Archive for 2012/06/25

Filmmaker and digital rights expert Caroline Campbell and visual artist Nina McGowan have teamed up to use customized drones to film unseen parts of Dublin city, including the inside of Facebook’s and Google’s headquarters

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

“Some of the most prevalent alternative vantage points on our streets are security cameras, police helicopters and traffic cameras monitoring systems, which are controlled by our authorities and associated organizations,” reads an explanation of the piece on the Science Gallery website. “However these different and unusual viewing points are rarely accessible to the individual citizen or in our control. Loitering Theatre focuses on the democratization of surveillance that drone flights afford.”

Having crashed their first drone, the pair bought a Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 with the 720p camera that streams straight to a smartphone. They then took to the skies of Dublin over a six-week period to capture a new perspective of the city. In addition to exploring some of the empty houses left over from the property boom — ghost buildings — the duo paid a visit to the headquarters of Facebook and Google.

Keeping to public spaces, they flew the drone up alongside the buildings, allowing the camera to peer into the offices. Campbell explains: “Our argument is that Facebook has no expectation of privacy as their founder Mark Zuckerberg at one stage said privacy was no longer a social norm.”

“The security guards were very aggressive. They made up lies about us crashing the drone into their windows and said we were disturbing their employees,” said Campbell. “We feel that it is no more intrusive than something like Google Street View.”

When they peered into the Google building, they managed to spy on a meeting taking place on one of the higher floors. Those inside the building spotted the drone, started filming it on their mobile phones and then closed the blinds.

“We are using the film to highlight the democratization of surveillance and to give a different view of the city by shifting it out of the human perspective of between 5 and 7 feet high,” she said.

More:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/06/loitering-theatre/

BitTorrent client FrostWire is striking back at “rogue” websites that abuse the company’s brand for commercial gain. Seizes Domain Name From P2P Scammer

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The company has filed several WIPO domain disputes and recently scored its first victory against the domain name frostwirereview.com. The WIPO panel concluded that the domain was registered in bad faith, and ordered it transferred to FrostWire.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/frostwire-wins-domain-name-from-p2p-scammer-120625/

Cyprus needs to find €1.8 billion, or about 10 percent of its gross domestic product, to recapitalize its second-largest bank, Cyprus Popular Bank, by a June 30 deadline

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Cyprus Becomes 5th E.U. Member to Seek Rescue

Much more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/business/global/cyprus-becomes-5th-eu-member-to-seek-rescue.html

Scientists Create Wi-Fi That Can Transmit Seven Blu-ray Movies Per Second

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

Download speeds are always calculated in MP3′s, CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray’s…per second

If you think your home Wi-Fi connection is fast, think again. Scientists have been working on a new way to transmit data wirelessly, and they can now transfer a scorching 2.5 terabits of information per second.

Let us put that another way: that’s over 8,000 times faster than Verizon’s fastest wired home internet connection, FiOS, that only manages a paltry 300Mbps. Or, to put it in real terms, it’s the same as transmitting seven full Blu-ray movies per second.

More:
http://gizmodo.com/5921058/scientists-create-wi+fi-that-can-transmit-seven-blu+ray-movies-per-second

All DJs Are Glorified Button Pushers

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

As much as we’d like to think that the DJs and electronic musicians of the world get on stage and make crazy dance music on the fly—the truth is that most of the time they’re just pushing play.

More:
http://gizmodo.com/5921053/all-djs-are-glorified-button-pushers

Facebook has quietly removed a controversial feature that would let users on mobile devices find other Facebook users

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports

That feature, which Facebook said it was “testing” with users in a roll-out yesterday, became the topic of controversy earlier today when a company called Friendthem accused Facebook of stealing the idea. In a release provided to CNET and other outlets, Friendthem’s CEO said the company was mulling a lawsuit.

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57460085-93/facebook-quietly-removes-test-friend-finding-feature/

Surprise surprise, Facebook forces all users over to @facebook.com email addresses

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

All your mail are belong to us

Gervase Markham noted in a blog post on Friday that his display e-mail address, formerly a personal one, had been changed to an @facebook.com address without any action on his part.

If you find your display e-mail has been hijacked by a facebook.com domain, fret not; a quick edit of the settings will let you restore a personal e-mail address (edit Contact Info, then select the facebook.com email to be “hidden from timeline.” Select another to be “shown on timeline,” if you desire). Security researcher Ashkan Soltani points out a choice phrase from Facebook’s post announcing the addresses in November 2010: “We are also providing an @facebook.com email address to every person on Facebook who wants one.” And everyone else, apparently.

More:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/facebook-forces-all-users-over-to-facebook-com-e-mail-addresses/

China can jump-start to the latest technologies because they don’t have 50 or 60 years of legacy systems like in the US and Europe

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/china_world_leader_cloud/

Belkin takes on Slingbox with TV-to-net streamer box

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/25/belkin_takes_on_slingbox_with_tv_to_net_streamer_box/

Establishing an international arm to fight paedophile content is at the centre of the Internet Watch Foundation’s (IWF) new three-year strategy

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Stats / reports

The IWF plans to share its expertise and skills with other countries as well as strengthening its global partnerships as part of push to repeat the progress made in tackling child abuse in the UK in other countries.

Last year, the IWF handled 41,000 reports of suspected criminal content, of which 13,100 were classified as images and videos of children being sexually abused.

The vast majority, more than 12,900, involved content hosted outside the UK. Three-quarters of youngsters abused in the depraved video clips and photos appeared to be 10 years old and under.

Close working relationships between the IWF and ISPs mean that child sexual abuse content hosted in the UK is typically removed in 60 minutes. Achieving take-downs of abusive content hosting overseas is often far less straightforward. Even so members of the IWF remove child abuse content when it is hosted abroad 40 per cent quicker than non-members.

More:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/iwf_action_plan/

Moscow Times: 22-Year-Old Hacker Ran Botnet That Stole $4.5M

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Police have detained a 22-year-old hacker who created a system of networked computers that was used to steal more than 150 million rubles ($4.47 million) from people’s bank accounts.

The cybercriminal targeted users of the “Bank Client” software with trojans, or malicious programs that can put the computer into a botnet.

Using the money gained from the scheme, the hacker, who went by the online pseudonyms “Hermes” and “Arashi,” bought a luxurious house in a resort town of Russia and expensive cars and invested in legal enterprises, police said in a statement posted on their website.

In Greek mythology, Hermes is a god who was a divine ally of the Greeks in their war against the Trojans, a war won with the help of the Trojan horse artifice, from which the modern software takes its name.

Police from Division K, the cybercrime branch of the Interior Ministry, searched the hacker’s place of residence, confiscating computers and arresting the suspect. The statement did not specify when the arrest was made.

The botnet built by the hacker included around 6 million computers from regions that included Krasnodar, Samara, and Ivanovo, as well as from the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the majority of the infected computers were located.

The network was used to spread programs that he then used to steal people’s bank information, which allowed him and accomplices to steal more than 150 million rubles and transfer it to accounts under their control.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/22-year-old-hacker-ran-botnet-that-stole-45m/460912.html

LulzSec’s Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis plead guilty to hacking and targeting institutions including CIA, Soca and News International

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Litigation, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

LulzSec hacker Ryan Cleary has admitted hacking into the websites of the CIA and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Cleary, 20, confessed to launching a string of attacks on major institutions in Britain and the US with fellow hacker Jake Davis, 19.

The two targeted sites including the National Health Service, News International, Sony, Nintendo, Arizona State police, film studio 20th Century Fox and other sites in a series of so-called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, where websites are flooded with traffic to make them crash.

Cleary, of Wickford, Essex, and Davis, of Lerwick, Shetland, plotted to carry out the attacks with other unknown members of the internet groups Anonymous, Internet Feds and LulzSec.

Other websites targeted by the pair were Westboro Baptist Church, Bethesda, Eve Online, HBGary, HBGary Federal, PBS Inc and Infragard.

Cleary also confessed to four separate charges, including hacking into US Air Force Agency computers, based at the Pentagon.

Both men appeared in the dock at Southwark crown court on Monday to enter guilty pleas to a series of charges brought against them.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/25/lulzsecs-ryan-cleary-guilty-hacking

WIPO presents draft treaty on performers’ rights in audiovisual productions

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Legislation, New Business Models, Stats / reports

According to WIPO, many struggling film actors and other performers could generate extra income from their work if their rights are clarified and enforceable. The proposed treaty will potentially enable performers to share proceeds with producers for revenues generated internationally by audiovisual productions. It will also grant performers moral rights to prevent lack of attribution or distortion of their performances.

Notably, for the first time, there is an endeavour to conclude an international agreement that would provide performers with protection in the digital environment. Such an instrument would also contribute to safeguarding the rights of performers against the unauthorized use of their performances in audiovisual media, such as television, film and video.

Negotiations leading up to the conference have resulted in a “basic proposal” that will be submitted to the Beijing meeting this week. These documents are available here.

More:
http://www.futureofcopyright.com/home/blog-post/2012/06/25/wipo-presents-draft-treaty-on-performers-rights-in-audiovisual-productions-this-week.html

In an exclusive e-mail interview with CNET, Wozniak made it clear that he fully supports MegaUpload’s Kim DotCom

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Illegal File Sharing, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reports


“When crimes occur through the mail, you don’t shut the post office down,” Wozniak wrote. “When governments dream up charges of ‘racketeering’ for a typical IT guy who is just operating a file-sharing service, or accuse him of mail fraud because he said he had removed files [to alleged infringing content] when he’d just removed the links to them, this is evidence of how poorly thought out the attempt to extradite him is. Prosecutors are attempting to take advantage of loopholes. Too bad for the U.S. government that DotCom lives in New Zealand, which is better on human rights.”

“How unfair that the United States will allow him living expenses out of his frozen assets but not give him any legal fees. The side with access to the funds spends millions on lawyers hoping the other side goes bankrupt and gives in. Shame on the system that permits this one-sided advantage. Kim is well enough liked and respected that his legal team is working without up-front payment.”

According to Wozniak, DotCom was doing much to prevent piracy on his site by removing links to pirated content.

“I scratch my head wondering why the studios went after the guy doing more than can be imagined to remove the links the studios wanted removed,” Wozniak wrote. “Heck, I use my iDisk (MobileMe) and dropbox to share files by sending links to friends. They might even be copyrighted materials. I might even send a song in an e-mail to my son, although if I think he’ll keep it I will use the ‘Buy gift’ feature in iTunes. But there are so many legitimate uses to peer-to-peer file sharing and cloud storage.”

Wozniak says he’s no fan of piracy but that under the flag of copyright protection, a lot of damage can be done to innovation.

“Copyright violation is wrong,” he said in the e-mail. “So is driving over the speed limit. But don’t let that halt the progress of the digital age. I will note that Apple was the pioneer in finding the first good compromise [with the music industry over the legal distribution of MP3 files] with iTunes. Thank Heavens that this wasn’t stopped at the beginning.”

Wozniak closed by offering some advice to the entertainment industry.

“When you can’t stop something like a steamroller,” Wozniak wrote, “get out of the way.”

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57459659-93/heres-what-woz-really-thinks-about-kim-dotcom/

Regardless of what happens in court, his prosecution could make MegaUpload’s Kim DotCom bigger than ever

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reports

He could become an Internet martyr or a digital-era equivalent of Maximus, the cinematic character who won the crowd and defied an empire.

Much more:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57459573-93/megaupload-scoreboard-momentum-is-with-kim-dotcom/

Post smug vacation statuses on Facebook, get your house burgled

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

Maybe think twice before bragging about your vacation on Facebook, complete with sun-and-sand photos, lest your shadier friends or members of the general public decide to burgle your house. Two Facebook users in Anderson County, South Carolina were arrested Sunday for using Facebook to find out which of their friends were out of town so they could rob “several” of the empty houses over the course of two months, according to WFMY News.

More:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/post-smug-vacation-statuses-on-facebook-get-your-house-burgled/

Previously:

Dutch Police Warns That Burglar 2.0 Is Roaming Around On Facebook
http://vrritti.com/2012/06/21/dutch-police-warns-that-burglar-2-0-is-roaming-around-on-facebook/

RSA’s SecurID 800 is one of at least five commercially available security devices susceptible to a new attack that extracts cryptographic keys used to log in to sensitive corporate and government networks

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports
Scientists have devised an attack that takes only minutes to steal the sensitive cryptographic keys stored on a raft of hardened security devices that corporations and government organizations use to access networks, encrypt hard drives, and digitally sign e-mails.

The exploit, described in a paper to be presented at the CRYPTO 2012 conference in August, requires just 13 minutes to extract a secret key from RSA’s SecurID 800, which company marketers hold out as a secure way for employees to store credentials needed to access confidential virtual private networks, corporate domains, and other sensitive environments. The attack also works against other widely used devices, including the electronic identification cards the government of Estonia requires all citizens 15 years or older to carry, as well as tokens made by a variety of other companies.

Much more:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/securid-crypto-attack-steals-keys/

Education non-profit Khan Academy has become a hot destination for top programmers in Silicon Valley, despite a complete lack of stock options or IPO prospects

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/khan-academy/

Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei is calling for global cooperation to improve data protection

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Ren Zhengfei, in a rare public appearance at an economic forum on Friday, did not mention the controversy surrounding Huawei. But he warned data would be “vulnerable to attack again and again” because technology will develop faster than security. He gave no details of possible joint measures.

“Cyber security is a common issue that the whole industry has to face,” Ren said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “We must join hands to proactively address this issue.”

Much more:
http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-tech-giant-calls-cyber-cooperation-014721556–finance.html

Gartner Says That Consumers Will Store More Than a Third of Their Digital Content in the Cloud by 2016

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution, The Cloud

Average storage per household will grow from 464 gigabytes in 2011 to 3.3 terabytes in 2016. In 2012, Gartner believes that the adoption of camera-equipped tablets and smartphones will drive consumer storage needs. In the first half of 2012, a shortage in supply of HDDs as a result of the floods in Thailand provided an impetus for cloud storage adoption, leading to an unusual overall growth rate between 2011 and 2012.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2060215

Dutch Government Will Neither Sign Nor Ratify ACTA, No Matter What The EU Bodies Will Decide

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Legislation, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2843779/kabinet-tekent-acta-niet.html

Demand for enterprise social software will grow strongly in the coming years, as more organizations implement the products to improve collaboration and communication primarily among employees, but also with customers

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/idc-forecasts-strong-growth-in-enterprise-social-software-spending-196241

A security researcher from Germany released an Android application on Google Play that can obtain contactless credit card data over the air for a limited set of cards

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

Contactless credit cards can typically be used without a pin for transactions under €10 by simply holding the card near a point of sale terminal.

The Android application, which Symantec detects as Android.Ecardgrabber, attempts to read this data by using a communication protocol called Near Field Communication (NFC)— a technology present on the latest smartphones. The app was posted on Google Play on June 13 and was downloaded 100-500 times before removal.

More:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/ecardgrabber-android-app-sniffing-contactless-credit-card-details-over-air

When you arrive to a foreign country you may encounter an unexpected situation when the local authorities request your passwords. If you refuse, your entry to the country may be denied

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports

That is a really bad situation. So, what should you do and what shouldn’t you do in order to not to lose your sensitive information and at the same time be granted entry to the country?

  • Have a bulk email with a unique password. This email address must be simple but a real one with no sensitive information stored in it. Please remember that the password you have for it shouldn’t be the same as for any other resource. The same is for the secret question you may have for the password recovery.
  • Don’t bring your main computer on trips! Have a travel one; use it only for when you travel abroad. Since it would be only for travel, you may encrypt only a part of the hard drive of this computer and not the entire disk. It will help you avoid more questions.
  • If you bring USB devices, make sure not to have anything sensitive on them.
  • Work only under your own VPN connections; make sure to use OpenVPN since it works even under very restrictive Firewalls and Proxies.
  • Make sure to use security software capable to detect malware and also network layer attacks.

http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/208193608/Traveling_in_an_interesting_time

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has stepped up to defend a British student who faces extradition to the U.S. over a link-site that operates “no differently to Google”

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Illegal File Sharing, Jurisprudence, Litigation, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has blasted the decision to extradite U.K. student Richard O’Dwyer, who faces a U.S. trial for alleged crimes that were committed on U.K. soil.

Describing O’Dwyer as a “clean-cut, geeky kid” who he imagines as the sort of person who will end up “launching the next big thing on the Internet” in a piece for The Guardian, he considers the case against him to be “thin” and called it “an outrage that he is being extradited to the U.S. to face felony charges for something that he is not being prosecuted for here.”

But it was argued that the site was “no different to Google” in how it operated. In practical, objective terms, the site was no different to Google, or any other search engine for that matter. O’Dwyer even took down links from his site when notified, complying with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown system.

At the same time, Wales set up a Change.org petition to the U.K.’s Home Secretary Theresa May, who has the power to put a halt to the extradition.

It’s not the first time Wales has intervened on a matter of political principle.

In January, in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills presented before Congress, he blacked out Wikipedia for a day to simulate how a “censored” Web would harm the free and open speech of the site’s online editors.

O’Dwyer’s case opened up a whole new can of worms that could see any U.K. citizen facing extradition to the United States by simply tweeting a link to a copyrighted file on The Pirate Bay, for example.

May gave the go-ahead for O’Dwyer to be extradited, but remains at home pending an appeal to the High Court in London.

More:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/wikipedia-founder-calls-for-uk-8216pirate-extradition-to-stop/5432

and:

Wikipedia’s founder argues that the case is an example of the clash between civil liberties and the interest of the copyright industries.

“Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honoured moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.”

TorrentFreak contacted Richard’s mother Julia O’Dwyer who is delighted with the support from the Internet icon. She hopes that Wales’ voice will be heard by the politicians who have a say in the matter, so the extradition can be prevented.

“To have this support for Richard from Jimmy Wales, such a renowned, influential and relevant person is fantastic. I understand Jimmy Wales advises our own government on Internet matters, so they really ought to sit up and listen to what he is saying and put a halt to this extradition,” Julia told TorrentFreak.

“Jimmy’s support can only benefit Richard and should bring the matter to the attention of some people who along with Jimmy might be able to make a difference,” she added.

http://torrentfreak.com/wikipedia-founder-protests-extradition-of-pirating-uk-student-120624/

See also:

Broadband ISP BT has now been given 14 days to decide whether or not to block The Pirate Bay, a website which distributes links to files that can then be shared via BitTorrent P2P clients. Sadly many, but not all, of the sites torrent links allegedly go to copyrighted content; Google’s search engine arguably does something similar
http://vrritti.com/2011/11/07/broadband-isp-bt-has-now-been-given-14-days-to-decide-whether-or-not-to-block-the-pirate-bay-a-website-which-distributes-links-to-files-that-can-then-be-shared-via-bittorrent-p2p-clients-sadly-many/

Are The Pirate Bay and Google basically the same? 
http://www.futureofcopyright.com/knowledge-database.html?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=41

Judges Facing New Types Of Crimes, New Types (And Levels) Of Damage, New Types Of Suspects?
http://vrritti.com/2012/02/18/judges-facing-new-types-of-crimes-new-types-and-levels-of-damage-new-types-of-suspects/

Google Launches Delayed Broadband Internet TV Service into the UK

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The service, which was originally supposed to launch during early 2012, appears to have faced delays following complaints about a lack of content and poor user interface design that complicated its earlier introduction into the US market.

According to Google, customers in the UK will.. “be able to pop live TV into the background while you read up on The Guardian’s website with Chrome, catch up on the latest episode of EastEnders on the BBC iPlayer, view Lauren Luke’s latest make-up tips on YouTube, and choose from the hundreds of apps optimized for TV in Google Play“.

More:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/06/google-launches-delayed-broadband-internet-tv-service-uk.html

CNBC: We Are Slaves to the Central Banks (video)

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy, Stats / reports

One cannot operate a capitalist system if the state can borrow at a negative cost

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy, Stats / reports

Years of irresponsibly loose monetary policy in the US has led to cheap funding for the US (and other) governments, but difficult credit conditions for the private sector all around the world. As I underlined in How The World Works, negative real rates leads to misallocation of capital which ends in asset deflation, while simultaneously limiting the capacity for recovery by driving out the private sector.

More:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/one-cannot-operate-capitalist-system-if-state-can-borrow-negative-cost

So now Facebook has a) a super-advanced facial recognition program; b) a brand-new camera app; and c) the ability to post photos instantly

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

All because the company believes the “next big thing” in social media is being able to post pictures in real-time so that your friends can quickly latch onto them?

Maybe, but this is pretty high-tech stuff for a social media site and, given Facebook’s (and Google’s, and other sites’) penchant for ripping off your personal information and invading your privacy, there is plenty here for concern.

More:
http://www.infowars.com/nsa-social-spy-network-facebook-to-track-individuals-across-photos-videos-with-facial-recognition/

Canadian gov looks to build ‘cyber perimeter’ over ‘hostile threats’ to national security

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Network Security, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports

http://www.infowars.com/canadian-gov-looks-to-build-cyber-perimeter-over-hostile-threats-to-national-security/

Google: “We think of views as a currency”. Google is therefore “eliminating counterfeit views” (video)

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, Filtering, Google, Stats / reports

More:
http://gizmodo.com/5920911/at-last-why-youtube-suddenly-stops-counting-views-at-301

Things are bleak for Google TV, and it’s not as if nobody’s tried

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

When last we exchanged awkward glances with the Google TV, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt promised reality that the system would be included with “most TVs” by this summer (now), shortly after founding partner Logitech wiped its hands of the entire thing. The former sure as hell didn’t come true, and the latter came as a surprise to absolutely no one. Things are bleak for Google TV, and it’s not as if nobody’s tried. Sony, hardened hardware king, will be one of the companies to hand down a small black box that does Google TV right, if it’s ever going to be done so. If this attempt is a dud like all past attempts, there’s good reason to abandon all hope and despair. The NSZ-GS7 will either be a harbinger of Google TV’s second chance, or one of the final blips on its respirator.

More:
http://gizmodo.com/5920944/sony-nsz+gs7-review-google-tv-still-is-still-bad

More and more governments are to regulate the Internet

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Blocking, Copyright, Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Enforcement, File Sharing, Filtering, Illegal File Sharing, Legislation, Network Security, New Business Models, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

The World Conference on International Telecommunications is to be held in Dubai this December and more than 190 countries are expected to attend. One of the matters to be discussed at the conference is changes to a 24-year-old telecommunications treaty called the International Telecommunications Regulations, according to the Associated Press.

In preparation for the meeting, dozens of countries have been debating possible changes behind closed doors, according to the Associated Press. Some countries are adamant that the treaty must remain untouched, while others are looking to switch up the language.

Much more:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57459564-93/amendments-to-u.n-treaty-could-censor-the-internet/

Scientists at Stanford University have created the iBrain, something that will help them translate brain waves onto a computer

Posted: 2012/06/25 in Education / Awareness, Stats / reports, Tech Evolution

There are several things I find hard to understand. Tennis’ Williams sisters, for example. Or why diesel prices can be $1 a gallon different a mere five miles apart. The things that go around Stephen Hawking’s highly sophisticated brain, I wouldn’t even try to fathom.

However, scientists at Stanford, led by Dr. Phillip Low (who is also CEO of Neurovigil), are working with him in order to access his brainwaves directly. The tool they are using they call iBrain. It is designed to take brainwaves and have them be communicated on a computer. It consists of a black headband that contains neurotransmitters.

The Telegraph reports that, at the Francis Crick Memorial conference in Cambridge, England, next month, Low may try to demonstrate the technology on Hawking himself. ”We’d like to find a way to bypass his body, pretty much hack his brain,” Low told the Telegraph. Essentially, this is the latest experiment into mind reading.

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57459578-71/professor-to-hack-into-stephen-hawkings-brain/

See also:

Transcendent Man – chronicles the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and futurist that presents his bold vision of the Singularity
http://vrritti.com/2011/02/25/transcendent-man-chronicles-the-life-and-ideas-of-ray-kurzweil-an-inventor-and-futurist-that-presents-his-bold-vision-of-the-singularity/