Monday January 30, 2012

Eyeing The Net: Social Networks Under Close Watch

Mining open source data for marketing purposes horrified privacy groups for a long time but surveillance saga of internet took a new ominous twist with the recent declaration by FBI.

In a move that is seen widely as another attack on free speech the agency is also planning to target individuals to build up an interactive map enabling it to trace users daily routine.

From ZDNet:

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking to develop a Web app that can continuously monitor social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, as well as various news feeds. The organization’s goal is to improve its real-time intelligence when it comes to current and emerging security threats.

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Monday January 23, 2012

YouTube expands by one hour every second

The ubiquitous online video sharing website keeps growing at the astounding rate.

Its the third most popular destination on the net and it seems that there nothing more satisfying for millions of users than watching and uploading or vice versa...

From New Scientist:

People who complain about some of the racier content on YouTube are often told that the sheer rate at which that content is uploaded makes it impossible to moderate. That claim would seem to be more than borne out by the figures released by Google, YouTube's owner, today.

Posted in: Net by bubblejam at 04:44 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

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Wednesday January 18, 2012

RIM Job:
Blackberry Maker Prepares For Sale to Samsung

Blackberry maker RIM has been in financial trouble for some time, but salvation may be on the horizon.

Rumours indicate that Samsung may be interested in acquiring the Canadian smartphone manufacturer.

From The Globe and Mail:

The Boy Genius Report blog said on Tuesday, citing “a trusted source with knowledge of the situation,” that RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie was pushing for a sale to Samsung, but that talks had so far led nowhere, given the large difference between what RIM executives think their company is worth and what potential suitors are willing to pay.

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Sunday January 08, 2012

Spy Games:
Have Nokia, RIM, and Apple Given India Backdoor Access to Mobiles?

A set of documents liberated by hackers may indicate that the Indian government is seeking assistance with eavesdropping from mobile device manufacturers.

The documents seem to indicate that companies such as Nokia, RIM, and Apple have provided government agencies with backdoor access to their mobile devices.

From ZDNet:

Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

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Saturday January 07, 2012

Hard Luck Story:
Vendors Ramp Up Hard Drive Prices

Floods in Thailand late last year wiped out a huge chunk of the world's hard drive manufacturing capacity.

Now the shortage of drives has caught up with businesses as vendors ramp up their prices.

From Computerworld:

"Similar to other vendors we have seen a negative impact to our drive costs. While we initially absorbed the cost increases to protect our partners and customers, we are no longer able to do so," NetApp stated in its announcement.

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Tuesday January 03, 2012

Un-Like:
Facebook Cited in One-Third of UK Divorce Petitions

Facebook has been cited in one-third of UK divorce petitions in 2011.

This is a increase from 2009 when the social network was only mention in one-fifth of divorce petitions.

From T3:

The top three reasons for listing Facebook in the petitions, according to the survey, were: Inappropriate messages to members of the opposite sex; Separated spouses posting nasty comments about each other; and, Facebook friends reporting spouse’s behaviour.

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Thursday December 29, 2011

Bitcoin powers on despite setbacks

There is a new lease of life for this novel electronic currency popular with the net-savvy crowd.

Yet it remains to be seen as a major competition to conventional method of payments in the coming years.

From Wired

"We thought Bitcoin's value would continue to collapse, but so far that hasn't happened. Instead, after hitting a low of $2 (£1.28), it rose back above $3 (£1.91) in early December, and on Monday it rose above $4 (£2.55) for the first time in two months".

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Wednesday December 14, 2011

Cyber Cold War:
Chinese Hacking Grows 'Exponentially'

China is conducting widespread intrusions into corporate networks around the world, according to recent US intelligence reports.

While the Chinese government denies involvement, the ever growing number of hacker attacks could amount to a new kind of cold war.

From Bloomberg:

“They are stealing everything that isn’t bolted down, and it’s getting exponentially worse,” said Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who is chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

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Monday December 05, 2011

Is That All?
26% of IT Staff Peek at Confidential Information

When you work for a company, you could be forgiven for assuming that your personal information is kept confidential.

But a recent survey has revealed that 26% of IT staff have accessed confidential information that they have no right to look at.

From Help Net Security:

Philip Lieberman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lieberman Software said: “Our survey shows that senior management at some of the largest organisations are still not taking the management of privileged access to their most sensitive information seriously. When someone can admit that they have unsupervised, unaudited and unauthorised access to all their colleague’s and superior’s bonus details then the IT security of that organization is seriously flawed.”

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Thursday December 01, 2011

Robbing Hood:
Hackers Plan to Redistribute Wealth

Anonymous, the notorious hacking group, are behind a new initiative to take from the rich and give to the poor.

They are teaming up with fellow hackers TeaMp0isoN in an initiative described as Operation Robin Hood.

From InformationWeek:

"In regards to the recent demonstrations and protests across the globe, we are going to turn the tables on the banks," according to a YouTube video uploaded on Saturday, which formally announced #OpRobinHood.

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Wednesday November 30, 2011

China Crisis:
China Wants Cyberwarfare Hotline to US

China Daily, a newspaper known for reporting Chinese government policy, has called for the establishment of a crisis hotline between Beijing and Washington.

Recent reports in the US indicate that hackers in China are regularly intruding into American networks, so the Chinese need to demonstrate that they are concerned with the issue.

From China Daily:

With both state actors and non-state actors joining the cyber game, the risks of miscalculation between states will increase, especially if a non-state hacker can infiltrate a country's military networks and launch an attack against another country.

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Tuesday November 29, 2011

Hot Metal:
Printers Vulnerable to Hackers

Security researchers have identified printers as a hugely vulnerable element of computer networks.

Threats to printers have been overlooked until now, but compromised devices could in theory be forced to overheat and combust.

From MSNBC:

HP said Monday that it is still reviewing details of the vulnerability, and is unable to confirm or deny many of the researchers’ claims, but generally disputes the researchers’ characterization of the flaw as widespread. Keith Moore, chief technologist for HP's printer division, said the firm "takes this very seriously,” but his initial research suggests the likelihood that the vulnerability can be exploited in the real world is low in most cases.

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Wednesday November 23, 2011

This is a Lie:
Lying More Common in Emails

A recent study indicates that people are more likely to lie when writing emails.

As well as the personal distance created by the medium, not communicating in real time seems to encourage mendacity.

From ScienceBlog:

“In exploring the practical implications of this research, the results indicate that the Internet allows people to feel more free, psychologically speaking, to use deception, at least when meeting new people,” Feldman and Zimbler say. “Given the public attention to incidents of Internet predation, this research suggests that the deindividualization created by communicating from behind a computer screen may facilitate the process of portraying a disingenuous self.”

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Saturday November 19, 2011

This is Not The Last Time You'll See These:
Cult US Sitcom Returns as Internet-Only Show

Cult US sitcom Arrested Development was cancelled by Fox after three seasons, a move derided by die-hard fans.

Now streaming service Netflix are bringing the show back as an internet-only download.

From CNET:

"Arrested Development" last aired five years ago, when it got nixed by Nielsen. Its three-season run earned it a spot on Time magazine's list of the 100 best TV shows ever and inspired the sort of cult devotion that led to props being auctioned on eBay.

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Friday November 11, 2011

Facing Up:
Facebook Agrees to Make Privacy Changes 'Opt-In'

Facebook has been criticised in the past for playing fast and loose with user privacy.

Now the companty has come to an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission to make future changes 'opt-in'.

From TechCrunch:

Facebook has come under fire from the FTC and privacy advocates for a pushing users through a transition tool in December 2009 that made public some previously private information such as a user’s Likes. More recently, Facebook was criticized for enabling a facial recognition feature by default for European users. It was made opt-out rather than allowing users to decide whether they wanted their photos scanned for faces to assist them with tagging, and whether their faces would be identified in the photos uploaded by friends.

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Sunday November 06, 2011

How Do You Like Them Apples?
Apple's Lower Price Strategy Suceeding

Apple products have traditionally seen as being expensive.

But the company uses its huge cash reserves to tie-up components and passes savings onto consumers, frustrating competitors in the process.

From The New York Times:

Apple’s new pricing strategy is a big change from the 1990s, when consumers regarded Apple as a producer of overpriced tech baubles, unable to compete effectively with its Macintosh family of computers against the far cheaper Windows PCs. But more recently, it began using its growing manufacturing scale and logistics prowess to deliver Apple products at far more aggressive prices, which in turn gave it more power to influence pricing industrywide.

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Friday November 04, 2011

Vengeful Librarians:
CIA Unit Monitors Social Media

The CIA has a unit, known informally as 'vengeful librarians', dedicated to monitoring social networks to gauge global perceptions of America.

The unit's analysts often forward posts to the President of the United States.

From AP:

The CIA facility was set up in response to a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission, with its first priority to focus on counterterrorism and counterproliferation. But its several hundred analysts — the actual number is classified — track a broad range, from Chinese Internet access to the mood on the street in Pakistan.

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Tuesday November 01, 2011

Trojan Purse:
Mac OS Trojan Mines Bitcoins

Fraudsters have found a new way to make money in the form of virtual currency using computer viruses.

Applications downloaded from torrent sites have been found to contain a trojan that uses the infected computer to make Bitcoins.

From TechWorld:

So far, the Trojan has been detected in a BitTorrent download for GraphicConverter version 7.4, an image editing application for Mac OS X. However, this doesn't mean that there aren't similarly Trojanized torrents out there.

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Saturday October 29, 2011

Indian Bummer:
RIM Help India Eavesdrop on BlackBerry Users

RIM, makers of the BlackBerry smartphone, have set up a surveillance facility in Mumbai for the Indian government.

BlackBerry phones use encryption to protect the security of messages, but this has frustrated governments around the world as they seek to monitor their citizens.

From eWeek:

The Indian government imposed a deadline of 31 January 2011 for RIM to give it access to BlackBerry emails. RIM initially pleaded for 18-24 months to find a solution to the deadlock, but then in mid-January it announced that it had provided the Indian government with access to the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service and then, presumably, also set up the facility in Mumbai.

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Friday October 28, 2011

The Immunity Syndrome:
Facebook Uses AI to Tackle Spam

Facebook uses artificial intelligence to monitor user clicks and prevent spam.

The Facebook Immunity System monitors up to 25 billion user actions per day.

From New Scientist:

One notable attack took place in April, says Tao Stein, a Facebook engineer who works on the system. It began when several users were duped into copying computer code into their browser's address bar. The code commandeered the person's Facebook account, and started sending chat messages to their friends saying things like "I just got a free iPad", along with a link where the friends could go to get their own. Friends who clicked on the link went to a site that encouraged them to paste the same code into their browsers, further spreading the plague. "Attacks like these can generate millions of messages per minute," says Stein.

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Tuesday October 18, 2011

Blackberry Squash:
Smartphone Outage Reduces UAE Car Crashes

A recent outage affecting Blackberry smartphones may have led to a reduction in car accidents in the United Arab Emirates.

Accidents in Abu Dhabi reportedly fell 40% in one week and there was an accompaying 20% reduction in Dubai.

From Sophos:

According to The National newspaper, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the chief of Dubai Police, and Brig Gen Hussein Al Harethi, the director of the Abu Dhabi Police traffic department, both linked the drop to the service disruption experienced by BlackBerry users.

"Absolutely nothing has happened in the past week in terms of killings on the road and we're really glad about that," Brig Gen Al Harethi told the newspaper. "People are slowly starting to realise the dangers of using their phone while driving. The roads became much safer when BlackBerry stopped working."

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Friday October 14, 2011

'Seriously Creepy':
Australian Malls Want to Track Your Mobile

Shopping malls in Australia are introducing a controversial technology that uses a shopper's own mobiles as a tracking device.

Receivers in the malls pick up signals from mobiles and create a map showing where shoppers are going and how long they stay in a given location.

From news.com.au:

Ms Baddeley said mobile phone monitoring, already operating in the UK and US, would help the struggling retail sector develop marketing campaigns and identify the best mix of shops in centres.

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Monday October 03, 2011

Paranoid Android:
HTC Android Phones Leak User Data

Security researchers have discovered a major flaw in HTC handsets running Android.

The manufacturer has installed a secret logging system that could be accessed by rogue apps.

From The Register:

The breach is a serious one, particularly given that free apps so often ask for internet privileges to collect embedded adverts. Such an app could now harvest data for spear phishing or similar, and given the publicly available demonstration code it would be naive to think someone isn't working on that right now.

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Sunday October 02, 2011

Google Shopping:
World's First Google Store Opens

The world's first ever Google store has opened in London.

The 'Chromezone' is a pop-up concession inside a branch of PC World on Tottenham Court Road.

From The Evening Standard:

A second pop-up store will open at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex on October 7 and more pilot shops are planned around the world in the coming months. A spokeswoman said: "We've put a lot of effort into making it feel welcoming, homely and, dare I say it, 'Googley'."

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Tuesday September 27, 2011

Scroll Up:
Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online

Google have teamed up with The Israel Museum in Jerusalem to put the Dead Sea Scrolls online.

Five scrolls have been digitised so far and can be searched as well as viewed.

From The Israel Museum:

"We are privileged to house in the Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea Scrolls ever discovered," said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. "They are of paramount importance among the touchstones of monotheistic world heritage, and they represent unique highlights of our Museum's encyclopedic holdings. Now, through our partnership with Google, we are able to bring these treasures to the broadest possible public."

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Saturday September 10, 2011

Find My Car:
iPhone App Locates Your Lost Car

Customers of Westfield's Sydney mall can now use an iPhone app to locate a lost car.

Number plate recognition cameras are used to track your car when you enter the car park.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Although the app had not yet been used by police for that purpose, Mr Batistich said that if law enforcement provided a license plate number that they believed was in the Westfield Bondi Junction centre, then Westfield or police could asses whether that car was in the car park using the technology.

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Thursday September 01, 2011

Dog Eat Dog:
Anonymous Attacks WikiLeaks

The hacking group Anonymous have launched a denial of service attack against WikiLeaks.

The exploit took advantage of a well known flaw and could have been prevented by a more vigilant administrator.

From SC Magazine:

Users of a Twitter account linked to the RefRef attacks and an AnonOps blog described themselves as hacktivist with “a personal vendetta against WikiLeaks” adding that “we are sorry we took you down. We are even.”

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Saturday August 27, 2011

Pop-Up Phones:
The Low-Cost Low-Power Mobile Network

A US professor has developed a low-cost mobile cell that can be powered with solar energy.

The cells could be easily deployed in remote areas with no communications infrastructure.

From Shareable:

Potential uses are numerous: individuals in rural areas with limited Internet access would benefit from these pop-up cellular data connections, and it could serve as a game-changer for areas of the developing world with limited network access. Moreover, tech like this could play a role in the autonomous Next Net that Douglas Rushkoff envisions. While the Village Base Station uses existing cellular network infrastructure, what if devices like this were used to connect to an autonomous Internet through a collectively-owned satellite?

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Thursday August 25, 2011

Jobs Over:
Apple CEO Resigns

Steve Jobs, the man who turned Apple into the iconic computer brand of our time, has resigned as CEO of Apple.

Jobs will stay on as Chairman of the Board, but the CEO role will now be taken on by his right-hand man Tim Cook.

From BBC News:

"At the end of the day, consumers don't buy products from Apple because they're from Steve Jobs, they buy them because they meet their needs and they're good products, and they'll continue to do that," Michael Gartenberg from Gartner told the BBC.

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Tuesday August 23, 2011

Libya Logs On:
Rebels Restore Tripoli's Internet

As rebels fight to take control of the Libyan capital, an important milestone has been achieved by techies.

Internet access was cut off by Qadaffi loyalists back in February, but it has now been restored just as the rebellion reaches the final stage.

From TechWorld:

The rebels set up the networks after they were cut off from the centralized Libyana network in Tripoli, which required all international calls to be routed through an international gateway in Tripoli. "Everything will be reconnected and go back to normal," Abushagur said on Monday

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Sunday August 21, 2011

Criminal Charges:
Public Phone Charging Stations Are Hackable

Phone charging stations found in places like airports could make your smartphone vulnerable to hacking.

Security researchers used a conference to spoof hundreds of users with a mocked-up charging station.

From SC Magazine:

Three hundred and sixty four people fell for the trick. Each was served with a message that warned of the dangers of using public power charging stations.

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Sunday August 14, 2011

Hackberry:
Blackberry Server Security Flaw Fixed

RIM, makers of the Blackberry, have announced a fix to a security flaw that could have allowed attackers to take over corporate networks.

The flaw was that a specially-encoded image file sent to a user's Blackberry could be used to take over the server software and allow access to other computers on the network.

From Threatpost:

"Successful exploitation of any of these vulnerabilities might allow an attacker to gain access to and execute code on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Depending on the privileges available to the configured BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account, the attacker might also be able to extend access to other non-segmented parts of the network," RIM said in its advisory.

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Thursday August 04, 2011

Droning On:
NewsCorp in Airborne Drone Controversy

NewsCorp is seemingly courting controversy wherever in the world it operates.

It has emerged that The Daily, their quixotic attempt at an iPad-based newspaper, is using an airborne drone to gather footage.

But it is unclear whether these flights were carried out in accordance with regulations.

From Forbes:

Using drones for news-gathering seems like a pretty cool idea, though it’s easy to imagine the robot paparazzi future that Ryan Calo fears. While FAA regulations may currently prohibit such a use, the agency is planning to revisit — and possibly relax — those regulations this year, potentially making it easier for private companies to fly the friendly skies with drones.

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Thursday July 28, 2011

Phone Hacking:
Car Locks Vulnerable to Hacking

Security researchers have found a way to hack into car security systems using a laptop.

Eventually thieves could walk the streets with a smartphone that opens car doors remotely.

From Network World:

The iSec researchers believe that they are uncovering symptoms of a much more widespread problem. In recent years, mobile networking has been built into an astonishing range of devices -- everything from picture frames to cars to smart meters -- giving them a cheap and easy way to communicate. According to Bailey, however, security has often been an afterthought, and many of these products can be hacked and misused.

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Tuesday July 26, 2011

Rough Music:
Music Pirates Are Best iTunes Customers

Former Google boss Douglas C Merrill has claimed that pirates using Limewire to share music illegally were the best customers for sites such as iTunes.

Merill joined EMI after his stint at Google and came to realise that file sharers were simply trying out music before buying it legally.

From TorrentFreak:

“The RIAA said it isn’t that we are making bad music, but the ‘dirty file sharing guys’ are the problem,” he said during his speech as quoted by ComputerWorld.

“Going to sue customers for file sharing is like trying to sell soap by throwing dirt on your customers.”

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Thursday July 21, 2011

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo:
Anonymous 'Hacks NATO'

The Anonymous hacking group is claiming that it has breached servers used by NATO.

Two documents purporting to come from their hacking efforts have already been released.

Members of the group have also said that more material will be released soon.

But many of the documents retrieved from the NATO servers will not see the light of day.

From The Washington Post:

On a Twitter feed believed to be run by the group, a Thursday morning message said that the hackers had obtained a lot of material that would be “irresponsible” to publish.

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Sunday July 17, 2011

Cyberspace:
Maps Reveal Global Twitter & Flickr Usage

A programmer has created a set of stunning maps that visualise global Twitter and Flickr usage.

Eric Fischer has also made the images available for viewing on his Flickr photostream.

From PC Magazine:

The Flickr set, titled "See something or say something," uses data from Flickr's search API and Twitter's streaming API to map out activity on the social sites. Orange dots represent Flickr pictures, blue dots are tweets, and white dots are locations with Flickr and Twitter activity. Fischer said on his Twitter feed that he "used a program that I wrote specifically for the purpose."

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Tuesday July 12, 2011

Military Meltdown:
Anonymous Release 90,000 US Military Emails

The Anonymous hacking group have released an archive of 90,000 US military emails.

They have been made available for public download on The Pirate Bay, the infamous BitTorrent tracker site.

From The Epoch Times:

The organization hacked into the networks of government contracting and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where they claim to have discovered “a list of roughly 90,000 military e-mails and password hashes ... 4gb of source code,” and “maps and keys for various other treasure chests buried on the islands of government agencies, federal contractors and shady whitehat companies.”

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Thursday July 07, 2011

Core Blimey:
Supercomputer Made From Smartphone Chips

A new supercomputer aims to simulate the brain using chips found in smartphones.

Low power processors designed by ARM will be arranged into ring-shaped nodes that connect up to one million CPUs.

From Thinq:

"The SpiNNaker project," Furber concludes, "aims to deliver cost-effective parallel computing resources at an unprecedented scale, with over a million embedded processors delivery around 200 teraIPS to support the simulation of a billion spiking neurons in biological real time. The scale of the system demands that power-efficiency and fault-tolerance feature prominently among the design criteria, and the result is a design that embodies concurrency at all levels, from circuit through system to application."

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Sunday July 03, 2011

Leak Soup:
Anonymous Launches WikiLeaks for Hackers

The Anonymous hacking collective have launched two sites to rival WikiLeaks.

As well as LocalLeaks.tk for exposing wrongdoing in local communities, they have also opened HackerLeaks.tk for data discovered during hacking expeditions.

From Forbes:

But while LocalLeaks aims to use WikiLeaks’ model of insider sources to expose corruption on the local scale, HackerLeaks openly invites data thieves to upload documents through its submission system, so that they can be analyzed and publicized. “You download it, we’ll disclose it for you,” the site’s homepage reads, listing potential booty such as “databases, exploits, security flaws, documents, and email spools.”

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Saturday July 02, 2011

Look Book:
Facebook Teams Up With Skype

Facebook is rumoured to have struck a deal with Skype.

The social networking giant is expected to launch a new feature next week that allows video chat inside a web browser.

From TechCrunch:

The product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component. It’s not clear to me whether that means it will just work if a user has Skype already installed on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype. But it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in browser experience.

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Monday June 27, 2011

Poacher Turned Gamekeeper:
PS3 Hacker Joins Facebook

George Hotz, the hacker known for opening up Playstation hardware to hobbyists, has been employed by Facebook.

Hotz is believed to be developing mobile apps for the social networking giant.

From International Business Times:

It seems hackers love to be on the payrolls, really. It has been reported that one in for online hackers in the US are on the government payrolls. There have been cases of some hackers being hired by the tech companies they hacked into. And some are hired by firms to torment competition.

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Tuesday June 21, 2011

Closed Book:
Users Shun Facebook

Could Facebook's reign be nearing its end?

Over 7 million US & Canadian users of the site deleted their accounts last month, according to the Inside Facebook blog.

From CNN:

"I figured out that I wouldn't look back as an old man and wish I had spent more time on Facebook," says David Cole, an IT manager from Boston. Cole said he believes the popular social-networking site is a useful tool, but not a replacement for what he calls "realbook" experiences.

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Friday June 17, 2011

Virtual Burglary:
Trojan Steals Bitcoins

A new virus steals virtual currency from victim's computers.

The Trojan horse locates the Bitcoin wallet on an infected system and emails it to an unknown location.

From Wired:

Hacker types have been sniffing around Bitcoin since at least April, when a program called Stealthcoin debuted that’s tailor-made for turning a botnet of compromised computers into a covert parallel Bitcoin mining machine. The first theft of Bitcoins was reported this week by a user who claimed a hacker transferred 25,000 BTC from his machine, theoretically worth about $500,000 at current exchange rates.

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Thursday June 16, 2011

Like:
Iceland Uses Facebook to Forge Constitution

Facebook is being used by Icelanders to help form a new constitution.

Two thirds of the country uses the social network, but sites like Twitter and YouTube are also being utilised by the government to communicate with citizens.

From ZDNet:

Two thirds of Iceland’s population (approximately 320,000) is on Facebook, so the constitutional council’s weekly meetings are broadcast live not only on the council’s website, but on the social network as well. “It is possible to register through other means, but most of the discussion takes place via Facebook,” Berghildur Bernhardsdottir, spokeswoman for the constitutional review project, told the Associated Press. “The sort of argumentative and negative discussion that has been common on Icelandic blogs and news sites, especially since the economic collapse, has been almost entirely absent.”

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Tuesday June 14, 2011

Goggle:
Google Launches Visual & Voice Search

Google has unveiled new ways to search using images and voice recognition.

Devices from desktops to mobiles will benefit from the new features.

From AFP:

"We at Google will not be happy until we make the Web as easy to flip through as a magazine," Google fellow Amit Singhal said at an "Inside Search" event in San Francisco.

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Monday June 13, 2011

iUnion:
Apple Store Employee Forms Trade Union

An Apple Store employee has formed a new trade union to benefit his co-workers.

Cory Moll hopes to improve conditions and eliminate what he sees as 'unfair' practices.

From The Globe & Mail:

“It’s kind of a feeling of David versus Goliath,” Mr. Moll said of trying to start a union movement in a $320-billion company run by its iconic co-founder, Steve Jobs.

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Sunday June 05, 2011

Non:
France Bans On-Air Mentions of Facebook & Twitter

Radio and television news presenters in France have been banned from mentioning Facebook and Twitter on-air unless they relate to a news story.

From ZDNet:

The French TV regulatory agency Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA) insists the French government is simply upholding its laws. “Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition?” a CSA spokesperson said in a statement. “This would be a distortion of competition. If we allow Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box — other social networks will complain to us saying, ‘why not us?’”

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Saturday June 04, 2011

Hacked Off:
Anonymous Cracks Iranian Government Servers

The Anonymous hacking group has taken over Iranian government servers belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They have gained access to an archive containing 10,000 emails.

From The Next Web:

The Ministry’s website is still down as of this writing, and the servers are under Anonymous control. One of the Iranian members of Anonymous involved with the operation sent me a message from the compromised email servers as evidence that they were still under Anonymous control.

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Sunday May 29, 2011

Rotten Borough:
Council Spends Taxpayer's Money Suing Twitter

A UK local authority has brought legal action in the US against Twitter in a quest to unmask a blogger.

Mr Monkey's blog ridiculed members of South Tyneside Council and they have used taxpayer's money to discover his true identity.

Mark Stephens, a leading media lawyer who has represented WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange after the US government sought to obtain his Twitter account details, said: “I think it is inappropriate for a local authority to spend money on this kind of exercise. Local authorities cannot sue for libel and, if individual councillors have been defamed, they should take proceedings at their own cost.”

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Wednesday May 18, 2011

Bright Idea:
The Internet Lightbulb

NXP have announced a new chip that can be placed into a lightbulb to connect it to the Internet.

The new technology takes advantage of the massive address space created by IPv6.

From ZDNet:

The GreenChip smart lighting system contains electronics small enough to fit inside a standard light bulb and can operate on the same wireless sensor networks consumers may be using at home for energy metering, smart appliances and security systems, the company said.

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Monday May 16, 2011

Danger Money:
P2P Currency is 'Most Dangerous Open-Source Project Ever Created'

Bitcoin is a so-called peer-to-peer currency developed in 2009 and given a recent boost by a Google engineer's Java implementation.

Commentators investigating Bitcoin have concluded that it could be 'the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.'

From Launch:

We are 100% certain that governments will start banning bitcoins in the next 12 to 18 months. Additionally, we’re certain bitcoins will soar in value and a crush of folks will flood the system and start using them.

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Friday May 13, 2011

I'm Feeling Lucky:
Ford Adapts Google Prediction Technology for Cars

Ford has teamed up with Google to use the same prediction technology deployed on the search engine in their cars.

This could mean that your car predicts where you want to go based on past journeys.

From Ford:

“Anticipating the driver's destination is just one way that Ford is investigating predicting driver behavior,” said McGee. “This information can ultimately be used to optimize vehicle performance attributes such as fuel efficiency and driveability.”

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Thursday May 12, 2011

Twofacedbook:
Facebook's Secret Smear Scandal

Facebook's use of a PR company to smear Google has been exposed.

The social networking giant paid Burson-Marsteller to plant stories exploiting fears over user privacy.

From BBC News:

Burson told Mr Soghain, among others, that "the American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloguing and broadcasting every minute of every day - without their permission."

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Wednesday May 11, 2011

Open Book:
Facebook Apps Expose User Data

Many Facebook applications have a flaw that exposes private user data to the application provider.

The flaw has existed for several years and potentially affects tens of thousands of users.

The flaw, which the researchers estimate has affected hundreds of thousands of applications, exposed user access tokens to advertisers and others. The tokens serve as a spare set of keys that Facebook apps use to perform certain actions on behalf of the user, such as posting messages to a Facebook wall or sending RSVP replies to invitations. For years, many apps that rely on an older form of user authentication turned over these keys to third parties, giving them the ability to access information users specifically designated as off limits.

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Saturday May 07, 2011

iOwnU:
iOS Hacking Tool Released

Security researchers have released software that exploits vulnerabilities in a variety of operating systems.

One module is designed to allow hacking of Apple's mobile OS running on devices like iPhones and iPads.

The Metasploit 3.7 release provides an enhanced session tracking backend that is intended to improve performance. Metasploit 3.7 also provides over 35 new exploit modules for security researchers to test, including new ones designed to test Apple's iOS mobile operating system security.

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Friday May 06, 2011

Flop Phone:
The E-Paper Phone

Researchers have invented a new kind of mobile phone made with E-Ink, a thin flexible display.

The functioning prototype can make and receive calls as well as running apps.

From Gizmag:

"This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper," said its creator, Roel Vertegaal, who is also the director of the Human Media Lab. "You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen."

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Thursday May 05, 2011

Insecurity:
Password Managment Site Hacked

LastPass, a website that allows users to centrally manage their online passwords, has been hacked.

The site is advising users to change their passwords immediately to prevent all their online identities being exposed.

From Threat Post:

The data stolen could potentially allow attackers to launch brute force attacks on user accounts - using e-mail addresses associated with accounts and dictionary-style attacks to break LastPass Master Passwords, which would give attackers access to any online accounts and passwords managed in a given account.

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Wednesday May 04, 2011

The Blame Game:
Sony Accuses Anonymous in PSN Hacking Scandal

Sony have blamed the Anonymous hacking group for the breaches of the Playstation Network.

A letter from the company's chairman to Congress details the allegation along with the fact that Sony waited two days before informing the FBI of the hack.

From Reuters:

"Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack," Kazuo Hirai, chairman of the board of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in a letter to the U.S. Congress.

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Thursday April 28, 2011

Speed Reading:
TomTom User Data Given to Police

Apple is not the only company enmeshed in a privacy scandal.

TomTom have revealed that route and speed data from their SatNavs has been given to police and local authorities.

From CNET:

TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn revealed the information on the company's website. "We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit," he says.

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Saturday April 23, 2011

Backseat Hackers:
Drive-By Hackers Defrauded Businesses

Seattle businesses may have been targeted by a new kind of burglar -- one that crawls in through vulnerabilities in wireless networks rather than open windows.

Police are currently investigating one group of drive-by hackers that may have netted around $750,000.

From seattlepi.com:

"Once a suspect has gained unauthorized access to a wireless network, computers in the vehicle can be used to run programs such as port scanning software and password recovery software designed to breach security on machines within the network," the detective told the court.

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Thursday April 21, 2011

Connection Failed:
ISPs Lose Battle Against Digital Economy Act

BT and TalkTalk have failed in their legal challenge against the Digital Economy Act.

The law compels ISPs to send warning letters to illegal downloaders and restrict their internet connection if they fail to comply.

From BBC News:

Justice Parker rejected four of the five points put forward by the ISPs but ruled in their favour regarding a piece of associated legislation that makes service providers liable for 25% of the cost of policing their users.

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Wednesday April 20, 2011

iSpy:
iPhone Covertly Logs Your Location

Security researchers have discovered that the iPhone covertly logs your location.

They have released a program that allows users to uncover the location data secretly stored on their iPhones.

From The Guardian:

If someone were to steal an iPhone and "jailbreak" it, giving them direct access to the files it contains, they could extract the location database directly. Alternatively, anyone with direct access to a user's computer could run the application and see a visualisation of their movements. Encrypting data on the computer is one way to protect against it, though that still leaves the file on the phone.

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Tuesday April 19, 2011

Foaming at the Mouth:
Web's Inventor Slates Social Networks

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, but he's not fond of social networking sites such as Twitter.

He has characterised the level of discourse on social networks as 'foaming at the mouth'.

From PC Pro:

Berners-Lee said there were sane tweets — “hmm, there seem to be two sides to the net neutrality arguement” — but those comments weren’t being retweeted. ”One possibility is that Twitter, in that case, is a medium which was only amplifying the emotionally charged,” he suggested.

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Sunday April 17, 2011

Bubble Burst:
Will Social Networking Boom Lead to Nothing?

Previous tech bubbles have changed the world by driving innovations such as PCs and the internet.

But will the current bubble, fuelled by social networks and gaming, leave us empty-handed?

From BusinessWeek:

After a couple years at Facebook, Hammerbacher grew restless. He figured that much of the groundbreaking computer science had been done. Something else gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google (GOOG2), and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."

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Tuesday April 12, 2011

Six of One:
China Brands US 'Hypocrites' Over Human Rights

The US have been vocal in their criticisms of China over human rights -- Secretary of State Clinton recently expressed support for jailed dissident Ai Weiwei.

But China has now turned the tables and released a report criticising the US for 'hypocrisy' by supporting free use of the internet in other countries while taking action against WikiLeaks at home.

From The Guardian:

Much of the document focuses on social and economic issues such as poverty, crime and racism. It attacks the US for the large number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prisoner abuse scandals that have dogged counterterrorism initiatives. It adds: "The violation of [US] citizens' civil and political rights by the government is severe … the United States applies double standards … by requesting unrestricted 'internet freedom' in other countries, which becomes an important diplomatic tool for the United States to impose pressure and seek hegemony, and imposing strict restriction within its territory.

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Saturday April 09, 2011

iWoz:
Apple's Co-Founder Available for Return

Steve Wozniak founded Apple with Steve Jobs in the late 1970s.

But a plane crash in the early 1980s led to Wozniak's departure from the company.

Now he says that he would consider returning to Apple if asked.

From Reuters:

"There's just an awful lot I know about Apple products and competing products that has some relevance, some meaning. They're my own feelings, though," said Wozniak, who is currently chief scientist of storage start-up Fusion-io.

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Thursday April 07, 2011

Battle Royale:
Anonymous Hackers Target Sony

The Anonymous hacking group has launched a cyberattack against Sony.

The corporation attracted the ire of hackers after it pursued legal action against George Hotz, developer of a tool that allows users to install their operating system of choice on Playstation 3 consoles.

From The International Business Times:

Sony has hired an online security firm, Prolexic, to defend against the attacks. Prolexic's chief technology officer, Paul Sop, noted that most people think a DDoS is a simple flood of data. But they can often be much more sophisticated than that, sometimes involving only a few kilobits rather than megabytes worth of requests to a targeted machine.

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Sunday April 03, 2011

iSatan:
Catholics Say Net's Fuelling Satanism Boom

A conference of Catholic clergy has convened to study a boom in the need for exorcists.

It seems that the Internet has revived the fortunes of Satanism and thus more exorcisms are required.

From The Daily Telegraph:

"In just a few minutes you can contact Satanist groups and research occultism. The conference is not about how to become an exorcist. It's to share information about exorcism, Satanism and sects. It's to give help to families and priests. There is a particular risk for young people who are in difficulties or who are emotionally fragile," said Mr Climati.

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Wednesday March 30, 2011

Tweet Elite:
The 20,000 Users Dominating Twitter

A new study shows that just 20,000 Twitter accounts are responsible for almost half of the tweets consumed by users.

This means that a mere 0.05% of the social network’s user base gets noticed.

From Social Trust Agents:

Of the 260 million tweets with URLs that the study’s authors analyzed, nearly 50% of the tweets consumed were created by what they called “elite” users who fall into four categories: media, celebrities, organizations and bloggers. “Ordinary” users encompass everyone else.

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Monday March 28, 2011

Boned:
Moblie Phones Decalcify Bones

Are you one of those men that wears a mobile phone on your hip?

You might want to reconsider as new research indicates that this may result in your bones becoming demineralised.

From Thinq:

Study leader Dr Fernando D Sravi writes: "The different patterns of right-left asymmetry in femoral bone mineral found in mobile cell phone users and non users are consistent with a non-thermal effect of electromagnetic radio-frequency waves not previously described."

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Friday March 25, 2011

OMG:
OED LOL

The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary features a host of modern terms including 'cream crackered', 'wag' and 'tinfoil hat', along with internet initialisms such as LOL and OMG.

Yet LOL and OMG are far from being neologisms.

The studious lexicographers behind the latest tome have discovered that LOL and OMG predate the internet.

From Wired:

While you might consider LOL and OMG to be etymological artefacts from the mobile era or the internet age, the Oxford English Dictionary's typically meticulous word-sleuthing found examples of both acronyms from 1960 and 1917, respectively.

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Wednesday March 23, 2011

Age Rage:
Facebook Bans 20,000 Underage Users Per Day

Facebook is only for use by those over 13 years of age.

But that doesn't prevent millions of underage users trying to sign up.

This results in Facebook banning 20,000 accounts belonging to under-13s every day.

From The Huffington Post:

Those 20,000 suspect profiles are just the tip of the iceberg. In the United States, 3.6 million underage users access Facebook each month, ComScore reports, according to the New York Times. ComScore also notes that not all these visitors have Facebook accounts and that some may be viewing Facebook pages that are open to the public. Nevertheless, experts fear that brief, unsupervised contact with the massive social network may expose children to bullies, predators and inappropriate content.

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Saturday March 19, 2011

Bitter Over Twitter:
UK Banks Using Social Networks Bound by 1924 Law

UK banks are conspicuously absent for the most part from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Their activities online are restricted by a 1924 law that prevents them from identifying an individual as one of their customers.

From Silicon.com:

Banking regulations mean apparently simple customer care queries submitted via the likes of Twitter have to be routed through traditional secure channels of communications to avoid falling foul of compliance law. Engaging in social-media discussions about complex investment products such as pensions involves navigating an equally complex compliance minefield.

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Friday March 18, 2011

Votes for Notes:
India's Ruling Party Bribed MPs

A diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks seems to show that India's ruling Congress party bribed MPs to vote in a controversial nuclear deal.

The deal between India and the US enabled India to greatly expand its capability to generate nuclear power.

From BBC News:

The leaked cable, reported in The Hindu newspaper, has caused uproar in the Indian parliament with the main opposition parties saying that Congress had "brought shame to the nation" and calling on the prime minister to resign.

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Wednesday March 16, 2011

Military Blockade:
US Military Network Blocks Access to Popular Site

The US military have blocked access to popular sites on their network to free up bandwidth.

This move is a response to the earthquakes in Japan and their aftermath.

From CNN:

The sites -- including YouTube, ESPN, Amazon, eBay and MTV -- were chosen not because of the content but because their popularity among users of military computers account for significant bandwidth, according to Strategic Command spokesman Rodney Ellison.

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Monday March 14, 2011

Bankers:
Anonymous Leaks Bank of America Emails

The notorious hacking group Anonymous has released a massive cache of internal Bank of America emails.

The emails contain damaging revelations such as Bank of America improperly foreclosing on several homes in recent years.

From The New York Times:

Anonymous’ host site for the internal emails has received enough traffic to bring it to its knees. VentureBeat reporters were unable to access the site shortly after the documents were posted. Errors indicated that the site had crashed due to a traffic overload — which kind of ironic after Anonymous coordinated massive direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks on other sites that are designed to send inordinate amounts of traffic and overload servers.

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Sunday March 13, 2011

Tweeter Twatted:
Libellous Tweet Costs Councillor £3,000

A councillor has made history by being the first person to admit making a libellous comment on Twitter.

Colin Elsbury agreed to pay electoral rival Eddie Talbot £3,000 in compensation after falsely claiming that Talbot had been removed by police from a polling station.

From BBC News:

Mr Talbot's solicitor Nigel Jones told the court that the implication of the Twitter statement was that his client had been forcibly removed for criminal or disreputable conduct, adding that the allegation was completely untrue and defamatory.

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Saturday March 12, 2011

Twits:
Judge Orders Twitter to Hand Over WikiLeaks Data

A US federal judge has ruled that Twitter must hand over account information from three of Julian Assange's supporters.

The ruling stated that such a move would not pose a threat to free speech.

From BBC News:

In a statement, ACLU lawyer Aden Fine said: "This ruling gives the government the ability to secretly amass private information related to individuals' internet communications.

"Except in extraordinary circumstances, the government should not be able to obtain this information in secret. That's not how our system works."

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Tuesday March 08, 2011

Off The Record:
Ex-Spy Chief Says WikiLeaks Sparked Revolutions

Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, has credited WikiLeaks with triggering the revolutions breaking out in the Middle East.

Dearlove made the remarks in a speech last month to the Cambrdge Union that was supposed to be off the record.

From The Register:

“I would definitely draw parallels at the moment between the wave of political unrest which is sweeping through the Middle East in a very exciting and rather extraordinary fashion and also the WikiLeaks phenomenon,” Dearlove said. “Really, what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology.”

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Monday March 07, 2011

The Dog Ate My iPad:
Uni Eyes iPads for Students

The University of Melbourne is planning to give iPads to all staff and students.

A recent trial showed that iPads were considered 'superior' to similar devices such as Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

From Delimiter:

In a report on the trial published on Saturday and available online, the college found that both staff (72.2 percent) and students (80 percent) overwhelmingly recommended the iPad for use by others. “iPads are effective, durable, reliable and achieve their educational aims of going further, faster and with more fun,” the college wrote.

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Friday March 04, 2011

Crime Doesn't Pay:
Fraud Website Teenagers Jailed

Three teenagers responsible for a website described as the 'Facebook of crime' have been jailed.

The forums at Gh0stMarket.net are estimated to have cost credit card companies over £16 million in losses.

From The Guardian:

Southwark crown court was told how public-school-educated Webber, the son of a former Guernsey politician, was using an offshore bank account in Costa Rica to process funds from the frauds. After his initial arrest, Webber threatened on a forum to blow up the head of the police e-crimes unit in retaliation, and used his hacking skills to trace officers' addresses.

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Wednesday March 02, 2011

Connection Lost:
One in Five US Divorces Linked to Facebook

Social networking sites like Facebook are renowned for helping old friends to reconnect.

But this is leading to relationship problems for some users.

A recent survey indicates that one in five divorces in the US are linked to Facebook.

From Science Blog:

“We’re coming across it more and more,” said licensed clinical psychologist Steven Kimmons, Ph.D., of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. “One spouse connects online with someone they knew from high school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook. Within a short amount of time, the sharing of personal stories can lead to a deepened sense of intimacy, which in turn can point the couple in the direction of physical contact.”

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Friday February 25, 2011

Alias The Jester:
'Patriot' Hacker Takes Down Westboro Baptist Church Website

Westboro Baptist Church has become a focal point for hatred after their pickets of funerals in the US.

Now a 'patriotic' hacker called The Jester has levelled a cyber-attack at the church's website -- using a tool originally developed against Jihadist sites.

From The Register:

The Jester is known to have helped develop an application layer attack tool for assaulting jihadist sites, called XerXeS, a utility he has taken to applying to a range of targets, including WikiLeaks, and also, it is suspected, the controversial church, led by fire-and-brimstone minister Fred Phelps. The tool attacks sites at the application level and is therefore more sophisticated than the packet-flooding LOIC that's become the main artillery piece in assaults by Anons against those who have earned the loosely knit group's collective displeasure over recent months.

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Wednesday February 23, 2011

Behind The Mask:
How Anonymous Goverrns Itself

The hacking group Anonymous have become notorious for their attacks on a string of high-profile targets.

As a loosely-organised collective, Anonymous makes decisions in a seemingly chaotic fashion.

This can be seen in the group's reactions to provocation by the infamous Westboro Baptist Church -- known for their pickets of funerals in the US.

From Ars Technica:

Reading the blizzard of Anonymous notes on the topic of Westboro, one can see the hivemind in action. It's chaotic, often at odds with itself, and open to simple infiltration (several pieces suggested that Westboro may have written the initial "Anonymous" press release just to ignite a war). Leadership is exerted through numbers more than through hierarchy.

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Saturday February 19, 2011

Financial Crash:
Stock Exchange Software Malfunctions

The London Stock Exchange upgraded its core software last Monday.

But within minutes it was catastrophically malfunctioning.

The new system began displaying incorrect prices, blank prices and erroneous trading volumes.

From Computerworld:

“Within 20 seconds of Millennium Exchange going live on Monday, our systems flagged up significant discrepancies in vendors’ data on share volumes sold on the exchange,” said one source, at the continental office of a tracking firm. “It was a much bigger discrepancy than I have ever seen before, and much bigger than those same vendors were experiencing on different exchanges. It alarmed me.”

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Tuesday February 15, 2011

Nano, Nano:
Apple May Launch Smaller iPhone

While Apple has come to dominate the smartphone market, sales of the iPhone are dwarfed by sales of featurephone handsets.

But it is now rumoured that Apple is preparing a cut-down iPhone that would sell for a fraction of the price.

From IGN:

Rumors of a stripped down iPhone have been circulating for years, with some of the earliest reports stretching all the way back to 2008, however, little ever resulted from the reports. According to Cult of Mac, the iPhone nano has been in development since that time, but Apple has had trouble balancing features and low production costs in order to make the device affordable.

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Monday February 14, 2011

Have You Tried Turning It Off & On Again?
How to Crash The Internet

Researchers have developed a way to crash the entire Internet in principle.

By exploiting a fundamental protocol used by routers, the technique could make previous cyberattacks look insignificant.

From New Scientist:

Schuchard's new attack pits the structure of the internet against itself. Hundreds of connection points in the net fall offline every minute, but we don't notice because the net routes around them. It can do this because the smaller networks that make up the internet, known as autonomous systems, communicate with each other through routers. When a communication path changes, nearby routers inform their neighbours through a system known as the border gateway protocol (BGP). These routers inform other neighbours in turn, eventually spreading knowledge of the new path throughout the internet.

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Sunday February 13, 2011

The Worm That Turned:
Anonymous Take Possession of Stuxnet

Anonymous have made themselves a reputation for causing mischief online.

Now the group claims to be in possession of the Stuxnet worm used to attack Iran's nuclear programme.

From Forbes:

Houston, we have a problem. Or should I say, “Iran, we have your problem?” Last night, a member of hacker group Anonymous – a devious 4chan-spawned Internet coalition known for increasingly serious web-based attacks – announced on Twitter that the group was in possession of the Stuxnet virus.

Stuxnet is one of the more powerful viruses to ever spread across the internet. As Bruce Schneier detailed for Forbes, the worm crippled Iran’s nuclear facility by infiltrating a Siemen’s control system for industrial centrifuges. As I wrote late last year, the Stuxnet virus is a stark example of how cyber attacks can affect brick and mortar institutions.

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Thursday February 10, 2011

The War on WikiLeaks:
Bank of America's Pre-emptive Strike

Julian Assange made waves with his threat to expose alleged 'corruption' within the Bank of America.

The financial giant has not taken the threat lightly -- a leaked document reveals that three private intelligence firms have been tasked with attacking WikiLeaks.

From Computerworld:

"The WikiLeaks Threat" outlines a plan by three private data intelligence firms, Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, which were hired to effectively combat and attack WikiLeaks. The intel firms were "acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America." According to The Tech Herald, "Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America's general council by the Department of Justice. Hunton and Williams would act as outside counsel on retainer, while Palantir would take care of network and insider threat investigations. For their part, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal would analyze WikiLeaks."

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Wednesday February 09, 2011

Thumbs Up:
A Cunning Way to Read Text Messages

There are times when it's not advisable to let people know that you're in possession of a mobile phone.

Blackberry makers RIM have developed an ingenious way to allow you to read texts without pulling your phone out.

From IntoMobile:

A project sponsored by BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion in the UK proposes a bold new use for your battery door. By using piezoelectric technology (which stiffens materials based on electrical current), SkinDisplay is a concept which lets you press your finger into raised text messages on the back of your phone, and read the impression. The idea here is that you could see what’s going on in a discreet way, without pulling out your phone. The actual implementation sounds mostly crazy, but the concept was introduced alongside some software, SmartCall, that actually sounds pretty good; using their app, you would be able to set your current status as busy or otherwise unavailable, as well as request calls back from others within varying time frames and levels of urgency.

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Tuesday February 01, 2011

Mr Mussel:
Synthetic Glue Inspired by Mussels

Researchers have developed a synthetic glue inspired by a substance used by mussels to adhere to rocks.

The new adhesive could find uses in underwater machinery as well as myriad surgical applications.

From Science Daily:

Inspiring the invention were the hair-thin holdfast fibers that mussels secrete to stick against rocks in lakes, rivers and oceans. "Everything amazingly just self-assembles underwater in a matter of minutes, which is a process that's still not understood that well," said Niels Holten-Andersen, a postdoctoral scholar with chemistry professor Ka Yee Lee at the University of Chicago.

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Monday January 31, 2011

A Lo Blow:
Netgear CEO Attacks 'Closed' Apple Products

Patrick Lo, CEO of Netgear, has used a speech in Sydney to launch a wide-ranging attack on Apple's products.

Lo criticises the proprietary nature of Apple products and believes that the departure of Steve Jobs would force the company to re-evaluate their strategy.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

"Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform," said Lo.

"Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far ... If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it's pretty difficult as I see it."

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Friday January 28, 2011

Open Warfare:
WikiLeaks Defectors Launch Rival Site

Defectors from WikiLeaks have launched a new site for whistleblowers.

OpenLeaks will not publish material itself but will instead act as a broker to connect leakers to interested third parties.

From Ars Technica:

"OpenLeaks will not accept or publish documents on its own platform, but rather create many 'digital dropboxes' for its community members, each adapted to the specific needs of our members so that they can provide a safe and trusted leaking option for whistleblowers," reads the site. There's also an informational video on Vimeo that spells out the OpenLeaks process visually.

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Thursday January 27, 2011

The Julian Calendar:
How The New York Times Dealt With Assange

Bill Keller of The New York Times has provided a fascinating insight into the the efforts to publish the WikiLeaks War Logs.

As well as revealing more about the difficulties of working with Julian Assange, he reveals that the Obama Whitehouse was involved in redacting cables before publication.

From The New York Times:

On the fourth day of the London meeting, Assange slouched into The Guardian office, a day late. Schmitt took his first measure of the man who would be a large presence in our lives. “He’s tall — probably 6-foot-2 or 6-3 — and lanky, with pale skin, gray eyes and a shock of white hair that seizes your attention,” Schmitt wrote to me later. “He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.”

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Wednesday January 26, 2011

Free to Those Who Can Afford It:
O2 Offers Free Wi-Fi to Mobile Users

O2 have announced plans to offer free wi-fi in thousands of public places.

Any mobile user will be able to sign up for free access in return for receiving targeted adverts via text message.

From The Register:

Newly-appointed MD of O2 Wi-Fi Gavin Franks expects to see venues such as supermarkets and department stores offering free 02-branded Wi-Fi.

Users wanting to take advantage will need to provide a mobile phone number, from any network, which will be confirmed with a text message. O2 then links the number to the MAC code (unique identity) of the kit connected, enabling it to automatically authorise future connections as well as spotting when the customer enters an area covered - enabling the delivery of the aforementioned advertising by text message or MMS.

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Tuesday January 25, 2011

Copyrights & Wrongs:
Lawyer Withdraws From Pursuing File Sharers

A law firm tasked with chasing internet file sharers has dramatically withdrawn from a case involving 27 defendants.

The lawyer at the centre of the case claims that he can no longer work on these types of cases due to harassment.

From BBC News:

The law firm had sent thousands of letters to alleged file-sharers.

But in a statement read to the court, solicitor Andrew Crossley, said he had now ceased all such work.

He cited criminal attacks and bomb threats as reasons.

"I have ceased my work...I have been subject to criminal attack. My e-mails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats," he said in the statement, read to the court by MediaCAT's barrister Tim Ludbrook.

"It has caused immense hassle to me and my family," he added.

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Sunday January 23, 2011

Tier For Two:
ISPs Want Two-Speed Internet

The internet has grown by providing a level playing field for the smallest and the largest organisations.

But ISPs want to offer websites the chance to run faster on the network if they pay for the privilege.

This is leading to fears that sites that don't pay will run slowly or even get blocked completely.

From PC Pro:

The free, unrestricted internet as we know it is under threat. Britain’s leading ISPs are attempting to construct a two-tier internet, where websites and services that are willing to pay are thrust into the “fast lane”, while those that don’t are left fighting for scraps of bandwidth or even blocked outright. They’re not so much ripping up the cherished notion of net neutrality as pouring petrol over the pieces and lighting the match. The only question is: can they get away with it?

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Saturday January 22, 2011

Txt 2 Lrn:
Txtng Hlpz Kidz Lrn Wrdz

Do txt msgz make kidz bad @ splng?

Turnz out txtng iz gud 4 literacy OMG111 PONIES!!!

From the Daily Telegraph:

The research, to be published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning next month, found evidence of a “significant contribution of textism use to the children’s spelling development during the study”.

This study, which took account of individual differences in IQ, found higher results in test scores recorded by children using mobile phones after 10 weeks compared with the start of the study.

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Friday January 21, 2011

Screw You:
Apple Annoys Users With Tamper-Resistant Screws

Apple products such as the iPhone are notorious for being difficult to repair or upgrade. The non-removable battery is designed to ensure you pay Apple to upgrade.

Now Apple are making it even harder to fix your own kit. If you take your iPhone 4 in for service, they will replace the standard Phillips screws with new tamper-resistant screws.

From Network World:

"Apple's latest policy will make your blood boil," says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit. "If you take your iPhone 4 into Apple for any kind of service, they will sabotage it by replacing your Phillips screws with the new, tamper-resistant screws. We've spoken with the Apple Store geniuses tasked with carrying out this policy, and they are ashamed of the practice."

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Thursday January 13, 2011

Twits:
Does US Government Twitter Snooping Break EU Law?

The US government has been busy preparing a case against Julian Assange of Wikileaks. They have already made a formal request to Twitter for details of tweets by Assange and his supporters.

But a group of MEPs are questioning whether the US has breached EU privacy laws by snooping on the messages of European citizens.

From THINQ:

"The lack of an identified illegal act and of a judicial enquiry in the US casts a shadow on the whole process of lifting the protection of citizens' privacy for the sake of national security through such subpoena orders," Romanian MEP and ALDE member, Renate Weber, said in a statement.

"The EU should raise with the US authorities the fundamental issue of putting into question those persons who have not committed any crime," she added.

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Wednesday January 12, 2011

The Joy of Six:
Major Websites Announce IPv6 Trial

The Internet Protocol or IP is the glue that holds the internet together. But the current version, IPv4, was created at a time when the internet's massive expansion could not have been predicted.

A newer version, IPv6, was created to overcome the problems inherent with the older protocol such as limited IP addresses. But adoption of IPv6 has been slow.

So major sites such as Facebook and Google have announced a trial of IPv6 on June 8th to see if users and providers are ready to leave IPv4 behind.

From Network World:

IPv6 is a necessary upgrade because the Internet is running out of IP addresses using the 30-year-old IPv4 standard.

Less than 5% of IPv4 addresses are left unallocated to the regional Internet registries, which in turn dole them out to network operators. Experts say the free pool of IPv4 addresses will be depleted in a matter of weeks.

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Saturday January 08, 2011

Tweet This Subpoena:
US Justice Dept. Demands Access to WikiLeaks Twitter Accounts

The US Justice Department have served a subpoena on Twitter demanding access to accounts belonging to WikiLeaks staff and supporters.

The social media site has refused to comply with the order until due process has compelled them to do so.

From Boing Boing:

The U.S. Justice Department has ordered Twitter to hand over data associated with multiple user accounts, in preparation for legal action related to Wikileaks.

"There are many WikiLeaks supporters listed in the US Twitter subpoena," Wikileaks stated over Twitter tonight.

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Thursday January 06, 2011

WikiLeaked:
Conflict Between The Guardian & WikiLeaks Revealed

Vanity Fair have revealed the conflicts between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and The Guardian.

The enmity came to head when a disgruntled ex-WikiLeaks staffer leaked a cache of documents to Heather Brooke, a prominent freedom of information campaigner.

Assange realised that The Guardian were intended to publish the cache without his prior consent. He stormed into their offices accompanied by lawyers and asserted that the leaked documents were his private property.

From Vanity Fair:

On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based on the quarter of a million documents that he had handed over to The Guardian just three months earlier. The encounter was one among many twists and turns in the collaboration between WikiLeaks—a four-year-old nonprofit that accepts anonymous submissions of previously secret material and publishes them on its Web site—and some of the world’s most respected newspapers. The collaboration was unprecedented, and brought global attention to a cache of confidential documents—embarrassing when not disturbing—about American military and diplomatic activity around the world. But the partnership was also troubled from the start.

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Monday January 03, 2011

Core:
Researchere Create 1000-core Processor

It's now common for computer processors to have more than one core. A typical computer today may have a processor that has between two and four cores.

But a newly developed chip could outclass these processors by a factor of 20.

From the University of Glasgow:

By creating more than 1,000 mini-circuits within the FPGA chip, the researchers effectively turned the chip into a 1,000-core processor – each core working on its own instructions.

The researchers then used the chip to process an algorithm which is central to the MPEG movie format – used in YouTube videos – at a speed of five gigabytes per second: around 20 times faster than current top-end desktop computers.

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Sunday January 02, 2011

So Cold:
Hotmail Users' Emails Vanish

A number of Hotmail users claim that all their emails have been mysteriously deleted.

Microsoft have acknowledged the problem on online support forums. But no explanation or remedy has been forthcoming.

From PC Magazine:

"I have a Hotmail account since I remember myself on the web (1990's)," writes user Yair Gil. "I logged into it on 31th December 2010 at around 06:30hrs. Got an error message and a 'new' hotmail account with a first system welcome message. All previous mails in the inbox are gone and all the folders created are also not there."

There's been no indication as to how many Hotmail users are affected by whatever it is that's going on over on Microsoft's end. Reports of the email outage, for lack of a better term, have been surfacing on Microsoft's help boards since early this past week. According to moderators' responses, Microsoft's product team is allegedly aware of the issue and is actively looking into whatever it might be.

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Wednesday December 22, 2010

WTF?:
CIA Launches Wikileaks Task Force

The CIA has launched a task force to assess the damage from release of thousands of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks.

But the WikiLeaks Task Force is unofficially known inside the CIA as WTF -- a common internet acronym that some may find offensive.

From The Washington Times:

"The director asked the task force to examine whether the latest release of WikiLeaks documents might affect the agency's foreign relationships or operations," CIA spokesman George Little said. The panel is being led by the CIA's Counterintelligence Center but has more than two dozen members from departments across the agency.

To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA's long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a posture that came under sharp criticism after it was identified as a factor that contributed to the nation's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Tuesday December 21, 2010

Wikifeuds:
Assange Falls Out With The Guardian

Julian Assange has fallen out with two senior journalists on The Guardian and it is alleged he has severed all connections with the newspaper. More remarkably, it is claimed that he will now deal instead with The Times -- a newspaper not renowned for sympathetic coverage of the Wikileaks affair.

The feud came about when The Guardian published leaked details of the allegations against Assange supplied to his legal team. Assange has characterised this action as an attempt to derail his bail application.

But is Assange guilty of a double standard?

From The Register:

The Times denies any exclusive deal, and has been one of WikiLeaks' and Assange's most vociferous UK critics since the Afghanistan war logs were published. He apparently overlooked that in his interview with the paper however, in which he instead rounded on his former partners at the Guardian.

"The leak of the police report to the Guardian was clearly designed to undermine my bail application," he claimed.

Assange's intolerance of any questioning of his decisions is well documented, so the Guardian can hardly be surprised at its former friend's reaction. Several WikiLeakers, including German spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg, left the organisation earlier this year to set up a new transparency project with a flatter power structure, after comparing Assange's behaviour to that of "some kind of emperor".

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Thursday December 16, 2010

Iran Out of Time:
Stuxnet Virus 'Delays Iranian Nuclear Programme by Two Years'

According to a computer expert, the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years.

It is believed that Israel’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200 was the creator of the software, possibly in league with the US.

From The Jerusalem Post:

Eric Byres, a computer security expert who runs a website called Tofino Security, which provides solutions for industrial companies with Stuxnet-related problems, told the Post on Tuesday that the number of Iranians visiting his site had jumped tremendously in recent weeks – a likely indication that the virus is still causing great disarray at Iranian nuclear facilities.

“What caught our attention was that last year we maybe had one or two people from Iran trying to access the secure areas on our site,” Byres said. “Iran was never on the map for us, and all of a sudden we are now getting massive numbers of people going to our website, and people who we can identify as being from Iran.”

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Wednesday December 15, 2010

Drop Me a Line on Facebook:
Visualising Social Networks

A Facebook engineer has taken data on users and used it to construct a fascinating map showing how friends are connected globally.

Although the social network site has global reach, notable dark spots include Brazil and Russia. The former prefers Orkut while the latter favours LiveJournal.

From Facebook:

When the data is the social graph of 500 million people, there are a lot of lenses through which you can view it. One that piqued my curiosity was the locality of friendship. I was interested in seeing how geography and political borders affected where people lived relative to their friends. I wanted a visualization that would show which cities had a lot of friendships between them.

I began by taking a sample of about ten million pairs of friends from Apache Hive, our data warehouse. I combined that data with each user's current city and summed the number of friends between each pair of cities. Then I merged the data with the longitude and latitude of each city.

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Tuesday December 07, 2010

Retail Fail:
Rogue Online Retailer Arrested

Vitaly Borker allegedly had a simple business plan. Advertise luxury goods such as sunglasses online at low prices. Send out counterfeit and defective merchandise to customers. Dismiss complaints by saying that negative publicity boosts his Google ranking. Harass customers who persist in attempts to get their money back.

Borker got away with his dubious business practices for years. His hubris was such that he even gave a candid interview to the New York Times recently. But after horrified Google staffers read his article, they changed their algorithms to bury his listings.

Now the long arm of the law has caught up with him. Borker has been arrested in New York on charges including fraud, cyberstalking and harassment.

From Network World:

In one case, Borker allegedly botched an order, overbilled the customer and then, saying he knew where she lived, threatened her with sexual violence. The calls came again and again, continuing "well into the night," according to an affidavit signed by U.S. Postal Inspector Douglas Veatch. .

Borker told a second customer that he was "instructing his assistant to 'crush' the glasses and then 'take the pieces of what is left of his glasses and use the label he sent to ship the powder back to him," Veatch wrote.

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Friday December 03, 2010

Bear Baiting:
Kremlin Preparing to Take Action Against Wikileaks?

There is mounting evidence pointing towards a major release by Wikileaks of secrets from The Kremlin that could embarrass Russian leaders.

If the release goes ahead, the consequences for Wikileaks could be far more serious than the cyberattacks previously launched against the site.

From The Daily Beast:

National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the U.S. government’s eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country’s domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders.

“We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it’s been frustrating,” a U.S. law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. “The Russians play by different rules.” He said that if WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, follow through on threats to post highly embarrassing information about the Russian government and what is assumed to be massive corruption among its leaders, “the Russians will be ruthless in stopping WikiLeaks.”

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Monday November 29, 2010

The Book of Revelation:
Wikileaks Releases 'Damaging' US Embassy Cables

Wikileaks have released 250,000 US diplomatic cables that contain revelations bound to embarrass the American administration.

As well as indiscreet comments about the conduct of global figures such as Silvio Berlusconi, the cables also contain evidence that diplomats may have been asked to engage in espionage.

From The Guardian:

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability, and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

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