Gadgetwise: Internet fraud decreased in 2010

Were criminals hurt by the recession, too?

-Online fraud consumer complaints dipped nearly 10 percent in 2010, according to an annual report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center.

303,809 Center received complaints from the public last year, down from 336,655 in 2009. If a significantly decreased, tally of 2010 was still the second highest in the history of the report and could even be a blip on the screen.

A chart from the IC3 report on online fraud.
Welcome, while the primary cause of dip after years of steady increase was probably the overall decline in retail sales activities associated with a weak economy, said Greg Donewar, manager of IC3. Complaint figures show a strong correlation with the plunge in retail sales and the tap of the recession, he said. "The unemployment rate remained above 9% for the nation, so there was less money for the trade of any kind."

In fact, the complaints were down for several large scams related to e-commerce, including auction fraud, credit card fraud and excessive so-called fraud, in which a scammer using a bad check overpays for a lease or some other item and obtains the recipient to send them a good verification with a difference. However, complaints of failure of goods or payments rose 9 percent to approximately $ 43,720, pushing this type of scam to no. 1 spot on the list of IC3 for the year.

Complaints about identity theft, cybercrime and fraud involving things like job offers-«bogus sweepstakes and also increased last year.

It seems likely that there will be a return to an upward trend in fraud complaints as the economy improves. Yet there may be some more lasting good forces at work, Mr. Donewar and others say. There is more awareness of online consumer fraud. Financial institutions and payment processors have gotten more aggressive use of anti-fraud technologies and retailers are improving the security of customer data.

"They're doing a better job with better tools," says Adam Chernichaw, a privacy and technology lawyer at White & Case. Fraud is kept at bay and is stated above, he said.

Without doubt, the criminals will make every effort to accommodate all of these defenses. In fact, there is no sign that the battle against online crime is being won. On the contrary, the IC3 report shows that it has become more pervasive, affecting people in all demographic groups and all across the country. Complaints from women, once less and less severe, reaching almost with complaints from men. Young and old are all well represented, with people aged 40-59 now provide most of the complaints.

"It is a natural result of the pervasiveness of technology in this time," says Mr. Chernichaw. "Now all over."

Home Internet can get even faster in South Korea

By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet to a gigabit per second. It would be an increase of ten times from national standards already blazing and more than 200 times faster than the average in the United States home installation.

A pilot project initiated by Government gigabit is underway, with 1,500 families in five cities South Korean wired. Each customer pays approximately 30,000 won a month, or less than $ 27.

"South Korean Homes now have access to the Internet increased as much as we do," President Obama said in his State of the Union address last month. Last week, Mr. Obama has presented an expenditure programme broadband 18.7 billion.

While Americans are clip-clopping along, trailing the Latvians and the Romanians in terms of Internet speed, South Korea are a full gallop. Their average Internet connections are far faster than even Hong Kong's no. 2 and no. 3 Japan, according to Akamai Technologies Internet analyst.

Supervising the expansion plan of South Korea's daring is Choi Gwang-gi, 28, an engineer soft-spoken. He is hardly part of a visionary or a revolutionary as he Mousepad around his Office of Government-grey vinyl slippers.

But Mr. Choi has glimpsed the future — the way the Internet should do for the next decade or so — and he's trying to help the Korea get there. During an interview in his Office busy in central Seoul, Mr. Choi outlined — pencil — a tidy little schematic ambitious project from the Government.

"A lot of Koreans is early adopters" Mr. Choi, said, "and we thought we need to be prepared for things such as 3D TV, Internet protocol TV, multimedia, high-definition gaming and video conferencing, ultra-high-definition TV, cloud computing".

It doesn't matter that some of these devices and applications are still being developed by engineers in Seoul, Tokyo and San Jose, California To Mr. Choi, extravagant, nothing seems unthinkable or improbable anymore. And here the Government will be prepared with plenty of network speed when all new ideas, games and gizmos come pouring out of the pipeline.

"The gigabit Internet is essential for the future, absolutely essential, and all are technologists say this," said Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, a technology consulting firm leader in Fremont, California, "all we're going to do cloud computing, for example, and that will not work if not always connected. Games. Videoconferencing. Video on demand. All this will require huge bandwidth, enormous speed. "

The South Korean project is also aimed at increasing broadband wireless tenfold.

Even as South Korea aimed at more fast connectivity, Internet addiction is a serious social problem here. Deprogramming camps have sprung up to help young Net-addicted.

A pair of South Korea, arrested last year, became so immersed in a role playing at an Internet Cafe that their daughter of 3 months of starving to death — though fed and nourished a daughter named virtual, online Soul.

But industry leaders are plowing ahead.

"The name of the game is as fast as you can get content," said Kiyung Nam, a spokesman for the consumer electronics giant Korean Samsung Electronics. "People want to download and enjoy their content on the go. But now is not perfect. It is not perfect. "

The idea of gigabit Internet is not a new, said Mr. Norman, the American consultant. But large-scale adoptions have not yet taken hold, especially outside of Asia.

Japan and Hong Kong offer gigabit. The Australia has a plan in the works for 2018. Google is developing pilot programs for the Stanford campus and other locations in the United States. Chattanooga, Tennessee, and started a service reference to a staggering $ 350 per month citywide gigabit.

Any technical barriers in the upgrade of the existing infrastructure of South Korea are minimal, according to the engineers and network managers. Telephone cables lines DSL — conventional high-speed — must be replaced. But fiber optic lines already widely in use are suitable for a gigabit speed.

South Korea once more poor than Communist, Korea now has the largest economy in the world. Recovered from the ravages of the Korean war by combining heavy industries of national economy such as automobiles, steel, shipbuilding and construction. But when labour costs began to rise, compete globally in the areas obtained more stringent, in order to "knowledge-based industries were the way forward," Mr. Choi said.

South Koreans pay an average of $ 38 a month for connections of 100 megabits per second, according to the Organization for economic cooperation and development. Americans pay an average of $ 46 for service of molasses by comparison.

Mr. Choi refused to guess what might charge private providers in South Korea for the service of one-gigabit. But he said that it would be nowhere near the $ 70 per month charged to gigabit rates in Japan.

"I can't imagine anyone in Korea paying that much," he said. "No, No, that is unthinkable."

Gigabit program of Mr. Choi is just one of many Internet-related projects, coordinated by the Government here in the next four years. Their total cost is projected to be $ 24.6 billion, the Government should put up about $ 1 billion of this amount, according to the Commission communications of Korea.

Private South Korean firms, including KT (formerly Korea Telecom), SK Telecom and cable providers, CJ Hellovision are the main participants in the project gigabit. Financial contribution from the Government in 2010, said Mr. Choi, would be only $ 4.5 million.

For now, most consumers Koreans use their blessings of bandwidth in large part to lightning Internet access and entertainment — multiplayer gaming, streaming Internet TV, fast video download and such. Companies are making more high definition videoconferencing, simultaneous sessions especially with more overseas customers and technologists are eager to see what new enterprises are created or existing businesses will be reinforced through the new gigabit functionality.

One of the customers already connected to the pilot program of Mr. Choi Ki soo Moon is, 42, a consultant to the Internet. He scored a gigabit link about a year ago through Hellovision CJ, although due to the internal wiring of her apartment building its throughput connection watches to 278 megabits per second.

But even that speed — about a quarter-gigabit — has dazzled him.

"It is much more convenient to watch movies and drama shows now," he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 24, 2011

An article on Tuesday about superfast Internet services in South Korea misstated the number of families involved in a pilot project. Under the programme, which aims to connect customers to the Internet at speeds of up to one gigabit per second, 1,500 homes in five South Korean city has been linked, not 5,000 homes.

If it is on the Internet, which makes Quotable?

News in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were dominated this week by local sports, a debate on wage increases for workers who receive tips and a man who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor to encourage her dog for killing a raccoon. But there was also some controversy Newsroom inside the local newspaper of Grand Rapids Press: as Quotable is Twitter?

An entertainment reporter, Rachael Recker, has written an article where you mentioned various Twitter users and identified by username. For those of us accustomed to printing tech, this is not a surprise--but for a local newspaper, unorthodox territory. Recker was met with criticism from readers as well as some Twitter users mentioned, that, according to a published column earlier this week the release of Grand Rapids, thought that the journalist "wasn't doing a complete job reporting, since you do not contact them personally for a quote ...(e) questioned whether it is appropriate to use tweets in a story online without specifically asking for permission.

This minicontroversy--whether something is published on the Web, making it open for quoting automatically within the realm of copyright restrictions?--is not limited to Twitter. One-to-one email should be private. So should instant messages. In addition, it gets messy.

Questions and answers site Quora has a little known where users can mark their responses, many of which are large and detailed, as "not for reproduction." Facebook, encouraging more and more public content, says in its terms of service that users grant "a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensing, royalty free, worldwide," to what they say and upload to your social network, but is very fuzzy on details when it comes to citations and reproduce such content outside of Facebook. The Web has just flooded the world with the printing of the content, it is flooded with new types of content--public and semipublic e-mail lists, Facebook groups, blog comments, responses on questions and answers--and the old rules of quotability does not always fit.

But here is to start somewhere: If something is public, is Quotable. If you do not want to be quoted, not to say that on the Internet. If you have a Twitter account and say something, then, Yes, it is public. Should Twitter users expect to be contacted and asked for permission to have their tweets reprinted? Don't count on it.

You can get a little more complicated, obviously. Quora requires users to be logged in before they can find something, this means that the content is not fully public, and on Facebook is hard to say what is not hidden behind any sort of restriction contacts-coordination-workers alone or unless you log out and reload the page to see if it is still visible. In both cases, citing is significantly more ambiguous than on Twitter.

Then there's panoply of Web of semi-public mailing lists, services, forums and groups galore. I came across this headlong when, in a story earlier this year, I mention a post from a user, NextNY mailing list e-mail that you have been in 2006 and in my memory has adhered without problems; openly urges membership list on its Web site, not lists of any reprint policy and has more than 3,000 members. I contacted you to ask permission, but hasn't heard back and with an expiring soon decided to run with it. The user ultimately got back to me and asked if would like to dissociate his name from the summons. Digging a little deeper, I learned that NextNY archives are not indexed in search engines, and while membership is shame, verified with a trustee that new users must be approved by a moderator. That was not "public" enough for me. I run a correction.

That was an instance where the situation was ambiguous, but now I have a new rule for dealing with mailing lists and forums mentioning in future--and now I encourage my colleagues and acquaintances who administer e-mail lists to come up with policies for republishing content if you don't already have them. Journalists are not the only ones who publish on the Web; a line from an email list could easily be reproduced semi-public and distributed by anyone with a Twitter account or blog.

But in the event of an accident, the Grand Rapids Press side Rachael Recker--how does your employer. "For the record, we look at tweets fair game for publication, unless they appear in a direct message. Same goes for Facebook that are accessible to the public, "explained the newspaper column. "Almost everyone on Twitter retweets interesting comments, and nobody asks permission to do so. Six observations of the person sharing with potentially thousands of people, depending on whether it is retweeted again. "

(Or, potentially millions, if Ashton Kutcher meets your tweet and decide that it discovers brilliant).

The Web is forcing us to redefine what is public and what is private in many cases. Often we don't know who might be listening, and we can never be sure who might be able to transmit such information to the masses. In 5 or 10 years, maybe we have known rules and guidelines for the treatment with quoting and republishing digital media--but not yet. GigaOM writer Mathew Ingram may have summed up best in a tweet, that now I'm quoting (how meta!) where he he riffed on Quora policy "not to reproduction".

"Here's a tip for those who use the thing is not to play ' on Quora," wrote Ingram. "We don't want your answer above? Don't put it on the Internet. "

Internet pioneer wants to take the Net via planet

Vint Cerf takes seriously its title of Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is floury in different projects to bring the next version of the Internet in the world--or in some cases, beyond the world and in the solar system. One of his pet projects includes an extraterrestrial Internet that uses a protocol other than IP.

Cerf sat down with Cisco Subnet editor of network world, Julie Bort, at the annual Conference of the digital broadband migration in Boulder, Colo., to discuss the interplanetary Internet, cloud computing standards, the Semantic Web and other topics.

PART 1: Cerf: future of the Internet does not include a IPv7

Interview: Podcast and transcript

About a year ago, she started talking a lot about a concept called "Interplanetary Internet" stretching the Internet so that it can reach outer space. What can you share about that project?

Photo: courtesy of GoogleIt happenings. It's not using the Internet Protocol. Is using the new Protocol package that was developed as part of the more general concept of delay-and disruption-tolerant network-.

Since 1998 we have recognized that traditional Internet design was implicit in the idea that there was good and relatively low latency connectivity, while in an environment of space, when it comes to interplanetary distances, there are delays and the speed of light can be minutes to days. We need this new Bundle Protocol to overcome the latencies and disconnects that occur in, from celestial movement [and by] orbit satellites.

Bundle protocols are running onboard the international space station. I am running into a number of locations around the United States, in the laboratories of NASA and in academia. There is something called the bone Bundle, which is the backbone of IPv6, which connects a lot of these research activities, one to another. There is at least somewhat experimental Bundle Protocol implementation for the Android operating system, but is not production quality, so that he really needs to be redone/revisited.

There is one called EPOXI spacecraft called the probe Deep Impact (it fired a penetrator in a comet in a few years ago, in order to expose the internal analysis with spectrographic oils analysis). The probe is still in orbit around the Sun and just visited comet Hartley 2 November 2010. We have uploaded the interplanetary probe and protocols that we did their tests to about 80 seconds.

So in 2011, our initiative you qualify "space" protocols in order to standardize them and make them available to all interplanetary space faring countries. If you have chosen to adopt them, and potentially every probe launched by that time will be weaved from a communications standpoint. But perhaps more important, when the spacecraft have completed their primary missions, if they are still functionally operable--have power, computer, communications--can become nodes on an interplanetary backbone. So what can happen over time, is that we can literally grow an interplanetary network capable of supporting both human and robotic exploration.

Part of the motivation for everything that has more space exploration until now has been supported by links to radio point-to-point. We see much more complex missions that need a richer communications environment. We also found that due to the tolerance for delay-and-disruption, we can get data back from the scientific mission.

Here on Earth, Google is engaged in numerous projects of speeding up Internet "such as the new Internet Protocol called SPDY. Should we pay attention to SPDY and there is much support for it?

Yes, you should pay attention. These are efforts by Google to make more efficient implementations of the Internet. A lot of this stuff is available via open source. You don't need many people to Google to make something happen, that is what's so cool about Google. You have a little "Sherpa Team" that actually does this job.

There must be a lot of talk about the Semantic Web is used. It is still hot--or not?

Well, I don't know if it's still hot. I can tell you that Tim Berners-Lee is still very, very determined. He calls "deep linking" now and is related to how you identify data on the network so that we can converge or Conjoin data from disparate sources and still make sense. My impression is that it's a hard slog, and is going for almost a decade now. But Tim has been successful in the past, so it would not exclude this as a potential successful, but it's a long way.

Last year, you were talking about very standard cloud, and now it seems that OpenStack Rackspace had a groundswell of support. You can declare a winner?

It does not declare a winner yet, and it's not because I have no preference for something else. By my count, there must be 25 or 30 different groups that are looking at cloud-based standards. The real problem is going to be implementing and testing. Until we get some serious experience in the clouds to interact with others in various ways, I think we don't know what works and what doesn't.

All these efforts are laudable, but they are going to have to be in the real world before we can declare any winner. There is a real issue of features we're looking for.

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Congress tinkers with Internet regulations

If you were wondering, as I was, that in Washington planned to do something to protect the interests of individuals and companies that use Internet services--rather than ones that sell them--the answer is descended from Campidoglio Friday: none.

Friday the Republican-dominated House has approved a bill that included a provision prohibiting the FCC by using its budget to ensure compliance with the rules concerning Internet of government funding.

The FCC ruled last December are ridiculously weak and favourable for telcos who are the backbone of the Internet. At least, make the case that the FCC should be able to regulate ISPs, if only to ensure that consumers and businesses using the Internet legally can do it according to their own desires, rather than on the basis of their policies Hobbes Internet provider.

There is a role that the House you recognize immediately, however.

Among the 67 amendments that tacked on to the Government Finance bill include many who prohibit federal agencies to spend the money that Congress is giving them.

It does not directly counter the Obama health care plan, but deny the salaries to employees of the Government to take him out, or agencies to fund programs to make it work, for example.

They prohibit the Department of Defense to finance political parties for the defense of senior officials. But prohibit expenditures to apply regulations of pollution of air and water regulations, mining or for carrying out the inspections and regulation of food supplies.

Prohibit expenditures for things that are issues of bumper sticker for the Conservatives, as the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change--which is responsible for the creation of scientific assessments on global warming that many conservatives regarded as false as evolution and to the rent or the restructuring of the United Nations

Judged by the principle that the Government should have no role in ensuring that its citizens have access to clean air, water and food that is relatively unpoisoned, makes perfect sense to tell you that the FCC should not have any role in regulating the industry that was created to regulate.

ISP Gone Wild?

The company that built and own the backbone of the Internet are mainly suppliers of telecommunications--which But Bell anti-consumer monopolistic behavior made it impossible for clients even use a phone sold by a third party, let alone obtain services But Bell herself has not provided.

FCC's right to regulate was based on the enormous resources that has benefited from AT&T (and other telcos and cable companies) after AT&T was demolished.

The wires as well as costly phone and Internet service stream bump into public lands benefit from priority granted by the Federal Government, were often paid directly from funding to extend telephone service in rural America. Communications that run through them are regulated under federal law, as letters or packages transported by the U.S. Postal Service.

So saying the FCC should not be able to regulate anti-competitive behaviour on the Internet because communications are in the form of data instead of voice--even though both are often very same cables, or at least those held by the same--is circular and contradictory.

Not that the regulations themselves are so great. The FCC pussy longipes around the whole issue for years before issuing regulations are based largely on suggestions from the telcos.

Theoretically create a level playing field by the carriers prohibited by block or impede traffic from competitors, but allow you to manage your network "reasonable," meaning block or impede traffic from competitors, in order to keep their networks running up to speed.

Theoretically, Comcast should be prohibited from limiting traffic videos from Netflix just to make sure your video-on-demand is more attractive to consumers. In fact, any traffic from outside qualifies to be managed, as Comcast can continue its policy of long years of slowing traffic as it goes through the infrastructure of Comcast.

That seems to be primarily a matter of consumer and one that could get you more if you were at home a Comcast Subscriber (in which case you would have a lot of reason to be annoyed).

Applies to business Internet connections, as well, however, including the mobile networks that are almost completely exempt from even the weak FCC regs already released.

Bandwidth needs attention

Carriers are running full tilt to expand their networks of mobile and attract new customers by cash on the Mania/iPad/iNeed-another-Wireless-device iPhone, so you're adding, subtracting not speed. In a year if growth slows, mobile data begin swamping the existing networks or are business customers aren't buying services with the highest margins, which are free of butterfly back.

If you want to buy a certain amount of bandwidth used by Verizon mobile and other providers of mobile VoIP, VPN, security, data or other services, would be free to say no. Or charge you if you were using its services in order to run concurrent versions somewhere else.

Not that Verizon would squeeze customers for a few dollars extra using dirty tricks like that, of course.

With no permanent regulate the Internet, the FCC may not be able to respond to situations like this, as it did with the Verizon apparently intentional creation of a revenue stream from "bad data costs."

In addition to providing much of the input for net neutrality regulations the FCC loopholed, Verizon is suing the FCC in Federal Court to try to determine the law that the FCC has no jurisdiction over capacity to gouge customers Verizon online.

If the Senate approves the bill, House financing or fails to remove net-neutrality amendment, the FCC could it also be able to pay lawyers to defend in court the right to do the job already is, let alone adding Internet explicitly his portfolio.

Washington D.C. Circuit Court, which ruled in the past in favor of telephone operators, will be the only thing standing between those who use the Internet and an era of predation laissez-faire full Internet providers.

Anything you do online should have been in accordance with public policy set by your ISP and the ISP that you connect (all).

Sure it would be better, the House would agree, because the Government would be outside the regulatory activities of the Internet.

Because public policy established by the company with a financial interest to either allow or deny the right to do what you want online is more fair than rules created by an elected Government whose goal is supposed to be serving and protecting the people who elected him.

Kevin Fogarty writes about enterprise to ITworld. Follow him on Twitter @ KevinFogarty.

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Weekend tech reading: Libya cuts Internet between protests

Libya goes off the Internet and the killing begin Firstly, Libya blocked news sites and Facebook. Then, start on Friday night, according to Arbor Networks, network security and Internet monitoring company, has announced that Libya had cut off from the Internet. Hours later welds Libyan dictator's protesters began to slaughter. East of the United States as of Sunday afternoon, now the number of deaths was above 200 only the city of Benghazi. ZDNet

Microsoft downplays the threat of new Windows zero-day Microsoft yesterday downplayed the threat to Windows users from vulnerability revealed recently, saying that it was unlikely that the bug can be exploited to compromise a computer. The flaw in the Windows Network Server Message Block (SMB) file sharing protocol and was disclosed Monday ... Computerworld

U.S. House votes to enable providers of cable Internet gas House Republicans have managed to pull off a high profile refusal of a key component of tech related initiatives of the Obama administration. In the control of the House for the first time in four years, Republicans have voted to overturn the rules of the so-called "net neutrality" earlier this year, Obama has proposed by the administration. DailyTech

Intel to invest more than $ 5 billion to build the new factory in Arizona Intel today announced plans to invest more than 5 billion dollars to build a new chip plant at its site in Chandler, Arizona production the announcement was made by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini during a visit by President Barack Obama at an Intel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon

Goodbye, HD component video: Hollywood hastens the ' analog ' sunset Listen do you feel that the creaking sound? Don't be too alarmed. It is only the lid of the coffin closing slowly on your ability to obtain high-definition video using analog component video connections on your Blu-ray player. Consumer Reports

researchers aim to ' print ' skin Researchers are developing a system of "print" leather specialized which could be used in future to treat wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for regenerative medicine are inspired to inkjet standard found in many domestic offices. CNN

cut from Windows Home Server to return through the add-on One of the features of Windows Home Server, Microsoft announced that it had cut as part of the next major version of the operating system, Crown is set to return with the help of some third-party software. CNET

Future of the Internet does not include a IPv7, says Vint Cerf

Vint Cerf takes seriously its title of Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and is grainy in several projects to build the next version of the Internet. These projects include pushing for the adoption of IPv6 around the world, but they do not include plans for a IPv7.

Cerf sat down with Cisco Subnet editor of network world, Julie Bort, at the annual Conference of the digital broadband migration in Boulder, Colo., to discuss the future of IP, home networking, Internet of Things Internet, preventing the so-called "kill switch" and other topics. Here is the first part of the interview.

[Part 2: Cerf: 2011 will be the test point for the ' Interplanetary Internet ']

[Interview: Podcast and transcript]

There is, or will there be a IPv7, and what new problems to solve?

During the period of time, when we were trying to figure out what to do to address space expansion, there were actually four proposals. Those were eventually reduced to one. So, in fact, 7, 8, 9, do not exist. Currently there seems to be no incentive to invent yet another one. Now the problem is to get IPv6 widely deployed and implemented before we are literally out of IPv4 address space.

But that shouldn't stop anyone from thinking of new ways to redesign the Internet. In fact there is an effort to "clean sheet" that takes place at Stanford University, supported by the National Science Foundation, to watch as we design the Internet today would know all the things that we already know about it. At least one concrete result was a "media router which handles differently from traditional router. But how, as far as I know there aren't any new plans for the changes to the Protocol of the IP layer. One day there will be, I'm sure. (See story: "Showtime for media to GENES advanced networking project event")

The consumer of public/media never will have to make sure that all their household devices (routers, etc.) speaks of IPv6 ... or will be NAT and the efforts of carriers to bridge IPv4 to IPv6 is sufficient for the next decade?

No, it won't be enough, and I'm not a big fan of carrier-grade network address translation. Part of the reason is the whole notion of network address translation is fragile, and is not allowed by the server will be available at the premises of the consumer.

In the days when the Internet is highly asymmetric, where you can download faster than you can upload it, putting a home server traffic is something broadband providers who do not like very much because it consumes a lot of broadband capacity uplinks. But over time, I think it will be not only desirable, but natural enough, have server at home as well as the use of the cloud. Symmetrically ability and IPv6 are a very attractive result and I'm not a big fan of carrier-grade NAT--but it might prove that NATs are necessary in order to facilitate the transition during this time when we need to run both protocols. (See story: "Can Save large scale NAT IPv4?")

Do you think the IPv6 protocol is so urgent as it is on the corporate network?

I believe it is urgent because if we don't get up and running at the same time both protocols, the day may come when there are servers that can run only IPv6, or there may be users who may be running only IPv6 and couldn't get anything else, because the NAT boxes were exhausted.

I think it is important to get both protocols at home without a hitch. Laptop and desktop already capacity. Usually is the firewall, the NAT box and perhaps your broadband modem that you have at home that have not been configured for IPv6. (See story: "Cisco Linksys router still does not support IPv6")

So when we turn on IPv6 June 8 on a worldwide basis as a test for 24 hours (day IPv6), I'm sure there will be things that don't work and those that must be addressed (no pun intended).

I would much rather see a concerted effort to get everyone up and running on IPv6. Then the transition is smooth because it does not matter whether the target is running IPv4 or 6, everyone can speak to everyone.

What do you see as the next big consumer usage for the Internet?

If I knew it would invest in it. But I think it's pretty clear that social networking is a big part of that. The available platforms that allow people to create their own content and share is probably the most important avenue. The next will be the Internet of Things where we start managing collections of devices for our benefit. At some point you will understand that third parties can come in and manage the stuff for us. Our entertainment systems could be managed by a third party that has nothing to do with the content and provides simply organizing ability, so that we can make sure all our entertainment shows on all platforms where we want.

You have publicly discussed the home network sensor that notifies you when your basement gets too hot or too dry. You said that was built using technology from Arch Rock, acquired by Cisco in September. Is Zigbee or z-wave or something else?

Is actually 802.15.4, 6LoWPAN. Is a network of 6LoWPAN running over IPv6.

Recent events in Egypt and the Government of the United States proposed "Internet kill switch" ... I get the sense that by giving the Government the ability to transform the Internet out this is not something that would approve. There is a technology solution to prevent it?

Remember, the Internet can be executed on a substrate, and if the substrate is controllable from the Government, you can turn off the Internet. If we ever get to the point where the mesh networking and we say, peer-wise, point-to-point interactions can be performed without the benefit of things like routers provided by your Internet service provider ... If you can build Web parts that sort of self-assemble [then couldn't be turned off Internet].

Governments to control what can control if they want, and then the only way around that is to have a network that is self-organizing. And technology is available to do so.

Part 2: Cerf: 2011 will be the test point for the ' Interplanetary Internet '

Julie Bort is the editor of earthbound Community decided to the worldwide network. She pens the blog of odds and ends for Cisco Subnet, the Microsoft Update blog for Microsoft Subnet and the job seeker's blog for Open Source Subnet source. Follow Julie on Twitter @ Julie188

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Clinton says harmful Government Internet censorship

Countries that continue to censor Internet addressing economic and social costs in the long term, with oppression bringing civil unrest and not security, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday.

Although some countries, including China, now are growing economically while censoring the Internet, that growth is not sustainable, Clinton said during a speech on Internet freedom at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Clinton called on Governments in China, Iran, Viet Nam, Burma and elsewhere to end censorship on the Internet while pointing at recent attempts at censorship in Egypt and Tunisia which failed.

Countries will not be able to keep the divisions which separate economic activities on the Internet from social activities, religious or political, Clinton said. Some countries have tried to achieve the economic benefits of the Internet while blocking other tasks, he said.

"The walls that divide the Internet, blocking the policy content, or banning broad categories of expression or allow some forms of peaceful assembly, but not in others, or intimidate people to express their ideas are much easier to erect than to maintain," he said. "There is an economic and social Internet Internet and a politician of the Internet. There is just the Internet ".

Attempts to censor the Internet while reaping the economic benefits will cost "moral, political and economic" that are not sustainable in the long term, he added. "There are opportunity costs to try to be open for business but closed to free expression, the costs of the education system of a nation, its political stability, social mobility and its economic potential," said Clinton. "When countries restrict the freedom of the Internet, have put limits on their economic future."

Speech Clinton Tuesday is his second major address on Internet freedom. In January 2010, announced several new initiatives of the State Department for the fight against Internet censorship.

The Chinese Government has criticized his first speech and denied that it restricted the freedom of the Internet.

Clinton China repeatedly mentioned during the keynote address on Tuesday. Some observers have noted that China's economy is growing while the country's Internet censorship, he said.

But Internet restrictions will have "long-term costs that threaten a day to become a noose that restrains the growth and development," he said.

Countries to censor the Internet should look at recent events in Egypt and Tunisia, Clinton added. In Tunisia, the Internet has provided economic connections in Europe, while censorship was "on a par with China and Iran," he said.

"The effort to divide the Internet economy by Internet all-else it might not be supported," he said. "Young people--especially--found ways to use technology connections to organize and Share grievances, which as we know, have contributed to a movement that led to revolutionary change of fuel".

Businesses should be wary of operating in countries with heavy Internet censorship schemes, said Clinton.

"If you invest in countries with aggressive censorship and surveillance policies, you may close your website without notice, from government servers hacked, your designs are stolen, or your staff threatened with arrest or expelled for failure to comply with an order politically motivated," he said. "Risks to your bottom line and its integrity, at some point, will exceed the potential rewards, especially if there are market opportunities elsewhere."

Grant Gross covers technology and telecommunications policy in the Government of the United States for the IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. E-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com of Grant.

Microsoft has a change of heart about keeping the Internet safe

ISPS should those who maintain hacked PC anywhere? Security chief executive of Microsoft used to think so, but now had a change of heart.

Speaking at the RSA Conference Tuesday, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney said that she thought it was a good idea to be service providers that those on the hook to keep infected PCS from the rest of the Internet.

"Last year at RSA, I said, ' you know we need to think about ISP, because the IOC for the public sector, and we need to think about their consumer scan machines and making sure they are clean and possibly quarantined them from the Internet, '" he said. "But over the last year as I thought much more about this I realized that there are many flaws with that model."

Consumers can see security scans as invasive and an invasion of privacy and with more and more people use the Internet as their telephone, quarantining a PC could amount to cutting off someone's 911 service, he said. "We see the scenery, right: a heart attack, I ran to my computer, it says, you must install four patches and reboot before you can access the Internet. That is not the experience that we strive for ".

Then there is the biggest problem of all. ISP would have to bear the costs. "Puts a lot of burden on ISPs, because they are the ones that are gating access to the Internet," said Charney.

ISPs have experimented with different ways to reduce the infected computers. Comcast, for example, has a service called constant guard that warn customers when they have a security problem.

But cut infected customer service is a costly proposition. "It takes only a phone call from a consumer to make you lose your profit margin for the year" on users, said Craig Labovitz, chief scientist with firm Arbor Networks, in a telephone interview network monitoring.

Labovitz said that technology companies are coming up with new ways to rid the world of infected machines for about two decades now, without success. "Even if we force end users to maintain their patch update there are still a huge number of zero days," he said, referring to defects in software patches that can be used to take a fully patched PCS. "It's an arms race that keeps going. There is certainly any single bullet. "

Still, Charney thinks that there are ways to improve things.

He thinks the company Internet could take a page from organizations like the World Health Organization and find new ways to keep infected PCs away from the rest of the network--to "enforce goodness," he said.

Perhaps the solution is for consumers to share trusted certificates on the health of their personal computers--including data if running anti-virus or is fully patched--Charney suggested. He called this "collective defence". An example? A bank may ask customers to sign up for a program that would scan the PC for signs of infection during online sessions. If there is a problem, the Bank could limit then what the customer might make--topping out at $ 2000 transactions, for example.

That may end up to be a more viable model for the Internet, said Charney. "The user remains in control. The user can say I don't want to pass a health certificate, "said" there can be consequences to that decision, but you can do it. "

Robert McMillan covers the security of your computer and General technology breaking news for the IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @ bobmcmillan. E-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com, Robert

As violence escalates, Libya cuts off Internet

With the escalation of violence, Libya is pulling the plug of your Internet connection.

Major Internet service providers of Libya, General Post and telecommunications company, has begun to cut off access to the Internet on Friday, said the Earl Zmijewski, Managing Director with Internet monitoring Renesys Corporation. "Began to pull the plug about 23: 00 UTC today and are currently largely out of the air," said via e-mail. That was 1: 18 a.m. Saturday, local time.

Libya looks to be inspired by Egypt, which has cut off all access the Internet at the end of January as it has been roiled by street protests calling for political reform.

Similarly, thousands of Libyan took to the streets of the city of Benghazi this week in protests that led to 46 killings in the past three days, according to Amnesty International.

As the situation worsened, Internet traffic was cut off, making it difficult to get a picture of the situation on the ground.

The Libya is much smaller than Egypt, with fewer networks to disconnect, and it seems that this has made the job of cutting much easier access to the Internet.

Agence France Press reported Friday that Facebook was inaccessible from capital of Tripoli, Libya, and that "access to Internet was intermittent."

Posts about Twitter and the blog TechCrunch reported similar problems. Publisher of software usable NeoSmart, citing "friends" in Libya, said that the Government ordered ISPs to block most Web access. "Currently, most Web sites are not available and access to the Internet in General, has been locked," the company said in a blog post.

Robert McMillan covers the security of your computer and General technology breaking news for the IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @ bobmcmillan. E-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com, Robert

Can Governments agree to collaborate on the Internet?

By Jan Duffy, IDC

The rise and many cyber-crime and cyber-espionage, I agree that we need a clamp down, but how we balance that with the freedom of the Internet provides and that most of us cherish? United Kingdom Foreign Secretary William Hague has appealed to Governments meet to agree on a set of rules amid growing fears of "cyber war" between States. Addressing the Security Conference in Munich, Mr Hague disclosed that just last month the United Kingdom had come under attack from an "intelligence agency hostile State" trying to penetrate the Foreign Office IT system.

Mr. Hague said the reports of intelligence, he sees as Foreign Minister showing that a single criminal computer program can collect over thirty gigabytes of stolen passwords and credit card details from over 100 countries in a matter of days, causing millions of pounds worth of fraud. More than 40,000 pieces of sensitive information and financial data are quoted on the black market online every day, equal to 13.2 million criminal transactions every year.

Systems of Government are too focused. ZEUS is a famous piece of malware that attempts to steal banking information and other personal information. At the end of December was sent an email forgery as by affixing from the White House to a large number of recipients that were directed to international click on a link and then downloaded a variant of ZEUS. The British Government was targeted in this type of attack and a large number of email surrounded some of our filters. He said Government experts were able to clear the infection, but more sophisticated attacks like these are becoming more common.

He continued saying that last year the interests of national security of the United Kingdom have been targeted in a deliberate attack our defence industry. A malicious file which pretended a report on a Trident nuclear missile was sent a defense contractor from someone masquerading as an employee of another defense contractor. Good protection meant that the email was detected and blocked, but its purpose was to steal information about our projects more sensitive.

Mr Hague said that last month three of his colleagues were sent an email, supposedly from a British colleague outside the FCO, working in their region. The email claimed to be on an upcoming visit to the region and looked innocent enough. In reality it was from an intelligence agency hostile State and contained computer code embedded in the document attachment that he wanted to attack their machine. Fortunately, it was caught in a way that has not reached his staff.

Mr. Hague offered to host an international conference this year to discuss the rules of acceptable behavior in cyberspace, bringing countries together to explore mechanisms for the grant of such standards real political and diplomatic influence.

He said that, in view of Britain, seven principles should underpin the future international rules on the use of cyberspace:

The need for Governments to act accordingly in cyberspace and in accordance with national and international law;The requirement that all have the chance-in terms of skills, technology, trust and opportunity-to access cyberspace;The need for users of cyberspace to show tolerance and respect for the diversity of language, culture and ideas;Ensure that cyberspace is open to innovation and the free circulation of ideas, information and expression;The need to respect individual rights to privacy and to provide adequate protection to intellectual property;The need for us all to work together to address the threat from criminals who act in line;And the promotion of a competitive environment that ensures a fair return on investment in the network, services and content.

As we have to balance the need for controls with the desire for freedom? We can reasonably expect agreement on the fight against cybercrime and cyber-espionage when threats are difficult to source change fast and intertwined with Counterintelligence operations of many of the world's top economies?

The United Kingdom has set up a group of cyber operations, the United States has established a Cyber command. This is enough? We support efforts to develop more stringent guidelines or should we just leave everything as it is?

Copyright 2011, IDC, all rights reserved.

Internet Explorer 9 RC passes 2 million downloads

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