Campaigners warn on Google Glass use

26 March 2013 Last updated at 08:06 ET

Google Glass and other augmented reality gadgets risk creating a world in which privacy is impossible, warn campaigners.

The warning comes from a group called "Stop the Cyborgs" that wants limits put on when headsets can be used.

It has produced posters so premises can warn wearers that the glasses are banned or recording is not permitted.

The campaign comes as politicians, lawyers and bloggers debate how the gadgets will change civil society.

"We are not calling for a total ban," one of the campaign workers called Jack told the BBC in a message sent via anonymised email service Hushmail.

"Rather we want people to actively set social and physical bounds around the use of technologies and not just fatalistically accept the direction technology is heading in," he wrote.

Based in London, the Stop The Cyborgs campaign began at the end of February, he said, and the group did not expect much to happen before the launch of Google Glass in 2014.

Personal privacy

However, the launch coincided with a push on Twitter by Google to get people thinking about what they would do if they had a pair of the augmented reality spectacles. The camera-equipped headset suspends a small screen in front of an owner and pipes information to that display. The camera and other functions are voice controlled.

Google's push, coupled with the announcement by the 5 Point Cafe in Seattle to pre-emptively ban users of the gadget, has generated a lot of debate and given the campaign a boost, he said.

Posters produced by the campaign that warn people not to use Google Glass or other personal surveillance devices had been downloaded thousands of times, said Jack.

In addition, he said, coverage of the Glass project in mainstream media and on the web had swiftly turned from "amazing new gadget that will improve the world" to "the most controversial device in history".

The limits that the Stop The Cyborg campaign wants placed on Google Glass and similar devices would involve a clear way to let people know when they are being recorded.

"It's important for society and democracy that people can chat and live without fear that they might end up being published or prosecuted," it said in a manifesto reproduced on its website.

"We are not anti-technology," said Jack. "We just want people to realise that technology is a powerful cultural force which shapes our society and which we can also shape."

In a statement, Google said: "We are putting a lot of thought into how we design Glass because new technology always raises important new issues for society."

"Our Glass Explorer program will give all of us the chance to be active participants in shaping the future of this technology, including its features and social norms," it said.

Already some US states are looking to impose other limits on augmented reality devices. West Virginia is reportedly preparing a law that will make it illegal to use such devices while driving. Those breaking the law would face heavy fines.

In addition, bloggers are debating the influence of augmented reality spectacles on everyday life. Blogger Ed Champion wrote up 35 arguments about the gadget saying it could force all kinds of unwanted changes. He warned it could stifle the freedom people currently have to enjoy themselves because they know they are not being watched.

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Anti-cyber threat centre launched

26 March 2013 Last updated at 22:02 ET By Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News

A new initiative to share information on cyber threats between businesses and government is to be launched.

It will include experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business and aims to better co-ordinate responses to the threats.

There will be a secure web-portal to allow access to shared information in real time, like a "secure Facebook".

UK networks are attacked by other states, criminals and companies seeking secrets, costing billions of pounds.

In 2012, the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans said the scale of attacks was "astonishing".

One major London listed company had incurred revenue losses of £800m as a result of cyber attack from a hostile state because of commercial disadvantage in contractual negotiations.

One government official told the BBC: "No one has full visibility on cyberspace threats. We see volumes of attack increase and we expect it to continue to rise."

The plan - the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) - has emerged out of a 2012 pilot scheme known as Project Auburn.

Eighty companies from five sectors of the economy - finance, defence, energy, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals - were encouraged to share information.

The pilot was expanded to 160 firms. A more permanent structure is being announced on Wednesday.

The kind of information shared includes technical details of an attack, methods used in planning it and how to mitigate and deal with one.

At a new London base, large screens will monitor attacks and provide details in real-time of who is being targeted.

A group of 12-15 analysts with security clearance will work mainly during office hours.

Companies previously have been nervous of revealing publicly when they have been attacked because of the potential impact on reputation and share price if they are seen as having lost valuable intellectual property or other information.

It is hoped further firms will join the initial 160.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "We know cyber attacks are happening on an industrial scale and businesses are by far the biggest victims in terms of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft, with losses to the UK economy running into the billions of pounds annually.

"This innovative partnership is breaking new ground through a truly collaborative partnership for sharing information on threats and to protect UK interests in cyberspace."

Government officials say they continue to be uncomfortable with an EU draft directive which would force companies to disclose when they have been attacked.

They hope a voluntary partnership will provide a more workable solution.

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'Biggest ever attack' slows internet

27 March 2013 Last updated at 09:03 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

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The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones explains why the attack is like a "motorway jam", alongside expert David Emm from Kaspersky Lab

The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix - and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation that aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host that states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet".

Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.

Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.

'Immense job'

Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented.

"We've been under this cyber-attack for well over a week.

Continue reading the main story

Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web's domain name system.

He wrote: "It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless."

Read Prof Woodward's full article

"But we're up - they haven't been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up - this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else."

Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world.

He claimed he was unable to disclose more details because the forces were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure.

The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable.

In this case, Spamhaus's Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted - the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website's numerical internet protocol address.

Mr Linford said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure.

"If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly," he said. "They would be completely off the internet."

He added: "These attacks are peaking at 300 Gbps (gigabits per second).

"Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we're talking about 50 Gbps"

Clogged-up motorway

The knock-on effect is hurting internet services globally, said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey.

"If you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps," he told the BBC.

"With this attack, there's so much traffic it's clogging up the motorway itself."

Arbor Networks, a firm which specialises in protecting against DDoS attacks, also said it was the biggest such attack they had seen.

"The largest DDoS attack that we have witnessed prior to this was in 2010, which was 100 Gbps. Obviously the jump from 100 to 300 is pretty massive," said Dan Holden, the company's director of security research.

"There's certainly possibility for some collateral damage to other services along the way, depending on what that infrastructure looks like."

Spamhaus said it was able to cope as it has highly distributed infrastructure in a number of countries.

The group is supported by many of the world's largest internet companies who rely on it to filter unwanted material.

Mr Linford told the BBC that several companies, such as Google, had made their resources available to help "absorb all of this traffic".

The attacks typically happened in intermittent bursts of high activity.

"They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down," Mr Linford said.

"Spamhaus has more than 80 servers around the world. We've built the biggest DNS server around."

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Arrests as Egypt internet cable cut

27 March 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET

Egyptian authorities say they have arrested three divers trying to cut through an undersea internet cable.

The men were caught on a fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria, said military spokesman Col Ahmed Mohammed Ali.

The damaged cable caused a drop in the speed of online services in Egypt and some other countries, said Egyptian news agency Mena.

It was unclear whether the incident was linked to cables damaged last Friday.

At the time, cable operator Seacom said several lines connecting Europe with Africa, the Middle East and Asia were hit, also slowing down internet services, reported Reuters news agency.

The cable hit in Wednesday's apparent sabotage was the South East Asia Middle East Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) - one of the main cables snaking under the Mediterranean, Mena said.

The attack took place some 750m (820 yards) north of Alexandria, it said.

In the statement on his official Facebook page, Col Ali said the divers were arrested while "cutting the undersea cable" of the main telecommunications company, Telecom Egypt.

He did not give any explanation for the divers' alleged motive.

The men were due to be interrogated.

Mediterranean telecoms cables have suffered disruptions several times in recent years, but they have usually been attributed to accidents involving ship propellers.

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'Them and us' online service warning

28 March 2013 Last updated at 05:49 ET

The government is in danger of creating a "them and us" situation by digitising public services, a report warns.

Ministers say 82% of "transactions" can be carried out online, as that is roughly the proportion of the population which uses the internet.

But the National Audit Office argued that the percentage of people able to access some services, such as those used by elderly people, was lower.

It called for "continued access" to face-to-face and telephone services.

The government said it was continuing to offer help to users and promised to create websites "so good (that) people will prefer to use them".

The coalition has moved most government services to the single gov.uk address, after Whitehall departments set up their own sites in a more piecemeal fashion. Other bodies are expected to follow by March next year.

It estimates that making services "digital by default" may save up to £1.2bn during the current parliament, with future savings potentially reaching £1.8bn a year in the longer term.

'Greater scope'

A study has put the average cost of face-to-face transactions at £8.62 each, those via telephone at £2.83 and those via a website at 15 pence.

Continue reading the main story

It is important to remember that there are significant numbers for whom this does not work"

End Quote Amyas Morse Head of National Audit Office

In its report, the National Audit Office (NAO) agreed there was "greater scope" for online public services.

It said: "The government, in calculating potential savings, has assumed that 82% of transactions with public services will be carried out online, the proportion of the population currently online."

But it warned that "online use of some services falls short of that level", and that "age, socio-economic group and disability do make a difference".

The NAO looked at 20 public services and found the main reasons for lower take-up were: a preference for face-to-face dealings; an unwillingness to provide information online; and low awareness of some online services.

The report said: "The government has set out plans to help people not on the internet to use digital services. Given the scale of 'digital exclusion', the government now needs to put these plans into action to avoid a 'them and us' problem."

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Online working is increasingly central to the delivery of government services and rightly so. But it is important to remember that there are significant numbers for whom this does not work - who cannot or do not want to go online."

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "This report firmly endorses the digital transformation of public services designed around user needs that the government has undertaken.

"Putting these services online, rather than using face-to-face, postal or phone options, will deliver substantial savings to the public purse, and save users time and money.

"We are developing digital services that are so good people will prefer to use them, while ensuring that those who are not able to go online are given the support they need to do so."

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Bitcoin miners hit back at botnets

28 March 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Cyber-thieves are attempting to cash in on the rising value of the bitcoin virtual currency.

Bitcoins have almost tripled in value in a month. In late February one bitcoin was worth £22 ($33) but now each one sells for about £60 ($90).

Thieves who run networks of hijacked PCs are increasingly using these machines to create or "mine" the coins.

But bitcoin miners say thieves will struggle to keep up, as coin-generating technology becomes more sophisticated.

Computer cash

As a virtual currency, bitcoins depend on a wide network of closely connected computers to log who holds the coins and where they are spent.

That network also shares information about who is "mining" the coins.

Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number crunching involved.

"Botnet mining is fundamentally theft of private property, illegal and unethical," Jeff Garzik, a bitcoin developer told the BBC, adding that bitcoin miners had battled botnets for years, seeing them as a "cost and a burden" they just had to deal with.

Many cyber-thieves who control botnets, large networks of home PCs compromised with a virus, were using them as a dedicated mining pool in a bid to generate bitcoins for themselves, said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet.

The operators of one of the biggest current botnets, known as ZeroAccess, had recently ramped up their efforts to use machines they control to mine bitcoins, he said, adding that millions of infected PCs were unwittingly enrolled in the criminal network.

"ZeroAccess has employed an affiliate model," he said. "They pay other people to install malware for them."

The operators of ZeroAccess were making so much money that they were paying high prices for each infection. Current rates ran at about $100 (£65) for every 1,000 infections, said Mr Manky.

As well as mining bitcoins, PCs enrolled in ZeroAccess were also being used to poison search results - to cause users to unwittingly click on booby-trapped web pages - or fraudulently click on adverts to generate revenue.

"ZeroAccess has been extremely profitable," said Mr Manky.

The wider bitcoin community was aware of the efforts botnet owners were making to produce their own cash, said Mr Manky.

"They try to detect and remove these transactions but it's a bit of a cat and mouse game," he said. "The operators of ZeroAccess know about that and just change their tactics."

However, said Mr Garzik, criminal participation in bitcoin mining was likely to get much less profitable as professional miners turned away from using desktop PCs to generate the coins.

Increasingly, he said, professional miners were using custom-made chips, called Asics (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), to mine because such processors worked faster.

"It is theorised that the current shift in bitcoin mining to 'Asic' miners - the fastest and most advanced generation - will simply make it unprofitable for botnet miners," said Mr Garzik.

Vitalik Buterin, technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine, said the the rise of Asic mining meant cyber-thieves would soon be pushed out.

Currently, he said, only about one-third of all professional miners were using Asics, but as that proportion grew, the number of bitcoins that could be generated with a botnet would shrink.

"The fact that botnets are (somewhat) viable now is basically an aberration resulting from the massive price increase that has not yet been matched by increased mining activity," he said. " Once Bitcoin stabilises again the botnets will rapidly crawl back into the shadows."

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'Disruptive' Ouya console launches

28 March 2013 Last updated at 07:45 ET

A new games console which industry experts say could disrupt the industry has begun shipping to customers.

The Ouya costs $99 (£65) and runs on Google's Android operating system.

Games on the system will be a fraction of the cost of traditional console games, more comparable to those found on mobiles and tablets.

However, it may struggle to muscle in on a market dominated by big players such as PlayStation and Xbox, one analyst predicted.

The Ouya was financed using crowdfunding website Kickstarter, where it attracted over $8m (£5.3m) in funding from 63,416 backers.

The company has begun sending out consoles to the first supporters of the project - while other interested gamers can pre-order the device.

Indie movement

The Ouya will look to capitalise on a growing popularity for cheap, often independently produced games.

Mobile devices have eaten into the handheld gaming market, attracting millions of casual gamers who are not prepared to invest in bespoke gaming devices, but are still keen to dabble in gaming.

While traditional platforms, such as Nintendo's DS or Sony's PlayStation Vita, have titles costing in the region of £30-£40, games downloaded from app stores are considerably cheaper, and often free.

Developers on these newer platforms are instead looking to other monetization methods, such as in-game upgrades.

The Ouya is the first major attempt to bring that same kind of disruption to the home gaming industry, says gaming analyst Piers Harding-Rolls, from IHS.

"The space of TV gaming is getting to that point where it's the one area that hasn't been significantly disrupted," he told the BBC.

"Ouya will get other companies involved in the space, looking at it more intently.

"It will get the existing console companies to be more aggressive in their business models, opening up their distribution channels."

Hotting up

While Ouya is the first major launch of this style of gaming device - it will soon have plenty of company.

Gamestick, a UK-based firm, is also developing its own Android-based console.

Nvidia, traditionally a manufacturer of high-end graphical hardware, announced its Project Shield console at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Perhaps an even greater threat comes from Valve, the PC gaming giant which confirmed it was to make its own "Steambox" - a console utilising the already massively popular Steam network to deliver games.

But Ouya is the first, and likely to be the cheapest.

The console, a small cuboid, can be opened up and upgraded if users wish. It uses off-the-shelf components, minimising manufacturing costs.

Speaking to the BBC in January, Ouya chief executive Julie Uhrman said her device will allow smaller players to get stuck into the home gaming industry.

"Console gaming had traditionally been closed to new entrants," she said.

"That's made it very difficult for small developers to bring titles to the television, and really expensive for gamers [to play]."

However, IHS's Mr Harding-Rolls said the console may struggle in its early days if the quality of titles does not meet expectation.

"It's obviously creating a lot of developer interest, as are others in this space, not just the Ouya," he said, adding that some games may just be direct copies of mobile games.

"I think there will be in the first case a lot of porting that goes on which will not necessarily show off the best capabilities of the device."

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Blackberry reports 1m Z10 sales

28 March 2013 Last updated at 09:54 ET Continue reading the main story

Mobile phone maker Blackberry says it has sold one million of its new Z10 smartphones.

In better than expected results the company said it made profits of $98m (£65m) in the quarter, after posting a big loss for the same period last year.

The Z10 handset is seen as crucial to the future of Blackberry, which has struggled to keep up with new Apple and Android phones.

It has been on sale for a month in the UK, Canada and other markets.

It went on sale with little fanfare a week ago in the United States, Blackberry's most important market.Blackberry reports 1m Z10 sales

The figures do not include US sales.

Blackberry was previously called Research In Motion, but changed its name last year.

Analysts greeted the results cautiously, saying that it was too early to judge the success of the Z10 and its sister device the Q10.

Earlier in the week, Blackberry shares were hit when two major US brokerages expressed disappointment with the US launch of the Z10.

In a note to its clients Citigroup described the launch as "a big disappointment".

The Blackberry results also showed the company lost three million users over the year. Its handsets are now used by 76 million people, down from 79 million 12 months ago.

In total, Blackberry said it shipped a total of around six million handsets in the three months to early March.

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Amazon buys book recommendation site

28 March 2013 Last updated at 23:57 ET

Online retailer Amazon has said it will buy Goodreads, a book discovery and recommendation website.

San Francisco-based Goodreads was founded in 2007, has 16 million members and is one of the most prominent online communities for readers.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it is expected to be completed in the next quarter.

Amazon's electronic book service competes against a number of rivals including Google and Apple.

Goodreads is a social network for readers, where they can recommend, review and discover books. Users can also buy books from online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

"Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading," Russ Grandinetti, vice-president for Kindle content at Amazon, said in a statement.

Goodreads co-founder, Otis Chandler, said the deal would allow the company to move faster in bringing its user experience to more people around the world.

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Apple denied iPad Mini US trademark

31 March 2013 Last updated at 07:34 ET

Apple has been denied a trademark for the popular iPad Mini by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The trademark application for the tablet was turned down because the name was "merely descriptive" and did not create a unique meaning, it said.

But Apple still has until July to persuade the Patent Office that the smaller tablet differs sufficiently from its iconic sibling.

Apple has been involved in a series of patent disputes with rival firms.

It won a landmark case against Korea's Samsung last year but this month, a judge in the US ordered the $1bn (£660m) in damages awarded to Apple be cut by 40% and set a new trial to assess the level of damages.

The award was the biggest in a series of global legal fights between the two companies over patents.

The Patent Office issued the letter in January, although it has only just emerged.

In it, it said the "applied-for mark merely describes a feature or characteristic of applicant's goods".

The terms "mini" and "pad" and the prefix "i-" were all descriptive, it decided.

Neither as individual terms nor as a composite result - iPad Mini - did they "create a unique, incongruous, or non-descriptive meaning in relation to the goods being small handheld mobile devices comprising tablet computers capable of providing internet access".

In its last quarter to January, Apple said that it sold a record 22.9 million iPads and iPad Minis.

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Apple sued over security software

21 March 2013 Last updated at 07:27 ET

A Silicon Valley-based software firm, Intertrust Technologies, claims Apple's entire product line infringes security-related patents.

It is suing over the alleged violation of 15 patents, on products including iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, iTunes and App Store.

Intertrust is partly owned by Sony and Philips, and develops security software for digital content.

Apple has not yet issued a comment to the BBC.

It is the latest patent-related case against the technology giant.

"Apple makes many great products that use Intertrust's inventions," said Intertrust's chief executive Talal Shamoon in a statement.

"Our patents are foundational to modern internet security and trusted computing and result from years of internal research and development.

"We find it regrettable that we are forced to seek court assistance to resolve this matter."

Intertrust filed its claim in the US Federal Court in the Northern District of California.

The company is represented by law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan - the same one representing Samsung in its patent design suit against Apple.

It is not the first time Intertrust has made a claim against a technology firm over intellectual property. In 2004, it won a $440m (£290m) settlement from Microsoft.

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Internet scanned for security holes

21 March 2013 Last updated at 07:34 ET

A surreptitious scan of the entire internet has revealed millions of printers, webcams and set-top boxes protected only by default passwords.

An anonymous researcher used more than 420,000 of these insecure devices to test the security and responsiveness of other gadgets, in a nine-month survey.

Using custom-written code, they sent out more than four trillion messages.

The net's current addressing scheme accommodates about 4.2 billion devices. Only 1.3 billion addresses responded.

The number of addresses responding was a surprise as the pool of addresses for that scheme has run dry. As a result, the net is currently going through a transition to a new scheme that has a vastly larger pool of addresses available.

The scan found half a million printers, more than one million webcams and lots of other devices, including set-top boxes and modems, that still used the password installed in the factory, letting almost anyone take over that piece of hardware. Often the password was an easy to guess word such as "root" or "admin".

"Whenever you think, 'That shouldn't be on the internet, but will probably be found a few times,' it's there a few hundred thousand times," wrote the un-named researcher in a paper documenting their work.

HD Moore, who carried out a similar survey in 2012, told the Ars Technica news website the results looked "pretty accurate".

He added he had seen malicious hackers exploiting the security failings of these devices to run criminal networks known as botnets that are used to send out spam, mount phishing attacks and bombard websites with deluges of data.

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Google joins digital memo market

21 March 2013 Last updated at 07:41 ET

Anyone who has ever jotted down a note on the back of an envelope and promptly lost it might be interested in Google's latest offering, Keep.

The service allows users to keep checklists and voice notes, and annotate photos.

The digital memo market is a burgeoning one and the offering will put Google head to head with services such as Evernote.

Experts predict that Google might have entered the market a little too late.

Memory aid services are striking a chord with consumers and employees who are increasingly swamped by information.

Current market leader Evernote has 15 million active users.

Microsoft has a similar product - OneNote - and there are smaller rivals such as Springpad and Catch.

Now it seems Google wants a piece of the action.

"Every day we all see, hear or think of things we need to remember. Usually we grab a pad of sticky notes, scribble a reminder and put it on the desk, the fridge or the relevant page of a magazine," said Google software engineer Katherine Kuan in a blog post.

Keep is Google's attempt to turn this ad-hoc notetaking into a more efficient digital service.

"With Keep you can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what's important to you," she added.

The information is stored in Google Drive. Users can also speak memos and Keep transcribes them. And there is a search facility for people to quickly find what they are looking for.

Currently Keep is available only via the web or as an app for phones and tablets running Android 4.0 or above.

'800lb gorilla'

But with little to differentiate it from competitors, some feel Google may struggle to make an impact.

"My gut instinct is that Google may have come too late to this. It has a track record - with cloud services and social networking - of coming too late and struggling to make an impact," said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group.

"But, if anyone can make an impact, it will be Google," he added.

"If there is a 800lb gorilla like Google behind you you are going to be worried. Evernote cannot rest on its laurels but it does have a huge user base and they are not all going to desert it overnight."

Tony Cripps, analyst at research firm Ovum, thinks Google might benefit from the fact that many already use its myriad services.

"If you are a converted Google user it represents a good option. There is a level of convenience about having access to a range of services using one log-in," he said.

"I use Evernote but I'll give this a spin and see if it works for me."

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Hackers attack BBC Twitter accounts

21 March 2013 Last updated at 13:34 ET

Several BBC Twitter accounts, including its weather, Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds were hijacked by a group calling itself Syrian Electronic Army earlier.

A series of tweets about fake weather conditions in Middle Eastern countries began appearing on Thursday afternoon.

The accounts are the latest in a series of large corporate Twitter feeds to have been breached.

The BBC said that it now has control of all three accounts and all inappropriate content has been deleted.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We apologise to our audiences that this unacceptable material appeared under the BBC's name."

The attacks began in the early afternoon on Thursday. At the same time, BBC staff were alerted to a phishing email that had been sent to some BBC email accounts. It is not yet clear if the two are related.

The email contained a link that if clicked on could expose password details.

The BBC weather Twitter feed, which has 60,000 followers, was among those affected.

Alongside the standard tweets from the weather feed such as "'last night was chilly" some more bizarre comments began emerging.

They included: "Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel."

Another read: "Chaotic weather forecast for Lebanon as the government decides to distance itself from the Milky Way."

The group claiming responsibility has previously spread messages in support of Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad.

The BBC's Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds were also affected.

Faris Couri, BBC Arabic's editor-in-chief said in a statement: "Today at around 11.00GMT, BBC Arabic's twitter account @BBCArabicOnline was hacked. Since then, several pro-Assad news tweets were published by the account.

"We strongly condemn such action and apologise to our audiences," he said.

Social engineering

The attacks on the BBC are the latest in a series of hacks on high-profile Twitter accounts.

Last month Burger King and Chrysler saw their Twitter feeds hijacked while a quarter of a million Twitter users had their passwords stolen.

"The BBC is an obvious place to attack as it a trusted brand and so anyone who wishes to broadcast a message can reach a audience that are likely to pay attention, certainly initially," said Prof Alan Woodward from the department of computing at the University of Surrey.

"The most likely source of the hack is via social engineering - someone managing to elicit the password by fooling the user who keeps the password," he added.

Increasingly experts are now calling for Twitter to step up security and offer two-factor authentication, essentially a disposable, single-use password for its users.

Writing about the hack on his blog, security consultant Graham Cluley said it was unclear how the password had been cracked.

"The good news is that the hack doesn't appear to have been done with the intention of spreading malicious links or scams. Instead, it appears that the Syrian Electronic Army are trying to spread political messages about Syria instead," he said.

"You should always use hard-to-guess, hard-to-crack, unique passwords for your online accounts that you are not using anywhere else on the web."

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BBC commissions iPlayer dramas

22 March 2013 Last updated at 04:49 ET

The BBC has commissioned its first original dramas for its catch-up service iPlayer.

Six short films will be broadcast over the next two years by "up and coming talent" as part of a BBC Three strand.

Some comedy pilots and spin-offs from other shows have previously been screened on iPlayer, including Doctor Who mini-series Pond Life.

However this is the first time original drama programming has been created specifically for the service.

Victoria Jaye, BBC's head of TV online content, said it would help to explore "storytelling outside of a scheduled TV slot or duration".

BBC Three controller Zai Bennett added: "This new drama strand is exactly the kind of venture BBC Three is all about."

A record 272 million iPlayer requests for TV and radio programmes were made in January - up 26% on the previous month thanks to new mobile and tablet devices unwrapped on Christmas Day.

The most popular TV programmes requested include David Attenborough series Africa, Top Gear and Miranda.

Figures from the BBC showed usage of the service has grown some 42% in the 12 months to January 2013.

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S Korea: China hack link 'a mistake'

22 March 2013 Last updated at 06:11 ET

Officials in South Korea say they incorrectly linked a Chinese IP address to a cyber-attack earlier this week.

On Thursday, the Korean Communications Commission said it had traced the attack to an internet address in China, although the identity of those behind the attack could not be confirmed.

But it said further investigation showed the malware came from a local computer in one of the affected banks.

However, officials still believe the attack was orchestrated from abroad.

Wednesday's cyber-attack on six South Korean banks and broadcasters affected 32,000 computers and disrupted banking services.

The apparent link to China had fuelled speculation that North Korea was to blame.

Hackers can route their attacks through addresses in other countries to obscure their identities, and intelligence experts believe that North Korea routinely uses Chinese computer addresses to hide its cyber-attacks.

North Korea has been blamed for previous cyber-attacks on the South in 2009 and 2011.

South Korean officials initially linked the cyber-attack to an IP address in China, but on Friday said they had made a mistake.

Further investigation showed the IP address was in the internal server of Nonghyup bank, one of the victims of Wednesday's attack.

Its IP address "coincidentally matched" a Chinese IP address, the KCC said.

"Malicious code seemed to be spread from the server [of Nonghyup Bank] and there were records of [it] being approached by someone at that time," Lee Jae-il, vice-president of Korea's Internet Security Agency (Kisa), told reporters.

"We're still tracking some dubious IP addresses which are suspected of being based abroad," he said, adding that they were "keeping all kinds of possibilities open".

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Microsoft details data snoopers

22 March 2013 Last updated at 07:03 ET

More than 75,000 requests were made by police forces around the world for data on Microsoft users in 2012.

The figures were revealed in Microsoft's first transparency report which detailed how often police forces sought data to aid investigations.

US police forces topped the list of agencies keen to know who created specific images or other content.

In most cases, Microsoft only handed over basic information such as login names and IP addresses.

The transparency report from Microsoft follows similar efforts by Google, Twitter and others to let users know who is seeking data about what people do online.

The requests covered more than 137,000 accounts on Microsoft's many services including Hotmail, Outlook.com, Xbox Live, Skype and others. It was hard to estimate how many individual users that involved, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, in a blogpost, because many people ran lots of separate accounts.

Content control

Only 2.1% of the requests involved Microsoft handing over the content people created. This includes documents or images stored on servers or sent via email as well as copies of messages sent through its services. More than 99% of requests for content data came from US law enforcement agencies.

Most of the other requests were for non-content data such as login names, IP addresses or other low-level identifiers. Police forces in five countries - the US, UK, Turkey, Germany and France - made the bulk of these requests.

Finally, about 18% of requests involved Microsoft handing over no data at all, said the report, either because there was no data to be found or the request was not submitted properly.

"While law enforcement requests for information unquestionably are important... only a tiny percentage of users are potentially affected by them," wrote Mr Smith. He estimated that only 0.02% of its users felt the effect of a police request for data.

Microsoft said it would update the report every six months.

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China starts work on home-grown OS

22 March 2013 Last updated at 07:28 ET

China is working with software firm Canonical on an open-source operating system customised for Chinese users.

The collaboration will produce a version of Canonical's Ubuntu operating system called Kylin which will be released in April.

The deal is part of a five-year plan by China to get more people using open source software.

This software gives people more access to its internal workings so they can modify it themselves.

The first version of Ubuntu Kylin is intended for desktop and laptop computers. As well as using Chinese character sets, Kylin will also do more to support the way Chinese people interact with computers as well as reflect China's date conventions.

Future versions will include tools that let people use popular Chinese web services such as Baidu maps, the Taobao shopping service as well as versions of office programs and image management tools, directly from Ubuntu's main screen.

The code will be created at a laboratory in Beijing staffed by engineers from Canonical as well as several Chinese R&D agencies.

Canonical is also working with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on a version of Kylin that will run on servers so websites, online shops and hosting firms can adopt the software.

The move is widely seen as an attempt by China to wean its IT sector off Western software in favour of more home-grown alternatives.

Ubuntu is based on the Linux operating system and its development and use is governed by an open ethic that emphasises the sharing of core computer code. It stands in contrast to the closed or proprietary systems of Microsoft and Apple who restrict access to the core or source code for their operating systems.

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'Sexist joke' whistle-blower fired

22 March 2013 Last updated at 08:18 ET By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A woman who was offended by an exchange between two men at the US PyCon developer conference and tweeted their photo has been fired.

Adria Richards was near two delegates who joked about "big dongles" and used a technical term - forking repos - in what she felt was a sexual way.

She complained to the conference organisers and one of the men was fired by his company, a sponsor of the event.

Ms Richards has since faced a barrage of online abuse for her actions.

She has received death threats and her website was attacked by hacking collective Anonymous.

Ms Richards, a former "development evangelist" at SendGrid, has also now lost her job.

'Crossed the line'

"A SendGrid developer evangelist's responsibility is to build and strengthen our developer community across the globe," wrote SendGrid chief executive Jim Franklin in a blog post.

"In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that (Adria's) actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid.

"Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line."

Ms Richards claims she decided to take action after seeing pictures of young female coders displayed at the conference and felt they would be put off joining the industry if such behaviour continued.

"Women in technology need consistent messaging from birth through retirement they are welcome, competent and valued in the industry," she wrote on her blog.

"Everyone must take personal accountability and speak up when they hear something that isn't OK. It takes three words to make a difference: 'That's not cool'."

'Forking'

"Forking a repo" is a term used by developers to mean using somebody else's project as a starting point for your own.

Ms Richards also pointed out that PyCon's own code of conduct states that "sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon".

The man who was fired worked at PlayHaven. Its chief executive Andy Yang wrote in a blog post that a "thorough investigation" had been carried out before the decision was made to terminate his employment.

Someone claiming to be the man in question apologised in online forum Hacker News for any offence caused but denied saying anything inappropriate about "forking".

"While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece of hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking," he wrote.

"My friends and I had decided forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery (the highest form being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenter's projects; a friend said 'I would fork that guys repo'.

"The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us.

"Let this serve as a message to everyone, our actions and words, big or small, can have a serious impact," he added, also saying that he has now lost the job he liked and has three children to support.

Equality

Ms Richards has received criticism from both men and women about her actions.

"What you did reflects poorly on all of us women, but even worse on humankind," wrote Malia Stubben on Adria Richards' blog.

"How can you be so offensive in the name of equality? I thought programmers were logical," wrote Joshua Jones.

Others have been supportive.

"They didn't lose their jobs because of Adria Richards, they lost their jobs because of unprofessional actions reflecting badly on their employers," wrote Jake.

"You inspire me to speak out against inappropriate behaviour in the moment," wrote Jessica Keyes.

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Blizzard reveals trading card game

22 March 2013 Last updated at 12:04 ET

Blizzard has taken the wraps off the new video game it has been developing - a collectable card game.

Called Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the duelling game is based around cards players gather.

The game will be free to play in that people can earn cards by playing, but they will advance faster by buying cards in stores.

Blizzard said Hearthstone was going through internal testing but would be released before the end of 2013.

Cards in the game are based around characters, spells and artefacts from Blizzard's Warcraft world to make them immediately familiar to players, said Rob Pardo, Blizzard chief executive during a presentation about Hearthstone at the Pax East gaming convention. Packs of five cards would cost about $1 (60p) each, he said.

Cards bought in stores are replicated in the online game in which people duel with other players calling on weapons, spells and followers to help defeat an opponent.

Duplicate cards can be converted online into "arcane dust" that can be stockpiled and then used to craft the rare cards players need to do better in duels.

Currently, there is no direct connection between World of Warcraft and the Hearthstone game. However, people will need a Blizzard Battlenet account to play the card game. It will be playable on PCs, Macs and on Apple tablets.

Hearthstone could face competition from game studio Mojang which is developing a similar game called Scrolls. In addition, there are many other well-established collectable card video games such as Duel of the Planeswalkers.

Olivia Grace, a contributing editor at online gaming site Wow Insider, said the game was "definitely not" what she and other keen gamers were expecting,

"This is something of a surprise, yes, and it's not that remarkable that there have been feelings of disappointment," she told the BBC.

Despite this, she said, Hearthstone looked well put together.

"The microtransaction-based free-to-play business model is a new endeavour for Blizzard, and hopefully they'll execute it well," she added. "Also, given the existence of the WoW Trading Card Game, it'll be interesting to see whether there's any incorporation of the TCG into this new one."

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Google to retire Reader service

14 March 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET

Google is to shut down its Reader service in July, as usage has declined.

A petition to save the service, which aggregates news content from web feeds, had 25,000 signatures in a few hours.

Experts say shutting Reader is part of Google's plan to migrate more people to its social media service, Google+.

Google said in its official blog: "There are two simple reasons for this - usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we are pouring all of our energy into fewer products."

It added users and developers who wanted to use alternatives could export their data, including their subscriptions over the next four months, using its Google Takeout service.

Google Reader launched in 2005, when Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds were a new way to keep tabs on favourite websites and blogs.

The news of its demise has led to a debate about the service on Twitter. Some said its launch had effectively destroyed other RSS competitors.

Security consultant @cortesi tweeted: "Google - a destroyer of ecosystems".

In his blog, he added:" "Google destroyed the RSS feed-reader ecosystem with a subsidised product, stifling its competitors and killing innovation.

"It then neglected Google Reader itself for years, after it had effectively become the only player."

Adam Leach, a principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said Google's business model was to offer free services in order to draw people into its other offerings.

Now, he said, Google wanted people to experience their favourite websites in a more social way and was seeking to migrate its aggregation platforms to its social media service.

"This has been on the cards for a while. It is part of Google's strategy to shift people to Google + and other social tools," he said.

Doomed to fail

He added he would personally miss the service.

"I use Google Reader every day," he said.

"It is one of those tools that sits in the background and allows you to keep pace with what is going on."

But Chris Wetherell, one of Reader's chief engineers, told tech news site GigaOm it had been "doomed to fail from the very beginning because Google "never really believed in the project".

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UK broadband hits double figures

14 March 2013 Last updated at 09:23 ET

The average speed of home broadband is now 12Mbps (megabits per second), according to research from regulator Ofcom.

That has risen by a third since its last report in May 2012 and trebled in the past four years.

Increasingly consumers are upgrading their broadband packages to super-fast services of 30Mbps or above.

The increasing appetite for online video and more devices per household were driving the changes, Ofcom said.

By November 2012, more than three-quarters of the UK's home broadband users were on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps.

Continue reading the main story

• Nov 2008 - 3.6Mbps average
• Nov 2009 - 4.1Mbps average
• Nov 2010 - 5.2Mbps average
• May 2011 - 6.8Mbps average
• Nov 2011 - 7.6Mbps average
• May 2012 - 9.0Mbps average
• Nov 2012 - 12.0Mbps average

The proportion of broadband connections classed as superfast was up to 13%, from 5% the previous year.

Superfast connections are getting faster, with average speeds rising from 35.8Mbps in May 2012 to 44.6Mbps in November 2012.

They are also getting cheaper - customers can upgrade for as little as £5, according to Ofcom.

Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, said "Our research shows that UK consumers are adopting faster broadband packages to cater for their increasing use of bandwidth-heavy services such as video streaming.

"The increase in the average number of connected devices in UK homes is also driving the need for speed," he said.

Digital ghettos

The report also looked at upload speeds, important to consumers wishing to share large files or use real-time video communications. The average upload speed was 1.4Mbps, up from 0.3Mbps average in May.

Price comparison website broadbandchoices.co.uk said that the prices of super-fast services needed to fall.

"An increase of 3.1Mbps (34%) in UK broadband speeds is significant, but this is entirely down to the increased availability of fibre optic services and these do not come cheap - you could end up paying five times as much for fibre optic as you would for standard ADSL," said Dominic Baliszewski, the website's telecoms expert.

He also pointed out that the increasing speeds were unlikely to affect those struggling on much slower speeds in the countryside: "Unfortunately this report will be cold comfort to rural dwellers stuck in 'digital ghettos' who are struggling to get more than a few megabits per second.

"British households are still having to play a postcode lottery when it comes to broadband speed; the government's vision for UK broadband to be fastest in Europe by 2015 is a long way from being realised," he said.

Natural limit

This week the Community Broadband Network launched a report looking at fresh ways to fund broadband to the last 10% of the UK.

It wants the government to provide loans directly to communities wanting to build their own networks.

Meanwhile a report from telecoms analyst firm PointTopic said that there was a natural limit to the speeds consumers would need.

"Today that 'point' is in the 60-70Mbps range," said Oliver Johnson, chief executive at Point Topic.

"Enough to stream a high definition video or three with perhaps some light browsing on the side and if the kids are old enough an online game and a music stream," he added.

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Expert plays down 'cyberwar' threat

14 March 2013 Last updated at 12:42 ET

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Experts told the Public Accounts Committee cybersecurity was a rapidly changing field

Al-Qaeda lacks the technical expertise to sabotage Britain's national power and water systems, a cyber-security expert has told a committee of MPs.

Asked why a cyber-attack had never been launched on such assets, Thomas Rid said: "Al-Qaeda are too stupid and China doesn't want to do it."

China denies state-backed hacking and says it is, rather, a victim of it.

Dr Rid, a reader in war studies at King's College, London, was briefing the Public Accounts Committee.

He said Britain's critical infrastructure was vulnerable to disruption at sites where industrial control systems were linked to the internet.

In some cases, the owners of the equipment might not know it is capable of being connected to the internet or, if it was installed some years ago when cybersecurity was less important, it might not be adequately protected from attack, he told the MPs.

'Skills and intelligence'

But although cybersecurity was a rapidly changing field, his assessment was that terror groups did not currently have the expertise required to disrupt key public services.

"It requires intelligence about the targets you are trying to penetrate.

"And then it is not just enough to switch off the systems through a software attack, but you actually have to reprogram the system in order to modify outcome parameters and that is much more difficult. You need to know what you are doing.

"You need skills and intelligence. Right now militants don't have that."

Dr Rid, who has hit back at warnings from military experts about the risk of cyberwarfare in the past, said it was important to distinguish between sabotage and espionage.

"Let's put it this way, people in China have a commercial interest in stealing information from Western companies.

"They don't have a commercial interest in breaking anything. So they want to steal stuff, but they don't want to break stuff because, after all, they are part of the same economy."

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude warned last year against the threats to British interests from "hostile foreign states and others".

'State actors'

In 2011, the British government launched a £650m National Cyber Security Programme, the latest phase of which was unveiled this week by security minister James Brokenshire..

The government has also issued advice to senior business leaders about how to combat the threat of electronic espionage.

Britain's major banks now share information on attempted cyber-attacks and hold regular meetings with officials from the UK's secret listening post GCHQ, the Public Accounts Committee was told.

But British officials have been reluctant to point the finger at China or any other foreign state suspected of being behind the attacks - in contrast to increasingly strident comments from Washington.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama said he had made clear to Beijing and "some other state actors" that the US expect them to abide by international rules.

"We have seen a steady ramping up of cybersecurity threats," said Mr Obama in a television interview. "Some are state sponsored, some are just sponsored by criminals."

Last month, a US cybersecurity firm said a secretive branch of China's military was probably one of the world's "most prolific cyber-espionage groups", believed to have stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations around the world.

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Eye-tracking Samsung Galaxy unveiled

14 March 2013 Last updated at 20:52 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

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The BBC's Michelle Fleury takes a look at the Galaxy S4, and asks whether it has more than just initial "wow factor"

Samsung has launched a smartphone which allows users to control its 5in (12.5cm) screen using only their eyes.

The Galaxy S4 follows on from last year's S3, a product that sold over 40 million units worldwide.

At a lavish, Broadway-themed event in New York, the company also demonstrated the phone's ability to take two different pictures at once.

Analysts widely regard Samsung to be the biggest challenger to Apple's dominance of mobile products.

The Galaxy S4 will be rolled out globally at the end of April.

Following the launch, shares in Samsung fell 1.7% in early trade in Seoul on Friday amid worries the market for phone upgrades was "flattening out".

The company's head of mobile communications, JK Shin said 327 mobile operators in 155 countries will carry the handset.

In the UK, Vodafone, Three, Orange, T-Mobile and EE have all announced plans to offer the device on their networks.

Through a series of role-playing scenes, the South Korean firm demonstrated the phone's key features.

Much was made of the device's ability to be controlled without touching it.

Using "Smart pause", the user can pause a video by looking away from the screen.

Additionally, the "Smart Scroll" software analyses the user's eyes and wrist to scroll through emails and other content.

'Gimmicky'

"The debut of nifty eye motion-sensitive controls to allow users to pause video and scroll through pages using eye movements alone is smart," said telecoms expert Ernest Doku from uSwitch.com.

"For commuters crammed in trains - or just those who love a bit of futuristic tech that makes their lives easier - this novel feature will really help the Galaxy S4 to stand out."

Continue reading the main story

The 5in display is the belle of the ball"

End Quote David Pierce The Verge

However, Charles Golvin from Forrester Research worried the swathes of new features may alienate some customers.

"The larger question is how much of this stuff can people actually use," he told the BBC.

"There's no question that there's a lot of powerful technology and innovative features - but whether people will care about them or use them I'm not sure.

"Including an image of yourself in a picture that you're taking for someone else - yes, I think that's a bit gimmicky.

"But on the video side, for a live chat where it's compositing you and your image to show both you and what you're seeing - that's not a gimmick."

Lighter and thinner

In another scene, depicting a backpacker in Shanghai, the phone was shown to translate English text into Chinese speech - before translating Chinese speech back into English text.

The dual camera feature makes use of the device's front and rear cameras simultaneously, blending the pictures together to make sure the picture taker is not "left out".

The rear has a 13 megapixel camera, while the user-facing camera captures pictures at 2 megapixels.

The phone weighs 130g, and is 7.9mm thick - making it slightly lighter and thinner than the S3.

The device uses Samsung's HD AMOLED technology, giving the S4's screen - which is marginally bigger than the S3's - a resolution of 441 pixels-per-inch.

As predicted by several industry experts before the event, most of the presentation focused on the phone's software rather than hardware.

As well as the "touchless" technology, the company also introduced the Samsung Hub - a multimedia storage facility that can be shared across multiple Samsung devices.

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4G interference helpline launches

14 March 2013 Last updated at 21:57 ET

The organisation set up to help households experiencing interference from 4G signals has launched.

Called at800, it has been given £180m by the UK's mobile operators to ensure that next-generation services do not cause interference with TV services.

Ofcom has estimated that up to 900,000 homes could experience interference with their TV signal.

The problem affects only Freeview users, which operates close to the 800MHz frequency 4G services will use.

Live trial

According to Freeview, around 20 million households watch TV via its platform. Of these about half have it as their sole TV service.

On Monday at 800 will begin live trials in the West Midland, temporarily activating 4G masts in Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis, to gauge exactly how many households are affected and how.

A website and contact centre will also go live - the number is 0333 31 31 800.

Residents and business are being asked to report the extent to which Freeview services are disrupted.

Different platform

Full commercial 4G launches are expected in the summer.

The organisation plans to produce maps of households most likely to be affected and inform them via post of the things they can do to mitigate the problem.

It estimates that the majority of homes will be able to solve any interference issues by fitting a filter, which it will supply free of charge.

For vulnerable people, an engineer will visit the home to fit it.

The filter will normally plug into the aerial lead between the TV and the antenna, blocking the 4G frequencies.

For those for whom that solution does not work, an engineer will be sent out to see if they need to change their cabling or aerial.

For a few, it may be necessary to move onto a different platform, such as satellite or cable.

Simon Beresford-Wylie, at800 chief executive, said of the process: "We are hoping for the best and planning for the worst."

Other countries, where 4G services have already gone live, have had few issues.

In Germany where 10% of the population watches digital terrestrial TV, less than 10 cases of interference have been reported.

Sweden also has had very few reported problems.

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N Korea says US 'behind hack attack'

15 March 2013 Last updated at 05:10 ET

North Korea has accused the US and its allies of attacks on its internet servers, amid tension on the peninsula.

KCNA news agency said the "intensive and persistent" attacks coincided with US-South Korea military drills.

Official sites such as KCNA, Air Koryo and Rodong Sinmun, the party newspaper, are reported to have been inaccessible on some occasions in recent days.

Tension has escalated in the wake of North Korea's third nuclear test last month.

The test led to fresh UN sanctions being imposed on Pyongyang, which has responded with strong rhetoric - both to the UN move and the annual joint drills, which it bitterly opposes.

It says it has scrapped the Korean War armistice and ended non-aggression pacts with Seoul. It has also cut off a hotline that connects the two countries.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a treaty. South Korea says North Korea cannot unilaterally dissolve the armistice and has called on Pyongyang to tone down its language.

North Korea called the cyber attack a "cowardly and despicable act".

"It is nobody's secret that the US and South Korean puppet regime are massively bolstering up cyber forces in a bid to intensify the subversive activities and sabotages against the DPRK [North Korea]," KCNA said.

Accusations of cyber attacks on the peninsula usually flow in the opposite direction, says the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul.

South Korean intelligence sources say North Korea routinely attempts to access the network here, and Pyongyang is believed to have broken into Defence Ministry data at least once in the past few years, our correspondent adds.

The cause of the disruption remains unclear.

Current internet access in North Korea is extremely limited for locals, with most people only having access to a small number of state-run pages. The wider internet is available only to the government and the military.

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Net's 'bad neighbourhoods' mapped

15 March 2013 Last updated at 07:14 ET

About 50% of all junk mail on the net emerges from just 20 internet service providers (ISPs), a study has found.

The survey of more than 42,000 ISPs tried to map the net's "bad neighbourhoods" to help pinpoint sources of malicious mail.

The survey by a researcher in Holland found that, in many cases, ISPs specialise in particular threats such as spam and phishing.

Methods to thwart attacks and predict targets also emerged from the study.

The large-scale study was carried out to help fine-tune computer security tools that scrutinise the net addresses of email and other messages to help them work out if they are junk or legitimate. Such tools could make better choices if they were armed with historical information about the types of traffic that emerge from particular networks.

In his analysis Giovane Cesar Moreira Moura who studied at the University of Twente found that some networks could be classed as "bad neighbourhoods" because, just like in the real world, they were places where malicious activity was more likely.

Of the 42,201 ISPs studied about 50% of all junk mail, phishing attacks and other malicious messages came from just 20 networks, he found. Many of these networks were concentrated in India, Vietnam and Brazil. On the net's most crime-ridden network - Spectranet in Nigeria - 62% of all the addresses controlled by that ISP were seen to be sending out spam.

Networks involved in malicious activity also tended to specialise in one particular sort of malicious message or attack, he discovered. For instance, the majority of phishing attacks came from ISPs based in the US. By contrast, spammers tend to favour Asian ISPs. Indian ISP BSNL topped the list of spam sources in the study.

Analysis tools

Mr Moreira Moura pointed out that malicious traffic coming from one network did not reveal its ultimate source. Many cybercriminals route spam and other traffic through hijacked PCs or send it across compromised corporate networks that join the net via an ISP.

The data gathered for the study is helping to create analysis tools that will do a better job of assessing whether traffic coming from sources never seen before is good or bad. In the same way that people avoid walking through parts of towns and cities known to be dangerous, security tools can start to filter traffic from ISPs known as historical sources of malicious messages.

"If security engineers want to reduce the incidence of attacks on the internet, they should start by tackling networks where attacks are more frequently originated," he wrote the in the research paper.

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Justgiving donations site crashes

15 March 2013 Last updated at 08:05 ET

Fund-raising website JustGiving has crashed just as Red Nose Day gets under way.

Some people raising cash for Comic Relief were planning on using the site to gather funds as they did stunts on the appeal's main day.

The site crashed about 10:00 GMT and, so far, it has not been possible to make any donations.

JustGiving said that the overall impact on Red Nose Day would be small as Comic Relief ran its own donations site.

The organisation said donating via text still worked and it was tying to get the site back in action.

A spokesperson for Just Giving said a problem at its hosting company took it and many other websites offline.

Although donations could not be made via Just Giving on Red Nose Day, it was unlikely that the main fund-raising effort of Comic Relief would suffer as a result, said the spokesperson. Just Giving was a "peripheral partner" for Comic Relief and only a few tens of thousands was raised for the cause via the site.

Comic Relief encourages backers to set up their own page via the charity's main site and most cash would arrive via that route, said the spokesperson.

People raising money for charity use JustGiving as an easy way for people to pledge cash to their project, stunt or event. Cash can be donated via individual pages set up on the site.

JustGiving used its Twitter account and Facebook page to apologise for the website being unreachable.

"Our tech team are on it & we hope to be back up asap," said the organisation in one tweet. Later it said the problem had been traced to "network problems" at its service provider which was also trying to get them fixed.

JustGiving reassured its users that money pledged to them was safe and the site had not been compromised. Those wanting to donate cash could still do so via text message, it said.

While the main site was offline, Just Giving set up a webpage that apologised for the problems and directed people to other ways of donating.

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Gamer hacks SimCity to run offline

15 March 2013 Last updated at 08:52 ET

SimCity has almost been turned into a single-player game by an enterprising hacker.

By modifying the game's code, the hacker has made it possible to play the game offline almost indefinitely.

The feat sits at odds with assertions by Electronic Arts (EA) that the game requires a permanent online link.

EA said the "always on" requirement contributed to big problems at launch as it tried to keep different players' cities co-ordinated.

Soon after SimCity was launched on 5 March, many people reported that they were having to wait up to 30 minutes or more to play the game.

Others reported sluggish performance and others bugs as they played. EA said these problems occurred because many aspects of the game were shared and the sheer number of people trying to play overwhelmed servers.

The ongoing problems led EA to apologise for the "dumb" way it set up the launch and led to it adding servers behind the scenes to spread the load.

However, claims that the title needs to be permanently connected so data can be shared have been whittled away by players. Some have unplugged their web connection and found that SimCity can last for 20 minutes before it needs to check in with back-end servers.

The always-online requirement won criticism from many players who said it was unnecessary and was more about preventing piracy than improving gameplay.

Now, a gamer going by the alias of AzzerUK has revealed on social news site Reddit how he turned off the requirement to be online all the time.

By rewriting the game's code during "debug mode" AzzerUK turned off the game's disconnect timer so it never checked whether it was online or offline. He also fiddled with other values to almost convert it to an offline, single-player game.

City saved

"Your PC can handle your entire city simulation without any help from the internet or EA's servers," he wrote in a detailed explanation posted to the Pastie website. Videos showing the game working offline were also posted to YouTube.

The work lent weight to claims made on the Rock Paper Shotgun website by an unnamed worker at SimCity Creator Maxis who said a permanent connection was not always needed.

However, added AzzerUK, there was no way as yet to save a copy of a city to a home PC. Instead the copy had to be downloaded from EA's servers.

"Local saves will not be possible with simple editing, but may be possible with some serious work and ingenuity," he said.

EA said it did not comment on "rumour and speculation" when asked about AzzerUK's hack by games news site Eurogamer.

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Reuters man on Anonymous hack charge

15 March 2013 Last updated at 09:11 ET

A Reuters social media editor has been charged in the US with conspiring with hacker group Anonymous to break into a website of a former employer, the Tribune Company.

The indictment says Matthew Keys gave members of Anonymous a login and password to the company server.

At least one hacker managed to change the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature, the indictment says.

The alleged incident occurred before Mr Keys' employment with Reuters.

Mr Keys said he only found out about the charges from Twitter.

"Tonight I'm going to take a break. Tomorrow, business as usual," he tweeted.

A Reuters spokesman said in a statement: "Any legal violations, or failures to comply with the company's own strict set of principles and standards, can result in disciplinary action.

"We would also observe the indictment alleges the conduct occurred in December 2010; Mr Keys joined Reuters in 2012."

Court date set

The US Justice Department said Mr Keys had been charged in California with one count each of conspiracy to transmit information to damage a protected computer; transmitting information to damage a protected computer and attempted transmission of information to damage a protected computer.

Mr Keys worked for Sacramento-based TV station KTXL FOX 40 - owned by Tribune - as its web producer but his job was terminated in late October 2010, the indictment adds.

He is alleged to have identified himself on an internet chat forum as a former Tribune Company employee and then provided members of Anonymous with the login and password to the Tribune Company server.

The indictment alleges that Mr Keys had a conversation with the hacker who claimed credit for the defacement of the Los Angeles Times website.

The hacker allegedly told him that Tribune Company system administrators had locked him out.

Mr Keys allegedly tried to regain access for the hacker, and when he learned that the hacker had made changes to a page, Mr Keys is said to have responded: "Nice."

If convicted, Mr Keys faces up to 10 years in jail, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 for each count.

He is scheduled to appear in the Sacramento federal court on 14 April.

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Web 'brain' for robots goes live

8 March 2013 Last updated at 06:55 ET

Robots confused about what they encounter in the world of humans can now get help online.

European scientists have turned on the first part of a web-based database of information to help them cope.

Called Rapyuta, the online "brain" describes objects robots have met and can also carry out complicated computation on behalf of a robot.

Rapyuta's creators hope it will make robots cheaper as they will not need all their processing power on-board.

The Rapyuta database is part of the European Robo Earth project that began in 2011 with the hope of standardising the way robots perceive the human world.

Instead of every robot building up its own idiosyncratic catalogue of how to deal with the objects and situations it encounters, Rapyuta would be the place they ask for help when confronted with a novel situation, place or thing.

In addition, the web-based service is able to do complicated computation on behalf of a robot - for example if it needs to work out how to navigate a room, fold an item of clothing or understand human speech.

The system could be particularly useful for drones, self-driving cars or other mobile robots who have to do a lot of number crunching just to get round, said Mohanarajah Gajamohan, technical head of the project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Cloud control

"On-board computation reduces mobility and increases cost." said Dr Heico Sandee, Robo Earth program manager at the Dutch University of Technology in Eindhoven in a statement. As wireless data speeds increase more and more robotic thinking could be offloaded to the web, he said.

Without access to such a database, roboticists fear machines will be restricted to working in very tightly controlled environments such as production lines and never live easily alongside humans.

The project, which involves researchers at five separate European research labs, has produced the database as well as software that robots can run to connect to and quiz Rapyuta.

The name Rapyuta is taken from the Japanese film by Hayao Miyazaki Castle in the Sky - in the film it is the place where all the robots live.

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Volvo unveils cyclist alert system

6 March 2013 Last updated at 11:20 ET

Volvo has announced it is releasing a cyclist detection facility which should prevent fatal accidents.

The auto firm says vehicles fitted with the system will be able to detect threats including a cyclist suddenly swerving out into a car's path.

It said that if a collision risk was detected an alarm would sound and the car's brakes would be fully deployed.

However, safety campaigners say the tech is no replacement for caution behind the wheel.

The Chinese-owned company introduced the feature at the Geneva Motor Show.

No upgrades

The technology is an enhanced version of Volvo's pedestrian detection system which it launched in 2010.

Like the earlier release the innovation uses a radar in the car's grille and a camera located between its windscreen and back view mirror to detect collision threats.

The code which acts as the brains for the equipment has been rewritten to add the new feature, and its added complexity has meant a more powerful processor is now needed.

As a consequence Volvo cars fitted with prior versions of the product cannot simply install a software upgrade.

The firm added that the new system also needed to be installed while cars were being built in the factory - meaning it would have to be ordered up front - and it would be limited to seven out of 11 models in the company's current line-up.

Motorists wanting the feature face an added bill of at least £1,850 to buy it as a part of a package of added features.

Horse alerts

A Volvo Car UK spokesman told the BBC that the firm's engineers were now working on a fresh version as part of its 2020 programme which would also detect animals.

They have already spent an evening at a safari park where they laid out dried food to attract the creatures which they filmed to study their various behaviours.

"The aim is to avoid collisions with horses and deer for example," said Chris Mullord. "But there's no firm release date yet."

This is not the firm's only effort to protect people outside its vehicles from accidents. In May it will release its first car fitted with an airbag beneath its bonnet which will inflate if sensors in the front bumper detect they have come into contact with a cyclist or pedestrian.

The airbag covers approximately a third of the windscreen and is designed to minimise injury to the victim's head.

According to the UK's Department for Transport, 6,040 pedestrians, 3,270 cyclists and 5,440 motorcyclists were killed or seriously injured on the UK's roads between October 2011 and September 2012.

It said the figures for each category had increased by between 4-8% over the previous year.

British Cycling - the UK's governing body for cycling - said it appreciated Volvo's efforts, but added that they only addressed part of the problem.

"While we obviously welcome any safety measures that can be built into vehicles, people shouldn't be relying on technology to keep them and other road users safe," said a spokeswoman.

"What would make much more of a difference is making cyclist awareness a mandatory part of the driving test. British Cycling will continue to campaign for this as well as the establishment of a prominent, national cyclist awareness campaign similar to that we've seen for motorcyclists."

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Frozen phones give up data secrets

7 March 2013 Last updated at 05:59 ET

Freezing an Android phone can help reveal its confidential contents, German security researchers have found.

The team froze phones for an hour as a way to get around the encryption system that protects the data on a phone by scrambling it.

Google introduced the data scrambling system with the version of Android known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

The attack allowed the researchers to get at contact lists, browsing histories and photos.

Cold start

Android's data scrambling system was good for end users but a "nightmare" for law enforcement and forensics workers, the team at Erlangen's Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) wrote in a blogpost about their work.

To get around this, researchers Tilo Muller, Michael Spreitzenbarth and Felix Freiling from FAU put Android phones in a freezer for an hour until the device had cooled to below -10C.

The trio discovered that quickly connecting and disconnecting the battery of a frozen phone forced the handset into a vulnerable mode. This loophole let them start it up with some custom-built software rather than its onboard Android operating system. The researchers dubbed their custom code Frost - Forensic Recovery of Scrambled Telephones.

The Frost software helped them copy data on a phone that could then be analysed on a separate computer.

A chilled phone also helped their hacking project. Data fades from memory much more slowly when chips are cold which allowed them to grab the encryption keys and speed up unscrambling the contents of a phone.

PhD student Tilo Muller told the BBC that the attack generally gave them access to data that had been put in memory as users browsed websites, sent messages or shared pictures.

The researchers tested their attack against a Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset as it was one of the first to use Android's disk encryption system. However, they said, other phones were just as likely to be vulnerable to the attack. The team are planning further tests on other Android handsets.

While the "cold boot" attack had been tried on desktop PCs and laptops, Mr Muller said the trio were the first to try it on phones.

"We thought it would work because smartphones are really small PCs," he said. "but we were quite excited that the trick with the freezer worked so well."

The German research group is now working on defences against the attack that ensures encryption keys are never put in vulnerable memory chips. Instead they are only used in the memory directly attached to a phone's processor.

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Quick success for Planescape reboot

7 March 2013 Last updated at 08:14 ET

A project to make a "spiritual sequel" to classic video game Planescape: Torment has taken six hours to hit its funding goal on Kickstarter.

Torment: Tides of Numenera launched on 6 March seeking $900,000 (£600,000) to make a follow-up to the original game.

The project reached its initial cash target soon after launch and now more than $1.6m (£1m) has been pledged to the game, on the crowd-funding website.

The game is scheduled to be released in December 2014.

Released in 1999 by Black Isle Studios , Planescape: Torment was a single-player video game that, since its debut, has been lauded as a classic of story-led gaming.

It lets players take on the role of a character called The Nameless One who journeys through the strange city of Sigil, gradually re-discovering who he is.

The game was not a financial success but has won many fans since as word about its complexity and characters has spread.

Some of the designers of Planescape game have signed on to help create Tides of Numenera, as have other developers and artists involved with the original.

It also has the blessing of Chris Avellone, lead designer of Planescape: Torment.

In the description on Kickstarter, the team behind Numenera said the game would be set in a different world but would aim to emulate the "deep, thematically satisfying story" of the first game.

It would be less about combat and more about interaction with characters in the game.

Writing on the Rock, Paper, Shotgun games news site Alec Meer said it was always likely that the game would be funded given the amount of "backlogged adoration" for Planescape.

However, he was surprised it hit its funding target so swiftly despite there being no in-game footage available nor any direct involvement of original designer Chris Avellone.

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Samsung loses Apple case in UK

7 March 2013 Last updated at 10:20 ET

South Korean phone-maker Samsung has lost another patent fight against rival Apple, in the UK High Court.

Samsung had said technology used in Apple products to allow phones to send and receive data over 3G networks infringed three of its patents.

The case comes a week after Galaxy smartphone manufacturer failed to secure an iPhone ban in Japan.

Samsung has pursued a number of claims against Apple in courts worldwide, but has won only a minority of the cases.

It said in a statement it was disappointed by the court's decision and would consider whether to file an appeal.

"For decades, we have heavily invested in pioneering the development of technological innovations in the mobile industry, which have been constantly reflected in our products," a spokeswoman said.

Apple declined to comment.

Legal battles between the two companies began in 2011, when Apple first sued Samsung in the US for alleged intellectual property infringements.

Other court cases have taken place in France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, South Korea and Japan.

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Facebook gives itself a facelift

7 March 2013 Last updated at 13:56 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Facebook has revamped its design, making its website look more like its Android and iOS mobile apps.

The refresh also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its news feed.

One consequence of the change is that adverts can take up more screen space, making them harder to ignore.

However, the project's lead engineer denied ads were the redesign's focus. He also played down suggestions that the move was intended to make people spend more time on the site.

Chris Struhar instead suggested his focus had been on stripping back the amount of information being shown on the news feed to make each post more "engaging".

Continue reading the main story

Facebook is selling the new version of newsfeed under the catchline "Goodbye clutter", insisting that it is about making the user experience better rather than boosting its advertising revenue. But if it works for users, it will make the social network more valuable for advertisers too."

End Quote

Rory's verdict on Facebook's 'tabloid' look

"One of the consistent themes we heard in feedback from people was that it felt cluttered and that there was lot happening on the page," he told the BBC ahead of the official announcement.

"We wanted to clean up the page, declutter it, make it simpler, more modern and easier for people to use.

"I often compare this to a 1960s television with wood panelling, knobs around it and a tiny postage stamp-sized screen - and what we're trying to do is take that same TV and translate it into a 40in HD experience."

The firm has begun rolling out the new format but it will be months before all users are affected. However, those wanting to be among the first to be switched over can sign up to offering a waiting list feature.

Facebook reported in January that 1.06 billion people were using its service at least once a month.

It also revealed that its profit for the last three months of 2012 was 79% down on the same period the previous year despite a rise in sales because of increased spending on research and development.

Pop-out bar

There are three key changes being made to the social network:

• The website switches from a three-column format to two-columns letting the main news feed take up more space. This allows all posts - whether they are friends' updates or adverts - to take up a bigger proportion of the web browser with more prominence given to images and video rather than text describing a link.
• A pop-out black bar is added to the left-hand side of the page. This contains app bookmarks, links to specific friends, the chat and calendar tools, and the live updates ticker.
• In addition to the standard news feed, users can select other alternative feeds. These include one which shows all the updates posted by friends rather than just the ones selected by Facebook's algorithms; one dedicated to organisations and people the user "follows"; a page featuring only posted photos; and a music-themed feed containing updates from artists the user likes, concert announcements and details of songs their friends are listening to through services including Spotify and Rdio.

It is also noteworthy that the firm has now dropped its "facebook" logo which spelt out its full name, and replaced it with an "f" icon. This change had already been experienced by the selected group of users given early access to its Graph Search facility.

Another tweak involves auto-generating maps to accompany posts about specific locations. This may encourage more members to use the mobile app's GPS-powered check-in function which competes with Foursquare.

Continue reading the main story

Investors and marketers will be keen to find out whether the alterations make users more likely to read and interact with paid content.

The social network already knows that engagement with ads in its main news feed is greater than with those that appear on the right-hand side of its web browser. This column of adverts is absent from its mobile apps altogether.

Enlarging the news feed now allows a sponsored post to become by far the biggest element on the screen, taking up roughly a third of the page when viewed on a 13in (33cm) laptop display.

Another business-friendly change is that if a user "likes" an organisation a horizontal banner photo is added to posts reporting the news in addition to the brand's logo, making the update more eye-catching.

Mr Struhar acknowledged that sponsored posts from "liked" brands had become bigger, but added that it was not his intention to make users more likely to click them.

"This redesign doesn't change anything about how people interact with ads on Facebook," he said.

"We aren't changing where adverts show up or what ads you see. We're just trying to take all the content that you do see and make that bigger and more immersive and more engaging."

He added that further amendments might be made once users had had a chance to provide feedback.

Hin-Yan Wong, head of strategy at Connect Advertising & Marketing, said he expected users would eventually learn to get used the new look - and come to accept the bigger presence of advertisers.

"I think the design, which is a lot less cluttered, actually cleans up the whole thing quite a lot," he told the BBC.

"It's really a case of making sure you have high quality [advertising] content.

"Facebook will have to make that work because they have to make money. I suspect in the weeks to come they will unveil additional flexibility for advertisers.

"Hopefully that will bring a lot of new opportunities."

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Mobile gaming rise set to continue

By Jim Taylor
Newsbeat reporter Angry Birds Space and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 have both been huge hits

The rise in smartphone and tablet gaming will continue in 2013, according to figures seen by Newsbeat.

Industry analysts IHS Screen Digest think nearly £300 million will be spent on mobile games in the UK this year, up from just £100m three years ago.

It is still significantly less than the £743m expected to be spent on console games but the gap is narrowing.

Nine out of 10 apps are free to download but 'freemium' games, offering in-app purchases, are now more common.

'Mobile future'

Newsbeat visited the world's biggest mobile phone show, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, to see how mobile gaming is developing.

Continue reading the main story

You're looking at a generation of children who will grow up not knowing what it was like, not to have a touch screen

John Kopp Game Insight

Firms were keen to show off how their phones and tablets could connect to modern televisions.

That could mean playing a game on your phone, with the graphics and sound beamed wirelessly to your TV.

John Kopp was at the show for gaming firm Game Insight and says the industry has "exploded".

However, he doesn't think the console is dead quite yet.

"I hope not," he said. "But at the same time I can absolutely see [mobile] is the future.

"You're looking at an entire generation of children who will grow up not knowing what it was like, not to have a touch screen."

The success of mobile gaming is already having an impact on consoles.

The control pad for Nintendo's Wii U console has a video screen which works on its own and Sony says gamers will be able to use their phones and tablets as a "second screen" with PlayStation 4.

Newsbeat spoke to gamers in Brixton in South London.

Jasmine Fergus, 21, and Ben Smalley, 22

Jasmine is more of a mobile gamer but doesn't mind a bit of Call of Duty.

Ben's phone isn't up to playing games and the Fifa addict is happier on his console anyway.

"I just don't see the point. I don't think I'd ever play a game on my mobile. You want to be around a console with all your mates don't you?"

But he agrees people are buying fewer games nowadays.

"Pretty much everyone I know, the only games they buy are CoD and Fifa."

Annis el Marzak and Alex Peddar, both 25

Annis and Alex both used to work in video game stores but aren't surprised by the rise in mobile gaming.

"It's accessible and it's there in front of you, and it only costs 69p", said Alex.

"Plus you've already got the phone, which you didn't have to pay for because it's on contract."

They're expecting Apple to make a move into home gaming soon, building on the success of the App store but say they'll probably still buy a PS4.

Kim Johnson and Skye Bryan, both 17

Kim says consoles can't compete with mobiles on price.

She said: "You can get apps for free and games are too expensive nowadays.

"I use my brother's console. He's still buying games but not as many as before."

Skye says she gets frustrated by 'freemium' games. "They try to persuade you at every level to buy the full version," she said.

"But then you're thinking, £1, £2, should I or shouldn't I? Because you might delete it one day."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter

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