North Korea;s electronic warfare division reportedly carried out targeted Trojan horse malware attacks against a list of senior officials picked out by alleged spy Won Jeong Hwa. Won faces charges of treason over allegations she obtained military secrets for the communist nation after seducing army officers in the south.

The 35-year-old temptress visited military bases under the guise of a defector, lecturing about the evils of Kim II Sung’s communist regime, all the time working for the commies herself.

The woman allegedly gave 100 calling cards with the names of military intelligence officials in the North. Shortly afterwards the officers email inboxes were barraged with spyware-laden emails, according to reports from Digital Chosunilbo.

If true, it’s a strange way of trying to gain knowledge of your enemies secrets compared to traditional espionage.

North Korea is the latest in string of countries alleged to be actively cyber spying. Previous allegations aimed at China suggested that the country attempted to gain access to compromised PCs in western business and government departments.

Hampshire consultancy UK Mobile Media took Fasthosts to Southampton small claims court yesterday after a four month period that saw its dedicated servers suffer 22 percent downtime. Mobile Media was paying about £15,000 annually for its dedicated infrastructure, used to offer clients services such as mobile email.

The claimant’s managing director Matthew Raahan explained to the judge that Fasthosts had repeatedly ignored support requests.

Fasthosts chickened out from appearing in court to defend themselves, but were ‘brave’ enough to send in a written document that said: “We feel that we have made reasonable efforts to ensure prompt resolution of the problems reported.”

The judge however, who could obviously smell a rat, awarded UK Mobile Media £1,212.68 in damages and £220 in fees and loss of earnings. Fasthosts has until 15th of September to pay-up.

Rahman claimed the worst problems occurred between October 2007 and January 2007 when a repeated hard disk failure caused periods of up to 72 hours offline for the company’s clients.

“It was something you would ordinarily expect to take 15 minutes to replace… we lost significant custom through it,” he said.

“We made a big mistake and we’ve learned a big lesson. I certainly would never recommend anyone relying on them for anything important to their business.” Rahman recommended other businesses hit by poor reliability and support should consider action against Fasthosts.

Fasthosts has not commented yet.

The hosting firm was founded by schoolboy Andrew Michael in 1999. He sold out to fellow budget operator 1&1 Internet for £61.5m in 2006.

Fasthosts has since made repeated security, technical and customer service cock-ups but claims it is “still the no.1 for UK hosted websites”.

Price comparison website moneysupermarket.com’s research showed that five million people admited to using someone else’s wireless connection without permission in the last 12 months.

One in seven people fail to secure their wireless connection with a suitable password according to the study, which means that not only can outher people steal the bradband thy pay for, but they also run the risk of having bank details stolen, and having illegal content downloaded on their connection.

Rob Barnes, head of Broadband and mobile phones at the firm said: “People are learning to be safe online but those using wireless can undo all that by leaving their network unprotected.

“An unsecured internet connection is just the same as leaving your front door open.”

Last week, a study by IT security firm ScanSafe found the number of online security blocks carried out in July totalled more than for the whole of 2007.

Pay as you go users, who typically make fewer outgoing calls, would face big price hikes if operators lost revenues, the firm said. These typically poorer customers would be the ones forced to switch off, it claims.

Vodafone said, in a submission to media and information society Commissioner Viviane Reding, that the US-style of charging customers for receiving calls would cause prohibitive price increases to consumers.

The submission comes just days after Ofcom said it would consider the US system in its review of termination rates. It will form part of the evidence for Reding’s consultation on termination rates.

Vodafone said its survey of 9,000 mobile phone users showed significant resistance to the notion of paying to receiving calls. The current system sees the network where the call originates bear all the cost of the call.

Reding has said several times that she believes this is anti-competitive, as smaller networks must pay out more, while the big players broadly break even. In the UK all operators except 3 would like to see the current regime remain in place.

Reding has plans to impose a cut in termination rates from an average of €0.08 per minute to less than €0.02 per minute by 2012.

Proponents of the US system, where the costs of calls is shared by the originating and the receiving network, argue that increased competition means consumers get a better deal. US mobile subscribers typically pay less for calls than their European counterparts.

A BBC investigation discovered a plan to steal US bank accounts via the checkout systems. Fake credit cards containing details from the accounts will be used to get cash or buy high value goods.

Don’t fear say the supermarkets targeted who believe there is little chance the fraudsters would make significant gains with their plan.

The BBC discovered the plot on a website forum, talking about credit card fraud. The thieves claim to possess details of US credit and debit cards taken from tapped phone lines between cash machines and banks.

The gang plans to copy details on to fake cards with magnetic strips and use them in UK stores Asda and Tesco. The gang will use self service tills so as to avoid confrontation with suspicious staff members.

Over the period of a month from mid-August the ringleader claims he will have details from 2300 cards to handle.

In the forum he declares: “Its (sic) shopping spree guys help me out and I will take care of you.”

Andrew Moloney, security evangelist at RSA, said the gang were involved in “classic” card fraud by cloning details on to magnetic stripes.

“We’ve seen a shift from card-present fraud to card-not-present to fraud abroad,” he said.

“The internet is the global marketplace,” he said. “It’s not difficult to take compromised cards from one country and exploit them in another. It’s a simple and routine procedure for these guys these days.”

Jacques Erasmus, from security firm Prevx, agreed that ‘cashing out’ abroad was a well established method. “They do not normally cash out in the same country,” he said, “just because it makes the law enforcement job that much harder.”

He said many criminal gangs even offer their fraudulent services via the web.

“They will do it for you in India and China,” he said.

The BBC has passed on details of the investigation to the cyber-fraud unit.

A computer worm that eats up passwords was found on laptops aboard the International Space Station, NASA has confirmed. However, its not the first time a NASA computer has been infected.

W32.TGammima.AG is the rather catchy name of the worm, which spreads itself by copying itself to removable media devices. Once the worm is in place, it sets about stealing passwords to various online games, according to anti-virus software provider Symantec, who first spotted the worm 12 months ago.

“This is not the first time we have had a worm or a virus,” a NASA spokesman said. “It’s not a frequent occurrence, but this isn’t the first time.”

The infected machines were not considered “mission critical”, meaning they didn’t control the space ship in any way. However, the NASA spokesman was unable to confirm whether the infected laptops had ever been connected to any mission-critical systems.

Just how exactly computers aboard a space station get infected by an everyday worm is a mystery. Perhaps one of the astronauts was keeping his World of Warcraft score nice and high by P0wning n00bs from outer space.

Apple claim the software update improves the device’s 3G abilities, but as always, not everyone is happy the update has solved the connection problems. It’s also a unclear as top why the 3G problems exist in the first place.

The problem flagged up by users is that the iPhone performs poorly when attempting to connect with high-speed cellular networks. Apple has seen the complaints (on forums and blog’s all over the place), and thus far remained tight-lipped about the issue.

Apple’s shiny new 2.0.2 iPhone update should help to sooth disgruntled customers, but Apple still hasn’t revealed exactly what “bug fixes” have been fixed. To Apple’s defence, they never tend to give much away, so it’s not unusual.

“Based on user reports collected so far, the iPhone 2.0.2 software update does not address 3G issues; however, as we don’t have detailed release notes from Apple, it’s unclear as to what 2.0.2 specifically addresses,” Raven Zachary, founder of iPhoneDevCamp and a contributing analyst for The 451 Group, said.

“So far, I am pleased with this update. On-screen keyboard responsiveness and Contacts performance seem improved,” he added.

Jennifer Bowcock, an Apple iPhone spokesperson, claimed that, “The iPhone 2.0.2 software update improves communication with 3G networks.” Sadly that was all she gave away.

“I never noticed any iPhone-specific connectivity issues to begin with,” Avi Greengart, a research director of wireless devices for Current Analysis, said.

“The last time my iPhone 3G repeatedly dropped from 3G to EDGE, I pulled out four other phones with HSDPA 850/1900 - a BlackBerry Bold prototype, Nokia E71, LG Vu, and HTC Tilt - and they were all down to EDGE as well, indicating a temporary network issue. By the next morning, all five - iPhone 3G included - were back to HSDPA,” he added.

“By no means am I saying that the iPhone 3G is perfect,” he noted. “I have also experienced random slowness and/or crashing with every build of the software, including the 2.0.2 update.

“I have also had serious qualms with the iPhone 3G’s battery life - the 2.0.2 firmware hasn’t been out long enough for me to know if battery life is any better with it,” he said, noting that he’s personally had good service in northern New Jersey, Boston, San Diego, and New York City, while his colleagues have reported good 3G service in northern Virginia as well.

“I’m sure that there are some people who aren’t happy with their iPhone 3Gs. Maybe they have defective units. Maybe they have poor AT&T coverage in their areas, or the network is overloaded,” Greengart said.

Microsoft says the Premier Ultimate bundle is aimed at enterprise customers willing to “dig deep to pursue a proactive support strategy concentrated on attaining and maintaining IT health”.

Elaina Stergiades, a senior research analyst at IDC, said: “IDC recommends that vendors provide preventive and proactive support services to help customers minimize downtime and to ensure consistent availability of their business-critical processes.

“Microsoft is doing just that with Premier Ultimate, highlighting the industry shift toward deeper, more collaborative support relationships with customers,” she added.

The new service level combines unlimited problem resolution support along with other features, including; proactive health assessments, account management, and full-time on-site support.

Companies can pick and mix their services to develop an IT package that best suits their needs. The level of customisation in the three-year contracts means that pricing is not fixed, but instead varies dependant on the services chosen.

“Premier Ultimate is yet another step in the evolution of software support services. As IT departments focus on the availability of technology supporting their business processes, software support becomes less about fixing what is broken and more about preventing problems from occurring in the first place,” Stergiades said.

Microsoft Premier Support includes a specific focus on preventative tools that can help business avoid situations that result in software defect issues and downtime, stergiades explained.

In addition to this, she added, the unlimited hours of problem resolution support is new ground for Microsoft, and shows the company is willing to take some risk as part of this offering.

While the new offering from Microsoft could upset some of the company’s channel partners, their response largely depends on how the software maker handles the Ultimate premier Services launch.

“Any time a change is made to services offerings, vendors run the risk of angering their channel partners. However, we believe that the execution of the roll-out will largely determine how partners are affected by this offering. In addition, Microsoft has historically handled these situations with minimal problems and disruptions,” she noted.

The updated specifications no give manufacturers and software developers something to work with as they wait for the changeover. The specifications also aid in establishing interoperability between devices from multiple manufacturers, which is an important step in terms of consumer adoption of USB 3.0.

The Intel xHCI draft specification revision 0.9 supports compatibility among various implementations of USB devices, which will make it easier to develop software support for the industry, Intel said. The documentation includes descriptions of the of the registers and data structures used to interface between system software and the hardware, which are developed to be compatible with the USB 3.0 specification under development by thw USB 3.0 Promoter Group.

“The future of computing and consumer devices is increasingly visual and bandwidth-intensive,” said Phil Eisler, AMD corporate vice president and general manager of the Chipset Business Unit.

“Lifestyles filled with HD (high definition) media and digital audio demand quick and universal data transfer. USB 3.0 is an answer to the future bandwidth need of the PC platform. AMD believes strongly in open industry standards, and therefore is supporting a common xHCI specification,” he added.

USB 3.0 is Intel’s next-gen USB standard, providing 5 Gbps (gigabits per second) throughput, a tenfold speed increase over the current USB 2.0 standard. Brian O’Rourke, an In-Stat analyst, noted that USB 3.0 reduced the amount of power the USB consumes by limiting the number of times a host contacts a USB device, such as an external hard disk drive.

With devices featuring USB 2.0 numbering around 2 billion, industry support is vital.

“As with the previous versions of USB, it does have industry-wide support throughout the PC ecosystem,” O’Rourke noted.

SuperSpeed USB will be aimed initially at high-end devices that need increased bandwidth, including PCs, external hard drives and next-gen mobile phones, he said.

“These devices are increasingly offering more storage, and so [they] need a faster way to get data on and off the device. There will likely be devices that use USB that will not need all the bandwidth that SuperSpeed provides, including mice, keyboards and printers. However, over time as SuperSpeed USB becomes less expensive, more devices will add it,” O’Rourke said.

“We are actually reviewing iPhone’s from a HSBC Group perspective … and when I say that, I mean globally,” HSBC’s Australia and New Zealand chief information officer Brenton Hush said yesterday

HSBC has around 300,000 staff internationally, so if the move went ahead it would likely be one of the world’s largest iPhone orders.

“A decision on a piece of hardware like that would potentially be deployed, conservatively, to 200,000 people,” said Hush. “You know, it’s a big decision, especially when you have an existing fleet out there.”

“But it’s definitely something we are considering from a HSBC Group perspective,” he said.

“We always explore the potential application of new technologies and this is no different.”

Were HSBC to select the iPhone as its official corporate mobile device, the decision would be a major blow to Research in Motion (RIM), the designer of the Blackberry.

When the iPhone made its debut, many large firms passed up switching to the device, mainly due to limited availability and the lack of support for Microsoft’s Exchange email platform. Now though, Apple has rectified these issues and built a number of new tools in to the new model specifically targeted for corporate use.

Hush said that although he did not own an iPhone, he has “obviously had hands on experience with them.”

Steven Bandrowczak, global CIO of Nortel, which has 30,000 staff, said he doubted whether his staff would choose the iPhone over its current device, the BlackBerry due to the latter device’s superior email functionality.

However, Hush’s believes the iPhone is more than up to task.

“I think [the iPhone] would change some underlying infrastructure considerations from an enterprise perspective. But [Apple] have been pretty smart with the design.”

The CIO, whose office is located at HSBC’s Sydney headquarters on George Street, Sydney is just 500 metres away from Apple’s new Sydney store, but he said he had not entered due to persistent queues.

“I’m blown away every time I walk past that Apple store, and there’s always people queued up outside to get in,” he said. “I haven’t been in there. It’s always too busy.”