Google

China tells Google to end access to foreign websites

by

google-chrome

Beijing has ordered Google to stop users of its Chinese-language service accessing overseas websites in the biggest blow to the world’s leading search engine in China since it started operating there four years ago.

In a move that could disrupt Google’s growth in China, which now has more internet users than the US, the Chinese government said it had told Google to suspend foreign searches and a feature that automatically suggests multiple search results once typing commences in the search window.

The action comes amid a storm of outrage among Chinese internet users over Beijing’s order that every new PC sold in the country be equipped with censorship software, ostensibly to block pornography. One senior US internet figure said the move against Google appeared to be an attempt to deflect attention away from the domestic censorship uproar by redirecting concerns about pornography against a foreign company.

According to state media on Friday, authorities said Google was being “punished” for linking to pornographic content.

On Thursday, in a “law enforcement talk”, the government announced that it was ordering the company to suspend foreign searches and automated keywords, according to Xinhua, the official news agency, and China Central Television, the main state broadcaster.

Read moreChina tells Google to end access to foreign websites

Google’s spy in the streets triggers a wave of protests

by
  • Internet giant’s busiest day as traffic jumps 41%
  • Invasive pictures are removed from site


Google street views, Birmingham. Photograph: Google

For 24 hours, Google’s new Street View brought a vision of British cities to the web that included such memorable sights as a man throwing up between his knees outside a London bar and youths with traffic cones on their heads in Edinburgh.

But while the chance to take a 360-degree tour of every street in 25 UK cities continued to bring most offices to a standstill yesterday, some of the more invasive moments caught on camera saw Google hit with a wave of privacy complaints.

The company said yesterday that it had removed scores of photographs from the site, including an image in London of someone coming out of a sex shop in Soho, the forlorn man being sick on a pavement, and another man being arrested by police.

Read moreGoogle’s spy in the streets triggers a wave of protests

Google Offers “Latitude” To Track People

by

New, Free Software Enables You To Keep Tabs On Others’ Whereabouts, And Vice Versa, Using Cell Phones, Says Natali Del Conte

(CBS) Google is releasing free software Wednesday that enables people to keep track of each other using their cell phones.

CNET got a sneak peek at it, and CNET-TV Senior Editor and Early Show contributor Natali Del Conte explained how it works on the show Tuesday.

She says “Latitude” uses GPS systems and what’s called cell tower triangulation to do the job. The software seeks the closest three cell towers and, with GPS, combines the data to show where someone is.

It is designed to work on any phone with Internet capabilities, except the iPhone.

“Latitude” is being marketed as a tool that could help parents keep tabs on their children’s locations, but it can be used for anyone to find anyone else, assuming permission is given.

“What Google Latitude does is allow you to share that location with friends and family members, and likewise be able to see friends and family members’ locations,” Steve Lee, product manager for Google Latitude, told CNET. “For example, a girlfriend could use it to see if her boyfriend has arrived at a restaurant and, if not, how far away he is.”

CNET points out that, “To protect privacy, Google specifically requires people to sign up for the service. People can share their precise location, the city they’re in, or nothing at all.”

“What we found in testing,” Lee added to CNET, “is that the most common scenario is a symmetrical arrangement, where both people are sharing with each other.”

For complete details from CNET on “Latitude,” click here.

But how accurate is “Latitude”?

Del Conte found a family willing to give it a try. The results? Mixed:

The family lives in an area with spotty cell phone reception, Del Conte points out. They found that, if they went to more urbanized areas, the accuracy of the program increased.

Feb. 4, 2009

Source: CBS News

Google Earth accused of aiding terrorists

by


Aerial photographs of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre on Google Earth

An Indian Court has been called to ban Google Earth amid suggestions the online satellite imaging was used to help plan the terror attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai last month.

A petition entered at the Bombay High Court alleges that the Google Earth service, “aids terrorists in plotting attacks”. Advocate Amit Karkhanis has urged the court to direct Google to blur images of sensitive areas in the country until the case is decided.

There are indications that the gunmen who stormed Mumbai on November 26, and the people trained them, were technically literate. The group appears to have used complex GPS systems to navigate their way to Mumbai by sea. They communicated by satellite phone, used mobile phones with several different SIM cards, and may have monitored events as the siege unfolded via handheld Blackberry web browsers.

Police in Mumbai have said the terrorists familiarised themselves with the streets of Mumbai’s financial capital using satellite images, according to the sole gunman to be captured alive. The commandos who stormed the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai said the militants had made a beeline for the building’s CCTV control room.

Read moreGoogle Earth accused of aiding terrorists

Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship

by

AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.

The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to “protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users”.

Read moreAustralia to implement mandatory internet censorship

Google knows where you at

by

This week Google announced Mobile Search with My Location, for devices running on Windows Mobile. By either using GPS or cell-ID, Google can tap into your location and deliver location-specific information.

Previously, the system returned results based on the last location entered. The new Search with My Location feature will be able to give much more precise results.

You have to specifically opt in to use the service and you can always change that setting. Google assures users that personally identifiable information is never associated with you location. At least we know they have privacy issues on the brain.

Read moreGoogle knows where you at

Is Google Turning Into Big Brother?

by

The Debut of Chrome, Google’s New Browser, May Have Been Quiet for a Reason

While we’re transfixed by the presidential election, in the world of high tech another duel between two well-funded, take-no-quarter candidates has just emerged & and in the long run the impact on our daily lives may be nearly as great — and perhaps even sinister.

Read moreIs Google Turning Into Big Brother?

Google to launch browser to compete with Microsoft

by

Chrome intensifies the battle between the tech giants and continues Web software’s drive to supersede the operating system.

SAN FRANCISCO — Bidding to dominate not only what people do on the Web but how they get from site to site, Google Inc. plans to release a browser today to compete with the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox.

It’s yet another salvo in the company’s intensifying battle with Microsoft Corp., which last week released a beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 8 that makes it easier to block ads from Google and others.

“This is the first truly serious threat that Microsoft has faced from a well-funded platform,” said technology analyst Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group.

Read moreGoogle to launch browser to compete with Microsoft

The CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms

by

CCTV monitors classrooms at one in 14 schools, according to a survey.

The poll of teachers also found that almost a quarter feared there might be more cameras hidden around the campus that they did not know about.

Most said their schools were fitted with surveillance cameras. Almost 80 per cent said there were cameras at the entrance and more than 7 per cent said there were some in classrooms.

Nearly 10 per cent of teachers polled by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said there were cameras in the lavatories.


Big brother is watching you: One in 14 schools is monitored by CCTV

Read moreThe CCTV cameras spying on hundreds of classrooms

Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”

by

Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source.

We first wrote about the Google-Digg negotiations in March. Despite a vigorous denial by Digg CEO Jay Adelson the negotiations continued, although Google’s Marissa Mayer reportedly cooled on the company for a period of time.

The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes. And while the major deal points have been agreed on, the acquisition could still fall apart. Microsoft, which was previously interested in the company, may be willing to step back in at a much lower price.

Most of Digg’s revenue comes from a three year ad deal with Microsoft, which will be terminated on a sale to Google. Digg has raised $11.3 million in venture capital.

Meanwhile, Google’s fascination with the Digg voting concept continues.

Read moreGoogle In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”

Ron Paul : When in the course of human events…

by

“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.
– Congressman Ron Paul

Added: August 10, 2007

Source: YouTube

Youtube to hand over all user histories and IP addresses!

by

Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google’s liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

Viacom filed suit against Google in March 2007, seeking more than $1 billion in damages for allowing users to upload clips of Viacom’s copyright material. Google argues that the law provides a safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright takedown requests.

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the judge’s ruling (.pdf) described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.

The judge also turned Google’s own defense of its data retention policies — that IP addresses of computers aren’t personally revealing in and of themselves, against it to justify the log dump.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that “threatens to expose deeply private information.”

The order also requires Google to turn over copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason.

Viacom also requested YouTube’s source code, the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked private, and Google’s advertising database schema.

Those requests were denied in whole, except that Google will have to turn over data about how often each private video has been watched and by how many persons.

Read moreYoutube to hand over all user histories and IP addresses!

Big Brother law stirs outrage in Sweden

by

Sweeping new powers under which the Swedish security services can monitor private phone calls, e-mails and text messages are expected to come into force this week under legislation that has prompted outrage in the country.

Politicians, businesses, privacy campaigners and individual citizens have lined up to criticise the proposed law, which the Swedish Parliament will vote on tomorrow.

The Bill would grant the country’s intelligence agencies access to cross-border e-mails, phone calls, text messages and faxes, and empower them to monitor websites visited by Swedish citizens.

Since Scandinavia’s telephone network often routes local phone calls through exchanges in neighbouring countries, internet data and calls passing through Sweden on its way between two other countries would also fall within the jurisdiction of the new law.

Press freedom and individual privacy have traditionally been sacrosanct in Sweden, but fears about international crime and terrorism have prompted the country’s centre-right Government to extend the powers of the security services.

Previously, the state could apply for permission to monitor communications if illegal activity was suspected. Under the new law, government agents will be allowed to monitor messages by default.

Thousands of voters have contacted their MPs, urging them to vote against the proposals, but the law is expected to pass.

Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s leading quality newspaper, compared it with the powers of the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany, and Google said that it would stay out of Sweden if the law is passed.

“We have made it clear to the Swedish authorities that we will never place any Google servers in Sweden if this proposition becomes reality,” Peter Fleischer, a Google spokesman, said. “This proposal seems like something invented by Saudi Arabia and China. It has no place in a Western democracy.”

Journalists have also complained that the law would damage their ability to protect sources.

Tomorrow’s vote comes a month after The Times revealed plans to establish a database containing details of phone calls and e-mails in the UK. The information would be held for at least a year and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts.

June 16, 2008
Marcus Oscarsson, Stockholm

Source: The Times

U.S. Internet will shrink to 2 strong players

by

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – An Internet analyst for a major Wall Street firm argues in a new report that Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc will be long-term winners, while Yahoo and IAC InterActiveCorp fall by the wayside and eBay Inc becomes a merger target.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay argues in a 310-page report entitled “U.S. Internet: The End of the Beginning” to be published on Tuesday that Google and Amazon are best placed to withstand the current economic downturn.

“We expect two players to continue to perform strongly, Google and Amazon,” Lindsay writes. “Both Google and Amazon.com are still racking up annual growth rates in the 30-40 percent range, with only a relatively modest slowdown in sight.”

Lindsay reiterates his previous positions that Yahoo eventually will be sold to Microsoft Corp and that Barry Diller’s IAC e-commerce conglomerate will go ahead in August with its five-way split-up, as planned.

Read moreU.S. Internet will shrink to 2 strong players

Lieberman Demands YouTube Censorship

by

Joe Lieberman, senator and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman, wants to censor what you watch on Google and YouTube. Lieberman has sent a letter to Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, accusing the corporation of allowing “offensive material” on its site, namely “videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups.” Joe wants these taken down immediately and demands Google “prevent them from reappearing.” No word if Schmidt has responded, but a letter sent by a bigwig commissar such as Lieberman is nothing to take lightly. Schmidt and his corporate lawyers have likely confabbed.

“Today, Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause. The framework for much of this Internet campaign is described in a bipartisan staff report released last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which I am privileged to chair, titled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat,” writes Lieberman. “The report explains, in part, how al-Qaeda created and manages a multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States. Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb.”

Or how about an “allied organization” such as the CIA, military intelligence or one of its cutouts? “An expert computer analyst has presented evidence that so-called ‘Al-Qaeda’ tapes are routinely digitally doctored and has also unwittingly exposed an astounding detail that clearly indicates a Pentagon affiliated organization in the U.S. is directly responsible for releasing the videos,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote last August. Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant, examined the image quantization table of a 2006 Ayman al-Zawahiri tape and made a fascinating discovery – al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab logo (supposedly the media arm of al-Qaeda) was placed on the tape at the same time as the IntelCenter logo. As it turns out, IntelCenter, notorious for releasing al-Qaeda videos, is run by Ben Venzke, former director of intelligence at a company called iDefense, a Verisign company. Jim Melnick, a senior military psy-op intelligence officer who worked directly for Donald Rumsfeld, is billed as iDefense’s director of threat intelligence. In short, there is a distinct possibility the al-Qaeda videos mentioned by Lieberman are fake.

Read moreLieberman Demands YouTube Censorship

Cell Phone Spying: Is Your Life Being Monitored?

by

It connects you to the world, but your cell phone could also be giving anyone from your boss to your wife a window into your every move. The same technology that lets you stay in touch on-the-go can now let others tap into your private world — without you ever even suspecting something is awry.

The new generation

Long gone are the days of simple wiretapping, when the worst your phone could do was let someone listen in to your conversations. The new generation of cell phone spying tools provides a lot more power.

Eavesdropping is easy. All it takes is a two-minute software install and someone can record your calls and monitor your text messages. They can even set up systems to be automatically alerted when you dial a certain number, then instantly patched into your conversation. Anyone who can perform a basic internet search can find the tools and figure out how to do it in no time.

But the scarier stuff is what your phone can do when you aren’t even using it. Let’s start with your location.

Simple surveillance

You don’t have to plant a CIA-style bug to conduct surveillance any more. A service called World Tracker lets you use data from cell phone towers and GPS systems to pinpoint anyone’s exact whereabouts, any time — as long as they’ve got their phone on them.

All you have to do is log on to the web site and enter the target phone number. The site sends a single text message to the phone that requires one response for confirmation. Once the response is sent, you are locked in to their location and can track them step-by-step. The response is only required the first time the phone is contacted, so you can imagine how easily it could be handled without the phone’s owner even knowing.

Once connected, the service shows you the exact location of the phone by the minute, conveniently pinpointed on a Google Map. So far, the service is only available in the UK, but the company has indicated plans to expand its service to other countries soon.

Advanced eavesdropping

So you’ve figured out where someone is, but now you want to know what they’re actually doing. Turns out you can listen in, even if they aren’t talking on their phone.

Read the rest of this highly recommended article here: geeksaresexy.net

May 5, 2008
By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Homeland Security invokes nuclear bomb, as Bush quietly links cybersecurity program to NSA

by

Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has dropped the bomb.

At a speech to hundreds of security professionals Wednesday, Chertoff declared that the federal government has created a cyber security “Manhattan Project,” referencing the 1941-1946 project led by the Army Corps of Engineers to develop American’s first atomic bomb.

According to Wired’s Ryan Singel, Chertoff gave few details of what the government actually plans to do.

He cites a little-noticed presidential order: “In January, President Bush signed a presidential order expanding the role of DHS and the NSA in government computer security,” Singel writes. “Its contents are classified, but the U.S. Director of National Intelligence has said he wants the NSA to monitor America’s internet traffic and Google searches for signs of cyber attack.”

The National Security Agency was the key player in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was revealed by the New York Times in 2005.

Sound familiar? Yesterday, documents acquired by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information act showed the FBI has engaged in a massive cyber surveillance project that targets terror suspects emails, telephone calls and instant messages — and is able to get some information without a court order.

Last week, the ACLU revealed documents showing that the Pentagon was using the FBI to spy on Americans. The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents.

Read moreHomeland Security invokes nuclear bomb, as Bush quietly links cybersecurity program to NSA

CIA enlists Google’s help for spy work

by

US intelligence agencies are using Google’s technology to help its agents share information about their suspects

Google has been recruited by US intelligence agencies to help them better process and share information they gather about suspects.

Agencies such as the National Security Agency have bought servers on which Google-supplied search technology is used to process information gathered by networks of spies around the world.

Read moreCIA enlists Google’s help for spy work

NSA shifts to e-mail, Web, data-mining dragnet

by

The National Security Agency was once known for its skill in eavesdropping on the world’s telephone calls through radio dishes in out-of-the-way places like England’s Menwith Hill, Australia’s Pine Gap, and Washington state’s Yakima Training Center.

Today those massive installations, which listened in on phone conversations beamed over microwave links, are becoming something akin to relics of the Cold War. As more communications traffic travels through fiber links, and as e-mail and text messaging supplant phone calls, the spy agency that once intercepted telegrams is adapting yet again.

Read moreNSA shifts to e-mail, Web, data-mining dragnet