Mozilla To Launch Firefox 3.5 Web Browser

Firefox, a rival to Microsoft's market domination, will release version 3.5 later this month.
Its features will include geolocation - information targeted to your location, in-built video players, and private browsing. It comes after nightly testing by 10,000 volunteers.
A "community" rather than a strictly commercial company, a lot of Mozilla's work is undertaken by thousands of helpers.

Only two full-time paid staffers man a support desk for 300 million users - the rest do it for free.
One of main features of Firefox web browsing is increased privacy - users can delete specific parts of their activity or ask the computer to "forget" whole chunks.
But some suggest this might help those viewing child abuse images avoid detection.
"It is not a piece we can control," the vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver, told Online.
"People who want to do illegal things have always had the ability to be private, to lie and to defraud."
He believes most people have legitimate reasons for secrecy.
"There's been a stigma around being private, we see it as just offering control."
Mr Shaver said Mozilla's community ethic had ended up being a "comparative advantage" during the economic downturn.
"We've never been set up to maximise our financial return," he explained. "We don't have shareholders to please or target numbers to hit."

If you're viewing a page coded in HTML 5 with video in an open-source format like Ogg Vorbis or Theora, Firefox 3.5 treats that video like it's just part of the page, not a separate little island of Flash content. That means instant commenting on videos. It could also mean offering links from inside a tutorial video that offer more details on what's being shown—soldering tips on an iPhone repair guide would be keen. In general, it's just a promising step forward into a seamless melding of video and text on a future web.

Google tackled on e-mail security

Google has been asked to explain why it is not making its Gmail e-mail service more secure.
In an open letter to Google boss Eric Schmidt, security experts, lawyers, and privacy advocates ask why Gmail users are "needlessly" being put at risk.
The 38 signatories want Google to start using the secure version of the HTTP protocol to protect Gmail users.
In response, Google said it was considering trials of the secure system with a select group of users.
Secure session
"As more of us end up using insecure internet access - such as wi-fi in coffee shops, libraries, and so forth - there's a real risk of session hijacking," said Ben Edelman, a signatory of the letter and assistant professor at Harvard Business School.
When users sign on to Gmail, their login name and password are encrypted as the data passes back and forth using the secure version of HTTP known as HTTPS.
However, said Mr Edelman, this is turned off once sign-on is completed. A similar system works for Google Docs and Calendar.
The risk, he said, was from hi-tech criminals who snoop on the unencrypted data passing back and forth to steal ID files called "session cookies" generated when these applications start being used.
Mr Edelman said that using the cookies could let a criminal pose as a user. In Gmail's case, this could mean they might send e-mails in the owner's name, abuse their identity, change a password, or hijack an account. "It's a frightening prospect," said Mr Edelman.
The open letter pointed out that Google used HTTPS to protect the data of users of its Health and Voice applications.
While Google does make it possible to use HTTPS all the time when signed on to Gmail, Docs, or Calendar the option was so hard to find that few would use it, suggested the letter.
It pointed out that most users retain default options and were likely to be leaving themselves at risk.
"...unless the security issue is well known and salient to consumers, they will not take steps to protect themselves by enabling HTTPS," said the letter.
If Google took the step to turn on HTTPS all the time, the risks would be removed.
In response, Google said it was looking into whether it made sense to use HTTPS all the time in Gmail. But, it said, before it did so it wanted to be sure that the average user experience of Gmail was not markedly changed by turning it on.
It feared that enabling the encryption would slow down response times as data was scrambled and unscrambled on a PC and Google's mail servers.
"We're planning a trial in which we'll move small samples of different types of Gmail users to HTTPS to see what their experience is, and whether it affects the performance of their e-mail," said Google.
Mr Edelman said it was not just Google that was putting users at risk. Every webmail company faced the same problem and should do more to protect the its users .
He said it was a problem that would get more acute as services move towards so called "cloud computing".
"Many of the systems we have built for authentication and session maintenance assume no man-in-the-middle attack," he said.

Microsoft's Bing continues to roll

Microsoft's Bing search engine has shown steady growth for the second straight week, according to researchers.
Data from internet research firm comScore shows that the Microsoft search engine has climbed up to a 12.1 per cent share of search results over the work week of 8-12 June. Over that time, Bing racked up a 16.7 per cent daily search penetration level.

Those numbers are up from an 11.3 per cent search result share the prior week and a 9.1 per cent share in the week prior to Bing's release.
"It appears that Microsoft Bing has continued to generate interest from the market for the second consecutive week,” said comScore senior vice president Mike Hurt.
"These early data reflect a continued positive market reaction to Bing in the initial stages of its launch."
The news of Bing's early success should be welcome to Microsoft. The company has been hoping to raise its search presence on the net in hopes of cashing in on the lucrative search advertising market currently dominated by Google.
The company has made in-house projects such as Bing the centrepiece of its search strategy ever since a deal to acquire Yahoo fell through last summer.

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Microsoft to give away anti-virus

Microsoft is poised to start giving away security software.

The company is reportedly trialling free anti-virus software internally and said the beta version would be released "soon".

Called Morro, the software will tackle viruses but lack the broader range of utilities, such as parental locks, found in paid-for security suites.

Morro will be Microsoft's second venture in the highly competitive security market.

Microsoft's first attempt revolved around the Windows Live OneCare service that did not succeed in turning many customers away from rivals such as Symantec and McAfee.

Microsoft plans to discontinue Live OneCare once the Morro software is ready.

No specific date has been given for when Morro will be released, but in the past Microsoft has said it would be out by the end of 2009 at the latest.

Microsoft said Morro would tackle viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.

Janice Chaffin, Symantec's president of consumer products, said customers wanted more than just basic protection.

"A full internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected," she said.

Security software for home PCs typically cost around £30-40 and often allow users to install protections on more than one computer.

Other companies, such as AVG and Alwil already produce and distribute free anti-virus products.

Fake help

In its latest update, Microsoft added code that detects and deletes the widespread Internet Antivirus Pro family of fake security software programs.

Such programs, also known as scareware, have been proving more popular with hi-tech criminals in recent months.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group estimated that there were 9,287 bogus anti-malware program in circulation in December 2008 - a rise of 225% since January 2008.

The US government has moved to shut down some companies peddling the programs that falsely claim to find malicious software on PCs and then charge for the non-existent threats to be removed.

In addition, the Internet Antivirus Pro software displays fake Windows security messages to try and trick people into thinking the product is legitimate. The software also contains a password stealer that watches where people go online and grabs login data

Hackers Steal Secrets Of US Strike Fighter

Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's £200bn Joint Strike Fighter project and copied information about its design and electronics systems.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said intruders were able to copy and siphon off data potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.

The breach follows similar hacking attempts on the US air traffic control system.

Former US officials say the attacks appear to have originated in China although the exact identity of the hacker is unknown.

The scope of the damage to the US defence programme, either in financial or security terms, also remains unclear.

While the spies were able to download sizeable amounts of data related to the jet fighter, they were not able to access the most sensitive material.

This is stored on computers not connected to the internet.

The Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the costliest and most technically challenging weapons programme the Pentagon has ever attempted.

Britain announced it would purchase three of the aircraft for operational testing earlier this year.

The plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp, relies on 7.5 million lines of computer code.

The Government Accountability Office says this is more than triple the amount used in the current top Air Force fighter.

Six current and former officials familiar with the matter confirmed that the fighter programme had been repeatedly broken into.

And the Air Force has launched an investigation.

The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the US and potential adversaries over data networks.

A recent WSJ report said computers used to control the US electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies abroad.

Attacks like these - or US awareness of them - appear to have escalated in the past six months, said one former official briefed on the matter.

"There's never been anything like it," the source said, adding that other military and civilian agencies as well as private companies are being affected.

"It's everything that keeps this country going."

BT to roll-out faster broadband

BT Broadband is boosting the speeds of millions of its customers to up to 20 megabits per second at no extra cost.

The rollout is part of the firm's planned upgrade of lines to so-called ADSL2+ technology.

The firm said the rollout would start with 40% of the UK this summer and reach 55% of customers by March 2010.

Existing customers will have to sign a new 12-month contract to get the boost, while throttling of video streams in peak hours for some customers remains.

Earlier this week BT was criticised when it was revealed it cut the speed of customers on its cheapest broadband package to below 1Mbps in peak hours when using services like the iPlayer and YouTube.

That so-called traffic management will remain in place with the new speeds.

Download caps for the cheapest two packages, of 10 gigabytes and 20 gigabytes, will also continue, the firm said.

In a statement, Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer, BT Retail, said: "Unlike other providers, BT is upgrading customers to 20Mb/s for free. High-speed broadband provides a faster and more reliable service that will transform the way we live, work, learn and play."

BT said it was starting trials of its fibre optic 40Mbps service in Whitchurch, South Wales and Muswell Hill, London this summer, with the aim of offering these speeds to 40% of the country in the future.

The speed boost to 20Mbps is less than the firm's originally stated aims of offering up to 24Mbps.

On its website, BT says in tests "we've found that only a tiny number of customers can actually get 24Mb".