Blackberry maker Research In Motion had an awful 2011, losing three-quarters of its market value and further ground to competitors on Google, Apple and even Microsoft’s platform. But after founder/CEO Mike Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie resisted public calls to change course or resign their posts for so long, now that they’ve done both, it’s still something of a surprise.

The formal announcement will come Monday, but it’s official, confirmed in an extended multi-party interview with Toronto’s The Globe and Mail: Lazaridis and Balsillie will resign as CEOs, making way for Thorsten Heins, currently RIM’s COO of Product Engineering.

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Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.

Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

Less than an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites came down, the website for the RIAA, or Recording Industry Association of America, went offline as well.

Minutes later, MPAA.org also returned an error as Anonymous hacktivists managed to bring the website for the Motion Picture Association of America. The group, headed by former senator Chris Dodd, is an adamant supporter of both PIPA and SOPA legislation.

Universal Music Group, or UMG, is the largest record company in the United States and under its umbrella are the labels Interscope-Geffen-A&M, the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group and Mercury Records.

Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”

Although many members of Congress have just this week changed their stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, the raid on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a blow to the Web.

Brown adds that operatives involved in the project will use an “experimental campaign” and search engine optimization techniques “whereby to forever saddle some of these congressmen with their record on this issue.”

http://rt.com

(Reuters) – A hacker who goes by the name of “Yama Tough” threatened Saturday to release next week the full source code for Symantec Corp’s flagship Norton Antivirus software.

“This coming Tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow,” Yama Tough posted via Twitter.

In the past week Yama Tough has released fragments of source code from Symantec products along with a cache of emails. The hacker says all the data was taken from Indian government servers.

The Consumer Electronics Show began in Las Vegas on January 9. Sony, Nokia, Samsung, Intel and Microsoft all held press conferences. Here’s some of the best bits.

Watch live coverage from CES with Leo Laporte

(Telegraph.co.uk) First TV running Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich announced

(Telegraph.co.uk) LG announces 4-mm thick television

(Telegraph.co.uk) Nokia announces the Lumia 900 smartphone for the US

(BBC) CES gadget show dominated by tablet computers

(Laptopmag.com) Monitor2Go Hands On: A 15.6-inch, 1600 x 900 Mobile Display for Laptops, Smartphones, and Tablets

(C|Net) MakerBot Replicator 3D printer

(C|Net) D-Link flagship DIR-857 router gets USB 3.0, cloud service

(C|Net) Smart watches are ugly. Except for this one!

The TV itself is a 55-inch IPS LED-backlit 3D panel capable of 1080p output and a 240 Hz refresh rate, with a built-in 5 MP camera in the bezel. What’s more interesting is the TV is powered by a Qualcomm “8060” (presumably the APQ8060 S3 Snapdragon) chipset with a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM. It also boasts 8 GB of storage and an SD card port.

The Qualcomm processor is needed inside the TV because it needs to power the Android 4.0 interface that is present, which Lenovo claims is a world first. The TV UI is said to bring the three major smart TV features together into the one package: video-on-demand, internet applications and traditional TV programming. Lenovo also says that with “great customized TV apps” and “powerful hardware” the K91 Smart TV is capable of console-quality games with “fantastic graphic effects”.

Also worthy of a mention is that the TV can be controlled both with your voice and with a touchpad remote control, and can be integrated with Lenovos other smartphones and tablets. It will certainly be interesting to see this TV in action, because the Google TV-like Android 4.0 features do seem stronger than what has previously been available in Google-powered TVs.

Interestingly there is a note in the PR release that says “…exact specification will vary by region. Available only in China.” It seems unclear as to whether the smart TV will only launch in China or whether a worldwide launch is planned, and no pricing details are available, but hopefully all this info will be available at some point in the future.

Reported by www.neowin.net

A massive leak of online user information has prompted widespread concern over Internet security in China

Millions of Chinese in the last week have rushed to change their passwords and online account details, after a huge cache of personal data from China’s most popular websites leaked onto the web last week.

Between December 21 and 26, hackers released the account information for more than 100 million Internet usernames, passwords and emails, spanning dozens of China’s most popular online shopping, microblogging, social networking and gaming websites.

Anti-virus company Qihoo 360′s Vice President Shi Xiaohong attributed the leak to companies neglecting to encrypt their users’ passwords and account information, Xinhua reported. Legal experts told Caixin that the massive leak also revealed shortcomings in Chinese internet security law and online ID theft protections.

The leaked files claimed to contain information from websites including the Internet forum Tianya (tianya.cn), the social networking sites Renren (renren.com) and Kaixin001 (kaixin001.com), the microblog platform Sina Weibo (weibo.com), the IT development site CSDN.net and online gaming sites like 17173.com and duowan.com.

It all started when Qihoo 360 revealed December 21 that a list of 6 million user IDs, passwords and email addresses from CSDN.net (China Software Developer Network) was circulating on the web. In the days following, lists containing the personal account details of users across dozens of websites emerged.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) December 28 denounced the slew of hackings, saying they “infringed on internet users’ legal rights.” MIIT said that it has put together a team and is liaising with companies to assess the situation.

Officials urged companies to immediately inform users of security breaches, and to use encryption to protect user information.

It is still unclear how the leaks occurred, or if they were coordinated. Legal experts said the incident exposed serious shortcomings in Chinese laws and regulations, which have yet to clarify what companies’ duties are when it comes to protecting user information.

Beijing Lanpeng Law Firm head Zhang Qihuai said there are currently “many holes” in the laws that could protect Internet users.

“Currently there are only ten laws and regulations, mostly pertaining to the information industry,” Zhang said, but because legislators have yet to clarify how exactly the general rules should be applied “it’s impractical to use them to protect users.”

Zhao Zhanling, legal counsel for China Internet Network told First Financial Daily that individual users may pursue civil compensation in court, but that it would be difficult for them to prove that hackers were to blame for their financial loses online.

CSDN.net has issued a public apology, urging its users to immediately change their passwords. Sina Weibo said the rumored 4.76 million list of Sina Weibo accounts were not from the company’s files, as Sina encrypts all its passwords.

But because some people use the same name and password for accounts across multiple websites, a small portion of Sina Weibo users may be at risk nevertheless, Sina said.

NetEase December 29 denied that hackers had obtained email usernames and passwords, saying it would investigate where the rumor came from. Sina Weibo’s anti-rumor team also refuted a widely-forwarded post that said hackers had released over 100 million bank card numbers from Bank of Communications and Minsheng Bank accounts.

Despite Sony’s recent decision to withdraw its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA), members of Anonymous have published a press release stating their desire to attack and dismantle Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) for its support of SOPA.

Sony may have changed its stance on SOPA, but the company is still a backer for the equally problematic PIPA provision that’s going through the Senate.

“It has come to the attention of the Anonymous activist community that you have chosen to stand by the Stop Online Piracy Act. This act will halt online businesses and restrict access to many sites for many users. Supporting SOPA is like trying to throw an entire company from off a bridge. Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates. Therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned.”

A further portion of the Anonymous press release mention’s the group’s capabilities and how they infiltrated the servers of Bank of America, US Department of Defense, United Nations, and Lockheed Martin.

See the official Anonymous video  > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjOPXpd9PSU&feature=player_embedded

Happy New Year Sony

As the part of the superfast broadband roll out in the city, BT will be installing new street cabinets in the town centre in 2012. This high-speed broadband service will reach 4,800 homes and businesses situated in the city.

The broadband connections in the town presently have download speeds of up to 40Mbps and upload speeds up to 10Mbps. After the set up, Openreach is expecting to deliver twice the current speeds.

This means that next year, customers would be able to get 100Mbps download speeds. According to BT’s regional partnership director for the East Midlands Paul Bimson, this latest major investment will be a big boost for Lincolnshire.

He cited that the people will love the superfast broadband service, as their quality of life and leisure will be improved. T

his will be an encouragement for the businesses and the Lincolnshire economy.

The small and medium sized firms in the town will be able to utilize big business speeds at lower costs, thereby finding new markets, boosting their competitiveness and creating new jobs. To upgrade the county’s broadband network with fibre optic cables, Lincolnshire County Council has agreed to add £10m to a central government grant of £14.3m.

They will decide on the areas, including the rural ones next year. Along with Bourne, Grantham, Spalding, Louth and Gainsborough regions will also be benefited by this BT addition.

It is expected that the number of homes and businesses in the county using the new superfast network will reach around 124,000. Following the BT Openreach’s superfast broadband plan on covering the two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014, Stamford had been on the upgrade since the last few weeks.

Meantime, Rutland will get the improved broadband connections by the year 2013.

The Error 404 “Page not found” is the error page displayed whenever someone asks for a page that’s simply not available on your site. The reason for this is that there may be a link on your site that was wrong or the page might have been recently removed from the site. As there is no web page to display, the web server sends a page that simply says “404 Page not found”.

The 404 error message is an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) standard status code. This “Not Found” response code indicates that although the client could communicate to the server, the server could not find what was requested or it was configured not to fulfil the request.

The 404 “Not Found” error is not the same as the “Server Not Found” error which you see whenever a connection to the destination server could not be established at all.

The default 404 error page as shown on Internet Explorer is given below.

HTTP Status Code

Whenever you visit a web page, your computer will request data from a server through HTTP. Even before the requested page is displayed in your browser, the web server will send the HTTP header that has the status code. The status code provides information about the status of the request. A normal web page gets the status code as 200. But we do not see this as the server proceeds to send the contents of the page. It’s only when there is an error, we see the status code 404 Not Found.

Origin of Status Codes

As a part of the HTTP 0.9 specifications, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established HTTP status codes in 1992. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web and the first web browser in 1990, defined the status codes.

List of Status Codes

A brief overview of HTTP status codes is given below.

HTTP Status Code

Whenever you visit a web page, your computer will request data from a server through HTTP. Even before the requested page is displayed in your browser, the web server will send the HTTP header that has the status code. The status code provides information about the status of the request. A normal web page gets the status code as 200. But we do not see this as the server proceeds to send the contents of the page. It’s only when there is an error, we see the status code 404 Not Found.

Origin of Status Codes

As a part of the HTTP 0.9 specifications, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established HTTP status codes in 1992. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web and the first web browser in 1990, defined the status codes.

List of Status Codes

A brief overview of HTTP status codes is given below.

Meaning of 404

When we expand the code 404, the first digit “4” represents a client error. The server indicates that you did a mistake like misspelling the URL or requesting for a page that is no longer available.

The middle digit, 0 represents a general syntax error and could indicate a spelling mistake.

The last digit, 4 refers to a specific error in the group of 40x.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) states that 404 Not Found should be used in cases where the server fails to find the requested location and is unsure of its status. Whenever a page has been permanently removed, the status code used must be 410. But hardly have we seen a 410 page. Instead, 404 Not Found page has become popular and the most commonly used error page.

Content of a 404 Error Page

A 404 response code is always followed by a human readable reason phrase as per the HTTP specification. Generally, a web server issues an HTML page that has the 404 code and the “Not Found” phrase by default. You can configure a web server to display a branded page with a better description and a search form. But the protocol level phrase requires no customization as it is hidden from the user.

Soft 404s

Soft 404 errors are actually “Not Found” errors returned by a web server as a standard web page with a 200 Ok response code. In an automated process of discovering a broken link, the soft 404 errors are problematic.

The BT Group of UK has a clean feed content blocking system that returns a 404 error to the requests for content identified as illegal by the Internet Watch Foundation. Even when the user tries to access the Government censored websites, a fake 404 error will be returned.

404 Error Percentages

A sample web trends’ summary report by ARCHIVI shows the client error details for 404 Page.

Although the web statistics generally vary from month to month, based on the strategy used to eliminate 404 errors, and how active the website is, the percentage of 404 errors varies. Most active websites that have frequently changed or added content generally experience a higher number of Page Not Found errors. But there are many large and busy sites that achieve zero percent 404 errors over a period. On an average, around 7% of visits to any given web site will result in a 404 error page.

Tracking and Preventing 404 Errors

• Log Files – Web Server log files help in tracking the 404 errors. These standard log files are just ASCII text files that have each HTTP protocol transaction, whether completed or not, recorded in them. Most of the HTTP errors are recorded in the transfer log and the error log files. If you have access to the log files of your website, you can observe the HTTP status code field. This field gives you an idea about the occurrence of 404 errors, their frequencies, consistencies, and also the referred document that led to the errors. Also find out the existence of any broken link on your site and the misspelled URL that led to the error. When you know all these information, you can easily correct the link and prevent 404 errors on your website.
• Redirects – If you find a page that is consistently getting a 404 error, you can create a redirect page using the .htaccess file that automatically takes the users from an older page to its newer replacement. You can use Permanent and Temporary Redirects to “catch” old referrals from other sites and send the visitors to their intended information.
• Robots File – If you have a section of your site with pages that are frequently changed, you can block the search engines from indexing them in their databases using robots.txt file so that you can prevent 404 errors.

Using Log Files

A sample line from a common transfer log file is given below.

•  Address or DNS – This field refers to the address of the computer making the HTTP request.
• RFC931 – This field identifies the requestor. If no information is available, you’ll find the symbol – for this column in the log file.
• AuthUser – This field has the authenticated user sent via clear text.
• TimeStamp – This field has the date, time, and offset from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT x 100) recorded for each hit. You can even compare the time stamps between entries so that you’ll know how long a visitor stayed on a given page.
• Access Request – This field has one of the three types of HTTP requests. Get request is for a document or program. POST is to tell the server that the data is following. HEAD is for use by the link checking programs.
• Status Code – This field has the status code of 200 meaning that the transaction was successful. If the requested URL doesn’t exist, then you would have noticed the 404 code in the log.
• Transfer Volume – This field shows the number of bytes transferred.
• Referer URL – This field refers to the page where the visitor was located when making the next request.
• User Agent – This field refers to the information such as the browser, version, and operating system of the reader.

Using Redirects

Redirects are very useful when used in conjunction with a 404 error page. To redirect a page, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “notfound404.htm” with a message such as:

Using Redirects

Redirects are very useful when used in conjunction with a 404 error page. To redirect a page, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “notfound404.htm” with a message such as:

“Sorry, this page was not found. In a few seconds, you will be redirected to the Home page.”

2. Allow 5 seconds for reading the message and then redirect.

3. A sample redirect code is:

Note: The value for CONTENT specifies the number of seconds you allow the user to read the message before redirecting.

 Using robots.txt File

Robots.txt file is useful when there are frequently changing sections on your webpage. To use a robots.txt file, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “robots.txt” in the root directory.

2. A sample robots.txt code is:

Note: User-agent: * will apply to all search engines. Disallow command helps you to block complete directories or only the individual files that change.