Category: Science &Technology

Privacy’s future appears muddy at best, judging from a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.

More than 2,500 Internet experts and analysts were narrowly divided on whether policy makers and technology innovators would create a secure, popularly accepted and trusted privacy-rights infrastructure by 2025.

Fifty-five percent didn’t believe a structure to protect privacy would be in place; 45 percent believed such a structure would be created.

“There’s lots of contention about how the future will unfold,” Pew’s Director of Internet, Science and Technology Research Lee Rainie told TechNewsWorld.

Departing from the typical multiple-choice survey methodology, the Pew-Eton researchers asked the hand-picked respondents to elaborate on their yes or no answers. There was a dominant theme in many of their comments, regardless of their views on the likelihood of a strong privacy infrastructure being established in the next 10 years.

“A lot of the people on both sides of the question basically said that life in public is the new norm now,” Rainie said. “Privacy is an activity to be achieved in havens or in special circumstances with lots of effort. The default condition of humans in the post-industrial world is you’re in public all the time.”

Accepting the Fish Bowl

The main driver behind people leading more transparent lives will continue to be the same in the coming years, observed Robert Neivert, COO of Private.me.

“People have begun to accept the concept that they can exchange personal information for services,” he told TechNewsWorld. “In the last six or seven years, we’ve begun to accept that giving up your personal information is a form of currency.”

Today’s privacy debate will bemuse the denizens of 2025, contended Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist.

“By 2025, the current debate about privacy will seem quaint and old-fashioned,” he wrote in his survey comments.

“The benefits of cloud-based, personal, digital assistants will be so overwhelming that putting restrictions on these services will be out of the question. Of course, there will be people who choose not to use such services, but they will be a small minority,” Varian continued.

“Everyone will expect to be tracked and monitored, since the advantages, in terms of convenience, safety, and services, will be so great,” he added. “There will, of course, be restrictions on how such information can be used, but continuous monitoring will be the norm.”

Trust in Transparency

By 2025, the tradeoff between privacy and transparency will determine a person’s trustworthiness, maintained Jerry Michalski, founder of REX — the Relationship Economy eXpedition.

“By 2025, you will be considered a non-person if you do not have embarrassing photos or videos online from your misspent youth,” he wrote in his comments.

“People who were very parsimonious about sharing personal information will be less credible and will be trusted less,” Michalski continued, “because others will not be able to see any of their indiscretions — the things that make them human and more trustworthy.”

Overall, the comments from survey respondents ranged from very optimistic, like those from Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist at Google, to disheartening, like those from danah boyd, a research scientist at Microsoft.

“By 2025, people will be much more aware of their own negligent behavior, eroding privacy for others, and not just themselves,” Cerf wrote.

“Users will insist on having the ability to encrypt their email at need. They will demand much more transparency of the private sector and, especially, their governments,” he predicted. “Privacy conventions will evolve in online society — violations of personal privacy will become socially unacceptable.”
Bloody Mess

The idea of a privacy framework is “a fantasy,” wrote boyd.

“I expect the dynamics of security and privacy are going to be a bloody mess for the next decade, mired in ugly politics and corporate greed. I also expect that our relationship with other countries is going to be a mess over these issues,” she wrote. “People will be far more aware of the ways that data is being used and abused, although I suspect that they will have just as little power over their data as they do now.”

The Internet of Things, which will allow everything from toasters to watches to spew data about their users, will exacerbate the tech assault on privacy.

“Every object will become a spy,” said Privacy.me’s Neivert.

The level of surveillance that exists now will seem pale once everything starts communicating with the Net.

“Once we start wearing the Internet and our appliances are connected to the Internet, the level of observation, data capture and surveillance is going to explode,” Pew’s Rainie said.

Class Warfare

What’s done with that data doesn’t necessarily have to impinge on privacy, noted Alexandra Ross, founder of The Privacy Guruand senior counsel at Paragon Legal.

“There can be great consumer benefit with the Internet of Things, but companies must be more transparent with how they’re collecting, using and sharing that information so that privacy can be protected,” she told TechNewsWorld.

If privacy continues to be eroded, class issues could arise, asserted Alf Rehn, chair of management and organization at Abo Akademi University in Finland.

“As privacy is becoming increasingly monetized, the incentive to truly protect it is withering away, and with so much of policy run by lobbyists, privacy will be a very expensive commodity come 2025,” he wrote in his survey comments.

“Sure, some of us will be able to buy it, but most will not,” he continued. Privacy will be a luxury, not a right — something that the well-to-do can afford, but which most have learnt to live without.”

Whatever the state of privacy will be in 2025, chances are good that it won’t resemble what it is today.

“It will be conceived differently than it is now,” said Lisa Sotto, head of the global privacy and cybersecurity practice at Hunton & Williams.

“We’ll have more awareness as a society,” she said. “As a result of that, we will make more informed and better choices about the use of our data,” she told TechNewsWorld.

“The concept of privacy will shift and much of our lives will be exposed,” added Sotto, “but we’ll have a better understanding of what we want to protect, and we’ll use significant constraints to make sure what we want hidden remains hidden.”

BlackBerry on Wednesday unveiled the BlackBerry Classic, a handset with a full QWERTY physical keyboard, physical navigation keys, and a design that can be best described as “retro,” in that its appearance is virtually identical to the BlackBerry Bold.

The Classic, which is smaller than the company’s recently launched Passport smartphone, targets users who still long for the traditional BlackBerry handset that dominated the smartphone market before the arrival of the iPhone and Android devices.

{{ Truly Classic Design }}

The name perhaps says it best. The Classic is very much a traditional BlackBerry device in design. It features a square 720 x 720 pixel, 3.5-inch touchscreen above the keyboard and navigation buttons. The display is considerably smaller than those of typical full touchscreen devices. It is also smaller than the 4.5-inch screen of the productivity-oriented Passport.

The Classic isn’t exactly cutting-edge on the inside either. It is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm processor and features 2 GB of RAM. It has 8-megapixel rear-facing and 2-megapixel front-facing cameras.

“With this device, BlackBerry has gone back to the basics and returned the design features that users had liked,” said Ian Fogg, senior director, mobile and telecoms, at IHS Technology.

“This essentially reverses the focus that the company had undertaken in 2013 under the previous CEO and focuses on devices with physical keyboards, which BlackBerry had moved away from last year,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

{{Bold Move }}

While the Classic looks virtually indistinguishable from the Bold, it does run on the newer BlackBerry 10 operating system, and it features productivity tools that include the Hub, Assistant and Blend. The Classic also can run Android apps, so it isn’t a totally retro device.

BlackBerry debuted the Classic at an event in New York’s financial district, suggesting that it could be catering to a business-centric crowd that might be drawn to BlackBerry’s vaunted security.

“BlackBerry will aim this device at its loyal customers. Its primary focus is with consumers and business users who like BlackBerry,” said Fogg.

“What is striking about BlackBerry under CEO John Chen is that the company is focusing on a device that will help retain customers,” he added. “The device offers a compelling form factor that can appeal to those traditional BlackBerry customers.”
Back to the Future

BlackBerry is taking a gamble with this nod to “everything old is new again.” It could go over like a lead balloon. On the other hand, the BlackBerry Classic could be the company’s equivalent of Coca-Cola Classic, which rose from the ashes of the despised New Coke. Like the beverage, it could prove that you shouldn’t mess with a good thing, and that loyal customers will in fact remain loyal to what they like.

“Releasing a BlackBerry Classic is a great idea from a product management point of view,” said Steve Blum, founder and principal analyst at Tellus Venture Associates.

“People like the form factor,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “It offers unique functionality — you operate a physical keyboard differently than a virtual one, and some people clearly prefer it.”

When considering product success, one must question whether it is due to the designers offering consumers genuinely new functionality or a better way to meet a preexisting need.

“The original Blackberry design still does what it was originally intended to do better than anything else — at least for some people,” Blum suggested. It provides access to “messages, phone calls and contact and calendar info, accessible via a keyboard many find comfortable.”

{{ Or Just Backward }}

However, the functionality that BlackBerry offers — and much more — can be found on other devices. With that in mind, BlackBerry may be attempting to recapture its glory days without offering enough that is actually compelling to core users.

“BlackBerry will not get ahead by going backwards, the same way a car designed 20 years ago will not do well today,” said Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.

“The past is past, and no matter how much we want to reconnect to the past, we live today and in the future,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

“BlackBerry’s Classic devices were rejected by mainstream consumers in the past — why would they embrace them now?” Entner pondered.

“People want bells and whistles, they want a large screen, they want touchscreen,” he maintained. “For most people it is the better solution, because they do more than type these days.”

{{ IT Support }}

BlackBerry always has offered devices that appeal to IT departments. The new Classic thus could have a place in the enterprise, if it should strike a chord with both IT managers and users.

“To win with enterprise, you need to show IT that you have the security, but also have to keep users happy,” said Fogg. “It is that bit that the company is hoping to achieve with BlackBerry Classic.”

While the company has seen its market share slide in recent years, Chen’s strategy could be to carve out a niche with a seemingly old school device.

“The Classic Blackberry design is here to stay, just like the flip phone,” observed Blum.

“It’s a convenient — small, rugged and long battery life — way of packaging a limited set of important functions,” he said. “Few people will make it their first choice, but many will love it as their second phone — the company phone they carry for their job, or the one they stuff in a pocket on the weekend.”

Tech News World

{The Secretary’s Office of Global Partnerships (S/GP) at the US State Department has partnered Girl Up, Intel, Microsoft and the Rwandan Girls Initiative to launch a girls STEAM camp in Rwanda next year.}

The partnership, with the support of the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI), is hosting the camp in order to advance and expand opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to young African girls.

The “Women in Science and Innovation” camp will take place in the summer of 2015 in Rwanda and will promote the advancement of women and girls in STEM education and STEM careers.

“STEAM” is derived from the traditional STEM acronym while additionally incorporating the fields of Art and Design for creative and innovative engagement.

“The goal of this new partnership is to empower young women with the knowledge and skillset to be competitive during a time of rapid technological development, by providing them with access to high-tech resources, like-minded peers, business connections, and inspiring mentors,” the State Department said.

The camp will bring together over 100 African and American girls for a three-week session on computer science, robotics, entrepreneurship and design, taught in highly personalised small classes.

The participants will partake in cultural exchanges, receive specialised training in STEM fields, and build leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The camp will also have a mentorship component to assist participants in obtaining internships and securing scholarships for college.

Source: Disrupt-Africa

{India has successfully launched its largest rocket and an unmanned capsule which could send astronauts into space. }

The 630-tonne Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (MK III) blasted off from Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday morning.

The new rocket will be able to carry heavier satellites into space.

India has successfully launched lighter satellites in recent years, but has faced problems sending up heavier payloads.

K Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organization (Isro), told reporters that the test flight mission had been a success.

“It is a very significant day in India’s space history.”

The new rocket is capable of carrying communication satellites weighing 4,000kg, reports say, meaning India will not have to reply on foreign launchers to do so.

The main passenger in the rocket was an Indian-made capsule capable of carrying two to three astronauts into space.

Isro said the human crew capsule has “safely splashed down into Bay of Bengal off Andaman and Nicobar Islands” and that the experiment was successful.

Correspondents say this is the beginning of what could be India’s foray into the human space flight programme.

Isro has sought funding from the government to send its astronauts into space and become the fourth country in the world to do so.

India is emerging as a major player in the multi-billion dollar space market and has undertaken several missions.

In September, it successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming the fourth nation or geo-bloc to do so.

{{BBC}}

Facebook is considering ways users can express their feelings beyond the Like button, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday.

“We’re thinking about it,” Zuckerberg said when asked whether the social network would ever add the long-requested dislike button.

He quickly clarified that such a button likely wouldn’t say “dislike” on it. Instead, he said, people often want to react to posts they see on Facebook with sentiments other than “like.”

“Everyone feels like they they can just push the Like button, and that’s an important way to sympathize or empathize with someone,” Zuckerberg told the audience. But there are times when you may want the simplicity of a one-click response but a “like” doesn’t feel appropriate, he added.

“We need to figure out the right way to do it so it ends up being a force for good, not a force for bad,” he said — because a “dislike” or other negative sentiment could easily be used for the wrong reasons. It’s worth noting this isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has claimed to be “thinking about” a dislike button— he’s made similar comments as far back as 2010.

The Facebook CEO also defended the social network’s recent controversial real names policy, which requires Facebook users to identify themselves by their legal names, saying it encourages accountability among users.

“It’s part of building a safe community,” he said. 
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“On Facebook, most people refer to themselves by their real name and that’s a very important part of our culture.” “On Facebook,
most people refer to themselves by their real name and that’s a very important part of our culture.”

The goal, Zuckerberg added, is to make the social network a “reflection of real world relationships” and that the real name policy “grounds everyone in that reality.”

He also addressed another recent controversy: Facebook’s experiments. Specifically, the highly cited emotional manipulation study that experimented with hiding various posts on users’ news feeds to see whether it would affect their mood.

“Testing is a really important part of how Facebook works overall,” Zukerberg explained.

He initially defended the test saying the company thought it “had a responsibility to the community” to investigate issues that could affect the “emotional or psychological wellbeing” of users. “We could have done it a lot better,” he said.

Zuckerberg was also asked about his New Year’s resolutions, which included becoming fluent in Mandarin. He revealed his goal for 2014 was to send one thank-you note a day, and said he’s still not sure about his 2015 goal.

Mashable

{Groups of high school girls studying computer related combinations are participating in a global technology entrepreneurship competition to create mobile for apps which they will be given an opportunity to sell in local markets.}

‘Technovation challenge’ is program in which teams of secondary school girls aged between 13 to 18 supported by local mentors, who are accomplished women professionals in ICT field from IT companies, training institutions and government; use their creativity to develop mobile applications start-ups to solve problems in their communities.

Girls from 13 schools have recently participated in hands on workshop dubbed’Technovation Hackday’ at US Embassy to launch the competition.

They were facilitated by mentors to work on mobile apps development projects and brainstormed on ideas to implement for the Technovation challenge.

Valina Umutako ,a pupil from Gashora Girls Academy is a participant. She said: “we learnt a lot about technovation program, types of apps design, and steps to building apps, there are many students from different schools who got to know each other and formed groups and we were able to make a small app which is a good experience for us.”

Local mentors say the tech challenge promotes tech entrepreneurship among Rwandan women at a younger age and contributes to the software industry growth, as some graduates lack skills needed on the market.

“I personally, want to become a computer engineer, so actually ‘Technovation’ brought up the passion in me, it taught me what the computer engineering is and I liked it very much and am willing to make it my future profession .”added Ms. Umutako

Guillaine Neza is a mobile apps developer at Partners in Health and mentor. She says, the technology challenge’s impact on girls in Rwanda is exposing them to hands on activities that will prepare them for a successful career in ICT, highlight their dreams and showing them a possibility to get there.

Creating apps for a meaning

“I want to be an app developer and makes business out of it, to be selling apps to solve problems in my society: there are various problems in Rwanda which could be solved technically using technology. “Explained Umutako

Ideas brainstormed during the workshop to kick off the tech entrepreneurship challenge , includes among others apps ideas to find solutions on epidemic diseases testing ,mobile banking, education ,businesses, medical doctor shortage at hospitals .

Huguette Mfizi also participated in the Technovation Hackday, She said:” I am a happy because I learned many skills on how to create mobile applications, as I want to be a software developer and design many applications for my community to make some work easier.”

Amandine Manwanijimbere takes Maths physics and computer science. She narrated: “We were introduced to Technovation program ,today we had sessions in which we have been brainstormed for solutions, where we applied skills we were introduced to for solving a given problems that we see in our community .”

The school girl added, as she has been working in a girl empowerment club at school, she is trying to find a solution to connect the girls all over Rwanda.

Self-Confident

“I am confident that we will make it to the global level, the first thing is to identify a very good team to work with and I guess at my school, we have a very nice team and we know so many people here who can help us through the journey of Technovation and we are planning to use the resources available.” Explained
After 3 months mentorship, there will be two pitches to do to the Technovation judges, one is regional via skype and the next one is in USA in front of a panel of judges in San Francisco Silicon Valley.

“ICT is a tool to facilitate anything so you can be it in agriculture, business and engineer, where we need ICT to make what we are doing faster and easier. I encourage girls and others to learn ICT and use it in their daily life, advised Manwanijimbere

{Apple have named their games of the year for iPhone and iPad as Sirvo’s Threes and UsTwo’s Monument Valley.
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The two paid-for apps will enjoy a significant boost in sales during the Christmas period as a result of Apple’s decision.

Both games appeared in our own list of the best games of 2014.

For the developers of Threes – a maths-based sliding tile puzzle game – the award will be a moment to savour after a year that has seen their own success diminished slightly be a slew of free-to-play clones of their original title.

Chief among those clones was 2048, which became so successful that some players criticised Threes for being a clone of it. Safe to say however that Threes is the original, and the best.

As for perspective puzzler Monument Valley, the award comes not long after developers UsTwo suffered a small but vocal backlash from some gamers for charging money for new in-game content.

On their blog UsTwo thanked Apple for the “tremendous honour”.

Earlier in the year both games won Apple design awards.

Apple’s decision is also a victory for quality over quantity, as both paid-for games don’t come close to the free-to-play install-base success of other games like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft was runner-up in the iPad category, while Leo’s Fortune came up just short for the iPhone crown.

IBtimes

{Cybercriminals will train their gaze on Apple more often next year. Attacks on OS X have begun to rise, and an acceleration of those attacks is likely, SentinelOne noted, because Apple continues to grow its share of the enterprise market, where it has become a darling of executives who are ripe targets for hackers. Apple’s security problems are compounded by its reputation as a “safe” platform.}

Cyberspies will flourish and hackers will target Apple devices more often in 2015.

Until now, Russia, China and the United States have dominated the cyberespionage scene, but their success will start to attract new players to the practice.

“We can expect some of the developing economies — countries forecasted for high economic growth — to engage in these activities to protect their growth status,” Carl Leonard, a senior manager at Websense Security Labs, told TechNewsWorld. “Those players have yet to be revealed.”

“Cells” that will remain independent of the nation-states they’re operating in will supplement those efforts, launching operations that advance the objectives of their native countries, according to Websense. That kind of activity already has been seen in Russia and China.

Russian cyberattacks on the West, as a form of retaliation for political actions taken against the Kremlin, will continue, forecast SentinelOne.

A lack of accountability within the Beijing regime will allow China’s cyberespionage efforts to continue unabated, the firm also said.

Further, there will be an acceleration of cyberespionage activity by Pakistan, SentinelOne predicted, mostly directed at India. It will be outsourced, with contractors hired to write malware and orchestrate attacks.

{{
Apple in Crosshairs }}

Pakistan may be in the forefront of a trend SentinelOne predicted for 2015: Attacks as a Service.

Instead of shopping here and there to gather the tools for an attack, SentinelOne explained, an attacker will be able to go to a website, choose malware, choose what to steal — banking credentials, healthcare records, credit card numbers and such — request a number of infections, and pay for the package.

While most cyberespionage has been directed at computer systems, cyberspies increasingly will target mobile devices, predicted Michael Shaulov, CEO of Lacoon Mobile Security.

“We’re going to see more attacks that are leveraging WiFi hotspots, fake base stations or even more aggressive exploitation of mobile browsers or messaging applications,” he told TechNewsWorld.

Cybercriminals will train their gaze on Apple more often next year.

Attacks on Apple’s OS X desktop operating system have begun to rise, SentinelOne noted.

An acceleration of those attacks is likely, the firm said, because Apple continues to grow its share of the enterprise market, where it has become a darling of executives who are ripe targets for hackers.

Apple’s security problems are compounded by its reputation as a “safe” platform, according to SentinelOne. That has resulted in the production of few products that can handle advanced threats against Apple devices.

The same is true for Apple’s mobile platform, iOS.

“iOS was reasonably very safe up until recently, but over the last two to three months, cybercriminals have leveraged the apps in the platform to attack the devices,” Lacoon’s Shaulov said.

“That makes sense, because iOS is getting more traction in the market,” he added, “and the data being placed on the iOS devices is more valuable.”
Internet of Things

The Internet of Things also will become an attack surface in 2015.

Printers, smart TVs, appliances, wearable computers — a whole host of cloud connected devices will be a new source of cyberthreats in the coming year, predicted Willy Leichter, global director of cloud security for CipherCloud.

“It’s like any new technology. The standards haven’t solidified. No one has looked at the underlying security,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“There are also a lot of open source tools used by these devices that may have vulnerabilities,” Leichter added.

Although they will leverage the IoT in 2015, hackers will be less interested in victimizing consumers than in using smart devices to target businesses, noted Websense’s Leonard.

“Because these devices are Web-enabled,” he said, “they give hackers an additional entry point into a business. That’s what’s going to intrigue the malware authors and what they’ll be attacking in 2015.”
Breach Diary

Nov. 23. Symantec releases report on Regin, a nation-state quality spyware program that it says has been snooping on governments, infrastructure providers, researchers and individuals since at least 2008.

Nov. 24. Sony Pictures Entertainment shuts down its computers after its sites are vandalized by group calling itself the “Guardians of Peace.” Systems could be offline from one day to three weeks, Sony said.

Nov. 25. ARC Group, of New York City, donates US$500,000 in software and services to University of Albany to establish a center to investigate and resolve cybersecurity breaches.

Nov. 26. IntelCrawler identifies Point of Sale malware that it’s calling “d4re|devil,” or Daredevil, which is attacking ticket machines and electronic kiosks, incuding ticket machines used in mass transit systems. Malware contains both RAM scraping and keylogging capabilities.

Nov. 27. Home Depot, in SEC filing, reports it’s facing at least 44 lawsuits stemming from data breach this year that placed at risk 56 million payment cards of its customers.

Nov. 27. Gigya, a targeted marketing provider, reports traffic to its website is being redirected to server informing visitors that company’s website has been hacked by Syrian Electronic Army.

Nov. 28. Poland’s Supreme Audit Office reports country’s government institutions are ill-prepared for cyberattacks and not cooperating well-enough to deal with online threats.

Tech News World