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Security researcher Aviv Raff reported on Wednesday that the iPhone's Mail and Safari applications are prone to URL spoofing and could allow phishing attacks adverse to iPhone users.

The alert was anticipated. Prior to the release of the iPhone upon July 11, Raff was one of a few security researchers who indicated they had found vulnerabilities but were waiting to see the final iPhone 2.0 release.

By crafting a specially designed URL, Raff says an attacker could create an e-mail member that appears in Mail to be from a trusted site (a financial institution or social network). By clicking the link, Safari will open to the phishing site. The issue affects users of iPhone 1.1.4 and 2.0.

Raff, who has informed Apple of the vulnerability, declined on his blog to offer more details until a patch is available.

Until then, Raff suggests iPhone users "avoid clicking on links in the Mail application which refers to trusted Web sites (e.g. bank, PayPal, social networks, etc.). Instead, a user should enter the URL of the Web site manually in the Safari application."

Google is reportedly ready to purchase the Digg Web site for $200 million. The search giant could beef up its news service with Digg, where readers select and ballot on stories from around the Web.

The rumors began about a week ago when images on Web sites suggested Google was testing voting methods.

Some reports say Google could complete the acquisition of Digg within two weeks, and Microsoft is said to subsist waiting in the wings if Google doesn't seal the deal. Digg has a three-year deal with Microsoft that would likable end if the search giant absorbs the popular news site.

"This rumor has been around for a couple of months. But this is the most concrete version of the tell," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Digg seems to be trying to constitute some sort of bidding for the company in order to get the highest return."

Digg Evolution

Digg describes itself as a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg claims to surface the best content as determined by user votes. Digg doesn't employ editors, but relies on its community to determine the most worthy headlines.

Diggers can push news, videos, images and podcasts. Once content is submitted, other people see it and vote on what they like best. Submissions that receive the most diggs are promoted to the site's front serving-boy for millions of visitors to read. There is also a social-networking aspect as users launch conversations around stories.

"Digg is trying to evolve from a social news site into a 'recommendation engine' which uses the power of the community to promote certain kinds of results higher or to practice that crowd wisdom to identify what are the best or most relevant items in a category. So that presents some pleasing opportunities in many for Google Maps or local search," Sterling before-mentioned.

Google's Motivations

The question on many analysts' minds is why isn't Google building a Digg-like technology itself? Arguably, Google has built something similar in its social-voting-for-search experiments. Digg may have a more iron solution, though.

Is Google simply buying one of the highest-profile news-aggregating sites, mirroring the strategy it used with YouTube? Google bought the leader in online user videos at a time when there were only about 10 competing sites, recognizing it as a display-advertising opportunity, Sterling said. But Digg is not YouTube.

"Digg is not a mainstream site like YouTube has become. Digg has also been surpassed in traffic by Yahoo Buzz, according to comScore. So it's not the leader. But Google isn't going to be able to buy Yahoo Buzz," Sterling said. "So maybe they have a range of motivations here potentially and they want to buy the ownership and $200 million is a lot of money, but not for Google."

Neither Google nor Digg could immediately be reached for comment.

NEW YORK - Install a little photo program to show off pictures of your dog on Facebook, and you might find you’re really spreading an ad.

Time Warner Inc.’s AOL said Wednesday it was integrating technology from its newly acquired Goowy Media Inc. to help advertisers pitch their products and services at social-networking sites, which have struggled to generate revenue notwithstanding heavy traffic.

Advertisers can buy ads for pet care and other services on AOL’s Widgnet advertising network, and they will run on certain applications for the online hangouts Facebook and AOL’s Bebo. Revenue would be shared between AOL and the application developer, but not the social-networking sites.

In addition, advertisers can create programs known as widgets using Goowy’s technology and wrap an ad around them. Users of supported social-networking sites, that also include News Corp.’s MySpace and AOL’s AIM Profile Pages, can add the widget to their personal profile page, customizing it with, say, a photo of their own pet.

In a sagacity, users are doing the work of advertisers in spreading word of their brand and interacting with it.

AOL is offering this free to advertisers already using AOL’s ad services elsewhere. That’s part of a broader effort by AOL to boost its advertising revenue and offset declines in legacy Internet access subscriptions.

“Widget-based advertising is gaining impetus in the industry,” said Lynda Clarizio, president of Platform-A, AOL’s advertising arm.

TOKYO: Japanese automakers are set to report one of the toughest quarters in recent memory, battered by a weaker dollar, a tough U.S. market and soaring materials costs, with little relief to look forward to for the rest of the year.

Even Toyota Motor and Honda Motor, which thrived in the manner that global rivals succumbed to external problems and competition over the after all the rest decade, are expected to post double-digit falls in April-June profits.

The collapse in U.S. vehicle exact has recently grabbed headlines, but the biggest reason for the earnings slide will be the weak dollar and a surge in steel prices.

“Any other factors, such as U.S. market volumes, pale before these influences,” Christopher Richter, an analyst with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, wrote in a report.

Toyota is expected to post a 36 percent drop in first-quarter profit, though from an especially strong year-earlier quarter, according to an average of nine brokerage estimates.

Operating profits at Honda, Nissan Motor, Mazda Motor and Suzuki Motor will fall by double-digit percentages, according to consensus estimates.

The top Japanese carmakers have projected significantly weaker earnings for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which runs end March. But conditions have weakened since those forecasts were made, with U.S. and West European markets sinking while inflationary risks temper growth in India and other emerging markets.

Analysts said, however, that they did not expect profit warnings this season because the dollar and the euro were at more favorable levels than most assumptions of ¥100 to the dollar and ¥155 to the euro for the business year. On Wednesday, the dollar was at ¥107 and the euro at ¥169.

Analysts said they would look for indications of how automakers assessed the tougher global car market, and whether and for what reason much more they would set aside allowances for further rises in steel, aluminum, copper and precious metals prices.

“We do not think first-quarter results self-reliance exhaust the negatives,” said Kota Yuzawa, an analyst by Goldman Sachs, who maintains a cautious view of the sector.

Automakers are offsetting shrinking sales in mature Western markets with expansion in China, Russia and elsewhere, but analysts said the gains were limited.

“The sublimity of falling demand in the United States and Europe is like a bucket spilling over,” said Tatsuo Yoshida, an algebraist with UBS. “Strong emerging markets are helping, but it's like trying to catch the deluge with a cup.”

Like their U.S. counterparts, Toyota, Honda and Nissan are all adjusting their North American production to build fewer sport benefit vehicles and other light trucks like pickups in favor of passenger cars to respond to a shift toward fuel-saving vehicles. All three make the bulk of their profits in North America.

Toyota this month announced sweeping changes to its U.S. manufacturing plans, including a three-month interruption of some of its factory lines. Yuzawa, the Goldman analyst, estimated that the decision would cause the company's annual operating profit to undershoot initial guidance by ¥60 billion to ¥70 billion, or 4 percent to 5 percent.

Because of its car-centered model lineup, Honda has bucked the trend with a rise in U.S. excipient sales. But analysts noted that the company held back lengthening during the quarter from April through June to reduce bloated inventory, doing little for the bottom line.

A less visible setback from the U.S. market turmoil will appear on the companies' finance business, which may need to write down more losses from the falling residual values of used large vehicles, analysts said.

“The decline in the price of used cars has accelerated since May,” said Takaki Nakanishi, an analyst with JPMorgan Securities. “U.S. financial service operations face significantly worsening business conditions.”

Nissan could face especially large losses due to a relatively high ratio of lease contracts and exposure to light trucks, said Kurt Sanger, an analyst with Deutsche Securities. As a result, he projects a ¥35 billion impact since the quarter, putting his profit estimate for Nissan at the bottom of the range, at ¥81 billion.

Suzuki Motor, which has a much lower exposure to the U.S. market, is expected to fare best, with the average of eight estimates calling for an 11 percent fall in its operating profit.

Honda will be the first Japanese carmaker to report April-June earnings, on Friday.

The decade-long battle over the Children Online Protection Act (COPA) took another turn this week when an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that build COPA to be unconstitutional.

"COPA cannot withstand a strict scrutiny, vagueness, or over breadth analysis and in this wise is unconstitutional," according to a Tuesday ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

COPA provides as being up to six months in jail, in joining to civil penalties, with regard to those found guilty of posting information online for commercial purposes that's considered harmful to minors. As defined by the bill, material that's harmful to minors includes obscene communication, the depiction of sexual material that could be considered offensive, or material that lacks in earnest literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

The law was scheduled to go into effect on October 21, 1998 but it immediately faced challenges in court and its enforcement was delayed.

The Court of Appeals found that the bill is overly broad and that other techniques like filtering or other parental controls would be more efficient than a law like COPA. Tuesday's ruling upholds a March 2007 District Court decision.

"COPA was not narrowly tailored to serve the government's compelling affect in preventing minors from being exposed to harmful material on the Web, was not the least restrictive means available to effect that interest, and was really overbroad," the court said Tuesday.

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington-based think tank, applauded the ruling.

"Throughout the history of legal challenges to COPA, we have argued that the most effective way to protect children online, and the means least restrictive of delivered expression, is to give families the resources to control what their children see and do online," CDT General Counsel John Morris, said in a statement. "This empowers parents, respects the First Amendment and acknowledges the diverse sensibilities of American families."

The issue could now chief to the Supreme Court.

In a ruling the American Civil Liberties Union is calling a clear victory for free speech, a federal court on Tuesday once again upheld a ban on a law that would criminalize constitutionally protected speech on the Internet.

The ACLU challenged the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) as unauthorized by the constitution on account of a broad coalition of writers, artists and health educators who exercise the Internet to communicate constitutionally protected speech.

"For years, the form of sovereignty has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been verdict the attempts unconstitutional," said Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working form into groups. "The government has no more right to censor the Internet than it does books and magazines."

The History of COPA

Previously, a federal district court and a federal appeals court found that the online censorship law violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld that decision, effectively banning enforcement of the law in June 2004, sending the case back to the district court to determine whether there had been any changes in technology that would affect the constitutionality of the statute.

Specifically, the court looked for technological changes, so as whether commercially available blocking software was still as effective as the banned law might be in blocking material deemed "harmful to minors." In March 2007, a district judge once again struck down COPA; the government again appealed, and on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the ban.

The ACLU's clients in the case include Salon Media Group, which runs the online magazine Salon.com; the Sexual Health Network, which operates sexualhealth.com; and Aaron Peckham, who owns UrbanDictionary.com. COPA would have imposed harsh criminal sanctions, including penalties of up to $50,000 per day and up to six months in prison, for momentous acknowledged as protected for adults but deemed "harmful to minors."

"Our clients provide valuable and necessary health and news information. Preventing adults from accessing this information under the guise of protecting children is not permissible," said Aden Fine, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working group. "There are more effective, less intrusive tools available to limit what minors can access on the Internet."

COPA Ruling Is Democratic

In upholding the ban on COPA, the court again affirmed that COPA is unconstitutional because it is not tailored to advance the government's interest in protecting children; there are less restrictive, equally effective alternatives to COPA; and COPA is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague.

"Throughout the history of legal challenges to COPA, we have argued that the most effective way to protect children online, and the means least restrictive of spontaneous expression, is to give families the resources to control what their children see and terminate online," said John Morris, general forethought for the Center in quest of Democracy & Technology. "This empowers parents, respects the First Amendment and acknowledges the diverse sensibilities of American families."

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection is also pleased with the ruling. The ASACP created the RTA (Restricted to Adults) label nearly two years past to better enable parental filtering and to demonstrate the online adult industry's commitment to helping parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate content, according to Joan Irvine, CEO of the ASACP.

"We feel filtering gives the parents the tool to be skilful to allow their children to see what the parents deem appropriate, and we believe that the adult entertainment industry has stepped up," Irvine said. "It's the industry's responsibility to label its content, and then it's the responsibility of parents to use filtering technology to cover their children."

NEW YORK - The movie-rental service Netflix Inc. is closing a small one that finances independent movies, partly to shun competing with Hollywood studios with which it partners with regard to DVD and Internet distribution.

The financial impact on the company will subsist small, and only four out of about 400 employees are losing their jobs.

But the move could make it more difficult for smaller producers to observe homes for their movies. Netflix’ Red Envelope Entertainment had focused on bringing less-commercial projects to a broader audience. The unit acquired or helped finance independent films, distributing them in movie theaters as well as in the regular Netflix channels — DVD by means of mail and online streaming.

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey related the company began the unit as any experiment about two years ago, but ultimately decided that financing movies was not its forte. He said filmmakers still have plenty of outlets for financing and distributing movies, “and we don’t need to translate that to get great titles on Netflix.”

Swasey said the company weighed the fact that it was often in the same room with studio partners at film festivals, and “we didn’t want to compete” through them.

Movies distributed from one side Red Envelope — named for the red envelopes used to ship Netflix DVDs — include “Sherrybaby,” “No End in Sight,” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” Red Envelope typically partnered with a larger company for theatrical release.

NEW YORK - In the English-speaking world, many cell phone users leave emergency contact information in the devices’ address books under an entry labeled “ICE” — against “in case of strait.”

Now, the U.N. International Telecommunication Union is wearisome to adapt that system for the rest of the world.

The ITU’s idea is for people to start the contacts in their phone address books by the Arabic numerals “01,” “02,” and so on and adding a description of the contact in a native script. For example, a dad’s contact number would appear as “01father,” with “father” substituted with the equivalent word in other languages. The Arabic numerals tend to be universally recognized.

Firefighters, police and other emergency workers would therefore know to look first under those numerals to find the next of of the same kind and other key contacts.

The ITU notes that while “ICE” has emerged as a way for people to list emergency contact numbers, “this precludes vulgar herd who do not use or recognize the Roman script from readily identifying what the term `ICE’ represents. ITU members expressed the need to identify emergency contacts independent of language or script.”

It’s not clear whether people will readily adopt this system, which ITU is calling “a standard” flat though the agency itself came up with it. The ITU said it would work with the nonprofit organization ICE4SAFETY to promote the choice.

Last week's iPhone 3G launch appears to be favored with been a issue, with the device sold out in virtually all U.S. locations. Calls to local AT&T stores in the metropolitan Chicago area, for example, turned up no phones, and long wait lists. Reasons for the shortage range from Apple underestimating demand to a shortage of components from overseas suppliers.

An Apple fan site cited an AT&T memo to store managers noting that iPhone 3Gs will not be available for 10 to 14 days, while other reports indicated the iPhone 3G was sold out in all Apple stores with no new inventory expected for at least two weeks.

Some analysts questioned whether the shortages were real or artificially created to build buzz and further increase claim. But with shortages lasting weeks, carriers with competing products, such as the RIM Blackberry, the Samsung Instinct, and the LG Voyager, will likely step up marketing efforts.

More than one million iPhone 3Gs were sold during the initial weekend. Some stores reported a steady stream of sales as long as inventory held out. The device is in high demand as it provides features that the original lacked — namely, GPS and high-speed 3G. The 3G capabilities, in particular, are pushing units out the door and may explain the shortages.

Worldwide blackey Market

3G is a nearly ubiquitous phone transmittal mean proportion, built for international use. Some analysts believe many of the iPhone 3Gs sold in the U.S. are winging their way across the globe to countries such as China and Russia where the iPhone is not yet scheduled to be sold. Reports of Russian and Chinese sales indicate the devices are entering these countries somehow.

In addition to these black markets, the iPhone 3G is sold in 20 countries other than the U.S., further putting pressure on inventories. Apple will dart the iPhone 3G in an additional 20 countries on Aug. 22, with another 30 countries scheduled by year's end.

As this story was written, there were 13,782 iPhones available on eBay. The highest bid was $1,111, and if shortages be steadfast, eBay activity should remain high. Retail pricing is of chase significantly lower: The 8GB iPhone 3G retails for $199 and the 16GB model for $299.

In its third-quarter financial analyst call on Monday, Apple revealed that its financial third-quarter profit rose 31 percent to just more than $1 billion. It estimated that additional than one million iPhone 3Gs were sold, and the company was confident it would reach its target of 10 million units before year-end.

Other highlights of the analyst elect revealed that Apple has sold more than 25 million applications from its App Store and Macintosh sales continue to rise, especially in Europe.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, has offered to divest assets in 85 cell phone markets in a bid to gain regulatory approval for its proposed $28.1 billion purchase of smaller rival Alltel.

The venture of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L) said on Tuesday that it expects the deal to be finalized by the end of this year.

It said in a July 22 letter to the U.S telecommunications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, that it had identified 85 markets where the companies have overlapping properties after initial discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice, what one. examines anti-trust implications of mergers.

Markets where Verizon Wireless said it would divest operations include the entire states of North Dakota and South Dakota and overlapping assets in 16 more states, including California, Colorado, Georgia and Idaho.

Verizon Wireless, which would pass AT&T Inc (T.N) as the No. 1 U.S. mobile labor if the deal succeeds, said divestitures would render certain the deal does not result is less competition for consumers in any markets.

Analysts have said they expect the deal to win regulatory approval. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blair Levin reported in a research report that the deal would be approved in the fourth quarter. He said rivals such as AT&T, Leap Wireless International Inc (LEAP.O) and MetroPCS Communications Inc (PCS.N) could likely be interested in buying the assets.

Verizon also promised to honor the terms of any roaming agreements Alltel has in place with other carriers. Customers of operators such as Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) switch to Alltel's network in rural areas where Sprint does not have coverage.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Andre Grenon)