54637009
submission
judgecorp writes:
The NSA mass surveillance programme currently receiving criticism dates back to George W Bush's response to the 9/11 attacks, according to newly declassified documents. The agency was first given powers to collect the contents of certain international communications in October 2001;the powers had to be renewed regularly at first, and have since been solidified and extended.
54509149
submission
judgecorp writes:
A new remotely-programmable embedded SIM design from the GSMA operators' group means that devices can be operated on the Internet of things and won't have to be opened up to have their SIM card changed if they move to a different operator. The design could speed up embedded applications.
54393281
submission
judgecorp writes:
In the latest twist to the saga of Google's tracking of Safari users, the giant has asked to have a UK lawsuit dismissed. Google says it is bound by California laws, so plaintiffs will have to come the US and sue there. Law firm Olswang is bringing the suit on behalf of British users whose Safaris browser settings were over-ridden to help Google target ads; it argues that international organisations should respect the laws that apply where their customers live.
54292141
submission
judgecorp writes:
About 37,000 Sky broadband and phone customers lost their connection, as incompetent copper thieves raided BT's infrastructure... and took fibre. Some scrap metal dealers will pay £4 per kg for stolen copper cables, but there is no dark market for fibre, so the thieves didn't make anything — which might be some small consolation to customers, some of whom had to wait for two days for BT to repair the inaccessible cables.
54193441
submission
judgecorp writes:
Google has opened data centers in Singapore and Taiwan to serve the boomi in Asian Internet users. But it cancelled a $300 million data centre project in Hong Kong, to focus on the Taiwan site and the smaller one in Singapore. Officially the problem was lack of space in Hong Kong, but China's repressive attitude to the Internet (and the history of the Chinese hack on Gmail in 2010) must have contributed to the move.
54141319
submission
judgecorp writes:
A branch of the City of London police seems to be censoring suspected pirates worldwide, using threats. The Police Intellectual Proerty Crime Unit (PIPCU), acts on tip-offs from copyright owners to attempt to close down websites accused of piracy. the process involves cease-and-desist letters, followed by pressure on advertisers not to fund the site, and finally PIPCU uses threats to the domain registrar (not the ISP), all without any sort of court order.
53880661
submission
judgecorp writes:
A trove of two million passwords for online services has been found, collected by a botnet running the Pony malware. There are a lot of Facebook credentials in the stash, and security expert SpiderLabs observes that all too many of the passwords are "terrible".
53880551
submission
judgecorp writes:
Russia's Yota has launched Yotaphone, which has a regular screen and an e-ink display on the back. The mono e-ink display can show alerts, notifications, and other information such as maps and boarding passes, without draining the battery. It's launched in Russia and four European countries, with fifteen more to follow next year. There are no plans to sell it in the US.
53830565
submission
judgecorp writes:
Researchers have created malware that delivers stolen data without an Internet connection using inaudible sonic waves generated by a devices's speakers. The multi-hop acoustical keylogger is an experiment by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, rather than an exploit seen in the wild, but it is one more thing to be concerned about
53774765
submission
judgecorp writes:
Amazon is testing package delivery by drone, with a view to shipping goods up to 5 pounds (2,.3kg) in weight from distribution centres to customers' homes using unmanned octocopters by 2018. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the scheme on US television on Sunday, but it could fall foul of regulations and practicalities. The drones would have to get FAA clearance, and would be vulnerable to hacking and physical theft.
53643953
submission
judgecorp writes:
Fujitsu has launched a laptop which authenticates users using the veins of their palm. The contactless technology is hard to deceive and — since it detects haemoglobin in the veins, is not so likely to be breakable using the gruesome method of cutting off a hand.
53587403
submission
judgecorp writes:
A Welsh man has realised he threw out a hard drive containing 7500 bitcoins, worth £4 million at today's prices. it is now under four feet of garbage in a landfill site the size of a football pitch.
53493417
submission
judgecorp writes:
BlackBerry has launched BBM Channels, a rather Twitter-like social network that runs on its BBM messaging system. Meanwhile the company had good news in the developing world: it is the second most popular phone in South Africa. This suggests BlackBerry should be offering phones suited to developing market — a little at odds with its tactics of moving to high-end devices.
53333555
submission
judgecorp writes:
The European Union is all set to approve Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's phone business, which is the only major hurdle it still has to jump. However, in China, workers at Nokia's factory have gone on strike over moves to change their contracts in connection with the sale.
53173281
submission
judgecorp writes:
Wireless charging has had little success so far (except for toothbrushes) but Google is giving it a good try, with a Nexus Wireless Charger that works with LG's Nexus 4 and 5 as well as the latest version of Google's tablet, the second generation Nexus 7. The charger operates using the Qi standard, which seems to be ahead of rival Powermat.
