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Category: Technology

Australia media bill close to a decision with Google and Facebook

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021Australia, Business, Communications, Countries, Digital Systems Technology, Government, Info Tech, North America, Politics, Regulation News, Social Media, Technology, Technology News, USA

Google and Facebook have been making headlines in Australia, as well as around the world, thanks to the media deal currently in discussion with the Australian government. The deal, which has been in the works since the end of 2021, would require big tech giants such as Google and Facebook to pay local media publishers and online outlets for their news content. 

If successful, the deal would set a precedent around the world for the future of online news. It has faced controversy and resistance from the Big Tech firms who say such rules would run counter to the free hyperlink principles the web was built upon. 

The deal has been dubbed the ‘news media bargaining code’ and first introduced into Australian parliament in December 2020. It would require the larger search engines such as Facebook and Google to pay smaller news outlets for their content or event to appear in search results. 

If the Big Tech firms are unable to come to a deal with smaller, local publishers, the Australian government is set to step in to decide the terms that could see current digital giants expelled from Australia’s online network. In lieu of a commercial deal, government officials would be instrumental in setting a price for such linking. 

Google currently holds an over 94% market share of all online searches in Australia and it is unclear what would replace it if it were to pull out of the Australian market. Facebook likewise has threatened to reduce services on its network and other platforms such as Instagram for Australian users if they feel the deal to be unfavourable to their business. 

This is not the first time the Australian government has gone up against Silicon Valley’s Big Tech firms. In 2018 there was a brief period Amazon restricted access to some of its products due to conflicts with local tax laws before a compromise was reached.

Tech billionaire Jack Ma emerges after months long disappearance with new video

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021Asia, Business, China, General, Government, Networking, Politics, Social Issues, Social Media, Technology

Tech billionaire Jack Ma has resurfaced online after an over three month long disappearance from the public sphere. Ma emerged again online in a short, roughly 50 second long video that saw him address a group of rural educators in an online conference on Wednesday 20th January 2021. The video was released on Twitter after the usually highly visible Ma had disappeared from the public sphere, and had even been replaced as a judge on a reality TV show he had been set to appear on. His period of time away from the public eye came in early November when stocks of his online retail service Alibaba were meant to go public in a deal that was suddenly halted by intervention from the Chinese government.  

The 56 year old Ma was born in 1964 in China. He rose to prominence with the growth of his online retail distribution site Alibaba, before developing a strong and recognisable personal brand as a TV personality, as well as being one of China’s most prominent philanthropists. Ma is known worldwide as an ambassador for Chinese business and an advocate for an open and market driven economy. He has however, been previously outed in 2018 as a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), with which he continues to have a slightly tense and volatile relationship. 

Last November’s events only added to the tension between Ma and the CPC as he spoke out in criticism of the Chinese government’s interventions with his business. Though most recognised for his Alibaba brand, Ma is also known as co-founder of the Ant Group – the group responsible for Alipay, China’s largest digital payment. Alipay is widely used throughout China with over one billion users and 80 million merchants. It’s total trade figures for June 2020 reached a staggering 118 trillion Chinese Yen, making it unsurprising Ma is cited as one of the world’s richest people.

Pre-symptomatic data from smartwatches hailed as future virus protection

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, General, Health, Politics, Software, Technology, Technology News

Smartwatches have been touted as a future way to identify COVID-19 patients before testing from pre-symptomatic data. Devices such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit smartwatches have been labelled as a potential future warning system for detecting if people have become infected by viruses such as COVID-19 – before even a test would. 

The digitised watches are essentially simply very small computers taking on the form of a watch. Simpler devices such as the Fitbit are closed system items that focus solely on collecting biometric data from their wearer. Apple Watches and other similar brands are more complex, often including phone data, updates on notifications and graphics for their users. 

Wearable smartwatches such as the Fitbit as well as other brands such as Garmin, gather biometrics information on their users which is then used to let them know if they are keeping up with their fitness goals. Information collected can include activities such as exercise measured from the number of steps you take, distance travelled and active minutes. Other data could be focused on how much sleep the user is getting and when they are entering specific sleep stages. Females are also able to record menstrual health data, whilst those interested in weight loss can keep track of their calories burned for the day. 

Smartwatches such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit have the benefit of measuring user data over long periods of time, making it possible for them to identify unusual inputs in the data such as temperature or heart rate, which could be suggestions of an infection. With pre-symptomatic identification of sick patients potential, it could be possible to isolate and prepare treatment for those infected prior to any testing result. 

With global numbers of newly infected cases and deaths from the coronavirus, hopes for ways into the new normal are well received on the global stage. Only time will tell if there can be a technological way forward out of the pandemic that could aid other further spread prevention measures such as vaccination.

Instagram turns 10 years old!

October 26, 2020October 26, 2020Communications, General, Networking, North America, Social Media, Start Ups, Technology, Technology News, USA

As the widely used social networking site Instagram turns 10 this year, we take a look at where Instagram started and how it has gone on to become a dominating tech player in the social media market. 

Humble beginnings

Originally started by two Standford graduates, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, it first launched in 2010 with an image posted of a dog and foot by Systrom. The dog in question was a stray in Mexico during a visit, and the featured foot was his girlfriends. Its grainy appearance hued by the dark edges of its filter epitomise what Instagram was for: finding a place for creativity in everyday life thanks to the rise of the mobile smartphone. Since then the founder has gone on to joke he might have ‘tried a little harder’ had he known that it would be the first photograph on the mega-popular social media giant that Instagram went on to become. 

Facebook buy-out

Instagram was barely a toddler and only 18 months old when it was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for an impressive price of $1 billion. The price tag was a talking point for many especially considering the young age of the company. For Instagram’s current 13 workers at the time, the news came as a relative surprise as their humble office migrated to Facebook’s famously large campus office site in California, USA. Facebook has since faced criticism for the acquisition and had to defend itself in the courts where it was accused of anti-competitive mergers and violation of trust laws amongst other tech giants, Google, Amazon and Apple.  

Turning the big 1 – 0 

Since its launch, Instagram has found a way into our daily lives – so much so that many agree they would be lost without it, and many others making their full income from the site. What started as a simple photo-sharing application has gone to become a site for commerce, activism, art, politics and more, with many people still engaging with the site’s primary mission to inspire creativity in its users.

16 year old Miami highschool student hacks school system

September 26, 2020September 26, 2020Big Data, Business, Communications, Data Management & Networks, Digital Systems Technology, Education, Government, North America, Politics, Regulation News, Software, Technology, Technology News

It’s every kids dream for school to be cancelled, but for many students 2020 has already been stressful enough. Students in Florida, USA however were shocked to find themselves locked out of their online classrooms come the first day of term this September. Having to adapt to new online learning environments already, students found themselves rightfully confused by their failed attempts for online access. 

So what happened?

Miami-Dade Schools’ online classes were brought down, a crash of the entire school system that saw students locked out of their online classes for the first three days back to school. Students and teachers alike however were taken a back to find out this was not the result of a complex hacking attack or situation: it was a 16 year student from the same school district. An unlikely teenager to carry out the attack, the result made national and international news headlines.

The 275,000 students in the school’s districts who tried to log on that morning found the system to be overloaded by data. The 16 year old junior in high school – who’s personal details have not been released – was called ‘polite’ and ‘intelligent’ by his neighbours. One neighbour, a Ben Herrera was quoted by the Miami Herald as saying: “He’s an awesome kid, […] What saddens me is how he’s going to be portrayed, and we’ve got to realize with this pandemic that kids are bored, isolated, stuck with too much time on their hands and maybe they do something irresponsible.” 
While neighbours might be showing sympathy for the boy, the school district is persuing their multiple charges of Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. The boy claims his attack was constituted from a free and easily available free software download, which begs the question: why was the My School Online learning platform so vulnerable to an amateur attack?

Twitter intensifies effort to suppress QAnon, now one degree away from Aussie PM

September 21, 2020September 21, 2020Australia, Government, Main, Politics, Social Issues, Social Media, Technology, Technology News, USA

Twitter is broadening its crackdown on people who post content supportive of the “QAnon” movement. In case you’re not aware, QAnon folks believe that US President Donald Trump is locked into a covert power struggle with a bunch satanic pedophiles who control the world behind the scenes.

In other words, people like Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier who raped God knows how many children while hobnobbing with prominent people like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and, funnily enough, Donald Trump, who has publicly embraced his QAnon followers. Epstein allegedly hanged himself last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In August it was reported that Twitter had banned over 7,000 QAnon-linked accounts.

“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” the @TwitterSafety account posted 21 July. “In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.”

This act of censorship led media outlets to question whether Twitter would apply the same standards to accounts held by elected officials or political candidates. There are apparently 15 QAnon supporters running for public office in the US this year—all Republicans, presumably.

Last week Twitter announced that elected officials who promulgate QAnon via their tweets will “will no longer be actively recommended by Twitter.” Which sounds like they’re not quite prepared to drop the ban hammer on politicians yet. Though it’s almost certainly just a matter of time.

QAnon isn’t confined to the US. Far from it. The movement is spreading around the world as if it’s being carried by Fast Courier Australia.

In fact, Twitter just shut down an account belonging to a close friend of our very own Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The Guardian identified him as Tim Stewart, whose wife was and might still be on Morrison’s staff. Twitter said Stewart was “permanently suspended for engaging in coordinated harmful activity.”

Stewart denies that he and Morrison have ever discussed QAnon together. What do you think?

Trump backs down, supports TikTok deal

September 21, 2020September 21, 2020Asia, Business, China, Countries, Data Management & Networks, Digital Systems Technology, General, Social Media, Technology, USA

TikTok’s US operations got a new lease on life Sunday after President Donald Trump announced that he was supporting a deal between the Chinese app’s parent company ByteDance and American tech company Oracle.

“I have given the deal my blessing,” Trump said. “I approve the deal in concept.”

So much for all of his anti TikTok histrionics. Just a few days ago he stated that, beginning Sunday, he would prohibit Americans from downloading the app. This came after he said he was “conceptually” opposed to a deal that allowed ByteDance to hold onto a majority stake of TikTok.

But Trump has given his “blessing” to a deal that does just that.

As Reuters reports, the deal places TikTok in the hands of a new company called TikTok Global. While headquartered in the US, TikTok Global is majority owned by ByteDance, which has an 80 percent stake. What remains is split between Oracle Corp (12.5 percent) and Walmart (7.5 percent).

Critically, though, all of TikTok’s user data from the US will be hosted by Oracle. The user data question was the main sticking point, as Washington argued that the Chinese Communist Party had access to TikTok’s databases, putting the privacy and security of American users at risk. Indeed, Trump and his lackeys routinely and melodramatically asserted that TikTok posed a grave “national security threat” to the United States.

Again, Trump previously stated that he would not support a deal that resulted in ByteDance retaining a majority stake. But he’s moved the goal posts and is justifying his reversal by pointing to the fact that approximately 40 percent of ByteDance stock is owned by American investors.

Add that 40 percent to Oracle’s 12.5 percent and Walmart’s 7.5 percent, and Americans technically have a majority stake. So goes the new argument, which your average online tutor will tell you is specious at best.

Of course, Trump will approve the deal not because it satisfies his administration’s “national security” concerns, but because it gives him one more thing to boast about in the run up to the presidential election on 3 November.

A new national poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News has Democratic nominee Joe Biden up 8 points on Trump.

Mozilla wants to know about your negative YouTube experiences

September 17, 2020September 17, 2020General, Info Tech, Main, Social Media, Software, Technology, Technology News, USA

Remember Mozilla’s #YouTubeRegrets survey? Neither do I, but the company has parlayed it into a new browser extension called RegretsReporter, which collects info sent by users to investigate “why YouTube recommends what it does.”

A “YouTube Regret” is a complaint about a video that was recommended to you by YouTube’s algorithm. As Mozilla writes on its website, “With the RegretsReporter extension, you can immediately take action to send us recommended videos that you regret watching—like pseudoscience or anti-LGBTQ+ content.”

This all began last October when Mozilla shared 28 different anecdotes about bad YouTube recommendations, though to be fair the users seem to be at fault most of the time.

One person searched “fail videos” because they wanted to see people “fall or get a little hurt.” They proceeded to click on videos showing “minor” car accidents, which eventually led to videos of severe car accidents. Go figure. There’s a lot to be said for precision in the context of an online search. If I want to find an adwords agency in Sydney, for instance, that’s what I’m going to type in. Vague searches turn up mixed results.

In another #YouTubeRegret, a“10-year-old sweet daughter” who allegedly wanted to watch some tap dancing videos wound up taking a deep dive into “contortionist videos that give her horrible unsafe body-harming and body-image-damaging advice.” Now, this sweet daughter’s guardian says, she is “restricting her eating and drinking” and shouting “Work to eat! Work to drink!”

One guy even blames YouTube’s recommendations for his failed marriage. You see, “YouTube just kept feeding her [his wife] paranoia, fear and anxiety one video after another,” and now “she refuses to even consider professional help because she no longer trusts anyone.” So much for personal responsibility.

Anyhow, Mozilla now has the RegretsReporter, the goal of which, Mozilla says, is to discover the answers to burning questions like:

“What kinds of recommended videos do users regret watching? Are there usage patterns that lead to more regrettable content being recommended? What does a YouTube rabbit hole look like, and at what point does it become something you wish you never clicked on?”

Let’s hope we get the answers soon—the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

UK becomes the next country to ban Chinese tech company Huawei

August 2, 2020August 2, 2020Australia, Big Data, Business, China, Communications, Data Management & Networks, Digital Systems Technology, Europe, Social Issues, Technology, Technology News

Following the ban of Huawei from Australia back in August 2018, the Chinese giant tech firm has been making headlines in the UK recently in a recent controversial battle. The debate stems from a wide range of concerns, with some conspiracy theories ranging from the 5g network it was working on being the cause of the coronavirus, or rumours of it being able to supposedly break down blood cells like acid, to more serious concerns regarding data privacy. 

Similar to the decision from the Australian government back in 2018 to ban Huawei and fellow Chinese firm ZTE from supplying Australia with 5g technology. The ban came over much discussion and investigation into the companies as a security risk. This sentiment has not been successfully dissipated by Huawei, who have continued to face trouble around the world. At the time the responded in a tweet with the following statement: ‘We have been informed by the Govt that Huawei & ZTE have been banned from providing 5G technology to Australia. This is a [sic] extremely disappointing result for consumers. Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs’. 

The most recent trouble comes as Huawei is banned from the UK from taking part in setting up its 5g wireless network for heightened connectivity. With much debate and protest from both sides the decision was made in July 2020 that there would be no more sale of Huawei technology in the UK after December of this year, and removed entirely from Britain’s 5g network by 2027, it was announced by the government. 

The decision has been suggested to be influenced by geopolitical tensions between the USA and China currently, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declaring last month that “The tide is turning against Huawei as citizens around the world are waking up to the danger of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.” 

ATTACKING THE ATTACKER

August 20, 2019January 22, 2020Business, Technology

22 November 2004 by Richard Chirgwin

ForeScout Launches SecuredWire in Oz

A newly-arrived security vendor is taking what I might call the honeypot principle as the basis of a suite of products designed to overcome the “day zero” problem.

ForeScout Technologies’ SecuredWire is, as general manager Richard Galpin told CommsWorld late last week, designed to focus on the attacker rather than the attack.

Here’s the operation which Galpin described: the ForeScout technology creates a weak “ghost” server outside the corporate firewall. Visible to the Internet, this virtual server will be polled and scanned by potential attackers (very much like a honeypot).

Having identified a weak address and port, the attacker will then try to initiate a conversation with that port, at which point the ForeScout server can capture the attacker’s IP address. It then blocks the address at the firewall for a user-configurable time (since most users are on dynamically-allocated addresses, Galpin said, there’s no point in blocking an ‘attack’ address forever).

While the virtual server has a normal IP address, the ‘real’ SecuredWire server does not. The company’s designed the system to communicate over a private Ethernet connection with the secured side of the network, to prevent attackers identifying the presence of the device.

There are, he said, three possible configurations. A SecuredWire server configured with one NIC – really only suitable for evaluation purposes – will be a fully visible member of the IP network it’s attached to. With two NICs, the device can sniff Internet connections without exposure, using a private IP address on the second NIC to communicate on the secured side of the corporate network.

A third, more secure configuration uses three NICs: one for the stealth sniffer, one for the private network, and the third providing a direct connection to the firewall.

The system can also be used to defend corporate networks against attacks such as worms which have already entered the system (for example, through a laptop). By shutting down only the source of malicious internal traffic, the company claims it can keep networks operational even after some machines have suffered virus or worm infection.

If you’re a pessimist like myself, you will have noticed that there is an attack vector which could be used against ForeScout: hit the system with a large number of attacks, apparently from a large number of originating IP addresses. If successfully used against a SecuredWire-defended e-commerce site, this could act as a denial-of-service attack in which ‘real’ users were unable to pass the address blocks.

However, as Galpin pointed out, this sort of attack depends on the assumption that the attacker knows SecuredWire is in use at the target site. In ‘stealth’ mode, with no IP address except that assigned to the ‘honeypot’ virtual server, finding the device wouldn’t be trivial. And the potential for such an attack, he said, is why the ‘time to live’ of the block is adjustable: an e-commerce site would set a comparatively short block time, to avoid the risk that genuine users might inherit an address that’s currently blocked.

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