Single point of failure blamed for Verizon FiOS, DSL outage
A single stalled router is being blamed by Verizon officials for a service outage that impacted customers of its high-speed Internet service, including fiberoptic FiOS, in New York and Massachusetts.
The outage occurred at approximately 3:15 pm EDT, according to a message Friday afternoon from the company's chief PR executive, Eric Rabe. He acknowledged that routers typically fail over to adjacent ones, but in this instance, this one didn't.
P2P warning bill passes House committee, will go to the floor
Perhaps the most oft-used defense by defendants charged with the proliferation of unauthorized files -- including some which actually belonged to them or were entrusted to their care -- by way of P2P file-sharing programs has been, "I didn't know." That was the defense invoked by US government employees, and even their direct reports, when classified documents turned up on LimeWire two years ago.
If P2P technology truly can and should be used for legitimate purposes, as many of its engineers and practitioners believe, then the very least it can do for users is inform them of what and where files will be shared. That's the aim of a House bill re-introduced last March by Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R - Calif.), the widow of entertainer and Congressman Sonny Bono. After over a year's deliberation (taking the bill's predecessors into account), Rep. Bono's bill -- the Informed P2P User Act -- passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday, and is on its way to a full House floor debate.
Opponents of ICANN plan fear expedited domain takedowns
Just days prior to the expiration of the final Joint Project Agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the US Dept. of Commerce, effectively letting the DOC's oversight over ICANN lapse, the CEO of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom, informed ranking Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee and its key Subcommittee on Courts and Competition, that ICANN had no intention of terminating its long-term relationship with the US Government. But Beckstrom's lack of detail in response to a direct question from Reps. Lamar Smith (R - Texas) and Howard Coble (R - N.C.) suggested that neither he nor ICANN was in a mood to extend -- or in the congressmen's words, "memorialize" -- the relationship between the private, non-profit entity in charge of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), and the government body that gave rise to it.
"It is important to note that the conclusion of the [Joint Project Agreement] is not a termination of ICANN's relationship with the United States Government," Beckstrom wrote the congressmen (PDF available here, courtesy Domain Name Journal), "nor is ICANN an advocate of that possibility. I am in discussion with the NTIA [division of the DOC] to establish a long-standing relationship to accommodate principles including the beliefs that ICANN should remain a non-profit corporation based in the United States, and should retain an ongoing focus on accountability and transparency."
Sweeping content security enhancements tested on Firefox 3.7
Initial development is nearly complete on an entirely new kind of Web browser code execution policy management system, which may yet become part of Firefox 3.7 (the point release following the next one in line), a Mozilla spokesperson informed Betanews. When implemented, browsers such as Firefox will be capable of restricting certain classes of embedded code from execution, and Web sites can advertise to browsers in advance which classes of code its pages contain.
The end result, the developers of Mozilla's Content Security Policy (CSP) hope, is that policy-enhanced browsers will be completely immune from cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks from malicious sources, by virtue of restricting themselves to either only executing inline code from trusted, certified sites, or not executing any such code at all.
No more 'draft:' 802.11n Wi-Fi certification program finally begins
Well over seven years since work began on the standard, and four years since the first draft of the proposed standard was published to vendors -- and subsequently rejected by them -- there is at last a process in place for wireless networking equipment vendors to get their products formally certified using a certification that means the product is certified. If that last sentence sounded redundant, believe it or not, it wasn't: Since 2007, some Wi-Fi products have been certified using a certification that did not mean the product was certified.
Huh? Some products that adhered to so-called "draft-11n" standards (in this case, "Draft 2.0") were allowed to carry a logo that said "Wi-Fi Certified 802.11n Draft 2.0," with the latter two terms in smaller print. At the time, the Wi-Fi Alliance described this certification as "the consumer's indication that a product has passed rigorous testing and can deliver the very best user experience." More than 700 Wi-Fi products received the right to bear this logo. But among professional network engineers, there was no doubt that this "mark of excellence" was perhaps the world's most definitive maybe.
Google bites Bing back, recovers all usage losses since spring
If the last two months should be interpreted as Microsoft suggests, with Bing's gradual ascent in usage share against Google as a sign of Bing's inevitably catching up, then a similar interpretation of September's numbers from live analytics firm StatCounter should be taken as a sign of Bing's ultimate demise. A sampling of five billion or more US page views from Web sites accessed by StatCounter in September reveals that, of the world's top three search services, Google's usage share has climbed back just above 80%, and is flirting with last November's peak of 81.14% -- meaning Google is back to serving four out of five US-based general queries.
Bing's usage share in the US descended by 1.13% to 8.51% for the month of September, while Yahoo's dove 1.1% to 9.4%. Google's share among the top three has now climbed above where it stood in May (78.72%), when Microsoft changed the name of Windows Live Search.
Uniloc will appeal overturning of Microsoft patent verdict
Attorneys for Uniloc, the independent developer whose patent for software activation was the subject of an infringement case against Microsoft, told Betanews Thursday morning they will appeal a Rhode Island district court judge's decision Monday vacating the jury's award of $388 million to Uniloc.
In a statement to Betanews, Uniloc's attorneys said the following: "We are disappointed by the decision the trial judge has made to overturn the jury's unanimous verdict in Uniloc's patent infringement case against Microsoft. We believe that the jury's verdict in April was thoughtful, well reasoned and supported by the evidence presented. Since the patent status remains unchanged, Uniloc will continue to protect its intellectual property and appeal the Judge's decision to override the jury's verdict to the US Court of Appeals. We are confident that Uniloc will ultimately prevail."
Amazon settles Kindle case with '1984' reader, promises not to delete e-books
As first reported by TechFlash's Eric Engleman, Amazon has elected to settle out of court with a Michigan high school student, who sued the Kindle maker last July after having remotely deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from his and about 2,000 other users' Kindles. The electronic publisher in that instance did not actually have the rights to those works from Orwell's estate; but as Amazon acknowledged in its published settlement order (PDF available here, courtesy Puget Sound Business Journal), deleting those works from their systems was a violation of Amazon's own Terms of Service.
The settlement is unique in that Amazon was willing to let its terms be known. Student Justin Gawronski's attorneys will receive $150,000, on the stipulation that the attorneys' portion will be donated to a charity that promotes literacy, educational, or children's causes. Amazon will continue to honor its plan to give purchasers a $30 gift card.
US gov't, ICANN declare joint agreement concluded, international era begins
The US Dept. of Commerce will no longer have a direct oversight role over the independent corporation responsible for maintaining the Internet's domain name system (DNS) and top-level domain (TLD) registry. This announcement came from ICANN on the very day -- essentially, the last minute -- of the Commerce Dept.'s official oversight of the group.
Under the terms of an Affirmation of Commitments document released by ICANN today, the United States will maintain a seat on ICANN's Government Advisory Committee, an 109-member league of nations, not all of which actively participate. But that's it. The periodic review process for accountability that ICANN underwent since its establishment by the DOC in 1998, will now shift to what new ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom describes as "an international committee of parties chosen by the chairman of our Governmental Advisory Committee."
Google Wave expands, in search of a clear use-case scenario
Today, Google is expected to invite as many as 100,000 more participants into the private beta of its concurrent communications system, called Wave. As that happens, many more participants will be able to not only communicate with one another in a more granular form of real-time, but potentially collaborate on work and projects.
It's that latter part of the program that's supposed to congeal at some point into a collective sense of purpose. But this time, unlike Microsoft's first experiments with Dynamic Data Exchange between applications on the same computer three decades ago, there isn't yet a clear, single purpose for the system. No question it could bring individuals as close together as people separated by indefinite distance could become; but as to the question of what they do with one another once they do get together, Google is hoping this question -- like so many others it puts out there in the open -- resolves itself.
Microsoft credits/blames user feedback for latest Home Server delay
It's beginning to be a habit: In the short history of Microsoft's surprisingly popular Windows Home Server product, its first two major upgrades (each with truckloads of bug fixes), called Power Packs, suffered from delays -- especially after Microsoft heavily promoted their upcoming release. Monday evening, it happened again: After what appeared to be a successful launch event at the CEDIA 2009 expo in Atlanta last week, Microsoft announced that Power Pack 3's release is now slated for toward the end of this year.
That's bad news for many customers who had been planning to upgrade their home systems to Windows 7. There are a number of features in the current Windows Home Server Power Pack 2, designed for Vista, that do not work properly in Windows 7, especially with respect to backup -- one of the main reasons to use Home Server in the first place. PP3 was supposed to include the fixes that make it compatible with Win7's completely revised backup, and last week, at least, they looked pretty good.
US court vacates another jury's huge patent verdict against Microsoft
In the second colossal overturning of a jury verdict against Microsoft this month alone, a US District Court judge in Rhode Island has completely tossed out a $388 million patent infringement ruling against Microsoft. But rather than just accept the arguments that the jury's formula was excessive -- an argument that the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with last September 11 -- the district court judge flame-broiled the case of an Australian inventor who claimed to have created keycode-driven software activation, as not only without merit but ludicrous.
Judge William Smith shot down most of inventor Uniloc's arguments, except for the one right up front. It concerned whether Microsoft's product activation system used a locally unique identifier (LUID) to represent a software license holder -- the person, not the software. Uniloc's patent described a system whereby a completely unique (or as Microsoft might put it, "globally unique") identifier represents a licensee. The randomizer in this system is supposed to be powerful enough that it would be virtually impossible for any two systems operating independently to generate the same number. (This despite the fact that, years ago, this reporter was able to accomplish this feat during a beta test of GUID.)
Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing on 'deep linking:' Does it make any difference?
This week, all three of the world's top general search engines touted the addition of deep links to their search results, although Google has been actively experimenting with deep links since this time last year. The basic premise is this: For Web pages that have named anchors above selected subsections -- for example, <A NAME="Details"> -- the search engine is capable of generating subheadings in its search results that link users directly to those subsections, or at least to subsections whose titles imply they may have some bearing upon the query.
The fact that deep links are now official features of Google, Yahoo, and Bing search may not be nearly as relevant today as the fact that all three services made their announcements almost in unison. It's an indication of an actual race going on in the search engine field, reminiscent of the horse-and-buggy days of the early '90s when Lycos and AltaVista were vying against Yahoo for search supremacy. This despite the fact that Yahoo is due to be utilizing search results generated by Microsoft's search engines Real Soon Now.
Microsoft's free Security Essentials anti-virus tool goes live
Free anti-virus protection for Windows, in one form or another, has been available for quite some time. In fact, these days it's been used as the virtual equivalent of the retail "doorbuster," enabling security companies to plant their brands on users' systems. It's a strategy pioneered by Ad-Aware and ZoneAlarm (now part of Check Point Systems).
But Microsoft -- at least ostensibly -- is not a security company, and becoming recognized as a security provider at this stage of its history would actually be more difficult than for most other software producers. Still the company has gone forward just hours ago with the live distribution of Security Essentials, its free and basic anti-virus system for Windows.
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