The British Department of Trade and Industry has made £4m available for four research projects aimed at reducing the IT risk created by human error.

The program, which is part of its Network Security Innovation Platform, reflects the fact that human error is by far the biggest risk to network security.

It cited the results of a survey it conducted, involving over 1,800 people, on the use of passwords. It found that:

• Just over 30% of users recorded their password or security information by either writing it down or storing it somewhere on their computer.
• About 65% never changed their password
• 20% of people used the same password for non-banking websites as well as their online bank

The projects will use behavioural science in a bid to tackle the human risk element in network security.

Four projects will receive funding under the programme.

• The first is about developing a risk assessment package focused on organisational and human factors.

• The second, named Trust Economics, is aimed at developing a predictive modelling framework that assesses security policies that regulate the interaction between humans and information systems.
• The third is aimed at developing a solution for the analysis of digital communications to identify threats introduced by humans.
• The fourth named CatalysIS, is a tool to improve risk culture and identify human vulnerabilities in network security.

Minister for science and innovation Malcolm Wicks said: "Unfortunately, the weakest link in network security is not usually with the technology, but with the staff and system users. A DTI survey found that a shocking number of people were careless with passwords, unwittingly exposing themselves and their company to fraud and theft.

"Network security is also a major growth area where the UK has a good opportunity to become a global leader if we develop new technology to give us a competitive edge."

This article was originally published at Kablenet 

Source: The Register 

 

Tags: 2007, aim, analysis, arc, art, blog, communication, computer, digital, Fun, global, human, ict, ICT Security, identify, im, industry, interaction, internet, Internet News, Internet World, IT risk, King, lan, network, nomadcom.net, online, password, pet, privacy, project, risk, science, search, security, space, study, survey, technology, the register, threat, uk, user, web, website, wp, www, XP

I found an interesting review made by ExtremeTech about some of currently available multi-services Instant Messenger (IM) clients supporting at least all 3 majors IM services (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ). While the option for Mac users is limited to Adium, it exists few Web 2.0 based solutions such meebo and eBuddy and a bunch of classic software for Windows-based computer. Etremetech's prefered choice is the long existing Trillian Pro version (25 USD) but they also speak about PC-World prefered SightSpeed (also for MacOS) and the Swiss Army knife-like Raketu (I plan to test both of them in the coming days).

The list will grow up again with soon release of Orgoo, which aims to integrate email, IM, chat, SMS, and video messaging into one interface.

To sum up the six services in this review roundup, here's a table comparing their features:

	Adium	eBuddy	Meebo	Meetro	Pidgin	Trillian
Services supported:
AIM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MSN/Windows	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Yahoo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ICQ	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
IRC	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Jabber/Google	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes**
Bonjour/Rendezvous	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes**
Multiple simultaneous service login	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ad free	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tabbed message window	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Contacts in groups	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Message history	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Text formatting	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Themes/skins	Yes	No	Just colors	No	No	Yes
Group chat support	Only join existing	Yes	Yes	No	Only join existing	Yes
Buddy icons	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Audio chat	No	No	No	No	No	Yes**
Video chat	No	No	No	No	No	Yes**
Mac/Windows	Yes/No	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes	Yes*/No	No/Yes
Web-based	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Plugins	No	No	No	Yes, but only 2 available	Yes	Yes

Source : ExtremeTech 

 

Tags: 2007, 24, adium, aim, art, ATT, blog, ces, computer, ebuddy, fon, free, gaim, google, History, ia, icq, im, instant messenger, Internet World, lan, list, login, meebo, meetro, messenger, MIT, mobile, Mobile Communications, msn, nomadcom.net, orgoo, pet, pidgin, plugin, raketu, release, review, services, sightspeed, sms, story, swiss, theme, trillian, user, video, web, web 2.0, windows, world, wp, www, yahoo

One of my first question was about how to send Twitter updates using Skype instead of anything else as I did not want to install an additional application with a single dedicated purpose.

Apparently I'm not alone in that situation and I found today a "how to" to post updates on Twitter using Skype chat tool

Quote

Here’s a little secret which no one seems to know about. There is a Skype robot which will post to your Twitter account.

1. Add twitter4skype as a contact.
2. Type the following as a chat message (be sure to do a FULL return for each line):
   /account
   yourtwitteraccountname
   yourtwitteraccountpassword
3. The system should return: twitter4skype Registration complete!
4. The next time you write a chat message to twitter4skype, the entry will appear as a Tweet on your account.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

Update: Some have reported they have not been successful on their first try to make this work. The issue usually is identified with the returns. On a Mac, make sure you press alt + return after each line. Also make sure there is a return after the last line. Once this is fixed, everything seems to “automagically” work.

Unquote

Source: PacificIT  

Tags: 2007, account, art, blog, ces, Gadgets, how to, im, install, Internet World, ITU, lan, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, nyt, password, pda, post, press, skype, skype4twitter, space, tweet, twit, Twitter, twittering, update, wp, www

As advertising on Fon web pages says it :

• At home you're a "Wi-Fi King"
• Away you become a "Wi-Fi beggar" 
  (or sometime even a Wi-Fi thief)

  so, why not to

• Share some Wi-Fi at home
• and get free WiFi access wherever you find a FON Wi-Fi access point (+360'000 members worldwide)

 

 That's the concept of Fon Movimiento but you can find more details on Fon pages or Wikipedia.

Hardware requirement :  

Benefits :

• Cheap wireless AP (with an "easy to get" voucher or invitation) : 20€ with shipping included.
• You're a Linus and get free access to others FON Wi-Fi access points
• You're a Bill and get 50% of the fees, currently $3.00, charged to Aliens (non FON members) for a day pass to connect through their route.

Risks :

• Your ISP may not like it, even if on their side they sell unsecured access point. So, it's up to you.. ask your ISP if you can share your connection.. or don't !   

Installation :

• Sign On Fon.com and order your Fonera
• Once you have it, connect it to your Internet router
• From your computer connect to the open FON_AP wireless network
• Launch your browser, you're automatically transfered to fon.com pages.
• Log On, change settings of your Fonera (password, SSID, WPA Key, etc..)
• Restart the Fonera or wait 24 hours
• Connect to your newly created wireless private network (by default named "my place").
• That's it… the whole process took about 10 minutes. 

Tags: 2007, 24, 802.11, access, advertising, art, blog, ces, community, computer, connection, find, fon, fon movimiento, fonera, fonero, free, Great Ideas, ia, im, install, internet, Internet World, King, lan, launch, map, minutes, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, Nomad Tools, nomadcom.net, On The Road, Our World, password, risk, safe, share, shared, space, telecom, Telecommunications, thief, Travel, web, website, wi fi, wifi, wireless, wordwide, world, worldwide, wp, www

You need your own Google maps but you don't know about programming and what API stands for?

No problem, just visit Click2Map, open your free account and start creating, managing and publishing online your maps & markers.

Click2Map™ is a new Rich Internet Application (RIA) developed by HylioSoft, a french Web company.

Click2Map is actually running on version 1.0 Beta 1 Build 25 with a stable version expected in May-June 2007.

Sample : Nomadcom in Bangkok
Source: Presse-Citron (as often)

 

Tags: 2007, account, api, art, Bangkok, click2map, Cool Software, CTU, free, google, google maps, ia, im, internet, Internet World, lan, map, mapping, markers, online, Our World, press, space, Travel, web, web based, Web Design Tools, www, XP

50 days after an earthquake which damaged under sea telecommunication cables, on February 14th Hong Kong office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) reported that Internet access services in the region are back to their fully capacity. 

"The earthquakes which occurred near Taiwan on December 26, 2006, caused serious damage to six submarine cable systems supporting Hong Kong's external telecommunications services. We are pleased to note that the repair of these cable systems is completed and all our external telecommunications services, including Internet access services, have been fully restored. Our Internet service providers have recovered their external connection capacity back to the normal operational level before the earthquakes," an OFTA spokesman said today (February 14).

Sources : OFTA,  

Tags: -50 days-, 2007, access, air, art, asia, blog, cable, capacity, ces, communication, connection, earthquake, earthquakes, february, ia, internet, internet access, Internet World, lan, nomadcom.net, pair, services, submarine, taiwan, telecom, Telecommunications, undersea, www

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology is launching the Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University to examine the impacts of digital technology on human interaction. The first outcome of this work was a short, but excellent, video called "Web 2.0… The Machine is Us/ing Us"

The videos take viewers on an extremely creative journey from the beginning of the web to what we are now calling "web 2.0."

Sources: Presse-Citron & Kansas University

 

Tags: 2007, anthropology, api, blog, ces, Coup de Coeur, digital, human, ia, im, Impact, interaction, Internet World, kansas, King, lan, launch, LED, nomadcom.net, Our World, press, space, technology, university, video, viewers, web, web 2.0, wesch, wp, www, youtube

On 26th of December 2006 a 7.2 strong earthquake in Southern Taiwan damaged several telecommunication submarine cables linking China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, among others, to overseas telecommunication networks, including Internet backbone. 

More than a month later, repair work is not done yet due to bad weather conditions & poor equipment. Customers, Telecom companies & media start to express their discontent."It will be a long time before Internet access is fully recovered between Asian and the US as workers are using "technologies of the 19th century to solve problems of the 21st century," Sina.com said today

According Shanghai Daily, quoting Global Marine General Manager, none of the optical fiber in 4000m deep damaged cables have been fully repaired yet. Today's report says that work should be completed by January 30th (some other sources say end of February). Currently up to 70% of traffic from mainland China has been re-routed using alternative pathways such as satellite links, which are slow, expensive and unstable compared with cable-based connections.

This remind us the loss of satellite Intelsat IS-804 in January 2005 which left 10 countries of the Pacific rim without any communication links for days, as no backup was available) and forced 8 others to switch to their backup systems. 

Such events clearly show us what happens when main overseas communications links go down and how weak, when exists, are fallback systems.

Just imagine if such disruptions were man-made in order to turn the world back to the "telegraph age"….

More about : Reuters, Shanghai Daily, Heise Online.

Tags: 2007, access, air, art, asia, blog, cable, ces, communication, connection, connections, customer, disruption, earthquake, event, february, geography, global, HP, ia, im, internet, internet access, Internet World, King, lan, map, network, nomadcom.net, online, pair, press, problems, satellite, sco, space, story, submarine, taiwan, telecom, Telecommunications, traffic, world, wp, www, XP

In a country where discussions about how to cope with 4 differents national languages are on weekly agenda at the parliament, Swissinfo found a way to avoid such dilemma in a series of 15 seconds funny ads currently broadcasted on TV5 channel.   

p.s this post is the 1st one with embedded video on this site. Thanks to Viper007bond and their great plugin.

Tags: advertising, Coup de Coeur, Fun, how to, ia, Internet World, lan, language, Our World, plugin, post, press, swiss, video, wordpress, www, youtube

On Speedtest website you can check your upload and download connection speed against 13 differents servers located in 5 differents countries (USA, UK, Nederlands, Australia, New Zealand).

Results including up/down speed, latency & distance can also be shared using preformatted image links.

You have now some data to share with your ISP even if this one will never guarantee a constant end-to-end speed over Internet.

Tags: ATT, blog, connection, Coup de Gueule, distance, ia, im, internet, Internet World, lan, nomadcom.net, share, shared, space, uk, USA, web, website, wp, www