Reading a old magazine before dumping it I noticed a article on "Country Codes of the Worl". They pointed out to a nice map which includes all the country codes. I just want to share it so if people are ever looking for such a map to put on the wall of a office they might find this link to the original website useful.
At the end of every URL and email address is a top-level domain (TLD). Although .com is the world’s most popular TLD, it is far from alone. There are more than 260 TLDs in use around the world, most of which are country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). The Country Codes of the World map includes 245 country codes, which encompasses all United Nations countries as well as numerous islands and territories. Each two-digit code is aligned over the country it represents and is color coded with the legend below for quick and easy reference.
Forrester research has released a research paper on mobile internet use in Europe named “Mobile Internet Users Lead In Advanced Mobile Services' Adoption In Europe”.
The executive summary states:
A decade after accessing the Internet via a mobile phone became a reality, adoption is finally set to cross over into the mainstream. Regular mobile Internet users today are still more tech-savvy than the average consumer. They show greater interest in advanced mobile services in general — for instance, a fourth of them already use mobile email and a fifth are interested in using their mobile phone to tap into social networking sites. Operators shouldn't bank on locking users into their own mobile portals: As the frequency of mobile Internet use picks up, people are more likely to use Google than their operator's start site.
This paper reminded me about a post I wrote on the way America is searching mobile which you can read on my weblog and is named “How America searches: Mobile. This post and the links in it can be of interest if you are reading the Forrester paper which is written by Pete Nuthall.
Have you ever wondered how fraudulent or malicious websites can rank highly on search engines like Google or Yahoo?
Queensland University of Technology IT researcher Professor Audun Josang said a website's ranking was determined by the number of people who visited the site - the more hits the higher the ranking.
But this system is fraught with danger and can be easily manipulated directing people to unreliable, low quality and fraudulent sites, according to Professor Josang.
"Just because a website ranks highly on a search engine doesn't mean it's a good website, in fact highly ranked websites can be malicious websites," he said.
To safeguard against this type of threat, Professor Josang believes the answer is to develop a new type of internet security system based on "reputation" where a community of users can rank the quality of a website.
He said this could then be used to warn others from visiting that site.
"For example most people are able to recognise a website that tries to trick them into giving confidential information (a phishing attack) when they see it," he said.
"With this system, aware users can rate such websites as malicious and as a result a phishing site will be quickly and universally recognised as dangerous, warning unsuspecting users against visiting that site."
Professor Josang said using this "social control" approach could provide protection against this type of online threat, by preventing attacks before they occurred.
"Social control methods, also known as soft security, adhere to common ethical norms by parties in a community.
"They make it possible to identify and sanction those participants who breach the norms and to recognise and reward members who adhere to them."
Professor Josang said in today's technologically advanced world of business, high ranking of a company's web page was a crucial factor for its success.
"This is why the control of search engines is so important and why it can be financially worthwhile for businesses to manipulate the system."
The central idea of Professor Josang's research is to take search engines one step further and by using them to make the internet a safe place to interact and transact.
"This project is about a new type of internet security that can be supported by search engines. There is a deception waiting for you around every corner on the internet and the technology we develop will protect people from that.
"I think in the future reputation systems, integrated into search engines, can be used to weed out such websites by giving them a low ranking and thereby making them invisible to unsuspecting users."
