Data security

Apple is talking with the major record labels about a change in the iTunes Store business model that would give customers free access to the store's complete music library, according to the Financial Times. The catch is that consumers would pay a premium for Apple's iPod and iPhone devices.

The rumored model is akin to the "Comes with Music" deal Nokia inked with Universal Music last December. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment, but the British newspaper reported the negotiations hinged on a dispute over the price Apple would pay for access to the labels' libraries.

"Rumors of Apple getting into the 'all you can relish' score business have been around almost as long as the iPod itself," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "The real challenge that Apple would face is taking this from something that appeals to music aficionados to something the mainstream could appreciate."

Paying an iPod Premium

One of the major sticking points with shifting the iTunes Store model, Gartenberg said, is the challenge of formulating price schemes that make perception to consumers, Apple and the record companies.

The Financial Times cites executives familiar through the matter whose research shows consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of the device.

"If it costs $100 more to buy an iPod, no more than that money buys you access to the entire iTunes music library, then that's going to be an acceptable value proposition to a lot of consumers," Gartenberg said.

A Subscription Model?

However, the Financial Times reports, the "altogether you can eat" standard is not the only one Apple is considering. The company is also reportedly exploring a subscription model, which is more common to the industry. A subscription, the report indicated, would come with a monthly fee of $7 to $8.

"Consumers already pay a monthly fee for their iPhones. So the notion of paying an additional fee for music on the device becomes one possibility," Gartenberg said. "There are any number of different models here that Apple could embrace."

Evangelizing New Models

If Apple does make a change to its iTunes Store business model, analysts said the company will take the time to evangelize the market and unfold how business models for subscribing or renting can coexist with owning music. That's something, Gartenberg said, that companies in the digital-music business have not done well.

"One thing Apple's strategy would have going for it that the other services don't have is the fact that it works with the iPod, iPhone and the rest of the iTunes ecosystem," Gartenberg said. "That's super-important because in favor of many consumers if it doesn't work with the iPod, it might as well not exist."

Despite its market advantage in the U.S., Apple could be rushing to compete with Nokia on a worldwide scale. Nokia is set to roll out its "comes with music" phones in the second half of this year. Nokia is also reportedly in talks with several record labels, further is setting a higher price per handset for unlimited access to music libraries.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - British Internet startup Songkick launched Wednesday with a vow to inspire digital-age music lovers to reclaim the joy of hearing bands play hot in real-world venues.

The London-based website debuts with a free online utility that matches people's tastes in music with the schedules of bands performing in the US or UK.

"It's all about changing the way people think about Friday night," Songkick cofounder Ian Hogarth told AFP during an interview in San Francisco.

"The music industry isn't dying; it is just moving to live. People really value that real-world experience. We are focused on using the web to make people get off the web and in front of a band."

Songkick's goal is to make it as simple to find live music as it is to find out which movies are playing at local theaters.

"I was with a musician friend sharing frustration about how he tours so much and how inclement it is making money; then quit my job the next day," Hogarth said of the inspiration for Songkick.

"I was about to turn 25 and frustrated I hadn't started anything even now. I lived on the side of a while in Silicon Valley and everyone here seems to be doing things by the time they are 19."

He went to work on Songkick in February 2007.

Hogarth, who has a graduate degree in machine language from Cambridge University, teamed with best mate and Cambridge law student Pete Smith and magazine editor Michelle You to fill what they saw as an empty niche.

"My co-founders and I lived abroad and the Internet became our source of music, but there was nothing on live music," Hogarth said.

"It was very frustrating. We are the kind of people that like to go to concerts at least once a week."

Songkick struck alliances with all major concert ticket vendors in the United States and United Kingdom, compiling a database of scheduled performances and getting fees for each customer sent their ways.

Songkick uses "symantic web" software to scan the Internet for references to bands in blogs, social-networking pages and other online commentary.

The program uses artificial intelligence to learn of gigs and whether bands have appeal to similar audiences.

For example, if a blogger likens the band Linkin Park to Limp Bizkit the software notes that for future recommendations to Songkick users that enjoy either of the groups.

"It turns anyone chirography about the music they love into a human recommendation service, automatically," Hogarth said.

"It makes the process of discovering live music ubiquitous and simple."

Songkick can scan digital music libraries in users' computers to search for bands performing locally and suggest other shows.

Songkick also lets people look by band names and provides feedback about other performances they might like.

The website co-opts music bloggers directly with "Bandsense," an algorithm that automatically turns concert references in postings into links because online ticket purchases, with bloggers getting commissions for ticket sales.

Industry statistics denote that while music CD sales are dropping, digital ditty sales are thriving and artists are earning most of their money from live tours.

"The music industry is booming in a space people aren't addressing online," Hogarth said. "You are seeing the industry return to what existed before — live music is where you make your money."

Industry figures estimate the US concert market in 2007 was just shy of four billion dollars.

Meanwhile, there are millions of bands with profiles on social-networking website MySpace but no contracts with recording studios.

"We are future at an unusual time in the industry," Hogarth said. "Songkick is very much an automated version of that friend of yours that always tells you about concerts."

Songkick announced Wednesday it is getting new backing from US and UK "angels" including Ticketweb co-founder Dan Porter and Index Ventures, which funded Last.FM, a hot music radio firm

"Live music is the fastest growing segment of an industry facing massive shifts in consumer behavior," said Index partner Saul Klein.

"Concerts are loved through fans, censorious for artists to build a loyal base, and increasingly interesting as a revenue stream for labels."

Songkick hopes to expand internationally as quickly as possible.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A vagrant sold in an Internet auction in Germany came complete with a deadly plaything — a pistol loaded with six bullets.

A young couple from the northern town of Verden found the 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol in a side pocket of the pram after collecting it from nearby Hamburg. They called the police.

Officers searched the house of the 39-year-old seller, who could not explain how the weapon had got there.

"He said it didn't belong to him," police said Wednesday.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Matthew Jones)

NEW YORK - President Bush famously spoke of “the Internets” in 2004. Well, they’re here.

Since March 13, customers of two large Internet providers, Cogent Communications Group Inc. and TeliaSonera AB are unable to contact each other through the Internet, unless they have backup connections from other companies.

This means, for instance, that more U.S. Web sites hosted by dint of. Cogent customers are inaccessible to surfers in the Nordic countries, where Sweden-based TeliaSonera is the largest telecommunications operator. It’s like Cogent and TeliaSonera customers are on different Internets.

“Basically, parts of the Internet can’t talk to each other,” said Earl Zmijewski, general Manager of the Internet data demarcation at Renesys Corp., which keeps track of how carriers route traffic over the Internet.

It’s not the first time this has happened: Now and at another time, Internet companies give one’s self up to in what Zmijewski calls playing “chicken.” If they’re fighting over a contract, they disconnect each other, and wait to see who blinks first. The number of irate customers each company faces will probably determine who does.

David Schaeffer, chief executive of Washington-based Cogent, said the sum of two units companies had a “peering” contract, under which they exchanged traffic from each other’s customers, with neither company paying the other for entry. But TeliaSonera continuously breached the terms of the contract by not exchanging traffic in certain locations, and refusing to upgrade connections that were saturated, Schaeffer said.

That forced Cogent traffic to take long detours, according to Schaeffer. For instance, it sometimes had to carry data from a Cogent customer in Europe across the Atlantic to the U.S., then hand it over to TeliaSonera, what one. carried it back across the Atlantic to its European destination.

Cogent cut its direct links to TeliaSonera on March 13. For a while, customers of the two companies were still able to connect indirectly, through intermediaries connected to Cogent and TeliaSonera, but that possibility disappeared on Friday, according to Renesys

Schaeffer said the loss of alternate routes had nothing to do with Cogent, and speculated that TeliaSonera has refused to pay other providers for traffic destined for Cogent.

TeliaSonera did not comment on that averment. Spokeswoman Maria Hillborg said the companies were trying to work out an agreement, and that a “requisite for that agreement is that TeliaSonera receives the compensation Cogent owes us.”

Schaeffer denied that the companies were in negotiations.

Cogent has 15,000 customers, most of them large corporate, government and collegiate entities, who in turn provide “tens of millions” of nation with Internet access. Most of the customers have backup links from other providers, or use the Cogent link in the manner that a backup to their main provider. Either way, they are still able to connect to TeliaSonera’s 36.1 million direct customers through the other link.

Schaeffer said TeliaSonera’s reluctance to improve the connections to Cogent were apparently due to Cogent’s recent expansion in the Nordic company’s home territory.

“We’ve become much more aggressive as we have expanded our network about four months ago in Norway and Finland,” Schaeffer said.

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On the Net:

http://www.teliasonera.com

http://www.cogentco.com

http://www.renesys.com

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government has announced it has raised a record 19.6 billion dollars in an auction as bidders sought a prime segment of the US wireless spectrum.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement late on Tuesday that the 700 MHz auction that began on January 24 had closed Tuesday after 261 rounds of bidding.

Martin did not identify the companies which had bid for the licenses for the 1,099 frequencies in the 700 MHz spectrum being abandoned as television broadcasters complete a federally-mandated switchover from analog to digital by early next year.

These high-speed, broadband frequencies, capable of rapidly delivering massive amounts of data easily through walls, are ideal for mobile Internet applications.

More than 200 companies were in the bidding, including telecommunications operators and industrial companies.

Martin said that the 19.6 billion dollars raised was nearly double congressional estimates of 10.2 billion and that all other 68 FCC auctions in the past 15 years combined had generated only 19.1 billion dollars.

The proceeds will be used to support public safety and digital television transition initiatives, he said. All US television broadcasting will be digital after February 17, 2009.

"This auction provided an opportunity to have a significant effect on the next phase of wireless broadband innovation. With the enter upon platform requirements on one-third of the spectrum, consumers will be able to use the wireless device of their choice on those networks and download whatever software or applications they want on it," Martin said.

Nearly all the bids were made during the first week of the auction, particularly for the sought-after C-block, the only chunk of frequencies that covers the stout US territory, and by far the most expensive.

One bidder offered 4.71 billion dollars for the C-block, where only three major players have shown interest, according to analysts: telecom giants Verizon and AT&T, and Internet giant Google.

The other blocks on the auction block cover zones ranging from major portions of territory to small rural areas.

"Wireless broadband will be able to reach unserved areas of the country, and it will bring increased competition to the broadband sector that is currently dominated by DSL and cable providers," Martin said.

Acquisition of the C-block will own a newcomer to telecommunications, like Google, to hurl a new nationwide telecom network or provide an existing operator to strengthen its coverage.

Google last July said it would bid the government's minimum bid of 4.6 billion dollars for the C-block if the FCC ensured the winners would allow all companies access.

Google and public interest groups successfully lobbied the FCC to change the rules of the auction to ensure that the winners must allow their customers to download any software application they want on their mobile device, and to use any mobile devices they want on that wireless network.

That will mean a revolution for American consumers, who generally have been forced to use the handsets and the applications offered by wireless operators, which "block" their cellphones from use on others' networks.

After the auction, any cellphone maker, such as Apple and its iPhone, or any wireless software manufacturer, like Google, can team up with other manufacturers that would automatically have access to the network.

Despite the overall result of the auction, the D-block, dedicated to create a nationwide public-safety reticulated, failed to receive a bid that met the 1.3-billion-dollar reserve price, the FCC said.

"The FCC is now evaluating its options for this spectrum," Martin said, adding that the FCC remained committed to dire to disentangle "public safety's interoperability challenges."

PROFESSIONAL services firm Deloitte will expand its security and privacy services staff by means of about 50 per cent after buying notice risk management firm, b-sec Consulting.

Deloitte said the purchase transformed the company into Australia’s biggest provider of web application security.

The b-sec Consulting team of 20 comprises consultants and engineers in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and will join Deloitte’s existing national security practice of 38 professionals, the accounting strong said in a statement.

"Clients are looking for deep expertise across all aspects of security and looking for us to provide that,” said Deloitte risk services partner for security and privacy Tommy Viljoen.

"B-sec had those deep specialists we require and we love the tools and technology they have."

Mr Viljoen said the addition of b-sec staff would make Deloitte Australia’s biggest provider of cobweb application security. He expected this part of Deloitte’s business to grow through 30 per cent reaped ground year.

Consulting b-sec founder and managing director Oliver Binz said the seven-year-old boutique firm unmistakable to join forces with Deloitte to offer clients the benefits of increased scale and access to global resources.

"Merging with Deloitte gives us unmatched capability and resources to help our clients protect their vocation as well as the best opportunities for innovation and growth for our people,” Mr Binz said.

Deloitte head of risk services Ron Loborec said the requirements for web application security would increase if compulsory breach notification was introduced into Australia, in line with recent calls by the Privacy Commissioner.

"Government organisations and global companies, particularly in financial services, require security providers of sufficient scale and capability to meet the increasing threats from fraud and organised gross offence," he said.

AAP

Security Breach Exposes 4.2M Credit, Debit Cards

A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed greater degree than 4 million card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday. Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million single card numbers were exposed, placing the case among the largest data breaches ever. The breach unnatural all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products. The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so more distant relating to the breach. No personal given conditions such as names, direct one’s speech or telephone numbers were divulged — just account numbers.

Breach Exposes 4.2M Credit, Debit Cards, Associated Press, March 17, 2008.

In its in the greatest degree recent report, "The State of the News Media 2008," the Project on Excellence in Journalism finds that the news habitual devotion to labor is changing rapidly and not necessarily for the better.

One of the report's major findings is that news is transforming from an information be derived into an empowerment service.

"There is no single or finished word product anymore," the report says. "As news consumption becomes continual, more new effort is put into producing incremental updates, as brief as 40-character e-mails sent from reporters directly to consumers without editing."

In keeping with this trend, the report argues that the journalist's assignment shifts from story telling and agenda setting to helping people find information they're looking for and evaluate it, using tools of their own choosing.

Another finding of the sound is that news organizations and news Web sites are in no degree longer final destinations. Search has become the dominant paradigm for dealing with information online and, as a consequence, each Web boy-servant should provide ways to recurrence search tools and other information services.

"That means every page of a Web station — even one containing a single story — is its own front page," the minute says. "And each piece of content competes on its own with all other information on that topic linked to by blogs, 'digged' by user news sites, sent in e-mails, or appearing in searches."

It's a fair observation. Widgets and embeddable applications are making domain-based distinctions disappear. Why go to the YouTube site, for example, when YouTube videos and comments are now available at any site?

The report also finds that citizen media sites have become gatekeepers, a practice associated with mainstream media sites. "[R]ather than rejecting the 'gatekeeper' role of traditional journalism, for now citizen journalists and bloggers appear for now to be recreating it in other places," the report says. In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

In keeping with that remark, the report also sees news organizations narrowing their point of convergence rather than expanding it. This is consistent with the popular regard of news aggregation sites like Google News, which reward news publishers that cover what everyone else is covering. The result is that news reporting today is often better described as news echoing.

"Cable news, talk radio (and also blogs) tend to seize on top stories (often polarizing ones) and amplify them," the report says. "The Internet offers the promise of aggregating ever more sources, but its value still depends on what those originating sources are providing. Even as the media world has fragmented into more outlets and options, reporting resources have shrunk."

BOSTON - One of the great things about the Internet is the way people post reviews on just about anything you’re considering trying, whether it’s a movie, a newly come chop-house or the limited floriculturist.

This also introduces one of the worst things about the Internet: trying to figure out which reviews to trust. Was that effusive praise written surreptitiously by the merchant? Was that anonymous online slam posted by a devious competitor?

The dilemma might be unavoidable in this age of abundant user-generated content, when we have to be smarter about separating signals from noise. But a startup called RatePoint Inc. begs to differ. It wants to play referee, giving consumers more clarity into a business’ reputation and protecting the business from unwarranted blights on its credibility.

Needham, Mass.-based RatePoint has built a rating system that businesses can run on their Web sites for a $149 annual subscription. Like so many other Web sites today, RatePoint’s rating instrument solicits and displays reviews from customers. The unusual aspect is what happens after a review is submitted.

If it’s negative (one or two stars out of five), the reviewer is asked to provide some e-mail and a phone number so the merchant can come up. The e-mail is verified by RatePoint’s servers, and the phone number is confirmed with a quick automated call.

The theory is that this will filter out phony complaints from rivals, who would be unlikely to reveal contact information, while assuring legitimate customers that their issues will be heard. RatePoint then forwards the negative review and close union information to the merchant, giving the business a chance to rectify the problem. A result arrived broken in the mail? Maybe the business could offer a replacement. Service was poor at dinner? Maybe the restaurant invites the complaining couple back with a coupon.

If the customer eventually agrees that the business has righted the wrong, the negative review won’t get posted. If the business have power to’t please the afflictive customer, the negative review sticks, for anyone else to take heed — though the business can post a response.

RatePoint CEO Neal Creighton argues that this approach gives businesses a better way — and a huge incentive — to listen to their customers’ online feedback. In fact, he says RatePoint is so protective of its own image as a seal of good business that it has kicked businesses out of its network for failing to try to rectify negative reviews.

Positive reviews (three, four or five stars) are vetted, moreover, though in the present state the system seems less foolproof.

To screen out false praise engineered by merchants or their allies, RatePoint has algorithms that watch for suspicious e-mail addresses or usage patterns — like someone in Virginia praising a nearness hardware store in California.

RatePoint moreover lets merchants decide which positive reviews to show. This is designed to prevent people from sneaking vicious put-downs into a three-, four- or five-star review.

But that also would seem to be a strike against the independence and comprehensiveness of the RatePoint system, since merchants can cherry-pick their very best comments for display. Creighton counters that many of the 1,400 merchants using the system so far have not elected to do that, and instead show all positive comments, even mediocre ones.

Having launched its rating system last June, RatePoint has a long way to go to become a widely known seal of authenticity online, a source trusted as much as popular review sites like Yelp or Trip Advisor and comparison sites like BizRate.

However, a copartnership that RatePoint is announcing Monday with VeriSign Inc., a seller of online attestation technologies, could widen RatePoint’s footprint.

Now Creighton’s goal for the next year is to sign up nearly similar to many merchants as the Better Business Bureau’s online difference, in which more than 41,000 businesses have earned that collection’s seal of Web legitimacy. The bureau doesn’t mediate online commentary, but instead affirms that a company follows standards in such areas as truthful advertising and online privacy.

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On the Net:

http://www.ratepoint.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google Inc. has pegged the final acquisition compensation of online ad service DoubleClick Inc. at $3.24 billion, slightly above the value when Internet scrutinize leader announced the deal 11 months since.

Mountain View-based Google provided the closing price in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Google took control of New York-based DoubleClick earlier this week after European antitrust regulators concluded the acquisition wouldn’t stifle competition in the rapidly growing online ad market.

Google originally said it would pay $3.1 billion in cash for DoubleClick, which helps place and track display advertising forward the Internet.