Monday, August 12, 2013

TechEye

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Lavabit CEO quits email entirely

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 04:50 AM PDT

The CEO of the encrypted email service Lavabit, which NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden used, has said he's quit using email entirely and that others would consider the same if they knew what he knows.

Lavabit shut down the entire service while under pressure from the US administration to compromise its integrity.  A gagging order prevents Levison from disclosing the full nature of the government's inquiry.

Speaking with Forbes, Lavabit CEO Ladar Levison said the move was about "protecting all of our users, not just one in particular".

"It's not my place to decide whether an investigation is just," Levison added, "but the government has the legal authority to force you to do things you're uncomfortable with. The fact that I can't talk about this is as big a problem as what they asked me to do."

"I'm taking a break from email," he said. "If you knew what I know about email, you might not use it either."

Meanwhile, Levison's lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said it's "ridiculous" he has to be so careful when speaking about the government inquiry. "In America, we're not supposted to have to worry about watching our words like this when we're talking to the press," Binnall said, speaking with Forbes.

Although Levison is appealing the government request, he said there is not much point restoring the service unless the case sets a precedent, and that it is made clear the "government can't do what they're trying to do".

The Pirate Bay bypasses censorship with its own browser

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 04:22 AM PDT

P2P outfit the Pirate Bay stuck two fingers up at big content yet again by releasing a 'Pirate Browser' which it claims would allows users to access the Pirate Bay and other blocked websites.

Fully functional, the browser works with Windows and does not have any adware or toolbars bundled with it.

Writing on its blog, TPB said that it's a simple one-click browser that circumvents censorship and blockades and makes the site instantly available and accessible.

There's no bundled adware, toolbars or other bloat, just a pre-configured Firefox browser.

The browser is basically a bundled package consisting of the Tor client and Firefox Portable browser. The package also includes some tools meant for evading censorship in countries like the UK, Finland, Denmark, and Iran.

Until now TPB has been recommending the use of proxy sites to browse the website from countries where it has been blocked. But it thinks its browser can effectively bypass any blockade enforced by ISPs.

The Pirate Bay says: "This browser is just to circumvent censorship, to remove limits on accessing sites governments don't want you to know about".

The Pirate Browser would allow users to browse websites like KickassTorrents, Fenopy and H33T which have been blocked by many countries including the UK. IsoHunt may also be accessed from Italy which was blocked earlier this month. 

Londoners stalked by data harvesting recycle bins

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 03:48 AM PDT

The unique identifying numbers of over half a million smartphones have been recorded by a network of recycling bins in central London.

The data, which included the "movement, type, direction, and speed of unique devices", was recorded from smartphones that had their wi-fi on.

Although the Big Brother-esque rubbish bins are not harvesting data for an invasive totalitarian government, they are harvesting data. They're a proof-of-concept project, named Presence Orb, demonstrating the possibility for targeted personal advertising.

Targeted advertising is frequently sold to the public as a way to narrow down ads to fit personal user profiles - so you only see relevant information. But this can require knowing a fair amount about an individual, and could in fact reduce personal choice if you are bombarded with adverts that market research and some algorithm has decided are best fitted to you.

The idea is to bring cookie profiling into the real world, QZ reports.

Renew, the start-up behind the project, said the system provides an unparalleled insight into the past behaviour of users such as entry and exit points, "dwell" times, places of work, places of interest, and affinity to other devices. It should provide a compelling reach data base for predictive analytics such as likely places to eat, drink, and personal habits. Presence Orb is described as "a cookie for the real world".

In one of the most surveilled countries in Europe it is perhaps unsurprising such a project launched in Britain's capital.

In tests running between 21-24 May and 2-9 June, over four million events were captured, with over 530,000 unique devices captured.

Renew operates roughly 100 recycling bins around London, primarily in the City of London, which double up as digital advertising boards. Twelve of those bins were fitted with tracking devices.

If you don't want to be involved in the project, which many people are unlikely to know about, you can opt out by visiting the Presence Orb website which has instructions on how to prevent your phone's MAC address being picked up by the technology. 

Nick Pickles, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: "This is shameless snooping for profit with absolutely no interest in respecting peoples' privacy.

"It is wholly wrong for companies we have absolutely no relationship with to turn our mobile phones into tracking devices without our permission or knowledge. If the Government did this there would rightly be uproar.

"I expect the Information Commissioner's Office to investigate this scheme urgently to address what is clearly a serious infringement on our privacy." 

Microsoft builds cloud OS for government

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 03:33 AM PDT

Microsoft is designing a cloud operating system specifically designed for government customers.

Like everyone in Silicon Valley, Microsoft has been talking up cloud technology as if it is the next hula hoop.

The US government is already a big user of the Vole's basic cloud software, Azure and Windows Server. But it appears that Microsoft has a new cloud OS on the drawing board.

Dubbed "Fairfax" - presumably after Thomas Fairfax who was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War, who was eventually overshadowed by his subordinate Oliver Cromwell - the OS is meant only to be used by government customers.

ZDnet reports Microsoft's approach is supposed to allow government IT deparments to get all the benefits of scale, speed, and agility while keeping a fair bit of their existing software and hardware.

This will speed up deployment of the new OS across a government department.

But things might not go so well for Microsoft. The outfit has recently lost the legal trademark over SkyDrive and will actually have to rename it. Fairfax Media is one of the biggest media companies from Australia and one of the oldest, founded in 1841.

This suggests that the new cloud product from Microsoft will only be offered to US government agencies. There are more than 10 cities with the Fairfax name. Fairfax in Virginia is the home of the General Services Administration, and a key location for many US agencies. This makes it more likely that the Vole will get a US trademark but find things difficult for it if it tries to apply it elsewhere.

Fairfax could have some features similar to the Office 365 for Government suite, but the biggest difference between what the Vole is offering now is that it will use physical servers on site at government locations and Microsoft's own data centres. 

After Apple cheered presidential veto, Samsung faces US import ban

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 03:26 AM PDT

Just a week after Apple said it was touched by US president Barack Obama's dedication to stamping out patent trolls - like Samsung - the company is celebrating a ban on Samsung products in the US.

The US International Trade Commission has determined that Samsung infringed on two patents owned by Apple.

Bloomberg reports the patents in question as US Patent No. 7,479,949, which relates to a touch screen and user interface, and US Patent No. 7,912,501 which deals with detecting when a headset is connected.

The ITC said that while Samsung didn’t infringe on the other two patents, unless Obama steps in and blocks the ban, some Samsung goods will be refused an import licence.

Last week’s ruling in favour of Apple was the only one issued by a President since 1987. Statistically speaking it is unlikely to happen, but Obama is understood to be cross about the ITC being used by patent trolls. Critics saw the move as US protectionism.

At the time, an Apple spokesperson said: "We applaud the Administration for standing up for innovation in this landmark case. Samsung was wrong to abuse the patent system in this way."

If Obama does not block this ban he runs the risk of only allowing American patent trolls like Apple to exist.  He would find himself angering South Korea and spurring talk of illegal trade bans.

Sky web filter blocks news sites

Posted: 12 Aug 2013 03:11 AM PDT

ISPs have been caught out censoring news sites mentioning torrents as part of the bold new filtering system blessed by the British Prime Minster David "tough on masturbation" Cameron.

Although not quite Cameron's anti-porn, anti-witchcraft, anti-anything-my-nanny-would-not-like filter, it is pretty close.

Following a High Court ruling last month, six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to the popular TV-torrent site EZTV.it.

But for some reason Sky subscribers noticed that the blocklist had been quietly expanded with a new site that's certainly not covered by any court order - TorrentFreak.com.

It has been unblocked, briefly, before it was blocked again. TorrentFreak said that the problem lies with Sky's filtering software that is supposed to enforce the court-ordered torrent site blockades.

The owner of EZTV informed TorrentFreak that he used Geo DNS to point UK visitors to TorrentFreak's IP address. The moment that happened the website had become inaccessible to Sky users.

EZTV then pointed the public to some of Facebook's IP addresses. The idea was to add Facebook to the piracy blocklist, but nothing happened, perhaps because the DNS pointed to a wide range of IP addresses.

What this means is that Sky's filtering system blocks IP addresses EZTV adds to its DNS.

Ironically the people the courts rule as pirates can block any site they like to Sky subscribers just by pointing their sites to others. The others are then caught in the ISP's filters.

EZTV's owner told TorrentFreak that he just wanted to see how the various blocking procedures work at UK ISPs. He never imagined that simply adding a few IP addresses to EZTV's DNS zone would take out TorrentFreak. 
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