97% of internet now full up, warn IPv4 shepherd boys

Less than three per cent of IPv4 address space is still to be allocated, after two huge chunks were given to American and European ISPs.

ARIN and RIPE, which administer IP addresses on either side of the Atlantic, each received two /8 address blocks in November. A fifth block went to their African equivalent.

The moves leave only seven /8 blocks – 2.7 per cent of the total of 256 – unallocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

The central IT office of Australia’s Federal Government has requested that agencies consider the use of alternative file formats to Adobe’s PDF.

The advice follows a study which found that while accessibility of the Portable Document Format (PDF) has improved over time and remains a popular format for many organisations, it was less accessible to visually-impaired users — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Analyst finds flaws in Canon image verification system

A cryptographic system used by Canon to ensure that digital images haven’t been altered is flawed and can’t be fixed, according to a Russian security company that specializes in encryption.

Mid- to high-end Canon digital cameras have a feature called Original Decision Data (ODD), which is a digital signature that can be verified to see if a photo has been retouched or if data such as timestamps or GPS coordinates have been changed. The Associated Press news wire uses the system, which can also be used to verify photos used as evidence.

But the digital signature can be forged due to design flaws in Canon’s system, according to Dmitry Sklyarov, an IT security analyst with Elcomsoft, which specializes in password recover systems. Sklyarov was due to give a presentation on the flaws at the Confidence IT security event in Prague on Tuesday afternoon — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Credit where credit is due – new meta-tags for source info

News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That’s why we’re experimenting with two new metatags for Google News: syndication-source and original-source. Each of these metatags addresses a different scenario, but for both the aim is to allow publishers to take credit for their work and give credit to other journalists — via benno.newsvine.com