John Lister

The United States government is said to be considering plans that would force all communications firms to make their systems available for "wiretapping" in the event of a court order. A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lawyer says the idea ... would not mean expanding the ability of law enforcement and security officials to demand access to data through the court system. Instead, the changes would deal with cases where court orders are effectively meaningless because the communications firms concerned are unable to hand over the relevant data, either because it can't be intercepted ... (view more)

When you've got as much money as Google, you can afford to try out some crazy-sounding ideas. But none are quite as wacky as the company's latest project: self-driving cars. The search engine giant has been trying out the system in California ... recently. It involves a combination of robotics, road data and processing power. Self-Driving Car Use Lasers, Radar Sensors The technology includes video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder, all of which are designed to detect the position of other vehicles and adjust the car's movement appropriately. The data was collected by Google cars ... (view more)

Verizon will issue refunds to around 15 million customers after mistakenly charging them for non-existent data use. But the company may wind up paying a bigger price for the error. Phone Users Victims of 'Technical Errors' in Billing In a statement ... attributed to deputy chief counsel Mary Coyne, the company said the mistaken bills were issued over the past several years. It said the customers did not have data plans, but were victims of technical errors, either with phone software sending and receiving "minor" data, or being billed for following web links that shouldn't have incurred data ... (view more)

Viruses get their name because, like human diseases, they can spread and multiply quickly. Now, Microsoft believes some of the tactics used to protect public health should be applied to the world of technology. Computer Virus Prevention is Key to ... Deterring Further Infections The idea comes from Scott Charney, a senior figure in Microsoft's security team. He's just published a paper named "Collective Defense: Applying Public Health Models to the Internet." In Charney's paper, he argues that while preventing individual machines from getting infected -- for example through security software -- ... (view more)

Analysis of a major worm virus that specifically targets industrial control systems shows that three-fifths of the infected machines were in Iran. There's now speculation that the country's nuclear program was the target -- and that a national ... government might have been the culprit. It has been known since July that the Stuxnet virus targeted Iran. Over a three-day period that month, 58.85 per cent of all Stuxnet-infected machines were in the country. (Source: symantec.com ) Infrastructure Under Attack The virus is carefully crafted to breach SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) ... (view more)

Microsoft has this week issued a patch for a bug in the system used to develop active web pages. In a change from the company's normal procedures, the update had already been made available for manual downloading before testing was complete. The bug ... affected ASP.NET (Active Server Pages), a Microsoft system for creating dynamic rather than static web pages. That could cover a journey planner site that created custom results for the reader, as opposed to a page simply listing bus timetables. Passwords Exposed by Flaw The security flaw meant hackers could bypass encryption and see information ... (view more)

In a surprisingly frank admission, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said the company's Kin phones were a mistake. Ballmer's comments were not so much about the handsets themselves, but rather the way they distracted the company's attention from the ... upcoming Windows Phone 7 system. Microsoft Kin Phone Fails to Catch On The company released two handsets, the Kin One and Kin Two, earlier this year after several years of development. Although the phones received positive reviews, they failed to catch on. The major problem: while they appeared to be aimed at teenagers and young adults, the Kins ... (view more)

A video on YouTube has recently surfaced that claims to be an iPad-style tablet computer running Windows 7. And while such a device is currently being developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP), it's far from certain whether or not the gadget in the video is ... genuine. HP Slate Production Speculative It's been known for some time that HP was working on such a device, codenamed the HP Slate, which has also been used in the past as a generic term for portable touchscreen computers that don't have a separate keyboard. There had been some speculation that the company was ditching the idea of using Windows, ... (view more)

Verizon has revealed it won't be stocking any handsets running Windows Phone 7 until next year. It means a big dent in Microsoft's plans to firmly establish the new mobile phone operating system this fall. Uncertainty over Windows 7 Phone Launch ... Date Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said that not only will the network not carry any handsets when Windows Phone 7 launches, but that it won't have any devices until next year. Although Raney described the two companies' relationship as being solid, Bloomberg reports Verizon plans to support the system and will "probably" release a ... (view more)

Yahoo has announced the opening of a new data center that uses wind power to drastically improve its electric efficiency. The technology used is based on chicken coops and fowl smells. Data Centers Power Hungry for Electricity Data centers, which ... process information on a huge scale, are a huge problem when it comes to energy efficiency. That's because, as you'll probably have experienced by using a notebook computer on your lap or touching the case of a desktop computer after prolonged use, processors build up a lot of heat as they work. It also takes a lot of energy running fans to keep ... (view more)