Terminal Five plagued by tech problems

The opening of Heathrow's Terminal Five has been plagued by a faulty IT infrastructure, which caused major problems in various areas, including baggage distribution and staff work allocation, reports Computing.co.uk.

"We have cancelled flights earlier in the day in order to protect the majority of the schedule and get passengers accommodated in later flights," said a British Airways spokesman.

"It is true that we had some teething problems, but it does not mean we were not able to cope with the demand," he said.

It may be the quickest $10 000 Charlie Miller ever earned - he took the first of three laptop computers and a $10 000 cash prize on Thursday after breaking into a MacBook Air at the CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest, says IT World.

Show organisers offered a Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and the MacBook as prizes, saying they could be won by anybody at the show who could find a way to hack into each of them and read the contents of a file on the system, using a previously undisclosed "0day" attack.

Nobody was able to hack into the systems on the first day of the contest when contestants were only allowed to attack the computers over the network. However, on Thursday the rules were relaxed so that attackers could direct contest organisers using the computers to do things like visit Web sites or open e-mail messages.

No conference on technology policy would be complete without a debate on where America stands in the global competition race, reports eWeek. "The US is still the most dynamic broadband economy in the world," said ambassador Richard Russell, associate director of the White House's Office on Science and Technology Policy. "As opposed to being miles ahead, though, we're only a little ahead."

But Yale Law School's Susan Crawford called Russell's position "magical thinking. We're not doing well at all." She proceeded to call the White House's effort "completely inadequate on broadband competition".

Crawford added that what America needs is an "access to a general communication structure that is open with universal access," a notion characterised by Russell as a "tragic mistake" and invoked an image of a single, regulated monopoly. "More pipes into the home is the key," Russell said.