What's New in IT

• Net address bug worse than feared
  BBC NEWS 2008/08/07
  A recently found flaw in the internet's addressing system is worse than first feared, says the man who found it.
  Dan Kaminsky made his comments when speaking publicly for the first time about his discovery at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.
  He said fixes for the flaw in the net's Domain Name System (DNS) had focused on web browsers but it could be abused by hackers in many other ways.
  "Every network is at risk," he said. That's what this flaw has shown."
  The DNS acts as the internet's address books and helps computers translate the website names people prefer (such as bbc.co.uk) into the numbers computers use (212.58.224.131).
  Mr Kaminsky discovered a way for malicious hackers to hijack DNS and re-direct people to fake pages even if they typed in the correct address for a website.
  In his talk Mr Kaminsky detailed 15 other ways for the flaw to be exploited.
  Via the flaw hi-tech criminals or pranksters could target FTP services, mail servers, spam filters, Telnet and the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) that helps to hide make web-based from eavesdroppers.
  "There are a ton of different paths that lead to doom," he said. Read More »

• Unsafe chargers 'flooding' the UK
  BBC News 2008/07/18
  Hundreds of thousands of unsafe chargers for mobile phones, games consoles and music devices could have made their way into the UK.
  Trading standards officers studying dangerous chargers being imported from China say vast numbers are available on the internet and in shops.
  Their tests show one brand can overheat or cause electrocution.
  One of the chargers concerned has the code marking DE62347066. Others have no code and are called Travel Charger.
  
  Safety concerns
  
  A specific warning has already been issued about chargers for Nintendo DS and DS Lite machines, but which could also be used to charge Gameboy machines.
  Trading standards officers are trying to recall the chargers. Read More »

• BT to pump £1.5bn into broadband
  BBC News 2008/07/15
  BT is to invest £1.5bn in fibre optic cables, giving up to 10 million UK households access to faster broadband.
  The plans would bring 40% of homes in reach of an ultra-fast service by 2012.
  BT is also planning to put fibre-optic cable into about 1 million homes, making the service even faster for those customers.
  However, the communications group has made clear it will only make the move if regulator Ofcom allows it to get a decent return on that investment.
  Remaining customers would be offered broadband speeds of between 40 and 60 megabits a second (mbps), it said.
  In order to pay for the project BT has said it will suspend its £2.5bn share buy-back programme in July - by which time it will have returned more than £1.8bn. Read More »

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• Viacom 'backs off' YouTube demand
  BBC News 2008/07/15
  Viacom has "backed off" from demands to divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched a video on YouTube, the website has claimed.
  Google had been ordered to provide personal details of millions of YouTube users to help Viacom prepare its case on alleged copyright infringement.
  Google, owners of YouTube, will now hand over the database but without data that could identify users.
  Viacom has a $1bn (£497m) copyright infringement lawsuit against Google.
  A class action by other organisations including the English Premier League has also agreed to the new terms.
  "We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information," said a statement on the YouTube blog.
  The decision will be welcomed by privacy activists, many of whom expressed concern over a US judge's order for Google to provide the data in early July. Read More »

• Samsung mass-produces 128GB SSDs; 256GB to come
  July 09, 2008 (IDG News Service)
  Samsung Electronics Co. is mass-producing solid-state drives with a 128GB capacity, and it will begin production of a 256GB product later this year, the company said today.
  Solid-state drives, or SSDs, are storage devices that use flash memory chips to store data, instead of the magnetic platters found in hard disk drives. Flash memory chips offer several advantages over hard disks: They use less power and, because they have no moving parts, are not prone to mechanical failure. On the other hand, flash chips are more expensive than magnetic platters, so SSDs cost more than hard disks with a much greater storage capacity.
  Samsung's 128GB and 64GB SSDs are available in 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. versions that can fit a range of devices. The company also makes SSDs with capacities of 32GB and 64GB. Pricing for the 128GB drives was not immediately available. Read More »

• Fix found for net security flaw
  BBC News 2008/07/09
  Computer experts have released software to tackle a security glitch in the internet's addressing system.
  The flaw, discovered by accident, would allow criminals to redirect users to fake webpages, even if they typed the correct address into a browser.
  Internet giants such as Microsoft are now distributing the security patch.
  Security expert Dan Kaminsky said that the case was unprecedented, but added: "People should be concerned but they should not be panicking."
  "We have bought you as much time as possible to test and apply the patch," he said. "Something of this scale has not happened before."
  Mr Kaminsky discovered the error in the workings of the Domain Name System (DNS) about six months ago.
  DNS is used to convert web addresses written in words - such as www.bbc.com - into the numerical sequences used by computers to route internet traffic around the world.
  The flaw revolves around the way that the servers that translate words into numbers handle the requests they get. Read More »