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Gmail appears to be blocked in China

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 31 Desember 2014 | 23.58

30 December 2014 Last updated at 11:38

Easy access to Google's email service Gmail is now blocked in China, according to reports.

Using Gmail directly via Google's site has been impossible in the country for some time, but locals had still been able to use third-party apps, such as Microsoft Outlook, to use the service.

However, Google's own data indicates such traffic took a nosedive on Friday and has only slightly recovered since.

The US firm said there were no known issues with its provision of Gmail.

"There's nothing technically wrong on our end," Taj Meadows, a spokesman for Google Asia Pacific, told news agency Associated Press.

The digital rights campaign group, GreatFire.org, was one of the first organisations to flag the fact that internet protocol addresses used to let software access Gmail had become inaccessible in China.

"Those protocols are used in the default email app on iPhone, Microsoft Outlook on PC and many more email clients," it said.

"Chinese users now have no way of accessing Gmail behind the GFW [great firewall]."

Google's data suggests there is still, however, a low level of Gmail use in China.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported that some users had reported Gmail access being restored to their mobile devices.

The Chinese government has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind fresh restrictions.

"The past two years have seen a consistent tightening of all kinds of censorship on the internet and media," said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Beijing-based media tracker Danwei.

"There is an increasingly aggressive attitude towards what they [Beijing] call 'internet sovereignty' and they are confident about talking about internet censorship in positive terms."

Internet LAN cables

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China's internet curbs - explained in 60 seconds

Google closed its China office in 2010 following a rocky relationship with the authorities about its handling of censorship.


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Xiaomi most valuable tech start-up

30 December 2014 Last updated at 01:12

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has become the world's most valuable technology start-up just four years after it was founded.

The firm raised $1.1bn (£708m) in its latest round of funding, giving it a valuation of $45bn, which surpassed the $40bn value of taxi booking app Uber.

It has quickly risen to the ranks of the world's biggest smartphone makers, behind Samsung and Apple in sales.

The company is also set to unveil a new flagship device in January.

Xiaomi's investors include private equity funds All-Stars Investment, DST Global, Hopu Investment Management, Yunfeng Capital, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, said co-founder and president Bin Lin in a Facebook post.

"This is an affirmation of Xiaomi's stellar results in four years, and heralds a new phase for the company," Mr Bin said.

On the fast track

Xiaomi's strategy of producing cheap smartphones has catapulted its growth to overtake giant Samsung this year in sales in the world's second largest economy China.

The company's worth is now more than quadruple the $10bn valuation it received during its last financing round last year.

Its skyrocketing valuation comes despite the intellectual property challenges it faced earlier this month in India, where sales were temporarily halted after Swedish firm Ericsson filed a patent complaint.

The Beijing-based company has set a target of selling 60 million smartphones this year, up from less than 20 million in 2013.


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Fingerprint 'cloned from photos'

29 December 2014 Last updated at 12:43 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) hacker network claims to have cloned a thumbprint of a German politician by using commercial software and images taken at a news conference.

Jan Krissler says he replicated the fingerprint of defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using pictures taken with a "standard photo camera".

Mr Krissler had no physical print from Ms von der Leyen.

Fingerprint biometrics are already considered insecure, experts say.

Mr Krissler, also known as Starbug, was speaking at a convention for members of the CCC, a 31-year-old network that claims to be "Europe's largest association" of hackers.

'Wear gloves'

He told the audience he had obtained a close-up of a photo of Ms von der Leyen's thumb and had also used other pictures taken at different angles during a press event that the minister had spoken at in October.

Mr Krissler has suggested that "politicians will presumably wear gloves when talking in public" after hearing about his research.

Fingerprint identification is used as a security measure on both Apple and Samsung devices, and was used to identify voters at polling stations in Brazil's presidential election this year, but it is not considered to be particularly secure, experts say.

Living biometrics

"Biometrics that rely on static information like face recognition or fingerprints - it's not trivial to forge them but most people have accepted that they are not a great form of security because they can be faked," says cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University.

"People are starting to look for things where the biometric is alive - vein recognition in fingers, gait [body motion] analysis - they are also biometrics but they are chosen because the person has to be in possession of them and exhibiting them in real life."

Finger scanner

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Simon Gompertz tried out Barclays' finger scanner when it launched

In September this year Barclays bank introduced finger vein recognition for business customers, and the technique is also used at cash machines in Japan and Poland.

Electronics firm Hitachi manufactures a device that reads the unique pattern of veins inside a finger. It only works if the finger is attached to a living person.

Trials in the intensive care unit at Southampton General Hospital in 2013 indicated that vein patterns are not affected by changes to blood pressure.


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Wind-up radio inventor honoured

30 December 2014 Last updated at 22:34 By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Inventor Trevor Baylis has been made a CBE in the New Year Honours list.

Best known for creating the Baygen wind-up radio, Mr Baylis was honoured for services to intellectual property.

Throughout his colourful life, which involved a stint as a stuntman, Mr Baylis has spent much of his time inventing or involved with engineering.

Most recently he has campaigned to make the UK a more hospitable place for inventors, and is seeking to help them safeguard their creations.

Stolen property

"It was a great surprise," said Twickenham-based Mr Baylis of learning of the award. "I got an OBE in 1997 and that was one of the best days of my life."

"I've been pushing hard to help other inventors because so many people get ripped off like a turkey or find they do not have the money to pay the lawyers to protect themselves."

Mr Baylis is currently heading a venture called Baylis Brands, which advises inventors about the best way to develop ideas and puts them in touch with other experts that can help turn their creations into marketable products.

He is also working to get laws changed to help inventors and engineers if they find someone else is profiting from their work.

"I'm trying to get patent theft recognised as a white collar crime," he said, adding that the idea had received a sympathetic hearing from the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Baylis' best known invention is the Baygen wind-up radio, which he came up with in 1991 while watching a documentary about Aids in Africa that proposed using educational radio programmes to tackle the virus' spread. An appearance on the BBC's Tomorrow's World in 1994 helped turn his invention into a commercial product.

Despite its success, Mr Baylis did not profit from his invention and the design is now under the control of the Freeplay engineering firm.

"Inventing is not about the money," he said. "Who wants to be the richest man in the graveyard? There are no pockets in a shroud."

He said many others could go through the same experience as he did and become an inventor of a household object.

"I want to make sure everyone is aware they are an inventor," he said. "I don't want people to think you have to be a genius to be one."


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Wolf 'most pirated film of 2014'

29 December 2014 Last updated at 10:26

The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's true-life tale of corrupt New York stockbrokers, was the most illegally downloaded movie of 2014.

Disney cartoon Frozen was second on the list, said The Hollywood Reporter, quoting piracy-tracking firm Excipio.

Both films were downloaded around 30 million times by torrent users between 1 January and 23 December 2014.

The third most-pirated film was space thriller Gravity.

It was just behind Frozen with 29.357 million downloads.

The Wolf of Wall Street, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as real-life stockbroker Jordan Belfort, caused controversy when it was released in the US a year ago for its scenes of sex and drug-taking.

It was nominated for best picture at the Oscars and contained more than 500 uses of the F-word in its almost three-hour running time.

Other Oscar nominees in the most-pirated top 20 included 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle and Captain Phillips.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that the biggest-grossing film of the year, The Guardians of the Galaxy, was not on the list "perhaps because anyone interested in the film opted to see it in theaters".

And Variety reported that while the number three spot went to RoboCop, the figures included both MGM's 2014 reboot as well as the original 1987 version.

Top 20
  • 1. The Wolf of Wall Street 30.035m
  • 2. Frozen 29.919m
  • 3. RoboCop 29.879m
  • 4. Gravity 29.357m
  • 5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 27.627m
  • 6. Thor: The Dark World 25.749m
  • 7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier 25.628m
  • 8. The Legend of Hercules 25.137m
  • 9. X-Men: Days of Future Past 24.380m
  • 10. 12 Years a Slave 23.653 million
  • 11. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 23.543m
  • 12. American Hustle 23.143m
  • 13. 300: Rise of an Empire 23.096m
  • 14. Transformers: Age of Extinction 21.65m
  • 15. Godzilla 20.956m
  • 16. Noah 20.334m
  • 17. Divergent 20.312m
  • 18. Edge of Tomorrow 20.299m
  • 19. Captain Phillips 19.817m
  • 20. Lone Survivor 19.130m

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Facebook says sorry for Year in Review

Facebook users
Facebook was launched in 2004 and boasts 1.35 billion monthly active users

Facebook has apologised over its Year in Review feature after some users complained about the images chosen to sum up their 2014.

Eric Meyer described the feature as "jarring" and "wrong" after he logged on to discover a picture of his six-year-old daughter, who had died earlier in the year, was selected.

The photo album, which is automatically generated, includes photo uploads and wall posts that received the most "Likes" over the past 12 months.

Facebook say it is looking at ways to improve the app to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

Facebook Year in Review page
Facebook ended 2014 by creating a photo album with the most popular uploads from users

In a blog Meyer wrote: "I know, of course, that this is not a deliberate assault.

"This inadvertent algorithmic cruelty is the result of code that works in the overwhelming majority of cases.

"The Year in Review ad keeps coming up in my feed. There wasn't enough thought given to cases like mine or anyone who had a bad year.

"The design is for the ideal user, the happy, upbeat, good-life user. It doesn't take other user cases into account."

Jonathan Gheller, product manager for Facebook, told the Washington Post that the social network site had been in touch with Mr Meyer.

Gheller said: "[The Year in Review feature is] awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy."

Facebook has also seen complaints from users after pictures of deceased pets and an urn containing human remains were selected as "highlights" of the year.

Facebook post of house on fire

Writer, Julieanne Smolinski, uploaded one of the images automatically chosen to select her best bits of 2014, a picture of her ex's house on fire.

She wrote: "So my (beloved) ex-boyfriend's apartment caught fire this year, which was very sad, but Facebook made it worth it."

The photo album, which users could personalise before sharing also ended with the caption, "See You Next Year!"

Facebook, which boasts 1.35 billion monthly active users, was launched in 2004.

The company also owns WhatsApp and Instagram.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube


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Sony hackers 'shared' stolen logins

30 December 2014 Last updated at 11:33

Data that helped hackers access Sony's internal network came from another group targeting the firm's gaming network, reports the Washington Post.

In an interview, a self-proclaimed Lizard Squad member said it had given stolen data to the Guardians of Peace.

The GoP has carried out several attacks on Sony in a bid to halt the release of comedy film The Interview.

By contrast, the Lizard Squad targeted Sony's PlayStation network knocking it offline on Christmas Day.

The man interviewed by the newspaper appears to be one of the two members who spoke to the BBC last week.

'Massive issues'

In the interview, the self-identified senior member of Lizard Squad said his group knew people that were part of GoP. Despite the connection, the spokesman said Lizard Squad did not play a "large part" in the attacks the GoP mounted against Sony.

GoP's attacks involved exposing confidential information about many Sony employees and sharing thousands of emails sent between employees, film stars and movie makers.

The Lizard Squad member said his group "handed over some Sony employee logins" that were used by GoP to get its initial attack underway. The admission is the first acknowledgement by the Lizard Squad of its connection to GoP.

The information throws some doubt on the theory that North Korea was behind the attacks on Sony's internal systems. The state was accused of being behind the hack by the FBI because The Interview is about a fictional American plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Pyongyang has filed formal complaints about the film.

However, the Reuters news agency has reported that US investigators are exploring whether North Korea "contracted out" some of the work involved, which could explain how Lizard Squad formed links to GoP.

Europe-based

Lizard Squad members are all based in European nations, said the senior member.

The GoP attacks forced Sony to withdraw the film from its planned release, but it is now available to view online and is on show at some cinemas. It made about $15m (£9.6m) through downloads alone over its first three days of distribution.

The Lizard Squad spokesperson did not elaborate on how the group got hold of the login information for Sony employees. However, it is possible it found or uncovered them while searching for ways to attack the PlayStation gaming network.

The Lizard Squad has repeatedly attacked Sony's network and many others during 2014. On Christmas Day it managed to disrupt it and the Xbox Live network for hours leaving many gamers unable to log in.

The spokesperson said the attacks were carried out to expose the "massive security issues" many large companies suffer.

"The customers of these companies should be rather worried," they said.

The attacks on the PlayStation and Xbox networks have now stopped thanks to the intervention of tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom. Instead, the group has switched its attention to the Tor network which has taken steps to limit the effect the Lizard Squad can have on the system.


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Travel firms sue cheap airfare site

30 December 2014 Last updated at 14:14

United Airlines and travel firm Orbitz have launched legal action against a site that seeks out cheap "hidden city" airfares.

The site finds cheap fares by looking for flights that have a stopover at the city someone wants to travel to.

The two firms allege the site is engaged in "unfair competition" and seeks to recoup lost revenue.

The developer behind the site said he was doing nothing wrong by exposing the "inefficiencies" in airline ticketing.

The legal action has been filed in Illinois.

No luggage

The Skiplagged website works by looking for longer flights that include a stop in a big city en route to another destination. One example might be flying from New York to Lake Tahoe that has a stopover in San Francisco.

If someone wanted to travel to San Francisco they might spend less on the fare by booking the stopover flight and not travelling to Tahoe than they would simply booking a flight to San Francisco from New York. In some cases, the site suggests, travellers can save 40% or more on ticket fares.

The trick only works with one-way flights. Travellers cannot check in any luggage as that would then travel on to the flight's final destination.

Twenty-two-year-old developer Aktarer Zaman, who created the site, told CNNMoney that he had made no profit from Skiplagged. He declined to comment specifically on the case to CNN.

Mr Zaman has launched a fundraising campaign to gather cash to fight the legal battle against United and Orbitz. So far he has raised $10,538 (£6,776) of the $15,000 needed.

In its legal filing, United and Orbitz said the site was "intentionally and maliciously" interfering with the travel firms' business and was making it breach its contracts with its partners.

The documents added that "logistical and public safety concerns" meant using "hidden city" tickets was prohibited and, as a result, using Skiplagged broke these rules.

The two firms are seeking damages of at least $75,000 in revenue they claim they have lost as a result of Skiplagged operating.


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Child porn tops Tor hidden site visits

30 December 2014 Last updated at 18:24 By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Most traffic to sites hidden on the Tor network go to those dealing in images of child sexual abuse a study suggests.

The six-month study sought to catalogue hidden services on the so-called "dark net" and work out which were the most popular.

It found lots of sites peddling illegal drugs but the most popular were those involved with abuse.

However, the researcher behind the study said it was hard to conclude that people were behind all the visits.

Drug traffic

Tor, or The Onion Router, is an anonymising system that lets people use the web without revealing who they are or which country they are in. The anonymity offered by the network has encouraged many people to set up hidden .onion sites that offer content, services and goods that it is illegal to sell openly.

Carried out by Dr Gareth Owen from the University of Portsmouth, the study set up servers to join the Tor network and catalogued hidden services found on it. The system was also able to visit the sites to download HTML content so they could be categorised and to track how many visits each one received.

Traffic to hidden services on Tor represents about 1.5% of all the data passing across the network on any given day.

Over the six months of the study, Dr Owen and his colleagues saw about 80,000 hidden sites on Tor.

"Most of the hidden services we only saw once. They do not tend to exist for a very long time," he said during a speech at the 31st Chaos Communications Congress in Hanover, where he presented his findings.

The top 40 hidden services were involved with controlling botnets - networks of home computers compromised by malicious programs. Many of these botnets have been shut down which has left their client computers fruitlessly polling Tor seeking the now dormant command systems.

The study found that the biggest number of hidden services were dedicated to selling illegal drugs. Also in the top five were underground markets, fraud sites, mail services and those dealing in the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Although the number of sites dealing in images of abuse on Tor is small, traffic to them dwarfs that going to other sites, said Dr Owen.

About 75% of the traffic observed in the study ended up at abuse sites, said Dr Owen.

"When we found this out we were stunned," he said. "This is not what we expected at all."

Despite the findings, Dr Owen cautioned against drawing too many conclusions since he did not know which visits were done by people and which by machines.

"It's not as quite as straightforward as it looks," he said. "It might look like there are lots of people visiting these sites but it is difficult to conclude that from this information."

"What proportion are people and which are something else? We simply don't know." he said, adding that "crawlers" run by law enforcement and other agencies that police abuse sites could be responsible for the steady stream of traffic.

Roger Dingledine, one of the original developers of Tor, also said the methodology of the study - which only scanned long-lived sites to see what content they offered - made it hard to draw conclusions about what people did on the network.

"Without knowing how many sites disappeared before he got around to looking at them, it's impossible to know what percentage of fetches went to abuse sites," he said.

"There are important uses for hidden services, such as when human rights activists use them to access Facebook or to blog anonymously," he added.

"These uses for hidden services are new and have great potential."


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Nasa to hack 'amnesiac' Mars rover

31 December 2014 Last updated at 11:44

Mars rover Opportunity, which has been exploring the Red Planet for more than 10 years, is suffering from memory problems, Nasa has said.

The six-wheeled vehicle - not to be confused with Curiosity, which launched in 2011 - keeps resetting unexpectedly.

The Opportunity team thinks an age-related fault affecting the flash memory used by the robot is to blame.

It believes it has found a way to hack the rover's software to disregard the faulty part.

Speaking to Discovery News, Nasa project manager John Callas outlined how his team intended to solve the issue.

'It forgets'

He explained how the rover, like a typical computer, has two key types of memory - volatile and non-volatile.

  • Non-volatile memory "remembers" its information even if it is powered down, making it ideal for long-term storage, similar to how a hard drive works on a PC
  • Volatile memory - comparable to a PC's random access memory, or RAM - is quicker to access but requires power, so when the machine turns off, any data stored within the volatile memory is lost

The problem with Opportunity is that its non-volatile memory is suffering from a fault, probably related to the hardware's age.

It means that when the rover tries to save telemetry data to the flash memory it fails, and so it then writes it to the volatile memory instead. When the rover powers down, the information is then wiped.

"So now we're having these events we call 'amnesia,'," explained Mr Callas in Discovery News.

"Which is the rover trying to use the flash memory, but it wasn't able to, so instead it uses the RAM... it stores telemetry data in that volatile memory, but when the rover goes to sleep and wakes up again, all [the data] is gone.

"So that's why we call it amnesia - it forgets what it has done."

Old rover

The problems are becoming more severe, Nasa says, with the memory issue causing the rover reset itself, and in some cases stop communicating with mission control altogether.

In an attempt to solve the problem, the Nasa team is attempting to "hack" the rover's software so that it ignores the faulty part of its flash memory, and instead writes, permanently, to the healthy hardware.

The process will take a couple of weeks, Mr Callas told Discovery News. However, he added that Opportunity is ageing and could be heading towards the end of its useful life.

"It's like you have an aging parent, that is otherwise in good health - maybe they go for a little jog every day, play tennis each day - but you never know, they could have a massive stroke right in the middle of the nigh," he said.

"So we're always cautious that something could happen."

Even if the rover fails now, it will have comfortably exceeded the initial goal of spending three months on the Red Planet.

Ten years after it first landed, Opportunity has covered 26 miles (41.8km) of the Mars surface, and sent back vital intelligence about the planet's biological make-up.


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E-books 'damage sleep and health'

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 24 Desember 2014 | 23.59

23 December 2014 Last updated at 00:45 By James Gallagher Health editor, BBC News website

If you curl up under the duvet with an e-book for a bedtime read then you are damaging your sleep and maybe your health, US doctors have warned.

A team from Harvard Medical School compared reading paper books and light-emitting e-readers before sleep.

They found it took longer to nod off with a back-lit e-reader, which led to poorer quality sleep and being more tired the next morning.

Original Kindle readers do not emit light so should be fine, say experts.

Experts said people should minimise light-exposure in the evening.

Whether you are perusing the Man Booker shortlist or leafing through Zoella, the impact of reading on your sleep is probably the last thing on your mind.

But there has been growing concern about the dangers of light before bedtime.

Body clock

Our bodies are kept in tune with the rhythm of day and night by an internal body clock, which uses light to tell the time.

But blue light, the wavelength common in smartphones, tablets and LED lighting, is able to disrupt the body clock.

Blue light in the evening can slow or prevent the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.

Twelve people were locked in a sleep laboratory for two weeks.

They spent five days reading from a paperback and five days from an iPad.

Regular blood samples showed the production of the sleep hormone melatonin was reduced by reading an e-book.

People also took longer to fall asleep, had less deep sleep and were more tired the next morning.

The researchers said other e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle Fire produced similar wavelengths of light and would have the same impact.

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

'Concern'

Lead researcher Prof Charles Czeisler told the BBC News website: "The light emitted by most e-readers is shining directly into the eyes of the reader, whereas from a printed book or the original Kindle, the reader is only exposed to reflected light from the pages of the book."

He said disrupting sleep in turn affected health.

"Sleep deficiency has been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes, and cancer.

"Thus, the melatonin suppression that we saw in this study among participants when they were reading from the light-emitting e-reader concerns us."

Sleep hygiene

Dr Victoria Revell, who researches the impact of light on the body at the University of Surrey, told the BBC: "This is a very good study and I think it's really interesting.

"We should be advising people to minimise their [light-emitting e-reader] use in the evening, particularly teenagers who are a group that are using their phones and tablets late in to the evening."

Teenagers naturally have a late body clock, which makes them slow to rise in the morning and up late at night.

"People who already have a delayed body clock are delaying themselves much further and that is a very important message," Dr Revell added.

Prof Czeisler agreed, saying there was "special concern" for teenagers who were already sleep deficient by being forced to get up early for school.


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Alibaba spends $160m fighting fakes

24 December 2014 Last updated at 03:34

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba says it has spent more than $160m (£103m) fighting fake goods on its websites from the beginning of 2013 to November of this year.

The company will add another 200 people next year to the 2,000 workers tackling counterfeit goods on its sites.

That is in addition to the 5,400 volunteers who are already involved in its daily online surveillance plan.

The prevalence of fake goods in China is still a big problem.

Before its record-setting $25bn listing in New York, the world's largest e-commerce company had said in its IPO prospectus that counterfeits goods could hurt its ability to win customers, investors and US retail partners.

In comparison, US e-commerce site eBay said in a court filing in 2010 that it spends up to $20m a year on "buyer protection programs" such as reimbursing buyers for fake goods bought on its site.

'Serious' battle

"We bear a serious responsibility in this fight against counterfeits," said Jonathan Lu, chief executive of Alibaba Group in a statement on Tuesday.

"Jack Ma [company's chairman] said yesterday - if e-commerce does well in China, that may have little to do with Alibaba Group, but if counterfeits in society are not tackled effectively, it has a lot to do with Alibaba Group."

The tech giant's retail businesses were listed on the US Trade Representatives list of "notorious markets" for intellectual property (IP) infringement until 2012.

China and Hong Kong accounted for 93% of the value of IP-infringing goods seized by US customs in the 2013 fiscal year, according to a government report.

While Alibaba has been aggressive in its push to remove knock-offs from its sites, the mission has been an uphill battle.

Last month, when the company's annual Singles' Day saw over $9bn in sales, the official State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) conducted an investigation on counterfeits sold that day.

It said more than 10% of the goods that it bought online from retailers were fake or highly suspicious.

Alibaba said it had co-operated with Chinese authorities in over 1,000 counterfeiting cases just this year.


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Cheap spyware used by stalkers

22 December 2014 Last updated at 17:25 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Stalkers and abusers are increasingly using cheap spyware to monitor and harass their victims, claims a charity.

Tracking and listening devices, often disguised as everyday objects, retail online for under £50 and are easy to install, says the Digital-Trust.

There are no official figures but "digital abuse" is often experienced by victims of domestic violence, it adds.

People with abusive partners should also be wary of gadgets given to their children, the charity warns.

"Eighteen months ago I issued advice to domestic violence groups about fathers gifting smartphones or even allowing them to take them on access visits because it is so easy for abusers to use them as surveillance," said Jennifer Perry, chief executive of the newly formed Digital-Trust.

"I recommend children are given inexpensive pay as you go phones when visiting an abusive parent."

Ms Perry said incidents of digital abuse - ranging from surveillance to accessing voicemails, emails and cloud accounts, is escalating in the UK.

In addition cheap surveillance devices - small GPS trackers, listening devices and cameras hidden inside books, lamps, plug sockets and carbon monoxide detectors, are freely available online despite some of them being illegal.

"If I have a domestic violence victim I assume there will be some type of digital abuse - it's not the exception, it's the assumption," she told the BBC.

Ms Perry added that in her experience it is more likely to happen to female victims.

"I get a lot of criticism for saying it but I don't see this level or type of surveillance used against male victims," she added.

"I see men using it against women. It is rare to see a man targeted surveillance-wise by women."

Ms Perry began working in the field of e-crime in 2005. She said that often victims need very specific advice, which is not easily available.

"Safety advice is often done by topic but if you don't know what you're looking for it doesn't help," she added.

"We'll ask a series of questions that deal with the symptoms - are you being harassed by your partner? Is he showing up where you are? Has he had access to your house or your PC?"

Smartphone owners may have not set up their device themselves so may not know what has been installed on it, she added.

"The main thing I try to do is stop any form of data leaking. That's my number one objective," Ms Perry said.

"If you have a stalker and they get access to some information about you it's like the rush they get from a gambling addiction.

"You're taking about jealous or obsessive personalities. One stalker Googled a colleague of mine 40,000 times in a year. Another looked at someone's Facebook page 2,500 times in one month."


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Tripadvisor fined by Italy regulator

22 December 2014 Last updated at 22:38

Italy's competition watchdog has fined travel website Tripadvisor €500,000 (£392,000) for publishing misleading information in its reviews.

The regulator began a seven-month investigation following a complaint from a consumer group and hotel owners.

Tripadvisor was accused of presenting its reviews as "authentic and genuine" despite not taking measures to avoid contributors publishing false opinions.

The US company said it disagreed with the decision and would appeal.

Tripadvisor publishes reviews of hotels and restaurants, and other travel information. But there has been criticism that the reviews cannot always be trusted.

The Rome-based regulator said Tripadvisor and its Italian arm should stop "publishing misleading information about the sources of its reviews", adding that the practice started in September 2011.

But the company said in a statement: "Our systems and procedures are extremely efficient in protecting consumers from a small minority of people who try to con our system.

"We firmly believe that Tripadvisor is a force for good, both for consumers and the hospitality industry."


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Sony warns Twitter over leaked emails

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sony Pictures Entertainment is threatening to sue Twitter if the company doesn't suspend accounts containing links to hacked emails.

The film company's lawyer David Boies has sent a letter to the social network demanding that accounts sharing information be shut down.

US website Motherboard has posted a letter sent from Boies to Twitter.

In it one user is singled out, Val Broeksmit, who tweets screenshots of Sony emails as @BikiniRobotArmy.

In the letter to Twitter, Sony's lawyer says Twitter should "comply with all future requests with regard to any other account holder seeking to disseminate the Stolen Information via Twitter".

The letter also asks the network to send a copy to @BikiniRobotArmy user Val Broeksmit, advising him to stop publishing stolen information.

It continues: "If Twitter does not comply with this request, and the Stolen Information continues to be disseminated by Twitter in any manner, SPE will have no choice but to hold Twitter responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination by Twitter."

Letter from Sony to Twitter
Letter from Sony to Twitter
Letter from Sony to Twitter

Sony Pictures warned some American news outlets about using information from leaked emails earlier this month after its internal computer system was hacked.

The US accused North Korea of orchestrating the cyber-attack on the company in November, although the country has denied that.

The hack resulted in unreleased films and the script for the next James Bond movie being leaked online.

Details of corporate finances and private emails between producers and Hollywood figures were also released.

It also led Sony to cancel the Christmas release of The Interview, a film about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Meanwhile, North Korea's entire internet went down early on Tuesday.

The US had warned the country that it would launch a proportional response to the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures but would not comment on any American involvement in the outages.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube


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Lin to direct next Star Trek outing

23 December 2014 Last updated at 10:43

Film-maker Justin Lin is to direct the next instalment of the Star Trek movie franchise, it has been confirmed.

Lin, whose previous credits include four instalments of the Fast and Furious series, replaces Roberto Orci, who recently pulled out of the role.

JJ Abrams, who made the first two reboots of the sci-fi series, stepped down to make the new Star Wars film.

A release for the third Star Trek prequel - or "threequel" - has not been set by Hollywood film studio Paramount.

However, there has been speculation that it will come out in 2016 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Star Trek television series.

Casting details are not confirmed, but actors who starred in the first two outings, including Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock, are expected to return.

Star Trek Into Darkness, released in 2013, made more than $467m (£278m) worldwide. It co-starred Benedict Cumberbatch as villain Khan.

The first prequel, looking at the younger lives of its famous characters, was released in 2009.

Orci, who was due to make his directorial debut on the project, is co-writing the script.

Orci, along with Abrams, will continue to be on board as producers.


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Apple automates bug update for Macs

23 December 2014 Last updated at 11:29

Apple has sent out its first automatic security update for Mac computers as researchers warn about new bugs.

Previously Apple has released security patches through its regular software update system which requires user approval.

The latest bugs were so severe it felt it needed to get customers protected immediately, the firm said.

"The update is seamless. It doesn't even require a restart," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Reuters.

The Mac bugs were mentioned in security bulletins issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute.

It identified dozens of technology companies, including Apple, whose products might be vulnerable.

The vulnerability targets a component of its OS X operating system called the network time protocol (NTP) which is used for synchronising clocks on computer systems.

The protocol is a global method of synchronising time over a network and has previously been exploited by hackers.

Microsoft has been offering automatic updates for security flaws for some time.

Apple developed technology for automatically pushing out security updates two years ago but has never previously used it.

The firm said that it did not know of any cases where hackers had exploited the bug.


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North Korea struggles to stay online

23 December 2014 Last updated at 16:57

North Korea appears to have suffered a second internet blackout, according to internet performance measuring firm Dyn Research.

On its Twitter feed, the firm reported a second outage this afternoon - which was restored less than an hour later.

"Internet of North Korea down again at 15.41 UTC. Second blackout since last night's restoration of service," the tweet read.

The first outage saw large parts of the internet unavailable in North Korea.

Officials have not yet commented on the issue.

Speculation is rife about the source of the blackouts, following a cyber security row with the US.

China has denounced reports suggesting it was responsible. US officials have not commented on any possible American involvement.

The US had said it would launch a proportional response to the hacking of Sony Pictures, after an FBI investigation appeared to show that North Korea was behind the hack attack which led to films and private emails being leaked online.

The Interview, which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was cancelled by Sony following threats from hackers.

Korean net

Internet services in North Korea were down for around nine and a half hours in the first outage, according to Dyn Research.

Some questioned how much an outage would affect a country where normal citizens have little access to the web.

Although many have computers and smartphones, they only have access to a government-approved intranet. Access to the world wide web is reserved for a trusted elite in North Korean society.

North Korea's internet is handled by state-run company Star Join Ventures which is routed through Chinese telecommunications firm China Unicom.


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Uber sorry for Sydney siege prices

24 December 2014 Last updated at 11:10

Taxi booking firm Uber has apologised for raising fare prices during a deadly cafe siege in Sydney last week.

The firm raised fares by as much as four times its normal rate when demand shot up during the siege that left three people dead.

Its "surge pricing" algorithm increased fares during the peak period as people rushed to leave the area.

Meanwhile in South Korea, prosecutors have charged the firm with running an illegal taxi service.

They have accused Uber's chief executive Travis Kalanick, along with the firm's South Korean business partner, a local car rental firm.

Car rental firms in the country are banned from running taxi services with their own vehicles.

It is the latest in a string of legal challenges around the world to the rapid expansion of Uber, whose smartphone app lets a passenger hail a taxi while simultaneously letting the driver calculate the fare.

Motives 'misunderstood'

On the day of the Martin Place siege in Sydney, Uber came under heavy criticism on social media for raising its fares, so it started offering free rides out of the city.

It also said it would refund the cost of the rides that had been affected by the higher fares.

"The events of last week in Sydney were upsetting for the whole community and we are truly sorry for any concern that our process may have added," Uber said in a blog post on Tuesday.

"We didn't stop surge pricing immediately. This was the wrong decision."

The 16-hour siege ended with three people dying, including the gunman Man Haron Monis.

The company said that its priority was to help as many people get out of the central business area safely, but that was "poorly" communicated, and led to a lot of misunderstanding about its motives.

"This [surge pricing] encourages more drivers to the area where people are requesting rides," when demand outstrips the supply of cars on the road, Uber said.

Uber has defended its surge pricing strategy in other cities, but reached an agreement with regulators in the US to restrict the policy during national emergencies.

Analysis: Dave Lee, technology reporter

The way Uber works is simple.

Drivers - who need a private hire licence - use their own cars. Once signed up, they use the Uber drivers' app to receive bookings, a process which replaces the traditional minicab office.

Riders, meanwhile, are able to use the riders' app to virtually hail an Uber car, and can track its location as it weaves and bobs through city streets.

After the ride, Uber calculates a fee based on distance and time, and it is paid directly through the app - no money changes hands in the car.

So far, so good. But Uber has faced a lot of criticism.

First, there is "surge pricing". Designed to get more drivers on the roads during busy periods, surge pricing means the fare is jacked up by two, three, sometimes four times the normal fare.

The app has also suffered at the hands of both traditional taxi firms and regulators in cities the world over.

In London, black cab drivers strongly argue that the Uber app is essentially a meter and is therefore breaking strict rules.

To become a black cab driver with a meter, a long, expensive and notoriously difficult test must be passed.

Uber drivers do not need to do this, giving an unfair advantage, cabbies say.

In other countries, there are disagreements about how Uber vets its drivers.

In Delhi, the firm has suspended operations while it improves the recruitment process after a driver was arrested in relation to the rape of a passenger.

Regulators in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco have all raised concerns over the vetting process in their respective cities.

The company's regulatory woes are supplemented by several serious PR mishaps in recent months, including the revelation it was tracking journalists' journeys and paying investigators to "dig up dirt" on those giving the company negative coverage. Uber later apologised.

Despite all this, however, the company recently secured $1.2bn in funding, valuing the firm at $40bn as it heads into 2015.


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Video games 'should be in Olympics'

24 December 2014 Last updated at 12:46

Competitive video gaming - known as e-sports - should be included in the Olympic Games, the creator of World of Warcraft has told the BBC.

Rob Pardo, who until July was chief creative officer at Blizzard Entertainment, said "sport" now had a broad definition.

"Videogames are well positioned to be a spectator sport," he told Afternoon Edition on BBC 5 Live.

Professional e-sports events currently attract audiences of millions.

A recent major final held in Seoul, South Korea, filled a stadium of 40,000 people - with many more watching either online or at meet-ups around the world.

"There's a very good argument for e-sports being in the Olympics," Mr Pardo, who was also lead designer on Starcraft: Brood War, a game often credited with kickstarting the e-sports phenomenon.

"I think the way that you look at e-sports is that it's a very competitive skillset and you look at these professional gamers and the reflexes are lightning quick and their having to make very quick decisions on the fly.

"When you look at their 'actions per minute', they're clearing over 300."

However, he conceded that video gaming faces a cultural battle to win other those who follow more physical sports.

"That starts getting into how you define sport," he said.

"If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it's hard to argue that videogames should be a sport, but at the same time, when I'm looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition."

'Mind sport'

Having new sports admitted into the Olympic roster is a long-winded process and, since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) capped the number of sports allowed in the Games, has become increasingly difficult.

Even if e-sports were to be recognised as an Olympic sport, that does not mean it will be included in the Games - it merely means a case can be presented to the IOC.

League of Legends World Championship

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Thousands turned up for the League of Legends World Championship in Seoul

Take chess, for instance. Supporters of the game have long called for its inclusion the Games, but the IOC has been reluctant, considering it a "mind sport" and therefore not welcome in the Games.

Video games face the same hurdle, but has done its best to at least act like a sport, by adding measures such as an anti-doping programme.

Mr Pardo argues that e-sports could be visually appealing to a broad audience.

"You can do whatever you want with the graphics, you can make it be really excited and competitive," he said.

The full interview with Rob Pardo can be listened to via the Let's Talk About Tech podcast. Download it here.


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Apple defeats $1bn case over iTunes

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 17 Desember 2014 | 23.58

16 December 2014 Last updated at 19:44

Apple has been found not guilty of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour by a jury in California.

The long-running suit focused on Apple's 2006 update to its iTunes software which meant only iPods could play music purchased from the store.

Consumers alleged this violated US antitrust laws, and sued for $350m (£222m) in damages.

The trial had featured emails sent by Apple founder Steve Jobs before his death in 2012.

The class action suit represented as many as 8 million iPod customers and 500 resellers, and could have cost Apple as much as $1bn, as anti-competition damage rewards are automatically tripled under US law.

'An issue'

Lawyers representing consumers and electronics retailers argued that Apple used its iTunes software to force buyers to use iPods instead of rival devices between 2006 and 2009. (The software was updated in 2009 to remove the restrictions.)

The lawyers argued this shut out other devices artificially inflated the price of iPods and used the emails from Mr Jobs to buttress this argument.

In one, sent in 2003, Mr Jobs worried about competition from Musicmatch, a software company, opening its own music store.

"We need to make sure that when Music Match launches their download music store they cannot use iPod," he wrote.

"Is this going to be an issue?"

However, the jurors sided with Apple, who argued the upgrade to its iTunes 7.0 software substantially improved the user experience, and thus was not subject to anti-competitive violations.

Earlier this year, Apple announced it would cease manufacturing the iPod Classic, one of the signature products that led Apple's revival under Mr Jobs.


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Microsoft rivals unite over data row

16 December 2014 Last updated at 11:44 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Apple and eBay are among those supporting Microsoft's stand against handing over data stored in Ireland to the US government.

One year ago, prosecutors issued a warrant for emails stored by Microsoft in an Irish data centre, in connection with a drug-related investigation.

The tech giant refused to comply but was ordered by a judge to hand over the information in July.

Microsoft has now filed letters of support from a large number of allies.

These include tech firms Verizon, Amazon, Cisco and HP, as well as trade associations such as the US Chamber of Commerce, and Digital Rights Ireland.

Various news organisations such as CNN, the Guardian and the Washington Post are on board along with computer scientists from universities across the US including Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Earlier this year, New York judge James Francis said that a warrant for online information was the equivalent of a subpoena and had to be obeyed.

Privacy rights

The firm and its supporters argue that the centre in Dublin is outside US jurisdiction, while the prosecutors claim that as the data itself is accessible by the firm from within the US, this does not apply.

"We believe that when one government wants to obtain email that is stored in another country, it needs to do so in a manner that respects existing domestic and international laws," wrote Microsoft's Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of legal and corporate affairs, in a blog post.

"In contrast, the US government's unilateral use of a search warrant to reach email in another country puts both fundamental privacy rights and cordial international relations at risk."


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Ofcom names Sharon White as new boss

16 December 2014 Last updated at 14:32

Ofcom, the UK's telecoms regulator, has named senior Treasury official Sharon White as its new chief executive.

Ms White, who is currently second permanent secretary at the Treasury responsible for managing the UK's public finances, will take up her new post in late March.

She will replace Ed Richards, who will step down at the end of December, after being at the helm for eight years.

Her annual salary will be £275,000 a year, Ofcom said in a statement.

Ms White has spent 25 years working in the public sector and government, including spells in the British embassy in Washington DC, at the World Bank and as director general in the Department for International Development.

She is married to Robert Chote, the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides independent economic forecasts to the government.

"The Ofcom board is confident that Sharon will provide the leadership and vision to ensure Ofcom continues to promote a thriving communications sector in the UK that operates in the public interest," the regulator's chairman Patricia Hodgson said.

The announcement comes just a day after telecoms giant BT announced it was in talks to buy mobile operator EE, a deal expected to be scrutinised by Ofcom.


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Google threatened with £12m fine

16 December 2014 Last updated at 12:23

Google has been threatened with a fine of up to 15m euros (£12m) if it does not do a better job of protecting the privacy of Dutch citizens.

The threat was made by the Dutch data protection agency (DPA), which said Google had broken local laws governing what it could do with user data.

The search giant has been given until the end of February 2015 to change the way it handles personal data.

Google said it was "disappointed" by the Dutch data watchdog's statement.

"This has been ongoing since 2012, and we hope our patience will no longer be tested," Dutch DPA chairman Jacob Kohnstamm told Reuters.

Privacy change

The row has blown up over the way that Google combines data about what people do online in order to tailor adverts to their preferences.

Information about keywords in search queries, email messages, cookies, location data and video viewing habits are all used by Google to build up a profile on each of its millions of users.

Dutch laws said Google should tell people about this data-gathering activity and get permission from them before it was combined or analysed, said Mr Kohnstamm.

A Google representative said "We're disappointed with the Dutch data protection authority's order, especially as we have already made a number of changes to our privacy policy in response to their concerns.

"However, we've recently shared some proposals for further changes with the European privacy regulators group, and we look forward to discussing with them soon."

The Dutch DPA was one of a group of six European data regulators that looked at Google following changes made in early 2012 to unify its privacy policies around the world.


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Skype gets real-time translating tool

Skype Translate

Instant translation of foreign languages on Skype has moved a step closer.

Microsoft's launched a test version of the Skype Translator which decodes conversations in Spanish and English in real time.

It means that during video calls people who speak those languages will be able to talk freely.

Gurdeep Pall from Microsoft says it follows more than 10 years of investment.

"Skype Translator will open up endless possibilities for people around the world to connect, communicate and collaborate," he said.

"People will no longer be hindered by geography and language."

Demonstration of Skype translate at a conference by Microsoft

It's been trialled on school children in Mexico City and Tacoma in Washington, one classroom speaking Spanish and the other speaking English.

They played a game called Mystery Skype where pupils from one school asked questions to try to work out which part of the world the other school was in.

The Skype Translator service is available in English and Spanish but Microsoft says it will eventually be available in more languages.

There are more than 40 instant messaging languages available to customers who have signed up via the Skype Translator page and are using Windows 8.1.

According to Microsoft more than 300 million people use Skype each month, totalling more than 2 billion minutes of conversation a day.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube


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Lastminute.com sold in £76m deal

16 December 2014 Last updated at 18:10

Lastminute.com, the firm which came to fame at the height of the dot.com boom in 2000, has been sold to Swiss travel firm Bravofly Rumbo for $120m (£76m).

The online travel booking service, founded by Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman in October 1998, was sold by US tech firm Sabre Holdings.

Sabre said in August it was looking to sell Lastminute.com to focus on its other technology businesses.

It bought Lastminute.com in 2005 in a deal valuing the company at £577m.

The group was valued at £768m when it floated on the London stock exchange in 2000.

But within weeks its shares had fallen below their flotation price and it took three years to make a pre-tax profit.

Under the terms of this offer, Bravofly Rumbo will acquire all of Lastminute.com's main global operations in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

The deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year, following consultation with staff.

Fabio Cannavale, Chairman of Bravofly Rumbo Group, said the firm was a "perfect fit".

"Its business complements and expands our offering in Europe and, with its strong presence in the hotel and vacation sector, diversifies our product revenue streams," he added.


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Sony movie's NY premiere cancelled

17 December 2014 Last updated at 11:47
A security guard stands near a poster for The Interview

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Filmgoers in LA had some concerns but police said there was no cause for alarm

The New York premiere of The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korea's president, has been cancelled amid threats from hackers.

A spokesman for the cinema chain due to host the screening said it had been shelved.

Hackers targeting Sony Pictures had threatened to attack US cinemas showing the studio's film.

They belong to the same group which has released emails and data stolen from Sony.

Calling themselves Guardians of Peace, the hackers mentioned the 9/11 attacks in a recent warning, claiming "the world will be full of fear".

"Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time," the hacker group wrote in a message on Tuesday.

"If your house is nearby, you'd better leave," they add. "Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment."

The Department of Homeland Security said there was "no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot" against cinemas, but noted it was still analysing messages from the group.

A spokesman for Landmark, the cinema chain due to host the New York premiere, confirmed the showing had been cancelled but gave no reason, Reuters news agency reported.

Executives from Sony had previously said they would not object if cinemas chose not to show The Interview.

Carmike Cinemas, which operates 278 venues across the country, has cancelled planned screenings, according to several news outlets.

Others have backed the movie. "If they play it, we'll show it," said Tom Stephenson, CEO of Look Cinemas.

"Sony has a right to make the movie, we have a right to play it and censorship in general is a bad thing."

The film's stars, James Franco and Seth Rogen, have also pulled out of several media appearances including appearances on the chat shows Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Embarrassing emails

Guardians of Peace have also released a new trove of Sony company data, calling it a "Christmas gift".

A cache of company emails, social security numbers and salary details had already been released.

On Tuesday, two former Sony Pictures employees sued the California company for not providing adequate security to prevent the computer breach.

The studio earlier attempted to limit the damage by contacting some US news outlets to block the publication of the emails.

Some of the emails released have contained embarrassing exchanges about some of Hollywood's biggest stars, among them Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Variety, the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter were informed the studio "does not consent to your possession... dissemination, publication... or making any use of the stolen information".

North Korea has denied involvement in the attack, but has described it as a "righteous deed" that may have been carried out by its "supporters and sympathisers".

According to Variety's Andrew Wallenstein, however, publishing the stolen data is "problematic but necessary" because it "is in the public domain" and "unavoidable".


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Google considers data risk warnings

17 December 2014 Last updated at 12:01

Google is proposing to warn people their data is at risk every time they visit websites that do not use the "HTTPS" system.

Many sites have adopted the secure version of the basic web protocol to help safeguard data.

The proposal was made by the Google developers working on the search firm's Chrome browser.

Security experts broadly welcomed the proposal but said it could cause confusion initially.

Scrambled data

The proposal to mark HTTP connections as non-secure was made in a message posted to the Chrome development website by Google engineers working on the firm's browser.

If implemented, the developers wrote, the change would mean that a warning would pop-up when people visited a site that used only HTTP to notify them that such a connection "provides no data security".

Continue reading the main story

It will be a good thing for the whole web in the long run"

End Quote Paul Mutton Netcraft

The team said it was odd that browsers currently did nothing to warn people when their data was unprotected.

"The only situation in which web browsers are guaranteed not to warn users is precisely when there is no chance of security," they wrote.

HTTPS uses well-established cryptographic systems to scramble data as it travels from a user's computer to a website and back again.

The team said warnings were needed because it was known that cyber thieves and government agencies were abusing insecure connections to steal data or spy on people.

Rik Ferguson, a senior analyst at security firm Trend Micro, said warning people when they were using an insecure connection was "a good idea".

"People seem to make the assumption that communications such as HTTP and email are private to a degree when exactly the opposite is the case," he said.

Letting people know when their connection to a website is insecure could drive sites to adopt more secure protocols, he said.

Currently only about 33% of websites use HTTPS, according to statistics gathered by the Trustworthy Internet Movement which monitors the way sites use more secure browsing technologies.

'Headache'

Paul Mutton, a security analyst at web monitoring firm Netcraft, also welcomed the proposal, saying it was "bizarre" that an unencrypted HTTP connection gave rise to no warnings at all.

"In the short term, the biggest headache is likely to be faced by website operators who will feel forced to migrate unencrypted HTTP websites to encrypted HTTPS," he said. Many may resent the cost in time and money required to adopt the technology, he said, even though projects exist to make it easier and free for website administrators to use HTTPS.

"It will seem like a lot of hassle in the short term, but it will be a good thing for the whole web in the long run," he said.

The Google proposal was also floated on discussion boards for other browsers and received guarded support from the Mozilla team behind the Firefox browser and those involved with Opera.

Many large websites and services, including Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and GMail, already use HTTPS by default. In addition, since September Google has prioritised HTTPS sites in its search rankings.


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Apple halts Russian online sales

17 December 2014 Last updated at 12:27

Technology giant Apple says it cannot sell products online in Russia because the rouble's value is too volatile for it to set prices.

The company stopped sales of its iPhones, iPads and other products in the country after a day in which the currency went into free-fall.

The rouble has lost more than 20% this week, despite a dramatic decision to raise interest rates from 10.5% to 17%.

By afternoon trade the rouble was flat with one dollar buying 68 roubles.

Continue reading the main story

Its all time low, set on Wednesday, saw one dollar buying as many as 79 roubles.

Apple last month increased its prices in Russia by 20% after the weakening rouble left products in the country cheaper than in the rest of Europe.

Russia's central bank said on Wednesday it had spent almost $2bn intervening in the currency market on Monday.

It has spent around $80bn trying to prop up its rouble this year, but despite that, the currency has lost more than half its value against the dollar since January, with cheaper oil and Western sanctions over its stance over Ukraine the chief factors.

Both of these have weakened the Russian economy.

Russia's central bank has pledged fresh further measures to try to stabilise its currency, with First Deputy Governor Sergei Shvetsov describing the situation as "critical".

Russian dolls for sale near Red Square, Moscow. 15 Dec 2014

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John Simpson asks if the currency crisis will affect Putin's popularity

The rouble's slide this week was prompted by fears that the US was considering a fresh set of sanctions against the country for its support for separatists in Ukraine.

Are you in Russia? Are you concerned about the value of the rouble? Email your comment to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

Have your say


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Jeans made to block wireless signals

17 December 2014 Last updated at 13:13

A pair of jeans containing material that blocks wireless signals is being developed in conjunction with anti-virus firm Norton.

The trousers are intended to stop thieves hacking into radio frequency identification (RFID) tagged passports or contactless payment cards.

According to security experts this type of theft is a growing problem.

The jeans are designed by online clothing company Betabrand and use a silver-based material to block signals.

They are due to go on sale in February.

Security software maker Norton teamed up with San Francisco-based Betabrand in October to make the jeans and a blazer. The jeans will retail at $151 (£96) and the blazer at $198.

Digital forensic firm Disklabs has used similar technology to make a wallet, which, like the Betabrand jeans, blocks RFID signals.

"There is technology readily available for anyone to snatch other people's credit and debit card data within seconds," said Disklabs boss Simon Steggles.

"These apps simply copy the card with all the information on it."

His firm also designs "faraday" bags which block mobile signals. Such bags are often used by police now to store mobile phones taken from suspects.

Last month the BBC reported that several police forces around the country had admitted that some mobile phones confiscated from suspects had been remotely wiped because they had not been stored in a secure way.

Wearable hacks

Ethical hacker Ken Munro is also acutely aware of the problem of RFID hacking. His firm, Pen Test Partners, has developed him a proof-of-concept RFID-blocking suit.

Made of cloth woven with metal fibres, the suit was not cheap to make but is washable.

"If we are not explicitly blocking these signals there are a lot of things that can go wrong, from stealing contactless payment card details to more life-threatening issues," he told the BBC.

He thinks the RFID jeans may not be a sufficient defence against hackers.

"The pockets are shielded but nothing else. Stuff in your pockets is easy to shield with a wallet or similar. Our suit is different - the entire thing is shielded."

This becomes important as more and more RFID technology, such as wearable insulin pumps or in-chest monitoring devices, becomes standard, he said.

"These are the devices where tampering or hacking over radio frequency could be life-threatening," he said.

"I'm not sure that medical device manufacturers have given enough thought to security."


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Instagram now bigger than Twitter

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 10 Desember 2014 | 23.58

Instagram icon

Instagram has told Newsbeat it has the potential to "change the world" as it announced it has overtaken Twitter with 300 million users.

The company's CEO Kevin Systrom described the milestone as "exciting" and said the company would "continue to grow".

Twitter claims to have 284 million users accessing the network each month.

Facebook, which boasts 1.35 billion monthly active users, bought Instagram in 2012.

Speaking to Newsbeat ahead of the announcement, Kevin Systrom said: "Instagram is about seeing a live pulse of the world right now, it's not just about taking a photo of a cute baby or a cute dog."

Instagram is also introducing verified accounts similar to the blue tick symbols used by Facebook and Twitter.

facebook screenshot

Newsbeat understands regular users who have been impersonated could be verified, alongside celebrities, sports stars and brands.

"We want to be all about authentic users and you making sure that you know you're following real people not bots, not spam accounts, not fake accounts." Mr Systrom added.

In an attempt to get rid of fake accounts or those breaking the company's rules, Instagram said it is deleting "spammy" accounts.

The company has warned that some users may find they have fewer followers as a result.

Instagram's co-founder hinted the company would soon be adding new features based around specific events.

"You're literally getting a view of what's happening in the world right now.

Kevin Systrom
Kevin Systrom wants to kick out bots and 'spammy' accounts

"What we need to do is figure out how to take the fact that everyone's contributing in the world and broadcast that more globally.

"If you're interested in what's happening at the World Cup, you can peer in, see the football players and see what they're thinking and doing before they go onto the field.

"Those are the types of things that I want to enable over the next year."

Since it was set up by co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October 2010, Instagram has grown rapidly.

In February 2013, the company announced it had reached 100 million active monthly users.

Recently Instagram introduced advertising, with "sponsored posts" allowing brands to reach the app's growing number of users.

"Early on I would review and approve every single ad before it went on," Kevin Systrom said.

Instagram photo of coffee cup

Although some users were not happy about seeing adverts on Instagram, he said that adverts were needed to allow the company to grow and cope with its increasing size.

"The reason why we're doing this is as a growth engine for Instagram.

"When you get to 300m users it's not cheap to run that service and you need to make sure to be able to hire more people."

The company responded to Twitter's Vine app with a video-sharing feature of its own and introduced direct messaging to compete with rivals WhatsApp and Snapchat.

In June 2014 Instagram defended its rules on nudity as "fair" after criticism for removing photos of topless women.

Kevin Systrom told Newsbeat that Instagram's close relationship with Facebook had allowed it to learn from its mistakes.

"We're absolutely paying attention to the pitfalls companies have faced before and trying our best to avoid them."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube and (of course) find us on Instagram by searching for BBCNewsbeat


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'Giant spider dog' tops YouTube

9 December 2014 Last updated at 18:24 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A Polish film maker's short horror film featuring his pet dog in a tarantula costume was the biggest "trending" video on YouTube in 2014, parent company Google has announced.

With over 113m views since it was posted in September, Mutant Giant Spider Dog was the most shared and discussed online, according to YouTube.

Katy Perry's Dark Horse music video was the most popular with 715m views.

Facebook recorded over 3bn interactions about the Brazil World Cup this year.

The football tournament was "the most talked about event" on Facebook since the firm began measuring event-based chat, the company said, with over 350m people posting about the game.

However Brazil's presidential election attracted even more chat on the social media platform, with 674m interactions recorded by 48m people.

In the UK, the Scottish Referendum proved to be the year's biggest talking point with 3.3m interactions recorded on polling day alone.

The most played games on the Facebook platform were Bubble Witch 2 Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga.

The most "checked in" place in the UK was the Warner Brothers Studio in London - home of the Harry Potter movie tour.

Google has released lists of the most watched material on YouTube in a blog post.

Swedish games commentator Felix Kjellberg, aka Pewdiepie, gained the most subscribers for his YouTube channel for the second year running, with over 32m subscribers.

"It's reassuring that the likes of YouTube and Facebook can reconnect us with both the lowest and highest forms of cultural content," said Simon Collister, senior lecturer in social media and communications at the London College of Communication.

"Despite that we need caution about relying too much on these platforms," he added.

"There's a whole debate about algorithms - particularly with news consumption - we have to be careful that we don't let the platforms themselves dictate too much to us what we should and shouldn't be watching."


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Pirate Bay goes offline after raid

10 December 2014 Last updated at 12:21 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The Pirate Bay, arguably the most well-known website for accessing pirated content, has been taken offline following a raid in Sweden.

Swedish police seized servers in Stockholm after a complaint was filed by a group targeting internet crime.

It is the first time in several years the site has been taken offline rather than simply blocked by filters.

Unexpectedly, the site's co-founder Peter Sunde - who is no longer involved - called for its permanent closure.

Swedish police have confirmed the raid, which took place after the complaint from the Rights Alliance.

Paul Pinter from Stockholm County Police, told the BBC that an investigation that had lasted "for years" led them to the location of the servers containing material related to the The Pirate Bay.

As well as servers being removed from the data centre for examination, he said several people were now being interviewed by police.

However, he would not confirm or deny if anybody had been arrested.

The police operation took place in an area in Nacka, south-east of Stockholm. The area's mountainous terrain is used as a natural cooling system for computer servers.

"We can confirm that the police has completed a raid in the facility which where we rent space for our data centre," hosting firm Portlane, which has servers located in Nacka, told the BBC.

"This raid was not for our company or any of our employees," a spokesperson said. It added: "It was partly directed at one of our customers."

According to Torrent Freak, a website that reports on news about piracy and copyright law, a number of smaller torrent websites, or sites related to the activity, had also gone down.

Various reports on Wednesday suggested that the site had returned with a Costa Rican web address.

However, this site appeared to be a "mirror" - meaning copy - of the real site, and search functionality did not work.

Cloud strategy

The Pirate Bay has operated for over 10 years, and in that time has become a focus for the creative industry's war on copyright infringement. It is one of the internet's most-visited websites, and the movie, music and software industries blame it for losses running into billions of pounds.

Despite The Pirate Bay's operators being convicted of copyright violations, authorities have struggled to stop the site from operating.

In the UK, internet service providers (ISPs) were ordered by the High Court to block access to the site in 2012. Other countries rolled out similar measures.

The effectiveness of such blocks has been disputed. Sites will evade them by changing domains, or users will utilise proxies to circumvent them.

The Swedish raid steps up the effort to stop people reaching The Pirate Bay by knocking the site itself offline, although for how long is unclear.

Prof Alan Woodward, a security expert who has been working with European authorities to shut down illegal sites, said: "There have been raids before from which Pirate Bay has recovered.

"Recently they have taken steps moving their infrastructure to be more distributed as a way of being more resistant to raids, so I would imagine they will reappear in some form."

In 2012, The Pirate Bay announced it was to move its site to the cloud - internet-based storage, which can be shared across a variety of locations - so that raids would apparently be ineffective.

Indifference

At the time, the site said: "The site that you're at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us."

That confidence in the site's agility appeared misguided as it remained unreachable well into Wednesday.

But according to Peter Sunde, it will be indifference that closes the site, rather than police action.

"News just reached me that The Pirate Bay has been raided, again," he wrote in a blog post.

"That happened over eight years ago last time. That time, a lot of people went out to protest and rally in the streets. Today few seem to care. And I'm one of them.

"Why, you might ask? Well. For multiple reasons. But most of all, I've not been a fan of what TPB has become."

He bemoaned the level of advertising found on the site and criticised what he called a lack of "soul" in the community.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC


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President Obama writes Frozen code

9 December 2014 Last updated at 13:09

American President Barack Obama has written a line of computer code to help animate a character from the film Frozen.

He joined a group of pupils taking part in the "Hour of Code" project, a 60-minute introduction to computer science set up by the group code.org.

A drive to widen access to introductory computer science lessons in schools across the US was announced yesterday.

In the UK, pupils are now taught coding in schools from the age of five.

"While no-one is born a computer scientist, becoming a computer scientist isn't as scary as it sounds," President Obama said in a YouTube video.

"With hard work and a little math and science, anyone can do it.''

More than 48 million people signed up to get involved with Computer Science Education Week, currently running in the US, the president added.

"Don't just consume things, create things," he said.

An Hour of Code class was also held at the prime minister's residence in Downing Street, London, yesterday.

"There's no secret to success in the modern world. If countries are going to win in the global race and children compete and get the best jobs, you need mathematicians and scientists - pure and simple," said David Cameron, announcing extra training for maths and science teachers in England's schools.

"It will take time but it's absolutely vital for the success of our country that we teach maths and science and computing in the modern way, because that will be one of the things that will determine whether we succeed or not," he said.


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Amazon warns US over drone rules

9 December 2014 Last updated at 14:04

Amazon has said it may conduct more of its drone research outside the US because of strict regulation of the unmanned aircraft.

The firm has been waiting since July for approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test drones near Seattle, reports Reuters.

Amazon announced proposals for a drone delivery service called Amazon Prime Air in December 2013.

The FAA has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

"Without approval of our testing in the United States, we will be forced to continue expanding our Prime Air R&D footprint abroad," wrote Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, in a letter to the FAA.

Amazon wants to use small drones to deliver packages up to 2.3kg (5lb) in weight.

The service would enable customers to receive a purchase within 30 minutes of placing an order.

Six drone operators were approved by the US to carry out commercial flight tests at around the same time as Prime Air was announced but Amazon was not among them.

Successful applicants included the University of Alaska, Griffiss International Airport in New York and North Dakota's Department of Commerce.

The FAA said it considered "geography, climate, location of ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, safety, aviation experience and risk" in selecting the operators.

Amazon already has a drone R&D lab in Cambridge in the UK.

Google and DHL are also exploring the use of drones as couriers.

During the summer, Google demonstrated its service using a fixed-wing craft and in September DHL started a regular drone-delivery service to an island in the North Sea.


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