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Platinax Internet >> Platinax Internet News
« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 » January 30, 2005Verizon broadens Microsoft hold on internet broadcastingVerizon Communications have joined the growing list of ISPs who will be using Microsoft software to support the ever building foundations for internet broadcasting. Other telecommunications companies have already been developing important close working relationships with Microsoft for the development and deployment of internet video broadcasting. BellSouth has already been trialling Microsoft's software, and SBC Comminications recently signed a deal to rollout its U-Verse next-generation internet TV platform, as reported in Cnet's report at SBC goes public with 'U-verse' TV plan.
Posted by Brian at 01:58 PM | TrackBack Cisco triple router vulnerabilities in IOSA triple whammy in Cisco IOS could hit companies who don't upgrade their router software. The issue revolves around Denial of Service (DoS) attacks originating from the the processing of malformed protocols - namely IPv6, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) packets. A report on the exploits is available at Multiple Denial-of-Service Vulnerabilities in Cisco IOS, and upgrades and workaround paches are available to download. Posted by Brian at 01:44 PM | TrackBack MySQL worm goes on rampage - is shut off at sourceA worm that exploited Windows installations of MySQL wraeked havoc yesterday as it spread rapidly across the internet. Known as the MySpooler worm, it attempts to force its way in with a database of potential passwords, and once in it uses the the MySQL UDF Dynamic Library exploit to upload malicious code from an IRC channel - in this instance, the Wootbot trojan). The MySpooler worm was believed to have infected as many as 4,500 machines per hour at its peak, and specifically targeted Windows machines running MySQL 4.0.21 or later, because these have elevated privileges over Unix installs which otherwise shield critical systems from MySQL operations. However, CNet reports in MySQL worm halted that Symantec reports that the IRC channels were eventually shut down, effectively isolating the worm, but only after thousands of machines were turned into zombies. The exploit involved was apparently reported as far back as July 2004, and code publicly released on the internet in December. Posted by Brian at 01:21 PM | TrackBack BBA: 5 year low on mortgage lendingThe British Bankers' Association (BBA) has reported in 2004 annual mortgage lending was similar to 2003 that the increases in lending for 2003 have been effectively matched by an equivalent downturn in 2004. The BBC also points out in Mortgage approvals plummet by 38% that this is the seventh month's in fall in lending in a row, and that the number of mortgages signed in December 2004 reached a 5 year low. While December is traditionally a quite month for house sales, the BBA figures point to the increasing number of reports that the housing market has boomed and is now busting, with a housing recession expected for 2004. However, mortgage lendors are not simply trying to put a spin on figures, but are also desperately moving to push for a last grasp at increased growth because the market kicks them in the teeth. For example, in Modest climb in UK house prices the Nationwide tried to cheerfully claim that house prices actually increased in 2004 - only to be somewhat ridiculed by more impartial observers. And as a last rush at hitting loan targets for 2005, the BBC reports in Halifax mortgage offer criticised that the Halifax sent out 100,000 letters both encouraging home-owners to abstain from mortgage payments for up to 6-months - or else simply take out a remortgage to pay out Christmas debts. The move was pretty roundly condemned, a. for not pointing out the costs to owners for missing payments
Posted by Brian at 01:08 PM | TrackBack January 27, 2005Allders in administrationShopping chain Allders went into administration late yesterday. Efforts continue to find a buyer for the chain, which has been forcing losses despite a management shake-up 2 years ago. With a rich string of developments, a deal of sorts is almost inevitable, though staff at the company can only be worried. Posted by Brian at 09:01 PM | TrackBack January 26, 2005Sun Solaris goes open sourceSun Microsystems, a niche competitor to Microsoft in software applications for desktop computers and servers, as well as the developer of Java, has announced that the latest version of its Solaris operating system will be released as open source. The code is due in the second quarter and will be releasewd under the Common Development and Distribution License. The project is part of Sun's new Open Solaris movement. However, reservations have been made. As reported in Analysts: Sun's Open Solaris Plans Face Problems, thereare concerns that proprietary rights could be developed from use of the code. On top of that, until the results of the legal claim by the SCO Group that they effectively own Unix, it remains difficult to see how Sun could declare something as open source if they do not actually have distribution rights over the software. Posted by Brian at 03:54 PM | TrackBack Google censors staff?In a move being widely interpretated as censorship of staff, a critical blog started by a new employee at Google has been removed. As covered by The FULL Mark Jen Google Blog - The Blog Google tried to Gag, Mark Jen was - until recently - employed by Microsoft, working as a Software Development Engineer on the company's Indigo search project. In his last post on his Microsoft blog - what happened to MarkJen? - dated January 18th, he announces he's moving to Google. Apparently, he then started up a new blog at Blogpsot using Google's blogger service, where he made critical remarks about:
The last post was made on January 25th, after which his blog suddenly disappeared. However, Yahoo! retains a cache, and Bloglines also has a copy of his XML file for public viewing: 99zeros - Yahoo! cache While the events may be regarded as a slight embarrassment to Google, it remains refreshing to see Google employing a human face, when the company is otherwise very calculating in what it presents to public view.
Posted by Brian at 03:35 PM | TrackBack Linux Mandrake patches releasedA raft of patches for Linux Mandrake and its software applications, including a kernel fix, have been released today by Mandrakesoft. The patches include no less than 5 deemed "highly critical" to prevent remote user access to a vulnerable machine. However, despite the need for the patches, Linux machines remain better protected than Windows machines. According to security firm Secunia, as many as 25% of PC's running Windows XP Home Edition remain unpatched, while less than 1% of Linux Mandrake machines are unpatched. Fig. 1, Unpatched machines: Windows XP Home Edition
Posted by Brian at 12:27 PM | TrackBack W3C issue XML & SOAP standards guidelinesThe W3C consortium, a body that develops internet accessibility standards, has released a new set of standards guidelines for use with XML and SOAP applications. XML-binary Optimized Packaging (XOP), SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) and Resource Representation SOAP Header Block (RRSHB) are all designed to help bridge the use and development of binary data with XML. This is important for addressing issues such as sending a video clip from a mobile device to a desktop PC, as lack of co-ordination between different software packages can make even this apparently simple act slow and difficult to manage. Although intended as a work around, rather than a full fix, the W3C XML Binary Characterization Working Group is already looking into fully comprehensive ways in which XML and binary data can be better brought together. Posted by Brian at 12:17 PM | TrackBack MovableType 3.15 patches exploitMovableType have released MT 3.15, which addresses a serious exploit that could leave all versions as old as 1.0 vulnerable. The vulnerability allows a third-party to use the popular blogging software to send out mass e-mail spam. The vulnerability does not affect their online Typepad service. Posted by Brian at 12:11 PM | TrackBack January 25, 2005Firefox developer moves to GoogleFirefox project development manager, Ben Goodger, announced in the simply titled Changes that he is now employed by Google - but that he will continue work on Firefox. The move will inflame continued speculation that Google are planning to release their own browser based on Mozilla technology. A Firefox 1.1 release is expected to be a general bug fix and security upgrade. However, Ben Goodger also refers to Firefox versions 1.5 and 2.0 that he is working on, which could very well be the formats that introduce specific Google features, not least Google search, and various features of Google's existing toolbar for Internet Explorer. Posted by Brian at 09:35 PM | TrackBack Video search launchedGoogle and Yahoo! both released beta versions of video search today, starting what will ultimately be a very hard run race to conquer internet video & digital media. Google video search comes in the form of a subdomain, while the Yahoo! video search exists as a tab on the usual Yahoo! search bar. Interestingly, both search companies are taking different approaches. While Yahoo! is an archive of movie files found on the internet for keywords, the Google video search is geared towards tracking regional TV listings, and undoubtedly is gearing towards encouraging the search and development of search for TV broadcasting companies. Some commentators have suggested that Posted by Brian at 09:13 PM | TrackBack US budget deficit to $367 billionUS Federal officials announced today that the government's budget deficit is already expected to reach $368bn (��197bn) for the year. This is worse than market expectations, and is compounded by that fact that planned tax breaks, pension reform, and increased spending for Iraq, have not yet been factored into the existing figures. When accounted for, these could increase the figure by as much as $100bn. The budget deficit to September 2004 was the previous highest on record, reaching $412bn. Posted by Brian at 09:06 PM | TrackBack January 24, 2005Google preparing to release AdWords APITom Foremski explains in Google to provide AdWords API to Advertisers how Google are about to announce major changes in the Google AdWords program, that will allow AdWords marketers far more control over their advertising. According to the report, these new features should allow far greater publisher control of the delivery, timing, and pricing of ads, all using Google's application programming interface (API). Improved Adwords conversion tracking will also mean the ability to track conversions from Overture, emails, banner ads, as well as RSS feeds. A gathering of 1800 AdWords managers apparently came together in San Francisco this week to learn of how to work with these changes. The overall move is seen as a reaction to growing market share by companies such as Kanoodle, who also have tools dealing with some of these features. If applied, the changes to AdWords advertising would move Google closer to being seen as a media publisher, rather than search application, which could irritate existing media publishing rivals such as IDG and even eBay. Posted by Brian at 04:26 PM | TrackBack Google results without the Google sandbox?The Google Sandbox is a method that Google employs that delays the impact of anchor text on a page's search engine rankings. Those SEO's who deal with link building on a large scale are acutely aware of its impact, and it is a cause for a great deal of frustration. The Google Sandbox is an issue I've covered here so much before that it now has it's own Google Sandbox category here. The latest news on sandboxing is that Netizen at the SEO-Guy forums reports in the thread View the SERPs without a sandbox that you can see Google results with Sandboxing removed by adding a nonesense code string to the end of your chosen search query: searchphrase -sdfsdfq -ddsf -dsfsqdf -dqdfqsdf -dqfsdfqsd -sqdfqsd -sdfsdqfqsdf -sqdfqsdfqs -qsdfqsdf -sdfsqdfqsdf -sqfqsdfqsd -sdfqsdfsq -sdfqsdfsdf -qsdfqsdf When carrying out searches with the above you can certainly see a different set of results returned. The big question, of course, is whether these results reflect the removal of actual sandboxing? For that, the answer has to be "yes and no, but..." Certainly the results I've personally checked do seem to better reflect actual expected rankings without sandboxing. However, similar results can be achieved using Google allinanchor: allinurl: allintitle: allintext: searches, which order Google's results by means of specified factors. Results in such Similarly, it would be impossible to tell at this time whether adding the code to the end of the search phrase were actually indicating coming results, or whether the search engine results pages (SERPs) were actually returned on an as yet unspecified combination of such factors. Also, another uncomfortable fact is that after Google's infamous Florida Update of November 2003, pre-Florida results were still accessible by adding a nonsense word code string to the end of keyphrase queries. However, this provided insights in results lost, rather than future results. A similar process could be at work with this latest method, where the results are shown before a specific filter (or set of filters) are applied. Either way, it is a very interesting observation, and many webmasters - myself included - can only hope that this apparent window through the sandbox is indeed precisely that, rather than a false lead. Posted by Brian at 03:45 PM | TrackBack Google search: now 32 words countedGoogle recently - and without announcement - increased the number of words counted in a search query from 10 to 32. This change applies to Google's web search, image search, and Froogle, and also has applications for the Google API. However, the 10 word limit remains in force for Google Groups. Posted by Brian at 01:18 PM | TrackBack Google to offer internet phone services?In Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT Elizabeth Judge at the Times speculates that Google could be building up a communications infrastructure that at some point could be opened up to launch a free internet telephone service. The ideas arise primarily from a job advertisment for the company for a �gstrategic negotiator�h to help the company to provide a �gglobal backbone network�h- in other words, a high-capacity international infrastructure. There is already a lot of unused telecommunications cabling around the world, after speculative construction outstripped demand. The suggestion is that Google could be looking into buying up large quantities of this redundant network, in order to ensure good quality global telecommunications.
However, what the speculation does highlight is that Google are in a position to use their influence to apply their resources to a whole range of internet applications. As Nick Bradbury once pointed out in Ramblings on Google and the Internet OS Whether Google utilises Voip for users in the future remains speculation only. And although Om Malik points out that there is currently no business model in free internet telephony, he should be plainly aware that - once upon a time, before the advent of Google as a $40 billion corporation - people said the same about search. :) Posted by Brian at 12:08 PM | TrackBack January 22, 2005Muslim activists target tasteless advertisingThe advertising proclivity towards greater and greater nudity in advertising has crashed into Muslim sensitivities. With public nudity often frowned upon within Islam, advertising hoardings that display nudity within disinctly Muslim areas are being repeated vandalised, with advertising messages being defaced or simply torn down. East London, Birmingham, Luton, and Bury, are all areas where advertising hoardings showing women in various degrees of naked undress have been defaced. And now an organisation calling itself "Muslims Against Advertising" has apparently been formed in Birmingham, which offers advice on how to attack such posters with paint, while working in teams. More than just a direct action protect group, it sends a clear message to advertisers to put more care and thought into the location of their advertising. For example, in Bury a hoarding beside a local mosque ended up showing women in thongs. The ASA eventually ordered the poster down, after sustained complaints and a petition from the community. However, the key concern remains that advertisers should have a clear idea of where their adverts will be displayed - and with a multi-cultural audience, advertisers should be acutely aware that the more provocative the ad, the more likely it may alienate potential consumers.
Posted by Brian at 06:42 PM | TrackBack Apple explodes mass marketing
SPECIAL REPORT After decades of developing a reputation for class - at a price - IT company Apple are finally breaking into the mass consumer market. Today, at 9am, shops will open up Apple's newest point of attack: the Mac Mini. Forcing their way on products such as the Mac Mini, iPod, and iPod shuffle, the ultimate goal of Apple to to develop and maintain strong consumer ties in general consumer markets - and attack the traditional consumer bases of rivals such as Microsoft. At Christmas, Amazon stocks leapt nearly 10% in value after the company saw it's best sales for 10 sales - which it particularly attributed to purchases of Apple Computers and iPods: Amazon trumpets record Christmas. And at the MacWorld conference last week, the company unveiled it's thrust of attack into the budget PC market: the Mac Mini - which ships worlwide today. The Mac Mini represents something of a compromise - it is expected to retail at less than ��500, but the cost is for the PC only, with no monitor, keyword, or even mouse supplied. However, IT markets are buzzing with what is sees as a major incursion into mass consumer shopping that Apple had previously failed to try and tap into. Even still, the success of the Mac Mini has yet to be demonstrated - but with a loyal following of consumers sold on Apple quality, and untested millions to whom the exhalted Apple brand has always been over-budget, retail outlets are preparing for key test sales. The Mac Mini is especially expected to appeal to existing Windows users, who throughout 2004 were afflicted with sometimes appalling security exploits and patches from Microsoft. And the buzz seems to be working. Internet technology news outlet, ZDnet, has reported in Apple mindshare explodes that Apple topics have seen an increase from 3% readership to a formidable 70%, showing the extent of interest in the company and its products outside of its normal following. Commentators, such as Paul Nixon at the University of Arizona, detail thoughts on Apple's long-term strategy in Apple's Tipping Point: Macs For The Masses Infographic, and also provides an extremely helpful graphical representation of the tectical marketing and development so far as they converge on today's announcement, in Apples for the Masses: Apple's Tipping Point. Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch in Entelligence: Understanding the success of the iPod and iPod mini has also described how the Apple approach has depended upon the very careful balancing of consumer requirements without compromising one or the other. And as Alan Graham nicely explains in Dell, Creative, and the iPod: Sour grapes?, companies who are in direct marketing competition in key areas, have been reduced to empty aggressive posturing when faced with Apple gains. Adalbert Duda in Apple�Ls tipping point continues the analysis, and demonstrates that even if all Window users won't necessarily be immediately converted to the Mac Mini, the lure of iPod and the iPod Shuffle are bringing about a consumer market to Apple's way of thinking - and acceptance of their products. However, as was pointed out in the earlier Platinax report Microsoft beats Apple at Media, Apple still maintain one key weakness - their DRM technology could become a fatal Achilles Heel in the longer term, unless Apple agrees to open this up for other companies to develop. Posted by Brian at 12:52 PM | TrackBack Google Gasoil connection?Gasoil Inc, by its filings, could be expected to be just another small Texan pretro-chemicals company listed in the Texas Oil & Gas records of the RRC. In reality, the company is own and run by the giants of Google in what is mostly a mirror of their own executive board:
The only person to lose out is Wayne Rosing, who is a Senior VP at Google, but only makes VP at Gasoil. So an investment game, fun leisure project - or are Google planning on taking over the world's oil markets? ;) The story was picked up by Oliver Thylmann in Who the hell is Gasoil Inc Posted by Brian at 12:22 PM | TrackBack House prices beyond first-time buyersThe Halifax reports that first-time buyers cannot afford property in nearly 95% of the UK. The study covered 597 main UK postal towns, and defined a town as unaffordable for first-time buyers if the average property price was more than 4.37 times the average salary. The problem was particularly serious in the south and south-east, while Scotland remained most affordable. The news adds to growing fears regarding the housing market bubble, which has now seen the lowest numbers of first-time buyers since 1981. Posted by Brian at 10:56 AM | TrackBack ONS: Festive sales worst for 20 yearsThe Office for National Statistics published figures in Trading slowdown at end of 2004 that, by themselves, suggest the worst retail sales figures for 20 years. However, other agencies are warning not to read too much into the figures. This is partly because a clear picture of overall Christmas trading is not expected until Easter. Also, various statistical presentations so far present different information that provides a positive picture. For example, retail volume outperformed measures of actual spending, which suggests shoppers were buying into bargains first. Also, there was a distinct movement from high street purchasing to online spending. Another pointer is that non-adjusted performance showed a comparable trend to 2003. Posted by Brian at 10:46 AM | TrackBack January 20, 2005Registrars line up to control .net domainsFive companies have now been short-listed to administer the internet's third largest registry - the .net TLD - which will be re-contracted from July 2005. Over the next two months a group of advisors, under the auspices of ICANN will make the decision as to which of the five contenders is most likely to serve the best interests of the .net registry, its users, and the internet overall. So far the shortlist comprises of: The chosen company will find itself administrating over 5 million .net domains, which VeriSign currently administrates for a fee of $6 per domain - a figure other companies claim exists for VeriSign's benefit, not the consumer. VeriSign is still a favourite to retain the contract, but German company Denic is expected to offer a serious challenge, already handling over 8 million .de domains - the world's second largest registry, after .com. Both these two companies are fighting fiercely for the potentially lucrative contract, and both have managed to persuade a number of major industry board figures to send in cloned letters of recommendation supporting one or the other. If you can stomach the reading, the letters are available online here: .net Correspondence Posted by Brian at 10:51 PM | TrackBack Google appeals French trademark judgementGoogle are appealing against a ruling by a judge in France, which seeks to prevent the serving of AdWords on display of trademarked hotel chain. Le Meridien had served legal proceedings on Google, after hotel chain rivals were found to have their own ads prominantly displayed in search for "Le Meridien". Although in a similar case in the US, Google was found not to be in violation of trademark, if the French judge's decision is upheld it could spell potential trouble for Google's generation of revenue. Google currently earn 98% of their income from AdWords programs, and if their appeal fails it could create serious problems for revenue generation in European markets.
Posted by Brian at 10:44 PM | TrackBack Microsoft Office: encryption vulnerabilityA researcher in cryptography at the Institute of Infocomm Research in Singapore has reported a serious flaw in the method of encryption used by Microsoft in its Office suite. As reported in Hongjun Wu's The Misuse of RC4 in Microsoft Word and Excel, the problem arises because Microsoft programmers apparently did not properly apply the 128-bit encryption technique. In Microsoft RC4 Flaw Bruce Schneier explains that Microsoft programmers effectively allowed the same encryption keys to be used for different documents, making it much easier to crack the encryption code. Microsoft reportedly view the error as creating "a very low threat", according to the CNet report Flaw found in Office encryption. The report marks the latest in a series of weak system key issues. Posted by Brian at 10:32 PM | TrackBack Phishing scams continue on the risePhishing scams continue to increase, with the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) publishing figures that cover monitoring over December.
Fears that commerce vendors would be specifically targeted were unfounded, as financial institutions became the big focus for phishing attacks. However, the figures make a clear demonstration of the seriousness of the threat from phishing scams. For example, in July 2003 there were only 2,625 attacks overall, and the number of phishing related sites has grown at around 25% per month. Last autumn had seen a particular increase in phishing attacks, as reported in October boom for phishing. Posted by Brian at 10:16 PM | TrackBack January 19, 2005Google Desktop Search used in Peer to Peer file-swapping applicationIn a move that raises a range of uncomfortable legal issues for Google, its Desktop Search tool has been used in the development of an application for large-scale file-swapping. DNKA remote desktop search tool acts as a webserver that utilises Google Desktop Search to allow other people to remotely search and download files from a users computer. Although the development company tries to indicate postive uses for the application, the notion of Google software being used to create peer-to-peer networks can only be an acute concern for the company, especially in the face of high-profile legal actions by music and film corporations, not least the RIAA and BPI. Posted by Brian at 09:41 PM | TrackBack Voice activated iPod coming?Voice recognition software development company, Scansoft, and media library production company, Gracenote, have announced plans to join forces to produce voice-activated media applications. The aim is to provide hands-free access to film and music media, with the technology available from Q4 2005. Gracenote already provides music library information Apple's iTunes, so it is not at all inconceivable think iTunes could be the first beneficiary, and that the Apple iPod may be the first multimedia device to incorporate the voice activation & selection technology. Posted by Brian at 06:42 PM | TrackBack Super airliner wars hots upThe Super airliner wars have opened in earnest, after Airbus finally revealed their A380 "super-jumbo" aircraft in an opening ceremony, that also served as a warning shot to US rival, Boeing. With a projected seating capacity of almost 50% more than the Boeing 747, the Airbus A380 project is intended to provide the dominant single aircraft carrier in the 600-800 seater range. Announced in 1999, with parts and construction carried out across the UK, France, Germany, and Spain, in a deployment of work that catered to political senstivities, the Airbus A380 project is over-budget, at around 12 billion euros. However, market demand is strong, and there are existing orders for 149 versions of the plane on the books, with more than 40 alone for Emirates airlines. Boeing are already updating their 747 range to hold onto some significant market share, but despite a basic design that has survived nearly 40 years, the company has also been working on a different new major project. Dubbed the 7E7 Dreamliner, Boeing's next big move is to offer a passenger plane that carries fewer passengers, but at longer distances, cutting out the need for connecting flights in flight distances of less than 15,000 miles. Fifty planes have already been ordered by All Nippon Airways. Both the Airbus 380 will undergo its first full test flight - and the Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner officially launched - in April of this year.
Posted by Brian at 06:11 PM | TrackBack Yahoo! sales & advertising breaking profits recordsYahoo! today announced Q4 profits of over $187m from sales in excess of $1 billion, after sales of stock including shares from Google. Yahoo! indicated strong advertising revenue as a principle growth area, with TV and media companies especially moving increasing marketing budgets to search and banner advertising. The news was welcome on the stock market, and Yahoo! shares closed at $37.86 on the day. Posted by Brian at 06:06 PM | TrackBack EC investigates BTThe Curopean Commission has begun a formal investigation into whether UK telcoms operators, specifically British Telecom (BT) and Kingston Communications (KC), have received unfair tax breaks over competitors. The complaint was raised by Vtesse, who argued that Business Rates, as set by the Inland Revenue's Valuation Office Agency (VOA), gave unfair biases towards both BT and KC at the expense of other telecoms companies. BT denies that the arrangements provide any real benefit to it, and the Department of Trade and Industry also dimisses of aid inherent in the rating system. Posted by Brian at 05:59 PM | TrackBack New nofollow tag cheers bloggers, but fails blogs?SPECIAL REPORT A new tag is to be introduced to the internet, instructing search engine spiders to ignore specified links, and major search engines Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft will support it. Publicly claimed to be for the fight against blog spam, it effectively leaves the search engines asking webmasters to help improve their results. A simple attribute, the new tag is intended to be placed inside a link anchor, like this: rel="nofollow" and is placed within the link anchor code. The intention is that the "nofollow" rel attribute is used to indicate to search engines that the link should not be followed. While a number of people in the world of blogging are touting this as a solution to blog spam, the actual effect is likely to cripple the link popularity blogs have so readily enjoyed between one another, while additionally providing a tool that webmasters can use to hide useful content from search engines. A number of options have already existed for blog software development companies, such as:
Although some blog developers have employed one or more of these methods, some very popular releases have continuously failed to address the problem. For example, Blogger blogs suffer relatively little comment spam - yet SixApart only set the default installation of their very popular MovableType release to registered users only for comments at the start of the year. The "nofollow" tag is just another option on top of an already rich set of possibilities, that many responsible web publishers have already employed themselves, to help cut out comment spam altogether. However, it is very unlikely that the new "nofollow" attribute will actually prevent comment spam - it will simply mean that search engines will be asked to ignore it. More to the point, if implemented to any small degree, it can only encourage more aggressive action from automated blog spamming scripts, and worms such as Santy have already shown how search engines themselves can be used to implement this on a large scale. There also remains the problem of abuse of the "nofollow" tag itself. For example:
When looked at in these terms, it is difficult not to think that Google and other search engines, see this method as a way to make Webmasters police themselves - presuming anyone takes up the new attribute for the long term. Here's how the internet movers are covering this issue: Search Engines:Not surprising, the search engines themselves cheer the move. After all, they've just asked the webmastering community to police the internet for them, and help them remove a process that automated spam filtering could not work against:
Search Engine commentersThe rest of the internet sees things a little differently, though. There is a mixture of enthusiasm, pessimism, resignation, and also real concern that should a move, if widely implemented, could indeed cripple the blogosphere of the very "free exchange of thoughts and ideas" that created it:
Posted by Brian at 04:20 PM | TrackBack vBulletin patches to 3.0.6 and 2.3.6vBulletin last night released two important patches, that follow closely on the critical 3.05 patch for vBulletin 3. The current releases are general security and bug-fix releases for both the vBulletin 3.x and vBulletin 2.3.x platforms. A primary role of the security fix relates to an issue with XSS that could lead to bbcode for member signatures exploited. The annoouncement was made in vBulletin 3.0.6 and 2.3.6 Released, and vBulletin 3.x users who already updated to 3.0.5 only need download the includes/functions_bbcodeparse.php. Posted by Brian at 04:03 PM | TrackBack Critical PHP bug slows dynamic applicationsAfter the recent security concerns with PHP, upgrades from PHP 4.3.9 to PHP 4.3.10 have left some dynamic applications with serious problems with slowed performance. In a report at the PHP development community, Bug #31332 unserialize() works terribly slow on huge strings compared to 4.3.9, it is pointed out that this error is critical for many php based systems, such as vBulletin and Drupal. The issue centers around use of the unserialize() function, which when used on serialized multidimensional arrays, can result in a a slowdown in the application of stored data by as much as a factor of 20. In layman's terms: if the software you run is like a pub, and the database the software runs from is like the beer cellar, then the barman now has lead boots. A workaround is already in beta format, and a public release of the patch is expected soon. Posted by Brian at 03:50 PM | TrackBack January 16, 2005New York ISP has domain hijacked?New York ISP, Panix, is reported to have had its domain name hijacked. According to ISP fights for return of hijacked domain: A Panix.com representative said ownership of the domain had been moved sometime Friday evening to a company in Australia, the domain name server (DNS) records had been moved to the United Kingdom and that the company's mail had been redirected to a company in Canada. Although it is uncertain how the ISP's domain could have been hijacked, in September a German teen was arrested after he put in DNS transfer requests for a small number of corporate sites, and suddenly became the registered owner of ebay.de. Posted by Brian at 10:28 PM | TrackBack IBM: offers free patents, offers to rebuild Linux kernelComputing giant IBM last week announced plans to offer around 500 patents to the open source community, in a planned investment of open source development for industry. As reported in IBM offers 500 patents for open-source use, the company does still retain vast number of patents by volume, suggested to be as many as 10,000. Crucially, however, the 500 includes an important set of 60, which were believed compromised by the development of Linux operating systems. Following that announcement came a report from Linux Business Week, which claimed in Linux Kernel To Be Re-Written To Counter Microsoft FUD that a consortium of companies - including IBM and Intel, and starring Linux founder Linus Torvalds - will fund a project to rewrite the Linux kernel so that it is free of an estimated 283 patent infringements - specifically, 27 suggested related to filings by Microsoft, which has long been expected to launch patent-infringement suits on the developer community.
Posted by Brian at 10:18 PM | TrackBack Deloitte predicts economic slowdownBusiness consultants Deloitte, in 2005 – Tough times ahead?, indicate that they expect the UK ecomony's "golden period" of the past ten years to come to an end. Citing a slowdown of the housing market as the major economic brake, it predicts this will impact comsumer spending, resulting in lower economic growth than forecast. Interestingly enough, the report, primarily authored by Roger Bootle, downplays the impact of oil on retail prices, and expects "aggressive" rate rises from the Bank of England, with interest rates as low as 3.5% for 2006.
Posted by Brian at 10:09 PM | TrackBack Fund threatens Deutsche Boerse LSE bidTCI Fund Management, an investment company claiming more than a 5% share in Deutsche Boerse, has called an Extraordinary General Meeting of Deutsche Boerse shareholders to recommend against any further bid for the London Stock Exchange. Under German law, any company with 5% more shareholding in a public company can call an EGM. However, it is uncertain whether it will be able to forward compelling arguments to persuade against supporting a bid for LSE. After Deutsche Boerse's intial bid was rejected last month, markets have expected Deutsche Boerse to return with an increased bid. Posted by Brian at 10:01 PM | TrackBack January 15, 2005Oracle cuts PeoplesoftAfter completing one of the bitterest IT merger acquisitions in recent years, Oracle have announced that they will lay-off 5,000 workers. The majority of the lay-offs are expected at acquired company Peoplesoft, which already employs nearly 11,000 people worldwide. In Oracle to cut 5,000 jobs in PeopleSoft merger, CNet reports on how Peoplesoft tried to fight off the acquisition for 18 months, and the matter ended up covering two high-profile court cases which heard how the opposing company CEO's lashed out at each.
Posted by Brian at 10:28 AM | TrackBack BT loses broadband, dial-upA fault at British Telecom's internet switching site in Bletchley yesterday left more than 70,000 of their business broadband customers with little or no internet access. The UK's largest broadband provider, the disruption of service meant that online vendors and e-commerce sites hosted on BT were unable to process orders, as well as users being unable to properly surf the internet. The cause of the problem was not released. Posted by Brian at 10:22 AM | TrackBack FBI blows $180 million on software upgradeAfter 9/11, disorganisation of security information was cited as a key failure in the application of intelligence gathering and application that helped allow the plane hijackers to succeed. A $600 million package was assigned to the FBI to build 3 crucial computer systems for achieving their mandate, but one of them - Virtual Case File - has failed to materialise after $180 in investment. Intended to allow all FBI offices to search for and access case files and related documents, and to permit separate offices to collaborate on line, Virtual Case File, according to the Register's report FBI blew $170m on doomed IT upgrade: The Bureau concedes that the system is capable of only 10 per cent of its requirements, and cannot be salvaged, except perhaps for minor bits that might be recycled in a future replacement. Posted by Brian at 10:08 AM | TrackBack Froogle flaw shows Gmail detailsA security flaw in Google's popular e-commerce application, Froogle, has been reported, in which hackers can harvest Gmail account details. Discovered by Israeli hacker Nir Goldshlager, and reported by Aviran Mordo in Serious flaw in Froogle Reveals Gmail Accounts: By embedding JavaScript in a URL pointing to Froogle, a hacker can gain access to the user�fs Gmail account. The JavaScript redirects the browser to a malicious web site, where the hacker can read the user�fs cookie, which contains personal information, such as purchase history, user name and password for Google services. Apparently, Google stores a unique identifier on the user's computer, which once compromised can allow the hacker to access username and password details for other Google services, such as Google News and Google Alerts. Posted by Brian at 10:03 AM | TrackBack Bruce Tognazzini: "10 Most Persistent Design Bugs"Bruce Tognazzini, widely regarded as the father of the Macinosh user interface, has drawn up a list of what he regards as the The 10 Most Persistent Design Bugs. In Tog and Google on UI, Jeff Atwood helps break it down into a simple and concise bullet point in layman's terms: 1. Power failure Crash If the computer loses power for more than a few thousandths of a second, it throws everything away. Posted by Brian at 09:45 AM | TrackBack Google's simple startAlan Williamson reports in An evening with Googles Marissa Mayer on a lecture he recently attended, which was presented by Google's product manager. A number of interesting facts regarding Google's start-up and product development came to light:
Posted by Brian at 09:34 AM | TrackBack January 12, 2005Blogs unimportant, says Wall StreetDavid Berlind in Wall Street: Blogs insignificant reveals how a reporter from the Wall Street Journal contacted him to research whether there was a story that could be written in the finance section on blogs and blogging, social networking online, and the use of RSS. After supplying the relevant information, the reported apparently returned from their editor to say that there was no significant story worth writing. While David Berlind tries to justify the topic from a particularly social networking point of view, he seems to miss key corporate marketing explorations as reported in Blogs: for sale for business?. A more focussed argument from a business perspective is made in the CNet report Blog's the word in big business. Ultimately, marketers have hit upon the idea of blogs offering focussed areas to provide wide-hitting product referrals. With an internet market of hundreds of millions of individuals served by a heirachy of blogs as alternative media sources, it promises to be a rich vein - if it can be properly tapped.
Posted by Brian at 10:17 PM | TrackBack T-mobile servers compromised for a yearAccording to the Security Focus report Hacker penetrates T-Mobile systems, 21-year old Nicolas Jacobsen had full access to sensitive information on over 16 million T-Mobile customers - for over a year. Able retrieve information from T-Mobile server, such as social security numbers, date of birth, and even voicemail PINs and passwords, he was also allegedly able to retrieve secret service documents and distribute them in IRC chatrooms. The US secret services, and T-Mobile, are apparently refusing to comment on the case, which comes up before Californian law on February 14th of this year. Posted by Brian at 10:10 PM | TrackBack Opera offered for free to universitiesUniversities have been offered advertising-free versions of the Opera browser to use on their networks. Opera, which is normally provides a subscription-based browser product, had attempted to increase its share in universities with a single $1 purchase fee to supply the browser with all advertising removed. However, although establishments such as Oxford University, Harvard, and MIT, all offer Opera on their networks, Opera has now dropped even the $1 charge, in an attempt to increase distribution. Posted by Brian at 10:04 PM | TrackBack US deficit deepersAttempts by the US treasury to impact the trade deficit with a devalued US dollar seem to be failing, as the deficit increased by a massive 20% - according to figures from the US Commerce Department for November 2003. The US trade deficit now stands at an all-time record of $60bn (��31.7bn). In the figures released, exports were down 2.3% while imports grew 1.3%. The situation was made worst by high oil prices, which especially imported the import In the past three years the dollar has fallen by 50% against the euro - as well as by 30% against the yen. You can see graphs of the fall over 2004 here: US Dollar in 2004: highs and lows and also compare it graphically to the GBP in Great British Pound: stronger and stronger?. The news of the increased deficit is a massive embarassment to US treasury officials, and was far larger than market expectations, who consequently punished the dollar with further loss of value on the foreign exchange markets - nearly a whole percentile lost against the GBP.
Posted by Brian at 09:47 PM | TrackBack January 11, 2005Google scraper releasedNo, not a new tool from Google, but an attempted rebellion from Google-Watch founder Daniel Brandt, who has released the source code of a tool that will be able users to download Google search results directly to their websites. Already a practice in some areas of SEO, search engine scraping has a general perception of being a "spammy" way to add content to websites for ranking purposes. However, Daniel claims his intention in releasing the tool is to "clarify" copyright issues. As reported in the somewhat over-titled article An open source Google - without the ads: " Google took people's free stuff and made a $50 billion business from it." Posted by Brian at 10:07 PM | TrackBack AMD loses 20% on share priceAMD, the chip-manufacturers who are main rivals to Intel, today announced that fourth quarter earnings would be disappointing. Investment markets responded to the revenue warning with a drop of 20% from AMD's share price, wiping out gains from last autumn. Posted by Brian at 09:36 PM | TrackBack Google AdWords: Changes; then AdSense blocked by MicrosoftAt the end of last week, Google announced changes to their AdWords/AdSense program, which would effectively put a bottleneck on the number of affiliate advertisers. However, joy of stronger AdWords compaigns was muted this week by news that a new patch for Internet Explorer blocks AdSense from being displayed. According to the AdWords release on Friday, the new rules effectively mean that affiliates bidding to send traffic to the same URL will find themselves cancelling each other out, as only the ad with the highest AdRank will be displayed.. General users of AdWords have generally given their approval to their changes: in Google AdWords Affiliate Ad Policy Change, Aaron Wall of SEO Book fame comments on how eBay affiliates had effectively been polluting the AdWords markets, and reprints the full AdSense changes. However, in the latest patch for Internet Explorer, Jensense reports in Highly publicized Internet Explorer fix blocks Google AdSense from displaying that the new high security settings that Internet Explorer will be set to prevent display of AdSense adverts in Internet Explorer. It is uncertain whether this is intended as a direct attack by Microsoft on its major internet rival, but Norton anti-vorus software has also been recently found to block AdSense ads from displaying. This latest patch could prove costly, not only to Google, but also for the large number of small webmasters who effectively pay for their hosting fees via AdSense publishing.
Posted by Brian at 09:05 PM | TrackBack 10-year low for Christmas salesIt;s official: retail sales over the Christmas period were the lowest for 10 years, according to the BBC report Festive sales 'worst in 10 years'. According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) chief executive Kevin Hawkins: "These figures represent the worst Christmas for retailers in the last decade," said BRC chief executive Kevin Hawkins. Posted by Brian at 08:59 PM | TrackBack January 10, 2005Google Site-Flavoured: Google theming?Google Site-Flavoured is a project from Google Labs that aims to categorise website pages according to clear themes. It has long been a concern of the SEO/SEM community that Google will one day employ theming as an integral part of its ranking algorithm, making it even harder for new sites to establish a place in the search results - an issue covered by Platinax in Google Update: Yorkshire. The ultimate suggestion is that only links from pages within the same general category will have real effect on a site pages's ranking in a search for keyphrases in related categories. However, the Site-Flavoured test from Google Labs is the first public demonstration of how this technology could be developed. Posted by Brian at 02:41 PM | TrackBack SMA-NA to form: creates SEMPO riftIan McAnerin has resigned from the board at SEMPO, and come out with a rounded attack on its methods and memebership, declaring his intention to form the SMA-NA - the Search Marketing Association of North America. This follows directly in the footsteps of other SEO/SEM organisations such as SMA-UK and SMA-EU, which were formed to address markets and marketing that the US SEM organisation, SEMPO, was clearly believed to have failed upon, as reported In specific criticisms of SEMPO, Ian McAnerin claims in Search Marketing Association of North America - SMA-NA that SEMPO are focussed entirely on developing revenue rather than addressing the needs of the SEM business community: I also discovered that although SEMPO is, in my opinion, fundamentally broken, there are a lot of very good people who joined it because it's clear the industry needs a trade association. When resigned, during his conversation with SEMPO president, Barabara Coll, he writes: Although the majority of the conversation was confidential, it was made very clear that SEMPO considers the SMA-NA to be a direct threat and a competitor for membership and sponsor dollars. Interesting that the SMA-UK and EU were not considered the same way. To me, that really confirmed the regional blinkers SEMPO wears. The concern about the money rather than the industry was also very interesting. Although it was mentioned that the industry would be better off with only one group (I agree BTW ;) ) this was mentioned in direct relation to funding. She also repeatedly demanded the names of the others on the SMA-NA working group. Criticism of SEMPO - the Search Engine Marketing Porfessionals Organisation - erupted last summer, when industry figure, Mike Grehan, publicly attacked SEMPO's lack of industry action and secret payments to board members from the $250,000 accrued in subscription fees.
Posted by Brian at 02:22 PM | TrackBack Microsoft beats Apple at MediaIn Microsoft's Consumer Electronics Endgame, Russell Beattie claims that the battle for the digital concumer entertainment market has already been won, and that Microsoft have applied a far-sighted strategy that has effectively killed all other alternatives to Apple. I can pretty much say that it's game over for a lot of Microsoft competitors, though they may not realize it yet. To me the decisive move was their MSN Video announcement which included deals with MTV as well as TiVo to make sure that TiVo To Go recordings play on Microsoft Mobile devices. That's when I saw the big picture: Microsoft's DRM strategy and Windows Media WMA codec are going to allow them to have a massive advantage in the consumer electronics market, which includes everything from MP3 players, to mobile phones to your set-top box, to a host of other converged devices. Posted by Brian at 02:03 PM | TrackBack Linux security draws heated discussionOn Friday, iSec reported in Linux kernel uselib() privilege elevation of a serious vulnerability, which sees local users able to gain root privileges via binary format loaders' uselib() functions in Linux kernels 2.4 to 2.6. Now Brad Spengler, of Linux Weekly News and the linux security development project GRSsecurity has launched a strong attack on the development of the Linux Security Modules development project. In his LWN article grsecurity 2.1.0 and kernel vulnerabilities and Why doesn't grsecurity use LSM?, he attacks what he sees as a narrow approach to security, and especially to what he sees as the critical failure of the LSM to tackle the very security issues it is designed to actually deal with. This comes at a critical time when many businesses are now looking beyond Microsoft's string of public failings on security issues to possible open source alternatives. And while open source has always suffered from a perception of being disorganised and lacking accountability from a business perpsective, the threat of current and future security problems already being compiled into the kernel may yet make companies think three times before investing in an IT framework on linux distros. Until the row over security implementation on the linux kernel are addressed to the satisfaction of the linux developer community, it is hard to see how this latest development can instill business confidence in alternative options to Microsoft. Posted by Brian at 01:32 PM | TrackBack Google releases 20 Year Usenet TimelineGoogle have released a 20 Year Usenet Timeline of their Usenet archives, which highlight major developments of the internet, as they were originally reported. For example, you can read the First Mac rumor, first 'me too' post, Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of the WorldWideWeb project, and Linus Torvald's announcement of Linux. Posted by Brian at 12:52 PM | TrackBack January 09, 2005Economists expect sharp housing downturnIn UK economy at risk over housing downturn, the Financial Times reports on the general expectation of economists that the downturn in the housing market is not simply a threat, but an expectation. In a survey conducted by the Financial Times itself, it also points out that although they believe the UK economy to be strong and robust, there are concerns that recessions in overseas countries could damage exports, further compounding existing pressures on the UK economy.
Posted by Brian at 09:01 PM | TrackBack January 08, 2005vBulletin 3.0.5: security patchIn the wake of PHP vulnerabilities, and recent attacks by the Santy Worm, vBulletin have quickly released version 3.0.5 of their popular forum software. Referring to this as a "critical" update, it is intended to replace all versions up to 3.0.4, which is reported to contain a serious security vulnerability. PHPBB, a free open-source forum software, was recently targeted by a worm that used search engines to track down phpbb forums, before injecting malicious code into unpatched versions. Here's a copy of the vBulletin security bulletin:
Posted by Brian at 07:19 PM | TrackBack Consumer Electronics Show: Fun in the rain at Las VegasMany internet media outlets on the web provide coverage and comment on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which this year looked to provide an open battle ground on development of the "digital living room", with focus on media, mobile, and digital entertainment. CNet provides extensive coverage of CES here: CES latest developments Events of note outside of the technology news so far include Intel CEO, Craig Barrett, hesitantly singing "walk this way" with Aerosmith frontman, Steve Tyler, in a presentation on digitial media. However, Bill Gates' inability to make a smooth presentation due to technical problems generates a number of mocking comments, from O'Reilly and ZDnet - though in all fairness it seems to have been an issue with the remote's batteries than Windows software itself - at least, in that particular instance. Posted by Brian at 04:07 PM | TrackBack Secunia unveils browser flaws: IE & Mozilla Firefox affectedSecurity company Secunia reported on serious flaws in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox could leave users vulnerable to hacking attacks. Secunia updated it advisory Microsoft Internet Explorer Multiple Vulnerabilities to "extremely critical" after exploit code for one of three reported vulnerabilities was posted on the internet. According to the CNet report IE flaw threat hits the roof: Exploit code for one of the vulnerabilities, a flaw in an HTML Help control, was published on the Internet on Dec. 21 in an advisory by GreyHats Security Group. However, new vulnerabilities have also been reported in the increasingly popular Mozilla Firefox browser, as in Firefox flaw raises phishing fears: The flaw in Mozilla Firefox 1.0, details of which were published by security company Secunia on Tuesday, could allow hackers to spoof the URL in the download dialog box that pops up when a Firefox user tries to download an item from a Web site. This flaw is caused by the dialog box incorrectly displaying long sub-domains and paths, which can be exploited to conceal the actual source of the download. However, as pointed out, users would have to click a link in an e-mail to a phishing site, and then download the malicious code for the exploit to work - and while Internet Explorer remains the phishing favourite due to its market share in the browser market, the warning on the Firefox exploit is not rated so severe as the Internet Exploror 6 warning above. Microsoft has already announced that 3 "critical" security patches will be released next week for Windows, but have yet to comment on whether these patches will address the vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Posted by Brian at 03:54 PM | TrackBack Pension funds need big bluechip riseReuters reports in Pension funds need 30 percent stock rally that current shortfalls in pension funds could only be wiped out by very major rises in stock price. Reporting on an increase in the pensions shortfall, from ��60 billion to ��65 billion in 2004, professional services firm Deloitte & Touche LLP also expects that trend to be reversed, with trading by the end of 2005 returning the deficit levels equivalent to before 2004 losses. However, Aon Consulting had already reported in December that on current trends, it would take another 12 years to have ther shortfall properly redressed. Posted by Brian at 03:44 PM | TrackBack January 07, 2005Marks and Spencer: the battle continuesChief Executive Stuart Rose saw Marks and Spencers push through a difficult Christmas. The company recently fought off a bid by Phillip Green to take-over the company, with Stuart Rose vowing to turn the company's fortune's around. Christmas sales were slightly disappointing, with annual profits forecast at around ��600-625 million, as opposed to analyst predictions of about ��675 million. However, other high street traders, such as Woolworths, Ottakers, and Iceland, have all reported lower trading thatn expected over the Christmas period. Posted by Brian at 06:38 PM | TrackBack Monsanto fined for briberyAmerican agri-chemical form, Monsanto - most infmaous for it's pioneering of genetically modified crops to work with its weedkillers - has been fined $1.5 million for bribing an Indonesian official. The bribe was invoiced as "consulting fees", so that the official in question would waive an environmental assessment report into plans for the company to grow genetically-modified cotton in Indonesia. Monsanto has also apparently admitted paying bribes to a number of other high-ranking officials between 1997 and 2002. More on that story here: Monsanto fined $1.5m for bribery Posted by Brian at 03:31 PM | TrackBack TUC states "sick note Britain" as mythA TUC report into short-term sickness leave found that workers in Britain are more likely to work than call in for "sickies" than most other European countries. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber used the report to brand as "myth" the idea that we live in a "sick note Britain", pointing out that the study revealed on Denmark has a lower rate of short-term sick leave among public sector workers. However, the CBI's Richard Dodd pointed out in reply that the main problem is with long-term sickness leave, and that many employers believe that up to around 15% of all sick reports are bogus. Posted by Brian at 03:27 PM | TrackBack Ottakers gloomy over Christmas salesBooksellers Ottakers were gloomy about their Christmas trading, with sales expected to be ��2.5 million below expectations. The news was greeted by the markets with a loss o 14% from Ottakers share price. Ottakers had teamed with with publishers, such as HarperCollins, to produce special editions of bestselling works to give away as part of a Christmas promotions drive. However, the marketing plan was not always successful - for example, in the Isle of Man, adverts in the Island's local newspaper offering the free promotional books failed to be accompanied by the intended glossy brochures promoting other Ottakers stock. This led to people being informed of free books, but without being exposed on other sales options that the local store offered. Part-time female staff were also partial to giving away extra books to handsome young men - as I can attest to. :) Posted by Brian at 03:18 PM | TrackBack January 03, 2005SMF 1.0 releasedThe Simple Machines group finally released its eagerly awaited community software package SMF 1.0 just before the New Year. The successor to the highly popular YaBB SE forum software, SMF 1.0 continues to be freely available to the webmastering community. The original YaBB SE project was an extremely simple piece of forum software to install, use, and administrate. Even with only the smallest of understanding of HTML, webmasters could completely redesign the look of their forum, and seamlessly integrate it into their site - a task that could require specialist coding experience and knowledge for other free forum packages of the time, such as phpbb and Invision Power Board. SMF 1.0 maintains that ease of use, but adds extensively to YaBB SE's original functionality, to match and surpass many default features of free forums. One key extra is a spellchecker - Invision Power Board, which is no longer free, are the only other generic forum software package to offer this. I personally really enjoyed my time using YaBB SE, and only converted my major forums over to vBulletin two years ago because of problems with the thread URLs in YaBB SE being difficult to index by search engine at the time. However, the SMF developers have addressed that issue with simplified URLs, and have also included a default mod_rewrite option for those using Apache servers, to produce static URLs for added search engine friendliness. Not suffering the same problems of extensive duplication of content as vBulletin does, abominable security as with phpbb, or being over-priced as IPB is, I can really see myself moving a lot of new material over to SMF. :) Posted by Brian at 11:49 AM | TrackBack Anti-Santy-Worm V4A new worm has been reported by F-secure, which tries to correct damage caused by the Santy worm. Automatically searching Google for affected sites, Anti-Santy-Worm V4 will then try and infect the website to install a patch against further attacks. Apparently released from Argentina, the anti-Santy worm has been spotted on a handful of sites, and may have tried to fix many more. However, as reported by CNet's Ingrid Marson in Anti-Santy worm on the prow, Mikko Hyppönen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure, said: "I can't comment how effective it is in fixing the sites. If a site is infected, the worm causes a huge amount of traffic and slows down the site. I don't think it's possible to write a beneficial worm." Sites that have been attacked by the anti-Santy worm are defaced with the words: "viewtopic.php secured by Anti-Santy-Worm V4. Your site is a bit safer, but upgrade to >= 2.0.11." Posted by Brian at 10:07 AM | TrackBack New Google filter flaws search resultsThere are growing concerns of technical problems with Google's index of websites. Although complaints of websites losing rankings are very common on webmaster forums, this time it's backed up with some odd observations of a possible filter wrecking Google's results. Google normally returns up to 1000 results where the demand allows. However, Google currently is unable to return a full 1000 results - even for the most competitive search terms. One of the most affected search terms is for "Yahoo", the major web portal - and search engine rival - that Alexa has consistently ranked as the most visited domain on the internet. A search on Google.com for "Yahoo" will currently return only 48 results - most of which are Japanese language pages. The issue seems to extend beyond immediate rivalries, though, as even the most common words on the internet are being returned with far less than 1000 pages, for example: 902 pages of about 100,000,000 for casino In the public discussion Only 31 results shown for Yahoo, experienced SEM's Mel Nelson and Marcia Welter identify it as a possible filter, as adding "&filter=0" to the end of search results will normalise them. The actual method of the filter is unknown, but so far it appears to be removing significant sections of the internet from Google's results without apparent justification. Posted by Brian at 09:29 AM | TrackBack January 01, 2005UK shares end year on highShares on the FTSE-100 ended 2004 on a high of 7.5% compared to the start of the year, despite heavily losses on the index in the summer when a combination of rising oil prices and interest rate rises took the wind out of the sails of the shares trading markets. As reported by the BBC in UK shares end year on high note, market expectations are of gradual but undramatic growth over 2005 across the UK and other European stock exchanges. However, continuing depreciation in UK & US housing market values could see investors selling out of property on rich gains, and reinvesting in stocks, especially where oil-powered inflation may threaten further interest rate rises from the Bank of England.
Posted by Brian at 07:37 PM | TrackBack BitTorrent to take on RIAA?BitTorrent distributor LokiTorrent, one of several currently targeted for legal action by the Motion Picture Association of America, has called upon users to develop a legal fund to fight the action. The MPAA and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have already suffered set backs, not only in the lower courts of the US, but also in overseas actions where courts have ruled file-swapping networks are not legally responsible for the copyright violations of its users. However, it will be interesting to see whether file-swappers actually rally around Lokitorrent for a major showdown with the MPAA - or whether they will simply drift on. So far, LokiTorrent claims to have raised over $20,000. It has to be asked, though - why not spent that in the shops, rather than courts? Posted by Brian at 07:28 PM | TrackBack Google and Microsoft spat over �gOpen Source�hA bitter argument has broken out between search engine rivals, after a Google employee called on the open source community to fix a number of database technology issues. Adam Bosworth, in his blog entry Where have all the good databases gone, complained that consumer needs were not being focussed upon enough by open source developers, and stated: My message is to the Open Source community that has, so ably, built LAMP (Linux, Apache and Tomcat and MySQL and PHP and PERL and Python). Please finish the job. Do for databases what you did for web servers. Give us dynamism and robustness. Give us systems that scale linearly, are flexible and dynamically reconfigurable and load balanced and easy to use. Ex-Microsoft employee Krzysztof Kowalczyk in Google - we take it all, give nothing back launched into a critical attack on Google for a stance that sees the billion-dollar company benefiting financially from use of open source applications, without giving back: �gNot doing Evil is easy. Doing Good is the hard thing.�h Dare Obasanjo, a member of Microsoft's WebData XML development team, highlighted Kowalczyk�fs objections to the wider blogosphere, leading to ugly condemnation of Microsoft by a Google employee as like �gthe Nazi�fs.�h Despite the closer developing ties that Google has been generating with the open source community, not least with Mozilla, as reported in Firefox strengthens ties to Google, there is currently no real public record of significant open source releases by Google. Posted by Brian at 06:37 PM | TrackBack |
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