internet – praag.org

Oxford not fat-shaming McGyver

Oxford Dictionaries announced its latest additions on Wednesday, highlighting the things we were talking about in 2015.

Oxford Dictionaries is the branch of the Oxford family that focuses on modern language—words that people are using now and how they’re using them—which makes their barriers to entry different than the venerable, historical Oxford English Dictionary. Their new words often arise from fresh technology and pop culture and might include Internet slang (like new entry pwnage) that would get laughed out of the OED’s admittance office.

As with every update, the additions reflect who English-speakers are. Sometimes we are microaggressive brain-farters. At other times we are butthurt pocket-dialers. At others still, we are simply hangry fat-shamers or rando Redditors.

Among the lessons about who we are right now: The addition of Mx., a gender-neutral honorific for those who do not want to be referred to as Mr. or Mrs., reflects today’s more thoughtful conversations about gender identity, spurred on by the likes of Caitlyn Jenner. Grexit, a term for referring to the possible exit of Greece from the European Union, points to how global our economy is becoming. And the addition of barbacoa illustrates how much people like Chipotle.

Here is a selection from this latest update:

awesomesauce ( adjective): extremely good; excellent

bants (noun): playfully teasing or mocking remarks exchanged with another person or group; banter

barbacoa (noun): (in Mexican cooking) beef, lamb, or other meat that has slowly been cooked with seasonings, typically shredded as a filling in tacos, burritos, etc.

beer o’clock (noun): an appropriate time of day for starting to drink beer

brain fart (noun): a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly

Brexit (noun): a term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union

bruh (noun): a male friend (often used as a form of address)

butt dial (verb): inadvertently call (someone) on a mobile phone in one’s rear trouser pocket

butthurt (adjective): overly or unjustifiably offended or resentful

cakeage (noun): a charge made by a restaurant for serving a cake they have not supplied themselves

cat cafe (noun): a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises

cupcakery (noun): a bakery that specializes in cupcakes

deradicalization (noun): the action or process of causing a person with extreme views to adopt more moderate positions on political or social issues

fast-casual (adjective): denoting or relating to a type of high-quality self-service restaurant offering dishes that are prepared to order and more expensive than those available in a typical fast-food restaurant

fatberg (noun): a very large mass of solid waste in a sewerage system, consisting especially of congealed fat and personal hygiene products that have been flushed down toilets

fat-shame (verb): cause (someone judged to be fat or overweight) to feel humiliated by making mocking or critical comments about their size

fur baby (noun): a person’s dog, cat, or other furry pet animal

glanceable (adjective): denoting or relating to information, especially as displayed on an electronic screen, that can be read or understood very quickly and easily

Grexit (noun): a term for the potential withdrawal of Greece from the eurozone (the economic region formed by those countries in the European Union that use the euro as their national currency)

hangry (adjective): bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger

kayfabe (noun): (in professional wrestling) the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic

MacGyver (verb): make or repair (an object) in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand

manic pixie dream girl (noun): (especially in film) a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist

manspreading (noun): the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats

meeple (noun): a small figure used as a playing piece in certain board games, having a stylized human form

mic drop (noun): an instance of deliberately dropping or tossing aside one’s microphone at the end of a performance or speech one considers to have been particularly impressive

microaggression (noun): a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority

mkay (exclamation): non-standard spelling of OK, representing an informal pronunciation (typically used at the end of a statement to invite agreement, approval, or confirmation)

Mx (noun): a title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female

pocket dial (verb): inadvertently call (someone) on a mobile phone in one’s pocket, as a result of pressure being accidentally applied to a button or buttons on the phone

pwnage (noun): (especially in video gaming) the action or fact of utterly defeating an opponent or rival

rando (noun): a person one does now know, especially one regarded as odd, suspicious, or engaging in socially inappropriate behaviour

Redditor (noun): a registered user of the website Reddit

social justice warrior (noun): (derogatory) a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views

subreddit (noun): a forum dedicated to a specific topic on the website Reddit

swatting (noun): the action or practice of making a hoax call to the emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address

weak sauce (noun): something that is of a poor or disappointing standard or quality

wine o’clock (noun): an appropriate time of day for starting to drink wine

Source: Time

SA heading for internet censorship

The Film and Publication Board (FPB) has refuted rumours that its Draft Online Regulation Policy will censor internet usage in South Africa.

It says the proposed regulations are to ensure that commercial media distributions do not publish or promote illegal material such as pornography, violence and hate speech outside of the guidelines.

The FPB held a public hearing in Johannesburg on Thursday night to consider objections are from civil society and advocacy groups.

This as the FPB’s Draft Policy on Online Regulations has been met with extreme criticism. It has been called the worst internet censorship law ever planned for this country.

According to the policy, the FPB will have the power to order publishers to remove content they deem unwanted.

This means news agencies which use online platforms may have their content taken down at the discretion of the FPB.

FPB’s Chief Operating Officer, Sipho Risiba, says the regulations are intended for registered distributors of films, games and online content producers and will not affect ordinary internet users.

However, a clause in the policy reads as follows: “With regard to any other content distributed online, the Board shall have the power to order an administrator of ANY online platform to take down any content the Board deems potentially harmful.”

With the proposed pre-classification process, breaking news and citizen journalism could be limited.

Examples of police brutality against thew white minority in South Africa could be censored.

Citizen journalists taking footage of such events on their cellphones to promote social justice issues will no longer be able to post material right away. The draft regulations will take that immediacy away.

he FPB will continue with public consultations on the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga in June and July. Hearings have already been conducted in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Critics maintain that the proposed screening on online material is a gross violation of the constitutional right to the freedom of expression including the freedom of the press.

US Internet control ending

The head of the nonprofit group that oversees the world’s Internet addresses expressed confidence Thursday that it would be privatized and out of US government control by year’s end.

Fadi Chehade’s comments came despite criticism in the US Congress, where some lawmakers have resisted the plan to end Washington’s key management role in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Chehade said all the necessary components for a new stewardship scheme are accounted for and there will be “major legitimizing endorsements” from several countries in coming weeks.

“It is now up to the community to wrap them up, put them in a nice little box with a bow and ship them to Washington,” Chehade said, of the pieces of a plan to supplant a contract ICANN has with the US Department of Commerce.

The comments come a year after the US government said it would end its technical oversight role for the Internet domain system, with the stipulation that it be managed without direct control by governments or intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations.

The US plan seeks to turn over this function to what Chehade calls a “global multistakeholder community.”

Chehade said a growing number of countries, including China and Brazil, have voiced support for this new system.

“When we started we heard things like the UN would take over or China will fragment the Internet. Everyone was in threat and defense mode,” he said.

View galleryICANN is in charge of assigning Internet domain names …
ICANN is in charge of assigning Internet domain names and the numbering codes that lie behind online …
“Now that China has come to the table, and Brazil has done the same, government after government is showing support.”

Chehade said some 150 countries now support the shift of ICANN oversight away from the US government to a globally representative group of governments, civil society and businesses.

– ‘Neutral, well-governed’ –

ICANN is in charge of assigning Internet domain names and the numbering codes that lie behind online addresses. The California-based nonprofit has been overseen by the US government since its inception in 1998, under a contract that expires on September 30.

“I feel the proposal will lead us to a global, independent, neutral, well-governed organization,” Chehade said.

He was optimistic the shift from US oversight would take place by the end of this year, but cautioned that political timetables tend to be elastic.

Chehade dismissed concerns brought up at a House hearing on Wednesday that ICANN was not transparent or accountable enough, saying the organization is open to anyone with ideas regarding how it could be better.

“I welcome the fact that Congress is constantly scrutinizing us; that everyone in the world is constantly scrutinizing us,” Chehade said. “We should always be on top of our game.”

Representative Bob Goodlatte said there had been “concerns routinely expressed by a wide array of stakeholders about ICANN’s trustworthiness, accountability, execution and transparency of its current and existing duties and initiatives.”

The lawmaker also lamented ICANN’s “refusal to deal responsibly with registries that profit from the trafficking of counterfeit drugs and even controlled substances like heroin.”

Last year, some critics in Congress argued that Washington was “giving away” the Internet, posing long-term threats to online freedom and commerce.

Some in Washington have complained that ICANN has failed to crack down on groups that abuse the system, citing domains such as .sucks, which according to critics encourages celebrities and companies to pay out large sums to keep certain websites from going public.

ICANN says it lacks the authority to look into questions of specific abuses but has passed the matter to government regulators.

“I am not a regulator,” Chehade said.

Source: AFP

Soros, Ford shovel millions to control Internet

George Soros and the Ford Foundation have lavished groups supporting the administration’s “net neutrality” agenda, donating $196 million and landing proponents on the White House staff, according to a new report.

And now, as the Federal Communications Commission nears approving a type of government control over the Internet, the groups are poised to declare victory in the years-long fight, according to the report from MRC Business, an arm of the conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center.

“The Ford Foundation, which claims to be the second-largest private foundation in the U.S., and Open Society Foundations, founded by far-left billionaire George Soros, have given more than $196 million to pro-net neutrality groups between 2000 and 2013,” said the report, authored by Media Research Center’s Joseph Rossell, and provided to Secrets.

“These left-wing groups not only impacted the public debate and funded top liberal think tanks from the Center for American Progress to Free Press. They also have direct ties to the White House and regulatory agencies. At least five individuals from these groups have ascended to key positions at the White House and FCC,” said the report which included funding details to pro-net neutrality advocates.

“The biggest money in this debate is from the liberal foundations that lavish millions on self-styled grassroots groups pushing for more and more regulation and federal control.”

Groups funded by Soros and Ford include the Center for American Progress, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Media Matters for America. They received a total of $54,226,097 from the Ford and Open Society Foundations.

Both Ford and Open Society support the initiative.Some of those supported by the two groups’ funding have also worked the White House, notably John Podesta, former Center for American Progress head and now expected to run Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

MRC Business regularly follows the spending and activity of Soros, and even has an initiative to keep an eye on his advocacy called the Soros Project.

Source: Washington Examiner

China shuts down obscene dating sites

China’s Internet regulator has shut 65 dating and other match-making websites after accusing them of spreading obscene content and allowing registration with false names, Xinhua state news agency said on Tuesday.

Sites closed included ones with names like “Get a one-night stand” and “Playing with you net”, Xinhua said, citing the Cyberspace Administration of China.

“These websites allowed the use of false identities at will to register … or spread obscene and lascivious content,” the report said. “The circumstances were serious and the effects terrible.”

State media said last week that the regulator would target fraud on dating websites and other online match-making sites.

China exercises tight control over the Internet, saying that it is needed to ensure social stability and morality and to protect consumers, brushing off concerns of censorship from rights groups.

Source: Reuters

Google CEO predicts totally invasive internet

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday predicted a totally invasive Internet.

At the end of a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where his comments were webcast, he was asked for his prediction on the future of the web. “I will answer very simply that the Internet will disappear,” Schmidt said ironically.

“There will be so many IP addresses…so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won’t even sense it,” he explained. “It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room.”

Concluded Schmidt: “A highly personalized, highly interactive and very, very interesting world emerges.”

The panel, entitled The Future of the Digital Economy, also featured Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and others.

Earlier in the debate, Schmidt discussed the issue of market dominance. The European Union has been looking at Google’s search market dominance in a long-running antitrust case, and the European parliament late last year even called for a breakup.

“You now see so many strong tech platforms coming, and you are seeing a reordering and a future reordering of dominance or leaders or whatever term you want to use because of the rise of the apps on the smartphone,” Schmidt said Thursday. “All bets are off at this point as to what the smartphone app infrastructure is going to look like” as a “whole new set” of players emerges to power smartphones, which are nothing but super-computers, the Google chairman argued. “I view that as a completely open market at this point.”

Asked about his recent trip to North Korea, Schmidt said the country has many Internet connections through data phones, but there is no roaming and web usage is “heavily supervised.” Schmidt said “it’s very much surveillance of use,” which he said was not good for the country and others.

Sandberg and Schmidt lauded the Internet as an important way to give more people in the world a voice. Currently, only 40 percent of people have Internet access, the Facebook COO said, adding that any growth in reach helps extend people’s voice and increase economic opportunity. “I’m a huge optimist,” she said about her outlook for the industry. “Imagine what we can do” once the world gets to 50 percent, 60 percent and more in terms of Internet penetration.

Gunther Oettinger, a conservative German politician serving as the European Union’s commissioner for digital economy and society, said on the panel that “we need a convincing global understanding, we need a UN agency for data protection and security.” Asked what form that “understanding” should have, he said he was looking for “clear, pragmatic, market-based regulation.” Explained Oettinger: “It’s a public-private partnership.”

Source: Hollywoord Reporter

France wants to censor Facebook to stop Jihad recruitment

France is pressing ahead with even greater internet censorship than before, in an attempt to stop the recruitment of Islamic fighters on Facebook and other internet media. Some content may be censored or suppressed in terms of clause 8 of a new law currently before the French Senate. Some commentators have described the law as a serious infringement of individual liberties.

Ten years ago the presence of radical Islam on the internet was limited to about ten highly specialised Salafist websites, as well as videos of Bin Laden or other warriors filmed close up while pronouncing fatwas. Now there are thousands of images, videos and content streaming via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram advocating Jihad and encouraging terrorist candidates to take the next step.

When typing “Jihad beheading” in Google videos, one finds 55 000 answers. It is possible to find within a few minutes the latest edition of the magazine Daqib, the mouthpiece of the Islamic State, comprising 55 pages advocating slavery or showing photos of Kurds executed by Daesh. Many ISIS combatants have quite public Facebook profiles where they post photos in which they pose while brandishing Kalachnikovs and which they use to gain new recruits. The story of Léa, which made the front cover of Le nouvel observatoire magazine last week, is in this respect quite revealing. The young girl of 15 was recruited for committing a bombing in France simply after posting a message saying that she was “feeling depressed”.

‘Radicalisation in the bedroom’

After listening to families of Jihadists who went to fight in Syria, the ministry of the interior noted that everyone told the same story: that of adolescents isolating themselves for hours while watching videos on the internet, radicalised “in the bedroom”. “We realised that most of the profiles of people involved in the Syrian networks are ones without any prior clashes with the law, who are not radicalised in Salafist prayer halls but on the internet and who suddenly appear on our radar screens,” said a source close to the investigation. “The vast majority of the Jihadists have their first physical contact with their recruiters on the Turkish-Syrian border, the rest is simply virtual,” said the official from the place Beauvau (where the interior ministry’s headquarters are situated).

To provoke or defend terrorism is already punishable by law in France, in terms of a law on the freedom of the press going as far back as 1881. The anti-terrorist plan of Bernard Cazeneuve which was voted by the Assemblée in mid-September and presented to the Senate today, is meant to provide new tools for preventing such “radicalisation in the bedroom or in front of the computer screen”.

Making the advocacy of terrorism a criminal offence and banning certain websites

There are two major measures to be taken by France. The first is to make advocacy of terrorism a crime in terms of the law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press and to include it in the new article 421-205 of the French penal code. That will allow for longer bans and bigger fines. Anyone found guilty could be sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a fine of €100 000.

But above all, it will be possible to apply special means to combat cyber Jihad, for example by bugging lines. IT infiltration online without judicial oversight will be authorised.

The most controversial, however, is article 9 of the bill. Characterised by some as an “affront to liberty”, it will allow the blocking of URLs pointing to sites or internet pages where terrorism is advocated, simply on the advice of the police and without any judicial authority. In concrete terms, after a message from the police, a request to ban the site will be sent to the publisher, the host and the service provider of the particular site. If the content is not withdrawn within 24 hours, an administrative authority will be empowered to turn the site off or block it.

Associations defending internet freedom denounce a “draconian law”

If the national commission on information technology and freedom is presented as guardian against possible abuse of the new law, it only has a brief to protect private data and not freedom of expression. Adrienne Charnet, who heads the association Quadrature has denounced the law which according to her is “draconian”. “There are so many barriers to be put in place to avoid abuse that the risk is that we will end up with over-surveillance in society,” she argues. She condemns its “lack of efficiency”: “Anyone who is slightly familiar with the internet could get around these measures.”

“We are aware that it is impossible to suppress the Jihadist propaganda completely but we want to put a few hurdles in the way of its dissemination which is currently limitless,” answers the ministry of the interior. “It should be more difficult for an adolescent to stumble across it.”

No law or policy for ‘mastering the Internet’

Britain’s GCHQ is scanning servers in multiple foreign countries for vulnerable ports, according to German newspaper Heise. Using a tool called Hacienda, the intelligence agency seeks to ‘master the internet’ for sources of espionage.

Spanish for estate, Hacienda can port scan all of the servers in a country to provide information on user endpoints and scan for potential vulnerabilities. The ability to port scan is not new, but the scale of its use by government spies, with 27 countries scanned by 2009, has shocked many familiar with the software.

“In 2009, the British spy agency GCHQ made port scans a ‘standard tool’ to be applied against entire nations,” Heise reports. “Twenty-seven countries are listed as targets of the Hacienda [program].”

The process of scanning entire countries and looking for vulnerable network infrastructure to exploit is consistent with the meta-goal of “Mastering the Internet”, which is also the name of a GCHQ cable-tapping program. Targeted protocols include SSH, HTTP and FTP, among others.

Systems may be attacked simply because they might eventually create a path towards a valuable espionage target, even without indications this will ever be the case. Based on this logic, every device is a target.

The database resulting from the scans is shared with other spy agencies in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. MAILORDER is described in the documents as a secure transport protocol used between the ‘Five Eyes’ spy agencies to exchange collected data.

System and network administrators face the threat of industrial espionage, sabotage and human rights violations created by nation states indiscriminately attacking network infrastructure and breaking into services.

GCHQ says it will not comment on “intelligence matters” but reiterates that everything that it does is done within a strict legal framework. “It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters,” a GCHQ spokesperson told The Inquirer.

“All of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception of Communications and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

“All our operational processes rigorously support this position,” they added.

British intelligence is permitted to go further in surveillance than similar agencies in other Western countries, according to Edward Snowden. The former NSA contractor believes the powers of the British intelligence establishment are not restricted effectively enough by “law or policy”. The lack of legal restrictions allows UK intelligence services to target more people than is necessary.

Source: RT

Seeding the net with false info

The British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.

The tools were created by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), and constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive. Previously disclosed documents have detailed JTRIG’s use of “fake victim blog posts,” “false flag operations,” “honey traps” and psychological manipulation to target online activists, monitor visitors to WikiLeaks, and spy on YouTube and Facebook users.

But as the U.K. Parliament today debates a fast-tracked bill to provide the government with greater surveillance powers, one which Prime Minister David Cameron has justified as an “emergency” to “help keep us safe,” a newly released top-secret GCHQ document called “JTRIG Tools and Techniques” provides a comprehensive, birds-eye view of just how underhanded and invasive this unit’s operations are. The document—available in full here—is designed to notify other GCHQ units of JTRIG’s “weaponised capability” when it comes to the dark internet arts, and serves as a sort of hacker’s buffet for wreaking online havoc.

Source: First Look

Confidence in US news media reach new lows

Level of faith in each of three major US news media platforms tumbles

Americans’ confidence in the news media has tumbled to fresh lows — and it doesn’t much matter whether the source is newspapers, television or the Internet.

A Gallup poll released Thursday found the level of faith in each of three major news media platforms — television news, newspapers, and news on the Internet — is at or tied with record lows, extending a longstanding trend

Confidence in US newspapers was marginally better than rival media, but dropped to 22 percent in the June 5-8 survey — declining more than half from a 1979 peak of 51 percent.

For television news, the percentage of respondents with a good deal of confidence was 19 percent, extending the decline from its 1993 peak at 46 percent.

Just 18 percent said they trusted online news, which compares with 21 percent in the only prior Gallup survey in 1999.

Those identifying themselves as liberals had slightly more confidence in newspapers, while conservatives had a higher level of trust in TV news.

“The field of news media has changed dramatically since Gallup first began measuring the confidence the public held in newspapers or TV news decades ago,” Gallup’s Andrew Dugan said in a blog post.

Source: Yahoo

British child-porn advisor arrested for child abuse imagery

Patrick Rock who served as special advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and played an influential role in the Prime Minister’s national Internet censorship plan, has been arrested for possession of images depicting the sexual abuse of children. The National Crime Agency is conducting forensic analysis of the computer networks at the Prime Minister’s office/residence, Number 10 Downing Street.

The Prime Minister brought him into Downing Street in 2011 to work in the Number 10 policy unit. He took responsibility for home affairs issues and was among officials who were involved in drawing up controls against internet images of child abuse.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “On the evening of February 12, Downing Street was first made aware of a potential offence relating to child abuse imagery. It was immediately referred to the National Crime Agency.

‘The Prime Minister was immediately informed and kept updated throughout. Patrick Rock was arrested at his home in the early hours of February 13, a few hours after Downing Street had reported the matter.

‘Subsequently, we arranged for officers to come into No 10 and have access to all IT systems and offices they considered relevant.

Source: Boing Boing

Forget the Internet. Here comes the Outernet

You might think you have to pay through the nose at the moment to access the Internet.

But one ambitious organisation called the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) is planning to turn the age of online computing on its head by giving free web access to every person on Earth.

Known as Outernet, MDIF plans to launch hundreds of satellites into orbit by 2015.

And they say the project could provide unrestricted Internet access to countries where their web access is censored, including China and North Korea.

Using something known as datacasting technology, which involves sending data over wide radio waves, the New York-based company says they’ll be able to broadcast the Internet around the world.

The group is hoping to raise tens of millions of dollars in donations to get the project on the road.

The Outernet team claim that only 60% of the world’s population currently have access to the wealth of knowledge that can be found on the Internet.

This is because, despite a wide spread of Wi-Fi devices across the globe, many countries are unable or unwilling to provide people with the infrastructure needed to access the web.

The company’s plan is to launch hundreds of low-cost miniature satellites, known as cubesats, into low Earth orbit.

Here, each satellite will receive data from a network of ground stations across the globe.

Using a technique known as User Datagram Protocol (UDP) multitasking, which is the sharing of data between users on a network, Outernet will beam information to users.

Much like how you receive a signal on your television and flick through channels, Outernet will broadcast the Internet to you and allow you to flick through certain websites.

By June of this year the Outernet project aims to begin deploying prototype satellites to test their technology.

‘We have a very solid understand of the costs involved, as well as experience working on numerous spacecraft,’ said Project Lead of Outernet Syed Karim, who fielded some questions on Reddit.

‘There isn’t a lot of raw research that is being done here; much of what is being described has already been proven by other small satellite programs and experiments.

There’s really nothing that is technically impossible to this.

But at the prospect of telecoms operators trying to shut the project down before it gets off the ground, Karim said: ‘We will fight… and win.’

If everything goes to plan, the Outernet project aims to ask NASA for permission to test the technology on the International Space Station.

And their ultimate goal will be to beginning deploying the Outernet satellites into Earth orbit, which they say can begin in June 2015.

Source: Daily Mail

A digital highway for launching cyberattacks

The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials. The technology, which has been used by the agency since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack. In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.

The N.S.A. calls its efforts more an act of “active defense” against foreign cyberattacks than a tool to go on the offensive. But when Chinese attackers place similar software on the computer systems of American companies or government agencies, American officials have protested, often at the presidential level.

Among the most frequent targets of the N.S.A. and its Pentagon partner, United States Cyber Command, have been units of the Chinese Army, which the United States has accused of launching regular digital probes and attacks on American industrial and military targets, usually to steal secrets or intellectual property. But the program, code-named Quantum, has also been successful in inserting software into Russian military networks and systems used by the Mexican police and drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union, and sometime partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, according to officials and an N.S.A. map that indicates sites of what the agency calls “computer network exploitation.”

Source: NYT

Lightbeam tool will expose who is looking over your shoulder

Just who is looking over your shoulder when you browse the Internet? Tomorrow, web users will be given a new tool to shine a light on the commercial organisations which track your every movement online.

Lightbeam, a download produced by Mozilla, the US free software community behind the popular Firefox browser, claims to be a “watershed” moment in the battle for web transparency.

Everyone who browses the Internet leaves a digital trail used by advertisers to discover what your interests are.

Users who activate Lightbeam will be able to see a real-time visualisation of every site they visit and every third-party that is active on those sites, including commercial organisations which might potentially be sharing your data.

Mozilla wants users who install the Lightbeam add-on to Firefox, to crowd-source their data, to produce the first “big picture” view of web tracking, revealing which third-parties are most active.

Lightbeam promises a “Wizard of Oz” moment for the web, “where users collectively provide a way to pull back the curtains to see its inner workings,” Mozilla claimed.

Mark Surman, Mozilla’s executive director, said: “It’s a stake in the ground in terms of letting people know the ways they are being tracked. At Mozilla, we believe everyone should be in control of their user data and privacy and we want people to make informed decisions about their Web experience.”

Mozilla already offers users the ability to disable “cookies” – small files that download from websites onto a computer, allowing advertisers to target users based on their online activity – an option taken up by 18 per cent of UK Firefox users.

Lightbeam will reveal the source of the third-party adverts, scripts and images stored on a web page which are linked to servers in other domains. An expanding graph visualises the interactions between the sites a user intentionally visits and the third parties which may not be welcome.

Mozilla has come under “tremendous pressure” from trade bodies over its mission to bring transparency to the web, said Alex Fowler, the company’s Privacy Officer.

The software company said it was responding to increased privacy concerns following the revelation that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had tapped directly into the servers of Internet firms including Facebook, to track online communication in a surveillance programme.

Firefox released a security upgrade after it emerged that the NSA was exploiting vulnerabilities in the browser to gain access to computers using Tor, a sophisticated anonymity tool.

But Mozilla insisted that Lightbeam itself will not compromise the privacy of users who agree to upload and share data. Lightbeam will not log IP addresses, the information will be aggregated anonymously and the software can be uninstalled, Mr Surman promised.

Lightbeam initially will only be available for desktop browsers. Apple has reportedly rejected from its store apps by developers which incorporate “cookie tracking” technology. “The whole mobile environment is closed,” Mr Surman said. “You have to go through Google and Apple for apps.”

Mozilla, which is developing its own tablet, Mr Surman disclosed, is hosting its UK Mozfest this weekend, a brain-storming “hack”, attended by 1,400 people.

Mr Surman said: “Our focus in on building a web based on openness and transparency. Our dream is a world where people know more about how the web works and take control of their lives online. We need a posse of people to get involved and make that happen.”

He accepted that some cookies can help consumers navigate sites by providing content relevant to the user but said it was important that tracking happens with a person’s knowledge.

Lightbeam is released ahead of “Stop Watching Us,” a “rally against mass surveillance” in response to the Snowden revelations, which will be held in Washington D.C. on Saturday. – independent.co.uk