Internet technology vulnerable to hackers

The British government has announced that there is a serious flaw in the underlying technology for nearly all Internet traffic, reports Associated Press.

The flaw could allow hackers to knock computers offline and disrupt routers.

"Exploitation of this vulnerability could have affected the glue that holds the Internet together," says Roger Cumming, director for England`s National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre.

Cisco Systems, which acknowledged its popular routers were among those vulnerable, distributed software repairs and tips to protect large corporate customers.

Eight of the top twenty news Web sites in the US last month were affiliated with newspapers, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Associated Press reports that three individual newspaper sites were in the top twenty - NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and washingtonpost.com.

The rating company classifies news Web sites according to the media companies` preferences. Thus, some newspaper Web sites are counted individually in these rankings, while others are aggregated for a newspaper chain wide ranking.

The rankings were based on a panel of 60 000 Americans accessing the Web at work and home.

Researchers at the University of Alberta believe that sending smells via e-mail may be possible within the next decade.

Newsfactor.com reports that the researchers have invented an electronic nose that connects to a PC and can detect several different odours. The next step would be to develop a low-cost smell generation system, one of the researchers said.

Among the challenges the e-nose may face is how to accurately identify spam. Imagining a spammer with an e-mail smell generation system is almost too terrible to contemplate.