While the ability to do this is a plus for Phishers, it is also a plus for those of us soon to be living behind Conroy's[1] Great Firewall of Oz. I'd be betting that this would get straight past their filters. With this feature, just as long as they don't block DNS lookups of "banned" sites, the firewall will be a minor annoyance.

[1] Conroy - Senator Stephen Conroy -- Australian Minister for Communications and the Digital Economy -- He's in charge of building a fiber to the node network to give all of us here in Australia high speed connectivity, that won't be worth much because of the bottleneck imposed by the filter he wants to put in to keep us pure. Was made an Honorary Member of the Australian Computer Society which says more about them than him.

I must say that I was rather surprised to see Linus polling ahead of Thompson and Ritchie. Without taking anything away from Linus' efforts in bring a Unix-like OS to the "masses", I would argue that between what had already been done by pioneers such as T&R, and the material in Tanenbaum's book, Operating Systems, Design and Implementation, which included the source code for Minix, Linus' effort, while important, was implementation rather than genuinely original.

The key point that many miss about Unix, and, IMHO the secret of its longevity, is that the majority of the kernel is written in a portable language. The use of C for the majority of the kernel has meant that Unix is rapidly ported to new hardware architectures as they become available. This innovation is why I believe that Thompson and Ritchie are deserving of special mention.

-Don

The original "spinful" release from Conroy's office is at:

http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2008/011

And two good analyses of the report are at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2772467.htm

and

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162975,filter-pilot-did-not-test-high-speed-internet.aspx

Another analysis that may be difficult to access is at:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/16/internet-filters-can-block-acma’s-blacklist-so-what/

The actual report is available from a link on the the government site and is interesting
mostly for what it does not say. There is generally insufficient detail to actually look
critically at any of the claims in the report. The parts where they say that the filter
improves performance are simply laughable. Some of the filters included a cache
so the comparison is "filter with cache" versus "no filter and no cache". It's not exactly
apples with apples, though to reach this analysis it was necessary to read between the
lines. The report is a classic example of modifying the observed facts until they align
with the prejudices.

WRT higher frequencies, In a former life I worked as an industrial sparky and as a linesman for Amtrak.

Amtrak uses 100Hz for the signal system. We were warned to not wear steel-toe shoes around the system due to the heating danger of contacting the signal system at 6.9 kV. (Examples were cited of people with severe burns from keys or coins in pockets.)

And, in an industrial job, we wired a system that used 10kHz for heating the moulds for battery terminals used in big (30 cm diameter x 50-60 cm high) cells used as backup power for telephone exchanges, etc. This power system needed to be constructed with aluminium conduit and junctions, etc since steel would have melted.

So, while I cannot comment on the direct health effects of higher frequencies, the indirect heating effect would be a significant hazard.

Since I've worked in both the US (60Hz) and Australia (50HZ) I can offer the following anecdotal information. While finalising the connection of a house in the US, (connection to the utility above the meter) I got between the active and neutral at 120v -- I'd have to say that it was probably the worst buzz I've ever had. I was sweaty and the connection was between the right hand and the left shoulder -- damn near knocked me off a 5 meter ladder.

In Oz, I was coiling a handline while standing on a ladder between the neutral and white phase or a 240/415 distribution system. (Yeah, it was stupid, but it's one of those things that you do when you're in a hurry.) The backs of my hands hit the conductors. It was nothing compared to the US number. (But then again, that might be because I immediately broke the circuit.)

Looking at what I've written, I believe that I am saying is that there are a lot of factors involved and that you cannot point to any single factor in isolation.

-Don

In a former life, I was a site hardware support engineer for a petroleum company. They had laptops that were used on Oil Drilling Platforms. (Steel, everything in sight earthed really well.)
I was handed a complaint that someone was shocked on one of these PCs. And, on testing, there was a potential of 75-150 volts between some of the exposed screws and earth. BUT, and this is the important point, the current was in the milli- to micro- ampere range. So, it meant that the electricity was perceptible, but not dangerous since the current involved was below the accepted threshold for danger to humans.
On the other hand, a spark, any spark, on an oil rig is not a good thing. The final result was that the PCs continued to be used in the office, but were banned from the oil rigs.
The above comments with respect to the current may not be the same as the situation reported in the original article, but I'd be curious to know what the measured current actually is.
When I measured current on the machines I tested, I started with the meter in it's highest possible current setting and gradually worked downwards to more sensitive scales to make sure I didn't let the "smoke" out of the meter. But if you're not sure about the method, don't try this at home kids. ;-)