Tech groups renew push for cloud, email privacy protections

This may finally be the year that the U.S. Congress gives email and other documents stored in the cloud for several months the same privacy protections from police searches as newer files or paper records stored in a file cabinet, say backers of electronic privacy reform.A coalition of tech companies, digital rights advocates and other groups on Wednesday renewed their call for Congress to change a 29-year-old electronic privacy law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [ECPA].Members of the Digital Fourth coalition have been pushing since 2010 for Congress to change ECPA by requiring law enforcement agencies to get a judge-approved warrant before getting access to a suspect’s digital files stored with a third party for more than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

World’s Most Ethical Tech Companies: It’s all relative

T-Mobile is crowing about making a list as one of the 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies. My guess is that voting must have taken place after December, when the FCC announced that T-Mobile would be paying at least $90 for cramming -- that is, "for billing customers millions of dollars in unauthorized third-party subscriptions and premium text messaging services."Then again, it's all relative. AT&T got whacked earlier last year by the FCC for $105M for doing something similar. The State of California also nailed AT&T late last year for almost $24M in a hazardous waste dumping case. Verizon paid up for privacy violations and Sprint got fined last year for not honoring the do-not-call rules. And of course take your pick with Comcast: How about "borrowing" customers' routers to use as WiFi hotspots?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

World’s Most Ethical Tech Companies: It’s all relative

T-Mobile is crowing about making a list as one of the 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies. My guess is that voting must have taken place after December, when the FCC announced that T-Mobile would be paying at least $90 for cramming -- that is, "for billing customers millions of dollars in unauthorized third-party subscriptions and premium text messaging services."Then again, it's all relative. AT&T got whacked earlier last year by the FCC for $105M for doing something similar. The State of California also nailed AT&T late last year for almost $24M in a hazardous waste dumping case. Verizon paid up for privacy violations and Sprint got fined last year for not honoring the do-not-call rules. And of course take your pick with Comcast: How about "borrowing" customers' routers to use as WiFi hotspots?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Big data and battle tanks: Inside World of Tanks’ powerful infrastructure

Tracking the scores, progress and behavior of millions of players around the globe playing an online game is no laughing matter, according to T.J. Wagner, an executive producer and creative director for World of Tanks publisher Wargaming West, who spoke to Network World last week at PAX East.World of Tanks is a multiplayer-only online wargame, which features two teams of players duking it out in a vast array of mid-20th Century armored vehicles. Players gain access to more powerful tanks and better equipment by playing matches and, if they find the rate of advancement too slow for their taste, by paying real cash for in-game currency that can be used to purchase premium account status and new tanks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s app, iTunes, iBooks stores suffer outage

Some of Apple’s major online services for purchasing ebooks, music and apps were down as of Wednesday morning.Service for Apple’s App Store, iBooks Store, iTunes Store, and Mac App Store was lost around 2 a.m. U.S. Pacific time, and remained out as of 10:20 a.m., Apple posted on its system status page. Some users of these services worldwide may not be able to make purchases, downloads, or update apps.Service for Apple’s iCloud Mail and iCloud Account & Sign In was also lost around 2 a.m., but was restored by 6 a.m.It’s not clear what caused the outage. Apple did not immediately respond to comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First medical apps built with Apple’s ResearchKit won’t share data for commercial gain

As concern grows about data collection by mobile apps, Apple and companies involved with its new ResearchKit software development framework for medical studies say users of the first five apps have nothing to worry about.Access to health data collected by the apps will be restricted to approved medical researchers and barred from commercial use, and the apps won’t delve into the personal contents stored on a smartphone, according to the companies.Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit biomedical research organization in Seattle, handles collecting, de-identifying and storing of the health data gathered from the five apps developed with ResearchKit, Christine Suver, principal scientist, head of open science data governance at Sage, said in an email interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First medical apps built with Apple’s ResearchKit won’t share data for commercial gain

As concern grows about data collection by mobile apps, Apple and companies involved with its new ResearchKit software development framework for medical studies say users of the first five apps have nothing to worry about.Access to health data collected by the apps will be restricted to approved medical researchers and barred from commercial use, and the apps won’t delve into the personal contents stored on a smartphone, according to the companies.Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit biomedical research organization in Seattle, handles collecting, de-identifying and storing of the health data gathered from the five apps developed with ResearchKit, Christine Suver, principal scientist, head of open science data governance at Sage, said in an email interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Outage hits Apple services, including iCloud and App Store

Reports of problems logging into a variety of Apple services, including the iOS and Mac app stores, iTunes, iCloud and even the company's support scheduler, washed across the Internet early Wednesday."I am trying to update one of my apps but when I get asked to sign into the Mac App Store I get a "Status_Code_Error" appear in red letters to the bottom of the login window," reported someone identified only as xXDivineSparkXx in the first message of a long thread on Apple's support forum, posted before 3 a.m. PT today.Several hundred others chimed in -- from locations across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia -- to report the same.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

3 reasons to be wary of the Internet of Things

According to a 2014 HP report, titled “Internet of Things Research Study,” 70 percent of the most commonly used Internet of Things (IoT) devices contain vulnerabilities involving password security, permissions and encryption. “While the Internet of Things will connect and unify countless objects and systems, it also presents a significant challenge in fending off the adversary given the expanded attack surface,” said Mike Armistead, vice president and general manager, Fortify, Enterprise Security Products, HP, in response to the report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Now that’s rich: Why the gold Apple Watch costs $10K

As College Humor videos go, this is one of the more SFW ones I've seen (just a couple of naughty words).  Anyway, Apple once again begs for parody videos to emerge with the official, official, official introduction this week of its Apple Watches. Here's why the gold watch costs $10K, according to the humor site. An earlier Apple Watch parody video, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Smartphone video traffic will explode, report says

While many of us have taken to the concept of video over mobile networks on smartphones, you could argue that it's been more of a "yeah, really cool, I like that idea" flirtation, rather than a "Hey, when's trash day?" and "Anyone know how to get a 55-inch TV in a garbage can?" kind of amour.Just how many people are happy with stuttering, low-definition images on a pokey smartphone screen, one could ask? I for one am not watching a smartphone screen on an expensive, spotty mobile network in lieu of Wi-Fi media delivery via a big screen when I can help it.And has there been any indication that the non-tech segment of the population thinks differently? Is it not all the same inquisitive dabbling?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IPv4 QoS Markings Calculator

This is a quick calculator I came up that I could use in the CCIE lab to translate between various IPv4 header QoS markings. As long as I could remember how to draw out the calculator, all I had to do was some basic math and I could translate between markings quite easily.

This post does not explain what the header fields are, why there’s so many or what the significance of one QoS value is over another. I’m making an assumption that the reader is already familiar with QoS concepts.

Here’s the calculator:

x x x x x x x x
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ToS
32 16 8 4 2 1 - - DSCP
4 2 1 2 1 - - - DSCP AF values (AFxy)
4 2 1 - - - - - IP Precedence
Enter 0 or 1 in each position

Each column represents one bit from the Type of Service (ToS) field in the IPv4 header. The right-most column describes what each row is for. The very last row is meant to be filled in by us; it’s the input into the calculator.

As an example, let’s say we Continue reading

Conventional IT security is failing: Continuous monitoring and mitigation can help

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

All you have to do is read the headlines to know conventional IT security is failing. The number of security incidents among enterprises jumped 25% between 2011 and 2013, according to the 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers “Global State of Information Security Survey.” And in the past 12 months, 96% of enterprises felt the sting of a cyberattack, according to the 2014 IDG Connect Cyber Defense Maturity Report.

The question is no longer if or when you will experience a significant security incident, but how well your processes and controls address detection, analysis and response. Without a real-time, independent and comprehensive view of endpoint status, organizations have an incomplete understanding of their IT risk, and it shows.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows PCs remained vulnerable to Stuxnet-like LNK attacks after 2010 patch

If you patched your Windows computers in 2010 against the LNK exploit used by Stuxnet and thought you were safe, researchers from Hewlett-Packard have some bad news for you: Microsoft’s fix was flawed.In January, researcher Michael Heerklotz reported privately to HP’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) that the LNK patch released by Microsoft over four years ago can be bypassed.This means that over the past four years attackers could have reverse-engineered Microsoft’s fix to create new LNK exploits that could infect Windows computers when USB storage devices got plugged into them. However, there’s no information yet to suggest this has happened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Consumer Identity Management systems step up where traditional ID systems fall down

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Companies that sell products and services to consumers are collecting and storing massive volumes of customer data from not just POS, order management, customer service and e-commerce systems, but also mobile apps, social media feeds, online campaign forms and Web applications such as lead enrichment databases. As a result, new types of identity management systems have emerged to address the broader scale and risk of Web-based business processes and to give customers more control regarding how corporations use their data.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple stores redefining mall economics

If you’ve visited an Apple store at your local mall the chances are good that you’ve visited a crowded Apple store at your local mall.And, not surprisingly, those crowds don’t necessarily get right back into their cars after buying their iWhatevers. They do more shopping. In fact, an Apple store alone can boost overall mall sales by 10%, says one research firm, and Apple is using that clout to its advantage.From a Wall Street Journal report: In the past, malls typically operated according to a straightforward bargain. Department stores that anchored the ends of the malls either owned their own stores or paid almost nothing aside from fees to maintain common spaces in exchange for drawing much of the traffic, while specialty retailers in the smaller spaces between the anchors typically paid the bulk of a mall’s rent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Baidu ends support for Android platform

Baidu’s efforts to bring its own customized Android ROM to Chinese smartphones appears to be fizzling out as the company shifts resources away from the project.On Wednesday, the team behind the Baidu Cloud OS, a suite of tools and interfaces designed for Android phones and incorporated into the company’s Android ROM, announced it was saying goodbye to the platform.“Because of a company business adjustment, we have no choice but to painfully decide to suspend updates and support to the Baidu Cloud OS,” the team said in an official forum posting.While the rest of Baidu’s consumer cloud business will still be in operation, the Cloud OS and ROM design unit has been folded into a new company, the team added in another posting. It did not offer details about the new company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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