Too big to let stand?: European officials continue gunning for Google
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
Tech News
Report: Twitter considering purchasing Soundcloud music-sharing service
Twitter is mulling plans to buy the German-based music-sharing service SoundCloud to fuel growth at the social network, the news site Re/code reported Monday.
The move would be a new effort by Twitter to get back into music after a failed attempt last year to launch a music-finding service.
The report suggested that such a deal, if consummated, would be expensive for Twitter, but would add a company with a customer base of 250 million, roughly the same size as that of the messaging platform.
SoundCloud recently raised some $60 million in venture capital, which would give the startup a value of some $700 million according to The Wall Street Journal.
Neither company has commented on the report.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
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China: U.S. cyber spying accusations 'made up'
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry issued a strongly-worded statement on Monday, saying a U.S. grand jury indictment of five Chinese military officials was "made up" and would "damage Sino-American cooperation and mutual trust".
"The Chinese government's stance on the issue of Internet security is consistent and clear," said the statement from Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, which urged "immediate rectification".
" China is a staunch defender of network security, and the Chinese government, military and associated personnel have never engaged in online theft of trade secrets," the statement said.
A U.S. grand jury indicted five Chinese individuals on cyber espionage charges for allegedly targeting six American companies and stealing trade secrets, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday, publicly accusing China of cyber spying for the first time.
(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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Police arrest 100 people in global raids on 'BlackShades' malware hackers
Police have arrested around 100 people in global raids against a notorious malware being sold complete with "ransom notes" to extort money after taking control of computers.
"During the course of a worldwide investigation, creators, sellers and users of BlackShades malware were targeted by judicial and law enforcement authorities in 16 different countries," Europe-wide police and justice bodies Europol and Eurojust said in a statement.
Thousands of people around the world have bought BlackShades RAT (Remote Access Tools) malicious software or malware, which can be used to secretly take control of a user's webcam or entire computer, as well as encrypt its contents and hold them to ransom.
The malware could also be used to carry out distributed denial-of-service cyberattacks to bring down websites.
Over two days, police and the FBI raided 359 houses, arrested 97 people and seized "substantial quantities" of cash, illegal guns and drugs, as well as over 1,000 data storage devices, the statement said.
"A recent case in the Netherlands of BlackShades malware being used for criminal purposes was that of an 18-year-old man who infected at least 2,000 computers, controlling the victim’s webcams to take pictures of women and girls," Eurojust said.
Among the countries raided were the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, the US, Canada, Chile and Switzerland.
The Dutch public prosecutor's office said that police raided 34 properties in the Netherlands and made no arrests.
Hacker websites began reporting three days ago that police were raiding people suspected of buying or using BlackShades, which is reportedly available on the so-called "darknet" network of trusted peers for under $100 (70 euros).
Chatrooms suggested police were using records from the PayPal payment site to identify those who bought the malware.
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Justice Department to publicly accuse China of cyber espionage against U.S. companies
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday plans to announce espionage charges against several Chinese individuals, accusing them of spying on American companies and stealing trade secrets, according to media reports.
The U.S. Justice Department, in filing the charges, is publicly accusing China with such cyber spying for the first time.
A Justice Official did not dispute the reports but declined to give further details.
Attorney General Eric Holder and other U.S. officials are planning to hold a news conference at 10:00 a.m. EDT "to announce a criminal indictment in a national security case."
The reports did not name the Chinese government officials or companies targeted by U.S. officials, but NBC News said they include those in the energy and manufacturing sectors.
"They used military and intelligence facilities to commit cyber espionage against U.S. companies," one U.S. official told NBC News.
A separate report by the Wall Street journal said the U.S. planned to charge five people allegedly linked with the People's Liberation Army.
American officials have long been concerned about hacking from abroad, especially China.
On Sunday, a top Chinese Internet official called for Beijing to tighten its own cyber security, citing "overseas hostile forces.
An FBI official last week told Reuters to expect multiple cyber security-related cases, including indictments and arrests, in the coming weeks.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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Man faces trial for violent and sexual tweets to British lawmaker
A man accused of sending sexually explicit and violent messages to the Labour MP Stella Creasy on Twitter is due to stand trial on Monday.
Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow in north London, received abuse on Twitter along with campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez as they argued in favour of author Jane Austen featuring on ten pound notes last year.
Peter Nunn, 33, is charged with sending a message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character by a public electronic network between July 28 and August 5 last year.
Nunn, of Emersons Green in Bristol, pleaded not guilty to the allegation when he appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London in February.
He is charged under section 127 of the Communications Act (2003) and could face a maximum prison term of six months.
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Court orders NJ woman to stop writing obsessively about her family on Facebook
An appeals court in New Jersey upheld an earlier court order banning a woman from writing about her husband and children on Facebook and elsewhere, saying the limitation does not infringe upon her First Amendment rights, according to NJ.com.
The woman, identified only as H.L.M., had previously been ordered to stop her writing as a condition of her probation stemming from a plea bargain for kidnapping her children after losing a custody battle for them.
In 2011, H.L.M. abducted her two young children and was caught trying to take them over the Canadian border after authorities issued a missing persons alert. As part of a deal to drop charges of kidnapping, she was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and receive therapy.
In December 2011, a judge learned that she was not receiving therapy and had posted “clearly disturbing” online writings, including references to the Book of Revelations, Jeffrey Dahmer, Satan, and Adolph Hitler, with a judge calling her writing “rambling, irrational, disturbing, bizarre."
A psychiatric evaluation was performed showing that H.L.M. suffers from bipolar disorder, but that she was not considered a danger to herself or others.
The state requested that she be banned from blogging about her ex-husband and children out of concern that her children would someday read it.
The judge agreed with the ban, ordered her to have no contact with her children, and gave her five years probation, writing: “Any blogging shall not reference the husband or the children. You can talk about what you want to talk about, but don't reference the husband or the children. That's off limits."
H.L.M. continued to write about her family, referring to them as 'Camelot,' as she appealed the restriction on her writing, claiming that it was overly vague and restricted her First Amendment liberties.
The appeals court dismissed her appeal, stating that the decision did not restrict her from writing about anything other than her family, and was done in the interest of protecting her children.
[Stressed woman on Shutterstock]
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Facial recognition pioneer worried his technology 'robs everyone of anonymity'
Joseph Atick, one of the pioneers of facial recognition software, told the New York Times that he was increasingly concerned that his technology is "basically robbing everyone of their anonymity."
In a profile of him by Natasha Singer, Dr. Atick said that he was worried, in the wake of the Edward Snowden revealations, that governments could acquire access to biometric databases that would allow them to identify and track citizens in a way that would inhibit how they behave outside of their homes.
He noted that he is less concerned with government agencies that use facial recognition for specific and transparent purposes, and gave the example of the Department of Motor Vehicles using biometric data to prevent duplicate or fraudulent licenses from being produced.
What worries Dr. Atick are new applications like NameTag, which is bundled with Google Glass and allows wearers to identify strangers simply by looking at them. With a glance, anyone could access the name, occupation, and information shared publicly on Facebook. "We are basically allowing our fellow citizens to surveil us,” Dr. Atick told the Times.
Unlike other unique identifiers -- like fingerprints -- facial recognition can be used at a distance and without the knowledge of the person being identified. There are currently no specific federal guidelines on the use or storage of biometric data, which has led Dr. Atick and others to push the industry to adopt, voluntarily, a code of conduct.
“I think that the industry has to own up,” he told Singer. "If we do not step up to the plate and accept responsibility, there could be unexpected apps and consequences."
He attempted to a address this at a recent conference hosted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, but was disappointed to see few of the industry's big players represented there.
"Where is Google? Where is Facebook?" he asked the attendees.
"Here," replied a single voice in the auditorium.
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China says Internet censorship and security necessary to counter 'hostile forces'
A Chinese official in charge of regulating the Internet has said Beijing must strengthen Internet security because "overseas hostile forces" are using the Internet to "attack, slander and spread rumors", state media said on Sunday.
Wang Xiujun, the deputy director of the China National Internet Information Office, said political security is fundamental, reported The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Wang's remarks coincide with a broad crackdown on online freedom of expression that has intensified since President Xi Jinping came to power last year. The crackdown has drawn criticism from rights advocates at home and abroad.
"Now, overseas hostile forces are using the Internet as a main channel to penetrate and destroy (us)," Wang was quoted as saying. "Using the name of 'Internet freedom' to repeatedly attack, slander and spread rumors in an effort to undermine our country's stability and national security."
Winning "the struggle for ideological penetration" would "decide to a great extent the future of our party and country", Wang said.
In February, Xi took the reins of a government body for Internet security, saying he aimed to turn China into a "cyber power". He said then that working on public opinion online was a long-term responsibility and the Internet could be used to "spread discipline".
The party renewed a campaign on online discourse last year, threatening legal action against people whose perceived rumors on microblogs are reposted more than 500 times or seen by more than 5,000 people.
China maintains tight control over the media. Censorship is widespread and Internet users cannot access information about many topics without special software to circumvent restrictions.
Wang said China wants to strengthen its security of networks and information systems in part due to intrusions in cyberspace by foreign governments, according to the People's Daily.
The case of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden showed that "a few countries have used their superiority in Internet resources and information technology to conduct large-scale Internet surveillance and to steal a large volume of political, economic, military and corporate secrets", Wang said.
He did not name any country but questions over cyber-espionage have long cast a shadow over China-U.S. ties, with each side accusing the other of spying.
The Defense Ministry said in March China would beef up its internet security after the New York Times and Der Spiegel reported that documents leaked by Snowden said the U.S. National Security Agency accessed servers at China's Huawei Technologies to obtain sensitive data and monitor executives' communications.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Paul Tait)
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NSA controversy sparks rush for encrypted email
A new push to encrypt email, keeping messages free from government snooping, is gaining momentum. One new email service promising "end-to-end" encryption launched on Friday, and others are being developed while major services such as Google Gmail and…
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EU President hopeful Martin Schulz urges checks on Google's power
Martin Schulz, the center-left's candidate to lead the European Commission after EU parliamentary elections this month, has joined calls for Google's market dominance to be subject to strict regulation.
Two days ago Germany's Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said a ruling by a top European court on Tuesday that Internet firms can be made to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information from the web was a "wake up" call for digital safeguards.
Germany was considering if firms such as Google were abusing their market leader position he said. Google has declined to comment.
"Whoever knows everything about citizens, firms and politicians achieves a level of power which doesn't belong in a pluralistic democracy," Schulz, who is president of the European parliament, told Reuters in Berlin.
Besides concerns about what data it displays, the world's top Internet search engine Google has also faced difficulties over anti-trust issues and how it shows competitors' information.
Google reached a deal with EU antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia in February by agreeing to display rivals' links more prominently, hoping to end a three-year-old case that could have led to a fine of up to $5 billion (3.6 billion euros).
Rivals say Google's concessions do not go far enough and will only entrench its dominance of Internet searches. EU regulators plan to issue a final decision after the summer break.
(Reporting by Holger Hansen, writing by Alexandra Hudson, editing by William Hardy)
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Official threatens to block Twitter and Facebook in Russia
Last month, we noted that Russia had passed a new law that required bloggers to registers, and included a variety of other restrictions on their speech as well. A few weeks later, Putin signed the law. Now the Russian government is getting ready to…
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Pakistan’s first solar power park will be the largest in the world
Pakistan’s first large-scale solar power project, the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park project, was recently inaugurated by Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, representing one of the country’s first clear steps towards renewable energy. The project…
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