German 'streamed porn' case reviewed

23 December 2013 Last updated at 07:29 ET

A German court that told an ISP to hand over details of users who had allegedly been illegally streaming porn online is reviewing its decision.

The names and addresses of those identified were used by a law firm to send letters asking for a one-off fee.

The firm, Urmann, acting on behalf of Swiss copyright company Archive, targeted users it said had viewed content on porn-streaming site Redtube.

More than 10,000 people are thought to have been affected.

It was one of the first cases to target people accused of streaming rather than downloading pornography.

Now, the court in Cologne says it has examined complaints from dozens of people who received the copyright infringement warning letters, which demanded a 250 euro (£210) payment.

'Victory for users'

In a statement the court said the complaints had raised "considerable" doubts about the legal procedure.

It also said the laws on "streaming" were not clear enough.

Urmann issued a strongly worded statement defending itself against claims it had issued a false affidavit to the court. The firm called on the court to withdraw the allegation.

A final decision on the case is not expected until January.

In a separate court in Hamburg, a temporary injunction has been issued against Urmann and Archive preventing them from sending warning letters to Redtube users alleging copyright infringement.

In a statement Redtube said that the allegations that its site broke copyright laws were "a thinly disguised attempt to extort money from its users".

Commenting on the injunction Alex Taylor, vice president of Redtube, said: "This ruling is a victory not just for Redtube users, but for anyone who accesses a streaming website.

"It sends a clear message that the exploitation of personal information and the violation of privacy for financial gain will not be tolerated," he said.

Redtube also stressed that it had not passed on users information to third parties.

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Cryptolocker 'infects 250,000 PCs'

24 December 2013 Last updated at 08:38 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A virulent form of ransomware has now infected about quarter of a million Windows computers, according to a report by security researchers.

Cryptolocker scrambles users' data and then demands a fee to unencrypt it alongside a countdown clock.

Dell Secureworks said that the US and UK had been worst affected.

It added that the cyber-criminals responsible were now targeting home internet users after initially focusing on professionals.

The firm has provided a list of net domains that it suspects have been used to spread the code, but warned that more are being generated every day.

Ransomware has existed since at least 1989, but this latest example is particularly problematic because of the way it makes files inaccessible.

"Instead of using a custom cryptographic implementation like many other malware families, Cryptolocker uses strong third-party certified cryptography offered by Microsoft's CryptoAPI," said the report.

"By using a sound implementation and following best practices, the malware authors have created a robust program that is difficult to circumvent."

Ransom dilemma

The first versions of Crytpolocker appear to have been posted to the net on 5 September.

Early examples were spread via spam emails that asked the user to click on a Zip-archived extension identified as being a customer complaint about the recipient's organisation.

Later it was distributed via malware attached to emails claiming there had been a problem clearing a cheque. Clicking the associated link downloaded a Trojan horse called Gameover Zeus, which in turn installed Cryptolocker onto the victim's PC.

By mid-December, Dell Secureworks said between 200,000 to 250,000 computers had been infected.

It said of those affected, "a minimum of 0.4%, and very likely many times that" had agreed to the ransom demand, which can currently only be paid in the virtual currencies Bitcoin and MoneyPak.

Top 10 infected countries	Number of infected systems identified using test "sinkhole" servers between 9-16 December	Percentage of total
Source: Dell SecureWorks
US	1,540	23.8%
Great Britain	1,228	19.0%
Australia	836	12.9%
France	372	5.8%
Brazil	309	4.8%
Italy	204	3.2%
Turkey	182	2.8%
Spain	145	2.2%
China	138	2.1%
Canada	135	2.1%

"Anecdotal reports from victims who elected to pay the ransom indicate that the Cryptolocker threat actors honour payments by instructing infected computers to decrypt files and uninstall the malware," added the security firm.

"According to reports from victims, payments may be accepted within minutes or may take several weeks to process."

However, Trend Micro, another security firm, has warned that giving into the blackmail request only encouraged the further spread of Cryptolocker and other copycat schemes, and said that there was no guarantee of getting the data back.

Safety steps

Dell suggested PCs be blocked from communicating with the hundreds of domains names it had flagged as being linked to the spread of Cryptolocker, and it suggested five further steps the public and businesses could take to protect themselves:

• Install software that blocks executable fields and compressed archives before they reach email inboxes
• Check permissions assigned to shared network drives to limit the number of people who can make modifications
• Regularly back-up data to offline storage such as Blu-ray and DVD-Rom disks. Network-attached drives and cloud storage does not count as Cryptolocker can access and encrypt files stored there
• Set each PC's software management tools to prevent Cryptolocker and other suspect programs from accessing certain critical directories
• Set the computer's Group Policy Objects to restrict registry keys - databases containing settings - used by Cryptolocker so that the malware is unable to begin the encryption process

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RSA denies 'secret deal' with NSA

23 December 2013 Last updated at 06:16 ET

Security firm RSA has strongly denied reports it signed a "secret contract" with the NSA spying agency.

On December 21, a Reuters report said the NSA paid RSA to use a random number generator now known to be flawed.

In a blogpost RSA "categorically" denied the allegation that this opened a backdoor into any product in which it was used.

In September 2013, RSA told users to avoid using the code when its flaws were confirmed.

Bad numbers

The Reuters report said the NSA paid RSA $10m (£6.1m) to use a random number generator that has since been discovered to open a backdoor into any software in which it was used.

Documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden have confirmed the existence of backdoors in some technologies RSA, and other firms, used in their products.

The random number generator, known as the "Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator" (Dual EC DRBG), became a standard part of some RSA products in 2004.

In 2007 academic research revealed that the number generator had serious weaknesses that, if exploited, could let eavesdroppers get at data it was supposed to help protect. In its blogpost, RSA explained that it continued to rely on the system in 2007 following advice from the US standards body that oversaw development of such systems.

It also followed the advice of this body when it told users to stop using the module earlier this year.

In addition, RSA added, the Dual EC DRBG was one of several different random number generators available and customers were "free to choose whichever one best suited their needs".

It concluded: "We also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use."

In response, Reuters reporter Joseph Menn who broke the story said in a tweet: "We stand by our RSA story."

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Google robot wins Pentagon contest

23 December 2013 Last updated at 08:26 ET

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Schaft won this round of Darpa's competition by a wide margin

A robot developed by a Japanese start-up recently acquired by Google is the winner of a two-day competition hosted by the Pentagon's research unit Darpa.

Team Schaft's machine carried out all eight rescue-themed tasks to outscore its rivals by a wide margin.

Three of the other 15 teams that took part failed to secure any points at the event near Miami, Florida.

Schaft and seven of the other top-scorers can now apply for more Darpa funds to compete in 2014's finals.

Continue reading the main story

1. Schaft (27 points)

2. IHMC Robotics (20 points)

3. Tartan Rescue (18 points)

4. MIT (16 points)

5. Robosimian (14 points)

6. Traclabs / Wrecs (11 points)

8. Trooper (9 points)

9. Thor / Vigir / Kaist (8 points).

12. HKU / DRC-Hubo (3 points)

14. Chiron / Nasa-JSC / Mojavaton (0 points)

Darpa said it had been inspired to organise the challenge after it became clear robots were only capable of playing a very limited role in efforts to contain 2011's Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan.

"What we realised was ... these robots couldn't do anything other than observe," said Gill Pratt, programme manager for the Darpa Robotics Challenge.

"What they needed was a robot to go into that reactor building and shut off the valves."

In order to spur on development of more adept robots the agency challenged contestants to complete a series of tasks, with a time-limit of 30 minutes for each:

• Drive a utility vehicle along a course
• Climb an 8ft-high (2.4m) ladder
• Remove debris blocking a doorway
• Pull open a lever-handled door
• Cross a course that featured ramps, steps and unfastened blocks
• Cut a triangular shape in a wall using a cordless drill
• Close three air valves, each controlled by a different-sized wheel or lever
• Unreel a hose and then screw its nozzle into a wall connector

More than 100 teams originally applied to take part, and the number was whittled down to 17 by Darpa ahead of Friday and Saturday's event.

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Humanoid robots drove cars, climbed ladders - and often fell - in the competition sponsored by the US Department of Defense

Some entered their own machines, while others made use of Atlas - a robot manufactured by another Google-owned business, Boston Dynamics - controlling it with their own software.

One self-funded team from China - Intelligent Pioneer - dropped out at the last moment, bringing the number of contestants who took part at the Homestead-Miami Speedway racetrack to 16.

Continue reading the main story

Schaft's 1.48m (4ft 11in) tall, two-legged robot entered the contest the favourite and lived up to its reputation.

It makes use of a new high-voltage liquid-cooled motor technology that uses a capacitor, rather a battery, for power. Its engineers say this lets its arms move and pivot at higher speeds than would otherwise be possible, in effect giving it stronger "muscles".

The machine was developed by a spin-off from the University of Tokyo's Jouhou System Kougaku lab, which Google recently revealed it had acquired.

The team scored 27 points out of a possible 32, putting it seven points ahead of second-placed IHMC Robotics, which used Atlas.

Scores were based on a system that awarded three points for completing a task's primary objectives, and then a bonus point for doing so without any human intervention.

Schaft's robot behaved nearly perfectly, but lost points because "the wind blew a door out of their robot's hold and because their robotic creation was not able to climb out of a vehicle after it successfully navigated an obstacle course," reported the Japan Daily Press.

'Reality check'

Videos posted online by Darpa illustrate that the robots remain much slower than humans, often pausing for a minute or more between actions while they carried out the calculations needed to make each movement.

Several proved unsteady on their feet and were only saved from falls by attached harnesses.

Three of the teams which entered self-designed machines - including Nasa's Johnson Space Center and its robot Valkyrie - failed to complete any of the challenges.

The event was described as a "reality check" by Jyuji Hewitt, who attended on behalf of the US Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command.

But Darpa's Mr Pratt added that the competition, and the finals that will be held in December, would help bring forward a time the machines could be used in real-world situations.

"Today's modest progress will be a good next step to help save mankind from disasters," he said.

The top eight teams can now apply for up to $1m (£611,000) of Darpa investment before the finals to improve their robots' skills. The winner will get a $2m prize.

Lower scorers in last weekend's round can stay in the contest but will have to fund their own efforts,

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Apple shares rise on Chinese deal

23 December 2013 Last updated at 11:00 ET

Shares in US technology giant Apple have jumped 3% after it signed a deal to supply its iPhone to China Mobile.

The Chinese firm is the world's largest carrier and was one of three networks to be awarded China's first 4G licences earlier this month.

Apple has been looking to boost its sales in China, the world's largest smartphone market, but has struggled amid growing competition from rivals.

The latest deal is expected to help it increase its market share.

Continue reading the main story

"China is an extremely important market for Apple," Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, said in a statement.

"Our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network."

Earlier this year, Mr Cook said he expected China to replace North America as Apple's largest source of revenue. The iPhone is the firm's most important product in terms of earnings power.

China Mobile has more than 760 million subscribers.

The country's two other major phone carriers, China Unicom and China Telecom, already offer iPhones to their subscribers.

Cheaper rivals

China is the world's biggest smartphone-using country, with 1.2 billion users.

Continue reading the main story

Apple's "imminent" deal with China Mobile has been a long running soap opera. Back in September when a separate launch event for the iPhone 5C and 5S was held in Beijing, it was assumed that an agreement had already been reached.

But fixing terms between the world's biggest mobile operator and a company which has always played hardball when it comes to pricing, was never going to be simple.

Apple has long been a highly prized brand in China, with fake Apple stores springing up all over the country. But even with access to China Mobile's 700 million customers, don't expect it to grab a big share of the market.

Samsung is the biggest overseas brand - the Chinese market was quick to see the attractions of the oversized Galaxy Note "phablet" - and home-grown brands like Xiaomi are giving consumers the smartphone experience at a much keener price than Apple can offer.

Nevertheless, China has a big appetite for luxury brands - for Rolls Royce it vies with the USA as its biggest market.

Apple does not have to be number one in China to make huge amounts of money there, so don't expect the company to follow the advice of some analysts and launch cut price models. It will settle for being the Rolls Royce of the mobile market.

But Chinese sales of previous iPhone models have slumped recently, as consumers have turned to cheaper rival handsets from Samsung, and domestic Chinese developers.

China's three bestselling smartphone makers are Samsung, Lenovo and Coolpad, according to a recent report by the consultants IDC.

Apple's sales have also been impacted by the fact that unlike in developed markets, many phone carriers in emerging markets do not subsidise smartphones.

That means that subscribers have to pay the full amount for the phone upfront, making Apple's products relatively expensive for some buyers.

In an attempt to take on the low-cost rivals Apple unveiled a relatively cheaper version of the iPhone, the 5c, earlier this year.

Analysts said the firm was hoping that a cheaper handset combined with a deal with the biggest mobile carrier in the world may help it take on rivals.

However, Apple is yet to announce how much Chinese customers will have to pay for the iphone 5s and 5c models sold via China Mobile.

'Biggest partnership'

Nevertheless, analysts say the deal has huge potential. Cantor Fitzgerald Research estimates that Apple could sell 24 million iPhones next year to China Mobile customers alone.

Apple sold 102.4 million iPhones globally in the nine months to September this year.

Previously, China Mobile subscribers have not been able to use Apple's iPhone, because the firm's 3G technology was not compatible with Apple handsets.

However, its 4G network will work with the iPhone 5s and 5c.

Manufacturer	Marketshare
Source: IDC
Samsung	18.3%
Lenovo	12.6%
Coolpad	11%
ZTE	8.8%
Huawei	8.7%
Others	41%

"This is one of the biggest partnership announcements Apple has made in the past several years," Manoj Menon, managing director of consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the BBC.

"It gives them access to more than 10% of the global mobile phone users. It is an incredible growth opportunity for Apple."

However, he added that in order to fully realise the potential of the deal, Apple may need to introduce even more affordable phone models.

The iPhone 5s and 5c will be available to China Mobile subscribers from 17 January.

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Cash limits follow Target data theft

23 December 2013 Last updated at 11:28 ET

Debit card limits are being cut for two million Americans following a hack attack on US retailer Target.

Details of more than 40 million cards were stolen by thieves who compromised card swipe systems at Target's tills.

Bank JP Morgan Chase said it was reducing limits on all cards used at Target while thieves had been scooping up data.

Security researchers said the stolen card numbers had been seen on underground markets.

Card losses

The thieves managed to grab the key details for so many cards by getting malware onto the computer systems at the checkout desks in almost 1,800 Target stores in the US. It is still not clear how the thieves managed to get their malware onto the systems.

The thieves had access to card data read at the tills for almost three weeks, said Target in a statement released after it realised it had been under attack.

JP Morgan Chase said it had lowered daily spending limits to $300 (£183) and daily cash withdrawal limits to $100 on potentially vulnerable cards as a "precaution".

Reuters reported that other US banks are also believed to be putting stringent precautions in place that would help to spot if cards were being used fraudulently. In addition, Target said it would offer free credit monitoring for customers affected by fraud.

On 20 December, security researcher Brian Krebs said there was evidence that card numbers stolen in the Target attack had shown up on underground markets where such details are traded.

Writing on his blog, Mr Krebs said security investigators had first confirmed card details had been stolen from Target by buying a "dump" of credit card numbers and matching them to those known to have been used at stores during the breach.

A huge batch of numbers had shown up on one site that traded in good quality dumps, he said, adding that cards from non-US banks used at Target stores were now fetching premium prices.

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Twitter's Dorsey to join Disney

24 December 2013 Last updated at 05:38 ET

Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, has been nominated as an independent board director at Walt Disney.

Shareholders will be able to vote on his selection at the company's annual meeting on 18 March.

Aged 37, Mr Dorsey would become the youngest member of Disney's board, the majority of whom are in their 50s.

Over the last few years he has been running Square, a company which offers credit card payments service for small businesses.

"Jack Dorsey is a talented entrepreneur who has helped create groundbreaking new businesses in the social media and commerce spaces," said Robert Iger, Disney's chairman and chief executive.

"The perspective he brings to Disney and its board is extremely valuable."

Twitter sold shares on the stock market for the first time in November and Mr Dorsey's near 5% stake in Twitter is worth around $1bn.

He founded Twitter along with Ev Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass.

Mr Dorsey sent Twitter's first tweet in 2006: "just setting up my twttr".

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Butterfly botnet 'mastermind' jailed

24 December 2013 Last updated at 06:25 ET

A hacker accused of masterminding one of the biggest ever botnets has been sentenced to just under 5 years in jail.

Matjaz Skorjanc was arrested in 2010 after a two-year investigation into malware that had hijacked about 12.7 million computers around the world.

The 27-year-old was found guilty of creating the Mariposa botnet software, assisting others in "wrongdoings" and money laundering.

His lawyer said he would appeal.

In addition to the 58-month jail term, Skorjanc was also ordered to pay a 4,000 euro ($4,100; £2,510) fine and give up a flat and car he was alleged to have bought with money he had received from a Spanish criminal syndicate.

The prosecutors in the case have said they also intended to challenge the Slovenian court's ruling because they had wanted a tougher jail sentence of seven-and-a-half-years.

The former medical student's ex-girlfriend Nusa Coh was also sentenced to eight months probation for money laundering.

Identity revealed

Mariposa is the Spanish for butterfly.

The botnet got its name because it was created with software called ButterFly Flooder that was alleged to have been written by Skorjanc and advertised on the net as a way to "stress test" computer networks and remotely control Windows and Linux PCs.

Computers in more than 190 countries were infected by Mariposa, which spread by a variety of methods including via instant messages, peer-to-peer file-sharing systems and removable storage devices.

Once installed its operators could command the compromised machines to carry out their instructions including sending back copies of data they stored.

The scale of the problem led the FBI to team up with European law enforcement agencies, the Georgia Tech Information Security Center and other security experts to track down the perpetrators.

This proved difficult to do because the hackers only connected to the net via a virtual private network (VPN), which hid their locations.

On 23 December 2009 the authorities managed to gain control of the botnet; which they believe rattled one of its operators, who went by the nickname Netkairo.

The operator subsequently managed to take back control of the infected computers and then used them to attack Defence Intelligence, a Canadian security firm helping the FBI.

However, in doing so Netkairo appeared to have revealed his identity by accidentally connecting to the botnet directly from his home computer rather than the VPN.

On 3 February 2010 the Spanish Civil Guard arrested Florencio Carro Ruiz, who they identified as Netkairo, and two other Spaniards.

Five months later the Slovenian police arrested Skorjanc, who they said had used the alias Iserdo and had written the code.

Officials said the botnet had been used to send spam emails, stage distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to overwhelm targets' servers with traffic, and harvest information including credit card details and log-ins.

"I think the sentence is significant and will be remembered as a milestone in the prosecution of cybercrimes," Keith Murphy, chief executive of Defence Intelligence told the BBC.

"It reflects that authorities have realised the damage that can be wrought by a piece of code, and are now starting to equate it to physical theft. The 'wild west' days of cybercrime are over, even in smaller countries."

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Royal pardon for codebreaker Turing

24 December 2013 Last updated at 07:48 ET

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Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon, as Danny Shaw reports

Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon.

It addresses his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated.

The conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop the code-cracking work that had proved vital to the Allies in World War Two.

The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.

'Appalling' treatment

"Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind," said Mr Grayling.

He said the research Turing carried out during the war at Bletchley Park undoubtedly shortened the conflict and saved thousands of lives.

Continue reading the main story

Turing centenary

2012 saw a series of events that celebrated the life and work of Alan Turing. The events were held to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth

Turing's work helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. He also contributed some more fundamental work on codebreaking that was only released to public scrutiny in April 2012.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed," said Mr Grayling.

"Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."

The pardon comes into effect on 24 December.

Turing died in June 1954 from cyanide poisoning and an inquest decided that he had committed suicide. However, biographers, friends and other students of his life dispute the finding and suggest his death was an accident.

Many people have campaigned for years to win a pardon for Turing.

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Dr Sue Black, a computer scientist, was one of the key figures in the campaign.

She told the BBC that she hoped all the men convicted under the anti-homosexuality law would now be pardoned.

"This is one small step on the way to making some real positive change happen to all the people that were convicted," she said.

"It's a disgrace that so many people were treated so disrespectfully."

Some have criticised the action for not going far enough and, 59 years after Turing's death, little more than a token gesture.

"I just think it's ridiculous, frankly," British home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair told the BBC.

"He's been dead these many years so what's the point? It's a silly nonsense.

"He was such a fine, great man, and what was done was appalling of course. It makes no sense to me, because what's done is done."

'It's very wrong'

Lord Sharkey, a Liberal Democrat peer who wrote a private member's bill calling for a royal pardon in July 2012, said the decision was "wonderful news".

"This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion," he said. "It has recognised a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and injustice with which Turing was treated."

Vint Cerf, the computer scientist known as one of the founding fathers of the internet, also welcomed the development.

"The royal pardon for Alan Turing rights a long-standing wrong and properly honours a man whose imagination and intellect made him legendary in our field," he told the BBC.

Technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch added: "Society didn't understand Alan Turing or his ideas on many levels but that was a reflection on us, not on him - and it has taken us 60 years to catch up."

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: "I pay tribute to the government for ensuring Alan Turing has a royal pardon at last but I do think it's very wrong that other men convicted of exactly the same offence are not even being given an apology, let alone a royal pardon.

"We're talking about at least 50,000 other men who were convicted of the same offence, of so-called gross indecency, which is simply a sexual act between men with consent."

Mr Tatchell said he would like to see Turing's death fully investigated.

"While I have no evidence that he was murdered, I do think we need to explore the possibility that he may have been killed by the security services. He was regarded as a high security risk," he said.

'Not entirely comfortable'

Glyn Hughes, the sculptor of the Alan Turing Memorial in Manchester, said it was "very gratifying" that he had finally been pardoned.

"When we set out to try and make him famous - get him recognised - it was really difficult to collect money," he said.

Continue reading the main story

Big screen

Turing's life is the subject of upcoming Hollywood movie The Imitation Game, which focuses on the cracking of the Enigma code. Starring Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, the film is due for release next year.

Channel 4's TV film Codebreaker, about the highs and lows of Turing's life, was aired in 2011.

And during the 2012 celebrations of the centenary of Turing's birth, a Welsh digital arts festival - the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival - featured a laser image of Turing projected from Conwy Castle into the sky.

Although Turing was born in London, he had strong connections with north Wales.

The Italianate village of Portmeirion in Gwynedd was one of Turing's favourite places.

But it was in northern England where Turing spent the last six years of his life, working at Manchester University in various specialist fields including mathematical logic and philosophy.

"None of the big computer companies would stump up a penny for a memorial. They perhaps would now - we've come a very long way."

But he said he was "not entirely comfortable" that Turing had been pardoned while thousands of other gay men had not.

"The problem is, of course, if there was a general pardon for men who had been prosecuted for homosexuality, many of them are still alive and they could get compensation."

In December 2011, an e-petition was created on the Direct Gov site that asked for Turing to be pardoned. It received more than 34,000 signatures but its request was denied by the then justice secretary, Lord McNally, who said Turing was "properly convicted" for what was at the time a criminal offence.

Prior to that in August 2009, a petition was started to request a pardon. It won an official apology from the prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown, who said the way Turing was persecuted over his homosexuality was "appalling".

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Snowden says 'mission accomplished'

24 December 2013 Last updated at 11:34 ET

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Edward Snowden will deliver a Christmas message on UK TV, as Simeon Paterson reports

Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked details of US electronic surveillance programmes, says he achieved his aim.

"In terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," he told the Washington Post.

"I already won," said Mr Snowden, whose extensive leaks have caused a reassessment of US surveillance policy.

The 30-year-old was interviewed in Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum on 1 August.

Mr Snowden fled the US in late May, taking a huge cache of secret documents with him. He faces espionage charges in the US.

Continue reading the main story

How intelligence is gathered

• Accessing internet company data
• Tapping fibre optic cables
• Eavesdropping on phones
• Targeted spying

"As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself," he told the newspaper.

"All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," Mr Snowden said.

Last week, a federal judge declared the mass collection of telephone data unconstitutional and a presidential advisory panel suggested reforms.

Both the judge and the panel said there was little evidence that any terrorist plot had been thwarted by the programme.

A few days later, in his end-of-year news conference, US President Barack Obama suggested there might be a review of surveillance by the NSA.

In light of "disclosures that have taken place" and public concerns about the programmes, there might be "another way of skinning the cat", he said.

However, he accused Mr Snowden of causing "unnecessary damage" by leaking documents.

President Obama said he would make a "definitive statement" in January about recommendations by the White House panel.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

A child born today will... never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought"

End Quote Edward Snowden

'Going in blind'

The NSA, accustomed to watching without being watched, faces scrutiny it has not endured since the 1970s, or perhaps ever, the Washington Post reports.

Mr Snowden told the newspaper he had no way of knowing whether the public would share his views.

"You recognise that you're going in blind... But when you weigh that against the alternative, which is not to act, you realise that some analysis is better than no analysis."

Later, the UK's Channel 4 revealed that Mr Snowden would deliver its "Alternative Christmas Message" on Wednesday - the broadcaster's answer to Queen Elizabeth II's message to the nation.

In his first TV interview since arriving in Moscow, Mr Snowden would talk about "why privacy matters", it said.

"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought," he was quoted as saying.

"The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying."

More details of people and institutions targeted by UK and US surveillance were published last week by The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel.

The papers said the list of about 1,000 targets included an EU commissioner, humanitarian organisations and Israeli officials including a prime minister.

US technology giants including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are taking steps to block the collection of data by their government.

In October, news that the NSA had monitored the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel triggered a diplomatic row between Berlin and Washington.

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff was also angered by revelations that the NSA had hacked the computer network of Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras to collect data on emails and telephone calls.

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Web archive goes live but not online

19 December 2013 Last updated at 08:06 ET

A major archive of British websites has gone live - but not on the web.

Instead, the project can only be accessed in person from a terminal in one of the British Isles' six biggest libraries.

It follows a decade of legal wrangling between the British Library and publishers.

Restrictions imposed by the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 mean the archive can only be accessed in library reading rooms.

The British Library said that there had been "some discussions into the possibility that the Act might be changed in future so that the archived copies of websites might be made available via the web.

"Making archived copies of material available online, and also allowing it to be indexed by search engines, could potentially affect the volume of web user traffic to the rights owner's live website and harm their business model," the statement added.

The project was announced in April this year and has since been archiving the entire UK web domain, including blogs, public tweets and Facebook pages.

It has already amassed billions of web pages.

'Black hole'

Continue reading the main story

Ten years of foot-dragging and obstructionism by British publishers has resulted in a loss of countless millions of older web pages that are now probably gone forever"

End Quote Glyn Moody Web journalist

Anyone over 18 is able to get a free pass to the reading rooms and the collection can be viewed at the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library and Trinity College Library in Dublin.

Critics have attacked the decision and the length of time it has taken to get the archive available.

"What's particularly tragic here is that the 10 years of foot-dragging and obstructionism by British publishers has resulted in a loss of countless millions of older web pages that are now probably gone forever - and with them, a key part of the UK's early digital heritage," said Glyn Moody on tech news site Techdirt.

Speaking about the archive in April, Richard Gibby, of the British Library, admitted that a lot of material, including information after the London bombings in 2005, has already been lost in a "digital black hole".

Separate to the UK domain archive, the British Library also runs the UK web archive, which has collected more than 13,000 websites with the permission of rights holders. This is freely available online.

In the US, the Internet Archive charity has been copying the web since 1996. Its popular Wayback Machine is an archive of 364 billion web pages, designed to show people what sites looked like in past years.

Meanwhile, the National Library of Norway is planning to digitise all the books written in Norwegian by the mid-2020s.

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Crowd-funded Lego car powered by air

19 December 2013 Last updated at 11:06 ET

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A car made from Lego blocks and powered by air.

An air-powered car built of Lego, that can reach a top speed of around 20km/h (12mph) has hit the roads of Melbourne.

It was built by an Australian entrepreneur and a Romanian technologist who used more than 500,000 pieces of Lego to complete the car.

The crowd-funded project began with a tweet asking people to invest in an "awesome" start-up.

Four air-powered engines and 256 pistons, all built of Lego bricks, enable the car to move.

Everything bar the wheels is made from Lego.

Co-founder Steve Sammartino told the BBC that he was "neither a car enthusiast nor a Lego enthusiast".

"What I am is a technology enthusiast and I wanted to show what is possible when you crowd-fund an idea and use young talented people," he said.

"I met this crazy Romanian teenager on the web and we came up with the idea but I knew that I couldn't afford to fund it," he added.

So he sent out a late-night tweet which read: "Anyone interested in investing $500 - $1,000 in a project which is awesome and a world first tweet me. Need about 20 participants."

Forty Australians offered cash and the Super Awesome Micro project, as it is dubbed, was born.

It took 18 months and a lot more money to build, said Mr Sammartino.

Continue reading the main story

Using Stickle Bricks in the crumple zones would have made for much better crash performance"

End Quote Matt Saunders Deputy road test editor

The car was constructed in Romania by him and his business partner Raul Oaida and then shipped to Australia where large parts of it needed to be rebuilt.

"We drove it in a suburb of Melbourne. The engine is fragile and the biggest fear was a giant Lego explosion impaling passers-by," Mr Sammartino told the BBC.

For the time being he has no plans on expanding the fleet.

"I've been up to my neck in Lego for four weeks and my fingers are still sore so I'm not keen on building another one just at the moment," he told the BBC.

"This can't have been an easy thing to make, let alone to make move. The engine in particular must have required some innovative thinking," said Matt Saunders, deputy road test editor of Autocar magazine.

"It doesn't look too comfortable though, and I wouldn't want to drive it very far. Or into anything by accident. Using Stickle Bricks in the crumple zones would have made for much better crash performance," he added.

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Bitcoin sinks after Chinese action

18 December 2013 Last updated at 06:51 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Bitcoin has fallen to less than half the value it recently traded for, following reports of fresh action by Beijing to restrict trade in the virtual currency.

BTC China has said that local payment companies have been blocked from providing it with clearing services.

It means that the firm - the world's biggest Bitcoin exchange in terms of trading volumes - can no longer accept yuan-based deposits.

Prices tumbled following the news.

One bitcoin was trading for as low as 2,560 yuan ($421, £258), according to the South China Morning Post.

Continue reading the main story

Bitcoin is often referred to as a new kind of currency.

But it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes.

However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to exchange it for.

To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

For each problem solved, one block of bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins.

This provides an incentive for people to provide computer processing power to solve the problems.

To compensate for the growing power of computer chips, the difficulty of the puzzles is adjusted to ensure a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day.

There are currently about 11 million bitcoins in existence.

To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27-34 letters and numbers - which acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.

Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.

These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets which are used to manage savings.

They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned.

That compares with an all-time high of 7,588 yuan ($1,250; £764) in late November.

Exchanges in other countries also reported drops, with Japan-based MtGox seeing the exchange rate for one bitcoin fall from $717 to as low as $480 in Wednesday's trade.

"A lot of people put Bitcoin's rise over recent months to China where interest in it has gone through the roof," said Emily Spaven, editor of digital currency news site CoinDesk told the BBC.

"People are getting frightened that with the new regulations the country could now drop out of the ecosystem. Going forward, it's certainly not the end of Bitcoin, but people have been panic selling."

Currency controls

Virtual currency exchanges in China are not licensed by the country's central bank to accept or pay out yuan to their customers, making them reliant on independent clearing houses to act as middlemen.

"We essentially got notice from our third-party provider today that they will discontinue accepting payments for us and new deposits," Bobby Lee, chief executive of BTC China, told SCMP.

"We're still operating a Bitcoin exchange in China legally, and we're still allowing people to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin, and withdraw renminbi [yuan]."

According to Yicai - a business news website with ties to the government - the news followed a meeting between officials from the People's Bank of China and 10 clearing houses on Monday in Beijing, at which the firms were told they had until the end of January to sever links to the country's Bitcoin exchanges.

This followed an earlier notice, issued by the regulators a fortnight ago, which banned local banks from handling transactions involving bitcoins.

The virtual currency is not backed by a central bank of its own, and is best thought of as being virtual tokens, rather than real-world coins, which derive their value from the ability to exchange them for cash or use them to buy goods.

One expert suggested the crackdown was the result of the Chinese government's fears that locals were using it as a way to bypass currency controls in order to move their savings out of the country.

"China is trying to grow its domestic economy and rebalance it from an export and investment-based model to a consumer driven one over the next decade, and to do that the authorities want to keep as much yuan within the country as possible," said Jinny Yan, an economist with Standard Chartered bank.

"They don't want to curtail any innovation in the financial sector. However, at the moment any unexpected growth and development in channels that allow by-passing of capital controls will cause anxiety."

Ms Spaven added that she believed Bitcoin would eventually bounce back.

"Underneath all the speculative trading is a robust technology that has intrinsic value as a payment network, offering cheaper and faster money transfer than any other options that exist currently," she said.

"If you look at our Bitcoin Price Index, you can see that prices dipped to below the current level this time last month and soon bounced back. I believe the same will happen this time around. It may take some time, but the price will rise again."

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Man handed £400,000 piracy fine

18 December 2013 Last updated at 08:32 ET

A 28-year-old man has been fined 4.3 million Swedish krona - just over £400,000 - for uploading one film to a torrent-sharing website.

He was also given a suspended jail sentence and 160 hours of community service for uploading 517 other titles.

Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance described him as Sweden's "worst ever" pirate.

Copyright reformists criticised the ruling, and said legislation was "outdated".

The Swedish Pirate Party told news site TorrentFreak that "the only way forward is a radical reform of copyright law that allows for the sharing of culture".

In line with typical practice in Sweden, the court requested that media did not publish the man's name.

Good will losses

Film studio Nordisk Film AS - which owns the rights to the title the man uploaded - calculated what it felt was the financial loss of it being shared illegally online. It had asked for double the awarded amount.

Publishers for the other 517 titles - which had been shared on now-closed Swebits.org - did not make an estimation of losses, and so no further damages were awarded.

Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance said in a statement: "The biggest part refers to compensation and should equalise what the man would have paid if he had bought a licence to distribute the movie for free downloads.

"The man is also to pay damages for other losses such as disturbance on the market and goodwill losses."

The Rights Alliance said it planned to bring more cases to trial in the near future.

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Porn filters cut sex education sites

18 December 2013 Last updated at 17:00 ET By Mike Deri Smith BBC Newsnight

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Jim Reed reports for Newsnight on some of the problems with the filters

Pornography filters used by major internet service providers are blocking websites offering sex education and advice on sexual health and porn addiction, the BBC has learned.

The four major internet companies have started to roll out so-called porn filters to their users.

BT launched its filter this week, Virgin has a pilot programme ahead of a full launch early in 2014, and Sky's was turned on a month ago.

TalkTalk's filter started in May 2011.

Last month, Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed "family-friendly" filters and said they were important to stop children "stumbling across hardcore legal pornography".

But BBC's Newsnight has discovered all the major ISPs that have launched full default filters are also failing to block hardcore porn-hosting sites.

All new customers will be prompted to decide whether to opt in or out, while existing customers of major ISPs will be presented with an "unavoidable choice" about whether to sign up.

Among the sites TalkTalk blocked as "pornographic" was BishUK.com, an award-winning British sex education site, which receives more than a million visits each year.

TalkTalk also lists Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre website as "pornographic."

The company also blocked a programme run by sex education experts, and taught to 81,000 American children, that has been in development for more than 20 years.

TalkTalk's filter is endorsed by Mr Cameron but it failed to block 7% of the 68 pornographic websites tested by Newsnight.

Sky's filter fared much better, blocking 99% of sites, but it did block six porn-addiction sites.

Advertising campaign

BT blocked sites including Sexual Health Scotland, Doncaster Domestic Abuse Helpline, and Reducing The Risk, a site which tackles domestic abuse.

In the new year the four major ISPs will fund a £25m advertising campaign to explain the filters and other aspects of children's safety online.

The filters were brought in following increased parental awareness of the ease with which children can access pornography online.

Victoria Shotbolt, chief executive of the Parent Zone, said: "It's great that the four ISPs have got together and are doing an awareness-raising campaign. But it isn't even starting to be enough.

Continue reading the main story

It's really frustrating because I'm trying to provide a sex education site for young people and it's hard enough directing young people to good quality information on the internet"

End Quote Justin Hancock BishUK

"We're focusing so heavily on filters and all of the ISPs having them and public wi-fi having filters that the message getting through to parents is that those filters will do the job."

Justin Hancock runs BishUK and was not aware his site was being blocked by some filters until he was alerted by Newsnight.

He said: "It's really frustrating because I'm trying to provide a sex education site for young people and it's hard enough directing young people to good quality information on the internet.

Over-blocking problem

"They might fix my site in the short-term but what about all the other sites that are out there for young people, not just sex education sites… who are TalkTalk to say what is allowed and isn't?"

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety has a working group to discuss over-blocking.

A TalkTalk spokesman said: " Sadly there is no silver bullet when it comes to internet safety and we have always been clear that no solution can ever be 100%. We continue to develop HomeSafe and welcome feedback to help us continually improve the service."

A Sky spokesman said: "We know that no one single technology currently provides all the answers. That's why we have a quick and easy way for misclassified sites to be unblocked. Any Sky home has the ability to fully customise their filters."

A BT spokesman said: "Categorisations are constantly updated to keep pace with changing content on the internet and we will investigate any concerns and make changes as necessary. BT Parental Controls can be customised to suit each individual family's needs."

Find out more about this issue on Newsnight on BBC2 at 22:30 GMT on Wednesday 18 December.

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App developers must respect privacy

18 December 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET By Carolyn Rice Technology reporter, BBC News

App developers should ensure they do not misuse customers' data, says the Information Commissioner's Office in new guidance.

The ICO says nearly half of all app users have decided not to download an app because of concerns over privacy.

It wants developers to be clear about what data is being accessed and why.

More than 320 million apps were downloaded on the busiest day of last year, Christmas Day, and that number is expected to increase this year.

"The app industry is one of the fastest growing in the UK, but our survey shows almost half of people have rejected an app due to privacy concerns," said Simon Rice, principal policy adviser for technology at the ICO.

"It is important that developers tackle this issue by making sure their apps look after personal information correctly."

Alienating users

The guidance from the ICO reminds developers that they must comply with the Data Protection Act and that users must be properly informed about what will happen to their personal data if they install and use an app.

The ICO suggests that users should be given effective control over their privacy settings. Also the layout of a privacy policy could be better tailored to suit mobile devices with users shown brief but important information first, with the option to click through to another screen for more detail.

Adam Joinson, a professor at the University of the West of England who has researched the link between privacy and new technology, said apps that had a privacy policy that was too generic risked alienating users.

"By asking for too much information they're putting people off using the app. If developers were more canny they'd have fewer issues," he said.

"Users could say, 'I'm happy for an app to have access to my photos but not my address book,' for example."

App designers could be losing out financially because of unsuitable privacy policies which put people off using their products, said Mr Rice.

Simon Lee, chief executive of app development firm Locassa, said the company tailored its data privacy depending on what the app did.

"When we look at how the data is used, we must look at it from a user perspective and ask ourselves, 'Would I be happy with this?' If the answer isn't a resounding 'yes' then there's a strong indication we shouldn't be doing it," he said.

"The bottom line is that users trust us when they install our apps on their devices. We must be careful not to abuse that trust."

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App offers award to crack encryption

19 December 2013 Last updated at 02:58 ET

Telegram, a secure messaging service app, has offered a reward to the first person who can crack its encryption.

The firm's founder has put up an award of $200,000 (£122,000) worth of Bitcoins for breaking the protocol.

To win the award, users will have to intercept a daily message between the founders Pavel and Nikolai Durov to find out a secret email address.

They have to send the decrypted text of the message to the email address to prove they have cracked the protocol.

Telegram, which says it is "the fastest and most secure messaging system in the world", said users would also have to give a detailed description of how they cracked the encryption.

The firm says it will publish encrypted Telegram traffic between the two founders on its website and users can view it in real time.

"To prove that the competition was fair, we will publish the participating keys necessary to decrypt the traffic as soon as a winner is announced," the firm said.

In case there is no winner by 1 March 2014, encryption keys will be published on that date.

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Hackers hit China's central bank

19 December 2013 Last updated at 06:27 ET

China's central bank has been hit by a hack attack that briefly made its website unreachable.

The attack is thought to have been in retaliation for government action to restrict trading in bitcoins.

The Chinese action meant bitcoins fell to less than half the value that they were recently being traded for.

Some online exchanges in China that let people buy and sell the virtual currency were also targeted.

The website of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) and some exchanges were hit by what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service attack. This attempts to overwhelm the servers behind websites by bombarding them with more data than they can handle.

The attacks took place late on Wednesday and meant that the PBoC website was only intermittently reachable. A spokesman for the bank said it was working to get the website running again.

Also hit were bitcoin exchanges such as BTC which said it coped better with the attack because it had been a regular target of DDoS attempts.

In a statement it "strongly condemned" the hackers that targeted the central bank site.

The attacks come after China took steps to limit trade in bitcoins - a virtual currency that many Chinese people are believed to be using to get around restrictions on how much money they can move across the country's borders.

On 5 December, China's central bank issued advice about bitcoin that banned the nation's banks from handling transactions carried out with them.

On 18 December, China took further action by stopping payment providers working with bitcoin exchanges. This led to a 60% fall in the value of bitcoins.

Trade in the digital cash has recovered and now one bitcoin is worth about $620 (£377). This is below the peak reached on 1 December when each bitcoin was worth more than $1,000.

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US spy agency urged to curb snooping

19 December 2013 Last updated at 09:15 ET

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Former NSA director Hayden analyses the panel's report in an interview with the BBC's Katty Kay

A White House panel has recommended significant curbs on the National Security Agency's sweeping electronic surveillance programmes.

Among its 46 recommendations, the five-member panel said the NSA should cease storing vast amounts of data on calls processed by US phone companies.

Details of the snooping programme were leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, now a fugitive in Russia.

The review comes after a federal judge found the programme unconstitutional.

'Public trust' needed

In its 308-page report, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology recommended the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a federal court that handles sensitive national security cases, only authorise the collection of phone data when it was related to a specific international terrorism investigation and was "reasonable" in scope and breadth.

The data should no longer be stored wholesale by the NSA, the panel recommended, instead remaining in the custody of the phone company or a third party.

It also suggested limits on national security letters, which are legal orders giving the government authority to demand financial and phone records without prior court approval. It recommended intelligence agencies obtain a prior "judicial finding" showing "reasonable grounds" that the information sought is relevant.

President Barack Obama convened the panel in August after Mr Snowden began releasing a trove of internal NSA documents to the news media, bringing highly sensitive electronic intelligence programmes to light for the first time and prompting an international outcry over alleged violations of privacy.

Among its recommendations:

• The NSA director should be confirmed by the US Senate, with civilians eligible for the role
• The president should give "serious consideration" to ensuring the next NSA director is a civilian and separate the position from US Cyber Command, a military unit
• Creation of a Public Interest Advocate to argue in favour of privacy and civil liberties interests before the FISC
• More transparency at FISC
• Halting spy agencies' efforts to undermine commercial encryption methods
• Limits on who can access information gained by the NSA
• The president should personally approve all methods used by the intelligence community, including spying on foreign leaders

It is unclear how many of the panel's suggestions, which intelligence officials are likely to oppose vigorously, will be accepted by the Obama administration.

Former NSA director Michael Hayden told the BBC the report's recommendations would complicate the task of intelligence collection.

"Making this more public will shave points off operational effectiveness," he said about the NSA programmes. "But... my personal formula in this is if we don't do that it won't matter because the American people won't let us do it in the first place."

'Respecting privacy'

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Lawyer David Rivkind and Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian columnist, put their arguments forward to Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman

Mr Obama met the review panel earlier on Wednesday.

In a statement, the White House said Mr Obama told its members that "the United States use its intelligence collection capabilities in a way that optimally protects our national security while supporting our foreign policy, respecting privacy and civil liberties, maintaining the public trust, and reducing the risk of unauthorized disclosure".

The panel was comprised of Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism adviser; Michael Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA; University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone; former White House technical adviser Cass Sunstein; and Peter Swire, an expert in privacy law.

On Monday, a federal court in Washington DC found the NSA's mass collection of Americans' phone call information was unconstitutional, in a case expected to reach the US Supreme Court.

Judge Richard Leon called the surveillance programme "indiscriminate" and an "almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States".

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40 million hit in Target card heist

19 December 2013 Last updated at 09:55 ET

Payment details from up to 40 million credit cards could have been stolen after they were used in the stores of US retail giant Target.

The retailer said it was investigating after discovering that thieves had gained access to its payment systems.

The data breach began around 29 November, known as Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The attackers are believed to have been scooping up credit card details for almost three weeks.

"We take this matter very seriously and are working with law enforcement to bring those responsible to justice," said Target boss Gregg Steinhafel in a statement.

In addition, he said, the company was working with a data forensics firm to work out how the theft occurred.

Data-stealing code

Target said the thieves had taken credit card numbers, names, expiration dates and security codes for the cards.

It urged people who shopped at its stores in the vulnerable period to check credit card records and query unusual activity.

"We regret any inconvenience this may cause," said Mr Steinhafel.

Security researcher Brian Krebs, writing about the breach, said sources at credit card payment processing firms had told him the thieves had installed data-stealing code on to card-swipe machines at tills in all 1,797 Target stores.

It is not yet clear how the attackers managed to get their malicious program on to point-of-sale equipment in the stores.

The thieves stole data between Thanksgiving and 15 December, said Target.

The US Secret Service, which has official responsibility for investigating financial fraud, told Reuters it was looking into the breach.

The largest ever credit card breach at a US retailer took place in 2007 when cyber-thieves managed to steal information related to almost 46 million credit and debit cards from TJ Maxx and Marshalls.

The thieves amassed the huge cache of data over an 18 month period after penetrating the retailers' computer network.

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Next-generation USB is reversible

4 December 2013 Last updated at 13:17 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

USB cable developers have announced that a forthcoming version of the connector's plug is to be reversible.

It means users of the Universal Serial Bus cables will no longer have to worry which way round the part is facing when plugging it into a device.

The specification is due to be completed by mid-2014, and the first product on the market by 2016.

It will neuter one of the advantages Apple's proprietary lightning cable currently has over the USB system.

The first USB cable were released in the mid-1990s and, until now, could only be plugged into a computer or other device one way round to ensure a data connection.

The Promoter Group, which agrees the design of the standard, is currently made up of representatives from Intel, HP, Microsoft, Renesas Electronics, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

"Consumers are now demanding thinner and sleeker product designs and the USB 3.0 Promoter Group recognises this need," said the group's president Jeff Ravencraft.

He added that the development was unrelated to Apple's move to a reversible system.

Other changes to the current version - USB 3.0 - include:

• A smaller size, giving the full-size USB Type-C plug similar dimensions to the micro-USB format used by many smartphones and tablets
• Support for scalable power charging, allowing the cable to offer up to 100 watts
• Data speed transfers of up to 10 Gbps, double what is possible at the moment
• A promise that the new design will accommodate further upgrades

"This allows USB to increase performance and continue to deliver ease of use to several evolving product categories for years to come," said Roland Sperlich, from Texas Instruments.

One industry watcher welcomed news of the update.

"I don't think consumers buy devices based on the type of plug, so in terms of driving adoption of a certain type of smartphone, tablet or PC it doesn't make a great deal of difference," said Ian Fogg, from consultants IHS.

"Where I think it is important is the convenience of using the devices, and increasingly USB is used not just to connect and share data, but as a way of charging our machines.

"Anything that makes it easier and more convenient to charge is a good thing as it's something we all have to do very frequently."

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UK paves way for driverless cars

5 December 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET

The government has announced that it wants to make the UK a world centre for the development of driverless cars.

It said it would conduct a review next year to ensure that the legislative and regulatory framework is in place for such vehicles to be incorporated on Britain's roads.

It will also create a £10m prize to fund a town or city to become a testing ground for autonomous vehicles.

Milton Keynes is already experimenting with driverless pods.

By mid-2017 it is planned that 100 fully autonomous vehicles will run on the town's pathways along with pedestrians, using sensors to avoid collisions.

The plans for self-drive cars were announced in the chancellor's National Infrastructure Plan.

Radical change

Continue reading the main story

People will be like the millionaires of old where you just had a driver that did everything"

End Quote Brad Templeton Software engineer

Much of the hype around driverless cars centres around Google. Its self-drive car recently completed 500,000 miles (804,000km) of road tests.

In the US, California, Nevada and Florida have passed legislation to allow driverless cars.

This month Nissan carried out the first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a Japanese highway.

Many envisage a future when we may not own cars at all but simply hail one to fulfil all our transportation needs.

"I call it mobility on demand. You pop out your mobile phone, say where you want to go and how many people and in a short amount of time a vehicle rolls up," said Brad Templeton, software engineer and adviser to Google on its self-drive car project.

"People will be like the millionaires of old where you just had a driver that did everything. These cars will worry about recharging, parking and refuelling. They will drive down a road without you paying much attention to it," he said.

Such cars will make cities both safer and greener, he thinks.

"It will radically change the amount of energy we use, how congested our streets are and eliminate most of the parking lots that take up a huge amount of space in our cities.

"Humans kill 1.2 million people in car accidents each year so the idea of being able to make a safer vehicle is very appealing," he said.

Many think that the issue of who will be liable in the event of accidents will hold up the development of autonomous vehicles but Mr Templeton is not convinced.

"I think only the barristers will find it the most interesting question," he said.

"For me the more interesting question is whether a machine is more liable than a drunk driver. Countries that decide a machine is more liable will slow the development of this technology," he added.

Car manufacturers suggest that autonomous vehicles will be on the roads within the decade.

Google has given 2017 as the date its cars will hit the roads. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk, head of electric car company Tesla Motors, has said he will have such vehicles ready in 2016.

Other car manufacturers, including Daimler and Nissan have given a 2020 date for their own versions.

Much of the underlying technology for autonomous driving is already installed in cars such as the Mercedes S500 which uses onboard radar and 3D stereoscopic cameras to gauge the distance from other cars.

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Five held following Bitcoin scams

4 December 2013 Last updated at 11:41 ET

Suspected Bitcoin fraudsters have been taken into police custody in Germany and China.

The German authorities say they arrested two people following an investigation into malware that generated the virtual currency by infecting its victims' PCs.

Xinhua reports three people have been detained in China after a trading platform was shut without warning, cutting off investors from their funds.

The cases do not appear to be related.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office say one of its suspects was arrested in the southern state of Bavaria and the other in the northern region of Lower Saxony.

Continue reading the main story

Bitcoin is often referred to as a new kind of currency.

But it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes.

However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to exchange it for.

To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

For each problem solved, one block of bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins.

This provides an incentive for people to provide computer processing power to solve the problems.

To compensate for the growing power of computer chips, the difficulty of the puzzles is adjusted to ensure a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day.

There are currently about 11 million bitcoins in existence.

To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27-34 letters and numbers - which acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.

Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.

These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets which are used to manage savings.

They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned.

It accuses them of being behind a botnet that allowed its operators to secretly use other people's computers to carry out "Bitcoin mining".

The technique - which involves using processing power to solve complicated mathematical problems - is used to create a secure record of Bitcoin transactions.

The incentive for the malware's creators to commit their crime was the fact that Bitcoin miners are rewarded for their help with new bitcoins generated as a side-effect of the process.

The reward for each puzzle solved is currently 25 bitcoins, currently worth a total of $29,075 (£17,788).

Bitcoin breached the $1,000 mark for the first time last week.

The police say they are also investigating related cases of fraud, copyright violations and offences related to the distribution of pornography.

Chinese detentions

The Chinese case relates to the closure of GBL, an online Bitcoin exchange platform based in Hong Kong, launched in May.

According to Xinhua, by the end of September it had 4,493 registered members, and a trading volume that made it the fourth biggest in the country.

China's official news agency says that on 26 October the site shut operations, leaving a fake postal address as a contact.

It adds that three suspects were subsequently apprehended in different locations on the mainland.

The agency says that the amount of money involved is unclear. However, the Hong Kong Standard has previously reported that up to HK$31.8m (£2.5m) was at stake.

Bitcoin gained fame in China after film star Jet Li's charity One Foundation received a donation in the currency in April to help the victims of an earthquake.

In recent weeks there have been a series of articles highlighting its use as a way to circumvent restrictions on money transfers out of the mainland - a factor that analysts say has helped propel a surge in Bitcoin's value.

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Google ramps up plan to make robots

4 December 2013 Last updated at 06:37 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Google has revealed it has taken over seven robotics companies in the past half a year and has begun hiring staff to develop its own product.

A spokesman confirmed the effort was being headed up by Andy Rubin, who was previously in charge of the Android operating system.

The spokesman was unwilling to discuss what kind of robot was being developed.

But the New York Times reports that at this stage Google does not plan to sell the resulting product to consumers.

Instead, the newspaper suggests, Google's robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people's doors.

It notes the company has recently begun a same-day grocery delivery service in San Francisco and San Jose, called Google Shopping Express.

That would pitch the initiative against Amazon's Prime Air Project, which envisages using drones to transport goods to its customers by air.

"Any description of what Andy and his team might actually create are speculations of the author and the people he interviewed," said Google of the NYT article.

One UK-based expert welcomed the news.

"This is a clear sign that days of personalised robotic technology entering the mainstream market is imminent," said Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Robotics Lab at the University of Edinburgh.

"Movement and sensing systems for robotics technology have made great strides. Now, with mainstream companies like Google taking up the challenge, other elements such as robust software integration, standardisation and modular design will pick up pace."

The search giant's robotics project is based in Palo Alto, California, and will have an office in Japan - one of the world's leading nations in the field.

Speaking to the NYT, Mr Rubin said Google had a "10-year vision" for bringing the effort to fruition.

"I feel with robotics it's a green field," he said.

"We're building hardware, we're building software. We're building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack."

The companies acquired by Google to jumpstart its effort are:

• Autofuss - a San Francisco company that employed robotics to create adverts. It has worked on several campaigns for Google's Nexus-branded products.
• Bot & Dolly - a sister company to Autofuss that specialised in precise-motion robotics and film-making. Its systems were used to make the film Gravity.
• Holomni - a Mountain View, California-based company that specialised in caster wheel modules that could accelerate a vehicle's motion in any direction.
• Industrial Perception - a Palo Alto-headquartered business that focused on the use of 3D vision-guided robotic technologies to automate the loading and unloading of trucks, and handle packages.
• Meka Robotics - A spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that built robot parts that appeared friendly and safe to humans. Its products included heads with big eye sensors, arms and a "humanoid torso".
• Redwood Robotics - a San Francisco-based company that focused on creating next-generation robot arms for use in manufacturing, distribution and service industries such as healthcare.
• Schaft - a spin-off from the University of Tokyo that focused on the creation and operation of humanoid robots.

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