The Register published the result of a survey, among office worker in London, which reveals that women are 4 (four) times more likely than men to give out "passwords" in exchange for chocolate bars.

The survey by of 576 office workers in London found that women are by far more likely to give  their computer login credentials to total strangers than their male colleagues in a ratio above 4/1 (45% vs. 10%).

The bogus researchers also asked for workers' names and telephone numbers, ostensibly so they could be entered into a draw to go to Paris.

The complete article is on Register website 

Tags: access, chocolat, credential, ict, ICT Security, password, risk, security, survey

Back online after few days on Chinese Mountains I discovered lots of interesting informations about Internet disruptions which occurred earlier this month and impacted more than 90 millions Internet users. Outages were due to up to cuts on up to 9 submarines cables located, for most of them, around the Arabian Peninsula.

"I Love Bonnie" published on the 12th the excellent "The Submarine Cables – A Complete Guide to the 2008 Internet Outage". The post contains tons of informations and links and provides a detailed review of the events. Media coverage can be found on Renesys site. Steven M. Bellovin professor at Columbia  University analyzed the possible causes of these outages.

Some also speaks, indeed, about conspiracy  

Tags: 2008, access, blog, cable, ces, columbia, disruption, event, Flickr, ia, im, Impact, internet, internet access, lan, LED, nomadcom.net, online, outage, photo, post, review, sco, submarine, Telecommunications, university, user, wp, www

Not yet sure if it is a good news or not, but Air France has become the first airline in the world to offer an in-flight mobile phone service on international flights.

One Airbus A318 aircraft operating European routes has been fitted with a mini GSM base station to provides 123 passengers the possibility to :

• Send and receive sms and mms messages
• Send and receive emails via all phones with Internet access

During the second half of the trial, passengers will be able to make and receive phone calls, with the service being regulated to maintain passengers’ comfort and well-being.

If passengers kindly turn off ringing traffic data from/to an aircraft should not be a big deal, if not journeys may become quite annoying with uninterrupted flow of incoming messages ringing alert.

Hard to imagine how will be a long haul flight with full mobile phone services (voice and data) "offered" to passengers. 

At the end of the six-month trial, Air France will examine the feedback and comments made by customers to determine whether to launch this service on all its flights.

What is your feeling about the availability of in-flight mobile phone service ? 

For the technical part,
Air France uses Mobile OnAir onboard mobile telephony system, certified by EASA (European Aviation Safety Authority) which does not interfere with the radio-navigation instruments on this Airbus A318 and may only be used at cruising altitude once the new illuminated sign “Switch off your phone” is turned off (recycling the "no smoking" sign ?).  The system is activated at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet).

More about this trial on AirFrance site including a video of the 1st trial flight.

Tags: -50 days-, 2007, access, air, airbus, aircraft, airfrance "air france" gsm "gsm onboard" aircraft aviat, art, availability, Aviation, blog, bt, ces, customer, europe, flight, gsm, HP, ia, im, in-flight, International, internet, internet access, ITU, King, lan, launch, light, list, mobile, mobile phone, nomadcom.net, passengers, phone, phones, safe, safety, services, sms, term, traffic, video, what is, world, wp, www