'Twitter messages not private' rules PCC

Continue reading the main storyThe PCC said it was increasingly being asked to make judgements about the use of social media

Material that is published on Twitter should be considered public and can be published, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has ruled.

The decision follows a complaint by a Department of Transport official that the use of her tweets by newspapers constituted an invasion of privacy.

Sarah Baskerville complained to the PCC about articles in the Daily Mail and Independent on Sunday.

The messages included remarks about being hungover at work.

She complained that this information was private and was only meant to be seen by her 700 followers.

Ms Baskerville said she had a clear disclaimer that the views expressed by her on Twitter were personal and not representative of her employer.

The disclaimer currently reads: "Scottish & Sober-ish.. Civil Servant. This is my personal account, personal views. Nothing to do with my employers. What I retweet I may or may not agree with."

Ms Baskerville complained to the press regulator, arguing that she could have a 

"reasonable expectation" of privacy and that the reporting was misleading.

BBC News | 8 Feb 2011 - read full report 

Social Media as a Tool for Protest

By Marko Papic and Sean Noonan | 3 February 2011

Internet services were reportedly restored in Egypt on Feb. 2 after being completely shut down for two days. Egyptian authorities unplugged the last Internet service provider (ISP) still operating Jan. 31 amidst ongoing protests across the country. The other four providers in Egypt — Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr — were shut down as the crisis boiled over on Jan. 27. Commentators immediately assumed this was a response to the organizational capabilities of social media websites that Cairo could not completely block from public access.

The role of social media in protests and revolutions has garnered considerable media attention in  recent years. Current conventional wisdom has it that social networks have made regime change easier to organize and execute. An underlying assumption is that social media is making it more difficult to sustain an authoritarian regime — even for hardened autocracies like Iran and Myanmar  — which could usher in a new wave of democratization around the globe. In a Jan. 27 YouTube interview, U.S. President Barack Obama went as far as to compare social networking to universal liberties such as freedom of speech.

Social Media as a Tool for Protest is republished with permission of STRATFOR Global Intelligence.

"rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace" : Proposal for cyber war rules of engagement

John Bumgarner from US Cyber Consequences Unit on current threats

The world needs cyber war "Rules of Engagement" to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and US experts will tell world leaders at a security conference on Friday.

The cyber proposal, seen exclusively by Newsnight, comes from the influential EastWest Institute in New York.

It describes "rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace".

Cyber security is on the agenda at the annual Munich Security Conference for the first time this year.

Those attending the conference include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Google accuses Bing of 'copying' its search results

Google created fake results for nonsense words such as 'hiybbprqag'

Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.

Google engineers created 100 nonsensical queries such as "hiybbprqag" and inserted a fake result for each.Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.

Within weeks, the same results began to appear on its rival Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Microsoft denies copying Google and accused Google of conducting "spy-novelesque stunts".

Harry Shum, vice president of Bing, said: "We do not copy google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results," he added.

"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites," he added.

Cheap imitation

Bing returned the same result for 'hiybbprqug'

But Google's Amit Singhal told industry blog SearchEngineLand.com that it was "plain and simply cheating" and he detailed the sting operation in a long blog post.

He said Google decided to conduct its experiment after mis-spelt words and results were replicated on Bing.

"A search for 'hiybbprqug' on Bing returned a page about seating at a theatre in Los Angeles. As far as we know the only connection between the query and result is Google's result page," he said.

BBC News | 2 February 2011 -  read full report

Goldman Sachs' Facebook Fraud:

Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, talk about Goldman Sachs' Facebook deal

Background story:
Facebook investment 'values firm at $50bn'?

Facebook's billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg has denied there  are plans for a flotation

Facebook has reportedly raised funds from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a deal valuing the social networking site at $50bn (£32.3bn).

The New York Times said that Goldman was investing $450m in Facebook, and Digital Sky Technologies another $50m.

The paper, citing unnamed sources, said the terms of the deal implied a value for Facebook of just over $50bn.

Goldman's involvement could also raise speculation that Facebook might float on the stock market.

The Financial Times also reported that Goldman was investing $375m in Facebook, with Digital Sky putting in $75m.

Cashing in

A Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC that the company was not commenting on the New York Times story. Goldman also declined to comment.

If valued at $50bn, Facebook is worth more than eBay and Time Warner.


BBC News | 3 January 2011 - read full report 

Google Plans New York Expansion: Buys $1.8 Billion Building ,

In a sign that Google (GOOG) is gearing up to hire more people in the largest U.S. city, the company on Wednesday announced it has bought a 15-story building in New York. Google paid more than $1.8 billion for the building, which formerly housed the Port Authority headquarters, according to The New York Times.

The company has been leasing space in the Chelsea building since 2006 and almost 10% of its employees work there. With 2.9 million square feet spread over a city block, the building -- at 111 Eighth Ave. -- is larger than the Empire State Building.

See full article from DailyFinance: 23 Dec 2010

Microsoft warns on IE browser bug

Continue reading the main storyMicrosoft's workaround for the IE bug will not protect all users of its web browser.

Microsoft has issued a warning about a serious vulnerability in all versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.

If exploited by a booby-trapped webpage the bug would allow attackers to take control of an unprotected computer.

Code to exploit the bug has already been published though Microsoft said it had no evidence it was currently being used by hi-tech criminals.

A workaround for the bug has been produced while Microsoft works on a permanent fix.

Code injection

The bug revolves around the way that IE manages a computer's memory when processing Cascading Style Sheets - a widely used technology that defines the look and feel of pages on a website.

BBC News  |  23 Dec 2010

Facebook launches facial recognition software

Thursday 16 DEcember 2010 :

 No longer will Facebook users have to tag their friends in pictures.   Facebook is rolling out a new facial recognition feature to identify which of  your friends are in your pictures.

"Facebook will offer a tag suggestion feature that uses facial recognition software to figure out which of your friends are your pictures.

If you want to opt out you can always just wear your Richard Nixon mask everywhere you go."

   

Google listing of world's top search queries for 2010

AlJazeeraEnglish | December 11, 2010 - As 2010 draws to an end, internet search engines have begun releasing their lists of top search queries.

Google Inc, the world's largest internet search engine, has released "Zeitgeist 2010: How the world searched", an aggregation of billions of search queries the company says "captures the spirit of 2010".

In a nutshell, 2010 has been a year of global struggles ranging from the debt crisis, soaring unemployment, political turmoil to achievements in the medical and scientific fields, and catastrophic tragedies caused by both man and nature.

So what did most people search for?

Kevin Anderson, a freelance journalist specialising in digital strategy, tells Al Jazeera what dominated search queries in 2010

EU launches antitrust probe into alleged Google abuses.

The European Commission has launched an investigation into Google after other search engines complained that the firm had abused its dominant position.

The EC will examine whether the world's largest search engine penalised competing services in its results.

The probe follows complaints by firms including price comparison site Foundem and legal search engine ejustice.fr.

Google denies the allegations but said it would work with the Commission to "address any concerns".

Earlier this year the attorney general of Texas launched a similar investigation following complaints from firms including Foundem.

The objections in both cases are from competitors which allege that Google manipulates its search results.

BBC News : 30 November 2010

Police seek powers to shut websites.

The police are seeking powers to shut down websites deemed to be engaged in "criminal" activity.

The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has tabled a plan for Nominet, which oversees .uk web addresses, to be given the domain closing power.

Nominet said the idea was only a proposal and invited people to join the debate on the form of the final policy.

IT lawyers said the proposal would be "worrying" if it led to websites going offline without judicial oversight.

"It's not policy at this stage," said Eleanor Bradley, director of operations at Nominet.

She said SOCA's proposal emerged from changes made to Nominet's policy development process earlier in 2010, as well as experiences with closing down a series of criminal sites in the last 12 months.

BBC News | 26 November 2010 - read full post.

Pro-Wikileaks hacker group’s DDoS tool downloads top 40,000.

Imperva, the web security specialist, has reported that the tool released by the Anonymous Hacker Group for would-be Wikileaks protesters has been downloaded over 40,000 times, with the majority of downloads occurring in the US.

The company said there were three versions of the denial of service tool that members have been able to use:

• Manual
• Server controlled
• Javascript version with no download

Friday 10 December 2010 ComputerWeekly.com - Read full post :

WikiLeaks vigilante war spills onto Web

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The hackers who say they are sticking up for Wikileaks and Julian Assange continued to flex their digital muscles on Thursday, extending outages at Mastercard.com and Visa.com to a second day. And even as the group claiming responsibility for the attacks openly discussed big new targets like Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook, Twitter took unsuccessful steps to disperse the virtual mob.

Wednesday, December 8 2010 :: read full report :

: Facebook alternative Diaspora goes live :

An open source alternative to Facebook - called Diaspora - has gone live.

The "privacy-aware" social network was founded earlier this year during a period when Facebook came under fire for its privacy settings.

The community-funded project is currently only open to a small number of invited people.

Analysts have questioned whether the network can ever challenge more established sites such as Facebook, which now boasts nearly 600m members.

Diaspora (screen shot -pic) says it hopes to begin adding more people in the coming weeks.

"By taking these baby steps, we'll be able to quickly identify performance problems and iterate on features as quickly as possible," the four US students behind the service wrote in a blog post.

The team say they will continue to refine the site in response to feedback.

"Our number one goal has been releasing something that works. Sometimes that means making a bit of a mess

BBC News : 24 Nov 2010

Facebook alternative Diaspora goes live :

Continue reading the main storyThe early Diaspora screenshots revealed a familiar look

An open source alternative to Facebook - called Diaspora - has gone live.

The "privacy-aware" social network was founded earlier this year during a period when Facebook came under fire for its privacy settings.

The community-funded project is currently only open to a small number of invited people.

Analysts have questioned whether the network can ever challenge more established sites such as Facebook, which now boasts nearly 600m members.

Diaspora says it hopes to begin adding more people in the coming weeks.

Read full report :: BBC News 24 Nov 2010 :

Facebook news feeds beset with malware.

Malware writers are targeting social networks because of their enormous user base

One fifth of Facebook users are exposed to malware contained in their news feeds, claim security researchers.

Security firm BitDefender said it had detected infections contained in the news feeds of around 20% of Facebook users.

By clicking on infected links in a news feed, users risk having viruses installed on their computer.

Facebook said it already had steps in place to identify and remove malware-containing links.

BitDefender arrived at its figures by analysing data from 14,000 Facebook users that had installed a security app, called safego, it makes for the social network site.

In the month since safego launched, it has analysed 17 million Facebook posts, said BitDefender.

BBC News - 24 Nov 2010 : 

Thanksgiving :: 50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For.

As we prepare to give thanks for our delicious Thanksgiving meals (and impending food comas), let's not forget to pay tribute to the wonderful developers who bring us our favorite free apps [ori pic].

Earlier this week we asked you to share the free apps you're most thankful for, and you came through with thousands of votes for apps covering the desktop, mobile phone, and devices in between. With a little spreadsheet magic and a few choices of our own, we bring you the top 50 free apps we're all most thankful for. Whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, it's a great list of free software that ought to make for some gluttonous downloading. The popular apps are some of the more obvious, however, so be sure to look further down the list for new free software you may not yet know about. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

The 50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For ::

1. Dropbox

   See also: Dropbox Syncs and Backs Up Files Between Computers Instantaneously, The Cleverest Ways to Use Dropbox That You're Not Using, and Create a Highly Organized, Synchronized Home Folder with Dropbox

2. VLC (Video Lan Client)