Rivals bid to snatch green domain

Rival environmental groups are lining up supporters to try to take control of a new net domain aimed at green groups.

At least two consortiums are known to be preparing bids to control .eco.

In March this year, former US vice president Al Gore backed a bid by the California group Dot Eco to operate the so-called "top level domain" (TLD).

But now a Canadian environmental group known as Big Room has launched a competing bid to manage the TLD, which is similar to .com or .uk.

Both firms plan to apply to Icann - the regulatory body that oversees domain names - for the creation of .eco early in 2010.

"We're two different applicants with two different business ideas," Minor Childers, co-founder of Dot Eco, told BBC News.

"Ours is to sell domain names to raise funds for organisations who can affect change."

He said the group had already entered into contracts with its supporters - such as the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Climate Protection - to give away 57% of its profits from sales.

"We could be one of the biggest contributors to environmental causes anywhere in the world," said Mr Childers.

'Sole focus'

Big Room also plans to generate money from the sale of .eco domain names to fund "sustainability projects around the world".

However, the consortium, which includes WWF International and Green Cross, also believe that .eco could be used as a labelling system to endorse companies with green credentials.

".eco should mean something and it should be about something more than just another domain," Trevor Bowden told BBC News.

Companies and organisations that apply for .eco domains through Big Room would have to meet certain criteria to be granted a web address.

For example, the company may have to measure and publish its carbon footprint to apply.

"This could evolve over time - this is not about us deciding what is green and what is not," said Mr Bowden.

The criteria would be drawn up with the help of international organisations, he said.

Mr Bowden envisages that the companies would use the .eco sites to publish all of their green information.

"We think transparency is a really powerful tool," he said.

Mr Childers said that his scheme would also require applicants to prove their green credentials but would probably not be as strict.

"It's unrealistic to think that you will get a lot of sign-ups if you're too restrictive," he said.

"I think our websites should give the opportunity for the 13-year-old environmentalist to have a website as well as a business," he said.

Despite having differences about a model for .eco, Mr Childers said that both groups would "definitely have to sit down" together at some point.

"My only problem is that I think labelling is a really poor use of this opportunity," he said.

The .eco domain has been made possible because of a relaxation on Icann's strict rules on top-level domain names.

The decision, made last year, means that companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.

As a result, either group could apply for a different domain.

However, for the moment, both sides have one goal.

".eco is our sole focus," said Mr Bowden.

by :Jonathan Fildes

Web attack blogger blames Russia

A blogger who was targeted in a co-ordinated attack against websites such as Facebook and Twitter has told the BBC he blames Russia for the assault.

The pro-Georgian blogger, known as Cyxymu, said he had been targeted for "telling the truth about the Russian-Georgian war" in his writings.

The attack caused a blackout of Twitter for about two hours on Thursday.

Despite the blogger's claims, security researchers say there is "no suggestion the attack was state-endorsed".

Google, Facebook and blogging platform Live Journal - all sites where Cyxymu had accounts - were also affected.

"I write the truth about the Russian-Georgian war and somebody did not like these truths - these people in Russia," the blogger told BBC News.

"I don't know which people," he added.

The blogger, real name Georgy, has posted videos and blogs which criticise Russia over its conduct in the war over the South Ossetia region, which began one year ago.

"It's a big surprise to me that my blog has meant that 250m people have not been able to enter Facebook," he said.

Graham Cluley, of security firm Sophos, told BBC News there was no suggestion the attack against the blogger was state-endorsed.

"It was almost certainly an individual who took objection to his blogs," he said.

"They took internet vigilantism into their own hands to try to blast him off the web, but in the process blasted Twitter off instead."

'Fragile service'

Facebook had previously confirmed to BBC News that the attacks were directed at an individual who had "a presence on a number of sites, rather than the sites themselves".

"A botnet was directed to request his pages at such a rate that it impacted service for other users," the spokesperson said.


DOT.LIFE BLOG
'Up is down, left is right and black is white,' a chief security researcher told me. 'These attacks do not make sense'

Read Maggie Shiels blog

Botnets are networks of computers under the control of hackers.

The machines were used to mount a so-called denial-of-service (DOS) attack on Thursday.

DOS attacks take various forms but often involve a company's servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

"Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways and, in this case, Twitter, for intended customers or users," wrote Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on his blog.

Twitter was knocked out by the attack for around two hours, while Facebook said its service had been "degraded". The effect on Live Journal is unclear.

Only Google seems to have escaped unscathed from the attack.

"Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services," the company said in a statement.

Sudden realisation

The company has not confirmed which services were targeted in the attack, but it is thought that its e-mail service Gmail and video site YouTube were under fire.
Twitter status screenshot
Twitter updated users via a status page

"We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by [an]... attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack," the company said.

All of the affected services were keen to stress that users' data had not been put at risk in the attacks.

"Please note that no user data was compromised in this attack," wrote Twitter's Biz Stone.

"This activity is about saturating a service with so many requests that it cannot respond to legitimate requests thereby denying service to intended customers or users."

The blogger said he first noticed that things were not right when he realised his Live Journal page was not working.

"After, I entered Facebook to say Live Journal was not working and Facebook was down," he told BBC News.

"So I entered Twitter to say that Live Journal and Facebook were not working, and Twitter was down.

"And so I understood that it was under attack. It is not possible that these three services were all down at one time."

He told the BBC that he still did not have access to his blog or profile pages on any of the services. However, he said, he had set up a new blog to continue his writings.
By :Jonathan Fildes

Report: EU ombudsman criticizes Intel antitrust regulators

The European Union's ombudsman has criticized the antitrust regulator in a recent case against Intel, saying the regulator did not include evidence that was potentially exculpatory for the chipmaker, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

In May, Intel was fined 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) for engaging in, according to the Commission, illegal anticompetitive practices to exclude competitors from the market for computer chips based on the x86 architecture--the design that both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices use in their microprocessors.

"Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years," competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement at the time.

The investigation was driven by complaints from rival AMD.

The ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, chided the Commission for "maladministration" by not formally citing an August 2006 meeting between Commission investigators and a senior Dell executive, according to the Friday report in the Journal. The Dell executive was providing evidence in the case and "is believed to have told investigators that Dell viewed the performance of Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. as 'very poor,'" according to the report.

The Journal report concludes that this "could imply that Dell chose Intel chips for technical reasons, rather than because it was muscled into doing so." This would contradict the formal EU decision that claimed that PC manufacturers bought chips from Intel strictly because they did not want to forfeit hefty rebates from Intel.

The ombudsman cannot change the outcome of the case, according to the report.

Intel did not comment.
by : Brooke Crothers

Google buys video technology firm

Google has announced a deal to buy On2 Technologies, which provides technology that should help improve video quality on the internet search engine.

The deal for $106.5m (£62.7) should be concluded later this year, subject to On2 shareholder approval.

On2's technology helps shrink video files, allowing high definition images to be delivered over the internet.

"We believe high quality video should be part of the web platform," said Sundar Pichai at Google.

"We are committed to innovation in video quality on the web, and we believe that On2's team and technology will help us further that goal," he added.

Current On2 customers include Adobe, Skype, Nokia and Sony.

Google is the undisputed leader in internet search engines.

Last week, technology giant Microsoft and website Yahoo announced a tie-up designed to break Google's stranglehold.

By: BBC

Lenovo makes third straight loss

Lenovo, the world's fourth largest personal computer maker, has reported a loss and says it has not seen the bottom of the economic downturn.

The Chinese company made a loss of $16m (£9.4m) between April and June, its third straight quarterly loss, compared with a profit of £110m a year ago.

The main reason was a big fall in sales, which fell to $3.5bn, down almost 20% from a year earlier.

The results were, however, better than analysts had expected.

"Lenovo showed strong progress this last quarter but we still face numerous challenges," said the company's chief executive Yang Yuanqing.

But Mr Yang said that the downturn was making trading conditions tough.

"The global economic crisis continues to significantly impact our core commercial customers. We cannot say we have seen the bottom of the global downturn," he added.

Indeed the drop in sales was largely due companies reining in their spending.

"There's little evidence of a pick-up in corporate spending, and that's the biggest worry," said Edward Yen at UBS.

By : BBC