Hack Blogspot

There is a wonderful graphic on the New York Times site showing how Facebook's privacy statement has got larger and larger to cover the growing holes in its privacy policy. The mapping isn't perfect: if it were, the declaration of Facebook's dedication to privacy would have to be of almost infinite size, since the default amount of privacy Facebook now offers is practically zero. When the site first started, very few people could join, and nothing became public, even to them, without the users' express permission. Now everyone can join and everything is public to almost all of them unless you make a determined effort to hide it. This effort has to be renewed every six months or so when Facebook revises its privacy policy to make it more opaque and less effective. There is a wonderfully graphic animation of the process at this site. If you decide it isn't worth it, Facebook turns out to be very difficult to leave. It is very easy to "deactivate" your acco...

It seems Facebook is desperate to get rid of privacy problems faced by millions of its users. Facebook is rumored as making a relationship with Do Not Call Register that will look after its privacy issue. A speculation is going around about the creator of Do Not Call Registry Tim Muris. Tim has been rumored to join Facebook. Tim, an attorney had worked for Bush Administration. Though the exact reason behind Tim joining Facebook has not disclosed, it is probable that Facebook would utilize his experience for protecting personal information, given by its users. Tim Muris joining Facebook has already created a controversy. The Electronic privacy Information Center has filed a suit against FTC. Facebook is blamed for their involvement in unfair commercial dealings by which they have violated protection issues of the users.

T he CEO of Mozilla, Mr. John Lilly is ready to step down from his post at open source software non-profit organization. Lily confirmed this via an email message to Mozilla employees. He is going to move to Greylock Partners as  a venture partner. Lilly took over from Mitchell Baker as company CEO in 2008. Initially, he served as company COO. Lilly will continue to serve as board of director of the company. Mozilla makes differentsoftware products and the landmark one is the Firefox Browser . According to the survey, the Firefox share went up to 24.6% in the browser market from 11 percent in 2006. Microsoft Internet Explorer is still the leading browser in the browser market. Although, its share dropped below 60%. Chrome browser stands at distant third place. Mozilla is expected to ship a beta of Firefox 4 next month and the final version will be released in November. The new version is supposed to improve in terms of interface and speed. By removing Internet Explorer from ...

NEW FEATURES: Users can request an alert when their account is accessed from a device they haven't used before. And when Facebook notices unusual activity, it requires users to answer some questions before the second log-in goes through. WHEN AVAILABLE: Some changes are already available, while others will come in the next few weeks. Not all users will get them all at the same time. THE BACKDROP: Facebook has been facing criticism about how it handles users' privacy. The security improvements show Facebook's efforts to maintain users' trust in the way it handles private data.

Got a beef with the USDA? Want to send a message to the U.S. Postal Service? Do you “like” the National Nuclear Security Administration? Now you can let them (and all of your digital friends) know how you feel. The popular social networking site Facebook launched its “Congress on Facebook” page Thursday, which they bill as a one stop shop for members’ official pages. A “Facebook and Government” page connects citizens to the official pages of state, local, and federal agencies. The pages bill themselves as a source for sharing ways that the government can best use Facebook to communicate. More and more lawmakers and government agencies are using the popular site to reach constituents. And as an unintended bonus for journalists, we’ll now be able to disguise our non-work Facebook browsing with the click of a button. Thanks Facebook!

President Obama has apparently had a moment of epiphany and realized that new media and new technology can cleave young people from the truth and render them addicted to gadgets and entertainment. He said as much — attacking the iPod and iPad — at a speech to graduates of a college in Virginia last week. The president is doubly correct. First of all, he is right (as I have written a number of times) that the Internet, Facebook and, yes, the new iPad and many other devices can interfere with people becoming wise and knowledgeable, rather than simply deluged with facts. They can also become estranged from real relationships and from themselves as they become obsessed with pretending to be stars on YouTube or worthy of “followers” on Twitter or popular with thousands of “friends” on Facebook. Second, Obama is correct because his own ascension to power is a product of those very forces. He used celebrity and star power and the anonymous, pervasive reach of the Web to win his election. ...

Gizmodo stumbled onto an amazing hole in Twitter that allowed you to have anyone you want following you. It looks like Twitter has shut this down after word of the hole spread across...Twitter. Here's how it worked. Log in to Twitter. Type "accept 'username'" Hit "Tweet" In "username" put in who you want. We went with Conan O'Brien because he said over the weekend, " If it ever says I’m following more than one person, I’ve been hacked. I’m a completely monogamous Twitterer—I only follow Sarah Killen." And Boom! It worked for us. Apparently it also worked for 379 other people! Conan is following 380 people now. While we were writing this post it seems Twitter closed the hole. As a result of what Twitter is doing, it knocked the number of followers and following to 0 for all users. You still get the Tweets from people that are following you though.

IBM researcher Matt McKeon has illustrated in a few brief slides quite how far Facebook has shifted in its treatment of users' personal data. Facebook has two issues here. One is making sure its technology delivers; that wasn't the case last week when, as TechCrunch reported, someone found a security hole that exposed private video chats . That latest problem was grist to the mill of people concerned with the bigger issue of how Facebook deals with private data through a perpetual balance of how it thinks data could be used and what users will accept. The level of openness that users will accept has shifted very fast since Facebook became mainstream, but the site continues to push that boundary forward. Since the first high-profile controversy around publishing data in news feeds back in September 2006, a string of redesigns and re-configurations have pushed users' informa...

The development of the various news around Android-based phones are always interested me, not only because there are ’shadow’ Google behind it, but also because the development of various applications developed based on the OS and various info around Android ecosystem will always be associated with their competitors, like the iPhone and BlackBerry. Some of the developments going on around Android is interesting to note is Twitter for Android and Firefox pre-alpha for Android. Twitter for Android Twitter is busy to take care of their applications on the mobile version, after two phone ‘ngetrend’ having their mobile applications, the iPhone and BlackBerry users now turn to Android, Twitter launched their official application for Android. One reason for that is the reason many applications launches mobile version is a very significant growth, including the use of social media to help spread interest users such as photos, text, video, location and various things that are their dail...

A powerful quake with a magnitude of at least 7.2 hit the Indonesian province of Aceh on Sunday in an area devastated by the killer waves of the 2004 tsunami. The quake struck at 12:59 pm (0559 GMT) 66 kilometres (41 miles) southwest of Meulaboh on the Aceh coast, according to the local Meteorological and Geophysics Agency, triggering a local tsunami alert. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 7.4. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage although some media said panicked people rushed from their houses and some sought higher ground. The people of Aceh are still traumatised by memories of December 26, 2004, when the Indian Ocean surged over the northern tip of Sumatra after a 9.3-magnitude quake split the seabed to the island's west. Indonesia was the nation hardest hit in the tsunami, one of the world's deadliest natural disasters, with at least 168,000 people killed out of more than 220,000 who lost their lives across the region....

Facebook claims that it has 400 million users. But are they well-protected from prying eyes, scammers, and unwanted marketers? Not according to Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online . She says your privacy may be at far greater risk of being violated than you know, when you log onto the social-networking site, due to security gaffes or marketing efforts by the company. Facebook came under fire this past week, when 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission , charging that the site, among other things, manipulates privacy settings to make users' personal information available for commercial use. Also, some Facebook users found their private chats accessible to everyone on their contact list--a major security breach that's left a lot of people wondering just how secure the site is. In two words, asserts Goodchild: not very. On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Go...

We’ve been playing with iPhone OS 4 for a while now and here’s what we’ve learned: * It’s pretty stable, especially compared to other developer editions of the iPhone OS we’ve messed around with. We haven’t had any crashes so far, and things seem mostly to be working. Find My iPhone doesn’t work, and iTunes 9.1 doesn’t know about folders and will delete any you’ve set up, but nothing major is broken, at least as far as we can tell. * The multitasking system works as described, but without any apps that support it it’s hard to test — we’ll see if we can cajole a copy of Pandora or TomTom to play with. Steve might say task managers are a sign of failure, but you can certainly delete icons from the switcher — just long press on them and a minus arrow pops up. * Bluetooth keyboards are going to be the next greatiPhone accessory gold rush. Been jonesing for a million-dollar idea? Here you go: slider keyboard case with built-in extended battery.

In 1998, a hacker told Congress that he could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes by exploiting a certain flaw that sometimes caused online outages by misdirecting data. In 2003, the Bush administration concluded that fixing this flaw was in the nation's "vital interest." Fast forward to 2010, and very little has happened to improve the situation. The flaw still causes outages every year. Although most of the outages are innocent and fixed quickly, the problem still could be exploited by a hacker to spy on data traffic or take down websites. Meanwhile, our reliance on the Internet has only increased. The next outage, accidental or malicious, could disrupt businesses, the government or anyone who needs the Internet to run normally. The outages are caused by the somewhat haphazard way that traffic is passed between companies that carry Internet data. The outages are called "hijackings," even though most of them are not caused by criminals bent on destruction...

Some instances of Internet outages caused by hijacked traffic, as listed by the Department of Homeland Security and other sources: April 1997: MAI Network Services, an Internet service provider in Virginia, passes bad routing information to Sprint, which relays it, causing widespread outages. April 1998: An Israeli ISP causes widespread outages. December 1999: AT&T's server network is hijacked by another ISP. May 2000: Sprint addresses hijacked by another ISP. April 2001: Global Internet carrier Flag Telecom hijacks routes. December 2004: Turk Telekom, a Turkish ISP, hijacks much of the Internet on Christmas Eve. September 2005: AT&T, XO and BellSouth traffic is misdirected to Bolivia. The next day, it's sent to Germany instead.

President Hugo Chavez is tops on Twitter in Venezuela less than 2 weeks after launching his account, surpassing Internet-savvy foes who dominate the social networking site and use it to oppose him. Chavez's account, "chavezcandanga," had racked up more than 237,000 followers as of Saturday morning — besting the 234,000 who receive tweets from Globovision, the only TV channel that remains critical of the socialist leader. In recent televised appearances, Chavez has trumpeted the meteoric rise of his Twitter popularity while downplaying the critical, often disparaging messages he receives. "Some criticize me, others insult me. I don't care," he said. "It's a form of contact with the world." The president joined Twitter on April 27 in an attempt to counter adversaries who have actively used the site to make accusations of human rights violations, organize protests and — above all — ridicule Chavez. He urged supporters to join as well, ca...