Mediaboss Marketing

Published: Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 11:01 a.m. MST

VERNAL — Computers of all makes and models sit on shelves in the back room at Techris Design, waiting to have the harmful content that's built up on their hard drives removed.

That's the bulk of the small repair shop's business.

"Ninety percent of the work that we do is virus removal and repair," owner Ted Munford said. 

Munford and others in his line of work could be extremely busy in the next few weeks, thanks to a piece of malware that federal prosecutors allege was created by a group of Estonian cyber criminals.

In November, the FBI and police in Estonia wrapped up Operation Ghost Click, which resulted in the arrest and indictment of six Estonian nationals. The group had compromised millions of computers around the world with a bug known as DNSChanger.

The malicious software — known in the industry as "malware" — changed the Domain Name Server, or DNS, for a targeted website, redirecting Internet users from the sites they were seeking to other sites. Federal authorities say the Estonians sent Web surfers to these ghost sites, which featured specific advertisements, then collected an estimated $16 million from the advertisers for the extra Web traffic.

DNSChanger also shut down antivirus software on infected machines, exposing them to the potential for additional harm.

The FBI took the group's rogue servers offline. The bureau then obtained a court order to set up "clean servers" as a means of keeping individual users, companies and government agencies with infected computers from immediately losing access to the Internet.

But the court order is set to expire March 8, and there are still a large number of infected computers, many in the United States alone.

Internet Identity, a computer security firm based in Tacoma, Wash., released the results of a DNSChanger survey earlier this month. It showed that more than half of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. have at least one infected computer or Internet router in their systems, as do 27 of 55 major U.S. government agencies.

Internet Identity CEO Lars Harvey declined to identify which companies or agencies are affected when contacted Monday by the Deseret News. Nondisclosure was one of the terms the firm had to agree to in order to obtain information for its survey, he said.

The FBI, however, identified NASA as one of the government agencies that had infected computers.

But the greatest threat isn't to government or big business, Harvey said.

"Most of the (infected) computers belong to home users or small businesses," he said, adding that the alleged cyber criminals "weren't targeting agencies or large enterprises, but they got caught up in it."

See the article here:
Internet could go dark for millions if court order expires

Redditors are well known for posting memes, self-referencing jokes and collecting upvotes and karma. But writing legislation to protect the Internet? That's something new, and it's happening at "r/fia," a Reddit community that's writing the Free Internet Act, or FIA.

The goal of the act is stated on the sidebar of the subreddit:

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"To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by preventing the restriction of liberty and preventing the means of censorship. FIA will allow internet users to browse freely without any means of censorship, users have the right to free speech and to free knowledge; we govern the content of the internet, governments don't. However enforcements/laws must also be put into place to protect copyrighted content."

Austrian Reddit user and apparent Pulp Fiction aficionado "RoyalWithCheese22" started FIA. Royal's inspiration came from concern about global internet censorship and bills such as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act).

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"My initial idea came up when I noticed all these laws popping up," says Royal. "I got the impression it’s a worldwide trend of people trying to clamp down on the Internet. I thought, inspired by the recent success Reddit had with SOPA and PIPA, maybe I should suggest another solution to this. One that not just deals with a single law or proposed treaty but one that handles all of that."

Royal was quick to point out that while he may be a moderator of the subreddit, he doesn't proclaim himself to be the director of the FIA movement.

"I’m not the leader, this is a real community project," he says. "Whatever the community decides will be done."

Another Reddit user, "Downing_Street_Cat" (who hails from the UK) saw Royal's original FIA post and started the subreddit dedicated to the cause.

"We’re aiming to create a piece of legislation that’s international and that promotes Internet freedom that prevents bills such as SOPA and ACTA," says Downing_Street_Cat.

The current draft reads like a cross between a congressional bill and an international treaty.

FIA calls for protecting the Internet against government censorship and protecting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and users from being held liable for hosting or viewing copyrighted content without their knowledge. It demands network neutrality, while also calling for users to receive notification before data is removed from "web pages or cloud storage."

After those provisions, which sound like they could be found in domestic legislation, FIA gets international. It states that "laws of individual countries (who have signed this treaty) shall not be applicable to the Internet," and "no country shall have reigning power over the Internet." It also completely bars extradition for Internet-related crimes, requiring those convicted of a crime to be tried "in the court of their residing country."

"I hope for a global treaty," says Royal. "A global treaty to guarantee Internet freedom, to guarantee there will not be excessive censorship and third party liability."

It remains to be seen whether the provisions of FIA stand a chance of making it into law. And neither Royal nor Downing_Street_Cat want the community to be closed to legal experts only.

"We want to make it open source so anyone can join," says Downing_Street_Cat.

As for Royal, he sees FIA as an undertaking in preserving democracy.

"The Internet is just a means to get what I really want," he says. "My main goal is democracy. I think the Internet is one of the greatest inventions ever made. It’s the first time I see a real possibility for democracy in the world."

It's not entirely unexpected that the Reddit community would organize such an innovative political undertaking. Redditors were instrumental in drumming up online opposition to SOPA and PIPA, and the site was one of the first to announce a Jan. 18 blackout to protest those bills. And "pro-Internet" politicians, such as Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, have made "AMA" appearances (a public, text-based Interview) on Reddit.

Crowdsourcing legislation is not new, either. Last year, citizens of Iceland crowdsourced a new constitution. Royal credits Iceland's experiment with providing some inspiration for FIA.

“I think it’s a great idea to have people write the actual laws,” he says.

Do you think the Free Internet Act will have an impact on actual law? Sound off in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Upvote This: Reddit Users Are Writing a Law to Protect the Internet

SEOUL, KOREA and SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire -02/21/12)- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO - News) today announced that LG U+, the leading total telecommunication service provider in Korea, will trial two Cisco mobile Internet solutions to deliver voice, video and messaging services to LG U+'s rapidly growing number of 4G long-term evolution (LTE) customers.

The Cisco® V2oLTE (Voice and Video over Long-Term Evolution) solution, based on the Cisco ASR 5000 Series multimedia core platform, will help LG U+ meet the performance challenge of carrying voice traffic over LTE. Cisco provides a complete solution for V2oLTE that includes the industry's highest-performing Call Session Control Function, unique deployment flexibility and a comprehensive application layer portfolio.

Highlights/Key Facts

VoLTE is a standard way of delivering voice and messaging services for Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network, which is an all Internet Protocol (IP) system. The system utilizes IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) specifications as its basis. LTE is a wireless broadband technology that supports roaming Internet access via mobile phones and devices. It has been labeled fourth-generation, or 4G, technology because of its download speeds and quality are superior to existing 2G and 3G networks. LG U+ is experiencing rapid growth in 4G LTE devices. As LG U+ approaches millions of LTE customers, it needed a high-performance solution to manage the resulting growth in signaling traffic. With its industry-leading scalability and reliability, the Cisco ASR 5000 Series provides LG U+ with a cost-effective increase in performance and capacity without adding a large amount of additional equipment. The Cisco ASR 5000 Series provides significant cost savings for LG U+, as it reduces the number of Call Session Control Function nodes in the network, a central component to signaling and control within the LG U+'s IP IMS network. In addition, the Cisco ASR 5000 Series has the control-plane capacity to handle message floods during mass registration events and increasing amount of control traffic that is occurring as smart devices and applications proliferate. The Cisco ASR 5000 Series is also designed specifically for mobile broadband networks and features a distributed architecture with maximum scalability and integrated intelligence. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) mobile data traffic in Korea will grow eightfold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 50 percent. Overall, in Korea, mobile data traffic is expected to grow two times as fast as fixed IP traffic from 2011 to 2016. This rapid growth raises the demand for high-quality mobile broadband networks.

Supporting Quotes

Chang Woo Lee, senior vice president, Network Operations, LG U+
"LG U+ has always prided itself on the quality of its voice services, and we expect to provide the same level of quality to our 4G LTE customers. We expect the Cisco V2oLTE solution will help enable us deliver the highest levels of performance, quality and reliability to our customers -- anytime, anywhere." Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Internet Technology Group, Cisco
"We are proud to be a part of LG U+'s efforts to improve its IP IMS network for the benefit of its customers. We look forward to working with LG U+ over the coming months to develop and deploy these innovative Cisco Mobile Internet solutions."

Embedded Photos

Cisco ASR 5000 Series Kelly Ahuja

Supporting Resources

Tags/keywords: Cisco, mobile Internet, MOVE, Voice and Video over Long Term Evolution, V2oLTE, LTE, Aggregation Service Routers, ASR, ASR 5000, 4G, mobile video, Visual Networking Index Forecast, VNI, Kelly Ahuja, LG U+, Chang Woo Lee

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About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO - News) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

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LG U+ Trials Cisco Mobile Internet Solutions for Voice-over-LTE

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

After years of development, China’s mobile Internet industry has entered a period of rapid growth and overall consolidation.

I. Overview of China’s Mobile Internet Industry

By the end of 2010, China's mobile Internet industry was worth RMB 293.69 billion, and the figure for 2011 is expected to top RMB 400 billion.

The year 2011 witnessed an emerging trend of consolidation in China’s mobile Internet industry. In August, Google took over Motorola Mobile; in December, Nokia announced it would abandon Symbian OS. All these incidents signified that the mobile Internet industry has entered a period of overall consolidation.

In addition, mobile Internet has been included in the strategic emerging industries of China, which gives a strong driving force for its rapid growth and overall consolidation.

II. A Nationwide Mobile Internet Industry Taking Shape in 2011

Geographic pattern: The key regions are located in the south, the north and the west. China's mobile Internet industry is largely clustered in four regions: the Pearl River Delta in the south, the Circum-Bohai Sea in the north, the Yangtze River Delta in the east and the West Triangle centered on Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi'an, which altogether contribute more than 90% of the industry’s total output.

Structural pattern: The industry has experienced a rapid growth, with mobile terminals in the dominant position. In July 2011, there were 318 million mobile Internet users in China. In 2010, the country’s output value of mobile terminals came to RMB 215.57 billion. While the mobile terminal industry remained in the dominant position in 2011, the mobile software and application industries also experienced a noticeable growth.

Investment pattern: Enterprise investment is active, while direct government investment is rarely seen. In China, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises are the major investors of the mobile Internet industry, while the government only funds a number of state projects initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology. In the first half of 2011 alone, there were as many as 31 disclosed investment deals in mobile Internet, among which 24 had a total disclosed value of $318 million.

III. Four Noteworthy Trends of Mobile Internet in 2012

Supporting technology: Bandwidth of telecommunications networks determines the carrying capacity of the mobile Internet. By September 2011, 237 operators had launched the LTE service, covering commercial use, trial use, testing and research. In the future, TD-LTE will reach 2.7 billion people in China, India and Japan. The broadband telecommunications networks will provide bandwidth guarantee for a wide range of mobile Internet software and applications.

Terminal technology: Innovative mobile smart terminals integrating mobile cloud services will be widely applied. In the future, the "cloud + client" model featuring "strong background" and "thin client" will become a key trend for the innovative mobile smart terminals.

OS: Smart terminal OS will become a crucial area in the mobile Internet industry. Google's Android and Apple's iOS have become two mainstream operating systems for mobile terminals. With the rise of the new-generation Web technology HTML5 and cloud computing technology, Web capabilities have expanded dramatically. How can controllable and proprietary mobile OS be developed? There is much to do to explore the development method and trend of OS.

Security issues: With the speeding popularization of mobile Internet applications, information security issues become conspicuous. As users use the mobile Internet on mobile devices, hackers have set eyes on the platform, and security has become a key topic. Mobile information security at user, network and national security levels is likely to draw great attention.

About CCID Consulting Co., Ltd.

CCID Consulting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter known as CCID Consulting), the first Chinese consulting firm listed in the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKSE: 08235) and the first consulting firm which gets ISO 9001 international and national quality management system standard certification, is directly affiliated to China Center for Information Industry Development (hereinafter known as CCID Group). Headquartered in Beijing, CCID Consulting has so far set up branch offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi’an, Wuhan and Nanjing with over 300 professional consultants after many years of development. The company’s business scope has covered over 200 large and medium-sized cities in China. With its powerful industrial resources, information technology and data channels, CCID Consulting provides customers with public policy establishment, industry competitiveness upgrade, development strategy and planning, marketing strategy and research, HR management, IT programming and management services, investment and financing, and M&A. The company's customers range from government departments at all levels and diversified industrial parks, to industrial users in strategic emerging industries in new generation information technology, energy saving and environmental protection, biological science and technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, and new energy. CCID Consulting commits itself to become the No. 1 advisor for urban economy, the No. 1 consultancy for enterprise management, and the No. 1 brand for informatization consulting in China.

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CCID Consulting: China’s Mobile Internet Industry to See Rapid Growth & Overall Consolidation

Santa Barbara, CA, Feb. 21, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cocoon, a free Internet privacy and security software developed by Virtual World Computing, protects from tracking cookies by Google, Facebook, and other online companies.

"We feel that Google Inc. and other popular Internet companies have been allowed too much access to Internet users' computers and personal data," said Vernon Irvin, President and CEO of Virtual World Computing. "Last week, the FTC was asked to investigate Google for Safari cookies, and yesterday, Microsoft claimed Google is doing much the same thing with Internet Explorer. Facebook and many other sites are also tracking user data. Internet users should be informed that there are tools available, such as Cocoon, that give Internet consumers control of their private information."

The Cocoon software prevents Internet users from directly touching a more privacy invasive Internet. Consumers' online privacy is protected because websites and advertisers only see Cocoon's Digital Protection Cloud(TM), hiding unique IP address and preventing online activity from being tracked by cookies. Unlike traditional anti-virus software, Cocoon prevents malicious software and virus downloads by instantly scanning files for viruses before they reach the computer. Additionally, Cocoon offers disposable email addresses, protecting personal email boxes from spam and phishing attacks.

Firefox and Internet Explorer users can easily download the free plug-in, which instantly provides users with greater privacy protection and security when surfing the Web. Cocoon works by securely connecting over any network to Cocoon's servers, providing enterprise-grade virus protection and encrypting all interactions to prevent cookies and other tracking.

For more information, or to download Cocoon for Internet Explorer or Firefox, please visit http://www.GetCocoon.com.

About Cocoon:

Cocoon's Digital Protection Cloud(TM) secures your online privacy and keeps you safe from predators with a unique combination of data encryption and filtering technologies accessible from any device. Cocoon's Triple Play Digital Protection(TM) keeps you safe from viruses, theft and tracking by filtering all your Internet browsing through your own private, secure online cloud.

Virtual World Computing (VWC), creator of Cocoon, was founded in 2008 and is dedicated to creating a safe and private Internet experience.

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Cocoon Protects Internet Explorer Users from Google's Tracking Cookies