Tag: techeye

FBI investigates Gamergate

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

untouchablesThe FBI has confirmed that it has opened an investigation related to the #Gamergate campaign, which had rapidly turned from a debate about “journalistic ethics in the gaming software world” to a hate campaign against women.

The bureau stated that, while they have documents related to the loose coalition of Gamergate those files are part of an ongoing investigation, and release “would interfere with law enforcement proceedings.” Who or what is being investigated remains is unknown.

A number of individuals, including Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, have reported death threats after being targeted by Gamergate.

This will be bad news for the hackers and script kiddies who thought that they would be allowed to cyber stalk women and threaten to kill them without any reaction from the police. It is also a bit embarrassing for those who thought that #Gamergate was not illegal and the negative response was just the ranting of a few women who were trying to stop them playing games and go outside.

Although how it could justify DDOSing a disabled charity  is anyone’s guess.

 

Apple breaks promises on Chinese suppliers

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

appleApple products continue to be made by workers in shocking conditions, despite promises from Jobs’ Mob to the contrary, according to an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Panorama found standards on workers’ hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: “Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn’t want to move.

“Even if I was hungry I wouldn’t want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress.”

Rather than fessing up, Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme’s conclusions, although it declined to be interviewed for the programme.

It insisted that no other company wsa doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

Apple said it was a very common practice for workers to nap during breaks, but it would investigate any evidence they were falling asleep while working. We guess it will want to make sure that someone comes along to wake them up.

It said it monitored the working hours of more than a million workers and that staff at Pegatron were averaging 55 hours a week.

Apple published a set of standards spelling out how factory workers should be treated. It also moved some of its production work to Pegatron’s factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

However, Panorama found these standards were routinely breached on the factory floor. Voluntary overtime was not what it said it was and one reporter had to attend unpaid meetings before and after work. Another reporter was housed in a dormitory where 12 workers shared a cramped room.

Apple insists that the dormitory overcrowding has now been resolved and that it requires suppliers to retroactively pay workers if it finds they have not been paid for work meetings.

Google creates nightmare for business sites

Posted on December 19, 2014 by - News

 nightmareThe search engine Google is about to name and shame any site which does not use the HTTPS security protocol.

For years, it has been enough for site users to build their websites using HTTP with only those who run financial transactions needing the more secure protocol.

Now Google is proposing to warn people their data is at risk every time they visit websites that do not use the “HTTPS” system.

If implemented, the developers wrote, the change would mean that a warning would pop-up when people visited a site that used only HTTP to notify them that such a connection “provides no data security.”

The team said it was odd that browsers currently did nothing to warn people when their data was unprotected.

“The only situation in which web browsers are guaranteed not to warn users is precisely when there is no chance of security,” they wrote.

HTTPS uses well-established cryptographic systems to scramble data as it travels from a user’s computer to a website.

However, website operators might have a few problems when it comes to adopting the HTTPS system, but could see traffic plummet if they do not.

Currently only about 33 per cent of websites use HTTPS, according to statistics gathered by the Trustworthy Internet Movement which monitors the way sites use more secure browsing technologies.

Many large websites and services, including Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and GMail, already use HTTPS by default. In addition, since September Google has prioritised HTTPS sites in its search rankings.

 

Google faces antitrust hearing

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

330ogleA judge will hear a plea from Google today that she on dismiss an antitrust lawsuit in San Jose based on a class action against the internet giant.

Google will ask US District Judge Beth Freeman to dismiss a class action alleging that its Android operating system forces companies that use the OS in their devices to not use competing software from other companies like Microsoft.

Google will argue that people are free to use any apps on Android that they want to even though the plaintiffs insist it’s difficult or fiddly to do so.

If the class action is allowed to proceed, it’s likely that it will take some time and we’ll be treated to internal Google emails while executives from the company might be required to argue their position under oath.

Google is under increased scrutiny for its business activities.  A four year long investigation in Europe was given extra impetus last month when the European Parliament passed a resolution to break up the company because of its dominance. That caused the US administration to express worries about the case being politicised.

The European Commission has not yet given any indication of when its investigations will be completed, but has the power to levy large fines on the firm.

Fashion designers get fingered by big data

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

Wikimedia CommonsThe use of analytics and big data has demonstrated how style trends surge through the industry, according to researchers at Penn State University.

Heng Xu, a professor of info science and tech at Penn, said a team of researchers analysed a large number of words and phrases from fashion reviews.

Xu said: “Data analytics are becoming more available for finding patterns, establishing correlations and identifying trends”.  He said: “It is being applied to many industries and fields, from health care to politics, but what we wanted to see is if data analytics could be used in the fashion industry.”

Her team extracted keywords and phrases describing silhouettes, colours, fabrics and other data from designers’ collection and then created algorithms to rank the designers and find out their influence.

Fashion designers can be sceptical about big data and analytics because they consider themselves to be artists.  But the team said it had found fingerprints that could be related to individual designers.

“Buying from leading designers is expensive, but if you had information on what design elements were beginning to trend, it might help you buy the latest fashion more inexpensively,” Said Xu.

The team believes the analytics will help them to discover who the next big fashion designer could be.

US acts to prevent Asian solar dumping

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

solarsThe USA regulary publishes anti-dumping and countervailing duties and it looks like it’s taking tough action against China to prevent its home solar panel market being threatened.

Trendforce, a Taiwanese market intelligence company, said the US has raised Chinese solar anti-dumping tariffs to as much as 165 percent, while rates for Taiwanese manufacturing have decreased.

Even given the stiff tariffs imposed by the US, demand in the country for Asian modules continues to grow.  And in a bid to prevent the tariffs spoiling their businesses, Chinese manufacturers have set up module manufacturing in Europe, Canada, South Africa, Malaysia, India, Japan and Turkey, according to Trendforce.

Jason Huang, a research manager at Trendforce, said that the rulings mean that Taiwanese prices will rise in the short term.  “In addition to the stimulus from the anti-dumping, countervailing duties final ruling, prices are also encouraged by the UK, by Japan and China’s markets.  It is expected to increase both in shipment volume and price in the first quarter of 2015,” he said.

The USA has its own solar panel business and the govenmment introduces the anti-dumping and countervailing duties to stimulate its own home grown marketplace.

Thin clients survive PC battle

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCThere’s been a battle in the enterprise between thin clients and commercial PC for market share and it looks like the thin clients have won.

According to IDC, thin clients competed directly with commercial PCs for market share and in 2014 the former did better than the latter.

Thin clients in the EMEA market are still a small market but growth exceeded market average and they will continue to grow  in 2015.

Oleg Sidorkin, a senior research analyst at IDC said: “Rapid deployment of thin client technology generates a leveraging effect, accelerating further adoption.”  The top four countries for shipments are Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and France – together they will represent 65.1 percent of the entire EMEA market by the end of the year.

These large markets will continue to grow.  “Once vendors gain a foothold in these markets, they can grow quickly as these markets continue to increase their EMEA share,” he said.

Brit launches first Bitcoin marketplace

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

Nick Boardman - Mike Magee picEntrepreneur Nick Boardman said he has introduced a Bitcoin online company which uses Bitcoins as its sole currency.

BTXDeals will differ from other etailers by offering a cost per sale that’s lower than 50 percent of charges from Amazon and eBay.

Boardman said that there are no additional or hidden fees.

Vendors can list an unlimited number of items at no charge, and be paid in either Bitcoins or UK pounds.  Boardman said BTXDeals won’t compete with the vendors but on building a secure and price conscious place where vendors can sell their gear.

Boardman said: “As the first of its kind, BTXDeals embraces the potential of Bitcoin and provides a safe, secure and transparent form of online shopping.  We believe this virtual currency will become the future for all e-commerce transactions.”

Customers already include Grange Hotels, Shy Aviation, Sun Mountain Golf, K Bassam Jewellers, Time Square Birmingham and others.  Boardman said the company is in negotiations with a number of other major suppliers. It expects to expand its product and service range over the coming months.

Boardman is well known in the tech business, previous enterprise included Rock Group plc and other ventures.

2014 a breakthrough year for the cloud

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

29295727Big Blue is telling the world+dog that 2014 was its breakthrough year for its cloud computing business.

IBM said it will expand the number of data centres it offers clients around the world by 25 percent to meet fast-rising demand for internet-based services.

The outfit has quadrupled the number of cloud data facilities it offers around the world to 49 in the past 18 months, responding in part to laws requiring the local retention of data following revelations over US government Web surveillance as well as increased corporate compliance rules.

The company said on Wednesday it has now struck a partnership with data centre provider Equinix for nine more cloud centres in Australia, France, Japan, Singapore, The Netherlands and the United States. It is also opening up three new cloud computer facilities of its own in Germany, Mexico and Japan.

Angel Luiz Diaz, vice president in charge of IBM’s cloud computing business, told Reuters that the company had a good year which was a “breakthrough year in cloud.”

IBM’s cloud revenue amounted to $4.4 billion in 2013 and was up by 50 percent in the first nine months of this year, it reported in October, making it one of IBM’s fastest-growing businesses, although it still accounts for only a fraction of the $94 billion in total revenues which IBM is expected by analysts to generate this year.

It looks like IBM’s multi-year deals of more than $4 billion that are fuelling the company’s expansion in data centres.

IBM also said it had reached a cloud services deal with National Express Group to enable the UK-based bus and trains operator to offer commuters up-to-the-minute train schedules and what it said would be Britain’s first postcode-to-postcode journey planner.

North Korea causes US to surrender

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

Kim Jong Un, courtesy of North Korea news agencyWhen it comes to winning a war which does not involve flinging bullets at the enemy, flying high tech-drones, or cruise missiles, it seems that the US is hopeless.

After the FBI identified that the Sony hack was caused by North Korean cyber warriors who were miffed about a comedy film which involved North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Sony immediately surrendered and pulled the flick “The Interview” from distribution.

This followed the fact that five theatre circuits in North America have decided not to play Sony’s The Interview.

Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment have all decided against showing the film.

“Due to the wavering support of the film The Interview by Sony Pictures, as well as the ambiguous nature of any real or perceived security threats, Regal Entertainment Group has decided to delay the opening of the film in our theatres,” Regal said.

Cinemark also confirmed Wednesday that the chain had determined that they would not exhibit the film “at this time.” In addition, Cineplex, which is based in Canada, said it had decided to “postpone” the movie, with a spokesman saying, “Cineplex takes seriously its commitment to the freedom of artistic expression, but we want to reassure our guests and staff that their safety and security is our number one priority.”

It seems that the hackers managed what Kim Jong-un’s rocket threats, and artillery shelling could not – the complete surrender of US forces.

Sony had refused to back down from its plans to release the film, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, on December 25. Instead, in discussions with exhibitors, it told the exhibitors it was up to them whether or not they played the movie and that Sony would support whatever decision they made.

However, clearly, the distributors were terrified of the North Koreans and any stiff upper lip was above a loose flabby chin.

What this means, of course, is that Kim’s Cyber Warriors will be back. After all, if you have a weapon which can bring the United States to its knees that easily, you will use it. Sony would have been better off running the film and telling everyone it was a matter of patriotic pride to show North Korea who really was boss.  Apparently running screaming like a four year-old girl from a guy in a clown mask is US defence policy now – clearly following the role model given by the French who helped found the country.

 

Canada investigates Apple for antitrust antics

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

mountie-maintain-rightThe fruity cargo cult Apple has managed to fall foul of Canada over the way that it used its market power to kill off rivals.

The Federal Court of Canada agreed to order Apple’s Canadian subsidiary to turn over documents to the Competition Bureau to help investigate whether Apple unfairly used its control of suppliers to kill off competition.

The Competition Bureau said agreements Apple negotiated with wireless carriers may have cut into competition by encouraging the companies to maintain or boost the price of rival phones.

Under the order, Apple will have 90 days to turn over the documents, which include agreements it has reached with Canadian mobile carriers.

Competition Bureau lawyer Derek Leschinsky said Apple lawyers have threatened the company might launch a constitutional challenge of the right of Canadian courts to force Apple’s wholly owned Canadian subsidiary to turn over records held by the California-based parent company.

In other words, its lawyers were not going to tackle the problem of its anti-competitive behaviour, just that it has a right to do what it likes because it is a US company and did not have to hand over any incriminating documents.

Leschinsky pointed out that the provision of the Competition Act that gives Canadian courts the power to compel the production of documents held outside Canada has never been found to be unconstitutional.

Chief Justice Crampton agreed there is increasing legal consensus around the world that such provisions are legitimate.

Robots make up half of web traffic

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

114More than half of traffic on the World Wide Web is mostly created by robots reporting on the activities of humans.

According to security outfit Incapsula in 2014, bots roaming the internet represented 56 percent of total web traffic. This is a decrease from 2013, when bots represented 61.5 percent of total internet traffic.

The majority of these bots are ‘good’ bots which include ‘crawlers’ that index web pages for search engines, social networking platforms, RSS feeds and translation services.

Incapsula is worried about an increasing number of ‘bad’ bots, which pose a threat to websites. The worst are ‘impersonator’ bots which are malevolent intruders engineered to circumvent common security measures. They have increased by 15 percent in the last two years.

Incapsul’s Igal Zeifman said that more than 90 percent of all cyber attacks that are executed by bots and  the worst case scenario really depends on the attacker’s intentions and the target.

“Bots can spam, scam, spy, execute denial of service attacks and hack – they can do whatever a human hacker ‘teaches’ them to do, only on a much (much) bigger scale – and this arguably delays the internet’s growth, both as a medium and as a place of business.”

The overall decrease in bot traffic is the result of a steady drop in good bot activity. RSS services are dying and Google’s RSS service, Google Reader, shutdown in July 2013.

Zeifman said click-fraud bots that undermine the advertisers’ profitability are also growing in number.

“I think that today most advertisers have accepted the fact that some of their online budget will be lost on bots. However, I also believe that, as these losses continue to grow, the need for bot filtering solutions will become more and more clear,” he said.

 

 

TorrentLocker has trapped 39,000 victims

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - News

mantrap Cybercriminals behind the TorrentLocker malware may have earned as much as $585,000 over several months from 39,000 PC infections.

But apparently more than 9,000 of the victims were from Australia thanks to a poisoned website which claimed to be the Australia Post newspaper.

TorrentLocker is one of several ransomware threats that have emerged in the wake law enforcement action against CryptoLocker earlier this year.

TorrentLocker demands payment of up to $1,500 in Bitcoin to unlock victim’s encrypted files. Whether victims pay depends on how much they value files.

Security vendor ESET said that the hackers behind TorrentLocker put extra effort into defrauding Australian computer users via a several bogus websites for Australia Post and the NSW Office of State Revenue.

The hackers were more successful Turkey which made 11,700 infections, but that country has a bigger population with less crocodiles. Italy, the UK, the Czech Republic, and Netherlands all had infections of between 4,500 and 2,280 each, which was also on the higher side.

Few victims actually paid. According to ESET researcher and author of the report, Marc-Etienne M.Léveillé, only 1.44 percent or 577 of the infections translated in to payment for the hackers. Still, based on the Bitcoin exchange rate of $384.94 on November 29, TorrentLocker’s operators may have earned between anywhere between $292,700 and $585,401, which is not bad money.

The PCs were infected by spam email that encourages the victim to open what appears to be a document but is in fact an executable file that will install the malware and encrypt the files.

Messages included tricking victims into opening files marked unpaid invoices, package tracking and unpaid speeding tickets.

“For example, if a victim is believed to be in Australia, fake package tracking information will be sent spoofed to appear as if it comes from Australia Post. The location of the potential victim can be determined by the top level domain used in the e-mail address of the target or the ISP to which it is referring,” ESET notes in its report.

The fake Australian domains the attackers have bought for the campaign include sites that look like the legitimate Australia Post domain austpost.com.au. These are austpost-tracking.com and austpost-tracking.org. Domains they have acquired to appear like the NSW Office of State Revenue’s real domain osr.nsw.gov.au include the bogus domains nsw-gov.net and osr-nsw-gov.net.

TorrentLocker’s “side task” is to steal the address book from email clients on the infected machine and contains code that enables this feature for Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail.

Intel signs up with Chinese giant

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoIntel and Chinese e-commerce giant jd.com have signed a deal with each other to create a new type of laboratory.

According to the Xinhua news agency, both companies will work on creating 3D product displays and “visual fitting rooms”, smart hardware, and servers for enterprises for promoting online shopping.

Xinhua said jd.com is one of the world’s top 10 internet companies and Intel will help it improve its existing e-commerce services as well as working on new applications related to ID authentication, security, and database monitoring.

Jd.com has something like 25 million registered users.

No financial details of the deal between the two corporations was released.

Intel has been trying to reposition itself in the last 18 months as more of a general purpose corporation, rather than just a manufacturer of X86 chips.  It also wants a chunk of the lucrative pie known as the internet of things, and is still desperate to make its mark in the mobile and tablet markets.

This deal, then, is something of an oddity.

Google reveals top 2014 searches

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

330ogleSearch giant Google processes trillions of searches a year and now it’s released a list of the top searches in a number of different categories for 2014.

The top searches across all categories were Robin Williams, World Cup, Ebola, Malaysia Airlines, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Flappy Bird, Conchita Wurst, ISIS, Frozen and Sochi Olympics.

And top five people searched for in 2014 were Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Julie Gayet, Tracy Morgan and Renee Zwellweger.

On the techie side, the most searched for terms were the iPhone 6, the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Nexus 6, the Moto G, the Samsung Note 4, the LG G3, the Xbox One, the Apple watch, the Nokia X, and the iPad Air.

Apple scored number five in the top YouTube videos with the iPhone 6 Plus Bend test.

The top five deaths were Robin Williams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peaches Geldof, Shirley Temple and Maya Angelous.