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I've been writing about how to secure the Internet for almost a decade, including in this InfoWorld position paper (PDF), which gives most of the details. My proposal is this: A new Internet channel must be created to establish pervasive authentication and improved services for identifying the bad guys. That might seem like a tall order in today's ultramalicious online world, but it can all be readily done using existing protocols and integrate with all legacy systems. In the past, many readers have recoiled from the notion of pervasive authentication. An Internet where everyone knows who everyone else is a contentious idea. But those concerns can be addressed by having anonymous and pseudo-anonymous identities, and channels that don't mind those types of identities with less trust assurance. In all modesty, I think the best part of my solution is a new centralized service that serves as a sort of "DNS for security." Like DNS, the new security service would ...

As it previously said it would do, Samsung Electronics filed a motion in a U.S. federal court on Monday to add Apple's latest smartphone, the iPhone 5, to its patent lawsuit. Also on Monday, a judge lifted a sales ban on the company's Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung's motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks to add the iPhone 5 to its second lawsuit filed against Apple on April 18, the company said in a statement. "Apple continues to take aggressive legal measures that will limit market competition. Under these circumstances, we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights," Samsung said in a statement. The same court dissolved a preliminary injunction banning sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh found that the basis for the injunction no longer exists since a jury found in August that Samsung did not viola...

The flaws with Apple Maps and previously with Apple’s voice recognition software, Siri, reveal some deep flaws with Tim Cook’s work as CEO. You might think that Tim Cook is doing a spectacular job. After all, since taking over as CEO on August 24, 2011, Apple stock has risen 74%, and its revenues and profits have soared 66% and 85% in the last year. But since the Apple Maps fiasco, Apple has lost $30 billion in stock market value, reports The Guardian. At the core of this loss in value may well be the gap between the technical reality of a new product and the way that product is sold to the public. Plenty of technologies are imperfect when they are first sold to the public. It appears as though Apple Maps had so many flaws — I pointed out its six most epic fails – that Apple could be rotting from the stem down. How so? Either Cook was not aware of the problems with Apple Maps — in which case he is showing that he does not care about the quality of the products that Apple makes. Or ...

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer last night gave birth to a baby boy, her husband Zach Bogue announced in a tweet. He did not mention his new son’s name or provide any other information, other than to say that both mother and child “are doing great.” Mayer, 37, previously has said she would take off just a few weeks of maternity leave. No word yet on whether Mayer’s son has any ideas on how to turn around her mother’s company.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has barred banks from granting credit facilities to a total of 113 companies and 419 directors/shareholders, in a move it says is directed at “strengthening financial stability and entrenching a culture of financial discipline.” Prominent on the list of blacklisted companies are those belonging to renowned businessmen, Mr. Femi Otedola, Alhaji Sayyu Dantata, Dr. Wale Babalakin, Sir Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide, Mrs Elizabeth Ebi, and former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji. In a new circular titled Prohibition of New Credit Facilities To Debtors of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), CBN explained that the step had to be taken, as the debtors “failed to repay their loans to banks and had those loans subsequently transferred to AMCON.” Their prohibition from enjoying further credit services will continue until such a time when they full repay all agreed outstandings to AMCON. “In the initial instance, this restrictions shall apply to...

The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has closed the Lokoja-Abuja federal highway. The highway had since last week been flooded because of the rise in water level from River Niger. The commission arrived at the decision following the continued rise in the water level at the Banda Village, two kilometres to Lokoja, the Kogi capital, making the movement of vehicles on the road difficult and dangerous. FRSC officials and some youths who had been guiding vehicles through the water for the past three days had been overstressed and could no longer cope with the situation, ” an FRSC statement to NAN stated. The highway will remained shut until the commission could guarantee safe vehicular movement. Meanwhile, officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), who had been carrying out rescue operations in Idah and Ibaji local governmentstold NAN that the situation in the area was deteriorating. One of the officials, Mr. Ishaya Choloko, who spoke to NAN on telephone from...