The latest research with one thousand users was about how covered Irish computers and devices are with antivirus and data leakage protection. First determining what sort of devices are used to connect to the internet, the survey revealed the Irish are becoming much more serious about protecting laptops, but far less about other devices. 

Urban Schrott of ESET said: “Whilst the results for PC, Laptop and Mac Users are generally improving, the picture is a bit grimmer among mobile users, as only 41% of Android users have their mobiles protected by antivirus, followed by 27% of iPhone users and 26% of Windows phone users.”

However, the picture completely changes when it comes to Data Leakage Protection. The Irish, so it seems, are barely aware of data leaks being a problem at all, as 74% answered they have no idea what data leakage is! About a third of Linux users use some protective measures, as does one in four Windows / Mac users which is very different to their attitudes to antivirus.

Schrott adds: “Data leakage is a human problem, and therefore the results of Linux, Mac and Windows users are much more similar. However, the numbers are very, very, low.”

So, while malware awareness seems to have reached a certain satisfactory level among computer users, it is still lacking for mobile devices, even though mobile devices are as much targets of malware as are computers, since they’re increasingly used for accessing social media, various apps and offer various purchasing functionality, which could be compromised by malware, causing the victim direct financial damage.

More surprising is the complete lack of awareness about data leakage, particularly with the amount of coverage the media have already given various data leaks in the past. With BYOD (bring your own device) becoming increasingly popular, this could cause many companies’ sensitive data being at risk of getting lost or stolen.

So, mobile users should give installing an antivirus on their device some thought and all computer and mobile device users would be wise to start paying attention to information on data leakage a bit, if they wish to avoid related trouble.

The latest survey reveals that the proportion of people using smartphones has risen from 39% to 50% in the last six months.

The poll was carried out by Behaviour & Attitudes in February and March among a sample of 1,000 adults.

It found that the number of people who own a tablet computer has doubled since the last survey six months ago.

The authors estimate that based on people’s buying intentions, there will be 1.2 million tablet owners by the end of this year.

People’s love affair with technology and their need to be connected continues to grow, with the study revealing that 1m people admit to checking emails first thing in the morning, while over 250,000 now check work emails on holidays.

Over half of those surveyed revealed that they will not and cannot switch off their devices in the evening and at weekends.

Twice as many people perceive Irish men to be more tech savvy than Irish women, although female ownership of smartphones is higher than male.

Underlining the diverse range of places that smartphones are used, 71% said they use their smartphone sitting in their car, 51% on public transport, 33% in the bathroom, 78% in the bedroom and 27% while on the toilet.

As communication usage trends shift, three quarters of those aged 16-24 say they now prefer to send text messages rather than have a phone conversation.

However, there is growing evidence of social media fatigue, with a quarter of people surveyed saying they are growing tired of social media channels.

In a warning of the perils of technology, 19% of respondents admitted to having agreed to something without realising it while using a digital device

Follow the Given Steps to increase virtual RAM :-

For Windows XP users :

1. Goto ‘Properties’ of My Computer 

2. Click on ‘Advance’ Tab 

3. Under ‘Performance’ section click on ‘Settings’ button 

4. Now Move to ‘Advance’ Tab 

5. Under ‘Virtual memory’ Section click on “Change” button 

6. Now Select Drive “C” .

7. Select Option “Custom Size” 

8. Set Initial Size (MB) to 5000 for 5GB 2000 for 2GB or Whatever suitable for you. We will recommend you to keep at least 2000 

9. Set Maximum Size to 5000 for 5GB, this means 5GB of Local Disk C will be used as Virtual Memory. Better keep it as High as You can afford.

10. Click on “Set” Button 

11. Perform this with all other Drives also 

12. Click on “OK” Button 

13. Again Click on “OK” Button 

14. Again Click on “OK” Button That’s it.

======================================

For Windows 7 users:

1. Open ‘Properties’ of My Computer 

2. Under the ‘System’ Window, click on ‘Advanced system settings’ from left panel. 

3. In the ‘System Properties’, under ‘Performance’ section click on ‘Settings…’ 

4. Now move to ‘Advance’ tab, under ‘Virtual memory’ section click on ‘Change’ 

5. Uncheck ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’ option Rest follow the same steps of Windows XP, above.

That’s it. 

Once you save the settings, restart your PC. After restarting the PC you will immediately feel the difference in the speed.  If you run into problems, give us a ring or come in for help.

Share your Experience with us, comment…

According to the announcement this will affect all European countries as well as candidate countries which include Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and more, you can see the statement from Apple below.

As of March 1, 2013, Apple will no longer sell Mac Pro in EU, EU candidate and EFTA countries because these systems are not compliant with Amendment 1 of regulation IEC 60950-1, Second Edition which becomes effective on this date. Apple resellers can continue to sell any remaining inventory of Mac Pro after March 1.

Apple will take final orders for Mac Pro from resellers up until February 18th for shipment before March 1, 2013.

Countries outside of the EU are not impacted and Mac Pro will continue to be available in those areas.

It would appear that the Mac Pro does not meet these new regulatory requirements, there are no details as yet on whether Apple plans to modify the Mac Pro to meet the requirements and sell it in Europe again.

The short answer is: yes. Familiar tools coupled with new features and a simplified and redesigned interface make it worthwhile for dedicated users.

“Help!”

These are telltale signs that our computer might be infected with one or more viruses, that in certain way will alter the computer’s performance and thus, our work with it. 

Here is how, with following some best practices, we can avoid being infected with viruses or malware: 

1) First and more important, we should have an anti-virus program installed on our computer and it should be updated with the latest virus or malware signature. Some of these programs serve as anti-spyware and anti-spam. A software program of these kind is pretty useless if it isn’t always up-to-date.

2) Delete incoming e-mails in unknown languages, from unknown or suspicious sounding people or entities, even before opening them. Here is a list:

- “Chain letters”, these mass e-mails warning you that if you don’t forward them to all your contacts, Bill Gates will close Microsoft forever. Also included are pictures of lolcats, wives of nigerian dictators who want to give you a cut of the $24 million dollars for help or a prayer or poem which says (again) if you don’t forward these to all your contacts, you will have 7 years of bad luck.

- Advertisements: We should verify if we subscribed to a mailing list of offers. If we don’t, send the e-mail directly to your spam folder.

- Recommendations: E-mails from friends which tells us that we should check out the awesome software attached, photos on .ZIP files or presentations. Before opening, ask for confirmation with your friend, because he or she may be unaware that a virus hijacked his/her e-mail account and is sending these e-mails in his/her behalf. 

- Miscellaneous Commercial e-mail: These come from unknown senders, in unknown languages or carry unknown payloads attached that can potentially infect your computer when opened. As a rule of thumb, don’t download and even less run/open these files.

3) Avoid using websites which are from questionable reputation, illegal warez/serialz/crackz to commercial software. These sites might carry advertisements that can install and run programs on our PC without our permissions.

4) Depending on the usage of your computer, do plan a monthly or trimestral maintenance service. This service can be done by a specialized business or qualified technician.

5) Always check for viruses the files that you intend to send via e-mail (altough most antivirus programs do this work for you automatically).

If you suspect that your computer is already infected, proceed to check for viruses running an updated antivirus. In most cases the program clean infected files and tells us if there is some files or documents that it is unable to clean. If that happens, look for help from a specialized professional who can rescue our data and get your computer in good working order, and you will have the peace of mind that your computer is well taken care of and protected. 

This is a great idea and very handy for perhaps people not used to city living and also for single females.

Feel safer travelling in a taxi by using the FREE Taxi Check-in Smartphone app. Our innovative application allows you to quickly tell your family and friends what taxi you are in, and your location, in a matter of seconds.

Once you are in a taxi, simply launch the Taxi Check-in app on your Smartphone and scan the Taxi Check-in QR code inside the taxi. You can also enter in the 5 digit number displayed on the headrest to check-in.

Select which family or friends you want to notify by SMS and email. A message is automatically sent to them informing them of the taxi you are in and your location. Giving them peace of mind knowing you are safe on your journey.

The app is live in iTunes and Play right now but will be officially launched at 12pm on 13th December.  Taxi Check-In has contracts with Xpert Taxis and Gobal Taxis and this accumulates to over 1,200
vehicles.

Irish internet service providers are facing new legal action from record labels trying to clamp down on file sharing.

EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal have issued proceedings against UPC, Imagine, Vodafone, Digiweb and Hutchison 3G.

The case is due before the High Court on December 17th.

The labels are seeking an injunction compelling ISPs to block free file-sharing site Pirate Bay.

UPC confirmed proceedings had been served on its legal representatives and that it had previously declined Irish music industry body IRMA’s request to voluntarily block the Pirate Bay.

“We understand that all other ISPs joined to the proceedings similarly declined the request,” the company said in a statement.

“UPC can confirm however its position has not changed. As an ISP, our position is that ISPs should not on a voluntary basis decide what can or should be consumed by users. We believe such matters are for the Government or court to decide.” 

Mobile network and broadband provider Hutchison 3G, which trades as 3 Ireland, also said it was a matter for courts to decide.

The issue has been the subject of an ongoing battle between the music industry and the internet service providers in recent years.

Eircom has blocked its broadband services customers from using the site since September 1st 2009 after settling a case with Irma.

The High Court made an order requiring Eircom to disable access to Pirate Bay and related domain names and URLs.

Your smartphone’s transmission method is known as “half-duplex.” Uploads and downloads are simultaneous, but each direction requires its own frequency band. It’s like a two-lane highway, where each lane takes up valuable spectrum.

Professors Yingbo Hua and Ping Liang believe they have cracked the code of “full-duplex” transmission. Upstream and downstream would live together in one frequency band. This magical two-lane highway would only use one lane.

The Riverside professors were hardly the first to imagine full-duplex transmissions, but there was always a big problem. Uploads and downloads in the same frequency band would cause interference. Hua’s and Liang’s solution is “time-domain transmit beamforming.” As they explain, “[Time-domain transmit beamforming] digitally creates a time-domain cancellation signal, couples it to the radio frequency frontend to allow the radio to hear much weaker incoming signals while transmitting strong outgoing signals at the same frequency and same time.”

This means that incoming signals would no longer be overpowered by outgoing signals. Radios would have something akin to “Spidey Sense.” They would pick up those fleeting incoming signals, while still broadcasting powerful outgoing signals.

Since it’s all taking place in one “lane of traffic” (frequency band), wireless efficiency would be doubled. It’s like telling Verizon, O2, and Telstra that they just doubled their spectrum holdings. Such a breakthrough would be worth billions upon billions of dollars.

There is, however, a big difference between academic theory and proven implementation. Right now, time-domain transmit beamforming is the former. But the Riverside team insists that its theories are sound. Unsurprisingly, big companies are paying attention: the researchers “have had discussions” with several wireless telecom equipment businesses.

Will this be a spectrum breakthrough? It’s too early to say, but any progress on this front is promising. As mobile data becomes a more integral part of our lives, increasing its efficiency is good news for customers. Our bills won’t likely go down, but it would be one less excuse for them to go up.

Spotify arrives in Ireland – unlimited music ads-free from less than €5 a month

Spotify has finally arrived in Ireland and is now officially in 16 other countries, including the US, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Ofcom has apparently developed a special auction tool for participants to use, with all bids submitted electronically. Depending on how long the bidding process takes, the final prices and list of winners will be settled in either February or March, with licenses granted as soon as buyers stump up the fees.

According to Ofcom’s rules, exactly which of the bands each interested party will be able to bid on will depend on how many “points” they hold, calculated based on the size of the deposit they make initially. Meanwhile, there are limits to how much of the spectrum any one organization can hold, with a number ofcomplex lists and provisos [pdf link] as to what combination comprises a “maximum” holding.

The 800MHz and 2.6GHz frequencies – freed up by the switch-off of analog TV signals – will be used for high-speed LTE service, with Vodafone, O2, and Three all expected to follow combo-carrier EE in launching a 4G data network. However, the various services won’t be entirely compatible: EE’s 4G, for instance, uses the 1.8GHz band, after the carrier’s decision to reuse its existing spectrum holding rather than wait for new acquisitions in next year’s auction.

That may cause some confusion as to which devices will work on which network, as UK users have grown used to being able to take out a 3G SIM from one phone and have it work in another, assuming both are not network-locked.

Split into three parts, the Vogue app covers Daily News, People & Parties, and Twitter. As with the most Windows Phone apps, these sections are discovered by swiping your finger or thumb from left to right on the screen.

The Daily News segment of this app brings you various fashion news from all over the world; from the latest vocal gaffe from Karl Lagerfeld, to Grace Coddington‘s first nude model photoshoot. Both of which are truly fascinating reads. Naturally, this is updated daily.

If you want to share the news with any of your friends, hitting the share icon at the bottom will enable you to do just that – via Facebook, Twitter or email.

Once you’ve got your news fix, it’s time to pop over to the People & Parties section to see who wore what and at what event. The events are organised into groups, such as Best Dressed of the Week – 26/10/12, or Bond Girls Retrospective. Within these groups you’ll find an endless stream of photos, each with a caption describing what you’re looking at.

The final part of this Vogue app is the Twitter section. As you’d probably expect from the name, it’s a connection directly to the@BritishVogue‘s Twitter channel. From here, you can see join in the conversations with people that have similar interests, and with Vogue itself.

Vogue is available on the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900, and doesn’t cost a penny – it’s free.

Are you into the latest fashion trends, or celeb news? Give Vogue a try and let us know what you think of it..

Source -Nokia Conversations-Adam

The Haven,  the new premises of Massey Bros. funeral directors, was officially opened today and features the latest internet technology to allow people to attend funerals virtually.

The funeral venue located on the Crumlin Road is the result of a €150,000 refurbishment of the interior and the installation of the latest audiovisual, internet technology. People living elsewhere in Ireland or in any other country in the world will be able to attend the funeral ‘virtually’ via Skype by logging onto Massey Bangor-Drv.

Freddie Maguire, managing director, Massey Bros. said that over the past number of years requests for choice have increased.

We know that the majority of families in Ireland now have at least one member living overseas.  That is in addition to the large number of people from overseas who have made Ireland their home.  It is not always possible for people to get home quickly to attend a funeral so we made the decision to invest in technology which would allow for people to be present via the internet.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Naoise Ó Muirí officially opened the venue which is also Ireland’s first dedicated civil and religious funeral ceremony venue.

“The last census showed that the number of people in Ireland with no religious affiliation had increased by 45 per cent to almost 270,000 people.  It is important to us that they have a place in which they can mark the passing of a loved one in a dignified and respectful manner,” added Mr Maguire.

Several years ago, securing access to your infrastructure meant about locking your servers in a special secure room with restricted access. Also, logical security measures in server sessions weren’t more than a combination of user/password and computers were on one certain location, where access to computer terminals were restricted.

With the appearance of the Internet, TELNET was a popular access method in early ‘90s to Linux, BSD and UNIX systems. Unfortunately, this protocol isn’t very secure, so then again, user and password are sent in clear text over the network.  With the advent of the Internet’s mass usage and subsequent unauthorized intrusions, this became a serious concern.

This is how the “magic” happens.

OpenSSH was the response to that problem, it opens a logical tunnel between the client and the server, so in this way, communications are secured and only the client and the server are the ones who can “understand” the data transferred.

“Not so fast, Sonny!”

The beauty of a SSH connection is that you can not only send clear-text data during the tunneled session, but you can send pretty much anything over it, from e-mail to remote access to applications.

You can add security layers over the standard SSH by regularly changing passwords, adding complexity to it (but in the end you can find a lot of passwords written on sticky notes under user’s keyboards). And that is quite far from perfect.

But not everyone has the chance to physically peek under every computer keyboard looking for a lucky shot, so “crackers” (because they crack-in computer systems) came with the idea to mount an attack method called “Man-In-The-Middle”.

I’d rather call it “Monkey-in-the-middle (Source).

The attack method consists in temporarily tamper inside the target’s network and using certain techniques can make a rogue server pretend to be the real one. Then, the attacker gets the captured login information to access the remote server.

This is how they do it. Pretty clever, isn’t it?

In response to that new problem, OpenSSH with RSA public key cryptography makes a great answer because you don’t only rely on a username and a password, but now you will also need a key file that you and only you will have in order to establish a connection with the remote server.

These set of keys are made in a way that what is encrypted with one can only be deciphered with the other, but you can’t decipher the private key from the public key.

Also, you can protect your keys with a passphrase. That is, instead of a single word you can even put an entire phrase like: “I WilL N0t G3t 0Wn3d By B3ginn3rs l1k3 y0u!”

If for some reason you are quite confused with the above paragraph, I’ve made a small infographic for you. See it below!

That’s the way how OpenSSH with RSA authentication works.

In case of a “man-in-the-middle” interception, the rogue server will not know what the user’s public key is, and in case of sending a fake one, that would be useless, because the key sent from the server and the one from the client will not match, so no connection will be made.

In the rare case that you public key is stolen, the attacker will need the passphrase (not password), so they will have a hard time trying to guess what the passphrase might be!

In another article, I will develop this theme further, and will tell you how to do it.

Virtualization is not only for the enterprise or datacenters.  The end-user may need to use virtualization platform for many uses: Testing new software, education, trying another operating system, running applications or games that doesn’t exist on certain operating system, and a platform for testing applications on multiple operating system versions.

The reasons are many, if you’re a Linux user and want or need to run a Microsoft Windows application, and don’t want to mess around with Wine or other emulators, you can do it natively using a virtual machine. If you are a Mac user and don’t want to reboot each time that you want to run Windows XP with Bootcamp, you can do it with a virtual machine. And, if you’re a Windows user who gets frustrated due the fact that Windows doesn’t have these useful shell script tools, you can run them on a Linux virtual machine and then port the results to your windows system.

Even better, some of the desktop virtual machine solutions are free to use! Here is what you need:

-          A computer the powerful enough to run your guest operating systems, usually the more power, the better. For example, you don’t want to run Windows 2008 on a PC with less than 512MB of RAM.

-          Enough disk space to hold your virtual operating system files.

-          The virtual machine software, of course.

Some of the desktop Virtual Machine software are as follows:

Oracle’s Virtual Box.

This gives you the options of installing multiple operating systems, support thin provisioning. It has support for All Windows, Free/Open/Net BSD, A lot of Linux distributions and versions, Solaris 10.x and over, Mac OSX server and even OS/2 (is there anyone still using that?). Also, there is support for other generic operating systems. You can find it here: http://www.virtualbox.org

You can use it on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris platforms, so there is one version for every taste out there, and the Windows installation file is 84MB long. Lastly, I have a tip for VirtualBox. When you need to press the infamous CTRL+ALT+DEL keystroke on your virtual machine, you can do so by pressing the ‘Host Key’ (Right CTRL by default) and the DEL key.

Microsoft’s Virtual PC

Microsoft offers his Virtual Machine version for free on the Windows platform. It can natively support All Windows versions (of course) from Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista and NT, 2000, 2003, 2008. Also offers the option for a ‘generic OS’ (everything else). It also supports thin provisioning, and for Windows operating systems there is an add-on that optimizes the virtual machine’s performance. Also, the UI is pretty minimalistic, but more than enough to run your virtual machines. Also, this tool is used in most Microsoft Official Courses.

“Why in the world would you want to run Windows ME?”

If you are running Windows 7, you can download the latest Virtual PC, with a “Windows XP mode” to run legacy applications here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/. For the previous windows versions, you can still download the Virtual PC 2007 version here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/virtual-pc-2007.aspx

Strangely enough, this application is the tiniest of the three. It only is 31.7MB long. Of course, there are no Linux, Mac OS X or Unix versions available. This is only for Windows.

VMware Player

VMware is the longest player in the virtualization area, as it was the first company who began offering virtualization for x86 platforms since 1999. The graphical interface is pretty neat and slick. It supports thin provisioning, so no unnecessary giant files on your PC and also has a set of tools to optimize the running operating system. They say that this product is even better than the Windows 7 Virtual PC on XP mode that I mentioned earlier.

You can get VMware player here:  http://www.vmware.com/products/player/overview.html  , there are  downloads for 32/64-bit Windows versions and 32/64-bit Linux distributions. Also, the installation file is the largest, over 100MB long.

Irish government documents which shed light on the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles have been published on a University of Ulster website.

Irish Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan launched the digitised CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) archives in Dublin on Thursday.

The site provides source material on the conflict and politics of Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present.

It includes documents on the growing unrest on the streets in August 1969.

The meeting between Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill and Taoiseach Sean Lemass in January 1965 is also documented.

Staff from the University of Ulster and the National Archives Ireland (NAI) have been working together on a small pilot project to provide free access to Irish public records relating to the early years of the Troubles.

The items selected have been drawn from material which is already in the public domain, having been published under the 30-year rule the timeframe within which official documents are kept from the public scrutiny.

The project is to be developed further to allow a wider selection of materials to be made available.

IRELAND is to become the first country in Europe to have wi-fi on all its trains.

Iarnrod Eireann passengers will enjoy free internet access on rail services by the end of the year. Travellers on inter-city services and commuter routes into Dublin can already surf the web while travelling.

The roll-out is being funded by the National Transport Authority. More than 250 carriages in the fleet are already equipped.

The technology will be installed on DART, the Dublin-Belfastroute and 17 commuter carriages before the end of the year, meaning all services will have wi-fi.

The move is part of government plans to have all public-transport services equipped with internet access by next year.

Some 80 of the Dublin Bus fleet and almost all of the Bus Eireann fleet is already internet-enabled. Plans are in place to provide wi-fi on Luas services in Dublin from 2013.

“One of the great benefits of rail travel is that you can use your t ravelling time productively, for work or leisure,” said a spokeswoman for Iarnrod Eireann.

She added: “Other operators might have their whole fleet of trains that are wi-fi enabled, but no country in Europe would have universal access.

GOODS not turning up is the number one problem for consumers buying online.

A new report has found that problems with online purchases are the biggest cause of complaint to European Consumer Centre (ECC) offices in Ireland and across Europe.

Irish consumers reported issues such as a trader refusing to repair a faulty camera, or a “free” perfume sample turning into a monthly bill for €80 because of unclear terms and conditions when signing up.

The ECC network received more than 60,000 complaints relating to e-commerce between 2010 and 2011.

Delivery problems accounted for 38pc of these while a third of cases involved problems with the actual good or service purchased.

Online fraud, scams and misleading sales tactics were also a problem for consumers making purchases online, according to the report ‘The European Online Marketplace: Consumer Complaints 2010-2011′.

Ireland was in the top 10 countries both for consumers making complaints and for traders about whom complaints were received.

One consumer here signed up to get a free perfume sample from a pop-up internet ad, but then began getting a monthly bill for €80, as she had not been clearly informed that she needed to inform the company within 30 days if she wished to stop receiving these products.

Another Irish customer purchased a camera from a French trader, who refused to provide any remedy when it turned out to be faulty even though they were legally obliged to do so.

“The report shows that consumers are consistently facing the same problems when shopping online and this needs to be addressed,” said Anna Heryan of ECC Ireland.

The EU‘s new Consumer Rights Directive should boost consumer confidence in making internet purchases, she said.

The report noted that cross-border online purchases were actually highly reliable in most cases as a previous survey had found delivery problems in only 5pc of cases compared with 6pc for domestic purchases.

Apple has had its request to appeal a ruling, which found Samsung had not infringed on the design of its iPad devices, rejected by the courts.

The initial ruling was made on 9 July after judge Birss concluded that prior art from devices such as the Compaq TC1000 and the Knight Ridder and the difference in “coolness” between the devices meant there was no infringement.

“The design [of the Apple iPad] looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design,” he wrote, before comparing it to the Samsung devices.

“The Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Appledesign. They are not as cool,” he wrote.

Apple said at the time it would appeal but a panel of three judges upheld the initial ruling.

Samsung welcomed the decision.

“We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples of prior art,” it said.

Apple had not declined for comment when contacted by V3.

One notable element of the first ruling was the instance by judge Birss that Apple had to post a notice on its website, “in a font size no smaller than Arial 11pt”,  informing people that Samsung had not infringed on its devices.

The appeal judges noted Apple’s horror at this decision, which it also attempted to have overturned.

“Quite apart from the public grovel which it would involve, it had the further concern that this notice on its homepage would substantially interfere with the design and layout of its important marketing tool, its homepage,”they said in their judgment.

They maintained, though, that it should remain in the judgment in order to ensure that any confusion customers may have is cleared up, in part because of the other legal battles Apple won, such as in Germany.

“Apple itself must (having created the confusion) make the position clear: that it acknowledges that the court has decided that these Samsung products do not infringe its registered design,” they said.

“The acknowledgement must come from the horse’s mouth. Nothing short of that will be sure to do the job completely.”

The apology must take the form of a link on its website explaining about the case, and adverts in national newspapers and magazines, the copy of which will be decided on by the court, after written submissions by Apple and Samsung.

Once it has secreted itself into a machine, the malware tricks further victims into installing it by using the Microsoft-owned VoIP software to send messages that read “lol is this your new profile pic?” The malicious missives, dispatched to the infected user’s contacts, include a shortened goO.gl link to a zip file hosted by Hotflie.com.

This archive contains an executable that,antivirus biz Sophos says, installs a variant of the Dorkbot worm and recruits the compromised machine into a botnet army.

Left to its own devices, the worm may switch to its ransomware mode, locking the punter out of his or her computer and inform them that all their files have been encrypted and will be deleted unless a $200 payoff is forthcoming.

Previous Skype scams have also spread through bogus links in the software’s instant messaging client.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, added: “Skype users may be less in the habit of being suspicious about links sent to them than, say, Facebook users.”

Trend Micro said some 400 computers were infected in the first 24 hours of the worm outbreak last Thursday. Skype said in a statement:

Skype takes the user experience very seriously, particularly when it comes to security. We are aware of this malicious activity and are working quickly to mitigate its impact. We strongly recommend upgrading to the newest Skype version and applying updated security features on your computer.

The chat biz recommends users do not click on “strange or unexpected” links

The scam has been running for years and involves a call from someone claiming to be an employee of Microsoft or another tech titan. If you answer, the caller explains that malware has been detected on your PC and helpfully offers to remove it. One remote desktop session and hefty credit card charge later – some charge up to US$450 for the service – the scammer either does nothing whatsoever or installs free anti-virus software.

The USA’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Australia’s Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and Canada’s Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have each emitted near-simultaneous statements proclaiming the success of operations directed at sources of the scam. Canada has named and fined two firms it deems responsible, the USA has frozen the assets of six operators and initiated legal action against 16 companies and 17 individuals.

Australia is claiming credit for the bust, with ACMA saying it received complaints from Australians listed on the Do Not Call register that prohibits unsolicited telemarketing calls. As it investigated those complaints, ACMA passed on details to the FTC, setting in motion a process that concluded with a joint announcement by the three nations.

CRTC Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer Andrea Rosen summed up the attitude of all three nations in saying “The coordinated actions taken by our agencies today send a strong message that telemarketers cannot use national borders to evade detection or pursuit by enforcement agencies.”

Fine sentiments, but ones that don’t mean it’s Game Over for these scammers, as the FTC notes they’ve also targeted punters in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand.

One of the firms named by the FTC is ‘Pecon Software UK Ltd’, an entity Companieshouse.co.uk sayshas a registered office on London’s Regent Street.

The FTC says some of the scammers “… hoped to avoid detection by consumers and law enforcers by using virtual offices that were actually just mail-forwarding facilities, and by using 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers.” Pecon’s website is registered in the .in domain.

Fast forward to present time, the virtualization technology proved itself to be stable, and now, the market is full of offers from different vendors, like Oracle, Citrix, Microsoft, VMware, Red Hat, Parallels, Novell, and more, all claiming that their virtualization technology is better than their competitor.

But what is exactly server virtualization and how it can help you or your business?

Virtualization has many advantages from the traditional server solutions, such as server consolidation,  lower cooling costs, less datacenter space,  power savings, better usage of resources, to name a few.

Take for example the following classic scenario of four servers running each one its assigned application:

You can see from the CPU load graphs, that none of these utilizes their full potential, so computing power is wasted. Instead of that, you can combine these four servers in one, each running their particular application and operating system, like this:

In this scenario, the servers from the previous picture are now running on a virtual server, which uses resources better. The low CPU utilization from the previous scenario is now better distributed and consolidated. Not only that, this saves you money from the extra electrical power for running four servers, extra cooling costs and server rack space.

Also, performing backups and restores of the virtualized platform is easier than in the traditional way, because for the guest Operating System or Virtualization manager program called ‘Hypervisor’, servers in essence are data files that can be copied and redeployed even on different hardware, so you don’t need to have the exact brand and model duplicate of each server. You can even be able to make backups during working hours, without disrupting server performance.

So, what is a Hypervisor?

The Hypervisor or Virtual Machine monitor is a layer of software that manages every aspect of the virtualized platform, from providing the foundation to run virtual machines, hardware resource usage, performance metrics, logging system, and a lot more. There are two types of Hypervisors, Type 1 and Type 2.

Type 1 or “Bare Metal” Hypervisor:

These are the ones that runs an operating-system independent application that interact directly with the hardware resources, such as network and video cards, memory and CPU to each one of the virtual machines running over it, in a transparent and dynamic way.  These have the advantage of being highly specialized piece of software and also are considerably smaller on comparison with type 2 hypervisors.  The advantage on this is that when there is less code to patch, the better.

Also, the low footprint of the “bare metal” hypervisors means that more resources are available to the virtual machines than those that run over a general-purpose operating system.

Type 2 or Hosted Hypervisors:

Type 2 Hypervisors run as an application over a standard host operating system, like Windows or Linux.  This application is the one who interacts with the host operating system to allocate hardware resources, such as network and video cards, memory and CPU to each one of the virtual machines running over it. The advantage of the hosted hypervisors is the reduced cost of them, which is ideal for small offices, software testing, operating system compatibility tests or desktop applications.  But it has its shortcomings in the datacenter market, because these usually lack the availability, disaster recovery, data protection requirements needed in a datacenter infrastructure.

And, can’t I just run a bunch of applications on the same server?

Yes, you can, but you can’t control how the resources on the multitasking server are used, so applications are fighting each other for computing resources, giving an overall low performance. However, in virtual environments, each virtual machine “thinks” that is a “real” computer because they can’t tell the difference, as each virtual machine has their own motherboard, hard disk, memory, BIOS, CPU, DVD drive, serial ports, network cards, floppy drives and video cards. It gives you the advantage of assign certain amount of resources for each one of your applications, so they won’t be fighting for computing power.

Other advantage of a virtual computer over a multitasking one is that if one of your applications crashes the operating system due a software flaw, is that the other applications will continue to run, unaffected as they are on an independent virtual computer.

Wait, there are more advantages:

There are more advantages, like their portability. The virtual machine is usually comprised on a set of files (Configuration, Virtual Disk and NVRAM settings files), that can easily be backed-up and transported to a remote location. For example, your server which hosts your virtual machines crashed due to a hardware failure. You have another server, from a different brand and different characteristics that your failed one. No problem. You can port the virtual machines to the new server simply copying them and running over the hypervisor. They won’t tell the difference!

The Bottom Line:

Encapsulated, isolated, hardware independent virtual machines are only one of the building blocks for a virtualization platform. In the next articles, I will discuss virtualization further.

A TOTAL of 150 new jobs are coming online at marketing software provider HubSpot in Dublin.

The US firm plans to open its European headquarters in the capital and is looking for staff to fill roles in sales, marketing, account management and support.

The new base will open in January and will oversee its international operations, supporting more than 600 of its 8,000 customers in 56 countries worldwide.

JD Sherman, of HubSpot, said the group’s international business is already growing 200pc a year.

Barry O’Leary, of IDA Ireland said the decision by HubSpot to locate a new EMEA headquarters in Ireland further enhances Ireland’s reputation as the internet capital of Europe.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said : “HubSpot’s announcement is a recognition that Ireland is now an increasingly attractive location for the most compelling internet businesses to open facilities and create jobs.”

Several years ago, securing access to your infrastructure meant about locking your servers in a special secure room with restricted access. Also, logical security measures in server sessions weren’t more than a combination of user/password and computers were on one certain location, where access to computer terminals were restricted.

With the appearance of the Internet, TELNET was a popular access method in early ‘90s to Linux, BSD and UNIX systems. Unfortunately, this protocol isn’t very secure, so then again, user and password are sent in clear text over the network.  With the advent of the Internet’s mass usage and subsequent unauthorized intrusions, this became a serious concern.

This is how the “magic” happens.

OpenSSH was the response to that problem, it opens a logical tunnel between the client and the server, so in this way, communications are secured and only the client and the server are the ones who can “understand” the data transferred.

“Not so fast, Sonny!”

The beauty of a SSH connection is that you can not only send clear-text data during the tunneled session, but you can send pretty much anything over it, from e-mail to remote access to applications.

You can add security layers over the standard SSH by regularly changing passwords, adding complexity to it (but in the end you can find a lot of passwords written on sticky notes under user’s keyboards). And that is quite far from perfect.

But not everyone has the chance to physically peek under every computer keyboard looking for a lucky shot, so “crackers” (because they crack-in computer systems) came with the idea to mount an attack method called “Man-In-The-Middle”.

I’d rather call it “Monkey-in-the-middle (Source).

The attack method consists in temporarily tamper inside the target’s network and using certain techniques can make a rogue server pretend to be the real one. Then, the attacker gets the captured login information to access the remote server.

This is how they do it. Pretty clever, isn’t it?

In response to that new problem, OpenSSH with RSA public key cryptography makes a great answer because you don’t only rely on a username and a password, but now you will also need a key file that you and only you will have in order to establish a connection with the remote server.

These set of keys are made in a way that what is encrypted with one can only be deciphered with the other, but you can’t decipher the private key from the public key.

Also, you can protect your keys with a passphrase. That is, instead of a single word you can even put an entire phrase like: “I WilL N0t G3t 0Wn3d By B3ginn3rs l1k3 y0u!”

If for some reason you are quite confused with the above paragraph, I’ve made a small infographic for you. See it below!

That’s the way how OpenSSH with RSA authentication works.

In case of a “man-in-the-middle” interception, the rogue server will not know what the user’s public key is, and in case of sending a fake one, that would be useless, because the key sent from the server and the one from the client will not match, so no connection will be made.

In the rare case that you public key is stolen, the attacker will need the passphrase (not password), so they will have a hard time trying to guess what the passphrase might be!

In another article, I will develop this theme further, and will tell you how to do it.

THE STATE was urged to advance regulations on the protection of electronic data during its EU presidency by the European Commission vice-president Viviane Reding yesterday.

Speaking at a Dublin seminar on data protection, she said the regulations, which she proposed last January to replace dated data protection legislation from 1995, “will come to a very crucial, a very sensitive moment during your presidency”.

The regulations would create a “one-stop shop” of consistent data regulation across all 27 European member states, allow citizens a “right to forget” where they can ask companies to delete their data if they are no longer using a service such as a social media site, let citizens port their data to a new site, and would impose significant fines on companies guilty of data breaches. Ms Reding said the 1995 legislation is no longer fit for purpose in the digital age, noting that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was just eight years old when the legislation was passed.

The proposed regulations are currently in discussion in the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

She noted that 65 per cent of Irish consumers said they were concerned about the way companies have control over their data and added that a single set of rules would “make the digital single market work for the tech giants and help drive economic growth.”

The varied data protection regimes currently in place across 27 states were “very difficult, very costly” for businesses wishing to offer products and services across the European market.

Many multinationals such as Cisco and Microsoft have welcomed the intent to streamline regulations across the EU, but others, especially social media sites, have expressed concern about the “right to forget” clause, and the requirement to provide easy data portability.

Ms Reding also said that work by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office on data protection complaints against Facebook had shown how the proposed regulations might work.

The Data Protection Commissioner’s Office gave a progress report last week on its oversight of Facebook, a task which fell to the Irish office because Facebook has its European headquarters here.

At yesterday’s seminar, data protection commissioner Billy Hawkes said his office approached the role as “a prototype” of best practice for how the new regulations might work.

The world’s biggest social network makes most of its money from advertising, but has to walk a fine line in doing so by avoiding giving its over 950 million users the impression it is invading their privacy to boost revenue.

It was told by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner last December to overhaul privacy protection for its users outside the United States and Canada, after a probe found its privacy policies were too complex and lacked transparency.

The regulator said it was particularly encouraged by the decision to turn off a piece of facial-recognition technology, the so-called “tag suggest” feature, for new users in the European Union and by next month, existing users as well.

The Irish watchdog, which oversees Facebook’s activities because the group’s non-U.S. business is headquartered in Dublin, said on Friday most of its instructions had been adopted, with progress still to be made on others over the next four weeks.

“We would hope that the progress reported in the review will have dealt with the various complaints we have received in relation to Facebook Ireland,” Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes told a conference call.

Privacy cases can prove costly for social networking sites like Facebook, which was the first American company to debut with a value of more than $100 billion in its initial public offering in May, before its share price slumped on an uncertain outlook.

PRIVACY RIGHTS It had to settle a case for $9.5 million after its now defunct “Beacon” service violated its members’ privacy rights by not requiring their consent to allow the company to broadcast their internet activity.

Ireland’s watchdog had said the company risked facing legal action under European privacy laws if it failed to comply and said on Friday the social network would have to continue to engage with it as new features are introduced.

In its report, the regulator said Facebook had made particular progress in providing better transparency for its users, handing them more control over settings and the ability to more readily access their personal data.

Facebook’s director of policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Richard Allan told Reuters the company was committed to bringing the tag suggest feature back once it had taken steps to put it in line with EU guidance.

Allan said the move should also remove the threat of legal action from Germany’s Hamburg Data Commissioner over the facial-recognition feature.

“Clearly the announcement today means we think there are no grounds for them to proceed with that,” Allan said, adding that Facebook’s privacy changes would have no impact at all on its advertising strategy.

The regulator said the outstanding areas of concern included minimising the potential for advertising to target users based on words that could be considered as sensitive personal data, but both it and Facebook said they were confident that these issues would be dealt with speedily.

An Austrian-based group of student activists, europe-v-facebook, which has succeeded in extracting some concessions on privacy from Facebook, said the law had been waived for the tech group.

“The Irish ODPC says that Facebook has not fully implemented the suggestions and that further work has to be done, but there seem to be no consequences or fines for not complying with these suggestions,” said the group in a statement.

Content is the bread and butter of any streaming service. It doesn’t matter how snazzy your interface is if you can’t provide the films or television series that users want to watch. This Warner Bros. deal means that hits like The Dark Knight Rises and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows won’t be available on any other service in the U.K. other than Sky for more than a year after their release.

This marks another setback for Netflix, which has seen its various exclusivity deals fade away as of late. The company has even swore they’d be more aggressive in seeking out these kinds of agreements, according to The Next Web, but it looks like they might not be having much success in their endeavor. Their hold certainly appears to be eroding out from under them.

Sky’s deal with Warner Bros. is just another nail in the coffin, though, as Netflix had a late start. They only just launched in the U.K. this year, after all, and it doesn’t seem like the company will ever hold as much ground there as they do in North America. That said, avoiding a sort of monopoly isn’t a bad thing.

It is up to a Belfast company to unmask anonymous posters using Facebook to harass the firm and its staff, a High Court judge has said.

Mr Justice Weatherup decided that it was the responsibility of the unidentified company to continue with the investigations into finding those responsible.

A series of messages and information attacking the firm has been put up on Facebook by internet trolls using false names. Last month the social networking giant was ordered to help identify the posters in a bid to stop their campaign.

An order preventing the company from being named was also granted after the company’s lawyer said disclosure would only draw more unwanted public attention. Facebook was given 24 hours to provide the email address of posters and 10 days to supply more information about those who posted on the social network site.

In court yesterday its barrister argued that it has now supplied as much information as it possibly can.

Following submissions from both sides, Mr Justice Weatherup predicted an increasing number of social networking-related cases in future. He said: “How the world moves on.

“Facebook and its use is something the courts are obviously going to have to tackle.

“It introduces a whole new electronic world.”

The judge noted that the plaintiff company has brought in an expert to help with the identification of the posters, although as yet without success.

“There may be an issue for the future about who should be doing this, should it be Facebook or the plaintiff.” The judge then decided: “For the moment I’m inclined to the view that it should be the plaintiff.”

He pointed out that any expenses incurred were likely to pass to those responsible if they are found to be acting inappropriately.

Adjourning the case for three weeks, Mr Justice Weatherup said: “I’m assuming the information is baseless, and for that reason I have granted an injunction.”

According to BBC News, Hertfordshire Police confirmed that information stored on an externally hosted database had been published on the internet and that the data, including phone numbers and IP addresses, relates to a number of officers in Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

A statement said that it was investigating the incident and as a precaution, the pages had been temporarily disabled whilst the circumstances as to how this information was obtained was investigated.

“There is absolutely no suggestion that any personal data relating to officers or members of the public has been, or could have been compromised. Nevertheless matters of IT security are extremely important to the Constabulary and an investigation is already under way,” it said.

The hacker added an ‘OpFreeAssange’ banner to the details posted online, however, the hacker wrote ‘I am not a member of Anonymous’.

Catalin Cosoi, chief security researcher at Bitdefender, said: “The unknown attacker extracted from the second breached website what appear to be police officers’ email addresses, passwords to those email accounts and a list of PINs probably employed as additional safety tools.

“Several user logs have also been made public, exposing a list of employee names and corresponding IPs that could be used in cyber crime operations requiring identification of a specific machine, containing a particular type of data.”

Paul Vlissidis, technical director at NCC Group, said: “Externally hosted databases are like any third party supplier – they can be a nasty potential security flaw because their practices and procedures are outside the control of the client.

“Miscreants are certainly very wise to this. We need to move towards a culture where it’s common policy to audit external suppliers and make sure their security is up to scratch.”

Ash Patel, country manager for UK and Ireland at Stonesoft, said: “The most worrying aspect of this attack is that the hackers only made themselves known once they had have achieved what they set out to.

“This raises an important question as to what other damage may have been caused and whether any other data was stolen that the force is currently not aware of. Furthermore, the organisation should think about potential Trojans that may have been left as sleepers in the database/network.

“Public sector organisations need to understand that, by hosting sites with third parties or outsourcing such important services to system integrators, does not take responsibility away from those who are employed to ensure the security of ‘our’ data. It is time that it was made clear that the responsibility lies with the government and its employees in the same way that the nation’s security lies with the armed forces.

“It is also important to note that Hertfordshire Police’s website was externally hosted and this, as always, highlights that when employing this parties to host sites, the first and most important question that should be asked is with regards to security, after which can come questions around cost and availability. This is even more so the case when the organisations are of public interest.”

The news will be welcomed by commuters who will be able to access the internet for free while using public transport.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said the move would ensure “almost the entire” public transport system would be fitted with internet facilities.

Dublin Bus is already in the process of acquiring 80 new vehicles that will ensure i Phones and i Pads become even more common in rush hour.

“We need to ensure that public transport remains an attractive and competitive option for passengers.

“Free internet access gives public transport a significant edge over the car, and is already proving popular with passengers where provided,” Minister Varadkar said.

Tourists

“At the same time, tourists rely increasingly on the internet when travelling, using their smart phones or tablets to conduct their research on the move.

“In order for Ireland to compete as a tourism destination, we must offer 21st century services to 21st century tourists.”

He said that wifi internet access will be introduced on Irish Rail’s Dart and commuter rail services this autumn, and on 80 new Dublin bus vehicles by Christmas.

It’s already available on Irish Rail Intercity services and most of Bus Eireann’s fleet.

Wifi has been successfully trialled on two Luas trams and wifi is expected to be provided on all trams in 2013.

The minister noted that as part of a tourist drive, wifi services are also being provided in tourism offices across Ireland, including the principal office on O’Connell Street.

It’s also being proposed for the tourist office on Suffolk Street, and a total of 16 offices throughout Ireland.

According to Netflix, it eclipses adoption rates of Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, with Twitter taking 28 months to hit 1 million users, and Facebook and Foursquare taking well over a year and a half to reach the same numbers.

“This membership milestone is evidence that Netflix has rapidly gained popularity in the UK and Ireland,” said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings.

“Our British and Irish members clearly enjoy the ability to instantly watch a large variety of TV shows and films streaming from Netflix on their favourite devices whenever they want.”

According to a YouGov poll, ten percent of the UK population dedicates two hours a day to streaming TV over the web, while Netflix have found that UK and Ireland members prefer comedy and drama over all other genres. Saturday night is the peak streaming time in the UK and Ireland too.

Netflix costs £5.99 a month and comes with a 30-day free trial for new users. It’s available through PC and Mac, as well as Android phones and tablets and iPhones and iPads. Netflix is also on all major games consoles, including the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Commuters using Bus Éireann’s intercity services will be able to log on while they travel as the public transport firm continues to roll out free wifi access.

The company has added a further 50 buses to the Expressway fleet already equipped with wireless internet access. The buses will operate on routes throughout Ireland, including the Waterford and Limerick to Dublin Airport routes; Dublin to Donegal; and Galway to Derry.

About half of the Expressway fleet now has internet access on board, and Bus Éireann said the remainder of the fleet would go online by the end of the year.

The latest roll-out brings to 190 the number of vehicles owned by the State-subsidised company that offer customers free wifi access.

According to Bus Éireann’s figures, more than 16,000 customers every month use the service.

Bus Éireann began rolling out wifi on its buses last year, following a year-long pilot scheme on selected routes. Dublin Bus has also offered wireless access on some of its routes on a trial basis.

Mr McCarthy, who has built his reputation as a money-saving mogul on the success of Irish discount code website 5HOP5.ie and Irish daily deal aggregator D3ALS.ie, is now launchingMobilePhoneDeals.ie - the first comprehensive, independent and dedicated mobile phone deal comparison website exclusive to the Irish market. It will compare phone deals across all the major networks, including: Vodafone, 3 Mobile, O2 Ireland and Meteor.ie as well from all the major manufacturers, such as: Apple, Blackberry, Samsung, HTC and more.

All users have to do is go to MobilePhoneDeals.ie and choose the manufacturer and model they are interested in to see the deals available across the networks. Alternatively, if they don’t have a specific phone in mind, they can simply search to see the handsets and smart phones available for each network. This allows them to compare mobile phone deals like-for-like so they can find not only the cheapest deals, but also the right deals based on their monthly use of minutes, texts and data.

The website is free to use, with no membership required, and the phone deals themselves cost exactly the same through MobilePhoneDeals.ie as they would by approaching the networks directly.

The benefits of MobilePhoneDeals.ie do not end with simply listing mobile phone deals however, as Mr. McCarthy is quick to point out.

“The obvious advantage of MobilePhoneDeals.ie is it allows you to compare phones across the networks quickly, eliminating the need to go from website to website to find the best deal,” he said.

“However, we wanted to create a website that makes all aspects of mobile phone ownership straightforward – and increase each consumer’s confidence that they’re getting the best available deal. That’s why MobilePhoneDeals.ie also has comparison services for PAYG deals and SIM-only deals and even a section for mobile phone recycling to help consumers make money from their old phones.”

PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1jHmB)

Digital textbooks are now owned by four in five (80%) of the student population, it revealed.

The average worth of these study aids is now around £152, with around a third of those questioned saying their collection has an estimated value of £200 or more.

Overall, the average student now takes almost £2,000 of gadgets to university, according to Endsleigh’s 2012 student possessions study.

The poll, which questioned around 2,000 students in England, found that many youngsters are staying up to date with the latest technology.

Just 5% now take a desktop computer to university with them, compared to 15% last year.

But 86% take a laptop, up from 83% last year, and around 9% opt to take a tablet with them.

Smartphones are also on the rise – last year nearly half of students (45%) said they owned one, this year that had risen to around 80%.

Around one in 10 students say they own an e-reader, such as a Kindle, up from 6% in 2011.

The survey also found that many students are using their gadgets to stay in touch with their families. Almost four in five (79%) of those questioned said they had taught their parents to use social media, including Skype, so they can stay in touch.

The Communications Market Report 2012 said superfast services were available to around 94 percent of homes and businesses, compared to 60 percent for the UK as a whole.

Wednesday’s report also shows the province to be falling more deeply for gadgetry with a 62 percent increase in smartphone ownership.

Tablet computers are also on the march and present in nine percent of Northern Ireland homes.

Nearly three-quarters of broadband users were shopping online while two-thirds were dipping into social networking.

Jonathan Rose, director of Ofcom in Northern Ireland, said: “There are some striking figures in this report as highlighted by the availability of superfast broadband services.

“Significant investment by the executive and the telecoms companies has put Northern Ireland in an enviable position and provides significant opportunities for consumers and businesses.”

The report also found residents in border counties still suffer from inadvertent roaming, running up extra charges when their mobile phone switches to a network over the border.

Mr Rose said: “The latest European Roaming Regulation places a responsibility on mobile operators to take ‘reasonable steps’ to protect their customers from inadvertent roaming charges. We are writing to the operators to find out what actions they are planning to take to meet this new obligation.”

Internet shutdown on Monday, Are you a potential victim?

Malware may knock thousands off Internet

Quarter-Million People Around the World May Lose the Internet

Are you one of the people worried about all of the talk about the possibility of you losing internet access next week? Well Dee.ie says don’t be.

There is a simple fix and an even simpler way to find out if your computer is infected. It takes two seconds to click onto the website that detects if your computer is one of the infected ones. As soon as you connect to the website it tells you if your computer is infected or not.

If your computer is infected it gives you the very simple steps to get rid of the malware.  {Do this with every computer you own.)

If your computer is not infected, a page with a green background appears. If your computer is infected, a page with a red background appears and directs you to the simple steps to fix your computer.

This is a completely free check and fix for your computer.

http://www.dcwg.org

The site has a list of infected DNS numbers on their site at this page. If they match up then, it means your computer has been infected. If not, then you needn’t take any steps as you won’t be affected by DNS change servers shutting down.

The DCWG site warns that Changing DNS is only one of the functions of the malware kits. The malware could have been used for capturing keystrokes or acting as a proxy for traffic to sensitive sites like bank accounts or social media. It would be a good idea to check your bank statements and credit reports as well as change passwords on any online accounts especially saved passwords from your applications or web browsers. 

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin offered the estimated timeline after a project update on a new version of “Glass” wearable computers. 

Mr Brin showed the “Explorer” edition of the glasses that developers could buy for $1,500 (€1,200) to become the first people outside the company to shape the revolutionary eyewear before it gets to market. 

Explorer-edition glasses should ship early next year, and a version should be ready for the consumer market within a year after that, said Mr Brin. 

The eyewear features built-in camera, microphone and speaker technology, and can sync to the internet using wireless connections. 

Video through the eyes of wearers can be streamed live on Google’s social network. 

Mini-screens in the glasses can display text messages, email, or other digitised information from the internet or mobile gadgets. 

“It was kind of a nutty idea that somehow became real,” said Mr Brin while discussing Glass after the keynote presentation. 

“The notion that you could jump out of an air ship with it and still communicate your experience makes holding a smartphone or laptop seem pretty damn awkward. It’s about you being less of a slave to your device; it has been really liberating.” 

Mr Brin said he wears a prototype pair of Google glasses much of the time as he and the team he heads at the company’s X Lab are working to refine the technology. 

Google has been speaking with eyeglass frame companies about ideas for a consumer version of the glasses. 

“I expect that in three or four years watching people hold a mobile phone in their hands and look down at it will start to be unusual and that this will be normal,” said Google’s product manager Steve Lee.

Following a 2009 agreement between the labels of the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and Eircom, customers of the Irish ISP would find themselves warned should their file-sharing activities be tracked by rightsholders.

The so-called “graduated response” process would complete after a customer had received three warnings – at this point their Internet would be cut off. But by October 2010 things we starting to go wrong. Due to a mix up, Eircom sent out around 300 warning letters to completely innocent subscribers.

The error meant that Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) got involved in the process. The immediate outcome was bad for the labels. In December the DPC ordered “3 strikes” to be brought to a halt on privacy grounds.

This decision was later challenged by the ‘Big Four’ labels of IRMA – EMI Records, Sony Music, Universal and Warner – who said that the DPC ruling effectively disabled their ‘lawful’ agreement with Eircom.

Yesterday, the labels’ appeals bore fruit. At the Commercial Court, Mr Justice Peter Charleton ordered the Data Protection Commissioner’s decision to be quashed, a ruling which gives IRMA and Eircom the green light to continue with warnings and disconnections.

Justice Charleton said that the DPC notice was invalid due to the Commissioner failing to provide any detailed reasons why it had been issued. The Judge went on to questionwhether it had any basis in law.

Although privacy issues were the key motivator behind the DPC’s ruling, Justice Charleton said it was not clear how privacy might have been compromised by the detection and punishment of individuals who engage in unlawful Internet file-sharing.

The Irish Recorded Music Association said last night that it would now “press ahead” with its three strike regime. Expect other ISPs to come under pressure soon.

The city council is hoping to offer free internet access to all residents, businesses and visitors over the next three years and wants a Government cash boost to roll it out.

Belfast is one of 10 municipal areas across the UK to benefit from Westminster’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s £100m Urban Broadband Fund (UBF), with £6m of funding already guaranteed. That money is being used to put a wireless network in place covering an area stretching out from City Hall in a five-kilometre radius.

However, a further £7.7m is up for grabs if the council can demonstrate there is a demand for better broadband connections. The council is now asking members of the public to complete an online survey to show their support for the bid.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to place Belfast at the leading edge of technology across Europe and give us the infrastructure to build successful international businesses and attract further foreign direct investment,” said DUP Lord Mayor of Belfast Gavin Robinson.

“This is not just a Belfast City Council bid — this will benefit the entire city and we need all to declare their support urgently as the closing date is just around the corner at the end of July.”

Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster has also backed the move and claims better broadband services could help grow the economy here.

“I value the contribution that infrastructure development can make to economic growth and I support what the council aims to achieve under its ambitious plans,” the minister said.

“The council cannot achieve its objectives in isolation and I would call on all interested parties to get behind the plans, thereby demonstrating a commitment to making Belfast and, indeed, all of Northern Ireland an attractive proposition for living, working and investing.”

Sinn Fein councillor Deirdre Hargey, who chairs the council’s strategic policy and resources committee, said: “By 2015, we aim to have citywide access to a network providing ultra-fast capacity to meet the demands of creative industries which send large volumes of data.

“Super-connected Belfast also aims to provide 100% broadband coverage across the city and provide a Wi-Fi infrastructure within the city centre and at transport hubs, conference venues and other key locations.”

Questions and answers

Question: What is the super-connected project?

Answer: Many areas of Belfast have access to broadband with speeds of up to 24 Mbps (megabits per second). This project will provide city wide access to speeds of at least 80Mbps, with high-speed ultrafast capacity (of at least 100MB) for businesses which require it. There will be investment in wireless infrastructure within the city centre and at transport hubs, conference venues and other key locations.

Question: So who will be funding the project?

Answer: Belfast has already been awarded £6m from the Westminster Department of Culture, Media and Sport £100m Urban Broadband Fund (UBF). A further £7.7m is up for grabs. The city council has also allocated £3m from the City Investment Fund.

Question: When will the project be complete?

Answer: Following confirmation of the full funding award by the Department of Culture and Media, the plan is to have 100% free public Wi-Fi access across the Belfast City Council area by 2015.

Question: Why is it important to the city of Belfast?

Answer: The development of Belfast’s economic infrastructure, including an excellent communications network infrastructure, will be essential in promoting growth and inward investment. The super-connected City Project will support this growth. Digital inclusion is important if Belfast is to maximise the potential for economic growth.

Question: How do the general public get involved?

Answer: Anyone wishing to register their interest is asked to complete the online survey at www.belfastcity.gov.uk/superconnected.

FOR MOST COUPLES the birth of their first child is an intimate and deeply private moment usually witnessed only by themselves and those assisting at the birth. This week one Irish couple announced their plans to mark this milestone by broadcasting the birth of their firstborn on the internet.

The Cork-based husband and wife Jonathan Joly and Anna Saccone already have two popular YouTube channels where for nearly two years they have broadcast daily programmes about their life; everything from shopping trips to Joly’s romantic marriage proposal, and even their wedding, last September.

“When you hear what we are planning it may sound odd, but for us it’s just a natural progression of what we do. We have an audience, a community of people who follow our lives, so for us to broadcast the birth of our first baby feels perfectly natural,” says Joly of the 120,000 subscribers to their channel LeFloofTV.

The couple’s baby, a girl they have already named Emilia, is due to be born on September 3rd. Despite being advised that they could not take photographs or use a video camera at Cork University Hospital, Joly “discreetly” filmed the first scan and broadcast the video diary, which was viewed 80,000 times.

“Our audience engages with us constantly. It’s not just that one-dimensional TV experience where people are sitting mindlessly watching the box. They get involved and tell us what they think, and we really feel a sense of community,” he says. “We share our experiences and, because of that, people are emotionally invested in the content.”

After broadcasting the scan footage, Joly received a letter from management at the hospital advising against filming such antenatal appointments again. “I think people who don’t understand the YouTube platform might see what we are doing as seedy or weird,” he says.

Having started out in the public-hospital system, the couple have since decided to go private, and their consultant has agreed to allow limited filming of the birth. They are permitted to film before and after the epidural is administered, for example, but not the injection itself.

“It’s more about capturing the emotional journey of Anna giving birth to our first child rather than the graphic details,” says Joly. “I am not going to bury a camera between my wife’s legs. There are plenty of TV shows where you can see that kind of thing.” The public appetite for such television programmes is evident in healthy viewing figures for the Channel 4 series One Born Every Minute. In Ireland, the Births of the Nation documentary, on RTÉ, followed five expectant mothers in the lead-up to the births of their babies.

High-profile examples of people who have broadcast the births of their children include the US TV presenter Ricki Lake, but YouTube is also awash with the birthing films of ordinary people. A spokesperson for the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin says it allows video cameras into the delivery rooms “once the privacy of others in the area is protected and that anything filmed is done so very discreetly”.

“I know some people think what we are doing is outlandish, but it doesn’t feel at all strange for us,” says Saccone, adding that although they “put so much out there” they are still able to keep some things private. The couple make a “decent” living from their media activities, including Saccone’s fashion programme Style Diet. “It is not the same as a reality show. We are in control of everything that is broadcast. We decide what we will and will not show,” she says.

“There have been stressful moments in this pregnancy when I’ve wanted to curl up in a ball and not show my face to the internet, but I know all the time that Jonathan has my back, so it is never an issue. The filming has become such a normal part of our lives now that the question isn’t why would we want to share the birth of our baby with the world but why wouldn’t we?”

A new electronic care record (ECR) will be rolled out across Northern Ireland to allow the sharing of patient data between different information systems across acute, community, primary health and social care.

 The announcement follows a pilot of Orion’s health ECR at Ulster hospital, the Belfast City hospital and two general practices in 2009 and 2010. The pilot involved 200 clinicians and more than 9,000 patients and provided the business case for the full roll out of the ECR across health and social care.

 Under a seven-year contract worth £9m, Orion’s ECR will now be deployed in 18 acute and community hospitals, all GP practices, community, mental health and social care users across the five regional trusts in Northern Ireland.

 The clinical portal will provide streamlined, secure, web-based access from a single browser view of patient information to authorised health and social care professionals in Northern Ireland, according to the government.

 The system will include critical patient information, including lab results, patient medications, allergies and clinical correspondence. Audit tools and patient privacy controls have also been built into the ECR.

 The implementation will begin towards the end of this year, with completion of the core elements anticipated in early summer 2013.

 Health minister Edwin Poots said: “The implementation of the ECR will contribute to the delivery of the key proposals within ‘transforming your care.’ It is about improving the quality, sustainability and safety of patient and client care.

 ”I am confident that the ECR system will assist in developing a sustainable health care system that delivers now and will continue to deliver in the future for the good of everyone in Northern Ireland.”

 As part of the contract, Health and Social Care Northern Ireland will also have access to Orion Health’s rhapsody integration engine, forms technology, patient portal and case management software, which will help support the management of long-term conditions. The government also hopes it will provide the underpinning technology framework for sharing information across multi-disciplinary teams.

Bill Liao, whose credentials, beside global philanthropy, include a listing as the co-founder of global business network Xing.com, founded the movement with James Whelton, a schoolboy who had the bright idea of founding a computer club at my old highschool, the wonderful PBC Cork, before deciding to take things to the next level.

Despite the generational gap between Liao and his young sidekick, the project kicked off like wildfire, and a burgeoning global network of ‘dojos’ (the name, for those interested, comes from an ancient Japanese temple adjunct) continues to bring hobbyist coding together in new territories.

The official dojo directory bears testament to this furious global expansion. From humble beginnings in the ‘real capital‘ of Ireland, the dojo network has begun a veritable world takeover: Stateside, clubs exist in Washington DC, New York City, and just about every State in between, while chapters have also sprung up in Cape Town, South Africa,Brudan, Uganda, and St Petersburg, Russia. Soon, practically every major city in the world will be host to a dojo where young coders can come together to meet like-minded individuals and hone their craft.

A typical dojo (take, for instance, the Manhattan outlet, at W 21st Street) meets once a weekend. The young age of some of these precocious ‘coding monkeys’, as they are sometimes sarcastically known, is evident by the disclaimer that those under 13 must be accompanied by an adult for the duration of the dojo meet.

A series of resources are provided on the Dojo website (a HTML Cheatsheet to guide the young coders through the rudiments of coding in the net’s best-known markup script), while due to the sky-rocketing popularity of many dojos, places often have to be booked in advance of each session.

In Ireland, where it all started, the ‘movement’ has created quite a stir in the local and national news media, with many pundits hopeful that this blossoming generation of bright young computer geniuses will overtake the current skills-deficient one and lead Ireland’s way, once more, back into the heart of the hi-tech, high-knowledge, digital economy.

Liao, who counts over 100,000 followers on his official Twitter channel, has emerged as something of a champion for the cause of tech-saviness among Ireland’s youth, and as an outspoken critic of the government’s general failure to foster this success.

Last weekend he blasted jobs Minister Richard Bruton for his fairly timid explanation of Ireland’s notoriously unhelpful work visa programme on popular politics programme The Week In Politics and stands as a bastion for the belief in what young people, with hi-tech skills, can achieve.

And while the sight of a group of youngsters gathered around working stations to code computer programmes on their weekends rather than play sports is certainly one that takes some getting used to, the fruits of this strange but successful initiative are hard not to spot.

The world’s youngest Mac app developer hails – un-coincidentally - from Cork, and is also an active member of the CoderDojo meeetup in Mahon Point here. His pizza game app was described on RTE.ie as a modern day sort of Space Invaders, and landed him a coveted place at the top of the Apple apps chart.

Elsewhere in the county of Cork, two young teenagers were reported to have invented an iPhone application that performs the unusual but useful function of translating Cork’s notoriously unintelligible version of Hiberno-English into the standard form as taught, and understood, outside of the Rebel County.

Stock rural phrases such as ‘Shove Whest’ (lit. ‘move west’; meaning, ‘move over’) will now longer be to the bedazzlement of hapless tourists who can purchase the app from iPhone’s AppStore for less than the cost of a Berlitz guide.

Fittingly for the movement, however, it’s perhaps in its cradle of Ireland that it stands to make the biggest contribution to society.

Ireland is notoriously under-equipped to deal with the manpower needs of the many hi-tech companies that have based here, something which has been identified as a major obstacle to development by government.

Technical literacy, as taught in high-schools, tends to extend no further (even if then) to an education in the humble European Computer Driving Licence an archaic and under-impressive qualification that merely attests to basic skills in functions such as word processing and spreadsheet use.

Besides the decline in software such as that needed for this qualification (with everything ‘moving to the cloud’ some believe, that one day, there’ll be no need for desktop software at all), hard and highly sought after skills such as coding, web design, and information systems, do not comprise part of the curriculum at all.

The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has for years been hell-bent on selling ’hi tech and technology courses’ to students in the hope of increasing enrollment in such programmes and boosting the output of graduates.

Besides the known concerns of high labour costs, dwindling OECD education scores, the economic implosion, and more, concern rightly runs high that a failure to produce sufficient highly computer literate graduates will be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back and forces foreign direct investment (FDI) out of Ireland or offshore.

For that reason and more, Ireland should be thankful for the entrepreneurship that Liao and Whelton have shown in setting up the Coder Dojo movement, and for the huge job generating potential this will be proved to have had by the time the child prodigy coders have entered the workforce.

And the amazing little bits and pieces they’ll come up with along the way — even the Cork-ish – English translation app — is a happy bonus.

The number of complaints reported to the U.S. government rose 3.4 percent in 2011, to 314 246, according to a recent report (pdf) by The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). The crimes resulted in financial losses of US $485 million last year.

And the victims aren’t just unsuspecting consumers, but sometimes sophisticated professionals you’d think would know better. The IC3 reports that law firms have been defrauded of millions of dollars in various debt collections scams. The firms are typically contacted via e-mail for help with debt collection, a divorce settlement or real estate purchase. The firms receive checks for large sums, usually $100,000 or more, from the alleged debtor and are told to wire the money, minus the firm’s fee, of course, to the purported client’s bank, usually located in Korea, Ireland, China or Canada. The original checks turn out to be counterfeit, and the law firm is out tens of thousands of dollars.

That’s a twist on one of the most common types of Internet scams, which asks for help in moving large amounts of money and sends a large check to the victim first, which tends to convince the victim it’s legitimate. Indeed, who hasn’t at some point received a desperate plea from a wealthy Nigerian desperately trying to transfer his millions out of the country. In fact, the IC3 reports that a court in Lagos, Nigeria, has granted the extradition of Emmanual Ekhator to the United States. Ekhator allegedly defrauded U.S. law firms of more than $29 million using such schemes. He is scheduled to stand trial in Pennsylvania.

The lesson here is obvious: if someone’s sending you money, be very suspicious. The government has set up a website to check for the most common scams:http://www.lookstoogoodtobetrue.com/

Other popular types of scams reported to IC3 include:

• Convincing a victim to pay for goods or services in advance, then never delivering.
• Stealing personally identifiable information and using it to commit crimes (identity theft).
• Posing as an FBI agent to defraud victims.

Apparently, people drop their fraud guard when an e-mail comes from a government entity, something that criminals take advantage of. Although the report says that “government agencies do not send unsolicited e-mails,” that’s not exactly true. They do, however, send unsolicited regular mail, like tickets issued when a camera catches your car speeding or running a red light. And few people will draw a distinction between print mail and e-mail. The IC3 got more than 70 complaints over a four-month period last year from New York state residents who’d paid traffic tickets they’d received by e-mail from a spoofed web address for the New York State Police. The e-mail told victims to print the ticket and mail it along with payment to an address that was supposedly a courthouse. It’s bad enough getting caught by those camera speed traps and being sent a legitimate ticket. How mad would you be if the whole thing was a fraud? Best to call the police before mailing it in.

That’s according to Jason Ward, Country Manager for US technology multinational EMC, which employs 2,500 people in Ireland.

Big data, or large pools of information that can be captured, stored, organised, communicated and analysed, is now part of every sector and function of the global economy.

Smartphone and social network site-users, as well as large files such as medical records and multimedia, are fuelling the exponential growth of Big Data.

According to IT giant Cisco, who operate a Customer Briefing Centre here in Galway, smartphones outsold personal computers and desktops for the first time in Ireland last year and, by 2016, there will be ten billion mobile internet devices for 7.3 billion humans on earth.

“Big Data analytics can become a new jobs-rich source of activity for Ireland’s economy, creating demand for advanced IT skills in the form of data scientists who can map marketplace behaviour,” said Mr Ward.

“If Galway businesses and public sector organisations invest in technology that can manage, store and analyse huge volumes of information, allowing them to cross-reference and compare data sets, the way we work and live will be transformed.”

According to the International Data Corporation, organisations globally will need to deal with 44 times more information each year over the next decade than they are managing today.

“IT managers know they face a monumental task in simply taming the deluge of data but there is potentially huge payback in the form of big data analytics. Data scientists, the newest recruits in the global IT industry, are now analysing huge volumes of information to work out patterns that accurately capture marketplace behaviour.”

Major retailers such as supermarkets and high-street shops are routinely collating social network information, blog content and analyst research, as well as demographics, in order to crunch it all together and identify crucial trends and correlations to customer loyalty.

“In healthcare, legacy IT systems are only able to analyse a small percentage of the data they hold but by using Big Data analytics tools they can examine more diverse internal and external information, including likely outcomes of prescribed drug interactions, patients’ personal medical histories, and social and economic factors, to improve treatments and outcomes,” Mr Ward continued.

“The Big Data Society has arrived and it is an opportunity for Galway’s enterprise sector to grasp with both hands.”

The new IT career opportunities are expected to increase the number of people employed by the technology giant in the southern Irish city to roughly 3,300.

Apple is expected to add the new staff in Cork over the next 18 months, although the specific departments in which new jobs will be created have not yet been confirmed.

Irish jobs minister Richard Bruton, who was involved with talks with Apple over the new jobs, described the announcement as “a huge boost for the country”.

He added: “It is a great testament to the company’s workforce [and] a great vote of confidence in the future of our economy.”

Apple established its Cork site in 1980, when it became the company’s first base outside the US.

“We are thrilled to be expanding our presence there,” a spokesperson for the firm said.

Professor Gerard Parr, who is chair in telecommunications engineering on the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus, is the UK’s principal investigator for a £10 million India-UK ICT research consortium.

UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts announced the funding during a meeting with Indian Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in London.

The project will support the second phase of research into next generation telecommunications networks – the development of state-of-the-art platforms and applications that will carry voice, video and data in the future on the internet.

Professor Parr said: “This is a very significant initiative representing over £20 million of investment from government, industry and academic partners in both countries for both phases. We intend to work closely with our funders and industry to ensure we fully exploit the promise of technological advances in Next Generation Networks.”

Professor Parr and Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala from the Indian Institute of Technology are the UK and Indian principal investigators for the research initiative, the ultimate aim of which is to develop solutions that will benefit the lives of millions of users in the future Digital Economy.

The University of Ulster is the lead UK institution in a consortium of nine research-leading UK universities including the University of Surrey, Lancaster University, Queen Mary, University of London, Southampton University, University of St Andrews, University College London, University of Bristol, and the University of Cambridge.

They are joined by seven top Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India: IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai, IIT Mandi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, and IISc Bangalore.

The eGovernment strategy, which covers 2012 to 2015, also encourages greater sharing of data between Government public bodies, wider adoption of online payments and the use of smartphone optimised sites and apps.

The move could lead to reduced fees for those applying online and help free up staff currently engaged in front-line work.

As part of the strategy, which was published by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin, a number of services will be assessed by the end of next year to see if they are suitable for electronic delivery, including the renewal of adult passports, planning applications and objections, and welfare applications.

Also being considered is the roll-out of Fixyourstreet.ie, which allows citizens to report road and path problems, graffiti and illegal dumping directly to the council, across all local authorities.

“The Government recognises the need for public services to be delivered faster, better and more efficiently to citizens and businesses. Intelligent, targeted use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and eGovernment are key enablers for these improvements. The new strategy places citizens and businesses at the centre of eGovernment,” Mr Howlin said.

Data made available to the public will also be produced in a re-usable format, to encourage greater transparency.

The strategy also lays out a number of implementation and governance requirements that public bodies must stick to.

Mr Howlin said progress was already being made, with a public service chief information officer council already set up, with the aim of advancing ICT and eGovernment issues, and a data sharing clearing house that is designed to facilitate data sharing across the public service.

IT IS ESTIMATED that by 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities. Urban centres such as Dublin – which emerged centuries ago – weren’t designed with such radical demographic shifts in mind.

But increasing reliance on scientific and technological approaches to traffic flow, waste and water management, planning and design can help to uphold the standard of living we have come to expect within the framework of ever-increasing demands on public services.

Much of the work carried out by Dublin City Council (DCC) is done through a combination of human and computerised interaction. “Our traffic lights are computerised and react automatically to traffic flow,” says DCC city engineer Michael Phillips.

“Traffic light computers count the cars that go through the lights and control the vehicle flow depending on what’s happening on the streets. But all lights are wired back to a control room where they can be manually changed.”

That control room has more than 40 screens connected to 250 cameras across Dublin. Water and waste water are controlled by DCC in a similar way in that flow metres at various points are wired to control rooms where the volume can be managed manually if problems occur.

While there will never be a substitute for human intuition, future cities will increasingly rely on wireless sensor-based communication networks where divisions such as water, traffic and weather can all be joined up at one central hub.

At IBM Technology Campus in north Dublin, the “Smarter Cities” division works with a new type of technology client. Anyone from the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen to the Rio De Janeiro city engineer could be looking for advice on how to improve their city’s approach to pollution, riot control or public transport.

“Cities are beginning to view themselves as businesses,” explains Noel Crawford, manager of the IBM Innovation Centre. “Skilled workers are in very mobile positions to live and work anywhere in the world. So cities have to make themselves as desirable as possible to attract the brightest and best.”

Urban infrastructure, accommodation, social scene and so on can all be rated by the global citizen now empowered by online social and communication networks. So competition is rife, and IBM even has its own Smarter Cities scale where client cities can enter data and compare with their counterparts.

When adopting modern approaches to urban living – from waste management to crowd control – the overriding discipline used to improve functionality is mathematics. “It’s about being able to predict and respond to the dynamics of a city,” explains Lisa Amini, lab director at the IBM Smarter Cities Technology Centre. “We use a variety of mathematical approaches including data mining, optimisation algorithms and probability distribution.

“People can look at data coming in from a city’s water supply and then draw conclusions as to how, say, water should flow into one particular area. But how do you do that when you have hundreds of thousands of data points coming at you from every direction, every second? You have to make predictions about how to best manage things. It’s not just about designing algorithms but how you put those algorithms together,” she says.

“Some problems are solvable by human intuition. The question of where to invest in a new pump in a water network is one thing. But if you need to replace a whole network of pumps that then need to be controlled in real time, you need a mathematical programme to predict demand.”

Reacting to ever-changing demand has led experts to delve deeper into the world of artificial intelligence (AI). “Knowledge representation and reasoning is an area of science where we try to embody knowledge on a computer system so that it can evolve and adapt based on the numerical data coming in,” explains Amini. “It allows algorithms to be more flexible in terms of how a problem is solved.”

In Rio de Janeiro, where an IBM Intelligent Operating Centre is being used by the city council to consolidate information, weather prediction and appropriate responses are now more streamlined. Flash flooding is a major problem in Brazil’s most populous urban centre which frequently leads to destructive and sometimes fatal mud slides.

Here in Ireland, measuring weather patterns is more about assessing how consistent light precipitation affects the city and IBM has worked on the effect of “convection rain” here. While patterns can be found for how it might affect traffic and flooding, no mathematical models have been developed to measure how such weather might affect a city’s mood.

“It’s important that we try and take people into account in terms of how they interact with these systems,” says Amini. “It’s really the whole point of this area of science, despite some discounting it as being within the cultural realm. But the fact is we still can’t model human behaviour very well.”

THE CITY OF THE FUTURE 

Modern architectural and design principles mean new buildings can think for themselves. Many people will already be working or living in “smart buildings” where lights, temperature and water pressure are controlled by a central computer system.

The question now is how can designers build more intelligence into the structure, so that areas such as energy consumption can improved by the building itself.

New research into carbon nano-tubes means glazing manufacturers can put energy-harnessing tubes into a building’s windows.

“The windows can then make electricity from the sun shining through,” explains Jamie Goggins of NUI Galway School of Engineering.

“They can also change the properties of the glaze to make your window more or less opaque depending on the solar gain. In the future, nanotechnology will allow us to be more energy efficient in a variety of ways.”

The line between nature and design blurs as architects design structures that behave like a plant, ie informed by the nearby locality’s characteristics, in a position to generate its own energy and operate more efficiently.

An example is the NUI Galway Engineering Building. Designed as a “living” construct, the engineering building is a teaching tool in itself, with live data gathered from sensors which measure the behaviour of the structure and its energy consumption.

It uses rainwater harvesting, a biomass boiler, low-embodied energy materials such as zinc, a grass roof for water attenuation and heat exchangers. It is being used as a teaching tool for structural engineering and building performance students, but represents the future for all modern architecture.

The big problem with intelligent architectural design is that one-off buildings are of no real use to society at large. Bigger thinking is needed.

“We can now model whole urban environments with powerful computing methods,” says Goggins. The district of Mödling in Austria is living proof of this. Despite originally being a medieval town, cooperation between town council, power suppliers and residents means the town works in energy harmony.

“They have district heating systems,” says Goggins. “Some buildings give off excess heat which they don’t require, and that heat is harnessed and either put in places where it’s needed or it’s stored.”

A technology-focused digital agency needs to understand the importance of choosing a solution that is the right fit for the project. Quality Web Application Support is based on achieving a balance between the latest, cutting edge web application frameworks and established enterprise level web development solutions.

Even the most well-written web applications need periodic support, maintenance, bug fixes and updates.

• Web applications do not require any complex “roll out” procedure to deploy in large organizations. A compatible web browser is all that is needed;
• Browser applications typically require little or no disk space on the client;
• They require no upgrade procedure since all new features are implemented on the server and automatically delivered to the users;
• Web applications integrate easily into other server-side web procedures, such as email and searching.
• They also provide cross-platform compatibility in most cases (i.e., Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) because they operate within a web browser window.
• With the advent of HTML5, programmers can create richly interactive environments natively within browsers. Included in the list of new features are native audio, video and animations, as well as improved error handling.

We are technology experts and offer a comprehensive range of open source solutions for ecommerce websites, CMS websites, web applications and mobile applications. Our reputation is built on our technical expertise and our team can accommodate large and complex projects.

If we have undertaken the development of your project you will automatically be eligible to take up our support services.

If your project has been built by someone else you can still get the benefit of our expertise. To get started we will conduct a technical inspection and let you know if there is any work that needs to be completed before we can start the support service. This is also a great time to conduct any platform upgrades or enhance functionality.

CORK-BASED company TreeMetrics is set to harness satellite communications technology to help foresters get more timber from fewer trees.

The company, which was founded in 2005, has already developed a laser-based system that can physically measure trees in a forest and predict the timber content. The system then represents that information in a web platform that allows the forest manager to “virtually saw” and plan a strategy for felling so that there’s less wastage.

The TreeMetrics system is already being used by clients around the world. The “cut” instructions are sent to harvesting machines, and their operators to tell them how to harvest the forest. While the machines are cutting they also measure the trees, explains TreeMetrics co-founder Garret Mullooly.

Now the company is working with the European Space Agency on the Satmodo project, which will put a device on board harvesting machines to transmit real-time information about the trees that are being felled.

The details would be relayed back to foresters through ESA’s Inmarsat IsatM2M satellite and communications system. It means that forest managers could further refine their cutting strategies quickly if needed, and change the instructions for the harvesting machines. “It is a proactive approach instead of a reactive approach,” says Mullooly.

TreeMetrics has hired three new people for the Satmodo project, and the plan is to field test the approach in around 20 to 25 harvesting machines this summer in Ireland and the UK.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:

     http://www.multivu.com/mnr/53800-tourismireland

Titanic Belfast, the world’s largest Titanic visitor attraction has opened inBelfast, Northern Ireland, on the site where the ship was designed, built and launched.  March 31^st is also the same date on which RMS Titanic was completed in 1912 and the same day her first keel plate was laid in 1909.

After three years of construction – the same time it took to build the famous ship – the eye-catching £97 million Titanic Belfast makes an iconic addition to the city’s skyline.

The 14,000 sq m building, modelled on four ships’ hulls rising to the same height of Titanic and clad in almost 3,000 striking aluminium shards, was opened by Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

In a simple ceremony reminiscent of the ship’s original launch, two rockets were fired in anticipation of Titanic Belfast’s opening.  The First Minister and deputy First Minster were also joined by 105-year old Cyril Quigley, a Belfastman who remembers being taken by his parents to see RMS Titanic’s launch in 1911.  It’s believed that Mr. Quigley is the last surviving person to have witnessed the launch.

It’s expected that over 400,000 visitors, including 105,000 from outsideNorthern Ireland, will visit Titanic Belfast in its first year, spurred by the ship’s enduring global appeal, and the centenary of its maiden voyage and tragic loss in April 1912.  Almost 100,000 tickets have already been pre-sold.

Titanic Belfast provides nine interactive galleries that tell the ship’s fascinating story from her conception in Belfast’s Harland & Wolff Shipyard, to her tragic sinking in 1912 and re-discovery led by ocean explorer Dr Robert Ballard in 1985. It also has a 1,000-seat banqueting suite that includes a replica of the Grand Staircase from the ship’s first-class section.

The Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Niall O’ Donnghaile, said:

” Titanic Belfast is part of our shared history and our shared future. It pays homage to those who perished and those who built the ship by telling their stories. But it is also a symbol of the new Belfast, which is emerging again as a world class city.”

Further footage, imagery & content available copyright free onhttp://www.discoverirelandmedia.com

The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded Centre for Science Engineering and Technology brings together leading software engineering teams from the University of Limerick, DCU, Trinity College Dublin, UCD, Dundalk IT and NUI, Galway in a coordinated centre of research excellence with a strong industry focus.

The centre focuses on the methods and tools needed to develop reliable and effective software that can be easily modified over time – and which, in particular cases, is intelligent enough to modify itself to meet changing requirements and environmental conditions.

“One of the things about software is that it changes,” says Lero general manager, Brendan O’Malley. “Over the years what has tended to happen is that software that was written 50 years ago has been patched and added to keep it running. This results in a decline in performance and nobody really understands it. It also means it can be dangerous to go messing with it to fix it. The question we are looking at is how you can design software so that it can evolve over time without costing an arm and a leg to do it.”

Lero is principally concerned with critical systems. “We aren’t interested in games or areas like that,” says O’Malley. “Our interest is in the software businesses and systems can’t run without. Take Amazon. If their order processing software goes down for a period they could lose huge amounts of revenue. Modern cars are computer networks on wheels. And more and more companies would be dead in the water if their IT systems break down. And in many cases the quality of the software being used is questionable and it is only running thanks to a lot of heroism, string and sellotape.”

Lero has 40 academics, 30 research fellows and more than 100 PhD students working across the six higher education institutes and recently received its second tranche of €16 million in SFI funding. This was complemented by a very significant industry contribution of €6.4 million from a variety of companies including IBM Ireland, Intel, Information Mosaic, JBA Consulting, QAD Ireland, Kugler Maag CIE, Almir Business, Movidius, Lumension Security Ireland, Vitalograph, Storm Technology and Fineos.

Since its foundation in 2005, Lero has established strategic research partnerships with more than 70 multinational and indigenous companies, with research contracts having been signed with partners such as the European Space Agency and United Technologies Research Centre in Cork.

Among the projects currently being worked on by Fineos is a project management tool for major software engineering projects. “Major software engineering projects being undertaken by global corporations will have teams of developers working on various aspects of the project in a number of different locations. There will be time zone issues, cultural and language difficulties and a variety of other hurdles to be overcome. We are developing a global teaming model that incorporates a large number of different process elements and this will be of significant interest to the international software industry.”

Of interest to anyone using Facebook or any mobile IT device at present will be the centre’s work in the areas of security and privacy.

“People used to work in buildings and the IT systems were inside those buildings so security began and ended at the doors,” says O’Malley. “Today, you can have people and IT and databases distributed in various places and you have to decide on security boundaries. You also have to understand that these boundaries can be dynamic and people can have different levels of access, depending on where they are working and what projects they’re working on. We’re working on systems that will be able to recognise those changes and dynamically change the boundaries as required. We’re looking at similar issues in relation to privacy.”

Another area being worked on is the performance of software. While it may be relatively easy to gauge the potential performance of a piece of software running on a single machine or quiet network, it is a different question entirely how it will perform on a network with thousands of users, hundreds of thousands of processes and running potentially millions of transactions per second. “We worked with IBM on a project in this area and that was very successful in helping identify what makes software perform more efficiently in complex environments.”

“We have a long-term relationship with Lero,” says Bill Kearney, director of IBM’s Software Lab Ireland. “We envisage future collaborative research with Lero in the areas of security, model-driven software development, cloud computing and large-scale software development. IBM has a long-running tradition of research collaboration with our colleagues in academia in Ireland. The goal of our collaborative initiative is to continue strong partnerships with the university ecosystem and ensure open innovation as a means to respond to our changing world.”

One other area that might interest many Irish companies is the work Lero is doing to give old software a new lease of life by effectively deconstructing the old system and putting it back together in a more efficient and easy-to-understand way.

“We’ve worked with a number of companies in Ireland on projects like these and have enabled them to continue to use their legacy systems without going to the expense of buying or commissioning new software,” says O’Malley.

The 2012 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report released last week demonstrates that data security breaches are happening much more frequently and across a wide range of industries, including financial services, retail, hospitality and manufacturing.

The annual study pointed to 855 breach incidents in 2011, 174 million compromised records, and a huge increase in the theft of information that could be used to identify a person. The study was conducted by global telecom Verizon Communications Inc. along with the United States Secret Service and the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit, and included input from law enforcement agencies in Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

One huge attack on Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network, Qriocity systems and online entertainment platform involved 101.6 million user accounts and gave hackers access to such personal data as customer names, birth dates, street addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and log-in names.

Separately, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit consumer advocacy and education centre based in San Diego, has indexed 2,976 data breaches since 2005.

Given that data breaches can have obvious negative effects on the reputation of an organization and cause serious prejudice to its business, clients and employees, the adoption, implementation and audit of business-wide policies pertaining to the use of information technology (IT) and data processing are essential.

Organizations are also likely to soon be subject to a breach notification obligation.

Proposed amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) will impose data breach notifications.

Introduced in the House of Commons in September 2011, Bill C-12 calls for the enactment of an obligation to disclose data breaches to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as well as an obligation to disclose to the individuals concerned in cases where the breach presents an important risk of prejudice, such as financial loss, impact on credit record and identity theft. Canada is thus following the lead of a majority of American state legislatures that have enacted such provisions.

Canadian businesses that are subject to PIPEDA’s application should adopt policies setting forth the procedure to follow in the event of a breach.

Such incidents require a rapid and immediate response to limit the risk of prejudice to the individuals concerned, and many large organizations have implemented data breach notification processes in accordance with best practices.

In Quebec, PIPEDA only applies to businesses operating in fields that are under federal jurisdiction, but we can anticipate that Quebec will introduce a similar obligation in the course of the next review of its law for the protection of personal information in the private sector.

In its last report, published in June 2011, the Quebec Commission d’accès à l’information recommended that the private sector act be amended to add an obligation to report security breaches pertaining to personal information. Public consultations on the report are to be held by a National Assembly committee in the coming months, after which the committee will make a recommendation as to the need and opportunity to make amendments to the act.

Aside from the privacy-specific concern raised by information security, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued guidance on the obligation to disclose cybersecurity risks. Although it does not have regulation status, the SEC’s guide indicates that an issuer (any public company subject to SEC jurisdiction) has the obligation to consider and take into account cybersecurity when drawing up any statements of risk disclosure.

Securities issuers, as well as all organizations operating in regulated industries, should be prepared for tougher regulations and obligations governing cybersecurity risks – not just for stored personal information but all types of business-sensitive information.

IT systems can never totally preclude the risks that user behaviour and hackers represent. That is why all businesses should consider a review of existing policies and practices to efficiently manage this risk and draw up or tailor policies for their IT and data processing systems – and a system to monitor them.

Lawyer Jean-François De Rico practices mainly in information technology law at Langlois Kronström Desjardins LLP. He advises organizations on governance and compliance agreements, the outsourcing of IT services and information and document management. He is also an active member of Lexing, the first international network of lawyers dedicated to technology law.

 “Internet Buttons” allows confident users to create an easy-to-use, custom-made browser for people who are new to the web or find it confusing.

The tool has been used in the UK to increase web use among older people.

Eurostat data for 2010 showed 74 per cent of Irish people aged 65 to 74 have never used the internet, compared with the EU average of 67 per cent.

“If we are to create a truly inclusive digital future for Ireland, it is crucial that internet usage increases among those currently not online,” Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said.

The tool, designed by not-for-profit We Are What We Do, is being made available for free by UPC on internetbuttons.ie.

“Internet Buttons is a really useful tool in this regard, helping to show non-users just how simple and useful the internet can be,” Mr Rabbitte said.

CVS Caremark Corporation is locating an information systems development centre in the city backed by £500,000 worth of government support.

The 50 employees will work to develop software for the company, which is the largest pharmacy healthcare provider in the US.

Government business support agency Invest Northern Ireland has offered £300,000 and a further £200,000 has been provided under the Department for Employment and Learning’s Assured Skills Programme.

Welcoming the investment, enterprise minister Arlene Foster said: “Over the past two years, Invest NI has worked closely with the CVS Caremark team to secure this project for Northern Ireland.

“CVS Caremark considered several locations across the globe for its investment but was particularly attracted here by the availability of highly-skilled IT professionals, our reliable, high-speed and cost-effective telecoms infrastructure, and the very competitive operating cost environment.

“ICT is a priority sector and one that has huge potential to drive economic growth. When fully in place, these jobs will generate £1.5 million a year in salaries that will feed into the local economy.”

Employment minister Dr Stephen Farry said the company would work with the higher and further education sector in Northern Ireland to design and deliver new training programmes and develop business-relevant curricula.

Stephen Wrenn, senior vice president, enterprise IT services, of CVS Caremark Corporation, said: “We recognise that to continue to be the leading pharmacy healthcare provider in the United States we need to have leading-edge information technology systems.

“The combination of excellent IT talent on offer in Northern Ireland and the business-friendly environment including the support from Invest NI and DEL have led to our decision to establish a presence in Northern Ireland and we look forward to getting the project under way.”

Eugene Kaspersky believes countries like Ireland and the UK are as vulnerable to a cyber strike as any superpower. Mr Kaspersky, the founder of Kaspersky Lab, the specialist IT security company, said everyone lives in an age where everything is managed by IT systems and if these systems were to crumble the result would be chaos.

“The worst-case scenario is if there was a cyber attack designed to strike our technology-permeated world, one that would attack critical infrastructure, factories, transportation networks.

“Everything is managed by computers today – it makes us as individuals and countries very vulnerable and I believe in the future we will see more of these attacks around the world,” Mr Kaspersky said.

Speaking at the World Cyber Security Technology Research Summit in Belfast last week, the internet security veteran warned that “we all live in a new digital world, a very dangerous world”.

Mr Kaspersky said in his opinion there are five major cyber threats that needed to be addressed globally.

During the summit organised by the Centre for Secure Information Technologies, part of Queen’s University, he shared details of these threats with other experts in the field of cyber security and senior members of the US Department of Homeland Security, the UK’s Home Office and the European Commission.

The first and most pressing is the threat of cyber wars. He said “cyber weapons” could be relatively simple to develop but in the wrong hands could deliver “your worst-case scenario”.

Mr Kaspersky said the prospect that someone could create a virus that could infect one million computers in the UK and effectively bring the country to a standstill was not rooted in a Holywood movie plot but in reality.

He also believes the way social media is being used by some organisations and government could create a host of new cyber threats.

“Social media can be used to inform but it can also be used by others to influence certain events – an uprising, unrest, protests and one of the major problems I see with this is that it is impossible to know who is behind the event – is it a government or it is a genuine movement?

“In my opinion this is a very serious problem because while social media is a very good tool and I am a big believer in it, I also feel worried that we do not know who is controlling it – who is behind it,” Mr Kaspersky added.

He believes two of the more urgent issues to be addressed when it comes to cyber threats on a global scale are the questions surrounding online identification and privacy.

“The less data you share online – the better you should sleep,” said Mr Kaspersky.

Although he first raised the issue of cyber crime with Interpol more than a decade ago, it is as big a problem today as it was 10 years ago.

“We now have what I would describe as the traditional cyber criminals who just randomly target computers – fishing for a victim – and the enterprise cyber criminals, who are more professional and target businesses and organisations.

“If the enterprise criminals have enough resource and budget they will crack you – and that is a growing problem,” Mr Kaspersky said.

He believes the two-day summit in Belfast will help focus international attention on the issue of cyber security.

“We need governments to sign up to an international agreement against cyber weapons – we need to realise the threat.”

The cloud has been a symbol for the internet and this symbol is widely used by IT professionals. In order to represent two computers connected over the internet in technical documents, a line would be drawn from computer A to the cloud and another line from computer B to the cloud. And if computer A does not have storage capacity for data and applications and does all its work using the resources of computer B, then this is cloud computing in a nutshell.

In reality, there are a lot of computer B acting as the server and storage unit, and there even more computer A’s. A real life example is Google Docs where you can actually work, share and collaborate documents with other individuals connected through the internet. You can communicate with them via Gmail or Google Voice. So everything is done in the cloud in order to complete this document.

Now Google is also pushing the Chrome notebook which is a thin client – it just has the minimum software it needs to connect to the internet so that you can work in the cloud rather than work locally on the notebook. This means all your application and data are stored in the cloud. There were some semi-skepticism at first when this was first announce but with big names like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft moving to and adapting a cloud based strategy then there is no denying that the future is in the clouds. As more and more big names form their ownl cloud there is no doubt that in a few years from now the Chrome notebook will find its own niche in the cloud. And what a great place it would be. Because the Chrome notebook only contains the bare essentials to do work in the cloud, it does not cost much.You can tell that the season for the cloud is coming really fast because at a recent TechCrunch Hackathon, one of the entries there is an application that allows users to integrate various cloud provider seamlessly.

What can accelerate the use of the Cloud is to provide an online platform for mobile users where they can store and run their applications. At present if you have a mobile and want to use a mobile application, you first need to download and install it on your mobile. And this can be quite a hindrance for cloud computing. The platform however can be made easily as the technology is already there. And that platform can be your own website or blog site. And this is a great concept cause then if you would like to share your application with other then they will have to visit your blog or website and take it from there.So is the future really in the clouds?  The answer is a resounding YES.

 According to consultancy Ernst & Young’s latest Global Information Security Survey, which surveys nearly 1,700 companies in 52 countries annually, twice as many Irish companies say they will be evaluating a move to cloud-based computing in the next 12 months, compared to the international average – 50 per cent, versus 25 per cent internationally – while 43 per cent are already using the cloud (versus 37 per cent internationally).

“Ireland has turned out to be quite an aggressive cloud adopter,” says Hugh Callaghan, director of advisory services, Ernst & Young Ireland.

“The Irish are eager to try and gain the benefits of the cloud. For small organisations, the cloud offers hugely cost-effective management. Medium and large companies can streamline and simplify access to and delivery of applications, as well as gain general cost benefits.”

The Irish are also “well placed” to move to the cloud, with many companies, both multinationals and indigenous companies, in sectors that can benefit. “In many ways, there’s a perfect storm of factors driving people to the cloud,” Callaghan says.

But too many are just looking at the benefits and failing to look at the risks, he says. Although external security risks can increase if companies shift to cloud computing – and 79 per cent of Irish companies in the survey said that they see an increased level of risk due to external threats – “Irish companies are behind in developing security strategies; only 21 per cent say they have a strategy.”

This compares to an average of 51 per cent of organisations internationally.

Yet according to the survey, Irish companies can be quite good at prophylactic approaches to security risks, where a specific action can address a specific problem.

“In some areas, Irish companies are ahead of a number of trends,” notes Callaghan. He says they far outpace companies internationally in awareness and adoption of encryption – encoding sensitive data – probably thanks to several high-profile data breach cases in Ireland in recent years, where companies were criticised for losing devices with unencrypted client data.

In last year’s Ernst & Young survey, a full 100 per cent of Irish companies were aware of or using encryption. By contrast, only 47 per cent of companies globally said they were using encryption, according to this year’s survey.

Why are Irish companies good at addressing focused problem areas like this, but poor at overall security strategy?

“It’s a maturity question to me, really,” says Callaghan. “A risk strategy is developed on the back of a vigorous IT strategy, which is developed on the back of a rigorous business strategy. Irish organisations just traditionally haven’t been good at that – we’re eager to implement specific controls but not take a holistic view.”

In other areas, Irish responses also indicate a weak general approach to security. The second greatest concern of companies was the employee trend to “BYOD” – “bring your own device”, such as personal tablets or smartphones, into the workplace.

And a large portion of Irish companies, 79 per cent (in line with 80 per cent internationally) also say they are using, or will consider using, tablet computers in the workplace. Yet only 36 per cent of Irish companies deploy any kind of mobile device management software.

“Five years ago, it was inconceivable that people would be bringing their own devices to work. But smartphones and tablets have caught up in terms of technology,” says Callaghan.

“The whole concept of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is fast becoming irrelevant. Yet it’s difficult for companies to understand and control those risks -–people sending themselves documents to work at home, for example.”

Irish firms also have a hardline response to perceived threats from social media – with many companies totally blocking employee access to social-media services.

Some 72 per cent of companies fear external malicious attacks that could be developed using information gleaned from social media-based phishing attacks on targeted individuals within a company. Companies also fear reputational damage from social-media use.

In response to these fears, “the Irish are more likely to block access”, says Callaghan, with 64 per cent of Irish companies saying they do so, compared to 53 per cent internationally.

Callaghan says this is a pointless approach.

“It simply doesn’t make sense to block social media, not least because it ignores the elephant in the room – that the same damage can be caused by people using their own devices to get onto social media services, and no control can be put on personal devices.”

The best approach is a clear corporate policy on social media use, to encourage appropriate behaviour, and to monitor social media sites, Callaghan says. On the security upside, half of Irish firms in the survey said they will increase spending on IT security in 2012, though this is still below the international average in the survey of 59 per cent.

In many ways, there’s a perfect storm of factors driving people to the cloud . . . But too many are just looking at the benefits and failing to look at the risks

It was an operation which relied heavily on intercontinental co-operation. Indeed, the first Birr native and Trinity College student, Donncha O’Cearrbhail, knew of the operation being mounted against him when he was arrested by gardaí in the midlands last September. 

An examination of the evidence against the culprits makes it is clear that FBI intelligence — with a massive degree of luck — was the driving force behind the arrests. Intelligence was certainly key to tracking down the alleged leader of the hackers, Hector Xavier Monsegur. 

Yet the agents who collared him could not have anticipated the extent of the co-operation the 28-year-old Puerto Rican New York resident was willing to provide in order to, if not save his own skin, at least ensure that skin was in prison for as little time as possible. 

It is highly unlikely Monsegur had much of a personal relationship with any of his fellow hackers. That may well explain why he so spectacularly sold them out. 

Monsegur, the man who has admitted staging cyber attacks against the websites of the governments of Algeria, Yemen and Zimbabwe, as well as major credit card companiesVisa and Mastercard, was arrested on Jun 7. Prosecutors later revealed it took a matter of hours for him to start spilling the beans on his co-conspirators. 

“Since literally the day he was arrested, the defendant has been co-operating with the government proactively,” assistant US attorney James Pastore told a US court on Thursday. “The defendant has literally worked around the clock with federal agents. He has been staying up, sometimes all night, engaging in conversations with co-conspirators that are helping the government to build cases against those co-conspirators.” 

Not only did he lay traps for his fellow hackers, he also prevented further attacks just before they happened. The prosecutors said that by August, he had worked with the FBI to “patch” 150 vulnerabilities in computer systems being targetted by hackers. 

According to papers released by the southern district of New York, the FBI were able to use Monsegur’s know-how to get what ultimately could prove crucial evidence against Donncha O’Cearrbhail. 

The papers quote FBI special agent George K Schultzel as saying that a person using the alias “anonsacco” — an alias which it is claimed is Mr O’Cearrbhail’s — had an internet message chat with Monsegur in mid-January. During that chat, anonsacco said to Monsegur, whose alias is Sabu: “Hi mate, Could I ask for your help? I need to intercept a conference call which would be a very good leak.” Anonsacco revealed he had the time,phone number and pin for that conference call. 

As it turned out that was no ordinary conference call. It was a call between the FBI, gardaí and other law-enforcement agencies about Anonymous. And it came almost four months after Mr O’Cearrbhail had been arrested by gardaí investigating the hacking of the Fine Gael website. The FBI say the Trinity student later sent Monsegur a transcript of the call. In fact, in November last year, it is alleged, the Irish student even told Monsegur he had been “v&”, an internet slang for being arrested, as in taken away in a police van. 

However, to say that the other men who stand accused — two Irish, one American and two English men — would not have been caught but for Monsegur’s enveloping self-preservation, would be a disservice to the FBI. 

A huge effort has been made to track the internet activities of the alleged suspects and a number of other, as yet unnamed, offenders. For example, as they were building the case against Mr O’Cearrbhail, officers obtained a search warrant to examine the Facebook account of an unnamed “co-conspirator.” 

From that account, they were able to trace an electronic message from another Facebook user with the name “Donncha Carroll” which contained computer codes which produced the same damage as appeared on the Fine Gael website when it was defaced early last year. 

While a lot of detail has been released by US law enforcement agencies on the methods and information used to track Mr O’Cearrbhail, there has been little on the other Irishman, NUI Galway student Darren Martyn. All that has been released are the hackings to which he has allegedly been linked and the charges and possible jail time he could face if convicted. 

While Mr O’Cearrbhail was arrested and subsequently released by gardaí this week, Mr Martyn was not brought in for questioning again. 

He was arrested and released by gardaí in September in relation to the infiltration of the Fine Gael website and this week used his Twitter account to claim he turned his back on hacking prior to that arrest.

Like many things in life cloud computing is a double-edged sword. It can either eliminate internal IT or be used by IT to drive business innovation.

Pursuing the latter path would seem the best case scenario for the IT department. Clearly, many line-of-business executives are taking advantage of cloud computing to sidestep IT. What internal IT organizations need to do in order to make it less appealing for business executives to go around IT is to simplify, standardize and then automate their IT environments.

Complexity within IT environments today makes it hard for IT organizations to effectively respond to the needs of the business.  There are technical considerations related to specific technology challenges that Cloud Computing may raise.  IT organizations need to implement cloud computing in a way that accelerates business innovation or risk being bypassed all together.

Cloud computing done right can make the business more responsive to rapidly changing business conditions, while at the same time providing more choice and flexibility across a hybrid cloud computing environment. 

As IT has become more complex, the business has actually become more vulnerable to disruptions because of any number of IT issues.  Not only has the rise of mobile computing exponentially increased the number of end points that need to be managed, an estimated 13 billion security events a day need to be analyzed. As physical systems become more instrumented and interconnected, the amount of data that needs to be managed is increasing at rates that no IT organization can keep pace with.

None of these issues are ever going to go away. IT leaders need to figure out how emerging technologies will ultimately better serve the needs of the business. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before somebody else, for better or worse, makes that decision for them.

The Government Data network links together all public bodies in Ireland and the introduction of Strencom will see the councils’ bandwidth increased 20 times over.

“Many Government agencies and local authorities are looking to enable secure and consistent access to critical applications in multiple office locations,” Strencom CEO Tim Murphy said.

The Government Network is central to providing e-government services to Irish local authorities. It was designed primarily to facilitate easy, efficient, secure and reliable communication between Government agencies and to support existing and future Government applications.

Ruth Buckley, head of Information Systems & Business Process Improvement, Cork City Council, added: “The Strencom solution has proved a key ingredient in our programme to streamline our network data infrastructure, increase levels of operational efficiencies and, ultimately, enhance our service offering.”

Derry City Council has said that up to 4,000 ICT jobs could be created in the city by 2020 following a period of massive investment in telecoms and digital projects.

Some £80m has been injected to date to develop flagship programmes in the city. This has included a connection to the a transatlantic data cable through Project Kelvin, creation of the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at the University of Ulster and introduction of free Wi-Fi access across the city centre.

In October BT completed a £3.7m project that allowed Derry to become the only city the UK and Ireland to achieve 100% fibre optic broadband connectivity, putting every home and business in reach of 40Mbps download speeds, increasing up to 80Mbps this year.

City Chiefs say Derry is now leading Europe in telecoms infrastructure developments with locally-based firms capitalising on lower costs and greater connectivity speeds and bandwidth than Hong Kong, Tokyo, London or New York.

Derry City Council Chief Executive, Sharon O’Connor, said the city as the first city in Europe with superfast broadband and the fastest transatlantic connections, is in a prime position to take the lead in relation to ICT innovation.

She commented: “The simple fact is that Derry has the fastest and most reliable connectivity options for organisations that depend on accelerated data transfer. Firms that want to be located in a globally-connected digital environment, such as FirstSource and Singularity, have established market advantages by capitialising on Derry’s unique offering.

“The option to build and expand international operations while reducing the costs is attractive for large businesses. Derry’s high capacity connections and direct pathway to North America and Mainland Europe are up to 20% lower than comparable locations such as Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester and Amsterdam.”

“Derry is primed to be the leading city in the UK and Ireland’s for ICT innovation and digital innovation for the next decade.”

A further £77M is earmarked through the ‘Growing the Digital Economy’ strategy to help attract foreign direct investment and support local business development. As for skilled workforce, Derry believes it also has the answer. Some 1,500 students are currently studying technology related courses in the North West and there is a long-standing culture of digital enterprises operating in the area.

Located in on the Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland border, Derry provides offers security of supply through the diversity of the telecoms infrastructure and cost competition between telecom operators with Eircom, BT, Bytel, Virgin and NW Electronics all running networks between the city and Donegal.

At the heart of its international communications network is Project Kelvin, a €30m infrastructure investment which linked the city via a submarine cable to the Hibernia North Transatlantic cable located 22 miles offshore.

This provides Northern Ireland with lightening fast direct telecoms links to North America and improved connectivity to mainland Europe. Derry, almost literally, is sitting astride the information highway between the two continents.

Derry has also joined Rome and Barcelona on a list of 15 cities that are working in partnership with forward-looking companies including Oracle, Cisco or Daimler and non-profit organisations and research centres through the Living Labs Global programme.

It aims to accelerate technology innovations and overcome location-specific challenges by establishing rich collaboration between cities, inventors and providers of new solutions. Derry’s challenge is focused on sourcing new technologies that can help create a rich experience of the city’s culture for tourists and citizens.

Next year Derry becomes the first UK City of Culture which will give it international exposure. Among its innovations will be the evolution of specialised digital cultural programmes. But its real ambition is to turn the virtual world into real life employment prospects.

Making the announcement, Sherlock said:

“I believe that in Ireland we must build on our very substantial achievements in the creative and digital media industry, and become a model of international best practice for innovation in this area. Ireland is home to some of the world’s most innovative Internet companies, and we are determined to grow our reputation as a location where smart people and smart companies can innovate in this fast-moving arena.”

The junior minister also “acknowledged the desire of some interested parties that it [the SI] be more detailed and more prescriptive”.

More than 80,000 people signed a petition opposing the SI on the Stop SOPA Ireland website. Responding to the announcement, Stop SOPA Ireland released a statement this evening saying that the decision by Sherlock to continue on regardless of the public’s opposition as “not intelligent or modern governance” and  said that we can “expect the music industry to immediately start seeking injunctions against ISPs to block access to parts of the internet”.

It is a bad decision because the law is being enacted without a vote of the Oireachtas. This law will potentially impact on the freedoms to do business and to free expression of every company and citizen in the country. The need for primary legislation has never been clearer.

The legislature has been treated with double contempt – firstly by being denied a chance to scrutinise and vote on the law and secondly by the Government’s staging of a debate where the opposition made honest efforts to constructively engage with the law, only to be told in the final seconds that nothing they had said was going to make any difference anyway.

It is a bad decision because there was an alternative wording of a Statutory Instrument  proposed by Catherine Murphy TD and Stephen Donnelly TD which the Minister accepted met all his own policy requirements arising from the AG’s advice, made explicit the rights affirmed by the ECJ caselaw and allowed two years for primary legislation to be drafted. But despite all this, he wilfully stuck to his own flawed legislation. This is not intelligent or modern governance.  Read the full statement on stopsopaireland.com

Last night Eric Schmidt warned against web censorship. Schmidt, the CEO of Google (who employ more than two thousand people in Ireland) said  “We need to act now to avoid the rise of this digital caste system.” Speaking at the Mobile World Congress he continued on, pointing at how the web acts as a watchdog. “Technology is a leveler. The weak will be made strong, and those with nothing will have something.”

Four of the major music companies today brought a legal challenge to the Data Protection Commissioner because of the commisioner directing Eircom to stop implementing the three strikes rule.

Spanish police also accused one of four suspects picked up in the cities of Madrid and Malaga of releasing personal data about police officers and bodyguards protecting Spain’s royal family and the prime minister.

Other arrests were in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, and 250 items of computer equipment and mobile phones were seized across 15 cities, Interpol said.

Colombia’s ministry of defence and presidential websites as well as Chile’s Endesa electricity company were among the targets of the hackers, it said.

The loosely organised group Anonymous is suspected of coordinated computer hacking against institutions, multinationals and government organisations across the world.

“These cyber attacks were sometimes individual actions but they were supported by many people who joined forces and knowledge to commit them,” Spanish police said in a statement released by the interior ministry.

“Those arrested … had a high level of knowledge of information technology.

“Earlier this month, anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing more than 5 million emails from US-based global security analysis company Stratfor believed to have been obtained by Anonymous supporters.

In Spain, two of the four suspects remained in custody while the other two, including a 16-year-old, were released on bail by a court, police said.

The Spanish police accused the suspects of tampering with the websites of political parties, for example by putting fangs on images of party leaders. Spanish companies were also targeted, the police said.

The group had set up a chat-room to help run computer attacks in Spain and Latin America.

After the arrests, a call went out in chat-rooms affiliated with the suspects for supporters to attack the Spanish police website. The petition specifically asked for people from outside of Spain to carry out the attacks “so that the police would not have enough data to lead to new arrests”, according to the statement.

In June, Spanish police arrested three suspected Anonymous members on charges of cyber attacks against targets including Sony’s PlayStation store, governments, businesses and banks.

They now account for almost three quarters of all credit card frauds.

The growth of what is known as ‘card not present’ fraud has been spectacular since the Garda national fraud bureau virtually eliminated the eastern European gangs who controlled ‘skimming’ rackets at ATMs and in retail outlets.

Garda operations led to the arrest of key Bulgarian and Romanian figures and drove the rest of the criminals involved in skimming out of the Irish market. Gardai believe many of these are now exploiting the market in Scandinavia, while others have moved into other types of fraud.

During 2004 and 2005 skimming, which involves electronically copying account details from an ATM card’s magnetic strip onto a blank plastic card, became the fastest growing white collar crime in Ireland.

The offence had not existed here in 2003 but in one eight-month period fraudsters skimmed at least €2m from ATM customers and targeted more than 100 ‘hole in the wall’ machines in the first 10 months of 2005.

But gardai admit that ‘card not present’ fraud is now by far the biggest problem they confront. The huge interest in shopping online has opened up a lucrative market for the scam merchants who, despite the vigilance of Irish retailers when compared with their European counterparts, are running a successful business.

The cards are being compromised after they have been used by the genuine owners to make online purchases.

The fraudsters operate by either hacking into the websites or dealing with rogue staff at some of the companies, who copy the details of the cards and then sell them.

The gangs usually focus on making overseas purchases with the stolen Irish card details and, according to the gardai, buy large TV sets and other expensive goods, which can be sold later at discounted prices.

They supply bogus addresses to delivery companies and intercept the couriers when they arrive with the goods.

The retailers who have been conned may not find out about their losses until the card transactions go through the banking systems a month later.

Gardai say it is difficult to quantify the full extent of the scams. But the latest figures compiled by the Irish Payment Service Association (IPSO), which represents the payments industry, show that credit card frauds amounted to €19.8m in 2010.

This amounts to a mere 0.08pc of the gross credit card turnover of €22.8bn that year and underlines the steps being taken by the industry and retailers to combat fraud.

‘Card not present’ (CNP) scams accounted for around €14m, or 71pc, of the overall frauds.

This compares with the 2009 figures, which show that CNP fraud netted €12.4m out of an overall figure of €23.1bn.

The IPSO has advised internet shoppers to find out as much as they can about the retailer before making a purchase and to focus on shops that friends and colleagues had used successfully or they have heard about through trusted sources.

They should make sure their internet access is secured. The beginning of the retailer’s internet address should change from ”http” to ”https” before a purchase is made. This indicates that they are using a secure connection.

Shoppers are also advised to contact their bank or card issuer about a tool known as 3D Secure, which protects mastercard or visa cards against unauthorised internet use.

Valued at over £0.5m, the project includes migrating Sky’s Broadcast Scheduling System (BSS), as well as several satellite applications, to Microsoft .NET, and is due to complete mid 2013.

The heart of Sky’s broadcasting operation, BSS serves as a repository for programs, promos and play rights, from which media assets are scheduled and transmitted to broadcast playout chains, and published to Sky’s video-on-demand platforms. Sky’s internal development team, which has been developing BSS for over 15 years, will undergo Firefly Migration’s .NET training program and will continue to develop the migrated application.

As part of the evaluation process conducted by Sky, the company’s Tape Library System had been migrated by Firefly Migration and tested by end-users to Sky’s satisfaction, within the predetermined timeframe of four months.

Tim Taylor, Head of Broadcast & Media Sales IT, Sky, commented: “The evaluation period went well – we had good engagement from Firefly Migration and were able to prove their conversion processes. Their tool allows us to automate the conversion of our main BSS application in a cost effective way, while at the same time minimizing the impact on our delivery programme – these were key factors for us when deciding on Firefly Migration.”

Noam Honig, CEO of Firefly Migration, added: “Sky is exactly the kind of customer we were aiming for when we set out to create our migration technology and has a lot to gain from our automated conversion to .NET, both business and technology-wise.”

About Firefly Migration

Firefly Migration provides technology solutions that help organizations convert legacy applications to the latest Microsoft technologies, including Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. The company’s automatic migration solution requires no manual programming and guarantees a short schedule, low cost, and complete preservation of the investment in the original system. Firefly Migration’s customers include: DdD Retail, DataMax, Crown Agents, and Israel Aerospace Industries.

About Sky

Sky entertains and excites more than 10.5 million homes through the most comprehensive multichannel, multi-platform television service in the UK and Ireland. Sky continues to break new ground with its own portfolio of channels: Sky 1 combines its commitment to UK production with the best of the US; Sky Living pushes ahead with fresh and innovative entertainment formats; Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated arts channel brand; Sky Atlantic is the home to HBO and other iconic drama and comedy, Sky Sports is still raising the bar in sports broadcasting; Sky News remains a pioneer in television news; and Sky Movies is leading the way in High Definition and on-demand.

Sky also works with dozens of other broadcasters on the satellite platform, as well as online and on mobile through the groundbreaking Sky Go service. Sky has also led the UK into the age of high definition television, launched Europe’s first 3DTV channel, Sky 3D, and offers customer even more flexibility and choice through Sky Anytime+, its internet-delivered video on demand service. Since launching Sky Broadband and Sky Talk in 2006, the company has also been the UK’s fastest-growing home communications provider.

Sky believes in making a wider contribution to the communities in which it operates, not least by increasing participation in, and access to, the arts, supporting grassroots sports, and taking positive action on the environment.

The protest at Daunt Square was organised by 16-year old student Evin Doyle, who believes that the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) challenges civil liberties and the right to privacy.

The treaty – which Ireland signed up to last month – has triggered a series of protests in Dublin and across Europe.

It aims to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.

Neil Sutton is a technical person with twenty years of experience in Ireland and abroad. He has a passion for technology and firmly believes that it has the ability to make all our lives better. He has been interested in computers and mobile communications from a very early age. He is an early adopter of new technologies. He prides himself on being deeply knowledgeable in his areas of interest. Explaining technology in an easy to understand way comes naturally to him. He has taught about technology subjects in Ireland, UK and Canada.

Based on the number of questions he answers every day regarding broadband, computers, wireless, smartphones and tablet PC’s, he believes that the demand is there for courses teaching the use of technology to a variety of people, from absolute beginners to regular users who want to get more out of their devices. These ‘gadgets’ are expensive. Why not get value for money out of them. Let the technology work for you.

Contact details: 087 2901808

The Donegal Gathering is a series of cultural and music events taking place throughout the county over the coming year, with the idea of bringing the Donegal Diaspora back hom. One of the main events will be the hosting of this year’s flagship Donegal Live event in Donegal town.

An initiative of Donegal County Council, The Donegal Gathering 2012 “extends a heartfelt welcome to both native emigrants planning a homecoming holiday, and first time explorers embarking on a new adventure,” and during this first event you’ll get a sense of all that Donegal offers.

You can watch it all unfold online at www.livetrad.com. You can also find the Time Conversion to your region on that website.

The entire show will also be available for instant playback any time within the following 24 hours. In other words, if 6pm GMT tonight (Wednesday) doesn’t suit you to tune in, you’ve got the option of watching the entire show at any time between then and 6pm tomorrow.

 With social media constantly-evolving, children are communicating online not just through their PC, but on mobile phones and game consoles.

Understanding the internet and the risks it can pose is the first step to keeping your child safe, says the NSPCC.

Neil Anderson, National Head of Service for NSPCC Northern Ireland, told the ‘Sunday Journal’: “The internet can be a wonderful resource, but it is not without its pitfalls.”

“As young people across the region log on to play games, chat to peers and socialise, I would urge parents to use this opportunity to talk about the possible dangers online. Not only can you never really be sure who you are talking to, but without meaning to do so you can make yourself vulnerable by giving away personal information.

“Parents can play their part by talking openly to their children about their activities on the internet, ensuring they follow advice on internet safety and encouraging them to speak out if they see anything that makes them feel upset or uncomfortable.”

While interactive social media technology continues to grow, the potential for misuse is high. Risks can include cyberbullying, grooming and potential abuse by online predators, identity theft and exposure to inappropriate content.

The NSPCC is offering parents some advice on how to make cyberspace safer for their children:

* Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details such as their email address, mobile number, school name or arrangements for meeting up with friends.

* Make them aware that they need to think carefully about the information and pictures they post on their profiles. Once published online, anyone can change or share these images.

* If your child receives spam or junk email and texts, remind them never to believe their contents, reply to them or use them.

Devious cybercrooks have developed a Trojan that is capable of redirecting calls your bank has made to verify suspicious transactions – straight into the waiting handsets of professional criminal caller services.

The capability comes bundled in a modified configuration of Ice IX, a Trojan developed using the infamous ZeuS cybercrime toolkit. In addition to stealing bank account data from infected machines, these Ice IX configurations are capturing sensitive information on telephone accounts belonging to the victims who happen to be customers of BT, TalkTalk and Sky. US banking customers have also been targeted by the scam.

Redirecting bank’s post-transaction verification calls to professional criminal caller services gives crooks more chance of abusing stolen card data for longer, maximising their ill-gotten profits in the process.

Security researchers at transaction security firm Trusteer discovered a strain of malware used in the attack that steals a victim’s user ID and password, memorable information/secret question answer, date of birth and account balance from a compromised machine. Victims are then asked to update their phone numbers of record (home, mobile and work) and select the name of their service provider from a drop-down list. Automated dialogue boxes generated by the malware further attempt to trick victims into handing over their telephone account number, private data that is used by phone firms to authorise account modifications such as call forwarding.

Victims are falsely told the sensitive data is required as part of a verification process caused by “a malfunction of the bank’s anti-fraud system with its landline phone service provider”.

In reality that data is used by fraudsters to redirect and fob-off post-transaction verification checks by banks, circumventing an important security check in the process. Victims will find it harder to contest disputed transactions as a result of the ploy, designed to give fraudsters and their accomplices more time to bleed cash from compromised accounts.

Amit Klein, CTO of Trusteer, explained, “Fraudsters are increasingly turning to these post-transaction attack methods to hide fraudulent activity from the victim and block email and phone communication from the bank. This allows attackers to circumvent security mechanisms that look for anomalies once transactions have already been executed by the user.”

A: Consider buying an inexpensive GPS unit after you arrive. You might save a few bucks and it will already be loaded with maps of Ireland. For the most accurate maps, stick with major brands, such as Garmin and TomTom. If you have a GSM smartphone from AT&T or T-Mobile, you can use Google Maps or other international navigation apps to guide you. That way, you won’t have to carry two gadgets.

According to news reports, the letter was submitted on Friday in the Eastern District of Virginia. Although MegaUpload is based in Hong Kong, U.S. authorities claim to have the authority to act because some of the company’s leased servers are located in Virginia.

According to MegaUpload, millions of users store their own data, such as photos and personal documents, on the site.

The site had some 180 million registered users and was getting 50 million daily hits when U.S. prosecutors shut it down on January 19, indicting and arresting the owners for allegedly operating an organisation dedicated to piracy of movies, music and more.

Users who don’t have backup copies haven’t been able to get at their data since the shutdown, but they’ve held out hope that they could get it back. At this point it’s not looking good, even for owners of copyright-kosher data.

According to a report from The Associated Press, MegaUpload pays outside companies to store the data. An attorney for MegaUpload, Ira Rothken, said on Sunday that the government has frozen its money, according to the report.

The letter, filed on Friday, said that storage companies Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc. may begin deleting user data on Thursday, given that government investigators have finished executing their search warrants at the storage centres.

MacBride wrote in the letter that the government copied some data but didn’t remove any. Now that the search is over, the government no longer has access to the servers, he said.

Meanwhile, MegaUpload users are howling over the loss of their data. TorrentFreak reported on Friday that Pirate Parties worldwide have begun to compile a list of users affected by the MegaUpload raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the FBI.

From the TorrentFreak report, here’s what the Pirate Parties had to say:

The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of MegaUpload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended.

For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.

This initiative is a starting point for legitimate internet users to help defend themselves from the legal abuses promoted by those wishing to aggressively lock away cultural materials for their own financial gain.

File sharing site TorrentFreak have started compiling a list of names to complain about the loss of non-pirated data.

The sand in the hourglass is running out for that data.

I won’t tell any MegaUpload users that they should have backed up any important data before sending it off into the cloud, because that would just be rubbing salt into what may soon be a gaping wound.

During the past few years, Facebook has been targeted by many nasty viruses and malware with links on its site that take you to websites infected with all kinds of malware programs that can infect a user’s computer.

If you suspect your computer has been infected with a virus or malware (slow or abnormal behavior), there are things you can do.  Try the following instructions below.

NOTE:

Although generally safe, any cleaning operations carry some risk for data loss. Before proceeding, Dee.ie  recommends backing up any important or valuable files on your computer.

Run System Restore.
System Restore saves ‘snapshots’ of your system files and settings. If your computer is acting odd or not functioning correctly, you can use these restore points to return your computer to a previous state without affecting personal files. Dee.ie recommends starting your computer in Safe Mode before using System Restore to avoid possible malware restrictions on your system.

Update your operating system.
It is important to regularly download the latest security updates for your Operating System as soon as they are released.  To download directly, click here: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.

Update/Upgrade your virus protection/ security product.
New viruses and malware are released every day.  If your virus protection is out of date, it may not detect a potential problem.

Run a system scan. 
Once your virus protection is up to date, run a complete system scan.  This will potentially take a long time, so it’s a good idea to start the scan at a time when you will not use the system.

If your computer is still exhibiting the suspicious behavior, please contact Dee.ie for additional assistance.

The Dee.ie PC Standard that we adhere to is our own design and ensures all PC’s & laptops are fully diagnosed, health checked and up to date including OS updates, automatic antivirus & malware detection.

Our repair centre offers a professional and independent support facility and can support and repair down to the component level of many devices while ensuring independent advice is directly applied to our clients from various forms of technology.

We have a host of fixed fee repair services to give you peace of mind when allowing Dee.ie to repair your technology.

Someone broke into Symantec’s network in 2006 and stole source code for PCAnywhere, which allows customers to remotely connect to other computers, as well as for Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security and Norton SystemWorks, the company said last week. Earlier this month, hackers in India affiliated with the Anonymous online activist group said they had taken the code from servers run by Indian military intelligence.

Hackers have threatened to use the pilfered code to attack companies using it and then release the code publicly. The affected products have been updated since 2007 so there is no risk to customers, except for PCAnywhere, Symantec said. Separately, Symantec released a hotfix for several critical vulnerabilities in PCAnywhere on Tuesday, but said it did not know of any publicly available exploits.

“At this time, Symantec recommends disabling the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks,” the company said in a white paper (PDF). Customers who rely on it for business critical purposes should install version 12.5 and apply relevant patches, it added.

For more on this story, see Symantec tells customers to disable PCAnywhere

However, the source of the attack–the IP address for the individual computers attempting to access the site–can easily be traced when LOIC is used, putting participants at risk of prosecution. (Despite that threat, people have been downloading LOIC like mad since Wednesday, including more than 19,000 downloads in the last day, according to a blog post by security firm Imperva.)

So, Anonymous has come up with a way to allow people to participate without risking arrest. In protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), as well as yesterday’s government takedown of file-hosting site Megaupload and the indictment of its operators, Anonymous launched DDOS attacks on more than a dozen sites and used a new tactic.

The group distributed Web links yesterday during its attacks on the Department of Justice, FBI, Universal Music and a host of other sites, that made joining the attacks as easy as clicking the mouse. The links led to Web pages with special JavaScript instructions that automatically redirected the visiting computer to a Web site being targeted for attack. The computer continues attempting to access the target site until the Web page is closed.

Another version of the tool, for people willing to participate, would direct computers to a Web page on which a visitor could type in the IP address to target and the page would automatically refresh in the background so the computer would continually try to access the target.

The tool relies on JavaScript being enabled, and given how many Web sites require JavaScript, it’s likely most of the people who clicked the links were unwittingly drawn into the attacks.

It’s likely that the tricky links increased the effectiveness of the attacks, which appeared to have impacted overall Internet traffic patterns, at least for a while, according to areal-time Web monitoring site operated by content delivery company Akamai. The site registered 218 attacks yesterday hours after the attacks started. Attack-related traffic was up 24 percent over normal, while general network traffic was up 14 percent.

The links were distributed on Twitter, IRC, Facebook, Tumblr, and other sites and there was no indication that they were potent. Some of the links led to sites similar to Pastebin, where Anonymous often posts its messages. Other links were obscured using Web address shorteners like Bitly.com.

“From the looks of things, this is on a scale we haven’t seen before,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos, who wrote a blog post about the tool. “We saw some Anonymous Twitter accounts gain hundreds of thousands of new fans overnight as word began to spread.”

If you did happen to click one of the links, you aren’t likely to get in trouble. For one, investigators might conclude that all the different IP addresses that hit the site during the attack were part of a botnet of compromised computers. And even if investigators suspected that the blasts from your IP address on the target site were conducted as part of the attack, it’s unlikely that you would be singled out for a visit from the authorities, said Jennifer Granick, an attorney who has represented defendants accused of computer crimes.

“If you are an unwitting participant then technically you’re not liable under the law because all criminal statutes, with some narrow exceptions, require some criminal state of mind,” such as acting “knowingly” or “intentionally,” she said.

“But even being part of a botnet could result in unwanted police attention anyway,” Granick added. “That’s probably unlikely, depending on how many computers are involved in the DDOS attack.”

The situation is another story for the people distributing the attack-enabling links, however.

“If you are a distributor of malware that targets a site, you can be liable for all damage that occurs to that site as a result of the malware functioning,” Granick said. “If you are distributing a program and intending to cause damage and that’s what results, that is a violation under the law.”

In computer crime cases, damage is usually defined broadly and includes resources needed to respond to an attack and return the system to normal, so damages can add up, she said.

Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission, said in a speech on Sunday that the new data-protection legislation was needed to protect users and cut red tape for businesses in Europe.

“Only if consumers trust that their data is protected will they entrust companies with it … We need individuals to be in control of their information,” Reding said at the DLD conference of tech industry leaders in Munich.

But Reding also emphasized a need to simplify Europe’s approach to online data protection, arguing that the current system was too cumbersome and costly for business.

“In Europe we have too many rules, conflicting rules,” she said. “The extra cost to business of this fragmentation is 2.3 billion euros ($3 billion) a year.”

Europe’s new data-protection rules are expected to be issued on January 25.

The EU regulation will need to be approved by national governments, some of which, such asFrance and Germany, may resist seeing their oversight on privacy matters shift to Brussels.

The legislative process is likely to take at least two years, so the rules could still change considerably. Internet companies will not be required to comply before 2014 or 2015.

The new rules come amid widespread change in how people use the Internet. Social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn have attracted nearly a billion users, while so-called cloud computing services, which allow businesses and people to stock data on distant servers and access it anywhere, are going mainstream.

The questions of who owns such data, to what end companies can use it and for how long remain major issues of debate among Internet firms, governments and consumers.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has been investigated by U.S. and European regulators for its treatment of user data and privacy policies. In November, it signed a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that will subject it to 20 years of independent audits, and it recently signed an accord with Ireland’s privacy regulator on how it treats international users’ data.

There has also been a series of high-profile breaches such as one at Sony Corp’s online videogame network last year in which hackers stole the data of some 77 million users.

NEW POWERS

According to a draft obtained by Reuters, the EU proposals would bolster significantly regulators’ powers on fighting data-protection breaches, requiring companies to notify regulators when data has been stolen or mishandled.

The proposals also give member states new powers to fine companies up to 1 percent of their global revenues for violating EU data rules. The Financial Times reported in December that the rules would allow for fines up to 5 percent of global revenues, so the EU may have reconsidered its approach since then.

The proposals grant broad, new rights to individuals, including a so-called “right to be forgotten” that would allow people to request that their information be erased and not disseminated online.

The rules also create a “right to data portability” to ensure that people can easily transfer their personal information between different companies or services.

Such rules could force social networks to change the way they handle users’ data.

In written comments submitted to the EU last year, Facebook expressed concerns that the EU’s approach in some areas was too proscriptive for the fast-changing world of the Internet and urged caution on proposals for stiffer sanctions.

“There is a risk that an excessively litigious environment would impede the development of innovative services that can bring real benefit to European citizens,” the company wrote.

Participants at the DLD conference were also divided about coming EU changes.

Stefan Gross-Selbeck, CEO of Germany’s professional social network Xing, said his company was still subject to harsher rules than its U.S. counterparts.

“I appreciate the EU commitment to create a level playing field in Europe … But the regulation that Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg is subject to is nothing compared to what I’m subject to.”

Chris Poole, founder of the online community 4chan that is a haven for hackers, welcomed the prospect of even tougher enforcement on companies that mishandle users’ data.

“I would love to see some regulation that would hold Sony responsible,” he said, referring to the PlayStation data breach last year. “They deserve to be punished.”

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edison’s patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.

There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them – like Fantasia, one of Disney’s biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations – it’s all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.

If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between each other, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition.

We’ve proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We’re just better than they are.  And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.

We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe – but we’ve stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a Swedish friend said this:

The word SOPA means “trash” in Swedish. The word PIPA means “a pipe” in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.

They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers.

The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you’ll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can’t do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we’ll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.

To fix the “problem of piracy” one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they’re creating “culture” but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they’re fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he’s complaining that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world – because he’s jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you’d get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this article. The reason is that we can’t access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We’re sorry for that.

Visitors to Temple Bar’s newly reopened Meeting House Square will be able to connect wirelessly to the internet.

Meeting House Square reopened in December 2011 following the installation of a retractable canopy over the open space, providing an all-weather cover at outdoor events.

To celebrate the new launch Bitbuzz has installed Bitbuzz Freetime, meaning that all visitors to the Square can use the Wi-Fi service free of charge, at any time.

Des Kenny, Bitbuzz Development Manager, said: “Offering complimentary Wi-Fi in an outdoor space as unique as Meeting House Square is a new departure for Bitbuzz. Smartphones and internet tablets have greatly increased the demand for complimentary Wi-Fi in venues across the board in 2011.

“Now that most people have access to the Internet so readily on their phone we expect that levels of usage in Meeting House Square will be exceptional. We hope that Meeting House Square is the first of many such outdoor venues for Bitbuzz.”

The venue will be hosting the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival from today, 20th January until Friday 3rd February.

Dermot McLaughlin, CEO of Temple Bar Cultural Trust said: “We are in the business of bringing culture closer to people, so having complimentary Wi-Fi in a public space like Meeting House Square makes perfect sense. Our online community is growing all the time and we’re sure that complimentary Wi-Fi in the Square will be well used and appreciated.

“We are delighted to work with Bitbuzz – they understand our needs and they have worked with us to make Meeting House Square a place where creative connections can happen.”

The new levy is being considered in a bid to ensure people who view public service broadcasting online will not be able to avoid paying.

Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, who brought the new proposal before the Dail yesterday, said today that a huge number of people now got their news, not from sitting in front of the 9pm news, but from other services offered by the national broadcaster.

He said that within minutes of speaking in the Dail yesterday he received complaints.

“People were on email in five or ten minutes to tell me what a dreadful idea it was and they had never had a TV in their lives. You can only conclude they are accessing public service content on the RTE website,” he said.

The proposed charge will be imposed on properties regardless of whether there is a TV as there is a perception that there are a growing number of people using computers and mobile devices like iPads and iPhones to watch programmes through the internet.

Mr Rabbitte said that those paying the current €160 annual television licence fee would not be affected as the new levy will simply replace it.

However, he conceded that if the new fee managed to address the €25m currently being lost in evasion, there was a chance the new charge could be lower.

He was looking at how this was being managed in four other countries currently, but it was unlikely this new fee would be introduced by next year, he said.

Asked on RTE’s Morning Ireland programme about the limits of Ireland’s broadband service, Mr Rabbitte said that it was improving al the time and he was devising a road map for the future.

Mr Rabbitte, who first mooted the idea last year, said the Programme for Government committed the Coalition to examining the possible rollout of a broadcasting charge to homes and businesses “regardless of the device used to access content”.

A spokesman for the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources said the plans were at an early stage and there were no moves to introduce it “in the immediate future”.

He said department officials had been tasked by the minister last year to conduct a review on how it could be implemented, but there was no date as to when they must report back.

The current TV licence covers public service content on television, radio and online, but a household is only required to have it if they have a TV.

“The concept of a TV licence fee is within a few years going to be an outdated concept,” the spokesman said.

He said details on exemptions for the charge have not yet been thrashed out, but he stressed it would simply be a replacement for the current licence fee and was not an extra revenue-raising exercise.

Mr Rabbitte said only those trying to dodge the licence fee would be affected. An Post said more than 80 jobs were related to servicing the TV licence contract, across sales, administration and inspection. The contract is worth €12m a year to the semi-state body.

But a spokeswoman said revenue streams were changing and that there “may well be new opportunities within a new arrangement”.

However, An Post has not been in touch with the department concerning the plans. An Post said 1,021,443 licences were sold last year.

Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! – fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites– they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The U.S. government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that’s for a fix that won’t work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.

In total 4,000 libraries have signed up to a national digital promise that will see free internet access in every library, staff trained to help people get online, the ability to join a library via the web, and access to a virtual library online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Libraries have helped more than a million people go online for the first time over the past year. The Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) said libraries offered many people their only point of access to the web. And it argued that libraries helping people to get online also helped them gain access to local council services, many of which are becoming digital.

SCL president Nicky Parker said: “With this digital promise we hope to expand and improve the standard of online resources in libraries both now and for the future.”