Google, Facebook and Yahoo Ready IPv6 Test

Several of the Internet's most popular Web sites - including Facebook, Google and Yahoo - have agreed to participate in the first global-scale trial of IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol known as IPv4.

       The trial — dubbed "World IPv6 Day" — requires participants to support native IPv6 traffic on their main Web sites on June 8, 2011.
Leading content delivery networks Akamai and Limelight Networks also committed to the IPv6 trial, which is being sponsored by the Internet Society. IPv6 is a necessary upgrade because the Internet is running out of IP addresses using the 30-year-old IPv4 standard.


Less than 5% of IPv4 addresses are left unallocated to the regional Internet registries, which in turn dole them out to network operators. Experts say the free pool of IPv4 addresses will be depleted in a matter of weeks.
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support 4.3 billion devices connected directly to the Internet. IPv6, on the other hand, uses 128-bit addresses and supports a virtually unlimited number of devices - 2 to the 128th power.

The day-long IPv6 trial is a critical development for content providers such as Google and Facebook, which until now have been supporting IPv6 at separate, dedicated Web addresses rather than on their main traffic-heavy Web sites. Google, for example, says it will enable IPv6 on its main Web sites - including www.google.com and www.youtube.com - for World IPv6 Day.
The event is also a big deal for Yahoo, which has been reluctant to support IPv6 because of concerns about using a DNS whitelisting approach like Google's, which provides IPv6 content only to users with known end-to-end IPv6 connectivity.
"Participating in World IPv6 Day will allow us to obtain real-life data that we can use to ensure a seamless user experience as we transition to IPv6," said Adam Bechtel, vice president of Yahoo's Infrastructure Group, in a statement. "We welcome this opportunity to collaborate with the technical community and provide leadership in addressing the scaling challenges facing the Internet."

Facebook virus spreads via photo album chat messages

A new social networking worm in the vein of Koobface is currently doing the rounds.
This one actively infects your computer with malware instead of simply tricking you into taking surveys and passing on messages to other users.

 

The link in his Facebook chat from a friend pointed to an app.facebook.com/CENSORED link. Typically when you go to a Facebook app page it prompts you to add the application and grant it permission to post on your behalf or read your profile data. The scary part about this one is that it immediately prompts you to download a "FacebookPhotos#####.exe" file with no prompting or clicking required. The screen reads "Photo has been moved. This photo has been moved to other location. To view this photo click View Photo." If your computer has not already downloaded the malware, the "View Photo" button will download the virus for you.

It is really unfortunate that Facebook scams are moving back towards spreading malware. Fortunately, users of Sophos Anti-Virus had proactive protection from this threat with both our HIPS and suspicious file detection technologies; this particular strain is now identified by Sophos as W32/Palevo-BB.

The good news is that even as I was writing this article, Facebook removed the malicious application from its service. But there are probably many more applications like this one making the rounds, so, as always, beware of unusual messages from friends whether they are in email, on their walls, or in an instant  .