NewsFactor Network

Advertising Guidelines To Enhance Privacy on the Web

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:44:19 -0500

The nation's largest media and marketing trade associations introduced a set of self-regulatory principles on Thursday to enhance privacy protection for consumers surfing the Web.

Among other things, advertisers and Web sites will be required to clearly inform consumers about the data-collection practices they use. The new guidelines also will enable online users to exercise control over their personal information.

"This historic collaboration represents businesses and trade associations working together to advance the public interest," said Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Randall Rothenberg. "We are acting early and aggressively on their concerns, to reinforce their trust in this vital medium that contributes so significantly to the U.S. economy."

Changing the Status Quo

The new set of principles represents the behavioral advertising industry's direct response to mounting criticism from members of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission. Earlier this year, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz warned the industry that it needed to do a better job of delivering meaningful, rigorous self-regulation.

"Put simply, this could be the last clear chance to show that self-regulation can -- and will -- effectively protect consumers' privacy in a dynamic online marketplace," Leibowitz said.

Self-regulation, if it works, can be the fastest and best way to change the status quo, Leibowitz noted. "If there isn't an appropriately vigorous response, my sense is that Congress and the commission may move toward a more regulatory model," Leibowitz said.

The industry has incorporated many of the ideas that consumer advocacy watchdogs such as the Center for Democracy and Technology have suggested. On the upside, noted CDT Chief Computer Scientist Alissa Cooper, the guidelines include a robust framework for providing notice outside of privacy policies, and lay the groundwork for the use of a uniform link or icon that would appear on any Web site or advertisement where data is collected or used for...

Teen Releases First Jailbreak App for iPhone 3GS

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:34:49 -0500

The first jailbreak application for Apple's new iPhone 3GS has been made available just two weeks after the iPhone debuted. George Hotz, a 19-year-old Google employee originally from New Jersey, created the application.

Jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS allows a user to install any programs directly onto the iPhone, including applications that are not from Apple.

Hotz, at the age of 16, was credited with being part of the team that unlocked the first-generation iPhone. The unlock, announced in a blog post, allowed users to operate the first-generation iPhone with any SIM card. Hotz traded his unlocked iPhone for three regular iPhones and a Nissan 350Z.

"Normally I don't make tools for the general public, and would rather wait for the development team to do it. But guys, what's up with waiting until 3.1? That isn't how the game is played," Hotz wrote in his blog Friday. "We release, Apple fixes, and we find new holes."

In his blog post, Hotz provides a step-by-step explanation of what users need to do to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS and teases that a jailbreak for the Mac OS is coming soon.

Jailbreak Preparation

Before jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS, Hotz warns users to be prepared by having Windows (not Windows 7) installed on a PC, the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with 3.0 firmware. He also warns potential jailbreakers to first back up all their files and programs.

Once the preparations are complete, Hotz urges those interested in completing the break to go to purplera1n.com.

Once at the Web site, Hotz instructs users to click "make it ra1n" and wait. On bootup users need to run Freeze, the purplera1n installer app.

"Hopefully you'll figure out what to do from there," Hotz wrote. If not, users are instructed to e-mail purplera1n support or call a support hotline.

Purplera1n is small enough, Hotz wrote,...

China Testing Mac Version of Green Dam Web Filter

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:21:38 -0500

Despite the delay in China's requirement to install Green Dam Web-filtering software on all new PCs, the controversy is not dead. PC makers are including the software with new PCs even though the July 1 deadline has been postponed indefinitely.

On Thursday, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told China Daily that the mandate has not been canceled, only delayed. News media reported that China definitely plans to require Green Dam.

In addition, Green Dam publisher Jinhui Computer System Engineering is reportedly testing a version for Apple's Mac computers, which so far have been exempt.

China says the Green Dam-Youth Escort software is meant to protect young people from pornography and violence on the Web. However, opponents say it would be used for political repression. A survey found that many Chinese would not pay for the software after a one-year free trial period.

China originally directed all PC makers to pre-install Green Dam on all PCs sold in China, with a July 1 deadline. However, the ministry delayed the deadline on June 30. Earlier, it had modified its mandate to say that the Green Dam CDs could be included with new PCs rather than pre-installed.

Multiple tests found the software vulnerable to malware, and Sony has included a disclaimer about the software with its PCs. Tests also showed Green Dam blocked images of cartoon cat Garfield and roast pork, and returned links to both soft- and hard-core pornography.

MySpace Cyberbullying Conviction Reversed, for Now

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:48:16 -0500

On Thursday, a federal judge threw out the conviction of Lori Drew for her part in a MySpace ruse that ended with a 13-year-old girl committing suicide. Drew was convicted in November, but appealed her case.

The indictment alleged that Drew, along with others, registered as a member of MySpace under the name Josh Evans. Drew and her co-conspirators then used the Josh Evans account to contact Megan and began what the girl believed was an online romance with a 16-year-old boy.

After approximately four weeks of flirtations between Evans and Megan, Drew and her co-conspirators broke off the relationship. Within an hour, Megan hanged herself in her room. She died the next day.

U.S. District Judge George Wu acquitted Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization. The ruling is tentative until the judge puts it in writing and pointed to another case where a judge changed his mind after his initial ruling, signaling that the case is not final. Prosecutors are seeking a three-year prison sentence and a $300,000 fine.

Ruled Unconstitutional

The indictment alleged Drew and her co-conspirators violated MySpace's terms of service that prohibit users from using fraudulent registration information, using accounts to obtain personal information about juvenile members, and using the MySpace communication services to harass, abuse or harm other members.

In the government's theory, if someone signs up for an online service and then does not follow the rules of that service, the use of the service is unauthorized and thus (according to this indictment) a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. � 1030. That law is used to prosecute people who break into a computer system.

However, Wu said to convict Drew would mean anyone who has ever violated MySpace's terms of service would also be guilty of a misdemeanor. Ultimately, he decided such a ruling would be unconstitutional....

Web Retailers, States Tussle Over Tax Rules

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:49:31 -0500

In a big break for online shoppers, Web retailers generally don't have to charge sales taxes in states where they lack a store or some other physical presence.

Increasingly, states aching under the weight of the recession are seeking a way around that rule. Because companies like Amazon.com Inc. get help drumming up sales from online affiliates -- people who link to products on their blogs, promote Web shopping deals and offer coupons -- several states say the Internet retailers should charge sales taxes in states where those affiliates are based.

The financial benefits may not be quite what the states anticipate, though. Rather than gearing up to collect taxes, Amazon and other Web retailers are simply shutting down their affiliate marketing programs. As the small businesses that participate in these programs get cut off, a state could lose tax revenue rather than add to it.

A look at what the affiliates do helps explain why. They're just one of several methods that e-commerce companies have for driving visitors to their Web sites, so nixing them is not necessarily a big loss for the companies.

It's a far bigger deal to people like Rich Owings.

By running Web sites like GPSTracklog.com from his home in Asheville, North Carolina, Owings serves as an affiliate for Amazon and other companies. Owings, 53, spends most of his time reviewing GPS gadgets and covering industry news. He links to navigation products of his choosing on Amazon's site, and if his readers click through and buy one, he gets a commission.

Owings estimates he brought in about $80,000 in affiliate revenue from various companies in 2008, about $50,000 of which came from Amazon. After Amazon recently shuttered its North Carolina affiliate program in response to that state's attempt to collect sales taxes, Owings said he and his wife were thinking about...

Another Porn App Gets Booted From Apple's App Store

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:40:38 -0500

Week after week, Apple sees controversy swirl around its App Store like no other smartphone maker. Yet again, the controversy has focused on pornographic content.

The latest application to attempt to make its way into the App Store is called BeautyMeter. The app lets iPhone and iPod touch users view user-submitted images of men and women, then rate them based on anatomy and clothing. One image up for rating was of a topless 15-year-old girl. Apple booted the application on Thursday.

But that wasn't the first time a pornographic application made its way through Apple's approval process. The App Store has a policy that prohibits pornography or explicit content of any kind.

Last week, Apple removed an application called Hottest Girl because it published photos of topless women. In both cases, the applications got by the approval process because the developers slipped in the nude pictures after the program was vetted.

Controversial Apps

The list of applications Apple has rejected continues to grow. In some cases, Apple initially approved an application, only to ban it later. In others, Apple originally banned the application and then accepted it after a firestorm of negative publicity. Still others were rejected for good.

In May, Apple rejected the Me So Holy App for having "objectionable" content. The application let iPhone users choose their religion, take a picture of themselves, and insert their face in a messianic image, among other religious scenes. Users could also add a message and e-mail their personalized Jesus to friends or upload it to Facebook. Hindu figures, priests and nuns were also available.

Apple initially approved and later removed the controversial Baby Shaker application in April. Sikalosoft developed Baby Shaker, which featured a drawing of a crying baby, and the object of the game was to get the baby to stop crying. This was accomplished by...

Hybrid Cellular Satellite Will Boost Rural Coverage

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:07:11 -0500

European space transportation provider Arianespace launched its largest satellite ever on Wednesday on behalf of TerreStar Networks -- a Virginia-based company that intends to inaugurate a hybrid satellite/cellular service in the United States and Canada later this year.

TerreStar Networks has already developed a Windows Mobile smartphone with QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen capabilities for its new hybrid service. The handset will automatically switch from AT&T's terrestrial cellular network to a satellite link at any location within the 50 U.S. states where AT&T's local coverage is unavailable.

"We believe there are tremendous opportunities ahead -- in both the commercial and government sectors," said TerreStar President Jeff Epstein. "And we remain focused on our promise to help solve the critical communications and business-continuity challenges faced by government, emergency responders, enterprises and rural communities."

Creating a New Paradigm

The new TerreStar-1 satellite is equipped with an 18-meter reflector capable of sending and receiving signals via about 500 spot beams, each of which will function as a cellular tower in the sky for a specific localized area. Moreover, each individual spot beam can be custom controlled to increase the available capacity for emergency personnel responding to a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which decimated a large part of southern Louisiana's communications infrastructure.

"TerreStar-1 has the capability to increase both power and capacity dynamically across spot beams with advanced ground-based beam-forming technology," a company spokesperson said. "This feature will be especially important to emergency responders and other critical users."

TerreStar's $300 million satellite also has the potential to fulfill one of the priority objectives of the national broadband plan currently under development at the FCC. Later this year, the fledgling network operator intends to begin providing core voice, data and video services to rural businesses and consumers in areas where cellular coverage is spotty or even nonexistent.

"We are creating...

Facebook Will Simplify Confusing Privacy Controls

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:10:33 -0500

Facebook will again tweak its privacy controls to give its 200 million users simplified control over what they want the public and their friends to see. In the past months, Firefox has added multiple privacy controls that confused and angered its members.

Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said Wednesday that Facebook will begin a series of tests to simplify choices. "With the test we're announcing today, we'll move toward simplifying these settings and putting them all on the same page," Kelly said.

Facebook users will soon begin to see the move to new settings. During the process, Facebook will ask offer a Transition Tool so users can select their level of sharing.

The settings will be tested by 40,000 U.S. Facebook users in week one, using one of the six versions of the Transition Tool. Tests in week two will include 80,000 users worldwide.

In week three, Facebook will slowly begin rolling out the final product to all users.

Easing Confusion

"I think that Facebook very much needed to revamp its user interface, the many mechanisms that deal with privacy controls," said Ray Valdes, a Gartner analyst. "This had become complex due to a steady accumulation of features over the years that needed to be put back in order toward a more cohesive user experience."

The slew of updates and changes to the social-networking site included the "everyone" option in March, which allowed users to share all information, including photos and posts. Last week, Facebook launched a beta version of the Publisher Privacy Control, which allows users to decide who can see their published content on a per-post basis.

Combined, those features enable users to allow some posts to be seen by everyone and other posts to be seen only by select friends.

"You will have the choice of being as open...

'BugDay' Planned To Fix Bugs in New Firefox 3.5

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:40:00 -0500

Mozilla is scrambling to fix bugs in its just-released Firefox 3.5 browser. Users are posting complaints about problems across the Web.

Those problems include longer load times and crashes linked to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. The browser also reportedly has problems with Windows XP. Mozilla has set a community "BugDay" for July 7 to address the bugs in open-source Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5.1 is expected to be released later this month to correct some of the 55 published bugs. Firefox 3.5 was released to the public on June 30, although a beta version was released in April.

Among the new features of Firefox 3.5 touted by Mozilla was speed, with the new release said to be twice as fast as Firefox 3.0 and 10 times faster than Firefox 2. Mozilla also pointed to better JavaScript performance, a new Private Browsing mode, and location-based browsing.

Firefox is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and has more than 300 million active users.

The Private Browsing allows Firefox 3.5 users to protect their privacy online. In this mode, nothing viewed on the Web is stored on the user's computer.

Firefox 3.5 also has a Forget this Site feature, which allows users to remove all traces of a site from the browser. A Clear Recent History feature lets users decide what data or activity should be removed.

The Location Aware feature is optional. When turned on, it allows Web sites to provide information based on the user's location.

Firefox 3.5 also includes support for HTML 5 video and audio.

Creating Order from Chaos with Evernote

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:59:20 -0500

When he parks his car, author Timothy Ferriss snaps a photo of the nearest cross streets with his camera phone. In business meetings, he'll often take pictures of sketches and notes made on a whiteboard. When he's out for dinner, he'll whip out the phone again to capture an image of the label on the wine he's drinking. He never knows when he'll want to recall the data later.

Ferriss, a productivity expert, blogger, and author of the best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek, then ships those photos to what he calls his "augmented brain," which exists not in his head, but on the Web.

He is one of a growing number of people using a Web-based service and software application running on smartphones and PCs called Evernote that is quickly becoming a receptacle for much of the ephemera that otherwise gets cluttered and sometimes lost in a person's busy life.

At first, Ferriss resisted the suggestion from readers of his blog that he try the application. "I have this philosophical stance where I tend to avoid accumulating new gadgets and software because usually they create more work than they are meant to prevent," Ferriss says. But when a few reader suggestions turned into dozens, he decided to try it. "At first it wasn't clear what the appeal was. But the more I used it, it became really clear why they liked it."

Word Recognition in Photos

Founded by Stepan Pachikov, who co-founded handwriting recognition software company Parascript and is a former vice-president of Silicon Graphics, Evernote is designed for people struggling to become more organized. A February survey by the National Association of Professional Organizers, a trade group, found that 96 percent of some 400 adults said they could save time every day if they were better organized. "No one remembers everything as well as...

China Learns Its Limits in Pullback on Web Filter

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:00:07 -0500

When China's authoritarian leaders are on top of their game, they can make awesome feats look breathlessly easy, lacing the coasts with bullet trains, throwing up vast airports seemingly overnight, plopping scores of power plants on the landscape like some giant farmer setting out rice shoots.

When they are off their game, it becomes apparent that managing a billion-plus people is not easy at all, even with near-absolute power.

Which is why, some here say, the government issued an embarrassing last-minute postponement on Tuesday of a plan to require Internet-censorship software on every computer sold here.

Technology experts said on Wednesday that the turnabout appeared to be the product of miscalculation and poor execution by a government bureaucracy whose reach -- a penchant for ratcheting up security -- exceeded its grasp.

That China's leaders have pressed for extraordinary restrictions on free speech and political protest this year, amid a stretch of politically sensitive anniversaries, could have led the program's backers to assume they had more support at the top echelons of the government than actually existed.

"We outsiders tend to perceive the Chinese government as a monolith," said David Wolf, a technology consultant and blogger on Chinese technology matters based in Beijing.

"But it's precisely these kinds of policies that underscore that there are actually a whole range of groups inside the government making policies, to a certain extent, without regard to broader issues."

Few outside the government know clearly how the plan to require censorship software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, materialized.

The government's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which sponsored the program, has described Green Dam as a software program that blocks pornographic and violent content on computers.

Some reports suggest, however, that the developers of the software had close connections to China's security apparatus and that the proposal to require the software enjoyed support there.

From the...

Bing Searches Up-To-the-Minute Tweets on Twitter

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:13:46 -0500

Bing is now doing Twitter. The recently launched Microsoft search engine is now allowing users to search for various kinds of real-time data, including tweets from Twitter.

Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft's Search Technology Center, wrote on the Bing blog Wednesday that the search engine is "unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real-time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitters from a variety of spheres."

Gore, Seacrest, More

These initial Twitterers, he wrote, include former Vice President Al Gore, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, and notables in search technology and business. Microsoft will update Twitter results every 60 seconds, using the Twitter API. Initially, Bing will only be indexing a few thousand Twitterers, based on follower count and number of tweets.

As an example, Suchter said a user could type "Kara Swisher Twitter," "Kara Swisher Tweets," or even "@karaswisher" as a search query and the results would show the latest tweets for Swisher, as well as a link to "see more tweets." Swisher is a Wall Street Journal tech columnist.

Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said Bing is joining the parade of search engines that allow users to query real-time information, with some engines specifically designed for that function. Twitter profiles and older tweet streams are searchable on many engines, but Bing is reportedly the first to allow Twitter to be searched in this way.

"This isn't revolutionary," he said, but is part of a search-industry trend as it recognizes that the Web isn't static, but includes many forms of real-time or near-real-time communications. The realization, he said, began with search engines including blogs, and has now moved to include Facebook postings and other very frequently updated, Web-based communications.

He added that this new feature is also Microsoft trying to offer more...

Cyberspace Shapes Up To Be Next Battleground

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:02:57 -0500

Congressional computers have been penetrated, probably by the Chinese. The avionics system of the F-22 fighter may be compromised. Computers of our presidential candidates were hacked into --- and probably not by teenagers on a lark.

Last year's advance of Russian tanks into Georgia was accompanied by the disruption of Georgian government computer systems.

These are only public manifestations of a new reality: Attacks on computer systems will be an integral element of future conflict, and the United States is more dependent on computer networks than any other nation.

Both policy-makers and the military are in the early stages of coming to grips with this threat. We need to take some important first steps to strengthen our national capability to defend ourselves in cyberspace.

First, we must abandon the notion that static defenses will help us against sophisticated threats.

One bipartisan Senate bill proposes to establish a government committee to set standards for all computer systems and software.

This is the electronic equivalent of building a Maginot Line of concrete fortifications against a mobile enemy.

It may keep common criminals at bay, but it will be no defense against a mobile and adaptable top-tier adversary.

American government and private computer systems operate on an interconnected global network that is constantly changing like a biological organism.

It operates at light speed, and both friends and adversaries are connected to the same network.

We must anticipate that the most dangerous players will stay quiet until a time of national tension.

Our cyber-defense capabilities must be inherently dynamic, with a close connection between system operators, intelligence analysts, and the researchers who can rapidly build and deploy tools to protect or restore vital capabilities.

Second, our intelligence on other countries' cyber capabilities must be strengthened.

We have scores of trained experts who know the ins and outs of foreign radars and missile systems and almost none who...