Peter Sayer
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Cloud consortium says simpler EU electronic signature rules aren’t simple enough
European Union rules for electronic signatures change on Friday to make a clear distinction between the identity of the person signing, and that of the authority guaranteeing the integrity of the data, but the technology needs to be still simpler, vendors say.The new rules are intended to simplify the process of electronically signing contracts between businesses, or between businesses and persons, and across international borders where different and often incompatible electronic signature rules apply today.But while the new rules will simplify the legal environment, today's technical environment makes it too difficult to create and securely manage digital identities, according to the Cloud Signature Consortium.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why the UK’s vote to leave the EU will have little effect on its data protection rules
With the haircut that the sterling-euro exchange rate has taken in the wake of the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union, the U.K. has suddenly become a low-cost country for companies wishing to host or process the personal information of EU citizens.EU businesses will need to weigh that price cut against the regulatory uncertainty Thursday's vote introduced -- but it turns out that's surprisingly small, at least in the short to medium term.As for U.K. businesses hoping for more relaxed data protection rules in the wake of the referendum vote, they will have to wait -- perhaps for a very long while.That's because many of the rules that the 51.9 percent who voted to leave the EU hoped to escape are, in fact, firmly part of U.K. law, and will only go away if the U.K. parliament votes to repeal them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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BlackBerry goes into the red as revenue drops by a third
It looks as though BlackBerry CEO John Chen will still be in charge long enough to launch another couple of phones -- although don't expect any new flagship models.Chen was re-elected chairman of the board for another year on Wednesday.He still plans to launch two new mid-range phones in the next nine months, one of them as early as July. They'll be cheaper than the Priv, BlackBerry's first Android phone, but with the same level of security, he said Thursday.Shareholders might not have given him such strong support if they'd seen the numbers the company reported Thursday for the first quarter of its 2017 financial year.Revenue dropped to US$400 million in the three months to May 31, down 39 percent from $658 million a year earlier.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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BlackBerry goes into the red as revenue drops by a third
It looks as though BlackBerry CEO John Chen will still be in charge long enough to launch another couple of phones -- although don't expect any new flagship models.Chen was re-elected chairman of the board for another year on Wednesday.He still plans to launch two new mid-range phones in the next nine months, one of them as early as July. They'll be cheaper than the Priv, BlackBerry's first Android phone, but with the same level of security, he said Thursday.Shareholders might not have given him such strong support if they'd seen the numbers the company reported Thursday for the first quarter of its 2017 financial year.Revenue dropped to US$400 million in the three months to May 31, down 39 percent from $658 million a year earlier.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Think tanks mull Geneva Convention for cybercrime
A Geneva Convention on cyberwar: That's how a panel of experts proposes to deal with the growing threat to critical infrastructure posed by the possibility of cyberattack.With control systems in dams, hospitals, power grids and industrial systems increasingly exposed online, it's possible that nation states could seek to damage or disable them electronically.But building electronic defenses to prevent such attacks is expensive -- and often ineffectual, given the myriad ways in which they can fail or be breached.That's why the Global Commission on Internet Governance recommends that in any future cyberwar, governments should pledge to restrict the list of legitimate targets for cyberattacks, to not target critical infrastructure predominantly used by civilians, and to not to use cyberweapons against core Internet infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Think tanks mull Geneva Convention for cybercrime
A Geneva Convention on cyberwar: That's how a panel of experts proposes to deal with the growing threat to critical infrastructure posed by the possibility of cyberattack.With control systems in dams, hospitals, power grids and industrial systems increasingly exposed online, it's possible that nation states could seek to damage or disable them electronically.But building electronic defenses to prevent such attacks is expensive -- and often ineffectual, given the myriad ways in which they can fail or be breached.That's why the Global Commission on Internet Governance recommends that in any future cyberwar, governments should pledge to restrict the list of legitimate targets for cyberattacks, to not target critical infrastructure predominantly used by civilians, and to not to use cyberweapons against core Internet infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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This IS your grandma’s Internet: Samsung plans to invest in IoT
In the future, everything will be connected -- even your grandparents.That's what Samsung Electronics is counting on as it draws up a four-year plan to invest US$1.2 billion in U.S. IoT startups and research.The company sees the Internet of things as a way to provide dementia care and to help millions of elderly people live independently, using a range of devices including some akin to fitness trackers."We can keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes," Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon said at a company event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "As our populations live longer, these benefits and cost savings for society cannot be ignored."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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A blockchain ‘smart contract’ could cost investors millions
Investors in a "smart contract" built on the Ethereum blockchain platform may have lost cryptocurrency worth millions of dollars because they missed a loophole in the contract's fine print.The contract was written in Ethereum's Solidity programming language, and the fine print was the code that set out the rules for investing in, operating, and withdrawing from a crowd-sourced venture capital fund called The DAO (The Distributed Autonomous Organization.) .Ethereum, like other blockchains, is a distributed public ledger, or record of transactions. Where the bitcoin ledger records bitcoin transactions, the Ethereum blockchain records transfers of a cryptocurrency called Ether. But there's more: Ethereum is also a platform for running smart contracts. Its creator, the Ethereum Foundation, describes smart contracts as "applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Belgian hospitals turn to robots to receive patients
Robots have already invaded the operating room in some hospitals, but in Belgium they will soon be taking on the potentially more difficult task -- for robots, at least -- of greeting patients and giving them directions.The Citadelle regional hospital in Liège and the Damiaan general hospital in Ostend will be working with Zora Robotics to test patients' reactions to robot receptionists in the coming months.Zora already has experience programming the diminutive humanoid robot Nao to act as a chatty companion for the elderly, offering it as a form of therapy for those with dementia.Now the Belgian company is working with Nao's newer, bigger sibling, Pepper. Both were developed by French robotics company Aldebaran, now owned by Japanese Internet conglomerate SoftBank.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Spam king’ Sanford Wallace sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for Facebook phishing scam
Self-styled spam king Sanford Wallace was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for a phishing scam that resulted in the sending of over 27 million messages to Facebook users.Last August, Wallace admitted to compromising around 500,000 Facebook accounts, using them to send over 27 million spam messages through Facebook's servers, between November 2008 and March 2009.Sentencing had been scheduled for last December, but it has taken the court almost a year to reach a sentencing decision.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Spam king’ Sanford Wallace sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for Facebook phishing scam
Self-styled spam king Sanford Wallace was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for a phishing scam that resulted in the sending of over 27 million messages to Facebook users.Last August, Wallace admitted to compromising around 500,000 Facebook accounts, using them to send over 27 million spam messages through Facebook's servers, between November 2008 and March 2009.Sentencing had been scheduled for last December, but it has taken the court almost a year to reach a sentencing decision.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Ericsson will lay off 3,000 this summer, says Swedish newspaper
Ericsson is preparing to lay off between 3,000 and 4,000 staff this summer, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Thousands more may have to go at the network equipment manufacturer as management look for additional cost savings of 10 billion Swedish kronor (US$1.2 billion), the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources. Ericsson had around 115,000 staff in April, 17,000 of them in Sweden A spokeswoman declined to discuss Tuesday's news report, saying the company does not comment on rumors and speculation. Ericsson is facing increasing competition from a more focused Nokia, which swallowed its Franco-American rival, Alcatel-Lucent, earlier this year, and especially from Chinese vendors such as Huawei Technologies or ZTE. It's a critical time for wireless infrastructure vendors and their carrier customers, as they taper off investment in fourth-generation networks in preparation for the next, still largely undefined, generation of technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Ericsson will lay off 3,000 this summer, says Swedish newspaper
Ericsson is preparing to lay off between 3,000 and 4,000 staff this summer, according to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Thousands more may have to go at the network equipment manufacturer as management look for additional cost savings of 10 billion Swedish kronor (US$1.2 billion), the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources. Ericsson had around 115,000 staff in April, 17,000 of them in Sweden A spokeswoman declined to discuss Tuesday's news report, saying the company does not comment on rumors and speculation. Ericsson is facing increasing competition from a more focused Nokia, which swallowed its Franco-American rival, Alcatel-Lucent, earlier this year, and especially from Chinese vendors such as Huawei Technologies or ZTE. It's a critical time for wireless infrastructure vendors and their carrier customers, as they taper off investment in fourth-generation networks in preparation for the next, still largely undefined, generation of technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nokia hopes its new IoT platform, Impact, will be a hit
Nokia hopes it will have a hit on its hands with Impact, an all-encompassing new Internet-of-Things management platform that brings together several existing products.The Intelligent Management Platform for All Connected Things builds on the company's established CPE (customer premises equipment) management tool for network operators, Motive Connected Device Platform, so broadband and home routers will be among the first devices to feel its impact. It already supports 80,000 different device types, Nokia said Tuesday.No doubt its new Smart Home Gateway, also unveiled Tuesday, will soon be among them. It combines a fiber "modem" with a router, dual-band gigabit Wi-Fi -- and Zigbee and Z-Wave radios for home automation. It's intended to be distributed by network operators. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Hackers could have changed Facebook Messenger chat logs
Here's a Facebook hack straight from the pages of the novel 1984: A way to rewrite the record of the past."Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," went the ruling party's slogan in George Orwell's dystopian novel.Security researchers have found a way to control the past, by altering Facebook's logs of online chats conducted through its website and Messenger App.Such modified logs could be used to control the future, the researchers suggest, by using them to commit fraud, to falsify evidence in legal investigations, or to introduce malware onto a PC or phone.Roman Zaikin of Check Point Software Technologies discovered a flaw in Facebook's chat system that made it possible for an attacker to modify or remove any sent message, photo, file or link in a conversation they were part of.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Hackers could have changed Facebook Messenger chat logs
Here's a Facebook hack straight from the pages of the novel 1984: A way to rewrite the record of the past."Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," went the ruling party's slogan in George Orwell's dystopian novel.Security researchers have found a way to control the past, by altering Facebook's logs of online chats conducted through its website and Messenger App.Such modified logs could be used to control the future, the researchers suggest, by using them to commit fraud, to falsify evidence in legal investigations, or to introduce malware onto a PC or phone.Roman Zaikin of Check Point Software Technologies discovered a flaw in Facebook's chat system that made it possible for an attacker to modify or remove any sent message, photo, file or link in a conversation they were part of.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Hackers could have changed Facebook Messenger chat logs
Here's a Facebook hack straight from the pages of the novel 1984: A way to rewrite the record of the past."Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," went the ruling party's slogan in George Orwell's dystopian novel.Security researchers have found a way to control the past, by altering Facebook's logs of online chats conducted through its website and Messenger App.Such modified logs could be used to control the future, the researchers suggest, by using them to commit fraud, to falsify evidence in legal investigations, or to introduce malware onto a PC or phone.Roman Zaikin of Check Point Software Technologies discovered a flaw in Facebook's chat system that made it possible for an attacker to modify or remove any sent message, photo, file or link in a conversation they were part of.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Hackers could have changed Facebook Messenger chat logs
Here's a Facebook hack straight from the pages of the novel 1984: A way to rewrite the record of the past."Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past," went the ruling party's slogan in George Orwell's dystopian novel.Security researchers have found a way to control the past, by altering Facebook's logs of online chats conducted through its website and Messenger App.Such modified logs could be used to control the future, the researchers suggest, by using them to commit fraud, to falsify evidence in legal investigations, or to introduce malware onto a PC or phone.Roman Zaikin of Check Point Software Technologies discovered a flaw in Facebook's chat system that made it possible for an attacker to modify or remove any sent message, photo, file or link in a conversation they were part of.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Twitter briefly considered bidding for Yahoo
Twitter briefly entertained the idea of a merger with Yahoo, and senior Twitter staff met Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to discuss a possible deal.The companies met "several weeks ago," sources told the New York Post, but Twitter broke off the talks soon after, the newspaper reported Thursday night.Yahoo put its core Internet business up for sale in December, after giving up hope of finding a tax-efficient way of selling its 15.4 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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EU and US officials sign ‘umbrella’ data protection agreement, but it’s no Privacy Shield
The European Commission has signed a landmark agreement with the U.S. in its quest to legitimize the transatlantic flow of European Union citizens' personal information.No, it's not the embattled Privacy Shield, which the Commission hopes to conclude later this month, but the rather flimsier-sounding umbrella agreement or, more formally, the U.S.-EU agreement "on the protection of personal information relating to the prevention, investigation, detection, and prosecution of criminal offenses."It covers the exchange between EU and U.S. law enforcers, during the course of their investigations of personal data including names, addresses and criminal records. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, European Commissioner for Justice Vĕra Jourová and Dutch Minister for Security and Justice Ard van der Steur signed the agreement in Amsterdam on Thursday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here