The Aymac Group Blog - Technology News

European Commission clears Google, Motorola merger

2012-02-14T07:17:00.000-05:00

Google is one step closer to acquiring Motorola Mobility, the smartphone maker, after it cleared the hurdle of the European Commission this afternoon. It is also expected that U.S. antitrust regulators will approve the deal, following the lead from European authorities.

The executive body of the 27 member states falls within its deadline of ruling by February 13th.

The Commission said: “it would not significantly modify the market situation in respect of operating systems and patents for these devices.”

It also acknowledged that Google would be unlikely to “restrict the use of Android solely to Android”, which is a “minority player” in Europe.

“The Commission therefore concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it”.

Google said today that the decision was an “important milestone”, but acknowledged it has further hoops to jump through. “We are now just waiting for decisions from a few other jurisdictions before we can close this transaction.”

Google, the search giant and maker of the Android mobile operating system, set out its proposals to acquire Motorola Mobility last year for $12.5 billion.

Not only does it create a stable ecosystem for Android devices, Google is set to receive over 17,000 patents which would bolster its portfolio, and help protect itself from patent disputes.

The Commission has not asked for any further details from the two companies, nor has it decided to open up an antitrust investigation, two decisions that could have been widely damaging to the two companies.

Earlier this week, Google pledged to license Motorola patents on ‘fair, reasonable and reasonable’ (FRAND) terms to other mobile manufacturers, even competitors, should the deal succeed.

“The Commission’s guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements adopted last year make clear that commitments to license on FRAND terms are crucial to ensure access to standardised technology for all interested parties,” a statement from the Commission said.

However, European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that it would “continue to keep a close eye on the behaviour of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents”.

Often in cases such as this, high cost mergers or acquisitions, the U.S. antitrust authorities — as the home turf of many of these companies — work closely with its European counterparts to secure a similar or identical resolution. A European decision was necessary due to Google and Motorola both having a presence in the region, and having European customers.

But regulators in Israel and Taiwan have not yet ruled on the decision. While it would not be impossible to go ahead with the deal — with Europe as the second greatest hurdle after U.S. authorities, which are expected to rule this week — it would be a complication that the three parties would have to reach an agreement on.

Chinese authorities must also clear the deal. Google does not have a permanent base in the country since it pulled out of the region over claims the Chinese government hacked into its networks. But Motorola has an invested future in the region, with much of its supply chain coming from China.

There is little speculation on what the Chinese could do in such a situation. They may veto the deal, which would cause logistical nightmares for Motorola particularly, but Google alike, and may force the two companies to postpone the merger altogether.

ZDNet’s Hana Stewart-Smith, based in Tokyo, reports that China has flaunted its power over Western brands within their territory before. As we’ve seen with the ongoing Apple ‘iPad’ trademark dispute, even the largest Western companies are making considerable concessions to get to the coveted Chinese market.

As for Google’s relationship with China, they have recently expressed an interest in pushing back into the country. Despite its withdrawal, Google is still popular with the Chinese, and Motorola is one of their biggest mobile sellers.

Stewart-Smith understands the Chinese authorities would not go so far as to actually veto the deal, but nevertheless does not think they will make it easy either. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold back the merger and delay a decision to keep Google and Motorola guessing,” she said.
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Google pulls content in India

2012-02-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

Google Inc. has agreed to remove some content in India that is considered offensive by political and religious leaders in the country, the Mercury News reports.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) was complying with a court order in the latest twist in legal fights over Web censorship around the globe.

Google pulled content from its search service, its YouTube video site and its Blogger blogging site.

The move comes after weeks of Indian government pressure on 22 Internet companies to remove photos, videos and text considered to be "anti-religious" or "anti-social."
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Iran to kill Canadian web developer

2012-01-27T18:08:00.000-05:00

Iran has decided that a Canadian man who visited the country a couple of years ago deserves to die for promoting porn.

Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites.

Saeed Malekpour was visiting the country in October 2008 when he was picked up by plainclothes police and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge.

After a year, Malekpour was wheeled out in front of the television cameras, confessing to a series of "crimes" in connection with a porn website. On the basis of his TV confessions, he was convicted of designing and moderating adult materials online by a court in Tehran.

He later retracted his confessions in a letter sent from prison, in which he said they had "extracted under pressure, physical and psychological torture" and in the face of threats to him and his family.

Malekpour is a permanent resident of Canada. He wrote photo-uploading software which was used by a porn website without his knowledge.

After an international campaign and expert evidence, the supreme court suspended Malekpour's death sentence in June 2011 and ordered a judicial review

According to the Guardian, the view of the court was that it was all fair enough to execute a visitor to their country for something which is not a crime in the country they reside, and in any event they are probably innocent.

Drewery Dyke, of Amnesty International, said that it seems Iran believes its law can be extended to other countries.

Malekpour was charged with the crime of spreading corruption on Earth which is vaguely worded. So, basically, if you do anything that might miff the Iranian top brass and their ideologies, it might not be such a good idea to visit the country which once was a flower of human civilisation. That is unless you want to be strung up in a car park, which we can't imagine is on anyone's agenda.
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Documentary examines how toxic water at the nation’s largest Marine base damaged lives

2012-01-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

(Gerry Broome/ASSOCIATED PRESS) - This 2007 photo shows some of the older base housing at Midway Park neighborhood at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

By Darryl Fears, Published: January 21

Mike Partain didn’t believe the rumors about a place called Baby Heaven until he visited a Jacksonville, N.C., graveyard and wandered into a section where newborns were laid to rest.

Surrounded by hundreds of tiny marble headstones, he started to cry. A documentary film crew that followed him for a story about water contamination at Camp Lejeune heard his whimpers through a microphone clipped to his clothes. The crew dashed from another part of the graveyard and found him asking, “Why them and not me?”

The scene at Jacksonville City Cemetery is among the more poignant moments in the documentary “Semper Fi: Always Faithful,” about the men, women and children affected over three decades by contaminated water at the nation’s largest Marine base. The film made the short list of 15 documentary features being considered for an Oscar; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will cut the list to five Tuesday.

“Semper Fi” follows Partain and Jerome “Jerry” Ensminger, the men credited with uncovering records showing that the amount of leaked fuel that led to water contamination was many times greater than the Marine Corps acknowledged.

A congressional hearing in 2007 revealed that the camp ignored a directive from the Navy to inspect its water systems for possible contamination and to develop a protocol for the safe disposal of hazardous compounds.

The Marine Corps at Lejeune routinely dumped fluids containing harmful chemicals, which leached into groundwater and eventually contaminated a well. For decades, buried tanks also leaked fuel, allowing the chemical benzene, a known carcinogen, into the ground nearby.

But Camp Lejeune failed to study the health risks of its water after toxic compounds were discovered in the early 1980s, and did not notify Marines and their families. Up to a million people who rotated in and out of the base from the late 1950s to the late 1980s relied on the water to drink and bathe.

The Marine Corps has said it wasn’t aware of the contaminants until the mid-1980s and that contacting the 750,000 to 1 million military personnel and civilians who lived at Camp Lejeune during those decades is too large an undertaking.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry sent a survey last year to about 300,000 people who lived or worked at the Marine base before 1986. The agency expects to release the findings in early 2014.

“We care about every person who has ever lived or worked at Camp Lejeune,” Capt. Kendra Hardesty, a Marine Corps spokeswoman, said last year when the surveys were being sent out. “We are concerned about these individuals and are working hard with the scientific and medical communities to try to find them answers.”

Death of daughter

Ensminger, a square-jawed ex-Marine master sergeant, is still haunted by the death of his 9-year-old daughter, Janey, from cancer in 1985. Partain, who was born at the base in 1968, is one of more than 70 men who lived there and now suffer from rare male breast cancer.

During four years of filming that ended last year, the two men heard mention of a cemetery near Camp Lejeune where hundreds of sick and malformed babies were interred.
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Chris Dodd SOPA Bribery Investigation Petition Has Thousands of Signatures

2012-01-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

A petition asking the White House to investigate former senator Chris Dodd for allegedly bribing federal lawmakers in the fight to pass the SOPA bill has thousands of signatures so far.

The petition arose in response to comments Chris Dodd--who stepped down from his post representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate in January of last year--made regarding his work for the Motion Picture Association to advocate for the passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The SOPA bill was shelved earlier this week after an intense opposition campaign forced some lawmakers to withdraw their support for the controversial bill, and Dodd has been critical of the successful push to stop the bill from passing.

Chris Dodd signed on as chairman of the MPAA after stepping down from the Senate last year, and he has been under fire ever since for engaging in what his opponents allege is "bribery" while pushing the SOPA bill.

See the full text of the petition at the end of this story, or view it on the White House website here.

Dodd has come under intense criticism for his role at the MPAA in the SOPA debate. He is not allowed to directly lobby in Congress, so he has acted as a coordinator of the association's activities in Washington, which were focused for the last several months in large part on passing the SOPA bill.

SOPA was ostensibly aimed at curbing rampant online piracy of intellectual propety, but its critics contended that it would restrict free speech and internet rights. Dodd said he finds such assertions are "offensive."

On Jan. 19, Chris Dodd spoke with the Hollywood Reporter about SOPA:

"Illegal conduct is not protected by the First Amendment. The Internet is not a law-free zone," Dodd told the Hollywood Reporter. "It doesn't create exceptions for illegal activity. Stealing is wrong. The First Amendment doesn't protect stealing. There's nothing in this bill in any manner, shape or form that would deprive people of their First Amendment rights."

Full text of Chris Dodd SOPA bribery petition:

"Recently on FOX News former Senator Chris Dodd said (as quoted on news site TechDirt), 'Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,' This is an open admission of bribery and a threat designed to provoke a specific policy goal. This is a brazen flouting of the "above the law" status people of Dodd's position and wealth enjoy.

We demand justice. Investigate this blatant bribery and indict every person, especially government officials and lawmakers, who is involved."
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FBI arrests Chinese programmer

2012-01-22T00:08:00.000-05:00

The Untouchables have fingered the collar of a Chinese computer programmer claiming he stole more than $10 million worth software from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Bo Zhang, 32, from New York, worked as a contract programmer at the bank and the Feds think he copied software to an external hard drive.

The software, owned by the U.S. Treasury Department, cost about $9.5 million to develop, Reuters said.

A New York Fed spokesman said in a statement that the bank immediately investigated the suspected breach when it was uncovered and promptly referred the matter to authorities.

Zhang, who is a Chinese citizen, was released on $200,000 bail after a brief court hearing.

If he is convicted he could face a decade in one of the US's quaint prisons.

The FBI said that Zhang had admitted to copying the code onto a drive and taking it home. He told the Untouchables that he took the code "for private use and in order to ensure that it was available to him in the event that he lost his job."

Given that he is Chinese and the US does tend to see all foreigners as terrorists or spies, particularly at airports, there is an assumption that Zhang works for Chinese intelligence.

Insecurity experts said that it is more likely that it was a case of simple theft. If he was a Chinese spook they would never have given him bail and might have given him a waterboarding holiday at multiple venues across Europe.

Zhang was hired as a contract employee in May by an unnamed technology consulting company used by the Fed to work on its computers. The software was called the Government-wide Accounting and Reporting Program (GWA), and was developed to help track the billions of dollars the United States government transfers daily.

The breach was discovered when one of Zhang's colleagues told a supervisor that he had claimed to have lost a hard drive containing the code.
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Anonymous strikes back after feds shut down piracy hub Megaupload

2012-01-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

In one of the U.S. government's largest anti-piracy crackdowns ever, federal agents on Thursday arrested the leaders of and shut down Megaupload.com, a popular hub for illegal media downloads.

Hours later, Megaupload's fans turned the table on the feds. "Hacktivist" collective Anonymous said it set its sights on the U.S. Department of Justice and apparently knocked the agency's website offline.

"We are having website problems, but we're not sure what it's from," a DOJ spokeswoman told CNNMoney.

The DOJ website glitches came soon after various Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous took aim at the agency.

Anonymous's favorite weapon for these attacks is what's called a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, which directs a flood of traffic to a website and temporarily crashes it by overwhelming its servers. It doesn't actually involve any hacking or security breaches.

"One thing is certain: EXPECT US! #Megaupload" read one tweet from AnonOps that went out mid-afternoon.

One hour later, the same account tweeted a victory message: "Tango down! http://universalmusic.com & http://www.justice.gov// #Megaupload"

It was the largest attack ever by Anonymous, according to an Anonymous representative, with 5,635 people using a networking tool called a "low orbit ion cannon." A LOIC is software tool that aims a massive flood of traffic at a targeted site.

Universal Music's website also went down Thursday afternoon. The music company had been locked in a legal battle with Megaupload over a YouTube video that featured many of Universal Music's signed artists promoting Megaupload's site.

The websites of the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America went down Thursday afternoon as well. On Twitter, AnonOps -- one of the main communications channels for the leaderless Anonymous collective -- took credit for the crashes.

An RIAA spokesman confirmed that the organization's website was intermittently offline. But he cast the attack as a minor hiccup.

"The fact that a couple of sites might have been taken down is really ancillary to the significant news today that the Justice Department brought down one of the world's most notorious file sharing hubs," he said.

A piracy crackdown: The Anonymous attack came soon after the DOJ announced the indictment of seven individuals connected to Megaupload for allegedly operating an "international organized criminal enterprise responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of copyrighted works."

Authorities said the operation had generated more than $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue and the sale of premium memberships.

According to the indictment, Megaupload, which launched in 2005, was once the 13th most visited website on the Internet, serving as a hub for distribution of copyrighted television shows, images, computer software and video games.

The site's popular MegaVideo subsidiary was widely known in tech circles for its copious selection of pirated content, including recent movies and episodes of hit TV shows.

Four of those indicted were arrested Thursday in Auckland, New Zealand, at the request of the U.S. Three others remain at large.

The individuals indicted are citizens of New Zealand, Germany, Slovakia and the Netherlands. No U.S. citizens were named. However, Megaupload has servers in Ashburn, Va., and Washington D.C., which prompted the Virginia-based investigation.

To shut down Megaupload, federal authorities executed 20 search warrants in eight countries, seizing 18 domain names and $50 million worth of assets, including servers located in Virginia, Washington, the Netherlands and Canada.

The news comes as lawmakers have turned their attention to anti-piracy legislation. Protests erupted both online and offline this week against two bills currently under consideration in Congress: the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA).

The bills are aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content. But the legislation has created a divide between tech giants, who say the language is too broad, and large media companies, who say they are losing millions each year to rampant online piracy.
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US Government Shuts Down MegaUpload.com, Arrests Four

2012-01-19T19:11:00.000-05:00

And bam, MegaUpload.com is no more. The FBI has arrested four people behind the popular file-sharing website, and is looking for three more, in a worlwide investigation into the website. Apparently, the site is super-dangerous - the indictment behind the arrests minces no words. As a countermeasure, people claiming to be from Anonymous took down the websites of ViaCom and the Department of Justice. Update: Ars has analysed the indictment. It's pretty damning, but does have a few weird odds and ends. Update II: And more and more sites are falling by Anonymous' hands. Largest operation in their history.

According to the US government, MegaUpload.com is "a world-wide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale". I personally rarely use the site, although I did occasionally encounter download links to the site. It's one of those sites where you sigh when you encounter them - annoying ads, hard-to-find download buttons, and so on.

Furthermore, the US government claims MegaUpload.com offered incentives to uploaders, and that the four people who were arrested also uploaded content themselves. Money was brought in through advertising and subscriptions which offered faster download speeds and more frequent download opportunities.

What interests me most is that MegaUpload.com is a Hong Kong-based operation, and that none of the seven people mentioned in the indictment are citizens of the United States. It raises the same question I posed earlier this week: does this mean we can request the FBI arrest and extradite US politicians, like Rick Santorum, for making anti-homosexual remarks, which are illegal in The Netherlands? Or does this only go one way?

In any case, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if MegaUpload.com truly has dirty hands here that go well beyond letting users upload possibly infringing material. Sites like this have always had a certain air of shadiness around them. On the other hand, I've already received an email from an OSNews reader who hosts his own creations on MegaUpload.com, and who is now denied access to his content, further highlighting the problems with sweeping government actions like this.

In any case, I'm glad the US has its priorities straight. This is obviously way more important than dealing with the rampant corruption in US Congress or the gross financial misconduct on Wall Street which has cost the people of the US hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

Also, didn't we need SOPA/PIPA for this?

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In SOPA, PIPA protest, Wikipedia to black out

2012-01-17T15:54:00.000-05:00

Might want to get your Encyclopedia Britannica set out of storage: Wikipedia will go dark Wednesday, joining a growing number of popular websites staging an online revolt against two anti-piracy bills.

Founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement in tweets on Monday, telling followers his goal is to "melt phone systems in Washington" in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate.

The online protest puts Wikipedia in the company of other websites such as Reddit and popular games such as Minecraft in leveraging its substantial size and clout to campaign against the bills. Wales suggested on Twitter the impact of the blackout could be significant, given that "comScore estimates the English Wikipedia receives 25 million average daily visitors globally."

The site began weeks ago soliciting input from users on whether to implement a full or partial blackout of Wikipedia. Wales said Monday that the protest will involve only the English site.

"Final details under consideration but consensus seems to be for 'full' rather than 'soft' blackout!," he tweeted.

More details are due later this evening, according to Wikipedia.

The debates over SOPA and PIPA are drawing even some of the most politically averse Internet companies into the Washington fray. They argue the bills would threaten the architecture of the Internet by giving copyright holders and federal law enforcement too much power to shut off access to foreign websites peddling movies, music and other illegal content.

Responding to overwhelming criticism, the leading authors of SOPA and PIPA — House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Senate Judiciary head Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — abandoned provisions that would allow the feds to seek a court order to block domain names of such sites.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a critical Jan. 24 cloture vote on PIPA. And during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Reid showed no sign of backing down, though he did call for opposing sides to compromise.

Internet companies say the removal of the domain name-blocking provisions isn't enough. Buoyed by a statement from the White House Saturday that criticized parts of the House and Senate bills without explicitly opposing the measures, Wikipedia vowed to join the online assault against SOPA and PIPA this week.

"Student warning! Do your homework early," Wales tweeted. "Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!"

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 3:51 p.m. on January 16, 2012.
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Obama signs controversial NDAA bill into law

2012-01-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

US president Barack Obama signed into law on New Year's Eve a bill that, among other provisions, give the US military broader authority to detain people suspected of being affiliated with terrorists on US soil.

The bill in question is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It allocates funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also includes "counter-terrorism" provisions which would allow the military to detain anyone on US soil indefinitely, without needing to guarantee a trial.

Both critics and supporters of NDAA say this provision would apply to US citizens; however, the actual text of the bill is phrased less clearly and is ambiguous, according to an analysis by Raha Wala, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch. Wala, however, believes "it’s pretty clear as a general matter that Section 1021 is designed to reach U.S. citizens."

Obama, upon signing the NDAA, said in a statement that he still had "reservations", but decided not to veto it. "The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists," he said.

"[...] Our success against al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world."
'It should chill all of us to our cores'

Republican presidential candidate and Representative from Texas Ron Paul voiced objection to the bill, saying that "[The bill] should chill all of us to our cores." In a telephone message to supporters, Paul said: "The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty. To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured.

"The Patriot Act, as bad as its violation against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly."

Paul's son Rand, who is serving as a Senator from Kentucky, similarly objected to the legislation.

Other lawmakers on Capitol Hill, however, differed. Lindsay Graham from South Carolina said the broad measures were necessary for national security. "It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next. And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.'"

Many human rights groups, however, see NDAA as being a threat to liberties, and unconstitutional. Christopher Anders, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement: "The sponsors of the bill monkeyed around with a few minor details, but all of the core dangers remain—the bill authorizes the president to order the military to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others found far from any battlefield, even in the United States itself."
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Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, dead at 56

2011-10-06T09:31:00.002-04:00

Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and former chief executive who invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology, from the personal computer to the iPod and iPhone, has died. He was 56.

Apple announced his death without giving a specific cause.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," the company said in a brief statement.

"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

Jobs had battled cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009 after taking a leave of absence for unspecified health problems. He took another leave of absence in January — his third since his health problems began — before resigning as CEO six weeks ago. Jobs became Apple's chairman and handed the CEO job over to his hand-picked successor, Tim Cook.

The news Apple fans and shareholders had been dreading came the day after Apple unveiled its latest version of the iPhone, just one in a procession of devices that shaped technology and society while Jobs was running the company.

Jobs started Apple with a high school friend in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976, was forced out a decade later and returned in 1997 to rescue the company. During his second stint, it grew into the most valuable technology company in the world with a market value of $351 billion. Only Exxon Mobil, which makes it money extracting and refining oil instead of ideas, is worth more.

Cultivating Apple's countercultural sensibility and a minimalist design ethic, Jobs rolled out one sensational product after another, even in the face of the late-2000s recession and his own failing health.

He helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cellphone and music industries. For transformation of American industry, he ranks among his computer-age contemporary, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and other creative geniuses such as Walt Disney that left an indelible imprint on the world. Jobs died as Walt Disney Co.'s largest shareholder, a by-product of his decision to sell computer animation studio Pixar in 2006.

Perhaps most influentially, Jobs in 2001 launched the iPod, which offered "1,000 songs in your pocket." Over the next 10 years, its white earphones and thumb-dial control seemed to become more ubiquitous than the wristwatch.

In 2007 came the touch-screen iPhone, joined a year later by Apple's App Store, where developers could sell iPhone "apps" which made the phone a device not just for making calls but also for managing money, editing photos, playing games and social networking. And in 2010, Jobs introduced the iPad, a tablet-sized, all-touch computer that took off even though market analysts said no one really needed one.

Steven Paul Jobs was born Feb. 24, 1955, to Joanne Simpson, then an unmarried graduate student, and Abdulfattah Jandali, a student from Syria. Simpson gave Jobs up for adoption, though she married Jandali and a few years later had a second child with him, Mona Simpson, who became a novelist.

Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs of Los Altos, Calif., a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics. He saw his first computer terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center when he was around 11 and landed a summer job at Hewlett-Packard before he had finished high school.

Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore., in 1972 but dropped out after a semester.

"All of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it," he said at a Stanford University commencement address in 2005. "I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out."

When he returned to California in 1974, Jobs worked for video game maker Atari and attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend who was a few years older.

Wozniak's homemade computer drew attention from other enthusiasts, but Jobs saw its potential far beyond the geeky hobbyists of the time. The pair started Apple in Jobs' parents' garage in 1976. Their first creation was the Apple I — essentially, the guts of a computer without a case, keyboard or monitor.

The Apple II, which hit the market in 1977, was their first machine for the masses. It became so popular that Jobs was worth $100 million by age 25. Time magazine put him on its cover for the first time in 1982.

During a 1979 visit to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Jobs again spotted mass potential in a niche invention: a computer that allowed people to access files and control programs with the click of a mouse, not typed commands. He returned to Apple and ordered the team to copy what he had seen.

It foreshadowed a propensity to take other people's concepts, improve on them and spin them into wildly successful products. Under Jobs, Apple didn't invent computers, digital music players or smartphones — it reinvented them for people who didn't want to learn computer programming or negotiate the technical hassles of keeping their gadgets working.

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas," Jobs said in an interview for the 1996 PBS series "Triumph of the Nerds."

The engineers responded with two computers. The pricier one, called Lisa, launched to a cool reception in 1983. A less-expensive model called the Macintosh, named for an employee's favorite apple, exploded onto the scene in 1984.

The Mac was heralded by an epic Super Bowl commercial that referenced George Orwell's "1984" and captured Apple's iconoclastic style. In the ad, expressionless drones marched through dark halls to an auditorium where a Big Brother-like figure lectures on a big screen. A woman in a bright track uniform burst into the hall and launched a hammer into the screen, which exploded, stunning the drones, as a narrator announced the arrival of the Mac.

There were early stumbles at Apple. Jobs clashed with colleagues and even the CEO he had hired away from Pepsi, John Sculley. And after an initial spike, Mac sales slowed, in part because few programs had been written for the new graphical user interface .

Meanwhile, Microsoft copied the Mac approach and introduced Windows, outmaneuvering Apple by licensing its software to slews of computer makers while Apple insisted on making its own machines.

Software developers wrote programs first for Windows because it had millions more computers . A Mac version didn't come for months, if at all.

With Apple's stock price sinking, conflicts between Jobs and Sculley mounted. Sculley won over the board in 1985 and pushed Jobs out of his day-to-day role leading the Macintosh team. Jobs resigned his post as chairman of the board and left Apple within months.

"What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating," Jobs said in his Stanford speech. "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."

He got into two other companies: Next, a computer maker, and Pixar, a computer-animation studio that he bought from George Lucas for $10 million.

Pixar, ultimately the more successful venture, seemed at first a bottomless money pit. Then came "Toy Story," the first computer-animated full-length feature. Jobs used its success to negotiate a sweeter deal with Disney for Pixar's next two films. In 2006, Jobs sold Pixar to The Walt Disney Co. for $7.4 billion in stock, making him Disney's largest individual shareholder and securing a seat on the board.

With Next, Jobs was said to be obsessive about the tiniest details of the cube-shaped computer, insisting on design perfection even for the machine's guts. He never managed to spark much demand for the machine, which cost a pricey $6,500 to $10,000.

Ultimately, he shifted the focus to software — a move that paid off later when Apple bought Next for its operating system technology, the basis for the software still used in Mac computers.

By 1996, when Apple bought Next, Apple was in dire financial straits. It had lost more than $800 million in a year, dragged its heels in licensing Mac software for other computers and surrendered most of its market share to PCs that ran Windows.

Larry Ellison, Jobs' close friend and fellow Silicon Valley billionaire and the leader of Oracle Corp., publicly contemplated buying Apple in early 1997 and ousting its leadership. The idea fizzled, but Jobs stepped in as interim chief later that year.

He slashed unprofitable projects, narrowed the company's focus and presided over a new marketing push to set the Mac apart from Windows, starting with a campaign encouraging computer users to "Think different."

"In the early days, he was in charge of every detail. The only way you could say it is, he was kind of a control freak," he said. In his second stint, "he clearly was much more mellow and more mature."

In the decade that followed, Jobs kept Apple profitable while pushing out an impressive roster of new products.

Apple's popularity exploded in the 2000s. The iPod, smaller and sleeker with each generation, introduced many lifelong Windows users to their first Apple gadget.

ITunes, in 20XX, gave people a convenient way to buy music legally online, song by song. For the music industry, it was a mixed blessing. The industry got a way to reach Internet-savvy people who, in the age of Napster, were growing accustomed to downloading music free. But online sales also hastened the demise of CDs and established Apple as a gatekeeper, resulting in battles between Jobs and music executives over pricing and other issues.

Jobs' command over gadget lovers and pop culture swelled to the point that, on the eve of the iPhone's launch in 2007, faithful followers slept on sidewalks outside posh Apple stores for the chance to buy one. Three years later, at the iPad's debut, the lines snaked around blocks and out through parking lots, even though people had the option to order one in advance.

The decade was not without its glitches. Apple was swept up in a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into stock-options backdating in the mid-2000s, a practice that artificially boosted the value of options grants. But Jobs and Apple emerged unscathed after two former executives took the fall and eventually settled with the SEC.

Jobs' personal ethos — a natural food lover who embraced Buddhism and New Age philosophy — was closely linked to the public persona he shaped for Apple. Apple itself became a statement against the commoditization of technology — a cynical view, to be sure, from a company whose computers can cost three or more times as much as those of its rivals.

For technology lovers, buying Apple products meant gaining entrance to an exclusive club. At the top was a complicated and contradictory figure who was endlessly fascinating — even to his detractors, of which Jobs had many. Jobs was a hero to techno-geeks and a villain to partners he bullied and to workers whose projects he unceremoniously killed or claimed as his own.

Unauthorized biographer Alan Deutschman described him as "deeply moody and maddeningly erratic." In his personal life, Jobs denied for two years that he was the father of Lisa, the baby born to his longtime girlfriend Chrisann Brennan in 1978.

Few seemed immune to Jobs' charisma and will. He could adeptly convince those in his presence of just about anything — even if they disagreed again when he left the room and his magic wore off.

"He always has an aura around his persona," said Bajarin, who met Jobs several times while covering the company for more than 20 years as a Creative Strategies analyst. "When you talk to him, you know you're really talking to a brilliant mind."

But Bajarin also remembers Jobs lashing out with profanity at an employee who interrupted their meeting. Jobs, the perfectionist, demanded greatness from everyone at Apple.

Jobs valued his privacy, but some details of his romantic and family life have been uncovered. In the early 1980s, Jobs dated the folk singer Joan Baez, according to Deutschman.

In 1989, Jobs spoke at Stanford's graduate business school and met his wife, Laurene Powell, who was then a student. When she became pregnant, Jobs at first refused to marry her. It was a near-repeat of what had happened more than a decade earlier with then-girlfriend Brennan, Deutschman said, but eventually Jobs relented.

Jobs started looking for his biological family in his teens, according to an interview he gave to The New York Times in 1997. He found his biological sister when he was 27. They became friends, and through her Jobs met his biological mother. Few details of their relationships have been made public.

But the extent of Apple secrecy didn't become clear until Jobs revealed in 2004 that he had been diagonosed with — and "cured" of — a rare form of operable pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. The company had sat on the news of his diagnosis for nine months while Jobs tried trumping the disease with a special diet, Fortune magazine reported in 2008.

In the years after his cancer was revealed, rumors about Jobs' health would spark runs on Apple stock as investors worried the company, with no clear succession plan, would fall apart without him. Apple did little to ease those concerns. It kept the state of Jobs' health a secret for as long as it could, then disclosed vague details when, in early 2009, it became clear he was again ill.

Jobs took a half-year medical leave of absence starting in January 2009, during which he had a liver transplant. Apple did not disclose the procedure at the time; two months later, The Wall Street Journal reported the fact and a doctor at the transplant hospital confirmed it.

In January 2011, Jobs announced another medical leave, his third, with no set duration. He returned to the spotlight briefly in March to personally unveil a second-generation iPad .

In 2005, following the bout with cancer, Jobs delivered Stanford University's commencement speech.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life," he said. "Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."
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Facebook in Tracking Suit

2011-10-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

FACEBOOK is being sued by a group of users over claims it tracks their online activity after they log off.

The claims were exposed by an Australian technology blogger, Nik Cubrilovic, who conducted tests that revealed that when users log out, the site does not delete tracking ''cookies'' but modifies them, keeping information that can identify users as they surf the internet.

The company has told users cookie files installed on their computers to track interactions with Facebook applications and websites are removed when they log off, according to a complaint in the US Federal Court in San Jose, California.

Facebook admitted last week that the cookies track internet activity after users log off, according to the suit.

''This admission came only after an Australian technology blogger exposed Facebook's practice of monitoring members who have logged out, although he brought the problems to the defendant's attention a year ago,'' the complaint states.

On Friday, 10 public interest groups asked the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's tracking of internet users after they log off. They urged the commission to examine whether Facebook's new ticker and timeline features increased privacy risks for users by combining biographical information in an easily accessible format.

The lawsuit - filed by Perrin Aikens Davis, of Illinois - seeks class status on behalf of other Facebook users in the US.

Davis seeks unspecified damages and a court order blocking the tracking based on violations of federal laws, including restrictions on wiretapping, as well as computer fraud and abuse statutes.

''We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,'' Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement.
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Latest iPhone 5 Rumors: '4G' Speeds, Voice Recognition?

2011-10-02T14:37:00.000-04:00

This time next week, the iPhone 5 rumor frenzy will be over and we'll finally know what Apple plans to release. I imagine there will even be an iPhone 6 rumor or two floating around. But until then, we still have several days to wildly speculate about what the next-gen iPhone will include.

An invite to Apple's October 4 press event finally landed in journalists' inboxes on Tuesday afternoon, and it said simply: "Let's talk iPhone." That one phrase prompted the blogosphere and analysts like Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster to speculate that Apple will add a long-rumored voice recognition feature to iOS 5.

"In the past, Apple has used its invitation to include cryptic hints as to what it will announce," Munster wrote in a letter to investors. "The phrase on this year's invite, 'Let's talk iPhone,' may be a simple play on words, but may also refer to new speech-based features for the iPhone."

Last year, Apple acquired voice-recognition application startup Siri and added some voice-to-text features to iOS 4, so an enhancement to those features wouldn't be too surprising.

Atop many an iPhone 5 wish list, meanwhile, is support for 4G LTE speeds. Verizon started rolling out its LTE network in December and AT&T just lit up LTE in five cities earlier this month, so why wouldn't Apple want to take advantage of these blazing-fast speeds? In a word: style.

Current LTE chips are a bit bulky and would force Apple to increase the size of its iPhone, something it is reportedly not willing to do. Slimmer chips from Qualcomm are not expected to hit the market until next year, so we probably won't see LTE until the iPhone 6. What will we get? A China Unicom exec said this week that the iPhone 5 will support HSPA+ 21, which is kind of like 4G lite. It's faster than 3G (21Mbps vs. 7.2Mbps) but it's not as fast as LTE.

The choice to have Apple's press event at its headquarters rather than a larger venue in San Francisco has prompted some talk that Tuesday's event will be a more low-key affair, and possibly only include the launch of the smaller "iPhone 4S," rather than the iPhone 5. Well, iPhone 3GS users who have been waiting patiently for a major upgrade will be glad to hear that AT&T stores have reportedly received cases for the iPhone 5, not the 4S.

A Macrumors reader sent the blog photos of cases that have showed up at AT&T retail stores. "Like other cases for the rumored redesign of the iPhone 5, these cases appear to show a tapered design and the mute switch moved to the opposite side of the device," Macrumors said.

The carrier drama continued, meanwhile, with T-Mobile essentially confirming that it will not offer the iPhone 5 this year.

Cole Brodman, T-Mobile's chief marketing officer, penned a blog post in which he discussed the carrier's desire to offer the iPhone, but said it's probably not going to happen in the near future.

"Please know that we think the iPhone is a great device and Apple knows that we'd like to add it to our line-up," Brodman wrote. "Today, there are over a million T-Mobile customers using unlocked iPhones on our network. We are interested in offering all of our customers a no-compromise iPhone experience on our network."

Despite that interest, "for now, our focus continues to be giving customers the best that Android has to offer," Brodman wrote.

iPad and iPod?
We know we'll probably get some sort of new iPhone next week, but what about the iPad? Another rumor making the rounds is that the long-awaited official Facebook iPad app will finally make its debut at next week's Apple event.

Apple's fall events have traditionally focused on the company's iPod lineup. With the music player now wrapped into the iPhone, it makes sense that Apple will one day wind down production of its standalone MP3 players, but will that day be October 4? Not quite. TUAW said this week that Apple is moving toward having a touch screen on every iPod and will ditch the Classic and the shuffle.

Losing track of all the Apple iPhone 5 rumors? For more, see last week's top rumors, as well as those from the week before. Also check out What the iPhone 5 Might Look Like and Six Amazing Phone Technologies We Want in iPhone 5, as well as the 8 Likely iPhone 5 Rumors, and 2 Wild Ones slideshow below.
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New Leaks Suggest iPhone 4S and Sprint iPhone 5 Tuesday Launch

2011-10-02T14:33:00.000-04:00

Whoops! New images are adding some strong evidence to the rumormongering that Apple's going to announce the release of the iPhone 5 on Sprint's network come Tuesday. And you can thank Radio Shack for this one.

According to an alleged screenshot taken of a Radio Shack internal inventory page, both a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5 and a 32-gigabyte iPhone 5 are a-coming. It's a bit more a significant bit of evidence than the guessing game that arose from an earlier internal Sprint memo, which told company employees that vacations were blacked out between September 30 and October 15 due to the "possibility of a major phone launch."

Sprint is still allegedly going to be offering the iPhone 5 with an unlimited data plan. There's no indication of how long that the plan might stick around post-launch, as has been the case with other "unlimited" data plans on competing carriers, but the move – if true – is aimed at giving Sprint some kind of competitive advantage against AT&T and Verizon. Sprint, in this case, would sit in the market as the only iPhone carrier with a truly unlimited data plan.

So what does that make of the iPhone 4S?

For those unfamiliar, there's also been talk that Apple's only intending on launching a souped-up version of the iPhone 4 on Tuesday, cleverly dubbed the, "iPhone 4S." New evidence supporting that theory includes new language inside a beta iTunes release (since pulled by Apple) that references an "iPhone 4S" and includes an image of a CDMA iPhone 4.

So what's it going to be? Are the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 the same device and we're all just quibbling over the name? Is Apple actually releasing two separate devices – an upgrade to the iPhone 4 and a slightly bigger, fancier iPhone 5, as a recent leak by Cincinnati Bell might suggest? Are the rumors going to persist until 9:59 a.m. (PST) on Tuesday?

Odds indicate: Yes.

To hear more about the rumored features – both hardware and software – arriving with the new iPhone (or iPhones), be sure to check out our additional coverage of all things iPhone.
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Apple Confirms IPhone 5 Event Next Week, Amazon Shows Off Tablet.

2011-10-02T14:29:00.000-04:00

Apple confirmed it will unveil the next iPhone on October 4, and Amazon showed off the Kindle Fire, its new tablet slated to go head-to-head with the iPad.

News Under the Sun is a weekly column rounding up all the events on in the mobile industry. Want the news but don’t want it every day? Subscribe to our weekly Facebook or Twitter page.

Apple Confirms IPhone 5 Event, Release to Follow

Apple invited members of the media to a keynote event on October 4 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time at its own Town Hall Auditorium where it is expected to unveil the iPhone 5. The invitation to the event features the iOS icons for the calendar, clock, Google Maps and phone applications. Beneath them is a tagline that reads, “Let’s talk iPhone.”

Analysts expect Apple to release the device shortly after the October 4 event. Apple reportedly instituted a vacation blackout for employees in the U.S. and the U.K. from October 9 to 12 and again on October 14 and 15. The dates back up earlier reports the company’s AppleCare divisions have been told to prepare for heavy traffic.

Consumers are excited about the upcoming iPhone 5, but Apple is already thinking further into the future. The company’s Xcode developer tool now includes support for Marvell’s quad-core ARM-based Armada XP chips. Apple may use the chips in prototypes of future iPhones and iPads as a placeholder while it designs its own proprietary next-generation processor.

Apple is also expanding so it will have more places to sell its future products. The company opened a Shanghai store and plans to open its first store in Hong Kong this weekend. The iPhone maker has already opened six of its planned 25 stores in China, but construction taking a slower pace than expected in the rapidly emerging market.

Despite growing demand in markets like China, Apple cut iPad orders by 25 percent according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The report didn’t list the companies affected by the cutback, and Apple would not confirm the news.

Analysts believe Apple cut orders from Chinese suppliers because it plans to build a new iPad plant in Brazil. Foxconn reportedly negotiated a deal to manufacture $12 billion worth of products in the country, starting in December. However, concerns over taxes and labor stalled the closing of the agreement. Foxconn and the Brazilian government are now reportedly discussing opening a smaller plant to salvage the deal.

Amazon Unveils Kindle Fire, Browser Takes Criticism

Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, a full-color, touch screen device for $200 expected to launch on November 15. The Fire, which weighs just under a pound, features a 7-inch multi-touch display, dual-core processor, 8-gigabytes of internal storage and 8 hours of battery life. Amazon’s new tablet is powered by Android and runs the company’s new Web browser Amazon Silk.

Amazon did not reveal much about Silk, a browser powered by cloud-based features, but marketed it as one of the device’s key selling points. However, security firm Sophos said the browser connects users directly to Amazon’s servers, giving the company a record of customer’s browsing history as well as IP and MAC addresses for 30 days. The process leaves users private information on the server and vulnerable to hackers.
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BitTorrent Contributed to Network Decongestion

2011-10-02T14:13:00.000-04:00

Erik Klinker, BitTorrent’s Chief Executive Officer, attended the Broadband World Forum that took place in France. As a result, he came with a new solution for an old problem of network congestion because of P2P. A new open-source technology called Micro Transport Protocol or ?TP has already been introduced into the company’s application in order to increase the performance of network by decongesting it.

Most of the information flying around the web is transmitted through TCP, which works by breaking it down and later reassembling at the other end of the network link. However, Klinker explained that this method is obsolete, because TCP defines congestion based on lost packets. He compared the network congestion to driving a car through a school zone and only slowing down after having struck the first pedestrian.

As opposed to TCP protocol, the ?TP technology would detect the network congestion on the early stage and try to fix it, because it was designed in the philosophy of yielding to traffic. BitTorrent promised that ?TP will no longer be the cause of the web congestion thanks to new mechanisms. Mr. Klinker noted that if the company could somehow address the problem of network congestion, it would end up addressing the network cost issue. He also came with a prediction, saying that the worldwide web is going to evolve and develop in the direction of a multimedia network. What is it for the users? A lot more big files at the very least, and you can consider many other advantages.

BitTorrent CEO announced that the company will develop this new direction. BitTorrent has already begun to facilitate transferring large amounts of information from digital devices and gadgets, and it will do much more in the nearest future. Klinker promised that the industry will soon see the company rolling out software that would help liberate media from the above mentioned devices in order to share it easier with family and friends.

Many will agree with Erik Klinker that content doesn’t present any value until it is shared and seen. That’s where it becomes hard for today’s networks in the first place. While the devices at the edge of the network are rapidly increasing in capability, the today’s networks stay the same and are governed by the same old mechanisms.
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Worm Could Break the Web

2011-10-01T01:02:00.000-04:00

Mark Bowden, known as Black Hawk Down author, has written a book telling that the Conflicker worm could break the web.

Over 12 million PCs appeared to be infected with the self-updating worm, which got into the core of any PC. Mark Bowden’s recent book called “Worm: The First Digital World War” is telling about how the worm Conficker was discovered, how it is working, and the current programming battle trying to bring down the malware.

The most interesting part is where the book claims that if the malware was used nefariously, it could actually damage the entire world web and everyone sailing in it. In the newspaper interview, Mark Bowden explained that the Conflicker worm controllers were able to use all of the PCs that are connected, turning them into the largest and most powerful cloud ever.

The writer explained that the Conficker botnet was that powerful that it could take over computer networks controlling banking, telephones and security systems. Moreover, it could lay hold on air traffic control and even the web itself. Mark Bowden also believes that Conflicker is powerful enough to overwhelm not just its target of cyber attack, but also root servers of the web itself, which would result in crushing the whole bally thing. As you can understand, a botnet of such a size could also be used as a weapon.

The worm in question can also be used by the hackers for stealing passwords and codes. For example, some guys from Ukraine managed to lease a part of the computers infected by Conficker worm in order to drain American bank accounts. It’s that easy – you write a worm and you are rich. In our digital age the world and dubious money are open for some.

Mark Bowden is known as the author of a few books. His works include Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw and Guests of the Ayatollah. The famous author admitted that he was lucky the creator of Conficker thus far hadn’t considered the idea of taking down the entire world-wide web or, which might be even worse, using the bot to create a weapon of mass destruction. The matter is that it doesn’t mean the malware can’t be used for this by the others, especially after the new book will be distributed among many, including people longing for easy money. It is still not clear what effect the book will have, but its content is interesting at the very least.

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MySQL Website Infected

2011-10-01T00:57:00.000-04:00

According to the report of some Internet security outfit, the Mysql.com website has recently been hacked. They warn everyone that the site is currently serving malware.

Security outfit Armorize announced that they have found the intrusion through its site malware monitoring platform known as HackAlert. The latter also sends the Internet users angry emails most days.

It seems that the Mysql.com website has been injected with some script generating an iFrame, which redirects the Internet users to a jaw-breaker “http://truruhfhqnviaosdpruejeslsuy.cx.cc/main.php”. Once you get there, your browser will be tinkered by the BlackHole exploit pack, which is hosted at the abovementioned link. This wonderful pack permanently installs a piece of malware into your computer, and you won’t even notice the action. The matter is that the installation package doesn’t require you to click or agree to anything, so the malware will be integrated into your machine without your knowledge.

Since this kind of malware is still unknown for the most of the security labs, only 9% of anti-virus applications are able to detect and block it. You can imagine the number of the computers that will potentially be infected, turning out to be among the rest 91% of unprotected machines.

Meanwhile, the domain name you reach through the iFrame is located in Germany, but registered to Christopher J Klein from Miami. Meanwhile, the domain that distributes the exploit pack and the malware resides in Stockholm, Sweden.

The security experts are already investigating the problem. For example, Sucuri Security researchers have found out that the website has been compromised via JavaScript malware. In its turn, the malware infects online service via a compromised desktop. In addition, it is able to steal any stored password from the FTP client in order to use that to launch a cyber attack on the website.

Other security experts point out that this hack might be connected to the fact revealed recently by Trend Micro researchers, who announced to discover a denizen of some Russian underground forum engaged into selling root access to a number of the cluster servers of mysql.com, along with its subdomains. The guys ask at least $3,000 for each access. The security company admitted it has notified mysql.com admins of this fact more than a week ago.
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FBI Arrests Suspected LulzSec Member For Sony Hack [UPDATED]

2011-09-29T10:51:00.000-04:00

The FBI on Thursday arrested a suspected member of the hacker group LulzSec in connection with a cyber attack earlier this year against the computer systems of Sony Pictures.

Cody Kretsinger, 23, of Phoenix, was arrested and charged with helping LulzSec attack Sony's servers between May 27 and June 2. The group's hack compromised the personal data belonging to one million Sony customers, which the group then posted online.

Also on Thursday, the FBI arrested two other men with suspected ties to the hacker group Anonymous for allegedly crashing a county-run website in California, authorities said.

The arrests were the latest in an ongoing effort by authorities to crackdown on the hacker groups who have exposed widespread security lapses in government and corporate computer systems. In July, authorities arrested 14 suspected members of Anonymous for allegedly bringing down PayPal's website over four days in retaliation for the company suspending payments to the whistle-blower site Wikileaks.

In June, British authorities arrested Ryan Cleary, 19, for his suspected involvement in a cyberattack by LulzSec on the CIA website. He was charged with building a botnet, or a network of remotely-controlled computers to overwhelm websites with traffic.

Authorities say Kretsinger, also known by the online nickname “recursion,” is believed to be a current or former member of LulzSec, which has also taken credit for hacking the website of PBS. He has been charged with conspiracy and the unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, the FBI said.

To carry out the attack, Kretsinger allegedly used a proxy server to disguise his computer's IP address, then obtained confidential information from Sony's network using an SQL injection - a technique used by hackers to exploit vulnerabilities and steal information, according to the FBI. The indictment also alleges that, in order to avoid detection by law enforcement, Kretsinger erased the hard drive of the computer he used to conduct the attack.

Kretsinger was scheduled to appear Thursday before a federal magistrate in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Meanwhile on Thursday, authorities also charged Christopher Doyon, 47, of Mountain View, Calif., and Joshua John Covelli, 26, of Fairborn, Ohio, with bringing down the website of Santa Cruz County last December. Doyon and Covelli were allegedly assisting the People’s Liberation Front, which has been associated with Anonymous, in a denial of service attack, which floods a website with so much traffic that it crashes, authorities said.

The attack, which was nicknamed “Operation Peace Camp 2010," was in retaliation for the Santa Cruz police cracking down on a protest last summer outside the county courthouse. The protesters were supporting the homeless and hoping to ban a city ordinance that prohibited camping within city limits, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Several protesters were charged with misdemeanors during the protest, including Doyon, the paper reported.

For the attack against the county's website, Doyon and Covelli were charged with conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer, causing intentional damage to a protected computer, and aiding and abetting, authorities said. They both face a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Covelli has also been charged with participating in a cyberattack that brought down the PayPal website last December, authorities said.
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UK VPN Service Will Disclose Users’ Details

2011-09-29T10:49:00.001-04:00

British VPN service called Hide my Ass confirmed that it will hand over the details of its subscribers to the FBI if they show up with a court order.

This may be something new for those believing that using the VPN service would ensure them certain a degree of anonymity, even if they were carrying out cyber attacks on others. The news emerged after Hide my Ass began receiving letters from the users that said its services were used by large hacker groups like Lulzsec. On its official page, the company told that when Lulzsec IRC chat logs had been released, Hide my Ass turned out to be in the list of the VPN services they used for cyber attacks.

However, the service did nothing about this fact, because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the wrongdoing, as well as to identify which particular accounts were used. But later the organization got a court order asking for data regarding to one of the accounts allegedly involved in the leak. The company’s terms of service and privacy policy state that their services are not to be used for unauthorized activity. Consequently, being a legitimate firm, Hide my Ass will cooperate with the law enforcement provided they receive a court order.

The company clarified that its VPN service, as well as VPN services in general, are not designed to be used for any kind of unauthorized activity. That’s why it is naive for hacktivists to believe that by paying a small subscription fee to a company providing VPN service they may feel free to violate the law without fearing consequences. Meanwhile, Hide my Ass pointed out that it’s true not only for them, but even hardcore privacy services, advertising their service as the one that would never let identify you, will most likely to have their network tracked and tapped by the police.

Hide my Ass was founded back in 2005 as a way to bypass filtering of the Internet, and it still believes that the web shouldn’t be filtered. In case the FBI shows up with a court order, the company will only provide them with the logging times that users connect and disconnect from the VPN network. Although the service doesn’t monitor the traffic once it is running, it is still possible to locate abusive users.

Hide my Ass added that it is a company residing in the United Kingdom, and therefore it will only obey British laws. So, if any other government wants log details, it will have to prove the subscribers violated British laws, not its own.

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Download Windows 8

2011-09-15T12:55:00.000-04:00

Windows 8 Developer Preview

Developer Preview particularly interesting, because in the package, Microsoft has placed development tools that let you program the apps to the new Metro-interface.but its only important if you are developers.there is still a long way to go before we see the finish product.a good idea is to install Windows 8 on a separate hard drive or partition if you have important stuff on your PC
Download Here >>

Planned 4G Network Draws Fire From House Science Panel

2011-09-09T15:10:00.002-04:00

A multibillion dollar proposal to create a 4G wireless broadband network in the United States could interfere with several scientific services that use the Global Positional System (GPS), including forecasting the weather, monitoring climate change, and tracking volcanic activity, U.S. federal officials told a Congressional panel yesterday. Their concerns are the latest in a crescendo of objections raised against the proposal by federal agencies and providers of GPS-based services.

LightSquared, a company based in Reston, Virginia, has already spent over $4 billion to set up the network, which would provide improved cell phone and Internet connectivity across the country. The network would be supported by LightSquared's geostationary satellites and some 40,000 ground transmitters operating in a frequency band adjacent to the band used by GPS, a satellite-based navigation system used the world over.

That plan is awaiting a final green light from the Federal Communications Commission. In the meantime, however, it has run into considerable opposition from the government and the private sector. The Federal Aviation Administration has pointed out that the LightSquared network will intrude upon its Next Generation Air Transportation System, impinging on the FAA's efforts to make flying safer. Commercial providers of GPS services have raised concerns that LightSquared's transmitters will cause problems for millions of GPS devices used in everything from car-navigation systems to fishing boats. These concerns have been validated by tests conducted earlier this year by a technical working group that included representatives from LightSquared and the GPS industry.

At a hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, officials from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) expressed concerns about LightSquared's impact on federal science activities. "NASA relies on GPS technology to monitor and improve our understanding of earth science, including climate change and solid Earth hazards, such as earthquakes and volcanic activity," Victor Sparrow, director of NASA's Spectrum Policy and Planning Division, told the committee. David Applegate, USGS associate director for natural hazards, said LightSquared's proposal would jeopardize the operations of several "high-precision GPS stations" that are used for "earthquake monitoring for at-risk urban areas in southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Pacific Northwest."

The results of tests by the technical working group, submitted this summer to the Federal Communications Commission, found that 31 out of 33 high precision GPS receivers were significantly affected by LightSquared's signal. In response, LightSquared has proposed to operate its transmitters in a frequency band farther away from the GPS spectrum, a step it says will correct the problem. In addition, it has offered to share with the owners the cost of upgrading any GPS receivers still affected by LightSquared's signal.

Federal officials testifying yesterday were not convinced that LightSquared's modified plan would address their concerns. Lawmakers on the panel seemed equally skeptical. "Unfortunately, no testing has been done on this modified plan," remarked the committee's chairman, Representative Ralph Hall (R-TX). "Additional testing should be required before the FCC allows LightSquared to begin commercial service," he added.

The ranking Democrat on the panel, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), hoped that a compromise would be worked out between GPS users and LightSquared. The question before the FCC was "whether GPS can thrive side-by-side with a ground-based broadband network," she said. "I sincerely hope that they can coexist."
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Windows 8 Boot Time Will Wow, Microsoft Says

2011-09-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

Tired of being cast as the laggard in the computer boot time contest, Microsoft says that its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system will start quickly.

In a post to the Building Windows 8 blog, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division, acknowledged the importance of boot time. "[N]o feature gets talked about and measured more," he wrote, which is surprising considering that boot time is only loosely related to the performance and utility of the operating system.

It ought to be possible to ignore boot time, to turn on one's computer and go get a cup of coffee while the necessary files are loaded into memory. But the real world doesn't work that way. Waiting for a computer to boot engenders the same frustration as waiting for the driver in the car in front of you to recognize that the light has turned green. A few seconds can feel like an eternity.

Microsoft's competitors haven't wasted any time hammering that point home. What's the first feature Google mentions about its Chromebooks? "Chromebooks boot in 8 seconds and resume instantly." For those running Windows XP, with boot times measured in minutes, that's a major selling point.

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Windows 7 has narrowed the boot time gap substantially, thanks to techniques like parallel driver initialization, but Microsoft wants the process to be faster still. A video demonstration shows Windows 8 booting in ... 8 seconds.

In the blog post, Gabe Aul, a Windows director of program management, characterizes Windows 8's fast startup mode as "downright amazing."

Part of the speed improvement can be attributed to the fact that the Windows 8 demo laptop uses a solid-state drive, or SSD. That's what you want if you're after rapid boot times. That's what Google uses in its Chromebooks. An SSD-equipped MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Lion clocks in at a few seconds more, but some users report sub-10 second boot times.

Yet Windows 8 isn't simply relying on fast storage hardware. Microsoft has also been working on software improvements to make Windows computers boot more quickly. Aul, for example, describes how Windows 8's fast startup mode combines the traditional cold boot process with hibernate mode. In addition, the company has been working with manufacturers to promote the use of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) hardware, which is faster than traditional BIOS.

The change has been a long time coming, and for Windows users, it probably can't come fast enough. Expect further details to be revealed at Microsoft's BUILD conference next week.
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Google Urges Iranian Users to Secure Accounts After Hack

2011-09-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

In the wake of a digital certificate hack that potentially allowed hackers to gain access to the Google accounts of 300,000 Iranians, the search giant this week urged those users to take certain steps to secure their data.

"While Google's internal systems were not compromised, we are directly contacting possibly affected users and providing similar information below because our top priority is to protect the privacy and security of our users," Eric Grosse, vice president of security engineering at Google, wrote in a blog post.

First of all, Google urged users in Iran to change their passwords. Second, the company suggested people verify their account recovery options: are the secondary email addresses, phone numbers, and other information provided still accurate? Third, Google urged users to double check the Web sites and apps that have access to their accounts, and revoke any that are unfamiliar. Gmail users were also asked to check settings for suspicious forwarding addresses or delegated accounts.

Finally, Google told users not to click through to Web sites if a warning appears before they load.

At issue is Netherlands-based DigiNotar, which issues certificates that validate Web sites as legitimate. It recently disclosed that it had been hacked, and an investigation into the effect of the intrusion found that, among other things, the hack possibly compromised the Google accounts of more than 300,000 Iranians.

What this means is that when users in Iran and elsewhere navigated to certain Web sites, they might actually be visiting spoofed sites that stole personal information when users logged in. Browser makers like Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla quickly moved to block DigiNotar digital certificates; Apple took some heat for not doing the same on Safari. Adobe is the latest company to also block certificates from DigitNotar.

A hacker known as Comodo Hacker, who got his name thanks to a March hack of Comodo, has also taken credit for the DigiNotar job. He also claims to have accessed GlobalSign, prompting the company to temporarily stop issuing digital certificates.
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Music Industry Will Pursue YouTube Users

2011-08-28T17:20:00.000-04:00

After a Britney Spears concert that took place at the MGM Grand in L.A. was uploaded to the Internet for everyone to see by some YouTube user, the music industry was doing its best to find more information on the user’s identity by starting a criminal investigation.

The Britney Spears concert was uploaded in high-quality YouTube back in July. After the incident, the Recording Industry Association of America requested a subpoena against YouTube. In fact, this was the first time when music industry targeted the online video service.

Mark McDevitt, Vice President of Online Piracy for the music group, made a declaration to the court, where he requested a subpoena ordering video website to offer information on the identity of the unknown user, responsible for uploading the concert, like his e-mail address, IP address, and whatever else the site could know that might lead to his identification.

Meanwhile, the RIAA’s representatives rejected to provide any comments over the issue when contacted by industry observers. Despite the fact that the original video was removed from the streaming website, its copies could still be found on YouTube and everywhere else on the Internet. At the same time, online service may not be held responsible for copyright violation as the filling is for a DMCA subpoena.

The media reported that according to the court’s record of proceedings, the lawsuit was filed back in July, but the case was closed after just 7 days. The lawyers confirmed that this may only mean that the court granted a subpoena. In response, YouTube might have agreed on its terms by offering the required information.

Earlier in 2011, Box.net’s users were pursued by the Recording Industry Association of America after the latter filed a similar declaration at a federal court in California. That time, the suspected pirates were supposedly storing pre-released songs on their accounts. Like YouTube, Box.net agreed on the terms if the subpoena was to be granted by the court, saying that it took the confidentiality of its users’ information very seriously, but like any other business, the company was legally demanded to comply with court orders. Thus far, no criminal suits were launched as a result of hunting down those suspected copyright violators. We’ll what will happen to the YouTube user if any is found.
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