a competitor"

End Quote Charles Golvin Forrester Research

Google has admitted that it is lagging behind other industry players such as Apple and Microsoft in terms of the number of patents it holds.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office lists Google patents at 630, while Apple has over 3,800 and Microsoft has about 18,000.

"Google is a relatively young company, and although we have a growing number of patents, many of our competitors have larger portfolios given their longer histories," said Google's Mr Walker.

The internet giant has also said it faces a major increase in litigation from so-called patent trolls and industry competitors as it tries to grow its Android mobile phone software, the increasingly popular operating system for handset manufacturers, carriers and software developers.

One of the more high-profile cases involves Oracle and relates to Java software used on the Android mobile device platform. Another involves Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen who is suing Google and 10 other companies for patent infringement.

"In some cases some of those lawsuits, even though they are couched as patent infringement lawsuits which generally mean we are looking for money from you, are not all they seem," said Charles Golvin, principal analyst with Forrester Research.

"I think many of these lawsuits are meant to slow down innovation especially when they come from a competitor."

Patent expert Florian Mueller told BBC News that in the last 12 months, Google has faced 37 patent lawsuits.

"It's not like Google could solve the whole Android patent problem with one purchase like this, no matter how large," said Mr Mueller.

"They would need more such deals. The real question is why haven't they been buying up patents like this at auction before now. They are coming from behind and it was quite foreseeable that they were getting into Android. They have now finally recognised that they must do something about their patent weakness."

'Bargaining chips'

Nortel filed for bankruptcy in January 2009 and has been steadily selling off its assets to pay creditors.

Its patent portfolio is the last significant piece of property the company has to sell and it is one that is expected to attract a lot of bids as mobile devices become ubiquitous.

Last month Microsoft offered to pay $7.5m for net addresses from Nortel.

Mr Mueller ventured that of the 6,000 patents on offer, a number of them will not be applicable to Google's business but will provide useful leverage.

"Assuming they acquire those patents, I believe they will be powerful bargaining chips when it comes to cross licensing negotiations with other companies in the telecom space who have patents that Google is interested in.

"The value to Google would be significant in terms of the value it can extract from other companies and their patents," said Mr Mueller.

He said he believed the final price for the portfolio will be "well north of $1bn". Other industry watchers have said it could go as high as $2bn.

"The patent war is getting tougher and expensive," said Francisco Jeronimo, analyst with IDC.

A decision on who will be awarded the portfolio will be made by a court in June.

Bloomberg News said that court papers showed Google will be paid a $25m break-up fee if another bidder wins the auction. The search giant is also guaranteed a repayment of as much as $4m in expenses.

Apple verdict

Hours after Google announced its bid for Nortel's patents, Apple won a court ruling throwing out a $625.5m patent infringement verdict over how documents are displayed on a computer screen.

Back in October, a jury said Apple was infringing on three patents owned by Mirror Worlds LLC and awarded damages of $208.5m for each patent.

Apple argued in court papers that the amount was too high. US District Judge Leonard Davis agreed.

"Mirror Worlds may have painted an appealing picture of the jury, but it failed to lay a solid foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to establish under the law," he concluded.

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Crime targets mobile and social sites

5 April 2011 Last updated at 00:13 ET

Smartphones and social networking sites are likely to become the next big target for cyber criminals, according to a security industry report.

Symantec's annual threat analysis warns that the technologies are increasingly being used to spread malicious code.

Users of Facebook, Twitter and Google's mobile operating system, Android, are said to be particularly vulnerable.

However, the number of attacks remains small compared to other online crimes such as e-mail phishing.

According to Symantec, known vulnerabilities in mobile operating systems rose from 115 in 2009 to 163 in 2010.

In several cases, the security holes were exploited and used to install harmful software on Android handsets - suggesting that criminals now view smartphone hacking as a potentially lucrative area .

At least six different varieties of malware were discovered hidden in applications that were distributed through a Chinese download service.

"It is something we have started to see happen, albeit on a small level," said Orla Cox, security operations manager at Symantec.

"It allows people to do a variety of things from intercepting SMS messages to dialling toll numbers. They have opened up the possibility of what is there."

Several pieces of malware were also found on iPhones, however only devices that had been "jailbroken" to bypass Apple's security were affected.

The company's process of pre-vetting all new applications is believed to have spared its devices from a major attack.

Rogue applications

On Facebook and Twitter, Symantec's analysis highlighted several different types of threat.

Among the most prevalent were web links that encourage users to click through to other sites containing malware and rogue applications, designed to collect personal information.

The company estimates that one in six links posted on Facebook pages are connected to malicious software.

User information is said to be particularly valuable in "social engineering" attacks, where criminals use knowledge of an individual to trick them into scams that appear to relate to them personally.

The report also raises concerns concerns about shortened URLs, such as http://tiny.cc/jumqm.

Such systems are widely used to shorten web addresses, but they also make it harder to tell what the target site is. Sixty-five per cent of malware links on social networking websites were found to use shortened URLs.

Attack toolkits

Symantec makes its money selling internet security software and services to individuals and corporations

Its annual Internet Security Threat Report - based on data supplied by users around the world - is generally regarded as a reliable measure of changing trends in cyber crime.

Globally, the company recorded a 93% increase in the volume of web-based attacks between 2009 and 2010.

The dramatic rise was largely attributed to the widespread availability of "attack toolkits" - software packages that allow users with relatively little skill to design their own malicious software.

Toolkits are available to buy online for as little as a few pounds and as much as several thousand for the latest versions.

The most popular attack kit was Phoenix, which exploits vulnerabilities in the Java programming language - commonly used for web-based applications.

Symantec's report also notes a rise in the number of targeted attacks, where specific companies, organisations or individuals are singled out.

The most sensational targeted attack of 2010 was undoubtedly Stuxnet. The software worm was designed to take control of mechanical systems used in Iran's nuclear plants.

It has been widely speculated that the USA or Israel may have played a role in its creation.

Despite Stuxnet's headline-grabbing nature, Orla Cox believes that it may not be indicative of things to come.

"It was interesting to see that it is possible to attack physical systems. I think it unlikely that we will see a whole slew of attacks of that nature," she said.

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Clean up begins after site attack

4 April 2011 Last updated at 06:05 ET

The Lizamoon website attack seems to have ensnared relatively few victims.

The massive attack managed to inject the name of several rogue domains into hundreds of thousands of websites.

The link led to a page that carried out a fake virus scan and then recommended fake security software to clean up what it supposedly found.

But despite the huge success by the attackers, swift action by security firms looks to have limited the number of victims.

Blocked visit

The Lizamoon attack was first detected by security firm Websense on 29 March and initially the rogue domains were only showing up on about 28,000 websites.

However, as Websense began tracking Lizamoon the sheer scale of the attack became apparent. By late on 3 April, Google was reporting that more than four million webpages were showing links to the domains involved in the attack.

The way Google counts webpages makes it hard to estimate exactly how many websites were hit but security firms said the number ran into the "hundreds of thousands".

The attack got its name because the first rogue domain appearing on compromised sites was lizamoon.com. A further 27 domains were also used as re-direction points.

The numbers of victims who followed the link, suffered the bogus scan and then bought the fake security software or "scareware" was also hard to estimate.

The many domains used by Lizamoon's creators to peddle their scareware were shut down very soon after they were created thanks to the efforts of security researchers.

Some of the sites being used were notorious for harbouring scareware and other malicious programs and some security programs have been blocking them for weeks. This also may have helped to stop people ending up on the dangerous domains.

Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, said it had only seen a "small" number of victims.

As one of the firms that blocked the domains used in the attack before the attack was ramped up, it could monitor how many customers actually visiting them.

He said Trend Micro blocked just over 2,000 attempts to visit the domains.

"The sites that were compromised by the SQL injection attack were comparatively low profile sites and thus the attack did not gain significant momentum," he said.

Graham Cluley, senior security analyst at Sophos, said home PC users were probably the most likely victims of the attack.

"Attacks like this one do underline the poor security that exists on many websites on the internet," he said, "including sites belonging to well-known organisations and brands."

"It shouldn't be so easy for hackers to inject their malicious codes onto legitimate websites that receive lots of traffic, and too many firms are making it too easy to pass infections on to their customers," he added.

What is currently resisting analysis is the exact route the attackers have taken to get their domains showing up on websites. Initial suggestions that versions of Microsoft's Windows server products were the common link have not been borne out by events.

Efforts are now underway to produce a quick fix for sites hit so they can update and remove the risk of falling victim to copycat attacks.

The only trait that compromised sites seem to share was that they were small to mid-tier websites, a list of those hit included astronomy groups, social clubs, hospitals, sports teams, funeral homes and many others.

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Cancer charity to tidy up wikipedia

4 April 2011 Last updated at 05:22 ET

Cancer Research UK is turning its specialists loose on the internet to get them to tidy up the online encyclopaedia - Wikipedia.

The charity said many people researching the subject are turning to the website.

But it said there were problems with accuracy and clarity on some of the pages.

Wikipedia said it encourages experts to edit the site as they have a lot to contribute.

Cancer Research UK's website has pages of detail about a range of cancers.

However, using a search engine for the terms "Breast Cancer" puts the charity in eighth place on the results page. Wikipedia comes second. A trend it repeats across other cancers.

New audience

Wikipedia said it had more than 3.5m page views for cancer-related content in January 2011.

Henry Scowcroft, scientific communications manager for Cancer Research UK, said: "It has been our intention for a long time to be involved in the online discussion outside of our own website."

"Wikipedia is nearly always at the top of an internet search for cancers. It's not always that easy to understand and sometimes it can be inaccurate or not completely up to date."

"We want to increase the accuracy and clarity."

So far they have created a new entry on the hallmarks of cancer as well as information about screening for human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer.

The charity has not decided how many staff should contribute to the site, or how much time they should spend doing it.

Mike Peel, from Wikimedia has been training staff from Cancer Research. He said: "Expert editors are really vital and have a lot to contribute."

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Sites hit in massive web attack

1 April 2011 Last updated at 05:34 ET

Hundreds of thousands of websites appear to have been compromised by a massive cyber attack.

The hi-tech criminals used a well-known attack vector that exploits security loopholes on other sites to insert a link to their website.

Those visiting the criminals' webpage were told that their machines were infected with many different viruses.

Swift action by security researchers has managed to get the sites offering the sham software shut down.

Code control

Security firm Websense has been tracking the attack since it started on 29 March. The initial count of compromised sites was 28,000 sites but this has grown to encompass many times this number as the attack has rolled on.

Websense dubbed it the Lizamoon attack because that was the name of the first domain to which victims were re-directed. The fake software is called the Windows Stability Center.

The re-directions were carried out by what is known as an SQL injection attack. This succeeded because many servers keeping websites running do not filter the text being sent to them.

By formatting the text correctly it is possible to hide an instruction in it that is then injected into the databases these servers are running. In this case the injection meant a particular domain appeared as a re-direction link on webpages served up to visitors.

Reports suggest that the attackers are hitting sites using Microsoft SQL Server 2003 and 2005 and it is thought that a weakness in associated web software is proving vulnerable.

Ongoing analysis of the attack reveals that the attackers managed to inject code to display links to 21 separate domains. The exact numbers of sites hit by the attack is hard to judge but a Google search for the attackers' domains shows more than three million weblinks are displaying them.

Currently the re-directs are not working because the sites peddling the bogus software have been shut down.

Also hit were some web links connected with Apple's iTunes service. However, wrote Websense security researcher Patrick Runald on the firm's blog, this did not mean people were being redirected to the bogus software sites.

"The good thing is that iTunes encodes the script tags, which means that the script doesn't execute on the user's computer," he wrote.

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Privacy group wants Google cash

1 April 2011 Last updated at 06:22 ET

A leading US privacy group has filed an objection to agreements Google has reached over its social network Buzz.

The Buzz experiment was heavily criticised because it automatically enrolled all Gmail users without seeking prior permission.

Legal action was taken by a group of Gmail users, with Google agreeing to set up a $8.5m (�5.2m) privacy fund.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is unhappy that it is not one of the beneficiaries of the fund.

This is despite the fact that it filed the original complaint about the service with the Federal Trade Commission.

It has asked for $1.75m (�1.09m), claiming that it is a more independent group than some of those being given money.

It said that the majority of funds would be allocated to groups that "receive support from Google for lobbying, consulting or similar services".

It asked the court to reject a deal "that encourages organisations to stand by quietly while others do the actual work of safeguarding internet privacy".

It declined to say which groups provided lobbying services.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Brookings Institution are among those who have received funds.

Moving on

Earlier this week, Google reached an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission, following the conclusion of its investigation.

The FTC said that Google wrongly used information from Google Mail users to create Buzz.

Google has agreed to undergo a privacy review once every two years for the next 20 years.

In a statement after the FTC settlement, Google said it had "put this incident behind us".

"We are 100% focused on ensuring that our new privacy procedures effectively protect the interests of all our users," it said.

It declined to comment directly on the EPIC case.

Apologies

Buzz was launched as an application within Gmail in February 2010.

Like rival Facebook, it allowed users to post status updates, share content and read and comment on friends' posts.

But it also gave users a ready-made circle of friends based on the people they most frequently e-mailed.

This list could automatically be made public, which privacy experts said could be a huge problem for journalists, businesses or people having an illicit affair.

Following anger from users, Google made changes and apologised for insufficient testing of the service.

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Microsoft goes to EU over Google

31 March 2011 Last updated at 04:49 ET

Microsoft is to take an anti-competition complaint against Google to the European Commission.

The software maker claims that Google used its dominant position in the search market to restrict the growth of Microsoft services.

It cites a number of practices, including Google limiting the ability of Microsoft Bing to index web content.

Google said it was not surprised by the move and would happily explain itself.

In a detailed blog, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, outlined the company's grievances.

He wrote: "Our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers."

The post goes on to list five different ways in which Google, according to Microsoft, has sought to control the search market.

Those are:

• Using technical measures to stop Microsoft's search engine Bing from indexing content on Google-owned YouTube.
• Blocking Microsoft Smartphones from operating properly with YouTube.
• Controlling access to online copies of out-of-copyright books.
• Limiting the ability of businesses to reclaim "their own information" generated through Google advertising campaigns for use elsewhere.
• Compelling leading websites to only use Google search boxes on their pages.

Heavy fines

The European Commission launched an investigation into allegations of anti-competitive practices by Google last November, at the behest of several internet companies, including Ciao, a shopping site owned by Microsoft.

It is likely, if the Commission accepts the latest round of complaints from Microsoft, that they would be rolled into the same investigation.

For the Microsoft case to be accepted, the company would have to prove two things - firstly that Google was dominant in a particular market, namely search, and secondly that it had abused that position.

In a statement, Google said it would cooperate with any investigation.

"We're not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complainants. For our part, we continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we're happy to explain to anyone how our business works," is stated.

Penalties for companies found to have engaged in anti-competitive practices in Europe can be severe. The EC has the power to impose fines up to 10% of global earnings.

That will likely have a bearing on how the case proceeds, according to Mark Tricker, an antitrust lawyer with the law firm Norton Rose.

He told BBC News: "Once the Commission has formulated its claims then I suspect that Google will enter into a dialogue with them to address those concerns so it does not have to reach a judgement."

Role reversal

Microsoft's position as accuser in an anti-competition case is something of a role reversal.

In the past, the world's leading software company has been the target of similar actions.

A 2003 EC ruling determined that Microsoft had unfairly advantaged its Windows Media Player software over other streaming technologies by embedding it into the Windows operating system.

It was fined �381m, followed by a further �194m in 2006 for failing to comply with elements of the original ruling.

To date, the largest fine levied by the EC was �948m against Intel in 2009.

The microchip maker was found to have offered financial incentives to manufacturers to favour its products over those of its rivals.

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UK radio pushes online listening

31 March 2011 Last updated at 10:40 ET

Almost all of the UK's radio broadcasters have joined forces to launch a system for listening to their stations over the internet.

UK Radioplayer brings together commercial outlets alongside BBC stations in an attempt to boost online listening.

Only 3% of people access radio via the web and growth has been sluggish.

Although broadcasters will now use the same interface, they are free to customise it and include advertising.

Among the radio groups supporting the project are Global, GMG, Bauer Media and UTV Radio, as well as the BBC.

Tim Davie, director of audio and music at the BBC, welcomed the move, but conceded it was perhaps overdue.

"It is true that, to a certain extent, the radio industry has lacked the level of innovation of television," he said.

Mr Davie suggested that the launch of UK Radioplayer, along with a BBC trial of high bitrate HD radio, indicated a renewed determination to innovate.

No guarantee of quality

The UK Radioplayer is intended to offer some consistency to users, with all players having the same basic controls, search function and favourites option.

However the system does not guarantee that all radio stations will provide the same quality of audio stream.

Broadcasters remain free to chose lower or higher bitrates, said Michael Hill, managing director of Radioplayer Ltd.

He told BBC News: "We wanted to leave it to stations to chose their own bitrate. That is the way for small stations to keep their costs down."

At launch, the Radioplayer will only work on devices that are capable of running Adobe's Flash platform. That includes most personal computers and some mobile phones and tablets.

A version capable of running on Apple devices will follow shortly, said Mr Hill.

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Ofcom acts to cut broadband price

31 March 2011 Last updated at 02:57 ET

The cost of home telephone and broadband services could come down after telecoms regulator Ofcom moved to reduce the wholesale price.

It has revised the list of rates that Openreach, which manages BT's network, can charge other providers for using its services.

In some cases, the wholesale price could fall by more than 10% per year.

The move will benefit companies such as TalkTalk and Sky, but not Virgin Media which uses its own cable network.

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