Hi guys,

sorry i havent been posting in a while been a bit hectic, i did a review on the iphone 3g which you should diffenetly go check out here - Iphone 3g review  so head over to my channel give it a watch and dont forget to comment, like, share, and subscribe and share it with your friends.

i will also be doing a review on the apps that it comes with as well as my top 3 apps that i use on a frequent basis i will also be doing some reviews on cases for the iphone 3g. I will be doing a review on the new itunes when it launches so keep a eye that.

so thanks for reading, and watching my channel,
cool beans.

Incase you were wondering i have not forgotten about you ipad lovers out their, i found this artical by complete accident but after reading it, it made so much sense. Amazon has released a instant video app for the ipad. here is the original artical posted.

Amazon rolls out a nifty Instant Video app for the iPad

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Seemingly out of nowhere (unless I missed a memo) Amazon launched an Instant Video iPad app yesterday. I've often said that Amazon needs to get its video streaming content onto more devices and it's slowly getting there. In addition to the new iPad app you can watch Amazon Instant Video on Roku, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Tivo, certain Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players and of course, the Kindle Fire.

Hmm, maybe it isn't getting there...maybe it has arrived.
The nice thing about Amazon Instant Video is that it offers 'free' content along with your $79/year Amazon Prime subscription (which also offers free 2-day shipping and the Kindle lending library as perks), as well as offering content to rent or purchase on a per item basis. This means you can often get newer content on Amazon than you can on Netflix, providing you're willing to pay for it.
I checked out the iPad app and it works as advertised. One nice bonus feature is the ability to download TV episodes to your iPad; this only works with purchased content but if you're going to be without an Internet connection it'll be a handy option.
Oddly there doesn't seem to be a way to search from the iPad interface, only browse through the categories they decide to show you. Of course your iPad has a perfectly usable browser so it's not a big deal to switch over and set up your Watchlist. Oh, and as expected the iPad supports WhisperSync so you can start watching on one device and finish on another without losing your place.
I find it interesting that Amazon is embracing the iPad, given all the emphasis it's been putting on the Kindle Fire. One of the unique aspects of the Fire was that it was the only tablet that offered Instant Video. Of course the $200 Kindle Fire and the $500+ iPad service different markets. It'll be really interesting to see if Amazon brings Instant Video to Android tablets (particularly the Nexus 7, which is in direct competition with the Kindle Fire).
Anyway, consumers win here. More options for viewing content are always welcome and it's good to see Amazon Instant Video joining Netflix, Hulu Plus and HBO Go on the iPad.

 

The hidden ways mobile sites and free games are killing your battery

You think you know how mobile browsing and games are killing your battery, but it's actually a bunch of unseen inefficiencies.

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Chart via "Who Killed My Battery?"; click for larger view

You know about some of the things that are putting such a hurt on your mobile battery that you can’t hit 4 p.m. without a warning. Streaming music over 3G, for example, or keeping the screen on for long camera sessions. But mobile web sites and certain free apps might be killing your phone’s juice in sneaky ways, according to some recent studies.
At the World Wide Web 2012 conference in Lyon, France, this week, Stanford researchers plan to present , a study of how much power is consumed by mobile browsers on popular websites. They hooked up an Android phone and its battery to a rather geeky-looking monitor, and started surfing the mobile web. Even among those sites that offer mobile-optimized versions, there were some serious battery killers in the crowd: Wikipedia, Tumblr, IMDB, and Blogger, among others.
The main culprits are cascading style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript, which need to be downloaded and parsed by the mobile browser. On Wikipedia’s mobile site, the researchers actually modified the page scripts themselves, and came up with a version that reduced energy usage by around 30 percent, without any change to the content itself. Image formats (using JPG instead of GIF or PNG) make a difference, too, but the real difference is in how you handle interaction. The site that came out looking slim and powerful was Gmail’s mobile site, which uses HTML-based scripts to create an app-like experience, caches what information it can on the phone, and pares everything down for lower processing and data radio demands.
What would really help, the researchers suggest, was if more sites offloaded some of the computation, script-handling, and image scaling to their own servers, rather than asking your phone to handle it. Stanford researchers suggest both front-end proxies (which intercept data from web servers and render them in optimized form for the phone, as on Opera and Skyfire mobile browsers) and back-end servers (which the phone sends data to for processing). And if Google Analytics would allow mobile sites to be cached on the phone, instead of demanding fresh versions on every view for traffic-measuring purposes, that would help a lot, too.

 

Survey: Drivers like in-car Internet but worry about safety, privacy

Auto makers are now including more connected services in their vehicles and trying to balance them with safety

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August 02, 2012, 8:04 PM — U.S. drivers seem to hold conflicting opinions on in-car Internet access, viewing the technology as a driving hazard and even a threat to privacy while praising the entertainment and safety features it offers.
These opinions, presented in a Harris Interactive poll released Wednesday, come as automakers are seeing increased driver demand for digital technology and are adding more of it to their vehicles.
More than three out of four (76 percent) of the survey's 2,634 respondents answered that in-car connectivity causes too much distraction and is dangerous to have in vehicles. Automakers have gone too far in including this technology in their vehicles, according to 55 percent of those surveyed. U.S. drivers tend to attach strong emotions to their vehicles, and the poll reinforced that view, with 61 percent of people saying their car is "a haven from the outside world" and they don't always need an outside connection.
The auto industry said it understands the technology's potential safety risks and incorporates it in a way that creates the fewest disruptions. Integrating a smartphone into a car reduces the distractions that would be present if the phone was simply placed in the passenger seat, said Wade Newton, director of communications for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), an automotive trade group whose 12 members include Ford, Mazda, Toyota and General Motors.
"If the phone rings you have to reach over, grab it and see who's calling," he said. "If it is integrated, with one button they can accept the call, turn down the radio and open the speakers."
Integrated mobile phone use was an early example of in-car connectivity. Now the technology can turn vehicles into wireless hotspots, allow people to search the Web from dashboard touchscreens and connect to roadside assistance services by pressing a button.
All auto makers have introduced in-car connectivity features in some degrees and promote them on their websites. When asked to comment on the survey, though, some of the manufacturers declined to comment and others did not respond to interview requests by deadline.
BMW USA did reply to an interview request but could not comment on the survey. However, in an emailed statement, the company said that interest in safe motoring "is a healthy sign that consumers are concerned about distraction while driving, and we consider that a big success."
The statement added that BMW uses "science-based analysis" to incorporate smartphones and other in-car technology into its vehicles. "We have 5 driving simulators that are constantly evaluating the driver experience, plus we do mobile driver clinics in Europe, the U.S., and the Far East to assess driver reactions," the company said.

 

NYC Starts Offering Free, Unlimited WiFi Via Payphone Kiosks

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    The first WiFi payphone at West 58th and Broadway (Jen Chung/Gothamist)

You may start "using" public payphones a lot more: Today, New York City officials announced a pilot program to provide free, unlimited WiFi to the public through public payphone kiosks. Rahul Merchant, the city's Chief Information and Innovation Officer and Commissioner of the Department of Information, Technology and Telecommunications, noted how offering free broadband access part of the Bloomberg administration's "efforts to promote greater digital inclusion for New Yorkers."

The first location is at West 58th Street and Broadway, near Columbus Circle in Manhattan. The kiosk will say "Free WiFi" on the sides (right now, there are no plans for advertising on the payphone kiosk, but there may be in the future). The other locations in the pilot are:

• 30-94 Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens
• 545 Albee Square, Brooklyn
• 2 Smith Street, Brooklyn
• 402 West Broadway, Manhattan
• 458 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan
• 28 West 48th Street, Manhattan
• 410 Madison Avenue, Manhattan
• 1609 Broadway, Manhattan
• 230 West 95th Street, Manhattan

The goal is to get locations in the Bronx and Staten Island set up soon. The estimated radius of the signal is about 100-200 feet, depending on the location. The city hopes to spread the public WiFi throughout the city—there are over 12,000 payphones in about 9,000 locations. City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who has previously chaired the Council's technology committee, pointed out that even though the city has been introducing more online access at schools, libraries and senior centers, they aren't open all the time, while this would give 24/7 access to free WiFi.

To access the WiFi on a device, you select the "Free WiFi" option. Then, after you've agreed to accept the terms and conditions, you're taken to the NYCgo.com website, the city's tourism arm, and then you've got free WiFi. A 5-minute YouTube video loaded pretty quickly—perhaps even more quickly than our home Time Warner Cable WiFi.

Merchant, who also announced the DOITT was issuing a RFI asking the public for feedback about what they want from NYC payphones (like would they want 311 services, etc.), did not believe the city's goal was make a profit on the venture, but rather to give a "service" to New Yorkers and visitors. Peter Izzo, senior operations executive at Van Wagner Communications, an outdoor company that owns many payphones, said the cost of installing the WiFi devices was about $2,000 per location, and that the maintenance and ongoing usage costs would be borne by them and other phone companies (a total of 13 companies, such as Van Wagner and Titan Outdoor, operate public payphones; the city regulates all of them).

When asked about crime and potential vandalism, Izzo said payphones were more likely to be damaged by graffiti or "a taxi careening into one" and that vandalism like a missing phone had dropped dramatically. He added that after decades of working with payphones, "you learn something."

Obama Signs Executive Order Giving Him and Federal Government Control of All Forms of Communication Under Any Circumstances

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On Friday, July 6, 2012, without any fanfare or publicity, President Barack Obama signed an executive order titled Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.  Chances are that Obama didn’t want to bring attention to this action because of the power it places in his grasp.

Section 1 of the executive order reads:

“The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions. Survivable, resilient, enduring, and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; State, local, territorial, and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies, and other nations. Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience. The views of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the public must inform the development of national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications policies, programs, and capabilities.”

Basically, this executive order gives the president and Department of Homeland Security the authorization to take over and control any and all lines of communications any time they want to, as spelled out in Section 5.2 of the executive order:

“Sec. 5.2. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall: (a) oversee the development, testing, implementation, and sustainment of NS/EP communications, including: communications that support Continuity of Government; Federal, State, local, territorial, and tribal emergency preparedness and response communications; non-military executive branch communications systems; critical infrastructure protection networks; and non-military communications networks, particularly with respect to prioritization and restoration;

(b) incorporate, integrate, and ensure interoperability and the necessary combination of hardness, redundancy, mobility, connectivity, interoperability, restorability, and security to obtain, to the maximum extent practicable, the survivability of NS/EP communications defined in section 5.2(a) of this order under all circumstances, including conditions of crisis or emergency;”

Some analysts have reviewed the executive order and state that this section gives the Department of Homeland Security the authorization to seize any and all private communications facilities it deems necessary.

The National Communications System defines the communications infrastructure as:

“The communications infrastructure is a complex system of systems that incorporates multiple technologies and services with diverse ownership. The infrastructure includes wireline, wireless, satellite, cable, and broadcasting, and provides the transport networks that support the Internet and other key information systems.”

When you wade through the executive order and other related government documents, you discover that this document gives the president the power to seize and control every form of communication within the United States for any reason they so desire.

Now add this to the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress last year that gives the United States government to arrest, detain and hold indefinitely any American without a warrant, formal charges or any reason other than declaring the person is a threat to the nation.  Any detained under this act will be sent to a military run prison and held until such time as the government decides to release them.

I have never been a conspiracy nut and usually avoid those that are, but I can’t help but see the evidence over the past year to indicate that Barack Obama has almost everything in place to allow him to declare martial law and suspend the American way of life.  He has the power to control all forms of communication and detain anyone he wants.  He has purposely driven the economy and job market to the brink of collapse.

As much as I hate to admit it, I honestly believe that if Obama gets re-elected, that he will finalize the economic collapse of America and in so doing, will declare martial law and take control of all communications.  He will arrest and detain anyone who opposes him.  In all likelihood, he will disband Congress, the Supreme Court and stop all elections.  Ultimately, he will declare himself to be the supreme ruler of the nation and assume complete dictatorial control of the country.

This November’s election IS the most important presidential election in the history of America.  It may very well be the last election we will ever have.  I pray I’m wrong, but all of the evidence points to that conclusion.

Why SOPA and PIPA Suck, V1.0

Why SOPA and PIPA Suck, v1.0

Published by: senjespar, on 2011-12-29 12:36:56

"Why SOPA and PIPA Suck" - A quick-start guide to how this legislation may very well miss up the internet. This was originally written as a textfile, so I apologize if the formatting is off. ***DISCLAIMER*** I threw this together quickly, in an effort to get the information out there. I attempted to ensure the technical accuracy of the information, and provide adequate resources so that interested individuals could easily dig deeper into this matter. I apologize for any errors in grammar, technical information, or general stupidity. It's been a long day. If you find any errors, please let me know. |||=================================================================== ||| I. INTRODUCTION |||=================================================================== The "Stop Online Privacy Act" (aka "SOPA", H.B. 3261) is a bill that was proposed to help fight online piracy, such as counterfeit goods and intellectual property/copyright infringement. -[1,2]-Although there has been much speculation in the online communities about what specific methods would be used to block "bad" sites, a lot of attention has been placed on DNS filtering, and therefore will be the focus of this pastebin. Also of interest is the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (aka "PROTECT IP", S.968). -[4]-The PROTECT IP Act is a similar bill which was started in the Senate. In an article dated November 18th, 2011, CNET quotes Markham Erickson, who states: "It would cover IP blocking...I think it contemplates deep packet inspection." -[3]- Assuming the legislation passes (in either form), there are a number of ways to go about blocking these terrible websites that are causing so much harm. The first method I will present is the DNS filter - in short, this is a rather ineffective method of filtering, and may end up actually "breaking" the web. But more on that later. Another, more effective method, is IP blocking - in other words, your ISP (Verizon, Comcast, etc.) would receive a notice to block all requests for a certain IP address. In effect, the Peoples Republic of America could make any site (or computer for that matter) essentially disappear from the internet. The last method I will quickly mention is "deep packet inspection". This is a method that China uses to block their subjects from seeing anything "harmful" to their state interests.* -[6]- In brief, deep packet inspection involves the government reading NEARLY EVERY SINGLE BIT OF DATA that you send or view online. This, in my opinion, is the only truly effective way of enforcing censorship, and comes at the price of Big Brother regularly viewing and scanning each and every word, picture and file that is transmitted via the internet. If this sounds like universal wiretapping to you, then you are right. In 2008, a bipartisan group of representatives denounced NebuAds attempts at deep packet inspection, stating it was "flatly illegal". -[7]- Flatly illegal, that is, unless it's Congress trying to do it. ***DISCLAIMER: OPINION*** It is often difficult for us average folk to sympathize with the billionaire performers in Hollywood and RIAA/MPAA who claim that we are stealing from them and compromising profits. We often defend this point with "Kanye/Britney/whomever can afford to lose that $0.99 I would pay on iTunes", which they undoubtedly can. They are correct - it is stealing, plain and simple. However, you dont see blanket legislation that infringes our basic privacy for any other crime, like shoplifting. In fact, I would be willing to bet that, dollar-for-dollar, more money is lost in the retail world through petty theft each year than in the music/movie industry. To the best of my knowledge, Congress has never enacted this type of blanket legislation that invades our privacy - except in the name of combating terrorism, of course. One more quick note - I know, I know. I used Wikipedia for several sources. Fuck off, this isn't a scholarly paper, its a quick-start guide for folks who are not familiar with the technical implications of this legislation. |||=================================================================== ||| II. WHAT IS "DNS"? |||=================================================================== DNS stands for "Domain Name System", which is a system of servers that routes internet traffic, making it easier for humans to navigate to their favorite websites. The DNS allows us to type in a URL, such as "www.example.com" and arrive at the website, rather than remember an IP address (123.456.789.00). In a simplified example, your computer queries a DNS server to ask directions to a website. Your computer has a list of pre-defined servers to ask first - usually set by your ISP (e.g., Comcast) in order to speed up your internet service. This DNS lookup sounds something like this: COMPUTER: "Hey, anyone know where "foo.com" is at?" DNS SERV: "Yeah, try 123.456.78.90." [COMPUTER looks at 123.456.78.90] SERV 2: "Can I help you?" COMPUTER: "Yeah, I am looking for "foo.com". Any idea where it's at?" SERV 2: "Sure, its over at 444.555.66.77." [COMPUTER connects to foo.com] In this conversation, the DNS SERV would be the first place your computer would ask for directions - this is typically determined by your computer's settings and your ISP. This server would in turn reply with a server who can give better directions, or maybe it knows by itself. Typically, you are routed several times. In short, the DNS is often likened to a "map" or "phonebook" for the internet world. It lets us browse to the correct sites by simply remembering the (hopefully) human-friendly URL. Without the DNS, we would not necessarily be lost, we would just have to keep a hard copy directory that lists the website and its respective IP address. |||=================================================================== ||| III. WHAT IS "DNS FILTERING"? |||=================================================================== DNS filtering is commonly employed by companies, educational institutions and other places which may not want their employees or students accessing non-work-related sites, commonly social media and pornography sites. DNS filtering works by pointing your computer to the filter as the DNS server. The filter is the first server your computer will ask for directions. This server recognizes that you are trying to access a forbidden site, and gives your computer bad directions - usually to that "This webpage is blocked" page. |||=================================================================== ||| IV. CIRCUMVENTION OF DNS FILTERING |||=================================================================== The easiest way to circumvent DNS filtering is by accessing the site directly by IP. Instead of typing "google.com" into your address bar, try typing "http://74.125.113.104/". You should arrive at the same page. By doing this, your computer does not need directions, because you gave it the exact address to go to. Unfortunately, this does not always work, because many sites use various forms of redirection and other sites to host their content. For example, Twitter (IP: http://199.59.149.230/) also uses a site called twimg.com to store images and style/layout data. Most DNS filters will block these sub-components, resulting in the page loading incorrectly. To fix this, we can modify the HOSTS file, which is on virtually every operating system. The HOSTS file is typically empty, but can act as a map or phonebook for your computer, in lieu of, or to supplement, the DNS. By adding websites and their IP addresses to the HOSTS file, our computer no longer needs to query the DNS for directions. While editing your HOSTS file can result in loss of some internet connectivity if done incorrectly, it's not much more difficult than using proper grammar in an e-mail. There is also the possibility of manually setting your computer to point to DNS servers that will give you the answers you want. For example, you could point your computer to DNS servers outside the USA that would return the correct IP address for a blocked website, thereby completely circumventing any filtering that the government puts into place. Finally, there are several browser plug-ins and programs that will attempt to resolve the IP address for you, without consulting the DNS. These were specifically developed to circumvent internet censorship. Tor is a common program that is used by Chinese citizens to get past their governments censors. You can download Tor at https://www.torproject.org. You may need to download the "bridge" portion of the program, too. |||=================================================================== ||| V. SECURITY RISKS CREATED BY GLOBAL DNS FILTERING |||=================================================================== If you have not guessed by now, users WILL circumvent any DNS filtering that the US puts into effect. However, as anyone who has ever gotten one of those pesky "redirect viruses" knows, this poses major security risks. First and foremost, the sheer number of users desperate to download the latest song or movie will eventually click on ANYTHING that lets them download what they want. There are a number of studies online that show with overwhelming evidence that most internet users are not the smartest, and despite knowing that a link or file may contain a virus, will click on it anyway. Feel free to google for this data. A malicious user could easily craft a script to modify the HOSTS file on your computer to point your bank website to a phishing site, under the guise of giving you access to pirated media. Also, a malicious user could give you erroneous DNS information, claiming it would give you access to the sites you want. However, you are now routing ALL of you internet traffic through THEIR servers. This should immediately be a red flag to anyone who has ever heard the words "computer" and "security". -[8]- There are several other major risks involved, and I will refer you to a Technical Whitepaper -[9]- for more details. The last one I will touch upon is the fact that such widespread DNS filtering and redirection could very well "break the internet". If you use online banking, or sites like eBay or Amazon you are already familiar with secure browsing. Most sites currently use some form of authentication, typically in the form of SSL (HTTPS), certificates, etc. A better solution has been proposed, which is DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) -[10]-. In short, the governments interference with the DNS will cause a break in the chain of trust - similar to a problem you have probably already encountered when your browser gives you the "You are about to be redirected to a connection that is not secure." error. Finally, there are several other concerns, and I will again refer you to the Whitepaper (-[9]-) for further detailed explanation. You should now be familiar with some of the basic principles, and how these acts could very well destroy the internet as we know it today, as well as create a giant step backwards in internet security. I should take this time to once again state that I do not have a problem enforcing illegal downloads, as it is technically theft, but I believe that, once again, Congress has given in to lobbyists and created blanket legislation in the interests of one single group, thus continuing to neglect the rights of the American people. |||=================================================================== ||| VI. REFERENCES, RESOURCES AND OTHER PROOF THAT I AM NOT PULLING THIS OUT OF MY ASS |||=================================================================== [1] Bill Text: 112th Congress (2011-2012) H.R. 3261 -- Stop Online Privacy Act ---> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261: (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [2] "Stop Online Privacy Act" (Wikipedia) ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [3] "SOPA's Latest Threat: IP blocking, privacy-busting packet inspection" Pub: 18-NOV-2011 ---> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57328045-281/ sopas-latest-threat-ip-blocking-privacy-busting-packet-inspection/ (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [4] Bill Text: 112th Congress (2011-2012) S.968 -- Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property ---> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:s.00968: (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [5] "PROTECT IP Act" (Wikipedia) ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [6] "Deep Packet Inspection" (Wikipedia) ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [7] "NebuAd Grilled Over Hot Coals in Congress on Privacy" Pub: 17-JUL-2008 ---> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9993554-38.html (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [8] "What is a host hijack?" ---> http://www.adoko.com/hijackers-host.html (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [9] "Security and Other Technical Concerns Raised by the DNS Filtering Requirements in the PROTECT IP Bill - A Technical Whitepaper" Pub: May 2011 ---> http://www.circleid.com/pdf/PROTECT-IP-Technical-Whitepaper-Final.pdf (Accessed 19-DEC-2011) [10] "Domain Name Service Security Extensions" (Wikipedia) ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Extensions (Accessed 19-DEC-2011)

Twitter to block Tweets in Certain countries

Twitter says it will block tweets, if and when required, from users in specific countries rather than implement a worldwide filter. The move signals a marked change for the microblogging service deemed pivotal in the uprisings which swept the Middle East region.

"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," the company said in a blog post Thursday. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content."
Twitter said it previously would only remove content across the global platform when taking into account limitations in a country, but would now "reactively withhold content from users in a specific country, while keeping it available in the rest of the world".
The company said it has yet to carry out any censorship thus far, but added that if and when required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, it will attempt to inform the user and clearly indicate when content has been withheld.
Twitter also noted that it would be transparent with users when content is withheld and and reasons for the block. "One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user's voice," the company said. "We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't. The Tweets must continue to flow."
Twitter acknowledged that it had previously said it would not remove tweets on the basis of their content. "Our position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users' right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their private information revealed," the company said in a post a year ago.
Its latest move marks a change in tact for a platform deemed pivotal in the various political uprisings--dubbed the "Arab Spring"--across the Middle East including Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, according to a Reuters report Thursday.
The change is likely to have wide implications since Twitter has a large user base outside the United States including Indonesia and Japan.
The change also comes amid reports of a legal clash between India and Internet giants where the Asian economic giant had instructed Web companies including Google and Facebook to pre-screen user content as well as remove offensive and objectionable content from their sites. The Indian government, however, this week dismissed suggestions that it was promoting online censorship.

FBI To Step Up Monitering Of Social Media Networks

The FBI plans to step up the monitoring of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and has asked for help building an app to constantly monitor the sites.
Earlier this month the FBI quietly published a request for information (RFI) looking for companies that might help it build a new social network monitoring system looking at "publicly available" information. Contractors have until 10 February to suggest solutions.
US enforcement agencies have increasingly been using social networks to track crime. Recently over 40 members of two feuding New York gangs were indicted in connection with a series of shootings and killings in Brooklyn after they boasted about their crimes on Twitter.
Gang members boasted of "going to the beach" when they entered rival gang territories and tweeted they had "clapped him off the surfboard," when they shot a rival. In the last 18 months, the gangs were responsible for six homicides and 32 shootings, according to New York police commissioner Ray Kelly.
But the increasing monitoring of social networks has also alarmed privacy advocates. Last year, Twitter disclosed that the justice department had subpoenaed it to get personal records of Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former WikiLeaks aide.
Lillie Coney, associate director of EPIC, a Washington-based privacy group, called the FBI request "ridiculous."
"Get a warrant," she said. "You don't know half the people you communicate with on Twitter. They are going to launch investigations and start looking at all sorts of people that they have no right to be investigating. There is no accountability, no transparency and no oversight."
The RFI calls on companies to develop a "secure, light weight web application" for the FBI's strategic information and operations center (SIOC). "The application must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats."
The product must allow the FBI to keep hold of cached information as well as real time data, and allow that information to be linked to specific locations and easily shared.
The FBI wants the new system to be able to incorporate the information it already has on terrorist networks around the world. It also wants the ability create "spot reports" – "to quickly summarize (ie who, what, when, where, and why) threats/incidents identified and alerted by the application with the geo-coordinates included."
The FBI did not return calls for comment.
"Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations," the FBI states in the RFI.

(Rushe)

Why History Needs Software Piracy

Why History Needs Software Piracy

How copy protection and app stores could deny future generations their cultural legacy. 

Amid the debate surrounding controversial anti-piracy legislation such as SOPA and PIPA, our public discourse on piracy tends to focus on the present or the near future. When jobs and revenues are potentially at stake, we become understandably concerned about who is (or isn’t) harmed by piracy today.

I’m here to offer a different perspective, at least when it comes to software piracy. While the unauthorized duplication of software no doubt causes some financial losses in the short term, the picture looks a bit different if you take a step back. When viewed in a historical context, the benefits of software piracy far outweigh its short-term costs. If you care about the history of technology, in fact, you should be thankful that people copy software without permission.

It may seem counterintuitive, but piracy has actually saved more software than it has destroyed. Already, pirates have spared tens of thousands of programs from extinction, proving themselves the unintentional stewards of our digital culture.

Software pirates promote data survival through ubiquity and media independence. Like an ant that works as part of a larger system it doesn’t understand, the selfish action of each digital pirate, when taken in aggregate, has created a vast web of redundant data that ensures many digital works will live on.

Piracy’s preserving effect, while little known, is actually nothing new. Through the centuries, the tablets, scrolls, and books that people copied most often and distributed most widely survived to the present. Libraries everywhere would be devoid of Homer, Beowulf, and even The Bible without unauthorized duplication.

The main difference between then and now is that software decays in a matter of years rather than a matter of centuries, turning preservation through duplication into an illegal act. And that’s a serious problem: thousands of pieces of culturally important digital works are vanishing into thin air as we speak.

The Case of the Disappearing Software

The crux of the disappearing software problem, at present, lies with the stubborn impermanence of magnetic media. Floppy disks, which were once used as the medium du jour for personal computers, have a decidedly finite lifespan: estimates for the data retention abilities of a floppy range anywhere from one year to 30 years under optimal conditions.

A floppy stores data in the form of magnetic charges on a specially treated plastic disc. Over time, the charges representing data weaken to the point that floppy drives can’t read them anymore. At that point, the contents of the disk are effectively lost.

This becomes particularly troubling when we consider that publishers began releasing software on floppy disk over 30 years ago. Most of those disks are now unreadable, and the software stored on them has become garbled beyond repair. If you’ve been meaning to back up those old floppies in your attic, I have bad news: it’s probably too late.

To make matters worse, software publishers spent countless man-hours in the 1980s preventing us from archiving their work. To discourage piracy, they devised schemes to forever lock their software onto a single, authorized diskette. One popular copy protection method involved placing an intentionally corrupt block of data on a disk to choke up error-checking copy routines. It worked so well that it also prevented honest attempts to back-up legally purchased software.

If these copy protection schemes had been foolproof, as intended, and copyright law had been obeyed, most of the programs published on those fading disks would now be gone forever. Many cultural touchstones of a generation would have become extinct due to greed over media control.

It’s not just floppy disks that are under threat. Thousands of games published on ROM cartridges and as enormous arcade cabinets are now hard to find and can only run on electronic hardware that will not last forever. Publishers have re-released a handful of the most prominent games among them on newer platforms, but the large majority of legacy video games don’t get this treatment. Pirates liberate the data from these ROM chips and allow them to be played, through software emulation, on newer consoles and PCs.

Pirating also makes foreign game libraries easily available for historians to study. Some games only appeared on writable cartridges in Japan via download methods like the Nintendo Power flash cart system and the BS-X Satellaview. Those would be entirely out of the reach of Western historians today without previous efforts to back them up illegally.

For a sample slice of what’s at stake when it comes to vanishing software, let’s take a look at the video game industry. The Web’s largest computer and video game database, MobyGames, holds records of about 60,000 games at present. Roughly 23,000 of those titles were originally released on computer systems that used floppy disks or cassette tapes as their primary storage or distribution medium.

23,000 games! If game publishers and copyright law had their way, almost all of those games would be wiped from the face of the earth by media decay over the next 10 years. Many would already be lost.

For the past decade, collectors and archivists have been compiling vast collections of out-of-print software for vintage machines (think Apple II, Commodore 64, and the like) and trading them through file sharing services and on “abandonware” websites. Through this process, they’ve created an underground software library that, despite its relative newness, feels like the lost archives of an ancient digital civilization.

About Abandonware

Abandonware is a pseudolegal concept that posits the righteousness of distributing software that is no longer commercially sold or supported — that which seems “abandoned” by its owners. Despite this, if the software is copyrighted and permission to distribute software has not been expressly given by the owner, distributing it is still illegal.

As a journalist and historian, I rely on these collections of pirated software to do my job. I’d rather it not be that way, but there is no legal alternative (more on that in a moment).

The compilation of this underground library–a necessary resource for future historians–is a brave act of civil disobedience that needs to continue if we are to protect our digital heritage. As we’ll see, the greatest threats to software history lie not behind us, but directly ahead of us.

Why Preserve Software?

Before we go any further, let’s take a step back and consider why we should preserve software in the first place. Software often seems inconsequential because of its ephemeral nature. It’s a dynamic expression of electrons on a computer screen, and that doesn’t mean much, instinctively, to brains that evolved to recognize value in physical objects.

But software is also a powerful tool whose mastery says something profound about our civilization. If we look back through a museum, we can get a good idea about a certain society’s potential by examining its tools. If a civilization could build threshing machines, for example, we know that they could harvest and process wheat much faster than people 100 years earlier. That, in turn, might explain a known population boom.

Likewise, we can measure mankind’s recent potential by looking at his software tools. Future historians may ponder how people achieved a surreal vocal effect in music or created the CGI animated films of today. They may wonder at what point a certain tool allowed fantastic, photorealistic image manipulations that now dominate advertising. Without knowledge of and experimental access to various versions of Auto-Tune, Pixar RenderMan, and Adobe Photoshop, they’ll have a difficult time finding accurate answers to those questions.

Software is also entertainment. It is culture. Like books, music, and films before it, the art form expressed in software entertainment programs–usually games–has both reflected and influenced the cultural behavior of multiple generations around the globe.
Is there an American alive between the ages of 15 and 35 that doesn’t know who Mario is? (I’m sure you can find someone who has not heard of Mario, but he was locked in a basement from 1980 to 1999.)
Thanks to the work of preservationists that flout the law, future historians will be able to more fully consider Mario’s cultural impact and answer deeper, ancillary questions like “Why did people wear T-shirts with pixelated mushroom people on them?” and “What games, exactly, did Mario appear in and why?”
It’s possible that Nintendo will be around 200 years from now, but it is unlikely to provide all the answers. The company will only convey the history that is in their best commercial interest to show you (i.e. Super Mario Bros. 3, over and over). Historians will show you everything without restraint — even Hotel Mario, Mario Roulette, and I Am A Teacher: Super Mario Sweater. None of those games will survive 200 years without piracy, because Nintendo would rather see those embarrassingly low-quality titles rot away in a tomb sealed by copyright law.


We Have Everything To Lose
It would be nice if the problem of disappearing software was limited to the past, but there’s a disturbing parallel at work in the current software marketplace. App stores and other digital distribution methods–which often inextricably link purchased software to a unique licensee, sometimes on a unique machine–threaten to deprive us of even more software in the very near future.
Thanks to widespread adoption of aggressive digital rights management (DRM) and a single-source model of distribution, most digitally distributed software will vanish from the historical record when those stores shut down. And believe me, they will shut down some day. If this doesn’t scare you, then you need an allegorical history lesson. Here it is:
Imagine if a publisher of 500,000 different printed book titles suddenly ceased operation and magically rendered all sold copies of its books unreadable. Poof. The information contained in them simply vanished. It would represent an cultural catastrophe on the order of the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria in 48 B.C. In that fire, a majority of the Western world’s cultural history up to that point turned to ash.
Now take a look at the iTunes App Store, a 500,000 app repository of digital culture. It’s controlled by a single company, and when it closes some day (or it stops supporting older apps, like Apple already did with the classic iPod), legal access to those apps will vanish. Purchased apps locked on iDevices will meet their doom when those gadgets stop working, as they are prone to do. Even before then, older apps will fade away as developers decline to pay the $100 a year required to keep their wares listed in the store.
From a historical perspective, we can only hope that hackers and pirates have been quietly making archives of as much as they can grab from download services like the iTunes App Store, the PlayStation Store, the Wii Shop Channel, Xbox Live Arcade, and other online app stores.


And what about cloud software? If all of our software tools become centralized and run over the Internet, it will be hard to pirate them, which also means they won’t get preserved. That’s bad for history.


When paleoanthropologists wonder if a 13,000 year-old Clovis point can take down a Bison, they tie one to a spear and let it fly. If spear points had been automatically cloud updated over the course of their development, however, we would only know of the most recent iteration in the design process. Clovis points wouldn’t exist today, and we’d be wondering how ancient Native Americans managed to hunt game with uranium-tipped bullets.
With that in mind, think about this: What did Gmail’s interface look like just one year ago? How did Google Maps work before it added Street View? Lacking experimental access to older versions of cloud-based software tools, future historians will have to depend on screenshots and personal testimony to work out exactly what the tools were capable of at any time, if they still exist.
But if future historians retain access to old versions of non-cloud software, they will be able use the tools, as they would with a Clovis point, to experimentally duplicate the activities of people in the past. For example, they could run the AtariWriter word processing program on an Atari 800 emulator to reproduce a document from the 1980s in a way that would explain its format.
A complete reliance on cloud gaming (think OnLive) is also a very bad idea. Looking to OnLive to preserve game software would be like expecting your local movie theater to preserve film history. It’ll only show what is commercially viable to show at the time, and they discard the rest. That is how cloud gaming will work as well.
The new Great Library is already burning, and we are only just beginning to smell the smoke.
When Corporations Own History, They Change It
The DRM found in digital app stores today poses a significant threat to our future understanding of history. Sure, the companies that create this software own the rights to these products now, but once a work becomes consumed and embedded into mass culture, it belongs to the ages. It assumes a role larger than that of a mere commercial product, and copies of the work should be protected and preserved as cultural treasures.
It’s hard to protect and preserve that which is liable to change or disappear at any time. If VHS tapes worked like app stores, George Lucas could force all of us to upgrade our purchased Star Wars films to the Special Edition versions (to maintain compatibility with LucasOS, of course), overwriting the old ones in the process. Heck, one day he could decide he doesn’t like the movies at all and replace them with copies of Willow. It would be within his legal rights, but it would also be cultural robbery.
It bugs me that iOS software today updates at a galloping pace that deletes previous versions unless you’ve taken pains to archive them. It is convenient and wonderful functionality in many ways, but the practice also rewrites history with every download. What if Photoshop had been updated that way throughout the 1990s? Would anyone have a copy of the first version that could work with layers? Such a historically important piece of software would be lost. Similarly, if we move to a completely controlled, single-source, automatic update scheme for all PC applications–it’s almost here with Windows 8, by the way–we will be destroying digital artifacts with a fervor heretofore unseen.

By accepting restrictive DRM into our lives, we are giving not only software publishers, but all media publishers the power to erase, control, or manipulate digital cultural history if they choose. That is why DRM feels fundamentally wrong from a humanistic standpoint: it conspires, in conjunction with time, to deprive humanity of its rightfully earned cultural artifacts.
To be sure, every creator of software should be rewarded appropriately with exclusive rights of reproduction for a certain period of time, as they are now, but only in a soft legal sense, not with a virtual lock and key that stymies the preservation of history.
Let’s not repeat what happened 2000 years ago in Alexandria. The only scrolls that survived the burning of the Great Library were those that had been copied and distributed, likely without the permission of their authors. (Unfortunately, library officials strictly limited library access to prevent this, so very few texts escaped destruction.) If we don’t open the doors to the legal preservation of all software, civilizations thousands of years from now will only possess copies of programs that pirates illegally duplicated and distributed while the works were still officially available.
The cultural impact of software easily equals that of any other creative work. It is time to legitimately preserve this digital art form in libraries alongside books and films. Setting up such a library, however, is a very difficult proposition.
The Plight of the Digital Librarian
If you wanted to study the history of our culture up to the present, you’d probably turn to a library. There you can find comprehensive collections of analog data to study for free. If you want to study software in the same way, you’re out of luck: operating a practical, comprehensive software library is currently illegal in the United States.

Don’t get me wrong: it is possible to create a legal software library, but its implementation would make it nearly useless. The best a library can hope to do, within its legal limits, is to stock physical copies of officially duplicated software media on physical shelves. That means that all the problems with decaying and obsolete media come along with it. There’d be plenty of bulk and very little guarantee that you’d be able to access what is sitting in the stacks.

A more practical approach for a software library would be to liberate the data from fixed media and store it in arrays of redundant hard disks. Librarians could upgrade the arrays over time to avoid obsolescence, and the software could be painlessly transferred over a network to be run on emulators (which would simulate the original software platforms) for historical study.

Unfortunately, the practical approach doesn’t work because it’s currently illegal under US copyright law to copy software — a necessary part of freeing it from its original media — and then share it with the public without the publisher’s permission. (The law provides for legal backup copies, but you can’t share them with other people.) Moreover, it’s illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to circumvent copy protection schemes to actually make those copies in the first place.
Right now, there exist libraries that store floppy disks on their shelves as if they were books. These organizations make the mistake of assuming that, like books, the data on computer disks will last indefinitely if carefully shielded from the elements. But there is nothing they can do to ultimately stop the loss of data. The data needs to be copied onto a new medium. At some point, the law needs to be broken — or changed.
Copyright’s Obsolete Legal Assumption
Current U.S. copyright laws have good intentions, but they ultimately jeopardize the survival of digital property because they do not take into account the rapid pace of digital media decay and obsolescence.
Our body of copyright law makes a 19th-century-style legal assumption that the works in question will stay fixed in a medium safely until the works become public domain, when they can then be copied freely. Think of paper books, for example, which can retain data for thousands of years under optimal conditions.
In the case of digital data, many programs will vanish from the face of the earth decades before the requisite protection period expires (the life of the author plus 70 years in the U.S.). Media decay and obsolescence will claim that software long before any libraries can make legal, useful backups.
A potential solution would be to limit copyright terms on software to a more reasonable period of time — say, 20 years maximum. Then archivists would have a far greater chance of properly retrieving and storing the old software before it deteriorated into oblivion.

It should also be permanently legal for librarians to circumvent copy protection schemes to archive software. Currently, limited exemptions to the DMCA provide temporary DRM-breaking provisions under very narrow circumstances, but that is not enough.


As an alternative, a new law could require publishers that seek copyright protection to deposit DRM-free versions of software to the U.S. Library of Congress for media-independent archival. The software could later be digitally “checked out” on a limited basis by patrons doing research. If necessary, these digital library materials could become available only after a period of time, say five years, to further protect commercial interests
Don’t Let Software Disappear
We live in a civilization dominated by commerce and those who benefit from it, so we instinctively want to protect those who fairly engage in business. There are those among us who, in pursuit of that goal, would like to assault piracy with heavy-handed legislation. But piracy, which is endemic to and inseparable from digital distribution, can never be fully controlled without depriving freedom. Legislation that attempts to do so will only drive the practice further underground while punishing those who don’t even engage in it by crippling the technology that allows software to exist in the first place.

The Four Forces of Software Decay

There are four main techno-cultural forces pushing software toward extinction.
Force 1: Physical Decay
No form of digital media holds data forever. Every computer data storage medium physically deteriorates over time, losing data in the process.
Force 2: Medium Obsolescence
As technical innovations continue, every storage format will become obsolete and rarely used at some point, making retrieving the data in the future difficult.
Force 3: Copy Deterrence
For economic reasons, software publishers have historically tried to deter users from copying the publisher’s software without permission. These methods prevent the legitimate archival of software.
Force 4: Economic Obsolescence
Every software product has a limited market lifespan, which is the result of rapid technological progress. This means that software will only be duplicated and distributed commercially for a short period of time.
At the moment, you can obtain just about any entertainment work or software program for free if you try hard enough. Despite that, millions of people still pay real money to obtain legal copies of software, films, and music, in the process making those industries bigger and more profitable than ever.
The fact that people still buy access to digital media in large numbers means that piracy is simply not the problem they think it is. In fact, piracy is itself the solution to another problem: the problem of over-protected intellectual property. It would be wonderful if those companies utilizing strict DRM and pushing for aggressive anti-piracy legislation saw the need to be a little less profiteering for the greater historical good, but since that is rarely the objective of the free market, don’t hold your breath.
It is up to us, as a generation, to preserve our cultural history. We must also push for reforms in copyright law that allow software to take its rightful place in historical archives without the need to rely upon the work of pirates.
If you love software, buy it, use it, and reward the people who make it. I do it all the time, and I support the industry’s right to make money from its products. But don’t be afraid to stand up for your cultural rights. If you see strict DRM and copy protection that threatens the preservation of history, fight it: copy the work, keep it safe, and eventually share it so it never disappears.
Some people may think ill of your archival efforts now, but they’re on the wrong side of history: no one living 500 years from now will judge your infringing deeds harshly when they can load up an ancient program and see it for themselves.
(Benj Edwards)