Microsoft’s VP Scott Charney made quite a few headlines this week at RSA’s security conference when he suggested that perhaps an Internet tax is needed to fight malware.  Predictably, this incited quite a few rebuttals that perhaps Microsoft should pay for the malware infestations since it’s primarily a Microsoft Windows problem.  I view both ideas silly because there are alternatives for dealing with malware without an Internet tax and Windows isn’t the only vulnerable operating system since most of the modern day hacks happen because of bad user behavior.
But there …

Free Press trivializes the very real plight of people who have to fear disappearing in the dead of night for criticizing a regime – all to make a political point in a policy fight.

However, there is a legitimate point to be explored in their over-the-top rhetoric. While Free Press would have you believe that your cable company bears some resemblance to totalitarian governments, the better comparison would be government-to-government.

The Internet has two billion global users, and the developing world is just hitting its growth phase. Mobile data traffic is doubling every year, and soon all four billion mobile phones will access the Net. In 2008, according to a new UC-San Diego study, Americans consumed over 3,600 exabytes of information, or an average of 34 gigabytes per person per day. Microsoft researchers argue in a new book, “The Fourth Paradigm,” that an “exaflood” of real-world and experimental data is changing the very nature of science itself. We need completely new strategies, they write, to “capture, curate, and analyze” these unimaginably large waves of information.

In their typical juvenile fashion, the 4chan boards launched an attack against Verizon Wireless customers over the weekend and 4chan’s owners are playing victim with no mention of their own responsibility.  The 4chan board servers were sending a flood of messages to Verizon Wireless customers which could effectively degrade or even block their Internet connectivity.  Rather than acknowledge their own faults, 4chan’s only response was to complain that their boards are being blocked “intentionally” by Verizon and that their users should call Verizon support lines.
Some in the blogosphere are complaining about Verizon …

DigitalWrong.org claims that whenever piracy is tracked to a particular home, then it was obviously the neighbor’s kid that did it by breaking into the home’s wireless network. Digital Wrong claims that these home wireless networks are impossible to secure, but that is blatantly wrong.

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a very misunderstood technology. This new paper from Digital Society will explain what the technology is, how it works, and what it can be used for.

Consumers may be fooled by web popups unless a standardized and secure out-of-band notification system is developed.

Comcast has announced that they will begin to test a new monitoring system called Comcast Constant Guard that looks for botnets on their network.

Akamai has released its 2009 Q2 State of the Internet report.

The Windows SMBv2 zero-day vulnerability (disclosed vulnerability with no software fix) appears to be more dangerous than initially thought.  The vulnerability does not affect the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, but it does affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  The danger is no longer just a system crash or reboot, it can lead to a full system compromise.
In the absence of a patch, Microsoft released some instructions for disabling SMBv2.  For your convenience, I’ve packaged …