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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 15 Issue 47
Volume 15, Issue 47 Atari Online News, Etc. November 29, 2013
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2013
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1547 11/29/13
~ UK To Block Extremists? ~ People Are Talking! ~ New Pac-Man Record!
~ NSA Malware Infection? ~ Hollywood To Raid Swiss ~ Encryption Arms Race!
~ Dutch vs Google Privacy ~ Social Media Propaganda ~ Couric Joins Yahoo!
~ NSA Eye Muslim Radicals ~ China Rumor Crackdown! ~ Anti-Elop Fever!
-* Spies "Doomsday" Cache Worry *-
-* Console Launch Glitches Are Tackled *-
-* On This Day in History, Atari Creates Pong *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!! If you're like me, you're probably still
enjoying holiday leftovers, and perhaps loosening the belt a few extra
notches these days! As I'm sure I've mentioned numerous times over the
years here, I really enjoy my Thanksgiving meal! It's something that
really only happens once a year, so I like to go all out. If you're also
a little like me, we need a little time to relax from the turkey
festivities! So, sit back, relax with another piece of pumpkin pie,
and enjoy this week's issue of A-ONE!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Xbox, PlayStation Tackle Console Launch Glitches!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" A Revolution in User Experience!
Pac-Man Breaks Projection Mapping Record!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Xbox, PlayStation Tackle Console Launch Glitches
Move over, zombies. Step aside, terrorists. Aliens, out of the way.
There are a few new foes affecting gamers that are proving to be far more
destructive than any on-screen villain.
With nicknames like "the blue light of death" and "the disc drive of
doom," they're the game-ending glitches causing headaches for a few
gamers who picked up the next-generation Xbox One and PlayStation 4
consoles at launch.
Microsoft Corp. said Monday it's replacing the Xbox One units of users
who have reported systems that won't read discs, an issue dubbed "the
disc drive of doom." The company said the problem is affecting "a very
small number" of customers, who will also receive one free downloadable
game from Microsoft Game Studios.
Sony Corp. announced after the debut of the PS4 earlier this month that
it was replacing the units for "less than 1 percent" of users whose new
consoles malfunctioned and displayed a pulsating blue light. The problem
was given the moniker "the blue light of death."
Both glitches recall Microsoft's "red ring of death," when production
problems caused several predecessors of the Xbox One to lock up and
display three flashing red lights. Ultimately, the technology giant
extended customers' warranties to three years and said in 2007 that it
had spent more than $1 billion to repair the problems associated with
the Xbox 360.
"I understand these things happen, but it sucks when they happen to you,"
said Donald Blankinship, an Xbox One owner who experienced a faulty disc
drive after purchasing the console at Best Buy. "I can still play
downloadable games until the replacement arrives, so at least there's
that."
Other users have reported consoles being completely unresponsive out of
the box. Both Sony and Microsoft said they're working to troubleshoot
such issues and replace broken consoles as quickly as possible.
While the issues seem to affect a minority of Xbox One and PS4 owners,
the concerns could deter consumers who regularly play games on
smartphones and mobile devices. Sony's PS4 costs $399. Microsoft's Xbox
One cost $100 more and includes a Kinect sensor.
"When I think about the Xbox brand, we want it to mean quality," said Phil
Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, at last
week's Xbox One launch event. "That's critical to us. I think you can
overcome things, but we don't plan on that. We plan on testing it tens
of thousands of hours to make sure it's going to be a solid launch."
Microsoft and Sony both announced that more than 1 million Xbox One and
PS4 consoles were sold in the 24 hours after their release this month.
It's been seven and eight years respectively since Microsoft and Sony
launched the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Sony said it expects to sell
5 million PS4 units by the end of its fiscal year in March.
For Video Game Consoles, A Revolution in User Experience
From the first Atari Space Invaders consoles to the Nintendo Wii, game
consoles have been the it toys of their generations. Thats a trend
that Sony and Microsoft are hoping to repeat with their plays for the
holiday season: the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.
But even as consumers prepare to plop down hundreds of dollars for the
latest systems, industry watchers are asking: Is gaming evolving beyond
the console? After all, it has been nearly a decade since these two
titans of the industry released new consoles. Put another way: When the
Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hit the market, there was no such thing as an
iPhone.
In that time, the average Americans expectations for technology have
changed considerably. Weve dropped our one-use devices digital
cameras, camcorders, music players in favor of tiny pocket computers
that do everything. And that includes playing games.
Consequently, the face of gaming is going through a major shift.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans report they play games of some stripe,
according to the Entertainment Software Association. That trend is
heavily driven by growth in mobile games, as one could see with a quick
survey of smartphone screens on the Metro; youll see a lot of Candy
Crush out there.
The average gamer is still the enthusiast, however. This guy is 30 and
has been playing games for more than a decade, according to the ESA
report. These are hard-core gamers, who grew up blowing dust off of
Nintendo cartridges and munching on pizza during campus Halo tournaments.
But gaming is now reaching a wider and more diversified audience, and
theres a push for gamemakers to think outside of the console.
Game consoles didnt start as all-in-one entertainment machines. In fact,
they were first designed to play just a few games or even one at a
time. Ataris original home console for Pong, for example, played only
Pong. Later systems from Atari came with a handful of games such as
hockey, handball and table tennis, or with one blockbuster game, such as
Space Invaders.
That all changed in the 1980s, when gaming saw a shift to a
cartridge-based system. That set off a golden age of gaming; it was much
cheaper to swap in a new cartridge with a cool new game rather than buy
another system. But it also led to a glut of games and low-quality
consoles that inspired upstarts to dive in.
The influx was bad for the industry in a number of ways. For one, plenty
of companies that knew nothing about games jumped on the bandwagon,
meaning that bad games came from food companies, toothpaste makers and
movie studios. And console makers didnt make money off games from other
firms, losing profits as the market flood crowded out their own titles.
Overwhelmed customers started to lose their drive to play and also turned
to playing games on computers rather than consoles. By December 1982,
Atari in particular was suffering and released one of the greatest bombs
of all time: E.T., the video game.
The industry fell into whats known as the Game Crash of 1983, which saw
several companies jump out of the game market and ultimately pushed
industry-leading Atari into insolvency.
iBuyPower's Steam Machine Offers PC Specs for The Price of A New Xbox
Valve's official Steam Machine prototype isn't cheap, but it won't be the
only Steam-powered video-game console available come 2014. This morning,
iBuyPower revealed a prototype of its own upcoming Steam Machine, which
will go on sale for just $499 next year. For the price of an Xbox One,
the computer will offer a multicore AMD CPU and a discrete AMD Radeon R9
270 graphics card that's a $180 GPU all by itself and come with
Valve's Steam Controller as part of the package deal.
The company says the box is bigger than a PlayStation 4 but smaller than
Microsoft's Xbox One, and comes standard with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a
500GB hard drive. The glossy white case also has a fully customizable
light bar running down the center channel, and an integrated power
supply. You won't have to find room for a power brick on your home
entertainment center shelves.
For the price, you won't be getting Windows, only Valve's Linux-based
Steam OS, which could be an issue starting out. While Valve has quite a
few games running on Linux already, and says that major game developers
will be building triple-A game titles specifically for Steam OS in 2014,
it's not quite the same as having the entire Windows catalog as a
fallback. Still, iBuyPower says that existing Steam for Linux games
should run quite well, at full 1080p resolution and 60 frames per
second. We're looking forward to see just how much power iBuyPower can
provide for under $500.
On This Day in History: Atari Creates Video Games
In 1958, scientists in New York made a primitive computer game called
Tennis for Two. But it wasnt until 1971 that the first attempt at a
mass-market, coin-operated video game emerged.
Computer Space proved too complicated and received few orders. But its
creators went on to found Atari, which in 1972 came up with a hit.
Inspired by a game bundled with the early home computer system Magnavox
Odyssey, Pong allowed two people to play simulated paddle tennis against
each other.
The simple concept, combined with deliberate design quirks to ensured
games were limited in length, proved such a hit that Atari scrapped plans
to develop it with other firms and launched the product on its own.
Atari initially struggled to keep up with demand, and before long games
machines were appearing everywhere.
Rivals entered the market with clones; others worked on fresh ideas. The
arcade industry boomed, helped by games such as Space Invaders (1978) and
Pac-Man (1980).
Eventually, the market become saturated: machine sales peaked at $8bn in
1981 ($25.2bn in todays money), although they remained high throughout
the 1980s.
But Pongs greatest legacy lay in the boost it gave the development of
home computer games, starting with the home version of Pong in 1975, which
sold 150,000 units in the first few months of release.
On its first day of release this month, over a million PlayStation 4 units
were sold globally.
Pac-Man Breaks Projection Mapping Record
Interactive agency Running In The Halls (RITH) has laid claim to hosting
the worlds largest playable projection on a historic industrial building
in London, UK. The agency teamed up with AV equipment provider Blitz
Communications to achieve the feat which saw the classic video game
Pac-Man projected across a 2,219 square metre area, as witnessed by the
Guinness Book of Records.
TV programme the Gadget Show and Pac-Man creator Namco Bandai
commissioned the event to celebrate the 2014 launch of Pac-Man and the
Ghostly Adventures game. The feat is said to have doubled the previously
held record for a playable game on a projection mapped building surface.
The game maps were entirely designed around the building, explained Shay
Moradi, a partner in RITH.
The only really tricky part was doing multiple variations of the map so
that we could find one that was playable. Ultimately we wanted genuine
reactions from the people playing it, we wanted it to be a fun game.
The crew set up outside the ExCel building, which hosted the Plasa show
earlier in the year, and projected onto the 1930s Millenium Mills
building across the Royal Victoria Docks waterway. A surveyor had
measured the whole building down to the centimetre beforehand. Six Barco
FLM-HD20 projectors and the companys ImagePRO video scaler were used for
the project, as well as Extron DVI DA 8 Plus distribution amplifiers and
Lightware Fiber TX110-RX 110 DVI fibre extenders.
RITH describes itself as an interactive agency that designs and develops
apps, websites and large scale interactive installations. The firm found
itself tasked with a similar projection mapping project on the same
building last year, so the territory was not unfamiliar.
The only thing we changed was some the colours to make them suitable for
projection, Moradi said.
For instance the original Pac-Man uses a very deep blue which would have
been suitable for CRTs back in the day but we went for a lighter blue to
make it really shine and stand out. It looked like it was lasered onto
the building, it was that bright.
After putting all this hard work in, the crew had a nail-biting wait for
the giant controller to arrive which was to operate the game. It was
delivered with just minutes to spare before the record attempt began.
The feat will be shown on UK TV Channel 5s The Gadget Show on 9th
December at 8pm.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Spies Worry Over "Doomsday" Cache Stashed by ex-NSA Contractor Snowden
British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a
"doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they
believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has
stored on a data cloud.
The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and
includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current
and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said.
The data is protected with sophisticated encryption, and multiple
passwords are needed to open it, said two of the sources, who like the
others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The passwords are in the possession of at least three different people
and are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said. The
identities of persons who might have the passwords are unknown.
Spokespeople for both NSA and the U.S. Office of the Director of National
Intelligence declined to comment.
One source described the cache of still unpublished material as Snowden's
"insurance policy" against arrest or physical harm.
U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the
classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract
systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama
Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded
enough material to fuel two more years of news stories.
"The worst is yet to come," said one former U.S. official who follows
the investigation closely.
Snowden, who is believed to have downloaded between 50,000 and 200,000
classified NSA and British government documents, is living in Russia
under temporary asylum, where he fled after traveling to Hong Kong. He
has been charged in the United States under the Espionage Act.
Cryptome, a website which started publishing leaked secret documents
years before the group WikiLeaks or Snowden surfaced, estimated that the
total number of Snowden documents made public so far is over 500.
Given Snowden's presence in Moscow, and the low likelihood that he will
return to the United States anytime soon, U.S. and British authorities
say they are focused more on dealing with the consequences of the
material he has released than trying to apprehend him.
It is unclear whether U.S. or allied intelligence agencies - or those of
adversary services such as Russia's and China's -
know where the material is stored and, if so, have tried to unlock it.
One former senior U.S. official said that the Chinese and Russians have
cryptographers skilled enough to open the cache if they find it.
Snowden's revelations of government secrets have brought to light
extensive and previously unknown surveillance of phone, email and social
media communications by the NSA and allied agencies. That has sparked
several diplomatic rows between Washington and its allies, along with
civil liberties debates in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Among the material which Snowden acquired from classified government
computer servers, but which has not been published by media outlets known
to have had access to it, are documents containing names and resumes of
employees working for NSA's British counterpart, the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), sources familiar with the matter said.
The sources said Snowden started downloading some of it from a classified
GCHQ website, known as GC-Wiki, when he was employed by Dell and assigned
to NSA in 2012.
Snowden made a calculated decision to move from Dell Inc to another NSA
contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, because he would have wide-ranging access
to NSA data at the latter firm, one source with knowledge of the matter
said.
Glenn Greenwald, who met with Snowden in Hong Kong and was among the first
to report on the leaked documents for the Guardian newspaper, said the
former NSA contractor had "taken extreme precautions to make sure many
different people around the world have these archives to insure the
stories will inevitably be published."
"If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he has arranged for them to
get access to the full archives," Greenwald said in a June interview with
the Daily Beast website. He added: "I don't know for sure whether has more
documents than the ones he has given me... I believe he does."
In an email exchange with Reuters, Greenwald, who has said he remains in
contact with Snowden, affirmed his statements about Snowden's
"precautions" but said he had nothing to add.
Officials believe that the "doomsday" cache is stored and encrypted
separately from any material that Snowden has provided to media outlets.
Conservative British politicians, including Louise Mensch, a former member
of parliament, have accused the Guardian, one of two media outlets to
first publish stories based on Snowden's leaks, of "trafficking of GCHQ
agents' names abroad."
No names of British intelligence personnel have been published by any
media outlet. After U.K. officials informed the Guardian it could face
legal action, the newspaper disclosed it had destroyed computers
containing Snowden material on GCHQ, but had provided copies of the data
to the New York Times and the U.S. nonprofit group ProPublica.
Sources familiar with unpublished material Snowden downloaded said it also
contains information about the CIA - possibly including personnel names -
as well as other U.S. spy agencies such as the National Reconnaissance
Office and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which operate U.S.
image-producing satellites and analyze their data.
U.S. security officials have indicated in briefings they do not know what,
if any, of the material is still in Snowden's personal possession.
Snowden himself has been quoted as saying he took no such materials with
him to Russia.
NSA Malware Reportedly Infects More Than 50,000 Computers Worldwide
The NSA-related cover surveillance operations are further detailed in a
report by Dutch publication NRC that claims that more than 50,000
computers worldwide have been infected with NSA-operated malware. The
software, hidden in computer networks belonging to organizations such as
mobile operators across the globe, can remain dormant for years and be
activated at will for personal data collection. The publication says it
had access to documents provided by NSA employee turned whistleblower
Edward Snowden that prove the agencys complex hacking operation.
According to the report, there are over 1,000 hackers working for a
special department inside the agency called Tailored Access Operations or
TAO. NSA hackers had apparently infected 20,000 computers with such
Computer Network Exploitation or CNE programs back in 2008, a Washington
Post story revealed in August, but the number has risen to 50,000
computers by mid-2012.
By having access to such computers, the NSA can collect personal data that
it wouldnt have access to otherwise. One example reveals that Belgium
carrier Belgacom was infiltrated by British intelligence, giving the
agency access to customers telephone and traffic data in a hack that was
discovered in September 2013. In this case, the computers were infected
via LinkedIn.
This is only one of the newest reports offering more details about the
NSAs spying efforts. Earlier reports have convinced tech companies that
they need to further improve the protection they offer to consumers, and
to put up a fight, trying to limit the scope of these surveillance
campaigns.
Meanwhile, the NSA has not commented on the malware matter, with a
government spokesperson saying that any disclosure of classified material
is harmful to the national security of the United States.
U.K. PM Cameron Wants To Block Extremist Websites
David Cameron, the British prime minister, has recently said in
parliament that the U.K. government wants to block Internet access to
certain extremist Islamist sites, Business Insider reports. On
October 23rd, when discussing the measures the U.K. government is taking
to combat terrorism, Cameron said that the government has various steps
in place to disrupt the extremist narrative, including [...] blocking
online sites, with the remark apparently being overlooked by the media.
However, Cameron did not offer any details on how the government would
define extremism or how the blocking of such sites would occur and who
would oversee the ban.
The prime minister has repeatedly said that he wants to change U.K. law
to censor more of the Internet, Business Insider notes. Cameron has also
recently announced that he wants to create a new law that would punish
owners of pornography videos that depict rape with three years in prison.
Furthermore, in July Cameron revealed plans to ban pornography in the
region, with users interested in adult shows having to register their
intentions with their ISP in order to access such content. The proposal
was met with concerns in the U.K., specifically because the company
hired to develop the porn filter for ISPs is owned by Huawei, which was
accused of spying for the Chinese military in the past.
Vietnam Announces Big Fines for Social Media 'Propaganda'
Vietnam will hand out fines of 100 million dong ($4,740) to anyone
criticizing the government on social media, under a new law announced
this week, the latest measure in a widening crackdown on dissent by the
country's communist rulers.
Comments that did not constitute criminal offences would trigger fines if
held to be "propaganda against the state", or spreading "reactionary
ideology", according to the law signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
Vietnam has repeatedly drawn fire for the harsh treatment and lengthy jail
terms it has given to bloggers who criticized its one-party regime. The
number of arrests and convictions has soared in the last four years.
The new decree is vaguely worded and did not say what comments amounted to
a criminal offence, which can be punished with prison, or an
"administrative violation" that rates a fine.
Internet penetration is soaring in a country of an estimated 90 million
people, a third of whom use the internet and about 20 million of whom have
Facebook accounts, a report published at a seminar on information
technology in Ho Chi Minh City in September showed.
A Vietnamese Facebook user who campaigned online for the release of his
brother jailed for criticizing the government fell afoul of the same law
and was last month sentenced to 15 months of house arrest.
Rights groups and foreign governments have come down hard on Vietnam over
its draconian cyber laws, including the United States, which has urged
Vietnam to improve its human rights record to strengthen its case for
stronger trade ties.
Media freedom campaigners Reporters Without Borders calls the country "an
enemy of the internet".
The law would anger social media users, said Nguyen Lan Thang, a
well-known Vietnamese Internet activist, who questioned the need for it.
"How could the government be destroyed by comments and the sharing of
information on personal social media?" Thang said.
The decree also said anyone posting online a map of Vietnam inconsistent
with the country's sovereignty claims faced fines.
The issue is hugely sensitive in Vietnam, where China's perceived
encroachment of territory generates the kind of quiet anger experts say
Vietnam's government wants to rein in.
China's Rumor Crackdown Has 'Cleaned' Internet, Official Says
China's campaign against online rumors, which critics say is crushing
free speech, has been highly successful in "cleaning" the Internet, a top
official of the country's internet regulator said on Thursday.
China has the world's most sophisticated online censorship system, known
outside the country as the Great Firewall. It blocks many social media
websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others, along with many
sites hosted in Taiwan and those of rights groups and some foreign media
agencies.
The crackdown on online rumors is really intended to quash
anti-government discourse, activists say. High profile users of Sina
Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog, have been targeted, apparently for
political speech.
In a rare public appearance, Ren Xianliang, vice minister of the State
Internet Information Office, emphasized China's commitment to scrubbing
the web of content it deemed critical or offensive.
"The fight against rumors has received a positive response and has been
quite effective," he said.
"The Internet has become clean. The frequency of slander has declined,
but it has not impacted the orderly flow of information."
Although social media has become a platform for users to voice complaints
and criticism about the government, authorities force domestic internet
firms to delete user-posted content they consider too politically
sensitive.
China will work to strengthen regulation of the internet by training local
internet regulators and net companies, Ren added, and further "manage"
search and microblogs as well as Tencent's popular WeChat app.
"We will meet the demands of the people to create a cyberspace with
Chinese characteristics," Ren said.
He reiterated China's right to block websites with information on Tibetan
independence or support for separatists in China's far western region of
Xinjiang.
"Some websites propagating material on Tibet and Xinjiang aim to split our
nation, or try to subvert the power of the state," Ren added. "This runs
counter to China's laws and regulations."
Techies vs. NSA: Encryption Arms Race Escalates
Encrypted email, secure instant messaging and other privacy services are
booming in the wake of the National Security Agency's recently revealed
surveillance programs. But the flood of new computer security services is
of variable quality, and much of it, experts say, can bog down computers
and isn't likely to keep out spies.
In the end, the new geek wars between tech industry programmers on the
one side and government spooks, fraudsters and hacktivists on the other
may leave people's PCs and businesses' computer systems encrypted to the
teeth but no better protected from hordes of savvy code crackers.
"Every time a situation like this erupts you're going to have a frenzy of
snake oil sellers who are going to throw their products into the street,"
says Carson Sweet, CEO of San Francisco-based data storage security firm
CloudPassage. "It's quite a quandary for the consumer."
Encryption isn't meant to keep hackers out, but when it's designed and
implemented correctly, it alters the way messages look. Intruders who
don't have a decryption key see only gobbledygook.
A series of disclosures from former intelligence contractor Edward
Snowden this year has exposed sweeping U.S. government surveillance
programs. The revelations are sparking fury and calls for better
encryption from citizens and leaders in France, Germany, Spain and Brazil
who were reportedly among those tapped. Both Google and Yahoo, whose data
center communications lines were also reportedly tapped, have committed
to boosting encryption and online security. Although there's no
indication Facebook was tapped, the social network is also upping its
encryption systems.
"Yahoo has never given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any
other government agency. Ever," wrote Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in a
Nov. 18 post on the company's Tumblr blog announcing plans to encrypt all
of its services by early next year. "There is nothing more important to
us than protecting our users' privacy."
For those who want to take matters into their own hands, encryption
software has been proliferating across the Internet since the Snowden
revelations broke. Heml.is Swedish for "secret" is marketed as a
secure messaging app for your phone. MailPile aims to combine a Gmail-like
user friendly interface with a sometimes clunky technique known as public
key encryption. Younited hopes to keep spies out of your cloud storage,
and Pirate Browser aims to keep spies from seeing your search history. A
host of other security-centered programs with names like Silent Circle,
RedPhone, Threema, TextSecure, and Wickr all promise privacy.
Many of the people behind these programs are well known for pushing the
boundaries of privacy and security online. Heml.is is being developed by
Peter Sunde, co-founder of notorious file sharing website The Pirate Bay.
Finland's F-Secure, home of Internet security expert Mikko Hypponen, is
behind Younited. Dreadlocked hacker hero Moxie Marlinspike is the brains
behind RedPhone, while Phil Zimmerman, one of the biggest names in
privacy, is trying to sell the world on Silent Circle. Even flamboyant
file sharing kingpin Kim Dotcom is getting in on the secure messaging
game with an encrypted email service.
The quality of these new programs and services is uneven, and a few have
run into trouble. Nadim Kobeissi, developed encrypted instant messaging
service Cryptocat in 2011 as an alternative to services such as Facebook
chat and Skype. The Montreal-based programmer received glowing press for
Cryptocat's ease of use, but he suffered embarrassment earlier this year
when researchers discovered an error in the program's code, which may
have exposed users' communications. Kobeissi used the experience to
argue that shiny new privacy apps need to be aggressively vetted before
users can trust them.
"You need to be vigilant," he says. "We're two years old and we're just
starting to reach the kind of maturity I would want."
Heml.is also encountered difficulties and angered users when its creators
said they wouldn't use open source or publicly auditable code. And
Silent Circle abruptly dropped its encrypted email service in August,
expressing concern that it could not keep the service safe from
government intrusion.
"What we found is the encryption services range in quality," says George
Kurtz, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based CrowdStrike, a big data, security
technology company. "I feel safe using some built by people who know what
they are doing , but others are Johnny-come-latelies who use a lot of
buzzwords but may not be all that useful."
Even so, private services report thousands of new users, and nonprofit,
free encryption services say they have also see sharp upticks in
downloads.
And for many users, encryption really isn't enough to avoid the U.S.
government's prying eyes.
Paris-based Bouygues Telecom told its data storage provider Pogoplug in
San Francisco that it needs the data center moved out of the U.S. to get
out from under the provisions of U.S. law. So this month, PogoPlug CEO
Daniel Putterman is keeping Bouygues as a client by shipping a
multi-million dollar data center, from cabinets to cables, from
California to France.
"They want French law to apply, not U.S. law," says Putterman, who is
also arranging a similar move for an Israeli client.
Bouygues spokesman Alexandre Andre doesn't draw a direct connection with
the Patriot Act, and says Bouygues' arrangement with Pogoplug is driven
by concerns over performance and privacy. Andre says Bouygues wants the
data stored in France, but it was up to Pogoplug to decide whether this
would be done on Bouygues' own servers or Pogoplug's.
"There is a general worry in France over data security, and storing data
in France permits us to reassure our clients," Andre says. The arrangement
also helps improve the service's performance, Andre says, another reason
for the move.
For Pogoplug, business is booming it's garnered close to 1 million paid
subscribers in its first year and Putterman says the company is anxious
to accommodate concerned clients. And this month, Pogoplug launched a $49
software package called Safeplug that prevents third parties, from the
NSA to Google, from learning about a user's location or browsing habits.
But many warn that encryption offers a false sense of security.
"The fundamental designers of cryptography are in an arms race right now,
but there are a series of weaknesses and missing oversights that have
nothing to do with encryption that leave people vulnerable," says Patrick
Peterson, CEO of Silicon Valley-based email security firm Agari. And many
that do work, bog down or freeze computers, forcing "a trade-off between
security and convenience," he says.
In any case, most attacks don't happen because some cybercriminal used
complicated methods to gain entry into a network, he adds.
"Most attacks occur because someone made a mistake. With phishing emails,
it just takes one person to unwittingly open an attachment or click on a
malicious link, and from there, cybercriminals are able to get a
foothold," Peterson says.
In addition, experts agree that with enough time and money, any encryption
can be broken. And already the NSA has bypassed or altogether cracked
much of the digital encryption that businesses and everyday Web surfers
use, according to reports based on Snowden's disclosures. The reports
describe how the NSA invested billions of dollars, starting in 2000, to
make nearly everyone's secrets available for government consumption.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government's computing power continues to grow. This
fall, the NSA plans to open a $1.7 billion cyber-arsenal a Utah data
center filled with super-powered computers designed to store massive
amounts of classified information, including data that awaits decryption.
Dutch Regulator: Google Spins An Invisible Web of Our Personal Data
A Dutch regulator on Thursday said that Googles privacy policy update in
March 2012 that covers all the online services offered by the search giant
is in breach of local laws. Google spins an invisible web of our personal
data, without our consent, Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the College for
the Protection of Personal Data said. And that is forbidden by law. In
a press release, the regulator said that Google is collecting information
about its users through various services and combines the obtained data
in order to deliver tailored ads and content to users.
But Google isnt informing users adequately about the data combining
process, nor does it offer them an option to consent to or reject the
personal data processing done by the company. The regulator said that the
general terms of service introduced by Google starting with March 1, 2012
are not enough, as local law requires that users give explicit consent
for their personal data to be used in such a manner. According to the
watchdogs report, there are three kind of Google users that are tracked
by the company: people who have Google accounts, people who dont have
Google accounts but still use public Google services that do not require
logins including Google Search and YouTube and people who do not use
Google at all, but whose online activities are still tracked by the
companys ad cookies found on more than 2 million websites.
The regulator has invited Google to attend a hearing, after which it will
decide whether it will take any action against the company. In addition
to the Netherlands, five other countries in the region are investigating
Googles privacy policy including France, Spain, Germany, U.K. and Italy.
Spain has already initiated sanction proceedings against Google, finding
that Google Spain and Google Inc. may be committing six infractions
against the local data protection law. Google faces fines of up to
$408,000 in the region.
Google spokesman Al Verney said that Googles privacy policy respects
European law, and allows the company to create simpler, more effective
services, The Associated Press reports. Verney also said that Google had
engaged full with the Dutch investigation, and it will continue to do so.
Dutch DPA: privacy policy Google in breach of data protection law
Press release, 28 november 2013
The combining of personal data by Google since the introduction of its
new privacy policy on 1 March 2012 is in breach of the Dutch data
protection act [Wet bescherming persoonsgegevens]. This is the conclusion
of the investigation by the Dutch data protection authority [College
bescherming persoonsgegevens]. Google combines the personal data from
internet users that are collected by all kinds of different Google
services, without adequately informing the users in advance and without
asking for their consent. The investigation shows that Google does not
properly inform users which personal data the company collects and
combines, and for what purposes. Google spins an invisible web of our
personal data, without our consent. And that is forbidden by law, says
the chairman of the Dutch data protection authority, Jacob Kohnstamm.
The Dutch DPA has invited Google to attend a hearing, after which the
authority will decide whether it will take enforcement measures.
With its services, Google reaches almost every person in the
Netherlands with internet access. It is almost impossible not to use
Google services on the Internet. Many internet users use the search engine
Search, the videoservice YouTube or the webmail Gmail. In the Report,
three types of users of Google services are distinguished: people with a
Google account, people without a Google account that use the open services
of Google such as Search and YouTube, and people that do not use Google.
Google also collects data about this last group of users, when they for
example visit one of the more than 2 million websites worldwide with
Google advertising cookies.
The investigation shows that Google combines personal data relating to
internet users that the company obtains from different services. Google
does this, amongst others, for the purposes of displaying personalised ads
and to personalise services such as YouTube and Search. Some of these data
are of a sensitive nature, such as payment information, location data and
information on surfing behaviour across multiple websites. Data about
search queries, location data and videos watched can be combined, while
the different services serve entirely different purposes from the point
of view of users. Google does not adequately inform users about the
combining of their personal data from all these different services. On
top of that, Google does not offer users any (prior) options to consent
to or reject the examined data processing activities. The consent,
required by law, for the combining of personal data from different Google
services cannot be obtained by accepting general (privacy) terms of
service.
In January 2012, Google announced that by 1 March 2012 the new privacy
policy would apply to all users worldwide. The French data protection
authority (CNIL) then initiated an investigation on behalf of all European
data protection authorities (united in the Article 29 Working Party). This
resulted in findings, that have been published in October 2012. After this
initial investigation (with reference to the European Privacydirective),
six national privacy authorities, in France, Germany (Hamburg), the UK,
Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have decided to initiate national
investigations, based on their own national laws.
NSA Spied on Porn Habits To Discredit Muslim Radicals
The NSA targeted suspected Muslim radicals by gathering evidence of visits
to pornographic sites in order to harm their reputation, according to a
report Wednesday based on a document provided by leaker Edward Snowden.
A classified document about intercepted communications or signals
intelligence concluded that radicalizers appear to be particularly
vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public
behaviors are not consistent, according to a Huffington Post article
co-authored by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald.
NBC News was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the
document.
Jameel Jaffer, Depty Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union,
said: "This report is an unwelcome reminder of what it means to give an
intelligence agency unfettered access to individuals' most sensitive
information. One ordinarily associates these kinds of tactics with the
secret police services of authoritarian governments.
"That these tactics have been adopted by the worlds leading democracy
and the worlds most powerful intelligence agency is truly chilling.
Dated Oct. 3, 2012, the document, identifies six Muslims identified by
the agency as exemplars of how personal vulnerabilities can be
learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine
a target's credibility, reputation and authority, the report said.
One of the six is described as a U.S. person" - either a U.S. citizen or
a permanent resident.
A report set to be published in Spain's El Mundo newspaper will feature
leaked information from Edward Snowden that says the NSA monitored 60
million phone calls in Spain last December.
The document, which the Huffington Post said was provided by Snowden,
lists the Director of the NSA as its originator and the Departments of
Justice and Commerce and the Drug Enforcement Administration among its
recipients.
Greenwald, who until recently worked for U.K. newspaper The Guardian,
was the first to report the contents of the classified documents seen
by Snowden.
U.S. authorities have never formally confirmed the veracity of any of
Snowdens documents, but it has charged the former intelligence
contractor with leaking classified information.
Hollywood Looks To Raid Switzerlands Piracy Safe Haven
In Switzerland, it is completely legal for Internet users to download
copyrighted content from illegal sources. As a result, file-sharing
portals are very popular there, especially since Netflix hasnt come to
Switzerland yet. According to the International Intellectual Property
Alliance (IIPA), 35 percent of Swiss Internet users take advantage of
this each month by using unlicensed services. To combat this piracy,
according to a report by TorrentFreak, a working group is recommending
fairly drastic measures to the Swiss Justice Minister, including that
Swiss ISPs delete illegal content on Swiss-based sites, display warning
when accessing unauthorized content sources, and make obviously
illegal sites inaccessible.
These recommendations are unsurprisingly being influenced by the U.S. and
entertainment companies. Reportedly, Americas Swiss Embassy and a local
anti-piracy group are actively participating in the working groups
talks. In addition, the U.S. Trade Representative released a report
earlier this year that states, The United States strongly encourages
Switzerland to demonstrate its commitment to copyright protection and to
combating online piracy vigorously, including by taking steps to ensure
that rights holders can protect their rights.
Unlike in the U.S., the Swiss ISPs are much more opposed to being told
how to combat piracy. They do not want to become Internet police and
fear that such measures could lead to further problems, such as
censoring political content.
We reject the monitoring of Internet traffic on principle, because to
have exceptions opens a dangerous door, said Andrej Vckovski, president
of ISP industry association Simsa.
Atlantic City Casinos Approved for Internet Bets
Gamblers across New Jersey will be able to place bets online beginning at
midnight after state regulators on Monday approved 13 internet gaming
websites run by six Atlantic City casinos.
If a five-day test phase has been any indication, demand in the state of
nearly 9 million people could be high. The total number of players
logging on hit 10,000 during the first three days of 24-hour testing,
regulators said.
New Jersey is the third U.S. state, but by far the most populous, to roll
out online gaming. Officials hope the effort can rescue Atlantic City's
sagging casino revenues.
During testing, regulators found "no significant, widespread regulatory
problems or technical barriers for going live," said David Rebuck,
director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, in a call with
reporters.
Casinos were limited to 500 players on each site at one time during
testing, and they were not allowed to advertise widely. As of midnight
the restrictions will be lifted for those who won regulatory approval.
"You have to be gradual. You have to be cautious. You have to be
measured," Rebuck said, noting that casinos didn't want to invite large
numbers of players until they knew the systems could handle the traffic.
"You're going to see accelerating efforts by them to be much more
aggressive" about marketing, he said.
The casinos use geolocation services to figure out whether someone from
outside the state is trying to hack in online. Such technology has been
used already in Delaware and Nevada, the other two states to offer some
form of online wagering, but Rebuck said regulators in New Jersey
demanded "a higher standard of operations."
Regulators and casinos sent testers out of state and asked them to try to
crack into the New Jersey websites, but nobody broke through, he said.
"I'm not saying this is foolproof by any means," he said. "Somebody at
some time will find a way to get around this, and we have to be extra
vigilant."
The first test patron logged on to a site operated by Borgata Hotel
Casino & Spa from somewhere in New Brunswick on Thursday evening. Many
hits came later from areas within New Jersey that are near New York City
and Philadelphia, he said.
Borgata, owned by Boyd Gaming Corp and MGM Resorts, is one of the six
casino operators moving forward to live sites at midnight.
Borgata spokesman Joe Lupo would not reveal specifics about where in the
state their players were located, how much they were betting or how long
they spent online, because the information is proprietary, he said.
A spokesman for Caesars Entertainment Inc, which received permission to
open several online gaming sites to the public, said the company was
pleased with the number of players and that it expected to see "an uptick
in users every day," but wouldn't provide details.
Golden Nugget, whose parent company is Landry's Inc, decided to remain in
a test phase after regulators reviewed with it some "shortcomings,"
Rebuck said.
The casino expects to resolve those issues - which included problems
reporting revenues internally and to regulators - within the week at the
latest, according to its general manager Tom Pohlman.
Katie Couric To Anchor Yahoo's Video News Coverage
Katie Couric is joining Yahoo to anchor an expansion of the Internet
company's video news coverage in a move that she hopes will help persuade
other broadcast TV veterans to make the transition into online
programming.
Monday's announcement confirms recent published reports that Couric is
hoping to attract more viewers on the Internet after spending the past
22 years working as a talk-show host and news anchor at NBC, CBS and
ABC.
"I am particularly excited about hopefully attracting other people to
this platform and venture," Couric said in an interview with The
Associated Press. "We are in a major, transformative time in terms of
media in this country."
Couric's hiring is the latest coup for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer as she
brings in well-known journalists in an effort to create compelling content
that will attract more people to the company's online services. In the
past month, Yahoo has also lured away technology columnist David Pogue
and political reporter Matt Bai from The New York Times.
Financial terms of Couric's contract with Yahoo weren't disclosed. She
also declined to say how many more reporters will be added to her team at
Yahoo.
Couric, 56, will continue to host her daytime talk show, "Katie," on ABC
even after she becomes Yahoo's "global anchor" beginning early next year.
She described her now role at Yahoo as a "work in progress."
"I will be involved in developing a lot of concepts, but not necessarily
doing everything," Couric said. "I will be doing interviews, but not on a
daily basis. Probably monthly at this point."
The Yahoo job appealed to Couric because it will give her an outlet to
delve into breaking developments around the world that she regularly
covered as the anchor of CBS' evening news from 2006 through 2011.
Mayer, since leaving Google Inc. to become Yahoo's CEO 16 months ago, has
been trying to make Yahoo's services more alluring so people will visit
them on a regular basis and dwell for longer periods. In doing so, she is
hoping Yahoo will be able to sell more digital ads and boost the
Sunnyvale, Calif., company's revenue, which has been lagging the overall
growth of Internet marketing for years.
"News is a definitive daily habit for our users, and Katie will work with
our talented editorial team to pioneer a new chapter of digital
journalism," Mayer said.
Yahoo already operates the most popular online news section in the U.S.
with 81.5 million visitors in October, according to the most recent data
from the research firm comScore Inc. The audience's size is roughly the
same as when Mayer became Yahoo's CEO. CNN ranks second in online news
in the U.S., with 70 million visitors.
Couric first became a household name as a co-host of the "Today" show on
NBC from 1991 until she left to join CBS in 2006.
It remains unclear whether Couric's current talk show on ABC will be
renewed after its run ends in May. Her show is drawing an average 2.17
million viewers so far this season, slightly below an average of 2.26
million viewers attracted during its inaugural season in 2012, according
to the ratings firm Nielsen.
The Walt Disney Co., which produces the show, and the owned and operated
stations that air the program haven't decided whether to bring back the
show for a third season, said Bill Carroll, an expert on the syndication
market for Katz Media. Couric also said she is trying to figure out
whether she still wants to do the talk show.
Anti-Elop Fever Within Microsoft Is Astonishing
A new report has once again received highly detailed leaks about
Microsofts internal deliberations about the next CEO. And once again,
the leaks have a decidedly anti-Elop slant. According to the brand new
Bloomberg scoop, the two leading candidates are now Fords Mulally and
Microsofts own Nadella. What I find fascinating is that the article goes
out of its way to spell out that Elop is no longer a leading candidate
for the top job. It is highly unusual that the CEO selection process
receives such high-profile and detailed coverage by leading news
organizations. And it is almost unprecedented that a series of articles
has multiple sources specifically highlighting aspects of the selection
process that are unfavorable to one of the candidates. Namely Elop.
Just a few weeks ago, Bloomberg leaked information that was deeply
damaging to Elop in an article that claimed Elop was set to get rid of
both the Bing and Xbox divisions if he became the Microsoft CEO. Another
set of leakers informed AllThingsD that Elop and a few other leading
candidates are not quite ready for prime time. What this means that
there are several high-level Microsoft executives who really, really do
not want Elop to become the CEO. We are talking about revulsion or fear
that is leading them to leak negative views about Elop to leading news
organizations on a nearly weekly basis.
This is such a weird, dysfunctional selection process. It will be simply
fascinating to see how it wraps up.
One thing is certain: if Elop manages to defy his ruthless critics inside
Microsoft and grab the CEO baton, he is going to start a purge that will
clean out the upper ranks of the company with vengeance. The people
running the anti-Elop campaign are putting their survival at stake with
this media campaign.
IBM-Nvidia Deal Latest in Hot Supercomputer Sector
Rapid changes in ultra-fast computing continue to accelerate, with IBM
and Nvidia providing some of the latest evidence.
The companies are using the kickoff of a gathering of supercomputer users
and suppliers to announce plans to make IBMs forthcoming Power 8
processors work in tandem with Nvidias Tesla graphics chips. IBM systems
that will result from the partnership will target scientific applications
as well as run business software, the companies said.
Their alliance typifies several trends in the supercomputer
sectorincluding jockeying for technical supremacy between companies and
countriesthat are reflected in a new ranking of the 500 largest systems
being announced Monday.
A massive machine from China called Tianhe-2, which grabbed the top spot
in the twice-yearly Top500 ranking last June, remains atop the list as
the SC13 conference opens in Denver. It has 16,000 computing nodeseach
with two Intel Xeon processors and three of that companys new Xeon Phi
co-processorsfor a combined total of 3.12 million computing cores.
There are also homegrown Chinese processors in the system.
Titan, a Cray system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, remained No. 2. It
uses Advanced Micro Devices processors alongside Nvidia co-processors.
The U.S. remains the biggest user of supercomputers, with 265 of the 500
largest machines, while China was No. 2 with 63, according to the Top500
listed.
Among system vendors, Hewlett-Packard edged out IBM for the greatest
number of machines on the list, rising to 195 systems from 189 six months
ago. IBM had 166 systems, but because it tends to sell larger systems Big
Blue accounted for the greatest share of total computing power among
Top500 machines.
Supercomputers are room-sized machines that look much like a standard
collection of servers, but use different designs and communications
circuitry to apply huge amounts of hardware to individual problems. They
have long been used for purposes such as weapons design and
climate-change studies, but are increasingly important in fields like
designing cars and consumer products.
Technology vendors and their customers keep racing to build ever-larger
systems, aided by advances in computer chips. But designers are hobbled
by an energy barrier: simply stringing together more general-purpose
processorslike the x86 chips sold by Intel and AMDis running into
diminishing returns because the approach uses too much electricity.
Thats why designers increasingly augment that circuitry with chips that
can accelerate certain kinds of tasks, like the Nvidia graphics chips
that evolved from videogame systems or a new auxiliary chip from Intel
called the Xeon Phi.
Where a high-end x86 chip might have 8 to 16 electronic brains, these
accelerators have dozens to hundreds of smaller calculating engines. As a
result, fewer chips are required to get the same amount of work done than
on standard processors, yielding significant energy savings. Fifty-three
machines on latest Top500 list use accelerators.
But innovation is still needed in other areas. The U.S. Department of
Energy on Friday announced $25.4 million in R&D contracts to AMD, Cray,
IBM, Intel and Nvidia to improve circuitry that links chips together in
supercomputers to boost speed and reduce energy consumption.
Another hot topic is how to cool such systems in an energy-efficient way.
One unusual approach is being used at a supercomputer for the DOEs
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, supplied by H-P with chips from
Intel. It pumps warm water to help carry heat away from the circuitry,
which helps heat nearby offices and reduces bills on air conditioning to
cool the computer room.
They are achieving an incredible return on investment, says Scott
Misage, H-Ps director of high-performance computing.
A system at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, which includes Nvidia and
Intel chips, immerses circuitry in a type of oil to cool the system in a
novel way.
Other designers have been focusing on ways to use memory to provide more
data more quickly for number-crunching. A new Cray system with Intel
chips for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, dubbed Catalyst, uses
an unusually large amount chips call DRAMs for each computing nodesome
128 gigabytes worth, along with 800 gigabytes of flash memory, a
technology not widely used now in supercomputers.
IBM has focused most of its efforts in supercomputers up to now on
systems powered by its special-purpose BlueGene chips or on machines that
use Intels Xeon processors. Its Power chips are most often used in
high-end servers used by companies.
But Big Blue has been trying to break the Power technology out of its
niche, announcing a consortium in August that will license those designs
to other companies.
Nvidia, which joined that group, now expects to find its technology in
Power-based computers as well as the more common x86 variety.
Sumit Gupta, general manager of Nvidias Tesla unit, noted that IBM has
offered x86-based supercomputers with Nvidia chips before. But he
characterized IBMs decision to broaden the appeal of its Power line
with Nvidias help a major commitment. Its a very strategic move, he
said.
The news comes at a time when IBMs Power design has been losing ground
in other areas from videogame consoles to TV set-top boxes, says Patrick
Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. IBM determined to
use the Power line with Nvidias chips to play a bigger-role in
cloud-style data centers.
They are betting the farm on Power, Moorhead said.
=~=~=~=
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