Provided by CommunityDNS, the information in this post consists of news items in the security-based Internet community.

Nearly 183 million domain names populate the Internet

The first quarter of 2009 ended with the Internet comprised of nearly 183 million domain names. The number is the sum of all TLDs.

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Monticello, MN beats the phone company; Internet a “Utility”

Not satisfied with the DSL offering for its residents, the small town of Monticello decided to lay its own fiber optic network, bringing broadband to its businesses and residents. The local telco objected, filed a lawsuit and began laying its own fiber network. The state court of appeals ruled for the city saying the Internet is a utility and can be provided by local communities and funded by city bonds.

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84% of the UK believe broadband is essential

In a recent study 84% of 2,000 polled believe everyone should have access to broadband and 73% believe being identified as low income should not be a barrier.

The tipping point comes when broadband does not simply provide one with an advantage by having it, but when it becomes a disadvantage of not having a connection. In some cases not having a connection is disadvantageous as through an online energy plan through British Gas nPower users could save an average of 185 pounds per year and up to 300 pounds per year.

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Americans spending more time on social networks: study

Facebook and Twitter lead the way for the number of minutes Americans spend on social networking sites. The number of minutes Americans spent on social networks grew 83% from April 2008 to April 2009. Facebook, the clear leader, increased 700% in one year from 1.7 billion minutes to 13.9 billion minutes. Twitter followed going from 7.9 million minutes to 300 million minutes in the last year.

Comment: With such numbers and social networking users having growing up in a strong culture of trust among members of their respective “trusted” network, It is understandable why social networks are now becoming the next target for organized cybercrime.

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Why phishers love Facebook

Trust. The hardest thing for a successful hack is trust. Once trust is established hackers will exploit that trust with an attack. Facebook has provided a seemingly safe environment whereby users can form their own network of trusted individuals.

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Insurance giant coughs to malware-related data breach

Names, addresses and social security numbers of approximately 500 records were compromised due to a malware infection at the US arm of Aviva.

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Chinese Police Detain Four for Hacking Internet Servers

CommunityDNS News Bits reported a DDoS attack that affected 300 million in five of China’s provinces on May 19. The outage produces calls by citizens for increased safety measures of the Internet. DNSPod, a Chinese registrar and DNS provider, has some customers who provide access to unauthorized gaming sites. The DDoS attack was aimed at DNSPod due to more restricted, authorized gaming sites losing gamers to the less restricted, unauthorized sites.

Last weekend four suspects have been detained by the Chinese police for creating the outage.

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