News companies warned by Twitter

30 April 2013 Last updated at 07:57 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

News organisations including the BBC have been warned by Twitter to tighten security in the wake of several high-profile hacks.

The Guardian became the latest publication to be hit by a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army.

A previous attack on the Associated Press caused stocks to dip.

Security experts have said Twitter itself needs to take more action to ensure its users are protected.

An email sent by Twitter to news organisations on Monday urged them to take a close look at their internal measures for dealing with social media.

Advice included making sure passwords were more than 20 characters long and made up of random strings of letters and numbers.

The social network also advised having just "one computer to use for Twitter".

"This helps keep your Twitter password from being spread around," the site added.

"Don't use this computer to read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware infection."

Security researcher Rik Ferguson, from TrendMicro, told the BBC this particular piece of advice was somewhat unworkable.

"The point of Twitter is that it's instant, and you can react instantly.

"If you have to run back to the office to get to a particular computer to use Twitter, that's obviously going to impact upon its use."

Souped-up security

Twitter also encouraged organisations to have a closer relationship with the site to ensure account details are kept up to date.

"Help us protect you," the company said. "We're working to make sure we have the most updated information on our partners' accounts.

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Dr Herb Lin, a cybersecurity expert, says media agencies are likely to make security changes to their Twitter accounts

"Please send us a complete list of all accounts affiliated with your organisation, so that we can help keep them protected."

Beyond advice to external organisations, there is increasing pressure on Twitter to bolster its own security.

Specifically, there have been calls from security professionals for two-factor authentication.

This would require two steps, the entry of a password as well as another action.

On Facebook, for example, two-factor authentication is triggered when users try to log in in an unexpected way, such as from a computer in a different country.

A report in technology magazine Wired last week suggested Twitter had begun trialling two-factor technology - but this is yet to be confirmed by the company.

Mr Ferguson noted that as Twitter remained a free service supported by advertising, two-factor authentication could prove costly.

He suggested one way to raise funds for enhanced security would be to charge major users to become "verified" - a status currently given to accounts which Twitter has checked are genuine.

"One thing Twitter should be looking at now is for any account which is verified to have a two factor log-in process," he told the BBC.

"If you make a nominal fee for verifying accounts - they can make sure that the accounts are protected from not only malware-based attacks, but also that staff are more protected from phishing."

White House blast

The Syrian Electronic Army's typical tactics to date have included sending "phishing" emails to glean log-in information from unsuspecting victims.

Once access to an account had been gained, the SEA would then begin to post tweets - in some cases mimicking the style of the victim.

This technique was most damaging in the case of the Associated Press. When the news agency's main account - @AP - was breached, the SEA posted that US president Barack Obama had been injured in a blast at the White House.

It was of course false, and swiftly corrected by other organisations - and later by AP itself - but not before $136bn (£88bn) was temporarily wiped off the New York Stock Exchange.

US financial authorities are to investigate the incident to "make sure that nothing nefarious in markets took place", according to the New York Post.

Meanwhile, the SEA - which appears to support the Assad regime - has vowed to continue its attacks on media organisations.

An anonymous user believed to be working for the group told Vice magazine: "They already started suspending us from the internet by closing our accounts, our pages and suspending our domain names, but they failed and they will keep failing.

"We will not stop or despair. If they close a Twitter account, we will open a new one; if they close a Facebook page, we will create another one; if they suspend our domain names, we will buy new ones."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Mobile phone data redraws bus routes

30 April 2013 Last updated at 19:02 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

Researchers at IBM have redrawn the bus routes of Ivory Coast's largest city using mobile phone data.

The research was completed as part of the Data for Development competition run by Orange which released 2.5 billion call records from five million mobile phone users in Ivory Coast.

The anonymised data is the largest of its kind ever released.

Such data could be used by urban planners for new infrastructure projects, said IBM.

Currently the project is just a research exercise although IBM is hoping to implement it in a number of cities.

Its AllAboard project used call data which pinpoints location based on which phone mast a person is close to when he or she makes a phone call.

While this data is less accurate than GPS data, it provided enough information for the researchers to conclude that the city needed to add two routes to its existing infrastructure and extend another.

They concentrated on bus routes in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's largest city, where the network is made up of 539 large buses, complemented by 5,000 mini-buses and 11,000 shared taxis.

"We found that we could reduce the travel times of people by 10% across the city," said Olivier Verscheure, senior scientist at IBM's research laboratory in Dublin.

But the project only scratched the surface of what is possible with such datasets.

"If we could have merged the telco data with city data, such as the bus timetables we could have the potential to completely change the existing network," he said.

Access to such data could play a crucial role in new infrastructure projects such as designing city-wide bike-sharing schemes or charging stations for electric vehicles.

"Analysis of public transport and telco data would show how people move in a city and allow planners to create a bike sharing infrastructure from scratch, for example," said Mr Verscheure.

"It is about understanding how people use a city, their movements and the digital signatures left by public transport to optimise the city's infrastructure."

The project will be presented at a conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on 1 May. At the same time the winner of the Orange Data for Development competition will be announced.

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Nevada opens first online poker site

1 May 2013 Last updated at 06:57 ET

Nevada has become the first US state to allow residents to play poker online for money.

Online poker was legalised in the state in February. And states across the US, probably starting with New Jersey and Delaware, look likely to follow suit.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has issued a 30-day licence to allow websites to compete for customers, with UltimatePoker.com the first to go live.

Online gambling is expected to generate billions of dollars for US authorities.

Losing money

Each year an estimated 10 million Americans play online poker, but the sites are currently based offshore, meaning state and federal authorities make no money from them.

Internet gambling was banned by Congress in 2006, but states across the US now hope to relax the rules.

Under the terms of the Nevada licence, players must be at least 21 years old and residents of the state. Initially, only online poker will be played.

UltimatePoker is a subsidiary of Station Casinos, which operates 16 casinos across Las Vegas.

US group Stop Predatory Gambling has said the alliance between government and the gambling industry is "actively encouraging people to lose money".

More addicts

The UK is often cited as a leader in gambling regulation. Online sites are required to verify identities and link and provide support to help services for addicts.

Butt there has been a big increase in the number gambling addicts in the UK, where online betting is a £2bn industry.

In 2010, research from the Gambling Commission estimated there were 450,000 problem gamblers in the UK, with an average debt of £17,500, 200,000 more than in 2007.

Microgaming Software Systems, based in the Isle of Man, created the world's first online casino 20 years ago.

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US scientists develop smart paper

1 May 2013 Last updated at 10:03 ET

US scientists have developed a way to embed radio frequency identification chips on to paper that they say is quicker, cheaper and offers wider applications than current methods.

The technique could be used to prevent fraud as well as provide a new meaning to the term 'paper trail'.

The process uses lasers to transfer and assemble the chips on paper.

Such smart paper could be used for banknotes, legal documents, tickets and smart labels, the team said.

The findings are due to be presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers conference on RFID in Orlando, Florida.

Cheaper and faster

Some RFID-enabled paper is already on the market but the chips are much thicker, resulting in either bulky paper or a bump on the surface that would mean such paper could not be printed.

The process developed by the team at North Dakota State University is known as Laser Enabled Advanced Packaging (Leap).

Firstly the chips are thinned down using a plasma etcher.

The patent-pending technology uses a laser beam's energy to precisely transfer the ultra-thin chips. Antennas are also embedded using the same method.

Head of the project Prof Val Marinov said that the process is twice as fast as current methods of manufacturing and is cheaper because there is less material used and the equipment is less expensive.

He sees huge potential for the technology.

"About ten years ago the Bank of Japan and the European bank signalled their intention to develop such technology but they aren't there yet," he told the BBC

"I believe our scheme is the first to demonstrate a functional RFID tag embedded in paper."

As well as being used on banknotes and other documents to prove authenticity, the process could also be used in other areas, such as reading train or concert tickets.

It could also be used to improve the tracking of paper documents.

The team is currently looking for commercial partners.

"The technology needs to leave the lab and find a place in industry," said Prof Marinov.

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Spyware 'hiding' under Firefox brand

1 May 2013 Last updated at 12:39 ET

The Mozilla Foundation has accused UK software group Gamma International of falsely associating one of its products with the Firefox name.

Finfisher is legitimate surveillance software thought to be used by governments to covertly obtain data.

It is installed unknowingly by its target computer user, often by disguising itself as an update to a well known programme such as Firefox.

Gamma International has not responded to emailed requests for comment.

University of Toronto research group The Citizen Lab said it believed Finfisher command and control servers were currently active, or had been present, in 36 countries.

In 2011 the BBC found documents in the state security building in Egypt, looted during the uprising, which suggested that the Hampshire-based firm had offered to supply Finfisher to the Egyptian government to monitor activists.

Gamma International denied supplying it but the files seen by the BBC described a five month trial which included successful access to email accounts and the recording of encrypted Skype calls.

The Mozilla Foundation has now sent a cease and desist letter, warning Gamma International not to use the name of Firefox, its open source browser, as camouflage for the program.

"Our brand and trademarks are used by the spyware as a method to avoid detection and deletion," said Mozilla chief privacy officer Alex Fowler in a statement.

"As an open source project trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world, defending Mozilla's trademarks from this abuse is vital to our brand, mission and continued success."

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Scientists make 'bug-eye' camera

1 May 2013 Last updated at 13:31 ET

A digital camera that functions like an insect's compound eye is reported in the journal Nature this week.

It comprises an array of 180 small lenses, which, along with their associated electronics, are stretched across a curved mounting.

The prototype currently has few pixels, so its images are low-resolution.

But the device displays an immense depth of field, and a very wide-angle view that avoids the distortion seen in standard camera lenses.

The development team, led from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US, believes its new imaging system could eventually find uses in surveillance and for endoscopic investigations of the human body.

In their report, the researchers also suggest such cameras could be fitted to tiny aerial vehicles one day that behaved like robotic insects.

At the moment, the "bug-eye" system's vision is comparable to that enjoyed by some ants and beetles.

The expectation, however, is that the array can be greatly enlarged.

"The compound design of the fly's eye incorporates perhaps 28,000 small eyes, or ommatidia," explained team-member Dr Jianliang Xiao from the University of Colorado at Boulder, US. "That's the direction we want to move in," he told BBC News.

In an insect, each ommatidium in the compound eye has a corneal lens, a crystalline cone and a light-sensitive organ at its base. The ommatidia work in unison to build a picture of the world.

In the artificial version, microlenses sit above photodetectors and other electronics, and software stitches together the individual signals.

This whole arrangement is fabricated flat and then moulded to a hemispherical shape to give a 160-degree view. The latest generation of stretchable electronics was key to achieving the desired geometry.

Scientists are keen to exploit the advantages of compound eyes.

For one, they show remarkable depth of field - they can focus on objects at different distances at the same time. They also do not suffer from the aberrations seen in single lens systems when viewing off-axis objects. A good example is the huge distortion observed in wide-angle camera lenses such as the fish-eye.

For an insect, their compound system capabilities make them very sensitive to movement.

"Our system could eventually be used in surveillance cameras. One device of this kind could see 180 degrees. If you had two, you could then conceivably see the whole field of view," said Dr Xiao.

Alexander Borst and Johannes Plett are from the Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany. They are not connected with the research but speculated for Nature on other possible future applications.

"Picture the following: a palm-sized micro aerial vehicle uses an artificial faceted eye to navigate autonomously through a collapsed building while other sensors onboard scan the environment for smoke, radioactivity or even people trapped beneath rubble and debris," they wrote in the journal.

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Ukraine 'worst abuser of patents'

1 May 2013 Last updated at 15:21 ET

US authorities have named Ukraine as the country with the worst record on protecting intellectual property.

A report by the US Trade Representative says Kiev had failed to fight internet piracy and the use of illegal software.

Such software was even being used by government agencies, it adds. Ukraine has been warned it could lose trade benefits if it fails to act.

The report also raises grave concerns about the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets in China.

This is threat to both US companies and national security, it adds.

In the USTR's annual 2013 Special 301 Special Report, Ukraine is, uniquely, dubbed a "Priority Foreign Country" - the USTR's rarely used, bottom-tier judgement of how countries around the world are protecting US patents, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property rights (IPR).

"I regret that the government of Ukraine has earned the first new Priority Foreign Country designation in 11 years due to its severely deteriorating climate for IPR protection and market access, and call upon that government to reverse recent backsliding and swiftly resolve the problems identified today," said acting US Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis in a statement.

"Rogue" groups with links to the Ukrainian government collect music royalties, falsely claiming they are authorised to do so, the report says. There is no remedial action by the government, which itself is a leading user of unauthorised software, it adds.

'Systematic infiltration'

An IPR "action plan" agreed with Kiev in 2010, the report says, has done little to reverse the deteriorating situation.

"Ukraine has become perceived as a safe haven for online piracy enterprises serving other markets," it notes.

Ukraine's designation as a Priority Foreign Country enables Washington to pursue sanctions under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act - either directly or through the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

US media companies welcomed the move.

Meanwhile, China remains among 10 USTR-identified countries given the second-tier ranking of "Priority Watch List" for what the report says is its poor enforcement of intellectual property rights and the "growing problem of misappropriation of trade secrets".

Studies, it adds, "have further indicated that actors affiliated with the Chinese military and Chinese government have systematically infiltrated the computer systems of over 100 US companies and stolen hundreds of terabytes of data, including all forms of trade secrets, such as proprietary technology, manufacturing processes, and confidential business information".

The other Priority Watch List countries named by the USTR are Algeria, Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela.

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Facebook U-turn over beheading clips

1 May 2013 Last updated at 15:25 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Facebook has said it will delete videos of people being decapitated which had been spread on its site.

"We will remove instances of these videos that are reported to us while we evaluate our policy and approach to this type of content," it said.

The news came less than two hours after the BBC revealed a member of Facebook's own safety advisory board had criticised its stance.

The social network had previously refused to ban the clips.

It had said people had a right to depict the "world in which we live".

But the US's Family Online Safety Institute (Fosi) said the violent nature of the material had "crossed a line".

"Personally and professionally I feel that Facebook has got this call wrong," said Stephen Balkam, the organisation's chief executive, ahead of the U-turn.

Charities in the UK had also called on the social network to reconsider its stance saying the material could cause long-term psychological damage.

Graphic violence

The warnings came after a one-minute long video was uploaded to the site last week showing a woman being beheaded by a masked man.

A voice heard on the footage suggests that it was filmed in Mexico.

A second video clip showing the execution of two men has also been shared on the network after being posted last Wednesday. The victims say they are drug smugglers for a Mexican cartel before being attacked with a chainsaw and knife.

Ryan L, a university student from Belfast, contacted the BBC after one of the clips spread around his friends' news feeds.

Continue reading the main story

This is just wrong at every level"

End Quote John Carr UK Council for Child Internet Safety

He said he had flagged the material with Facebook as being inappropriate, but was sent the following reply.

"Thanks for your report. We reviewed the video you reported, but found it doesn't violate Facebook's Community Standard on graphic violence, which includes depicting harm to someone or something, threats to the public's safety, or theft and vandalism."

Facebook initially confirmed it had opted to leave such material online.

In reference to the video showing the woman's murder, it issued the following statement:

"People are sharing this video on Facebook to condemn it. Just as TV news programmes often show upsetting images of atrocities, people can share upsetting videos on Facebook to raise awareness of actions or causes.

"While this video is shocking, our approach is designed to preserve people's rights to describe, depict and comment on the world in which we live."

Safety advisers

For the past three years Facebook has consulted Fosi and four other organisations in North America and Europe to discuss its online safety policies.

Although the group was not scheduled to meet until September, Fosi's head said he planned to raise the issue during an "extraordinary" phone conference.

"Where it gets grey is: what is in the public interest? Is it in the public interest to know what is going on with the drug lords in Mexico?" asked Mr Balkam.

"But given that not only are teenagers accessing this, but consumer reports estimate that seven and a half million under-13s in the US are on Facebook, you've just got to consider: would this go out on daytime television news?

"I don't think it would, even with a warning saying this is something you may want to avoid. It crosses a line."

He added that one of the videos had been shared among his daughter's schoolmates via Facebook earlier this week.

Psychological damage

UK child safety campaigners had also condemned Facebook's policy.

"Facebook must have taken leave of their senses," said John Carr, who sits on the executive board of the UK government's Council on Child Internet Safety.

"I hate to think how an unsuspecting youngster might react if they saw it through their news feed or in any other way."

Decapitation videos can be accessed through sites found via search engines and other popular video clip sites.

However, Dr Arthur Cassidy - a former psychologist who runs a branch of the suicide prevention charity Yellow Ribbon - said Facebook's social nature made it particularly problematic.

He added that he had seen the videos in question and warned they could cause long-lasting psychological damage.

"We know from evidence that [watching] such material can influence self-esteem in a very negative way," he said.

"It can also cause flashbacks, nightmares and sleep disturbance. If that is prolonged it can transfer into many other negative effects in a child and adults as well such as anxiety-related disorders and panic attacks.

"The other problem is some people, in their innocence, might share this with friends to say how abhorrent it is, and we are concerned about the profound and uncontrollable impact this can have on an entire community."

Possible compromise

An online petition calling for Facebook to remove decapitation videos had attracted 289 "likes" at time of writing.

One person who supported the campaign wrote: "The video appeared twice on my news feed. I cannot imagine the impact it will have on a younger person. Facebook needs to create some kind of filter to block these images from appearing in the news feed."

Facebook confirmed that its current privacy tools allowed users to block posts by particular people, but not specific types of content.

Mr Balkam said that finding a way to block the spread of such clips to those who had not opted into receiving them was one idea that could be explored.

"If they are going to host this kind of graphic violence how then can we best prevent those videos getting into the hands of folks who really don't want to see these, including children?" he asked.

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Bitcoins illegally mined on network

2 May 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET

More than $3,700 (£2,400) of the virtual currency Bitcoins has been illegally "mined" by a rogue employee at US games company ESEA.

The company has apologised to its network of gamers who may have been affected.

It said that the scam started in mid-April.

The unnamed employee was part of an official experiment to see whether Bitcoin "mining" was a feature that it wanted to include.

Fervour

ESEA is a competitive games platform on which members compete for cash prizes.

Continue reading the main story

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

But it may be better to think of its units as being virtual tokens that have value because enough people believe they do and there is a finite number of them.

Each of the 11 million Bitcoins currently in existence is represented by a unique online registration number.

These numbers are created through a process called "mining", which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

Each time a problem is solved the computer's owner is rewarded with 25 Bitcoins.

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.

To receive a Bitcoin, a user must also have a Bitcoin address - a randomly generated string of 27 to 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 contained.

The company said in a statement: "With the whole fervour around Bitcoin, we did conduct some internal tests with the [software] client on only two of our own consenting administrators' accounts to see how the mining process worked, and determine whether it was a feature that we might want to add in the future.

"On April 13, after the initial tests, ESEA informed those involved in the test that we were killing the project and they should stop using the beta test," it added.

But it seems that one employee involved in the test continued to use the code "for his own personal gain".

"We are extremely disappointed and concerned by the unauthorised actions of this unauthorised individual," the statement said.

Using the network for this illicit activity will have affected the computing power of individual machines.

'Disturbing'

To compensate its members, ESEA has issued a free month's subscription to members. It also offered computer support to anyone who "has experienced any physical damage to their computers", for example, overheating as a result of the extra processing power.

The company has also released all the details about the scam, including the Bitcoin wallet addresses as well as the data associated with them, in an attempt to be completely transparent.

It will donate all the $3,713 made to the American Cancer Society, and will match the amount from its own coffers.

ESEA has also increased its prize pool by the same amount

"While it's incredibly disturbing and disappointing that this happened, we're committed to improving ourselves and rebuilding trust with our community," its statement concludes.

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Tablet computer sales are soaring

2 May 2013 Last updated at 08:56 ET

Tablet computer sales soared in the first quarter of 2013, growing by 142.4% compared with the same period in 2012, according to analysts IDC.

Figures suggested more tablets were sold from January to March 2013 than in the entire first half of 2012.

Apple remains the dominant brand in the market, with a 58.1% share.

The figures come just days after Blackberry boss Thorsten Heins predicted tablets would be dead by 2018.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the chief executive said: "In five years I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet any more.

"Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model."

According to IDC, there were 49.2 million tablets shipped in January, February and March. Apple's iPad range took the lion's share with 19.5 million units.

"Sustained demand for the iPad Mini and increasingly strong commercial shipments led to a better-than expected first quarter for Apple," said IDC's Tom Mainelli.

"In addition, by moving the iPad launch to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple seems to have avoided the typical first-quarter slowdown that traditionally occurred when consumers held off buying in January and February in anticipation of a new product launch in March."

Other analysts have noted that many newer tablets - particularly 7in (18cm) models - were selling at almost cost price, leading to minimal profits despite the boom in units shipped.

Copycats

Blackberry's own tablet, the heavily delayed Playbook, has failed to meet sales expectations since being launched in late 2011.

Mr Heins told Bloomberg that Blackberry would only consider releasing another tablet if it could be profitable.

Instead, the company is focusing on its revamped smartphone range.

"I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat," Mr Heins said.

But IDC's figures suggested that it would be unwise to write off the tablet format just yet.

"With growth fuelled by increased market demand for smaller screen devices, tablets have shown no sign of slowing down," the analyst firm said.

It pointed out that Microsoft, a relative newcomer to the tablet market, was making modest yet promising progress with its Surface range of tablets - 900,000 units were shipped in the first quarter.

However, the analysts warned that other Windows-powered tablets were struggling to gain traction, with only 1.8 million units sold across all vendors.

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