Facebook takes Steps to address privacy concerns
Facebook has needed stairs in late days to address more worries near privacy, warning employers not to require prospective employees for their passwords and trying to clarify its user “rights and responsibilities” policies.
But the latter endeavour backfired when tens of ks of users, largely in Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company, evening though zero substantive received changed. Their discontent rendered that, no issue what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users’ trust and to its growth.
“There is such an incredible level of scrutiny straightaway about anything any fellowship does near privacy,” enunciated Jules Polonetsky, director of the Succeeding of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. “We are treating every individual thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of wholly these five-alarm stage outbursts is that people will gone inured virtually privacy and miss literal privacy issues because of crying wolf when cypher is really locomoting on.”
Users’ willingness to portion information is a fundamental share of Facebook’s business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Lastly year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it’s preparing for an initial public offer afterwards this spring that could be valued at equally much as $100 billion.
Privacy issues experience dogged Facebook for years. It descended with the Federal Craft Commission in November over allegations that it misled users near8 the handling of their personal information. Google Inc., a large rival, fit to a alike colony eight months earlier.
The latest ruckus occurred when more than 30,000 German users posted that they were rejecting the company’s proposed changes to its governing documents. But the changes amounted to nuanced revisions and clarifications of long-standing policies — not a major overhaul.
The company, for instance, replaced the word “profile” with “timeline,” since Facebook users forthwith receive a different type of profile. Facebook likewise changed “hateful” to “hate speech” in its description of prohibited content.
Still, users who read the documents for the foremost time noticed some things that alarmed them. For example, the document replaced the dustup “privacy policy” with “data-use policy,” seemingly taking privacy away of the picture.
Facebook has been calling it a data-use policy since September, preferring to exist more straightforward virtually its real purpose. Only the companionship makes thus many subtle changes that it’s slow to lose track.
“It’s realise that some people fundamentally misunderstand our proposed changes. Our data-use policy governs how we utilization and garner data. That document is not altering at this time,” Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. “That’s why we experience this unique and transparent process, though — so receive an opportunity to clarify confusion and respond to user concerns. We flavour ahead to doing hence in the coming weeks.”
Another worrisome discovery might get been the fact that applications used by your Facebook admirers could gain access to your data on Facebook, eve if you do not utilization the apps yourself. That’s true, just it’s been straight since at least 2007 and well-documented elsewhere on the site.
A virtual Sheet down the Amazon, thanks to Google
Experience you ever applied Google Earth to most go down the streets of your town? Well, forthwith you could do the same—through the depths of the Amazon rainforest.
On March 21, Google declared the release of Street Consider Amazon, which gives its users 360 stage access to the Rio Black reserve share of the Amazon River and the forests surrounding it. 500,000 even photos were used for the project, Google enunciated in a blog post.
“[Street Reckon Amazon] originated near two years ago and was created equally a way to bring people who are online whole over the world to the Amazon to see the beauty of the forest and the river for themselves,” Google geo data strategist Karin Tuxen-Bettman said.
In an informational video, Tuxen-Bettman explained that Google is training employees of the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation, equally substantially equally local community members, and are leaving its equipment with them. That way, she said, these people could proceed to percentage their steer of see with the world and garner data that they would similar to see online.
“Google has an amazing sight to convey the world and altogether of its diversity and its beauty to its global online hearing through Google Maps and Google Earth,” Tuxen-Bettman said. “This is one amazing design that helps to do that.”
Google Nails Digg founder to boost Google+
One of Silicon Valley's iconic entrepreneurs is moving corporate. Google has scooped up Digg founder Kevin Arose and a act of his employees at Milk, the venture he made finally twelvemonth as a lab for experimenting with mobile app ideas.
Google product head Bradley Horowitz confirmed the news on Google+ previous Friday following rumors that Arose was in talks with Google and Facebook. A source close to Milk said discussions with the two suitors -- which turned into a bidding warfare -- received been moving77 on for a month.
Google paid as much as $15 million for the acquisition, granting to TechCrunch. Google did not expose the buy price, and Arose33 did not respond to a request for comment.
Google essentially bought the squad and tossed aside the real company. Milk is shut down, and those not hired by Google were laid off, according to two people familiar with the deal. Surprisingly, the list of those cut includes Milk's engineers -- typically the team companies covet about when they acquire raging startups.
In Google's case, it wanted Milk's production and intention talent. They'll exist posed to mould on Google's social projects, specially Google+.
Rose dove in quick, utilising Google+ to broadcast news of his new gig. "I can't hold to exist a percentage of the amazing squad that is shaping the next of the web," he wrote.
Rose is best known for making Digg, a content-sharing site that was erstwhile one of Silicon Valley's most buzzed-about ventures. Its fast success ran to Rose's appearance on a now-infamous 2006 Business Hebdomad track with the tagline: "How this kid created $60 million in 18 months."
That act -- based on a $200 million estimate of Digg's worth at the time -- never panned out. Digg's lead faded, and a series of rumored acquisitions got nowhere as the company's CEO locating turned into a game of musical chairs. Rose left the companionship finally twelvemonth55 to focus on Milk.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter receive totally been on skill sprees, scooping up startups to hire the entrepreneurs behind them. The literal products those entrepreneurs created are often an afterthought.
Google in Young Privacy Probes
The investigations—which span U.S. federal and land agencies, equally substantially equally a pan-European endeavour led by France—could embroil Google in years of legal battles and upshot in hefty fines for privacy violations. The Journal in February reported that Google was using especial computer code to install midget tracking files, or "cookies," on some people's computers, iPhones and iPads, evening if the devices were put to occlusion this variety of tracking.
"We will of path cooperate with any officials who have questions," a Google spokeswoman said. "But it's important to remember that we didn't anticipate this would happen, and we have been removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers."
In the U.S., the Federal Craft Commission is canvasing whether Google's actions violated finally year's legal colony with the government in which Google pledged not to "misrepresent" its privacy practices to consumers, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The fine for violating the agreement is $16,000 per violation, per day. Because millions of people were affected, any fine could add up quickly, depending on how it is calculated. The FTC declined to comment.
A group of land attorneys general, including New York's Eric Schneiderman and Connecticut's George Jepsen, are too investigating Google's circumvention of Safari's privacy settings, allotting to people familiar with the investigation. Country attorneys general can receive the ability to levy fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
In Europe, the Gallic Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL, has added the Safari circumvention technique to its existing pan-European investigation into Google's privacy-policy changes, according to a mortal closing to the investigation. The CNIL is the authority that levied a €100,000 ($130,960) fine on Google lastly year for collecting passwords and other personal info when Google vehicles were gathering info for its Street Consider function service.
CNIL didn't respond to a request for comment. At the time, Google apologized for its misapprehension and enounced it would delete the data it collected.
Google makes virtually of its money selling online ads. Alike many ad companies, it uses cookies to traverse info most a person's online activities in guild to serve targeted ads.
Advertisers will earnings a premium for highly targeted ads, and Google is in a heated conflict with social-networking rival Facebook Inc. for these ad dollars.
The investigations in the U.S. and Europe propose the toll that the rivalry has involved on Google equally it tries to build more social-networking tools into its ain productions to compete with Facebook.
Google previously acknowledged it commenced circumventing Safari's privacy settings finally year in society to embed a social-networking feature—what it calls a "+1" button—in some ads. Roughly akin to a Facebook "like" button, it would allow people tell admirers that they found an ad useful. Google said the subsequent tracking of Safari users was inadvertent.
This week, a late Google executive, James Whittaker, released a public letter stating that he left the fellowship because he felt it was trying too difficult to button its rival social-networking service, Google+, into entirely corners of the organization.
Mr. Whittaker indited that Google+ had got "an ominous mention invoking the feeling that Google entirely wasn't enough."
Anonymous members Verbalize Out at surreal SXSW panel
When it's broke that a prominent member of a clandestine movement has been big info to the FBI for months, you'd think it would intimidate others in the grouping into backing off.
And that may receive been the lawsuit when it was broke that "Sabu," literal advert Hector Xavier Monsegur, received been arrested in June and provided info that helped principal to the apprehension of five other alleged members of the "hacktivist" collective, Anonymous.
But in the hours and days that followed, something selfsame different happened.
"That switched. A portion of people we hadn't seen for months, or years, started showing up. An onset [on some sites by Anonymous] happened that night," he said. "It merely angered them, not frightened them."
Housh was speaking at South by Southwest Interactive on Tuesday, the annual festival in Austin devoted to Web and digital culture. He appeared on a panel with the director of a documentary nigh Anonymous, and two people who spoke (one via Web chat) wearing the movement's trademark "Guy Fawkes mask."
The masks, patterned afterwards the one worn by the shadowy anti-hero from the comic volume and film "V for Vendetta," gave an nearly surreal zephyr to the panel at a conference where black-framed glasses are a more green way accessory.
As a crew of almost 200 watched, "Anonymous 9000" spoke on a big screen, his mask and caucasian gloves lending theatrics eventide equally he spoken soberly virtually the inner workings of a motion that has alternately inspired, intimidated and flummoxed the Web.
"I was sort of mesmerized by what was locomoting on," articulated Brian Knappenberger, who manoeuvered "We Are Legion: The Level of the Hacktivists." "This is an effort to define that culture."
In recent years, Anonymous has been required in some of the nigh high-profile cyberattacks on the Web -- hobbling the websites of governments and businesses, hacking into sites to divulge private data and, along the way, getting dubbed cyberterrorists by regime in the United States and elsewhere.
Add-on sync comes to Firefox 11
Add-on sync and two new developer tools are the hallmarks of today's update to Firefox.
The stable version of the browser that you could download now, Firefox 11 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) allows you to mirror the same add-ons across multiple desktops. While it's straight that Google Chrome has been able to sync add-ons since former 2010, its implementation has been notably uneven. It'll exist interesting to see how well Firefox handles it. You can toggle add-on synchronization from the Sync tab in the Options window.
A Mozilla illustration said CNET that there would exist no major update to Firefox for Android today. Although the mobile version of the browser received been on the same six-week release cycle equally the desktop version, Mozilla's decision to change to a native Android interface has prevented more major updates from being pushed to the browser since January.
Along with add-on sync, Firefox directly marks nigh add-ons as compatible by default.
Firefox 11 besides adds two young options to a developer's toolbox. The first is the 3D Page Inspector Reckon nicknamed Tilt. Not unlike steroids for "View Source," Tilt is a WebGL-powered choice to highlight what bleak code looks alike when the public sees it on a live Web site. Mozilla anticipates that this will helper demonstrate the connection between code and site experience.
Unique to Firefox, Tilt may be turned on by choosing 3D in Reckon in Page Inspector. Hover over an element to see more most it.
The moment aid is an on-the-fly CSS Way Editor, which will let you to alter the code in CSS stylesheets straightaway within the browser.
Other changes in Firefox for PCs include suffer for Google's SPDY protocol for faster and safer site loading, as considerably equally personal data import from Chrome. This includes bookmarks, cookies, and history. Password, forge data, and settings will come at a after date.
‘Password1′ is the No. 1 Password Utilized by Business Users
The line world has a password problem starting with the fact that the No. 1 computer password applied by occupation users is, hold for it: "Password1". Unfortunately, that's merely the near cringe-worthy illustration of bad enterprise security cited by Trustwave in its latterly released Global Security Account for 2012.
Why "Password1"? Because "it satisfies the default Microsoft Active Directory complexity setting," the IT security enquiry firm noted. In other words, it's became a capitalized letter, a number, and the requisite bit of characters to qualify under basic password security settings.
The password problem is merely one of the security issues businesses are coursing up against in an increasingly hostile cyber-world, allotting to Trustwave. Other cardinal findings related to hacking incidents and intrusion investigations at companies researched by Trustwave include:
Customer records remained a valuable target for attackers, making up 89 pct of breached data investigated.
For the moment year, the food and drinkable manufacture created up the highest pct of investigations at nearly 44 percent.
Industries with franchise models are the new cyber targets: more than a third of 2011 investigations haped in a franchise business.
In 76 pct of incident response investigations, a 3rd party responsible for organization support, ontogeny and/or maintenance of business environments infixed the security deficiencies.
Law enforcement detected more breaches in 2011up from 7 percent in 2010 to 33 percentage in 2011.
Data harvesting techniques proceeded to target data "intransit" within victim environments showing up in 62.5 pct of 2011 investigations.
Anti-virus detected less than 12 percent of the targeted malware samples collected during 2011 investigations.
For Web-based attacks, SQL injection remains the bit one onset method for the fourth yr in a row.
In improver to detailing the issues above, Trustwave elaborates at length on password issues in occupation55 IT environments. Users "are finding creative ways to override" corporate IT policies on passwords, according to the report.
These risk-increasing workarounds include laying usernames equally passwords, making simple, oftentimes numerically progressive (and therefore predictable) changes to passwords, and opting for the simplest potential variations to foregather complexity requirements, "such equally capitalizing the first letter and adding an exclamation channelize to the end" of the password.
A large problem for business users is that IT policy requiring that passwords be complex and changed ofttimes not to cite environments that necessitate several different passwords is making it more hard to commit those passwords to memory.
Hence the workarounds users employ, Trustwave notes, while many job users pen down their passwords where they can exist disclosed eventide on the selfsame computers they're intended to protect.
And even if a company has a good password policy that's adhered to by its employees, that isn't the closing of it. Trustwave warned in the account that keystroke logging software is relatively slowly for hackers to deploy and social engineering techniques for getting employees to discover how to access IT assets remains a large problem.
Australia’s First 4G tablet goes on sale
Telstra is has started selling the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9, Australia's first 4G tablet, which it says allows users to surf the mobile web up to five times faster than on other models.
It comes as Australians lot to tablet devices, with analyst house Telsyte estimating that 1.4 million tablets were sold in Australia in 2011. Over two million tablets are expected to be sold this year.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G - which comes raging on the heels of the Motorola Xoom 2 that Telstra got stocking on February 21- runs Android 3.2 (upgradeable to 4.0 in the future) and includes an 8.9-inch screen, 1.5GHz dual-core processor and front- and rear-facing cameras (3-megapixel and 2-megapixel, respectively).
The device weighs 470 grams and is available in 16GB or 32GB configurations, which will price $720 and $840, respectively.
Telstra said the 16GB model was in stores from yesterday while the 32GB would launch ''shortly''. There are both plans and prepaid options, with plans ranging from $29 for 1GB of data to $89 for 15GB of data.
''The leap in internet speeds available ... agency customers can watercourse high-definition video and music over the internet, onus magazines faster and enjoy rich internet content traditionally limited to a PC screen,'' articulated Telstra mobile executive director Warwick Bray.
Bray's delivery to businesses was that users would be able to make web speeds on the tablet that are comparable to those felt in the office.
Telstra is in the process of rolling out its 4G network access the country, and it is already available in completely capital cities plus more than 80 regional and metro4g politan centres.
The telco recently launched Australia's foremost 4G smartphone, the HTC Velocity 4G, which Telstra enunciated was its tertiary highest-selling consumer handset on a plan.
The first2222 4G devices offered by Telstra were wireless broadband dongles in September finally year, and between then and the ending of Jan Telstra said it added 100,000 4G subscribers.
Telstra says its 4G network is open of download speeds between 2Mbps and 40Mbps, while upload speeds are between 1Mbps and 10Mbps. This is near twice download speeds on 3G.
When the user is away of 4G coverage areas the tablet is able to revert to 3G, with dual channel HSPA+ support.
Facebook spies on Telephone users’ text messages
Facebook admitted reading text messages belonging to smartphone users who downloaded the social-networking app and articulated that it was accessing the data equally part of a test to launch its ain messaging service, The (London) Sun Times reported.
A spokesman for Facebook says while aught has been launched yet, users will be prompted to give permission when the lineament debuts.
"The permission is understandably disclosed on the app page in the Android marketplace and is in anticipation of new features that enable users to integrate Facebook features with their texts," a spokesman for Facebook articulated444 in a statement. "However, other than some very trameled testing, we haven't launched anything still so we're not employing the permission.
Other well-known companies accessing smartphone users' personal data -- such equally000 text messages -- include photo-sharing site Flickr, dating site Badoo and Yahoo Messenger, the newspaper said.
It claimed that some apps eventide let companies to intercept phone calls -- while others, such equally555 YouTube, are capable of remotely accessing and operating users' smartphone cameras to accept photographs or videos at any time.
Security app My Remote Lock and the app Tennis Juggling Game were among smaller companies' apps that may intercept users' calls, the paper said.
Emma Draper, of the Privacy International campaign group, said, "Your personal information is a precious commodity, and companies will die to great lengths to cause their hands on equally much of it equally possible."
More than 400,000 apps could be downloaded to Android phones, and more than 500,000 are available for iPhones -- with entirely apps downloaded from Apple's App Shop covered by the same price and weather policy.
According to a YouGov poll for the newspaper, 70 percentage of smartphone users seldom or never read the price and weather policy when they download an app.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/26/facebook-spies-on-phone-users-text-messages-report-says/#ixzz1napUDzLd
5 ways to Remain safe until ‘do not track’ Push arrives
Google, Microsoft, AOL and other big companies get corresponded to install a "do not track" button in Web browsers to make surely that you could surf the Web with an assured amount of privacy. It's a large step for the industry -- merely until this button arrives, how could you assure yourself a little more privacy online?
The "No Track" push would block companies from utilizing data near your Web browsing habits to customize ads for you. They get0000 too jibed not to use the data for employment, credit, health-care or insurance purposes. For obvious reasons, that type of utilisation feels intrusive.
Companies would even be able to use your general browsing patterns for market enquiry or production development. And companies alike Facebook could yet cross your exercise of the Similar push to gather data.
This button will exist opt out, which way you receive to discover it and turn it on if you desire some privacy. About privacy options form like that -- you're tracked unless you require not to be. Just until this becomes a reality, you do have some options to ensure yourself some more privacy now.
Start with your browser. Nigh browsers experience a privacy choice only you have to notice it in the browser settings. For instance, to do this on Google Chrome (my browser of choice), choke to your Preferences menu, click Under The Hood, and uncheck all the options under Privacy if you do not want to be tracked.
Clear away the cookies. A cookie is utilized to ship information most where you experience visited to the browser, therefore it may easily cross you. If you desire your information cleared, usage the settings in your browser and make out whole cookies regularly.
See who's watching. Another swell fashion to notice out what companies are watching you is to utilization a service foretold Ghostery.com. This services alerts you to the cookies currently watching you. Run Ghostery while you're browsing your preferent websites, and you might be surprised to see the five or six different companies watching you.
Stop them from tracking you. You can also cherry selection the sites that you desire to exist surely are NOT tracking you. Web sites such equally PrivacyChoice.org will permit you choose sites that you dead do not want tracking your habits. Of path this site can only request that the sites you visit do not cross you. The sites then experience to comply, thence this isn't a fool-proof method -- merely it is a good start.
Play it safe. And of course, utilisation prudence when surfing the Web. Telephone numbers and social security numbers are NOT for social networking sites similar Facebook. And if you utilisation a shared computer with friends or family members, remember that the Web sites you visit will affect the advertising that others see on that browser -- therefore don't visit embarrassing sites unless you desire others to know most it.
Onyx Myanmar
- Facebook takes Steps to address privacy concerns
- A virtual Sheet down the Amazon, thanks to Google
- Google Nails Digg founder to boost Google+
- One-man-show Apple critic: ‘I will not Pass Tacit
- Google in Young Privacy Probes
- entrepreneurs among First buyers of Young iPad
- Today’s Crown Stories: iPad Lines, PayPal Here, Young Kindle iPad App
- Anonymous members Verbalize Out at surreal SXSW panel
- iPad dominance dips But Android Even playing catch-up
- Add-on sync comes to Firefox 11
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Recent Posts
- Facebook takes Steps to address privacy concerns
- A virtual Sheet down the Amazon, thanks to Google
- Google Nails Digg founder to boost Google+
- One-man-show Apple critic: ‘I will not Pass Tacit
- Google in Young Privacy Probes