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Hey White House, where’s our broadband stimulus money?
In previous social and economic crises, we waited for Lefty , then for Godot . Now we’re waiting for government broadband money. As the holidays approach, broadband developers and policy folk everywhere are wondering when the White House’s $7.2 billion stimulus package is really truly going to kick in, and there’s some disappointment with the process being vetted.
Continue reading »Pay Up! CRTC orders DNC marketeer Sugar
“Canada’s Do Not Call list is a mockery,” p2pnet posted in September. “The CRTC, which runs it, is a mockery. Bell Canada administers it, a terrible mockery, and to add insult to injury, telephone marketeers are able to actually buy copies of the list for a nominal fee.” We went on > > > The CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission) touted the list as a lifesaver for Canadians fed up with receiving unwanted marketing calls.
Continue reading »World’s first iPhone worm in the wild
p2pnet news view Security | Mobiles:- iPhone owners in Australia “awoke this weekend to find their devices targeted by self-replicating attacks that display an image of 1980s heart throb Rick Astley that’s not easily removed,” says The Register , going on: “The attacks, which researchers say are the world’s first iPhone worm in the wild, target jailbroken iPhones that have SSH software installed and keep Apple’s default root password of ‘alpine.’ In addition to showing a well-coiffed picture of Astley, the new wallpaper displays the message ‘ikee is never going to give you up,’ a play on Astley’s saccharine addled 1987 hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.” “Tricking victims in to inadvertently playing the song has become a popular prank known as Rickrolling.” And, it’s a lot more than a joke, confirms Peter Hansteen on That grumpy BSD guy “The rickroller is about bad passwords, no more, no less,” he says, going on, “this incident only underscores what we’ve been repeating until your eardrums wear thin an my vocal cords swell from exhaustion: Publishing your username and password is a really bad idea. It’s almost as bad as picking a guessable password. “Add to this that the fact, as we’ve noted here earlier, there is a whole cloud of hijacked machines out there beavering away at guessing passwords right now, and they have been at it for quite a while.” Finally, he adds, “some words of advice for those of you who want to avoid both rickrolling and getting cracked by other password guessing” »»» You should at least consider setting a password policy and enforcing it with something like John the ripper , which more than likely is available at the cost of a few keystrokes from your package system.
Continue reading »EU vote opens the way to 3 strikes law
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- The bitter war between online communities and the entertainment cartels has just been escalated. With the EU parliament scheduled to vote on a controversial EU telecom reform package, member states agreed to add a new paragraph, “prohibiting national authorities from excluding users from the internet without a court order,” p2pnet reported in May. However, in a move that in political doublespeak is being hailed as a ‘victory’ for consumers, and at the 11th hour, the clause, which would have protected people from the depredations of the Hollyood and the major record labels, has been drastically watered down.
Continue reading »UK out of tune on P2P filesharing
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- “As the UK continues to oppose users rights in the Telecoms Package, opposition is gathering at home and rifts in the government line are appearing,” writes Monica Horten in IPTegrity.com . The UK government is divided on its so-called P2P policy, “which seeks to use hi-tech means to get the broadband providers to enforce copyright on the Internet,” she says, continuing »»» Ben Bradshaw (right), the Culture Secretary, speaking to a Parliamentary Select Committee, stated that a court order would need to be obtained before users’ access could be suspended. A week later, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said that users will simply be informed in advance, with a right to appeal.
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