Research In Motion Ltd. lost its bid Monday to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review a patent-suit ruling that could force the company to stop selling its market-leading BlackBerry wireless device to most U.S. customers. The ruling increases pressure on Research In Motion (RIMM:
research in motion ltd com to end a protracted legal battle by reaching a settlement. Some analysts have estimated that the cost of such a settlement could approach $1 billion.

Research In Motion, based in Waterloo, Ontario, had asked the high court to reverse a lower-court ruling on the grounds that U.S. patent law shouldn’t apply to the Canadian company. A Virginia jury found in November 2002 that the technology behind the popular BlackBerry violated patents held by NTP Inc., a small patent-holding firm based in Arlington, Va.

RIM Troubles

Verizon CEO last week previously made comments about how such application owners such as Microsoft and Google should share the cost of operating broadband networks. Many are calling this cyberextortion, he was actually quoted as being in talks with Google already and that they understood his comments.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch on the Internet, according to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who said Thursday that providers of bandwith-intensive Internet applications, including Google and Microsoft, should “share the cost” of operating broadband networks.
According to Seidenberg, Verizon and Google are already talking about how such compensation might be structured, striking a tone far more diplomatic than AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre, who last year openly criticized Internet application providers like Google and Voice over IP provider Vonage Holdings.

It turns out that google claims this is false and that they will not give in to such cyberextortion.

Google told Networking Pipeline’s Paul Kapustka in no uncertain terms that it won’t give in to the cyberextortion. And despite reports to the contrary, Google says, it isn’t talking with any carriers about the issue.
Google’s Barry Schnitt told Paul in an email: “Google is not discussing sharing of the costs of broadband networks with any carrier. We believe consumers are already paying to support broadband access to the Internet through subscription fees and, as a result, consumers should have the freedom to use this connection without limitations.”

Will MCI ever get a break? Most news has died down about MCI being purchased by Verizon. They seem to have gone from one extreme to another in the CEO department with Bernard Ebers getting 25 years in prison for an 11billion dollar scam which is essentially a life sentence for a 63 year old to Ivan Seidenberg who it seems either fantisizes about extortion or gets off in telling little white lies. Master Thief to Cyberextortionist. Will MCI/WorldCom/VerizonBusiness and the telcommunications industry get a break anytime soon?

The Microsoft patch for the WMF vulnerability has now been out there for more than 10 days. However, we believe that most of the vulnerable Windows machines worldwide have not installed the patch yet. We also believe this vulnerability will continue to be used by various different attackers for months, possibly years.

Today we saw a phishing scam exploiting this vulnerability. This scam works by sending out emails, urging customers of the global HSBC bank to visit a site called www[dot]jhsbc[dot]com. This domain, naturally, has nothing to with the real bank but it sounds close enough.

F-Secure Point of View

Internet News claim the FCC is concerned with telco plans to de-prioritize or block competing traffic, and Internet News hints that FCC chief Martin is “concerned” and “worried” about the two-tier bandwidth service proposal which is quoted below

A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.
Read More Here

BellSouth CTO William L. Smith also told reporters BellSouth should be able to charge VoIP carriers for network traffic QOS (quality of service). Obviously advocacy groups aren’t impressed, a Public Knowledge rep stating: “Prioritization is just another word for degrading your competitor.” According to the Boston Globe, AT&T and BellSouth are furiously lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where a telco’s own traffic (and those who pay) would travel faster than competitor traffic.