Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

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Skype, the FBI, and MegaUpload

In the aftermath of the MegaUpload seizures we’ll hopefully learn more about how the FBI gained access to Skype transcripts. As reported by CNet:

The FBI cites alleged conversations between DotCom and his top lieutenants, including e-mail and Skype instant-messaging logs. Some of the records go back nearly five years, to MegaUpload’s earliest days as a cyberlocker service–even though Skype says “IM history messages will be stored for a maximum of 30 days” and the criminal investigation didn’t begin until a few months ago.

Sources told CNET yesterday that Skype, the Internet phone service now owned by Microsoft, was not asked by the feds to turn over information and was not served with legal process.

The U.S. Department of Justice told CNET that it obtained a judge’s approval before securing the correspondence, which wouldn’t have been necessary in the case of an informant. “Electronic evidence was obtained though search warrants, which are reviewed and approved by a U.S. court,” a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said.

…

Skype saves chat records with contacts in a directory on the local hard drive, which could be accessed by FBI-planted spyware.

While it wouldn’t necessarily be surprising if spyware was used, it would be interesting to see more details of this come to public light. Moreover, was the spyware/electronic access authorization acquired in the US and then the malware implanted on computers in foreign jurisdictions, or did it target local (American) computers? If it was implanted on foreign computers, were local authorities aware of what was going on and did they have to give their approval?

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It’s Time to Stop Buying the Capacity Crisis Myth

From DSL Reports,

As usual though, actually bothering to listen to and look at the data tells a different story. Nobody argues that spectrum is infinite, but buried below industry histrionics is data noting that there really isn’t a spectrum crisis as much as a bunch of lazy and gigantic spectrum squatters, hoarding public-owned assets to limit competition, while skimping on network investment to appease short-sighted investors. Insiders at the FCC quietly lamented that the very idea of a spectrum crisis was manufactured for the convenience of government and industry.

…

Burstein correctly reminds us that there’s nothing to fear, and with modern technology like LTE Advanced and more-than adequate resources, any wireless company struggling to keep pace with demand is either incompetent or cutting corners (or both). The idea that our modern networks face rotating oblivion scenarios lest we not rush to do “X” is the fear mongering of lobbyists, politicians, and salesmen. All of them use fear by trade, but the key failure point when it comes to capacity hysteria seems to continually be the press, which likes to unskeptically repeatwhatever hysterical scenario gets shoveled their direction each month.

I think that this really strikes to the heart of things: while all parties recognize the (literally) physical differences between different physical layers that are used to deliver broadband services, hysterics (on both sides) have stifled rational discussion. We really need to have the engineers come forward to talk about things in a manner that lets them evade corporate ‘loyalties’. Moreover, we need to acknowledge that spectral bandwidth is one component of data transmission, not the entirety of it. New codecs, new compression algorithms, and new efficiency protocols can all enable much higher bandwidth volumes and throughput while using identical amounts of spectrum as older, less effective, means of using spectral resources. We need to holistically look at these resources, and get away from as much FUD as we can.

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Precious Fragmentation: Nokia Windows Phone Fragmentation

preciousfragmentation on Nokia device fragmentation:

In the autumn, they announced the Lumia 800. It was beautiful, powerful, and unique looking, very European. Then, at CES this year, they announced the Lumia 900, essentially the same as the 800, but bigger, and with LTE functionality, built for North American hands. Now, there’s a rumour about…

The point that customers can ‘trust’ Apple because of the fairly predictable development and release cycle is key. It’s hard to develop an ‘aspirational’ brand if as soon as someone actually possesses one of your branded items they feel like they made a bad decision. In effect, you run the risk of becoming just another parts manufacturer, one that the consumer doesn’t want to trust with their emotional reserves.

They might still buy your products, they might talk about neat things about your products, but they won’t aspire to own or preach about your product or business. What’s worse, they won’t necessary be able to explicitly state why they have a grudge, but it will come through in the discussion with other prospective consumers.

The effect of these rapid ‘upgrade’ products? Word of mouth advertising is semi-poisoned from the get-go, which undermines your brand and your company’s most effective means of generating product awareness and interest.

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Humour

Watch Out, It’s the Feds!

A cute representation. If it’s saved, and aggregated, it’s a sweet target for the Feds!

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New malware infects millions of Android users

ch3ukl1:

Symantec has identified 13 apps on the Android Market that are all hiding Android. Counterclank, a Trojan horse that steals information, and could also download more files and display ads on the device.

These apps are still available on the Android market, and up to five million handsets could be infected. The popularity in Android will continue to make it a lucrative target. Unless Google does more to prevent such apps appearing, it could mean the start of defection of users to other systems.

Click on above link for more.

For emphasis: up to five million handsets could be infected. That’s it, I’m calling it: Android is the new Windows for security and virus defence. Reminds me of the late 1990s and early 2000s for the number of reported actionable vulnerabilities being reported on an almost daily basis.

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Practical Quantum Computing?

From the article:

So-called quantum key distribution is unconditionally secure–it offers perfect secrecy guaranteed by the laws of physics.

Or at least that’s what everyone thought. More recently, various groups have begun to focus on a fly in the ointment: the practical implementation of this process. While quantum key distribution offers perfect security in practice, the devices used to send quantum messages are inevitably imperfect.

It will be interesting to see how quantum computing practically differs from the theoretics of quantum physics; I suspect that efforts will be made to find ‘kludges’ that will ultimately be the source of practical problems to quantum-based security and computing efficiency. Of course, this is a similar issue that currently besets security and computing: dealing with real-world materials and accommodating imperfections (and variable modes of breaking security models that extend beyond the system being imagined) are amongst the most pressing of today’s issues.

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Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology

From the lede:

 MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Responding to recent public outcries over its handling of private data, search giant Google offered a wide-ranging and eerily well-informed apology to its millions of users Monday.

“We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you,” announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company’s Googleplex headquarters. “Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we’ve seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we’ve carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust.”

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Copyright and Valuation

A very nice SOPA infographic.

Patry, Gillespie, Wu and other academics/industry experts have (literally) written books on the absurdities concerning how the American entertainment establishment has tried to control technological development. These attempts to control technology stem from fears of what might happen to particular bodies’ revenues. Such fears tend to be hypothetical and assume that self-cannibalism of one’s own business model is inherently bad, as opposed to a necessary element of a thriving capitalist, neo-liberal, marketplace. Amazon and others have thrived on cannibalizing factions of their businesses, rightly realizing that if you get there first then you can enjoy first-mover advantage, whereas if you are the last then there is a lowered opportunity to enter into the new market environment.

Possibly the thing that sticks in my mind the most around copyright infringement comes from an economic forum I attended a few years back. One of the fashion industry’s top branding specialists was presenting and asked about how copyright threatens her (Paris, Brazilian, American) business interests.

In response, she laughed and opened a quick file off her computer. It showed just how much money the fashion industry – as a component of US GDP – was worth in comparison to the entertainment industries. Fashion was worth more than 10x as much as entertainment. After pointing out differences in scale, she simply noted that a lack of copyright protection didn’t hinder or limit brand development or product creation in fashion: instead it created a more cut throat, innovative, industry which in turn led to higher productivity and profits.

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Useful Warnings

circa476: Poor Apple….

THIS is the kind of actionable, helpful, warning information that should be presented to end-users. It gives them the relevant information they need to choose ‘Cancel’ or ‘Add Anyway’ without scaring them one way or the other. If the jailbreak community can do this, then why the hell can’t the big players like Apple, RIM, Google, Microsoft and the rest?

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Sign the petition: Respect the privacy of cell phone customers

ACLU:

Thanks to a nationwide ACLU campaign to learn how our cell phones are being used to monitor us, we now know that cell phone service providers keep a staggering amount of data about their customers:

  • Call records up to seven years.
  • Contact information of who you’ve exchanged text messages for up to seven years.
  • Cell tower history — which helps track the movement of your cell phone: all data from July 2008 onward.
  • Copies of paid bills for up to seven years.
  • IP addresses assigned to your device for up to one year.

Tell your cell phone service provider that you demand an explanation of the information that is kept about your account, when and how it is shared with third parties, and an easy way to control how long your private information is kept. Additionally, tell them you demand to be notified if this information is ever lost in a data breach or demanded by the government or anyone else.

If you use AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon, this affects you.

Some of the reasons behind this data aggregation stems from law enforcement demands/expectations. Some stems from the low amount of storage all of this data (effectively) amounts to. Some stems from a need to plot out use patterns and predict growth rates. Some stems from a belief that more data is good data.

Regardless, the ACLU is right: customers should be demanding to know exactly why this data is being retained, the purposes the data is used for, and the parties that the data is shared with. Remember: if it isn’t collected or stored, it can’t be used against you in commercial, civil, or governmental practices.