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Hang up your dongles because a new kind of mobile broadband is on the way: the MiFi or mobile Wi-Fi device creates its own wireless hotspot that can connect up to three wirelessly enabled devices.

The E5830 MiFi device from 3 Ireland works like a regular mobile-broadband dongle in that it gives you internet connectivity on the go, but the standalone device doesn’t requite any setup and it’s basically like having a modem and wireless router all rolled into one.

You simply switch on the MiFi device, get onto the 3 network and switch on the Wi-Fi option. Then switch to Wi-Fi on your laptop, handset or other devices and it will pick up with MiFi signal.

You can have up to five devices connected at once and if you buy on Post Pay you’ll get 15GBs of usage for €19.99 per month while the MiFi wireless router costs €79.

On Pre Pay, the router costs €149 and you can buy a day’s usage (500MBs), week’s usage (2GBs) or a month’s (10GBs) usage.

Just months after the Global Mobile Suppliers Association confirmed that 7.2Mbps had become the baseline for mobile broadband globally, it now predicts that 21Mbps will be the next baseline for 3G mobile broadband.

Mobile broadband is continuing to grow at a fast pace due to the ever-increasing introduction of new technologies, new networks, new devices and competitive innovation in the market.

On 27 July last, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) announced that 7.2Mbps had become the new baseline for mobile broadband globally.

At that time, half of the HSPA networks in commercial service globally were capable of supporting a peak downlink data speed of 7.2Mbps or higher, supported by almost 600 user devices capable of 7.2Mbps or higher which had been launched in the market.

Some HSPA systems already support a peak downlink data speed up to 14.4Mbps.

HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) is the next step for many operators, which increases data rates by using higher order modulation schemes and multiple antenna technology (MIMO).

3GPP Release 7 introduced 64 QAM modulation, increasing the downlink peak data bit rate by 50pc to 21Mbps. In the uplink, 16 QAM doubles the peak data bit rate from 5.76Mbps to 11.5Mbps. Release 8 allows for combining 64 QAM with 2×2 MIMO for peak rates up to 42Mbps downlink and 11.5Mbps uplink (per 5 MHz carrier).

Further evolution of HSPA will utilise combinations of multi-carrier and MIMO to reach peak rates of 84Mbps downlink and 23Mbps uplink. Sixty-two operators worldwide have committed to HSPA+ network deployments.

The announcement by GSA of the 7.2Mbps benchmark prompted the question from a number of industry players about what the next baseline might be, when, and why.

In other words, what would be the mainstream mobile-broadband technology capabilities – interpreted as meaning more than 100 networks in service, with a supporting ecosystem of several hundred user devices in the market.

While accepting the majority view for 21Mbps as the next benchmark, it will take time to build the terminals market for widespread availability, especially where MIMO is to be implemented, since this will add complexity and cost to devices.

Operators may also be unwilling to increase subsidies for such devices. And although 2010 is the time frame that more than 60pc agree on for 21Mbps, it will be a key challenge for the industry to ensure sufficient terminals in the market by that date, which in the end might be more like 2011/12.

The latest GSA survey on Global HSPA+ Network Commitments and Deployments confirms that 62 operators in 35 countries have committed to HSPA+ network deployments.

A researcher took a look at the 10,000 leaked Hotmail accounts and pulled out the most popular password.

An anonymous user posted usernames and passwords for over 10,000 Windows Live Hotmail accounts to web site PasteBin, including accounts on email domains like @hotmail.com, @msn.com, and @live.com. Neowin verified that the accounts are genuine, and that most appear to be based in Europe.

Furthermore, the list appears to cover accounts A through to B, suggesting more lists are to come.

The researcher who examined the list has found that “123456″ was the most commonly used password, appearing 64 times! Duh ppl!

Forty-two percent of the passwords used lowercase letters from “a to z”; only 6 percent mixed alpha-numeric and other characters.

Many of the top 20 passwords used were Spanish names, such as Alejandra and Alberto, suggesting that the victims were in Spanish-speaking communities. Nearly 2,000 of the passwords were only six characters long. The longest password was 30 characters - lafaroleratropezoooooooooooooo.

The 10,000 passwords and user names, believed to be the results from a recent phishing attack. Phishing attacks have experienced a significant rise in the last 12 months, and if you were to graph this you would see a mirror image significant decrease in the average user's common sense

Well, that partnership didn't stay friendly for long.

Microsoft has confirmed that it is engaged in informal talks with European regulators to deal with competition concerns over its search deal with Yahoo!

The 10-year agreement is also being investigated by the US Department of Justice, which recently made a second request for information to the two firms.

"As we said when the agreement was announced, we anticipated that this deal will be closely reviewed in the United States and EU, and discussions in both geographies continue. We remain hopeful the deal will close in early 2010.", a spokesman said.

The Competition Commission concerns seem to be a long way from either a formal or informal investigation and it would be standard practise for the companies involved to inform eurocrats of some of the details of a deal of this size.

Microsoft has claimed the deal is pro-competitive in that the combined search will offer a more robust alternative to the market dominance of Google. Google is no doubt doing its best to persuade Brussels and Washington of the opposite view, so maybe Microsoft is just getting its retaliation in first.

Yahoo! and Microsoft have announced their much anticipated agreement to work together on internet search and advertising, in a move to challenge Google’s dominance in this area.

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, said the 10-year partnership would provide choice, better value, and more search innovation for consumers, advertisers and publishers.

Under the deal, Microsoft will power Yahoo! search while the latter will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

According to the two companies, the deal will accelerate innovation by combining their “complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft’s competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the internet.”

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities, and mobile experiences.”

Ballmer said the agreement would provide his company’s search engine, Bing, the scale necessary to more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” he said. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

In a pretty seismic break from tradition, Microsoft has for the first time ever released 20,000 lines of driver code to the Linux community to enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualised on its server platforms.

The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree.

The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualised on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

“Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high-performance levels. We worked very closely with the Hyper-V team at Microsoft to make that happen,” explained (read claimed) Tom Hanrahan, director of the Open Source Technology Center at Microsoft.

According to Hanrahan, customers have told Microsoft that they would like to standardise on one virtualisation platform, and the Linux device drivers will help customers who are running Linux to consolidate their Linux and Windows servers on a single virtualisation platform, thereby reducing the complexity of their infrastructure. This will give them more choices in how to develop and deploy solutions, while still managing their entire data centre from a single management console.

Eircom was on the trail of suspected computer hackers last night after many of its 500,000 internet customers were prevented from going online following a "deliberate targeting" of the company's network on Monday.

During a five-hour cyber attack on its internet provider, Eircom customers were unable to browse the web, were "timed out" on websites, or were redirected to incorrect sites before the service could be fully restored. Eircom said it was too early to consider calling in the gardai but it had informed the Department of Communications and the Communications Regulator and were keeping them updated on developments in their investigations.

The US Department of the Treasury and Secret Service experienced similar problems earlier this month when unusually high volumes of internet traffic were directed towards their sites in what was believed to have been a co-ordinated cyber attack.

"This was about access to the internet. It was not about getting on to the Eircom homepage and was not about somebody accessing our network or systems or data," a company spokesman said.

In a statement, Eircom said the disruption had been caused by an unusual and irregular volume of internet traffic directed onto its network which had caused "significant congestion".

As an investigation continued last night into the source of the disruption, the company said it did not know yet whether the attack was directed from inside or outside Ireland.

The company insisted its data and systems had not been compromised and that it had taken a number of steps, including software updates and hardware "interventions", to fully restore its internet service.

Between 6pm and 11.15pm on Monday, there was significant congestion for customers browsing the web.

The company said it experienced an "unprecedented level" of traffic directed towards its internet service provider -- equivalent to 10 times the normal levels of activity.

Similar problems emerged last week in what Gerry Culligan, Eircom's director of consumer market described as a "consistent attack over a period of time". "Our first job was to restore service as quickly as possible and it is now restored, We will endeavour to ensure that our customers enjoy uninterrupted access to the internet," he added.

This is all on top of the issues experienced by Eircom customers last week, which can be easily fixed using OpenDNS as we have previously suggested here at altFIRE.

Maybe Eircom should direct all their customers' DNS queries there too?!

Ireland's largest ISP Eircom has confirmed that there was a domain name server (DNS) outage on its website last night after users complained they were being redirected to bogus sites, leading to speculation the company’s server has been hacked.

The company so far has not issued a statement on the extent of the outage or if indeed it was hacked. A statement is due shortly.

Users last night posted threads on Boards.ie that they had been experiencing serious DNS slowdowns and odd occurrences such as when visiting Facebook or RTE websites they would be redirected to sites showing pictures of scantily clad women or advertising pages.

Typically, users reported sites acting normally, but certain pages were refusing to load.

The problem is understood to have first manifested itself at the weekend.

At the time of writing, an Eircom spokesman confirmed that it has had issues with its servers and that a statement would be forthcoming.

The immediate solution to the issue, as mentioned on the boards, was to simply use OpenDNS. We would encourage eircom uses to switch over to this service (it's free) by reconfiguring their motorola routers, just in case of recurrence.

Quantum cryptography has been a Holy Grail for security researchers since the idea was proposed, the promise of a new standard in absolutely unbreakable communications. But it's a new standard in the Microsoft sense: "Use our brilliant new system, because we're making sure the old one doesn't work anymore."

The most common security algorithm used online is RSA, an encryption system designed by MIT researchers Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adlemen in 1977 (hence RSA, Rivest-Shamir-Adlemen). The idea is that any numerical code can be cracked, so rather than try to invent one that's unbreakable you settle for one that would take a really long time - everybody involved is dead because the sun has exploded five billion years later kind of long time. The system is scalable too - every time computers improve, you just make your RSA bit-string longer to exponentially increase the processing power needed to crack it before the user dies of old age.

That's where quantum computers come in. They operate using "qubits" which can be in every possible state at once - so an eight-qubit system could represent every possible 8 regular-bit piece of data. It still collapses into just one regular 8-bit state when you look at it, so the quantum nature of the data was just a mathematical oddity until MIT Professor Peter Shor came up with an algorithm that could access this "every possible state" property to crack the RSA problem. Since then the race to build a quantum computer has been running in earnest.

However, quantum mechanics also promises a replacement for the redundant RSA. Key codes can be transmitted in pairs of particles in such a way that they can't be copied, and these keys can then be used to make a truly uncrackable code. By uncopiable, we mean that the act of a spy even looking at the keycode will destroy it - and the receiver immediately knows to use a different one. This is known as Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), and an EU Initiative for "Secure Communication based on Quantum Cryptography" (SEQOQC) claims it will demonstrate a network-ready version of the technology this October in Vienna. You can be sure security experts worldwide will be paying close attention, as well as a couple of 00-agents and possibly Q.

But you have to be careful of the hype. While the theory of quantum communications promises absolute security, there's a lot of room between theory and actual practice for problems. Researchers at the University of Toronto have already demonstrated a successful spy-attack on a commercial QKD device, based on particular aspects of hardware not quite delivering the idealized situation. Because you'll always have people messing things up. Remember - you can use the very basic physics of the universe to transmit an absolutely secure code around the globe, but you can't stop the person at the other end writing it on a yellow sticky on the side of their monitor.