links for 2010-10-25

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It encrypts your communications with a number of major websites.

t's extremely common for websites to protect your password by encrypting the initial login, but surprisingly uncommon for websites to encrypt everything else. This leaves the cookie (and the user) vulnerable. (This Firefox plugin allows you to access wifi cookies and hijack sessions.)

It seems like every time Facebook amends its privacy policy, the web is up in arms. The truth is, Facebook’s well publicized privacy fight is nothing compared to the vulnerability of all unsecured HTTP sites — that includes Facebook, Twitter and many of the web’s most popular destinations.

Starbucks in the USA has implemented a new wifi/portal system which is written in HTML 5. This is because most customers who use the network use an iPhone or iPad.

Privacy advocates are calling for charges to be brought against Google after the internet giant admitted it unwittingly collected emails and passwords when it gathered data for its Street View network. (But all those unencrypted wifi networks are still there broadcasting info to whoever wants to collect it.)

Five months after “mistakenly” collecting “fragmented” data from home networks via its Street View cars, Google has confirmed that private emails, Web addresses as well as passwords were among the data captured.

In a recent blog post, the search giant admitted to “failing badly”, noting that in May, Google had not analysed the data and did not know what information was included in the collection.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel has outlined the competition regulator's desire to have final say on undertakings submitted by Telstra and NBN Co, without facing the prospect of court appeals.

Senator Stephen Conroy has welcomed an Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) report which found the rollout of high speed broadband like the National Broadband network would be a boon for Australian businesses.

The ALP lost a lot of votes to the Greens at the last election. And if recent pols are to be believed the slide has continued. It appears that the Australian political spectrum is moving to a 3 party system (Libs and Nats count as one party).

Singapore's stock exchange is poised to offer a premium of up to 40 per cent to acquire the Australian Securities Exchange, valuing the Australian bourse operator at about $8.5 billion, in a move to create an Asian trading hub. While the SGX company is worth more than the ASX company, the value of the Australian market is almost 3 times the size.