TechEye |  |
- Ex London deputy mayor: hackers were to blame for my naked Facebook selfie
- Amazon releases new Kindles
- Aussies push for smartphone code of conduct
- Judge Alsup kicks troll in the patents
- The jolly japes of Steve Wozniak
- ICO agitates for prison sentences, not just fines
- Human rights activist detained under UK terrorism laws
| Ex London deputy mayor: hackers were to blame for my naked Facebook selfie Posted: 26 Sep 2013 05:24 AM PDT Former deputy mayor of London, Richard Barnes, has pinned the blame on "hackers" after a naked selfie was posted to his Facebook page. In one photo, Barnes' face is out of shot. But the viewer is presented with a photo of Barnes posing in front of a bedroom mirror, undressing from his white shirt and red braces, with his lower body exposed. Barnes told the Evening Standard it was hackers to blame, not an iOS 7 blunder, as some pundits brandishing Occam's razor have suggested. "Have you ever been hacked?" Barnes asked, adding, "Well, I have been hacked. Someone's got in there and put the picture up". Although the pictures were quickly deleted from Facebook, screenshots had already spread like wildfire online. Readers can Google them if they must. Speaking with the Metro, Barnes said: "I'm annoyed and shaking with anger. I'm a 65 year old gay man on his own, it's not the sort of thing I do. Do you really think I would be that f***ing stupid after 30 years in politics?" As everyone is aware, politics, scandal and embarrassment are very rarely linked. Earlier this year, former congressman Anthony Weiner was the subject of scandal when his sexting under the pseudonym 'Carlos Danger' was revealed. Barnes is a Conservative councillor in Hillingdon. He served as Boris Johnson's deputy from 2008 to 2012. Security expert Graham Cluley told TechEye: "It would certainly be unusual for a hacker to do this.        |
| Posted: 26 Sep 2013 03:47 AM PDT Amazon has started selling faster and lighter Kindle tablets with a video helpdesk feature. Kindle Fire HDX tablets have a "Don't Panic" feature for users to call technical support if things go pear-shaped. A representative, who can see the screen, will help troubleshoot by even navigating the device remotely. The service is free for HDX customers and is being touted as a way that Amazon can appear different from similar devices. Amazon wants a 15-second response time for its Mayday service and is training "thousands" of reps in time for the Christmas rush. Chief executive Jeff Bezos said that the system being established will make Amazon more efficient. It is not clear what people will think about Amazon staff nosing around their tablets, or if the NSA will be able to use the service to snoop on people. The latest Kindles run the newest version of Amazon's own Google Android-based operating software codenamed Mojito. The tablets, one with a 7-inch (18cm) screen and one with an 8.9-inch screen, are lighter and have a more powerful chip than the last Kindle HD line. The HDX tablets come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB storage sizes. The smaller Kindle Fire HDX tablet starts at $229 and the bigger tablet starts at $379, both for 16GB wi-fi only models. By comparison, Apple's 16GB wifi iPad mini starts at $329, and its 16GB full-sized wi-fi iPad starts at $499. So far, Amazon is taking pre-orders for wi-fi only models, with shipping scheduled for October for the 7-inch tablet and November for the 8.9-inch tablet. Wireless 4G versions of both will also be available, for $100 extra, later this year. Amazon is selling an updated version of its Kindle Fire HD for $139, down from $199 for the last generation.     |
| Aussies push for smartphone code of conduct Posted: 26 Sep 2013 03:41 AM PDT Tourist hotspots in Queensland Australian are to display a Smarter Smartphone Code of Conduct in a bid to crack down on "smartphone dependency". According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a survey commissioned by the local tourism body found that almost half of Australians had argued with their partner over mobile phone use. Commissioned by Tourism and Events Queensland, the study found that half of Australians believe they could not live 24 hours without their smartphone, while 65 percent keep their phone within arm's reach all day, every day. 80 percent of people surveyed said they had had a conversation with someone who was texting at the same time. The smartphone code of conduct is to be displayed on coasters, in taxis and on bedside tables in hotels across the Sunshine Coast. Queensland is the first Australian state to introduce a code of conduct in its tourism industry.     |
| Judge Alsup kicks troll in the patents Posted: 26 Sep 2013 03:27 AM PDT Luckless patent troll Network Protection Sciences is really regretting the day it tried to sue security vendor Fortinet in Texas. The case was booted from Texas to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California where it falls under the remit of district court Judge William Alsup, of Oracle versus Google fame. Alsup is one of the few judges who actually knows something about technology. It looked like Alsup would kick the sorry case out of court, but he did something much worse. As Network World reports, he ordered NPS to essentially teach the jury a course in patent trolling by defending the antics that got the case tossed out of Texas. Firstly, there was the fact that NPS may not have owned the patent it was claiming Fortinet infringed upon until after it filed its lawsuit. NPS founders Rakesh Ramde and Wilfred Lam knew that they did not own the patent and attempted to conceal evidence by being difficult. It signed the acceptance for the patent only 22 days after it filed suit against Fortinet. NPS then manufactured a venue in Texas by renting a windowless file-cabinet room with no employees. They pretended it was a real business to the Texas judge and claimed that the building landlord Gregory Cuke was a "director of business development". He wasn't, but the company wanted a venue in the Eastern District of Texas, which would be friendly to its case. NPS made more than 50 patent claims against Fortinet, which was unreasonable and it sandbagged its lawyers with newly produced documents and infringement contentions that attack over 70 Fortinet products without supplying claim charts. Judge Alsup denied Fortinet's motion to dismiss the lawsuit and ruled that the jury should get to hear NPS defend the tactics it employed. But what has won us over is how Judge Alsup talks to NPS and makes it absolutely clear how stuffed it really is. He told them that the best it could hope for is that the jury's going to decide this. But for the jury to decide the sham nature of this "closet in Texas", they're going to have to understand why somebody would want to do such a thing. He wanted an NPS expert to explain it. He said that the jury needed to decide if the patent troll was running a sham and needed to understand the background of why it was or was not a sham. "This jury is going to hear all of this stuff about the closet. And you're going to have to explain why "Mr. Sham" was signing these documents," he told the beleaguered NPS brief.     |
| The jolly japes of Steve Wozniak Posted: 26 Sep 2013 02:57 AM PDT Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said that he is a hacker to his core and loves to play pranks on friends and family. Woz told Network World he had fun with light-hearted forays into hacking computer and telecommunications networks several decades ago. He said that people with imagination in engineering are naturally drawn to the idea of finding ways to bypass security controls. But Woz added that he never once hacked a computer for real and his break-ins were done in the spirit of exploration, never for profit or malice. One prank involved some experimentation into a shared computer system where he left nine pages of Polish jokes. Once he read an article about how tone signalling could be used to manipulate telephone networks to set up calls. Woz worked out the exact frequencies and tried them out on the telephone system. He used his skills to explore the network but did not steal or avoid paying bills. He admitted he used to sneak into at least one eminent Stanford institution's lab every Sunday when it was supposed to be closed, to find electronics and science manuals. Many of Woz's break-ins were combined with a prank. Once he guessed his stepson's password for the Macintosh and made the files he found hard to access. He and his wife teamed up on the kid to leave a folder marked "from Mom".     |
| ICO agitates for prison sentences, not just fines Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:50 AM PDT An ex Barclays bank employee has been fined over £3,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office for accessing private customer records. But this had led the ICO to call for more strict punishments, including the threat of prison. Jennifer Addo, 27, appeared at Croydon Magistrates Court today. She was prosecuted under section 55 of the Data Protection Act and fined £2,990 for 23 offences, as well as being made to pay out £250 in a victim surcharge and £120 prosecution costs. The branch noted Addo when a customer reported information about his account had been passed on to a partner. Addo had illegally gained access to the same customer's details 22 times between 10 May 2011 and 8 August 2011. Addo was aware that she was not supposed to access customer details but confessed she decided to look anyway, passing information on to her friend. The ICO had been in touch with Addo but received no response until the prosecution today. Stephen Eckersley, head of enforcement for the ICO, said that for all the banking industry's safeguards, it still relies on the honesty of staff to respect private records. "This case proves, yet again, why we need a more appropriate penalty for the crime of personal data theft," Eckersley said. "With the law as it stands, this prosecution isn’t even recorded on the police national computer which means that an offender could apply for a job in a high street bank tomorrow and the potential employer wouldn’t be informed about the offence. "The current 'fine only' regime is clearly not deterring people from breaking the law," Eckersley said. In addition to the fine, Addo lost her job at Barclays. The ICO is using this particular case to agitate for what it calls more effective "deterrent sentences" - among them prison time.     |
| Human rights activist detained under UK terrorism laws Posted: 25 Sep 2013 10:20 AM PDT A Yemeni human rights activist for the charity reprieve was held at the British borders under an anti-terrorism law, Schedule 7, the same used to detain Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda. Schedule 7 was penned in a vague manner which made it open to abuse. But, as TechDirt points out, even its author Charles Falconer said it is being used in a way that was never intended. Baraa Shiban claims he was held for an hour on Monday night and questioned over his political views and his charity work. He was headed to the UK to deliver a speech on security, diplomacy and aid. "I was stunned when the border agent said I was being held simply because I came from Yemen," Shiban said. "It was even more shocking when he spent the entire time asking me about my human rights work and about Reprieve, the charity I work for. Is the UK the kind of place that human rights activists are fair game for detention, intimidation and interrogation?" A spokesperson for Sussex police said the force is satisfied "our actions were legitimate, justified and proportionate and were carried out in accordance with the act". David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, was held at the UK border for hours under Section 7 and had personal items seized by authorities. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, meanwhile, said British agents showed up to the Guardian's offices to physically destroy hard drives suspected of containing material related to the Edward Snowden leaks. In an editorial, Rusbridger suggested the British state did not understand the global nature of technology, and that simply destroying equipment is no longer enough to silence a story. Reprieve has done extensive work exposing the CIA's drone strike programme which it calls the "death penalty without trial" and the "new face of state lawlessness in the name of counter-terrorism". Yemen, where Shiban is from, has been a target of the programme. Earlier this year, banks investigated UK telco BT over alleged links to drone warfare. At the time, Reprieve's CSR advocate Catherine Gilfedder said: "BT’s response to date has been to refuse to address how the US government uses the company’s systems. "If the company is playing a key role in the US’ illegal drone war, then its investors and its customers deserve to know," Gilfedder said.     |
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