5 things you need to know about online privacy policies

Ever since Google tweaked it's privacy policy on January 24, online confidentiality and its future has been the topic of a raging public debate, making it hard for an average Internet user to decide what he should and should not share on an online platform. Experts say that the key here is to understand each of the terms and policies before you sign in.

HOW IS DATA RETAINED?

The data retention policy allows the online provider to hold personal information about you. But the question is, for how long will they hold your data?

Data, here includes personal information such as your name, address, date of birth, photographs and transaction information such as when did you last log into your account, from which device, from which IP address, whose profiles did you visit etc.

It's ridiculous to ask "what bits of the privacy policy" should you read, says Graham Cluely, a senior consultant with security software developer Sophos.

"Because the only sensible answer is 'all of it.' Only you can decide if you're comfortable with it, so read it and you decide."

WHAT ARE THE LEGAL IMPLICATIONS?

It is important to understand under what circumstances will the website share your personal information with the Central and State government agencies. For instance, Facebook would have to share your information with the Ministry of Home Affairs since Facebook has an office in Hyderabad and comes under the purview of the Indian IT Act.

"But Twitter could deny user information to the Egyptian government during the 2011 Arab protests as it did not fall under the Egyptian jurisdiction," says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOUR ACCOUNT IS DELETED?

Experts say that deleting your account is not the end of it all as social networks usually store your personal information even after you delete the account. For instance, Google stores your data for nearly nine months even after you delete your GMail account.

Similarly, Twitter stores your IP address and personal information for a certain period after you delete your account.

WHAT PERSONAL DATA IS SHARED WITH PRIVATE ORGANISATIONS?

Apart from the information you share while creating the account, social networks also process and share personal data such as photographs, likes and events with their business partners and social-media analytics and monitoring agencies.

"So the basic rule is don't upload anything to the Internet which you don't want your mother-in-law or your boss to see, as you can't necessarily trust the various sites to keep them securely," says Graham Cluely.

"Further, think carefully about what other information you may be sharing online - such as your location".

WHAT CAN AN INDIVIDUAL DO?

The easiest thing is to customise every aspect of your privacy policy, according computer security firm Kaspersky Labs. For instance, on social networks such Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter, you may limit the information you display to certain groups of people.

"India needs to have a broad and horizontal law that establishes online privacy as a right. Unlike in European countries, India doesn't have a privacy commissioner who can state the principles, interpret the data and question the online providers," says Sunil Abraham.

After Twitter, Google to now censor content

Google will now block posts or blogs from being available to users based on a country's local laws, in a move similar to Twitter's country-specific censorship that sparked off an outrage among critics across the globe.

Web critics have slammed the move saying, 'the change marks a new trend in the Internet companies bowing to the demands of authoritarian regimes'.

Google, however, claimed that the move would actually allow more freedom of speech, The Daily Mail reports.

The search giant said the blogs would be visible from everywhere else in the world, but invisible in one country.

"This will allow us to continue promoting free expression while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests in local law," the company said.

According to the paper, both Google and Twitter claimed that their move would simply allow their services to co-exist with regimes, rather than being banned outright.

"We believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society. Where content is illegal or breaks our terms of service we will continue to remove it," the paper quoted a Google spokesperson, as saying.

Google's blogging service named Blogger was launched in 1999, and has previously been banned outright in repressive regimes such as Syria, Iran and China.

Blog services and social sites such as Twitter and Facebook were crucial to the recent 'Arab Spring' revolts in countries such as Egypt, acting as a conduit for news and carrying messages of freedom and democracy.

Mark of one man on public Facebook

 Since the moment he dropped out of Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg has stayed remarkably focused on two things: Facebook, and being the boss of Facebook.

Early on he was convinced of the vast potential of the social network he built in his dorm room, say friends, investors and detractors. He pushed his team to be fast and take risks. He resisted efforts to change the way Facebook looked and worked, even if, in the beginning, it meant giving up revenue.

Most important, he arranged the ownership of Facebook so as to give himself extraordinary power to steer the company. By the time Facebook filed for a $US5 billion public offering Wednesday, Zuckerberg had managed to hold on to more than a quarter of the shares in the company, and his agreements with other investors enhanced his voting power to almost 60 per cent of total shares.

That's a greater measure of control than Bill Gates had at Microsoft when it went public in 1986 (49 per cent), and far greater than the co-founders of Google had in 2004 (16 per cent each). Typically, say Silicon Valley veterans, a first-time entrepreneur gets to the public market with a far smaller stake in his or her creation. Zuckerberg's arrangement leaves little room for investors to have much input on the company's direction.

Zuckerberg's success is an object lesson in what works in the crowded, competitive Silicon Valley: remain in charge, stave off potential predators and expand the company so quickly that no one can challenge the boss.

"He always knew before the rest of us what Facebook could be," said Paul Madera, managing director at Meritech Capital Partners, who invested in the company in 2005. "Mark's vision on the purity of the product really did benefit from his control and ownership. It wasn't subject to committee decisions. It was all Mark."

The power that Zuckerberg wields over the company has already drawn scrutiny. "You're willing to take someone's money but not willing to invite their participation," said Charles M. Elson, a professor of corporate governance at the University of Delaware. "It makes meaningless the notion of investor democracy."

Elsen added that Zuckerberg's arrangement is similar to moves by founders of other technology companies, including Google, to create special classes of stock that grant them extra voting power.

Facebook declined to make executives available for interviews before the offering.

The focus on staying in charge began early. Sean Parker, one of Zuckerberg's first and most important advisers, helped him with that. Parker had learnt a hard lesson himself about losing control: he was ousted by the backers of a company he founded, an online address book called Plaxo. Parker helped ensure that would never happen to Zuckerberg.

Sopa and Pipa anti-piracy bills

The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) is the bill being considered by the House of Representatives.

The Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) is the parallel bill being considered by the Senate.


The proposed legislation is designed to tackle online piracy, with particular emphasis on illegal copies of films and other forms of media hosted on foreign servers.


The bills propose that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission 10 or more times within six months should face up to five years in jail.


The US government and rights holders would have the right to seek court orders against any site accused of "enabling or facilitating" piracy. This could theoretically involve an entire website being shut down because it contains a link to a suspect site.


US-based internet service providers, payment processors and advertisers would be outlawed from doing business with alleged copyright infringers. Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results - Pipa does not include this provision.


The bills would also outlaw sites from containing information about how to access blocked sites.
The bills originally demanded that internet service providers block users from being able to access suspect sites using a technique called Domain Name System (DNS) blocking.


ISP immunity

 
This would effectively make them "disappear" from the internet - and is a process already used in China and Iran. However, after opponents claimed this could disrupt the internet's underlying architecture, the chief sponsor of each bill agreed to ditch the measure.


To protect sites against false claims of illegal activity Sopa proposes penalising copyright holders who knowingly misrepresent a site's activity - however, Pipa does not contain this safeguard.


Both bills offer immunity to ISPs that block access to websites if they have "credible evidence" that the third party's pages contain unsanctioned copyright material. Critics claim this could create a conflict of interest as it may encourage firms to block access to competitors' sites.
It could also encourage firms to take a "safety first" approach resulting in users being prevented from viewing legal material.

Sopa's supporters are trying to reach consensus on the bill before putting it to a vote in the House of Representatives, which suggests that any vote may be some way off.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid plans to put Pipa up for a vote in the upper house on 24 January.

Supporters of the bills include television networks, music publishers, movie industry bodies, book publishers and manufacturers.


Critics include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo, eBay, LinkedIn, AOL and Zynga.

Google ties up with O-Zone to provide free Wi Fi

Google has announced a a unique marketing initiative with public Wi-Fi provider O-Zone Networks.

The initiative has been taken to encourage mobile internet usage and enabling users to access Google+ and YouTube on their portable devices away from work and home.

Users will now have unlimited access to Google+ on the Wi-Fi network at all O-Zone hotspots across the country. Users will also be enabled to surf and watch videos on for 10 minutes each week free of charge.

The offer will be launched this weekend and will be available for three months across India at all O-Zone Wi-Fi hotspots. O-Zone is also in talks with Google to make the initiative a long term one rather than only for the stipulated three months.

The offer is available for users at outlets like Café Coffee Day, McDonalds, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Costa Coffee, Subway and OM Bookshop among others.

Winter driving trouble? There's an app for that

When a powerful blizzard ripped through North Dakota last winter, hundreds of drivers were stranded as white-out conditions shuttered interstates spanning the state. Snow whipped up by wind marred the lines between pavement and grassy drop-offs, leaving some scared motorists unsure what to do.

Two local software developers had a thought: There should be an app for that.

Bob Bertsch, an employee with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, and Jake Joraanstad, an NDSU computer engineering major, had just finished developing an app to help residents during floods when the blizzard hit in March, convincing them to shift their attention to winter disasters.

Winter Survival Kit was born. The free program, available for iPhones and Android smartphones, is both a primer to help motorists prepare for winter driving and a beacon when things go badly.

It can pinpoint a motorist's location, call 911, notify friends and family, and monitor how long the gas will hold out. The app also gives potentially life-saving alerts when users tap a big red button on its simple home screen that reads, "I'm Stranded!" Among the advice: stay with your vehicle and keep the tailpipe clear of snow, since a backup can cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

"It's our sincere hope that no one ever has to use it," said Bertsch, an NDSU Extension Service web technology specialist who led the team that developed the app. "But if one person does have to use it and it keeps them in their car or keeps them from succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning, then it is definitely worth the time and effort that was spent on the app."

The app also helps drivers prepare for bad weather by inputting phone and policy numbers for insurance and roadside assistance, and designated emergency contacts. And it gives guidance on putting together a physical survival kit to keep in vehicles in case of emergencies.

"Any tools developed which arm people with information that will help keep them safe is of value," North Dakota Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong said.

The app does have limitations. Joraanstand said some especially rural areas of the country — particularly in the Great Plains — have shoddy cellphone coverage that could impede some features such as GPS. At that point the app would tell users that their location couldn't be pinpointed and instruct them to call 911.

Still, the app has emergency numbers handy, allowing users to send text messages for help. Text messages often can be sent by weaker signals than are needed for clear phone calls. And the app would give emergency advice on braving the elements — even telling users how to use parts of a vehicle to keep warm.

The Midwest hasn't seen much heavy snowfall in the last few months, so the app's developers haven't heard of any success — or horror — stories yet. But they're convinced that when the time comes, their app will help.

"This app can literally save someone's life. We take great pride in that," said Joraanstad, the 22-year-old chief operating officer for Myriad Devices, a startup company in NDSU's research and technology park that produced the app.

Bertsch, Joraanstand and two colleagues who teach at NDSU have become experts in disaster apps. Last year they developed a program to help residents deal with flooding that has overwhelmed North Dakota in the last few years. The H2O app provides news feeds, river levels, road closure maps and other information.

Winter Survival Kit, which works in the U.S. and Canada, joins several apps from other developers that were designed to help smartphone users in a bind, such as Help I Crashed My Car, Emergency Radio, iMapWeather Radio, iTriage, Close Call and pMonitor. As of this week, there didn't appear to be other winter survival-specific apps in either iTunes' or Android's app stores.

"I think we hit a particular niche," Bertsch said.

About 12,000 people downloaded the app in the first week it was released, and Joraanstad said that at last check, there were another 3,000 downloads. The early returns have been mostly favorable. Out of 16 user reviews on the Android website, 13 gave 5-star ratings. "Practical ... yet simple," reads one review. It had a 4-plus average rating among Apple iPhone users.

People posting lower ratings reported trouble with the app crashing. Joraanstad said those glitches are being addressed as they arise with updates.

Yahoo dangled $27M pay package to get new CEO

 Yahoo dangled a $27 million pay package to lure its newly hired CEO Scott Thompson away from PayPal.

The struggling Internet company disclosed the details of Thompson's compensation in a regulatory filing late Friday. Thompson starts his new job Monday after spending the past four years running eBay Inc.'s PayPal service, where revenue more than doubled during his tenure. PayPal took in an estimated $4.4 billion last year.

That kind of robust growth is a fuzzy memory for Yahoo Inc., a one-time Internet star whose revenue has sagged as online advertising flowed increasingly to rivals Google Inc. and Facebook.

Yahoo has promised better times under three new CEOs in less than five years, only to frustrate investors each time. They've been especially disenchanted since the company squandered an opportunity to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, in May 2008. The stock hasn't traded above $20 in more than three years, with the shares closing Friday at $15.52. The last time it closed above $33 was 2006.

Thompson, 54, is highly regarded in Internet circles, although some analysts question whether he is the right fit for Yahoo because he has no experience in online content or advertising, the company's financial lifeblood.

Yahoo offered Thompson a deal that includes a $1 million salary and a bonus of up to $2 million this year. Yahoo is guaranteeing to pay him $1 million of the bonus; the remaining $1 million will hinge on Yahoo's financial results this year.

Thompson also will receive stock incentives valued at $22.5 million. The stock awards could be worth more or less, depending how Yahoo's long-slumping shares fare under Thompson's leadership.

To top it off, Yahoo is paying Thompson $1.5 million to offset money he forfeited by leaving PayPal. A $6.5 million chunk of the stock awards are also meant to offset some of the compensation Thompson would have gotten at PayPal, according to the filing.

Thompson received a $10.4 million compensation package at PayPal in 2010. It included a $645,000 salary. EBay hasn't yet revealed how much it paid Thompson last year.

Unless more money and stock is added later in the year, Yahoo won't be paying Thompson as much as his predecessor, Carol Bartz, who was hired three years ago and fired four months ago. Tim Morse, Yahoo's chief financial officer, had been running Yahoo since Bartz's ouster.

Bartz's compensation package during her first year on the job was valued at $47.2 million. Much of that, though, included stock incentives that haven't become as valuable as the original calculations envisioned because the company's shares remained in a funk during Bartz's regime. Bartz's salary was $1 million, like Thompson's.

CIOs at India Inc not rushing investments in cloud computing

Concerns over data security and privacy and an immature ecosystem are likely to stunt the growth of cloud computing in India.

Despite the obvious benefits of lower capital expenditure and quicker rollout of new products and services, chief information officers (CIOs) are hesitant to make full-scale investments in the new technology. For now, they are rolling out pilot projects or waiting for the technology to stabilise, before making this radical shift.

Unlike traditional information technology, cloud computing relies on storing, managing and retrieving data hosted on the internet, rather than on a local server.

Cloud computing is a marketing term for technologies that provide computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. A parallel to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, wherein end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.


Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on Internet protocols, and it typically involves provisioning of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This may take the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if the programs were installed locally on their own computers.
Cloud computing providers deliver applications via the internet, which are accessed from web browsers and desktop and mobile apps, while the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location. In some cases, legacy applications (line of business applications that until now have been prevalent in thin client Windows computing) are delivered via a screen-sharing technology, while the computing resources are consolidated at a remote data center location; in other cases, entire business applications have been coded using web-based technologies such as AJAX.

Railways offer train ticket reservation facility on mobiles

Booking train ticket was never so easy as you can now get it done through your mobile phone.

After initial registration and downloading of suitable software on the mobile handset with Internet facility, it will be possible for the mobile users to book a ticket through their own mobile.

Launched by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation ( IRCTC), a PSU under Railway Ministry, has been offering the service of booking e-ticket over the mobile phone, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

After booking, the passenger will receive a reservation message with full details of the ticket including PNR, train no, date of journey and class.

"This virtual message would be treated at par with the print-out of the e-ticket which at present is taken out by the passengers and is known as Electronic Reservation Slip ( ERS)," he said.

Hence, with the virtual message, passengers would not be required to take a print-out of e-ticket to be carried with them. Showing the reservation message of the confirmed ticket on their mobile during travel will be sufficient. Internet is required on mobile phones to book tickets through mobile.

The passenger has to register at the time of first transaction and thereafter book the ticket using his ID and password.

The service was introduced on a pilot basis for a few and now the more than a thousand users are availing this facility everyday, he said.

The service charge is similar to e-tickets-- Rs 10 for Sleeper class and Rs 20 for other higher class.

Hackers developing satellite system for 'uncensorable Internet in space

The threat of Internet censorship has spurred some to seek refuge in space. Hackers at the Chaos Computer Club’s Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin this year proposed an initiative called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG), which aims to create and freely make available satellite based communication as a fallback or to bypass stuffy legislation.

The bunch of “hobbyist hackers, tinkerers and part time scientists” are predominantly based in Stuttgart, Germany. They say their ultimate goal is to put a hacker on the moon in 23 years, but right now they’re keeping their goals small. They want to keep their freedoms safe from threats like the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), by creating an “uncensorable Internet in space.” The project builds off of an earlier idea by Nick Farr in August for a Hacker Space Program.

The BBC interviewed 26-year-old Armin Bauer from Stuttgart who is working on the communications infrastructure for the project with his team. Bauer is currently working with Constellation, which is a platform that uses Internet-connected computers for aeropsace related research.
The team is developing an idea for a network of low-cost ground stations for when the project gets those low-orbit satellites up there. The stations would be there to pinpoint satellites and facilitate sending data back to earth.

Bauer said, “It’s kind of a reverse GPS. GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are. We would use GPS coordinates but also improve on them by using fixed sites in precisely-known locations.”

Three prototypes are in development, and the team hopes to have them in place in the early half of 2012. Prices for individual ground stations will be 100 euros ($129). The team is exploring other sources for time and position data such as Galileo, GLONASS and ground-based surveying, but they are starting with GPS because it is simple and reasonably priced.

As the project is in the early stages, the hackers stress that they will have to deal with problems as they occur. “We’re trying to concentrate on reasons why this will work, not why it won’t,” they say on the HGG page.

On New Year, Twitter crashes because of overloaded messages

Popular micro-blogging site Twitter reportedly crashed on new year as it was overloaded with New Year messages.

In Britain, the website crashed at 3 PM (local time) and was out of action for over an hour. It coincided with midnight celebrations in Japan when revellers were said to be sending a record 16,197 tweets per second.

The overload meant no one could post new messages or read existing ones. Instead, frustrated users were greeted with the error message: "Twitter is over capacity."

The site returned to working order but then stopped on several other occasions, prompting speculation that it was being hit by the arrival of New Year in different parts of the world, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

One user tweeted: "It's amazing how three words can ruin my day! Twitter over capacity." Another joked: "Twitter's New Year resolution needs to be I will never go over capacity."

"Some people experienced issues connecting early today," said Carolyn Penner, a spokeswoman for Twitter, in an e-mail to the 'New York Times', although she declined to clarify why Twitter went down or for how long the service was unavailable.

Meanwhile, Facebook says it's ready for the surge in New Year traffic as it expects one billion uploads from people sharing photos and comments via their laptops and smart phones during New Year 2012 celebrations.

Jay Parikh, Facebook's director of engineering, told the 'Times Herald' the key is to predict the surge in traffic.

"There is a little bit of a special preparation in terms of watching over it, but it's not this fire drill. We'll just kind of run through a preflight checklist type of thing," he was quoted as saying.

Berlin Hacking Conference: Hackers could shut down train lines

Hackers who have shut down websites by overwhelming them with web traffic could use the same approach to shut down the computers that control train switching systems, a security expert said at a hacking conference in Berlin.

Stefan Katzenbeisser, professor at Technische Universitat Darmstadt in Germany, said switching systems were at risk of "denial of service" attacks, which could cause long disruptions to rail services.

"Trains could not crash, but service could be disrupted for quite some time," Katzenbeisser told on the sidelines of the convention.

"Denial of service" campaigns are one of the simplest forms of cyber attack: hackers recruit large numbers of computers to overwhelm the targeted system with Internet traffic.

Hackers have used the approach to attack sites of government agencies around the world and sites of businesses.

Train switching systems, which enable trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction, have historically been separate from the online world, but communication between trains and switches is handled increasingly using wireless technology.

Katzenbeisser said GSM-R, a mobile technology used for trains, is more secure than the usual GSM, used in phones, against which security experts showed a new attack at the convention.

"Probably we will be safe on that side in coming years. The main problem I see is a process of changing ... keys. This will be a big issue in the future, how to manage these keys safely," Katzenbeisser said.

The software encryption 'keys', which are needed for securing the communication between trains and switching systems, are downloaded to physical media like USB sticks and then sent around for installing - raising the risk of them ending up in the wrong hands.

Happy New Year says Google Doodle

Google's last Doodle of the year 2011 carries Happy New Year wishes for search giant's millions of users across the globe. The colourful Doodle has the letters in the word "Google" seemingly attending a New Year party, wearing decorative caps and blowing trumpets. The second 'G' of the letter 'Google' wears the year 2012's goggles. A click on the logo takes users to a page which has all the Happy New Year-related links.

Google's Doodle last week featured a colourful neon design with images of a snowflake, Santa Claus, bell, snowman, candle and a gift box on a black background, wishing its users "Happy Holidays". A click on the Doodle took users to holiday-related links like tips for holiday, holiday greetings and budget tours.

Google recently revamped its Doodle site allowing users to purchase items featuring Google Doodles. The update brings the page into line with Google's other socially-enhanced sites and enables users to share their favorite logos on social networking websites.

The new site features over 1,000 doodles, some of which include a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process and links to the interactive versions.

Google Doodles are the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists. The first Google Doodle was created by Larry Page and Sergy Brin Google in the year 1998 to mark the celebrations of the Burning Man Festival. Google currently has over 1000 Doodles.