You might think that, given the sheer number of business applications available for the iPhone, the answer is a resounding yes. However, it does rather depend, of course on how you approach the question in the first place. If you enter the question arena from the door marked security then things take on an altogether different light. I have lost count of the number of security consultants who have been warning that one of the biggest dangers facing the average enterprise in terms of data loss and security impact potential is that posed by the rise of the smartphone.

Take the recent survey conducted by endpoint data leak prevention outfit DeviceLock, which took over seven months to compile. It asked whether more than a 1000 businesses had taken any steps to secure themselves against the security threat of iPhone usage. Less than 40 percent could confirm that they had, with an alarming number of people admitting that any iPhone threat is treated most definitely as a back burner security issue right now. In Western Europe and North America things were even worse, with 75 percent currently ignoring the iPhone security threat. Compare and contrast with Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific businesses where close to 60 percent had taken action already.

“While this website-administered poll has inherent limitations, the results do suggest that the iPhone threat to data security is being generally underestimated” said Ashot Oganesyan, DeviceLock CTO and Founder, who concludes “the variation in how the well-developed IT markets of the West view the iPhone threat versus the emerging IT markets of the East may be because Enterprise IT planners in the West are relying on the already-entrenched vendors, such as RIM and Microsoft, to ‘have their backs’ and not introduce such a device without the necessary security hooks in place for device-related policy enforcement and encryption”.

Whatever, history shows us that the most effective enterprise strategy for dealing with any mobile media is simply to establish clear policies with regard to these new devices and enforce those policies using whatever tools are available to them. It ain’t rocket science, but without it I fear that the continuing use of iPhones (and other smartphone devices) within the enterprise could quickly see iPhone security become a stellar security problem.

Could tomorrow’s Budget be the most broadband friendly in history? The odds are looking good for some pre-Election bribery in the form of Super-Fast Broadband for All it would seem. Gordon Brown has already announced plans for every citizen to get a government services web page of their very own, accessed by super-fast broadband which the PM refers to as the electricity of the digital age.

Of course, there’s the small matter of how you pay for all of this. Which is where the Budget on Wednesday comes in. It looks likely that there will be an element of taxation in the form of a land line levy of around £6 for every land line, which is already being referred to as the broadband tax. It’s also expected that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair ‘eyebrows’ Darling, will announce that savings of billions made by closing down existing government offices will contribute to the funding purse, along with the creation of some 250,000 new jobs over the next 10 years as a result of the speedy web access.

But how do the main political parties in England view the Digital Britain road map, and how their plans to deliver that digital economy vary? Thinkbroadband has been analysing the different approaches and come up with the following:

Labour

A ‘Universal Service Commitment’ of 2Mbps by 2012 to virtually everyone in UK funded by surplus money from the Digital Switchover fund.

Next Generation Broadband available to 90 percent of UK by 2017 funded by 50p +VAT per month levy on fixed phone lines which is expected to raise £1bn over seven years. This will fund next gen broadband to the final third where the market is unlikely to deliver a service without some intervention.

In his speech, Gordon Brown said that proposals for online delivery of government services “depend on reaching 100 per cent” coverage of next generation broadband and that by 2020 he expects “to make Britain the leading superfast broadband digital power creating 100 per cent access to every home”.

Conservative

Supports the 2 Mbps universal access by 2012 funded by surplus from that Digital Switchover fund.

Next Generation Broadband of 100Mbps to majority of homes by 2017 funded possibly by using a proportion of BBC license fee at any point beyond 2012. Funds would be used as loans or on a matched funding basis.

Thinks that BT should open up access to underground ducts and overground telegraph poles so competitors can lay their own fibre like they do in France and Singapore for example.

Wants a change to the rating system for fibre networks to remove all current disadvantages suffered by new operators.

Believes intervention may be necessary in due course for next-generation broadband, but market should be given a chance first.

Liberal Democrats

Supportive of government USC plans for 2Mbps by 2012 funded by digital switch over surplus, essential to have a minimum standard of service but 2Mbps is an unambitious target.

Thinks universal service funding should be combined with a project for rollout of next generation broadband, so those who can’t get broadband would get next generation broadband sooner.

Thinks that mobile broadband could have a role to play in hard-to-reach areas. Effective use of spectrum is important.

Would like to see vast majority of the country being able to access 40Mbps+ by 2017.

Wants immediate intervention to target areas unlikely to be reached by next generation broadband by the market, the final third. Would adopt an outside in approach (start funding the most rural of areas first) but admits “it won’t be possible for absolutely everyone to receive next generation access” immediately.

Opposes the Conservative policy to top-slice the BBC license fee.

Supports 50p/month levy “if applied properly and with exemptions for the least well off”

Welcomes BT decision to open up ducts.

Sees a need to encourage more services that make use of high speed broadband, including national and local government services, to drive demand.

Thinkbroadband, however, believes therefore that the key question will be what percentage of homes and businesses will have access to 100Mbps by 2017? The challenging target will be in the 80-100 per cent range. “The main political parties all accept the importance of securing a strong digital future with super-fast broadband, but each has made vague promises, leaving out some crucial factors that would allow us to hold them to account if they form part of the next government” says Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of Thinkbroadband, concluding “we see some differences in the plans for how next generation broadband will be funded, in particular the level and timing of government intervention, but we don’t have clarity from any party on both the question of what ‘next generation’ broadband means in terms of speeds, and how universal will access to this high speed broadband be? In other words, will they guarantee that every single household will get it?”

With a general election just weeks away now, I’ve been wondering just what part Twitter will play in electing the next government? A new poll by Lewis Communications has revealed that 24 percent of the 1000 people consulted thought that Twitter was an essential communication tool in a democracy such as ours. That said, only 27 percent said they might be encouraged to vote for an MP who contacted them through their social networking service compared to 48 percent who would not be so minded. Mind you, one in six of those asked also thought that the barman in The Simpsons, Moe Szyslak, was a political blogger so maybe we shouldn’t take these figures too seriously.

A couple of numbers that did jump out at me from that survey though were related to online voting and political websites: 77 percent wanted to vote online this year, and 56 percent had visited a political website already in the run up to the General Election. Eb Adeyeri, Digital PR Director at LEWIS Communications, reckons that many people believe this will be “the UK’s first “Internet election” with politicians exploiting channels such as Facebook and Twitter to convey their message” but warns that a “badly-focused social media campaign could do more harm than good as Gordon Brown discovered with his infamous YouTube appearance”.

The Labour Party is taking Twitter seriously enough to have appointed a ‘Twitter Tsar’ in Kerry McCarthy MP, while Tory leader David Cameron famously dismissed Twitter users on a radio show by saying that “too many twits make a twat”.

Certainly there are more MPs, and would be MPs, using Facebook and Twitter than ever before it seems to me. Of course, the cynical side of me does accept that the rise of the micro-blogging and socially networked MP and the forthcoming election may be linked. There’s even less doubting that Twitter has become politicised to a degree, and loosely organised Tweet campaigns can be more effective as a lobbying tool than many other avenues when it comes to getting massive media attention in the shortest timescale. We’ve already seen many such groundswell campaigns on Twitter, and as the election draws ever closer I expect we will see many more. Of course, with that election looming we’ll have to expect less of these campaigns to be true feelings of the people events and more of them to have the hand of The Party pushing them.

But how can you track and analyse party political activity on Twitter? Sense Internet reckons it has the answer with the newly released the Tweetlection tool which
claims to track comments about political parties on Twitter, providing a picture of those politically motivated keywords that are most active at any given time.

“While all parties engage in tweeting, until now it has been hard to get a real-time picture of what is being said on key issues, and by whom,” says Sense MD Aidan Cook. “Previously it was difficult to get an accurate view of just how much excitement or interest a specific event or issue was generating”. Cook reckons that users will be able to get at a glance overviews of “the frequency of tweets over time for each party and the common themes in those tweets” which could help political parties modify existing themes and messages, or even create new ones.

File under ‘Stupid Decisions of the 21st Century’ as Microsoft confirms that there will be no cut and paste function in Windows Phone 7 series.

According to a question and answer session at the MIX10 Microsoft Developers Conference during which Microsoft stated that clipboard operations would not be supported in Windows Phone 7 Series, thatwould appear to be the case.

Now you may be thinking, no big deal as it took Apple years to get cut and paste onto the iPhone. But wait a minute, this is different isn’t it? This is Microsoft we are talking about, a company whose Windows Mobile software has included cut and paste forever. Heck, it’s an integral part of how people who have a Windows Mobile powered handset work.

Work being the operative word, on so many levels. If Windows Phone 7 Series is to be aimed at the work market, then surely cut and paste is somewhat vital to get quite a lot of work tasks completed? Not according to Microsoft which has apparently said that most Office users don’t need clipboard functionality.

Ah, right.

Just one more reason why Windows Phone 7 Series devices will remain on my do not touch with a very long barge pole list then…

Get this: developers of ’second-tier’ web browsers are moaning about how unfair it is that Microsoft is advertising their products for free. Sheesh!

You can, I do believe, file this one firmly under WTF? Apparently, forcing Microsoft into displaying the ballot screen and effectively giving them free advertising is not enough. Now six of the seven clients which do not make it onto the first screen of browser software choices, the so called second-tier browsers, are complaining to the European Commission for what they consider an even fairer slice of the pie as it were.

While the developers of the Avant, Flock, GreenBrowser, Maxthon, Sleipnir and SlimBrowser browser clients have petitioned EC vice-president Neelie Kroes to get Microsoft to change the ballot screen so that their somewhat obscure browsers are given a bit more prominence. The argument being that users only see five browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer itself) by default without scrolling to reveal the less popular choices. What the moaning minnies want is an indication that they actually exist, encouraging users to scroll right and reveal them.

The petition states that the design “leaves the vast majority of users unaware that there are more than five browsers to choose from” and complains that the browser developers “did not have the opportunity to offer any Browser Choice screen design feedback”. Well duh, why should they have had? Indeed, the petition suggests quite rightly that Microsoft has no intention of making any changes.

If I were those second-tier browser developers I’d be keeping quiet on this one. Heck it’s a pretty massive publicity boost that they have been included at all, considering that most users will not have a clue as to their existence and be even less bothered about using them. the way that the Internet works is such that if they were really that worthy then surely they would have floated like cream to the top, although still underneath the silver foil cap that it Internet Explorer of course. While you might argue that Chrome only made the impact it did on market share courtesy of being developed by Google, you’d be wrong. Sure, that did it no harm but if it were not for the fact that it’s so fast and fabulous (yes I’m an ex-Firefox convert in danger of becoming a Chrome fanboy) it would have sunk without trace in the market share stakes. And the argument falls apart entirely when you consider the share that Firefox managed to carve out on word of mouth alone.

So my advice would be to Shut The Flip Up and worry less about Microsoft being a big pile of poo pants for not giving your second-tier clients more prominence in this free advertising jamboree and worry more about improving those clients so that they become first-tier through functional merit.

According to a new BBC poll the vast majority of people think that Internet access is a right and not a privilege. When I say ‘vast majority’ I mean nearly four out of every five people questioned by the BBC, and that’s not just in the UK or even Europe but across the globe.

The survey, undertaken by the BBC World Service, questioned 27,000 people in a total of 26 different countries including the likely suspects of Finland (which has already decreed Internet access a human right for its citizens) but also the perhaps less likely residents of Brazil, China, Mexico and South Korea for example.

A total of 87% of the Internet users questioned thought that the Internet should a fundamental right,while 70% of those not yet using the Internet also thought they had the right to access. Overall some 79% agreed that Internet access should be a fundamental right for everyone.

Leading the way in Europe was Turkey where 90% thought this way, while South Korea had the highest percentage of believers with 96% which is perhaps not too surprising as the vast majority of South Koreans already have high-speed Internet access.

Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News that “we have entered the knowledge society and everyone must have access to participate”.

I have been a professional Internet access evangelist for the best part of twenty years now, and have to say that I’m pleased to see organisations such as the ITU pressing the right to access issue. Like many others, I recall all those stories (and even wrote a good many of them myself) warning about the dangers of a digital divide. The introduction of broadband has, for a large part, helped to bridge this divide at home but the same cannot yet be said of many countries. Indeed, there is still an argument that the people who might benefit most in terms of cultural, educational and vocational exposure to the Web are the ones with least access to it in the UK - namely that section of our society which remains culturally, educationally and vocationally disadvantaged through poverty.

Has the BBC poll got it about right? What do you think, should Internet access for all be a basic human right?

Have hackers now become industrialised, to the extent that they now represent an exponentially increased threat to not only individuals and business, but Government and worryingly the education sector as well?

That’s the striking conclusion of a new report from data security specialists Imperva. It even goes as far as comparing the emerging industrialization of hacking to the way in which the 19th century Industrial Revolution advanced methods and accelerated assembly from single to mass production. “The result” Imperva warns “is that today’s cybercrime industry has transformed and automated itself to improve efficiency, scalability and profitability”.

The ‘Industrialization of Hacking’ report has uncovered a plot to infect educational servers worldwide with Viagra ads that download malware to the victim when they visit the infected pages, hosted on otherwise legitimate educational sites.

This is just one example of the increasingly industrialised methodology being implemented by hackers to automate an as yet unreported search engine manipulation scheme which has already infected hundreds, and quite possibly thousands, of .edu and .ac.uk servers with these infected Viagra ads.

“This attack on academic institutions highlights how hacking has become industrialized infecting servers from major institutions including UC Berkeley, Ohio State, University of Oxford and more” explained Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman, who continued “ironically, this technique is the most prevalent method used to create havoc in cyberspace, yet remains virtually unknown to the general public”.

It would appear that over the years there has emerged a clear definition of roles and responsibilities within the hacking community. Think of these as developing to the point where they provide a supply chain resembling, in many ways, a drug cartel.

Indeed, you can see a division of labour within this highly industrialised hacking community that encompasses researchers, farmers and dealers. The researcher looks for vulnerabilities in applications and frameworks, selling what they discover to criminal groups and turning a profit in the process. Farmers, on the other hand, are primarily responsible for maintaining and increasing a botnet presence through the medium of mass infection, again looking to carve a profit and often working on a per infected zombie basis. Which just leaves the dealers who, just like their drug cartel counterparts, are tasked with the distribution of the end product, in this case a malicious payload, and who also earn their keep on a commission only basis. Everyone makes some money, the criminals running the gangs make a big one of course.

If these guys are, indeed, making educational servers a target now then it’s a worrying move and one which is likely to cause a headache for network admins across campus on a global basis.

Let us know here at IT Pro if you have seen an increase in malicious activity within your academic domain, and what you have been doing to combat it.