Caroline Kennedy

Three hackers have been indicted for redirecting the Comcast.net Web site to a page of their own making in 2008. When Comcast customers visited the Comcast.net site during the attack on May 28, 2008, they were redirected to a Web site that displayed a message attributing the attack to members of the Kryogeniks hacker gang. At that time, about 5 million people connected to the Web site each day, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. Because the site redirected to that page, customers were unable to access their Comcast e-mail accounts through the Comcast.net site.

Instead of the Comcast page, customers saw the message: "KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBB RoXed COMCAST sHouTz to VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven." Immediately after Comcast was able to address the hack, the ISP (Internet service provider) and Network Solutions, the registrar, said they didn't know how the hackers managed to get the passwords necessary to switch the DNS servers and redirect the site. The suit said that one of the defendants, Christopher Allen Lewis, made two phone calls through which he got the information that he and his friends used to access Comcast's DNS information. The indictment sheds only a bit of light on how they did it. Another of the defendants, Michael Paul Nebel, allegedly logged onto a specific Comcast e-mail account that allowed him to communicate with Comcast's DNS registrar. During the attack, one of the defendants, Lewis, called a Comcast employee at his home and asked if the company's domains were working properly, the indictment alleges. Lewis was then able to sign onto Comcast's account at the registrar and point the Comcast.net Web site to the page he and the others made, according to the filing.

Comcast claims that it lost US$128,578 due to the attacks. The men are charged with one count each of conspiracy to intentionally damage a protected computer system. James Robert Black Jr. is the third defendant named in the indictment. The charges were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Thursday. If convicted they each face a five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

AT&T on Friday accused Google of violating the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules by blocking Google Voice calls to some rural areas. By doing this, Google can reduce its access expenses, according to AT&T. The FCC in 2007 prohibited traditional carriers from blocking calls because it said the practice might degrade the reliability of telecommunications networks, Quinn wrote. In a letter to the FCC, the carrier said Google is claiming an advantage over other telecommunications providers by blocking calls, a cost-saving measure that traditional carriers are prohibited from using. "We urge the Commission to level the playing field and order Google to play by the same rules as its competitors," wrote Robert Quinn, a senior vice president for AT&T's federal regulatory issues, in a letter to the FCC. Google systematically blocks calls to certain areas from consumers using Google Voice, AT&T said, citing press reports. AT&T charges that Google's call blocking violates the fourth principle of the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, which says consumers should be able to reap the benefits of competition among network, application, service and content providers.

And even if it's an application and not a phone service, Google Voice is still governed by that principle because it covers application providers, the letter said. Though Google has claimed that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service, it effectively is, AT&T says. The carrier also accused Google of violating the fifth principle of the Internet Policy Statement, on nondiscrimination, which says one provider can't block fair access to another. Google itself is discriminating when it blocks calls to certain local exchange carriers, AT&T said.

With enterprises and carriers moving beyond 1G and 10G Ethernet to 40G and 100G Ethernet, we thought it might be handy to bundle up our most recent coverage of high-speed Ethernet in one tidy package.   ARTICLES 100G Ethernet: Bridge to Terabit Ethernet  IT managers who are getting started with – or even pushing the limits of - 10 Gigabit Ethernet in their LANs and data centers won't have to wait long for higher speed connectivity. 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products are slated to ship by year-end; terabit speeds are anticipated by 2015 10G Ethernet shakes net design to the core  Convergence, virtualization and more necessitates a new breed of high-performance, low-latency, non-blocking 10G Ethernet switches now hitting the market. Alcatel to push 100G to carrier edge  Alcatel-Lucent plans to ship a router module next year that supports the emerging 100G Ethernet standard at the edge of carrier networks, where services are delivered to subscribers. And it won't be long before these 10G switches are upgraded to 40G and 100G Ethernet switches when those IEEE standards are ratified in mid-2010. Juniper claims first with 100G Ethernet  Juniper in June introduced a 100G Ethernet interface for its T1600 core router, which it says is needed due to rapidly increasing network traffic and growth in video communications, advanced wireless services and virtualized cloud computing.

Verizon trials 100G Ethernet with UK research net Verizon Business took its next step toward deploying 100Gbps by trialing its 100G optical service with the United Kingdom's national research and education network, JANET. Verizon says it finished the trial in April after it sent 100G signals simultaneously with 10G and 40G optical signals over a 103-kilometer section of its global network located between London and Reading in the United Kingdom. Here's a timeline showing key milestones in the growth of Ethernet.   PODCASTSPushing Beyond 100G Ethernet Professor Harvey Newman from the California Institute of Technology joins us to talk about his recent experiment that delivered the first true 100 Gigabit payload transmission over a single wavelength, and where Ethernet is headed in the future - to Terabit and beyond! Qwest upgrading backbone to 100G  Qwest has started upgrading its Ethernet backbone to 100Gbps, a project that the company says it will work on all throughout 2010. Ixia demos 100G Ethernet at Interop  Ixia transmitted and received Ethernet traffic at 100Gbps through a CFP Multi-Source Agreement optical module.   BLOGS/OPINION 100G Ethernet races to market  Emergence of testing gear from JDSU raises question of whether the market is ready for 100G Ethernet, not just 40G. Alcatel-Lucent follows Juniper with 100G Ethernet; where's Cisco?  Cisco says it is waiting for the standard to be ratified, and for a customer to deploy the technology before announcing. (Comcast tested the interface on the CRS-1.)   SLIDESHOWS Evolution of Ethernet  From 3Mbps over shared coax to 40/100Gbps over fiber…and beyond.

High school and college students could be big beneficiaries of mobile technology by using e-readers and smartphones to access electronic textbooks and other course materials. Currently, nursing students use HP Ipaq handhelds, but those older devices are being retired. At Francis Tuttle Technology Center in Oklahoma City, pilot projects using iPhones and Kindle e-readers are in their early stages, as administrators weigh technical and financial considerations, said Chief Technology Officer Russ Hester. "Computer mobility is key and critical to our future," Hester said in an interview. "We spend time here looking at ways to get people [access] to learning content, no matter where they are...." For example, iPhones and iPod Touches are being evaluated for use by nursing students to carry medical reference books electronically "instead of requiring them to lug 10-pound books about the clinics," he said.

The Kindles could be used by a broad range of students, and might be available at the school bookstore pre-loaded with all the textbooks needed for a specific curriculum, Hester said. As an example, he said a complete set of textbooks for several courses in a single curriculum and a Kindle device, sold at perhaps half its retail price, might cost $1,600. That's compared to $2,000 for the traditional textbooks alone. He estimated that students might even save up to 50% on the cost of textbooks by buying them electronically. Students might even be able to use financial aid to make the purchases, since many are returning adults, some who have been laid off. Hester also said he wants the Kindle's browser to be improved so that students could use it to access the center's learning application from Blackboard Inc. One major issue will be getting textbook publishers to use the Kindle's proprietary publishing format, he said.

Access to the Blackboard application server could allow access to online videos and other materials, he said. Amazon.com is already conducting Kindle DX pilots at seven major universities, including Princeton University, a spokeswoman said. Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said the Tuttle Center's Kindle evaluation is one of several under way in the U.S. where IT shops are considering a "myriad" of concerns, including how to sell e-textbooks and not cut revenues for school bookstores accustomed to offering traditional paper texts. In addition to the iPhone and Kindle pilot programs, Hester said the center is may buy a group of sub-$500 mini-laptops that would be lent to students who agree to pay for the machine if they lose it. Let them learn with their technology." The Tuttle Center serves 3,200 high school students and adults each year, offering career certifications and college credits in many fields, including nursing, IT and culinary arts. Hester said he is so committed to mobile technology that, so far, he hasn't turned down any staff member pushing a pilot project. "I'm envisioning in three years everybody here having a mobile computing device, and we will support any flavor of device so they can get access to learning," Hester said. "Why do I have to buy desktops to install here?

In addition, as many as 40,000 students enroll in short training sessions that last a few days each year, with up to 3,000 students enrolled in three-month e-learning programs from 49 states and 46 countries. Distance learning has increased interest in some courses at the center, such as IT courses like one on Oracle Database. "It was struggling in terms of enrollment, but when it went to an e-learning format, it was suddenly wait-listed," he said. Most of the center's distance learners are probably using desktops or laptops to access information, but mobile devices are sure to grow more powerful and more plentiful, putting demands on the center's courses.