'Burglar's shopping list' flaw fixed

6 January 2015 Last updated at 00:02 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

An online service recommended by most of the UK's police forces has fixed a privacy flaw after being alerted by a security expert.

Immobilise allows members of the public to add records to the National Property Register, detailing valuables in their homes.

But security consultant Paul Moore discovered a flaw that made it possible to access other people's records.

Recipero, operators of Immobilise, said it had fixed the vulnerability.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) is responsible for ensuring websites recommended by police are fit for purpose. It told the BBC that it had been assured, by independent auditors, that the site met the correct criteria.

Acpo said it welcomed the speed at which the vulnerability was fixed, but added it would be discussing the matter with Recipero.

No 'irregular usage'

Mr Moore discovered that by altering ID numbers in the site's URL, or web address, different records would be automatically downloaded without any additional security measures.

Records kept on Immobilise include a person's name and address, as well as a list of valuables and a rough estimate of how much each item is worth. It is thought that more than four million people use the service.

The company assured the BBC it has taken steps to fix the flaw.

"Recipero, the provider of the Immobilise.com property register, confirms that a vulnerability in the website process has been identified," it said in a statement.

"The vulnerability targeted a feature intended for use by registrants when inviting their insurers to view details of an item.

"This vulnerability has been removed and a thorough review of records revealed no evidence of irregular usage."

Recipero's chief operating officer Les Gray told the BBC there were some "inaccuracies" in Mr Moore's blog post, but would not specify further. Repeated requests for clarification ahead of publication were declined.

The site was also vulnerable to the so-called Poodle bug. The flaw, discovered by Google researchers, affects web-encryption technology.

"Recipero confirms that the 'Poodle SSLv3' vulnerability has also recently been addressed on all of Recipero's servers," the company said.

"As readers may be aware, this has affected a large number of the world's web servers and impacted on a number of operating system and web browser combinations."

Recovering stolen goods

Immobilise is used to match stolen goods to their rightful owners by inviting owners of valuable items to enter them into a database that can be accessed by police.

According to the police, the tool is used "thousands of times a day by forces all over the UK including Scotland and Northern Ireland".

But Mr Moore said that elements of the site were insecure "by design".

"That's quite a nice shopping list for a would-be burglar!" he posted in a blog outlining the issue, updated to reflect the fact that it had been fixed.

"They'll know your name, home address, telephone number(s), email address, the make/model of your item, any identifying factors (serial numbers, IMEIs, unique marks etc) and even how much it's worth!

"Sure, it'll take some time and [hackers are] bound to hit a rate limiter along the way, but even if it takes a day/week/month, it's worth the wait."

'Exemplary record'

However, he acknowledged that it was "very unlikely" that any homes had been targeted as a result of the vulnerability.

Ken Munro, who works as penetration tester, advising companies on how to avoid being the victims of hack attacks, told the BBC he had concerns - but noted there were some security precautions in place.

"It would be easy to write a script to churn through the site and extract all users' property details," he said.

"However, it would take quite a while to do this. I also noted that they host their website with CloudFlare - a company that specialises in preventing this and similar attacks."

In its statement, Recipero defended its security record.

"For over a decade Recipero's Crime Reduction Ecosystem has benefited the public, police and traders.

"Throughout this period the business has maintained an exemplary record of data security. Swift attention to these issues reflects an ongoing commitment to security and privacy."

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Sony launches new £949 MP3 Walkman

Sony has launched a new £949 Walkman at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

The catchily-named NW-ZX2 has a battery life of 60 hours and has a 128GB memory, or 256GB with a microSD card.

It'll go on sale in the next few months in Europe.

The original cassette Walkman was launched in 1979, sold 220 million units and has been through various incarnations including the CD Walkman, MiniDisc Walkman and Walkman MP3.

A Sony Walkman WM-BF65 portable audio cassette player, with FM/AM radio, dating from about 1989

Production of the cassette Walkman was finally brought to an end in 2010 due to a lack of sales.

A new generation of MP3 players, led by Apple, effectively killed off the need for a portable cassette player.

1. Big buttons

2. Switch to metal (a type of cassette tape)

3. Battery light

4. Double headphone jack

5, Door ejects

Digital music devices appeared on the market at the end of the 1990s with the launch of the groundbreaking iPod in 2001.

The device could store 1,000 songs, had a five gigabyte (GB) hard drive and used iTunes to download music.

Sony brought out its first portable digital player, the Network Walkman, in 1999 but the MP3 format it used didn't take off.

Since then it has launched a range of digital players - the A, S and E series - as well as a tie-up with Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

The new Walkman, which takes over from the ZX1, has Bluetooth and NFC capability, can store around 1,700 songs and has Wi-Fi compatibility but will take about four-and-a-half hours to charge.

It works off Android 4.2 software, so you can download anything from the Google Play store.

The new Sony product is aimed at the high end of the market.

The company even recommends pairing the Walkman with a USB headphone amplifier (costing £719) and a set of MDR0Z7 headphones (another £549).

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Heat blamed for Australian net fail

6 January 2015 Last updated at 13:37

Extreme heat in the Australian city of Perth has forced one ISP to shut down servers in its data centre.

Australia's second largest net provider iiNet said it had turned the servers off "as a precautionary measure" as the city experienced temperatures topping 44.4C.

It left thousands of customers offline for about six-and-a-half hours.

Many of them later took to Twitter to vent their frustration and question why the meltdown occurred.

"Our Perth data centre was subject to a partial failure of both the mains and back-up air-conditioning systems yesterday," iiNet's chief technology officer Mark Dioguardi said in a blog post.

"This, along with the extreme heat necessitated a shutdown to a portion of our servers.

"Although our plans ensured over 98% of customers remained unaffected, some customers experienced issues reconnecting to the internet," he admitted.

The net closure affected users in Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Many still managed to find a way to get on to Twitter and Facebook to complain about the issue.

The tweet below summed up the mood of many.

The UK's Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa) told the BBC the problem was unlikely to be replicated in the UK.

"Data centres and networks are designed with resilience in mind. Whilst we wouldn't expect 44 degrees in the UK, ISPs and data centre operators are very much prepared for the unpredictable British weather," said Ispa secretary general Nicholas Lansman.

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Facebook buys speech firm Wit.ai

6 January 2015 Last updated at 18:24

Facebook has acquired the speech-recognition start-up Wit.ai, it has been confirmed.

Neither company revealed what it planned to develop, but Facebook praised Wit.ai's ability to "turn speech and text into actionable data".

The existing Wit.ai platform would remain, the start-up said.

According to one analyst, it could herald Facebook's move into voice messaging, or even voice control of home appliances.

"We have seen a lot of messaging companies trying to connect messaging apps to devices, such as Tencent's WeChat. They are doing things like connecting apps to home appliances," said Pamela Clark-Dickson of analyst firm Ovum.

She said that Facebook's advantage over existing firms in the market, such as Hive and Sonos, was its extensive reach.

'Powerful offering'

"If you have more than a billion users and you can connect them to multiple devices, that becomes a very powerful offering. Wit.ai also has the messenger agents and you could see those being incorporated into Facebook," she added.

She said that while the Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been struggling to get its own voice product to market, Facebook was unlikely to simply use Wit.ai to help out in that respect.

And she said she believed that the Facebook-Wit.ai offering, when it arrived, would be more than a Skype or Siri-like service for Facebook. "I believe it will add value," she said.

Wit.ai, which has been described as "the Github, the Wikipedia, the Bitcoin of natural language" by founder Alex Lebrun said: "Facebook has the resources and talent to help us take the next step."

'Amazing experiences'

In a statement, it said: "Facebook's mission is to connect everyone and build amazing experiences for the over 1.3 billion people on the platform - technology that understands natural language is a big part of that, and we think we can help."

It confirmed its own platform would "remain open and become entirely free for everyone". It said: "Developers are the life of our project and the energy, enthusiasm and passion of the community has helped turn what was once just a lofty dream, into a reality."

Facebook confirmed the deal to the BBC, although neither firm disclosed details of a fee.

A spokesman said: "Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and text into actionable data. We're excited to have them on board."

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Deal reached on wireless charging

6 January 2015 Last updated at 23:24

A single way to wirelessly charge gadgets has come a step closer as industry groups developing separate technologies agreed to merge.

Two of the three organisations developing wireless charging will form a single group to push the technology.

A third group, which counts Nokia as a member, is still going it alone with its own charging system.

The announcement about the merger comes as in-home charging systems have been shown off at CES.

Power Mat

The Alliance for Wireless Power and the Power Matters Alliance have signed an agreement to form a single organisation to represent all the members of the two groups. The name of the new organisation has not yet been chosen.

Intel, Qualcomm, Dell and Samsung are members of the Alliance for Wireless Power and the Power Matters Alliance counts Huawei, LG, Starbucks and others among its founding firms.

The merger builds on a deal signed in 2014 which sought to ensure that the different wireless charging approaches of the two industry organisations would be interoperable.

"The 'standards war' narrative presents a false choice," said Kamil Grajski, head of the Alliance for Wireless Power in a statement.

Mr Grajski said the co-development approach that had led to modern mobile phones supporting many different radio technologies should also work for wire-free charging.

The merger pits the new organisation against another large industry group called the Wireless Power Consortium. This organisation has had some success with its Qi charging system that it claims is used in more than 600 products including 70 smartphones.

All the groups aim to do away with charging cables that have generally exploited the principle of induction to recharge batteries. This typically involves placing a suitably equipped device on to a charging mat or item of furniture that has induction coils built in to it.

CES saw Wireless Power Consortium members Audi and Verizon show off their wireless charging systems.

Other non-magnetic techniques for charging gadgets are being explored by firms such as Energous which demonstrated its non-inductive WattUp system at CES which, it claims, can charge gadgets that lie in a 9m (30ft) radius around the charger.

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FTC warns on data grabbed by gadgets

7 January 2015 Last updated at 00:26

A "deeply personal" picture of every consumer could be grabbed by futuristic smart gadgets, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission has warned.

Speaking at CES, Edith Ramirez said a future full of smart gadgets that watch what we do posed a threat to privacy.

The collated data could create a false impression if given to employers, universities or companies, she said.

Ms Ramirez urged tech firms to make sure gadgets gathered the minimum data needed to fulfil their function.

Losing respect

The internet of things (IoT), which will populate homes, cars and bodies with devices that use sophisticated sensors to monitor people, could easily build up a "deeply personal and startlingly complete picture" of a person's lifestyle, said Ms Ramirez.

The data picture would include details about an individuals credit history, health, religious preferences, family, friends and a host of other indicators, she said.

The granularity of the data that could be gathered by existing devices was without precedent, she said, and likely to get more detailed as time went on.

An individual's preference for reality TV or the History Channel could be tracked by tablets or smart TV sets and then shared with other organisations in a way that could prove damaging, she said.

"Will this information be used to paint a picture of you that you won't see but that others will?" she asked, wondering if it would influence the types of services people were offered, ads they were shown or what assumptions firms made about their lifestyle.

The FTC boss acknowledged that the IoT had the potential to improve health and boost economic growth, but said this should not come at the expense of individual privacy.

"I question the notion that we must put sensitive consumer data at risk on the off-chance a company might someday discover a valuable use for the information," she said.

Data should only be gathered for a specific purpose, said Ms Ramirez, adding that any firm that did not respect privacy would lose the trust of potential customers.

Click here for more coverage from the BBC at CES 2015

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Hi-tech helps cyclists stay safe

7 January 2015 Last updated at 02:51

Smart pedals that warn when a bike is stolen and helmets for cyclists that spot an imminent crash have been unveiled at CES.

The pedals have in-built sensors that spot when a bicycle has been nabbed and can report where it has been taken.

The prototype helmet has been developed by Volvo to warn a vehicle when it has got too close to a cyclist.

It also also lets cyclists know if they are in a vehicle's blind spot so they can take action to avoid a collision.

The helmet works with popular smartphone fitness monitoring apps that track the location and speed of a cyclist. This information is shared with any Volvo vehicles nearby that are equipped with the firm's City Safety system. This alerts drivers to the presence of a cyclist even if the rider is in a blind spot or when visibility is poor.

The system calculates potential trajectories of both bicycle and car and warns when a collision is imminent. It can also take control of a car to apply brakes if it gets too close to a cyclist. Drivers will be alerted via the car's head-up display and the rider will be warned through a light mounted on the helmet.

Klas Bendick, a spokesman for Volvo, said the system's ability to warn about imminent collisions could help save lives as accident data suggests 50% of all cyclists killed on the roads collided with a car.

"By exploring cloud-based safety systems, we are now getting ever closer to eliminating the remaining blind spots between cars and cyclists and by that avoid collisions," he said in a statement.

Pedal power

Also at CES, French firm Connected Cycle showed off its smart pedal that it hopes will help reduce the number of cycles being stolen.

"In Europe six bikes are stolen every minute and everyone who cycles in a city knows that bike theft is a real problem," said Connected Cycle founder Jean-Marie Debbasch.

Connected Cycle's pedal looks like any other but, he said, it can be used to turn an old, dumb bike into one that is much smarter.

"Inside the pedal we have GPS, a GPRS connection and also a sensor that captures your activity," said Mr Debbasch.

"Everything goes to the cloud and is displayed on a smartphone app.

"It is totally autonomous, it has its own generation of energy and internet connection so that you can be alerted if someone steals your bike," he said. The pedal has its own coded key to ensure that it can only be used by its rightful owner, he added.

The smart pedals on display at CES were prototypes, said Mr Debbasch, and the firm was now preparing a crowd-funding drive so it can finish development and start commercial pedal production.

Click here for more coverage from the BBC at CES 2015

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WhatsApp: Record number of messages

Every day more than 30bn WhatsApp messages are now sent, according to new figures revealed by the company's CEO, Jan Koum.

There are also a record 700m monthly active users.

Koum says the organisation is "humbled and excited" by the amount of users it now has.

But the numbers are so huge that they are almost impossible to understand - so let's break them down into something a bit more straightforward.

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Dre and Iovine sued over Beats

Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre pictured next to Monster founder Noel Lee

Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine are being sued by a former business partner who co-designed their Beats headphone range.

Noel Lee, whose firm Monster helped launch Beats by Dre in 2008, says his company was betrayed and its technology "pirated".

He alleges he "lost millions" after Dre and Iovine "improperly took control" of Beats through a "sham" transaction.

After severing ties with Monster, Beats was purchased by Apple for $3 billion (£1.9 billion).

In legal papers filed in California, Lee alleges rap producer Dr Dre was barely involved in creating the headphones that carried his name.

But the range quickly became a highly desirable brand with celebrities and music fans, and Dre's endorsement was key to its success.

When the firm was sold to mobile phone manufacturer HTC in 2012, Dre and Iovine made $100m (£66m) each, Forbes estimated.

But Lee claims the deal forced him to cut his share in the company from 5% to 1.25%. He says he then had no other option but to sell his remaining stake for $5.5m (£3.6m) near the end of 2013.

His legal case describes the HTC deal as "fraudulent" and "a sham" intended to shift ownership of Beats to Dre and Iovine.

HTC later sold its shares back to the Beats.

Lee says if he'd still had his 1.25% stake, he would have received more than $30m (£19.8m) in the Apple deal.

His original 5% stake would have been worth around $150m (£99m).

Beats founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre posing with Apple CEO Tim Cook and senior VP Eddy Cue

A statement from Monster's law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy says that Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine "made millions off the work of Monster and Lee, while the plaintiffs lost millions".

There's been no response yet from Dr Dre's lawyer - or from Beats.

It's the second lawsuit against the firm since Apple bought it last year.

The first was brought by the Bose Corporation over patented technology for cancelling noise in earphones.

That case was settled under undisclosed terms in October.

Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine are also being sued by David Hyman, who sold his music streaming service MOG to Beats in 2012.

That court case, filed shortly before the Apple deal was sealed, is taking place now in Los Angeles.

Jimmy Iovine is the co-founder of Interscope Records, a rap music pioneer that branched out to include acts like Lady Gaga and U2.

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CES: Super-fast phone charger demoed

7 January 2015 Last updated at 13:13 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor, Las Vegas

I've just been witness to what feels like a modern-day technological miracle.

A Samsung smartphone has just been recharged from being nearly out-of-juice to full capacity in less time than it takes to boil a kettle.

The Israeli start-up behind the demo, Storedot, has shown off a similar feat before.

But a previous demo posted online eight months ago involved a battery many times thicker than the handset itself as well as an outsized charger - making the tech impractical for real-world use.

This time round the phone involved is no bigger than normal, and the charging dock is pretty slim-line as well.

There's a couple of trade-offs involved, but being able to recharge devices about 100 times faster than at present has the potential to revolutionise the way we use mobile phones, tablets, laptops and wearable tech.

Storedot's ambitions, however, are even larger.

Organic batteries

The BBC is the first to have been shown the new kit, apart from tech industry executives who had to sign non-disclosure agreements.

It's not something that can be retrofitted to existing devices, since most phones would be fried by the 40 amps of electricity the current version of the charger supplies.

It also involves using a completely new type of battery, which contains specially synthesised organic molecules.

"We have reactions in the battery that are non-traditional reactions that allow us to charge very fast, moving ions from an anode to a cathode at a speed that was not possible before we had these materials," explains Doron Myersdorf, the company's chief executive.

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Storedot boss Doron Myersdorf shows off his fast-charging battery device

He adds that phone-makers from the US, South Korea, China and Japan have already begun talks to either license or buy exclusive rights to the tech, and that he has 17 meetings at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with "all the major" players.

But Mr Myersdorf also acknowledges that there is still more work to be done before his tech is ready for consumers.

Storedot has a 2017 goal of matching the energy density - the amount of energy stored per kilogram - of its own batteries and the lithium-ion ones commonly found in existing handsets.

The firm's prototypes currently deliver about a third of that rate, meaning the normal-sized handset used in the demo only held 900mAh of juice, and would have to be recharged several times a day were it deployed now albeit only taking two minutes to do so each time.

The company also showed off a 2,000mAh battery, which took three minutes to recharge, but the phone that housed it had been made 5mm (0.2in) thicker than normal to accommodate its girth.

By the 2017 deadline, Storedot also aims to halve its current charging times.

Abramovich backing

At this point it's probably wise to offer a caveat.

The tests involved the BBC being shown a graphical readout to prove the batteries were being recharged as fast as suggested.

This would be relatively easy to fake, and Mr Myersdorf acknowledges that his scientific claims have yet to be peer reviewed.

But his credentials and those of his chief technology officer, Prof Simon Litsyn, check out. Both held key roles at Sandisk, which they helped make a leader in flash memory tech.

Furthermore, their firm has already raised $48.5m (£32.1m) of funds, $10m of which came from Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich's private asset management company. The BBC understands Samsung is among the other investors.

Even so, one industry-watcher remains wary.

"Battery technology is the single biggest challenge holding back the consumer electronics industry right now," says Ben Wood from the CCS Insight consultancy.

"Any claim to a major breakthrough should always treated with scepticism because it's been promised so many times before and we still don't have a solution.

"But if what this company is claiming to offer comes to pass, it would have a huge impact, as the amount of battery-hungry connected devices people use in their daily lives is rising exponentially."

'Game-changer'

Certainly, CES itself is packed with firms offering a plethora of portable batteries to help users make it through the day, everything from lip-stick sized chargers for emergency top-ups to a $500 (£300) backpack that can power up several gadgets at once.

Were we able to recharge smartphones in less than a minute, the need to buy such external batteries would decrease - and we might even become more willing to use processor-intensive apps and games, as well as adopt smartwatches and other wearable tech.

But Storedot has a bigger plan.

"We are just starting to work on electric vehicles," says Mr Myersdorf.

"And we intend to show in one year a model of a car that can charge in three minutes.

"We are 100% sure we can deliver, because the knowhow of how you take one cell and combine thousands of them together has already been done by Tesla.

"The user-experience would be exactly like refuelling, but without fumes.

"It would really boost adoption of electric vehicles. It would be a game-changer."

Click here for more coverage from the BBC at CES 2015

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