Sunday, May 30, 2010

NTC Plans to sell Poddar mill online


Rajshri Mehta

The National Textile Corporation (NTC) Ltd plan to will sell its 2.5 acre Poddar Processors textile mail at Worli Naka through an e-auction.

The move comes following the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction's (BIFR) suggestions by to auction off the property online. The e-auction - expected to be called sometime in late June - will have a reserve price of over Rs200 crore.
With the e-auction, NTC wants to test a system that will allow all qualified bidders to track the process in real time. Senior NTC officials say they are working on the bid document for the e-auction and hope to issue it in the first week of June.

Meanwhile, the NTC also issued bids to sell its eightacre Bharat textile mill through a regular auction at a reserve price of Rs750 crore. Property experts say the average asking price for the land is roughly over Rs22,000 per sq ft.

A senior official from Jones Lange LaSalle Meghraj said the bid may not receive a huge response if the developer was asked to develop the mill only for residential purpose. "The bids will be huge only if the land is used to construct a hotel as one can then avail a floor space index of 5," the official said.

Little man's revenge



The lesson perphaps is simple. Companies which do not look after their people are most likely to suffer

Let the employer beware. A recent survey reported in this newspaper yesterday has found that Indian companies lose an average of Rs60 lakh a year because of data theft or loss. Most of this loss happens apparently because of badly paid disgruntled employees. Is this some sort of subversive rebellion which possibly represents the new way of keeping the blood-sucking capitalised bourgeoisie in check- the revenge of the proletariat on keyboards? Or is it a natural fallout of this information age in which we live, where large amounts of data can be moved around the world at the press of yes, key on a board?

Either way, it seems we are all at the mercy of a faceless army, a good proportion of which has the ability, skill and inclination to mess with our lives. After all, everything from our bank accounts to our phone bills, travel arrangements, credit cards even movie tickets are negotiated or monitored online. The internet has become our one-stop shop for most services and not all the sales people it seems are happy.

The interesting thing here is not just cyber fraud or robbery. That is easier to understand. The instinct o steal is strong and active on the real world. But this is cyber sulking, finding insidious ways to make an organisation's life miserable. Hackers after all started out to make money: they hacked because they could. Even now, the intent is often malicious not monetary.

The lesson perphaps is simply. Companies which do not look after their people are most likely to suffer. No matter how technologically advanced you are and how much you have reduced your dependency on manpower, the fact will remain that somewhere, somehow some human hands are operating your systems.And if you've been negligent or stingy, they have ways of making you bleed. The corporate system tends to give you bigger rewards the higher up the ladder you go. And as the world saw with the collapse of the global economy two years ago, the higher they went, the more fraudulent they became.

But now it seems that it is those left behind at the bottom of the ladder have the means to bleed an organisation slowly and effectively. It would make sense then to keep the nameless, faceless technicians, who really know what's going on, happy. Pay them well and feed their egos. After all, your company and your clients _ and all of us consumers - depend on them!

Pakistan unblocks YouTube, Facebook still banned




Islamabad

While blanket ban on YouTube was lifted, objectionable links on the site will remain blocked, Pakistan telecommunication authority spokesman Khurram Mehran said

Pakistan has partially unblocked the popular video sharing websites YouTube, but links to " sacrilegious or profane material" will remain restricted, a top government official said on Thursday.

Pakistan blocked YouTube last week in a bid to contain content deemed blashemous, a day after it cut off access to social networking sites Facebook indefinitely because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad.

" We have lifted the ban on only that part which is not displaying any sacrilegious of profane material," Naguibullah Malik, secretary of information technology and telecom, said. But while many of the videos connected with the competition were blocked, others remained accessible in Pakistan on Thursday morning. Most Muslims consider any representation of the Prophet Mohammed to be blashemous.

Malik said his ministry had acted on its own in blocking YouTube, but that Facebook was banned on the orders of a court. " We had banned one URL of the Facebook but the high court ordered the banning of the entire Facebook," he said.

The next hearing on the case will be May 31. The publication of cartoons of the Prophet in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked deadly protests in Muslims countries. About 50 people were killed during violent protests in Muslim countries in 2006, five of them in Pakistan.

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70% for permanent ban: Poll

A poll has revealed that 70% people in Pakistan want a permanent ban on the social networking website Facebook, while another 15% support the Lahore high court's order to ban the website till May 31

Acccording to the ProPakistani.pk poll, the participants expressed sheer anger on Facebook for displaying blasphemous drawings of Prophet Muhammad. Eight per cent Participants said that a single URL ban was enough, while the remaining seven per cent felt they did not want ban on Facebook at all.

Jabran Rafique, a student, said thousand of people had complained to Facebook to remove the blasphemous content but no action was taken

Come, join Twitter: Rehman Malik to PC


Islamabad:

Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik, who has taken to the social networking site Twitter with aplomb since last week, wants Union home minister P Chidambram to register on the website. Responding to a proposal from an Indian users that he should get Chidambaram to join the site, Malik wrote: " I agree with your suggestion. I highly recommend Twitter to my friend, college and counterpart Mr Chidambaram."

Malik joined the site after Pakistan imposed a ban on Facebook and YouTube due to " offensive" Content and blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. Malik has been tweeting on divers topic like the colourful ties he wears and upholding the freedom of Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed.

Malik said his son told him that if he couldn't get on Facebook, where he has his own page and 691 fans, he should tweet. He now has more than 350 followers on Twitter. Malik also uses Twitter to communicate with world leaders like David Miliband and Barack Obama.

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Bouquets, brickbats

SalmaanTaseer: Good to c interior minister on Twitter

MobisherLive: You should run for thee most stylish man in #Pakistan Competition

Faisalqureshi: Rehmanb malik actually believes Obama reads his msgs from &mill followers. Our politicos have to be the lamest

Samishah: Okay, you can ban twitter now. I am not sharing a social networking platform with Rehman Malik

Facebook simplifies its privacy setting


NEW YORK

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talking about the site's new privacy settings -AP

New York: Facebook simpified its privacy controls on Wednesday, but critics were not impressed. The social networking site unveiled a new interface to control user privacy settings, on one page. Previously, there were 50 privacy setting and 170 privacy options.

Facebook will not insist that you share your friends list and pages with everyone, undoing last December's controversial changes. There are options to block all applications and websites, and opt-out of instant personalisation.

But if you opt out of applications and the entire face book platform, a major downside is that you will be unable to play games.

Tech websites said that users are still being pushed to share information by default. Privacy International reacted to the changes with "disappointment and frustration".

"While we acknowledge Facebook for putting right the mess that it created last December by deploying unusable settings, this latest action is only the first of many steps to be taken before the nature of privacy," it said.

Chester Wisniewski, a researcher at the anti-virus firm Sophos, said Facebook had changed its privacy controls without offering increased privacy:

"I welcome the simplified controls, but nothing has changed," Wisniewsk said, "I didn't see hints of an apology, nor a solid acknowledgment that Facebook went too far."

"We believe in privacy. We believe in giving people control," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said at a press conference in San Francisco to announce the overhaul.

But more and more, people want to share information. As long as they have good control over that, I think that's where the world is going."

Search giant balks at turning over wireless data to German regulators


BERLIN


Google on Thursday balked at requests from regulators in Germany and Hong Kong to surrender fragments of Internet data and e-mails it had improperly collected from unsecured home wireless networks, saying it needed time to resolve legal issues.

In Germany, Google said it was not able to comply with the Hamburg data protection supervisor's request to inspect information the company collected from Internet users by roving cars used to compile its Street View photo map archive.

The company, in a statement, implied that German privacy laws, ironically, were preventing it from turning preventing it from turning over the information, even to a government agency.

"As granting access to payload data creates legal challenges in Germany which we need to review, we are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available," said peter Barron, a Google spokesman in London.

In Hong Kong, the Privacy commissioner, Roderick B Woo, threatened sanctions after Google did not respond to his request to inspect data. Woo said Google had ignored a Monday deadline to turn over the information.

The standoffs increase the chance that Google may face fines and proceedings in Europe and Asia after its cars collected 600 gigabytes of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries and Hong Kong.

Search for self: 71% youth track their reputation online


Users aged 18 to 29 most likely to change privacy settings on profiles to limit what they share with others

What's that? A young college grad lecturing her elders about online privacy?

It might go against conventional wisdom, but a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project is adding fuel to the argument that young people are fast becoming the gurus of online reputation management, especially when it comes to social networking sites.

Among other things, the study found that they are most likely to limit personal information online - and the least likely to trust free online services ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn and MySpace.

Marlene McManus,21, is among those young adults. On the Job hunt since graduating from Clark University in Massachusetts, she's been "scouring" her Facebook page, removing photos that contain beer cups and any other signs of college exploits. She's also dropped twitter altogether. " I have to present a public face that doesn't have the potential to hurt my image ," McManus says.

Adults over the age of 30 might do well to listen. The Pew study and a mounting body of new research is showing that the very generation accused of sharing too much information online is actually leading the pack in online privacy.

The Pew study found, for instance , that social networkers ages 18 to 29 were the most likely to change the privacy settings on their profiles to limit what they share with others online. The percentage who did so was 71%, compared with just 55% of the 50-to 64-year-old bracket. Meanwhile, about two-thirds of all social networkers who were surveyed said they've tightened security settings.

About half of young people in that 18-29 bracket have deleted comments that others have made on their profile, compared with just 29% of those ages 30 to 49 and 26% of 50-to 64-year-olds.

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Managing your Web image

Snooping has, unsurprisingly, continued to grow in popularity. But actively combating that surreptitious monitoring has also significantly escalated

Additional surveys estimate that 70% of potential employers research their applicants online, and frequently reject them because of what they find

52% of adults dangerously over-share on social networks, the oblivious oldtimers would do well to learn from the youngsters

41% have removed their names from photos of them posted by other compared to 18% of those 50 to 64

Cyber crime



In spite of massive Internet penetration in the metros, a whopping 79 per cent of Mumbai's citizens have no idea what to do when faced with cyber crime, reveals a survey of KPMG Advisory Services. What is equally alarming is that 96 per cent of the respondents didn't know whether they had been victims. This is ignorance of a dangerous kind when it is rising rapidly. It is not restricted to online fraud and child pornography. Terrorists have also found a safe haven here. The police in Mumbai and in other cities will need special units to tackle cyber crime.

Information theft? keep a watch on disgruntled, low-paid staffers


Mumbai:

Private sector companies, take note if rivals in business are stealing the initiative from a company by accessing its confidential information, the culprit may be a saboteur within - a disgruntled staffer.

According to research by Symantec India, a global leader in infrastructure software, theft or leakage of confidential and classified data in most private sector companies is the handiwork of employees.

The research involved nearly 100 companies from across the telecom, hospitality, manufacturing , retail and technology sectors. Fifty-nine percent of the enterprises believed employees at endpoints compromised security, either intentionally or unintentionally, by leaking data.

"Most enterprises have faced a cyber attack and suffered losses due to it. The report shows that on an average an Indian enterprise loses Rs60 lakh every year due to data theft or loss. This could go up to Rs84 lakh loss in productivity," said Vishal Dhupar, managing director,Symantec India.

At a conference on cyber safety, Mumbai police commissioner D Sivanandhan said that in most cyber crime cases reported, it was found that the accused was an employee unhappy with his organisation.

The data lost could be identity, corporate confidential data, customer and client details and IP (internet protocol) theft. The report says that around 42% companies have lost proprietary data.

"In many cases, low-paid employees share classified information for money. Also, a disgruntled employee could do it to get back at the company," said Sumit Chaudhary, chief information officer, Reliance Communications.

However," in many cases, employees shared information without knowing that it was classified or without knowing the consequences of their act," he added.

Employees could be using social networking sites, instant messaging services and blogs to keep in touch with people. Any such communication could lead to a malware attack. Use of smartphones, PDAs and notebooks where employees could store classified official information and also use it for work could be under threat if proper security measures are not taken, Dhupar said.

"Employers cannot stop employees from using these services from using these services but policies need to drafted and policies need to drafted and adequated security measures should be taken to avoid such losses," he said.

As many as 82% of Indian companies use Facebook for business communication, the report says, Moreover, 69% of enterprises did not have a policy to control use of social networking sites by employees.

Other than this, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger instant messaging services are used by 69% and 61% of enterprises respectively. Google Talk has faced one of the worst attacks in the past with a Trojan called Hydraq affecting organisations worldwide.

"Many companies do not take Data Loss Prevention (DLP) steps at all while most of them take minimal steps due to lack of budget allocation," said Dhupar.

Experts from Symantec said that protection of confidential data or risk reduction could be done by creating a culture of security in the workplace, and taking needed DLP measures like discovering the data, monitoring it and then protecting using security software and mechanisms.
No policey to plug the leak
As many as 82% of Indian companies use Facebook for business communication. Google Talk is used by 69% companies and 61% use Yahoo Messenger for instant messaging
In most companies, there is no policy to control the use of social networking sites by employees

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Facebook to set up warning system after new sex scam


Singapore:

Many users of the social networking site hit by fake video attacks

A major computer security firm urged Facebook on Tuesday to set up an early warning system after hundreds of thousands of fake sex-video attacks.

British-based virus fighter Sophos warned users of the world's biggest social networking site to be on guard against posting entitled 'Distracting beach babes', which contains a movie thumbnail of a bikini-clad woman.

Sophas said the malicious posts appear as if they are coming from Facebook users' friends, but it urged recipients not to click on the thumbnail.

By clicking on it, users are taken to a rouge Facebook application information them that they do not have the right player software installed, Sophas said.

It tricks users into installing adware, a software package that automatically plays, displays or downloads advertisements to their computer, and the video link is spread across the network.

Sophas said " hundreds of thousands" of Facebook users were believed to have received the posts recently.

It followed a similar scam that spread on Facebook the week before involving a fake posting tagged as the "sexiest video ever".

"It's time for Facebook to set up an early warning system on their network, through which they can warn their almost 500 million users about breaking threats as they happen,"said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"A simple message appearing on all users' screens warning them of the outbreak would have helped in halting the attack," he said.

"Unless something is done it won't be surprising if there is another widespread attack this coming weekend, affecting thousands more users."

The social networking site is under fire for revealing users' information too freely on the Internet.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday that the website "missed the mark" with its complex privacy controls and would reveal simpler features in the coming weeks.

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Drastically simpler interface for privacy controls from today

Facebook Inc said it will introduce a "drastically simplified interface" for privacy controls on Wednesday, aiming to assuage concerns about how the site handles user information.

"The last few weeks have been extremely humbling," Chris Cox, vice president of product at Facebook, said at a technology conference in New York on Tuesday.

Users have complained that the site made it too easy for outsiders to access some of their personal information.

People want easier, simpler ways to opt out of sharing data with applications and websites, said Facebook, whose site is the world's most popular for social networking.

Facebook introduced tools last month that let users recommend products and websites to their friends. More than a dozen privacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month that urged the agency to conduct an investigation into Facebook's privacy practise.

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Foxnews lists 5 annoyances

Excessive e-mail: When friends take actions that involve you, Facebook may send you an alerting you

Noisy news feed: A never ending update on your friends' recent activity

Junk from strangers: It's possible for people you don't know to send you messages

Junk from from friends: You may get a message from friends alerting you to something but it may be from a hacker

Sneaky ads: Facebook uses some of the data to display ads that target people like you

Facebook owns you


Facebook began in 2005 as a simple and effective collaborative tool. But today, as it gets set to register its 500 millionth user, the social networking site is cashing in on all the personal data that people are posting there, mostly without permission. R Krisha talks to experts and users to find out just how hard it has become to keep your data personal.

'Relax, 'said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
you can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

These lines come at the end of the song Hotel California (The Eagles), describing an enchanted place of many irresistible charms, which comes with a catch - if anyone tries to do anything of their own free will, the place becomes a nightmare. You can have fun, but only as long as you play by the rules set by 'them'.

Many Facebook users have recently been feeling similarly trapped, prompting social media enthusiast Netra Parikh to tweet a helpful link last week-www.reclaimprivacy.org. The service analyses your Facebook account and points out how much of your personal data there is public without your knowing it, and suggests steps to plug the holes. Parikh got a flood of responses to her Twitter post, ranging from "very worried" to "Should I delete my Facebook account?"

Saurabh Kejriwal, an ad writer based in Delhi, is among those who're getting turned off. "The reason I got hooked to Facebook three years ago was because it was simple and safe as well as a great collaborative platform. But today there have been so many changes that I am no longer comfortable."

Kejriwal is referring to the myriad potential invasions of privacy on Facebook today. Earlier, he could simply share his photos with his friends. Today he has to handle whole gamut of optional settings if he doesn't want to end up sharing his life with the whole world. "It makes me nervous."

For example, your friends list - which in 2005 was visible to your friends or friends of your friends - is now public information, accessible to anyone on the internet by default.

But last month this dilution of privacy on Facebook went to a whole new level, with a set of changes which are ironically also a huge step forward in the way information is organised and personalised for the user.

New personalising tools

When mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, took the stage at F8, the company's conference for its developers, wearing his usual jeans, sneakers and black hoodie, his simple demeanour contrasted with the game-changer he was about to unveil.

The most important change is open Graph, a platform where Facebook shares your public information - such as your friends list, interests, status updates, etc-with its partners such as Yelp (a hang-outs review site), Pandora (a music streaming service), and CNN, among others, This allows the partner websites to dish out content most relevant to you.

Facebook also announced a new feature called Community Pages, where information on various topics such as cooking or hiking can be organised. The catch here is that Facebook doesn't really ask you whether you want to contribute to a community page. Your status update on hiking, for example, will be pulled into the community page without your permission.

Another important change announced by Zuckerberg related to third party application on Facebook, such as Farmville. Earlier, these app developers couldn't store your data for more than 24 hours, but under the new policy they have permanent access.

The app developers reportedly broke into applause at this announcement. But privacy advocates as well as social media enthusiasts felt exactly the opposite.

Users lose control

There is resentment against Facebook's latest moves because it takes control away from the user.For Example, even earlier you could personalise your experience at Yelp using Facebook Connect, but it required prior permission from the user. Open Graph on the other hand is ON by default and opting out is complicated.

"people are afraid that this puts too much power in the hands of Facebook, because it is difficult even for sophisticated users to opt out of Open Graph," says Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020 Social, a social business strategy firm based in Delhi.

"So far, only when I clicked on the Facebook Connect button did Yelp have access to my Facebook data. Now, by default, the moment I go to Yelp, it gets access to my data. Today, Yelp has access, tomorrow a whisky brand, or a direct marketing company may get access. So who decides who has access to data? How can Facebook decide it can share my data with whoever it deems fit?" says Mishra.

Facebook's privacy settings can be tweaked to disallow such access. But experts say it takes a great deal of effort to find the right settings, and then even more confusing to decide the levels you would want to set. And then you have to periodically review these settings as new features and services come into play.

Compounding the problem is the fact that even if you are good at fine-tuning all your privacy settings, you friends could still be sharing data about you (say, photos of you that they took). Again, this data can be shared with Facebook's partners via Open Graph.

Similarly, the problem with the new community Page feature is that it pulls in data such as status updates made by users without their consent, simply based on the words they use. So a status update containing the words 'My stupid boss' not only goes to your friends but also to a 'My Stupid Boss' community page, where it gets archived. And as of now there is no real opt-out.

More dangerous is allowing third-party applications to keep a permanent record of your data.

"Imagine all your data - preferences, location, what you thinking - being available to spammers, identity thieves or direct marketers. Or even big companies like banks for that matter," says Mishra.

Besides, how secure is the data which these third-party application developers collect? "In my experience, third-party application developers have a far worse track record of protecting user privacy than Facebook itself," points out Arvind Narayanan, who is doing research on privacy issues at the Stanford University.
Value of information

So why is Facebook doing all this? Well, it stands to gain a lot from Open Graph and the other new tools it has introduced. For example, a lot of data will be generated in Community Pages. When this becomes searchable, it will drive traffic to Facebook.

Facebook has also introduced a 'Like' button. Various websites can have this button on their pages. If you like an article you read or a game you played you simply click on the 'Like' button if it's there on the page. From a user's perspective, she is just sharing what she likes with her friends. Facebook, on the other hand, is building up a database of what the user likes and will eventually serve ads to her based on the 'likes'.

"So far companies like Yahoo! have been trying to show us ads based on our behaviour, but it is difficult because they have to deduce our behaviour. Facebook, on the other hand, already has our profile information, our location, and interests. So it is going to become easier for them to target ads to us. Now on a real-time basis they know what we like across the Web," explains Mishra.

Marketers have already started benefiting from the changes. Asfaq Tapia, head of social media, Epigram Advertising, which promotes Bollywood films, is one of them. "We create pages on Facebook dedicated to our films and users can become fans of those pages. After the changes Facebook made, the number of fans for one of the films, Khelien Hum Jee Jaan Sey, shot up overnight simply because people happened to mention it in their 'interests' and got automatically pulled into a community page. This wouldn't happen earlier," says Tapia, who now has many more Facebook users and people on their friends list to target with the film's promotion. It's ironic that many of these people became 'fans' of the movie without really intending to.

When he puts on the hat of a Facebook user, however, Tapia is worried. "From a place meant for users, it has become a place for marketers," says Tapia, who has stopped listing anything in the 'interest' section of his profile since it gets linked to community pages as well as advertisements on Facebook.

Facing a backlash

Facebook is on the verge of crossing the 500 million user mark, and the company has been aware for some time now of the value of the vast user information on the site which can be monetised. But for this to happen, the information you give Facebook must be public. So, in December last year Facebook made much of your profile information public by default - this includes your name, photographs, name of your friends, and the city you live in.

This paved the way for changes introduced last month where your public information was shared with Facebook partners as part of Open Graph. And of course, once personal information becomes public, it becomes easier to profile users and serve them ads according to their interests, location, etc.

However, the company is now facing a huge backlash with 14 privacy advocacy groups filing a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission against Facebook last week. The FTC is now taking a close look at how online social networks are using people's data. This has made the top brass at Facebook go into a huddle and the company is expected to announce changes in its privacy policies later this week.

Vaibhav Malelo, an IT professional based in the US doesn't mind the myriad privacy options so much. "It's OK if they want to allow such customisation. But if they add something new (privacy setting) and by default it is ON (set to share the data) then there is a problem. I wouldn't want it that way."

Rahul Mehra* found out from personal experience what problems such an arbitrary change in privacy settings can cause. "I had set my privacy settings in a way that none of my family members could have access to photos in which I was tagged. Recently, I went to a brewery in Pune with my friends. The pictures were uploaded on Facebook, but they know I have a girlfriend and that I have a great liking for beer. It wasn't very comfortable at home," he says.

Mehra, a savvy user, at least knew how to rectify the problem. A vast majority of Facebook users simply don't have the know how or time to find and turn off these settings.

Of course, another way of looking at the issue is, 'Don't put stuff on your social network that you wouldn't want your mother to see.' After all, should we even expect to keep secrets in an online social world?

But the question is of breaching the user's trust. Twitter makes it clear that everything you post is accessible to the whole world, unless you choose to keep your tweets private. At the other end is email, where conversation by default is restricted between you and the recipients of your email. But what if Google or Yahoo! or Hot mail decide suddenly to make all our emails public?

Facebook started off by saying that you could share stuff with friends whom you chose. Today, much of your data is available to people who are not your friends as well as to companies who have become partners of Facebook. Sure, there are benefits to such a move: It will help in funneling relevant information to me base on my likes and what my friends like. The problem is that for those who chose not to share their data it's hard to opt out, and harder still to keep track of the various ways in which the data is being accessed and used.
* Name changed on request
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Is IT time to log off?

Discontent with Facebook has been spreading rapidly over the past few weeks. On Thursday 'how do I delete my Facebook account' was among the top 20 trending searches on Google Hot Trends.

Websites are cropping up to expose Facebook privacy issues. YouOpenBook.org, for example, searches public status updates of users, which have grown since Facebook began recommending users make their status updates public. The developers say that the site is meant to pressure Facebook to switch its account setting so that such updates are private by default and wouldn't be accessible to developers.

Then there's the Facebook privacy scanner available at reclaimprivacy.org. This is a simple bookmark toll that you run while logged into your own Facebook profile. It checks your privacy settings, tells you what information is locked down and which is public. The current version doesn't make the changes for your; you'll have to dive into Facebook's privacy settings to do that on your own.

Cyber crime: Victims don't know whom to call


Cyber crime: Victims don't know whom to call
May 26, 2010
Divyesh Singh
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A total of 20 questions were asked to computer users. The results also revealed that 96% of people did not know whether they have ever been victims of a cyber attack or online fraud


What do you do in case you come across a cyber crime? Well, 79% of the educated Mumbai residents do not have an answer, as was found out during a survey conducted by a team of experts from the KPMG Advisory Services. The survey was conducted by speaking to Mumbaikars and contacting them through email.


The results of the survey were released at a round table conference held on Tuesday at the Indian Merchants' Chamber. The conference was a part of Cyber Safety Week organised by Mumbai police. Former director general of police KK Kashyap, commissioner of police D Sivanandhan, IT expert Vijay Mukhi, KPMG executive director Nitin Khanapurkar, advertising guru Bharat Dabholkar, senior police officers and IT experts attended the conference.


A total of 20 questions were asked to computer users. The results also revealed that 96% of people did not know whether they have ever been victims of a cyber attack or online fraud.


"There is a huge amount of under reporting in cases of cyber crime; people who have been victim do not register complaints fearing that it would make them objects of ridicule or their reputation might get damaged," IPS officer Pratap Reddy from Karnataka said. "With the advent of social networking sites, people, including celebrities and VVIPs post scraps and messages about their activities. This can easily reveal their location and plans and they may become targets of criminals. people need to be educated about using the Internet and about how to be have online."


According to Sivanadhan, people can contact police stations or the cyber crime cell. "Also, complaints can be posted on our website www.copconnect.com.Other then cheating, frauds and data thefts, cyber terrorism too is a problem. The cyber machinery has been used in the past by terror groups and they could use it to plan their operations and get information about people," he said.


Another fact revealed in the survey is that 62% of Mumbaikars do not monitor their children's activities on the internet. and could become targets of cyber criminals easily.


If a time table to play and study timings can be set, it can also be done for surfing the internet for children. Parents should always keep a check on their children's activities on the internet or else they could suffer from things like cyber bullying. cyber harassment and they could also be lured to get involved in cyber crimes," said Mukhi.




Pak blocks Twitter, Blackberry after Facebook and YouTube


Islamabad

Pakistanis protest against Facebook, which encouraged users to post images of Prophet Mohammad, in Islamabad,on Friday

After blocking Facebook and YouTube, the Pakistani authorities on Friday widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to the social networking website Twitter. They have also blocked Blackberry Mobile services, pushing Pakistan back to pre-historic times. No reason was given for banning Blackberry's service.

Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site. When users tried to log into the sites, there browsers displayed the message 'This site is restricted'. Over two days, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked websites like Facebook and YouTube, citing "sacrilegious contents" as the reason tor the action.

The ban,which includes certain pages on Flickr and Wikipedia, came a day after access to Facebook was suspended on orders from a Pakistani court. Some Islamic lawyers won that injunction, arguing that a contest, started by users for drawings of the Prophet Mohammad and called 'Everybody Draw Mohammad day', was offensive.

The authorities have blocked over 450 URLs.

The government acted against Facebook and YouTube after it failed to persuade the websites to remove the "derogatory material," the PTA said.

Mean while, thousands of protesters took to the streets across Pakistan and called the contest to draw caricatures of the Prophet open "cyber terrorism".

In Islamabad, religious leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ul-Dawa issued a decree calling for the killing of those who were involved in initiating the competition as well as those taking part in it.

In Lahore, workers of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ul-Dawa staged protest rallies, burnt US and Swedish flags and demanded the youth boycott such sites.

According to Wahaj-us-Siraj, a spokesman for ISPs in Pakistan, Facebook and YouTube were among the three most-viewed websites in the country. "At least 3.5 million use these websites regularly," he said, adding the sacrilegious content was also against the policies of the websites, which boast of strict use-and-abuse rules.

"We are bound to check child pornography websites, because it is something wrong and has nothing to do with the freedom of speech. Similarly, these caricatures are another example of absurdity."

The two websites generate revenues by posting Pakistan-specific advertisements, Siraj said.

"However, it is very hard to say how much they actually earn from Pakistan, but many telecommunication companies were using these websites. The hit would be substantial," he said, adding, "We have already stopped all advertisements for our clients on these websites."

  • 170mn population of Pakistan
  • 60% people are under the age of 25
  • 25mn Number of Internet users in Pakistan
  • $1,00,000 Bounty offered by al-Qaeda to the person who kills Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks

    Row over Prophet cartoon in S Africa: A South African weekly on Friday published a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad, raising fears of reprisal attacks during the football World Cup in June. The cartoon depicts the Prophet on a psychologist's couch saying that his followers do not have a sense of humour.

    'I didn't start the Facebook page': Cartoonist Molly Norris has distanced herself from the row over 'Everybody Draw Mohammad Day!', saying, "I never created a Facebook page for EDMD. A stranger to me did so." She said, "I made a cartoon about the TV show South Park being censored,"

    Ban not justified: Pakistani people have the right to know about the world. The extremists want to snatch this tight from the people which will help extremism.

    The competition hurt Muslims. But only that link should have been blocked. It's just that one page.

    Bans Elsewhere: China routinely controls users' access to many sites, and was locked for months in a battle with Google over censorship controls

    In Turkey, authorities had imposed a sweeping ban for months on YouTube because of offensive material to the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Thailand also blocked YouTube in 2007 over content that officials said was disrespectful to the king.

Pak blocks 800 URLs over Prophet row


Islamabad:

Pakistan has blocked 800 URLs that had "blasphemous" content in the wake of the ban on Facebook and YouTube, which featured cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

Acting on an order of the Lahore high court, Pakistan's telecommunications authority initially banned the social networking website Facebook over a page featuring a contest for "blashemous" cartoons of the prophet. The ban was then extended YouTube and other sites.

The move also affected access to Wikipedia and Twitter, internet users said.

"So far, two sites and about 800 URLs have been blocked to prevent access to blasphemous and sacrilegious content," Wahaj-us-Siraj, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan said.

A URL or uniform resource locator is the global address of documents and other resources on the world wide web.

Facebook blocked over Prophet cartoons


Lahore:

Pak court orders ban until May 31

In Unison: students protest against caricatures of the prophet on Facebook in Lahore on Wednesday

A Pakistani court ordered the government on Wednesday to block Facebook after press reported a competition being held to draw the Prophet Mohammad. Pakistani media recently reported that a caricature competition is being held on May 20 about Mohammad on Facebook.

"The court has ordered the government to immediately block Facebook until May 31 because of this blasphemous competition," Azhar Siddique, a representative of the Islamic Lawyers Forum who filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, said.

"The court has also ordered the foreign ministry to investigate why such a competition is being held."

A spokesman for the official telecommunications watchdog, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, said the government on Tuesday ordered Internet service providers to block websites showing these caricatures, but that they had not received the court orders as yet.

Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by Muslims. But some warned the court's response could backfire. "Blocking the entire website would anger users, especially young and adults, because the social networking website is so popular among them," said the CEO of Nayatel, Wahaj-us-Siraj. "Basically, our judges aren't technically sound. They have just ordered it, but it should have been done in a better way by just blocking a particular URL or link."

On the information page of Facebook, the organisers described it as a "snarky" response to Muslim bloggers who "warned" the creators of the comedy television show South Park over a recent depiction of the Prophet in a bear suit .

"we are not trying to slander the average Muslim," the Facebook page creators wrote. "We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammad depictions that we're not afraid of them.

'Free' games you download can lead to huge phone bills


MUMBAI:

Smart-phone users downloading games and files from unauthorised sites may run up huge bills

Peril lurks
Kaspersky lab expert Denis Masllenikov has said in a report that the game file is actually a Trojan that calls premium rate numbers across the globe

The Trojan has been mode by Russian virus writers. Once installed, it launches itself

The smart phones infected with the Trojan will run up huge bills as the Trojan will be dialling up premium rate numbers

Downloading a free game can lead to huge mobile phone bills. With smartphones that run on the Windows (HTC,Blackberry) and symbian (Nokia E71, 72, 63) platforms getting cheaper, cyber criminals have now started targeting them.

According to a recent report by Kaspersky Lab, the 3D Anti-terrorist game popping up on many websites offers the free download of a file which is actually a trojan that calls premium rate numbers across the globe without your knowledge. Your infected phone's bill could be a huge amount. Beware smart phone users. You may not be doing a smart thing when you download a free software or a mobile game on your cellphone. For cyber criminals have now zeroed in on you.

Unknown to you, your mobile phone might start dialling premium rate numbers across the globe. Blame it on a selflaunching Trojan that has dropped into your cellphone when you were downloading a free software or a game. Cyber criminals, who are controlling such Trojans, will be dialling the numbers, but you will be the one footing the bill.

A recent research by Kaspersky Laboratories has found that a new game, called 3D Anti-Terrorist, is often popping up on many websites. windows mobile smartphone users can download it for free. It takes up just 1.5MB space, and comes with a file named reg.exe.

Kaspersky lab expert Denis Masllenikov has said in a report that the file is actually a Trojan that calls premium rate numbers across the globe. It gets installed the moment a user completes downloading the game on his smartphone.

Masllenikov's report says that the Trojan has been made by Russian virus writers. Once installed, it launches itself. It was detected last month, and ever since it has been found that calls from infected phones are being made to six premium rate numbers across the globe.

Last year too, the Kaspersky labs had detected a similar kind of Trojan. It came with a free software called iporn player, which promised smartphone users access to various porn sites. One the player was installed, the Trojan started calling premium rate numbers in places like Austria, Liechtenstein, Burkina Faso, Switzerland and Nauru.

The bills of the infected phones ran up to huge amounts, and the users came to know of it only after receiving the bills.

IT experts say that the only way to avoid smart phones being infected by such viruses and Trojans is not to download software or other files from unknown websites. The users should only download software from phone manufacturers' official websites.

Masllenikov said, "Cyber criminals can target any person's phone at any location. If smart phones are widely users in a particular country, users there are more likely to fall prey to this."

Technology evangelist Vijay Mukhi told DNA, "The premium rate calls are mostly made to pay-per-call international numbers and friendship lines. There could be a person somewhere in the world, who has actually subscribed to this service after being offered heavy discounts on the existing market rates. He will be making the call, but the charges for them will be paid by the user whose phone has been infected."

58 and still single, man drags portal to court


58 and still single, man drags portal to court

The matchmakers did not find him a match. He was promised around 12 proposals every month, but he ended up getting just one suitor. Throwing in the towel after the frustrating wait for a bride, Rajendra Muley, 58, decided to move consumer court against the portal.

No luck there either. The Bandra consumer court recently dismissed his plea saying the portal could not be blamed if no woman was responding to his proposal.

Muley, a Dadar resident, had registered with the portal - inmatri.com - in February 2007 after paying a fee of Rs2,960. The portal's managers had promised to send him 10-12 proposals every month. Since they had failed to find a suitable match, the portal was "guilty of deficiency of service", Muley said .

The officials of the website denied the allegation. They said once a candidate registers himself, his details are fed into the software and a database is created for him. The software searches out persons that match the given criteria and then automatically sends emails to "possible matches". The potential match could either ignore or respond to the email.

Despite initiating "umpteen alliances", all proposals, barring one, were turned down or ignored, the portal said. It submitted a chart of entries before the court, which shows that 100 alliances were generated by the system.

Muley tried to establish in court that he was not computer-friendly and therefore the proposals should have been sent to him by post.

However,the court observed that as per the contract, Muley had agreed that all the proposals be forwarded to him in his email account.

President JL Deshpande with members VG Joshi and DS Bidnurkar held that the portal had made an honest at tempt to send Muley proposals, but only one showed interest in him.

"Perhaps this created an impression in the mind of the complainant (Muley) that he was being overlooked by the opposite party (inmatri.com) and no proposals were sent to him, "the court said.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

SSC, HSC marksheets may soon go online



Students appearing for their SSC and HSC exams may now be able to access their marksheets online. The marksheets would be available for download from the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education's results' website. According to education minister Balasaheb Thorat, the board is working on the system so as to make online marksheets a reality for SSC and HSC students, who have appeared in the February-March 2010 board examination.

"We are planning to make the online marksheet available from this year. The board officials are working on the system. In several areas of the state, students do not get marksheets for 10 days even after the results are declared. The online system will primarily help these students," said Thorat.

According to sources, the downloaded marksheet will be relevant and acceptable as official document for admission process. TN Supe, the state board secretary, said: "We are having a meeting on May 20 to discuss the issue. As of now nothing is finalised."

Beware of your boyfriends, women's panel tells teens


Bhubaneswar

"Youths allegedly capture nude images of their girlfriends on CDS, after winning their trust."
- Jyoti Panigrahi, chairperson, Orissa women's Commission

State-wide campaign to caution young girls in Orissa

Cases of girls becoming victims of their boyfriends' malicious deeds are on the rise in Orissa. Youths first befriend girls, win their trust, get intimate with them and then secretly record their intimate moments on CDs. To earn quick buck, these youths then sell the CDs in the market.

The state women's commission has come to the rescue of these vulnerable victims. It has, through a statewide
campaign, asked all college students to be "very careful" about their "exploitative" boyfriends.

"This is a serious matter and a recent trend in Orissa. We will sensitise girls through a state-wide campaign during
which we will caution them not to cross their limits even though the boy may be sober and polite," Jyoti Panigrahi,
the chairperson of the state women's commission, told reporters.

This relatively recent trend came to light after a 22-year-old girl committed suicide last year in Cuttack when she
found her nude images in a CD allegedly made by her boyfriend. The youth was later arrested.

But this 22-year-old girl's case was not the only one. In Dhenkanal district, three more girls became victims of the
porn CD scam last month. "In these three cases, the youths allegedly captured nude images of their girlfriends' on
CDs secretly, after winning their trust," Panigrahi said.

A girl from Dhenkanal district recently attempted suicide after she found her nude images in a CD available in the
local market, Panigrahi added.

Similar cases have also been reported in Bolangir district, she said.

Panigrahi feels parents can play an important role in preventing their daughters from falling prey to youths. She has
advised them to be friendly with their daughters so that their daughters will share information and openly discuss
their relationships with acquaintances and friends. Parents of growing girls, particularly of those studying in college should be aware of what their daughters were doing and with whom they are making friends," she said.

The state women's commission has also sought help from the police to curb the menace.

Ukraine national held for largest credit card fraud


NEW DELHI:

A Ukraine national wanted by the US in the largest credit card fraud ever was arrested by CBI at the Indira Gandhi International airport on Saturday. Sergey Storchak hacked into accounts and sold information of over 40 million credit and debit card numbers.

Storchak and 10 other cyber criminals, belonging to various nationalities, have been accused of carrying out what the US department of justice calls the "single largest and most complex identity theft case ever". The international fraud involves 3 Americans, 2Ukrainians, 2 Chinese, 1 Estonian, 1 Belarusian and an unidentified suspect known only by his online nickname "Delpiero"

"Storchak, facing a Red Corner Notice, was taken into custody the moment he arrived from Goa on Saturday night," a CBI official said. Airport security personnel identified him and handed him over to the CBI Interpol team.

The information on storchak's movement was passed on to CBI by FBI in the US, the spokesperson said, adding, "storchak had planned to take a Sunday morning flight to Istanbul... He was produced before a magistrate and has been remanded to judicial custody till May22."


Modus operandi

  • Storchak and 10 other hackers entered into the networks of major us retailers, including Barnes and Noble, OfficeMax, DSW and Sports Authority

  • Once Inside their networks, they left "sniffer programmes" that copied credit and debit card numbers, passwords and account info. This data was stored in encrypted servers.

  • The accused then sold this info to other criminals online or made duplicate debit cards after encoding info on them and withdrew millions of dollars from ATMs.

Child porn: Lt colonel gets bail


An Esplanade magistrate court on Wednesday granted bail to lieutenant colonel Jagmohan Balbir Singh, who was arrested on the charge of child pornography.

Singh's lawyer, Dilip Bagwe, argued that since Singh's computer hard disks were seized, there was no question of tampering with the evidence. He also claimed that Singh won't run away as then he would face court-martial. Bagwe assured the court that his client would cooperate with the court.

The court granted Singh bail on a personal bond of Rs25,000 and ordered him to present himself to the police every alternate day.

The police had sought extension of Singh's police custody stating that forensic reports of the hard disks were still awaited. They said they were also waiting for the details of his credit card transactions and mobile phone bill.However, the court granted him bail citing that probe in the case was over.

Officers of the cyber crime investigation cell had arrested Singh Mumbai on May 6. He was accused of downloading and uploading pornographic content from websites.

The police seized Singh's computer and two hard disks which contained pornographic videos of children between three to 10 years.

On Tuesday, the crime branch had clarified that Singh was not involved in filming child pornography.

Air Force looks to IITs to tackle Chinese hackers


New Delhi:

Emulates pentagon to plug loopholes in its computer systems

"We want to see how fragile we are and what we need to do in case someone breaks into our systems."
-a senior IAF official

Alarmed by reports from top foreign agencies about three computer systems of Indian Air force (IAF) installed at sensitive bases being compromised by Chinese hackers, the IAF has decided to call in two Indian Institutes of Technology (IITS) to hack into their systems and plug the loopholes within.

Of the three stations where IAF computer systems are installed, one is just across the prime minister's 7 Race Course residence. Two other systems are installed outside Delhi.

A senior IAF official on condition of anonymity told 'DNA':"We want to see how fragile we are and what we need to do in case someone breaks into our systems": "He, however, hastened to add that the IAF was not sure whether a Chinese hacker had stolen data from its computers as reported by the US agencies.

The issue was discussed at recently concluded IAF commanders' conference on cyber crime. IITs would also suggest options for safety to IAF for their computers. A senior officer said the Chinese hacking did not bother the IAF, but it was important for them to learn precautionary measures.

The officer said that though operational plans were not digitised in the services and with systems having atleast three firewalls and algorithms in place in IAF, breaking through may not be easy for hackers.

But IAF seems to have decided to take some tough steps. In 2006, IAF set up its largest online network with166 nodes, for logistic duties, all over the country, called Integrated Materials Management Online Services (IMMOLS). The system aims to improve the availability of items leading to an enhanced serviceability of weapon systems and to reduce inventory costs by minimising non moving inventory.

Following in the footsteps of the Pentagon, where professional hackers are called in to hack systems for a large sum, IAF has, as a precautionary step, approached the technical institutions so that steps can be taken to plug these loopholes.

A source said the Pentagon also dissuades professional hackers by paying them large amounts as part of an agreement that the hackers by paying them large amounts as part of an agreement that the hackers would not compromise the Pentagon computers. Multinational companies too protected their intellectual property through their own network systems guarded by firewalls. IAF has decided to go the same way, the source said, but refused to divulge details about paying the hackers to keep them from compromising its computers.


Friday, May 14, 2010

Lt Colonel caught uploading child porn on websites


Arrest in Mumbai following tip- off form German police; army to conduct own probe

The crime branch of the Mumbai police has arrested a serving lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army for uploading child pornography content on websites. The police are investigating whether the officer, Jagmohan balbir Singh, 42, was involved in producing these videos.

The arrest followed a tip-off from the German police to the Interpol a few months ago. It stated that dirty videos involving children were being uploaded on pornographic websites from a computer in Mumbai. The information was passed in to the Cyber crime Investigation Cell (CCIC) of the crime branch through diplomatic channels, according to the Mumbai police.

"We were able to trace the IP (internet protocol) address of the computer involved. The address belonged to the computer of some senior army officer. We decided to work more on the information since there were chances that someone else could be using his computer," said joint commissioner of police, crime, Himanshu Roy.

The police zeroed in on Singh, a resident of Namdar Manzil near Colaba market, after tracking the computer for three weeks and making sure that it was him who was involved in uploading and downloading pornographic videos.

He was arrested from his residence on Thursday.

"On questioning, Singh admitted that he has been uploading and downloading child pornographic videos and pictures on, and from, websites," said Roy. The police have booked him under section 67 (B) of the Information Technology Act. The punishment under this section is five years of imprisonment and fine of Rs 10 lakh.

"As of now, it appears that he was doing it out of perversity, with no commercial motive. He also admitted that he had been doing it for the past few years," said Roy. However, police well be probing whether he was into making these videos. They are also looking into the source of the videos.

Singh also visited paid websites and some of the content in these sites had pornographic acts involving children of three and four years, said senior inspector Mukund Pawar. "We will question other persons and scrutinise Singh's credit card and bank details to ascertain whether he had paid or received money while indulging in child pornography," Pawar said. Roy said the police will be blocking the websites on which the contents were uploaded.

"We are going to prepare a report and send it to the army," said Roy.

Lieutenant colonel was nailed after three weeks' watch

Crime branch sleuths found child pornography material downloaded on his computer

It took three weeks for the cyber crime investigation cell (CCIC) of the crime branch to nail lieutenant colonel Jagmohan Balbir Singh, who was held for uploading child pornography material on websites on Thursday.


The CCIC sleuths moved into action after being informed that pornographic material involving children was being uploaded on and downloaded from a computer in Mumbai. They soon traced the Internet protocol address of the computer involved - it was provided by the German - and its location.


But the difficult part had just begun. Since the person involved was a senior army officer, the crime branch officer, the crime branch officials needed to be doubly sure of his direct was being misused by someone else. The sleuths had to work that problem out with caution.


"We had to be 100% sure before laying our hands on Singh. We had kept out surveillance high near his residence to ascertain how many people visited his house at Colaba," said a CCIC official. It was clear soon that nobody visited Singh's residence and the computer in question was used by his family members only.


"At around 3.30pm on Thursday, we went to Singh's house in his absence. We disclosed our identity to the family members and started looking for his computer, downloading of pornographic videos was on," said the officer.


Singh arrived within minutes and he was left speechless at the discovery of the downloading of pornographic material on his computer. " He admitted to committing the crime," the officer said.


Over 150 videos and clips were already downloaded. "he had also downloaded two computer software's on which such pornographic videos were freely available. The server of these software's was found to be in the United States," he said.


The police have also seized Singh's personal computer and two hard disks of 80 GB memory. Singh was produced before a local court and has been remanded to police custody till May 12.


Originally from Mohali in Punjab, Singh worked as a lieutenant colonel in the supply and transport department of the army before going on a study leave in 2009. Singh has completed 22 years in service and was posted in Mumbai for past 2.5 years. Singh stays with his wife and two children in Namdar Manzil building at Colaba.

Another case in Chennai

  • William heum, 56, a Dutch national claiming to be a social worker, was arrested in Tamil Nadu last year on charges of uploading child pornographic videos on the internet. In February, he was released on bail by a local court in Chennai

  • Heum was arrested by the cyber crime cell of the Chennai police after a tip-off from the Interpol that he was uploading child pornographic material on the internet. Heum was also arrested in 2002 on charges of sexually abusing children at an orphanage run by him in Mahabalipuram