ISP did not throttle YouTube traffic at peak hours, telecom regulator finds

Allegations that an ISP throttled traffic from YouTube and other Google properties at peak hours were unfounded, according to the French telecommunications regulator.

Any problems with access to YouTube and other sites at peak hours were simply due to the overall volume of data flowing between the ISP, Free, and the rest of the Internet, said the regulator, Arcep.

Following a complaint from the French consumer association UFC-Que Choisir last September that Free appeared to be throttling traffic from YouTube, Arcep began an investigation, questioning the companies involved and their transit providers, and studying traffic flows.

Arcep spent six months studying traffic flows at Free, finding that Free and Google exchange traffic directly, via peering, and indirectly through a number of international transit providers, and that both routes are congested during peak hours, as they are at other ISPs.

Furthermore, there were no signs that Free was employing traffic management techniques on its network to discriminate against traffic based on the content, origin, destination or protocol used. In other words, Arcep said, “No practices contrary to principles of net neutrality were observed.”

At the time of the complaint, Free was known to be in dispute with Google over who should pay for additional interconnect bandwidth between the two. In January it briefly added a function to the DSL routers of millions of its customers to block ads served by Google and other major ad networks. The ad blocker, enabled by default although Free’s customers could choose to disable it, cut into the revenue the ad networks received from French surfers. Within days, the French government announced that such action was against the principles of net neutrality, and with the next router software update, the feature disappeared. There was no change in the number of complaints from Free customers on user forums and elsewhere about difficulties viewing YouTube videos at peak hours, though.

Neither Google nor Free immediately responded to requests for comments on the investigation’s findings.

Having recognized the importance to customers of the way in which ISPs and Internet companies balance their use interconnection and peering, the regulator now plans to conduct six-monthly reviews of operators’ practises and the effect this has on customers.

ISP did not throttle YouTube traffic at peak hours, telecom regulator finds

Allegations that an ISP throttled traffic from YouTube and other Google properties at peak hours were unfounded, according to the French telecommunications regulator.

Any problems with access to YouTube and other sites at peak hours were simply due to the overall volume of data flowing between the ISP, Free, and the rest of the Internet, said the regulator, Arcep.

Following a complaint from the French consumer association UFC-Que Choisir last September that Free appeared to be throttling traffic from YouTube, Arcep began an investigation, questioning the companies involved and their transit providers, and studying traffic flows.

Arcep spent six months studying traffic flows at Free, finding that Free and Google exchange traffic directly, via peering, and indirectly through a number of international transit providers, and that both routes are congested during peak hours, as they are at other ISPs.

Furthermore, there were no signs that Free was employing traffic management techniques on its network to discriminate against traffic based on the content, origin, destination or protocol used. In other words, Arcep said, "No practices contrary to principles of net neutrality were observed."

At the time of the complaint, Free was known to be in dispute with Google over who should pay for additional interconnect bandwidth between the two. In January it briefly added a function to the DSL routers of millions of its customers to block ads served by Google and other major ad networks. The ad blocker, enabled by default although Free's customers could choose to disable it, cut into the revenue the ad networks received from French surfers. Within days, the French government announced that such action was against the principles of net neutrality, and with the next router software update, the feature disappeared. There was no change in the number of complaints from Free customers on user forums and elsewhere about difficulties viewing YouTube videos at peak hours, though.

Neither Google nor Free immediately responded to requests for comments on the investigation's findings.

Having recognized the importance to customers of the way in which ISPs and Internet companies balance their use interconnection and peering, the regulator now plans to conduct six-monthly reviews of operators' practises and the effect this has on customers.

Researcher finds major encryption flaw in older mobile SIM cards

Hundreds of millions of mobile handsets using older SIM cards are vulnerable to a flaw that allows attackers to gain complete control over affected handsets, German security expert Karsten Nohl has reported.

What Nohl has spent two years researching could turn out to be the most significant flaw in SIMs in many years when he reveals its full details at a presentation scheduled for the Black Hat security conference at the end of this month.

Nohl's briefings to the media and short website description have so far been light on detail, but the teasers he has been willing to put out sound alarming enough.

According to the Security Research Labs chief scientist, a quarter of 1,000 SIMs tested by his team had proved vulnerable to a weakness in the older DES (Data Encryption Standard) encryption used to secure them.

This made it possible to take control of a handset using a binary SMS text message to upload malware. This piggybacked on the carrier over-the-air (OTA) process through which SIMs are transparently updated via the JavaCard programming interface.

Attackers could use the method to eavesdrop on calls, sent premium text messages, and even in some circumstances, conduct payment fraud.

Only a proportion of the world's handsets used DES in its vulnerable form but this still amounted to 750 million, overwhelmingly older handsets, he said. Not all SIMs using DES seemed to have the flaw, but enough batches to cause major concern.

The size of the issue could define its seriousness with carriers unsure about Nohl's estimates. Most SIMs from recent years would use a different standard, Triple DES (3DES), and be immune to the attack.

The research had been sent to the GSM Association so it could be passed on to carriers, Nohl told media outlets.

"Cards need to use state-of-art cryptography with sufficiently long keys, should not disclose signed plaintexts to attackers, and must implement secure Java virtual machines," he wrote in a blog. "While some cards already come close to this objective, the years needed to replace vulnerable legacy cards warrant supplementary defenses."

Nohl has form when it comes to sniffing out mobile handset issues. Between 2009 and 2011 he publicised a number of security flaws in the GSM standard, most famously in its A5/1 encryption cipher, which could allow call interception between the handset and the network base station.

Alert! Study finds Internet users heed browser warnings

Security warnings displayed by Web browsers are far more effective at deterring risky Internet behavior than was previously believed, according to a new study.

The study looked at how users reacted to warnings displayed by Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome browsers, which warn of phishing attempts, malware attacks and invalid SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates.

It was widely thought that most users ignored the warnings, based on several studies released between 2002 and 2009. However, in the past four years, browser warnings have been redesigned, but the effect of the new designs on users had not been studied.

For example, toolbars that warned of possible phishing attacks have been replaced with full-page warnings that may have influenced people's behavior, the researchers who conducted the study wrote.

More than 25 million warning impressions displayed by Chrome and Firefox in May and June were analyzed. The data was collected from telemetry programs used by Mozilla and Google, which collect what the researchers term 'pseudonymous' data from the browsers of consenting users.

In the case of both browsers, less than 25 percent of users opted to bypass malware and phishing warnings, and only a third of users cruised through the SSL warnings displayed by Firefox.

"This demonstrates that security warnings can be effective in practice; security experts and system architects should not dismiss the goal of communicating security information to end users," according to the paper, which was submitted to the Usenix Annual Technical Conference 2013 in San Jose, California, late last month.

The analysis uncovered other interesting details. It appears that more technical users bypassed security warnings more often. The researchers considered technical users as those who used Linux and pre-release browsers.

"Technically advanced users might feel more confident in the security of their computers, be more curious about blocked websites or feel patronized by warnings," the paper said.

Despite the positive influence of the warnings, the researchers found users clicked through more than 70 percent of Google's SSL warnings. By contrast, Firefox users clicked through them just 33 percent of the time.

There are a few thoughts why Chrome's SSL click-through rate is higher. Users can bypass Chrome's warning with a single click, whereas Firefox requires three clicks. Firefox displays a more stern warning, showing an image of a policeman and using the word "untrusted" to describe the site.

There may also be other mitigating factors, the researchers said. Nevertheless, Chrome's high SSL click-through rate "is undesirable," they wrote. "Our positive findings for the other warnings demonstrate that this warning has the potential for improvement."

The study was written by Devdatta Akhawe of the University of California, Berkeley, and Adrienne Porter Felt, a research scientist at Google.

Disney Finds Its Star for 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'

Disney has cast relative newcomer Ed Oxenbould to play the title role in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Disney’s adaptation of the popular kids book.

Oxenbould joins Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner in the production which will be directed by Miguel Arteta.

A classic since it was published in 1972, Bad Day was written by Judith Viorst and centers on a boy (Oxenbould) who has a very horrible day and finds out that other people can have them too.

In the script, written by Lisa Cholodenko and Rob Lieber, the boy has a terrible day and wishes his family experienced his suffering, which they later do.

Oxenbould, who appeared in a Australian TV series titled Puberty Blues, is managed in the U.S. by Dan Spilo and Laura Hersh at Industry Entertainment and in Australia by Sophie Jermyn at Sophie Jermyn Management.

 

RSL’s offense finds its scoring punch

SANDY — For slightly differing reasons, Real Salt Lake and its opponent tonight, Seattle, were a little slow coming out the gate of the Major League Soccer season.

Not any more.

Over the last seven weeks, the two Western Conference rivals have been scorching hot, with each carrying a 5-1-1 over their past seven MLS contests.

The Claret-and-Cobalt enter tonight’s 7:30 p.m. clash with the Sounders at Rio Tinto Stadium on a blistering goal-scoring tear.

Salt Lake has scored 25 goals in its last nine matches, which includes two U.S. Open Cup wins in extra time, with 10 different players having found the back of the net during that span. Real has scored at least three goals in four consecutive matches, including five in its dramatic comeback win in extra time against the Charleston Battery in Open Cup action on June 12.

“I think we’re obviously creating a ton of chances,” Real midfielder Ned Grabavoy said. “We probably missed a good amount of chances still. But in saying that, it just seems to me like nobody is trying to overdo anything. The ball gets into the midfield, it gets knocked around, one, two touch, move it, move it, move it until we finally move past our midfield and then from there it has been a commitment from guys to get into the box.

“We’re getting numbers in and around the box and the rest of the team is stepping up to try and clean up things and try to stay in their final third and play from there, so I think it’s that commitment level a little bit.”

Seattle put together back-to-back four goal matches against San Jose and FC Dallas, and has scored 16 times in its last seven outings.

Defensively, the Sounders have three shutouts during their hot streak, while Real has two.

Seattle’s up-tempo offense might be coming at a tough time for Salt Lake, which is being forced to deal with a season-ending knee injury to defender Kwame Watson-Siriboe and a potentially lengthy injury recovery by defender Chris Schuler. Those injuries will likely either force RSL to hoist a hefty load of responsibility on young center back Carlos Salcedo or potentially convert outside defender Chris Wingert into the central defense.

RSL general manager Garth Lagerway also hinted during ESPN700’s weekly Real Salt Lake radio show that the team might have to explore bolstering its central defensive options via trade.

• GIL SCORES FOR USA in U20 ACTION: At Istanbul, Spain showed why it is favored to win the Under-20 World Cup by beating the United States 4-1 on Friday in its opener after doubles from star strikers Jese and Gerard Deulofeu.

France also turned in a strong performance in the other Group A match, scoring two second-half goals within four minutes to win 3-1 against Ghana.

Spain opened the scoring when Deulofeu fires a shot across the goal mouth and Jese volleyed the ball into the net in the fifth minute.

Deulofeu, who plays for Barcelona, received the ball outside the area, sidestepped a defender and sent a blistering shot just beyond goalkeeper Cody Cropper to make it 2-0 in the 42nd.

The European champions caught the defense sleeping two minutes later.

Javier Manquillo made a great run, passed to Jese, who was lurking in the area, and the Real Madrid striker scored his second goal just before halftime.

“We are happy for our team,” Spain coach Julen Lopetegiu said. “In the first half, we had problems with the American pressure. But we tried to run behind the defenders and we had the chance to score goals.”

Spain seemed to content to sit back for much of the second half, but again its counterattack paid dividends. Deulofeu received a long ball, got around Cropper and scored his second.

The Americans pulled one back when Luis Gil, who plays for Real Salt Lake, scored from just outside the area in the 77th.

U.S. coach Tab Ramos defended his decision to press Spain, insisting he didn’t want to “defend on our side of the field and lose.”