69182379
submission
itwbennett writes:
Saying that having access to people's communications is vital for combating terrorism, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has laid out surveillance plans that may involve banning online messaging services that offer encryption such as WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage. 'In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which, even in extremists ... that we cannot read?' Cameron said, adding later, 'No, we must not.'
69174345
submission
jfruh writes:
The longtime open source dream of Linux on the desktop looks like it's never going to arrive — but, then again, we live in a world where the desktop is less and less important. Nothing could make that clearer than this year's CES, where five of the biggest announcements may not have been branded with a smiling penguin, but had Linux under the hood just the same.
69170515
submission
itwbennett writes:
The FBI’s access to email and other data collected from overseas targets in the NSA’s Prism program has been growing since 2008, according to a 2012 U.S. Department of Justice inspector general’s report declassified last Friday by the DOJ in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times. Here are some of the milestones mentioned in the report: In 2008, the FBI began reviewing email accounts targeted by the NSA through the Prism program. In October 2009, the FBI requested that information collected under the Prism program be 'dual routed' to both the NSA and the FBI so that the FBI 'could retain this data for analysis and dissemination in intelligence reports.' And in April 2012, the FBI began nominating email addresses and phone numbers that the NSA should target in it surveillance program, according to the document.
69138113
submission
jfruh writes:
Facebook may be having a hard time holding on to teens, but one demographic there is growing: seniors. 56 percent of people over the age of 65 who use the Internet now have a Facebook account, up from 45 percent just a year ago.
69076365
submission
itwbennett writes:
Server administrators are advised to upgrade OpenSSL again to fix eight new vulnerabilities, two of which can lead to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Although the flaws are only of moderate and low severity, 'system administrators should plan to upgrade their running OpenSSL server instances in the coming days,' said Tod Beardsley, engineering manager at vulnerability intelligence firm Rapid7.
69070665
submission
itwbennett writes:
The potential privacy risk in Apple's OS X Yosemite, first reported by German tech news site Heise and confirmed by IDG News Service, appears when people use the Spotlight Search feature, which also indexes emails received with the Apple Mail email client. Performing a Spotlight search opens email previews that load external images, including tracking pixels that are used to gather data, even when the Mail client is asked not to do this.
69039151
submission
jfruh writes:
BlackBerry's smartphone business is famously floundering, but the company isn't betting everything on its new retro physical-keyboard phones. It's also making moves into distrubted, embedded, and asset-tracking computing for homes, cars, and businesses, which can all be lumped under the currently trendy "Internet of Things" buzzword umbrella. The compnay got a head start when it acquired the QNX OS in 2010, which was intended as the basis of a new smartphone OS but which already had credibility in the embedded market.
69034981
submission
itwbennett writes:
Earlier this week, Dish announced Sling TV, an internet TV offering they're launching 'in the coming weeks'. Here are some of the details, beyond the $20 price tag and live sports viewing, that ITworld's Peter Smith has rounded up so far: You can add 'packs' of additional channels — like the Kid's Extra pack — for $5 more/month (via TechCrunch). You get just a single stream with a subscription, which is especially bad news for families (via Washington Post). Xbox Live members will get a free one month trial (via Xbox Wire).
69033213
submission
itwbennett writes:
Apple has fixed an issue that could have allowed attackers to launch brute-force attacks against iCloud users in order to guess their passwords. The GitHub user who made the proof-of-concept attack tool iDict public said he did it to draw attention to the problem and force Apple to fix it. 'This bug is painfully obvious and was only a matter of time before it was privately used for malicious or nefarious activities,' he said in the tool’s description. Apple was relatively quick to act and started enforcing rate limiting for log-in attempts done with iDict a day after the tool became available.
68991347
submission
jfruh writes:
One of the biggest news stories out of CES doesn't involve a new laptop or shiny household gadget. Instead, it's a legal move by Toyota: the Japanese carmaker will be allowing anyone to use fuel cell technology it's patented for free, forever. Toyoto sincerely believes that fuel cells are the clean-air future of automotive technology, and that the more companies that are making and selling fuel-cell cars, the more infrastructure will be available to refuel and service them, leading to more sales.
68991205
submission
jfruh writes:
In the opening days of the new U.S. Congress, a bill has been introduced in both the House and Senate enforcing Net neutrality, making it illegal for ISPs to accept payment to prioritize some traffic packets over others. But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
68939155
submission
itwbennett writes:
In-flight Internet provider Gogo is inspecting its users' traffic exchanged with secure sites by replacing those sites' HTTPS certificates with self-signed ones. The company argues that this procedure, which is technically a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack, is only performed for some video streaming sites as part of its efforts to limit or block the use of such services.
68937685
submission
itwbennett writes:
After a weekend hack forced the Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp to shut down, Bitstamp has revealed that $5 million worth of bitcoin was stolen during the attack. And that's not all the bad news for Bitcoin this week: Canadian Bitcoin exchange Vault of Satoshi announced it is is no longer accepting new deposits and will close Feb. 5. But in this case the operators are pursuing new business opportunities, saying in a post that the shutdown 'has absolutely nothing to do with insolvency, stolen funds, or any other unfortunate scenario.'
68936549
submission
jfruh writes:
Crowdfunding and open source seem to derive from the same impulse, and many open source developers have turned to sites like Kickstarter and IndieGogo to get their projects off the ground. But when even a high-profile industry giant like Ubuntu can't meet its crowdfunding goals, it's a sign that crowdfunding is no silver bullet.
68936425
submission
jfruh writes:
The world where our gadgets all charge wirelessly has been delayed by several factors, one of which is that there are three industry groups promoting rival technological standards. That problem is now a little closer to a solution, as the Alliance for Wireless Power and the Power Matters Alliance announced a plan to merge.
