Despite the fact that the secret markup of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) left most of the problems unsolved, the House is still slated to vote on the flawed legislation next week, potentially allowing the total destruction of what little online privacy remains.
Today Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office pointed out that while CISPA’s sponsors and corporate backers claim “that all privacy and civil liberties problems have been solved,” this is nowhere near the truth.
During the markup process, only three of the four major categories of problems with CISPA were addressed, according to the ACLU.
Dr. Lorraine Day is an internationally acclaimed orthopedic trauma surgeon and best selling author. She spent 15 years on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine as Associate Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopedics. She was also Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and is recognized world-wide as an AIDS expert.
In this interview: What is cancer? The true origin of AIDS and the secret to a healthy life.
Apple(AAPL) is going to launch the iPhone 5S (or whatever it decides to call the next iPhone) sooner rather than later. We all know that. What we don't know is what Apple will include to show consumers, Wall Street and the media that innovation at the tech giant is alive and well. That innovative feature could be the tip of your finger.
Apple acquired in the middle of 2012 AuthenTec, a company that deals with mobile and network security solutions. Before the merger, AuthenTec had been a major supplier to Apple rivals Samsung, Google(Google) and other handset makers for smartphone dominance.
AuthenTec's fingerprint technology could be used in the next iPhone to unlock the phone, or perhaps even for payments processing. When the deal was first announced in 2012, Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um speculated this could be the reason for the AuthenTec deal.
"We believe this deal signals the potential for fingerprint sensors in upcoming Apple devices, which not only increases device security, but could also be a mechanism to assure security needed to execute mobile payments on iPhones. We see this as likely one of the primary reasons for the acquisition," Um wrote in the note.
Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White agreed with the thought after attending a technology trade show in China.
"Additionally, we believe fingerprint identification technology will be part of the iPhone 5S and this is likely to be the major new feature used to market the iPhone 5S, similar to what Siri was to the iPhone 4S," White wrote in his note. He rates Apple "buy" with an $888 price target.
White also noted the screen size would be same as the iPhone 5, though the camera would be larger, and the left side buttons could be arranged differently.
Apple is hurting for good press these days (yours truly, notwithstanding), so any sign of innovation from the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant should be received well, at least initially.
In addition to the fingerprint technology that may come with the latest iPhone, there are rumors that iOS 7 is getting a major revamp, with Jony Ive, Apple's senior vice president of Industrial Design, now taking a more active role in software. Ive is responsible for the beautiful hardware designs Apple has released in the past, but with the management shakeup in 2012 that led to Scott Forstall's ouster, this has put Ive in a more active role as it pertains to software.
The FinFisher Trojan is government spyware that is installed via a phony iTunes update. Image by Gamma International UK Ltd.
Your iPhone could be spying on you, according to the latest trove of documents from Wikileaks, which looks like it could be the biggest scandal yet.
Called the Spyfiles, it’s a trove of documents about the “mass interception industry” — the massive post-9/11 surveillance community that electronically snoops on entire populations.
The industry is selling software to government agencies — some of it delivered by Trojans — that can take over your iPhone. It can track its every use, follow your movements (even in standby), recognize your voice, record conversations, and even capture video and audio from the room it is in.
It’s not just limited to iPhones, of course. There are various spyware packages that run on PCs, Android and Blackberry. The uses are mind-boggling. The CIA, for example, is using phone-tracking software to target drone strikes in the Middle East and Central Asia. It recognizes the subject by their voice print, but the actual targeting isn’t terribly accurate.
One of the most sophisticated spying packages — The FinFisher program, produced by the British company, Gamma International — is delivered via a phony iTunes update. The Wall Street Journal has more details on the FinFisher spyware, which is sold to police and government agencies. (Der Speigel has a fascinating article about how it is marketed).
Apple just patched the vulnerability in iTunes update 10.5.1. (The vulnerability appears to be Windows only, but it’s not clear. It’s claimed Apple knew about the problem for three years).
FinFisher says the spyware is legal and the company doesn’t know of abuses. But there’s evidence spyware was used to monitor political activists in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya during the Arab Spring, according to a big story about the latest Wikileaks leak in The Washington Post:
“We are seeing a growing number of repressive regimes get hold of the latest, greatest Western technologies and use them to spy on their own citizens for the purpose of quashing peaceful political dissent or even information that would allow citizens to know what is happening in their communities,” Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for human rights, said in a speech last month in California. “We are monitoring this issue very closely.”
The Post mostly covers the sale of this technology by U.S. companies to repressive regimes, which are using it to spy on citizens and squish political dissent. But Wikileaks claims mass surveillance systems could be widely deployed in western countries:
Surveillance companies like SS8 in the U.S., Hacking Team in Italy and Vupen in France manufacture viruses (Trojans) that hijack individual computers and phones (including iPhones, Blackberries and Androids), take over the device, record its every use, movement, and even the sights and sounds of the room it is in. Other companies like Phoenexia in the Czech Republic collaborate with the military to create speech analysis tools. They identify individuals by gender, age and stress levels and track them based on ‘voiceprints’. Blue Coat in the U.S. and Ipoque in Germany sell tools to governments in countries like China and Iran to prevent dissidents from organizing online.
Wikileaks has promised to release hundreds of documents about 160 intelligence contractors in the mass surveillance industry through the rest of this month and next year. It released 278 documents on Thursday. Wikileaks is working with several privacy and media organizations.
The FDA is considering a plan that would allow the dairy industry to add the sweetener aspartame to milk without having to label it. The plan is coming under fire from some farmers and some consumer groups.
Under current FDA regulations, any additions to milk have to be prominently displayed on the packaging.
One organic dairy farmer told Fox News Channel’s Douglas Kennedy, “Aspartame is a known carcinogen – leave the milk alone!”
Consumer groups have inundated the FDA with complaints about the proposal.
