The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has found evidence that at least one employee of Bangladesh’s central bank was involved in the theft of US$81 million from the bank through a complex hack, according to a newspaper report.The number of employees involved could be higher, with people familiar with the matter suggesting that a handful of others may also have assisted hackers to negotiate Bangladesh Bank’s computer system, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.Bangladesh Bank officials could not be reached for comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter has blocked Dataminr from offering analytics around real-time tweets from the social networking site to U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a newspaper report.The social networking company, which provides Dataminr with real-time access to public tweets, seems to be trying to distance itself from appearing to aid government surveillance, a controversial issue after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the government was collecting information on users through Internet and telecommunications companies.Executives of Dataminr told intelligence agencies recently that Twitter, which holds around 5 percent of the equity in the startup and provides the data feed, did not the want the company to continue providing the service to the agencies, reported The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, quoting a person familiar with the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter has blocked Dataminr from offering analytics around real-time tweets from the social networking site to U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a newspaper report.
The social networking company, which provides Dataminr with real-time access to public tweets, seems to be trying to distance itself from appearing to aid government surveillance, a controversial issue after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the government was collecting information on users through Internet and telecommunications companies.
Executives of Dataminr told intelligence agencies recently that Twitter, which holds around 5 percent of the equity in the startup and provides the data feed, did not want the company to continue providing the service to the agencies, reported The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, quoting a person familiar with the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A U.S. trade body has launched an investigation into seven smartphone companies on charges of patent infringement, which could lead to a ban on the sale of certain phones imported and sold by these vendors in the country.The U.S. International Trade Commission said it had instituted an investigation into devices from a group of mainly Asian companies, including Lenovo and its Motorola subsidiary, Samsung Electronics, ZTE, Sony, LG Electronics, HTC and BlackBerry.The complaint was filed against these companies by Creative Technology of Singapore and its U.S. subsidiary Creative Labs of Milpitas, California, on March 24.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google and Honeywell have signed a patent cross-license agreement that resolves a long-standing patent dispute over thermostats made by Nest Labs, the home automation startup the Internet giant acquired.The proceedings in the case have been pending in court for about four years, awaiting the results of a reexamination of the patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to court records. The companies said Thursday they believe that the patent accord “promotes product innovation and consumer choice in the market for smart home products.” The financial and other details of the deal between the two companies were not disclosed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple CEO Tim Cook still sees great potential in the Chinese market despite a drop in its revenue from the country in the first quarter.In an interview to Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money program, Cook said Monday that the middle class in China is expected to boom from 50 million people five years ago to almost 500 million in the next five years. “This is an unprecedented growth of the middle class,” said Cook, adding that he “could not be more optimistic about China.”To a question from Cramer, Cook said it was an error by him not to to mention the figures about the burgeoning Chinese middle class during the company’s recent earnings call.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qatar National Bank has admitted that its systems were hacked but said that the information released online was a combination of data picked up from the attack and from other sources such as social media.The incident would not have a financial impact on the bank’s customers whose accounts are secure the bank said, without providing details of how its systems were hacked, the possible identity of the hackers, and what information was harvested.The announcement Sunday by one of the leading financial institution in the Middle East follows the posting online last week of leaked documents. The attack only targeted a portion of Qatar-based customers, the bank said, claiming the hack attempted to target the bank’s reputation rather than specifically its customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qatar National Bank has admitted that its systems were hacked but said that the information released online was a combination of data picked up from the attack and from other sources such as social media.The incident would not have a financial impact on the bank’s customers whose accounts are secure the bank said, without providing details of how its systems were hacked, the possible identity of the hackers, and what information was harvested.The announcement Sunday by one of the leading financial institution in the Middle East follows the posting online last week of leaked documents. The attack only targeted a portion of Qatar-based customers, the bank said, claiming the hack attempted to target the bank’s reputation rather than specifically its customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Supreme Court has adopted amendments to a rule to give judges the authority to issue warrants to remotely search computers whose locations are concealed using technology.The proposed move had been criticized by civil rights groups and companies like Google that said it threatened to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of Internet users.The top court has approved changes to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure , including Rule 41, which with some exceptions prohibits a federal judge from issuing a search warrant outside of the judge’s district. The change in the rule was proposed by the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure at the request of the Department of Justice .To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Supreme Court has adopted amendments to a rule to give judges the authority to issue warrants to remotely search computers whose locations are concealed using technology.The proposed move had been criticized by civil rights groups and companies like Google that said it threatened to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of Internet users.The top court has approved changes to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure , including Rule 41, which with some exceptions prohibits a federal judge from issuing a search warrant outside of the judge’s district. The change in the rule was proposed by the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure at the request of the Department of Justice .To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The global smartphone market saw its first year-on-year decline in the first quarter of this year, with both Samsung Electronics and Apple shipping fewer phones, according to a research firm.Global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent annually to 334.6 million from 345 million units in the first quarter of 2015, Strategy Analytics said late Wednesday.It attributed the decline to slowing smartphone growth because of increasing saturation in major markets like China and consumer caution about the future of the world economy.Apple reported Tuesday that the number of smartphones it sold worldwide fell by 16 percent to 51.2 million units in its fiscal second quarter ended March 26. The company saw a 26 percent year-on-year decline in revenue from Greater China, its second largest market. The revenue drop in mainland China was less at 11 percentTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nokia is paying 170 million euros (US$191 million) to acquire French fitness gadgets company Withings in a bid to get into the digital health market.For the Espoo, Finland company, which sold its handset business to Microsoft two years ago, and has been since mainly in the area of selling telecom equipment, the acquisition marks a strong push into connected healthcare and home products, ranging from activity trackers, weighing scales, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, and home and baby monitors.Nokia's brand, which is still well-regarded in many consumer markets, may aid the company as it enters new segments and starts what it describes as a "new chapter."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. no longer requires Apple’s assistance to unlock an iPhone 5s phone running iOS 7 used by the accused in a drug investigation, stating that an “individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case.”
The Department of Justice has withdrawn its application in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
DOJ had earlier appealed to District Judge Margo K. Brodie an order from Magistrate Judge James Orenstein, ruling that Apple could not be forced to provide assistance to the government to extract data from the iPhone 5s.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. no longer requires Apple’s assistance to unlock an iPhone 5s phone running iOS 7 used by the accused in a drug investigation, stating that an “individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case.”
The Department of Justice has withdrawn its application in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
DOJ had earlier appealed to District Judge Margo K. Brodie an order from Magistrate Judge James Orenstein, ruling that Apple could not be forced to provide assistance to the government to extract data from the iPhone 5s.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Chinese regulator is said to have ordered Apple to shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies only six months after the services were launched in the country.The action against Apple in a country, which it rates as its second largest market by revenue after the U.S., came from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, reported The New York Times, quoting two persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity.U.S. tech companies have been under pressure to comply with Chinese Internet regulations and censorship, with some Internet services like Facebook and Twitter blocked in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Indians love to discuss the weather and more recently the pollution that is on the increase in some of the country's cities. A new tool from Twitter could help people stay updated on pollution levels.The company has teamed up with a local data journalism outfit, IndiaSpend, to launch a service that provides users in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai with updates on the pollution level in their locality if they send a tweet using the #Breathe hashtag with their location.Users will then get a reply with a real-time update about the air quality in the area, with a visual notification of the measurement of the air quality and the possible health implications, according to a Twitter blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, the Russian developer of the SpyEye botnet creation kit, and an associate were on Wednesday sentenced to prison terms by a court in Atlanta, Georgia, for their role in developing and distributing malware that is said to have caused millions of dollars in losses to the financial sector.Panin, who set out to develop SpyEye as a successor to the Zeus malware that affected financial institutions since 2009, was sentenced by the court to nine and half years in prison, while his Algerian associate Hamza Bendelladj got a 15-year term, according to the Department of Justice.After infecting victims' computers, cybercriminals were able to remotely control these compromised computers through command-and-control servers, and steal the victims’ personal and financial information using techniques such as Web injects that introduce malicious code into a victim’s browser, keystroke loggers that record keyboard activity and credit card grabbers. The information sent to the servers was then used to steal money from the financial accounts of the victims.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, the Russian developer of the SpyEye botnet creation kit, and an associate were on Wednesday sentenced to prison terms by a court in Atlanta, Georgia, for their role in developing and distributing malware that is said to have caused millions of dollars in losses to the financial sector.Panin, who set out to develop SpyEye as a successor to the Zeus malware that affected financial institutions since 2009, was sentenced by the court to nine and half years in prison, while his Algerian associate Hamza Bendelladj got a 15-year term, according to the Department of Justice.After infecting victims' computers, cybercriminals were able to remotely control these compromised computers through command-and-control servers, and steal the victims’ personal and financial information using techniques such as Web injects that introduce malicious code into a victim’s browser, keystroke loggers that record keyboard activity and credit card grabbers. The information sent to the servers was then used to steal money from the financial accounts of the victims.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The European Commission on Wednesday made new antitrust charges against Google, alleging that the company foisted its search application and the Chrome browser on Android smartphones makers as a condition to license its other apps and services.
The commission also charged Google with preventing makers from selling devices running variants or “forks” of its Android operating system, and giving financial incentives to both phone makers and mobile network operators if they agree to preinstall Google Search on their devices.
In its contracts with manufacturers, Google has made the licensing of the Play Store on Android devices conditional on its search application being pre-installed and set as default search service, according to the commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cloud computing startup Mesosphere has decided to open source its platform for managing data center resources, with the backing of over 60 tech companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.Derived from its Datacenter Operating System, a service that Mesosphere set out to build as an operating system for all servers in a data center as if they were a single pool of resources, the open source DC/OS offers capabilities for container operations at scale and single-click, app-store-like installation of over 20 complex distributed systems, including HDFS, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka and Apache Cassandra, the company said in a statement Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
John Ribeiro