Net firms quizzed on China plans
A top US Senator has asked 30 leading internet firms to provide details of their operations in China. It is ahead of a hearing on how well a voluntary code of conduct, signed by many of the firms, is working. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin sent letters to firms such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon and eBay asking about their plans to protect human rights.  
BBC News

Computer Aid wants your gadgets
Charity organisation Computer Aid has launched a new campaign today to provide technology of all sorts to the less fortunate. And no, we do not mean Apple users. For the month of February the charity is asking anyone who has any old but working kit that they no longer use to donate it to them so that they can pass it on to people in other countries who might actually get some benefit from them. In this case, school children in Africa.
The Inquirer 

Anti-Internet Explorer 6 protests grow with online petition
Opposition to the UK government’s continued endorsement of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 continues to mount, after a petition was submitted to Number 10 yesterday. "We the undersigned petition the prime minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6," reads the online appeal that was kicked off by Dan Frydman, a managing director of web publishing contractor Inigo.
The Register

Orange/T-Mobile merger threatened with UK inquiry
The Office of Fair Trading is calling for the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile to be investigated by the regulatory authorities in Britain rather than merely subjected to scrutiny in Brussels. There are fears the merger, which will create the UK's largest mobile phone network, could hamper competition and force up prices for consumers. It is a blow for Orange and T-Mobile, currently the third and fourth placed networks in Britain, as it means a further delay to a deal originally announced in September. They had hoped scrutiny of the merger would be confined to regulators in Brussels, with clearance possibly granted as early as mid-February.
The Guardian

Poor password behaviour beating banking security
A report (PDF) into the security of banking internet systems has found that one of the biggest problems faced is the reuse of login passwords by customers. Online security firm Trusteer monitored over four million computers for a year and found that 73 per cent of internet banking customers used the same password for their online banking services as they did for other, less secure sites. “Using stolen credentials remains the easiest way for criminals to bypass the security measures implemented by banks to protect their online applications, so we wanted to see how often users repurpose their financial service usernames and passwords,” said Amit Klein, chief technical officer of Trusteer and head of the company’s research organization.
V3