Tag: privacy-rights

Opera claims former employee gave stolen trade secrets to Mozilla

Opera has been busy repositioning itself as a middleware player for the mobile Web recently, but that isn’t stopping the company from defending its investment in browser technology. The company has filed a 20 million Kronor ($3.4 million) lawsuit against a former employee and consultant, claiming that he stole company secrets and incorporated them into a mobile browser for Mozilla. According to a report by Norwegian IT site Digi.no , Opera has filed suit against Trond Werner Hansen, a Norwegian musician and designer who worked for Opera from 1999 to 2006 as a user interface designer and developer before  leaving to pursue his music career . Hansen also worked for Opera as an outside consultant from 2009 to 2010. Last year, Hansen was involved with the development of the Mozilla prototype “Junior” browser for Apple iOS . Hansen and Alex Limi —former Firefox UI head and now manager of Mozilla’s product design strategy—demonstrated the browser prototype in a video on Air Mozilla last June. Hansen said in the video, “I spent almost seven years trying to simplify Opera and didn’t really succeed. Simplification of something that already exists is really hard. That’s way beyond product design issues—it’s company issues. I feel like we failed in making something really easy.” Limi credited Hansen with the invention of a number of Mozilla UI features, including the browser search—”the source of all our revenue,” Limi said—and the “speed dial” feature that allows users to pick frequently visited pages from a new browser tab. “Pretty much everything he’s invented, they’re now in all browsers,” Limi continued. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Opera claims former employee gave stolen trade secrets to Mozilla

Tesla CEO says he’ll pay more to speed up LA freeway widening: “I’ve super had it”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that he would be willing to donate even more money as a way to accelerate the widening of a major north-south highway in Los Angeles, known as the 405 Freeway. So far, he’s already donated $50,000 out of a total cost that has now ballooned to $1.1 billion, but he said he’d gladly pay more to add more workers. “[I’d pay more] as a contribution to the city and my own happiness,” Musk told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday . “If it can actually make a difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I’ve super had it.” On Wednesday, the city received the dubious honor of having the worst traffic in the country , according to data company Inrix. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tesla CEO says he’ll pay more to speed up LA freeway widening: “I’ve super had it”

Google didn’t comply with Argentina’s request to remove NSFW video of president

In a newly released dataset covering the second half of 2012, Google reports a record amount of total government requests worldwide to remove content from the company’s sites and services. As usual, under the “ Notes ” section, Google provides some potentially humorous insight  on why governments want certain content to be removed. Google noted wryly: “We received a request [from Argentina] to remove a YouTube video that allegedly defames the [Argentine] President by depicting her in a compromising position. We age-restricted the video in accordance with YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” It didn’t take us long to find the video in question, by the Miami-based Argentine-Venezuelan rock band The Rockadictos. The band’s September 2012 music video (genuinely NSFW) depicts a CGI version of the Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, engaging in lewd behavior. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google didn’t comply with Argentina’s request to remove NSFW video of president

Ubuntu 13.04 boosts graphics performance to prepare for phones, tablets

Ubuntu 13.04. The stable release of Ubuntu 13.04 became available for download today, with Canonical promising performance and graphical improvements to help prepare the operating system for convergence across PCs, phones, and tablets. “Performance on lightweight systems was a core focus for this cycle, as a prelude to Ubuntu’s release on a range of mobile form factors,” Canonical said in an announcement today. “As a result 13.04 delivers significantly faster response times in casual use, and a reduced memory footprint that benefits all users.” Named “Raring Ringtail,”—the prelude to Saucy Salamander —Ubuntu 13.04 is the midway point in the OS’ two-year development cycle. Ubuntu 12.04, the more stable, Long Term Support edition that is supported for five years, was released one year ago. Security updates are only promised for 9 months for interim releases like 13.04. Support windows for interim releases were recently cut from 18 months to 9 months to reduce the number of versions Ubuntu developers must support and let them focus on bigger and better things. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Ubuntu 13.04 boosts graphics performance to prepare for phones, tablets

BitTorrent Sync creates private, peer-to-peer Dropbox, no cloud required

BitTorrent today released folder syncing software that replicates files across multiple computers using the same peer-to-peer file sharing technology that powers BitTorrent clients. The free BitTorrent Sync application is labeled as being in the alpha stage, so it’s not necessarily ready for prime-time, but it is publicly available for download and working as advertised on my home network. BitTorrent, Inc. (yes, there is a legitimate company behind BitTorrent ) took to its blog to announce  the move from a pre-alpha, private program to the publicly available alpha. Additions since the private alpha include one-way synchronization, one-time secrets for sharing files with a friend or colleague, and the ability to exclude specific files and directories. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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BitTorrent Sync creates private, peer-to-peer Dropbox, no cloud required

Java users beware: Exploit circulating for just-patched critical flaw

If you haven’t installed last week’s patch from Oracle that plugs dozens of critical holes in its Java software framework, now would be a good time. As in immediately. As in, really, right now . In the past few days, attack code targeting one of the many remote-code-execution vulnerabilities fixed in Java 7 Update 21 was folded into either the folded into the RedKit or CrimeBoss exploit kit. By Sunday, that attack code was being actively unleashed on unsuspecting end users, according to a short blog post published by a researcher from antivirus provider F-Secure. The post doesn’t say where the attacks were being hosted or precisely how attackers are using them. Still, Oracle describes the vulnerability as allowing remote code execution without authentication. And that means you should install the patch before you do anything else today. The track record of malware purveyors of abusing advertising networks, compromised Apache servers , and other legitimate enterprises means readers could encounter attacks even when they’re browsing a site they know and trust. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Java users beware: Exploit circulating for just-patched critical flaw

IBM’s solar tech is 80% efficient thanks to supercomputer know-how

IBM Research’s prototype HCPVT system in Zurich. By borrowing cooling systems used in its supercomputers, IBM Research claims it can dramatically increase the overall efficiency of concentrated photovoltaic solar power from 30 to 80 percent. Like other concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) collectors, IBM’s system at its Zurich laboratory uses a mirrored parabolic dish to concentrate incoming solar radiation onto PV cells. The dish uses a tracking system to move with the sun, concentrating the collected radiation by a factor of 2,000 onto a sensor containing triple-junction PV cells. During daylight hours, each 1-sq cm PV chip generates on average between 200 and 250 watts of electrical power, harnessing up to 30 percent of the incoming solar energy. Ordinarily, the remaining 70 percent of energy would be lost as heat. But by capturing most of that heat with water, IBM Research says it is able to reduce system heat losses to around 20 percent of the total incoming energy. This results in a bottom-line efficiency of 80 percent for its CPV collector, dubbed HCPVT for High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal. Unlike a regular CPV system, HCPVT delivers its energy in two forms: electricity and hot water. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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IBM’s solar tech is 80% efficient thanks to supercomputer know-how

Senate advances “online sales tax” by 74-20 vote

Your tax-free days of online shopping are numbered. If S743 , also known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, becomes law, the millions of Americans who have been able to avoid sales tax online will have to start paying it. Given the broad support shown by today’s US Senate vote, some version of it is likely to come to fruition. The bill will compel companies having annual online sales of more than $1 million to collect sales tax on those purchases. Interstate sales have long been exempted from sales tax, but brick-and-mortar businesses have just as long complained about the edge that online businesses have since they avoid collecting taxes. A key opponent of online taxation, retail giant Amazon, recently switched sides after losing some key legal and political battles over taxation. Amazon already collects taxes on sales in nine states , including California, New York, and Texas. Technically this wouldn’t be a new tax, since California residents who make purchases from an online company are responsible for paying those taxes. But there’s never been an efficient way to collect such taxes so it rarely happens. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Senate advances “online sales tax” by 74-20 vote

Former Hostgator employee arrested, charged with rooting 2,700 servers

Aurich Lawson A former employee of Hostgator has been arrested and charged with installing a backdoor that gave him almost unfettered control over more than 2,700 servers belonging to the widely used Web hosting provider. Eric Gunnar Gisse, 29, of San Antonio, Texas, was charged with felony breach of computer security by the district attorney’s office of Harris County in Texas, according to court documents. He worked as a medium-level administrator from September 2011 until he was terminated on February 15, 2012, according to prosecutors and a company executive. A day after his dismissal, Hostgator officials discovered a backdoor application that allowed Gisse to log in to servers from remote locations, including a computer located at the Hetzner Data Center in Nuremberg, Germany. He took pains to disguise his malware as a widely used Unix administration tool to prevent his superiors from discovering the backdoor process, prosecutors said. “The process was named ‘pcre’, a common system file, in order to disguise the true purpose of the process which would grant an attacker unauthorized access into Hostgator’s computer network,” a Houston Police Department investigator and the document’s “affiant,” Gordon M. Garrett, wrote in an affidavit. “Complainant told affiant he searched Hostgator’s computer network and found the unauthorized ‘pcre’ process installed on 2723 different Hostgator servers within the computer network.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Former Hostgator employee arrested, charged with rooting 2,700 servers

Bitfloor, number four Bitcoin-based exchange, shuts down for good

On Wednesday evening, Bitfloor , the number four Bitcoin-based exchange (behind Mt. Gox, BTC-E, and Bitstamp) announced that it is closing its doors “indefinitely.” “Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of [US dollar] deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past,” wrote Roman Shtylman , the exchange’s founder. “As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds. Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request.” Ars reached out to Shtylman to find out more details, but he did not immediately respond. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bitfloor, number four Bitcoin-based exchange, shuts down for good