NINTENDO'S HANDHELD DSi console will come with cloud-based Internet filtering available, network security appliance vendor Astaro announced today. Astaro said the Nintendo DSi Browser software can be downloaded onto the console to offer users mobile Internet access. Users can then adjust their browser settings to opt in to Astaro's Internet filtering service which operates as a remote web-proxy server to limit web browsing to only a subset of the world's millions of websites.

Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics. The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services. The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites. The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database. Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.

The government is set to require all telcos to record data between communications – mobile phones, text message, emails and instant messages, as well as internet browsing sessions to social networking sites such as Facebook. The details of the Intercept Modernisation Programme were laid out in a consultation document released today. The government will be accepting advice on the plans until July 2009.

As Congress once again considers a response to the latest outbreak of "inadvertent" peer-to-peer file sharing, the P2P software industry will doubtless point to its efforts to bring the problem under control. But the latest survey on the state of enterprise computing security, just released by a Silicon Valley area firewall company, isn't likely to contribute to a general sense of well-being around this issue.