US court throws out web patent claim

23 July 2013 Last updated at 06:05 ET

A US court has upheld a decision to invalidate a tech firm's claim to own technologies underpinning the web.

Eolas's claims revolved around a series of patents it had been using to extract licence fees from hi-tech firms such as Microsoft and Oracle.

However, Eolas's claims were disputed by many others including web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The ruling will also mean an end to many other lawsuits Eolas mounted against hi-tech firms.

A US Appeals court in Washington has upheld a decision made in Texas in February 2012 that initially invalidated Eolas's patents.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee testified at that original Texas trial and said that if Eolas's patent claims were upheld it would "substantially impair the usability of the web". The broad patents cover many familiar features of webpages including playing videos, responding to user input and manipulating images.

Eolas was founded by American computer scientist Michael Doyle who claimed to have written the program that pioneered interactive use of the world wide web. A patent for this was granted to Mr Doyle in 1994 and soon after was used to win court cases against tech giants such as Microsoft which were accused of using the technology without permission.

Eolas is believed to have settled its claim against Microsoft for about $100m (£65m).

A similar patent was granted in 2009 and Eolas used this to file legal claims against 20 companies including Apple, eBay, Adobe, Google and many others. Eolas sought more than $600m in damages.

Many of the companies sued by Eolas settled rather than fight the claims in court. This meant that only three firms, Google, Yahoo and JC Penney, appeared in court in 2012 to contest the patents.

Google said it was "pleased with the court's decision". Eolas has not made any comment.

The Appeal Court's backing of the original invalidation signals the end of this case and many others. Eolas launched a series of lawsuits using patents it had been granted that incorporated the technologies and innovations it initially claimed to own.

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Syrian hackers claim Tango app theft

23 July 2013 Last updated at 07:47 ET

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), hackers loyal to president Bashar al-Assad, claims to have stolen millions of users' personal details from Tango, a popular video and text messaging app.

SEA says it hacked into Tango's back-up database and downloaded users' private phone numbers, contacts and emails, amounting to 1.5 terabytes of data.

The hackers posted screenshots on their website to back up their claims.

SEA says it will give "much of the information" to the Syrian government.

TangoMe Inc confirmed a security breach via its Twitter feed saying: "Tango experienced a cyber intrusion that resulted in unauthorized access to some data. We are working on increasing our security systems."

But the US firm did not confirm that it was SEA that carried out the attack nor that 1.5TB of data had been stolen.

"We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this breach may have caused our members", Tango added in a follow-up tweet.

Hijacking

The SEA then took offence at a caricature of the Syrian president accompanying a report of the Tango hack story posted on The Daily Dot website.

It asked for the picture to be removed in a tweet, then hacked into the news site's administration panel and deleted the entire article.

The same group achieved notoriety after successfully hijacking official Twitter feeds of the BBC, Associated Press, the Financial Times and The Guardian newspaper.

But the hackers did not say why they had targeted Tango in particular.

Internet security experts believe the breach may have been related to Tango's use of an outdated version of the WordPress content management system.

According to E Hacking News Tango was still using WordPress version 3.2.1, when the latest version is 3.5.2.

Tango, based in Mountain View, California, has amassed more than 120 million registered users of its free video and text messaging application since its launch in 2009.

The cross-platform app is available in 39 languages in more than 210 countries and allows users to play games and watch animations during calls, as well as edit photos and send e-cards.

No-one from the company was available for comment at the time of writing.

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Amazon U-turn over free deliveries

23 July 2013 Last updated at 11:12 ET

Online retailer Amazon has scrapped free "super saver" delivery to the UK on some products worth less than £10.

It reverses a policy introduced in October 2009 that let items be sent without postage charge if customers agreed to wait up to five business days for delivery after the dispatch date.

The new threshold will not apply to books, DVDs, music, video games and software products.

Amazon said the move would "affect only a very small proportion of orders".

But one retail analyst said the move could still be "damaging" for the online retailer.

Packaging

Customers buying non-qualifying products, such as a USB memory stick worth less than £10, for example, would face a postage and packaging charge of £3.99. Some postage charges on other goods could be even higher.

Neil Saunders, analyst with retail specialist Conlumino told the BBC: "This is potentially damaging for Amazon as there is likely to be resistance to this change from some customers, particularly those infrequent shoppers who don't mind waiting a bit longer for their goods to arrive."

Amazon, which achieves about £3bn a year in UK sales, said multiple orders worth less than £10 could still be delivered free if they included a qualifying product, such as a book or DVD.

The retailer said the imposition of a minimum spend threshold would allow it to offer "a significantly expanded selection of lower priced products".

Loyalty

Amazon has vastly expanded the number of goods it offers online in recent years, including clothes, groceries and health and beauty products, not to mention the goods being sold by third-party vendors.

As a result, "the economics of offering free delivery on cheap goods just don't stack up any more", says Bryan Roberts, analyst with Kantar Retail.

Analysts also speculate the change may be designed to promote the Amazon Prime delivery service, which costs £49 a year for one-day delivery on an unlimited number of orders.

"The more customers who use Prime the better for Amazon as it helps their retention and loyalty figures, but occasional shoppers are unlikely to switch as it is quite expensive," said Mr Saunders.

Amazon is also trying to push people towards making multiple purchases as profit margins on some low-volume products are "very low", he argues.

In June, Amazon.co.uk scrapped free super saver delivery to a number of countries, including Italy, Spain, Greece, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino and Vatican City.

This used to provide free delivery on orders over £25.

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Samsung reveals new smartphone chip

23 July 2013 Last updated at 13:16 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Samsung has unveiled its latest top-of-the-range smart device processor saying it offers more than twice the 3D graphics power of its predecessor.

The Exynos 5 Octa is the first production-ready chip to include ARM Holding's latest GPU (graphics processing unit) architecture.

Samsung's move to license the tech marks a reversal of its decision to use a GPU design by rival British chip firm Imagination in the last version.

It enters mass production next month.

In its press release Samsung highlighted the fact that GPUs are increasingly being used to handle general computing tasks and not just video games graphics.

While GPUs are typically slower at doing single calculations than CPUs (central processing units), they have the advantage that they carry many of them simultaneously.

This makes them particularly adept at handling highly "parallelisable" tasks such as applying filters to photographs, running augmented reality apps as well as speech, gesture and facial recognition.

Power efficiency

While the vast majority of smart devices use ARM-designed CPUs, the firm is a smaller player when it comes to GPUs.

In February the Cambridge-based business said it accounted for about 20% of all Android phones and 50% of Android tablets. Apple's iOS devices use Imagination's GPU tech.

Swapping one company's mobile GPU design for another is relatively easy as the companies behind them all work to the same open standards.

The Exynos 5 Octa features six ARM Mali T628 GPU cores. The chip can activate more or fewer of them depending on the complexity of a task, allowing devices to minimise power use at times when most of the cores are not needed.

"Consumers want increased functionality on their device, but battery technology hasn't increased at the same rate," a spokesman for ARM told the BBC. "Therefore power efficiency is key."

The chip also uses four of ARM's high-powered A15 CPU cores and four of its weaker A7 CPU cores, with the "big-little" combination again designed to allow devices to alter which parts are used to extend battery life.

Samsung says the CPU cores offer a 20% speed boost over those in the earlier Exynos 5410, used to power some versions of its Galaxy S4 handset.

Chip competition

In addition to using Exynos chips in most of its own Galaxy-branded products, Samsung has also sold them for use in phones and tablets sold by Lenovo, Hyundai and others.

It says the new chip will be powerful enough to offer "desktop-quality" video editing and support 1080p high definition video playback at 60 frames per second.

But the South Korean company faces competition from US firms Nvidia and Qualcomm which are now offering mobile chips capable of supporting the 4K ultra high definition video format.

Intel's new chief executive, Brian Krzanich, has also said his firm plans to accelerate development of its low power Atom chips. Samsung recently took the surprising step of including one of the components in its Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 tablet.

Google's Motorola unit has just announced it is introducing its own chip - called the X8 mobile computing system - for use in its latest handsets. There are reports, though, that this may merely be a tweaked Qualcomm product.

However, another firm, Texas Instruments - which had provided chips for some of Amazon's Kindle tablets - announced last year it would stop investing in the sector because of the high level of competition.

"Samsung has generally done very well at walking the difficult line of being a manufacturer of components - including memory as well as processors - as well as making devices, which can put it head-to-head with the people it is selling parts to," said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at consultants Davies Murphy Group.

"Whilst it's almost certain the primary customer for the new chip will be Samsung itself, the firm will also be looking to maximise on its investment by selling the technology to other manufacturers including big name brands as well as lesser known ones who produce unbranded devices or goods for others."

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Belarus net infested with spammers

23 July 2013 Last updated at 19:03 ET

Almost 30% of all net addresses in Belarus are blocked by anti-spam firms because of the amount of junk mail passing through them, says a report.

East European nations top the list of countries with the largest percentage of blacklisted net addresses, said security firm Cloudmark.

It said Belarus had become popular among spammers as other nations cracked down on junk-mail senders.

The US was still the single biggest source of spam, it said,

Belarus (27.4%), Romania (22.3%) and Russia (3%) filled the top three slots of a list of nations that have IP addresses known to be sources of spam, said Cloudmark researcher Andrew Conway.

Now, he said, data traffic from just over three million Belarusian IP addresses was being blocked in an attempt to stem the flood of junk mail passing through them.

Paul Ducklin, security researcher at Sophos, said Belarus's ratio of junk-sending IP addresses to population meant it was "way out at the top" of its list of spam senders per capita.

"It's been the worst per person all year," said Mr Ducklin, adding that despite its small size it was closing in on the US as the single biggest source of spam in the world.

"Belarus is in a league of its own at the moment," he said.

Mr Conway from Cloudmark said Belarus's rapid rise was the consequence of other Eastern European nations, such as Russia, getting better at stamping out spam sources. In addition many hosting firms and ISPs in other countries were reacting much more quickly, he said, which left spammers looking for places where they could act with impunity.

Belarussian ISPs and hosting companies had also become a favourite among Romanian spam gangs, he said, who were being flushed out of other networks.

The percentages were a historic high, said Mr Conway, and indicative of serious trouble.

"Typically when we look at individual hosting companies if we are blocking more than 1% of the total they have a problem," he said.

Lax security controls by Belarussian net firms meant it was taking the blame for cyber criminals more than likely based outside the country, said Mr Conway. Most spam is now routed through hijacked machines and is rarely generated in the nations from which it seems to emanate.

The large scale blacklisting would have a knock-on effect on legitimate businesses, he warned.

"It'll cause problems for people who are there that want to send email internationally," said Mr Conway.

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Apple's profit better than estimates

23 July 2013 Last updated at 20:38 ET

Shares of computer and smartphone maker Apple rose nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it reported better-than-expected profits for the third quarter.

It made $6.9bn (£4.5bn) profit in the three months to June, thanks in part to good sales of its iPhone smartphone.

Apple said it sold 31.2 million iPhones, a record for the June quarter, compared to 26 million last year.

But profit was down 22% from the same period a year earlier as its profit margins shrank to 36.98% from 42.8%.

However, average sale prices were lower at $581, compared with $608 a year ago.

Its revenue was also better than expected, with the company earning $35.3bn, although that was barely above the $35bn of a year ago.

Analysts said the data, especially on iPhone sales, may help allay some fears of a slowdown in Apple's growth rate.

"The iPhone number should provide some comfort to investors who were worried about smartphone demand," said Shannon Cross of Cross Research.

"That's one of the reasons the stock is up. Expectations were not strong for this quarter."

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IT analyst Chris Green: "They've moved away from being that darling of the tech industry... but there's good signs there's some interesting products in the pipeline"

Outstripped

One of the brakes on the robust pace of growth that Apple has enjoyed in recent years has been the growing popularity of rivals such as Samsung - which has now become the world's biggest mobile phone maker - as well as the launch of low-cost smartphone by Chinese manufacturers.

According to its latest numbers, Apple's sales in China were also down by 4% in the April to June period.

Research firm IDC has estimated that 66% of the 385 million smartphones sold in China next year will cost less than $200 - significantly less than the cost of Apple's iPhone.

That has led some investors to fear that Apple may have to cut the price of its products in an attempt to attract customers.

At the same time, sales of its the iPad tablet computer, fell by 14% to 14.6 million units, compared with 17 million a year ago.

New products

Apple has spent most of the past 10 years as the darling of consumers and investors.

Continue reading the main story

But a lack of new products - its last innovation was the iPad in 2010 - has seen faith in it wane recently, and strong competition from South Korea's Samsung in particular, has also eaten into its market share.

That has seen investors dump the stock. Its shares have dipped nearly 40% since hitting the peak in September last year.

This is the second quarter in a row that the technology giant's earnings have been below those of the previous year.

Analysts said that while the latest numbers were better than they had estimated, the company needed to come up with new products in order to keep growing at a robust pace.

"This was a 'blah' quarter and the story hasn't changed," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital.

"Until it delivers a new, innovative product that really adds to both top and bottom-line, I would expect the stock to continue treading water."

For his part, Apple's boss. Tim Cook, said that the company was going to introduce new products soon.

"We are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall [autumn] and across 2014," he said.

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Hackers use Android 'master key'

24 July 2013 Last updated at 07:49 ET

A security firm says it has identified the first known malicious use of Android's "master key" vulnerability.

The bug - which was first publicised earlier this month - allows attackers to install code on to phones running Google's mobile operating system and then take control of them.

Symantec said its researchers had found two apps distributed in China that had been infected using the exploit.

Google has already taken moves to tackle the problem.

A fortnight ago it released a patch to manufacturers, but it will not have been sent to all handset owners yet.

Google also scans its own Play marketplace for the exploit, but this will not protect consumers who download software from other stores.

Premium texts

The vulnerability was first reported by security research firm BlueBox on 3 July.

All Android apps contain an encrypted signature that the operating system uses to check the program is legitimate and has not been tampered with.

But BlueBox said it had found a way to make changes to an app's code without affecting the signature.

It warned the technique could be used to install a Trojan to read any data on a device, harvest passwords, record phone calls, take photos and carry out other functions.

According to Symantec, hackers have now exploited the flaw to install malware called Android.Skullkey, which steals data from compromised phones, monitors texts received and written on the handset, and also sends its own SMS messages to premium numbers.

It said the Trojan had been added to two legitimate apps used in China to find and make appointments with a doctor.

"We expect attackers to continue to leverage this vulnerability to infect unsuspecting user devices," its report warned.

"Symantec recommends users only download applications from reputable Android application marketplaces."

The firm added that affected users could manually remove the software by going into their settings menu.

One telecoms consultant said the news highlighted the difficulty Google had in distributing changes to Android.

"When Google releases its updates, manufacturers want to check them and then network operators also want to certify the code as well," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.

"It's a consequence of having so many different firms making Android devices, with most running their own user interfaces on top.

"By contrast, Apple just pushes its updates directly to consumers."

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Net block MP in porn hacking spat

24 July 2013 Last updated at 09:38 ET

Political blogger Paul Staines has threatened to sue Claire Perry MP after she alleged he had "sponsored" an attack on her website.

Hackers posted pornographic images on to Ms Perry's site in response to her support for "opt-out" net porn blocks.

The MP also tweeted that Staines - who writes under the name of Guido Fawkes - was "distributing porn".

The blogger said he had instructed his lawyers to write to the MP about the "defamatory" comments.

The spat is in the wake of Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement that internet service providers (ISPs) would soon be required to block pornography and other adult content unless the customer specifically asks for the filter to be turned off.

'Distributed porn'

Ms Perry has been a vocal supporter of the initiative, but on Tuesday it was reported by Staines's blog that the MP's site had been breached and defaced with pornographic images.

Continue reading the main story

[The allegations] are without any foundation, merit or a shred of evidence to back them up"

End Quote Paul Staines, a.k.a Guido Fawkes Blogger

The MP tweeted: "That well known responsible campaigner @guidofawkes has been hosting a link that distributed porn via my website."

The blogger responded to say the site did not link to the images in its story - but instead showed a screen-grab of a non-pornographic segment of the hacked page.

"Confused by technology again @claire4devizes?" Staines said.

"We deliberately didn't link to your filthy website - we just took a SFW [safe for work] screenshot."

Ms Perry then went on to tweet: "Apologies to anyone affected by the hacking of my website sponsored by @GuidoFawkes - proves so clearly what we are dealing with."

And: "Suggest you take the link down immediately Paul and go and get a life."

'Down to earth'

In a post on Wednesday, Staines said Ms Perry had gone "proper shouty crackers".

"[The allegations] are without any foundation, merit or a shred of evidence to back them up," he wrote.

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David Cameron: "In the balance between freedom and responsibility we have neglected our responsibility to children"

"Guido suspects it is based on Perry's dislike of the blog bringing the pushy MP back down to Earth occasionally."

Staines asked his readers to vote on whether or not he should take legal action against Ms Perry's tweets - with just over 86% of respondents saying yes.

The BBC was not able to reach Ms Perry for comment on Wednesday.

Her latest tweet reads: "Hungry family means I have to rejoin the (non-Westminster) real world.

"Suggest all those bloggers [with] made-up names (bless) do the same!"

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Police number plate checks broke law

24 July 2013 Last updated at 10:09 ET By Tom Espiner Technology reporter

A police force must stop using number plate recognition technology after a warning from the UK's data watchdog.

The Information Commissioner's Office said Hertfordshire Constabulary's use of cameras in and around the town of Royston was in breach of the law.

It said the force had failed to carry out required privacy impact checks.

The ICO's ruling may have wider significance for the gathering of number plate data in the UK.

"It is difficult to see why a small, rural town such as Royston requires cameras monitoring all traffic in and out of the town 24 hours a day," said Stephen Eckersley, the ICO's head of enforcement.

"The use of ANPR [automatic number plate recognition] cameras and other forms of surveillance must be proportionate to the problem it is trying to address.

"After detailed inquiries, including consideration of the information Hertfordshire Constabulary provided, we found that this simply wasn't the case in Royston."

The ICO added that the use of seven cameras had made it impossible for motorists to drive into the town without a record being kept of their journey. It noted the scheme had become known locally as "the ring of steel".

The police force has now been told it must take the equipment down unless it can justify its use.

Hertfordshire Constabulary said it would not appeal the ruling.

"The constabulary intends to continue using ANPR cameras, which deliver very substantial policing benefits, but also to ensure that its particular deployment of such cameras is - and is seen to be - fully justified," it said.

"We look forward to working with the commissioner to achieve those objectives."

The force added that it had carried out its own evaluation of why it had used the tech, but accepted it needed to do additional privacy checks.

Privacy concerns

The data regulator began investigating the use of number plate recognition in the town after a complaint in June 2011 by three civil liberties groups: No CCTV, Big Brother Watch and Privacy International.

"Royston police decided to track everyone without any clear reason," said Privacy International executive director Gus Hosein.

"Just because a technology enables mass surveillance, that doesn't mean that it is right to do so."

Number plate recognition is used by police forces around the world as a crime-fighting tool.

Earlier this week the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) highlighted its concerns about the "widespread collection" of vehicle data by US police.

Number plate surveillance could have a "chilling effect" on the way US citizens associate with each other and even discourage some people from meeting up, the civil liberties group said on Tuesday.

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Lakeland suffers security breach

24 July 2013 Last updated at 11:12 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Homeware retailer Lakeland has warned shoppers who have used its website that their details may have been compromised.

The firm said that two of its encrypted databases were accessed during a cyber-attack, although it was not clear if any data was stolen.

It added that it had reset all customers' passwords as a precaution.

The Cumbria-based company blamed a problem in Java-based software for having made it vulnerable.

"Lakeland had been subjected to a sophisticated cyber-attack using a very recently identified flaw in the Java software used by the servers running our website, and indeed numerous websites around the world," said its managing director Sam Rayner.

"This flaw was used to gain unauthorised access to the Lakeland web system and data."

He added that his firm first became aware of the incident on Friday and that it had happened despite "best efforts" to "use the best security systems available".

Server software

A spokeswoman added that Lakeland intended to be "open and honest" with customers about the incident and that its teams had worked "around the clock" to identify and block the problem.

However, she was unable to say what information had been contained in the attacked databases and what type of encryption had been used to protect it.

Nor was she able to say whether the firm's IT provider - whom she would not name - had installed an up-to-date version of Java on its computers.

Lakeland added that it planned to give the police details about the investigation carried out by its own security experts who had advised it not to make further information public at this point.

Java-developer Oracle has faced criticism about its efforts to address vulnerabilities in the platform - although it noted in May that recent patches had featured a "historically high number of security fixes" and that it had removed plug-ins from the version of the software used on servers to reduce the risk of attack.

However, it appears this latest incident might be more to do with a flaw in a program written using Java rather than a problem with the platform itself.

One security researcher said the incident should act as a "wake-up call" to other firms using Java-based software on their back-end systems.

"Almost always when you hear warnings about Java it is about an outdated version of the web browser plug-in making the computer vulnerable to exploits coming from hacked websites - that's not what happened here," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure.

"Here they were running Java on the server side which was somehow remotely breached, this is a much rarer way of attacking systems.

He added that it would be helpful if Lakeland could provide more details of what had happened so that others could learn from the attack.

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