Labels: China, Chinese Study, Eurosurveillance Journal, Internet, Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, March 28, 2020

The Censoring Dilemma

"His work has inspired countless plots and attacks. It's hate speech. It should come down, period. Like child porn, it should be expeditiously removed."
"There are a lot of sources for the teachings of Islam that do not come from a man who became one of the world's most notorious terrorists."
Mark D. Wallace, chief executive, The Counter Extremism Project, Washington

"Some people seem to think there's a one-to-one  relationship between watching these videos and carrying out terrorist attacks, but people watch these videos for all kinds of entirely legitimate reasons. {Censoring them] would certainly make it more difficult for ordinary citizens to learn the motivations, grievances and worldview of those who call for violence against Americans."
Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union

"[YouTube has] clear policies prohibiting terrorist recruitment and content intending to incite violence. [But it permits] videos posted with a clear news or documentary purpose."
YouTube statement

"The half-life of Awlaki's message is amazing. It really is like plutonium. It's toxic, and it doesn't go away."
Patrick M. Skinner, former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer

"It's not a technical problem. It's a policy issue. I think the speech and privacy issues are tricky."
"But to say there's nothing we can do about it is cowardice."
Hany Farid, professor of computer science, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire

Anwar al-Awlaki was a United States-born cleric and propagandist for Al Qaeda. Credit Site Intelligence Group, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Anwar al-Awlaki was the first American citizen who was deliberately targeted in a strike carried out under the direction of the CIA by Joint Special Operations Command in 2011 in Yemen when two Predator drones hit the vehicle he was in, killing the occupants. The cleric was completely committed to being the influential voice of al-Qaeda, inspiring recruits to kill Americans by planning and directing attacks against civilians.

Since his death his recorded sermons have served to inspire countless jihadists.

He inspired the shootings by Nidal Hassan that took place at Fort Hood, Texas, the brothers Tsarnaev  Boston bombing atrocity, and the most recent slaughter in San Bernardino, California, along with numberless other aspiring jihadists. Some of whom have simply continued his style of propaganda and efforts to enlist recruits to jihad, along with those who have carried out their own attacks in deference to the urgings of al-Awlaki.

His videos, along with bomb-making instructions, are readily available on the Internet, and have never lost influence among jihadi aspirants. A growing movement, as a result, aimed at influencing Internet companies to remove his work is gaining momentum. The impact of his influence is undeniable, and even while free speech and the freedom to access information and data is celebrated, it's difficult to find anything positive in the ready availability of bomb-making instructions and the Islamist-inspired urging to commit murder.

The issues of technology, national security, freedom of speech and religious messaging are all involved. The weight of the cons against the pros dictate that the formidable power of the man's Islamist influence be removed from easy access. The fact that as a cleric he recorded lectures on the life of the Prophet Mohammad complicate matters further; on the one hand he could be conceived of as an expert on Islam; on the other a proponent of the fierce ideology of violent jihad.

Muslim activists along with civil libertarians who have never seen an issue surface that they couldn't defend with breathless asperity in the name of liberty, balk at the very thought of eliminating access to this man's hateful legacy. A civil rights group located in Washington, Muslim Advocates, rejects a ban on the cleric's recordings, claiming that YouTube should remove any violence-inciting material irrespective of its source "and not make an exception based on people's faith".

Twitter suspends accounts of Islamic State supporters using their site for messaging. The largest collection of Awlaki's inflammatory material, though found in many places on the web, is distinguished on YouTube which has been unmoved by calls to remove the cleric's most provocative material. A search for "Anwar al-Awlaki" will produce over 61,000 results, many representing explicit endorsements of violent attacks on Americans.

Alexander Meleangrou-Hitchens, a lecturer at King's College London, has pointed out that Awlaki's lectures on "The Hereafter" which purports to examine the Islamic concept of paradise, actually helps jihadists to "rationalize and come to terms with their own deaths, thus helping them prepare for attacks".

Labels: Internet, Islamism, Propaganda

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 10, 2016

Cyber-Security Vulnerability

"Organizations can't say, 'We're losing the arms race'. They have to say they are bulletproof. It is a business reality."
"Let's say RBC comes out and said, 'We're really not that good at privacy. We probably have some problems protecting  your data'. Would you bank there?" 
"If [companies] have valuable data, breaches are mathematically inevitable."
Scott Montgomery, chief technical strategist, Intel Security Group, Intel Corp.

"If they haven't been breached, they will be. I think every organization will concede today that it'll only be a matter of time. [Attackers] are spending lots of time learning and looking for vulnerabilities. In many cases, the attackers know more about the internal IT infrastructure than the organization knows."
Ali Solehdin, senior product manager, Absolute Software Corp., Vancouver

"I said, how's it going? And she said, 'I really don't know. It's so hard to manage. I'm not sure which tools are valuable [in cybersecurity] and which aren't." This was the response that Scott Montgomery got from questioning a woman who was the CIO of a global enterprise in speaking of her organization's fight to combat data breaches; using a web of 80 cybersecurity tools, built by 60 manufacturers.

What is known is that confidential data are stolen and leaked just about everywhere now. In the process disrupting operations, cutting into stock prices and having a price of millions in cleanup attempts. Yet most company heads state with seeming confidence that their data are entirely safe. And then, when it becomes public knowledge that they've been breached, they express the quandary of helplessness.

And they end up like Toronto's Avid Life Media Inc., facing lawsuits seeking class-action status in Canada and the United States when the "King of Infidelity" was brought down some notches as Ashley Madison accounts were made public  and the company squirmed attempting to evade responsibility for its attitude of confidentiality not backed up by true security.



Breaches have become commonplace. FireEye Inc.'s latest annual threat report states that the presence of breaches typically go unnoticed for about 205 days before the discovery is made that security is a word, not a reality. According to a survey by PwC cybersecurity, incidents detected by 9,700 respondents increased in 2014 to 42.8 million, representing 117,260 attacks a day. They increased from 20.5 million in 2013 and 3.4 million in 2009.

In many instances, when breaches are revealed, it is discovered that there are disaffected people with personal grievances against a specific company involved; current and former employees. PwC claims staffers represent the most-cited culprits of security breakdowns. The number of corporate email addresses found in the Ashley Madison database represents a case in point.

In conversation with an American two-star admiral in charge of the Navy network rife with malware, Scott Montgomery recalls telling him that the situation of infected files and vulnerable systems represented a potential disaster The admiral was unconcerned until he was made aware that the intelligence used to complete military missions could be compromised and possibly altered by an adversary.

Labels: Cyber Espionage, Internet

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Jihadi Public Relations

"They want Europeans in general. They want anyone to come, to fight, to create the Islamic state, to make the caliphate."
"We estimate there could be five thousand and within the year, there could be ten thousand. ... We are facing not just a problem of security, but a problem of society."
Sebastien Pietrasanta, French lawmaker

"They are able to reach and find out what is important to these people, what motivates these people, and then they create an ability to fill that need, initially through the social media, Internet."
"And then when they bring them on board, they continue to address these basic wants, of value, of a purpose -- a sense of something as a part of a larger good. And whether it's right, wrong or indifferent, they are able to reach into these people and find that motivation."
Air Force General Philip Breedlove, NATO supreme allied commander for Europe


"It is phenomenally exciting for them to be part of this, this secret club. And once that takes root ... that excitement completely outweighs anything we can do to try to counter it."
John G. Horgan,  University of Massachusetts' Center for Terrorism and Security Studies

That problem within society is the sinister attraction of fanatical Islamist jihad to impressionable people in the West not averse to flirting with brutally radical Islam. Not just young Muslim men and women who think of themselves as Islamic idealists yearning for a return of the fabled 'caliphate' that would unite all Muslims worldwide in a ironclad union capable of assuming control and command of the non-Muslim world under the aegis of the caliphate, but Westerners who admire the fanatical appeal, eager to ally themselves with what they feel is a conquering horde.


The skills learned in the West by Islamists who grew up there and became adept at using American-style public relations and publicity to advance a cause are being used to great effect by Islamic State publicity. Their news and propaganda organ, Al-Bayan reaches tens of thousands in an audience with links shared on social networks. And through those links and the smooth delivery that vaunts itself as a new and exciting way of life open to all through jihad, Europeans are being attracted in ever greater numbers.

The newcast for Al-Bayan, the voice of Islamic State, sounds like a National Public Radio knock-off. and Western governments appear incapable of doing anything to intervene. "Soldiers of the Caliphate" are given breezy accounts of the latest news for Islamic State which never looses a skirmish, always succeeds in killing its enemies, and goes swiftly from one victory to another on its way to conquering the world. Irresistible for psychopaths who appear never to get enough of gory details and videos, thrilled to their very core.

And so, they bestir themselves to be part of this brave new world where killing and mutilation is the way to go, with no restraints on the imagination for those whose warped mental condition stills them to the pain and suffering inflicted on other human beings. The world has no shortage of sociopaths and psychopaths, young and old, from various ethnic backgrounds and cultures, excited by the prospect of the kind of life that Islamic State so generously offers, inclusively.

"We thank our listeners for tuning in" blandly closes the show after the narratives and the news. The broadcasts come complete with martial music and soothing tones of the announcers with quite distinct British accents though they are hardcore Islamists eager to spread the word to the world at large. They broadcast in three languages now, speaking of the huge successes of suicide attacks, and the martyrs that make them all possible, an honour to aspire to.

Those who have experienced this brilliant new way of life and who have decided to abandon their lives under Islamic State don't seem eager to inform the world why they have turned their backs on their former aspirational presence with ISIS. A third of European fighters are said to have returned to Europe, while others continue to stream out of Europe to take their place in Syria. Of course the fact that ISIS threatens those who abandon them with death is a powerful deterrent against betrayal.

There are calls, nevertheless for new recruits to join the jubilantly successful jihadists and in the process to make something useful of their lives. Doctors are needed and one video shows physicians in scrubs featuring an Australian with blue eyes in a neo-natal ward. Physicians are promised that they will be aiding Muslims suffering from "a lack of qualified medical care", so a sense of mission of another kind imbues the message.

On the broadcasts there are regular presenters; one woman from Glasgow who aids British girls to reach Syria; a fighter from the Netherlands who obligingly offers jihadi interviews, a Frenchman exhorting his countrymen to emigrate to the new caliphate. Brookings Institute researchers J.M. Berger and Jonathan Morgan discovered over 46,000 Twitter accounts actively supporting Islamic State, within a two-month period. If one account is shuttered, others swiftly emerge.

The battle for contact in the social universe of the Internet seems to be swinging toward Islamic State.

Labels: Internet, Islamic State, Propaganda, Social Media, Social-Cultural Deviations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Unlimited, Unpoliced Freeforall

"Privacy has never been absolute right, and the debate about this should not become a reason for postponing urgent and difficult decisions [achieving balance between privacy and security]."
"They [ISIS] are exploiting the power of the web to create a jihadi threat with near-global reach. The challenge to governments and their intelligence agencies is huge  -- and it can only be met with greater cooperation from technology companies."
"There is no need for today's would-be jihadis to seek out restricted websites with secret passwords: They can follow other young people posting their adventures in Syria as they would anywhere else."
"I understand why they have an uneasy relationship with government. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly, their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."
"However much they may dislike it they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us."
"I suspect most ordinary users of the Internet are ahead of [technology companies]: They have strong views on the ethics of companies, whether on taxation, child protection or privacy; they do not want the media platforms they use with their friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse."
Robert Hannigan, director, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), London

This is an undated image of GCHQ in Cheltenham England released by British Government on Tuesday Nov. 4. 2014

Here are the giants of social media, reamed out for their enablement of terrorist groups like ISIS to reach their target audience with no shield, no guardians, nothing to stand in the way of their ability through the auspices of networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google to send their bleakly nihilistic message to susceptible young Muslims to join them in violent Islamist jihad. With no reason to hide their presence, since there are no penalties, ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked groups flaunt their presence openly.

Their supporters and members now understand full well they have the freedom to download whatever they wish to, to make whatever incendiary statements that appeal to them, whatever slanderous incitements they lay claim to, with no sword of potential banishment hanging over their keyboards. The new director of Britain's electronic eavesdropping agency has challenged the American companies dominating the Internet to do better.

To do something, almost anything, to turn the situation around. Pointing out that foreign jihadis in Syria and Iraq had realized a picnic of released information from the leaked intelligence hijacked and publicized by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. He spoke scathingly of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham representing "the first terrorist group whose members have grown up on the Internet", glorying on the Internet, enabled by social media.

European government officials have already on earlier occasions conferred with companies like Microsoft and Twitter to reach some kind of understanding on how terrorist groups utilize the social media networks to proselytize, gain new adherents, convince new recruits that their futures lie with committing to extremist expressions of violent jihad, surpassing all previous terrorism successes in convincing recruits to jihad.

Unlike in the past when al-Qaeda groups "saw the Internet as a place to disseminate material anonymously or meet in 'dark spaces', [ISIS] has embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people and radicalize new recruits." He referred in specific to messaging and social media sites and apps, exampling Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

He has called for greater cooperation with intelligence and surveillance agencies on the part of the social media sites, as a commitment to aid against the conflict with Islamofascism. Taking their example from more tightly regulated telecommunications companies. The looseness of experience in the casual interplay between legitimate and forbidden videos was amply demonstrated in June when ads for the National Citizen Service, a British government organization, the BBC, charities and corporations ads ran next to extremist videos.

Videos spreading Islamist propaganda meant to stimulate young Muslims to join the conflict in Syria were presaged by legitimate government and business advertisements, creating an impression adverse to controlling the violently nihilistic message openly advanced by fanatical Islamists whose goal is the destabilization of Western democracies in pace with the growth and forward march of their extremist totalitarian ideology.

Islamic State Times @ISTimes2  ·  Nov 4
The mea culpa advanced by YouTube was its unfortunate automated advert allocation, lacking the sensitivity and common sense of a human hand discerning between the legitimate and the obscene. The added gut-punch was that ads-generating money could have been funnelled to the extremists since YouTube, like most sites, shares income from advertisers with groups providing content.

Labels: Britain, Internet, Islamism, Propaganda, Social Media, Technology, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 06, 2014

The Digital Seduction of Jihad

"I cannot overstate it -- at the heart of jihad worldwide, in Syria and Iraq, as well as what is happening now in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, are American social media companies."
"They are helping to drive it. If it were not for them, recruitment, fundraising and communication would not be what they are."
Every major designated terrorist organization is active on all of these accounts [YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.]"
"Now, tweeting from the battlefield gets your message out in a second everywhere throughout the Middle East and the West. It is absolutely effective."
Steve Stalinsky, executive director, Middle Est Media Research Institute, (MEMRI), Washington

		Twitter/Abu Turaab
Mohammed Ali posted this photo of “Abu Dujana.” It was taken in Dier Ezzor, Syria’s sixth largest city. (Abu Turaab / Twitter) - See more at: http://news.nationalpost.com/canadian-isis-fighter-abu-turaab-identified-as-mohammed-ali/#sthash.XdUkaZQT.dpuf

This is the single common thread that connects the global narrative of communication between jihadists and their prospective recruits. With those who haven't made the leap from their faith in Islam to embrace violent jihad but who waver in indecision having their minds settle finally on a resolute and binding determination to adapt themselves to the radicalization of their faith in the belief that this is god's will, because the murmurings and on-line pressures are so persuasive.

The message that has been inexorably spread through the Internet finds itself inveigling the worm of honour-in-jihad and martyrdom-for-the-cause into the minds of the uncertain and the doubtful, imbuing them with the final certainty that they have chosen, with a little bit of help from the Ethernet doubling as god's whisper to them personally, scrubbing any doubt that they might not chose the right path, has become paramount in the march of new recruits to terrorism.

All the old platforms and the smaller, newer, and trendier ones like Ask.fm, Kik, WhatsAPP and SoundCloud, have become popular venues through which the message of jihad can be spread, the vulnerable exploited through the process of constant reinforcement. The messages can be found wherever those looking for affirmation search for them, landing neatly and appealingly in their iphone messages, never far from hand and eye.

Communication is immediate, compelling, satisfyingly solution-oriented. Audios, speeches, videos from the front lines, how-to guides to the perplexed, and personal encouragement along with hip jokes and camaraderie right directly, and instantly, to the smartphone. Mr. Stalinsky has the expertise to interpret all of this, and more, and he knows with the unerring clarity of an expert in online communications and security where all the assistance comes from.

The social media companies whose close-up-and-personal message-enabling has become a vital part of everyone's personal, social and business communication life expedites those darkly menacing aids to jihad as adeptly and swiftly as they do the loving messages from family and the supporting ones from friends and acquaintances, along with the business alerts that users are so attuned to. Twitter, he contends is the major jihadi platform today through its lack of proactive monitoring.

Let's not, while we're at it, overlook LinkedIn for its inestimable assistance in facilitating links to Islamist terrorists. Sending out suggestions to anyone who might wish to be 'linked' to terrorists like Chiheb Esseghaier, arrested by the RCMP and charged with plotting to commit a terrorist act in Canada but whose presence on LinkedIn has never been taken note of, with the site continuing, since his arrest to promote him as a "valuable contact who may help you in your career".

Chiheb Esseghaier phD student at INRS

Labels: Internet, Islamism

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, October 25, 2014

Turkish PM Erdogan criticises Twitter court ruling

The court had told the country's telecommunication authorities the two-week-old ban must be lifted as it was a breach of freedom of expression.

Mr Erdogan had vowed to "wipe out" Twitter after users spread corruption allegations involving him and his son, which he denied.
On Friday another court ordered the lifting of a similar ban on YouTube.

Mr Erdogan said his government had complied with the ruling on Twitter but that he did not respect it.

"I don't find it right and patriotic that the Constitutional Court has adopted such a decision," Mr Erdogan said, according to the Hurriyet website.

"While they are protecting an American company, our national and moral values are being disregarded."

Friday's ruling regarding YouTube reportedly stated that 15 videos should remain blocked.
Users across the country had found many ways of circumventing the prohibitions, which were widely criticised and ridiculed.

 
Mr Erdogan ordered the Twitter ban after recordings of corruption allegations linked to him and members of his family were posted and shared online. He said the recordings were fake and edited.

The ban was imposed on 21 March on the grounds that Twitter had failed to remove the allegations of corruption involving senior officials.
However the constitutional court ruled on 2 April that the ban was illegal.

On Thursday, Twitter's public policy team said it was "encouraged by the news from Turkey" and welcomed Turkish users back to the site.

Following the Twitter ban, the government had also banned access to YouTube, after a video on the website appeared to reveal top officials discussing how to stage an undercover attack inside Syria.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is apparently heard asking about the possibility of sending tanks in.

The YouTube recording, posted anonymously, has not been verified as authentic. Mr Erdogan alleges that such recordings are being fabricated to turn people against him.

The Washington Post published a transcript of the leaked security meeting, "courtesy of a veteran translator" who asked not to be named.

Mr Erdogan has lashed out at social media, accusing "plotters" of leaking recordings to deliberately undermine him.

One of those he has accused is a US-based Islamic cleric and former ally of his, Fethullah Gulen.
Mr Gulen has denied allegations that he is involved.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul, a Twitter user, has spoken out against the bans.

During big anti-government demonstrations last year, protesters made heavy use of both Twitter and Facebook to spread information.

Labels: Communications, Conflict, Internet, Intervention, Turkey

posted by Pieface @ Friday, April 04, 2014

Much Ado About Twitter

"The shutdown of an entire social platform is unacceptable. Besides, as I have said many times before, it is technically impossible to close down communication technologies like Twitter entirely. I hope this measure will not last long."
President Abdullah Gul, Istanbul, Turkey

"Prime Minister Erdogan's move spells the lengths he will go to censor the flood of political damaging wiretap recordings circulating on social media."
Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher, Human Rights Watch

"Twitter, schmitter!"
"I don't care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Millions of Turks have responded to their prime minister's edict that Twitter, for them, no longer exists as a social tool with which to mock the dignity of their government. In response to which, Mr. Erdogan's collegial partner in the elite echelons of governance, the president himself, mocked him on his personal Twitter account.

The absurd spectacle of a prime minister of a first-world country living a third-world reality of tyranny, threatening to "root out Twitter" itself makes a mockery of the descent of sanity into delusion. Turkey's prime minister is raging-hot furious that his veneer of integrity has been shattered by recent revelations. Revelations brought to the fore by a long, secret investigation by police, augmented by the judiciary.

The corruption scandal that has brought his government colleagues into disrepute and which has taken the great man himself and his son into the country's burgeoning annals of recorded ill-doing has destroyed the carefully engineered image of a trustworthy and proud government ruling Turkey through grand Islamist ideals, overruling well over a century of Kemal Ataturk's democratic secularism.

Just as Mr. Erdogan rooted out the old guard in Turkey's elite levels of the military to ensure they could not foment a rebellion against the rule of the Islamist Justice & Development Party, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the government, sending 330 of Turkey's military to prison, senior commanders for life, he turned his attention as a result of the corruption scandal to arresting police and lawyers and jurists in mass arrests.

The corruption charges stem from an orchestrated slander attack by his "enemies" using social media to wage their war. In obedience to Erdogan's demand that Twitter be shut down in Turkey its telecommunications regulator defended the ban, issued, they insisted, to protect the rights of Turkish citizens as Twitter had bypassed orders to block specific accounts. While defending themselves in a Turkish court, the social platform did even more.

Instructions to Turkish users of Twitter were tweeted to Turkish users; how to bypass the closure using text messaging services in both Turkish and English. A few major Turkish newspapers where no love is lost between the Prime Minister for his repressive treatment of journalists, have published step-by-step instructions on how to bypass the shutdown using virtual private networks.

Within twelve hours of the ban the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey had been copied over a half-million times, reflecting Turkey's position as among the top ten users worldwide of the social network platform. But it is President Gul's open defiance of the Prime Minister's truculent orders that represents the real blow to Erdogan in the lead-up to local elections.

That's when, on March 30, Turks will be given the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction on the rule of their prime minister and his Islamist party. And that's when the interesting part of all this turmoil will kick into full gear.

Members of the Turkish Youth Union hold cartoons depicting Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a protest against a ban on Twitter, in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, March 21, 2014. Turkey's attempt to block access to Twitter appeared to backfire on Friday with many tech-savvy users circumventing the ban and suspicions growing that the prime minister was using court orders to suppress corruption allegations against him and his government. Cartoon in center reads: Erdogan, left, to his Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek " we will rip out the roots of Twitter." Gokcek: "don't say it." (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Labels: Communication, Corruption, Internet, Social Dysfunction, Turkey

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, March 25, 2014

BlackBerry Ltd to cut 4,500 jobs, announces close to $1-billion writedown

With no buyers in sight, and a massive inventory of unsold phones, BlackBerry Ltd. will cut 4,500 jobs worldwide as executives seek to keep their company alive as it teeters on the brink of disaster.
The struggling Canadian smartphone maker also announced Friday afternoon that it expects to post a loss of nearly US$1-billion dollars when the company reports its second quarter earnings next week, citing “the increasingly competitive business environment impacting BlackBerry smartphone volumes.”

The move confirms an earlier report that the company had plans to reduce its workforce by up to 40% by year’s end, as part of ongoing restructuring efforts.

For many Canadian investors, it is an eerie reminder of Nortel Networks’ last days, when plummeting sales, heavy write downs and widespread layoffs sent the country’s last reigning tech giant into a free-fall from which it was unable to recover.

“The company has sailed off a cliff. What do you expect when you announce you’re up for sale. Who wants to commit to a platform that could possibly be shut down?” said BCG Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

BlackBerry has slashed more than 7,000 jobs since 2011, and hundreds more in recent months, as it struggles to compete with competitors such as Apple Inc., Google Inc. and even Microsoft Corp., whose smartphones and app ecosystems have proven more attractive to consumers — and even enterprise customers — than BlackBerry’s own.

“They’re trying to arrest their slide by cutting head count. I think that’s going to make it really difficult,” said Pacific Crest Securities analyst James Faucette.  ”There’s also some hope that by taking these steps right now, it helps cleans things up for any type of potential deal or acquisition that they’ve been very forthright about seeking.”

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company is also expected to write down as much as US$960-million in unsold inventory — based mostly on the severely diminished value of its Z10 touch-screen phone.  It’s last three write downs — a pretax expense of US$485-million in December 2011, a second charge of $267-million the following March and a third write down of US$335-million in June 2012 — were attributed, in part, to the company’s similarly ill-fated PlayBook tablet.


BlackBerry’s fate is inextricably tied to the success or failure of BlackBerry 10, the smartphone maker’s revamped mobile operating system, launched in January to much fanfare by chief executive officer Thorsten Heins.

Mr. Heins is planning to reduce his company’s total headcount to 7,000 full-time employees worldwide as part of ongoing cuts. The company had 12,700 employees as of the end of March, the last time it has reported the size of its workforce.
In August, chief executive Thorsten Heins announced the formation of a special committee to examine the company’s “strategic alternatives.” Such alternatives could include a joint venture, a move to go private or an outright sale. The committee is still evaluating its options, according to a statement from the company.

In a surprise move, the company announced a restructuring of its smartphone portfolio from six devices to four, with two high end and two-entry level phones. BlackBerry’s flagship Z10 device – which was used to launch its revamped BlackBerry 10 platform – will be “re-tiered” as an entry-level device, alongside the company’s recently announced Q5. The BlackBerry Z30 – a new, 5″ smartphone announced this week – and the Q10 with QWERTY physical keyboard, released in April, in will be considered the company’s high-end phones.

BlackBerry sold about 5.9 million smartphones in the second quarter, it said, down from 6.8 million in the quarter previous. It also anticipates $1.6-billion in revenue – with service revenue, generated primarily by 3.7 million legacy BlackBerry 7 devices, accounting for about half of that figure.
“The revenue and device shipment numbers are pretty surprising given how weak it is. I think many of us were expecting a pretty difficult quarter, but this much worse than we anticipated,” said UBS Research analyst Amitabh Passi.

BlackBerry also announced plans to reduce operating expenses by approximately 50% by the end of Q1 FY2015. The company is expected to report $2.6-billion in cash, and no debt.

The adjusted second-quarter net loss will be as much as US$265-million, more than triple the loss expected by analysts.

But amid all of the company’s early financial disclosures, an update on its ongoing pursuit for a saviour was nowhere to be seen.

BlackBerry is due to report second-quarter earnings on Friday, Sept. 27.

Labels: Canada, Internet, Technology

posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 20, 2013

Security Haven

"We are extremely disappointed that the Russian Federation would take this step. Obviously this is not a positive development.
"We are evaluating the utility of a summit."
The Russian decision to give official haven to Edward Snowden "undermines a long history of law enforcement co-operation...".
White House press secretary, Jay Carney

A long history of law enforcement co-operation -- between the White House and the Kremlin? That will be news to many. Now, if he spoke of a long history of conflicted resolutions, unhelpfully malicious opposition, strident demands, imploring entreaties and failed expectations that might have seemed more reflective of the state of "co-operation" between Russian and American authorities.

Slight exemptions exist, as in, for example, the intelligence that was forthcoming from Russian authorities to Americans at the time of the Boston Marathon bombings. That was then, this is now, and it's like apples and oranges; they're not the same fruit. When it comes to threats recognized by he United States against its interests; think North Korea, Iran, Syria; Russia is non-co-operative.

And while the United States fulminates and blusters, issues statements of disappointment and regret with undertones of returning the compliment, might even the most casual of international observers feel that the United States, with reversed situations, would happily hand over a Russian who had absconded with Russian intelligence, prepared to hand it over to the United States?

Of course, Vladimir Putin is strategically playing both to ends; on the one hand he cagily insists that Russia has no interest whatever in taking possession of any of the purloined documentation, and forbids Edward Snowden under pain of ejection from his safe haven, should he release any further documents, and on the other, he has finally appeared to relent in the face of the young man's dilemma, offering him asylum.

Edward Snowden will not pay the price of choosing to betray the trust placed in him as a secure risk in American intelligence gathering, if the Kremlin has anything to do with the matter. And since Edward Snowden's erratic flight took him to the various venues where he was certain national disinterest in furthering the interests of the United States could be assured, their reaction did have a great deal to do with denying America its prosecution of a traitor.

And as of two days ago, Edward Snowden was politely escorted out of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport to the safety of Russian-shielded anonymity, while accused by his country of espionage activities. The Russian Federal Migration Service has issued a document passing as a passport, good for one year, but eminently renewable. And permitting the man who prefers Russian-style democracy and government respect for the rule of law, judicial, corporate and social corruption to that of his native land's.

Of course this has nothing whatever to do with any kind of objective respect for human rights, privacy, protection from government surveillance of its citizenry or conflicting political stances between the two countries. It is, simply, Russia's larger, broader, more all-encompassing concern for truth and justice. While America seeks to prosecute an insider who accuses it of peeking into peoples' privacy, Russia has earned its reputation as an abuser of the press; worse, complicity in deadly brutality against journalists.

But the United States is capable of rallying civilized world opinion against the Kremlin's decision to prosecute and persecute their already-hidden gay community, taking steps to ensure that the international community arriving in Sochi for the Winter Olympics know that they too will be targeted for prosecution under Russian law if they so much as wink at one another.

None of this is the work of Vladimir Putin, needless to say.

The decision, insists Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the great man, rested solely with immigration officials. "It has nothing to do with the president or his administration", said Mr. Ushakov. Surely he crossed his heart, crossed his fingers and toes, when he said that. Crossed his eyes and winked insanely?

As for the United States administration in defence of its huge Internet, email, smartphone scrutiny in the interests of public safety and the net of danger cast over America by Islamist terrorists...how other than by using this wide-net system would they ever have come to the conclusion through picking up Internet messages that a new jihad-attack plot has been hatched by al-Qaeda, leading to the temporary closure of American missions in selected Muslim countries?

Um...yes!

Labels: Communications, Controversy, Hypocrisy, Internet, Islamism, Russia, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 03, 2013

Espionage, Intrusion and Security

Years ago, long before countries entered the modern era of electronic surveillance through the Internet, Britain raised international eyebrows and criticism from its peer countries, let alone groups invested in issues of privacy and human rights for its move to install thousands of closed-circuit video cameras in public venues. That issue became the bane of civil liberties groups and other privacy social advocates. It was 'way ahead of the game.

British authorities remained unfazed and proceeded with the installation of those monitoring cameras in public venues, insisting that their installation represented a move forward in authorities' need to respond to the growing incidence of public crime. Police and public security had another tool to effectively follow the activities of social deviants who set out to destroy public property and to haunt the vulnerabilities of the law-respecting public.

Of course, long before the advent of those first closed-circuit video cameras there was the kind of human intelligence agencies, as security arms of the government that engaged famously in political and commercial espionage. To gain both political, military and industrial knowledge from both friends and foe, almost alike. To have an intelligence leg-up on what one's colleagues and adversaries were about. Admittedly that was before international terrorism entered the equation.

And now that Wikileaks surfaced on the global scene, along with its righteously determined Julian Assange and his multitude of supporters, we have additional intelligence leakers, like Army pcf Bradley Manning, and now private security contractor Edward Snowden, both believing that they were behaving in a responsible manner, alerting ordinary citizens and leaders of other countries alike, to the vast volumes of confidential secret data being acquired through espionage.

The United States intelligence community, so eager to portray China as the world's most egregious spies, revealed to have captured secret bulk data acquired through a massive U.S. surveillance project, spying on its allies like Germany, for example. Tapping into fibre cables to defy security of national interests, Internet access is eased by Five Eyes collaboration, an alliance of the U.S. Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

And, as much as the United States has gained massive data through its wide-and-deep covert espionage, according to Edward Snowden, now ensconced in Hong Kong with possible extradition to his home country on the near horizon to face serious espionage charges, it would appear through information he released to the Guardian that Britain's espionage network has surpassed even that of the U.S.

According to the Guardian, quoting Edward Snowden, the surveillance he has highlighted represented "not just a U.S. problem. The U.K. has a huge dog in this fight.... The (GCHQ) are worse than the U.S." Not a very happy endorsement for the state of privacy and security in either country. Where the ethics relating to espionage on citizens is raging.

By last year, according to Guardian accounts, GCHQ was handling 600 million telecommunications each and every day. When under attack, deny: "Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate", assured a GCHQ statement.

Sounds familiar, having heard the original of this clone previously.

It is simply our governments taking the initiative to protect us, and if we don't like it, well fellas, too bad. The world we all inhabit is a dangerous place.

Labels: Britain, Communications, Internet, Security, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 22, 2013

Honour Among Thieves

It wasn't all that long ago -- several months back in fact -- that newspapers were full of accounts of Chinese cyberspying on vital American sites, both federally official arms of the American government and industrial sites. The Chinese up to their old tricks, busy with official-secrets and industrial espionage, eager to take possession of both state secrets and confidential files meant only for privileged U.S. authorities, along with corporate blueprints that could give the Chinese an enterprising leg up.

Why waste time in formulating successful entrepreneurial and scientific formulae when same could be had through subterfuge and illegal cyber-entry to restricted sites, allowing the downloading of vitally useful information?

Much indignation ensued. Accusations and counter-accusations. Denials and 'proof' that made hash of those denials, since the intrusions were traced directly to Chinese military infrastructure; if the cyber-hacking wasn't institutional, directed by the Government of China, it was encouraged by that same government to allow cleverly skilled Chinese to infiltrate secret sources that would prove useful to China.

Latterly, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping met in California on a semi-official get-together to discuss the thorny issue of cyber-espionage, both agreeing that it was unfortunate and unhealthy for the furtherance of peace and understanding, respect and mutual regard for countries to embark on such disreputable issues such as espionage, federal or industrial.

Each country ostensibly interested and invested in consolidating a more co-operative connection with one another. Each represents, after all, a world power. In a world that seems to grow increasingly unstable, incrementally.

Now a self-aggrandizing and hawkishly self-righteous tilter-at-windmills has emerged. Betraying his own country's security intrusions, he has laid wide open the United States' hypocrisy in accusing China of what it is itself guilty of, and more. Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, assures newly-outraged Americans -- furious now at their own government for its spying proclivities against its own population, let alone foreign elements -- that it is all perfectly legal: "The legality has been assured by the Department of Justice", he has informed the House of Representatives' judiciary committee.

For, it seems, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "has ruled on these two programs, monitors these two programs and has assured the legality of the efforts undertaken in these two programs"... and this, under a president in whom Americans placed their trust that he would lead them to a path quite different from those which his predecessors -- in particular the much-reviled George W. Bush chose to take. So much for illusions. For what's a nation's government to do when it sees itself under fire from its own citizenry, even while claiming it is motivated by the desire and the need to protect that same citizenry from the evils of foreign attackers, augmented by those recruited by vile interests to attack from within?

In the process, young Edward Snowden has achieved semi-heroic status from his hideaway in Hong Kong where he has found much sympathy with his outrage over his government's perfidious stance. America's allies have been disconcerted to have revealed the extent of United States' surveillance of their own state activities; Germany appears to have been a particular target, though no other countries' secrets have been ignored in the voracious quest for data.

Official Beijing no doubt quietly looks on amused at the revelations striking the very country that has gone on for so long accusing it of computer-based attacks. China's own Internet security chief has affirmed that his country has acquired more than significant data confirming U.S.-based hacking. Diplomatically, however, he has refrained from blaming the American government itself, choosing instead to emphasize how unhelpful it would be, and recommending co-operation in battling cyber-attacks.

And then there was Air Force Colonel Dai Xu, writing on his Sina Weibo microblog: "I have always said, the United States' accusations about Chinese hacking attacks have always been a case of a thief crying for another thief to be caught."

Labels: China, Crisis Politics, Cyberwarfare, Internet, United States

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, June 16, 2013

A phone app that quickly alerts six friends if a woman feels threatened is expanding from the US to New Delhi and possibly Mexico City.

When Vice President Joe Biden—a longtime opponent of violence against women—announced the Apps Against Abuse technology challenge in 2011, Brooklyn, N.Y.,-based filmmaker and activist Nancy Schwartzman knew she had to respond.
Never mind that she had never created an app or written a line of code in her life; a firmly held passion for reversing rape culture and the fact that 19 percent of university-age females report sexual assault was motivation enough.

The Circle of Six app invites users to designate six friends as their “circle” of people from whom they can seek help when in trouble. With one tap, users can send a text requesting to be picked up (complete with a GPS tag), ask to be interrupted with a phone call, or say they need to talk about issues of abuse in their relationship. It also provides external hotlines and resources for those experiencing or wanting to stop abuse.

When the team’s creation originally won the White House challenge, it was intended for college-aged females in the United States. But when the Indian press devoted significant coverage to the app in the midst of a brutal gang rape of a 20-year- old New Delhi woman, Schwartzman noticed Indian downloads went from a few hundred to several thousand.

With India’s terrible record of addressing sexual assault—in 2012, 600 reported rapes in New Delhi alone resulted in only one conviction—Schwartzman saw an opportunity to adapt the app for a specific audience.

Thus, nearly a year after the app’s official launch and in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the US, the Circle of Six app has launched a New Delhi-specific version. The localized version is translated into Hindi and provides local hotlines and resources for users to reach with one tap. Schwartzman is also in talks with Mexican health officials to launch a localized version in Mexico City.

The design and utility of the app is meant to challenge some commonly misheld notions about rape and violence, such as the idea that "stranger danger"—or rape by an unknown individual—is the main threat.

“I was always really looking at sexual assault between people that know each other—at work places, dorm rooms, spring break.These are gray-area experiences that are certainly violating to women, but not treated that way by the courts or the media.”

The app—which now has 55,000 downloads in 26 countries—is designed to give women an “out” when they are in an environment where sexual advances may be socially acceptable (while at a house party or working at a bar, for example) but can still feel uncomfortable or threatening.

Instead of wondering “What do I do? Who do I call? Where am I? Should I walk home?” the app takes those variables out of the scenario and embeds them in one’s phone. Females aren’t then forced to wonder “who will come pick me up at 4 a.m.?” because they’ve already asked friends ahead of time to be part of their “circle.”

Even though her app mostly addresses issues relating to acquaintance rape, Schwartzman believes that all forms of violence and harassment against women are related and thus the solution must be holistic—and most importantly, it must include men.

“The fact that it’s just a given that any urban park will empty out at dusk of women—and that if you don’t accept that as a woman you’re ‘asking for it’—is insane,” she said. “Circle of Six gives men the opportunity to be accountable to someone by being part of their circle, to help to stem the tide of rape culture, and to call out bad behavior when they see it.”

Labels: Defence, Internet, Security, Sexism, Social-Cultural Deviations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, April 17, 2013