Mobile firms urged to unlock phones

29 May 2014 Last updated at 13:27

Customers who have reached the end of their mobile phone contract should have their phones unlocked from the network for free, says consumer group Which?

It believes that keeping phones locked prevents customer finding a better deal by switching providers.

Pay-as-you-go mobiles should not be locked at all, it said.

One mobile operator said its phones were locked to prevent fraudulent activity.

When a mobile phone is purchased from an operator it is locked to that particular network until the contract expires or until the customer requests it is unlocked. This means the phone will not work if the Sim card from another network is used in the device.

Which? said that companies should also be forced to tell customers which is the best deal for them once their current contract has expired.

"Mobile phones are an essential part of daily life for many people and consumers shouldn't be locked into contracts that do not suit their usage," said Which? executive director Richard Lloyd.

'We want to send a message to mobile phone companies that they should help customers get a better deal by alerting people that their contracts are about to end and by unlocking handsets for free."

Fraudulent uses

Some 70% of the 2,100 people surveyed told Which? that if companies did unlock phones at the end of contracts it would encourage them to find a deal that was better value for money.

Currently mobile phone operators charge to have phones unlocked and generally will do so only if a customer requests it.

O2 does not charge customers who are on a contract but levy a £15 fee for pay-as-you-go users.

"Pay and Go handsets may be subsidised at point of sale and can be exploited for fraudulent purposes through box breaking. Our charge to unlock the phone covers the handset subsidy, the administrative costs of unlocking, but also acts as a deterrent for fraud activity," an O2 spokesperson told the BBC.

Box breaking is the name given to the purchase of locked handsets that are then unlocked and sold at a profit to dealers overseas where there are little or no subsidies on phones.

EE charges both contract and pay-as-you-go customers £20.42 to unlock a handset and will only unlock a phone after six months.

Vodafone charges its customers £19.99 to unlock their devices.

Three said that since January all its devices were now sold unlocked and anyone who purchased a handset before this time could get it unlocked free of charge.

Advice on the personal finance website Moneysavingexpert.com says that even with an upfront charge for unlocking a mobile, the savings should quickly outweigh the outlay. It could also give you better access to promotional deals and potentially make it cheaper to use a phone overseas as foreign Sim cards could be used in the device.

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YouTube set to be restored in Turkey

29 May 2014 Last updated at 17:09

Access to video-sharing site YouTube looks set to be restored in Turkey after a ruling by the nation's highest court.

A block was imposed in late March, soon after recordings alleging official corruption were aired on the site.

Now Turkey's constitutional court has said the block violated laws governing freedom of expression.

The court is now informing telecom authorities of its decision and is telling them to lift the block.

The decision is widely seen as a snub to the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has been a sharp critic of social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube.

Both sites were blocked earlier this year after recordings of official meetings were leaked and widely circulated. One recording involved senior army officers discussing intervention in Syria and others supposedly revealed corruption among people close to Mr Erdogan.

Complaints

The block on Twitter was lifted last month but the limits on YouTube have stayed despite decisions from lower courts calling on the government for them to be lifted.

It is not clear whether the order to lift the ban will be effective since the authorities said those earlier calls were ignored because offending material was still available on the site.

The constitutional court was looking into the validity of the block after complaints from Turkish citizens about it.

Many people have used special software to get round the ban and ensure they can still see videos on the site.

The block was imposed as a "precautionary administrative measure", Turkey's telecommunications regulator said at the time.

Turkey passed a controversial law early this year that let the regulator cut off any site without needing to get a court order.

YouTube was blocked previously in Turkey in 2007 but that ban was lifted in 2010.

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Microsoft ex-CEO 'wins Clippers bid'

30 May 2014 Last updated at 11:11

Microsoft's former CEO Steve Ballmer has reached a deal to buy the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for a potential record deal of $2bn (£1.2bn).

Shelly Sterling, who owns the Clippers with her husband through a trust, said she was "delighted" with the deal.

Donald Sterling was banned from the sport for life after he was recorded making racist remarks.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) later agreed to begin the process of selling the team.

However, Mr Sterling's lawyer Bobby Samini argues that as a co-owner of the team he has to consent to the Clippers' sale and is refusing to back the deal. "That's his position. He's not going to sell."

Local media reports say that details of the deal are unclear and many questions relating to it are unanswered.

NBA owners are due to meet in New York on Tuesday to consider Mr Sterling's remarks. The latest development could pre-empt a move by the NBA to force Mr Sterling to sell his interest in the team.

Mr Ballmer said in a statement that he was honoured to have his name put forward to the NBA for approval. He thanked the league for "working collaboratively" with him throughout the sale.

"I love basketball. And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win - and win big - in Los Angeles," he said. "LA is one of the world's great cities - a city that embraces inclusiveness, in exactly the same way that the NBA and I embrace inclusiveness."

In her statement, Shelly Sterling said Mr Ballmer "will be a terrific owner".

"We have worked for 33 years to build the Clippers into a premier NBA franchise. I am confident that Steve will take the team to new levels of success," she said.

The statement said that she made the deal "under her authority as the sole trustee of The Sterling Family Trust, which owns the Clippers".

Mr Ballmer is believed to have outbid two rival groups for the team, one of which was led by media mogul David Geffen and included talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Mr Ballmer retired from Microsoft in February, but he still owns shares in the company.

A forced sale of the LA Clippers requires the approval of three-quarters of the 30 team owners in the NBA.

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Google offers 'right to forget' form

30 May 2014 Last updated at 12:36

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Technology correspondent Dave Lee explains how the controversial system will work

Google has launched a service to allow Europeans to ask for personal data to be removed from online search results.

The move comes after a landmark European Union court ruling earlier this month, which gave people the "right to be forgotten".

Links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request, it said.

Google said it would assess each request and balance "privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information".

"When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there's a public interest in the information," Google says on the form which applicants must fill in.

Case study - Brad from Derbyshire

"The story was relating to an offence of drinking and driving. A criminal conviction.

"But has it got any public interest that somebody was convicted of that several years ago? I don't think so."

'Google should forget me'

Google said it would look at information about "financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials" while deciding on the request.

Earlier this month, the BBC learned that more than half of the requests sent to Google from UK individuals involved convicted criminals.

This included a man convicted of possessing child abuse images who had also asked for links to pages about his conviction to be wiped.

'Fraudulent requests'

Google said information would start to be removed from mid-June and any results affected by the removal process would be flagged to searchers.

Decisions about data removal would be made by people rather than the algorithms that govern almost every other part of Google's search system.

Disagreements about whether information should be removed or not will be overseen by national data protection agencies.

Europe's data regulators are scheduled to meet on 3-4 June. The "right to forget" will be discussed at that gathering and could result in a statement about how those watchdogs will handle appeals.

Analysis - Rory Cellan-Jones

"Much of the comment online has been deeply sceptical about the right to be forgotten, particularly in the US where the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech would make this kind of ruling impossible.

Some have pointed out that information won't be removed from google.com, just your local version of the search engine, while others question the sheer practicality."

Google agrees to forget

Information will only disappear from searches made in Europe. Queries piped through its sites outside the region will still show the contested data.

On 13 May, the EU's court of justice ruled that links to "irrelevant" and outdated data on search engines should be erased on request.

The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home, which appeared on Google's search results, infringed his privacy.

Less innovation?

On Friday, Google said that EU citizens who want their private details removed from the search engine will be able to do so by filling out an online form.

However, they will need to provide links to the material they want removed, their country of origin, and a reason for their request.

Individuals will also have to attach a valid photo identity.

"Google often receives fraudulent removal requests from people impersonating others, trying to harm competitors, or improperly seeking to suppress legal information," the firm said.

"To prevent this kind of abuse, we need to verify identity."

However, in an interview given to the Financial Times, Google boss Larry Page said that although the firm would comply with the ruling, it could damage innovation.

He also said the regulation would give cheer to repressive regimes.

Mr Page said he regretted not being "more involved in a real debate" about privacy in Europe, and that the company would now try to "be more European".

But, he warned, "as we regulate the internet, I think we're not going to see the kind of innovation we've seen".

Mr Page added that the ruling would encourage "other governments that aren't as forward and progressive as Europe to do bad things".

People keen to get data removed from Google's index must:

• Provide weblinks to the relevant material
• Name their home country
• Explain why the links should be removed
• Supply photo ID to help Google guard against fraudulent applications

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'Conflict' deadline looms for firms

30 May 2014 Last updated at 13:54 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Companies manufacturing products that use "conflict minerals" must submit a plan to deal with the problem to US regulators by Monday.

The term applies to raw materials, such as gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin, gathered by miners controlled by violent militia groups.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked firms to audit their entire supply chains.

But campaign groups are unhappy and say more pressure needs to be applied.

All of the materials are used widely in electronics products and the deadline applies to firms listed in the US.

Some companies, such as Apple, Intel and HP, have submitted their audits ahead of the deadline - but many others are expected to miss the cut off.

The SEC would not elaborate on possible repercussions for those who did not comply.

Campaigners have voiced concern about the quality of some audits already submitted.

"We are disappointed with quite a lot of the reports we have seen so far," said Emily Norton from the Global Witness group.

"We recognise some companies have made a huge amount of progress, but it's a question of variation... in the standard of reporting.

"Some companies are just not providing detail on the management system they should have in place, or the steps they are taking to identify risk, to manage risk, and to avoid the risk that they are financing armed groups through their supply chain."

'Didn't care'

Firms have been asked to carry out detailed examinations of their supply chain - in some cases this has involved sending staff to affected areas, including volatile countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"We have had two people from Intel go into the DRC," explained Carolyn Duran, who has led the chip-maker's efforts to reduce use of "conflict minerals".

"Many [suppliers] that we found just didn't know and weren't interested - they were just looking for the cheapest source of mineral that they could, and not caring about where it came from."

Intel is part of a set of companies involved in the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI), a not-for-profit organisation offering guidance to firms wanting to meet the requirements.

"Some companies are really committed to this; others are doing the bare minimum because the SEC told them to," said Julie Schindall from the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, the parent organisation for CFSI.

"[But] we must not discount the tremendous challenges companies face in tracing materials in their products this far back in their supply chains," she added.

"These supply chains are global and complex, and have hundreds - sometimes thousands - of players in them.

"Some of our member companies are seven layers or more apart from these mines in the DRC where we're concerned that the trade in minerals is financing conflict."

Backed down

Apple is one of the companies that has filed its audit, and made it public, ahead of the deadline.

It reported that 21 smelters and refiners in its supply chain originated from mines in DR Congo and adjoining countries. Seventeen of them had been put through third-party audits to track the sources of their materials, but four were yet to do so. Any supplier that refused to cooperate with the audit would no longer be used, Apple said.

While pulling out of the region altogether would eradicate a lot of "conflict minerals" in products, the CFSI stressed that to do so would severely damage the economy in central Africa, perhaps creating more volatility and violence.

Business groups applied pressure to the SEC to extend the deadline, but this was denied by an appeals court last month.

However, the SEC did back down on plans to force companies to disclose publicly whether a product was conflict-free.

Ms Norton from Global Witness said tough enactment of the legislation was necessary to ensure companies did not simply ignore the issue.

"Voluntary schemes simply don't work to change the ways that companies behave and source minerals," she said.

"The conflict in DR Congo has been going on for 15 years. Mineral trade has unfortunately fuelled that conflict, and it has fuelled human-rights abuses."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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NSA 'scooping faces' from the net

2 June 2014 Last updated at 12:31

US cyber-spies have collected millions of photos of people's faces from the net for use in facial-recognition programmes, according to reports.

The New York Times says leaked National Security Agency documents show in 2011 it intercepted about 55,000 "facial-recognition-quality images" every day.

The leaks suggested the photos had been harvested from emails, text messages, social media and video chats, it says.

The NYT added the images were then cross-referenced with other databases.

These are said to include photographs of airline passengers, and pictures taken from other countries' national identity-card schemes.

The NSA has said that it does not have access to photos taken for US passports or US driving licences, but declined to comment about photos submitted by foreigners applying for visas to the country.

"We would not be doing our job if we didn't seek ways to continuously improve the precision of signals intelligence activities - aiming to counteract the efforts of valid foreign intelligence targets to disguise themselves or conceal plans to harm the United States and its allies," Vanee Vines, an NSA spokeswoman said.

Hits and misses

The allegations are the latest to result from documents released by Edward Snowden, who gathered the material while working at the NSA's regional centre in Hawaii.

The papers themselves highlight the limitations of relying on face-matching technology.

The NYT reported that Tundra Freeze - the codename for the NSA's main in-house facial-recognition effort - had returned several obvious mismatches when it had tried to identify a photo of a young bearded man with dark hair, according to a report dated 2011.

The paper said the software had also returned inaccurate results when agents had queried it about a photograph of Osama Bin Laden.

However, the NYT added that a leaked Powerpoint presentation had also provided an example where the software had successfully matched a photo of a bald man taken at a water park with another picture of the same person taken when he had hair, was wearing different clothes, and was at a different location.

Campaign group Privacy International said it was concerned about the security agencies' use of such facial-recognition tech.

"Though it's perceived as a sophisticated technique, even the NSA admits in its own presentation how prone to error it is," spokesman Mike Rispoli told the BBC.

"Not only is our most personal of information being collected, stored, and analysed, it's being done through faulty systems where there are no legal frameworks or safeguards.

"This latest revelation shows that intelligence agencies want to see everything and identify everyone.

"Their attacks on identity databases around the world shows just how right the UK was right to abandon the national ID [card]. Any national database is now a treasure trove for intelligence agencies, both domestic and foreign."

This is not the first of Edward Snowden's leaks to involve facial images.

In February, the Guardian reported British spy agency GCHQ had intercepted webcam images from millions of Yahoo users around the world.

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Samsung launches first Tizen phone

2 June 2014 Last updated at 09:54

Samsung Electronics has launched the world's first smartphone powered by the Tizen operating system.

The Samsung Z will go on sale in Russia in the July-to-September quarter.

Most Samsung phones currently use the Android platform, but the South Korean firm has been working with chipmaker Intel to develop Tizen as an alternative operating system.

It is seen as a way to make Samsung less dependent on Android's developer, Google.

"It enables Samsung to hedge its bets much better compared to some of its rivals," Andrew Milroy, a vice president with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the BBC.

"However, it is unlikely to make a significant dent on the Android market share."

The company will show off the phone at the Tizen Developer Conference, being held this week in San Francisco.

It did not disclose the device's price.

Tizen Store

Samsung is currently the world's best-selling Android device manufacturer.

Continue reading the main story

The Tizen Store will provide a special promotional program to all developers for one year"

End Quote Samsung Electronics

However, many other rivals such as HTC, Sony, LG and Huawei also use the operating system to power some of their devices.

As the competition in the smartphone sector increases, and growth rates slow, Samsung has been looking at ways to maintain its lead over rivals.

One of the areas that Samsung has been working on is Tizen - a new open source operating system for its gadgets.

"Samsung is seeking to integrate its own components, displays, software and services," said Ian Fogg from the IHS consultancy.

"Using Android makes the firm dependent on Google, meaning its ability to differentiate its products is less strong than if it had installed its own operating system.

"But by going down the Tizen route, the risk is the firm doesn't have enough high quality apps available to make the devices good enough for consumers."

Samsung has taken steps to try to encourage software creators.

It said that in order to "encourage more developers to join, the Tizen Store would provide a special promotional program to all developers for one year".

Having its own app store could help Samsung generate more revenue from app downloads.

That is because currently customers who purchase apps on Android-powered phones typically funnel revenue to Google rather than Samsung itself.

However, Mr Milroy agreed that Samsung faced a huge challenge in attracting customers to the Tizen Store.

"They have come late to the party and its going to take a long time to create an ecosystem that can rival and compete with Android, iOS or Microsoft."

Multi-platform?

Tizen is also seen by some as being attractive to app developers as it has promised to run software written in the HTML5 web language smoothly.

Mozilla's Firefox OS also relies on HTML5, offering developers the prospect of cross-platform compatibility in which they can write a single version of their app for multiple operating systems, helping cut costs and coding time.

HTML5-based apps can also be made to work on Android and iOS.

But last year developers, including Google and Facebook, faced performance issues when they released products using it, and later switched to native versions.

Samsung itself delayed the launch of the first smartphones using the operating system.

However, the firm has been looking to adapt the operating system in various gadgets of late.

The latest version of its smartwatch - Galaxy Gear 2 - uses Tizen, unlike its Android-powered predecessor.

On Sunday, Samsung announced that it would release a software development kit for TVs that allows developers to build applications for Tizen-based TVs.

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Russia to 'limit' US GPS satellites

2 June 2014 Last updated at 12:56 By Joe Miller Technology Reporter

Russian authorities have "implemented measures" to restrict the use of satellite bases in its territories that serve the US-owned GPS network.

The country's space agency said it would rule out "any military use" of the ground-based stations.

The move comes amid Russian attempts to build a US base for its GPS rival, the navigation system Glonass, which have been blocked by the US government.

However experts say the move will have no effect on GPS users worldwide.

GPS bases in Russia will be "stopped completely," if an agreement on Glonass stations in the US is not reached by 31 August, warned deputy prime minister, Dmitriy Rogozin.

GPS (Global Positioning System) is a satellite navigation network owned and run by the US government.

It is used to provide accurate positioning for both civilian and military devices.

Ground-based monitor stations feed back geodesic information to space, which improves the system's accuracy.

Continue reading the main story

The US does not depend for the command and control of GPS on monitoring stations in Russia"

End Quote Prof David Last Navigation systems expert

In a statement, Russia's Federal Space Agency, Roskosmos, said it would "rule out" the use of information from network stations operating on the signals of the GPS system and located in the Russian Federation, "for purposes not covered by existing agreements, including military uses".

However, experts say the move will have a minimal effect, if any, on GPS users worldwide, with a possible loss of accuracy for some users in Russia.

Local users

Prof David Last, a consultant on navigation systems and previous president of the Royal Institute of Navigation, told the BBC the US "does not depend for the command and control of GPS on monitoring stations in Russia".

While there are a handful of stations around the world which monitor GPS under US government control, Russia only hosts smaller Continuously Operating Reference Stations (Cors), which primarily provide meteorological data and monitor earthquakes, but also feed some data to GPS satellites

"Their purpose is to increase reliability [of GPS] for local users," said Prof Last.

"Closing them will only have an effect on GPS users in Russia."

Cors are independently owned and run.

Russia's Glonass, which was established in the late 1970s, is the only global rival to GPS, and has been subject to failures in recent months.

The country's space agency has been trying to improve the system's accuracy, and wants to put a base station for Glonass in the US - a move which has been all but ruled out by the White House.

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Pirate Bay fugitive Sunde arrested

2 June 2014 Last updated at 13:10

The co-founder of notorious piracy listings site The Pirate Bay has been arrested in Sweden after two years on the run.

Peter Sunde, 35, had been sentenced to eight months in prison for violating copyright laws.

He was understood to be living in Germany, and had been on Interpol's Wanted Persons list.

The arrest comes days after Sunde failed to win a seat in the European Parliament elections.

He had been standing for the Finnish arm of the Pirate Party, a political movement which advocates, among other things, reformed copyright law.

The Pirate Bay, which is blocked in the UK, is one of the most-visited websites in the world.

The site does not host pirated content, but instead offers an expansive list of links to where it can be found.

A court ruled in 2013 that the UK's major internet service providers (ISPs) must stop users from accessing the site.

However, the site is still popular among determined users who make use of other tools to get around the ban.

'Burn everything'

Sunde was arrested on Saturday, authorities said, in Skaane, southern Sweden. It followed more than two years of evading authorities after failing to appear at the Swedish jail where he was due to be held.

"We have been looking for him since 2012," said Carolina Ekeus, a spokeswoman for the Swedish National Police Board.

"He was given eight months in jail so he has to serve his sentence."

Sunde was originally sentenced - along with co-founders Carl Lundstroem, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg - in 2009. The group was also fined $3.6m (£2.4m).

Sunde, who used the alias "brokep" online, said at the time: "Even if I had any money I would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the ashes.

"They could have the job of picking them up. That's how much I hate the media industry."

The case has since been through various lengthy appeal processes.

In 2010, a Swedish appeal court increased the fine to $6.95m (£4.1m), but reduced the length of the jail sentences.

The most recent decision, made in May this year, saw the court reject a plea for the ruling to be overturned.

Warg was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 and extradited to face separate charges of hacking in Denmark.

Lundstroem has served his sentence, while Neij is believed to be hiding out in Laos.

It is unclear why Sunde was in Sweden at time of his arrest.

His lawyer Peter Althin told Swedish news agency TT: "Peter fought for file-sharing and in 10 years, I believe it will go without saying that file-sharing for one's own needs will be permitted.

"I still think the judgement was wrong."

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'Two weeks' to block cyber-attack

2 June 2014 Last updated at 16:17 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

People have "two weeks" to protect themselves from a "powerful computer attack", the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.

Users are being told to take "immediate" action to protect their computers after US authorities seized a major criminal network.

The FBI, working with the NCA, has taken control of a botnet used to steal personal and financial data.

More than 15,000 machines in the UK are thought to have been infected to date.

Internet service providers (ISPs) will be contacting customers known to have been affected by either letter or email. The first notices were sent out on Monday, the BBC understands.

The action related to a strain of malware - meaning malicious software - known as Gameover Zeus. Its alternative names include GOZeus and P2PZeus.

Hi-tech crime terms

• Bot - one of the individual computers in a botnet; bots are also called drones or zombies
• Botnet - a network of hijacked home computers, typically controlled by a criminal gang
• Malware - an abbreviation for malicious software ie a virus, Trojan or worm that infects a PC
• Ransomware - like malware, but once in control it demands a fee to unclock a PC

Malware is typically downloaded by unsuspecting users via what is known as a phishing attack, usually in the form of an email that looks like it comes from somewhere legitimate - such as a bank - when it fact it is designed to trick a person into downloading malicious software.

Once installed on a victim's machine, Gameover Zeus will search specifically for files containing financial information.

If it cannot find anything it deems of worth, some strains of Gameover Zeus will then install Cryptolocker - a ransomware program that locks a person's machine until a fee is paid.

Global action

In what has been described as the biggest ever operation of its kind, servers all over the world were raided simultaneously by the authorities.

"The scale of this operation is unprecedented," said Steve Rawlinson from Tagadab, a web hosting company involved in the take-down effort.

"This is the first time we've seen a co-ordinated, international approach of this magnitude, demonstrating how seriously the FBI takes this current threat."

The action meant the authorities could direct what are known as Command and Control (C&C) servers - the machines that control the operation of the botnet.

With the C&C servers under police control, criminals should temporarily be unable to manage the computers they hijacked - but only until they are able to set-up new C&C servers elsewhere.

All computer users are being urged to make sure that the malware has not infected their machines.

"This warning is not intended to cause you panic but we cannot over-stress the importance of taking these steps immediately," said UK-based Get Safe Online, a government-backed organisation that has published a list of software it recommends for the task.

"This is because the UK's NCA has taken temporary control of the communications used to connect with infected computers, but expects only a very limited window of opportunity to ensure you are protected."

Technical problems caused some users to become unable access the Get Safe Online website on Monday afternoon. The organisation's chief executive Tony Neate said this was not due to high traffic or a cyber-attack, and added that the cause was being investigated.

More detailed information on the threat was published by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Cert).

'Quarantined computers'

Following a slew of high-profile hack attacks in recent weeks - including eBay, Spotify and shoe retailer Office - security expert Rik Ferguson raised concerns that computer users might be suffering from "notification fatigue".

However, he stressed that this operation was more targeted, and should not be ignored.

"I think one of the things that is really critical with this operation is that if people are infected, it's going to be completely invisible to them," the Trend Micro security researcher said.

"One of the strengths of this operation is not only that it involved organisations around the world, but that it involved the ISPs as well.

"The ISPs will go out and proactively notify any of their customers who are infected."

He suggested that machines known to be infected by serious malware should be placed in a quarantined environment until the threat was removed.

"Making it uncomfortable, if not impossible, to use the internet if PC if it is a danger is one of the most effective ways to do that," he said.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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