Spam: A Quarter Million Bots Snared - The Register (16 Nov 09)

Herders behind the Mega-D botnet may have corralled nearly a quarter million infected machines into their spam-churning enterprise before it was recently crippled by white hat hackers.

The botnet, which was once responsible for an estimated third of the world's spam output, was knocked out of commission last week by employees of security firm FireEye. After unplugging the Mega-D master control channels, the researchers set up a benign "sinkhole" channel for the bots to report to and waited to see what would happen.

Over five days, 487,340 unique IP addresses reported to the ad-hoc server. Using findings derived from last year's take-down of the separate Srizbi botnet, FireEye estimates that the figure translates to 248,590 unique machines. Unlike Mega-D, Srizbi included an accounting mechanism that identified each infected machine. They then analyzed the number of IP addresses and noted that after five days, it was about double the number of individual Srizbi victims.

"Any botnet size estimate should be taken with a grain of salt as they are notoriously hard to calculate and there is a lot of conflicting data out there," FireEye's Todd Rosenberry cautions.

Based on the IP addresses, the researchers also estimated that Brazil is most infected country, accounting for 11.5 percent of the victims, followed closely by India and Viet Nam. In all, 214 countries were represented.

FireEye said that it is continuing to monitor Mega-D but plans to turn over maintenance of the sinkhole to Shadowserver. The volunteer crew has an established infrastructure and relationships with ISPs and various Computer Emergency Response Teams, or CERTS, around the world. source

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ISPs: Time Warner To Spin Off AOL December 9 - The Register (17 Nov 09)

Time Warner has detailed the departure date for its troubled internet business AOL.

On 9 December all Time Warner shareholders will get one AOL share for every 11 TW shares they own. Time Warner shares will continue to trade as normal with the ticker TWZ and AOL shares will trade under the AOL ticker. When the two first merged AOL shareholders got one Time Warner share for each share they owned in the ISP.

Anyone owning a fractional share in AOL will have to wait. The fractions will be sold on the open market and the proceeds distributed as cash payments to shareholders.

Time Warner's press release is here.

AOL bought Time Warner in a $160 billion deal during the dot-com hysteria of 2000. Despite all the talk of creating a brave new media world the merger never really worked and AOL has been looking for a role since its original ISP business began to fade. source

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ISPs: AOL Will Pay Fired CEO Falco $8.5 Million Through 2010 - Silicon Alley Insider (16 Nov 09)

AOL will continue paying fired CEO Randy Falco's $1 million salary and $7.5 million in bonuses through 2010, the company disclosed in an SEC filing.

MediaMemo's Peter Kafka, who dug through filing to find the news, also says former AOL COO Ron Grant will earn (a liberal use of the word, some might say) $750,000 a year, along with $3.3 million in bonuses. source

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ISPs: Cable Cut Caused ATT.net Outage - Christian Science Monitor (16 Nov 09)

Access to AT&T's webmail was interrupted Monday morning because a fiber optic cable was disabled. The service was working again by 10:15 a.m. EST.

"Due to a fiber cut, access to www.att.net was temporarily impacted earlier this morning," company spokesman Mark Siegel wrote in an e-mail. "Access to the att.net site has been restored."

The outage cut off users from their AT&T Web-based e-mail and other services for several hours. Some AT&T users reported difficulties [Sunday] night as well, according to a news report.

AT&T, the largest US telecom company, has seen a surge of users to its wireless service because of the popularity of Apple's iPhone. source

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Broadband: Verizon DSL Offering Six Months Free Service - Multichannel News (16 Nov 09)

Verizon Communications will try to boost the numbers in its DSL business by offering six months of free service to customers who commit to a one-year agreement, and the telco also announced price breaks and three months free multiroom DVR for new FiOS bundle subscribers.

The six-free-months offer is available until Jan. 16, 2010, for Verizon's 1-, 3- or 7.1-Mbps DSL tiers service as part of a one-year agreement. In addition, customers who order new DSL bundles online also will receive a free modem and an additional $5 off qualifying bundles.

That means new customers can order a triple-play bundle that includes 3- or 7.1-Mbps DSL, DirecTV Plus DVR package and Freedom Essentials unlimited local and long-distance calling for $70 per month for the first six months. During the second six months of an annual plan, the bundle with up-to-3 Mbps service is $94.99 per month and the bundle with up-to-7.1 Mbps service is $104.99 per month.

Even as it has added FiOS Internet subscribers, Verizon's DSL business has been shrinking. In the third quarter, the telco lost 135,000 DSL customers - its worst losses ever in a three-month period, according to analysts - while it posted 198,000 net FiOS Internet adds. source

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VoIP: Vonage Settles Investigation Involving 32 States For $3 Million - San Jose Mercury News (16 Nov 09)

Internet phone service provider Vonage Holdings has agreed to pay $3 million to 32 states to settle an investigation into some of its business practices.

In a filing Monday with the Securities Exchange Commission, the company says it also agreed to provide refunds to affected customers.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says his office received complaints from consumers who said they found it difficult to cancel their service with Vonage amid pressure from the company to keep their accounts.

Maine's attorney general, Janet Mills, says Vonage will revise what it discloses regarding offers of "free" services, money-back guarantees and trial periods.

Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage says there was no finding of any wrongdoing or violation by the company.

Besides Idaho and Maine, the other states participating in the settlement are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. source

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AT&T Mobility: Debuts New Windows 7 Mobile Netbooks - CNet (16 Nov 09)

AT&T is hoping for happy holidays with the launch of two new Netbooks offering Windows 7 and mobile broadband.

The company announced Monday its new Netbook lineup--the Samsung Go and Acer Aspire One - both with built-in access to its 3G network. Available later this month in stores and online, both portables will cost gift buyers $199 after a mail-in rebate and two-year data plan contract.

The required DataConnect plan will offer 200 MB of data for a new lower price of $35 per month, or 5 GB for $60 per month, said AT&T. The plan will let consumers hop online via AT&T's 3G mobile network or any of the company's 20,000 Wi-Fi hot spots across the U.S.

"Demand for Netbooks remains strong among consumers, small business customers, and those who desire constant access to the Internet while on the go," said David Haight, vice president of product development for AT&T emerging devices, in a statement. "Paired with the nation's fastest 3G network, AT&T Wi-Fi service, and now the value and ease of use of Windows 7, these devices will make very attractive and affordable gifts this holiday season."

Weighing less than three pounds, the Samsung Go is equipped with a 10-inch screen, 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, and a 1.3 megapixel Webcam.

A bit skinnier at 2.2 pounds, the Acer Aspire One also includes a 10-inch screen, 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, and built-in Webcam.

Both Netbooks also come with AT&T's Communication Manager software, which tries to help Internet users better manage their connections by automatically tapping into AT&T hot spots.

The Samsung and Acer machines have one potential limitation, however. Like most Netbooks, they come with Windows 7 Starter Edition, a stripped down version of Windows 7 that lacks certain key features of its beefier brethren. source

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Sprint Nextel: Pays $1 Billion Towards Debt - Global Telecoms Business (17 Nov 09)

Sprint Nextel has made a $1 billion outstanding payment on its $4.5 billion revolving credit line. The wireless carrier is looking to reduce its expenses to offset the decrease in the subscriber base.

The lead arrangers on the loan were JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. Sprint had $5.9 billion in cash at the end of the third quarter and $21.7 billion in total debt. It also had $1.6 billion in borrowing capacity under its revolving facility.

The company is considering job cuts to restore profitability as the client base is moving to rivals such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Sprint may add over 300,000 subscribers in 2010 and will obtain 1.2 million customers from its acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA.

The company is also looking to acquire one its independent affiliates, iPCS, for $426 million, along with investing about $1.2 billion in majority-owned Clearwire. source

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Sprint Nextel: Settles Minnesota Stealth Contract Extensions Lawsuit - DSLReports (16 Nov 09)

Back in 2007, Minnesota's Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Sprint for extending a customer's long term contract without their knowledge.

Just a few years back, most of the major wireless carriers had a nasty habit of extending a user's contract quietly every time even minor plan changes were made, then socking the user with early termination fees when they though their original contract was up and tried to leave.

Minnesota's suit gained national attention, and carriers have since backed away from the practice.

Today Sprint settled with the State of Minnesota, and Minnesota Sprint customers can get their early termination fees refunded in full.

Impacted Minnesota consumers can either call the Minnesota Attorney General's Office at 1-800-657-3787 or 651-296-3353, or fill out this form and mail it in. source

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Verizon Wireless: Tells AT&T Mobility, 'The Truth Hurts' - Gizmodo Australia (17 Nov 09)

[The] AT&T vs. Verizon lawsuit over the "Map for That" ads is turning into an all-out PR smackdown. This stuff isn't even written in proper legal language anymore.

When your lawsuits sound like press releases, it's because they probably are (not that we care, the whole case is pretty entertaining). Check out this opening statement from Verizon:

"AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's "There's A Map For That" advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts."

Verizon goes on to accuse AT&T of failing to adequately expand its 3G coverage to match demand for its smartphones, which is sort of a hard point for AT&T to argue. Verizon claims that its advertisements are "literally true" (instead of philosophically true? Metaphorically true? True in the sense in which it is used in animal husbandry, as in purebred? What?) and not misleading, and that AT&T has failed to provide customers with an accurate map of its coverage. It's pretty great, really - if you've ever wished the American legal system was more like it is on Law and Order, this whole statement is a gift. source

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Wireless: US Teens Report 'Frightening' Levels Of Texting While Driving - Washington Post (17 Nov 09)

A graphic British public service video that portrays a fatal accident caused by a texting teenage driver has been the talk of Facebook and other places where young Americans congregate, but a study suggests that it hasn't done much to change their habits.

A quarter of U.S. teens ages 16 to 17 who have cellphones say they text while driving, and almost half of Americans ages 12 to 17 say they've been in cars with someone who texted while behind the wheel. Teens say their parents are texting fanatics, too.

Those findings are in a report released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

"The percentages of drivers who report texting while driving is extremely disturbing, given the severe safety hazards this behavior causes," said Fairfax County police Capt. Susan Culin, commander of the traffic division. "However, the percentage of teen drivers that report texting while driving is even more frightening, due to their inexperience."

Drivers younger than 20 had the highest distracted-driving fatality rate among all age groups last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Drivers 20 to 29 ranked second.

The administration said that 5,870 people died and about 515,000 were injured last year in accidents attributed to distracted driving. Twice as many fatalities, 11,773, were attributed to drunken driving.

The actual number of distracted-driving deaths and injuries might be higher. There is no blood-alcohol test to prove that someone was texting, and phone records are not clear-cut. Drivers who cause accidents are no more prone to admit they were texting than they are to say they were drunk.

"I believe the percentage of teen drivers texting is even higher than this study reports," Culin said. "It's imperative that we take greater steps in correcting the problem by passing tougher laws and setting better examples for our children."

Overall, 81 percent of U.S. residents said they have used their cellphone while driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of the 82 percent of 16- to 17-year-olds who have cellphones, 52 percent said they use them while driving.

Teens told Pew researchers that they texted while driving to find friends, get directions and flirt. Some said they tried to restrict texting to when they were stopped at red lights.

"Many teens understand the risks of texting behind the wheel," said Amanda Lenhart, co-author of the Pew report, "but the desire to stay connected is so strong for teens and their parents that safety sometimes takes a back seat to staying in touch with friends and family."

At a conference that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood convened to discuss distracted driving, he urged parents to set an example for their children by paying attention to the road.

But, the Pew report says, "the frequency of teens reporting parent cellphone use behind the wheel in our focus groups was striking, and suggested, in many cases, that texting while driving is a family affair." source

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BPOs: Convergys Philippines To Hire 4,500 More Workers - Inquirer (17 Nov 09)

Outsourcing firm Convergys is looking to expand its operations in the near-term and add at least 4,500 more workers in the Philippines, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

The Cincinnati-based firm currently employs around 18,000 workers in the country located in 12 contact center facilities in Metro Manila and other provinces.

Convergys said it needs to ramp up its operations and surpass its target of 20,000 agents in the Philippines by February 2010.

"Filipino agents continue to deliver superior relationship management services on behalf of our clients and that's why there's a global demand for their expertise," said Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country manager.

Convergys recently inaugurated its newest facility located at Glorietta 5 in Makati City, its largest facility in the Philippines housing more than 2,000 seats. source

Security: Microsoft Patching Zero Day Windows 7 SMB Hole - CNet (13 Nov 09)

Microsoft on Friday said it is working on a fix for a vulnerability in the Server Message Block file-sharing protocol in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2 that could be used to remotely crash a computer.

The software giant had said on Wednesday that it was looking at the bug, discovered by researcher Laurent Gaffi?, who published proof-of-concept code on a blog.

"Microsoft is aware of public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable. If exploited, this [denial-of-service] vulnerability would not allow an attacker to take control of, or install malware on, the customer's system but could cause the affected system to stop responding until manually restarted," Dave Forstrom, group manager for public relations at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said in a statement. "It is important to note that the default firewall settings on Windows 7 will help block attempts to exploit this issue."

Microsoft is not aware of attacks to exploit the hole at this time, he said.

In an advisory, Microsoft criticized the way Gaffi handled the discovery.

"Microsoft is concerned that this new report of a vulnerability was not responsibly disclosed, potentially putting computer users at risk," the advisory said. "We continue to encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities."

The advisory suggests that customers block Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, ports 139 and 445 at the firewall, as a workaround until a patch is ready. source

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Security: VeriSign Expects Major Security Update By 2011 - ZDNet UK (16 Nov 09)

VeriSign has said a significant outstanding internet security vulnerability will be closed by 2011, after delays caused by technical aspects of the implementation.

The problem is that DNS, the Domain Name System that translates internet addresses such as website URLs into numerical values, can be seeded with false values and used to misdirect users. VeriSign told ZDNet on Friday that it will put in place DNSSEC, a protocol which will guarantee the origin and integrity of DNS data, for the .com and .net domains by the first quarter of 2011.

"Both .net and .com are very large domains," said Pat Kane, VeriSign vice president of naming services.

Kane added that ".net alone has more than 12 million domain names. Our first priority is to safely and securely implement DNSSEC, as it impacts the Domain Name System, one of the core building blocks of the internet".

VeriSign is currently working with Educause, an association that promotes higher education IT use, and the Department of Commerce (DoC), to deploy DNSSEC within the .edu top level domain (TLD). VeriSign said on Friday that it was progressively increasing the size of TLDs with DNSSEC deployed, to learn from that deployment.

VeriSign has been working with Icann, the internet naming co-ordinator, to bring security to DNS since Icann's inception in 1998. Kane said that the stumbling blocks for signing the DNSSEC root had been "mainly technical".

"Because of the large size of .com and .net, it would not have been practical to deploy DNSSEC with earlier versions of the DNSSEC protocol: signing would have increased the size of these DNS zones dramatically, making them unwieldy," said Kane. "VeriSign utilises a DNSSEC extension known as NSEC3, which is documented in RFC 5155 with a VeriSign Labs engineer as a co-author."

Kane said that the DNS vulnerability publicised by researcher Dan Kaminsky in August 2008 had speeded recognition that .com and .net needed to be signed.

"The vulnerability publicised by Kaminsky had been known earlier; Kaminsky showed how easy it was to exploit," said Kane. "The ease with which DNS 'cache poisoning' attacks could be made was a significant factor in raising awareness for the need for DNS security. When fully and properly implemented, DNSSEC stops cache poisoning and closes a significant attack vector."

Cache poisoning in when an attacker corrupts the cache data in a DNS server, replacing a valid internet address with a rogue address.

Kane said that VeriSign will create and manage the zone-signing key (ZSK) for the root zone, and sign the root zone, for .net and .com. Icann will create, manage and publish the root zone key-signing key (KSK). source

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Security: DNS Problem Linked To DDoS Attacks Gets Worse - IDG News (13 Nov 09)

Internet security experts say that misconfigured digital subscriber line and cable modems are worsening a well-known problem with the Internet's DNS (domain name system), making it easier for hackers to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against their victims.

According to research set to be released in the next few days, part of the problem is blamed on the growing number of consumer devices on the Internet that are configured to accept DNS queries from anywhere, what networking experts call an "open recursive" or "open resolver" system. As more consumers demand broadband Internet, service providers are rolling out modems configured this way to their customers said Cricket Liu, vice president of architecture with Infoblox Inc., the DNS appliance company that sponsored the research. "The two leading culprits we found were Telefonica and France Télécom," he said.

In fact, the percentage of DNS systems on the Internet that are configured this way has jumped from around 50 per cent in 2007, to nearly 80 per cent this year, according to Liu.

Though he hasn't seen the Infoblox data, Georgia Tech Researcher David Dagon agreed that open recursive systems are on the rise, in part because of "the increase in home network appliances that allow multiple computers on the Internet."

"Almost all ISPs distribute a home DSL/cable device," he said in an e-mail interview. "Many of the devices have built-in DNS servers. These can sometimes ship in 'open by default' states."

Because modems configured as open recursive servers will answer DNS queries from anyone on the Internet, they can be used in what's known as a DNS amplification attack.

In this attack, hackers send spoofed DNS query messages to the recursive server, tricking it into replying to a victim's computer. If the bad guys know what they're doing, they can send a small 50 byte message to a system that will respond by sending the victim as much as 4 kilobytes of data. By barraging several DNS servers with these spoofed queries, attackers can overwhelm their victims and effectively knock them offline.

DNS experts have known about the open recursive configuration problem for years, so it's surprising that the numbers are jumping up.

However, according to Dagon, a more important issue is the fact that many of these devices do not include patches for a widely publicizedDNS flaw discovered by researcher Dan Kaminsky last year. That flaw could be used to trick the owners of these devices into using Internet servers controlled by hackers without ever realizing that they've been duped.

Infoblox estimates that 10 percent of the open recursive servers on the Internet have not been patched.

The Infoblox survey was conducted by The Measurement Factory, which gets its data by scanning about 5 percent of the IP addresses on the Internet. The data will be posted here in the next few days.

According to Measurement Factory President Duane Wessels, DNS amplification attacks do occur, but they're not the most common form of DDoS attack. "Those of us that track these and are aware of it tend to be a little bit surprised that we don't see more attacks that use open resolvers," he said. "It's kind of a puzzle."

Wessels believes that the move toward the next-generation IPv6 standard may be inadvertently contributing to the problem. Some of the modems are configured to use DNS server software called Trick or Tread Daemon (TOTd) - which converts addresses between IPv4 and IPv6 formats. Often this software is configured as an open resolver, Wessels said. source

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ISPs: ATT.net Home Page Is Down - Gizmopassion (16 Nov 09)

ATT.net [the home page for AT&T Worldnet] appears to be down and is experiencing difficulties. So, users may not able to load the page of the site.

According to the reports, the cause of the ATT.net outage is unknown and services will be restored as soon as humanly possible.

When we tried to open it up, it took plenty of time and then it was written, "time out". In some news report, it was said that once you open the site you can find "cannot find server".

This outage has created troubles for ATT.net users. Meanwhile, it's being reported that there is a limited access to the ATT services like webmail, email, homepage and Bellsouth email.

Reports further say that the difficulties would be sorted out soon. source

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Wi-Fi: An 802.11n Upgrade Could Make A Big Difference - Seattle Times (14 Nov 09)

If you're working within a budget, the first thing to ask about any new technology is "Do I really need this?" When it comes to using the new 802.11n equipment for your home Wi-Fi network, the answer - with a few exceptions (which I'll get to shortly) - is an enthusiastic "yes".

After all, there aren't many technology upgrades that deliver more than twice the performance at little or no increase in cost. That's just what 802.11n does. And products that support the standard - which was approved in September after years of deliberation and refinement - are on the shelves now. You can expect to pay about $75 to $175 for an 802.11n router and $30 to $80 for 802.11n client adapters.

On paper, 802.11n delivers many times the performance of its predecessor, 802.11g. It has a range of about 600 feet, about twice that of the earlier technology, and it handles a maximum of 300 megabits per second of data, compared with the latter's 54 Mbps. The performance boost largely results from two new technologies. First, MIMO - multiple input, multiple output - employs several antennas to move data in and out of the router simultaneously; 802.11g supports only a single stream of data. Second, many 802.11n routers support channel bonding, which allows data to be sent over two non-overlapping channels.

Of course, the actual performance you get depends upon a number of factors. But whatever conditions you face, you can figure you'll get significantly better results than with 802.11g equipment.

So why such a price range in the 802.11n routers? The more-expensive units generally offer extras, such as dual-band transmissions, extra Ethernet ports, built-in firewall capability, Gigabit Ethernet support and USB connections for attaching external backup drives.

The rubber on the road: For my testing, I obtained a Cisco Linksys WRT400 router, a Cisco Linksys Wireless N Dual Band USB adapter for a desktop computer, and a laptop equipped with an onboard Intel 802.11n adapter.

The WRT400 has a street price of just over $100, and the WUSB600N client adapter has a street price of $60 to $80. The router offers some extras, including dual-band transmissions and firewall tools. It lacks features of more-costly units, including Gigabit Ethernet support and USB connections.

The big surprise for me was how much easier it was to set up Cisco's wireless 802.11n network than it had been to set up my 802.11g network several years ago. That isn't a function of the 802.11n standard, but how much friendlier the process of installing a home network has become. In my case, not only did the provided Network Magic software make it a snap to set up multiple clients on the network, configure security and connect clients, but additional tools allowed me to share printers and data folders among the computers on the network. While Windows can help you configure such resource sharing, I found the job much easier using Network Magic.

What's more, there are also tools to test your connection speed and determine whether detected bottlenecks are on your local network or with your Internet service provider. On the downside, if you want to keep using these tools past a very short seven-day trial period you'll have to shell out $39.99 for a license to Network Magic Pro.

I was also very pleased with the way the new equipment boosted the performance of my wireless network. My client devices maxed out at 130 Mbps when sitting right next to the 802.11n router. But that's several times the rate I was getting with my 802.11g router, which makes a big difference when you're streaming media across the network.

Installation checklist: There are a few things to consider in setting up a wireless network to maximize performance and security.

First and foremost, you'll want to make sure others can't join your network without your OK. Even though it might take a few extra steps, you should switch off your router's broadcast station identifier so that your network's presence isn't constantly announced to everyone in the neighborhood. Yes, that means you'll have to manually set up new clients that want to connect to your network.

Next, you should enable the router's encryption feature and configure it to use the more secure WPA encryption if your client adapters support it. Finally, if your router supports extra features, such as intruder blocks, enable them.

As for performance, if possible, locate your router in a position central to your clients. Also, do your best to make certain that there's nothing blocking signals. At first, for example, I found a metal chair was blocking the signal to one client. Mounting the router on a wall may help lift it above obstacles.

The bottom line: If you're setting up a wireless network for the first time, choosing 802.11n is a no-brainer. But what if you already have an 802.11g wireless network? Is it worth tossing that equipment and forking out close to $200 to upgrade to 802.11n (for a router and a single client).

Simple question: Are you currently experiencing problems with performance? If not, why spend more? But if you're encountering pauses when playing media over the wireless connection, or if you find you're often roaming out of range of your router, 802.11n could fix things right up.

If you're just browsing the Internet and moving small files across your wireless network, you may not notice much difference. But if you're moving large files and especially if you're streaming media, you'll want to consider upgrading.

Finally, if you've already purchased equipment that boasted of 802.11n (draft) compliance, you probably don't need to replace it. Virtually all such equipment can be upgraded to the final standard via a firmware update from the vendor. source

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AT&T: Joins Cloud Computing Set - Light Reading (16 Nov 09)

AT&T Inc. today announced a new cloud-based computing service that gives businesses near instant on-demand access to computing resources via an online portal that can be paid for using a credit card. (See AT&T Unveils Synaptic Compute.)

The Synaptic Compute as a Service (CaaS) is the third in a series of AT&T Synaptic offerings, following the already launched hosting and storage services. It will become commercially available before the end of 2009 in the U.S. and be rolled out globally in the future. (See AT&T Goes Synaptic and AT&T Makes Push Into Cloud Storage.)

To enable the service, AT&T has teamed up with VMware Inc., for virtualization technology, and Sun Microsystems Inc..

AT&T is promising enterprise-grade computing capacity that can be provisioned very quickly, says Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president of Strategy and Application Services at AT&T Business Solutions.

The carrier is expecting businesses of all sizes to find multiple uses for cloud-based computing, from disaster recovery, to support of seasonal projects, to the ability to launch applications quickly without having to invest capital.

"It's a service that has a differing kind of acquisition model and consumption model," says Pacewicz. "It's very much intended to be like our storage as a service, where you can buy it online, and the billing is based on what you use. It has the flexibility that a lot of our clients want."

AT&T intends to differentiate its offering from those of IBM Corp. and other computing-centric companies by offering access to the AT&T Synaptic CaaS via its virtual private network (VPN), and enable its enterprise customers to unify and centrally manage their distributed network resources and applications.

"The ability to access [the service] via a private VPN differentiates us from competitors who are offering cloud-based computing over the Internet," says Pacewicz. "It allows us to be a virtual extension of the dedicated computing environment that clients have."

That's why the VMware partnership is critical, says the AT&T man, because the virtualization specialist is a market leader that's already widely deployed by enterprises. "They're already embedded in a majority of our customers -- we think their market share is 90 percent or higher."

The combination of VMware's technology with the virtualization done within AT&T's data centers will, over time, enable clients to create hybrid clouds that can be used seamlessly, because the AT&T resources will look like just another instance on the client VPN, he says. Enterprises will be able to move applications or data around to fit their changing needs or demands, turning cloud computing up or down as needed.

Layered on top of that, AT&T will offer globally consistent network resources, with guaranteed low latency, performance and application acceleration, and embedded network-based security, including intrusion detection and prevention of denial-of-service attacks and other threats.

"We think we're putting together the ability to allow the customer to have a lot of control over the infrastructure," states Pacewicz.

AT&T has been steadily building on its network-based service offerings since its acquisition in 2006 of USInternetworking Inc. (See AT&T to Buy ASP.)

It rolled out the cloud computing offer following lengthy discussions with its User Advisory Councils, where the attitude toward cloud computing has been changing, Pacewicz says. In one user council, which engages Fortune 100 chief information officers, cloud computing has gone from being a niche offering, capable of supporting some safe applications or a development environment, to being a potential extension of existing computing resources, notes the AT&T man.

And as the current economic climate has made enterprises more leery of major capital expense, the ability to use cloud computing resources as needed has become even more attractive, he adds.

Unlike the hosting offer, which is based on monthly billing with a usage fee, AT&T Synaptic CaaS features an hourly consumption model, and can be paid for as part of an enterprise's networking bill or via a credit card on a one-off basis.

"We think this has very broad applicability. Customers will use it differently across the segments," claims Pacewicz. "But at a time when everyone is struggling with how to get to market quickly and create more value quickly, to reduce cycle time, this kind of on-demand computing can be a very valuable tool."

AT&T, though, is launching into a market that's already occupied by some major names, including domestic telco rival Verizon Communications Inc., as well as Amazon.com Inc. and IBM. (See Verizon CaaS Is a Top Pick, Verizon Boasts CaaS Deal, Verizon Unveils Cloud Services, Amazon's Lessons for Telcos, IBM Gets Cloudy, and Google, IBM Think Cloudy.). source

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Verizon: Business Unit Identifies 10 Business Technology Trends - TMCnet (16 Nov 09)

Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications that deals in communications and IT solutions, has reportedly identified top 10 business technology trends that will help companies to expand their business in 2010 as the economy recovers..

According to Kerry Bailey, chief marketing officer for Verizon Business, as economic conditions continue to improve, Verizon Business is ready to help its client partners take advantage of pent-up growth opportunities through its global solutions. Verizon Business' list of 10 trends that will help businesses move forward in 2010 are enterprise social networking, cloud computing, "360 security", mobilizing the workforce from Telework to Telepresence, extended enterprise, smart networks, energy efficiency, video communications, wireless applications and 20/20 vision.

IT leaders will need to incorporate enterprise social networking into their overall unified communications and collaboration strategy as the lines between professional and personal communications become blurred. Enterprise-grade versions of Facebook, Twitter and Wikis in the workplace will accelerate the decision-making process and also empower the workers. An emerging trend, cloud computing helps businesses move to an efficient IT model that is productive, as well as flexible. It also lets enterprises use computing resources on-demand and to serve applications centrally.

Another top trend is "360 Security", in which businesses and government agencies apply security across the cloud, the edges of their networks and for specific devices. A 360-degree focus on security requires more than just securing applications or corporate networks. Enterprises also need to factor in risk management and to understand where data resides, whether in motion or at rest, inside or outside of the corporate network.

According to a recent Forrester Research report, 397.1 million workers will be enterprise mobile users by 2012. As a result, more companies will deploy mobile applications in a structured, secure environment to mobilize the workforce in order to increase productivity and innovation.

Another top trend is the extended enterprise, which consists of a business and its employees, customers, suppliers and partners. This trend requires an IT architecture that enables companies to deliver services and applications to anyone, anywhere, on any device, at any time.

According to Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon, the key to a smart economy is smart technology that can change business models and society. Smart networks that feature classes of service and application-aware capabilities will be a platform for business growth in 2010. As businesses adopt more cloud-based technologies, they will be able to provide functions like automated supply chains that speed purchase-to-pay cycles while reducing the environmental impact of paper bills.

As businesses and consumers continue to embrace energy efficiency in the workplace and at home, home-energy management will become an important area of opportunity for utility companies to employ smart-grid technology. In addition, advanced communications and information technology will provide the foundation for a more eco-friendly society by contributing to smarter grids.

Video communications in the workplace will drive greater return on collaboration investment, higher productivity and improved overall business performance. As more and more companies are conducting IP-based video meetings through telepresence and on the desktop, organizations will be able to enhance decision-making to improve their results.

Wireless technology is another trend. It will empower businesses to develop innovative new applications that get them closer to their customers, their employees and their partners. In addition, machines will be better able to communicate with each other and make "smart" decisions. In 2009, businesses learned how to do more with less. Applying 20/20 hindsight and lessons learned will inspire the 2010 technology decisions that will help businesses work harder and more efficiently for the next decade. source

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Verizon Wireless: To Be Tested By Unofficial Droid Tethering - DSLReports (16 Nov 09)

The significantly more open nature of the Android mobile operating system is going to test Verizon's promise to open up their network and devices in short order.

As recently noted, Verizon in 2010 hopes to charge an additional $30 a month for tethering, on top of the $30 user's already pay for data - all of which will be capped at 5 GB of data use per month.

As Wired notes however, the open source nature of the Android operating system driving the Droid should have hackers providing a slew of additional functionality (including tethering) in short order.

The source code for Android 2.0 hasn't been released yet, but Wired apparently didn't know there's already tools available that are allowing Droid owners to tether, for free, before Verizon even offers it officially.

Of course there's no getting around that 5 GB monthly usage cap. source

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Verizon Wireless: Fake 'Balance Checker' Is A Trojan - IDG News (13 Nov 09)

Cyber-criminals have started preying on Verizon Wireless customers, sending out spam e-mail messages that say their accounts are over the limit and offering them a "balance checker" program to review their payments.

The e-mail messages, which look like they come from Verizon Wireless, are fakes; the balance checker is actually a malicious Trojan horse program.

"If you run the tool, obviously, your computer is toast," said Nick Bilogorskiy, manager of antivirus research at SonicWall. "You get infected with a Trojan that SonicWall catches under the name Regrun."

The scammers started sending out the messages around 11:30 a.m. Pacific on Friday, and they quickly flooded the Internet with their spam. Within a few hours, SonicWall had intercepted the messages at about 16 percent of its customers, Bilogorskiy said.

That translates to about 200,000 messages per hour on SonicWall's sensors. "The volume of these e-mails is just huge," Bilogorskiy said.

Victims who download the software open up a back door to their computer, where more malware can be downloaded from the Zbot botnet, which is known for stealthily lifting online banking credentials and emptying accounts. For the bad guys, the payoff is big. Recently, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said this type of financial fraud has removed US$100 million from U.S. bank accounts.

Criminals are always looking for new ways to trick people into downloading their software, and this billing-cycle scam is simply the latest, Bilogorskiy said. source

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Wireless: Industry Pricing Plans Confuse Economists, Too - New York Times (15 Nov 09)

Here's a consolation prize to the millions who recoil in bafflement from cellphone companies' labyrinthine price plans, with their ever more intricate arrays of minutes, messages and megabytes: Economists don't understand them, either.

"The whole pricing thing is weird," said Barry Nalebuff, an economics professor at the Yale School of Management. "You pay $60 to make your first phone call. Your next 1,000 minutes are free. Then the minute after that costs 35 cents."

To economists, it simply doesn't make sense to make chatterboxes pay that penalty. After all, most businesses tend to give discounts to customers who buy more.

It would be easy to see the cellphone companies simply as avaricious oligopolists trying to gouge consumers for every penny they can. And in some senses they are aiming to maximize revenue, at least as much as the market will let them.

But understanding the psychological nuances of how a price plan affects customers' behavior is at least as important to running a cellphone company today as knowing how radio waves spread over a city. Those high charges for going over your allotted minutes, for example, are designed to cause you enough pain that you will switch to a plan with a higher regular fee.

"You give people a really good bargain on this bucket of minutes," explained Roger Entner, a senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen. "People are risk averse, so you have a relatively high overage charge, which gets people to overbuy. You also get really predictable revenue out of it, which Wall Street loves."

Neither the cellphone companies nor their customers, as it turns out, always act in the rational way that economists might predict. Consumers often put immediate gratification and the avoidance of unpleasant surprises above their long-term interests. The companies, meanwhile, are trying to meet the sometimes irrational expectations of investors, who want growth without too much nasty volatility, even if their profits suffer.

Here are a few other examples of how the dance between cellphone companies and their customers is, to use Professor Nalebuff's term, "weird":

* When Apple and AT&T started offering the iPhone for $199, plus $30 a month for Internet access, sales shot up, even though the previous deal - $399 for the phone and $20 a month - cost less over a two-year contract.

* Phone companies have doubled the price for text messages, to 20 cents each, in recent years, even though they cost almost nothing to deliver.

* When companies introduce certain discounts - like Sprint's recent offer of free calling to any mobile number - the effect is that customers often switch to more expensive plans.

* One thing that is costing cellphone companies a lot of money to provide is the one thing they offer for a flat rate with no limits: surfing the Web on gadgets like the iPhone.

There is nothing obvious or necessary about this approach to pricing. In many parts of the world, you simply buy a phone from a store, then buy a card that entitles you to talk for a set number of minutes. Use up the card and buy more minutes. No contracts. No surprising charges. No confused economists.

But for all the complexity, cellphones American-style do have a certain supersized logic. Americans spend more money each month on their wireless bills than people in any other country. But the money we spend buys a whole lot more talk time and text messages than it does elsewhere. On average, we effectively spend about 5 cents per minute of talk time and about a penny a text message, lower than anywhere else in the developed world.

This year, the deals are becoming even better. For people who want to surf the Web on their phones, wireless companies are willing to sell them iPhones, BlackBerrys and other sleek gadgets for hundreds of dollars less than they cost. The catch, of course, is that customers need to pay $30 or so extra each month for Internet access. For those who just want to talk and text without a fancy phone, there is hot competition to offer lower- price, unlimited phone plans that don't require contracts.

In many ways, however, the least important factor in setting prices is the actual cost of providing cellular service. Cellphone companies resemble airlines, that other industry whose oblique prices exasperate consumers. Think of a cellphone network as one giant airplane that costs tens of billions of dollars to build. The cellphone companies don't really know how much it costs to handle a call to Aunt Suzy in Syracuse, any more than an airline can calculate a specific cost for Seat 12B.

"Service providers don't have a good measure of their costs," said Philip Marshall, an analyst for the Yankee Group. "They don't have the ability to say if they are going to make money" on any particular plan.

Put simply, all a phone company wants is to get as much money as possible each month from its customers. Then it hopes that this total is more than its costs.

That's why the carriers put great stock in a measure called average revenue per user, or ARPU (pronounced "ARE-poo") A climbing ARPU makes for happy phone companies and happy investors.

But in fact, over the last decade, total ARPU has been declining slightly, a result of competition. But unlike the airlines, the two largest cellphone carriers - Verizon Wireless and AT&T - have healthy profit margins. The distant third and fourth - Sprint and T-Mobile - have had a harder time keeping up.

Every few years, the companies adopt new technology that expands their networks' capacity. For a while, they passed the benefit of these improvements to customers by periodically increasing the number of minutes in pricing plans. But since 2004, the basic rate for the lowest-priced plan at the largest carriers has stayed constant, at $39.99 for 450 prime-time minutes.

The cellphone companies wanted to avoid the sort of price wars that occurred a decade earlier in the long-distance market. So they decided to compete by offering distinctive goodies that cost little, yet had a lot of customer appeal.

Verizon Wireless focused, for example, on offering free calls to other Verizon customers. In response, T-Mobile, the smallest of the major carriers, concocted the My Faves plan, which gave users free calling to any five numbers, whatever carrier they used.

In 2004, Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) introduced what it called rollover minutes, with plans that allow unused minutes of talk time to be used in the following months.

An economist would see Cingular's move as a price cut. After all, why buy a big plan as a cushion against what might be an occasional month of high use when you can accumulate your minutes from low-use months? In fact, it worked the other way around, encouraging people to buy larger plans. It turned out that people were happy to buy extra minutes if they knew they could keep them, rather than having them expire.

In May 2004, Sprint answered the growing complexity of cellphone plans with a much more straightforward approach. Its Fair and Flexible plan offered 300 minutes for $35, and each additional block of 50 minutes for $2.50. It was a plan that an economist could love.

Unfortunately for Sprint, customers hated it because their bills varied a great deal from month to month. "Nobody thinks about getting the lowest cost per minute," said a former pricing executive for Sprint who asked that his name not be used to avoid offending his former employer.

Sprint dropped the plan in early 2007, and reintroduced plans with big buckets of minutes and higher fees for going over the allotted time.

Despite all the carriers' efforts to lure people to buy ever more expensive voice plans, the average revenue per user from voice service has been falling since 2003, according to statistics from CTIA, the wireless trade group.

More recently, the carriers have confronted another problem: People are talking less on their mobile phones, and texting instead. In the first half of this year, the average wireless customer sent 518 texts a month and made 220 phone calls, according to CTIA figures. (That average, of course, is driven up by the furious texting of teenagers.)

Revenue from voice plans has fallen 31 percent since peaking in 2003. To fill that hole, the carriers raised the price of a text message from 10 cents to 15 cents, and later to 20 cents. These fees provided nice cash, but as with the voice charges, the main purpose was to persuade customers to subscribe to text-message plans that cost up to $20 a month for unlimited texting on AT&T and Verizon and $10 a month on Sprint and T-Mobile.

"It really makes sense, if you are texting at all, to buy an unlimited text plan and not have to worry about it," said Will Souder, a vice president for pricing at Sprint. Fewer people are running up big bills from 20-cent text messages, but the company's ARPU has gone up anyway because so many customers signed up for unlimited text plans.

The biggest boon to the wireless carriers has been Apple's iPhone, which increased interest in using a mobile phone to surf the Web.

When it entered the smartphone business in 2007, Apple tried to turn upside down the traditional model in which carriers subsidized the cost of handsets. It initially wanted customers to pay $599 - later cut to $399 - for their handsets, but they would pay AT&T, its exclusive carrier, only $20 a month for the Internet access, a portion of which would go to Apple.

Consumers balked at the high upfront cost. By the second generation of the iPhone, Apple reverted to a traditional subsidy model. The iPhone that now costs consumers $199 actually costs AT&T about $550, according to analysts' estimates. To cover the subsidy, the Internet price increased to $30 a month.

Yes, consumers come out behind on that deal, to the tune of $40 over two years, but it was only when the opening price dropped to $199 that iPhone sales started to skyrocket.

Now all the carriers are selling heavily subsidized smartphones. They hate this state of affairs - and wish that American consumers would just pay full price for the phones, the way people do in Europe. T-Mobile recently introduced an option for customers to pay a lower monthly bill if they buy their own phones, and even offered to spread the handset cost over two years with no interest charges.

"They are trying to break the model and get away from the big subsidies that are going into these phones," said John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS Securities. "There is something to that, but I'm not sure it will work because people want their brand-new shiny phones."

The growth of smartphones has especially benefited AT&T, which has the iPhone, and Verizon, which is seen as having the best network. Sprint, at No. 3, has been losing customers for several years. In addition to trying to improve its customer service, Sprint has started several pricing changes to try to stem the losses.

Sprint's boldest move has been to offer a $50 flat-rate plan, including unlimited voice, text and Internet, through its prepaid Boost brand. In prepaid plans, like those popularized by MetroPCS and Leap Wireless, you don't have to sign a contract, but you also have to buy a handset without a subsidy. Boost has garnered a net 2.1 million new accounts since introducing the unlimited offer early this year. T-Mobile and AT&T have responded in recent months by offering $60 unlimited plans.

Boost was successful, said Matt Carter, its president, because its plan stood out from the multitiered offerings of traditional wireless carriers - including its parent, Sprint. "There is a lot of complexity out there in the marketplace," he said. "What we are is a force for simplicity."

Lower prices that are predictable and easy to understand. Maybe an economist won't find that weird. But will the consumer? source

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Wireless: A Rush To Learn English By Cellphone - Financial Times (14 Nov 09)

More than 300,000 people in Bangladesh, one of Asia's poorest but fastest-growing economies, have rushed to sign up to learn English over their cellphones, threatening to swamp the service even before its official launch Thursday.

"We were not expecting that kind of response - 25,000 people would have been a good response on the first day," said Sara Chamberlain, the manager of the discount service. "Instead, we got hundreds of thousands of people".

The project, which costs users less than the price of a cup of tea for each three-minute lesson, is being run by the BBC World Service Trust, the international charity arm of the broadcaster. Part of a British government initiative to help develop English skills in Bangladesh, it marks the first time that cellphones have been used as an educational tool on this scale.

Since cellphone services began in Bangladesh just over a decade ago, more than 50 million Bangladeshis have acquired phone connections, including many in remote rural areas. That far outnumbers the 4 million who have Internet access.

English is increasingly seen as a key to economic mobility, especially as ever larger numbers of Bangladeshis go abroad to find work unavailable to them at home. An estimated 6.2 million Bangladeshis work overseas, and their nearly $10 billion in annual remittances represent the country's second-largest source of foreign exchange.

However, English is also important for securing jobs at home, where about 70 percent of employers look for workers with "communicative English".

Through its Janala service, the BBC offers 250 audio and text-message lessons at different levels - from basic English conversation to grammar and comprehension of simple news stories. Each lesson is a three-minute phone call, costing about 4 cents.

One basic lesson involves listening to and repeating simple dialogue such as: "What do you do?"

"I work in IT, what about you?"

"I'm a student".

"That's nice".

All six cellphone operators in Bangladesh have agreed to cut the cost of calls to the service by 50 percent to make it more affordable. Chamberlain also said the project team was in talks with the cellphone companies to increase capacity to cope with the unexpectedly high demand.

The launch of the service comes just a few weeks after Grameenphone, the country's largest cellphone operator, held Bangladesh's largest initial public offering. Shares in the company are due to start trading on the Dhaka Stock Exchange next week.

The language lessons target mainly 18- to 24-year-olds, who typically have five or more years of formal education but whose training in English has been weak. Also targeted are people living on less than $145 a month, who would struggle to pay for formal English lessons.

Chamberlain said the service could be developed later to offer tailored English instruction to people in different industries, such as call centers, garment factories and the tourist industry. source

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BPOs: Convergys Philippines Aims To Attract Top Employees - Philippine Star (16 Nov 09)

Convergys seeks to expand its employee pool as it formally opens its largest contact center facility in the country.

The global leader in relationship management began local operations six years ago with 200 employees in its first Makati site. Today, it counts over 17,500 employees in sites across Metro Manila, Cebu, Bacolod and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Globally, Convergys employs more than 70,000 people across its facilities.

The new center is located in Glorietta 5 [in the Manila suburb of Makati], marking the first time a Convergys site is conveniently attached to a shopping complex.

The company aims to gain top new recruits for its many sites and has demonstrated a keen understanding of its workforce.

"When Convergys is looking to expand its brick-and-mortar contact center facilities, we make site selections based on the needs of both our clients and our company in order to maintain flexibility. Primary selection factors include client requirements, availability of trained labor, infrastructure, competition in the area, government support, and operating costs," said Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country manager.

"Of course, the safety of our employees is also very important - the proximity of the site to where the agents live is paramount, as it ensures ease of access and security. This selection strategy has helped Convergys in the Philippines post low attrition figures," added Zamora.

Aside from regular employee benefits, Convergys offers a number of development and training programs.

"We believe in 'building from within' and that beyond pay, our competitive advantage lies in the career and earning growth opportunity provided to our people," said Clark Handy, Convergys senior vice president for human resources.

Management and personal development are among the various programs Convergys employees can access to chart career growth.

The company also has employee engagement programs that recognize and show appreciation for Convergys' culture of high performance.

Most recently, the company hosted a rock concert for employees and their families featuring popular bands Parokya ni Edgar and Kamikazee. The concert capped a weeklong celebration of employee appreciation.

To celebrate the Glorietta 5 opening, Convergys is staging a fashion show in cooperation with popular fashion retailer Bench.

Selected Convergys employees from all 12 sites across the country will be walking the runway with professional models.

"We see only continued growth for Convergys in the Philippines. This is fueled by the support of all our employees here. We are therefore fully committed to attracting the best and the brightest, and focusing on their development and personal growth in Convergys," said Handy. source

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BPOs: TeleTech Worker Sues After Termination For Legal Marijuana Use - HR.BLR (16 Nov 09)

A newly hired employee of a Washington company failed her initial drug test because of her use of medical marijuana recommended and prescribed by a physician. The company fired her for drug use and she sued.

What happened. TeleTech is an outsourcing company that provides office services to other businesses. It has a contract with Sprint Nextel to provide workers for telemarketing and telesales at Sprint's customer service center in Bremerton. TeleTech has a drug-free workplace policy, and Sprint requires TeleTech to screen all applicants for drugs before assigning them to work in Bremerton.

"Jane" suffered from migraine headaches. In June 2006, her doctor authorized the use of marijuana as treatment for her migraines. On October 3, 2006, TeleTech conditionally offered Jane a job at the Bremerton facility. As part of the hiring process, it gave Jane the applicant drug policy, which stated that all applicants were required to submit to a pre-employment drug test and receive a negative result in order to receive employment.

Jane told TeleTech that she used medical marijuana at home and that she had medical authorization for the drug. Jane took her drug test on October 5. She started work on October 10, the same day that her test results came back positive for marijuana. TeleTech's managers inquired into the situation, and received word back from headquarters: TeleTech would not make an exception to its drug policies for medical marijuana use. Accordingly, the company terminated Jane on October 18.

In February 2007 Jane sued TeleTech for wrongful termination and violation of the Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act (MUMA), (WA Rev. Code Sec. 69.51A). A county superior court dismissed the case in February 2008, and Jane appealed.

What the court said. The citizens of Washington enacted MUMA in 1998. This law provides that patients with terminal or debilitating illnesses whose doctors prescribe marijuana for their conditions will not be held guilty of a crime. The question before the court was whether the people of Washington intended MUMA to create employment protections that would require employers to employ people who use medical marijuana outside the workplace, which would effectively prevent employers from enforcing drug-free workplace policies.

Jane first argued that the trial court should not have dismissed the case because MUMA implied that she had the right to sue her employer for wrongful termination based solely on her legal at-home use of marijuana. TeleTech countered that the law did not create that right, but only provided a defense against state criminal prosecution for the possession of marijuana.

The Court of Appeals agreed with TeleTech. The language of MUMA's preamble states that qualifying patients "shall not be found guilty of a crime under state law for their possession and limited use of marijuana," and that physicians are "excepted from liability and prosecution for the authorization of marijuana use to qualifying patients." The court found that the average voter would understand from that language that the law was concerned with one thing: criminal prosecutions for the prescription or use of marijuana to treat terminal or disabling illness. The court noted that this interpretation may cause conflicts between individuals who use medical marijuana and employer drug policies, but the language of the law does not give any reason to assume that it was meant to address hiring practices or prevent employers from maintaining drug-free workplaces.

The court also observed that Jane was an employee at-will, which meant that TeleTech could terminate her at any time for any reason or no reason at all. Her arguments about MUMA did not prove that TeleTech had done anything illegal in terminating her. The court upheld the lower court's dismissal of the case. Roe v. TeleTech Customer Care Management, Court of Appeals of Washington, No. 38531-7-II (9/15/09).

Point to remember: Though there may appear to be a conflict between legalization of medical marijuana and drug-free workplace policies, for the moment, the drug-free workplace policies trump legal marijuana use. source

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Odds & Ends: The Cyberwar Plan, Not Just A Defensive Game - National Journal (13 Nov 09)

In May 2007, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency, based at Fort Meade, Md., to launch a sophisticated attack on an enemy thousands of miles away without firing a bullet or dropping a bomb.

At the request of his national intelligence director, Bush ordered an NSA cyberattack on the cellular phones and computers that insurgents in Iraq were using to plan roadside bombings. The devices allowed the fighters to coordinate their strikes and, later, post videos of the attacks on the Internet to recruit followers. According to a former senior administration official who was present at an Oval Office meeting when the president authorized the attack, the operation helped U.S. forces to commandeer the Iraqi fighters' communications system. With this capability, the Americans could deceive their adversaries with false information, including messages to lead unwitting insurgents into the fire of waiting U.S. soldiers.

Former officials with knowledge of the computer network attack, all of whom requested anonymity when discussing intelligence techniques, said that the operation helped turn the tide of the war. Even more than the thousands of additional ground troops that Bush ordered to Iraq as part of the 2007 "surge," they credit the cyberattacks with allowing military planners to track and kill some of the most influential insurgents. The cyber-intelligence augmented information coming in from unmanned aerial drones as well as an expanding network of human spies. A Pentagon spokesman declined to discuss the operation.

Bush's authorization of "information warfare," a broad term that encompasses computerized attacks, has been previously reported by National Journal and other publications. But the details of specific operations that specially trained digital warriors waged through cyberspace aren't widely known, nor has the turnaround in the Iraq ground war been directly attributed to the cyber campaign. The reason that cyber techniques weren't used earlier may have to do with the military's long-held fear that such warfare can quickly spiral out of control. Indeed, in the months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, military planners considered a computerized attack to disable the networks that controlled Iraq's banking system, but they backed off when they realized that those networks were global and connected to banks in France.

By early 2007, however, two senior officials with experience and faith in the power of cyber-warfare to discretely target an adversary stepped into top military and intelligence posts. Mike McConnell, a former director of the National Security Agency, took over as director of national intelligence in February of that year. And only weeks earlier, Army Gen. David Petraeus became the commander of all allied forces in Iraq. McConnell, who presented the request to Bush in the May 2007 Oval Office meeting, had established the first information warfare center at the NSA in the mid-1990s. Petraeus, a devotee of counterinsurgency doctrine, believed that cyberwar would play a crucial role in the strategy he had planned as part of the surge. In September 2007, the general told Congress, "This war is not only being fought on the ground in Iraq but also in cyberspace."

Some journalists have obliquely described the effectiveness of computerized warfare against the insurgents. In The War Within, investigative reporter Bob Woodward reports that the United States employed "a series of top-secret operations that enable [military and intelligence agencies] to locate, target, and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency, and renegade Shia militias. ... " The former senior administration official said that the actions taken after Bush's May 2007 order were the same ones to which Woodward referred. (At the request of military and White House officials, Woodward withheld "details or the code word names associated with these groundbreaking programs.")

Woodward wrote that the programs began "in about May 2006." But the former administration official emphasized that the specific operations that turned the advantage back to U.S. forces came a year later. Published reports suggest that military commanders were eyeing cyber-warfare techniques in advance of Bush's 2007 order. In an October 2005 article in Aviation Week & Space Technology, reporter David Fulghum noted, "Computer network attack and exploitation... are also now the primary tools in combating what senior U.S. Army officials identify as their No. 1 target - the wireless communications networks used by insurgents and terrorists."

In 2005, military planners focused their efforts largely on sensors that could intercept wireless signals in the combat zone, not on the penetration of the cellular phone network itself. Pursuing the latter would be a far more ambitious and riskier maneuver that, by law, would require presidential authorization. It would also call upon the secret skills of the NSA's com-puter hackers.

The lessons of the 2007 cyberwar are instructive today, as the director of the NSA, Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, is expected to take over the Defense Department's new Cyber Command. The command will be the vanguard of the Obama administration's cyberwar efforts, as well as the front-line defender of military computer networks. U.S. networks, like those of the Iraqi fighters, are also vulnerable to outside attack, and an increasing number of penetrations over the past two years have led Defense officials to put cyber-security at the top of their agenda.

Cyber-defenders know what to prepare themselves for because the United States has used the kinds of weapons that now target the Pentagon, federal agencies, and American corporations. They are designed to steal information, disrupt communications, and commandeer computer systems. The U.S. is forming a cyberwar plan based largely on the experience of intelligence agencies and military operations. It is still in nascent stages, but it is likely to support the conduct of conventional war for generations to come. Some believe it may even become the dominant force.

Senior military leaders didn't come of age in a digital world, and they've been skeptical of computerized attacks. Mostly younger officers, who received their early combat education through video games and Dungeons & Dragons, wage these battles. To them, digital weapons are as familiar and useful as rifles and grenades.

Over the past few years, however, the cyber-cohort has gained influence among the ranks of military strategists, thanks in large part to the ascendancy of Gen. Petraeus. The man widely credited with rescuing the U.S. mission in Iraq is also a devotee of "information operations," a broad military doctrine that calls for defeating an enemy through deception and intimidation, or by impairing its ability to make decisions and understand the battlefield. In past conflicts, the military has jammed enemy communication systems with electromagnetic waves or dropped ominous leaflets from planes warning enemy forces of imminent destruction. Today, cyber-warriors use the global telecommunications network to commandeer an adversary's phones or shut down its Web servers. This activity is a natural evolution of the information war doctrine, and Petraeus has elevated its esteem.

Computerized tools to penetrate an enemy's phone system are only one part of the cyberwar arsenal. And they are perhaps the least worrisome. Alarmed national security officials, and the president himself, are paying more attention than ever to devastating computer viruses and malicious software programs that can disable electrical power systems, corrupt financial data, or hijack air traffic control systems. In 2007, after McConnell got Bush's sign-off for the cyber campaign in Iraq, he warned the president that the United States was vulnerable to such attacks.

Then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., who was present at the meeting, painted a chilling scenario for Bush. He said that in his former position as the CEO of Goldman Sachs, his biggest fear was that someone would gain access to the networks of a major financial institution and alter or corrupt its data. Imagine banks unable to reconcile transactions and stock exchanges powerless to close trades. Confidence in data, Paulson explained, supported the entire financial system. Without it, the system would collapse.

The following year, when a lack of confidence in the accuracy of Bear Stearns's accounts threatened to bring down that major bank, McConnell tried to use the experience as a teaching opportunity. He privately warned other senior administration officials that a cyberattack could cause the same painful consequences, and he began studying what an attack on the system that clears market trades might look like. According to The New York Times, officials were halfway through their research when the credit markets froze. A senior intelligence official remarked, "We looked at each other and said, 'Our market collapse has just given every cyber-warrior out there a playbook.' "

Bush's response to cyber-threats took the form of a multibillion-dollar defense plan, known as the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. In its initial stages, the plan was classified, and critics later complained that the administration had cut itself off from valuable expertise and debate. But according to McConnell, who spoke about the initiative at a recent panel discussion at the International Spy Museum in Washington, the initiative was classified because it involved an "attack," or offensive, component.

McConnell, an authority on cyberwar, chose his words deliberately, and it was a telling admission. "Computer network attack" is a technical term, describing an action designed to cause real-world consequences for an adversary - such as those that Paulson and McConnell warned the president about in the Oval Office, and such as those that the U.S. used in Iraq. The United States' cyber strategy, in other words, encompassed defensive tactics and an offensive plan. The Obama administration inherited the CNCI and has enhanced it with the creation of a national cyber-security coordinator, a White House official who is supposed to ensure that the defensive and offensive sides work together.

As the White House vets candidates for the "cyber-czar" post, the military and intelligence agencies are honing their cyber skills and have already marshaled their forces.

"We have U.S. warriors in cyberspace that are deployed overseas and are in direct contact with adversaries overseas," said Bob Gourley, who was the chief technology officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency and is a board member of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association. These experts "live in adversary networks," Gourley said, conducting reconnaissance on foreign countries without exchanging salvos of destructive computer commands. "Like two ships in the same waters, aware of each other's presences, it doesn't mean they're bumping or firing on each other."

President Obama confirmed that cyber-warriors have aimed at American networks. "We know that cyber-intruders have probed our electrical grid," he said at the White House in May, when he unveiled the next stage of the national cyber-security strategy. The president also confirmed, for the first time, that the weapons of cyberwar had claimed victims. "In other countries, cyberattacks have plunged entire cities into darkness."

With every attack, network defenders learn new techniques, which in turn make them better warriors. If they are fortunate enough to capture the weapon itself, they can pick apart its command codes - its digital DNA - and appropriate them. "You can analyze the attack code, change it, and then use it or counter the next attack," said Dave Marcus, the director of security research and communications for McAfee Labs, which dissects cyber-threats for government agencies.

The same expertise required to build a virus or an attack program to knock down an opponent's firewall can be put to work building more-sophisticated virus detection systems and stronger firewalls. "Our defense is informed by our offense," Gourley said.

Because the United States has studied how attacks are waged, "we certainly would know how to cause these effects," said Sami Saydjari, the president and founder of the Cyber Defense Agency, a private security company, and a former Defense Department employee. "If the president gave an order, we'd have cadres of people who'd know how to do that."

Military officers describe cyberspace as the fifth domain of war, after land, sea, air, and space. But cyberspace is unique in one important respect - it's the only battlefield created by humans.

"We have invented this, and it cuts across those other four," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege, who ran the Defense Information Systems Agency from 2000 to 2005. He was responsible for the defense and operation of the Pentagon's global information network. "Cyberspace has no boundaries," Raduege said. "It's just everywhere, and it permeates everything we do.... We continue to improve our capabilities, but so do the adversaries."

No nation dominates the cyber-battlefield today. "Military forces fight for the ownership of that domain," said Matt Stern, a retired lieutenant colonel who commanded the Army's 2nd Information Operations Battalion and who now works in the private sector as the director of cyber accounts for General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. "But because of the ubiquitous nature of cyberspace - and anyone's ability to access it - military forces must not only contend with the threats within their operational environment, they must also fight against threats in cyberspace that are global in nature."

Cyberspace is also the domain that, as of now, the United States stands the greatest chance of ceding to another nation. In July, an independent study of the overall federal cyber-workforce described it as fragmented and understaffed. The study blamed a hiring process that takes too long to vet security clearances, low salaries, and the lack of a unified hiring strategy. "You can't win the cyberwar if you don't win the war for talent," said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, an advocacy group that helped write the study. The co-author was Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contracting firm where former intelligence Director McConnell now runs the cyber-security business.

The Defense Department graduates only about 80 students per year from schools devoted to teaching cyber-warfare. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that the military is "desperately short" of cyber-warriors and that the Pentagon wants four times as many graduates to move through its teaching programs over the next two years.

That will be difficult, considering that the military and intelligence agencies compete directly with industry for top talent. Beltway contractors have been on a hiring spree ever since the Bush administration began the comprehensive cyber-security plan. Raytheon, which has assisted Pentagon special-operations forces using advanced cyber-technology, posted an ad to its website earlier this year titled "Cyber Warriors Wanted." The company announced 250 open positions - more than three times as many as the Defense Department is moving through its education programs.

Despite a relative shortage of skilled warriors, the military services have charged vigorously into cyberspace. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all have their own cyber-operations groups, which handle defense and offense, and they've competed with one another to control the military's overall strategy. It now appears that the individual service components will report to the new Cyber Command, which will be led by a four-star general. (NSA Director Alexander, the presumptive candidate, has three stars, and his promotion would require the Senate's approval.)

The military may be organizing for a cyberwar, but it's uncertain how aggressive a posture it will take. Some have argued for creating an overt attack capability, the digital equivalent of a fleet of bombers or a battalion of tanks, to deter adversaries. In a 2008 article in Armed Forces Journal, Col. Charles Williamson III, a legal adviser for the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, proposed building a military "botnet," an army of centrally controlled computers to launch coordinated attacks on other machines. Williamson echoed a widely held concern among military officials that other nations are building up their cyber-forces more quickly. "America has no credible deterrent, and our adversaries prove it every day by attacking everywhere," he wrote. Williamson titled his essay, "Carpet Bombing in Cyberspace." Responding to critics who say that by building up its own offensive power, the United States risks starting a new arms race, Williamson said, "We are in one, and we are losing."

Other experts concur that the United States cannot claim to be the world's dominant cyber-force. Kevin Coleman, a senior fellow with the security firm Technolytics and the former chief strategist for the Web pioneer Netscape, said that China's and Russia's abilities to defend and attack are just as good as America's. "Basically, it's a three-way tie for first."

China has proved its prowess largely by stealing information from U.S. officials and corporate executives. Last year, the head of counterintelligence for the government told National Journal that Chinese cyber-spies routinely pilfer strategy information from American businesspeople in advance of their meetings in China. And a computer security expert who consults for the government said that during a trip to Beijing in December 2007, U.S. intelligence officials discovered spyware programs designed to clandestinely remove information from personal computers and other electronic equipment on devices used by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and possibly other members of a U.S. trade delegation.

But it is the Russian government that has done the most to stoke fears of a massive cyberwar between nations. Most experts believe that Russian sources launched a major attack in April 2007 against government, financial, and media networks in Estonia. It came on the heels of a controversy between Estonian and Russian officials over whether to move a statue honoring Soviet-era war dead. Estonia, one of the most "wired" nations on Earth, is highly dependent upon access to the Internet to conduct daily business, and the cyberattack was crippling.

A year later, many security experts accused Moscow of launching a cyberattack on Georgia as conventional Russian military forces poured into the country. The assault was aimed at the Georgian centers of official command and public communication, including websites for the Georgian president and a major TV network.

The suspected Russian attacks startled military and civilian cyber-experts around the globe because of their scale and brazenness. "Estonia was so interesting because it was the first time anyone ever saw an entire country knocked out," said Ed Amoroso, the chief security officer for AT&T. "The whole place is like a little mini-version of what our federal government has aspired to" in terms of conducting so much business online. "It scared the heck out of people."

The attacks also underscored one of the most befuddling aspects of cyberwar. Not all of the computers that attacked Estonia were in Russia. The machines, in fact, were scattered throughout 75 countries and were probably hijacked by a central master without their owners' knowledge. Many of the soldier-machines in this global botnet were in the United States, an Estonian ally. To launch a counteroffensive, Estonia would have had to attack American computers as well as those in other friendly countries.

On May 5 of this year, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities asked the NSA's Alexander whether the attacks on Estonia and Georgia met the definition of cyberwar. "On those, you're starting to get closer to what would be [considered war]," he said. "The problem you have there is who - the attribution." Although it was obvious to most experts that the culprits were Russian, it's easy for attackers to mask their true location. The anonymity of the Internet provides many alibis. Furthermore, it's hard to know whether the Russian government committed the attack, hired cyber-mercenaries to do it, or simply looked the other way as patriotic hackers turned their sights on rival countries.

Over the Fourth of July weekend this year, a series of attacks struck websites used by the White House, the Homeland Security Department, the Secret Service, the NSA, and the State and Defense departments, as well as sites for the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The attacks also hit sites in South Korea, and suspicion immediately turned to North Korea. But again, the inability to attribute the source with certainty impeded any response. The attacks appear to have emanated from about 50,000 computers still infected with an old computer virus, which means that their owners probably had no idea they were participating in a cyber-offensive. Some of those machines were inside the United States, said Tom Conway, the director of federal business development for McAfee. "So what are you going to do, shoot yourself?"

The pitfalls of cyberwar are one reason that the United States has been reluctant to engage in it. The U.S. conducted its first focused experiments with cyberattacks during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, when it intervened to stop the slaughter of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. An information operations cell was set up as part of the bombing campaign. The cell's mission was to penetrate the Serbian national air defense system, published accounts and knowledgeable officials said, and to make fake signals representing aircraft show up on Serbian screens. The false signals would have confused the Serbian response to the invasion and perhaps destroyed commanders' confidence in their own defenses.

According to a high-level military briefing that Federal Computer Week obtained in 1999, the cyber-operation "could have halved the length of the [air] campaign." Although "all the tools were in place ... only a few were used." The briefing concluded that the cyber-cell had "great people," but they were from the "wrong communities" and "too junior" to have much effect on the overall campaign. The cyber-soldiers were young outsiders, fighting a new kind of warfare that, even the briefing acknowledged, was "not yet understood."

War planners fear unleashing a cyber-weapon that could quickly escape their control, a former military officer experienced in computer network operations said. These fears hark back to the first encounter with a rampant Internet virus, in 1988. A Cornell University student named Robert Morris manufactured a program that was intended to measure the size of the Internet but ended up replicating itself massively, infecting machines connected to the network.

The military took a lesson from the so-called Morris worm, the former officer said. Only four years after the war in Yugoslavia, planners again held off on releasing a potentially virulent weapon against Iraq. In the plan to disable the Iraqi banking network in advance of the U.S. invasion, the Pentagon determined that it might also bring down French banks and that the contagion could spread to the United States.

"It turns out that their computer systems extend well outside Iraq," a senior Air Force official told Aviation Week & Space Technology in March 2003. "We're also finding out that Iraq didn't do a good job of partitioning between the military and civilian networks. Their telephone and Internet operations are all intertwined. Planners thought it would be easy to get into the military through the telephone system, but it's all mixed in with the civilian [traffic]. It's a mess." This official said that to penetrate the military systems, the United States would risk what planners began calling "collateral computer network attack damage."

Because of the widespread damage that cyber-weapons can cause, military and intelligence leaders seek presidential authorization to use them. "They're treated like nuclear weapons, so of course it takes presidential approval," the former military officer said. McConnell, the ex-intelligence director, has compared the era of cyberwar to "the atomic age" and said that a coordinated attack on a power grid or transportation or banking systems "could create damage as potentially great as a nuclear weapon over time."

Unlike atomic bombs, however, cyber-weapons aren't destroyed in the attack. "Once you introduce them to the battlefield, it's trivially easy for the other side to capture your artillery, as it were, and then use it against you if you're not already inoculated against it, and then against other friendlies," said Ed Skoudis, a co-founder of the research and consulting firm InGuardians and an instructor with the SANS Institute, which trains government employees in cyber-security.

The risk of losing control of a weapon provides a powerful incentive not to use it. But until a new computer virus is spotted in the wilds of the Internet, no one can be certain how to repel it. That gives every aggressor the advantage of surprise. "Why would you expect an adversary to lay their cards on the table until it counts?" said Tom McDermott, a former deputy director of information security at the NSA. "Why would you expect to have seen the bad stuff yet?"

During his subcommittee testimony in May, Gen. Alexander was asked whether the United States needed the cyber-equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine, a set of clearly defined interests and the steps the government would take to protect them. Without offering any specific proposals, Alexander responded simply, "I do."

The Obama administration's former White House chief of cyber-security, Melissa Hathaway, has called for international cyberspace agreements. In a number of speeches in 2008 while still with the Bush administration, Hathaway proposed a Law of the Sea Treaty for the Internet, which, she said, is the backbone of global commerce and communications, just as the oceans were centuries ago.

The odds for a broad international framework aren't good, however. The Russian government has proposed a treaty limiting the use of cyber-weapons, but the State Department has rejected the idea, preferring to focus on improving defenses and prosecuting cyberattacks as crimes. Officials are also wary of any strategy by the Russian government to constrain other nations' ability to attack. In September, a panel of national security law experts convened by the American Bar Association and the National Strategy Forum, a Chicago-based research institute, concluded that the prospects for any multinational agreement are bleak. "The advantages of having a cyber-warfare capacity are simply too great for many international actors to abjure its benefits," the panel stated.

Students of cyberwar find parallels between the present day and the early 1960s, when the advent of intercontinental missiles ushered in not only the space age but also an arms race. Like outer space then, cyberspace is amorphous and opaque to most, and inspires as much awe as dread. In this historical analogy, experts have embraced a Cold War deterrent to prevent the cyber-Armageddon that military and intelligence officials have been warning about - mutually assured destruction.

Presumably, China has no interest in crippling Wall Street, because it owns much of it. Russia should be reluctant to launch a cyberattack on the United States because, unlike Estonia or Georgia, the U.S. could fashion a response involving massive conventional force. The United States has already learned that it makes no sense to knock out an enemy's infrastructure if it disables an ally's, and possibly America's own. If nations begin attacking one another's power grids and banks, they will quickly exchange bombs and bullets. Presumably, U.S. war planners know that. And it may be the most compelling reason to keep their cyber-weapons sharp but use them sparingly. source

Privacy: Microsoft Defends Hotmail's Logout Cookie Requirement - The Register (13 Nov 09)

Microsoft has said its new policy of requiring users to accept third party cookies to log out of Hotmail improves security.

We reported the change, which was applied earlier this month, yesterday.

Some readers who contacted El Reg said it raises the risk that accounts will be compromised on public machines, while others who do not allow third party cookies simply found the error message when they tried to log out irritating.

Angus Logan, the product manager for Windows Live ID, told The Register the use of third party cookies has two benefits.

"We write our cookies to multiple domains to give users a good experience with single sign-on, so they can be authenticated to multiple sites (e.g. MSN, Xbox Live, Windows Live, Bing) at once without having to retype their password," he said.

"[It also] helps protect user security, by separating the authentication cookies that are used for different services. If a cookie in one domain is compromised, it means that user assets in another domain won't be compromised."

Microsoft now uses third party cookies - more controversial than first-party ones because they allow tracking across multiple websites and services - for log out to check whether users are logged into more than one of its web services.

"During sign-in, we redirect to the right domain so that the cookies can be written in first-party context," Logan said.

"It's only during sign-out, where we need to clear cookies from potentially many domains that we have login.live.com clearing cookies in other domains via the invisible GIF solution (there's more info here). We are actually removing cookies in this scenario, but it's interpreted by browsers as using third party cookies."

Hotmail users who don't accept third party cookies must now shut down their browser to log out. source

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Spam: Campaign Targets Payment Transfer System - IDG News (13 Nov 09)

A new spam campaign is targeting a financial transfer system that handles trillions of dollars in transactions annually and has proved to be a fertile target of late for online fraudsters.

The spam messages pretend to come from the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA), a U.S. nonprofit association that oversees the Automated Clearing House system (ACH).

ACH is a widely used but aging system used by financial institutions for exchanging details of direct deposits, checks and cash transfers made by businesses and individuals. In 2002, ACH was used for nearly 9 billion transactions worth more than US$24.4 trillion.

Over the last few months, many businesses have lost money through ACH fraud, primarily when fraudsters obtain the authentication credentials required to transfer money. In many cases, significant portions of the fraudulent transfers are never recovered, and businesses are on the hook with their bank.

NACHA has no direct involvement in the processing of the payments, but spammers have nonetheless launched a spam campaign with messages purporting to be from the organization saying that an ACH payment has been rejected.

The spam messages have a link to a fake Web site that looks like NACHA's. The site asks the victim to download a PDF (portable document format) file, but it is actually an executable.

If launched, the executable will install Zbot, also known as Zeus, an advanced piece of banking malware that can harvest the authentication details required to initiate an ACH transaction, according to M86 Security. The spam campaign is coming from the Pushdo botnet, M86 said on its blog.

NACHA has put an advisory on its Web site, warning: "NACHA does not send communications to individuals or organizations about individual ACH transactions that they originate or receive."

There are a number of versions of the Zeus malware, which is periodically re-engineered in order to evade detection by antivirus software. As of Thursday, the version of Zeus being spammed was only detected by 16 of 41 antivirus suites, wrote Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama's computer and information sciences department.

Antivirus software is the first line of defense against malware like Zeus. However, malware writers can modify the file in order to make it undetectable for a while until the security companies see a sample and create a signature for it. It may take a few days before different security suites can detect it. By that time, the money may be gone. source

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Broadband: Lessons From The Land Of Cheap Broadband - Fortune (13 Nov 09)

NiQ Lai, chief financial officer of Hong Kong's City Telecom (CTEL), stopped by FORTUNE's San Francisco offices this week while on an investor tour. I had one question for him: Short of moving to Hong Kong, how can I get some of what he's selling?

I pay $25 to AT&T every month for DSL that tops out at 1.5 megabits per second downstream, and 384Kbps for uploads. It's not always as fast as advertised. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. Cable offers faster speeds in my neighborhood, but the service also costs more, so I just try to remember the days of dial-up modems and convince myself that DSL is good enough.

But if we had a US version of City Telecom, I'd switch in a heartbeat - which is precisely what the residents of Hong Kong have been doing lately.

City Telecom's 400,000 customers pay $13 a month for 100 megabit synchronous broadband. And they get a money-back guarantee: If they don't clock 80% of the promised speed, the company pays them twice their monthly fee.

"We have a big hairy audacious goal," says Lai, referring to the term popularized by "Good to Great" author Jim Collins. "We want to be the largest IP service provider in Hong Kong by 2016. And three years into our strategy, we're well on our way to doing it."

If you live within coverage area of Verizon's FiOS service, you pay as much as $150 a month for up to 50 megs downstream and 20 upstream.

How can City Telecom possibly offer service that's more than twice as fast at less than 10% of the price?

It's partly geography and partly vision. While Hong Kong has 7 million inhabitants, only a small fraction of the island's mountainous terrain is developed, which means everyone basically lives on top of each other. The population density is 16,380 people per square mile - versus 640 in Japan and 80 in the US. That makes every customer far cheaper to serve. "We have a phenomenal network built at $200 per home. Verizon is talking about a cost of north of $1,000 per home," Lai says. "We built ours at one-fifth the cost."

Of course building the network in the first place required vision. City Telecom was founded 17 years ago as an international calling-card company by two cousins who plowed in 100,000 Canadian dollars to get started. They could have leased lines to get into Internet-service business the way many carriers do, but that would have meant encountering the same last-mile bottleneck. So, they built their own $400 million network over a decade.

And now the company is on a tear. The largest IP service provider on Hong Kong, PCCW, has about 1 million customers, according to Lai, but is growing at a fraction of the pace. It added only 3,000 in the last six months, compared to 41,000 for City Telecom. PCCW recently slashed its prices to match City Telecom, but still can't come near the speeds. But can City Telecom really make a business out of cheap broadband?

Lia insists the company already has. "The network is cash flow positive since 07. We're debt free with 10% revenue growth and 30% EBITDA growth," he says. "Our stock is up 200% in 12 months, and the market is starting to realize what we're doing."

All that success, Lia adds, is a result of having a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and doing everything possible to achieve it. "The telecom industry tends to commoditize people. Our strategy is to commoditize bandwidth, to make 100 megabits the industry norm in Hong Kong," he says. "Our plan is to win by offering the best service at the lowest possible cost structure. Thirteen dollars is not a lot, but if you scale it and drive your cost base down, it's a beautiful business to be in."

If only some US telecom executives felt likewise. source

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Wi-Fi: MPAA Shuts Down Ohio Town's Muni Service - Coshocton Tribune (09 Nov 09)

A free service enjoyed by hundreds has been shut down due to illegal activity conducted by one individual.

"It's unfortunate that one person ruins it for those who use the service legitimately," said Commissioner Gary Fisher.

About five years ago, the county made a free wireless Internet connection available in the block surrounding the Coshocton County Courthouse at 318 Main St.

It was disabled last week after someone used the wireless local area network address to illegally download a movie.

The county's Internet Service Provider - OneCommunity - was notified by Sony Pictures Entertainment about the breach, and the county's Information Technology Department was in turn notified by OneCommunity.

Elizabeth Kaltman, vice president of corporate communications with the Motion Picture Association of America, said movie piracy is something the industry fights everyday.

"It's a very, very common occurrence all across the U.S., in towns big or small," she said.

Part of it could be due to a generation that's grown up with computers and the Internet.

"They're used to instant access and instant gratification," she said. "They have the philosophy 'if it's there, I can take it.'"

It's not true. There are many sites out there offering illegal movie and music downloads, but there's also a growing number of sites that offer video streaming legally. Those are available on the MPAA's Web site, Kaltman said. In addition to the recognizable names such as Netflix and Blockbuster, Disney Video, Fox on Demand, Cartoon Network and others have joined the instant download move.

"There are a growing number of ways to get the information they want legitimately," she said.

The MPAA focuses most of its efforts on catching the source of the movies, like pirates who illegally use a camcorder in a theater.

"We target piracy at its source," she said. "We really focus on keeping the product out of the market in the first place."

Illegal downloads would be prosecuted as a civil matter, she said, and could be subject to fines up to $150,000.

Mike LaVigne, IT director, said the number of people who access the Internet using the connection varies widely, from perhaps a dozen people a day to 100 during busy times such as First Fridays and the Coshocton Canal Festival.

It's used by Coshocton County Sheriff's deputies who can park in the 300 block and complete a traffic or incident report without leaving their vehicle. Out-of-town business people can park and use their laptops to make connections.

During festival times, vendors find it a convenience to check the status of credit cards being used to make purchases, LaVigne said.

Because it's a single address used by many people, it's difficult to tell who made the illegal download, although the county plans to investigate the matter .

Each of the 270 to 300 computers in the regular county system have password protected secure log-ins, and so could be readily identified if illegal activity had taken place at one of those locations. Its firewall also prevents access to illegal sites, said Commissioner Dane Shryock.

LaVigne has done some homework and found a program that would prevent the illegal downloads from happening in the future; however, it would cost the cash-strapped county about $2,900 to implement, $2,000 for equipment and then $900 annually for the filtering program.

Commissioners questioned whether the investment would be justified for the free service, but LaVigne said it could be put to use on the entire county system to monitor activity.

"It would be beneficial to both realms," he said.

This short-range service is entirely separate from the wireless broadband being deployed throughout the county by Lightspeed. source

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VoIP: Google Gives Voice To 'Open Standard Skype' - The Register (13 Nov 09)

Google has acquired VoIP startup Gizmo5, intending to roll the company's engineers into the team that develops the telephony application/controversy magnet known as Google Voice.

Whereas Gizmo5 offers Skype-like software for calling people over the interwebs, Google Voice is a special telephony thingy that lets you use a single phone number for multiple phones - and turn your voice mails into emails. "While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience," reads a post on the official Google Voice blog.

Google Voice is itself the child of an acquisition. It was first developed by GrandCentral, a startup Google gobbled up in 2007.

Last month, during Google's third-quarter earnings call, CEO Eric Schmidt told the world the company was pulling out its checkbook now that the recession is supposedly over. "We believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future," he said. The Gizmo5 buy marks the ad giant's second acquisition in the four weeks since.

Last week, Google said it would acquire the mobile advertising outfit AdMob in a deal worth $750 million. The company will use stock to purchase the company, before using cash to buy back $750 million in shares so that the deal won't dilute the value of its stock. This will be the first time the company has executed such a buy-back.

Google Voice sits at the heart of not one but two ongoing controversies. Google nemesis AT&T has argued that Voice violates Google's beloved net neutrality, while Apple is under investigation by the FCC for rejecting Voice's entry into its iPhone app store.

According to the Gizmo5 homepage, the VoIP service can already be used in tandem with Google Voice. Google has now closed Gizmo5 to new users, but existing users can continue to use the service. Existing users cannot, however, sign up for new call-in numbers.

Unlike Skype, the Gizmo5 network is based on open standards: the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). XMPP is what underpins Google Wave, the company's new-age communication and collaboration thingy. source

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AT&T: CWA Vows To Press On Temporary Workers - San Antonio Express-News (12 Nov 09)

Roughly eight months of wrangling between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America's regional district//http://district6.cwa-union.org/ that includes about 16,000 Texas workers came to an end Wednesday when union members ratified a new four-year contract.

While local union leaders expressed relief that a contract had finally been approved by members, not everyone was completely satisfied with the deal, as this Express-News story pointed out.

Union members, who ratified the contract with 59 percent of the vote, took issue with provisions concerning health care costs, which are set to jump by about 10 percent, and pay for leveraged service representatives. Under the new contract, those service representatives will get 60 percent of their wages guaranteed and the rest will be based on incentives.

Ralph Cortez - president of CWA Local 6143 in San Antonio, which represents 2,500 workers - said members also were displeased that premise technicians, who received an hourly bump of $3.25, were not guaranteed a 40-hour work week. Instead, AT&T guaranteed premise techs 32 hours a week with the potential for more if needed.

"My feelings are, Why can't we guarantee them 40 hours a week when we're already giving them 50 in some cases?" Cortez said. "It's tough to plan your life when they call and say you're only going to work 32 hours."

But he pointed out, "prior to this contract they weren't even guaranteed 32 hours."

The issue of making temporary workers full time also was a sticking point, Cortez said.

In San Antonio, close to 100 temporary workers - whose jobs vary from service technicians to cable splicers, for example - were given full-time gigs under the new contract. But 29 others were not offered permanent positions with the company, Cortez said.

"I'm going to personally continue to work with the company to change their status," Cortez said. source

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AT&T Mobility: 'Sets The Record Straight' On Verizon Wireless Ads - DSLReports (13 Nov 09)

AT&T and Verizon's fight over 3G coverage maps just keeps rolling along, with Verizon recently running new ads that mock AT&T's wireless network, and AT&T lawyers working very hard yesterday to get those advertisements pulled by the courts. The decision to fight the ads doesn't seem to be all that wise, given the debate has simply managed to push the ads (and AT&T's recent network issues) further into the spotlight.

That said, AT&T has issued an entirely new press release that "sets the record straight" on AT&T's dispute with big red.

"As the U.S. market leader in wireless data service, we typically don't respond to competitors' advertising," insists AT&T, but "recent ads from Verizon are so blatantly false and misleading, that we want to set the record straight about AT&T's wireless data coverage."

AT&T's complaint all along has been that Verizon's ads, which use maps to highlight AT&T's limited 3G footprint (clearly labeled as "3G coverage"), give the false impression that AT&T doesn't offer service outside of their 3G footprint. To that end, AT&T is now reminding its customers that the company's 2.5G/EDGE network reaches the majority of Americans. Whether you think that's a good thing or not of course depends on your personal experience with AT&T's EDGE network.

"The EDGE network -- that as you know lets customers do all of the same things that they do in 3G areas - apart from a difference in speed - reaches 97% of the country's population, about 296 million people," AT&T's Seth Bloom tells us. "In total with our networks, we hit 300 million people, or 98% of the population with wireless data," says Bloom, who goes on to say that's "certainly not the impression left by the misleading ads."

Again though, AT&T's complaints simply bring additional attention to Verizon's ads, something we're sure Verizon doesn't mind. source

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Verizon Wireless: The $1.99 Phantom Fee Returns - New York Times (12 Nov 09)

Starting next week, Verizon will double the early-termination fee for smartphones. That is, if you get a BlackBerry, Android or similar phone from Verizon, and you decide to switch phones before your two-year contract is up, you'll be socked with a $350 penalty (it used to be $175).

This fee drops slowly over time ($10 a month), but after two years, it's still $110. If the premise of the early-termination fee is to help Verizon recoup its original cost of the phone (see my analysis here), shouldn't the fee go down to zero at the end of your contract?

This move doesn't help Verizon's reputation for steep pricing and aggressive gouging.

What bothers me more, though, is another bit of greedy nastiness that readers both inside and outside Verizon have noticed.

Here's one example, from a Verizon customer:

"David, I read your posts about how the cell carriers are eating up our airtime with those 15-second 'To page this person, press 5' instructions, but I think Verizon has a bigger scam going on: charging for bogus data downloads.

"Virtually every bill I get has a couple of erroneous data charges at $1.99 each - yet we download no data.

"Here's how it works. They configure the phones to have multiple easily hit keystrokes to launch 'Get it now' or 'Mobile Web' - usually a single key like an arrow key. Often we have no idea what key we hit, but up pops one of these screens. The instant you call the function, they charge you the data fee. We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn't matter; they've told me that ANY data - even one kilobyte - is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.

"Imagine: if my one account has 1 to 3 bogus $1.99 charges per month for data that I don't download, how much are they making from their 87 million other customers? Not a bad scheme. All by simply writing your billing algorithm to bill a full MB when even a few bits have moved."

As it turns out, my correspondent is quite correct. My last couple of Verizon phones did indeed have non-reprogrammable, dedicated keys for those ridiculously overpriced "Get it now"-type services that I would never use in a million years.

At about the same time, I got a note from a reader who says he actually works at Verizon, and he's annoyed enough about the practice to blow the whistle:

"The phone is designed in such a way that you can almost never avoid getting $1.99 charge on the bill. Around the OK button on a typical flip phone are the up, down, left, right arrows. If you open the flip and accidentally press the up arrow key, you see that the phone starts to connect to the web. So you hit END right away. Well, too late. You will be charged $1.99 for that 0.02 kilobytes of data. NOT COOL. I've had phones for years, and I sometimes do that mistake to this day, as I'm sure you have. Legal, yes; ethical, NO.

"Every month, the 87 million customers will accidentally hit that key a few times a month! That's over $300 million per month in data revenue off a simple mistake!

"Our marketing, billing, and technical departments are all aware of this. But they have failed to do anything about it - and why? Because if you get 87 million customers to pay $1.99, why stop this revenue? Customer Service might credit you if you call and complain, but this practice is just not right.

"Now, you can ask to have this feature blocked. But even then, if you one of those buttons by accident, your phone transmits data; you get a message that you cannot use the service because it's blocked - BUT you just used 0.06 kilobytes of data to get that message, so you are now charged $1.99 again!

"They have started training us reps that too many data blocks are being put on accounts now; they're actually making us take classes called Alternatives to Data Blocks. They do not want all the blocks, because 40% of Verizon's revenue now comes from data use. I just know there are millions of people out there that don't even notice this $1.99 on the bill."

Well.

Look, it's very simple.

The more Verizon gouges, the worse it looks. Every single day, I get e-mail from people saying they're switching at the first opportunity, or would if they could. In time, the only people who will stay with Verizon are people who have no coverage with any other carrier.

Every company's dream, right? A base of miserable customers who stick with you only because they have no choice.

I realize that it's a business, that Verizon exists to make money. But the part I don't get is, why doesn't Verizon calculate the business cost of making customers unhappy? Surely some accountant can show that customer anger over these fees and dirty button tricks translate into negative corporate image, and therefore lost business.

Why wouldn't it be a hugely profitable move to start pitching yourself as the GOOD cell company, the one that actually LIKES its customers?

Here are four baby steps: (1) Let us bypass the 15 seconds of pointless voice mail instructions (Verizon is the only carrier who never responded to my campaign; see here).

(2) Make your early-termination fee reflect your actual cost, rather than being a profit center in its own right.

(3) If a data connection is obviously an error - under 10 seconds, say - don't bill for it.

(4) And for heaven's sake, quit imposing your own profit-center buttons on our cellphone designs. If we want to go online for $2 a megabyte, we'll find a way. source

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Wireless: iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. Droid vs. Pre - InfoWorld (12 Nov 09)

The latest Android 2.0-based "iPhone killer" won't kill the iPhone or the BlackBerry - and the cheaper HTC Droid Eris is the new smartphone that I think Apple should be concerned about. But there are now six smartphones on the market that will appeal to business and professional users, each with different strengths and weaknesses.

This article gives InfoWorld's ratings for all six - the Apple iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Research in Motion BlackBerry Bold, and RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 - plus an interactive ratings form in which you can enter your own weighting for each category in our exclusive Mobile Deathmatch Calculator and get a customized score for each smartphone.

Our buying advice is simple:

* If you want a mobile device that takes full advantage of Web connectivity, applications, and personal media that you can also use for business connectivity such as e-mail and calendaring, get the iPhone, even with the inferiority of AT&T's 3G network.

* If you're subject to high security requirements, such as for regulatory compliance, need to manage lots of devices, or just can't handle using a touch-based screen keyboard, you want the BlackBerry Bold, which is available from several U.S. carriers.

* If you can't stand the thought of using the AT&T 3G network and don't need to access corporate e-mail (outside of POP and IMAP mail servers), you want the HTC Droid Eris, which, like the Motorola Droid, is available only from Verizon Wireless.

The WebOS-based Palm Pre was innovative last spring but has been bested by the new generation of Android devices. (Its sole U.S. carrier, Sprint, appears to have moved on from the Pre, now focusing on Android devices.) The Motorola Droid's keyboard is unusable, and the lack of multitouch support in its included apps makes its few technical advantages over the HTC Droid Eris - basically, a few extra security features - a lousy bargain. The BlackBerry Storm 2 was supposed to fix an unusable clickable touchscreen in the original version, but the solution doesn't address the core issue: Tapping is very slow on the screen, to the point that sustained text entry is out of the question. It's not surprising that within weeks of its release, carriers are selling it as part of two-for-one specials.

Windows Mobile and Nokia Symbian devices are also out of the picture. Microsoft's long-delayed Windows 7 Mobile remains vaporware, and making purchase decisions on Microsoft's promise is foolhardy. Nokia's Symbian OS has evolved slowly in the last decade and simply isn't in the same league as modern mobile OSes; Nokia knows that and has a plan to move - over several years - to a new OS called Maemo. Someday we'll see what Maemo has to offer; in the meantime, Nokia has been unable to get U.S. carriers to sell its smartphones. source

Security: Microsoft Probing Windows 7 Zero-Day Hole - CNet (11 Nov 09)

Microsoft said on Wednesday it is looking into a report of a vulnerability in Windows 7 and Server 2008 Release 2 that could be used by an attacker to remotely crash the computer.

The company is investigating claims of a "possible denial-of-service vulnerability in Windows Server Message Block (SMB)", the Microsoft spokesperson said, adding that the company was unaware of any attacks trying to exploit the hole.

The bug triggers an infinite loop on the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol used for sharing files in Windows, researcher Laurent Gaffié wrote in a posting on the Full-Disclosure mailing list and on a blog.

"Whatever your firewall is set to, you can get remotely smashed via IE or even via some broadcasting NBNS [NetBIOS Naming Service] tricks," Gaffié wrote.

Gaffié also posted proof-of-concept code for the "Windows 7, Server 2008R2 Remote Kernel Crash".

On Tuesday, Microsoft issued six patches to fix 15 vulnerabilities, including a critical hole in the Windows kernel, as part of November's Patch Tuesday. source

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Security: Apple Patches Safari - CNet (11 Nov 09)

Apple released a security update for its Safari Web browser on Wednesday. Available for Windows and Mac, Safari 4.0.4 plugs what sound like moderate to severe security holes. Unlike competitors Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome, Apple doesn't rate the severity of its security fixes.

The security fixes address a wide range of problem points. On both Windows and Mac, parsing maliciously written XML content could have led to a browser crash, using shortcut menu options within a maliciously created Web site could have led to the disclosure of local information, and visiting a maliciously built Web site could have resulted in unexpected actions on other opened Web sites.

For Windows only, viewing a maliciously made image with an embedded color profile that could lead to a browser crash or running arbitrary code is no longer a threat, nor is accessing a maliciously crafted FTP server, which could have led to an unexpected crash, information disclosure, or arbitrary code execution. For Mac only, an exploit that could have allowed e-mail to remotely load audio and video content when loading a remote image has been disabled.

Although it's good practice to update a program whenever a security fix has been released, more transparency from Apple on the matter would pull the company up to competitors' standards.

Click here to read the full changelog for Safari 4.0.4. source

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ISPs: AOL's Mass Layoffs Will Cost $200 Million - All Things Digital (12 Nov 09)

AOL formally acknowledged that it plans on a round of very large cuts: In a filing with the SEC, the Time Warner unit said it plans on taking up to $200 million in restructuring charges through the first half of 2010.

Earlier this week, Kara Swisher reported that AOL's coming spinoff would be followed by layoffs of up to 1,000 employees.

Some perspective: As I noted last week, AOL has already spent $83 million on separate restructuring efforts through the first 9 months of this year. And parent company Time Warner has said it will spend $100 million on its restructuring/mass layoffs at its Time Inc. publishing unit. source

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AT&T: Consumer Bundle Hangs On Video, But Mobile Differentiates - Telephony Online (11 Nov 09)

Giving customers a better TV experience than competitors is the most important part of a consumer bundled service strategy, but including mobile service into that strategy can provide an edge against cable providers, Jeff Weber, AT&T's vice president of video products, told a keynote crowd at the TelcoTV show [Wednesday].

Win the customer on your video service, he said, and the other services will likely follow. More than 90% of AT&T's video subscribers also subscribe to its broadband service, and more than 60% subscribe to its voice-over-IP service.

"Customers make the decision based on TV, which is why it's so important to have better TV than your competitors," Weber said. "When they make the decision on TV, broadband and voice - to the extent they want it - comes with it. You have to be great in TV."

Weber left out wireless service in that description, admitting later that, as VP of video products, he sees AT&T as "a TV company with a little wireless on the side" and that some of his coworkers might see it the other way around.

But Weber did include the iPhone as part of the U-Verse TV experience, pointing to the app for remote DVR control and that for AT&T's live mobile coverage of the US Masters golf tournament. And he said extending DVR control and TV-based applications to mobile devices in particular is an offering that is hard to match for cable competitors.

Weber pointed to DVR features as a key way to improve that all-important video experience: the ability to not only consume DVR content on multiple devices but control them from multiple devices. DVR consumption is rising rapidly because AT&T made these things easy to do, Weber said.

He also pointed to applications such as the integrated fantasy football application from Yahoo! Sports and the recent Dallas Mavericks game for which AT&T let users control their own camera angle.

"The feeds are already coming in," he said. "We're just playing with software. But as a customer, I have a much deeper experience with the game." source

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Wireless: Booming Gray Market Threatens Handset Industry - BusinessWeek (11 Nov 09)

Gray is the new black. Just as trafficking in black market goods has eroded sales of consumer electronics, a burgeoning "gray" market for cheap look-alike cell phones now threatens the wireless handset industry.

Just ask the folks at China Unicom and Apple. When China Unicom recently began offering Apple's iPhone for as much as $1,172, the company sold a measly 5,000 units its first weekend, according to Reuters. By contrast, when the iPhone 3GS was released in the U.S. earlier this year, it sold more than 1 million units in its first weekend. At full price, the phone flopped.

Part of the reason is that since 2007, the Chinese market has been flooded with iPhones sold in other countries and then modified, or "unlocked" so they work on other networks, before being sold for as little as $650. In other cases, Chinese consumers had already purchased low-priced, repurposed used phones.

But much of the blame lies with a burgeoning gray market for copycat phones, often made to look like the real thing but sold for a fraction of the price. "Anyone who'd buy an iPhone from China Unicom is insane," says Charlie Wolf, senior analyst at Needham. Fewer than 5% of Chinese can afford China Unicom's iPhones, says Neil Mawston, an analyst at consultant Strategy Analytics.

Lackluster iPhone sales dealt a blow to China Unicom, which hoped the iPhone would boost subscriber growth the way it helped AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone provider. It was also bad news for Apple as it tries to forge ties to wireless carriers in new countries, beyond the 64 where the iPhone is already sold.

The gray market extends well beyond China, however. In Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and even the U.S., handset clones are on the march. Gray market phones may resemble the real thing but don't carry warranties, and their makers often don't pay licensing fees to such component makers as Qualcomm. Gray market phone shipments from China are up 43.6%, to 145 million units, this year, according to estimates by consultant iSuppli. They now constitute 13% of the global legal handset supply. In contrast, worldwide unit shipments of legitimate cell phones will decline 8% this year.

Many knockoffs are made in small factories across Asia. "You have all these little workshops, and they do some extremely creative things" to adapt phones to local markets, says Frank Meehan, CEO of cell phone maker INQ, which supplies carriers such as Hutchison Whampoa. "There are hundreds of them [in China], and they are springing up in India."

In the coming years, some smaller workshops could morph into larger enterprises turning out legitimate goods and competing with Nokia, Apple, and Samsung. "What's going to happen is, as these players develop the expertise, some of these players will start to enter the legal market," says Jagdish Rebello, senior director at iSuppli. "Legal handset manufacturers are extremely concerned."

Some gray market handsets carry names similar to the mainstream brands but often don't work as well. "We discourage the use of phones acquired through unknown channels for a very simple reason: doing so may ultimately saddle the consumer with an incomplete experience and raise the possibility that what they are buying through gray markets is not a genuine Motorola product," Motorola said in a statement. Apple and China Unicom didn't respond to requests for comment.

In another trend that may erode revenue for handset manufacturers, sales of used phones have picked up as well. At CellularCountry.com, sales are up 3% to 5% this year, says CEO Doug Morgen. In fact, the Huntington Beach (Calif.) site, which currently sells 10,000 phones a month, is looking to open physical stores in California and Europe in the next six to 12 months. "Business is good," Morgen says. "People are starting to buy more used; they need to cut their bills."

To combat all these players, handset manufacturers have long tried suing gray market phone makers and various distributors. Others are starting to pressure component suppliers, such as MediaTek, believed by analysts to supply gray market phone makers. MediaTek did not return a request for comment.

But mainstream manufacturers and carriers may need to adapt their strategies to this changing marketplace instead and strive for agility, lower prices, and product innovation. "It's very hard to fight it in courts," INQ's Meehan says. "They just need to get leaner and meaner. Look, it's just competition at the end of the day." source

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Wireless: R U Txting 2 Much? - Los Angeles Times (12 Nov 09)

Hunched over their cellphones and hand-held computers, people text all day long, fingers busily pressing out messages like, "R U OK?".

All that stooping and digit-moving may have some physiological consequences, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting and exposition this week of the American Public Health Assn. in Philadelphia.

In the preliminary study, researchers sent out a questionnaire to 138 college students asking how many texts they sent per day. The survey also included a body map. They found a link between higher numbers of text messages and feeling discomfort in the shoulders. After separating the study group by gender, the association was seen more strongly in men than in women.

Although researchers stressed that more investigation needs to be done, they added that it might be a good idea to keep an eye on musculoskeletal symptoms among people who use hand-held computers.

"What we've seen so far is very similar to what we see with office workers who've spent most of their time at a computer," lead author Judith Gold said in a news release. Gold is assistant professor of epidemiology at the College of Health Professions and Social Work at Temple University in Philadelphia. "The way the body is positioned for texting -- stationary shoulders and back with rapidly moving fingers -- is similar to the position for typing on a computer," she added. Although text messaging hasn't been around that long, health experts are familiar with repetitive stress injuries from computer overuse.

"Looking around our campus, you see every student on their cellphones, typing away," Gold said. "It's the age group that texts the most, so it's important to know what the health effects may be to learn whether it will cause long-term damage." source

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Wireless: Powering Cell Phone Towers With Wind - CNet (11 Nov 09)

Helix Wind announced Wednesday that it's beginning a trial run in Southern California to see if its wind turbines might be useful for powering cell phone towers.

The manufacturer is becoming known for its small vertical-axis wind turbines that can generate electricity with winds as low as 10 mph, as well as its unique business model to finance them.

The pilot program, conducted in conjunction with cell phone tower operator Core Communications, will experiment with whether the turbines powering cell phone towers could also generate surplus energy to sell back to the energy grid.

If they generate enough surplus power, small wind turbines could provide a new source of income for cell phone tower operators as well as a new power source.

Helix Wind's turbines, which will be installed in early 2010, will run for up to three months before being re-evaluated.

According to statistics provided by Helix Wind, there are approximately 3,500 cell phone towers in Southern California, and another 1,000 expected to be added in the next five years to cover consumer growth. source

Security: Microsoft's Patch Tuesday Targets Fewer Holes - InternetNews (10 Nov 09)

Microsoft released patches Tuesday for five critical bugs in Windows, although none affect the newly released Windows 7, unlike last month's roundup of fixes.

November's patch drop promised to be a much smaller release than in several recent months when Microsoft gave administrators advance notice last Thursday.

For instance, Microsoft last month fielded the largest assortment of bug fixes in its history. The record prior to that came in June.

All in all, Microsoft released a total of six patches, three of them ranked "critical" on Microsoft's four-tier severity scale. Critical is the highest threat level, followed by "important."

While Windows 7 is off the menu today, one of the newest patches does impact Windows Server 2008, which shares a majority of its code with the new desktop operating system.

Unlike several recent bug fixes, though, only one of the bugs repaired in this month's patch drop ended up as a so-called zero-day attack. Microsoft said in its security bulletin that while the bug had been responsibly disclosed to Microsoft, by the time it had prepared a patch, details of the exploit were already circulating on the Web.

That bug - known as the Embedded OpenType font kernel vulnerability - is the most important one to patch right away, according to Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager at Symantec Security Response.

"Not only is proof-of-concept exploit code publicly available, but all that's required of a user to become infected by it is simply viewing a compromised Web page," Greenbaum said in an e-mail to InternetNews.com.

Sheldon Malm, senior director of security strategy at Rapid7, agrees. This flaw "is the top priority this month, with three vulnerabilities rolling up to remote code execution against XP, 2000, and Server 2003 [and] elevation of privilege against Vista and Server 2008," Malm said in an e-mail.

Two other critical bugs fixed by the same patch have not yet been used in attacks in the wild as of the patches' release, Microsoft said in its security bulletins.

A second patch in today's Patch Tuesday installment fixes a critical bug in a part of Windows known as Web Services on Devices. It affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

"Web Services on Devices enables a Windows client to discover and access remote devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and computer peripherals, including printers and cameras, as well as consumer electronics," Microsoft's security bulletin said. There have been no attacks so far via that potential exploit, it added.

The third critical patch fixes a hole in Windows' License Logging service, a server-based product that helps administrators keep track of software licenses. However, the logging service fix only impacts Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 - the last supported version of the nearly decade-old operating system.

Besides the critical bugs, Microsoft also patched a hole in Active Directory that is rated "important" and which could result in a denial of service attack that could crash the service.

Finally, the company issued two patches that fix multiple important flaws in Microsoft Office - specifically in Excel and Word. The Excel bugs affect Office XP up through Office 2007, while the Word bug impacts XP through Office 2003.

Microsoft has posted the security bulletins and their associated patches here. source

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Security: Apple Ships 50+ Security Updates - Washington Post (10 Nov 09)

Apple has shipped a large security update for computers running its Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems for the Mac. The bundle contains security fixes for more than 50 vulnerabilities, including updates for components like Adaptive Firewall, FTP server, QuickTime and Spotlight.

The update applies to Snow Leopard (10.6.x) and Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8) systems, as well as OS X Server versions of these operating systems. Users can grab the patches directly from Apple Downloads or via the Mac's built-in Software Update feature.

Some of the individual fixes in these bundles are interesting in their own right. For example, Apple said that a vulnerability in Snow Leopard's Login Window could let a user log in to any account without supplying a password. Another update, this one for a bug in Leopard' Dictionary program, is limited to users on the local network, but gives a whole new meaning to the term "dictionary attack"; Apple said a maliciously crafted Javascript could allow a user on the local network to drop hostile code on another Mac user's system.

Read more about the individual updates here. source

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Broadband: Time Warner Cable CEO Britt Still Dreams Of Metered Future - DSLReports (11 Nov 09)

Time Warner Cable has been pretty quiet ever since they tried to force a pricey new metered billing broadband model on their customers, who saw the move for what it was (a money grab), generated a national media firestorm, and collectively sent the company running for the hills.

That victory essentially put all ISPs who are interested in this model (again, not to be confused with value, or true per byte billing) into a holding pattern.

It's pretty clear from interviews this week that Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt still dreams of imposing expensive overage fees on his customers:

"Our physical plant is very capable and we invest in it in a steady way, so I think we're able to keep up with demand. I think the other question you're really raising is who pays ... is an evolving thing. Also the history has been everybody pays the same for unlimited access. I suspect that will change going forward to some more usage based model, but that in itself is controversial so we'll have to see what happens."

Earlier this year, Britt and Time Warner Cable executives spent months scaring people with tales of Internet brownouts, arguing that a flat-rate business model they've made a fortune off of was not profitable, and proclaiming that customers really wanted metered billing despite unprecedented, Internet-wide public backlash. When the execs finally did back off the plan, they heaped the blame on their customers - arguing that they were simply confused and needed "education".

You can tell from Britt's quote that his mindset really hasn't seen a course correction. The question of "who pays" for Time Warner Cable's network upgrades ignores, again, that Time Warner Cable already makes more than enough money to upgrade to relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.0 technology. However, he's at least aware of the "controversial" nature of the company's decision - so perhaps the company's second expected push toward low caps and high overage fees has been mothballed- for now. source

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Broadband: Is Verizon DSL Hanging Up On Rural America? - DSLReports (10 Nov 09)

Consumer Group Free Press takes a few shots at Verizon's inconsistent positions on rural broadband, noting that while the baby bell continually claims to support getting broadband into the nation's rural nooks and crannies, their actions of late say the complete opposite.

Forget FiOS - the new Verizon is uninterested in delivering even DSL or phone service to most rural markets, which is why they're continually selling off these markets in tricky tax loophole leaping deals that usually wind up badly for the consumer and the sold markets:

"In sum, Verizon's new business strategy is offloading its rural customers to small (now debt-ridden) companies tax free because it can't be bothered with rural America anymore, preferring to focus on those high-paying urban and suburban customers."

Verizon's justification of course is that rural America is costly to wire. That doesn't mean rural America can't be profitable - it's just not profitable enough, quickly enough for impatient Verizon executives and shareholders. The telco is now trying to get regulatory approval for their latest sale of customers to Frontier Communications, and in a filing with the FCC essentially argues that Frontier will do a better job than Verizon ever did at treating rural customers well:

"As of June 20, 2009, Verizon offered broadband service to approximately 62.5% of the customers in these service areas. By contrast, as of that time, Frontier offered broadband to about 92% of its customer base, even though those areas are on average even more rural than the new Frontier areas."

Of course Verizon couldn't care less about these markets post sale or whether they ever see service - their interest is in the huge tax write off and debt dump these Reverse Morris Trust//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Morris_trust deals usually provide. The company gets it all with these deals - they get to claim a deep respect for rural customers, yet fail to actually service them with broadband service.

After decades of neglecting the infrastructure in some of their less sexy states, Verizon now gets to use their own deployment failures as evidence why these deals make so much sense moving forward. As a nice little cherry on top, Verizon gets a huge tax break and debt relief.

But as Fairpoint and Hawaii Telcom customers found out, the companies that wind up buying these discarded Verizon markets are usually so laden with debt from Verizon's fancy financial footwork, they can't afford to upgrade the network. After deals are approved by lazy regulators (most of whom are in Verizon's pocket), the companies either slide into bankruptcy or stumble their way through mediocrity. source

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WiMax: Clearwire Claims 173,000 Users - CIO (11 Nov 09)

Wireless broadband provider Clearwire had about 173,000 WiMax subscribers at the end of September and should be able to offer service to 120 million potential subscribers in the U.S. by the end of next year, the company said Tuesday.

The count of WiMax subscribers covers both markets where Clearwire is setting up shop for the first time with its WiMax service, called Clear, and those where the new technology replaced earlier pre-WiMax wireless broadband networks, according to company spokesman Mike DiGioia. It includes subscribers who bought the service from Clearwire as well as from resellers such as Sprint Nextel and Comcast. The figure was disclosed in the company's financial results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30.

Clearwire is constructing the first national 4G (fourth-generation) mobile data network across the U.S. using WiMax, building it out in advance of planned networks from bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T that will be based on the rival LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology. Clearwire claims its WiMax network can deliver between 4Mb per second (Mbps) and 6Mbps to subscribers at home and around covered areas.

"We continue to believe that we are in the right place at the right time," said CEO Bill Morrow. "We will gain our fair share of this brand-new market opportunity."

Executives said on a conference call Tuesday that the carrier is on track to put its WiMax network within range of about 30 million U.S. residents this year and 120 million by the end of 2010. Earlier in the day, it had announced more than US$1.5 billion in new funding from key partner companies.

Majority owner Sprint Nextel, along with Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Eagle River Holdings, invested a total of $1.564 billion in exchange for newly issued Clearwire shares. Along with new debt that Clearwire also said it plans to issue, the company should raise virtually all the capital it needs to reach its year-end 2010 goal, executives said on a conference call about Clearwire's third-quarter financial results. It has approximately $2 billion in cash and short-term investments now.

Morrow cautioned analysts on the conference call not to read anything into the fact that Google, which was an initial investor in Clearwire, didn't participate in the latest funding round. Google is still actively involved with Clearwire, he said.

Clearwire lost about $82 million in the quarter. Revenue was nearly $69 million, up 13 percent from a year earlier, Clearwire said. The company already counted about 555,000 subscribers worldwide in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, with most of those using the pre-WiMax networks.

At the end of the quarter, Clearwire was selling WiMax service in 13 markets, including Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Portland, Oregon. Within those 13 markets, the company said it added 49,000 net new WiMax subscribers in the quarter. Overall, its subscriber ranks grew by only 44,000, because the pre-WiMax networks lost customers, the company said. Clearwire said it has cut back on marketing for its older networks. source

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AT&T: To Pay 270 Missouri Cities $48 Million In Back Taxes - St Louis Post-Dispatch (11 Nov 09)

Just in time for the holidays, 270 Missouri cities will be getting $48.75 million as a result of an order by St. Louis Circuit Judge Edward Sweeney.

The order, received Tuesday by attorneys, approves a settlement reached by AT&T and the cities, and ends five years of litigation over back taxes on AT&T's landline services.

John F. Mulligan Jr., a lawyer who filed the class-action suit, said the money would be available by Dec. 30, exactly five years from the date the suit was filed.

Among the cities here getting the most money are St. Charles, $1.33 million; Chesterfield, $1.1 million; Clayton, $999,760; and University City, $873,981. St. Louis County is getting $4.6 million.

Webster Groves Mayor Gerry Welch, whose city will receive $477,429, said the money would be welcome.

"Especially now , given the downturn in the economy and the lower tax revenue, this will be extremely helpful in maintaining municipal services," she said.

The settlement approved by the judge was for $65 million, with 25 percent - $16.25 million - for attorneys' fees. That will be split among Mulligan, Howard Paperner and attorneys for the firm of Korein Tillery. Mulligan is city attorney for U. City, and Paperner is city attorney for Maryland Heights and other municipalities.

The suit alleged that AT&T underpaid business taxes on land lines. AT&T responded that certain revenue streams were properly excluded from being taxed, given the wording of the ordinances.

AT&T will pay the cities an estimated $10 million a year in future years because of the settlement. The cities agreed not to challenge AT&T's right to pass along some of the costs to consumers. AT&T said it would not pass on to customers any of the costs related to attorneys' fees.

Jeffrey Lewis, general attorney and associate general counsel for AT&T Missouri, said: "This was a hard fought case and we believe it's a fair settlement for all the parties in the settlement. We're glad we're finally able to resolve this with the cities and move forward." source

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AT&T: Ready For Tropical Storm Ida - Huliq (10 Nov 09)

Tropical Storm Ida was located about 30 miles east-southeast of Mobile, Alabama or about 25 miles west-northwest of Pensacola, Florida at approximately 9am CST. Even though the winds are diminishing, there will still be heavy rains and AT&T today announced it stands ready with an arsenal of disaster response equipment and personnel for a quick response post-landfall.

AT&T has invested more than $500 million in its Network Disaster Response (NDR) organization. This includes more than 600 technology and equipment trailers that can be quickly deployed anywhere worldwide to respond to a disaster situation, such as a severe hurricane.

With Ida moving quickly from hurricane to tropical storm - and soon a tropical depression - the AT&T response equipment may not be necessary, but it is a comfort to many who have been through some debilitating storms to know that AT&T is fully prepared for this type of disaster.

AT&T has recently opened of a third NDR equipment warehouse in the Southeast. With the threat of heavy rains and flooding in the near future for Georgia, AT&T is now prepared in the event that the state of Georgia experiences some backlash in Ida's trail.

AT&T continues to make sure that there is the installation of more back-up and permanent generators at critical cell sites and switching facilities in the areas hardest hit by hurricanes and natural disasters.

NDR is responsible for the rapid recovery of service at AT&T network sites following catastrophic events. source

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Verizon: $1.75 Million In Refunds To Florida Customers For Poor Service - Miami Herald (11 Nov 09)

Telephone giant Verizon Florida agreed to refund customers $1.75 million and pay the state another $250,000 Tuesday as a result of a settlement agreement with the state's utility regulators who wanted to punish the company for poor service.

At the urging of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollumn and AARP, the Public Service Commission in January accused Verizon of failing to restore land-line phone service to customers in 2007 and 2008 and for failing to provide discounts to customers eligible for the state's Lifeline program, the financial assistance program for the elderly and low-income Floridians.

A PSC analysis found that Verizon failed to follow through on repairs on its land-line phones, resulting in extended phone service outages for customers. There were 262 apparent violations in 2007 and 194 in 2008.

The commission agreed to split the $250,000 going to the state, with $125,000 given to promote Lifeline Assistance - a discount telephone program that gives eligible customers credits of up to $13.50 per month on local phone bills - and $125,000 given to the state's General Revenue Fund. The money given to Lifeline was sought by the Legislature's Hispanic Caucus in a letter to the commission on Monday from caucus chairman Rep. Steve Bovo, R-Hialeah.

Verizon also agreed to provide Lifeline discounts to all eligible customers who request the discount and receive regulated telecommunications service packages. Verizon had previously denied Lifeline discounts to customers who purchased the company's bundled packages. Verizon customers eligible for Lifeline service should contact the company, or visit the PSC's website to sign up, www.floridapsc.com. source

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Verizon Wireless: Higher ETFs Annoy US Senator - DSLReports (10 Nov 09)

As we mentioned last week, starting November 15 Verizon will be doubling the early termination fee for smartphones from $175 to $350. The move is aimed largely at preventing people from turning around and making a profit on devices like the new Motorola Droid on eBay, but also to well, make money.

Calling the move "anti-consumer and anti-competitive," Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar has written a letter to Verizon executives and the FCC complaining of the shift.

From her letter to Verizon:

"Although Verizon Wireless will pro-rate the ETF by $10 a month, under the company’s new plan, the penalty for leaving the contact halfway through a two-year contract would be $230 - still higher than the $175 ETF Verizon Wireless previously charged for these phones. I remain concerned that ETFs - especially at these high prices - unfairly penalize consumers, bear little to no relationship to the cost of the handset device, and are anti-consumer and anti-competitive."

It's an interesting time for Verizon's decision, given the FCC is currently poking around anti-competitive behavior in the wireless industry, exploring whether long-term exclusive handset deals or ETFs are used as anti-competitive weapons. Klobuchar previously introduced the Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act, which aimed to reduce and pro-rate ETFs.

Verizon, like Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T, has been hounded by class action and State Attorneys General lawsuits over their ETFs. To derail new regulation like Klocuhar's potential law, carriers ultimately changed their stripes, pro-rating their ETFs and introducing 30 day money back guarantee refund windows for consumers. Verizon's since wiggled away from some of these improvements. source

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BPOs: Sitel To Cut 270 Texas Jobs - Longview News-Journal (11 Nov 09)

Sitel telecommunications company plans to trim its workforce [in Longview, Texas] by about 270 local employees by the end of the year, according to John Stroud, executive director of Longview Economic Development Corp.

Stroud said he received word Tuesday that the company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter with Texas Workforce Commission letting them know of the planned job cuts. He said East Texas Workforce Solutions likely will be deployed to Sitel on Judson Road in Triple Creek Center to consult with affected workers and help them in finding new jobs or getting retrained.

Sitel is a Nashville, Tenn.-based company that contracts with other companies to provide telephone and Internet customer support services

"Sitel will be forced to terminate the employment of approximately 250 customer services representatives, 18 coaches and four learning specialists effective Dec. 31," Sitel Chief Human Resources Officer Michael Williams said in a letter to Gary Allen with the Longview offices of the Texas Workforce Commission. "We anticipate that the separations from this location may be permanent."

Randy Fowler, area director for East Texas Workforce Solutions, said he expects his office and representatives of Sitel will meet in the next few days to discuss how the agency can provide assistance to the workers.

Among the agency's goals is to help make the process of filing for unemployment insurance as "streamlined as possible" while also providing information on training.

Andrew Kokes, a corporate communications specialist with Sitel, said late Tuesday that the company gave eight weeks notice of the action.

That should give workers as much time as possible to prepare for this change in their employment status, Kokes said. He said Sitel will be working with other businesses and government agencies to assist the workers in finding new jobs.

The local operations lost a wireless customer contract, Site director Vicki Milner and vice president Don Runyan said in a letter to affected employees included with Sitel's WARN Act notice. Stroud said his understanding was the loss was due to a recent merger of two wireless telephone firms.

"They merged with a company that already had excess capacity," Stroud said. Milner and Runyan said most employees should qualify for unemployment compensation.

"We apologize for being unable to give you more notice," the letter to employees said. "Unfortunately, there was an unforeseen business circumstance — the call volume decreased unexpectedly and we just received notice of it."

Stroud said Sitel has between 400 and 500 local employees.

"We have been an active part of the Longview business community for a number of years so the decision to reduce our site here does not come easy," Milner said in a prepared statement. "This reduction is due to the changing business needs of our client and is in no way reflective of the quality of customer care provided by our associates."

Sitel has about 60,000 employees in 27 countries, officials said. source

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Odds & Ends: Adobe Eliminating 680 Jobs - MarketWatch (10 Nov 09)

Adobe Systems Inc. said Tuesday it's cutting 680 jobs, or 9% of its total workforce, in an effort to cut costs amid declining software sales.

Adobe said in a regulatory filing that the job cuts are related to a restructuring plan and will result in pre-tax charges of between $65 million and $71 million.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company said it plans to record between $18 million and $20 million of the charges in its fourth quarter ending this month.

Last month, Adobe closed a $1.8 billion acquisition of Web analytics firm Omniture Inc.

A spokeswoman for Adobe said the job cuts announced Tuesday are separate from an earlier, 9% reduction in headcount at Omniture, which had 1,200 employees at the close of the acquisition.

Adobe has struggled with sales of its flagship product, Creative Suite 4, which was released last year just as the economy began to slide into a recession.

In September, Adobe reported declines in third-quarter profit and sales, and issued an outlook at the low end of Wall Street's expectations. Adobe said at that time that revenue for the unit that includes Creative Suite 4 fell to $400.4 million from $493.6 million in the same period last year. source

Privacy: US Government Will Release Some Telco Wiretap Lobbying Documents - DSLReports (10 Nov 09)

A Federal Judge has demanded, three times now, that the Obama Administration hand over documents that highlight how major phone companies AT&T and Verizon lobbied for legal immunity for their involvement in the government's warrantless wiretap program.

The government, with no real legal footing to stand on, has now tried to delay that release three times in order to keep those documents out of the ongoing Congressional discussion about domestic wiretapping.

According to the EFF they're finally making headway, and some documents should be released this week:

...on Friday, the government reported to the appeals court that it has finally given up the fight over a significant portion of the records, including communications between agencies and Congress about amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). We expect to receive the documents later this week, and we will post them on the website as soon as we can after that.

In a very clear act of non-transparency, there's still a significant number of baby bell lobbying documents the government is protecting. The Obama administration also still plans to redact the identities of any specific companies from any documents they do release - and are not disclosing communications within the Executive Branch concerning telco lobbying. source

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Spam: Security Firm Chokes Sprawling Spam Botnet - The Register (10 Nov 09)

A botnet that was once responsible for an estimated third of the world's spam has been knocked out of commission thanks to researchers from security firm FireEye.

After carefully analyzing the machinations of the massive botnet, alternately known as Mega-D and Ozdok, the FireEye employees last week launched a coordinated blitz on dozens of its command and control channels. The channels were used to send new spamming instructions to the legions of zombie machines that make up the network.

Almost immediately, the spam stopped, according to M86 Security blog. Last year, the email security firm estimated the botnet was the leading source of spam until some of its servers were disabled.

The body blow is good news to ISPs that are forced to choke on the torrent of spam sent out by the pesky botnet. But because many email servers already deployed blacklists that filtered emails sent from IP addresses known to be used by Ozdok, end users may not notice much of a change, said Jamie Tomasello, an abuse operations manager at antispam firm Cloudmark.

The takedown effort is significant because it shows that a relatively small company can defeat a for-profit network that took extraordinary measures to ensure it remained operational. Not only did Ozdok reserve a long list of domain names as command and control channels, it also used hard-coded DNS servers. When all else failed, its software was able to dynamically generate new domain names on the fly.

With head chopped off of Ozdok, more than 264,000 IP addresses were found reporting to sinkholes under FireEye's control, an indicated of the massive number of zombies believed to have belonged to the botnet. FireEye researchers plan to work with the ISPs to identify the owners of the orphaned bots so their owners can clean up the mess.

FireEye researchers said the key to dismantling the giant ring was a coordinated effort that worked in multiple directions all at once so that bot herders didn't have a chance to counteract. "As it turns out, no matter how many fallback mechanisms are in place, if they aren't all implemented properly, the botnet is vulnerable," they wrote. source

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ISPs: AOL Begins Layoffs, 100 To Be Let Go Today - All Things Digital (10 Nov 09)

Essentially - although AOL is located in New York and not California, it's going to be like tremors before the Big One at the online company today, as about 100 employees are laid off.

Sources said the cuts, first reported by Valleywag's Ryan Tate, will be widespread across AOL, even as it inches ever closer to being spun off from its corporate overlord, Time Warner.

That will come within the next month once the spate of regulatory comments and approvals are in place, said sources.

But, during that time, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's "Project Everest" - the code name for cost-cutting across the company - will be chugging along to its final destination.

After tomorrow's small cut, sources said, Armstrong has told employees he is seriously considering a suggestion made to him on a listening tour of AOL, which he did in his first 100 days on the job, of voluntary departures that would include some sort of buyout.

It's unlikely that that will be enough to make the kind of cuts to bring costs in line with a depressed revenue at AOL,

At its third-quarter earnings call last week, Time Warner reported that AOL revenue was down 23 percent. In addition, subscription revenue, which will continue to shrink, was down another 29 percent, and advertising revenue, which is supposed to improve one day, was down 18 percent.

Thus, with that performance, AOL is likely to do a massive layoff of upwards of 1,000 employees.

That action will either take place right before or, more likely, at the same time as or right after the spin-off.

In other words, not very happy holidays for some. source

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Wi-Fi: Google Offers Free Holiday Service At 47 US Airports - eWeek (10 Nov 09)

Ho ho ho: Google offers travelers in 47 airports free Wi-Fi access from now until January 15.

Search engine giant Google announced that it is working with airports across the U.S. as well as Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi as "a holiday gift" to travelers now through January 15, 2010. The Wi-Fi accessibility is currently available in 47 airports, including those in Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.

"We know that this is a very hectic travel season for people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and connecting with friends and family a little bit easier," said Google's vice president of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer. "We're very happy to extend our Holiday Wi-Fi gift to the millions of people who will spend time in airports over the next few months."

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates, over 100 million people will pass through the participating airports between now and January 15, 2010, Google noted, making it one of the heaviest travel seasons of the year. Bad weather and heavy passenger loads can often cause delays of up to 70 minutes, leaving travelers with plenty of time on their hands after passing through security. A recent study conducted by the Wi-Fi Alliance reported that 50 percent of business travelers take red-eye flights in order to be "reachable" during business hours, and an overwhelming 82 percent said that being connected through Wi-Fi would help solve that problem. source

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Wi-Fi: Yahoo! Brings Free Service To NYC's Times Square - Silicon Alley Insider (09 Nov 09)

Starting November 10, Yahoo! and the Times Square Alliance will provide free Wi-Fi service "to the more than 500,000 people who visit Times Square daily".

A Yahoo! spokesperson says the gesture "is the latest literal expression of Yahoo!'s promise to be at the center of people's online lives". source

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VoIP: Google Acquires Gizmo5 - TechCrunch (09 Nov 09)

Last month Skype was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5. It was a perfect backup plan in case all that IP litigation didn't work out. - Gizmo5's SIP infrastructure could theoretically replace Skype's proprietary P2P back end.

After the Skype settlement, though, Gizmo5's strategic value to Skype sort of plummeted. In the meantime, Google bought them, say multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, for around $30 million in cash. The deal is done, say our sources, and will be announced shortly.

Gizmo5 is a good fit with a number of Google products. Google Talk allows voice calls between users but has no PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones. Gizmo5 does this well already.

And Google Voice is a great VoIP and phone identity service, but they have no endpoint for calls. Gizmo5, which by the way already integrates with Google Voice, is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. In other words, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.

This looks to me like Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product. And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor.

Gizmo5, which was founded in April 2003, has raised $6 million to date, plus an unspecified amount from founder/CEO Michael Robertson. Prior to Gizmo5, Robertson gained notoriety with his founding of MP3.com and later MP3tunes (which has led to big music suing both the company and himself personally). source

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VoIP: Skype & USO to Keep Military Families Connected During Holidays - Business Wire (09 Nov 09)

Skype ... announced [Monday] the Holiday Military Connection program, which will allow hundreds of American servicemen and women stationed overseas to have the unprecedented opportunity to join their families stateside for virtual visits this holiday season, thanks to a partnership between Skype and the USO.

The Holiday Military Connection program will connect troops in the Guam, Yokosuka, and Camp Hansen (Okinawa) USO centers with their families stateside, through live, face-to-face Skype video call conversations during Thanksgiving dinner. For the first time, deployed men and women will virtually share a holiday meal with the ones they love most, but from whom they are farthest.

In addition, the USO and Skype's Holiday Military Connection program will enable the estimated 140,000 troops visiting the 18 Pacific Region USO centers to make free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls home to loved ones all season long. Troops can also make unlimited1 calls to family and friends' cell phones and landlines free of charge through the donation of Skype's Unlimited World subscription plans. source

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AT&T Mobility: Unveils New 7.2 Mbps LaptopConnect Lightning Modem - SlashGear (10 Nov 09)

We all know that LTE is coming to AT&T and other mobile carriers in the late 2010 and early 2011 time frame. The catch for AT&T is to give customers enough speed to keep them until LTE debuts in the face of increasing roll outs of WiMax from Sprint and Clearwire.

To help keep customers AT&T is set to roll out its 7.2 Mbps HSPA service. Before users can enjoy the faster data speeds, they will need a new modem to support the speed and AT&T has announced just that. The new AT&T LaptopConnect Lightning USB modem has been introduced.

The modem is set to ship on November 22 nationwide. The modem is a USB device that has a swiveling adapter that allows it to be used in vertical or horizontal orientation. The modem is preloaded with the AT&T ACM 7.0 software to help users manage their connections. The software will also connect the modem to AT&T wireless hotspots for free automatically.

The modem will sell for $99.99 with a $100 mail-in rebate. Data plans will start at $35 per month for 200 MB. source

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Sprint Nextel: Will Cut 2,000 To 2,500 Jobs By December 31 - Wall Street Journal (09 Nov 09)

Sprint Nextel Corp. announced plans to cut up to 2,500 workers by year's end as the struggling cell phone-service provider looks to cut annual costs by at least $350 million.

Shares have been moving higher throughout Monday's session amid a broad market rally and were recently at the day's high of $3.39, up 19%. The stock is up 85% this year, but down 43% since hitting its 2009 high in May.

Monday's announcement came less than two weeks after Sprint reported more red ink and subscriber losses in its latest quarter, though the customer deflections slowed somewhat.

The job cuts, which make up about 4% of the approximately 56,000-person work force, include those announced last week in Sprint's wholesale operations, as well as cutting contractors and other outside labor.

It would be the latest round of streamlining for Sprint, which has been able to close 27 call centers amid a "notable reduction in calls per subscriber" to customer-service officials.

Sprint plans to record fourth-quarter charges of about $60 million to $80 million related to the cuts. source

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Sprint Nextel: Insists Job Cuts Won't Impact Customer Service - DSLReports (10 Nov 09)

Their recent fourth quarter earnings report indicates that despite some clear customer service improvements, Sprint continues to bleed both subscribers and cash as the company recovers from their merger with Nextel.

To help make ends meet, the company yesterday announced they'll be laying off between 2,000 and 2,500 employees during the fourth quarter.

According to Sprint, the layoffs should save the company about $350 million annually. "The company is taking this action in a careful manner to ensure that there is no impact on the improved customer experience that has been reflected in much higher levels of satisfaction in customer surveys and in independent performance tests," proclaims Sprint. source

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BPOs: India Centers Hiring Thousands - Press Trust of India (10 Nov 09)

Information technology and consultancy were among the sectors hit by last year's global economic crisis, ripples of which are still being felt by businesses across continents.

Consultant Accenture said it would shore up its staff strength by 8,000 by next year, mainly in the analytics space.

"We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," Accenture Chairman & Chief Executive Officer William D Green said on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit here. Infosys BPO, back-office unit of IT firm Infosys Technologies, said that it would hire 1,500-2,000 people by the end of the current fiscal.

"We plan to hire 2,000 people in the next four-five months or by the end of this fiscal. Currently we are 16,000 people in India," Infosys BPO CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said.

Another BPO company Genpact has already hired 6,000-7,000 so far this year for its global operations.

Microsoft India Chairman & Corporate Vice-President Ravi Venkatesan, however, said that "there will be no significant hiring." Microsoft has a headcount of 5,300 people in the country and had hired "a few hundreds" last year. Global banking behemoth Standard Chartered said it plans to hire 3,000 employees in India by the end of 2010.

UK-based Barclays too said it would increase workforce in merchant banking segment across Asia by 10 per cent during 2010.

"We've seen very strong performance across Asia for all our business classes ... we would expect our workforce to increase across Asia by 10 per cent," Barclays Chairman & CEO Asia Pacific Robert A Morrice told reporters. source

Security: Firefox Tops Vulnerability List - InternetNews (09 Nov 09)

Application security vendor Cenzic today released its security trends report for the first half of 2009 application. In it, Cenzic claims that the Mozilla's Firefox browser led the field of Web browsers in terms of total vulnerabilities.

According to Cenzic, Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities reported in the first half of 2009. In contrast, Apple's Safari had 35 percent of all reported browser vulnerability, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was third at 15 percent and Opera had just six percent share.

The 2009 figures stand in contrast to Cenzic's Q3/Q4 2008 report, where IE accounted for 43 percent of all reported Web browser vulnerabilities and Firefox followed closely at 39 percent.

As to why Firefox's numbers were so high, Cenzic has a few ideas.

"It's a combination of different things," Lars Ewe, CTO of Cenzic, told InternetNews.com. "They've gotten more traction as a browser, which is good for them and the more you get used the more exposure you have. As well a fair amount of the vulnerabilities have come by way of plug-ins."

One key area that Ewe said was responsible for a number of reported Firefox vulnerabilities is with how the browser handles plug-ins.

"The plug-in architecture that they have is a selling fact for the browser and one of the reasons why I love using it," Ewe said. "They can't control security aspects of all the plug-ins and the vulnerabilities are a side effect of that."

Mozilla has made numerous efforts this year to bolster its plug-in security. Recently they launched a plug-in checker service to ensure that users are running up-to-date versions. The Firefox 3.0.9 update, which came out in April, specifically addressed several key plug-in vulnerabilities.

Though Firefox had the highest number of vulnerabilities, that doesn't necessarily mean that Firefox users were more vulnerable.

Ewe said that Cenzic looked at all reported vulnerabilities. There is no specific differentiation for zero day bugs in the browser vulnerability count either. All that raises the question of how Cenzic actually came up with their vulnerability counts in the first place.

"The process that we follow is looking at a number of different vulnerability databases and sources that we have and trying to come up with a fair percentage based on the deviations we see between the databases," Ewe said. "You could make the argument, that's its 40 percent or 42 percent and there might be some variation on how you analyze it, but certainly it's not off by 20 percent."

While the Cenzic report shows Firefox at the top of the browser vulnerability pile, Ewe was quick to note that Cenzic uses Mozilla technology within its own solutions.

"Full disclosure here, Mozilla plays an important role in Cenzic's solution," Ewe said. "We are actually sitting on top of Mozilla as our agent of preference for scanning sites."

Cenzic develops an application scanning solution that uses the underlying Mozilla browser technology to test out security on Web site insides of a real browser context.

"We have a technology that we refer to as stateful assessment technology," Ewe said. "The idea behind it is to have as faithful an interaction with a Web site as possible and to determine vulnerabilities not on simple signatures but on behavioral basis of the application."

Ewe explained that when you do a cross-site scripting attack with a signature-based approach you'd just look for a server response that would indicate that the script tag has been injected. He added that the problem with that approach is that it's not faithful and the security researcher doesn't know if there is any additional logic on the client side that takes care of the script tag.

"If you want to be really faithful in the process you need to have full rendering capabilities and have all the JavaScript event handling," Ewe said. "So we leverage the entire Firefox architecture in order for us to actually have as faithful an interaction with a server as possible and maintain the client state. That results in low false-positives." source

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Privacy: Vint Cerf Claims, 'Google Doesn't Know Who You Are' - The Register (07 Nov 09)

Interwebs founding father and Google evangelist Vint Cerf has insisted that when you search Google, the company doesn't know who you are.

Thursday morning, at a mini-conference in San Francisco, the always entertaining Cerf sat down with Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg and other tech luminaries to discuss "open" mobile networks. But at one point, the conversation turned to the epic amounts of user data pouring onto Google servers across the globe.

As Mossberg started to complain about Google using Gmail and other sign-in services to tie more and more search data to real live people, Cerf quickly interrupted. "We still don't know who you are," said the Google figurehead.

Mossberg begged to differ, pointing out that as netizens sign-in to their Google accounts in order to use other services, the company also ties those accounts to search data. "When I search Google, you can see - right up at the top of page - that I'm logged in. You can see my Gmail address," he told Cerf. "You know who I am."

But Cerf insisted that even in those situations, Google doesn't know you. "You are somehow conflating things that I think need to be disaggregated," Cerf told Mossberg. "A Gmail identifier doesn't tell us anything. It's just an identifier. We have no other thing to tie that to. It's just an identifier [You said that already. -Ed]. And by the way, you picked it. We didn't."

As ridiculous as that may sound, it's a common Google argument. When a federal court recently asked Google to divulge of an innocent Gmail user - if the account was still active - the company told us that wasn't possible.

"It's...incorrect to say that we are able to disclose somebody's identity," Google told us. "We only have the information associated with the account, and federal law sets limits on what is discoverable." Never mind that when you sign up for Gmail, it asks for your name.

Google won't say whether the user's identity was divulged or not - and neither will the court. But for some reason, we expected a little, shall we say, openness from Vint Cerf.

The net's founding father went on argue that you don't have to be logged in to your Google account to use search. When Mossberg pointed out - once again - that his Gmail address appears at the top of his search page, Cerf said: "If you've logged in because you were using Gmail, the system tells you that you're logged in," he said. "You wouldn't want us to hide that?"

Sitting to Cerf's right, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch piped up to say that users have the option of turning off Google's link between search and services like email. Then he pointed out that it's on by default.

The conference crowd chuckled. And Cerf hit Lynch in the head with something akin to a rolled newspaper.

It was a playful hit. But it was yet another way that Cerf - like his Google overlords - carefully steers clear of acknowledging exactly what personal data the company is collecting.

Yes, you can search Google without being logged into your Google account. But Lynch is correct when he says the two are linked by default. And at best, it's naive for Cerf to say that Google doesn't know who are when you're logged in. Vint Cerf may not know who you are. But Google's servers do - and when a subpoena or national security letter arrives on the doorstep, you can certainly be identified.

You can be identified even if you search while logged out. Google still tracks your IP address. And as much as the company likes to say that an IP address is not personal information, we can safely say that's nonsense.

Just before Cerf landed his Chewbacca defense on conference attendees in San Francisco, Google unveiled a new "Dashboard" that ostensibly explains what Google knows about you. But this is merely the latest example of Google Privacy Theatre.

The new dashboard shows you an (apparently random) collection of data associated with your Google account. But as the consumer watchdog known as Consumer Watchdog points out, it doesn't tell you what data is associated with your IP address. And there's no way de-linking data from your IP.

"This was a PR gimmick," Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson tells The Reg. "All it does it put in one place the info you've consciously given them."

Plus, we all know that relatively few people will actually visit the thing - just as relatively few will actually log out of their Google accounts when they start searching its search engine.

If you do log out, Google insists, it will "anonymize" your data after nine months. But this is the most amusing act of Google Privacy Theatre.

After nine months, Google scrubs out only the last eight bits of your IP address - and it leaves your cookie data untouched. It does scrub cookie after 18 months, though it won't say how.

Which means that restoring your IP data after nine months is trivial. Google may erase eight bits on your nine-month-old search queries, but those bits will remain intact on newer queries - and both sets of queries carry the same cookie info. Recovering the missing bits on older data is a one-step process.

Come to think of it: Restoring the missing bits is hardly beyond the realm of possibility after eighteen months. It's only eight bits.

The point here is that Google refuses to delete your IP outright - whether nine months have passed or 18. So-called efforts to protect your privacy don't go quite as far as Google would lead you to believe.

"We don't care who you are," Cerf told yesterday's conference. "We only care about the pattern of behavior you exhibit." Which is true. But that might be read in more ways than one. source

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WiMax: Clearwire To Get $1.5 Billion More From Sprint Nextel & Partners - Wall Street Journal (08 Nov 09)

Sprint Nextel Corp. and its partners are preparing to pump at least $1.5 billion more into Clearwire Corp., said two people familiar with the matter, adding yet more aid to a wireless broadband firm that has struggled to build out its next-generation network.

Sprint would invest $1 billion and its Clearwire joint venture partners, a group which includes Comcast Corp., Intel Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks LLC, would kick in another $500 million, said these people. Google Inc., which has been a key joint venture partner, isn't involved in the latest financing round, these people added. An announcement of the new investment could come as soon as this week.

Spokespeople from Sprint, Clearwire, Comcast Time Warner Cable and Intel declined to comment. Officials from Bright House and Google weren't immediately available for comment.

Sprint is Clearwire's majority shareholder and unlike its rivals, which have bet on a rival technology, Sprint's plans for a higher-speed data transmissions are heavily tied to Clearwire's success.

The infusion comes about 18 months after Sprint, Intel, Comcast and other partners first put $3.2 billion into Clearwire, which is building the first so-called "4G" mobile broadband network, which moves data at very high speeds. That deal gave Sprint and the others a big ownership stake in Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire, which lost $241.4 million in the quarter ended June 30. It will report its latest quarterly results on Tuesday.

Clearwire shares have traded as high as $9 this year, but tumbled to around $6.50 in recent weeks. It has about 2,100 employees. At the end of June, it had about 511,000 phone and Internet subscribers in the United States.

Clearwire had in recent months been trying to attract new capital from other telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom AG, these people said. But those efforts didn't pan out.

Sprint, whose market capitalization has dwindled to just $8 billion, also hired bankers to help it raise money for a new Clearwire infusion. At one point it had shopped around an equity stake in Sprint, said one of these people. Instead, Sprint will use money from its own cash pile or raise new debt for the $1 billion investment.

Founded in 2003 by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw, Clearwire was restructured in 2008 as part of a deal that combined the company with former Sprint operations and included the first cash infusion from Sprint and its partners.

The partners have been working to roll out a wireless broadband network across the U.S. Their plans are based on WiMax, a technology heavily promoted by Intel that is a longer-range cousin to Wi-Fi, the wireless technology built into most laptop computers. That effort has been costly and taken longer than expected.

The competition also is stiff; some consumers have been adopting technologies based on third-generation, or 3G, cellular networks offered by rivals such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone PLC. WiMax backers say it offers faster download speeds than 3G offerings and has a head start of two years or so over a comparable "fourth-generation" technology favored by many cellular carriers known as LTE, for long-term evolution.

Clearwire now markets its service in markets that include Las Vegas, Baltimore, Atlanta and Portland, Ore. Partners such as Sprint and Comcast also resell Clearwire's service under their own brands. Earlier this year, Clearwire hired William Morrow, an industry veteran with experience at Vodafone and other companies, as its chief executive. source

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Alcatel-Lucent: Bell Labs Looks To Move Into Services Segment - Livemint (08 Nov 09)

Vishwanath Poosala, the local head of Bell Labs, the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, displays a black, modem-like box with a picture of a mango in his north Bangalore office.

Lest one mistakes it for a mere routing and encoding device, he explains that the box is a small computer, offering end-to-end content delivery solutions that would allow "mobile audio video on the go" or "Mango".

The Mango box - the content access point - connects to networks over broadband and to mobile phones over bluetooth or wi-fi. And it could soon catapult the 84-year-old research organization into services.

Bell Labs, rechristened from AT&T Bell Laboratories to Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, has developed technologies that have changed the world, be it the transistor, laser, or digital signal processor. Just five years into India, the communication research and development behemoth is right into the services melting pot that India epitomises.

In emerging markets, users are interested in high bandwidth entertainment and personal content which they like to store and share with others but have no means to do so, says Poosala.

Existing content delivery mechanisms such as cellular data networks (GPRS/EDGE) and the services running on top of them are either slow or expensive for most users. "Moreover, their capacity may not scale for the millions of mobile users who seek high bandwidth content," says Poosala.

Mango, he claims, will address these issues while allowing content delivery on mobile phones.

Currently testing it in its building, Bell Labs is talking to one of the largest out-of-home media companies, LiveMedia, and telecom valued added service provider Phoneytunes.com to take it to the masses.

"We are optimistic about Mango; the idea is to have a new distribution channel for digital content," says Rajan Mehta, founder and chief executive of LiveMedia.

He thinks Mango will make the content interactive in the captive audience network of 5,000 liquid crystal display screens that his company runs, reaching around 50 million people every month. The back-end work in the Mango-led initiative will be provided by Phoneytunes.

The actual rolling out of Mango may take anywhere between six and 12 months, but Mehta looks to it as an open application programming interface (API) that would nudge developers to build applications around it. "You have the Internet now, think of it (Mango-led distribution) as the Outernet," he adds.

The basic idea, says Poosala, is to create a parallel architecture that would reduce the load on the network. "Even the CTOs (chief technology officers) of telcos in the developed world are looking at such solutions to ease the network burden."

While Bell Labs has been engaged in "managed services" for long, such as maintaining networks for telcos such as Reliance Communications Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd, with Mango it will enter value-added services as never before.

"There is lot more money today in services as compared to in equipment...equipment becomes commodity," says Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who leads the telecommunications and computer networks group at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.

Only a few equipment companies in the West have survived, he adds. "Vacuum is being felt by the Chinese companies, and may be by the Indian companies in future. The companies in the West are looking at services as a way going forward."

Services have become so central that the traditional technology research organization, for the first time ever, has begun studying it. The India centre is driving the effort across Bell Labs to see "if there's science behind managing services", says Poosala.

The market today is in emerging nations; services is where the money lies, says Taron Mohan, chief executive of Phoneytunes, who, though keyed up at Mango's possibilities, is also cautious about how Bell Labs will pull it off in the public domain. "We need to see how the central box controls other (Mango) boxes," he says.

As far as the business goes, Jhunjhunwala says the price points at which emerging markets operate are quite different from those in the West, where the markets have become saturated. "These labs may not succeed in breaking open the market easily."

The game plan for Bell Labs appears to be in entering services via different technologies. The lab has developed a low-cost wireless-mesh architecture that extends from a town over multiple hops to bring a broadband pipe to rural areas. The lab says it has managed to extend the wi-fi range by using "directional" antenna, commoditized wi-fi radios and novel software that minimizes interference and maximizes system performance.

Calling it VillageNet, the lab is close to signing a memorandum of understanding with a Union government agency to start rolling it in rural areas, says Poosala. He is not willing to disclose the name of the agency.

It isn't as if these innovations are restricted to the Indian market. A low-cost traffic monitoring solution, where sensors track bluetooth-based phones carried by people moving in cars and with the help of algorithms analyse the data, suggests the best route of travel up to an hour in advance.

Demonstrated at the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems in Stockholm, Sweden, recently, Teleport has been tested in Bangalore and Mumbai. "We are receiving a lot of interest from European city administrations for this technology," says Poosala.

So even as fundamental communication problems, such as how much energy it actually takes to run a network, occupy Bell Labs' attention at one level, at another, it is emulating conglomerates like General Electric Co., which is using India as a laboratory to cost-effectively innovate products for the rest of the world - whether they be new-age aircraft engines or low-cost medical imaging devices, or even baby warmers. source

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AT&T: 200 Workers Can Join 'Overtime' Lawsuit - New Haven Register (07 Nov 09)

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall on Friday granted class action status to a June 2007 lawsuit that alleges AT&T violated state and federal wage and hour provisions.

The approval of class action status for the case means that as many as 200 AT&T employees could become a party to the lawsuit.

Hall's ruling came exactly one week after she heard arguments by attorneys representing five current and former AT&T employees who claim the Texas company, which has its Connecticut headquarters in New Haven, gave them manager titles in order to avoid having to pay them overtime.

Attorneys with the New Haven law firm Littler and Mendelson tried at the Oct. 30 hearing to convince Hall the job definitions the plaintiffs' lawyers want to include in the lawsuit are too broad.

Steven Wittels, a partner with the New York City law firm Sanford Wittels & Heisler, said the judge's ruling shows that AT&T "has knowingly taken advantage of its employees."

"These people have worked long hours over the years that they deserve to be paid for," Wittels said. "It's unAmerican for AT&T not to have paid them overtime."

Edmond Clark, an attorney from Madison who is part of the team of lawyers presenting the AT&T employees, said he is impressed by what the workers tried to do with this lawsuit.

He said the "employees are to be admired, not only for their dedication to their work, but also for setting aside their personal job security for a cause larger than their individual interests."

Chuck Coursey, an AT&T spokesman, said Friday that the company had no comment on the specifics of this case.

The lawsuit contends that despite being designated as managers, the duties of all of the plaintiffs do not include any of the responsibilities that managers would normally be involved in such as hiring, firing, scheduling or assessing the performance of other employees.

The two local plaintiffs in the case are Michael McDermott of Guilford, who has worked as a manager for AT&T in Connecticut since July 2000 and was added as a plaintiff in the case in March, and Kelly Werbinski of Clinton, who has worked for the company since 1996 and has been a manager since June 2008.

The original lawsuit was filed on behalf of Sharon Perkins, who worked for the company from 1980 until last January before taking an early retirement package. The Wethersfield resident, who was living in Newington at the time the lawsuit was filed, was given a manager's title in 2000. source

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Telstra: Replaces Consumer Chief Moffatt - ZDNet Australian (09 Nov 09)

Telstra has appointed an acting replacement to David Moffatt, head of its consumer division, who had previously flagged his resignation.

Glenice Maclellan has been appointed to the role of acting head of Telstra consumer, the telco's largest unit. Maclellan, who has been with Telstra since 2006, was most recently executive director of consumer category marketing and operations.

She had joined Telstra following a stint as the vice president of US mobile company Cingular and played a lead role in its 2005 merger with AT&T Wireless. From 1998 to 2002 Maclellan was also chief marketing officer at Czechoslovakian mobile telco, Eurotel.

Moffatt, who had announced his departure in September, will leave Telstra on 30 November. The executive had driven Telstra's revamped consumer profile with the roll-out of hundreds of T[Life] stores, and was believed to be in line for the top job twice - after the departure of Ziggy Switkowski in 2004, and again after Sol Trujillo in 2009. source

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Telecoms: FCC To Examine Telephone Access Fees - InformationWeek (06 Nov 09)

The telephony issue that won't go away - special access fees - is slated to be examined by the Federal Communications Commission, according to an FCC notice.

Some firms, including Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and BT have complained that AT&T and Verizon Communications charge competitors too much in access fees to backhaul their customers' voice and data traffic.

Sprint reacted favorably Friday to the FCC notice, which it said addresses "an urgent problem, which costs consumers billions of dollars every year."

In its notice, released Thursday, the FCC framed the issue by noting that some parties - that is, AT&T and Verizon - maintain that "current rules are working as intended and contend there is extensive actual and potential competition in the market" while others "assert that there is little or no competition for special access services."

The issue is arcane and complex, but because of the huge amount of money involved in access fees, it is likely to attract attention from a wide range of consumers, lobbyists, and companies.

The issue has been batted around for years and last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sent it back to the FCC. AT&T and Verizon have argued that the FCC hasn't had proper data to determine whether the market is weighed in their favor or not.

"These issues have been pending for years," FCC chairman Julius Genachowski wrote in a letter to Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) recently, "and I appreciate the understandable frustration of many parties regarding the commission's lack of progress in addressing special access issues."

In its notice, the FCC indicated initial comments and replies on special access fees will cover a period of at least two months. source

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AT&T Mobility: VoIP Over 3G Still Not Working For iPhone - DSLReports (09 Nov 09)

Last month AT&T announced that they'd no longer be blocking VoIP programs like Skype from working over 3G.

AT&T said they were taking a "fresh look" at VoIP capabilities on iPhone for use on AT&T's 3G network, and the move was soundly heralded by both the press and the FCC as a step in the right direction.

A month later though and Om Malik reminds us that things still haven't changed - at least over on Apple's side of the equation. Apple [and AT&T are] still blocking VoIP over the iPhone's 3G connection for programs like Skype, but also smaller operators like Truphone, Fring, and Nimbuzz.

We spoke briefly to AT&T, who puts the onus squarely on Apple. "As you know, we notified Apple that we no longer object to VoIP on iPhone over our network," says the company. "(The press) needs to speak to apple about apps in the Apple apps store," says AT&T. "It's worth noting that we already allowed VoIP apps on other wireless devices," says the company. source

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AT&T Mobility: CTO Donovan Defends Network, Touts Connected Devices - FierceWireless (06 Nov 09)

At the Open Mobile Summit conference here AT&T CTO John Donovan once again defended his company's wireless network, arguing AT&T is spending more money this year than any other company to improve its coverage and capacity. However, he admitted that the task is enormous because customers' appetite for bandwidth is keeping pace with the carrier's investments in capacity.

Donovan said AT&T is constantly improving its network usage modeling and that no two cities have similar usage demands, so the carrier looks at every U.S. city individually to prepare for consumer data usage. He added that the company is in the midst of its 850 MHz overlay and then it will re-optimize the network.

During his keynote address, Donovan said that as the industry simplifies the wireless experience for the consumer, the more complexity is added to the infrastructure. "This is requiring us to rethink the network," Donovan said. He added that AT&T estimates it has 1 billion devices connected to its wireless and wireline network and that in 10 years it expects to connect the next billion devices. Much of that growth will come from emerging devices such as ereaders, navigation devices, netbooks and more. "Since 2005 we have certified more than 1,000 non-stock devices," Donovan said. "This year we certified 400 non-stock devices. We think that is six times our nearest competitor."

Donovan later joined several other industry executives, including Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, in a panel discussion about the open mobile landscape. AT&T and Google are currently in the midst of a battle over the Google Voice application. AT&T has asked the FCC to investigate the application, arguing the service is improperly blocking calls to rural areas and should be regulated like a traditional telephone service. Google has countered that it blocks calls to fewer than 100 specific phone numbers due to what Google said were high-cost "traffic pumping schemes."

However, Donovan and Cerf nimbly avoided discussing Google Voice and instead talked with the other panelists about how to define open mobile. Cerf said he was uncomfortable with assigning any definition to it. Donovan, meanwhile, said that customers don't care about open, all they care about is their experience. He added that he believes there has to be some boundaries around openness because consumers want mobile to be open and convenient but they also want their privacy respected. "Customers want mobile to make their lives easier, but they expect you to take care of their security," he said. source

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Verizon Wireless: Launches Three More Anti-AT&T 3G Network Ads - Gizmodo (08 Nov 09)

Verizon responded [Sunday] to AT&T's "There's a Map For That" lawsuit by releasing a slew of new commercials with similar themes and messaging. The battle continues, this time on the infamous Island of Misfit Toys.

The first commercial, which I saw air for the first time during the New England Patriots game this afternoon, is called Verizon Blue Christmas (above). As Elvis croons, a man depressingly makes his way home with no cell coverage. He's utterly sad until he sees that a wrapped, red present might just contain the phone he's really looking for.

The second commercial, below, shows us that the "naughty" people won't be getting coal in their stockings this year. Nope, they'll be getting spotty AT&T 3G service instead! Ho ho ho.

The last commercial places an iPhone-esque phone on the Island of Misfit Toys.

The phone seems out of place, at least until the toys get a glimpse of its 3G network. "You'll fit right in!" they scream. And then we all just laugh and laugh. source

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Verizon Wireless: iPhone In 2010? - Silicon Alley Insider (07 Nov 09)

Apple will release a new iPhone next summer that works on Verizon Wireless as well as all global networks, a report claims, citing sources in the Taiwan supply chain.

The report, via AppleInsider, also says that the new iPhone will be smaller than the current iPhone, including a smaller screen. And that it will be manufactured for Apple by a different supplier, a subsidiary of netbook-maker Asustek.

Assuming Apple does not renew its exclusive U.S. deal with AT&T, it makes sense that Apple would make an iPhone that could work on Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier with 89 million subscribers. (Verizon uses a different technology than AT&T - CDMA - so Apple has to build a new kind of phone to work on the network).

Why should Apple make the iPhone available on Verizon?

* As we reported earlier this year, it would be ridiculously cheap for Apple to make a CDMA-friendly iPhone. Even switching the current iPhone to a CDMA version would probably cost only a trivial amount. Amol Sarva, CEO of mobile gadget startup Peek, pegs the cost at less than $5 million.

* It would be very good for sales. Even though AT&T has been a hugely successful partner for Apple in terms of overall sales in the U.S., most iPhone subscribers are still coming from within AT&T's ranks - despite the fact that AT&T only represents about 1/4 of the total U.S. wireless subscriber base. There are millions of potential iPhone buyers at other carriers who have not bought iPhones, either because they are loyal to their current carriers or hate AT&T. Verizon could also probably steal some current iPhone subscribers from AT&T, given how lousy AT&T's data network has performed in key cities, such as New York City.

* It would be bad for the competition. Verizon and other carriers are finally now getting (and promoting) decent iPhone competitors, such as the new Droid series powered by Google. But if Verizon were to get its hands on the iPhone, it would probably favor that over the Droid, at least sometimes.

* What about waiting for 4G? Even if Apple waits for Verizon's "LTE" 4G network to be ready, it would need to be able to back up onto a 3G network for several years, for use in places where 4G service is not available or is not functioning. It's possible that Apple could push that roaming traffic onto AT&T or another GSM-based 3G provider. But it makes more sense to roam onto Verizon's CDMA network.

We're not personally thrilled about the idea of a smaller iPhone - we'd even spring for a slightly larger one - but it could probably find a happy audience of women, teens, and people with smaller hands. (It may also be popular in other countries where people tend to be smaller.)

Either way, it makes a lot of sense sense for Apple to sell a phone at Verizon as soon as possible. source

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BPOs: Infosys Planning Acquisitions, Hiring 2,000-2,500 - Thaindian (09 Nov 09)

Infosys BPO Ltd, the business processing outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary of software major Infosys Technologies, is looking at fresh acquisitions and hiring people.

Speaking to reporters [in New Delhi] Monday, Infosys BPO managing director and chief executive Amitabh Chaudhary said his company was "looking at acquisitions in the range of $80-200 million".

"We will hire 2,000-2,500 people in four months," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit. source

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BPOs: On The Prowl For New Ways To Cut Contact Center Costs - CRM Buyer (09 Nov 09)

Contact center operations are constantly under scrutiny. They're complex, they're expensive to run, and employee retention and training can be problematic, to say the least.

Contact center managers have a never-ending desire to streamline operations to keep spending in check. If they're not focusing on finding new outsourcing options for cutting front-end costs, then they're leveraging technologies to trim fat on the back end.

Like just about every other subset under the CRM umbrella, the contact center sector has experienced a slowdown in the past few months. However, the industry continues sustain some growth, according to Datamonitor, with the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand recently tracking at under 5 percent (based on number of seats). In locations where offshoring has been gaining momentum, growth numbers can reach as high as 10 percent.

"I'd say that right now, the contact center industry is in a state of transformation," Peter Ryan, Datamonitor's lead analyst for contact center outsourcing, told CRM Buyer. "The past two years have been very good to companies involved in moving contact center work offshore. Emerging [offshore] locations such as South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Malaysia are proving to be very successful."

As for software and maintenance revenues, IDC reported that overall, the worldwide CRM market for 2009 is at US$16.6 billion, with the contact center space accounting for $5.8 billion (showing 2.5 percent growth in 2009). The category is projected to experience 5 percent to 6 percent growth for the next several years.

There are two major trends developing in the near term, according to Ryan. "With the recession, the contact center industry [in North America] is now moving to a recovery, and there is a greater focus on moving more work onshore and developing more innovative business models."

Customer segmentation is becoming a main driver of contact center strategies, noted Ajay Kapoor, managing director of strategic communications consulting for Avaya.

"The cost structure of contact centers of the past was to provide the same level of support to every customer," he told CRM Buyer. "Today they truly need to find ways to segment customers into which generate more revenues, which incur the highest costs, and which ones are candidates for up-selling or cross-selling."

Consolidation has also accelerated in the last 18 to 24 months. "I don't mean brick-and-mortar consolidation," said Kapoor. "Rather, if you are using an outsourced model, it's about sharing a centralized architecture to enable distribution of calls to virtual or in-office workers. Really, it's about routing calls in a much more intelligent way through transport mechanisms of the future."

The U.S. is seeing a lot more effort on the part of the contact center community to find secondary or third-tier cities to do the work than ever before, Ryan noted. "The challenge is, however, how do you onshore your contact center work, while at the same time, keep your costs down? The U.S., Canada and Australia are the most expensive [contact center] places in the world right now."

In order to bring services closer to home at an affordable rate, more contact center managers are now exploring the idea of adopting home agent options, or automating more processes through integrated voice response (IVR) or unified communications (UC) investments.

A survey of contact center managers revealed that 44 percent in North America were considering home agents, Ryan reported, while 42 percent were considering speech self-services as alternatives to outsourcing.

"If you listen to the hype around home agents, I would expect the numbers to be a bit higher," he added. "Businesses are looking desperately for cost savings, but they're not showing the willingness we would expect to look at new business models or technology. But there is a lot of tire kicking around it."

There is still room for the industry to grow through adoption of newer technologies, said Michael Fauscette, group VP of software business solutions for IDC.

"Contact centers will now be driven by initiatives around unified communications. Microsoft and Cisco have new products that they're getting into the market. Then there's Avaya, Convergys and ClickFox, on the software side," he told CRM Buyer.

"We're now seeing a lot of UC concepts that are making a lot of sense for customer care," observed Ross Daniels, director of UC solutions marketing for Cisco.

"We see UC as tying in two ways - presence and instant messaging for agents, and more automation of interactions such as conferencing in order to take the agent out of the connection process," Daniels told CRM Buyer. "But everything we're seeing is still in the very early days on the contact center side."

The concept of presence is key to contact center efficiency, said Kapoor.

"The ability to communicate to agents and enable contact with experts has a lot of value that ties into segmentation," he explained. "That is being deployed more broadly than other aspects of UC today in contact centers. There is also much more interest in IVR and voice portals than a year ago, because it saves back-end costs and allows companies to move to more self-service options."

Technology extras that are gaining traction in the IVR space include tools for advanced analytics. "For example," said Kapoor, "there is technology that allows you to get a visual representation of your IVR activities to see what works, what doesn't, and where breakdowns are occurring. A few changes and your hit rate can go through the roof - the economics can change that quickly. There is tremendous growth potential for analytics."

The good news is that ROI for contact center technologies is "almost always very positive," Cisco's Daniels noted. "The drivers [of adoption] are always going to have a cost aspect. The economics of contact center technologies are well proven, and they work."

Another development that is expected to gain momentum quickly on the contact center front is social networking.

"Early trending is showing that contact centers are starting to think about how they can incorporate social networking into the channel. It's very early days, but something they're keeping an eye on," Daniels said.

"Social media is absolutely the hot button for contact center operations," remarked Kapoor. "Comcast, for example, is famous for using chat, as well as Twitter and other social media, to communicate with clients."

Whatever the strategies, a change of attitude in the industry is a must, said Kapoor.

"Economics have changed like night and day in the last 18 months. Those companies that were in client traction mode are now focused on retention. Right now, I truly believe the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action," he warned, "and the time is ripe to take advantage of new techniques or make better use of the assets you have." source

Security: Microsoft Patch Tuesday Will Tackle Three 'Critical' Bugs - InternetNews (05 Nov 09)

Microsoft plans to fix at least three Windows vulnerabilities it rates as "critical" when it releases its regular Patch Tuesday bug-fix drop next week, the company said.

This time, none of the security holes affect Microsoft Windows 7 as they did last month, although one of them does impact Windows Server 2008, which shares a majority of its code with the new desktop operating system. Windows 7 had its official consumer launch on Oct. 22.

Also on the list for next week will be two patches for Microsoft Office, but the bugs those patches address are only rated as "important" -- the next-highest severity rating on Microsoft's four-tiered scale.

Of note, two of the patches also affect Office for Mac, including 2008. The three Office patches also impact Windows versions of Office ranging from Office XP to Office 2007.

All-in-all, though, November's patch event will be fairly tame - coming nowhere close to October, during which Microsoft delivered its largest patch drop to date. The October Patch Tuesday release included a total of 13 patches, eight of them critical, that fixed a total of 34 flaws, including two that impacted Windows 7.

Microsoft's advance notices are meant to warn IT administrators about the types of patches they will need to prioritize and install following the next week's Patch Tuesday update.

Since Microsoft doesn't want to tip off hackers to what it will patch, however, company officials are deliberately vague in the advance notices. Therefore, notices only mention upcoming patches as numbered security bulletins, and provide little other data for security pundits to examine and provide input on in advance of the actual patch releases.

This month, the most important one is so far only known as Bulletin 3, Sheldon Malm, senior director of security strategy at Rapid7, said in a statement.

"For this month's Patch Tuesday, we believe Bulletin 3 will have the biggest impact on corporations as it impacts multiple platforms and is rated critical for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003; and important for Vista and Server 2008," he said.

The critical Windows patches impact Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) up through Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2, including XP.

All three of the critical patches, and one of the important patches, requires a system restart, while the remaining two "may" require a restart, according to the advance notice.

Microsoft's advance notice for the Nov. 10 Patch Tuesday is here. source

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Privacy: Backdoor In Top iPhone Games Allegedly Stole User Data - The Register (06 Nov 09)

A maker of some of the most popular games for the iPhone has been surreptitiously collecting users' cell numbers without their permission, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The complaint claims best-selling games made by Storm8 contained secret code that bypassed safeguards built into the iPhone to prevent the unauthorized snooping of user information. The Redwood City, California, company, which claims its games have been downloaded more than 20 million times, has no need to collect the numbers.

"Nonetheless, Storm8 makes use of the 'backdoor' method to access, collect, and transmit the wireless phone numbers of the iPhones on which its games are installed," states the complaint, which was filed in US District Court in Northern California. "Storm8 does so or has done so in all of its games."

Messages left for Storm8 representatives weren't returned.

The complaint, filed on behalf of iPhone owner and gamer Michael Turner of Lynnwood, Washington, seeks class action status so other users of Storm8 games can also join. It claims that as of Monday, five of the companies games ranked in the top 50 free apps on Apple's App Store, and seven of them ranked in the top 100. Titles include World War, iMobsters, Racing Live, Vampires Live, Kingdoms Live, Zombies Live, and Rockstars Live.

The complaint claims Storm8 has violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Calfornia's computer crime law, among other statutes.

It's not the first time Storm8 has been accused of spying on its users. In August, SFGate.com writer Yobi Benjamin analyzed precisely what information his iPhone was sending to Storm8 and dropped it into this column.

"I would not want just anyone to have my personal phone number," he wrote. "Worst of all, the information is transmitted unencrypted in plain text."

Other sites have made similar claims about Storm8 titles. In addition to taking the game maker to task, some critics have also blamed Apple for allowing the software to be sold in its heavily controlled App Store. (Storm8 titles such as iMobster continue to be available there.)

Storm8 responded by acknowledging it had been collected user phone numbers and blamed the situation on "a bug that has been fixed."

Attorneys for the plaintiff aren't buying that.

"Storm8's characterizations of its practice of harvesting phone numbers as a 'bug' and an 'oversight' are false," they wrote. "Storm8 could not have accidentally harvested its users' phone numbers - it used very specific and specialized software code to do so." source

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WiMax: Clearwire Shuffles Executive Deck - Seattle Times (05 Nov 09)

4G broadband provider Clearwire announced more executive changes [Thursday], including the addition of new strategy and marketing bosses.

David Maquera, former senior VP at Cricket Communications/Leap Wireless, is SVP and chief strategy officer reporting to CEO Bill Morrow.

Clearwire also hired Thomas Enraght-Moony, a former AT&T Wireless exec and Match.com CEO, as SVP and general manager of Clear Online, heading marketing, advertising and online sales and "customer management."

"David and Thomas bring a record of leadership and depth of experience that further enhance one of the most experienced leadership teams in the mobile industry," Morrow said in the release. "They bring fresh perspectives and insights that will be beneficial to our customers, partners and shareholders. I'm confident that their business acumen and vision will help Clearwire capitalize on the incredible opportunities ahead of us."

Chief Marketing Officer Atish Gude, a Sprint and Nextel veteran, "is leaving Clearwire to pursue new opportunities," the release said. source

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Networx: Dual Contracts Or Dueling Contracts? - Washington Technology (05 Nov 09)

Agencies wanted the FTS2001 replacement contract to play dual roles, and that's just what the General Services Administration gave them with Networx Universal and Enterprise contracts. But agencies may be getting more - and less - than they bargained for, Networx vendors say.

In theory, Networx Universal provides straightforward telecommunications services, while Networx Enterprise offered managed services, IP-centric services and other options to help agencies revamp their networks, not just transition their old FTS2001 service.

Instead, the two contracts increasingly more closely resemble each other. Today, the only real difference between the Enterprise "innovation contract" and Universal is that Enterprise allows for fewer wire centers and less robust feature sets, said Diana Gowen, senior vice president and general manager of Qwest Government Services. Universal carriers could duplicate on Enterprise everything they were making available on Universal, "which frankly is what Qwest, AT&T and Verizon did," she said.

"GSA provided the contract vehicles; it's up to the agencies to decide how to use them," said Ed Morché, general manager and senior vice president of Level 3 Communications Inc.

Some experts say GSA could administratively direct an agency to consider all network awardees, regardless of whether they are Universal or Enterprise. As it stands, agency procurement officials must document the basis for their procurement decisions. "What we would like the agency to add to that procurement file is why, if they go with Universal, they didn't choose Enterprise," Morché said.

The acquisition process is complex, he said, and agencies are "going to need help from vendors to get through this process." Working through Enterprise gives them access to the engineering staff and resources of five companies rather than Universal's three.

With so little difference in the offerings of the two contracts, fiduciary prudence alone is enough reason for agencies to make Enterprise their default Networx contract, he said. "The whole reason we don't do sole-source pricing on the agency side is to allow competition, because competition will drive pricing down," Morché said. "If you believe that, and I think we all do, then you should believe that five vendors vying for business should drive pricing down and become more competitive than just three, [as on Universal]."

Karl Krumbholz, GSA deputy assistant commissioner for network services, refuses to be drawn into that discussion.

"I can't comment on the extent to which all of the carriers would respond to any given statement of work nor what the result of that might be," he said. That would depend on what agencies are seeking, what carriers are offering and which contract the service is on, he said. "It could be you'd get the same three vendors that are on Universal because the others don't provide the service."

Questions of one or two contracts and whether any particular company is capable of handling a particular task are beside the point, Krumbholz said, a faint note of exasperation slipping into his voice.

"The way the acquisition is done in government is you write requirements, and you allow all companies to compete and offer their best solution," he said. "The government evaluates those proposals and chooses those it believes provide the best value. Once that decision is made, it's done. And the next opportunity will come in the next acquisition. In the case of Networx Universal and Networx Enterprise, the opportunity to get a contract has passed.

"There's no provision to change the rules in midstream," he said. "There's a lot of talk about the fact that that's regrettable - specifically from those that did not win a contract, but all of the telecom vendors had the opportunity upfront to win a contract on Universal."

During the Networx planning stage, Gowen supported a single Networx contract. But, she said, "the contract gurus at GSA said they just could not do that. That was a well-known fact when we were all competing - if you wanted to play in the Universal space, you needed to compete on that contract and win. We went into this eyes wide open; if we were not a competitor and a winner on Universal, we would probably be left with crumbs. That's why we went full court press to make sure that we were competitive." source

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AT&T Mobility: Completes Acquisition Of Centennial Communications - Business Wire (06 Nov 09)

AT&T today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Centennial Communications Corp.. The acquisition enhances AT&T's network coverage across the Midwest and Southeast United States and in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The combination of the two companies' wireless networks will allow AT&T to deliver broader wireless coverage, including to approximately 893,000 former Centennial wireless subscribers.1 With the addition of Centennial, AT&T also expands its wired network coverage to Puerto Rico, enhancing service for its business customers with operations there.

"The addition of Centennial will enhance AT&T's assets in wireless - a strategic priority and one of our biggest growth drivers - and service for customers of both companies," said Ralph de la Vega, president and chief executive officer of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "We're excited to give Centennial wireless subscribers access to the nation's fastest 3G network plus our premier lineup of smartphones and unmatched portfolio of applications and services.

"We'll also improve network reliability for our wireless subscribers who will be able to make on-network calls in the Centennial footprint," said de la Vega. "And as Centennial's broadband network in Puerto Rico is integrated with AT&T's extensive global network and advanced service offerings, we'll offer corporations that operate in Puerto Rico the benefits of end-to-end service over a single network."

AT&T plans to integrate Centennial's networks and products with AT&T's networks and product portfolio. The transaction extends AT&T's wireless network coverage in primarily rural areas of Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio and Texas as well as enhances coverage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the mainland U.S., AT&T will move quickly to rebrand Centennial as AT&T and to make AT&T's innovative products and services available to Centennial's customers.2 By late January 2010, AT&T products and services will be available at more than 100 Centennial retail locations. Within the same timeframe, AT&T signage will be installed in all Centennial locations. Former Centennial wireless subscribers may keep their existing rate plans, but they will also have the opportunity to migrate to AT&T rate plans without activation or upgrade fees. Existing AT&T customer contracts will not change.

In Puerto Rico, the Centennial brand will continue through mid-2010. AT&T will honor the current rate plans and contracts of Centennial wireless subscribers. AT&T expects to make the full portfolio of AT&T products and services available in Centennial locations in Puerto Rico in the third quarter of 2010. At that point, Centennial customers will have the opportunity to migrate to AT&T rate plans without activation or upgrade fees. Existing AT&T customer contracts in Puerto Rico will not change.

To provide the best experience possible for Centennial customers who choose to migrate to AT&T service, prior to the transition, AT&T plans to deploy 3G at more than 200 sites in Centennial's markets. This deployment plan includes adding 3G capabilities at more than 100 sites and expanding 3G coverage and capacity at approximately 100 sites.

Centennial customers who choose AT&T plans will enjoy significant benefits as they join the AT&T network. AT&T offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, with more phones working in more places; more applications running over its network; and access to the nation's fastest 3G network, which will get even faster as AT&T rolls out HSPA 7.2 technology in advance of its deployment of 4G LTE service. And unlike other wireless networks, AT&T's network enables subscribers to talk and e-mail or surf the Web at the same time - one of the reasons, along with the industry's leading lineup of devices, that significantly more smartphone users have chosen AT&T over other wireless carriers. Centennial customers who choose select smartphones and LaptopConnect cards will have access to AT&T's Wi-Fi hot spot network, the largest in the U.S. with more than 20,000 hot spots, at no additional charge. AT&T will also offer Centennial subscribers Rollover® Minutes, a feature exclusive to AT&T, as well as a mobile-to-mobile calling community of nearly 82 million3 members.

Centennial's wired network assets in Puerto Rico will also allow AT&T to better serve business customers with a presence in Puerto Rico. AT&T will continue to provide switched voice, high-capacity data and Internet Protocol solutions for business customers in Puerto Rico. Existing Centennial customers will now have access to new technologies, to AT&T's innovative products and to both wireline and wireless services from AT&T.

The acquisition of Centennial will provide AT&T opportunities for synergies in areas such as corporate functions, advertising, customer care and network operations. AT&T expects upfront integration costs will result in minimal dilution to EPS and cash flow in 2009. As previously announced, Centennial stockholders will receive $8.50 per share in cash. Including net debt, the transaction is valued at $2.7 billion. AT&T will take prompt actions to redeem all of Centennial's outstanding debt under its indentures and credit agreement.

AT&T's acquisition of Centennial has been reviewed and approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Pursuant to a consent decree, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana have agreed to permit the merger to close.

As a result of the FCC and DOJ review processes, AT&T agreed to divest operations in eight service areas: Alexandria, La., Lafayette, La., LA-3 (DeSoto), LA-5 (Beauregard), LA-6 (Iberville), LA-7 (West Feliciana), MS-8 (Claiborne) and MS-9 (Copiah). Per the terms of a definitive agreement signed in May 2009, AT&T has agreed to divest to Verizon Wireless five of the Centennial service areas covered under the DOJ ruling. These five service areas are Lafayette, La., LA-5 (Beauregard), LA-6 (Iberville), LA-7 (West Feliciana) and MS-8 (Claiborne). AT&T now expects that this transaction will close in the first quarter of 2010, once the companies obtain regulatory approvals. AT&T also has a definitive agreement with Verizon Wireless to acquire wireless properties Verizon Wireless is divesting as a result of its acquisition of Alltel. That transaction is also subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.

To secure FCC approval of the transaction, AT&T committed to honor agreements for roaming on Centennial's network. AT&T will honor existing roaming agreements with other carriers for the life of the contract - or, for carriers with fewer than 10 million subscribers, will maintain the roaming agreement for at least four years or the full term of the agreement with Centennial, whichever is longer. AT&T also agreed to certain measures restricting the flow of competitive information between AT&T and América Móvil. AT&T is a minority shareholder in América Móvil, which also provides telecommunications services in Puerto Rico. source

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AT&T Mobility: Gearing Up To Launch $99 8GB iPhone 3GS? - Xchange (05 Nov 09)

The glut of smartphones hitting the market in the last few months could be a win-win for the consumer, especially as prices are slashed. There are places you can get the Palm Pre for less than half the price of when it debuted back in June.

Now, several sources are reporting that Apple and AT&T might be mulling selling the 8GB version of the iPhone 3G S for $99. The price break could come soon, they say, in order to compete with the Motorola Droid from Verizon during the holiday season. The Droid goes on sale Friday.

While the Droid will sell for $200, the Droid Eris was announced today. It's a simplified version that's being called Verizon's version of the HTC Hero. It will sell for $99 after the $100 mail-in rebate. source

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AT&T Mobility: Rivals Still Seek Answer To iPhone - Wall Street Journal (06 Nov 09)

AT&T Inc. dominated the U.S. wireless market in the third quarter with a huge run up in iPhone sales, but rivals are stepping up their game as the crucial holiday season approaches.

Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest mobile operator in terms of customers, and No. 3 carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. plan to unleash another wave of devices that mimic the iPhone's most popular features. They've also taken other steps, like partnering with Google Inc. and, in the case of Sprint and T-Mobile USA, offering cheaper "all-you-can-eat" plans to boost sales.

It's far from clear, however, if those initiatives will slow the momentum of AT&T and the popular iPhone, whose latest models are cheaper and faster than earlier versions.

AT&T activated a record 3.2 million iPhones in the third quarter - amid a severe recession, no less - with about 40% of the customers new to the company. AT&T is the only U.S. carrier Apple Inc. allows to sell the iPhone under an exclusive deal originally signed in 2007.

Since most adults in the U.S. already own a wireless device, phone companies increasingly obtain customers by taking them away from rival carriers. The rivals bearing the biggest brunt of AT&T's success are Sprint and T-Mobile. Yet even Verizon saw a noticeable uptick in customer defections in the third quarter - not all of which could be attributed to a poor economy.

"That was the iPhone effect," said Jane Sweig, a wireless consultant who runs The Shosteck Group.

Since Apple shows no signs of allowing other U.S. carriers to sell the iPhone, rivals have tried to match its popularity by introducing handsets with similar features, such as touch-screens and easy-to-use software.

Yet few devices so far have really come close to matching the iPhone or generating the same sort of buzz with consumers.

Verizon, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, has seen its selection of high-end phones come under criticism. But it hopes the new Motorola Droid will help it counter the appeal of the iPhone. Citigroup said Verizon's advertising campaign for the Droid is its biggest ever.

According to many early reviews, the Droid is the best phone that Motorola Inc. has ever made. Basically a powerful handheld computer, the Droid uses Google's Android operating system and is jam-packed with features, including several absent on the iPhone such as a physical, slide-out keyboard.

At the very least, analysts say, the Droid is a solid substitute for loyal Verizon users who want a device like the iPhone but who don't want to switch to AT&T's wireless network, which is generally viewed as inferior. Verizon's reputation for high network quality has helped to shield the company from some of the negative effects of the iPhone.

Verizon has also released the new BlackBerry Storm 2 from Research In Motion Ltd., which fixes crucial flaws in the original device, which was the first touch-screen BlackBerry. Verizon also has the highly anticipated Eris, its own version of the HTC Hero touch-screen phone, which also uses Google's software.

"There's no question Verizon needs a better crop of consumer oriented smartphones," said Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis.

Armed with a slew of new devices, Verizon Communications' Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said last week that Verizon Wireless will take a more aggressive sales approach in the fourth quarter.

Evidence is lacking, however, as to whether Verizon will have any more success than Sprint. Sprint took a similarly aggressive approach in the third quarter with the release of the Palm Pre - to little avail.

As the summer approached, Sprint had hoped the Pre would give the company a big hit in the third quarter. Widely considered to be Palm Inc.'s best phone ever, the Pre had tremendous buildup and good advance reviews. Sprint also heavily subsidized the device, taking a big bite out of profit margins, to stoke sales.

Apple stole the Pre's thunder, however, by releasing an updated iPhone called the 3GS around the same time. While sales of the Pre were relatively strong, it was easily overshadowed by the newest iPhones.

The result: Sprint lost a net 801,000 postpaid customers - those who sign up for annual subscription plans - and saw its churn rise slightly. Churn is a key measure of industry health that reflects the percentage of customers who cancel service. Sprint's churn rate is significantly higher than that of AT&T and Verizon.

Most of Sprint's defections likely ended up at AT&T, which gained about 1.2 million new subscribers.

While Sprint executives tried to put a positive spin on the quarter, analysts found the results mostly disappointing. The company has made big strides in improving its selection of handsets and improving what used to be the worst customer service in the industry. And yet it's still losing its most valuable subscribers.

"Stubborn churn and falling margins are not a sustainable recipe," analyst David Barden of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch wrote in a report. "Sprint knows this, but an inability to articulate how, why and when churn will improve is a crucial weakness in the story."

Left with little choice, Sprint took its biggest gamble near the end of the third quarter by introducing the industry's cheapest "all-you-can-eat" plan yet - $69 a month for unlimited text, email, Internet access and voice calls to any other mobile phone. T-Mobile quickly came out with a similar discount plan.

While Sprint's plan could eat further into profit margins, it's at least $10 cheaper per month than any competing AT&T and Verizon plan and includes fewer conditions that could increase the cost of the bill.

"Sprint just came out with a great rate plan," Zweig said.

Sprint Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said last week it was too early to determine the impact of the company's "Any Mobile Anytime" plan. Yet he also said initial results were "positive" and that "we have seen a nice lift from that offer."

Whether lower monthly prices can offset the "iPhone effect" remains to be seen, however. Customers of Apple have historically shown a greater willingness to pay a premium for its products because of their high quality and ease of use. And even the sharpest U.S. recession in decades has failed to slow sales of the iPhone. source

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AT&T Mobility: Emails Workers About Verizon Wireless Ad Lawsuit - DSLReports (05 Nov 09)

The other day we noted how AT&T was suing Verizon over their "There's A Map For That" ad campaign, claiming the ads misrepresented AT&T's wireless network coverage.

A leaked memo from AT&T management to employees has surfaced, telling them what to tell consumers should they ask about the lawsuit. In short: "tell customers we're awesome" is the meat of the memo, which not surprisingly omits AT&T's recent struggles with iPhone data capacity and the fact that yeah, Verizon does have better 3G coverage.

In short, the suit still seems like it could backfire, given it simply brings greater attention to the fact that Verizon does have better 3G coverage - no matter what maps you're looking at.

[Adweek reports: Just days after it was hit with a lawsuit over competitive claims in a series of ads, Verizon Wireless is mincing no words in response.

"This is a junk lawsuit. It has no merit," said Verizon rep Jeffrey Nelson, referring to a lawsuit filed by AT&T on Nov. 3 in which the company claims that Verizon's "There's a map for that" ads are misleading.

AT&T specifically points to the large amount of white space featured in U.S. maps depicted in the Verizon ads. AT&T argues that the white space implies the company has no cellphone coverage in large swaths of the country.

Such claims are bogus, per Verizon, since the map in the offending ad is specifically about 3G service, and does not clarify that AT&T offers other levels of cell service in non-3G zones.

"It's surprising that rather than defend the 'blue' hot spots on their 3G map, our competitor instead focuses on their white spaces," said Nelson. "The maps clearly note that the comparisons are of 3G service, and further note that voice and data services are available in other places."] source

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Sprint Nextel: Won't Change ETFs - Washington Post (05 Nov 09)

In response to Verizon Wireless' unpopular announcement that it will double its cancellation fees for smart phone subscribers, Sprint Nextel took the opportunity to say it would not be following suit.

Instead, Sprint subscribers with two-year contracts will still be charged $200 when they end their agreements early. That fee - for all phones - will be prorated after five months into the contract by $10 each month. So if you terminate your service one year into the contract, you'll be charged $140.

"We don't think customers who buy smart phones should be penalized," said John Taylor, a spokesman for Sprint.

Verizon said its new early termination penalties will take effect November 15 for smart phones and net books, which are getting more expensive. The company said it bears the cost of offering lower upfront prices on those devices and needs the assurance that customers will stick with their service plans so it can recover that subsidy. source

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Verizon Wireless: Manhattan's Midnight Droid Madness - CNet (05 Nov 09)

More than a hundred people were lined up at midnight Thursday outside a Verizon Wireless store in midtown Manhattan to be among the first people to buy the new Motorola Droid.

About 65 eager shoppers lined the south side of West 34th Street across from Macy's in Manhattan at 11:30 p.m. Thursday waiting for the store to open. Verizon opened the store from midnight to 2 a.m. to give people in the Big Apple a head start on the morning cell phone rush. By midnight, when the doors officially opened, about 100 people stood in line as Verizon officials ushered in customers 25 at a time.

Once inside the store, about 13 sales representatives and another four or five device specialists milled around, helping customers and demonstrating the phone's features. Representative were also helping customers transfer contacts to their new phone.

Verizon Wireless spokesman David Samberg said he felt confident that Verizon would be able to meet customer demand for the new Droid in New York City. The 34th Street store alone had at least 500 Droids as well as some HTC Android Eris phones, and Samberg said he expects anyone wanting to buy a Droid on Friday in New York City will be able to get one.

"Five hundred phones is a lot of phones to sell in one day," he said.

Most of the people standing in line at midnight for a Droid were loyal Verizon Wireless customers. Geoffrey Aravallis, who stopped to pick up his Droid on his way home from a dance club in the city, said he has been a Verizon Wireless customer for nine years.

He said he had been tempted to switch to AT&T for the iPhone but didn't because he felt Verizon has a better network than AT&T. Now that the Droid is out, he is glad he waited.

"I use Gmail and all kinds of Google services, so it's nice to be able to have all that on my phone," he said. "And the Droid is much more open than the iPhone."

Gabrielle Dahms admitted she had also been tempted to get the iPhone. But she had heard terrible things about AT&T's network and was leery about making the switch. Instead, she decided to wait for the Droid.

"It has all the features I like on the iPhone," she said. "Plus it has a real keyboard, which sold me."

Many people have been comparing the new Droid to the iPhone, and some have even called the new device the true iPhone killer. But judging from the people I talked with who were buying the Droid, it looks like it might be more of a BlackBerry killer.

Dahms and her boyfriend, Will Welch, had been BlackBerry Curve users. Welch said he had tried the BlackBerry Storm last year when it first came out, but he didn't like it. He also thought the iPhone was cool, but was unwilling to switch carriers for it. And he said he would have probably upgraded to the BlackBerry Tour if the Droid hadn't come along.

The Droid will hit store shelves nationally starting at 7 a.m. Friday in many stores around the country. CNET News will be covering the launch, so stay tuned for updates. source

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Odds & Ends: Tools For Teleworkers - Inside Higher Ed (06 Nov 09)

The long reign of e-mail is over, and that's a good sign for current and would-be teleworkers.

The overthrow of e-mail was most recently proclaimed by the Wall Street Journal columnist Jessica Vascellaro this month. Her contention is that as more individuals turn to alternative, more instantaneous communication vehicles like Instant Messenger (IM), Twitter, and Facebook, e-mail's long stint as our main form of communication is coming to an end.

In professional and collegiate settings alike, e-mail has long dominated as the most preferred intra- and inter-office communication tool. Frankly, that's not going to change anytime soon, despite predictions of its decline.

But there is a growing movement toward other communication and collaboration tools that give individuals and organizations a competitive advantage over others. Especially for schools, offices, and organizations that have a decentralized work force, the use of these additional communication tools isn't just a luxury, it's a necessity.

Even though tools like IM have been around for some time, it seems that misgivings and misunderstandings continue to abound. I became most acutely aware of this as I recently discussed instant messaging with a non-IM colleague who finally said, "I just don't see why you can't have the same conversation over e-mail!" Until that conversation, I thought the benefits of online collaboration and communication tools were self-evident, but clearly there is explaining to be done.

It is the misunderstanding of what these tools are and how they should be used that contributes to some of the negative feelings that managers and workers may have toward decentralized work arrangements. Any college, corporation, government agency, or other organization looking to boost its productivity should consider implementing some basic online communication and collaboration tools. According to a study sponsored by Verizon and Cisco, organizations that implement these collaborative communication tools can boost productivity by some 400 percent.

Here is a basic toolkit that colleges and other organizations with a decentralized work force should never be without.

Instant Messaging - Using IM is a no-brainer for any college student. But many colleges and organizations fail to understand its usefulness. The value of instant messaging is twofold. First, it allows users to communicate instantly. That means no more one-question emails or one-line responses. There is also less need for 20 back and forth e-mails when a simple IM conversation will do.

When a research professor needs a piece of data from a graduate assistant, she can just IM him. When a business officer needs a standard cost of attendance number from the financial aid office, an IM could easily suffice. Most IM clients even allow users to save and archive chat sessions that can be referenced later, (although not all chats may be worthy or wanted for later review!).

The second benefit of IMs comes in the form of instant updates. IM clients allow users to mark whether they are available, busy, offline, on the phone, and a host of other updates. Used correctly, these updates can occur automatically (e.g., when I'm on the phone my IM client automatically updates my status as such). Many IM clients allow users to post notes next to their status that may indicate whether they are in the office, in a meeting, on vacation, or out sick. These one-way broadcasts to friends and colleagues give instantaneous information that doesn't require any inquiry beyond opening your IM software application and quickly scanning availability statuses.

Some of the most popular IM clients include: Google Talk, MSN Messenger, AOL, Skype, & Yahoo. Some corporate email clients actually include IM clients as well.

VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is basically a phone connection through the Internet. Organizationally, VoIP may be less expensive than landline communication. Calls between users on the same network or platform are usually free of charge. But where VoIP really comes in handy is in how it interacts with other computing services.

The right VoIP program will integrate with your contact lists in your email client. It will also automatically update your IM status and give you a comprehensive summary of all of your previous calls, organized by contact. Many VoIP services include a recording function that allows users to review conversations at a later date.

Taken to the next level, a good VoIP platform will record voicemails directly onto your computer. One service, Google Voice, not only offers users one phone number that can be rerouted to any other number, but also transcribes voicemails with surprising accuracy and sends transcriptions of those voicemails to you via email or text message on a cell phone. No more wasting time dialing into your voicemail and taking notes.

Online Meeting Software - There are times when it is important for everyone to be on the same page, literally. Good online meeting software allows everyone to work off of the same screen. Effective meeting software allows multi-directional communication, so that instead of one person manipulating a shared computer screen, several people can control a shared screen. Some programs, such as GoToMeeting, integrate audio and a live feed of the screen into one application. Others allow multiple users to update the screen in real-time, without passing control from one person to the next. Still others allow users to see each other through the use of a Web Cam, although the novelty of that feature may wear off quickly.

A simple Internet search of online meeting platforms yields hundreds of results, so some experimentation will be needed to find the best fit for your purposes. What's most important is to find something that allows multiple users in different physical locations to see the same thing and work off of the same documents simultaneously in a truly collaborative way.

Unmentioned Technologies - The above technologies represent a starting point for schools or organizations - especially those with a decentralized workforce. Many organizations may be well beyond the suggestions in this article and may be using online tools to track document changes, workflow status updates, project management, calendaring and travel schedules, and much more.

Other technologies are still emerging, like Google's much anticipated "Google Wave" that combines several of the above technologies into one platform that allows users to collaborate and communicate in real time.

Purposefully left off of the list are many of the popular social networking sites that are quite useful when it comes to socializing, but haven't found a real home in office productivity. (To my knowledge, no manager, researcher, provost, or college president has ever given directions or assignments to a subordinate through Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn.)

What communication and collaboration tools do you use on your campus or at your organization? source

Security: Windows 7 Vulnerable To 8 Out Of 10 Viruses - Sophos (03 Nov 09)

Now that we in the northern hemisphere have had some time to digest the Windows 7 hype and settle in for the coming winter, we thought we would get some more hard data regarding Windows 7 security.

On October 22nd, we settled in at SophosLabs and loaded a full release copy of Windows 7 on a clean machine. We configured it to follow the system defaults for User Account Control (UAC) and did not load any anti-virus software.

We grabbed the next 10 unique samples that arrived in the SophosLabs feed to see how well the newer, more secure version of Windows and UAC held up. Unfortunately, despite Microsoft's claims, Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows. The good news is that, of the freshest 10 samples that arrived, 2 would not operate correctly under Windows 7.

User Account Control did block one sample; however, its failure to block anything else just reinforces my warning prior to the Windows 7 launch that UAC's default configuration is not effective at protecting a PC from modern malware.

Lesson learned? You still need to run anti-virus on Windows 7. Microsoft, in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report released yesterday, stated that "The infection rate of Windows Vista SP1 was 61.9 percent less than that of Windows XP SP3".

But let's not get complacent. Microsoft seems to be saying that Vista is the least ugly baby in its family. You can be sure the next report will highlight its even less ugly younger sibling, Windows 7.

Why do I say this? As of October 31st www.netmarketshare.com states that Windows Vista has a 19% market share against Windows XP's 70.5% and Windows 7's 2%. Approximately 1 in 5 Windows users is using either Vista or Windows 7. These users often have newer computers, automatic patching, and firewalls and anti-virus software in place.

With millions of hosts still infected with Conficker, ZBot and Bredo, it is obvious a lot of unprotected machines are still out there, and it is no surprise that most of those are XP.

As the chart above shows, Windows 7 users need not feel left out. They can still participate in the ZBot botnet with a side of fake anti-virus. Windows 7 is no cure for the virus blues, so be sure to bring your protection when you boot up. source

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Security: Tech Titans Meet In Secret To Plug SSL Hole - The Register (05 Nov 09)

Researchers say they've uncovered a flaw in the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to inject text into encrypted traffic passing between two endpoints.

The vulnerability in the transport layer security protocol allows man-in-the-middle attackers to surreptitiously introduce text at the beginning of an SSL session, said Marsh Ray, a security researcher who discovered the bug. A typical SSL transaction may be broken into multiple sessions, providing the attacker ample opportunity to sneak password resets and other commands into communications believed to be cryptographically authenticated.

Practical attacks have been demonstrated against both the Apache and Microsoft IIS webservers communicating with a variety of client applications. A consortium of some of the world's biggest technology companies have been meeting since late September to hash out a new industry standard that will fix the flaw. A draft is expected to be submitted on Thursday to the Internet Engineering Task Force.

"A core security guarantee made by TLS is violated as a result of this problem," said Steve Dispensa, CTO of PhoneFactor, a provider of two-factor authentication services, the company where Ray works. "It's going to take a while for the protocol changes necessary to be rolled out, because every browser and every server in the world is going to have to be patched."

Ray and Dispensa were quick to note that the vulnerability would most likely have to be exploited in concert with some other security weakness, say a flaw in a home router or the recent DNS bugs discovered by researcher Dan Kaminsky. And even then, an attacker would be unable to read encrypted data that flowed between a server and a client.

Indeed, Moxie Marlinspike a security researcher who has repeatedly exposed serious shortcomings in SSL, said the attacks were hard to pull off in the real world, in large part because they appeared to target a rarely used technology known as client certificate authentication.

"It's clever, but to my knowledge the common cases in which the majority of people use SSL (webmail, online banking, etc.) are currently unaffected," he wrote in an email. "I haven't found these attacks to be very useful in practice."

But Ray and Dispensa said there are attacks that don't rely at all on client authenticated certificates. They maintained that the ability of an attacker to inject plaintext of his choice into an authenticated data stream represented a major threat. And they said the attack has special implications for smartcards and other technologies that rely on client authenticated certificates.

"There is consensus among the biggest vendors in the world that it's a big problem," Dispensa said.

Already, developers from OpenSSL and GNU TLS have developed patches and are in the process of testing them. Other providers of hardware and software that implement SSL are in various stages of patching as well. Dispensa and Ray presented their findings under a non-disclosure agreement to a large number of company representatives on September 29 in Mountain View, California, at a company they declined to name.

The parties had planned to continue working on a fix in secret throughout the rest of the year. Coincidentally, a separate researcher recently documented the basics of the protocol defect and made some of the findings public, prompting Ray to disclose his research. The flaw has existed in TLS since the specification was published in the mid 1990s.

The vulnerability stems from the ability for either party in an SSL transaction to renegotiate the session, usually so one or the other can refresh its cryptographic keys. Because HTTP lacks a way to direct the client to resubmit the request within a newly authenticated channel, the server must apply the authentication retroactively. source

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ISPs: Congress May Require Fraud Sites Blocked - CNet (04 Nov 09)

For the last decade or so, Internet service providers have been dealing with requests to block access to pornographic or copyright-infringing Web sites, or in China, ones that dare to criticize the government.

Now a U.S. House of Representatives bill is taking the unusual step of requiring Internet providers to block access to online financial scams that fraudulently invoke the Securities Investor Protection Corporation - or face fines and federal court injunctions.

The House Financial Services Committee approved the legislation on Wednesday by a 41 to 28 vote.

If you've never heard of the SIPC, you're not alone. It's a government-linked entity that aids investors when funds are missing from their accounts, up to a limit of $500,000 for stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Only investor accounts that investors have opened with members of the SIPC--here's a list--qualify for its protection.

It turns out that occasionally, Internet fraudsters, scamsters, and other assorted malcontents have posed as legitimate brokerage firms that are SIPC members, often with a similar name or domain name. The scam may be a too-good-to-be-true offer to buy securities that asks the unwitting customer to pay fees in advance, or schemes involving fraudulent checks that eventually bounce.

That seems to be in part what prompted Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Pennsylvania Democrat and chairman of a key subcommittee, to introduce the Investor Protection Act a few weeks ago. Section 508 of that bill says:

Any Internet service provider that, on or through a system or network controlled or operated by the Internet service provider, transmits, routes, provides connections for, or stores any material containing any misrepresentation (of the SIPC) shall be liable for any damages caused thereby, including damages suffered by the SIPC, if the Internet service provider ... is aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation.

That section isn't mentioned in Kanjorski's press release dated October 1, which is why Internet providers were a bit taken aback when they found out about it a few days ago. The Internet Commerce Coalition sent a letter to Kanjorski before Wednesday's vote raising concerns with the bill, but the industry isn't terribly optimistic.

One potential problem with Kanjorski's bill is that most Internet providers simply don't have a good way to block access to any electronic "material" containing fake SIPC data. That wording is broader than just Web pages: it includes blocking certain e-mail, IM conversations, VoIP chats, and so on. And even the more straightforward task of blocking Web sites can be overly broad and problematic, which is why a federal judge in Pennsylvania declared a child porn filtering law to be unconstitutional in a landmark 2004 ruling.

Internet providers are also worried that Kanjorski's requirement - and the accompanying civil penalties and injunctions - would apply even if the blocking is not technically feasible. Or if it's impossible. (Other questions: Would this blocking requirement apply to private-sector employers? Schools and universities? Locally owned coffee shops that provide Internet service through Wi-Fi?)

Fraudulent Web sites have bedeviled the SIPC, off and on, for at least six years. In 2003, the group distributed a public warning against "brokerage identity theft" and followed up by asking the FBI to investigate a fake site that resembled the SIPC's own.

The SIPC does have a searchable database of its members, listing street addresses, but it doesn't take the obvious step of listing members' official Web sites, which other certification programs like Truste do.

Searching on San Francisco shows, for instance, that SIPC-listed Whitehall-Parker Securities has an address on Pacific Avenue. But an investor can't easily tell whether whitehall-parker.com is the actual site; a scammer could easily set up a fake site at whitehallparker.com (which, as of this writing, is available to be registered).

The Treasury Department's version of the Investor Protection Act of 2009 released in July doesn't seem to include the Internet-filtering section, meaning that the Obama administration concluded that it was unnecessary. So what prompted Kanjorski to insert it?

Abigail McDonough, Kanjorski's spokeswoman, told me that her boss is open to modifying the language of the bill to reflect industry concerns. It also turns out that the language from the Investor Protection Act was borrowed from H.R. 2798, which was introduced in June by Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y., as part of a post-Bernie Madoff scandal effort to increase the level of SIPC guarantees for investors.

One Capitol Hill source says the SIPC asked for that language to be included in the Investor Protection Act. And a representative of SIPC says the organization may not have a response until Thursday because its president, Stephen Harbeck, is traveling from China. source

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ISPs: AOL 3Q Income Fell 50% - Washington Post (05 Nov 09)

AOL's operating income fell 50 percent in the third quarter, as the Time Warner unit continued to face declines in the number of subscribers and revenue.

AOL's operating earnings fell to $134 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, from $268 million a year earlier. Revenue declined 23 percent, to $777 million, as the number of dial-up subscribers fell to 5.4 million, from 5.8 million three months earlier and 7.5 million a year earlier.

AOL's problems helped drag down Time Warner's results; the media conglomerate reported a 38 percent drop in earnings, to $661 million from $1.07 billion a year earlier. Revenue fell 6 percent, to $7.15 billion.

Even so, the results beat expectations, helped by cost cutting.

The company also boosted its full-year earnings forecast and said it remains on track to spin off AOL by the end of the year. source

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Broadband: Cablevision 3Q Profit Surges - FierceTelecom (04 Nov 09)

Cablevision may be facing a difficult economy and a tough competitive challenge from Verizon FiOS in its home New York City market, but neither of these factors seemed to make much of a dent in its third-quarter 2009 profit. In fact, Cablevision reported that third-quarter profit actually tripled. And Wall Street rewarded Cablevision's performance by driving its shares up 3.2 percent yesterday to close at $24.02.

During the third quarter, Cablevision reported $98.9 million, or 33 cents a share, an improvement from the $30.9 million it earned in Q3 08. Although the third quarter is usually when the company sees revenue dip, Cablevision reported that revenue rose 5 percent from $1.75 to $1.84 billion. The MSO said an increase in cable TV rates helped to boost its Q3 09 revenues.

Cablevision's telecom division (cable TV, phone and Internet data services) performed well in the third quarter with a 4.9 percent revenue increase. Each of its service segments contributed to decent growth during the third quarter. The MSO saw new digital cable TV subscriptions rise 2.6 percent, while analog subscribers declined 1.5 percent. Meanwhile, Cablevision's Internet subscriber base grew 4 percent, while its phone service increased 10 percent bringing it to 2 million total telephony subscribers.

Of course, the question on everyone's mind is how it feels about the competitive threat Verizon is bringing to its market? Right now, Cablevision does not seem to be overly worried about Verizon FiOS. Despite an aggressive build out in New York and other areas of its territory, FiOS is currently available in only 36 percent of the MSO's market.

"It is expanding less rapidly than it has in prior years ... and therefore their overall competitive impact is somewhat less", Tom Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer, said during a conference call with analysts. source

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Broadband: Comcast 3Q Profit Up 22.4%, Cutbacks Hinted - Philadelphia Inquirer (05 Nov 09)

Comcast Corp., which is in talks to acquire NBC Universal Inc., said yesterday that profit soared 22.4 percent in the third quarter as it added 736,000 new phone and high-speed Internet customers, its best performance for the year.

The nation's largest cable TV company lost 132,000 TV customers, which beat consensus analysts' estimate that Comcast would shed 185,000 cable TV customers.

Comcast is facing more competition for cable TV viewers as telephone giants Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. expand their pay-TV businesses in Comcast's cable-franchise areas. The Philadelphia company also battles fast-growing DirecTV, which has about 19 million pay-TV customers.

Comcast's third-quarter revenue rose 3 percent to $8.8 billion over last year's comparable period, slightly below the year-to-date revenue growth of 4.3 percent.

Profit rose to $944 million, compared with $771 million in the year-earlier period. Earnings per share were 33 cents, compared with 26 cents a year earlier.

Free cash flow, a financial metric closely followed by Comcast stock analysts, rose 19.8 percent to $1.1 billion. This represents the money left over after Comcast pays its bills and before accounting adjustments.

Comcast chief executive officer Brian L. Roberts, in a morning conference call, declined to directly address the widely publicized talks between Comcast and General Electric Co. over NBC Universal.

Sources say that GE and Comcast continue to talk and that a deal could be announced within a couple of weeks, but it is still contingent on a decision by French media giant Vivendi on whether to sell its 20 percent share in NBC Universal. GE owns the remaining 80 percent.

Comcast is expected to buy 51 percent and eventually 100 percent, of NBC Universal, one of the nation's biggest entertainment programmers.

Comcast executives say they will not use Comcast stock to buy NBC Universal, which is valued at $25 billion to $30 billion.

Michael Angelakis, Comcast's chief financial officer, noted in the conference call that the company, which employs about 100,000, was evaluating its workforce with the intent of cutting costs and that he expected a severance charge in the fourth quarter. He did not say how many jobs could be eliminated.

Cable advertising recovered from its sharply lower levels earlier in the year, Angelakis said, but still declined about 10 percent when compared with the year-earlier third quarter.

The results emphasized the fact that Comcast's core residential cable TV business is slowing. Some view Comcast's future core business as its high-speed Internet service.

Comcast's new 361,000 high-speed Internet customers were about double the combined new Internet customers for Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest Communications International Inc., Comcast executives noted.

Craig Moffett, equity analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. L.L.C., said Comcast's third-quarter performance was "pretty good" and reinforced the notion of cable companies as "defensive stocks" in the recession.

Stephen Burke, Comcast chief operating officer, said the cable giant heavily marketed its "triple play" bundle in the third quarter, leading to new Internet and phone customers. source

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Broadband: Time Warner Cable 3Q Profit Falls 11% - Wall Street Journal (05 Nov 09)

Time Warner Cable Inc. said its third-quarter profit fell a less-than-expected 11% as revenue was slightly higher.

The cable industry has managed to keep posting strong earnings despite the recession and competition from the Internet. Comcast on Wednesday reported a higher profit as it continued to show revenue growth despite losing customers overall and posting reduced gains in digital phone and high-speed Internet subscribers.

Keeping revenue up has been difficult as more and more television programs become available on the Web. To counter the shift, Time Warner Cable has reportedly signed up major media companies in a test that will put television programs on the Web for paying subscribers, after a similar effort with Comcast earlier.

Time Warner Cable posted a profit of $268, or 76 cents a share, from $301 million, or 92 cents a share, a year earlier. the quarters included charges of four cents and two cents, respectively, while the latest quarter also included costs from March's special cash dividend. Operating income was up 5%.

Revenue increased 3.6% to $4.5 billion.

A survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters predicted earnings of 75 cents on revenue of $4.47 billion.

Total subscribership fell 25,000 from the second quarter at 14.6 million on lower video customers, while bundled subscribership -- customers who have two or more services - represented to 56% of customers.

Video revenue was up 2.2%. High-speed Internet revenue climbed 7.8%.

Last month, two top broadcast network owners called for cable operators to pay monthly fees to carry their broadcast stations. The practice breaks from the tradition of over-the-air broadcast networks, but the companies are eyeing new revenue streams as they struggle with an advertising slump. Cable channels have long supplemented ad sales with billions of dollars in fees paid by cable operators. source

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AT&T: Illinois Man Sues Over Cramming Charges - ChicagoNow (04 Nov 09)

A class action lawsuit has been filed against AT&T for alleged bogus and unauthorized directory assistance charges.

Jeffrey Hickel says that when he noticed a $5.00 charge for "Network Connections USA" on his November 2008 phone bill, he called AT&T who "claimed ignorance of the charge". The customer service representative stated that AT&T had been told by Network Connections to put the charge on Hickel's bill for an unspecified service.

Hickel then contacted Network Connections directly and learned it was a prepaid directory assistance service. Hickel informed Network Connections that he never ordered or authorized the service and wanted it removed from his bill. When Hickel reviewed all of his past statements, he noticed the $5.00 charge first appeared in September 2007.

AT&T removed the charge from Hickel's bill but never refunded him for the past charges, despite his repeated demands and their promises to do so, the complaint states.

The complaint notes that billing customers for telecommunication services that the customers never ordered or authorized is known as "cramming".

Read the complaint here. source

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Verizon: Union Still Criticizing Wireline Sale To Frontier - Charleston Daily Mail (05 Nov 09)

The Communications Workers of America union continues to criticize Verizon's plan to sell its wire line business in 14 states to Frontier Communications Corp.

Union spokeswoman Elaine Harris issued a press release on Wednesday saying that if the deal goes through, West Virginia would replace the top-ranked broadband provider - Verizon - with "one of the worst providers" - Frontier.

The union cited an Oct. 29 residential customer satisfaction survey by J.D. Power and Associates, a marketing information services company. The survey measures customer satisfaction with high-speed Internet service based on performance and reliability, cost of service, customer service, billing, and offerings and promotions.

The 2009 survey ranked Verizon as the best broadband provider in the east, with a score of 673 on a 1,000-point scale. The east region average score was 643. Frontier's score was 621.

The union press release did not mention that Verizon offers fiber-to-the-home connections under the brand name FiOS in some of its eastern service territories while Frontier does not.

Frontier spokeswoman Brigid Smith said, "As Ms. Harris knows all too well, Verizon does not provide FiOS to a single customer in West Virginia. Secondly, 40 percent of the households in Verizon's footprint in the state do not even have access to broadband. Download and upload speeds mean nothing if you cannot connect! Compare that to Frontier's 92 percent availability in West Virginia."

In J.D. Power's survey of providers in the west, Verizon ranked second with a score of 650. The west region average score was 631. Frontier had a score of 596.

Frontier wasn't part of the J.D. Power survey in the north central United States or in the south.

Harris said, "The economic growth and development of West Virginia depends on having modern, high-speed Internet access. It's not in the public's best interest for West Virginia to replace the leader in broadband service with a smaller company whose customer satisfaction is appallingly low."

Maggie Wilderotter, Frontier's chairwoman and chief executive officer, told analysts during a conference call on Tuesday that Frontier is "doing a very good job" in West Virginia.

"We have very high satisfaction rates from our customers in the state," she said.

As of June 30, Frontier had approximately 142,000 access lines and 48,000 high-speed Internet customers in 38 West Virginia counties, said company spokesman Steve Crosby.

Verizon has always been the largest telecommunications provider in West Virginia. As of Dec. 31, 2008, Verizon has about 617,000 access lines in 47 counties in the state, said Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell.

The Frontier-Verizon deal must be approved by the West Virginia Public Service Commission in order to be completed. The commission has scheduled hearings Jan. 12-14 in Charleston. source

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AT&T Mobility: Honolulu Service Disrupted Wednesday For Some Customers - Honolulu Star-Bulletin (05 Nov 09)

Some AT&T customers in Honolulu had their service disrupted yesterday as the cell-phone provider dealt with an equipment issue.

"Customers may be experiencing interruptions," said Erika Ulring, an AT&T spokeswoman, who also apologized for the problem.

Technicians had not resolved the issue by late afternoon yesterday. For an update, contact customer service at 1-800-331-0500 or send a tweet to the customer service representative at twitter.com/ATTNews. source

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AT&T Mobility: Could Verizon Ads Lawsuit Backfire? - Computerworld (04 Nov 09)

AT&T Inc.'s lawsuit against Verizon Wireless over its TV ads could be a public relations mistake, some analysts said today, but at least one said that the company had to bring the lawsuit to protect itself against potential regulatory or legal actions.

Some experts said the lawsuit brings into focus a perception among some consumers - iPhone users in particular - that AT&T's network is inferior to Verizon's. An opposing view is that AT&T had to file a lawsuit, partly to satisfy regulators and also to head off a potential class-action lawsuit by unhappy customers. Yet another expert said AT&T would only face backlash if it loses the suit.

AT&T filed the lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, claiming that Verizon's "There's a Map for That" TV ads are misleading. AT&T claims the ads lead viewers to believe that areas shown in white on a map of the U.S. have no AT&T wireless coverage at all, but in fact the white regions are just those that are outside of AT&T's fast 3G service area. Verizon said through a spokeswoman Tuesday that the ads are accurate and clearly state in text that the white areas on the map just have no 3G service and are not entirely without coverage.

AT&T is seeking an emergency injunction to stop the ads, arguing that they are causing AT&T to lose "incalculable market share" and customer goodwill. It is also seeking unspecified monetary damages.

However, three experts said that the Verizon ads alone would not have focused as much public attention on AT&T's perceived network weaknesses as the AT&T lawsuit has.

"I think AT&T has a good point about the Verizon ads, but unfortunately by filing the lawsuit, they are showing their shortcomings", said Gene Grabowski, a crisis communications consultant at Levick Strategic Communications in Washington. "The lawsuit brings [AT&T's network coverage] to a higher level of scrutiny".

On a personal level, Grabowski said he recently bought a BlackBerry device that uses AT&T's network and found that the device works well. When the ads started airing in October, Grabowski said he perceived them as "just ads". He focused more intently on the claims when the lawsuit was described in the media and was left concerned about AT&T's network as a result.

Similarly, Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group, added, "If I were AT&T, I would have let this go. If you have a superior network offering, then a lawsuit makes sense, but AT&T is already inferior and may give Verizon's campaign more power as opposed to detracting from it".

Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates LLC, added that the lawsuit is a "no-win for AT&T" and will be costly. "AT&T already has had a bad rap with 3G, and this will make things worse", he said.

However, IDC analyst Scott Ellison said AT&T had to file a lawsuit over the ads, in part, to satisfy government regulators that monitor AT&T's network performance to make sure it lives up to the company's claims.

"The AT&T lawsuit is not going to matter for consumers, but AT&T is doing this for people at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, because AT&T needs to counter a perception that AT&T is selling something it can't deliver", Ellison said.

Ellison also said AT&T is apparently "trying to head off a class-action lawsuit from iPhone users and others who may say, 'You sold us this phone and we can't make calls with it.'"

Ellison has been one of the strongest critics of AT&T's network performance, especially with the iPhone, which incorporates many multimedia-focused applications that require reliable, fat bandwidth.

In October, he said AT&T "has immolated itself with network capacity issues" that are worse in crowded urban areas.

But Ellison defended the lawsuit, noting that AT&T's network problems "apparently don't matter much", since the carrier just reported an "incredible" third quarter, with 3.2 million iPhone activations. "That's a great number by any measure, even more so given the media coverage of AT&T's network capacity issues in key areas like New York and San Francisco".

All four experts agreed, however, that the competition is fierce between No. 1 wireless carrier Verizon, with 89 million subscribers, and No. 2 AT&T, with nearly 82 million. Such a competitive atmosphere can lead a corporation's lawyers to push legal matters forward, they said.

But "litigation is a blunt instrument and should be the last tool used" by a company, Grabowski argued. "In a case like this, a company would be better served with a communications campaign or an information campaign pointing out that Verizon is splitting hairs or being misleading".

Grabowski said in highly competitive markets, company executives and their attorneys might feel a lawsuit is imperative. "They are almost like a nation that feels it has to go nuclear rather than try diplomacy and subtle means because that takes time and work", he said. However, he admitted that in some instances, a lawsuit "signifies how serious you are".

Even if AT&T is right about the facts and wins the injunction, it will still face some backlash from bringing the lawsuit, Grabowski said. "With the Verizon ads alone, AT&T might lose 10% of their customers, but they may lose more with the lawsuit", he said.

Gartner Inc. analyst Ken Dulaney, however, said the Verizon ad won't persuade iPhone users to switch to Verizon, simply because Verizon doesn't have the iPhone, which is currently exclusive to AT&T. "Most customers will ignore the ad and stay with AT&T", he predicted.

Ellison, while contending that AT&T had no choice other than to file a lawsuit, said he finds the Verizon ad to be "funny and brilliant", since it encapsulates the key difference between Verizon and AT&T. "Saying 'there's a map for that' as a play on iPhone's 'there's an app for that' is brilliant", he said. source

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MetroPCS: 3Q Net Jumps 64% On Cost Cuts, Churn Climbs - Wall Street Journal (05 Nov 09)

MetroPCS Communications Inc.'s third-quarter profit rose a much better-than-expected 64% as the company cut costs but saw a higher churn rate and customer growth slow.

"In a seasonally slow quarter, we reported net additions that were below our expectations due primarily to elevated churn and a deceleration in gross additions," said Chairman and Chief Executive Roger Linquist. "We believe this was the result of continued U.S. macro-economic weakness, an increasingly competitive environment, and upward adjustments we made to the price of certain handsets,"

Prepaid wireless carriers such as MetroPCS, best known for its unlimited plan, have been in fierce competition with each other and postpaid carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.. The prepaid industry has bustled as consumers look to pay less and dodge long-term contracts.

In October, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it saw mostly negative catalysts for MetroPCS as the company is seeing rising competition from Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Boost as well as Tracfone, which recently went nationwide through Wal-Mart Inc. . MetroPCS has been the subject merger-and-acquisition speculation several times in recent months, with several different rumored possible partners.

MetroPCS reported earnings of $73.5 million, or 21 cents a share, up from $44.8 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier.

Revenue jumped 30% to $895.6 million, with a 33% increase in services revenue and a 9.5% jump in equipment sales.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently forecast earnings of 9 cents on $869 million in sales.

The company's churn, or turnover rate, rose to 5.8% from 4.8%, and average revenue per user rose 0.9%.

Subscribership rose 30% from a year earlier, totaling 6.32 million. Net customer additions during the quarter were down 73%.

Shares closed at $6.62 Wednesday and were inactive premarket. The stock is down 55% this year. source

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T-Mobile USA: Says Software Error Behind Tuesday's Outage - CNet (04 Nov 09)

T-Mobile said on Wednesday that a software glitch was to blame for a massive outage on Tuesday that left many customers unable to send or receive calls or text messages.

"After investigating the cause, we have determined that a back-end system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network," T-Mobile said in a statement. "T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future."

The wireless service provider did not say which software caused the issue.

"We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced," T-Mobile said. I've also asked the carrier what, if any, compensation it plans to give those who were without service.

The service disruption began on Tuesday afternoon and lasted, for some, until late into the evening Pacific Time.

T-Mobile has stated that the outage affected about 5 percent of its users. source

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Verizon Wireless: Is Doubling ETF Fees Customer Abuse? - The Street (05 Nov 09)

Verizon is out of touch with reality. What absolute gall to double early termination fees to $350, according to a report on Yahoo!.

Verizon is totally out of sync with the market, with so many new and exciting mobile phone products coming out all the time.

Doubling the termination fee is not in keeping with the new regulatory push to stop companies from gouging consumers with unnecessary fees.

We're basically talking about a new twist on the old bait and switch routine, let's call it bait and lock. Verizon captures new customers by offering them subsidized deals on cool new phones and then the cmopany wants to recoup the cost by locking them in with long-term contracts.

I understand the business logic behind that strategy, and I appreciate the opportunity to get a better deal on a phone. But two years is an eternity in the fast-moving mobile technology environment we live in.

Verizon and many of its rivals made the decision to compete on phone technology by starting down the path of subsidized phones and exclusive deals with mobile technology companies.

AT&T made its bet on Apple's iPhone (or maybe it was the other way around), Verizon is going big on Google's Android and Sprint hooked up with Palm.

So if they want to compete on phones, then they should be making it easier and cheaper for customers to upgrade to the latest, greatest version. Instead, Verizon is making it harder by raising early termination fees. Sure, you can always pay full price for a new gadget, but the carriers have taught us that we shouldn't have to.

The termination fee punishes the early adopters instead of embracing them.

I hope Verizon's rivals don't follow the standard "me-too" approach and raise their termination fees. There are better ways to generate customer loyalty than through contractual obligations and hidden costs.

Why not drop the termination fee altogether and offer an upgrade as often as you like policy with less of a discount for each successive upgrade within a given period. Early adopters tend to be willing to pay a little more to be first with a new toy and other customers may just wait out the two-year period. source

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Wireless: Will Androids Land On Networx? - Nextgov (04 Nov 09)

The trade press has been all abuzz about Google's Linux-based mobile operating system, dubbed Android: Which manufacturers will offer the application? Will it give the proprietary iPhone system a run for its money?

For the federal market, the question is whether or not Android will be available through Networx, the government's acquisition vehicle for telecommunications products and services.

"The availability of this capability to the government through the network services contract would [depend upon] the carriers offering the compatible devices," said GSA spokesman Bob Lesino.

Google is in the software business, and therefore has no plans to manufacture a cell phone that would run Android, which is is simply an operating system that can be run on compatible cell phones.

"Cell phone makers build devices capable of running the application and sign varying agreements with Google regarding the loading of the OS on their phones," Lesino said.

Whether those manufacturers will bring such a package to the federal market through Networx has yet to be determined. GSA's current plans are to include both Android devices and the Palm Pre in the next refresh of the contract, "if we can get all the details worked out in a timely manner," Lesino said. He added that GSA will be doing contract modifications with various carriers soon.

Among Android's top competitors are Microsoft's mobile version of Windows; Apple's proprietary iPhone system; the BlackBerry platform; the Palm Pre's new operating system called WebOS; Symbian, which is primarily available on Nokia phones; and a host of Linux-based systems. source

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Wireless: 'Jailbroken' Dutch iPhones Held For iRansom - InternetNews (04 Nov 09)

An enterprising hacker this week sent an unsolicited and unremovable message to Dutch iPhone users, illustrating how their jailbroken devices were vulnerable to attacks and demanding a small fee in exchange for instructions to remove the hack.

"Your iPhone's been hacked because it's really insecure!" the message read. "Please visit doiop.com/iHacked and secure your phone right now!"

A known vulnerability for jailbroken iPhones allowed the hacker to scan for the phones running on the T-Mobile Netherlands network with an exposed SSH (define) interface and gain access by entering the default password.

When surprised iPhone owners visited the site, they were directed to pay $4.95 to the hacker's PayPal account if they wanted the step-by-step directions to secure their phones. They were instructed to change the default root SSH password that is used to tamper with the iPhones but users often forget to change when they jailbreak it.

Once word of the extortion started to spread online, the teen hacker's PayPal account was suspended. He subsequently issued an apology (available here via translation service) and posted the instructions to remove the hack for free.

Apple officials were not immediately available for comment.

It's unclear if or how many Dutch iPhone users actually paid the ransom to the hacker's PayPal account before it was shuttered.

Since its first release, the iPhone has been hacked and reverse engineered by would-be entrepreneurs and adventurous users primarily for the purpose of connecting the device to wireless carriers other than the iPhone's exclusive provider, AT&T [Mobility]. source

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BPOs: Convergys Launches Home Agent Program In Virginia - Call Centre Clinic News (05 Nov 09)

Convergys Corporation a global leader in relationship management, has announced the expansion of its Home Agent program to include Virginia.

Home agents receive calls ranging from billing and customer service to technical assistance from customers of Convergys clients in a variety of industries. They can work full-time or part-time from their homes in urban, suburban or rural areas, depending on their Internet connectivity. Home agents also can reduce energy consumption and even contribute to a greener environment by avoiding a daily commute to work.

"Our home agents benefit from flexible scheduling, which provides increased time to spend with their families," said Brad Krinhop, vice president of operations for the Home Agent program. "In addition, the elimination of a daily commute allows them to save money on gas, auto maintenance, parking, clothing and meals. The program provides an ideal opportunity for students facing high tuition costs, stay-at-home parents needing a second income to help pay bills, or retirees who wish to augment their retirement savings."

The hiring process - from application through training and employment - is unique because it can be completed from an individual's home desktop, without ever visiting a Convergys facility. The only workplace requirements for candidates are a quiet place to work inside their home, a PC that meets Convergys' minimum standards, cable or DSL high-speed Internet access, and a noise-canceling USB headset.

Interested candidates can begin the application process by logging onto the Convergys Home Agent Web site at www.convergysworkathome.com.

With some 70,000 employees worldwide, Convergys currently has home agents in 30 U.S. states and six Canadian Provinces in North America. Convergys also has launched a work-at-home program in the UK. source

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BPOs: Sitel To Lay Off 158 Alabama Workers - Andalusia Star-News (04 Nov 09)

Sitel corporate officials announced this week that the company will lay off 158 employees at its Sanford [Alabama] call center on Tues., Dec. 1.

In letters sent to Andalusia Mayor Earl Johnson and Sanford call center employees on Tuesday, Sitel corporate officials cited "the departure of a significant client" as the reason behind the layoffs of approximately 150 customer service representatives, six "coaches" and two "learning specialists."

Currently, the call center employs approximately 500 employees.

Officials said call volume for the company's T-Mobile account has decreased dramatically, prompting the cell company to move its business to a new site, and Sitel's recent efforts to locate new clients were not successful.

"Although we are always pursing new clients and new business opportunities, we anticipate that the separations from this location may be permanent," the letter stated.

Affected employees were given written notice Tuesday of the "reduction in force" and told the majority should qualify for unemployment benefits.

Andalusia Mayor Earl Johnson said he was "saddened" to hear the news.

"First and foremost, I wish to say how deeply sorry I am for the affected individuals and their families," he said. "Such news is always bad, but it is especially so as we near the holiday season.

"Second, it is important to remember that while this is a significant reduction in Sitel's operation, we are confident that the remainder of their workforce is stable and that management is aggressively seeking new clients to absorb the loss."

He said the company remains a viable member of our business community and is committed to Andalusia and Covington County and its decision "is not a reflection on our workforce or Sitel's performance."

"Likely, it is the result of a business decision based on factors beyond the control of anyone involved," he said.

"This event also reminds us that we must redouble our efforts to attract new jobs to our community and work to expand existing businesses and industries," he said. "We must never grow complacent with job development as our economy is truly global and subject to the pressures of constant competition."

Attempts to reach Sitel's vice president of marketing and sales were not immediately successful. source

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BPOs: India's Rising IT Security Risk - The Hindu (05 Nov 09)

Increasing use of IT infrastructure by Indian enterprises has led to growing security risks such as loss of critical data, a study by the intelligence marketing firm IDC (India) Ltd. has revealed.

"About 80 percent of Indian enterprises have agreed that loss or theft of critical data is a serious information security risk they face after threats from viruses and hackers," the survey, commissioned by security solutions provider Symantec India, said in its latest report.

Though enterprises have been sanguine on investing heavily in building their IT infrastructure for end-to-end efficient operations, adoption of technologies to prevent or detect data loss has been abysmally low due to lack of awareness or seriousness over the implications of the risk.

"The need to protect sensitive information like source code, intellectual property, employee and customer accounts has made enterprises realise that data loss can turn into a disaster in terms of competition, compliance and credibility," Symantec India managing director Vishal Dhupar told IANS here.

The survey, conducted in August involving heads of IT infrastructure in verticals spanning banking and finance, manufacturing, media and entertainment, telecom, and IT and IT-enabled services, showed only 15 percent of Indian enterprises had any form of data loss prevention measures in place.

The awareness on the impact and consequence of data loss or how prevention technologies could safeguard them was only 32 percent among the 142 enterprises that responded to the survey.

"In fact, 16 percent of the enterprises admitted to have lost data in the recent past for various reasons, including unaware users, malicious insiders and external threats from hackers and cyber-criminals," Dhupar said sharing the findings of the survey.

Keeping in view the criticality of data, large enterprises in verticals like banking, finance and insurance (BFSI) and IT/ITeS have been early adopters of data loss prevention technologies, as about 50 percent of the data is sensitive to their operations.

"But medium and small enterprises in diverse verticals have been lagging in adopting prevention measures due to difficulty in data classification, budgetary constraints and lack of priority or importance of protection," Dhupar averred.

The survey also revealed how a majority of enterprises considered firewalls, log analysers, intrusion prevention and detection solutions as adequate to protect their data from being lost or stolen.

Among enterprises adopting data loss prevention technologies, over 80 percent of them opted for patch or silo based implementation, while 45 percent of non-users felt no need for such technology under the assumption that security solutions were enough to protect their data.

"High-risk sectors like BFSI have implemented technologies to prevent data loss, while 30 percent of enterprises in IT/ITeS, 18 percent in telecom and 12 percent in manufacturing have invested in protecting their sensitive data," Dhupar noted.

Even as data loss from desktops or personal computers remains a serious threat, increasing usage of laptops and smart phones by their mobile workforce poses a greater risk to enterprises.

According to a Gartner Consumer survey, sale of laptops is projected to grow by 37 percent in 2009 to 3.69 million units, constituting one-third of the total PC (personal computer) market, which is set to grow only by 13.7 percent to 1.1 million units.

"The increasing trend of mobile workforce poses a greater challenge to enterprises in protecting data stored in laptops or smart phones if they are lost, misplaced or stolen. Even unsuspecting employees can steal a company's data stored in laptops for gain or ulterior motive, resulting in loss of confidential, sensitive or proprietary information," Dhupar pointed out.

A study by the US-based Ponemon Institute, about 60 percent of employees who are either sacked or resign steal company data to leverage a new job.

About 60 percent of employees who recently changed jobs reported taking confidential data from their previous employer. This included customer lists, employee records, non-financial information. The top three ways data is lost are through CDs,DVDs and USB drives. source

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Odds & Ends: Microsoft Slashes 800 More Jobs - ITProPortal (05 Nov 09)

In spite of the signs of getting over economic recession, Microsoft Corp. continues with its layoff drive, as it has announced to axe 800 more jobs across its multiple businesses across the globe.

Incidentally, back in January, the software giant had announced it was to eliminate as many as 5,000 positions within its businesses in its response to counter sagging sales and profits, and this new drive of layoffs is coming in addition to the previously announced ones.

A spokesperson for the company asserted that the job-cuts would be widely spread across its multitude of businesses at various locations, and that the software firm would continue to hire good people in its priority areas.

The software giant had already axed some 1,400 jobs back in January, followed by a thousand of additional job-cuts in the month of May. A spokeswoman for the company told paidContent.org that the company had already been over with what it has referred to as its "reduction plan".

However, the website further quoted the spokeswoman as saying that "continuing to manage our businesses closely, as we always do, can mean additional headcount adjustments".

The job losses in the company announced just after a week the company has declared its quarterly results in which it posted sharp decline in profits and revenues. source

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Odds & Ends: Microsoft Job Cuts 'Complete' ... For Now - Seattle Times (05 Nov 09)

Microsoft reminded Seattle on Wednesday that when it rains, it pours sometimes.

The software giant said it's cutting more jobs than expected in a broad, cost-cutting program that began in January, the first major layoffs in its 34-year history.

The company said it was ahead of schedule and had cut 5,800 jobs. That's up from the 5,000 it had planned to cut by 2010.

At least 1,400 jobs have been lost in the Puget Sound area, including 200 Wednesday.

Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said the layoff program announced at the start of 2009 is "complete," but more cuts could come as the company continues adjusting to economic conditions.

Wall Street may appreciate the approach and punctuality, but more uncertainty is left in a region where Microsoft has been a bulwark during previous downturns, and people are still reeling from Boeing's recent decision to begin building jetliners in South Carolina.

Microsoft's business appears to be on a roll. The stock jumped back to the high $20s last month after the company reported Windows and Xbox sales were better than expected. Shares closed up 2 percent Wednesday to $28.06 after the layoff news.

But CEO Steve Ballmer isn't cheering as much. During a visit Monday to South Korea, he said he's not expecting tech spending to return to pre-downturn levels.

Gellos reiterated the cautious outlook Wednesday, saying Microsoft will continue to make whatever adjustments are necessary.

"If that means we focus on different businesses or take care of employee head-count issues, we would do that."

It's a new tone for a company historically loathe to use the word "layoff." But new executives and economic conditions have made efficiencies and cost-cutting a more public mantra at the largest software company.

Some employees suspected cuts were coming this week. The Nov. 4 date was accurately predicted by commenters on the Mini-Microsoft insider blog, who noted that was the day the human-resources department had reserved numerous conference rooms across the campus.

Still, the pink slip surprised employee Don Dodge, a Boston-based business-development director. "Totally blindsided," he said.

Dodge, 52, is an avid social networker and regular at startup conferences. Word spread among tech enthusiasts, and he said he was discussing jobs with Amazon.com, Cisco, Dell and others by the end of the day.

He is losing more than his job. He's also missing out on stock awards he would have received if Microsoft waited a few weeks, until his five-year anniversary Nov. 24.

"I'm already over it and looking forward," he said.

Gellos wouldn't say which areas are being cut or if they correlate to Microsoft's recent decisions to terminate businesses such as the MSN Direct information service and Office Accounting products.

Work tends to slow after major products are released. The company just shipped Windows 7, and the next version of Office productivity software is nearly done.

Gellos also declined to say exactly how the cuts have affected head count, because the company continues to hire "in certain focus areas." Some people whose jobs were cut found work in those areas, he said.

The company employed 91,005 globally and 40,244 in the Puget Sound region at the end of September, the most recent count available.

Cutbacks at Microsoft and other companies became evident in the state's employment count in April, when software jobs began falling.

"Those are good-paying jobs for highly educated people. Obviously, losing those jobs does have an impact," said Desiree Phair, a state regional labor economist in Seattle.

Microsoft's layoffs came in three waves, beginning in January. Another came in May, when Ballmer reiterated the company was responding to the "global economic downturn" with a "plan to adjust the company's cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations."

"This is difficult news to share," he wrote at the time. "Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard."

Microsoft still hasn't retreated much from a big hiring surge that began in 2007.

Nearly 13,000 people were hired during the 2007 fiscal year, the biggest gain in a decade of surging Microsoft employment growth. During that same period, the company ramped up its physical presence with an enormous, $1 billion-plus campus expansion that began in 2006.

Portions of that project were suspended when cutbacks began, and the company cut pay to temporary workers and consolidated vendors. But it continued to spend heavily on data centers around the world to improve its search business and compete with Google and others developing online software and services.

Dodge tried to look on the bright side. "These things have a way of sorting themselves out," he said. "Given enough time, everyone finds a new place where they can be happy and where they belong." source

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Odds & Ends: RealNetworks To Lay Off 4% - AllThingsD (05 Nov 09)

The Seattle area is going to get another jobless jolt Thursday, with RealNetworks planning to lay off 4 percent of its workforce, sources said.

That's a small number - just about 70 people out of its 1,700-person staff - but the move comes on the heels of layoffs of another 800 employees at nearby Microsoft on Wednesday. The software giant has cut thousands of jobs over the last year, part of a move to eliminate 5,000 positions by mid-2010.

While the dismissals - which are likely to be announced to affected RealNetworks employees sometime Thursday morning by managers - will be global, both RealNetworks and Microsoft are tech leaders with headquarters in the Pacific Northwest.

According to sources, the reasons for the layoffs at RealNetworks are, as was the case at Microsoft, to realign the work force after the recent economic downturn and to control costs.

But RealNetworks could also hire back some of the laid-off employees, as other parts of the company are expanding.

The company had signaled the possibility of staff cuts previously, but had not been specific.

The last staff cuts at the company, which makes digital media software and tools, were larger, with about 130 employees sacked about a year ago.

RealNetworks announced better-than-expected third-quarter earnings last week, barely returning to profitability by cutting costs to make up for weaker revenue. source

Security: Kaspersky For Macs - InternetNews (04 Nov 09)

Macintosh computers have long been thought to be overlooked by malware and phishing attacks, but they are becoming more and more popular with hackers and other online scam artists, prompting security software vendors to cook up Mac versions of antivirus applications.

Kaspersky Lab rolled out Anti-Virus for Mac today, the latest in a string of new Mac-centric security products designed to protect the roughly one in 10 people who aren't using a Windows PC.

Company officials said this new application suite prevents users' Macs from becoming "incubators" for malware and from inadvertently harboring and spreading PC and Unix malware to colleagues and friends.

"The single most concerning issue for Mac security today is having these machines used as hosts for PC malware," Justin Priestly, Kaspersky Lab's senior vice president of consumer sales, said in a statement. "These threats may not damage the Mac they live on, but they can be passed to a friend's PC by sharing a USB flash drive or spread from a graphic design department to infect PC-colleagues across a network."

A recent survey by security software vendor Sophos found that 93 percent of Mac users believe malware writers will increasingly target their beloved machines in the future.

Kaspersky's Anti-Virus for Mac is the company's first designed exclusively for the Apple machines and supports devices running Mac OS 10.4.11 or higher, including Snow Leopard and Intel processors.

Company officials said the security applications automatically scan files, downloads from the Web and e-mail attachments in real time, disinfecting corrupted files as it goes along and protecting users from more than 30,000 new malware threats - including many tailored specifically for Macs - each day.

Anti-Virus for Mac is now available for download from the Kaspersky Web site as a 30-day free trial. A year license is available for $39.95 for one machine or $59.95 a year for up to three machines. source

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ISPs: Microsoft Gives MSN A Face Lift - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (03 Nov 09)

Spurred by the ever-changing ways in which people use the Internet, Microsoft has unveiled a completely redesigned MSN home page.

The popular Web portal is moving away from its more traditional format of a "link mall", as MSN senior director Lisa Gurry said, and going with a more simplistic design. Available for preview at 9 p.m. Tuesday//http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx and rolling out Wednesday to 10 percent of MSN's audience, the new site has half as many blue links, features tabbed browsing and integrates with Facebook and Twitter.

"Our goal really was focused on making it a simple, clear and fast home page," Gurry said. "The simplicity of the design is really based on feedback from our customers and looking at traffic on our sites."

Microsoft says the redesign is MSN's most significant in more than a decade. Gurry said the time is now right to make the move.

A random 10 percent of MSN's 100 million monthly unique U.S. viewers will see the new site Wednesday. A limited release gives Microsoft the chance to gauge users' response, take feedback and tweak the new MSN until the master switch is flipped early next year, Gurry said.

"Because it is a very different home page from what we've had before," she said, " we can't entirely predict how the design will fit in with customer behavior."

That behavior has changed immensely as people get more and more adept at using search engines to find what they're looking for on the Web. The reduced home-page links will be augmented by the deeper integration of Bing search technology.

As always, MSN will feature top news on the top of the page. Underneath that section, however, is a new tabbed module for browsing news and information by topic. Those tabs will change, for example, to focus on entertainment during the weekend and news during the week, Gurry said.

Another new module features Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter right on the home page. Users can stay signed in and update their Facebook status or tweet their feelings without opening another Web site. The Windows Live "What's New" feature aggregates content from social sites such as Yelp, Flickr and Pandora.

Users will also notice a renewed focus on video. MSN will attempt to be a portal by which people find and watch videos, from those going viral to breaking news.

And, of course, users will also notice a new MSN butterfly logo.

I could keep typing, but screenshots are better at showing the visual changes. A preview page is available at preview.msn.com, and users who are not part of the randomly selected 10 percent audience roll-out can view the redesign there, as well.

Here are some more screenshots of the Windows Live, Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail modules. source

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AT&T Mobiliity: Sues Verizon Wireless Over 3G Map Ads - San Francisco Chronicle (03 Nov 09)

AT&T is suing Verizon Wireless over its "There's a map for that," ad campaign, which touts how Verizon's network offers five times the high-speed 3G coverage.

AT&T is not disputing the facts apparently. They're angry that the ads - a take off of Apple's, "There's an app for that", commercials - leave viewers with the impression that AT&T has no wireless coverage in vast swaths of the country.

AT&T, in fact, has plenty of Edge coverage, an older wireless technology. But that is considerably slower than 3G, which offers download speeds around the low end of DSL service. AT&T has complained to Verizon and got some minor changes to the ads, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But AT&T is still unhappy with the ads, saying they mislead consumers. Verizon has dismissed the claim.

"The suit doesn't have any merits," Verizon spokesman Jim Gerace told the Journal. "Our ads clearly explain that non-3G coverage is available elsewhere."

AT&T is the leader in smartphones, with more than double the number of smartphones sold compared to its nearest competitor. That is largely due to the popularity of the iPhone, which is an AT&T exclusive. But some AT&T iPhone users have grumbled about AT&T's 3G coverage, which is essential to take advantage of the iPhone's browser and numerous apps.

I had heard that AT&T was talking to its lawyers about these ads. That they went to a lawsuit says how much it's gotten under the company's skin.

The commercials are not only snarky but also pretty effective. It'll be interesting to see if AT&T gets Verizon to stop running the ads or if it just puts more attention on its smaller 3G network. What do you think?

UPDATE: Just talked to AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel who said AT&T filed the suit because internal research they've done has found that consumers equate the white space in the Verizon ad with no coverage. He said blank or white space has typically been used on coverage maps to suggest no wireless network.

"If you look at the way Verizon or Sprint depict coverage, white space means no coverage," he said. "That's what they're doing here and that's why we think it's misleading."

He said the campaign seems aimed at undercutting AT&T's leadership in smartphones. source

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AT&T Mobility: Dropped Calls In NYC - Dallas Morning News (03 Nov 09)

I don't doubt AT&T's claim that its network only drops about 1 percent of all 3G calls, but I do think the company still has serious reliability issues.

The 1 percent figure is an average. In places, I'd imagine, the network almost never drops calls and in others, I know from experience, it drops far more. San Francisco is apparently a problem spot and so is the New York area, where I now live.

How bad is it? When I read the 1 percent number, my gut told me I'd lost either the sound or the entire connection on about a quarter of my calls since moving here in April. But gut feelings hardly constitute proof, so I decided to do a (nearly) scientific study by measuring my experiences for a week.

I don't much like talking on the phone, so I only do it two or three times in a typical week, but I had a friend come to visit last week. His visit meant dozens of phone calls and thus created the closest thing I'll ever get to a statistically significant sample.

Of 43 calls I made or received during the week ended October 30, I lost the connection 11 times. On 5 other occasions, the sound faded out for long enough that I cut the connection myself and redialed.

You'd expect individual stats like that to add up, particularly when they're taking place in the nation's largest city, but I noticed something interesting during my week of studying the phone.

Despite the existence of a 3G network in New York, my phone often switched itself to the older Edge network, and many of the lost calls took place there.

All those dropped calls didn't do a thing to affect the reported reliability of AT&T's 3G network.

That may help AT&T make reassuring announcements on earnings calls, but no user will ever make a distinction between 3G drops and Edge drops. They just expect the phone to work and - in some places, at least - AT&T still has a long way to go. source

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T-Mobile USA: Second Outage In Two Months Affects Nearly 1.7 Million Users - The Money Times (04 Nov 09)

In yet another outage, T-Mobile was inaccessible Tuesday, thus leaving nearly its 1.7 million users without access to calls or data on their cell phones.

Immediately after the outage, the service carrier posted the statement saying, "T-Mobile customers may be experiencing service disruptions impacting voice and data. Our rapid response teams have been mobilized to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as more information is available."

The outage lasted for nearly eight hours, and the company apologized for the inconvenience after it restored the services. It updated its statement saying, "T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday.”

The company further stated that its focus has been to restore full services and it would now be working to investigate what led to the incident.

The disruption is the latest high profile outage to affect T- mobile users.

Last month, an outage had hit T-Mobile Sidekick, leaving majority of the users without access to contacts, calendar entries, photographs, and other personal information. The outage was the result of technical problems in their computer systems.

As the service carrier had been working to restore the data for its Sidekick users, it has encountered another glitch.

There is quite a buzz on online forums, blogs etc, where users are discussing the latest outage. While discussing the problems faced due to the outage, many users have also voiced annoyance.

A user named tmhmama stated on cnet news, "ok, I am ready to make the switch to At&t or verizon, you never hear of stuff like this. what a big headache."

Another user named amrofni commented on engadget.com, "Verizon here i come. save me a droid!"

"Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm starting to think that T-Mobile is the target of some form of sabotage - be it internal or external. I've been with T-Mobile for over 5 years and I can't remember any major outages during that time, yet within roughly a month's time, T-Mobile has been hit by two truly inexplicable meltdowns. In the case of the sidekick, even the backups were compromised. What are the odds?" commented a user named PowerShot on PCWord. source

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Verizon Wireless: To Charge Up To $350 ETF On 'Advanced Devices' - Boy Genius Report (04 Nov 09)

Here's what Big Red is working with: they've offered up a BOGO sale on all new BlackBerrys for the holiday buying season, and where some see a great deal, others see a great opportunity.

Why not play a game of Flip My BlackBerry? Why not open a second line, get a brand new Tour or Storm 2, pay the cancellation fee on the new line of $175, and sell the device on eBay for $300 or more?

Well it looks like Verizon has finally caught onto the little game.

A new connect has emerged with a few documents and it looks like starting on November 15th Verizon will be charging up to $350 as an early termination fee on "advanced devices". This new "improved" fee does have a minute silver lining (if you can even say that): for every month of service completed, the $350 sum will decrease by $10.

No word yet on what an "advanced device" constitutes but we can use our imaginations to figure it out.

What do you think? Anyone considering abandoning plans to buy the Droid after hearing this news, or are you just going to get yours before November 15th? Or will you actually be an honest person and actually honor the contract you sign? source

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Verizon Wireless: Promises Droid Tethering Early 2010 - Slashgear (04 Nov 09)

Verizon's apparent intention to show up AT&T and the iPhone at every turn continues, with the latest snook to be cocked being confirmed tethering for the Verizon Droid by Motorola.

According to the CDMA carrier, early 2010 will see the Verizon Broadband Access Connect plan arrive on the Android slider, likely priced at the usual $15 per month on top of your regular data contract.

That gets you a 5GB per month limit, the same as Verizon's standalone data card and USB modem plans. Not perfect, no, but considering AT&T customers are still waiting semi-patiently for iPhone tethering it's another plus in the Droid's favor. More on the Verizon Droid here. source

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Verizon Wireless: Promises Droid Won't Strain Network - DSLReports (03 Nov 09)

Unlike some of the capacity issues that troubled AT&T with the huge influx of iPhone customers, Verizon is insisting the company won't struggle under the load when they launch the new Motorola Droid this Friday.

That's easy to say, given Droid's sales likely won't dent iPhone volume - but Verizon has an interesting conversation with Telephony Online on getting ready for the influx of additional data users.

According to Verizon, they didn't add backhaul capacity for Friday's Droid launch -- because they didn't need to. At least not yet:

In most markets, Verizon Wireless has EV-DO running on three sectors per cell site and in many congested areas, it has deployed multiple EV-DO carriers. CDMA downlink channels are only 1.25 MHz wide, compared to the 5 MHz used by AT&T's HSPA network, but they support similar maximum capacities (3.1 Mb/s for Rev. A compared to 3.6 Mb/s for HSPA). AT&T's 3G evolution path will widen that gap over the next two as it upgrades its base stations to 7.2 Mb/s HSPA, but for now [Verizon Wireless} has an efficiency advantage, allowing it support much more capacity over the same spectrum.

In a different report, Verizon says they'll certainly be adding new fiber backhaul in a number of markets when they launch faster LTE service in 25-30 new markets next year. Verizon says they'll be deploying fiber Ethernet to 90% of the cell sites in its territory by the end of 2013. Pound for pound, Verizon's wireless investment CAPEX has been more robust than AT&T's for some time - and the proof should be in the pudding. source

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Verizon Wireless: Personal Droid Data Will Cost $30, Even With Exchange - GearLog (03 Nov 09)

Okay. There's a lot of confusion going on around the Internet about the Motorola Droid's service plans. Some people are saying that if you want to connect to a Microsoft Exchange account, data will cost $45 a month instead of $30.

This is wrong.

I checked with Verizon Wireless HQ and got the official response from spokeswoman Brenda Raney. First of all, the Droid uses the exact same data plans as every Windows Mobile phone on Verizon. There is no special Droid data plan.

Second, whether you pay $30 or $45 doesn't depend on what you're doing with the phone. You can hit Exchange email on the $30 plan just fine. It depends on what kind of Verizon Wireless account you have.

If you have a personal account or family plan, your data will cost $30/month. It doesn't matter if you're using Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, Gmail, or whatever - it's $30. This is the same for all Verizon Windows Mobile and Android phones.

Data on business accounts - "corporate liable," multiple lines, purchased through business sales, usually mediated by an IT department - costs $45/month. Once again, this is the same for every Windows Mobile and Android phone.

The same goes for AT&T's iPhones, by the way. Thousands if not millions of people access Microsoft Exchange email on personal, $30/month iPhone data plans, blissfully unaware that if they were a corporate-liable business account their data plan would cost $45. Once again, it's not down to the kind of e-mail you're accessing, it's down to whether you are classed as an "individual" or a "business" in the carrier's system.

So where's the confusion been coming from? Carrier definitions of "business" and normal human definitions of "business" are different. For carriers, it doesn't matter if you're doing business. They only care if you are a business. Are you a rogue operator, a lone wolf, using a personal credit card to activate your single line of service? Then plow right ahead with your Exchange email on the $30 plan - with your Droid or your iPhone. source

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Wireless: Safari Bug Could Mean Big Fees For Some iPhone Users - The Register (04 Nov 09)

The reason why you found an enormous but unexpected iPhone data-connection charge on your phone bill may have been discovered in Estonia.

From Cult of Mac comes word that Estonian blogger Oliver K. has discovered a bug in Safari for iPhone that will leave open a Motion JPEG video stream even if you close the Safari app. The resulting continuing stream can quickly add up to multiple expensive megabytes of unexpected data transfer when your iPhone is downloading data from a 3G or EDGE network.

And "expensive" is a gross understatement.

In a blog post (Google translation) describing his testing of the bug, Oliver K. noted that a connection kept open in this manner resulted in a download of over 740 megabytes in little more than an hour.

AT&T charges $0.0195 per kilobyte of data transfer when a subscriber is traveling internationally without an already-pricey Data Global Add-On plan, so a 740MB-plus download would run to nearly fifteen thousand dollars.

Try explaining that phone bill entry to your significant other.

This bug would not be apparent to iPhone users who subscribe to unlimited data plans, but such rogue streaming could put added pressure on, for example, AT&T's already overloaded 3G network.

To be sure, Motion JPEG is not a commonly used web codec, but it is used by many webcams. So, Safari for iPhone users, should you choose to view a webcam on your Apple handheld, make sure to navigate to another page after doing so. Oliver K. says that doing so is the only way he knows to interrupt the stream.

Or, as he put it: "Ainus hetkel teadaolev võimalus ühendust katkestada on avada Safari ning samalt lehelt minna mõnele teisele lehele."

Apple did not respond to our request for comment on this report. source

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Wireless: Guys, Do You Seal Your Text Messages With A Kiss? - The Register (04 Nov 09)

It's time for the chaps out there who commonly end their text messages to chums with an affectionate "x" to come out of the closet - because demonstrating your "metrotextuality" is apparently nothing to be ashamed of.

That's according to T-Mobile, which found that a shocking 22 per cent of blokes "regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates".

This has prompted the mobile phone outfit to hail a new generation of touchy-feely "Metrotextuals", most heavily represented among 18 to 24-year-olds, of whom a disturbing 75 per cent are "regularly sealing texts with a kiss".

In fact, so severe is the collapse in SMS morality that 23 per cent of that age group "even appreciate an 'x' in a text exchange from people that aren't close friends".

"Confirmed Metrotextual" Nick Kirkham, who is 25 and works in insurance, verified that he and his mates have been x-ing each other for years. He cheerily admitted: "In fact, apart from my boss or a work client, there's no one I wouldn't send a kiss on text to."

Clinical psychologist Ron Bracey was on hand to explain to Reuters that men have "traditionally been reluctant to share their emotions with friends and tended to keep their feelings bottled up".

He explained: "However, the advent of mobile phones and social media means more communication is done non-verbally, and through this it seems men can more easily share their feelings with others - especially their male friends." source

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Odds & Ends: More Microsoft Layoffs? - TechFlash (03 Nov 09)

We're hearing from unofficial but reliable sources [Tuesday] that Microsoft is poised to make additional job cuts this week, with the affected employees expected to be notified as early as Wednesday morning.

This latest round of layoffs is expected to be noticeably smaller than the first two - numbering in the hundreds but totaling less than 1,000 overall. Some portion of the new cuts will serve as the final phase of the company's original plan, announced in January of this year, to cut up to 5,000 jobs over 18 months. However, the new layoffs are expected to take the company beyond the original plan, as well.

Those extra cuts reflect the company's ongoing need to adjust to the realities of the new economy. Reorganizations are common inside the company. In the past, people who lost their jobs as part of those changes were often able to find other positions inside the company.

This time around, there aren't enough of those open jobs available. While Microsoft has continued to hire in some areas, cushioning the effect of the job cuts, the company isn't expanding at nearly the rate that it has in the past. That means there are fewer open positions for employees cut loose by reorganizations, which appears to be the major factor contributing to the additional job cuts.

The layoffs had been rumored for weeks, based in part on reports of widespread reservations of conference rooms on Nov. 4, similar to the way they were reserved before previous layoffs. The information we received tonight confirms those rumors.

We haven't been able to find out which product groups will be affected most by the cuts, but we'll provide updates as we receive more details.

Microsoft cut 1,200 jobs in January and made a larger reduction in May. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told employees at that point that the company was "mostly but not all done" with the planned 5,000 layoffs.

The company has been eliminating a series of products and services as part of its budget cutting. Microsoft's latest quarterly earnings beat Wall Street's expectations but still reflected overall declines in revenue and profits. source