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The FCC has proposed a $25,000 fine against Google on the grounds that the global search giant "deliberately impeded" their 2010 investigation into the collection of private user data through available unsecured Wi-Fi networks during its Street View mapping and did so for several months. Google stated that the data collection in question that occurred was "inadvertent" and that it had stopped the practice immediately once it had discovered that it was happening.
The FCC proposed the fine late Friday on the cusp of the deadline for taking action on the infamous "Wi-Spy" case. Google will still have an opportunity to appeal the fine before the decision becomes final. The government agency did not actually fine Google for violating the FCC’s electronic eavesdropping law in this case, stating that there simply is no precedent for applying the law to unsecured Wi-Fi networks. The FCC went on to say that Google was reluctant to cooperate in the investigation which is the reason for the fine.
A Google spokesperson said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that, "We worked in good faith to answer the FCC’s question’s throughout the inquiry, and we are pleased that they have concluded that we complied with the law." A Google engineer that helped to develop the Street View technology code chose to invoke Fifth Amendment rights in order to avoid self-incrimination and refused to provide a testimony in the investigation.
There seems to be a lot of stories involving hacking and privacy in the headlines, so I thought I would touch base on a few that are making news.
With the advent of smart meter installations over the last few years, an FBI cyber intelligence briefing reveals that has stated that a series of hacks perpetrated has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The FBI reports that this is the first known official report of criminals compromising the high-tech meters and that they expect this type of fraud it increase and to spread across the country as more utilities implement smart grid technology.
The Utah Department of Health has reported that on March 30th, 2012, that 181, 604 Medicaid and CHIP recipients had their personal information stolen and that 25,096 had their SSNs compromised. The hackers that perpetrated the attack appear to be located in Eastern Europe. The hackers were able to obtain client names, addresses, birthdates, doctor’s names, tax information and other sensitive client data.
The well known hacktivist group Anonymous has hacked several U.K. government websites over what they claim to be "draconian surveillance proposals" and the "derogation of human rights." Several sites were brought down due to the attack including the Home Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Justice. The group is employing a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack with multiple targets. Rather than stealing data, the Anonymous group floods servers with more incoming connection than can be accommodated, causing the website and/or server to crash. Hacktivists can also leave a backdoor open to facilitate future attacks.
…and from the conspiracy room:
Broadcom has just released a new microchip called the Broadcom 4752 for smartphones that will allow for ultra-accurate location determination to within a few centimeters, both vertically and horizontally, indoors and out. The chip pulls data in from a variety of sources including global navigation satellites, cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots and incorporate data from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters and altimeters. The developer hopes that this "ubiquitous navigation" will be used to target offer location based advertising for prospective customers who may be shopping or passing by.
The U.S. government recently posted a project asking for the "Development of Tools for Extracting Information from Video Game Systems." The U.S. Navy will be paying a company a six figure salary to hack into used video game consoles in an effort of extract sensitive information for both online and offline data. They state that will only be targeting consoles belonging to oversea nations since United States law dictates that they cannot perform these actions against any U.S. persons.
Surely we live in a unique time when technology in capable of enriching our lives in so many ways; but just like any technology it can be exploited and used against us (aka 1984 by George Orwell).
I think the lesson here is not to be so frightened of technology running amuck, but rather to be selective in where you release your personal information. Tragically, the only way to truly protect ourselves is to stay completely offline which is an ironic impossibility if the age we live in.
“Arrrgh! Shiver me timbers! Mizen the topsail! Be that land I see through my metal eye?!”
Okay so Google’s new Augmented Reality Glasses aren’t just for one-eyed pirates, heck even a two eyed pirate can find a use for these ‘La Forge’ inspired techno goggles.
Yesterday Google was showing off a working prototype of their Augmented Reality Glasses which have been a two year labour of love running under the code name: ‘Project Glass‘.
Until yesterday we had little info on this Google[x] project, and there was speculation that the end project might come out as a digital contact lens instead of the pair of black and white frames we are seeing demonstrated this week.
At the moment however even the frames are in the ‘styling’ phase of prototyping, looking a bit like a slice of an iPhone, with a very tiny camera hole, hooked up to a thumbnail sized display.
We also know that they have touch controls on the top of the glasses, one of which is for capturing an image of whatever is in-front of you. My guess is that the first ‘mod’ for these will be a flip down shield that ‘alarmists’ can use to guarantee nobody is spying on them.
As if pictures weren’t enough to get our hands reaching for our wallets, there was also a ‘concept’ video demonstrating the Android based UI that the glasses will use to interact with the user.
After watching the video I have to wonder how they would display something in the middle of your visual perspective using a tiny little screen?
This resulted in me spending about 35 seconds bending a paper clip into the rough shape of the screen. I plopped this mock-up onto my glasses and took a look at what area the ‘display’ would have.
The current display would actually have quite a bit of space to display info, but there’s no way I can ‘see’ that it would be able to display something in the middle of your view?
Virtual retinal displays, even the most advanced laser based units, still haven’t found their way into ‘production’, even within military channels like DARPA where such a technology should be very tempting to adopt.
So for now I’m in the camp of nay-sayers who feel that the tech needs a bit more work before it can deliver what’s in the promotional video, and even then there’s certainly some kinks to work out of the system for obvious safety reasons.
Pity though, some of the style pics look so cool..
Not if the free-loaders have any say about it, and brother, they will not shut up. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “when you cut the head off the serpent two more shall replace it“.
True to form, each head we lop off seems to simply provoke the beast further.
In this case the latest bill the spring forth from the carnage as a likely candidate for passing (with over 100 co-sponsors) is called the Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, also known as CISPA or HR 3523.
The HR 3523 bill is so bad that it’s made the ACLU’s comparison chart of ‘Information Legislation’ bills. This PDF is an excellent way to see how each bill will effect information flow and the freedom of on-line communications.
Yes this is another ‘we must act now’ moments.. If you are growing tired of them then the only recourse is to go for the heart of the beast until it stops sticking it’s heads where they don’t belong.
Facebook Access for Employers
Did this actually happen? Has the world really gone nuts?
According to articles on-line that have been popping up all morning, Kimberly Hester, a teaching aid, has been ‘fired’ for refusing to grant access to a private photo inside her Facebook account.
Kimberly Hester (pictured above) was called into the superintendents office to investigate claims that one of her private Facebook photos was inappropriate.
After three requests for access to her Facebook account that she refused to comply with, the decision was made to ‘presume guilt’ lacking further information, and to her employment was terminated.
The picture has made it’s way on-line and it’s just a blurry image of a co-workers pants, around her ankles. For all we know the co-worker was wearing a skirt, shorts, etc., and there’s nothing at all ‘wrong’ with the photo in terms of ‘appropriate content’.
Clearly what we have here is a school superintendent that likes to pay legal fees for trampling the rights of it’s workers?
Anyone who has read Facebook’s Terms of Service/End User Agreement knows that it’s a CLEAR violation of their policies to allow someone else to knowingly access your account. By asking Kimberly for access, the superintendent is actually risking the loss of Kimberly’s private Facebook account based on the allegation that anyone who has access might see something inappropriate.
That’s like saying that I had a friend over who saw a private picture on my mantle of what looked like a pair of naked legs in some pants, so they told my boss, and now my boss needs to fire me because I refuse to give him a key to my house so he can come over and look at things?
And finally, what is going on with the mother that had earned a ‘friendship’ status with Kimberly on Facebook? At what point do you go after someone’s job vs. speaking to them about something like a decent human being?
House Republicans Votes Down Stopping employers asking for Facebook Passwords
"House Republicans today defeated an amendment introduced yesterday that would have banned employers demanding access to Facebook accounts. While the practice isn’t widespread, it has caused a big brouhaha after reports surfaced that some organizations were requiring workers to hand over Facebook passwords as a condition of keeping their current job or getting hired for a new one."
Following up on my blog post from Monday titled: "Employer’s Asking for Facebook Credentials",
I detailed an alarming situation in which there have been many reports of employers asking potential hires for their Facebook credentials in order to check their online interactions to use as a hiring factor.
Facebook stated that doing so not only undermines the privacy and security expectations of both the user and the user’s contacts, but exposes the employer to legal liability. Furthermore Facebook legal representatives have clearly stated that sharing or soliciting a user’s login credentials is in direct violation of their Statement of Rights & Responsibilities.
"If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends," Facebook Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan said in a statement. "We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information. As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job. And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."
Initially it seemed that Facebook was considering legal action to protect its 845 million users by either getting politicians to pass a law stopping this practice, or outright suing employers shown to have asked persons to divulge their information.
"Facebook takes your privacy seriously," Egan said in a statement. "We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges. While we will continue to do our part, it is important that everyone on Facebook understands they have a right to keep their password to themselves, and we will do our best to protect that right."
Until this statement, the only advocacy group willing to protect Facebook users was the American Civil Liberties Association which has deemed these practices as an invasion of privacy and has released this video on YouTube called: "Want a job? Password, please!" in response. The video details the a scenario in which a corrections officer said he required to turn over his Facebook credential or risk failing recertification to that would allow him to work in the state’s prison system.
"It’s an invasion of privacy for private employers to insist on looking at people’s private Facebook pages as a condition of employment or consideration in an application process," ACLU attorney Catherine Crump said in a statement. "People are entitled to their private lives. You’d be appalled if your employer insisted on opening up your postal mail to see if there was anything of interest inside. It’s equally out of bounds for an employer to go on a fishing expedition through a person’s private social media account."
In an updated statement, Erin Egan clarified their previous statement that while it wants to protect its users from employers demanding access to their accounts, they currently have no plans to sue any employers for any such actions.
"We don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think its right the thing to do. While we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employers, we look forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better safeguard the privacy of our users."
While the practice of asking employees for private information has been occurring for a few years, it seems that recent events have helped to rekindle the controversy over online privacy and the need to protect the rights of individuals.
There has been a rash of complaints and public outcry arising over companies asking potential employees for their Facebook login credentials. Several complaints have been filed in Canada and the United States of documented cases in which job applicants have been asked to surrender their Facebook username and password during job interviews.
Using social profiles as a resource to screen potential employees is not new, but demanding that users turn over passwords has garnered attention from government officials and has been condemned by Facebook as "distressing"
This disturbing trend in the US job market has legislators hastening to protect individuals from such practices. Fortunately labor laws in Canada already offer strong protection against employers asking for personal information. US laws are much more lax and there have been many instances reported where prospective employers has required employees to reveal this information as part of the vetting process. In other cases, candidates have been asked to log onto their social networks on computers at the job site or requested to become friends with a hiring manager while still in the interview process. Illinois and Maryland have both tabled legislation that would forbid public agencies from gaining access to social networks.
Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan cautioned in a post on Friday that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may open itself up to claims of discrimination if it doesn’t hire that person.
"If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password," Erin Egan wrote. “This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends," wrote Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan. "It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability."
In the light of these reports, Facebook is warning employers not to demand login credentials from job applicants stating that is a blatant violation of privacy and of the Facebook term of use. Companies that access user profiles could easily find themselves facing a barrage of discrimination charges.
Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut want Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether employees asking for Facebook passwords during job interviews violates federal law.
Job seekers are within their right to ask employers to explain their motives behind obtrusive questions. Even if candidates resist such strong-arm tactics experts caution they should be on the lookout for more insidious ones.
Technology news was a real mixed bag this morning. Google’s official move to HTTPS forced searches was front page for the last few days, but is it news?
I can’t mention Ion Cannons without including this pic. Sorry.
No. Not really. We mentioned the Google HTTPS move with a heap of sarcasm back in October 2011 when the HTTPS only work began. Back then it wasn’t very exciting news either, all it means is that services ‘spying’ on Google searches can no longer do that with such ease.
Technically it’s also paving the way for some innovation down the road but that’s a wait and see spin off from the move. In all honesty I’d rather spend 8 mins watching the team handle search quality issues and see what sorts of discussions go on behind the scenes:
How’s that for transparency?
Ion Cannons?
I’m shooting this news piece down but it’s not really that bad of a headline.
Twin Creeks Technologies has successfully built a particle accelerator so powerful (100mA at 1 MeV) that it can produce solar panel medium at 200 micrometer thickness at very low costs. Here’s an image of the ‘Hyperion Particle Accelerator’:
The result is an estimated cost of $0.40 per watt for domestically manufactured solar panels. This is currently almost half the price of solar panels which are built in Chinese factories and shipped across the ocean in diesel burning ships.
So I will grant this headline some reprieve, it’s far more interesting than Google’s announced HTTPs only for search queries, but is it just an attempt by solar panels to get back into the spotlight (oh man) after the recent news about heat-conversion LEDs? It certainly would be nice to have a cheap solar panel solution if we are able to abundantly produce light from free heat energy?
For years now Chrome has been staring down it’s nose at the other browsers when it comes to security. In fact for the last 4 years, Chrome has been entered into HP’s Pwn2Own security competition, and nobody has successfully hacked it, unlike competing browsers.
This year Google’s Pwnium competition, which offers $1 million for successfully demonstrated exploits, has managed to finally uncover 2 vulnerabilities in the browser’s ‘sandbox’.
The successful hacker, Sergey Glazunov, has earned himself $60,000 for demonstrating his exploit, and a heap of recognition that will no doubt ensure Mr.Glazunov of a promising future in the IT industry.
Sergey’s exploits were patched in just under 24hrs, and now the browser is even more secure than it was previously. Obviously even at $60,000.00 this was a great win for both Google and it’s users. Finding/fixing exploits before they can be used in the wild makes me all warm and fuzzy.
This leaves $940,000.00 of unclaimed cash rewards to anyone else who can find a way to exploit Chrome’s many layers of security.
Happy Sun Spot Day!
Today is also a special day for technology around the planet as we are just getting hit by one of the largest solar flares in 5 years, part of a slightly early 11 year sun-cycle that last ended in 2002.
At the moment the flare activity is a diminished threat based on expectations, or in laymen’s terms it’s currently looking like a dud.
This could change at any moment however and tomorrow is expected to be the peak of flare activity coming from sun spot AR1429. This sun spot has been growing since March 2nd and at this point it’s 7 times the size of planet Earth. It is so large that amature observers are able to photograph the sun spot without a telescope. Here’s an image of sun spot AR1429 that David Tremblay of Alto, New Mexico, took earlier today during a dust storm:
While there’s no immediate health risks associated with these flares, our technology isn’t immune to the interference, and sensitive transmissions, such as GPS and flight navigations systems could be compromised at any moment during this event. There is even some concerns about power failures and large outages in the power grid.
NASA as always is the best spot to nerd out and view the event, they even have a 2048×2048 resolution MP4 you can watch if your computer can handle it. Just click the image below to get to the current NASA news page.
Today I saw the start of a graphical ad campaign by DuckDuckGo aimed at explaining how search personalization creates a ‘bubble’ that traps your search ability. Here is the link to the ad-site if you want to give your brain a wash.
Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying,
“a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
The heart of the matter isn’t new, TED’s got a pretty decent presentation from a ‘user’ perspective dating back to May 2011:
So what’s DuckDuckGo squawking about?
I think it’s time to burst their bubble by taking a look at the options we have and why the suggestion of ‘try something new’ doesn’t really ‘fit the bill’.
It is very true that search engines know a lot of ways to customize search results based on information that the browser gives the sites you visit. You have some options depending on what you need to accomplish.
For every-day searches:
Use the browser you use the most often.
Your search results will be relevant to you if you use Google or Bing.
DDG results will be relevant to the way DDG thinks results should be filtered because they are avoiding personalization.
For research based searches in your location:
Use ‘incognito’ or ‘private browsing’ modes. (* see below for Google tip)
Your search results on major search engines will not be related to your personal tastes, just your location/language.
DDG won’t change search results according to their advertising.
For research that is not based on language or location:
Use a fresh browser, switch your language on a system level, and use a proxy to make your queries from multiple locations.
Search results will need to be combined and compared at this point because there will be differences each time.
From what we’ve seen, this level of unique information does elicit a variety of search results even from unbiased search engines because language and location are very large factors in search queries.
* When searching with Google you can add “&pws=0″ to the search URL to see the search without personalization. This only turns off the ‘personalized web search’ function so the results will still be in your language and relevant to your location.
You could also add a short-cut to your browser so that you can search with personalization turned off by default, change the default language, location, etc..
While changing the search parameters is only ‘mostly effective’ I will be doing a follow-up post, complete with video guides, on how to do this and how to make it simple with shortcuts in the address bar.
If you still want to guess at the macro images from last month you aren’t too late. We are accepting guesses until we announce the winner next week, so feel free to go back to the old posts from last month and let us know what your little eye spies.
PS: There have been two versions of Minecraft 1.2x released today so far, some features weren’t even in the public builds so there’s some fresh bugs and features to explore. We have been waiting for this version to release to announce a new contest based on Minecraft! Stay tuned for full details in a post to come very soon!
A brand new, previously undocumented, ranking signal that affects both Google and Bing would be a huge topic change for this blog. Sadly the search engine optimization world hasn’t been that exciting lately.
Heck, tech-news has pretty much been landing on two key-words, ‘censorship’ and ‘patents’, with folks amusing themselves over the similarities between Yoko Ono ruining the Beatles just like China is ruining Apple.
Lets face it, if you can’t ship your iPads over a trademark dispute in the country they are made, and you are getting international criticism over your decision to leverage cheap labour to make the rest of your wares, you are in big trouble no matter what business we’re talking about.
Speaking of nailing things, Rick Mercer just released a video sharing his take on the Vic Toews debate:
Beauty job eh?
The main goal of this post was to make sure I shared the video that should have been included with yesterday’s Vic Toews blog post.
On top of not catching the video as it came out, I didn’t post a Week 4 macro image to guess at. (Yeah, I know right?)
So here’s the final February macro image for guessers who want to hedge their chances at getting picked:
Big Hint: This is relevant to the Vic Toews discussion. If you think you know what this is, or where this is, send us your best guess via Twitter or G+
Big Hint: This is relevant to the Vic Toews discussion.
