55 posts tagged “dsl”
On Monday night customers of AT&T in the south-east US with DSL were unable to connect to the internet, it has been reported.
A spokesman for AT&T has blamed the outage on an equipment problem and has said that AT&T has now rectified the glitch. Customers in the states of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee were all affected by the outage. Dave Burstein, editor of the newsletter DSL Prime told the Associated Press: "Broadband goes down much more often than telephone lines because they didn't build the system for the same level of reliability.
"We do not know how often it happens, however, because they're not obligated to report it." If a network does not have a back up for its server, than one single error, such as a domain name disruption, can affect millions of users, Mr Burstein added.
For more information on DSL and other digital products and services visit Broadband National.
Internet users have been warned of thousands of fake emails purporting to be from various government agencies being disseminated around the internet.
The emails pretend to be from agencies such as the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Those that receive the emails are asked to divulge personal details such as social security numbers and bank account information.
Lois Greisman, associate director of the FTC's division of marketing practices, said: "We are the agency that brought you the Do Not Call Registry and CAN-SPAM. "We're not likely to send out unsolicited emails." CAN-SPAM is a law from 2003 that restricts the sending of commercial spam emails. According to a report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the number of phishing websites rose to 37,438 in May of this year, compared to 11,976 during the same month in 2006.
Last month, the Treasury said that it has received thousands of complaints about spam emails claiming to be from the IRS. For more information on digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
The popular Firefox web browser is has the same security flaw that Internet Explorer does, Mozilla has admitted.
Mozilla had originally stated that Microsoft was responsible for an input validation bug that passes possibly malicious URLs to other applications. However, Mozilla's chief security officer, Window Snyder, has admitted that Firefox has the same "critical vulnerability". Ms. Snyder said: "Over the weekend, we learned about a new scenario that identifies ways that Firefox could also be used as the entry point.
"We thought this was just a problem with IE. It turns out, it is a problem with Firefox as well." When a user is browsing the internet with Firefox, a special URL could be used to send malicious data to another application, she added. There is possibly another security issue that Mozilla must face in its password manager system, which stores user passwords. Snyder told internetnews.com recently that the programme was being considered for a total rewrite.
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
Apple's much-touted new iPhone has been hacked into by a team of security experts in Maryland.
Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) has claimed that it has found a flaw in the iPhone which could let hackers access private data kept on the phone. A cyber criminal could gain entry to the phone either through a wireless access point or a website, according to ISE. Since its release earlier this month hackers all over the world have been trying to find a weakness in iPhone, however this is the first successful attempt.
ISE explained that the iPhone connects to wireless internet networks by name, so an attacker could conceivably make up a network with the same name as one already used by the phone. Then instead of accessing a web page, the phone would access exploit code, allowing a hacker to control the phone. A spokesperson from Apple told the New York Times: "Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users."
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
A 75-year-old Swedish woman has become the owner of the fastest residential broadband connection in the world.
Sigbritt Lothberg's 40 gigabits-per-second connection was set up for her by her son, Peter, a networking expert who works for Cisco Systems. Mr. Lothberg said: "We wanted to show that that there are no limitations to Internet speed. "She's a brand new Internet user. She didn't even have a computer before."
A new modulation technique was used in setting up the connection, involving the sending of information between two routers spaced 1,240 miles apart, with no transponders in between. Using her high-speed Internet connection, Ms. Lothberg could download an entire movie in less than two seconds. This is thousands of times faster than a regular residential connection.
Ms Lothberg lives in Karlstad in central Sweden and mainly uses her connection to read online newspapers. The average residential internet connection speed is eight Mbps.
For more information on high-speed Internet connections visit www.dsldance.com
Communications giant AT&T is focusing on developing new products for its disabled customers, the company has claimed.
Those with impaired vision or blindness are being targeted by two new products called Mobile Speak and Mobile Magnifier. To develop the products, AT&T worked with Code Factory, a developer of software solutions for the blind. Currently AT&T is getting advice from experts within the disabled community on designing further services to aid the visually impaired.
Paul Schroeder, vice president of programs and policy for the American Foundation for the Blind, said: "The partnership of companies such as Code Factory and AT&T bodes well for those in the disabled community, demonstrating that they have not forgotten the visually impaired demographic." Such companies are looking for fresh and "unorthodox" ways of extending their services to the disabled community, Mr Schroeder added.
Meanwhile, AT&T has added its support to the Federal Communication Commission's proposals for the auction of the 700 MHz spectrum auction, which would expand choice for those who use wireless.
For more information on digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
Google has announced that it has acquired Postini, a provider of security and compliance solutions for business and other users around the world.
The deal is said to be worth $625 million and will see Postini, which provides services to over 35,000 businesses, become a subsidiary of Google. The company's message security and encryption services can be used to help protect a company's email and other web-based communication systems.
Commenting on the agreement, Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Google, said: "With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes." Using Postini's expertise, Google's hosting applications can help to "streamline" information security mandates for its client organizations, he added. Postini claims that its security technology helps to block more than one billion spam emails and processes two billion connections every day.
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
New "thank you" web site launched
As social networking sites become increasingly popular, internet users will soon be able to post messages of gratitude and share their experiences on a new web site.
Unveiled this week, Thanks-o-meter.com provides a total of the number of "thank you" messages posted by visitors, as well as offering statistics showing which categories are the most selected. George Garner, creator of the site, said: "I'd like it to become a catalyst for bringing attention to the positive things happening in our communities."
Visitors are also able to write their own stories and attach private messages to their postings. The growth in popularity of social networking sites was recently illustrated by figures published by comScore which showed that in May the number of people in the U.S. using Facebook.com reached 26.6 million. According to the company, this figure represented an 89 per cent increase on the number of unique visitors recorded during the corresponding month last year.
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
Video content transmitted via PCs is becoming increasingly prevalent in American homes, according to a new survey.
In a yearly study about trends in usage of the internet and technology, called The Face of the Web, it emerged that online video activities are driving growth in the digital media sector. The Ipsos Insight research found that at the end of 2006, 36 percent of Americans have watched video streams or TV programs online.
This is an increase of eight percent from the year before. In addition, three-quarters of adults have used the internet to watch videos in the 30 days before the poll. Video content is a "predominant" part of the daily lives of Americans, according to the executive vice president and managing director of Ipsos Insight's technology and communications practice, Brian Cruikshank.
"Increasing penetration of broadband access and PC ownership globally signals that the PC will begin to really assert itself as a 'second screen' within the household," he added. Research by consultancy Point Topic revealed last month that the US has the highest level of broadband penetration in the world, with more than 60 million subscribers.
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
The music industry suffered a significant loss in physical music sales in 2006, but the digital music market continued to grow, a new report has revealed.
According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), physical music shipments, such as CDs, fell by 11 percent to $17.5 billion last year, while digital shipments increased by 85 percent to $2.1 billion. Commenting on the figures, IFPI chairman John Kennedy said that the industry had hoped the loss in physical sales would have been offset by the growth in music downloads. "But while digital sales have grown as expected, physical sales have fallen by more than expected," he remarked.
The IFPI stated that digital music formats, which include those downloaded onto computers and cell phones, accounted for 11 per cent of total shipments last year. In related news, reports earlier this week suggested that Universal did not intend to renew its contract with Apple's iTunes for the online distribution of its music.
For information on other digital products and services visit www.dsldance.com
