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India
UAE, Saudi Arabia Might Ban BlackBerry Services :: Will it be banned in India too?
Aug 3rd
Looks like the dark times for RIM and BlackBerry are showing no signs of respite. The TRA (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) of the UAE, which regulates the telecom industry in the country is contemplating a ban on the e-mail, web browsing and messaging services on BlackBerry smartphones starting October 2010.
The ban, according to officials from UAE, will be issued in public interest. According to them, the current security protocols used in BlackBerry services makes the users of such services to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national-security concerns .
If you were unaware, unlike most normal phones, any BlackBerry device encrypts data sent using it first through its servers in Canada before it ends up where you intend to send it. This basically means that UAE cannot monitor what is being sent via BlackBerry phones in the country unless Canada and RIM somehow allows access to its data center. RIM was reportedly offered an alternative to open its own server within the UAE which the company rejected. This is believed to be the reason behind the plans to ban the entire bunch of BlackBerry services in the country.
Incidentally, UAE is not the only country that is contemplating a ban or imposing similar measures on RIM. India and now, even Saudi Arabia are talking tough regarding BlackBerry and its servers.
Vodafone Launches MP3 Music Store :: Download songs for as little as Re. 1!
Apr 11th
Mumbai-based subscribers of Vodafone India might just love this one! The company has announced the launch of its music download service in the city and guess what? Vodafone says you would be able to download an entire song for a paltry Re. 1.
Now, all you need to avail this feature is to have a GPRS enabled handset, a Vodafone connection and access to Vodafone live. Both prepaid and post-paid users can access this service. Accessing the stuff you need via GPRS is the fastest and the easiest way to go about this. However, that doesn’t mean there are other options. The user, for example, can also choose to SMS the name of a song to a toll free number (111) to access the service.
The customer can choose to access this service and is eligible to download 5 songs per day. The songs are saved to a personal playlist titled “My Songs” on the Vodafone Live portal. Customers can also download the selected songs again – without having to pay for them again.
If you are a Vodafone Mumbai user, you might want to check out this service and listen to a plethora of tracks through it.
Now for the flip side. Vodafone hasn’t clarified how you would be charged for the actual download of the song. The Re. 1 is just the price of the song – minus the data charges. A song which can range from 2 to 6MB in size even if downloaded at a rate of 10 paise per 10kb adds up to a not so comfortable rate of Rs. 10 per MB.
I will update this when I get more info about this, meanwhile if our readers know something, feel free to share..
India is a Spamming Hub
Apr 8th
Wonder where all those annoying spam messages come from? Who sends them? Well, you have got some answers here. Panda Security, a player in antivirus and preventive technologies segment, has stated in its report that India is the world’s number two spammer. Surprised? Even we were.
Panda Security has released a report stating that Brazil, India, Korea, Vietnam and U.S. head the list of countries from which most spam was sent during the first two months of the year 2010. With respect to the cities from which spam was being sent, Seoul was first in the list, followed by Hanoi, New Delhi, Bogota, Sao Paulo and Mumbai.
The five million emails analyzed by PandaLabs came from a total of almost one million different IP addresses. This shows that the spam is mostly sent from zombie computers belonging to a botnet. This way, the computers of the infected users themselves are those which send the spam. The cybercrooks have thousands of computers at their disposal, which do the dirty work for them.
Spam is nothing but a business and is used primarily either to distribute malware or sell/advertise all type of products. Therefore, as long as there are users, no matter if they are few, who trust these messages, it’s enough to continue betting on it.
