| Newsletter - October 2006 Tesco to sell computer software Tesco has announced its plans to sell budget own-brand PC software which will put the British supermarket giants in direct competition with Microsoft and Symantec. It plans to offer consumers six packages which include office software, two security/ anti-virus software, a personal finance tool, photo editing tool and CD/DVD burning tool. The retailer worked with British UK software distributor Formjet to produce the new software which it hopes will bring choice and value to the Microsoft dominated software market. The packages will be available in 100 of its stores with each package costing less than £20 each, from late October. Zimbabwe’s internet shut down Zimbabwe’s internet services were literally cut off last month when the government failed to pay (US) $700,000. People had complained about the long delays in sending and receiving emails, very slow browsing speeds and problems connecting to some websites. Intelsat had severed a satellite link that provided nearly three quarters of the country’s bandwidth used by the state owned communications firm, TelOne. The Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) which is an independent body representing all the ISP’s in the country issued a statement saying they were working with the government and TelOne to resume normal internet services. The breakdown of the internet services in the country couldn’t have come at a worse time, especially since there is a fierce debate occurring in the country over the proposed ‘Interception of Communications Bill 2006’. This would allow the government to monitor all internet communications, including email, web browsing, instant messaging and financial transactions. The new legislation would also allow them to intercept all forms of communications including fixed line and cellular phone calls. The internet service providers would also be forced to buy surveillance equipment, which will cost approximately (US) $1 million per provider that could force many to shut down in an economic environment where hard currency is scarce. In a statement issued by ZISPA said; “we are very concerned about this proposed legislation because of the lack of judicial involvement and oversight, the potential loss of privacy in communications, as well as the costs and technical difficulties involved in meeting the requirements of the Bill. As a result, we have prepared a submission to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications, requesting that the Bill be withdrawn, pending further consultations and examination of similar legislation and its implementation in other countries.” US Government takes a step back from internet control The US government has said it will maintain oversight of the internet but with less hands- on involvement. Icann or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is the non profit making organisation that oversees the future of the net on behalf of US, where the government has decided to cede control to the private sector. The organisation’s the guardian for the underlying architecture of the net, overseeing the allocation of domain names such as .com and .net. Many people have said the net coordinator should eventually be a private organisation, but it has been overseen by the US government since it was set up in 1998. The US government has been criticized in the past for having a hold over Icann. In May 2006 the organisation caused controversy when plans for .xxx domain for sexually explicit sites were rejected where many people saw this as “political interference”. Another change in the contract is that Icann will no longer have to report to the US government every six months. Instead they will produce a report for the internet community as a whole. More laptops recalled As we reported last month, Dell and Apple recalled laptops that had the Sony lithium-ion batteries which have a tendency to over heat or in some (rare) cases blow up. Now Toshiba and Lenovo have joined the campaign to recall their laptops with the same Sony batteries that were used for Dell and Apple laptops. Lenovo is recalling 500,000 and Toshiba is calling back 830,000. Lenovo who are based in China said the problem affects its ThinkPad laptops sold from February 2005 under its own name and the IBM brand. Lenovo, who bought IBM’s personal computer division, last year said the reason for the recall was after one of their laptops caught fire at Los Angeles airport. Japanese based Toshiba have recalled its Dynabook, Qosimo, Satellite Portege and Tecra models after advice from Sony themselves. Fujitsu Siemens have also joined the other computer manufacturers by recalling 287,000 laptops with the Sony batteries. In total, more than seven million laptops have been recalled worldwide causing Sony’s share prices to drop by 10%. Other problems that have plagued Sony in the last couple of months have been the delay of the European launch of Playstation3 games console. Profits for the electronics giant will also be affected due to the massive recall of the laptop batteries. ‘Honeypot’
finds massive security flaws A further study undertaken by Get Safe Online released by the government showed that out of 57% households who are online, 17% still do not have anti-virus software or firewalls (22%). A further 23% have opened up an email attachment that came from an unknown source. Cyber crime is a global problem where 86% of all targeted attacks on computers are aimed at home users. In 2005 cyber crime, phishing has cost the UK £23.2 million. |
