Hacker jailed for six months

Posted on July 10, 2014 by - News

policemanA Northumbria University student has been jailed for six months for refusing to hand over his passwords to unencrypt his systems.

Christopher Wilson was suspected of hacking police websites after coppers claimed they needed to see his computer contents in the interests of national security.

However, like many cases like this, all is not as it seems. Wilson, who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, caused the Northumbria Police website to shut down after ringing the force using a voice-changing device to warn of a cyber-attack.

Coppers investigating him found that he was sending online messages about “trolling the Newcastle police department” and infiltrating the secret files the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

He even suggested sending nasty messages on a condolence page set up for two female police officers shot dead in Manchester.

Wilson, who is currently excelling on a Master’s degree in computers and has set up his own business programming artificial intelligence systems, was doing his degree at Northumbria University.

A judge last year ordered him to hand over his passwords in the interests of national security last year but he refused to provide any of the 50 that that coppers wanted.

Wilson admitted failing to disclose a password in breach of the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act 2000, an offence under terrorism legislation.

Judge Simon Hickey told him: “What you were doing was for your own satisfaction, showing what you could do with your undoubted skill with computers.

“But this is a serious offence and I can’t avoid an immediate custodial sentence.”

Reading the case you can’t help but wonder how daft everything got. Prosecutors did not try to claim he was successful in hacking anything but had an interest in doing so.

David Lister, defending, said: “He has expressed genuine remorse, he bitterly regrets his actions. He was 19 at the time and the impact of his Autism Spectrum Disorder or Asperger’s meant he matured more slowly than others.

Wilson’s was described as a bright and talented young man and is due to complete his Master’s next January and is on course for a distinction having excelled.

US Senate committee approves company snooping

Posted on July 9, 2014 by - News

Despite fears about personal data, the US Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill to encourage companies to exchange information with the government.

The move is supposed to help share information on hacking attempts and cybersecurity threats, the only problem is that you have to trust the US government not to misuse the situation.

Experts see the bill as the best chance for the current congress to pass some type of legislation to encourage better cooperation between the government and private companies to boost the cyber defences of critical industries.

It is a serious problem as cyber-attacks by a determined enemy could be the greatest threat to US national and economic security.

However, comprehensive cyber bills have been delayed by rows over liability and concerns about privacy. In the middle of it, came the news of the government surveillance programmes.

The bill must be approved by the full Senate and reconciled with similar legislation that passed the House of Representatives in April.

There are already signs that the measure has bipartisan support in the House. The Republican chairman and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee issued a statement on Tuesday backing the measure and urging the full Senate to vote quickly.

Under the bill, companies and individuals can monitor their own and consenting customers’ networks for hacking and voluntarily share cyber threat data, stripped of personally identifiable information, with the government and each other for cybersecurity reasons.

In return, the US director of national intelligence to increase the amount of information the government shares with private firms and the Department of Homeland Security to set up and manage a data-sharing portal.

The bill offers liability protections to companies that appropriately monitor their networks or share cyber threat data and limit the government’s ability to use data it receives.

However, privacy advocates are worried about giving companies any form of immunity and the long history of abuse of consumer data by both the private sector and the government.

Chinese worked out Siri first

Posted on July 9, 2014 by - News

ipad3Apple’s attempts to get the rights for its Siri voice activated search technology recognised behind the bamboo curtain have failed.

A Beijing court has ruled that a Chinese company invented the technology and this was copied by Apple.

This clears the way for the Chinese company to continue its own case against Apple for infringing intellectual property rights.

Zhizhen sued the US firm in 2012 for intellectual property rights infringement, saying Apple’s Siri used on devices including the iPhone violated Zhizhen’s own voice system patents.

Apple had sued Zhizhen Internet Technology and China’s State Intellectual Property Office to court to seek a ruling that Zhizhen’s patent rights to a speech recognition technology were invalid.
According to the People’s Daily state newspaper the Beijing First Intermediate Court ruled in Zhizhen’s favour.

Apple said it intended to take the case to the Beijing Higher People’s Court.
In a statement, Apple said it did not know about Zhizhen’s patent before it introduced Siri and it did not believe it was using it anyway.

Qualcomm snubs TSMC

Posted on July 9, 2014 by - News

nand-chipsThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn which claims that Qualcomm has placed its first batch of FinFET chip orders with Samsung.

The industry had expected the order to go to TSMC even though it was using a 16nm node process.

Samsung will built the FinFET technology using a 14nm process.

The move is a boot in the nadgers for TSMC which was confident that could ramp up output optimising its high yield rates on chip production, and therefore helping clients to reduce production costs.

Digitimes said that chip vendor Altera had previously chosen Intel to develop its 14nm FinFET products, but was forced to switch to TSMC due to lower yield rates at Intel.

MediaTek, a major rival of Qualcomm, has been working with TSMC in 28nm and 20nm processes and will continue to develop chips using TSMC’s 16nm FinFET Plus process.

However others see Qualcomm’s rumoured move as logical. The outfit hates putting all its eggs in one basket and works with multiple foundry houses on 28nm or more mature processes, including TSMC, Samsung, Globalfoundries, UMC and SMIC.

US arrests Russian hacker

Posted on July 9, 2014 by - News

skullkThe US has arrested a Russian national and charged him with hacking.

The Department of Homeland Security said Roman Valerevich Seleznev hacked into American retailers’ computer systems to steal credit card data from 2009 to 2011.

It has taken the Secret Service a while to find Seleznev, who was indicted in Washington state in March 2011 on charges including bank fraud, causing damage to a protected computer, obtaining information from a protected computer and aggravated identity theft.

At that time it was suggested that Seleznev hacked into websites ranging from those run by the Phoenix Zoo, a branch of Schlotzsky’s Deli and many other small restaurants and entertainment venues.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson implied that the hacks were the work of organised crime and that Seleznev was probably working for the Russian mafia.

“This important arrest sends a clear message: despite the increasingly borderless nature of transitional organized crime, the long arm of justice – and this Department – will continue to disrupt and dismantle sophisticated criminal organizations,” Johnson said.

 

 

 

Public cloud services grow like topsy

Posted on July 8, 2014 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeBeancounters at IDC say that public cloud services reached US$45.7 billion last year and will experience a 23 percent compound annual growth rate through 2018.

More than  86 percent of the 2013 total came from cloud software, which encompasses both SaaS (software as a service) applications and PaaS (platform as a service) offerings, with the remaining 14 percent generated by cloud infrastructure.

ERM (enterprise resource management) application software made up $10.8 billion in public cloud revenue last year, followed by CRM (customer relationship management) products with $8.1 billion

Meanwhile Server made $4 billion and collaboration software $3.4 billion, with the remainder of the total spread over security and other markets, IDC said.

The top SaaS vendors are Salesforce.com and ADP followed by Intuit, Oracle and Microsoft.

This means that Oracle’s recent claim to have become the industry’s second-largest SaaS company are probably sales puff.

ADP is an established seller of hosted services for payroll and other human resources functions. It generated more than $11 billion in revenue during its last fiscal year, and in 2011 made a big push into human capital management with Vantage, a cloud-based suite.

Amazon.com first in the PaaS market, with Salesforce.com and Microsoft tied for second place, followed by GXS and Google.

Amazon was also the top of the infrastructure category, followed by Rackspace, IBM, CenturyLink and Microsoft.

Most public cloud services are a in the US which makes up for 68 percent of the overall public cloud market. This figure will fall to 59 percent by 2018 as Western Europe’s take rises from 19 percent to 23 percent and growth picks up in emerging markets, IDC said.

While punters are falling over themselves for cloud software, IDC said that part of the growth is due to the fact that on-premises vendors such as Oracle and SAP have now managed to build out broad SaaS portfolios to offer their customers.

Cloud services account for relatively little of those companies’ overall revenue right now, but that is sure to change over time.

KitKat will always be in Jelly Bean shadow

Posted on July 8, 2014 by - News

android-china-communistHopes that the use of Android 4.4 KitKat would continue to grow dramatically appear to be unfounded.

In May there was a sudden rise in the use of Android 4.4 by five percent.  That led many to predict a meteoric rise in the use of the operating system.

However figures reported this month show a much more modest growth.

Google said that based on data collected in a 7-day period ending 7th July, which shows that Android 4.4 KitKat is sitting at a 17.9 per cent distribution. This is a slight increase from before but the increase of 4.3% is slightly less than the 5.1 percent from May.

Numbers for older builds of Android have started to decrease as well. Gingerbread has fallen from 14.9 per cent to 13.5 per cent which finally allowed KitKat to overtake it. Froyo has dropped as well from 0.8 per cent  to 0.7 per cent  Ice Cream Sandwich from 12.3 per cent to 11.4 per cent; and Jelly Bean from 58.4 per cent to 56.5 per cent which still puts it in the majority.

Various OEMs such as Motorola and OnePlus promise to update their products to Android L it seems unlikely that Android 4.4 KitKat will ever do as well as  Jelly Bean.

Samsung smartphone sales slump

Posted on July 8, 2014 by - News

smartphones-genericThere are signs that the rise of electronic’s giant Samsung is losing its impetus after it issued unexpectedly weak quarterly earnings guidance.

It is looking as like the outfit is headed for its worst results in two years and that its plans to deal with cheaper Chinese rivals are not working.

The South Korean company said it saw better business conditions in the third quarter,  butit faces slowing market growth, intensifying price competition from the cheap and cheerful market.

While smartphones drove Samsung to record profits last year, the market is maturing. Research firm IDC predicts global shipments growth will slow to 19.3 percent this year from 39.2 percent in 2013, while average sales prices will also drop.

Some analysts said Samsung may have no choice but to slash prices for mid-to-low tier devices, where growth is stronger, and target Huawei and Lenovo.

That will help defend market share it would also hurt margins, curbing its earnings recovery in the short term.

Samsung said that it cautiously expects a better third-quarter outlook with the release of a new smartphone lineup, lower marketing costs and a seasonal lift in demand for its memory business. Its flagship Galaxy Note 4 is expected to hit the market in September.

Samsung estimated on Tuesday that its April-June operating profit likely fell 24.5 percent from a year earlier to $7.12 billion, the sharpest percentage drop since the first quarter of 2011 and the weakest level since the second quarter of 2012.

In a separate statement, Samsung said second-quarter earnings would be hit by slower global smartphone market growth, competition in China, inventory buildup in Europe and the strength of the won.

 

Intel scores Panasonic fab contract

Posted on July 8, 2014 by - News

intel_log_reversedThe sales teams at Chipzilla have opened the champers after scoring a key contract with Panasonic.

Intel chips will now be under the bonnect of Panasonic’s upcoming TVs, stereos and other audiovisual gear.

Intel signed an agreement with Panasonic to make next-generation system-on-chips to process audio and video. The chips will be made using Intel’s 14-nanometer process.

Under the plan Chipzilla will work with Panasonic’s System LSI division, which makes video encoding/decoding and chips for TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and other products.

It seems that Panasonic will design the chips, which will then be sent to Intel’s fabrication plants for manufacturing. The Panasonic SOCs will be based around 3D transistors.

Intel said that adding a high-profile customer like Panasonic will enhance the visibility of Intel’s fledgling chip manufacturing operations.

The company has been slowly expanding its custom-chip business, opening up its factories to external companies as a way of making back some of the costs of upgrading factories.

 

Russia insists that data is kept at home

Posted on July 7, 2014 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeThe Russian government has enacted a law which means that all cloud data must be kept within the confines of the country.

The move will mean that if US cloud operators want to work in Mother Russia they cannot send the data to their main warehouses in the US or EU.

Bill number 553424-6  specifies that “when collecting personal data, including information and telecommunications network, the Internet, the operator must ensure that record, systematisation, accumulation, storage, updated, modified, removing the personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation, in databases, of information located in the territory of the Russian Federation.”

On the face of it, it looks like the Russians are protecting their citizens from being spied on by the evil US spooks, but it also makes it easier for the government to spy on its own citizens.

Russia Today said the law could provide businesses with some major headaches.  Airlines, for example, rely on hosted software and software-as-a-service providers are not going to be keen to have to build new data centres.

The law comes into force on September 1st, 2016, giving Russian companies plenty of time to set something up.  It could be a boom time for local hosting companies.

NSA snooping is not targeted at terrorists

Posted on July 7, 2014 by - News

skullkThe Washington Post  has poured cold water on the idea that ordinary people have nothing to fear from NSA snooping.

After a four month investigation it turns out that ordinary internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from US digital networks.

Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.

Nearly half of the surveillance files, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to US citizens or residents.

The reason for this is because to be effective the spooks have to track alias accounts. Months of tracking communications across more than 50 alias accounts, the files show, led directly to the 2011 capture in Abbottabad of Muhammad Tahir Shahzad, a Pakistan-based bomb builder, and Umar Patek, a suspect in a 2002 terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali.

But a huge chunk of useless files have been retained. This include what the Post calls “stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes “.

The daily lives of more than 10,000 people who were not targeted, not connected to any terrorist activity are catalogued and recorded.

The sweep is huge.  If a real target entered an online chat room, the NSA collected the words and identities of every person who posted there, as well as every person who simply “lurked.”

US tech workers are revolting

Posted on July 7, 2014 by - News

India_flagThree US tech worker groups have launched a labour boycott of IBM, Infosys and Manpower.
Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild and WashTech claim that the outfits discourage US workers from applying for US IT jobs by tailoring employment ads toward overseas workers, writes Nick Farrell.

In one case a Manpower subsidiary has advertised for Indian IT workers to come to the US for openings anticipated more than a year in advance. The advertisements in India are being placed even though the nature of the tech industry is so fast-paced that staffing projections cannot be adequately foreseen.

Not surprisingly the three groups believe that companies should look first for US workers to fill US IT jobs.

The main goals of the boycott are “attention getting” and putting pressure on the IT staffing firms to change their practice.

Infosys denied that it avoids recruiting US IT workers and pointed to job adverts for 440 active openings across 20 states in the US.  Many of the jobs require a US master’s degree in business administration.

However there is a general concern that tech companies are lobbying for a relaxation of visa restrictions to cope with a “tech skills shortage” which is not really there.  Instead they are bringing in foreign developers who are cheaper than their US counterparts.

Humanity will be replaced by machines

Posted on July 7, 2014 by - News

TheTerminatorLouis Del Monte, physicist, entrepreneur, and author of “The Artificial Intelligence Revolution” and nothing to do with orange juice has warned that since there is no legislation regarding how much intelligence a machine can have, how interconnected it can be, machines will start to replace humans as the top species in 2040.

Del Monte,had a cheerful chat to Business Insider.

He said that humanity and machines will reach a point when a singularity is possible between 2040, though Del Monte says it might be as late as 2045.

He said that it will not be a ‘Terminator’ scenario, or a war.  In the early part of the post-singularity world, one scenario is that the machines will seek to turn humans into cyborgs. This is nearly happening now, replacing faulty limbs with artificial parts. We’ll see the machines as a useful tool. Productivity in business based on automation will be increased dramatically in various countries. In China it doubled, just based on GDP per employee due to use of machines.”

He said that by the end of this century most of the human race will have become cyborgs who will have the promise of immortality. Machines will make breakthroughs in medical technology, most of the human race will have more leisure time, and we’ll think we’ve never had it better. The concern he has is that the machines will view us as an unpredictable and dangerous.

Del Monte believes machines will become self-conscious and have the capabilities to protect themselves.

Eventually they might view humanity in the same way we view harmful insects. Humans are an unstable species that creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses.

He said he wrote the book as “a warning.” Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more capable, and we’re adopting it as quickly as it appears. A pacemaker operation is “quite routine,” he said, but “it uses sensors and AI to regulate your heart.”

AI machines can learn self-preservation and whether or not they’re conscious is a moot point.

Flat battery? You don’t fly

Posted on July 7, 2014 by - News

pressieThe self-feeding paranoia of US airport security checks has just reached a new level as Homeland Security has become worried about computers which do not switch on.

According to Gizmodo, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson woke up in a cold sweat worried about all those people who get onto planes with flat batteries on their electronic devices.
Johnson said devices that won’t turn on will be confiscated, and passengers may be diverted for “additional questioning”.

The fear is that a terrorist will be on a plane with smartphone or laptop with a flat battery and this will mean… well we are not quite sure. The whole point of checking electronic gear was to make sure that it could not be used as part of a terrorist attack, however if it does not work then it can’t be.

However Johnson thinks that people who don’t charge their gear before they get on a flight must be terrorists and should not be allowed to board a plane.  Our next bet is that he will wake up in the morning with a fear that those who don’t wash their hands before they get on board a plane are terrorists.

Practically this means that if you are dumb enough to bring any electronics on a plane on US soil you should have it fully charged beforehand.   It is much safer to stick your electronics inside your suitcase, where if it is a bomb it is not going to be probed by TSA officials.

AP mentions that American intelligence officials have been worried about terrorists finding new ways to bring explosives onto airplanes undetected and apparently they have vivid imaginations.  Already we have that dumb rule about water bottles, and toiletries, you can’t wear a belt, or high heels.  The process of getting on the plane is now longer than the flight.

IBM says Andy Murray was doomed

Posted on July 4, 2014 by - News

ibm-officeBig Blue has been running its divination software trying to work out who is going to win Wimbledon.

According to IBM, British tennis hope Andy Murray was doomed from the outset and was always going to lose to Grigor Dimitrov.

IBM credited Dimitrov with 50 aggressive forehands to 44 for Murray during Wednesday’s men’s quarter-final match, in which Bulgarian Dimitrov knocked out last year’s men’s champion in straight sets.

In short the IBM system claims the Briton was a less aggressive player than opponent Grigor Dimitrov and was due for a good kicking.

These figures tallied with our own predictions that were based on a simple algorithm. If player is British, then player = loser.   Our algorithm was highly successful in the World Cup where we accurately predicted England being sent home.

This year’s Wimbledon marks the first time IBM has used the system which was developed from data combined from last year’s Wimbledon championship, the US Open, as well as this year’s Australian Open.

It defines an aggressive shot based on speed, landing location of the ball, distance the opponent had to move to get to the shot; and the opponent’s position for the return.

The statistics cannot be used to predict with certainty who will win a  match, but they can help to analyse why a particular match against a particular player went the way it did, and also to prepare for an opponent, IBM says.

Bill Jinks, an IBM engineer working on the project, said that data was changing the way the game was played.

Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard, who is ranked 13th in the world but beat Germany’s Angelique Kerber, ranked 7th, on Wednesday to reach the women’s semi-finals, said her coach looks at the IBM data.

The system predicted 38 aggressive forehands for Bouchard during the match against 29 for Kerber, and 23 aggressive backhands versus just 15 for the seventh seed.

At this rate the sports people will not have to actually play a game, the computer will predict who wins, everyone applauds and goes for strawberry and cream.