Next month see’s the European launch of the much anticipated, Netgear SPH101 VoIP wireless phone. The Register reports that the handset is available via pre order to North American customers via Amazon.com with an expected availability date of 15th October 2006. However, Amazon.co.uk is currently listing the device as available and ready for shipping.

At £160, the SPH101 competes well with the current offerings, but given Netgears solid grounding and well known name, it is expected to grab a large proportion of the, rather limited, wireless VoIP handset market.

The SPH101 will connect straight to the Skype network using any 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network. The unit also provides all of the features that the common Skype software does. Whilst open networks are said to be hassle-free, secure wireless hotspots that require web based authentification might cause problems with the Netgear device.

A school, in the South of Wales, has recently began the implementation of a new scheme in which it aims to fingerprint the 1,400 attending pupils in a bid to automate class registrations.

Parents of the children that attend the school, in Porth County, were notified little more than a week before the scheme was put into practice. The headmaster of the school defends the decision, claiming that

“it wasn’t necessary for us to seek parental consent in this. It’s a system that has been approved by the DfES and it’s supported by Capita SIMS…..There are 1,400 students in the school and we had two phone calls…the parents were perfectly happy.”

The system, known as VeriCool, is developed by a sector of General Dynamics, and aims to provide biometric scanning for each classroom. General Dynamics is best known for specialising in producing systems for the military and intelligence services.

The move has met with much controversy, with parents and privacy advocates airing their concerns. David Clouter of leavethemkidsalone argued that taking the register was an important way for teachers to establish contact with each individual pupil at the start of a class and that its role would not substitute manual registers, for instance, in the case of a fire.

Your Response : The Register - Letters

Note: Interestingly, I was recently speaking to a driving instructor. I have been wondering, for some time now, why plastic ID card driving liscences have been introduced when drivers are still required to carry the paper counter-part. The instructor informed me that the common theory is that it is part of the initial phase of the governments biometric national ID card scheme. The idea being that we will put up less of a fight if we are already used to carry an ID card of sorts - a way of slowly introducing us to the idea of a full national ID scheme / database. Coupled with the reported incident of schools implementing fingerprint scanning systems, we clearly ARE slipping further towards that Orwellian society that we resent so much.

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Happy Commenting! :)

At the end of 2005, the New York Times revealed the government’s warrantless wiretapping program.
The  National Security Agency (NSA) is tapping American’s phones without first getting a judge to pass judgment on the need to invade a citizen’s privacy.

Jerry Nelson, Ph.D. states that…
You can tap only one phone line, but on the Internet you can only tap everything because there are no lines. Extending phone surveillance to VoIP on the Internet requires surveillance of everything we do on line. The nation’s transition in telecommunications infrastructure will be as tumultuous for civic society and constitutional law as it already has been for the financial community and the boom-to-bust industry itself.

This article contains some excellent information on how the NSA warrantless wiretap system works.

1950’s STROWGER UAX13

Over the bank holiday week, I took a trip down to the Forest of Dean, with my family, to see the Thomas The Tank Engine event that was being held by Dean Forest Railway. Now, obviously, this has nothing to do with hack, tech or phreaking. However, before we left I noticed a small museum crammed into the back of the gift shop, I slowly walked around the miniatures and plaquards before coming to what was easily the best part of the day - telephones, lots of telephones. Surrounding the phones was alot of old machinery, not just any old machinery, no, old school GPO telephone exchanges and manual switchboards, dating as far back as the 1930’s. Behind a glass wall was something even more impressive - a fully functional STROWGER Unit Automatic Exchange #13 (UAX13) from the 1950’s.

Click to read more and see photos of old telephone exchanges and the UAX13

PC Pro is currently running an article on new Xerox technologies involving temporary prints via time limited print ink. From the article:

“Xerox has lifted the veil from some of its research and development work in the field of printing. The cutting-edge research highlighted at a press event involved current projects that are expected to see the commercial light of day within 18-months, including a twist on the theme of invisible ink….This offers the prospect of reusable paper in the sense that the content is automatically erased after a period of time, ready for fresh printing. Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours.”

Read More : PC Pro - Xerox reveals transient documents

Virgin has announced an October launch for its Lobster 700TV handset, which can receive video and radio over the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) network.

BT has been trying to generate interest in broadcasting video to mobile phones over DAB for a few years now, but the logistics of designing a compatible handset and negotiating for content have put off most network operators; until now.

DAB is a technology well-suited to integration into a phone: it was designed for low power consumption and for use on mobile devices, and while it does need an external antenna, the use of the headset wire makes the experience the same as using an FM radio on a normal handset.

Read More : The Register - BT and Virgin announce broadcast TV over DAB

Anti-virus company F-Secure has posted details of a Windows virus which can use a Symbian handset to transport itself between systems. The Mobler worm infects a Windows system, hides the Windows folder and sets about copying itself into different directories and on to any removable media available.

It also creates a Symbian installation file which, if executed by an unwary user, installs a copy of the virus onto any removable media on the handset. Once there it depends on a curious user to execute it when attached to another computer.

In many ways this is a blast from the past in terms of virus design: when a virus would copy itself into an application and rely on that application being moved between systems. Indeed; on systems which have floppy drives Mobler will repeatedly attempt to copy itself onto a disk even if there isn’t one present, the sounds of which should present a clue that something is amiss. In these days when infection can follow opening a dodgy e-mail or just visiting the wrong web site, it’s harking back to simpler times to require the user to actually execute the infection themselves.

But apparently F-Secure received a copy of Mobler from an infected customer, so normal warnings apply: keep anti-virus software up to date, don’t open dodgy e-mails and, additionally, don’t run applications which suddenly appear on your removable media.

Source : The Register - Symbian phones targeted as carriers for Windows worm

“Tzero Technologies and Analog Devices announced that they have created a wireless HDMI interface for HDTVs, next-gen DVD players, and set-top boxes. The backbone for the technology is ultrawideband, also used as a future replacement for wired USB. The Analog Device compresses data with the [lossy] JPEG2000 video codec, which is then packetized and encrypted, and transmitted via the Tzero MAC and PHY chip.”

Source : Slashdot - Wireless HDMI Prototype Announced

“The European Commission has opened a public consultation on the use of surveillance technology in civil society.

At the initiative’s heart is the desire to work with industry to create more and better surveillance systems that it can use to monitor the public in order to prevent terrorist attacks.

The EC Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security said in a statement it would publish a green paper*, inviting consultation on “what role the Union could play in order to foster detection technologies in the service of the security of its citizens”.

The green paper was drawn up from the results of a conference of “major European business” and the public sector last November, called the Public-Private Security Dialogue: Detection Technologies and Associated Technologies in the Fight against Terrorism……”

Read more at : The Register - Tell the EC about surveillance