Facebook is still the dominant provider of social logins and shared content but other networks are gaining favor as users seek variety in their social activity. Google+ is growing as a login provider, but it's rarely used for social sharing.
Letter asks that the government release its own transparency reports that show the number of individuals targeted and the number of accounts and devices covered. Supporting this would be more detailed transparency reports from the companies involved.
It happens. After years in the same industry and endless projects, presentations, and conferences suddenly the joy is gone. Let's define and identify the signs of burnout and find and share some ways to deal with it and reignite your passion.
July 22 is finally here, which means any PPC advertisers who haven't yet upgraded to Google AdWords enhanced campaigns are now being switched automatically. Here are some top tips on enhanced campaigns from experts to help you with the transition.
Google uses many quality indicators – inbound links, social signals, authority, PageRank, etc. – to determine the relevancy of a web page to a search term. However, these are prone to mistakes and manipulation. Here's why quantity always wins.
Instagram now offers users the chance to upload creative 15-second videos. Looking for some ideas of your own? Here are a handful of noteworthy ways brands such as Nike, Burberry, and MTV are using this new video feature.
Google Webmaster Tools is the primary mechanism for Google to communicate with webmasters and helps alert you about issues with your site. This guide will walk you through the various GWT features, and what actionable data can be found within.
Despite Google saying they would no longer confirm any rolling Panda updates, they seem to have gone back on that and confirmed that a new Panda began going live on July 18. This update doesn't seem to have as wide of an impact as previous ones.
More than six million campaigns have been upgraded to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns so far and Google expects to have the remainder of its advertising partners, and their respective campaigns, switched over by the end of this month.
The Korean FTC stated Google was not demonstrating an unfair advantage by preloading its search engine on Android mobile phones. While this is one small battle won by Google, it still has its hands full with an ongoing antitrust battle in Europe.
Bing initially provided info directly in the search box for a celebrity, politician, athlete or a connection on LinkedIn with a public profile. This has now expanded to include brands, movies, albums, places, software, sport teams, animals, and more.
SEO isn't content marketing and content marketing isn't SEO. There's some potentially great crossover, but one is not a replacement for the other. Rather than trying to rebrand yourself, here's why you should be proud to be an SEO professional!
Google transformed the face of retargeting for online businesses this June with the release of Google Dynamic Remarketing, making retargeting specific to user search available to retailers of all sizes. Here are five best practices for retailers.
Amazon is definitely the right place for merchants looking to increase sales – it's just a matter of picking the right advertising product. Here's a rundown of the three most popular forms of Amazon advertising: product, local, and display ads.
A new international SEO initiative is an exciting undertaking, but can be a daunting task when you take locations, languages, and many other factors into account. Your best success will come from a key combination of focus and realism.
Ripoff Report, one of the most popular review sites for posting customer complaints, has launched "Ripoff Report Verified." The new program gives businesses a chance to resolve disputes in 14 days before negative reviews are posted for $89 a month.
In June, 183 million Americans watched more than 44 billion online content videos, while the number of video ad views surpassed 20 billion, comScore reports. YouTube also reveals which summer movie and music blockbusters video ads were viewed most.
The iOS update sports an overhauled interface with new discovery features. But more importantly for Apple tablet users, the updated app has been specially designed so all the above features work better and more intuitively on a bigger screen.
Although it was widely thought that Google's three-year long antitrust review in relation to the firm blocking its rivals in search results was coming to an end, it seems not. EU regulators say Google must offer more and improved concessions.
SEO has become a very complex job. Has it become too complicated for you to continue doing it yourself? Use this helpful list and related questions to test your SEO knowledge – and determine whether it's time to call in an SEO professional.
For years, Intel and other chip makers designed processors like stock engines, dropping them into PCs, notebooks, and servers. Now, Intel has shown a newfound willingness to mod custom silicon for server customers, tweaking them with hardware and software accelerators to improve their performance. These same servers are the ones powering cloud applications that include email and storage, but also interpret the gestures and spoken commands of smartphone users. On Monday, for example, Intel and Nuance Communications disclosed that Intel is developing an accelerator to improve Nuance’s voice recognition, which powers as many as 6 billion connected devices, according to Sean Brown, Nuance’s senior manager of innovation. Intel has also developed custom chips for both eBay and Facebook, said Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s data center group, at an Intel datacenter event on Monday.
If you’ve ever engaged in a voice over IP (VoIP) phone call or conducted a video conference over the Web, you’ve probably experienced choppy audio, pixelated video, and other “hiccups” that make these technologies frustrating to use at best and and an impediment to doing business at worst. Those annoying interruptions are the result of data struggling to get across your network. It’s important for all of the data to get from Point A to Point B, but some types—like streaming voice and video—simply won’t work if the data can’t travel smoothly. You can solve the problem by spending a lot of money for a bigger, faster Internet connection, but the smart way to address the issue is with QoS: Quality of Service. QoS manages network traffic, and prioritizes certain types of data over others to ensure consistent network quality. It is generally managed at the network router or switch, to direct network traffic appropriately. Data traveling across the Internet is a lot like vehicles driving across town. If five cars leave a building to drive to a restaurant, there’s a mesh of roads in all directions, and there are multiple potential paths to take. Each vehicle could take an entirely different route, and the car that left first might arrive at the destination last.
. A German cryptographer named Karsten Nohl will be presenting findings to that effect at the annual Black Hat computer security conference at the end of the month. worldwide would currently be vulnerable to this type of attack. Fixes are already in the works, but as any IT manager who's survived an old-fashioned Windows virus onslaught knows, a fix does not necessarily equal a solution. Even if patches are made available, that's no guarantee they'll be universally rolled out in a timely fashion. SIM cards can be updated invisibly over the air by network operators, but that poses a secondary problem. Because users have no visibility into whether their phones are vulnerable to the attack or not, wireless customers won't know whether or not their devices are safe. For individuals, the risk of someone hijacking your phone and listening in on calls or making phony purchases is bad enough.
uneasy. What matters on Wall Street, however, isn’t the same as what matters on Main Street, so small and medium businesses need to analyze the news through a different lens. Microsoft actually had a decent quarter to cap off a very successful fiscal 2013. Revenue for Q4 was up 10 percent over Q4 2012, and profit was almost $5 billion (USD) compared to a $492 million loss in the same quarter last year. Revenue was also up for the year, and Microsoft profit was nearly 30 percent higher than 2012. Despite declining PC sales, adoption of Windows 8 is on pace with that of its predecessor. There has been some backlash over the dramatic redesign of Windows 8, and Microsoft’s attempt to convert the OS to a touch-based interface, but most of the major complaints are addressed with the Windows 8.1 update, which will be officially available later this year. for Microsoft.
Programming tools that harness the computing power of CPUs and graphics processors have been updated, bringing more parallel programming capabilities to the table. Standards-setting firm Khronos Group has released OpenCL 2.0, which is a key development platform used to write applications in which processing is broken down over multiple processors and hardware inside systems. The group also released OpenGL 4.4, a graphics programming standard that takes advantage of the latest graphics hardware available in consoles, PCs and mobile devices. OpenCL has grown in importance as graphics hardware and other co-processors are increasingly used to crunch complex math and science applications. Some of the world’s fastest computers combine CPUs and co-processors to speed up application processing, and Hewlett-Packard and Dell are offering servers and workstations loaded with graphics cards for customers that work on visual and CAD/CAM applications. “It does significantly expand some of the new GPGPU compute function,” said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.
Oracle and ARM are working together to make the Java programming language more suitable for ARM processors, in order to encourage its use for embedded systems and enterprise software. The work will customize the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) for ARM 32-bit platforms, making it more suitable for embedded systems, and the Java SE for ARMv8 64-bit platforms, where it could be used to build enterprise software and networking firmware to run on ARM servers and networking gear. While Java was originally developed to work across different platforms, the new work will focus on improving the throughput and scalability of Java applications on ARM multicore systems. In the market for embedded systems, Java could play a role in the emerging, so-called , where it could be used in conjunction with energy-efficient ARM chips to build industrial control and factory automation systems.
One of the biggest selling points of Windows 8 is the tiled start page, which looks pretty and enticing to use. But one of the drawbacks of that page is that, when you install a third-party program (i.e. something not from the Windows App Store), that program's start tile usually comes out looking like a mess. Small portable app OblyTile lets you generate better-looking tiles and make the start page a pleasure to look at again. And if you hate tiles, you may like what OblyTile can do for your standard desktop, too. The reason why a third-party tile looks strange is because it pulls the default logo from the program's installation folder. Most of these logos aren't optimized for the Windows 8 tile menu. They may be too small, too low-definition, or both. The key is to get a logo or icon big enough and high-def enough to stand on the tiled start page. Although OblyTile will generate new tiles for you, it doesn't actually supply the icons. I recommend websites such as the Icon Archive, where you can download high-quality icons for free. OblyTile doesn't require installation. Once you're in the program, you can either manually search for the desired program on your PC or open up the Manager on the right-hand side, which generates a list of your installed programs. The Manager can also make a list of your current program shortcuts and offer you the ability to convert those shortcuts into tiles.
, Leap Motion is finally here. is up and running. I've been playing with a Leap unit provided by the company since last Thursday. It's hard not to be impressed with Leap Motion on a basic level. Here's a motion controller that's more precise than Microsoft's Kinect, for a fraction of the cost, in a package small enough to sit discretely on a desk. Although Leap doesn't have a video camera like Kinect, it's able to detect the motion of individual fingers. But is it practical, and does it work as well as it looked in all the promo videos we've seen over the last year? That's where things get a little messy.
Google has struck a deal with SR Tech Group to buy a portfolio of U.S. patents and patent applications that includes several speech-related patents. The portfolio includes a patent covering a speech interface for search engines and a patent that covers a system for modifying and updating a speech recognition program, the SR Tech Group said in on Monday. The patents and patent applications complement Google existing portfolio of 50,000 patents worldwide, it said. A spokesman could not immediately comment on what Google was planning to do with the patent portfolio. Details of the deal were not disclosed.
Allegations that an ISP throttled traffic from YouTube and other Google properties at peak hours were unfounded, according to the French telecommunications regulator. Any problems with access to YouTube and other sites at peak hours were simply due to the overall volume of data flowing between the ISP, Free, and the rest of the Internet, said the regulator, Arcep. Following a complaint from the French consumer association UFC-Que Choisir last September that Free appeared to be throttling traffic from YouTube, Arcep began an investigation, questioning the companies involved and their transit providers, and studying traffic flows. Arcep spent six months studying traffic flows at Free, finding that Free and Google exchange traffic directly, via peering, and indirectly through a number of international transit providers, and that both routes are congested during peak hours, as they are at other ISPs.
, recently announced that its Ubuntu help forums suffered a security breach over the weekend. Attackers were able to harvest an estimated 1.82 million user names, email addresses, and passwords from the site. Canonical says it isn’t sure how hackers were able to breach its systems and the company has taken the forums at Ubuntuforums.org offline as a precaution. Canonical is warning anyone with an Ubuntu Forums account about the hack via email. The company is also advising users to change their security credentials on other sites, especially email, if they used the same password and username/email for other online services. Ubuntu.com services such as Ubuntu One are not believed to be affected by the hack since they do not share the same login account as the Ubuntu forums. Fans of the Ubuntu forums began reporting that the site had been defaced on Saturday. The hacker or group of hackers who breached the site posted an image of a penguin (the Linux mascot is a penguin) holding an AK-47.
Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP on April 8, 2014. That's less than nine months away. The end of support means the end of updates--even security updates. When an exploit is found after that date, too bad; it will not get patched. Gradually, Windows XP will become less and less secure.
Double the pleasure, double the fundamentally flexible storage options: SanDisk announced not one, but two portable, flash-based multimedia Wi-Fi drives on Monday in the Connect Wireless Media Drive and the Connect Wireless Flash Drive. Both battery-powered devices serve as a mix of portable storage and mobile multimedia hotspots, sharing data and stream multimedia wirelessly via 802.11 b/g/n. The smaller Connect Wireless Flash plugs directly into a USB port, has all the appearance of a standard USB thumb drive, and ships in $50 for 16GB and $60 for 32GB flavors. The name and appearance, however, are slightly misleading; There is indeed flash memory, but it's in the form of a micro SD card hidden away in a slot on the side of the unit. The Connect Wireless Flash can't currently be upgraded using a 64GB micro SD card due to file system limitations, but you may swap 32GB and lesser-capacity cards as need dictates. The Wireless Media Drive (pictured at the top of this article) is a slick, half-inch thick, and approximately 2.5 by 2.5 inch apparatus available at $80 with 32GB or $100 with 64GB of hard-wired internal flash memory.
Hewlett Packard and Japan's NEC will expand their existing partnership to develop high-end x86-based servers for cloud and Web applications. The companies said Thursday they will team up to accelerate research on HP's next generation of blade-based server systems, which the U.S. company is gradually introducing alongside its traditional Itanium Unix-based servers. They said their focus will be on creating x86 hardware that can run with the same reliability as the Unix products, which can then be employed in mission-critical roles running today's social networks, mobile applications and cloud-based services. HP is trying to catch up to rivals such as Amazon Web Services in the growing market for cloud services, while also stay competitive in hardware amid a general shift away from Unix. The company announced a strategy to pursue a hybrid cloud approach last year, based on a solution it is calling HP Converged Cloud. Last month it announced a new operating system for cloud computing, HP Cloud OS, built on the open-source hosting software platform OpenStack, but said initially the new OS will only run on its own hardware. The new partnership will aim to speed up the development of HP's Project Odyssey, which it first announced in 2011. The project is an attempt to integrate x86 server blades running Windows or Linux with its Itanium-based server lineup based on Unix. NEC said the companies will specifically focus on a system that HP has been developing for years called "DragonHawk," which is supposed to be able to incorporate both types of servers into a single cabinet but has been slow to materialize.
The file cabinet looms large in the office, yet it guards its secrets jealously...even from you. It's time to convert those papers to space-saving, easy-to-find digital documents. For that, you need a scanner to turn them into digital images and an Optical Character Recognition program to convert those images into editable and searchable documents. I took four of the latest OCR programs and a free online OCR service for a test spin. All of them work to varying degrees. To test the programs, I ran 22 varied and not particularly clean scans of documents—including one hand-written note—through four OCR programs and one free service. I looked for accuracy in text recognition, image extraction, and the ability to recreate them in a Word document. In addition, I processed 264 separate scans from a yearbook for output as a searchable PDF. You don't actually need to install OCR software if you need to convert only a couple of small documents. You can use a free service such as (also known as Free-OCR.com) and upload a scan of your document. File size is limited to 2MB and 5000 pixels in any direction, which is about 150 dpi for a standard page. The OCR engine handles 29 languages, including English. Although you don't have to register or even fork over your email address, the Free-OCR site does make you fill in one of those annoying CAPTCHAs. (Thanks, Web bad guys, for making everyone's life more difficult.) However, those CAPTCHAs serve to remind one just how difficult OCR can be. If humans, with our incredible heuristic abilities, occasionally have problems with these, just think how poor straight-line software perusing a stream of bits must feel.
Intel’s WiDi technology promises a lot: The third and fourth generations can wirelessly stream up to 1080p video, including copy-protected content such as commercially pressed Blu-ray movies, to a receiver embedded in an HDTV, a video projector, or some other display—or to a stand-alone receiver with an HDMI output that you plug into a display. Two fourth-gen adapters, Actiontec’s ScreenBeam Pro and Netgear’s Push2TV, are each smaller than a deck of cards, with just a couple of ports. How hard could this be? Pretty hard, as it turns out: Both devices proved enormously complicated to set up. The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix Ultrabook that I used for testing required multiple reboots, driver updates, and reinstallations of Intel’s software. Unless you’re prepared for the possibility of arduous troubleshooting, I wouldn’t bother with either adapter. But if wireless streaming is something you must have, and if your laptop supports WiDi, you might consider Netgear’s product, which was the more reliable of the two—once I got it up and running. Netgear's Push2TV is the smaller of the two devices. Each one has a USB port and an HDMI output for connecting to your display. The Push2TV uses its USB port for its AC adapter, which means that you can power it from either your laptop or the provided AC adapter. The Actiontec ScreenBeam Pro has a full-size USB port, but it serves only to update the device’s firmware (you update the Push2TV’s firmware via a Wi-Fi connection). The ScreenBeam Pro relies on a separate connector for power and requires a AC adapter, which makes Netgear’s Push2TV the better travel companion. Intel’s WiDi software does not support Macs, but it does support a specific list of WIndows 7 and 8 systems (see below for more details on compatibility). It automatically detects the WiDi adapter, sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection, and initiates a pairing routine that’s similar to the process of pairing Bluetooth devices: The software prompts you to type in a numeric code that appears on the TV. Once you do, the software starts to stream the laptop’s video and audio to the TV. The pairing routine provides security for the connection, which is completely independent of your Wi-Fi network (apart from firmware updates for the Push2TV). You need to pair the laptop and receiver only once, and you can choose to have WiDi connect the two devices automatically when you launch the program.
Speed freaks, take note: If you shelled out for an unlocked version of Intel’s new Haswell processor and haven’t overclocked your PC yet, you’re missing out on some serious—and free—performance improvements. Last month I spent $1000 to build the , a speedy machine powered by a Core i7-4770K, a fast solid-state drive, 8GB of RAM, and a discrete graphics card. Since gaming performance wasn’t the primary goal, I spent the majority of my budget on a premium processor and solid-state storage drive. A speedy CPU-SSD combo gives you the smoothest overall computing experience, especially with a streamlined operating system like Windows 8. But I had an even better reason for buying a premium Haswell processor: overclocking.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has renewed permission to the U.S. government for a controversial program to collect telephone metadata in bulk. The office of the Director of National Intelligence said the government filed an application with the FISC seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and the court renewed that authority, which expired on Friday. The information was being disclosed “in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program,” and an earlier decision by DNI James R. Clapper to declassify certain information relating to the program, it said. The secret court has been set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which requires the government to obtain a judicial warrant for certain kinds of intelligence gathering operations. (
Millions of mobile phones may be vulnerable to spying due to the use of outdated, 1970s-era cryptography, according to new research due to be presented at the Black Hat security conference. , an expert cryptographer with Security Research Labs, has found a way to trick mobile phones into granting access to the device’s location, SMS functions and allow changes to a person’s voicemail number. Nohl’s research looked at a mobile phones’ SIM (Subscriber Identification Module), the small card inserted into a device that ties it to a phone number and authenticates software updates and commands sent over-the-air from an operator. More than 7 billion SIM cards are in use worldwide. To ensure privacy and security, SIM cards use encryption when communicating with an operator, but the encryption standards use vary widely.
You want a color laser printer, but you don't have a lot of cash. How does $280 sound? That’s the price of the Brother HL-3170CDW, and in exchange it delivers reasonably good prints. Not pristine, evocative color graphics—move on to another printer for that. But good text and decent spot color, it can do, and the toner costs are tolerable as well. Here’s the real decision: Do you pick this all-around-average machine, or do you pick this other, like-priced color laser, the , which competes head-to-head with both of these lasers on speed, print quality, and features, and whomps them both on cost of consumables? By our reckoning the latter is the best deal, but some people just can’t get laser out of their heads, and they will have to think harder about the tradeoffs. Bulky profile, basic features, and duplexing Measuring 16.1 inches wide by 18.3 inches deep by 9.4 inches wide and weighing 39 pounds, the HL-3170CDW is fairly large and beefy for an entry-level, laser-class printer (it uses LED technology to produce basically identical results). The height is due more to the stacked toner/drum system than the bottom-mounted, 250-sheet paper cassette. There's also a 100-sheet output tray integrated into the top of the unit, and a single-sheet manual feed for envelopes and glossy photo paper. The unit prints automatically in duplex. When some color printers run low on one color, they will complain, but keep printing. Not so with the HL-3170CDW: It will not print when you run out of any of the four colors. This can be a problem if you really, really need to print something and haven't any spare toner. Better a warning and a less-than-optimal printout, than no printout at all. Brother needs to rethink this.
A website dedicated to discussion of the Ubuntu Linux distribution was breached on Saturday, with hackers gaining access to encrypted passwords and email addresses. The site, Ubuntuforums.org, will remain offline until it can be fixed, Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical, a company that develops and provides services for the free, open-source operating system. “We have begun the process of notifying by email all users whose details have been compromised,” Silber wrote. “We are continuing to investigate exactly how the attackers were able to gain access and are working with the software providers to address that issue.” According to a notice on Ubuntuforums.org, the forum was defaced around 8:11 PM UTC Saturday by hackers before it was taken offline about four minutes later. It is believed the attackers gained access to every person’s local user name, encrypted passwords and email addresses from the database.
SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe will leave his post in May 2014 to become a member of the enterprise software vendor’s supervisory board, leaving Bill McDermott as sole CEO. Snabe’s election to the board is dependent on the support of at least 25 percent of shareholders, SAP said on Sunday. “After more than 20 years with SAP, I have decided that it is time for me to begin the next phase of my career, closer to my family,” Snabe said in a statement. “What the entire SAP team has achieved since 2010 is remarkable, and the momentum we have built is now driving the transformation of the industry.” Snabe and McDermott and the release of its HANA in-memory database platform, which is at the center of all SAP product development moving forward.
Passwords are a thing of the past and they need to go, according to a group of Silicon Valley-based tech companies who are part of a public advocacy campaign called Petition Against Passwords. Passwords are the keys that enable access. At the same time, they're also the weak link that smashes the security chain, according to many experts, who for years have warned that passwords simply don't work as they used to, and that password protection alone isn't enough. The problem with passwords is twofold, according to the advocacy group, which aims to influence large digital service providers to move toward and identity protection. On one hand, users either create easily remembered passwords that are entirely too weak or they are forced to pick passwords that are hard to remember, but quickly cracked by machines. The other side to that is a lack of password policy enforcement, and the gaps in basic data protection that can lead to breaches that expose millions of passwords. When breaches expose passwords, they often make their way online and wind up in wordlists that are used by password cracking software. Last April, LivingSocial, a website dedicated to offering consumers daily deals on local products and services, especially passwords.
may have been, as one analyst put it, "an absolute abomination" in operations, but the company will not—cannot—give up on the ARM-based platform, experts contend. "They haven't given up, not yet," said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research. "Maybe in a year or two if, in fact, they're still struggling, but this is a determined company with a lot of cash and a large market presence." against earnings to account for a drop in the value of its remaining Surface RT inventory. As explained by Amy Hood, the company's new CFO, in a call with Wall Street Thursday, the charge accounts for a 25 percent to 30 percent discounting of the tablet as well as a write-off of an unspecified quantity of components and accessories, likely including some already-purchased parts that have not yet been used to assemble more devices. specifically or scale back its plans to become a devices-and-services vendor.
Members of a Congressional subcommittee last week heard an essentially unanimous call from a panel of witnesses for a to replace the wide-ranging laws currently on the books in 48 states. The disagreement, such as it was, came in the form of how such a law should be tailored, but witnesses and lawmakers alike expressed broad support for a national law to replace what Rep. Lee Terry (R-Nebraska), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade, called the "patchwork of state and territory-specific statutes." The word "patchwork" was uttered often as witnesses described the compliance burden of adhering to the notification requirements prescribed by the various states, which can include different triggers for sending out a notice of a breach, such as inconsistent definitions for personally identifiable information. California, which was the first state to mandate consumer notification, has expanded to require businesses report certain levels of breach to the state attorney general. A report of 2012's security failures . "While many businesses have managed to adapt to these various laws, a properly defined data breach notification standard would go a long way to guide organizations on how to address cyber threats in their risk management policies," said Kevin Richards, senior vice president for federal government affairs with the trade group TechAmerica.
Facebook's will be limited by "weaknesses" in scope that Cisco can exploit, CEO John Chambers said this week. In an exclusive interview with and wring cost out of hardware purchases will open up opportunities for Cisco to provide solutions that are better tailored to specific customer needs. "I think this will just be one more series of good challenges that Cisco will say 'what's the business objective on,'" Chambers said of "There are a lot of weaknesses to the area -- we're going to go back and solve customer problems. If you're standalone anything, this is going to be a hard market to play in. Anything white label, where the decision is cost or opex, you're going to lose." What Cisco will not do is sit around and let guide the discussion on commodity switches and servers. Cisco's messaging will be proactive instead of reactive this time.
Foreign providers of virtual private networks trying to cash in on recently uncovered can increase the level of secrecy of Web activity, experts say. However, no VPN vendor, foreign or domestic, sells a bulletproof defense against government snooping, given the resources and sophistication of spy agencies. However, using a service outside the U.S. does make the task of tracking and logging someone's Web activity more difficult. Privacy jitters reached new heights last month following reports that the U.S. National Security Agency is on citizens from telephone and Internet companies, such as Verizon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. The court-approved data gathering is legal under the post-9/11 Patriot Act. between a computer and the service provider, which effectively hides the customer's IP address and Web activity.
In the first report of its kind, California's Attorney General, Kamala D. Harris, revealed last week that 2.5 million people—roughly 6.5 percent of the state's population—were exposed by data breaches in 2012. California has always been the go-to state for innovative technologies. A law passed in 2009 requires data breaches affecting more than 500 residents which were adopted by the state legislature. Forty-six other states have since followed with their own notification requirements, so perhaps these states will now follow California once again, and release their own breach reports. While not as detailed as some of the studies released by data security vendors, the California Attorney General's tells all of the essential data, including the fact that of the 2.5 million people placed at risk due to a data breach, 1.4 million of them didn't need to be on the list. Specifically, the report states that those 1.4 million people would have been protected if only the "companies had encrypted data when moving or sending the data out of the [network]." "Data breaches are a serious threat to individuals' privacy, finances and even personal security. Companies and government agencies must do more to protect people by protecting data," Attorney General Harris said in a statement.
The client of an Australian domain registrar has signed the first global (gTLD) contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ARI Registry Services announced that its client dotShabaka Registry signed an agreement with ICANN for the 4(C). top-level domain, which is pronounced .shabaka and translates to .web. It will be the world's first borderless Arabic new top-level domain. The new domain is expected to go live in the "coming months," ARI Registry Services said. Applications for addresses in Arabic and other in late March. ICANN decided the order in which it reviews applications in December.
In today's world of hackers, stalkers, and cybercriminals, not to mention and commercial sites that collect information about you for advertising purposes, is there a way to surf the Web and keep your privacy intact? Or does that mere fact that you have an IP address mean that your identity is out there for the taking? Turns out, there's no easy answer to this question. (Watch the .) Legally, an IP address does not constitute personal identifiable information, according to two recent court cases. In July 2009, in a case involving Microsoft, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that IP addresses do not constitute personal identifiable information (PII). And in a separate case in 2011, the Illinois Central District Court also ruled that an IP address does not -- by itself -- qualify as personal information that can accurately identify a specific Internet user.