Minister: "Legacy" landline charges should be abolished

Telecoms engineerImage copyrightPA
Homeowners signing up for broadband packages may be exempt from the rent on their land line if they do not use it, in accordance with the proposals to be discussed by the Minister of Culture.

Ed Vaizey said charges of about £ 18 per month are "obsolete."

He wants homeowners to pay only for those services that they use to describe the current system as "billing system analog in a digital world."

Minister welcomes BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky for discussion.

One in five home owners do not make fixed line calls, but have to pay for landline connections.

Mr Vaizey said: "If the company came up with a different pricing structure, that is fine, as long as consumers can see what they are paying."

According to the minister, ending hidden costs, such as line rentals may mean other products are becoming more expensive, but he wanted transparency around pricing.

Price confusion

Advertising watchdog, the ASA, and communications regulator, Ofcom's, need to introduce new rules on how such packages are sold in May, after a study found there was widespread confusion about the price.

A spokesmen for BT said. "Any use of the broadband uses a landline I think the focus is more on ensuring clarity about the charges when companies advertise their broadband packages.

"BT glad to meet with the minister and other players in the industry to discuss ways to make costs more understandable for consumers."

BT Openreach logoImage copyrightPA
Business services

In a separate development, said Ofcom's BT to install high-speed cables for the business faster and reduce the prices charged for them.

It follows my review on the "leased lines", which are used by large enterprises and the mobile operators and broadband data transmission on their networks.

Most of these lines are owned and maintained by the name BT competing suppliers.

BT animal needs to be done to meet the growing expectations.

Ofcom said BT speech was not "acceptable", but the company says that some of the recommendations of the regulator has done little to help her "to lay the basis for improving services."

Draft proposal protrude less than a month after Ofcom has promised measures to improve the work of the BT Openreach, which is his business is responsible for the telecommunications and broadband infrastructure.

In February, the regulator stopped demanding it was split from the BT, but said it was still an option.

The BT 'relied on'

Ofcom said that Openreach takes too much time to install leased lines and does not provide reasonable assurance that services will be provided by the date of the first customers.

The proposed regulation would apply to high-speed "Ethernet" services, which are the most common type of leased lines used by enterprises, as well as the old cable.

BT said the construction of new high-speed lines is often difficult and requires street works, which created delays beyond its control.

Jonathan Oxley, Director of Ofcom's Competition Group, said: "BT relies on many companies to install these lines, but its performance was not acceptable.

"These new rules would mean companies across the UK benefit from faster setting times, greater certainty as to the timing of installation and quick repair, if it all goes wrong."

Ofcom said in 2011 the average time between a customer order line and be ready to use increased from 40 to 48 working days.

She wants that the reduction to 46 days of the end of March 2017 and returned in 40 days by 2018.

Ofcom plans to reduce the wholesale price BT charges for leased lines within three years, and expects that these reductions must be transferred to enterprises.

However, the BT said it will not do anything to help him improve customer service.

Should I assume the US government can now easily work from any iPhone access code?

iPhone Lock screenImage copyrightEPA
captioniPhones image can be set to delete your data after 10 unsuccessful attempts at entering the code
Not necessary.

The court order was originally obtained by the FBI authorized the company Apple to come up with a special version of its operating system, which would prevent the iPhone from Farouk delete their data or imposing longer lock-up period, if they were made too many wrong guesses access code.

However, recent court filings do not say that someone now do it, but only that some of the data stored on the device has been received.

Researchers at cyber security firm IOActive suggested that one way to retrieve data from the iPhone to be "de-cap" of its memory chips.

The process they describe part with an acid and lasers, to open and copy the ID information on the device, so that the efforts to crack its code access can be modeled on another computer without the risk of starting the tool of self-destruction in the original iPhone.

If in fact this is what happened, it's not easy and there is a high risk of causing so much damage to the phone that the required data becomes irretrievable.

In contrast, Cellebrite's - it's forensics firm data, which is reported to have helped the FBI with the case - previously discussed "Bypass" access code locks, rather than trying to bring the number.

But it is possible that doing this will give access only to the limited number of handset data.

Another point is that Apple has recently updated its IOS software.

Each update adds security fixes. So, if the FBI was indeed warned the lack of security Farouk phone settings, that error can not exist in the devices installed operating system IOS 9.3.

Is there a way to ensure that no one else can read the information stored on my phone?

WickrImage copyrightWickr
captionWickr Image allows you to set a complex password that must be entered to log back into the application
Quick destroy the device, it may not.

But you can use the encryption-enabled applications for digital data Scramble.

Wickr tool chat messenger, for example, allows you to set it up so that you must enter the password every time you log back into the application.

Similarly, PQChat requires a five digit code to access independently to access.

Thus, even if the iPhone cracks made to abandon the content of his text messages, e-mail and chat WhatsApp, the contents of the applications referred to above, should be safe.

All of this assumes, however, that the authorities are unable to install spyware on your device. If this happens, all bets are off.

Webmail login probe firms 'leak'

Mail.ruImage copyrightMail.ru
Image captionThe most "compromised" logins seems to mail.ru accounts
Several popular webmail providers examine a report that millions of its users registration data are shared on a hacker site.

Google Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Hotmail and Mail.ru are some of the services said to have been affected.

Security firm, which gets into the issue, said he believes many of the usernames and passwords associated not leaked before.

However, it is not clear whether in fact the users accounts were affected.

Security Holding said it received a total of 272 million unique pairs of email addresses and plain text passwords from hackers, 42.5 million of which the company has not seen in earlier leaks.

He said that the intruder initially asked for 50 rubles (75 cents, 52 pence) in exchange for the list, but in the end gave away a copy without charge after employees hold posted favorable comments about it in the forum.

Even if many of the credentials are outdated or inaccurate, they can still be used by malicious, the company warned.

"There are hacker websites that advertise" fingering "popular services, and shop fronts, taking a large number of credentials and launch them one by one against the site," said Alex Holden, director of information security firm, the Air Force.

"What makes this discovery more important is the desire hacker to share these powers at virtually no cost, an increasing number of malicious ... people who might have this information."

Inactive combination

According to the analysis Hold:

57 million accounts have been for Mail.ru accounts
40 million were for Yahoo accounts
33 million were for Hotmail accounts
24 million were for Gmail accounts
Nevertheless, of Mail.ru - the most commonly used web mail service of Russia - he said its initial investigation suggested that the problem may not be as bad as the numbers indicated.

"A large number of user names are repeated with different passwords," the spokesman said.

"We are currently checking whether any combination of match username / password [Active Accounts] - and as soon as we have enough information, we will warn users who might be affected.

"The first data sample check showed that he is not a member of any real live user name and password combinations."

Microsoft has said that there were measures to identify compromised accounts.

"[We would require] additional information to verify the account holder and to help them regain exclusive access," the spokesman said.

Google said: "We are still investigating, so we have no comment at this time."

And Yahoo said: "We have seen reports and our team is eager to hold the security to get the list of accounts now we update the go-ahead.".

Phishing warning

HackerImage copyrightThinkstock
captionCybercriminals image can still use a list of letters, even if the passwords do not work
Security Holding has a track record for attracting significant cyber-violations to light, including the previous break-ins Adobe and US retailer Target.

Independent security consultant Alan Woodward said people should remain vigilant to the dangers of phishing emails.

Even if the vast majority of the password does not work, he explained, cybercriminals can still use e-mail list to send bulk scam.

"If we assume that e-mail addresses are valid, they still give criminals the opportunity to install certain types of attacks," he said.

However, he added that there was "no reason to panic", or for people to change their passwords at the moment.

The European Central Bank, to withdraw € 500 note

€ 500 notesImage copyrightGetty Images
The European Central Bank (ECB) said it would no longer produce € 500 (£ 400, $ 575) note because of fears that could facilitate illegal activities.

The decision was made following an investigation by the European Commission in February of the notes used in the way.

Senior ECB officials said at the time that they need more evidence that the notes facilitated criminal activities.

UK banks are asked to suspend the processing of € 500 notes in 2010 after a report found that they were mainly used by criminals.

ECB says € 500 banknote remains legal tender, and always retain its value.

He will cease to issue a note around the end of 2018, when he will bring a new € 100 and € 200 banknotes.

A report earlier this year at the Harvard Kennedy School, called the 20 largest economies in the world, to stop issuing the largest notes in circulation - £ 50, $ 100 and € 500 notes - to fight crime.

Peter Sands, the former Executive Director of Standard Chartered Bank, said the high-denomination banknotes were favored by terrorists, drug barons and tax evaders.

Illegal cash flows exceed $ 2 trillion (£ 1,4 trillion) a year, he said.