Around the Industry:

Vonage to fight Baltimore's effort to tax its Internet phone service
The Big Easy officially goes wireless with EarthLink
Let the 4G (over)hype commence
No more Connexion for Lufthansa
UK Wi-Fi market gets Divine intervention
EU opens investigation into Amsterdam FTTH project; will take action against Germany:

SecurityBits:

Spam volume jumps 35% in November
PHP = pretty hard to protect?
Skype Chat not vulnerable after all:

TidBytes:

No admin rights? No Wi-Fi, says D-Link
Windows For Basic Phones Is Ready -- But Who's Buying?
Is Freespire Killing Open Source?
Vista Issues Bedevil Firefox
Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts

More broadband bytes inside...

Around The Industry:

•Vonage to fight Baltimore's effort to tax its Internet phone service:

When it was revealed this week that the city of Baltimore is suing Vonage to collect a $3.50 monthly tax for subscribers using its Internet phone service, the city opened up an issue that has defied resolution for years. Baltimore instituted the tax on all phone lines in 2004, but apparently didn't file the lawsuit until recently. "The service that Vonage is providing clearly fits the definition of a telecommunications line," said an assistant city solicitor. Not so, said Vonage, which claims it is an information service and therefore exempt from taxes. Vonage won a hard-fought battle in a federal court in Minnesota more than three years ago in which the judge in the case ruled that Vonage's service was an information service.

•The Big Easy officially goes wireless with EarthLink:

Today marks the official launch of New Orleans' citywide wireless network, which will be managed by EarthLink. The first phase of the network will cover a 20 square mile area that stretches from Tulane University to the Woodland Highway, with eventual build-out to the entire city. According to EarthLink, a free tier of service available up to 300Kbps will be be provided for users, and higher speeds will be available for a $21.95 monthly cost. It goes without saying that a project like this will help New Orleans get back on its feet and attract business and technology to the area. The city still has a very long way to go, but this is a nice step forward.

•Let the 4G (over)hype commence:

In a survey by Harris Interactive, consumers were shown a description of 4G services and asked for their initial reactions. Early indications show that 4G could be a winner, with half of adults (49%) finding 4G "appealing" and about one-third (34%) saying they would likely subscribe to 4G service. Interestingly, about 7% of likely subscribers say they would buy "at launch." So is that early adopter rate a good number or a poor one? The survey also asked a few benchmarking questions concerning consumers' early adoption rate for ANY new technology. According to the survey, 9% of adults say they are willing to pay a premium for "new" technology and 3% purchase such products "at launch." This is a highly prized segment for technology companies to identify and lure with their products. As the 4G early adoption rate exceeded the benchmark, early returns look good for 4G service providers.

•No more Connexion for Lufthansa:

Lufthansa will start the New Year without Internet access on its flights. The German company had equipped 66 of its 80 long-range jets with a fast Internet connection that even worked over the Atlantic. However, Lufthansa took the service from Connexion by Boeing, which will end the business on December 30. The end of service, announced this Summer, was said to be in the "long-term interests of all parties with a stake in Connexion by Boeing." Although the product worked well and customers were happy, the global market for the service has not developed satisfactorily, Boeing says. There are no plans to transition the service to another provider. Lufthansa says it will look for a different solution later in 2007.

•UK Wi-Fi market gets Divine intervention:

A former chief executive of O2 has founded a company that aims to aggregate the UK's Wi-Fi hot spots. Thousands of mobile workers use Wi-Fi hot spots for Internet connectivity, but because hot spots are owned by a vast range of companies, access can be complicated and may require multiple subscriptions. Divine Wireless aims to address this problem by aggregating access to most of the country's hot spots with one account. To do this, it has struck a deal with the largest two providers — BT Openzone and The Cloud — and is planning deals with several more. The current deals give users access to around 15,000 hot spots, about 90% of the UK total.

•EU opens investigation into Amsterdam FTTH project; will take action against Germany:

The EU is looking into whether Amsterdam’s investment in the private consortium that is building out the Amsterdam FTTH network violates the EU’s state aid rules. The European Commission received complaints from UPC (a cableco) and the cable operators’ association, VECAI. The state aid regulations are designed to ensure that there is no distortion of competition in the market. The openness of the network to all service providers will be a critical factor in the Commission’s decision. This month, German parliament allowed Deutsche Telekom to exclude competitors from its fiber networks on grounds that Deutsche Telekom should be allowed to recoup its EUR 3 billion investment in “new services.” Viviane Redding, commissioner for information society and media (in charge of telecoms policy) has already said that the European Commission will take action against Germany.

•Xbox Live challenge is to reach masses:

Letting video game players compete against each other online has distinguished MS's Xbox 360 console from Nintendo and Sony rivals, but casual gamers have yet to embrace the service in droves. "A lot of casual gamers are intimidated by online in general, both in terms of the technology and the human competition," said DFC Intelligence. "That's changing, but it still has a ways to go." Only 10% of original Xboxes were connected to the Internet, while more than 50% of all Xbox 360s are taken online, proving that the Live community is becoming more inclusive. But new features like Xbox Live video are more enhancements for existing users and not a huge attraction for mass market casual gamers. Games that do not depend on Web play, such as some role-playing games, are most important. "The key to the 360's overall success is what they'll offer consumers who don't go online."

•Anti-spam blacklist service Open Relay Database surrenders to spammers:

Anti-spam blacklist service, The Open Relay Database (ORDB), has pulled the plug after five and a half years because of spammers' growing sophistication. ORDB was designed to deal with a technique in which spammers used SMTP proxy servers to flood the Internet with junk email. The project distributed a blacklist of mail servers that allowed open relays and were thus liable to be used by spammers. ORDB anti-spam blacklist shuts up shop. But the list had levelled off at around 225,000 over the past year and updates have slowed to a crawl, the volunteer-run project acknowledged. "It's been a case of a long goodbye as very little work has gone into maintaining ORDB for a while," organizers said in a message on the project's website. "The general consensus within the team is that open relay RBLs (Real-time Blackhole Lists) are no longer the most effective way of preventing spam from entering your network."

•Judge says no deep linking to videos:

Mike from TechDirt reports: "Deep linking is apparently an issue that just won't die. You would think, by now, people would realize that if you put something on the web, people can link to it. If you don't want them to link to it, then don't put it online, or put in place one of the incredibly easy technical methods to redirect traffic that comes into the content you want to hide. It's really not that difficult -- but too many people still haven't figured it out, and unfortunately some of them are judges. In the latest case, a federal judge in Texas has said that it's illegal to deep link to a video on another site if that site objects. Admittedly, part of the problem may be that the guy who did the linking also chose to defend himself rather than hire a lawyer. You'd have to hope that a lawyer would be able to better defend the case and explain to the judge why this ruling doesn't make much sense -- but in the meantime, beware of linking directly to videos on other sites."

•Virginia throws in for longer ISP data retention:

Echoing similar calls from U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this year, all ISPs should keep their subscribers' data for lengthier time periods in order to aid police prowling for criminals online, recommends a task force organized by the Virginia state attorney general. Law enforcement officials and Internet companies have been at odds over the notion of adopting European-style data retention rules because ISPs maintain that retaining such vast amounts of data presents inordinately high costs and could pose security and privacy complications.

•Japan continues fiber-optic broadband lead:

The number of fiber-optic broadband Internet subscriptions in Japan reached 7 million in the third quarter, according to figures from Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The stats also show that the fiber-optic service, which is low cost and offered throughout Japan by several competing carriers, continues to drive the expansion in the country's broadband Internet market. The rise means that fiber-optic connections are now equivalent to about half the total ADSL market. ADSL, which is available at speeds up to 47Mbps, remains the most popular broadband Internet connection despite a slight fall in subscribers during the quarter. Cable Internet subscriptions came in third place at 3.5 million and last was fixed wireless access, which is only available in limited areas and had 10,954 subscribers.

SecurityBits:

•Spam volume jumps 35% in November:

Spam volume soared another 35% in November, e-mail security vendor IronPort Systems said, adding the month saw spam tactics that reduced the efficiency of traditional anti-spam filters. "The October-to-November increase is higher than any other month we've measured," the company said. Like other anti-spam vendors, IronPort puts the blame on a surge in botnet use, the increased use of image-based spam and a rapid rise in the number of URLs registered by spammers. That combination, along with profit-driven innovation, has dramatically changed the spam landscape in 2006, said IronPort, which released its annual trend report earlier this week.

•PHP = pretty hard to protect?:

A week after a prominent bug finder and developer left the PHP Group, data from the National Vulnerability Database has underscored the need for better security in PHP-based web applications. A search of the database, maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), found that web applications written in PHP likely account for 43% of the security issues found so far in 2006, up from 29% in 2005. While flaws in the language itself account for a very small percentage the total, the problems with PHP underscore the difficulty that developers - many of them amateurs - have in locking down applications written in the language, said Peter Mell, senior computer scientist for the NIST and the program manager for the National Vulnerability Database.

•Skype Chat not vulnerable after all:

Confusion over a Websense-issued advisory on a security threat hitting Skype was resolved, with researchers re-characterizing the threat as a Trojan horse rather than a worm. "After discussions with the very helpful Skype security team, the behavior of this Trojan using the Skype API is as per the specifications of the API," Websense stated in its revised advisory. "The end user who is running Skype does get notified that a program is attempting to access it and must acknowledge it... there is no vulnerability in Skype at this time that has been uncovered."

Hardware, Software, and other TidBytes:

•No admin rights? No Wi-Fi, says D-Link

•Windows For Basic Phones Is Ready -- But Who's Buying?

•Is Freespire Killing Open Source?

•Vista Issues Bedevil Firefox

•Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts

•Samsung Phones to Feature Opera Mobile Browser

•Linux desktops should receive general market acceptance, but they don't - The reason: The tyranny of the installed base

•Another Apple Phone Rumor: Now Slightly More Plausible, But Not Really

•Motorola takes another step into the IPTV market by acquiring Tut Systems for $39 million