PC viruses help each other survive

1 July 2013 Last updated at 06:09 ET

Two computer viruses that collaborate are proving hard to clean from infected PCs, Microsoft research suggests.

The pair of viruses foil removal by regularly downloading updated versions of their malware partner.

The novel versions are usually unknown to anti-virus programs which let the malicious programs persist.

Once present on a PC, the viruses let thieves take over a machine so it can be mined for saleable data or used to send spam or to attack other machines.

The close relationship between the two viruses was revealed in a blogpost by Microsoft malware research Hyun Choi.

Mr Choi said that the two Windows viruses, known as Vobfus and Beebone, were regularly found together. Vobfus was typically the first to arrive on a machine, he said, and used different tactics to infect victims. Vobfus could be installed via booby-trapped links on websites, travel via network links to other machines or lurk on USB drives and infect machines they are plugged into.

Once installed, Vobfus downloaded Beebone which enrolled the machine into a botnet - a large network of infected machines.

After this, said Mr Choi, the two start to work together to regularly download new versions of their partner in cybercrime.

This, he said, was a powerful mechanism that helped it keep a foothold on infected machines.

"In the case with Vobfus, even if it is detected and remediated, it could have downloaded an undetected Beebone which can in turn download an undetected variant of Vobfus," he said.

"The two threat families are intrinsically related," wrote Mr Choi, adding that the "cyclical relationship" had helped Vobfus become a persistent problem since 2009 when it first appeared.

Defeating the two viruses was tricky, he said, because Vobfus was so good at travelling via networks. As well as keeping software up to date he recommended disabling the "autorun" feature on Windows machines as Vobfus exploits this when it arrives via USB drives. In addition, he said, people should be wary of clicking links on external websites to avoid falling victim to booby-trapped URLs.

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Struggling Zynga appoints Xbox boss

1 July 2013 Last updated at 17:56 ET

Social gaming company Zynga has named former Microsoft executive Don Mattrick as chief executive.

Mark Pincus, the company's founder and current CEO, said he will stay on as chairman and chief product officer.

"Zynga is a great business that has yet to realize its full potential," said Mr Mattrick in an email to employees.

At Microsoft, Mr Mattrick was head of interactive entertainment, the key division that includes Xbox, which is about to launch a new console.

Continue reading the main story

Leo Kelion Technology reporter

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Don Mattrick's decision to quit Microsoft follows a bruising E3 tech show last month.

It was bad enough that the Xbox One was undercut on price by the PlayStation 4, but the Canadian executive also found himself mocked for introducing restrictions on second-hand games and insisting players log onto the net at least once a day.

His attempt at damage control only made matters worse. Saying that those wanting an offline mode could still buy the last-generation Xbox 360 was branded "ridiculous" by one news site and even led to claims he had "single-handedly alienated the entire military".

When Mr Mattrick blogged details of a U-turn one week later, traffic to the webpage was so great it temporarily became inaccessible.

Despite these recent troubles, Mr Mattrick can take credit for having helped Microsoft outsell Sony in the US and UK for the current console generation.

Moving to Zynga offers him a fresh start, but joining a firm that has recently cancelled games, lost top talent, cut jobs and seen sales drop off means the pressure on him is unlikely to ease.

Before that, he helped develop popular games like "The Sims" and "FIFA" for Electronic Arts.

"I've always said… that if I could find someone who could do a better job as our CEO I'd do all I could to recruit and bring that person in," said Mr Pincus in a separate email to staff.

"I'm confident that Don is that leader."

Shares in the company, which are down by more than 50% for the year, shot up once word of the leadership change was first broken by the website AllThingsD.com.

At Microsoft, Mr Mattrick helped turn the Xbox business into a profitable venture after years of losses. His departure comes just as Microsoft prepares to launch a new version of the console, the Xbox One.

Gamers have attacked the high price, Microsoft's plan to require an internet connection at least once a day and attempts to limit the sharing of used games.

Last month, Microsoft reversed its position on the Internet connection and said it would allow game sharing.

The search for the next Farmville

Zynga has had difficulty almost since its stock market debut in December 2011, when it was valued at $1bn (£656m). News of the appointment sent Zynga shares more than 10% higher.

Struggling to replicate the success it found with games like FarmVille and Words With Friends, it bought OMGPOP, the company behind the popular game Draw Something, for $200m (£131m) in March of 2012. It shut OMGPOP less than a year later.

Mobile has also proven challenging for the company, which used to rely on its close ties with Facebook for users.

"The gaming market is an especially tough one, particularly as user behaviour shifts dramatically towards gaming on phones and tablets," said Clark Fredricksen, of eMarketer. "It's a world of hit-makers and miss-hits."

Recently the company has looked to online gambling as another revenue stream, but that has not yet had an impact on the bottom line. More than 20% of its staff has been let go in the past year, and it has shuttered several offices.

Mr Pincus is the second high profile founder of a social media company to resign, following Groupon chief executive Andrew Mason's departure in February.

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Top MPs fall foul of data watchdog

1 July 2013 Last updated at 22:51 ET By Ed Lowther BBC News

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is among 13 senior MPs whose websites have not been obtaining consent while gathering users' data in tracking files called cookies, the BBC has learned.

Mr Grayling's spokesman said a cookie pop-up window had been "accidentally disabled for a brief period".

But the UK's data watchdog said it would remind all 13 MPs about their compliance with EU privacy laws.

Campaigners say the law, which came into force a year ago, is "unworkable".

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which is tasked with enforcing the e-privacy directive containing the provisions on cookies, refused to confirm or deny that the websites were breaking the law.

Cookies are small text files saved by websites on users' computers to store browsing information.

'No privacy risk'

Many websites owners have interpreted the law to mean that they must install pop-ups or banners giving details of how they use cookies, and make it easy for users to opt out.

Continue reading the main story

Falling foul of cookie law?

The BBC looked at the constituency websites of the 59 MPs who are either in the cabinet or shadow cabinet, or attend their meetings. Of these, 13 appeared to be using cookies without displaying pop-ups or banners to obtain "informed consent":

• Government: Deputy PM Nick Clegg, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, Energy Secretary Ed Davey, Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers and Commons Leader Andrew Lansley
• Opposition: Shadow deputy PM Harriet Harman, shadow chancellor Ed Balls, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan, shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh, shadow Northern Ireland secretary Vernon Coaker, policy review co-ordinator Jon Cruddas and the Labour leader's parliamentary private secretary Karen Buck

Since being contacted for comment by the BBC, seven of the 13 MPs have installed cookie pop-ups or banners.

But no such feature appeared when the BBC visited the constituency websites of cabinet members Nick Clegg, Chris Grayling, Danny Alexander, Ed Davey and Theresa Villiers, and cabinet attendee Andrew Lansley.

Senior Labour MPs Harriet Harman, Ed Balls, Sadiq Khan, Mary Creagh, Vernon Coaker, Jon Cruddas and Karen Buck had also not adopted this approach on their constituency websites.

ICO spokesman Robert Parker said it was "difficult" to determine whether each website was complying with the directive or not, and the watchdog would only make sufficient resources available "if we felt that it was causing large numbers of people significant damage and distress".

But he said the ICO would write to the MPs concerned to remind them of their obligations under the law.

A spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was a "technical oversight" that one of the MP's two websites did not seek users' consent to save cookies to their machines.

"After it was drawn to our attention, we have quickly taken steps to make sure the constituency website is compliant with the directive," he said.

It has emerged that the ICO sent a similar warning letter to Mr Clegg in 2012. "We have not conducted a thorough audit of your site," it said. "This letter does not confirm your site is compliant, or suggest it is not, but is intended to keep you informed."

'Most frustrating'

Mr Grayling's spokesman said: "While some work was being done on the backend of the website the cookie policy plugin Cookie Control, which is a recommended plugin to use for WordPress websites, was accidentally disabled for a brief period of time. This was subsequently corrected."

Continue reading the main story

Cookie flavours

Cookies are small files that allow a website to recognise and track users. The ICO identifies three overlapping groups:

Session cookies

Files that allow a site to link the actions of a visitor during a single browser session. These might be used by an internet bank or webmail service. They are not stored long-term and are considered "less privacy intrusive" than persistent cookies.

Persistent cookies

These remain on the user's device between sessions and allow one or several sites to remember details about the visitor. They may be used by marketers to target advertising or to avoid the user having to provide a password during each visit.

First- and third-party cookies

A cookie is classed as being first-party if it is set by the site being visited. It might be used to study how people navigate a site.

It is classed as third-party if it is issued by a different server from that of the domain being visited. It could be used to trigger a banner advert based on the visitor's viewing habits.

Ed Davey and Karen Buck said they had taken new steps to ensure their website was compliant with the law. A spokesman for Ms Harman, who is a prominent QC, said that her site had been compliant even without the cookie pop-up, which has since been re-introduced after a "technical issue recently caused [it] not to display". A spokesman for Mary Creagh said her website was being upgraded and would soon contain a cookie widget.

Some types of cookie are exempt from the law.

But all 13 MPs appear to be using Google Analytics on their websites, a widely used service which enables the owners of websites to gather anonymised data about how people browse their websites, for example whether they have visited the site before and how long they spend on each page of the site.

The ICO has said such cookies are not exempt, even though they are "not likely to create a privacy risk" if website owners "provide clear information about the cookies to users and privacy safeguards, e.g. a user-friendly mechanism to opt out from any data collection".

It has also said it is "highly unlikely" to take any formal action against any website using analytics cookies in breach of the law.

Technology firm Silktide's Oliver Emberton, who has previously challenged the information commissioner to take action against his own non-compliant website, said: "97% of websites use cookies - you may as well add a disclaimer that your website is using electricity."

He added: "The ICO has the impossible job of policing an unworkable law.

"The most frustrating thing for website owners has been trying to second guess what the law means, as it changes constantly. A lot of time and money has been wasted accomplishing very little.

"The idea of this law is a noble one, it's just a shame it was drafted by a team of technically illiterate octogenarians who couldn't find a button on a mouse."

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Russian rocket crashes in Kazakhstan

2 July 2013 Last updated at 00:56 ET

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The rocket exploded over the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan

An unmanned Russian Proton-M rocket has crashed just seconds after its launch from the Russian Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan.

Dramatic video footage broadcast by Russian TV shows the rocket break up before exploding into a fireball over the Baikonur cosmodrome.

Russia's Interfax news agency reported that up to 500 tonnes of poisonous rocket fuel may have been released and contaminated the crash site.

There were no reported injuries.

The rocket was carrying three satellites for Russia's Glonass (global) navigation satellite system.

It is not yet clear what caused the accident.

It is not the first incident involving a Proton-M rocket, according to the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow.

A similar rocket crashed shortly after it was launched six years ago, and in 2010 another rocket failed to put three navigation satellites into orbit.

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Bebo sold to founder in $1m deal

2 July 2013 Last updated at 05:48 ET

Social network Bebo is set to be relaunched after one of its founders bought the company at auction for $1m (£657,000).

Michael and Xochi Birch set up Bebo which became hugely popular among teenagers in the early 2000s.

It was sold to AOL in 2008 for $850m (£558m) but dwindling users led to it being sold on in 2010 for just $10m.

Bebo sought bankruptcy protection in May and Mr Birch has now bought the company from its receivers.

In a tweet, Mr Birch announced that he had acquired Bebo and revealed his intention to relaunch the network.

"Can we actually reinvent it? Who knows, but it will be fun trying..." he wrote in the message.

Bebo, alongside MySpace was one of the challengers to Facebook in the early 2000s and, at its peak, had about 40 million users. However, it struggled to stay relevant and was eclipsed by Facebook as well as other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and, more recently, Google+ and Reddit.

The decline of Bebo was also blamed on the reluctance of new owner AOL to invest in the social network to help it keep up with rivals. Declining visitor numbers led AOL to sell off the site to Criterion Capital and a consortium of individual investors.

TechCrunch reports that wrangles between Criterion and the investors led to Bebo seeking bankruptcy protection and being put up for sale. This gave Mr Birch the chance to regain control.

Mr Birch's incubator fund Monkey Inferno will be in charge of reinventing the site. So far, it has not released any details of what the revamped site will look like.

In a statement, Monkey Inferno head Shaan Puri said: "We know the odds are stacked against us, but we love challenges and the Bebo users deserve better than what they have received the past few years."

Bebo is just the latest in a series of relaunches of once influential social networks. Social news site Digg has undergone a remake under new owners, as has MySpace.

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Winklevoss twins plan Bitcoin trust

2 July 2013 Last updated at 06:02 ET

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, famed for their legal dispute with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, have unveiled plans to float a Bitcoin trust.

The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust will initially sell $20m (£13m) worth of shares to investors, according to a filing with the US regulators.

The twins are among the key backers of Bitcoin, a virtual currency traded independently of monetary authorities.

Its value jumped earlier this year, but has been highly volatile.

In January its value surged from $15 for each Bitcoin, to a high of $260 on 10 April, before crashing.

Bitcoins are now trading at a price of about $90 each.

Short-sellers

Like other currencies, Bitcoins are used to buy goods and services, with companies selling anything from software to online dating accepting it as payment.

The currency is created by the application of a mathematical formula in a process known as "Bitcoin mining".

A key feature of Bitcoins is that their supply can never exceed a certain number - 21 million - which has led some to speculate that their value may rise further.

In their filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the twins said that shares in the trust were "designed for investors seeking a cost-effective and convenient means to gain exposure to Bitcoins with minimal credit risk".

The trust fund is to be listed on an as-yet-undetermined exchange - such as Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.

The value of the fund is expected to track closely the value of the underlying Bitcoins in which it will be invested.

But - unlike with Bitcoins - the intention is that investors will be able to sell shares in the trust fund short, in effect allowing them to speculate that the value of Bitcoins will fall.

Earlier this year, the Winklevoss twins had told the New York Times that they owned about $11m of the virtual coins - about 1% of the global supply.

They have set up Math-Based Asset Services LLC which will be the sponsor of the trust.

The SEC filing warned that as "the sponsor and its management have no history of operating an investment vehicle like the Trust, their experience may be inadequate or unsuitable to manage the Trust".

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Children 'abused to order' warning

2 July 2013 Last updated at 06:44 ET

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Peter Davies, Ceop, says online offending is just as harmful as physical sexual abuse and has led to children attempting suicide

Live streaming of child sex abuse via webcams is an emerging threat, experts have warned, amid a doubling of reported indecent images.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said children were being "abused to order".

Offenders targeted vulnerable families overseas, paying them to facilitate child abuse, according to its report.

Ceop said those carrying out abuse used a "hidden internet" to disguise their identity and avoid detection.

The report found the number of still and moving child abuse images reported to Ceop had doubled in the last year to 70,000 - although this includes a "substantial" number of duplicated images.

The child protection body - part of Home Office's Serious Organised Crime Agency - said it received 8,000 reports of indecent images of children being shared last year.

'Appalling crime'

It said live streaming emerged in 2012 as a means of producing and distributing images.

"We're seeing cases where they're effectively being abused to order for paying customers," chief executive Peter Davies told the BBC.

He said some of those exploiting children via the internet were in the UK, adding: "At every level an absolutely appalling kind of crime."

Children were forced to engage in sexual activity on live webcams in exchange for payment to the family or organised crime gangs, according to Ceop's annual threat assessment of child exploitation and abuse .

Online video services such as Skype were identified as among those being exploited to transmit live images of abuse.

Continue reading the main story

What is the hidden internet?

When information moves online, each computer's individual IP address is widely logged, potentially giving police a start in any investigation.

But some in the industry say tech-savvy paedophiles have turned to networks specifically designed to conceal the identity and location of their users.

Using a variety of technological tricks, so-called "dark nets" - Tor, I2P, Freenet and many others - hide the giveaway identifiers while allowing people to go on using the web.

Drugs, guns and credit card skimmers are openly on sale on these networks.

They are places where paedophiles, criminal hackers and professional thieves advertise their services.

However some see the hidden web as a force for good because it is used to avoid detection in many places where political protests are harshly suppressed.

Do dark networks aid cyberthieves and abusers?

Ceop said many abusers were hiding their actions deep in the "hidden internet" by using encrypted networks and other secure methods to distribute images. These methods made it harder for law enforcement agencies to trace abusers.

"The use of the hidden internet in the UK and beyond is expected to continue increasing throughout 2013, possibly reaching 20,000 daily UK users by the end of the year," said the report.

"Ceop assesses that the networking and sense of 'safe' community that occurs within the hidden internet and the relative sophistication of offenders within that environment stimulates the production of [indecent images of children] on both a commercial and non-commercial basis."

'Searching questions'

An NSPCC spokeswoman said evidence from police in England and Wales indicated there were 20,000 sexual offences against children every year.

"However, we believe this is far from the true situation as many cases are never revealed," said the spokesman.

Independent charity Victim Support, meanwhile, said the police service must "ask itself some searching questions".

"Its first priority is to prevent and detect crime," chief executive Javed Khan said.

There were "inconsistencies in the way forces collect, record and categorise child sex abuse offences", he added.

"It is essential that every dot is joined up if the most vulnerable in our society are to be protected.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

It is essential that every dot is joined up if the most vulnerable in our society are to be protected"

End Quote Javed Khan Victim Support

"Every police force must therefore contribute fully and consistently to the national intelligence picture - only then will we have a true picture of the scale of the problem."

Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Damian Green said: "These figures are deeply troubling and show how our understanding of child sexual exploitation has greatly improved in recent years.

"But more needs to be done. Ceop is doing excellent work and we will see its capability strengthened when it is transferred to the National Crime Agency later this year.

"I am leading a new Home Office group which is urgently looking at how we better identify those at risk."

An estimated 50,000 UK web users are involved in distributing abuse images.

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Contact lens gives telescopic vision

2 July 2013 Last updated at 07:56 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Researchers have created contact lenses which, when paired with special spectacles, bestow telescopic vision on their wearers.

The contact-lens-and-spectacles combination magnifies scene details by 2.8 times.

Polarising filters in the spectacles allow wearers to switch between normal and telescopic vision.

The telescopic sight system has been developed to help people suffering age-related blindness.

Age-related macular degeneration is one of the most common forms of blindness and damages the part of the eye, the macula, that handles fine detail. As this area degenerates, sufferers lose the ability to recognise faces and perform tasks, such as driving and reading, that rely on picking up details.

Precise control

The contact lens created by the researchers has a central region that lets light through for normal vision. The telescopic element sits in a ring around this central region. Tiny aluminium mirrors scored with a specific pattern act as a magnifier as they bounce the light around four times within the ring before directing it towards the retina.

In ordinary use, the magnified image is not seen as it is blocked by polarising filters set in a companion pair of spectacles. Wearers can switch it on by changing the filters on the spectacles so the only light falling on their retina comes from the magnified stream.

For their filtering system, the researchers, led by Joseph Ford at UC San Diego and Eric Tremblay at Switzerland's EPFL, adapted a pair of glasses that Samsung produces for some of its 3D TV sets. In normal use, these spectacles create a 3D effect by alternately blocking the right or left lens.

The prototype contact lens produced by the team is 8mm in diameter, 1mm thick at its centre and 1.17mm thick in its magnifying ring.

"The most difficult part of the project was making the lens breathable," Dr Tremblay told the BBC. "If you want to wear the lens for more than 30 minutes you need to make it breathable."

Gases have to be able to penetrate the lens to keep the parts of the eye covered by the contact, especially the cornea, supplied with oxygen, he said.

The team has solved this problem by producing lenses riddled with tiny channels that let oxygen flow through.

However, said Dr Tremblay, this made manufacturing the lenses much more difficult.

"The fabrication tolerances are quite challenging because everything has to be so precise," he said.

Despite this, gas-permeable versions of the telescopic lens are being prepared that will be used in clinical trials in November, he said. Eventually it should be possible for those with age-related sight problems to wear the telescopic lenses all day.

The lenses are an improvement on other ways these sight problems have been tackled which has included surgery to implant a telescopic lens or wearing bulky spectacles that have telescopic lenses forming part of the main lens.

Clara Eaglen, eye health campaigns manager at the RNIB said the research looked "interesting" and praised its focus on macular degeneration.

"It is encouraging that innovative products such as these telescopic contact lenses are being developed, especially as they aim to make the most of a person's existing vision," she said. ""Anything that helps to maximise functioning vision is very important as this helps people with sight loss to regain some independence and get out and about again, helping to reduce isolation."

The lenses may one day find their way into other areas as the research was being funded by Darpa, the research arm of the US military.

"They are not so concerned about macular degeneration," he said. "They are concerned with super vision which is a much harder problem.

"That's because the standard is much higher if you are trying to improve vision rather than helping someone whose eyesight has deteriorated," he said.

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Microsoft develops 3D touchscreen

2 July 2013 Last updated at 09:20 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Details of a touchscreen showing 3D images that can be felt and manipulated have been published by Microsoft's research unit.

The project combines an LCD flat panel screen with force sensors and a robotic arm that moves it back and forwards.

By controlling how much resistance there is to a user's fingertip the firm says it can simulate the shape and weight of objects shown on screen.

Microsoft says the device could have medical uses as well as for gaming.

Work on the project is being carried out at the firm's Redmond campus near Seattle.

Simulated shapes

When a person touches the prototype it pushes back with a light force to ensure one of their fingers stays in contact with the screen.

If they then press against it the robotic arm instantly pulls the screen backwards in a matching smooth movement. If they start to retract their finger, it moves it back towards them.

Meanwhile a computer adjusts the size and perspective of the on-screen graphics to create a 3D effect.

The trick to simulating a physical sense of touch is to adjust the amount of force-feedback resistance.

So, in an application which shows graphics representing different square blocks on a wall, a "stone" one requires a relatively large amount of force to push it off the ledge and a "sponge" one less.

In addition, the kit can be used to provide a sense of shape by adjusting the screen's position to match a virtual object's contours as a person drags their finger over its surface.

"As your finger pushes on the touchscreen and the senses merge with stereo vision, if we do the convergence correctly and update the visuals constantly so that they correspond to your finger's depth perception, this is enough for your brain to accept the virtual world as real," said senior researcher Michael Pahud.

His team have used the technique to allow users to feel the shape of a virtual cup and ball, among other objects, while viewing them using special glasses to get a stereo-vision effect.

Touch-and-find tumours

Microsoft suggests one use for the device would be to allow doctors to explore body scans.

It has created a demonstration using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of a brain to show how a medic could navigate through the different slices by pushing their finger against the display.

It also allows them to draw notes and leave a "haptic detent" - or force-feedback marker - at certain layers to make it easier to find them again later on.

In time, the researchers suggest, this could be extended to flag up potential problems.

"I could imagine receiving haptic feedback when you encountered an anomaly, such as a tumour, because we can change the response based on what you touch," said Mr Pahud.

"You can have different responses for when you touch soft tissue versus hard tissue, which makes for a very rich experience."

Bumpy screens

One medical tech expert said the project showed promise, but added that previous efforts to try to use touch-based feedback in robotic surgery and other health-related equipment suggested it was not yet responsive enough to be reliable.

In particular, Dr Peter Weller, head of the Centre for Health Infomatics at City University, London, said he was concerned Microsoft's screen would not be able to give an accurate enough indication of textures.

"If you were moving your finger over a surface that was rough the screen would have to go up and down very quickly to be able to give you that impression," he told the BBC.

"The examples that they give are all very smooth - squares and cylinders and all that - but if it was going to be used in the real world it would have to respond to rapidly changing shapes."

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Tactus has developed a screen that can make itself go bumpy

Others are working on different ways to provide touch-feedback. California-based Tactus, for example, has developed a screen with tiny channels of fluid which allows bumps to pop up to simulate the feel of buttons.

Dr Weller suggested that if this or other such technologies could be combined with Microsoft's current research then its screen could indeed find its way into use.

"I think their example of the brain scan is a bit artificial, but where I could see it being useful would be for a doctor doing teleconsultancy work," he said,

"It would mean the patient could be in another country or hospital and the doctor could feel their glands or abdomen from a distance."

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Last of Us game issues sex chat fix

2 July 2013 Last updated at 09:28 ET

A video-game maker has had to release an update to their latest title after real-life sex-chat-line phone numbers were discovered in the artwork.

Naughty Dog, creators of the popular post-apocalyptic game The Last Of Us, told gaming site Kotaku that the error was down to "an artist's mistake".

The offending numbers appeared on an in-game poster for "pest control".

The update, version 1.02, has now changed the numbers and addressed other crash and connectivity issues.

The game's creative director Neil Druckmann told Kotaku: "That was an artist's mistake. What happened was they put some phone numbers in the game and then they thought they could just change the area code to 555, then it's invalid, because it's what they do in movies.

"But I guess that doesn't work when you have a 1-800 in front of it. It was just an honest mistake."

Sharp-eyed gamers who had spotted the numbers and rung them were surprised to hear salacious recorded messages.

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Game director Bruce Straley discusses violence in The Last of Us, and Ashley Johnson talks about playing "Ellie"

Resemblance

The Last Of Us, created exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 3, was launched in June.

But the sex-chat-lines gaffe is not the only controversy surrounding the game.

It features a post-plague future world, a violent survivor called Joel, and a teenager called Ellie who some observers believe bears a close resemblance to the Canadian actress Ellen Page, star of films such as Juno and Inception.

And Page isn't happy about the similarity.

In an "Ask Me Anything" question and answer session on the Reddit website last week, she wrote: "I am actually acting in a video game called Beyond: Two Souls, so it was not appreciated."

The Ellie character in The Last of Us is played by actress Ashley Johnson.

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