32353493
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Microsoft has been counted as a supporter of CISPA since the beginning. Now the company tells CNET any new law must allow "us to honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers" and protect "consumer privacy." Microsoft is no longer as enthusiastic about a controversial cybersecurity bill that would allow Internet and telecommunications companies to divulge confidential customer information to the National Security Agency. The U.S. House of Representatives approved CISPA by a 248 to 168 margin on Thursday, in spite of a presidential veto threat and warnings from some House members that the measure represented "Big Brother writ large."
Microsoft added that it wants to "ensure the final legislation helps to tackle the real threat of cybercrime while protecting consumer privacy." That's a noticeable change — albeit not a complete reversal — from Microsoft's position when CISPA was introduced in November 2011. To be sure, Microsoft's initial reaction to CISPA came before many of the privacy concerns had been raised. An anti-CISPA coalition letter (PDF) wasn't sent out until April 16, and a petition that garnered nearly 800,000 signatures wasn't set up until April 5.
What makes CISPA so controversial is a section saying that, "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, the NSA, or other agencies. By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more.
32290217
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Political power has a similar effect on the brain to cocaine — and it's not surprising that, as the Leveson Inquiry shows, our political leaders are hooked on it, says Dr Ian Robertson. Democracy, the separation of judicial powers and the free press all evolved for essentially one purpose – to reduce the chance of leaders becoming power addicts. Power changes the brain triggering increased testosterone in both men and women. Testosterone and one of its by-products called 3-androstanediol, are addictive, largely because they increase dopamine in a part of the brain’s reward system called the nucleus accumbens. Cocaine has its effects through this system also, and by hijacking our brain’s reward system, it can give short-term extreme pleasure but leads to long-term addiction, with all that that entails. But too much power — and hence too much dopamine — can disrupt normal cognition and emotion, leading to gross errors of judgment and imperviousness to risk, not to mention huge egocentricity and lack of empathy for others.
32287889
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Microsoft quietly fixed a flaw in Hotmail's password reset system that allowed anyone to reset the password of any Hotmail account last Friday. The company was notified of the flaw, by researchers at Vulnerability Lab, on April 20th and responded with a fix within hours—but not until after widespread attacks, with the bug apparently spreading "like wild fire" in the hacking community.
Hotmail's password reset system uses a token system to ensure that only the account holder can reset their password — a link with the token is sent to an account linked to the Hotmail account — and clicking the link lets the account owner reset their password. However, the validation of these tokens isn't handled properly by Hotmail, allowing attackers to reset passwords of any account.
Initially hackers were offering to crack accounts for $20 a throw. However, the technique became publicly known and started to spread rapidly with Web and YouTube tutorials showing the technique popping up across the Arabic-speaking Internet.
32286911
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that's not even the worst part.
The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (pdf—scroll to amendment #6) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government's power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used. The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.
Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for "cybersecurity" or "national security" purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more valid uses have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children. Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.
Basically this means CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a "cybersecurity crime". Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all.
32285383
submission
suraj.sun writes:
On Monday Dolby Laboratories announced Dolby Atmos, a new audio platform, the company claims, that will change the experience of sound in entertainment with its more natural and realistic sound-field, which could transports people into the story with a lifelike, sensory experience. For the first time, Dolby Atmos introduces a hybrid approach to mixing and directs sound as dynamic objects that envelop the listener, in combination with channels for playback, with its ability to transmit up to 128 simultaneous and lossless audio inputs (channels or objects), and the ability to render from 5.1 all the way up to 64 discrete, precisely positionined, and individually amplified speaker feeds. “Dolby Atmos brings a completely new dimension to the motion picture soundtrack. To be able to move sounds anywhere in the theatre, and to also create environments that surround and excite an audience, is extremely powerful,” said Mike Hedges, the Academy Award–winning re-recording mixer at Park Road Post Production. Initially, Dolby will be focused on installing Dolby Atmos in a select number of premium global locations in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan, with plans for a larger rollout of Dolby Atmos in 2013.
32277671
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Signaling the gravity of the government's antitrust investigation against Google, the Federal Trade Commission has hired a prominent Washington litigator — Beth Wilkinson, who successfully argued for the government in Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh case — to serve as its outside counsel in the case, the first time in at least five years the federal regulatory agency has taken such a step.
"This means, to me, that the FTC is quite serious about bringing a case against Google," said Samuel Miller, a San Francisco antitrust lawyer who was recruited by the Justice Department in 1993 to prosecute its first antitrust case against Microsoft. "The antitrust authorities don't bring in outside counsel unless they are very serious about bringing a case."
The F.T.C. has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Google’s search business for over a year. Mr. Leibowitz cautioned that this did not necessarily mean the F.T.C. would sue Google.
32274319
submission
crookedvulture writes:
The launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs made headlines earlier this week, but the next-gen processor's story is still being told. When overclocked, Ivy Bridge runs as much as 20C hotter than its Sandy Bridge predecessor at the same speed, despite the fact that the two chips have comparable power consumption. There are several reasons for these toasty tendencies. The new 22-nm process used to fabricate the CPU produces a smaller die with less surface area to dissipate heat. Intel has changed the thermal interface material between the CPU die and its heat spreader. Ivy also requires a much bigger step up in voltage to hit the same speeds as Sandy Bridge. Looks like serious overclockers are better off sticking with Intel's last-generation chips.
32244091
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Just as the House Rules Committee convened to weigh amendments to the measure, spearheaded by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the administration released a formal policy statement that raised the stakes: It said President Barack Obama’s advisers would recommend that the president veto the bill unless there are significant changes to boost privacy protections, add new protections on users' personal information and alter its liability protection language. "This is just, I think, them kicking up some dust," said Rogers, who is backing a number of amendments that would try to address many of the issues raised by the administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it agreed with the Obama administration. “The White House is right: CISPA threatens fundamental notions of privacy and without a substantial rewrite should be voted down,” Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, said in an e-mail. “The Obama administration has endorsed the Patriot Act and other wiretapping laws. It speaks volumes that even they oppose this bill as a bridge too far.” Asked about Obama’s veto threat, House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters today that the president wants to put “the government in charge of the Internet.”
32202185
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Nokia and HTC won a key ruling by the European Patent Office that a patent used by German firm IPCom in legal battles against the two mobile phonemakers was invalid in its current form. Nokia said it meant it could continue selling products in Germany. IPCom acquired Bosch's mobile telephony patent portfolio, which was created between the mid-1980s and 2000 and includes about 160 patent families worldwide. Those patents, including 100A, include some key technologies for the wireless industry.
Several top phone makers have signed a licensing deal with IPCom, but HTC and Nokia have challenged IPCom's patents in courts across Europe.
32198925
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Last-minute opposition to the CISPA, which has been criticized as a "Big Brother" cybersecurity bill, is growing as the U.S. House of Representatives prepares for a vote this week. CISPA has 113 congressional sponsors. Instead of dropping off as criticism mounted, which is what happened with the SOPA protests in January, more continue to sign up, with six new sponsors adding themselves in the last week.
Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican and presidential candidate, warned in a statement and YouTube video, that CISPA (PDF) represents the "latest assault on Internet freedom." Paul warned that "CISPA is Big Brother writ large," and said that he hopes that "the public responds to CISPA as it did to SOPA back in January."
CISPA would permit, but not require, Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the U.S. National Security Agency and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It's hardly clear, however, that this wave of opposition will be sufficient.
32198257
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Within hours of Google launching its new online storage service, the terms and service have come under heavy fire by the wider community for being able to potentially stifle innovation and harm the users' Google seeks to serve. While Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive allow you to retain your copyright and IP rights to the work you upload to the service, but Google Drive takes everything you own. A quick analysis of Google's terms of service shows how the search company owns the files you upload the minute they are submitted, and can in effect do anything it wants to your files — and that's final. But there is a small catch. Here's what the Google Drive terms say:
"Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps)."
The last sentence makes all the difference. While these rights are limited to essentially making Google Drive better and to develop new services run by Google, the scope is not defined and could extend far further than one would expect. Simply put: there's no definitive boundary that keeps Google from using what it likes from what you upload to its service.
32114183
submission
suraj.sun writes:
A judge at the US International Trade Commission has just ruled that Microsoft's Xbox 360 infringes four of Motorola's patents. The ruling isn't unexpected, since many of the patent cover H.264 video encoding, which is a standard — the ITC wasn't persuaded by Microsoft's argument that Motorola will "kill video on the web" by failing its obligation to license the patents under fair and reasonable terms. In a statement, Microsoft said it "remains confident the Commission will ultimately rule in Microsoft's favor in this case and that Motorola will be held to its promise to make its standard essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms."
The ruling is preliminary and subject to review by a full panel of ITC judges, so there will be little immediate impact, but Motorola's strategy of litigating with standard-related patents seems to be paying early dividends even as it invites international scrutiny.
32105239
submission
suraj.sun writes:
Apple is being sued in federal court in San Francisco over allegations that every touch-based product the company makes infringes on a patent relating to touch-based interactive museum displays. According to the complaint, Professor Slavoljub Milekic conceived a system that used a touchscreen that allowed children to move virtual objects around the screen, which he used to build interactive displays for the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, in 1997, and filed for a patent on his design that same year.
The patent in the suit, US Patent #6,920,619 named "User interface for removing an object from a display," was issued by the US Patent & Trademark Office in 2005. According to the lawsuit, Milekic formed FlatWorld Interactives in 2007 to "promote and commercialize" his invention. Curiously, FlatWorld was incorporated on January 2007, just weeks after Apple announced the original iPhone at Macworld Expo. In July 2007, just after Apple shipped the original iPhone, FlatWorld filed a reissue request for the patent, which appears to have been done in order to modify some of the patent's dependent claims.
