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- UK councils sell voter data to businesses for as little as £4.50
- Spy-bothering cloud service to hit the shops
- BT shovels dial-up off to Plusnet subsidiary
- Three HTC staff arrested for alleged corporate spying
- Microsoft puts Ballmer's arch-nemesis on the board
- US spooks carried out over 200 cyber attacks in 2011 alone
| UK councils sell voter data to businesses for as little as £4.50 Posted: 02 Sep 2013 05:19 AM PDT Personal data from the edited electoral register is being sold on to private companies by local councils for as little as £4.50 a pop. In the last five years, over 300 councils sold information from the register for marketing reasons. Although the register is smaller than the full register, and is opt out, it may not be fully clear to voters - so participating in a representative democracy for many means also handing over personal information to businesses by proxy. The details are up for grabs for any individual or company. The cheapest instance was Ryedale Council selling details for £4.50, but others sold information for only £25. In any case, it may not matter to those concerned with privacy whether the data was sold for a penny or £5,000. A freedom of information request revealed details were bought nearly 3,000 times in the last five years from 307 councils. Between them, the councils earned £265,161.21, privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch said. Customers ranged from churches to PR companies to pizza shops to universities. Estate agents, insurance firms, financial services, driving schools, and dentists also bought data. Introduced in 2002, Labour considered banning the sale of such details, but took no action - and the Coalition government has now committed to keeping it in place. In a statement, Big Brother Watch said: "The sale of personal information by public authorities, particularly for marketing purposes, is something that should never be routine. In the report, we call for the edited register to be abolished. "We believe that the existence of the edited register impacts on election participation as people are concerned about their personal information being shared for marketing purposes and undermining trust in the electoral registration system." Big Brother Watch has put together a draft letter that concerned voters can use to permanently opt-out of the edited electoral roll. A spokesperson from the Electoral Commission told the Telegraph it "does not support the commercial sale of any details provided for the purposes of electoral registration" and that it is "concerned that it may act as a deterrent to some people registering to vote". |
| Spy-bothering cloud service to hit the shops Posted: 02 Sep 2013 04:01 AM PDT The recent leaks which indicate that the NSA has adopted a "spy on everyone" policy has created a new business opportunity for companies who do not want their data in the hands of the US or its allies. Lockbox, a tech startup founded in 2008, just received $2.5 million in seed funding for its end-to-end encryption cloud service, Client Portal. This shows how much interest there is out there in keeping spy agencies out of the cloud. Lockbox encrypts and compresses files before they are uploaded to the cloud. Only a person in possession of the corresponding key can unlock, or decrypt, the files. This makes it hard for the NSA, hackers, or business competitors to look at sensitive and private files. It is not a covert company either. It already has sold its services to NASA and Coca-Cola. Lockbox's Client Portal lives on Amazon's S3 servers. The encryption is fairly strong - Lockbox developed the encryption libraries that Google uses in Android. The technology threatens to make life harder for the Prism dragnet, which will be unable to sniff out any code words at all - effectively creating an encrypted darkweb which Prism may not be able to see. However, the Snowden files revealed NSA infrastructure from several years ago, so it is unknown how effective such methods would be today. Lockbox CEO Peter Long said in a press release that businesses that have stayed away from the cloud in the past are excited by the global opportunities the company has opened. He said that over the next few months his outfit will be signing new partners, customers, and expanding the business. It is about to unveil its iOS apps, which will allow users to securely view encrypted files on iPhones and iPads. The program is not cheap and will cost $500 per year. Users can share the service with 20 other people. |
| BT shovels dial-up off to Plusnet subsidiary Posted: 02 Sep 2013 03:48 AM PDT BT officially killed off its dial-up internet connection service yesterday and officially put the technology in the historical dustbin. However, what it is really doing is transferring those who can't get broadband to modem-based access with Sheffield based ISP Plusnet. Plusnet is actually a BT subsidiary which is supposed to look like a different provider. According to the Economic Times, BT claimed that the service had to be axed because too few are currently using it. This isn't because it wasn't worthwhile from a business perspective - BT's dial-up service cost £17.25 per month. You can get a basic broadband service for roughly £10. Plusnet will have some customers from the banking sector, notably with chip-and-PIN machines and third-party ATMs. BT is promising that after the Plusnet move things will be cheaper by £2.26 per month. BT doesn't seem to really believe there are customers who cannot get its broadband. It is insisting that most of the people on dial-up are there by choice and not because they can't get broadband services. In a statement, BT said it estimates only one thousand of the current customers will be unable to access broadband following the change, but they will continue to have dial up access via Plusnet should they choose to, for a cheaper price. |
| Three HTC staff arrested for alleged corporate spying Posted: 02 Sep 2013 02:41 AM PDT HTC shares plummeted after it was revealed three design executives had been arrested on suspicion of leaking trade secrets. This is the latest in a long list of woes for the company which has seen senior staff departures and disappointing sales. According to the Bangkok Post, HTC vice president of product design Thomas Chien, research and development director Wu Chien-Hung and senior manager of design and innovation Justin Huang were arrested on Friday. Chien and Chien-Hung remain in custody, while Huang has been bailed. They also face charges of making false commission fee claims of more than $334,200. So far there is no information on what that charge is about. HTC said the investigation had no impact on its operations. Chien and Chien-Hung could not be reached and Huang was not immediately available to comment. It looks like the executives were planning to use stolen new interface technology to set up a new mobile design company aiming at Chinese vendors. Shares dropped 6.4 percent on the back of the news. HTC has been troubled by internal feuding and executive exits as its high priced smartphones are unable to compete in a saturated market, despite good reviews. HTC has seen its market share slump to below five percent from around one quarter five years ago. |
| Microsoft puts Ballmer's arch-nemesis on the board Posted: 02 Sep 2013 02:10 AM PDT Software giant Microsoft has announced that it is giving a seat on its board to a man who wanted to get rid of shy and retiring CEO Steve Ballmer. According to a statement, Microsoft has offered a seat on its board to the president of ValueAct Capital Management, Mason Morfit. He is an activist fund manager that pressed for the ousting of Ballmer and said that the company's strategy was all up the creek. He took a $2 billion stake in July and has been trying to get on to the board after poor quarterly results hit the Vole's share price. He owns 0.8 percent of Microsoft's shares and his company was co-founded by finance industry veteran Jeff Ubben in 2000. His company has a business plan for of building stakes in firms and working with management to change fundamental strategy. It is understood to be unhappy with Ballmer's leadership and thinks Microsoft should stay out of hardware devices. Of course, it also wants higher dividends and share buybacks to benefit shareholders. Morfit will join Microsoft's board after the technology company's annual shareholder meeting, which is usually held in mid-November. It is not known how his presence will work. Co-founder and chairman Bill Gates and CEO Ballmer, which between them hold nearly nine percent of Microsoft shares, also sit on the board. Ballmer is known to be a little friendly with the chair flinging if he does not get his way. ValueAct might not even take the offer. As part of the agreement, ValueAct cannot launch a proxy contest, which is what it would normally do. |
| US spooks carried out over 200 cyber attacks in 2011 alone Posted: 02 Sep 2013 01:53 AM PDT For years now the US has been bleating about how it is a poor victim to Chinese cyber attacks, however, it turns out that the US has an aggressive attack plan of its own. According to papers obtained by the Washington Post, US spooks carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011. This seems to indicate that it has been running a clandestine war across the web. The disclosure was part of a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The programme costs the US $652 million a year and is code-named GENIE. This requires US computer specialists to break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious US control. So far the project has placed "covert implants" in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year. The US wanted to expand those numbers into the millions. The documents provided by Snowden indicate that the US campaign of computer intrusions is far broader and more aggressive than previously understood. The reason for this is that the government treats all such cyber-operations as clandestine and declines to acknowledge them. Nearly three-quarters of the US attacks were against top-priority targets, which former officials say includes adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and activities such as nuclear proliferation. The report says that there have been few cases of actual sabotage. Most attacks have been actual snooping and the user would only have seen a slight slowing down of their computer. |
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