•Around the Industry:

China and the break-up of the net

New 'more realistic' Mac hack challenge posted

VoIP providers grapple with emergency calls

St. Cloud, Florida launches first free citywide Wi-Fi network in the world

Erin no go broadband

BBC TV channels test net broadcasts

•SecurityBits:

New IM worms delete files, hijack PCs

Firefox whips Internet Explorer in new vulnerability tally

Mac OS X patch faces scrutiny

•TidBytes:

Does the GPL Violate Sarbanes-Oxley?

Microsoft: Office '10 years ahead' of OpenOffice

Ubuntu voted 'Linux distribution of the yea

•More news from around the industry, SecurityBits, and interesting Tidbytes inside!

Around The Industry:

•China and the break-up of the net:

Last week Chinese officials sought to assure the world that it had no intention of creating a separate Chinese internet. The new Chinese domains were in fact not so new as China had been experimenting with them for several years. The relief may be short-lived, since a closer examination of this past week's events suggests that, bolstered by the Chinese action, other countries may place increasing pressure for change to the current structure and administration of the internet.

•New 'more realistic' Mac hack challenge posted:

ZDNets take on the half-hour Mac hack is "woefully misleading", says an Apple fan from the University of Wisconsin. He reckons that the challenge to hack the Mac was flawed. The machine was not hacked from the outside, he protests, as contenders were given local accounts if they asked for them. So he’s hosting his own challenge in which the spod-like have until Friday March 10th to batter down his Mac mini’s back doors and deface his web site. It's a much more realistic challenge, he suggests. There's no prize, though.

•VoIP providers grapple with emergency calls:

US federal regulators have spent much of the past year prodding internet phone providers to link their customers to the e911 system but accomplishing that goal is no small feat, industry reps said. One obstacle lies woth updates in the Master Street Address Guide, which stores a 911 dialler's location information. Another challenge has proven to be co-ordination among all the appropriate parties; net phone providers, telecomms companies which own 911 infrastructure, companies which provide call-routing technology and public safety operators. An estimated 81 million US citizens still live in areas without full E911 access, according to the Voice On the Net Coalition.

•St. Cloud, Florida launches first free citywide Wi-Fi network in the world:

St. Cloud, a suburb of Orlando, Florida, launched the first citywide Wi-Fi network in the world which offers free Internet access to anyone within the city boundaries. The city covers an area of 15 square miles and has a population of 28,000; expects to grow to 24 square miles and 74,000 citizens in less than 10 years. The city considers the provision of Wi-Fi to be a valuable public service.

•Erin no go broadband:

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has criticised the Irish Gov for a lack of action on broadband infrastructure, saying there had been 'a lack of a Government policy response that indicates that the Government gives this key economic imperative the attention required'. It also criticised Irish telecomm heavy Eircom, describing the pace and 'almost total lack' of Local Loop Unbundling as a roadblock that must be addressed in the national interest.

•BBC TV channels test net broadcasts:

BBC One, BBC Two and ITV1 are being broadcast 24 hours a day on the web as part of a low-key technical trial. About 200,000 people in the UK can currently watch the simulcasts, which are testing a system of internet broadcasting known as multicasting. It could pave the way for the whole country to watch live TV on the web. Around 4,000 tech-savvy viewers are being sought to report back on how well the multicasts work.

•Alvarion, Tropos partner on municipal wireless networks:

Alvarion, provider of Wi-Fi and WiMAX solutions, and Tropos, provider of Wi-Fi mesh systems, said they will team up to target the burgeoning muni wireless broadband market. Both companies have been rolling out wireless networks in international markets. Alvarion's BreezeACCESS 4900 is aimed at the 4.9 GHz U.S. public safety market while its BreezeACCESS VL targets the 5 GHz unlicensed band. Tropos' MetroMesh Wi-Fi solution enables munis to deploy broadband quickly. The firms noted that they already have been working together successfully to roll out wireless networks.

•Intel moves release of Wi-Max cards up to this year:

Intel, which had previously said it expected to have Wi-Max products in 2007, now plans to have Wi-Max cards for laptops in the second half of this year. "The cost is coming down significantly while the volume is coming up significantly," Intel said of the adoption of Wi-Max around the world. India and Spain are running pilot Wi-Max services, and the technology's supporters are optimistic it will find broad use in developing nations where Internet access is still too expensive. Intel is also working on a chip that integrates Wi-Max and Wi-Fi.

•Aussie VoIP provider, ISP bang heads about slow broadband speeds and the effect on VoIP calls:

Deceptively slow broadband connections are a hidden problem for users of VoIP services, says one VoIP service provider. Although broadband customers may sign up for a services starting from 256/128Kbps speeds, those speeds can go as low as 8Kbps without the user knowing, causing voice quality to erode or the call to drop. The CEO of leading broadband provider iiNet, disagreed with the claim: "If you're exchanging data with someone on a dial-up connection in Ethiopia, then of course this is possible. But if you're talking about the link between your ISP and you, then that's a baseless assertion."

•Super 3G broadband pricing:

It's fair to say that 3G mobile phone technology, specifically its broadband data access, has been hindered by cost. However new research suggests that forthcoming 3.5G (HSDPA) may see operators adopt a model similar to that used by fixed-broadband ISP's. The real question is whether or not operators will recognise that a wider consumer market for such a thing does exist and not just focus on business products.

SecurityBits:

•New IM worms delete files, hijack PCs:

Symantec posted alerts for the "Hotmatom" and "Maniccum" worms, two new worms spreading on MSN and AIM that delete files and leave systems open to hijacking. Symantec ranked the virus's a '2' on its 1-5 threat level. Hotmatom is a Spanish-language worm transmitted over MSN that deletes files at the root level of the A:/ and C:/ drives, then assigns those deleted filenames to copies of itself. Any future Hotmail e-mail sent by that computer contains a link to the same malicious code. Maniccum, meanwhile, propagates via both AIM and MSN's networks, and if installed, opens a backdoor on that PC and tries to disable security programs, including anti-virus and firewall software.

•Firefox whips Internet Explorer in new vulnerability tally:

Previously, Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report counted only vendor-confirmed bugs in the two browsers, which led to gripes from Firefox fans that the IE tally was inaccurate, and too low. In the newest report, which Symantec issued Tuesday, the company has split the counts into two categories: vendor-confirmed and a combination of vendor- and non-vendor-confirmed flaws. In the new combined counting methodology, which Symantec said was the "more accurate" of the two, IE comes out second-best: In the same six months, Firefox suffered from 17 total vulnerabilities, while IE had 24.

•Mac OS X patch faces scrutiny:

An Apple patch released last week doesn't completely fix a high-profile Mac OS X flaw, leaving a toehold for cyberattacks, experts said. The update added a function called "download validation" to the Safari Web browser, Apple Mail client and iChat IM. The function warns people that a download could be malicious when they click on the link. Before that change, clicking on a link could have resulted in the automatic execution of code on a Mac. But the fix should be at a lower, OS level, experts said. It is now still possible for hackers to construct a file that appears to be a safe file type, such as an image or movie, but is actually an app.

Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:

•Does the GPL Violate Sarbanes-Oxley?

•Microsoft: Office '10 years ahead' of OpenOffice

•Ubuntu voted 'Linux distribution of the year'

•Intel unveils new chips

•Microsoft Revs Up New Search Engine

•Dell Opens Up About Desktop Linux