The work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers is credited with shortening the Second World War by two years. But for three decades, those who worked on decrypting Nazi communications could tell no one what they had done.

Such was the secrecy in which the codebreakers operated many did not even realise the true importance of their work until Bletchley's wartime activities were made public in 1974.

The European Parliament and Council of Telecoms Ministers have reached a compromise over the rights of internet users continent-wide, setting Europe on course for a major overhaul of telecoms regulations.

The Telecoms Reform package, which consists of a set of new laws tackling subjects ranging from data breach notifications to faster number porting, will become law in every EU country by May 2011, it was agreed on Wednesday night.

BT is offering a free taste of superfast broadband to businesses in Glasgow.

The trial is part of the telco's ongoing investment in fibre infrastructure in the UK. Back in 2008 BT announced it would be spending £1.5bn to bring fibre broadband to around 10 million homes and businesses by 2012.

In an exclusive interview, Wikipedia founder and silicon.com Agenda Setter Jimmy Wales talks to Natasha Lomas about what's next for Wikipedia and why the site needs geeks of all kinds.

If you've ever written something about Jimmy Wales and posted it online, chances are he's read it. He mentions a Twitter post I made, prior to our interview, asking whether people think he's a hero or villain.

Local authorities must cut down on using covert-surveillance techniques to investigate petty offences, the government has said.

Ripa (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) granted public authorities the power to use surveillance to investigate crimes such as terrorism - but councils have attracted criticism for using them to detect petty offences such as dog-fouling.

Businesses thinking of switching to cloud computing should expect a bumpy probation period, if the experience of The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) is anything to go by.

The company's CIO Paul Cheesbrough knows all about the challenges of moving to the cloud, after recently migrating 2,000 staff from Microsoft Outlook and Exchange to Google Apps Premier Edition and Google's email archiving service Postini.

What do Blighty's hairdressers and IT technicians have in common? A shared love of moonlighting for a little extra cash, apparently.

More than a third (37 per cent) of IT technicians admit taking on extra work outside office hours, a survey has revealed. This lands techies in the top 10 UK professions for moonlighting, although some way behind the most prolific cash-in-hand workers of all: the not-so-humble hairdresser.

While the debate over bankers' bonuses may still be generating headlines, it seems the financial services industry has found one way to cut back - slash IT budgets.

Financial services firms' IT budgets fell by 8.3 per cent between 2008 and 2009, meaning the banks have cut their budgets more than other industries, and saw spending fall by 6.8 per cent year-on-year.

Microsoft recently opened its Chicago datacentre. In its first phase, the ground floor of the facility is designed to hold up to 56 containers, each filled with somewhere between 1,800 to 2,500 servers.

Photo credit: Microsoft

Fraudsters have attempted to steal an estimated $100m from corporate bank accounts using malware and money mules, the FBI said yesterday.

The FBI is seeing several new victim complaints and cases every week, according to an Internet Crime Complaint Center report.

While social networking sites can be fun for connecting with family and friends, they're no use when it comes to professional networking, says the Naked CIO.

It used to be that social networking websites were a perfect place to collaborate with colleagues, bring together like-minded people and make professional contacts who could enhance your career. But no more.

The UK will never create a software giant to rival the likes of Microsoft, Google or Oracle.

That's the sobering conclusion of the silicon.com CIO Jury which voted 10 to two against, when asked whether the UK could create a global software business to rival the technology industry's most powerful companies.

The Home Office has announced a £39m deal to help emergency services comms cope during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The National Police Improvement Agency has signed the £39m contract with Airwave, the company that provides the mobile radio network used by every UK police force and currently being rolled out to every ambulance trust and Fire and Rescue service in the country, to fund an increase in the system's capacity in time for the 2012 Games.

The Apple mouse has long been the weak link in its hardware set-ups. Seb Janacek asks: Can the new Magic Mouse change all that?

I have a dream… a dream that Apple finally gets around to creating a really great mouse. A mouse to complement its rather splendid computers and even finer software.

Parliamentary spending watchdog the Public Accounts Committee has branded the implementation of the National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis) a failure.

Chair of the PAC, Edward Leigh, said of the programme that was designed to implement a single database between the Prison Service and the National Probation Service: "Even we were surprised by the extent of the failure of C-Nomis", adding: "there was not even a minimum level of competence in the planning and execution of this project".

Customers are responsible for their own wi-fi security, according to hotspot operators.

BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile all recommended wi-fi users adopt VPNs to help protect themselves while using hotspots.

Lisa mouseApple's Lisa of the early 1980s was among the first computers to sport a mouse - albeit a boxy and clunky one.

And while the Lisa tanked, most people remember the mouse as a key part of the Macs that followed it.

While Symbian continues to dominate the smartphone market it could soon be facing increasing competition from a new quarter - Maemo.

There's no debating that the Symbian platform remains the daddy of the smartphone world: one in every two sold today carries the Symbian OS.

Since Google launched its Wave collaboration platform this year businesses have been testing how they can make use of the system.

The Wave platform offers users a chance to chat and work together in real-time within a window in a web browser that Google calls a 'wave'.

The iPhone 3G and 3G S will go on sale to Orange customers from 10 November, the operator has revealed today.

Orange has also unveiled its pay monthly, pay-as-you-go and business tariffs for iPhone 3G and 3G S - with the cheapest price plan offering consumers a free iPhone 3G for just under £30 per month on a two-year contract.

Microsoft announced on Friday it is to kill off its Office Accounting product line.

Microsoft's Redmond campus. The software giant has called time on accounting software(Photo credit: Microsoft)

Netbooks have been enjoying the spotlight of late - but are they suitable for the workplace? Bethan Jones puts one to the test.

Recently I was quietly enjoying my skinny hazelnut latte, extra foam, extra hot when my ears pricked up at the conversation at the table next to mine.

Earlier this year, Google launched a collaboration platform called Wave.

Using the platform, individuals can access shared windows called 'waves' where they can collaborate in real-time, swapping IMs, photos, videos, maps and documents as they work together.

The European Commission has called for EU members to speed their switchover to digital television, and therefore in the process free up spectrum, which can then be used for broadband services.

Viviane Reding, information society and media commissioner for the EC, said she wants EU countries to have made the move by 2012.

It's almost that time of year when nameless horrors not of this world crawl shrieking into the light, creating terror and provoking instant madness in all that see their horrible, bloated faces.

No, the Round-Up doesn't mean consultants doing the annual software audit. It's Halloween tomorrow.

The taxman will cut £110m from its annual IT bill by trimming its IT infrastructure.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will reduce the £840m it currently spends on IT each year by ditching or shrinking the size of 40 computer systems and shutting down a number of datacentres.

Amazon has launched a new payments system based around a user's memorable phrase.

The PayPhrase service, launched yesterday in the US, will see Amazon users able to combine a set of payment details - such as their credit card information and shipping details - and then name the data with a memorable phrase.

The European Commission has said the UK government doesn't have adequate communications privacy legislation and must step up its efforts.

The announcement follows complaints by UK citizens and privacy groups over the government's lack of action after telco BT conducted trials of the Phorm behavioural advertising service without getting consent from its customers.

Considering hitting the shops at the weekend? Looking for inspiration? Check out the latest in our series of gadget mini-reviews, courtesy of silicon.com's sister site CNET.co.uk, the home of technology reviews. For the full review and details, click on the link below.

What is it: 27-inch, unibody, all-in-one desktop PC

Drivers with contactless bank cards will soon be able to use them to pay for their parking.

From next year, parking meters in the West End will accept contactless payments from motorists with wave and pay functionality built into their debit or credit cards.

Want to know how Ubuntu 9.10 will look once installed? silicon.com sister site ZDNet Australia takes you through the install.

Once booting from the CD is complete, this is the installation screen that welcomes you. Note the release notes link at the bottom.

Secretary of state for business, innovation and skills Peter Mandelson has reiterated the government's 'three strikes and you're out' plan to cut off illegal file-sharers' internet access.

Speaking at a cabinet creative industries conference yesterday, the business minister said proposals made back in August will feature in the Digital Economy Bill expected before Parliament in November.

Compiled at the IoD, Pall Mall, London, and dispatched to silicon.com via a free wi-fi connection.

For more than a year now I have been in a state of mild bewilderment while watching and listening to the economic commentators. The truth is: I find it difficult to afford them much credibility as I have been here many times before.

It's no surprise that for some companies green initiatives are dropping down the list of IT priorities. In a recent silicon.com survey, more than a quarter of respondents admitted green IT was off the agenda because of the recession.

But many organisations have found the key is to align green goals with broader cost-cutting initiatives - which are definitely in vogue with CIOs and CFOs. In some cases government policies are already giving businesses a shove in the right direction. For example, in July 2008, the UK government informed 10,000 businesses that they could be affected by the Carbon Reduction Commitment - a climate change and energy-saving scheme that will take effect in 2010.

What do you do when the 'One new friend request' on Facebook is from a work colleague? silicon.com's Natasha Lomas deconstructs this Digital Dilemma…

It's the mother of digital conundrums: you log into your Facebook account and there's a friend request from a work colleague staring back at you.

While Windows 7 solves most of the qualms about Vista, the new OS still has plenty of room to grow, says Quocirca's Clive Longbottom.

The much vaunted Windows 7 is now among us, and consumer pre-orders look strong.

It's a question many CIOs are wrestling with: can open source help make your IT budget stretch a little further in these tough economic times?

While some CIOs are enthusiastic about the potential savings that can be made, others still warn of the hidden costs that can lie in wait for the unwary.

It may have only been launched a few months ago but Google's Wave collaboration platform is already attracting attention from businesses, according to one of the key architects of the service.

Lars Rasmussen, Google's software engineering manager and co-creator of Wave, said unlike typical Google services, Wave has stoked early interest among both consumers and enterprises.

Google this week released screenshots of Eclair, its 2.0 Android update.

Eclair update will add a unified email inbox. On previous Android phones, users have complained about the disparate experience between the various email apps.

When it comes to deciding how to spend a hard-won portion of the IT budget, who do CIOs trust for advice?

Consultants? Blogs? Whitepapers? Or something else entirely?