"Countly -- LIBYA!!....serious wtf here. All contact info is for Libyan addresses.
https://count.ly/products/feat..."

It appears that even Countly--apparently based in Libya--has it's connections to San Francisco in the form of angel investor Philipp Moehring.

https://angel.co/countly

I say apparently, because I suspect that this might be a case of domain usage to hide the actual country doing the collecting of data, a situation made possible by "reserved" domains and the secondary domain market. Simply put, Countly may have nothing to do with Libya at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Yes.

This is another indication of how eager the tech industry is to get in on the same monetization model that Rovio was just implicated in with the Snowden documents--data for dollars.

Rovio was just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone is trying to get involved in a "goldrush" of funds that have infused the industry with a serious lack of morality.

As I pointed out in a couple of posts recently ( http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... ), it is the mobile analytics market that the NSA is targeting for their data on as many people as possible. Those analytics providers are doing what the NSA cannot do themselves legally--gather data. Analytics providers do the gathering, and the NSA either steals or buys the data. It's as simple as that folks.

The really dirty secret is that pretty much every company out there with an internet presence and a mobile presence (an app) is complicit in this gathering of data, and they all know it. Both The New York Times and The Guardian use the exact same analytics firm that Rovio uses in their mobile game "Angry Birds", yet they are the ones that published articles based on Edward Snowden documents outlining NSA activity that targeted mobile analytics. Hypocrites.

Just to give you an idea of just how big this iceberg is, dig deep in the following webpages--they outline, by connections, a web of investors and customers that are perpetrating a global auction of our privacy.

Amazon -- Seattle, Wa.
https://developer.amazon.com/s...

Jaspersoft -- San Francisco, CA.
https://www.jaspersoft.com/mob...

Google -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.google.com/analytic...

Flurry -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.flurry.com/flurry-a...

Localytics -- Boston, MA.
http://www.localytics.com/

Countly -- LIBYA!!....serious wtf here. All contact info is for Libyan addresses.
https://count.ly/products/feat...

Konitgent -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.kontagent.com/compa...

Webtrends -- Portland, OR.
http://webtrends.com/solutions...

Bango -- London, UK
http://bango.com/corporate/

Apsalar -- San Francisco, CA.
https://apsalar.com/

Piwik -- London, UK
http://piwik.org/what-is-piwik...

Mobilytics (Mobivity) -- Chandler, AZ.
http://www.mobilytics.net/

Adobe -- San Jose, CA.
http://www.adobe.com/solutions...

Openwave Mobility -- Redwood City, CA.
http://owmobility.com/about-us

Mixpanel -- San Francisco, CA.
https://mixpanel.com/

Urban Airship -- San Francisco/London
http://urbanairship.com/produc...

Cognizant -- Teaneck, NJ.
http://www.cognizant.com/enter...

Amethon -- Sydney, AU
http://www.amethon.com/

The ring to rule them all, if you believe the developers..
Segment.io -- San Francisco, CA.
https://segment.io/mobile

For the inner workings, see linked Whitepaper. A good list of other miscreants is included on that page, in addition to the ones I list here...
http://www.mmaglobal.com/white...

Seems San Francisco is the epicenter of all of this activity, if office locations are an indicator.

Apparently, The Guardian uses Flurry as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/hel...

"Please visit audiencescience.com/privacy.asp, quantcast.com/privacy and flurry.com/privacy-policy.html for the privacy policy of our online behavioural targeting technology providers."(again, my emphasis)

A quick look at the Propublica privacy policy shows that they use Google, for what that's worth.

I think someone at Rovio is pissed...

At the bottom of this page at the Rovio website...

http://www.rovio.com/en/news/b... ...are four links to further information regarding privacy policies and FAQs, including a link to The New York Times privacy policy page...WTF?

http://www.nytimes.com/content...

If you'll scroll down the section titled "Analytics Technologies", you'll see that The New York Times uses Flurry to track their users, just like Rovio does.

"We use Localytics and Flurry to track and report on the usage and browsing patterns on some of our mobile applications." (my emphasis)

In light of the fact that The New York Times were one of the three media outlets that initially released the Snowden documents regarding Rovio tracking users of "Angry Birds" for the NSA, the irony of their articles only now becomes apparent.

I'm guessing Rovio added that link to the NYT privacy statement fairly recently (like, yesterday), but I don't have a cache of that page to know for sure.

But, yeah...Pot, meet Kettle.

The folks behind the tracking...

According to Rovio's own site, they use Flurry for data acquisition:

"In addition to the information covered above, we use Flurry Analytics in most games to collect gameplay-related information and technical data. This is a common analytics component, used widely in mobile gaming - for more information see www.flurry.com."

From the Flurry site, one will find the following code used by "Angry Birds" to track users:

http://support.flurry.com/sdkd...

Above code is part of larger cache of code documentation related to Flurry Analytics:

http://support.flurry.com/inde...

"Page 16 http://www.techarp.com/article..."

Mod up Informative, please.

From the following linked article:
"During a recent interview session I had with Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer for digital security company F-Secure Corp, he shared that he was friends with the men behind Rovio, the creators behind another massive success story--Angry Birds."

http://www.thestar.com.my/stor...

A couple of years ago I tried, in earnest, to inform Mikko Hypponen of evidence I had acquired (first-hand) that proved that Sony Entertainment was gathering data from computers that had Sony software installed, after being referred to him by Mark Russinovich (of Microsoft/Sysinternals fame). I was stone-walled completely, even after providing crash-dumps that held all the evidence he needed to go public-- now, I know why.

For those of you wondering...US CPI weighting.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_09142012.pdf

For an interesting comparison, take a look at India's weighting, which includes a rural and urban differentiation.

http://mospi.nic.in/Mospi_New/upload/brochure_n_cpi18_feb11.pdf

"I thought the subject was Fukushima, which is NOT "a threat to all life on our planet"

You don't see four nuclear reactors leaking radioactive substances directly into the ocean as a threat to life on this planet? Do you realize that TEPCO has no plan to even decommission these reactors, let alone clean up the mess that they have now? I don't think you realize the seriousness of the situation. This is potentially far greater then Chernobyl. There are four reactors, all the associated hardware and 4 spent fuel-rod cooling pools still suspended in the I-beams of those blasted reactor buildings. One serious earthquake can simply topple those cooling pools, dumping the contents all over the site. There is no current plan to remove those spent rods--they just sit there.

Seriously, nobody has any idea what to do about this. All TEPCO is doing is slowing the flow of leaks and stockpiling the water they collect, water flowing off an entire mountain--they have no plan whatsoever to deal with the reactors themselves, or the storage ponds.

TEPCO is in charge of this mess...and they do next to nothing. Do you have any better ideas?

I propose a challenge.

I challenge the wealthy individuals that have made The Giving Pledge to fix this problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge

These people are the wealthiest people on the planet. They have the greatest level of resources available to them, both in the form of personal wealth and that of continued control of the worlds most powerful--and capable--corporations on the planet.

I challenge you--those that have made the pledge--to set aside your differences, political and financial aspirations and solve this problem. Forever. Just get it done.

The world is watching.You have the greatest opportunity to solve this threat, a threat to all life on our planet. NOW is the time to show the rest of the world just what kind of people you are, to show your moral fiber and to return some of your wealth to those that made it possible, and to do so in probably the most profound way possible--everyone stands to gain from such an act.

Time to put your money where your mouths are and start giving, not just your money but your corporations as well. Get them working on this problem. Use your connections to cut through the TEPCO bureaucracy, through the government red-tape. Use your patents and technologies to the greatest effect.

If you really want to help the world, the time is now.

Thank you.

"....this reads like a brochure for Incapsula's services..."

http://bgp.he.net/AS19551#_whois

Well, I imagine most US server farms are hurting pretty bad right now, what with all the NSA luvin' going around over here. Now imagine a company that has all of it's servers in the US, Israel and Germany (with a few in Japan)--in light of recent revelations regarding NSA spying--and maybe you'll understand why Incapsula is paying for ads/articles all over the damn place, including /.

They are fucked, and this marketing blitz is a Hail-Mary attempt to save their ass from the fire that Snowden just lit under it. Personally, I love a good BBQ.

"Wait, so this means they also lost $2.2Billion to piracy then?"

I think it's safe to say they can blame themselves for this--after all, their fan-base has had abundant exposure to the idea that stealing can actually be Fun and Entertaining!.

C'mon, nowhere else would I have come up with stealing a Cessna from the local airport with the sole purpose of crashing it into ground-troops in an effort to steal a military attack-chopper right off their base helipad...and be successful.

Prism Disclosure: It's a game, guys. Not makin' any suggestions.

" Nacchio was a hero, and no one even noticed."

I did.

And, if he ever runs for office (don't care which one) in a district I can legally vote, he has my vote. Same goes for Ladar Levison (Lavabit). When it comes to politicians, actions are all that matters--what they say can no longer be trusted. Granted, these guys are not politicians, but as far as I am concerned they've already met the requirement for pretty much any position they could hold in government, that requirement being at least a scrap of social-responsibility and morality.