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NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers (AP) : Technet |
- NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers (AP)
- Online Activism Aims to Stop School Spankings (Mashable)
- Sony 'rebuilding' PlayStation Network after outage (AP)
- Egypt revolution hero to leave Google, set up NGO (AFP)
- Sony "Rebuilding" PlayStation Network After Attack (PC World)
- Mexico agency confirms $1B fine for Slim's company (AP)
- How To Make An E-Easter Egg Flash Drive (PC World)
- The Onion Asks: Should Unemployed People Buy New Macs? [VIDEO] (Mashable)
- Official Android White House app a reliable source of information (Appolicious)
- Netflix soon to be the largest subscription entertainment service in the U.S. (Digital Trends)
- A.I.R. Defense HD tops iPad Games of the Week (Appolicious)
- Russia frees software tycoon's kidnapped son (AFP)
- Impact of the Amazon Server Crash Spreads (The Atlantic Wire)
| NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers (AP) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 08:20 PM PDT BUFFALO, N.Y. – Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents. That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought. "We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night," the man's lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, "Doldrum." "No, I didn't," he insisted. "Somebody else could have but I didn't do anything like that." "You're a creep ... just admit it," they said. Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router. Plenty of others would agree. The Sarasota, Fla. man, for example, who got a similar visit from the FBI last year after someone on a boat docked in a marina outside his building used a potato chip can as an antenna to boost his wireless signal and download an astounding 10 million images of child porn, or the North Syracuse, N.Y., man who in December 2009 opened his door to police who'd been following an electronic trail of illegal videos and images. The man's neighbor pleaded guilty April 12. For two hours that March morning in Buffalo, agents tapped away at the homeowner's desktop computer, eventually taking it with them, along with his and his wife's iPads and iPhones. Within three days, investigators determined the homeowner had been telling the truth: If someone was downloading child pornography through his wireless signal, it wasn't him. About a week later, agents arrested a 25-year-old neighbor and charged him with distribution of child pornography. The case is pending in federal court. It's unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who've had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies. Whether you're guilty or not, "you look like the suspect," said Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School, who said that's just one of many reasons to secure home routers. Experts say the more savvy hackers can go beyond just connecting to the Internet on the host's dime and monitor Internet activity and steal passwords or other sensitive information. A study released in February provides a sense of how often computer users rely on the generosity — or technological shortcomings — of their neighbors to gain Internet access. The poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry group that promotes wireless technology standards, found that among 1,054 Americans age 18 and older, 32 percent acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs. An estimated 201 million households worldwide use Wi-Fi networks, according to the alliance. The same study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 40 percent said they would be more likely to trust someone with their house key than with their Wi-Fi network password. For some, though, leaving their wireless router open to outside use is a philosophical decision, a way of returning the favor for the times they've hopped on to someone else's network to check e-mail or download directions while away from home . "I think it's convenient and polite to have an open Wi-Fi network," said Rebecca Jeschke, whose home signal is accessible to anyone within range. "Public Wi-Fi is for the common good and I'm happy to participate in that — and lots of people are," said Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that takes on cyberspace civil liberties issues. Experts say wireless routers come with encryption software, but setting it up means a trip to the manual. The government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends home users make their networks invisible to others by disabling the identifier broadcasting function that allows wireless access points to announce their presence. It also advises users to replace any default network names or passwords, since those are widely known, and to keep an eye on the manufacturer's website for security patches or updates. People who keep an open wireless router won't necessarily know when someone else is piggybacking on the signal, which usually reaches 300-400 feet, though a slower connection may be a clue. For the Buffalo homeowner, who didn't want to be identified, the tip-off wasn't nearly as subtle. It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn't immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They are screaming at him, 'Get down! Get down on the ground!' He's saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?'" Covert said. "One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he's got the cuts and bruises to show for it," said Covert, who said the homeowner plans no lawsuit. When he was allowed to get up, agents escorted him and watched as he used the bathroom and dressed. The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak. But this wasn't a case of officers rushing into the wrong house. Court filings show exactly what led them there and why. On Feb. 11, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees cybersecurity enforcement, signed in to a peer-to-peer file sharing program from his office. After connecting with someone by the name of "Doldrum," the agent browsed through his shared files for videos and images and found images and videos depicting children engaged in sexual acts. The agent identified the IP address, or unique identification number, of the router, then got the service provider to identify the subscriber. Investigators could have taken an extra step before going inside the house and used a laptop or other device outside the home to see whether there was an unsecured signal. That alone wouldn't have exonerated the homeowner, but it would have raised the possibility that someone else was responsible for the downloads. After a search of his devices proved the homeowner's innocence, investigators went back to the peer-to-peer software and looked at logs that showed what other IP addresses Doldrum had connected from. Two were associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo and accessed using a secure token that UB said was assigned to a student living in an apartment adjacent to the homeowner. Agents arrested John Luchetti March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to distribution of child pornography. Luchetti is not charged with using his neighbor's Wi-Fi without permission. Whether it was illegal is up for debate. "The question," said Kerr, "is whether it's unauthorized access and so you have to say, 'Is an open wireless point implicitly authorizing users or not?' "We don't know," Kerr said. "The law prohibits unauthorized access and it's just not clear what's authorized with an open unsecured wireless." In Germany, the country's top criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data. The court said Internet users could be fined up to $126 if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected line, though it stopped short of holding the users responsible for illegal content downloaded by the third party. The ruling came after a musician sued an Internet user whose wireless connection was used to download a song, which was then offered on an online file sharing network. The user was on vacation when the song was downloaded. |
| Online Activism Aims to Stop School Spankings (Mashable) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 06:34 AM PDT |
| Sony 'rebuilding' PlayStation Network after outage (AP) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:36 PM PDT NEW YORK – Sony Corp. said it is rebuilding its PlayStation Network to bring it back online after an "external intrusion" caused it to suspend the service. The company said it turned off the service, which lets gamers connect in live play, so that it could strengthen its network infrastructure. Qriocity — the company's online entertainment platform — was also affected. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security," the company said in a blog post Saturday. An email message to the company seeking further details was not immediately returned. The PlayStation Network and Qriocity had been turned off Wednesday evening so that the company could investigate an external intrusion. The company said the following day that it could take a "full day or two" to get the service back up and running. On Saturday, the company said in a blog post that it was "working around the clock" to bring the services back online. "We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project," the company said in the post. The outage came just after Tuesday's release of the game "Mortal Kombat," which is available on the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360. It also comes as Amazon.com restores computers used by other major websites as an outage stretched into a fourth day. |
| Egypt revolution hero to leave Google, set up NGO (AFP) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 09:29 AM PDT WASHINGTON (AFP) – Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the hero of the Egyptian revolution, on Sunday said he planned to take an extended break from the Internet giant to set up his own NGO in Egypt. "Decided to take a long term sabbatical from @Google & start a technology focused NGO to help fight poverty & foster education in #Egypt," Ghonim wrote in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, administered the Facebook page that helped spark the uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak's regime. The 30-year-old gave an emotional television interview shortly after he was released from 12 days in police custody that is credited with re-energizing the movement just as it appeared to be losing steam. In an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" after the regime started to crumble, Ghonim said the protests that led to the Mubarak's ouster would never have happened without online social networks. "If there was no social networks it would have never been sparked. Because the whole thing before the revolution was the most critical thing. Without Facebook, without Twitter, without Google, without YouTube, this would have never happened." TIME recently placed the Egyptian-born Ghonim on its list of the 100 most influential people of 2011 -- on the magazine's website he appeared as the first name, although TIME insists there is no actual ranking. "Wael Ghonim embodies the youth who constitute the majority of Egyptian society," read a profile in the magazine penned by former UN atomic energy chief and potential Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei. "But, as with many of his generation, (he) remained apolitical due to loss of hope that things could change in a society permeated for decades with a culture of fear. "By emphasizing that the regime would listen only when citizens exercised their right of peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience, Wael helped initiate a call for a peaceful revolution." |
| Sony "Rebuilding" PlayStation Network After Attack (PC World) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT The outage of Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity service, now in its fourth day, looks set to continue after the company said on Sunday that it is "rebuilding" its system to better guard against attacks. Sony said on Saturday that the outage was caused by an "external intrusion" into the network, but has yet to detail the problem. The PlayStation Network is used for PlayStation 3 online gaming and sales of software to consoles and the PlayStation Portable. The Qriocity service runs on the same network infrastructure and provides audio and video to Sony consumer electronics products. The latest update, while not explaining the intrusion, pointed towards it being relatively sophisticated. "Our efforts to resolve this matter involve rebuilding our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure," the company said in a statement. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security." Sony said it is "working around the clock to bring them both back online," but didn't say when they might return. Phone calls to the company's Tokyo headquarters went unanswered on Sunday. "We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project," the statement said. The outage has left PlayStation 3 owners unable to play online games. Networked gaming, in which gamers collaborate with others in real-time battles, challenges and quests, is very popular and typically enjoyed by millions, especially over the weekend. Martyn Williams covers Japan and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com |
| Mexico agency confirms $1B fine for Slim's company (AP) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 06:28 PM PDT MEXICO CITY – Mexico's antitrust agency confirmed Sunday that it levied a $1 billion (12 billion peso) fine against the Mexican cellphone subsidiary of tycoon Carlos Slim and ordered it to stop unfair practices. The Federal Competition Commission said it found that Slim's Telcel business engages in "relative monopolistic practices" by overcharging competitors to connect calls to Telcel users. The fine against Telcel is the maximum penalty possible — 10 percent of the company's assets because it is a repeat offender, the agency said in a statement. It gave Telcel 30 days to say how it will change its practices. Telcel also has 30 days to appeal. Slim's telecom company, America Movil, revealed the fine April 15. It said it was studying all options for appeal. A commission official said the fine is the largest ever levied by the 18-year-old watchdog agency and was made possible by a 2006 reform that raised fines for repeat offenders. The agency's statement said Telcel charges competitors higher interconnection rates to call Telcel users than it does to connect calls between its own clients. The interconnection rate is even higher than the full price Telcel charges its users to make a phone call, the commission said. Telcel engages in relative monopolist practices "by abusing its substantial power in the market to unfairly displace its competitors and thus affect the competition process in the landline and cellphone markets, hurting the consumer," the statement said. The commission said that in setting the fine it took into account the seriousness of Telcel's practice, how intentional it was, the duration of the practice and Telcel's share of the market. The decision resulted from an investigation begun in 2006 at the request of competitors such as Axtel, Megacable and Telefonica. "The competition problems associated with high interconnection fees in Mexico generate losses of $6 billion each year to consumers," the commission said. Telcel's parent company, America Movil, is the largest provider of wireless telephone service in Latin America, with 225 million subscribers. Its 2009 revenue totaled $30 billion. Named the richest man in the world by Fortune magazine, Slim, 71, also controls Mexico's dominant landline phone company, Telmex. He is estimated to be worth $74 billion, with holdings in communications, retail, manufacturing, oil and construction. Some of his companies have come under various allegations of monopolistic practices in the past. |
| How To Make An E-Easter Egg Flash Drive (PC World) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 10:01 AM PDT Happy Easter! Get ready for another Geek 101 tutorial this weekend. We at GeekTech have a great way that you can geek-up your Easter celebrations in a few simple and cheap steps with this incredibly nerdy (and Easter-y!) E-Easter Egg USB flash drive (Get it? The 'E' is for "electronic..." :P). Follow along and we'll show you how to do it. Supplies To make your own E-Easter Egg you'll need the following supplies:
The usual disclaimer: Hack at your own risk! We are not responsible for fried flash drives or injuries resulting from razor-blade cuts or hot-glue burns. You won't want to use a flash drive that contains important data, since there's the risk that you'll end up frying it. I went to Walmart and asked one of the employees in electronics for the cheapest drive they had. He pointed me to an $8 2GB SanDisk drive. After all, you probably don't want to be prying apart a 256GB $700 Kingston. You can also get any color of plastic eggs, but I chose the glitter eggs because they were partly translucent and the SanDisk has an LED on it that lights up. So in the end I get a glowing and flashing egg. Pretty nifty, eh? Cutting Use the scissors to cut open packages (okay, that was a given). You'll want to take the plastic casing off of the flash drive, slide the razor blade into the seam between the two parts of the flash drive's case; you might need to use a screwdriver to pry the outer case off. But be careful not to go in too deep or else you might damage the electronics. (And it should go without saying, but be careful so as to not cut yourself. Having to make a trip to the emergency room is a surefire way to ruin your day.) Once you pry the case off, you should have something that looks like this, depending on the drive that you use: That white thing was the switch that you would have pushed to expose the USB connector. If your drive has one of these, you can just pop it off; it's not fastened on very tightly at all. After prying apart your drive you'll have something that looks like this: Now, using the razor blade or box cutter, cut a slit in one side of the plastic Easter egg for the USB connector to slide through. I found that using the box cutter to start a cut and then using a small wire cutter to finish the cut allowed me to make more precise cuts; it's easy to slip and cut way too deep with the box cutter. Just whatever you do, try not to cut your finger off; we are not responsible if you hurt yourself. Slide the male USB into place and make sure it fits snug. If not then readjust your cut. Gluing Start up your hot glue gun and make sure that the glue flows smoothly before proceeding. Now, to my knowledge, hot glue isn't very electrically conductive, and I've used it on a number of low-voltage electronics before, so you shouldn't have to worry about anything short circuiting or starting on fire. But don't say that I didn't warn you... Now that your hot glue gun is...well...hot, go ahead and dab some glue down into the egg, and thoroughly surround both the USB connector and the slit that it's protruding through. Also, try to stay clear of the memory chips or any other important-looking chips on your drive. I don't know what temperature is required to damage them, but some hot glue guns get extremely hot, so it's best to just be safe and stay clear. Once this dries, put a fine bead around the USB connector on the outside of the egg. This will ensure a tighter seal. I also did not seal the egg shut, this way in the future I can easily make any modifications to the E-Easter Egg. Not only that, but you can also open the egg and use it to store other devices like microSD cards. Just make sure that the contacts are covered so nothing short circuits if you're using the flash drive. STICKERS!!! This is probably the most important step of all--making your egg look more Easter-like. Open up your Easter egg decorating kit and cover your egg in stickers to your heart's desire. Now that's more like it! Plug It In Now that your E-Easter Egg is finished plug it in to your computer and hope for the best. My drive has an LED so it lights up nicely, especially in the dark. Viola! There you have it, your own E-Easter Egg. Follow James Mulroy on Twitter and on StumbleUpon to get the latest in microbe , dinosaur , and death ray news . Get your GeekTech on: Twitter - Facebook - RSS | Tip us off This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Onion Asks: Should Unemployed People Buy New Macs? [VIDEO] (Mashable) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 05:28 AM PDT
In the wake of that Mac vs. PC infographic we showed you yesterday, there's a lot of discussion going on here about the value and virtues of each platform against the other. To augment our discussion, we could use a panel of experts. Here's an idea: Let's get comments from that astute panel at the Onion News Network. They'll solve this conundrum for us. Meanwhile, let's get our discussion going: Should the nation's unemployed be buying new Apple computers? |
| Official Android White House app a reliable source of information (Appolicious) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 04:30 PM PDT |
| Netflix soon to be the largest subscription entertainment service in the U.S. (Digital Trends) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 10:14 AM PDT
The company is due to release its quarterly earnings report on Monday, and analysts predict that the additional estimated 3.7 million subscribers that have joined bring its total user base up to roughly 23.7 million, The Hollywood Reporter reveals. Even if the actual numbers fall short of the estimated figure, it is believed that the company has grown large enough to become the number one subscription entertainment business in the United States. Phone, cable and Internet service provider Comcast is currently in the top spot, with 22.8 million video subscribers. Satellite radio service Sirius XM holds steady at number two, with 20.2 million. The expectation once the numbers are released is that Netflix and Sirius XM will be battling for the number one spot while Comcast will settle in at number three, thanks to the shrinking number of new subscribers. NPD analysts peg 61 percent of all movies streamed over the Internet as coming from Netflix, eight times more than Comcast, BMO Captial Markets analyst Edward Williams tells THR. "Following the torrid pace of subscriber growth since Netflix's Watch Instantly service made its way onto game consoles, we expect subscriber growth to remain elevated," Williams said. Observers are looking to offerings like Time Warner's HBO Go, which was recently announced for a May 2 rollout on iOS and Android devices, as viable competitors to Netflix's streaming content dominance. The amount of money the company spends on securing rights to that streaming content will be looked over carefully by industry analysts as they gauge what the future holds for Netflix and its competition. |
| A.I.R. Defense HD tops iPad Games of the Week (Appolicious) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:00 PM PDT |
| Russia frees software tycoon's kidnapped son (AFP) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 09:37 AM PDT MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian police on Sunday freed the son of software tycoon Eugene Kaspersky after a five-day kidnap ordeal, ending one of the highest-profile abduction dramas in the country in recent years. Police officers, agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the special OMON police squad freed Ivan Kaspersky, 20, in the Moscow region, Moscow police spokesman Viktor Birukov told Russian news agencies. Reports said that officers posing as middlemen who were to hand over a ransom lured the kidnappers into a meeting and then arrested them. Birukov said that five people had been detained on suspicion of organising the kidnapping of the son of the founder and general director of global computer anti-virus giant Kaspersky Lab. "The condition of his (Ivan Kaspersky's) health is satisfactory," Birukov added. The incident had been kept closely under wraps by the authorities and Birukov's comments were the first official confirmation that Ivan Kaspersky had even been abducted. Unofficial reports had said last week the mathematics student at Moscow State University was abducted on April 19 while on his way to his work experience job as a programmer in the city. Confusingly, a tabloid news website had reported on Friday that Ivan Kaspersky had already been released and a ransom had been paid for his liberty. Reports said that the kidnappers had telephoned Eugene Kaspersky while he was in London earlier this week to make a ransom demand of three million euros ($4.4 million). He then immediately flew to Moscow. But security sources quoted by the Interfax news agency vehemently denied any money had been handed over and said the release had been due to a sophisticated operation by the police. "The kidnappers were forced into an error," the source explained. "They were promised money but when the time came to hand over the funds the middleman was arrested and subsequently other perpetrators of the crime as well. Ivan Kaspersky himself was freed," the source added. The source said the suspected mastermind was a figure with a previous conviction. Neither weapons nor force were used in the liberation operation, sources said. Ivan Kaspersky was later reunited with his parents and is in a "safe place", another source told Interfax, adding that while there was no evidence of physical injury it could not be excluded that he had received a psychological trauma. Eugene Kaspersky, 45, co-founded Kaspersky Lab in 1997, building on a decade of research into computer viruses. The company has emerged as one of the world's leading anti-virus software firms. His fortune is valued at $800 million by Forbes magazine, making him the 125th richest man in Russia. The kidnappings of children of prominent businessmen is not uncommon in Russia, although Ivan Kaspersky was the most prominent victim yet. In 2009 criminals held the son of a vice president at state oil firm Rosneft, Mikhail Stavsky. He was freed unharmed after a three-month ordeal. Viktoria Kisluk, the 16-year-old daughter of a top manager at Russia's biggest private oil firm Lukoil, is still missing after vanishing in the Moscow region in March. Kaspersky studied computer science, cryptography and mathematics at a Moscow institute used by the KGB intelligence service to train its staff. He later worked at a defence ministry research institute until 1991, where he first began writing anti-virus programmes. Kaspersky co-founded the company with his wife Natalya Kasperskaya. The couple are divorced. |
| Impact of the Amazon Server Crash Spreads (The Atlantic Wire) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 02:46 PM PDT Last week Amazon's EC2 web-hosting service suffered a technical problem that took down some of web's most popular social sites including Reddit, Foursquare, Quora and Hootsuite, among others, and service disruptions are ongoing. But given the wide adoption of Amazon's hosting service, it's not surprising that the outage spread beyond the the realm of social media startups. Web ntrepreneur Jason Calancanis pointed to a disturbing message posted on the Amazon Web Services forums, supposedly from a cardiac patient monitoring company, with the subject heading, "Life of our patients is at stake - I am desperately asking you to contact." The message read: Sorry, I could not get through in any other way We are a monitoring company and are monitoring hundreds of cardiac patients at home. Could you please contact us?... Or please let me know how can I contact you more ditectly.
So far there is no response at Amazon, however an intense debate has begun underneath the post regarding whether or not a company should stake its customers' lives on the reliability of Amazon's servers. As one commenter wrote: You put a life critical system on virtual hosted servers? What the hell is wrong with you?
Another commenter elaborated: Which begs the question, why did you leave yourself -- and your patients -- open to this risk in the first place? I hope for your patients' sake that you begin taking more seriously your IT planning. Since you apparently don't have a fail-over -- and are waiting for Amazon anyway -- you might want to think about solving the weakness you built into your own system, i.e., start working on an alternative method of getting what you need. And if you can't find a way to do that even now, I submit that you should never have launched your service at all.
The original poster responded by backtracking on his subject heading, and wrote, "This is a home based system, not an intra hospital system. So the promised 99.95% uptime is fine" and "this is not a life saving system.Which does not mean that patient's life cannot be saved using it." Others maintained that despite the flaws of relying on servers that you can't touch, the villain was Amazon for its flawed server and its failure to respond to the posters' cry for help: No reason for everyone to go all self-righteous on him. In the end, the market will decide. if his patients die, he'll be fired and/or his company will go out of business... I guarantee that there were hundreds of other mission-critical apps in the healthcare industry that went down as well. Amazon's US-EAST region hosts hundreds of thousands of customers. It's one of their largest. The villain here is Amazon, not specific developers who may or may not be in the healthcare industry. |
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