Google ditches 11m 'spammy' sites

Google has removed over 11 million .co.cc Web sites from its search engine results pages on the basis that most of them are far too “spammy”, reports The Register.

The .co.cc space is not an officially authorised second-level domain like .co.uk or .com.au. Rather, it's offered independently by a Korean company (http://co.cc/) that just happens to own the domain name .co.cc.

Google classes the firm as a “freehost”, and has exercised its right to block the whole domain “if we see a very large fraction of sites on a specific freehost are spammy or low-quality”, according to Matt Cutts, head of Google's Web spam team.

A flaw in the way Apple's iOS handles PDF files is being used to allow owners to jailbreak their hardware, but security experts warn it could also allow hackers to attack, according to V3.co.uk.

The JailbreakMe Web site has released code that allows people to take control of their iOS devices without the need for a computer, simply by visiting the site. The site was set up by Comex, part of the iPhone Dev team that cracked the iPad in less than a day.

The software is designed to allow Apple users to install applications that aren't being allowed by the iTunes Store administrators. Comex denied the software would cause a security problem.

Apple plans to release its next-generation iPhone during the third quarter of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, says AFP.

The newspaper, citing “people familiar with the situation”, said Apple has placed orders for key components to be used in the new version of the iPhone, and that it would be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4.

Apple unveiled the iPhone 4 in June 2010. “Apple's sales estimates of the new iPhone are quite aggressive,” the Journal quoted a source at one of Apple's parts suppliers as saying.

Brokerage firm Morgan Stanley has alerted 34 000 of its customers that two disks containing their details have gone missing while on route to New York State Department tax offices, reveals Computing.co.uk.

Clients were alerted to the loss in June, but the details have only now come to light. The CDs containing the data were protected by passwords, but the data on them was not encrypted, a Morgan Stanley spokesman told financial advice site Credit.com, which first reported the data breach.

There was no evidence of criminal intent at this stage, he added.