London: The world could well run out of Internet addresses next year, unless urgent action is taken to switch to a new generation of net addresses, the European Commission has warned.

According to the commission, businesses urgently need to upgrade to Internet protocol version six or IPv6, a new version of the Internet’s addressing protocol, which will hugely increase the number of available addresses.

The IPv6 system has been ready for over a decade and is providing 340 trillion, trillion, trillion web addresses. But, not many companies are actually ready to migrate to the new platform.

In fact, a survey, conducted by the Commission, found that few companies are prepared for the switch from the current naming protocol, IPv4, to the new regime, IPv6, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported. The IPv4 and IPv6 protocols refer to the way in which web addresses are created and assigned. Each website has a unique IP address, represented by a string of numbers, such as 192.168.1.1, which are then given a user-friendly web address to make them easier to remember.

The IPv4 protocol uses 32-bit addresses, which enables the web to support around 4.3 billion unique addresses while IPv6 uses 128-bit web addresses, creating billions of possible new web addresses.

The EC survey found that of the 610 government, educational and other industry organisations questioned across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, just 17 per cent have upgraded to IPv6.

The Commission has warned that the timely deployment of the protocol is vital to the growth and stability of the Internet. Detlef Eckert, Director in Commission’s information society and media directorate-general, said: “In the last 10 years, the Internet has become hugely important worldwide from a socio-economic perspective. “Only by ensuring that all devices connected to the internet are compatible with IPv6 can we stay connected and safeguard sustainable growth of the Internet and the global digital economy, now and in the years to come.”

People running the risk of Internet addiction have help at hand with the first of its kind residential rehab clinic in the Seattle suburb of Fall City, Washington.

The ReSTART clinic reportedly costs 9,000 pounds for 45 days of live-in treatment, including taking care of the farm’s goats, building a chicken coop, long walks around the greens, receiving counselling and massages.
The rehab treats the addiction in many forms such as excessive gaming, inordinate online social networking, uncontrolled online shopping or gambling. Co-founder-psychologist Dr Hilarie Cash warned how internet addiction was fast becoming a growing global problem.
“Wherever the technology exists, the problem follows. The internet can be as addictive as alcohol or gambling,” the Daily Express quoted Dr. Cash as saying.

But the treatment has sparked debates since the American Psychiatric Association does not recognise internet addiction as a legitimate disorder.

In the mean time, Dr Cash offered pointers to judge if one is addicted or not, explaining: “If you do it compulsively, despite the negative consequences, then we’d say that’s an addiction.”

Researchers have produced an all-optical switch within a plastic optical fibre (POF), which could vastly increase Internet data speeds.
The high-speed backbone of the Internet is based on networks of glass optical fibres. But this is too fragile and expensive to install in the small distances between local exchanges and the home.

A cheaper alternative is to use POF, but this has been unable to transmit data with the kind of speeds that would make it worth replacing copper. That may soon change. In recent years, POF with a bandwidth of 1 gigabit per second over 100 metres has been demonstrated.
Now, Polycom, a European Union-funded collaboration between researchers across Europe, has shown how to squeeze more data into a POF, bringing it a step closer to the market. Polycom has produced an all-optical switch within a POF that can turn an optical signal on and off on in a matter of femtoseconds.

Using an array of these switches it is possible to introduce a technique called time division multiplexing, in which two or more data streams are divided into small chunks of short duration before the various segments are interleaved together and sent down the same fibre.

The new optical switch can be turned on and off so precisely that it could help separate out the time chunks belonging to a specific data stream, and recombine them. The POFs used by the Polycom team are composed of a transparent plastic, PMMA, doped with around 0.02 per cent by weight of a polyfluorene.
The fibres demonstrate good gain properties, which means a data signal passing through them can be amplified. That is necessary to maintain signal quality at optical-fibre splitters, where the signal is divided and sent along several fibres.
The boosting is achieved by first exposing the doped polymer to a short laser pulse, which excites an electron in the polyfluorene. In a typical inorganic semiconductor, the excited electron is free to move around, leaving behind a hole.
But in the polyfluorene the electron and hole remain tightly bound, creating a quasiparticle called an exciton. “If a data signal comes through the fibre now it gets amplified by stimulated emission through interaction with the exciton,” said Jenny Clark of the University of Cambridge, a member of the Polycom team.
“We found that if you physically isolate the polymer chains, you can isolate the charge to one dimension along each polymer chain. The charges are confined, with nowhere to go, so they recombine quickly,” she added

As more and more people get quick connections to the internet, such as cable or ADSL, it becomes apparent to the user of a simple dial-up modem that the World Wide Web can quickly turn into the World Wide Wait.  Here a trick that can help speed up your current modem without shelling out the big bucks.

There is a setting located in your windows registry called the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU).  This determines the size of the packets of data sent between your and your server.  In Windows 95, this setting is has a value of 1,500 bytes when the actual size of internet packets is 1,000 bytes.  This can sometimes slow things down.  To remedy the situation, simply follow these steps:
In the registry editor (Start > Run > regedit.exe), navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans.  In the NetTrans folder you should find another folder named “000x” in which x represents a fourth digit.  Right-click on the “000x” folder and select New and StringValue.  Rename the item that appears in the panel on the right side to MaxMTU, then double-click it to bring up the Edit String box and give it a velue of 1002.

Remember to keep playing with the MaxMTU value until you feel that your internet connection has greatly sped up.  Some people report huge speed gains using this tricks, while others hardly notice a difference.  In any case, it’s definetly worth a try.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is planning to add a feature to enter an indication on the reliability of the text. The algorithm assumes that contributions are more reliable as they remain longer. The algorithm assumes that contributions are more reliable as they remain longer.

Because everyone can contribute to Wikipedia, is often not clear how reliable the information is displayed. Because everyone can contribute to Wikipedia, is often not clear how reliable the information is displayed. Incorrect information is usually corrected quickly, but who at one point one page, at that time could not determine how reliable the information is given there. Incorrect information is usually corrected quickly, but who at one point one page, at that time could not determining how reliable the information is given there.

For something to do with researchers from the Wiki Lab at the University of California created the program Wiki Trust. For something to do with researchers from the Wiki Lab at the University of California created the program Wiki Trust. This determines the reliability of the information on the basis of two simple guidelines. This determines the reliability of the information on the basis of two simple guidelines. First, the longer some information remains, the more likely to be accurate. First, the longer some information remains, the more likely to be accurate. Second, contributions of an author who has placed a lot of good information are probably correct. Second, contributions of an author who has placed a lot of good information are probably correct.

Trust Wiki, a Wiki site that can be added, each author provides a confidence level following the time that his pieces remain unchanged line. Trust Wiki, a Wiki site that can be added, each author provides a confidence level following the time that his pieces remain unchanged line. On each page, then get a text color based on the reliability of the writer. On each page, then get a text color based on the reliability of the writer. In the background is very unreliable writers bright orange, to orange, the more reliable authors blurred, and the weather is reliable help ordinary white. In the background is very unreliable writers bright orange, to orange, the more reliable authors blurred, and the weather is reliable help ordinary white.

Wiki Trust has been established since November 2008, but the Wikimedia Foundation has now decided for the entire encyclopedia to be introduced, reports Wired. Wiki Trust has been established since November 2008, but the Wikimedia Foundation has now decided for the entire encyclopedia to be introduced, so says Wired. This autumn will to registered users a tab called “Trust” appear. This autumn will to registered users a tab called “Trust” appear. By clicking this appear orange hues, which indicate the reliability in the text. By clicking this appear orange hues, which indicate the reliability of the text.

How the system will work in practice, remains to be seen. How the system will work in practice, remains to be seen. Clearly, a drain on the computer capacity will be for each word in the text go to determine the reliability score. Clearly, a drain on the computer capacity will be for each word in the text go to determining the reliability score. The researchers are convinced that the program is efficient enough not to overload the computer. The researchers are convinced that the program is efficient enough not to overload the computer.

Scientists at the University of Vermont have created a very basic remote-sensing hedonometer, which can measure a person’s happiness by picking out words in his or her blog.
The method created by Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth, a mathematician and computer scientist working in the Advanced Computing Center at the University of Vermont, show that Election Day, November 4, 2008, was the happiest day in four years and the day of Michael Jackson’s death, one of the unhappiest.
“The proliferation of personal online writing such as blogs gives us the opportunity to measure emotional levels in real time,” they wrote in their study,
Their method to calculate happiness begins with a website, www.wefeelfine.org, that mines through some 2.3 million blogs, looking for sentences beginning with “I feel” or “I am feeling.”
“We gathered nearly 10 million sentences from their site,” said Dodds.
Then, drawing on a standardized “psychological valence” of words established by the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) study; each sentence receives a happiness score.
In the study, a large pool of participants graded their reaction to 1,034 words, forming a kind of “happy-unhappy” scale from 1 to 9. For example, ”triumphant” averaged 8.87, ”paradise” 8.72, ”pancakes” 6.08, ”vanity” 4.30, ”hostage” 2.20, and ”suicide” 1.25.
The sentence ”I feel lazy” would receive a score of 4.38.
“Our method is only reasonable for large-scale texts, like what”s available on the WebAny one sentence might not show much. There”s too much variability in individual expression,” said Dodds.
“It’s like measuring the temperature. You don’t care where the atoms are. You want to know the temperature of this room or this town. It’s a coarser scale. We’re interested in the collective story.
“We were able to make observations of people in a fairly natural environment at several orders of magnitude higher than previous happiness studies,” he added.
“They think they are communicating with friends,” but, since blogs are public, he said: “We’re just looking over their shoulders.”
The researchers also apply their method to song lyrics, presidential speeches, and, recently, to Twitter messages.
And they said that it is generally focused on how writings are received rather than what an author may have intended to convey, it does allow them to estimate the emotional state of the blog authors.
“We are thus able to present results of what might be considered a very basic remote-sensing hedonometer,” they wrote.
The results are reported in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

Young Indonesians are sending a defiant message to extremists behind the deadly July 17 bombings of two Jakarta hotels: “We are not afraid.”
An internet campaign against terrorism in response to the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels has come into vogue among young, technology-savvy Indonesians with its slogans “Indonesia unite!” and “We are not afraid”.
A profile for IndonesiaUnite on the popular social-networking site Facebook has picked up nearly 200,000 members, and IndonesiaUnite also became the most popular topic for some time on the microblogging site Twitter.
National television channels have also amplified the message by inviting key people behind the movement to speak on their shows.
The hotel attacks, in which nine people, including two suspected suicide bombers and six foreigners were killed, sparked fears of a return of turmoil to Indonesia after a few years of calm.
But analysts said Indonesia’s economic and political stability is strong enough to overcome the fallout from the bombings.
“Say and show that we are not afraid of all acts of terrorism,” said a message on the campaign’s website, indonesiaunite.com. “Go about your business as usual, but stay alert.”
The website also urged Indonesians to raise national flags and buy local products.
“What IndonesiaUnite aims to achieve is to reach the heart of every Indonesian who cares about driving the nation forward and doing something about it,” said Aulia Masna, a blogger and one of the key proponents of the campaign.
“Terrorism can be extinguished through education, tolerance, welfare and understanding because people who don’t have these things could be crazy enough to murder their fellow countrymen,” he said.
The IndonesiaUnite movement has also distributed T-shirts printed with the slogan “We are not afraid” and composed a theme song of the same title to spread the message of defiance against terrorists.
Supporters were planning to bring the campaign offline by organising events across the country in the run-up to Indonesia’s Independence Day Aug 17, Aulia said.
To do so could widen the reach of the campaign because only about 30 million of Indonesia’s 230 million people have access to the internet.
Police said they suspect the attacks two weeks ago were carried out by Islamic extremists linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional militant group blamed for a string of deadly bombings in Indonesia this decade, notably the 2002 Bali bombings, in which 202 people were killed.
No suspect has been arrested in the latest bombings, but police have launched a nationwide hunt for Malaysian-born fugitive Noordin Mohammed Top, who is believed to be the leader of a violent Jemaah Islamiyah splinter group.
Noor Huda Ismail, an expert in Islamic militancy in Indonesia, said the IndonesiaUnite campaign signalled increasing willingness among Indonesians to openly confront radicalism.
“In the past, there was silence and the voice of the moderate majority was drowned out by the radical minority fringe,” Noor Huda said. “It’s good to see that people speak up. It’s fascinating.”
Militants have also used the internet to get their message across.
An internet statement purportedly signed by Noordin on behalf of a group calling itself Tandzim Al-Qaeda Indonesia said the hotel attacks targeted “top businessmen and intelligence operatives linked to the US economy” bent on “plundering Indonesia’s resources”.
The statement, posted on the internet blog mediaislam-bushro.blogspot.com, said the attacks were tributes to two militants killed in police raids in 2005 and 2006, bomb-maker Azahari bin Husin and Jabir. Experts said they were unsure whether the statement is authentic.
Indonesia’s anti-terrorism police force, which has received assistance from Australia and the US, has not only won praise for its crackdown on militants involved in past attacks but also for its de-radicalisation approach, which includes employing reformed militants to wean radicals away from terrorism

Fake Internet postcards circulated through electronic mails worldwide carry links to a deadly virus known as Zeus Bot, according to a new study.

Gary Warner, computer forensics director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), who led the study, said, Zeus Bot has been named America’s most pervasive computer virus, reportedly affecting some 3.6 million computers in the US.

“These fake postcards ask users to click and download to view the contents, and as soon as they do so, the Zeus Bot infects their computers,” Warner said.

Once on a computer, Zeus Bot will give cyber criminals access to passwords and account numbers of banks and other sensitive online accounts.

Warner said cyber criminals who are employing the Russian-language Zeus Bot software are using the fake Internet postcards as the latest mechanism to download the virus software onto unaware users’ computers.

Once the virus is on a computer it is able to steal website data from victims’ machines. It keeps track of infected machines throughout the world and is equipped with tools that allow the criminals to prioritise the banks they want to strike, Warner said.

“When it comes to messages that are supposedly from your bank, eBay or any other site, don’t click on the links in an e-mail,” Warner said.

“Instead, type the address for the site that the message is coming from into your web browser and log in. If the site has an important message for you, you will be able to find it,” he added.

Microsoft has warned of a flawed software in the Internet Explorer that hackers can exploit to take over some computers.

The vulnerability was found in a program used in the popular web browser to play video on computers running with Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating systems, Microsoft said in a warning posted online.

“An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user,” the software giant warned in a security bulletin. “We are aware of attacks attempting to exploit the vulnerability.”

Microsoft said it was working with partners to patch the weakness in ActiveX Video Control involved in capturing, recording or playing video and is also a main component of Windows Media Center.

Microsoft advised users to deactivate ActiveX Video Control until a fix is available.

“When the ActiveX control is used in Internet Explorer, the control may corrupt the system state in such a way that an attacker could run arbitrary code,” the Redmond, Washington-based company said.

“Microsoft is currently working to develop a security update for Windows to address this vulnerability.”

Hackers can take advantage of the vulnerability when Internet users visit websites that have been booby trapped with malicious code. Unsuspecting computer users may get emails enticing them to visit hazardous websites.

Attackers taking advantage of the vulnerability could install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights, according to Microsoft.