Any technological problem has a technological solution, given enough minds and enough time. Researchers at the University of Toronto are proving this statement to be true — a team of political scientists, software engineers and hacking activists or “hackists” have developed a software tool that might help evade government-imposed Internet filters and blocks in countries, such as China, where the Internet is censored.
Called psiphon (pronounced “SY-fon”), the program is accessible via password and isn’t downloaded onto the user’s computer, thereby leaving no fingerprints on the machine, although users have to make sure they erase their Internet histories after each use. Someone in an uncensored country does have to download the software onto a least one PC, which will then act as a proxy, allowing all the other psiphon users in the censored countries to gain access to an unfettered Internet with the enabled computer. The hope is that thousand of PC owners in uncensored nations will be willing to set up the proxy service.
Psiphon is a step forward because it’s easy to use and doesn’t require discoverable software to be downloaded. One drawback: the password to Psiphon has to be passed around among small circles of friends and families. It can’t be publicly or indiscriminately disseminated, otherwise authorities can gain access, although to my way of thinking, censors will undoubtedly gain access.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:55 PM | Print | Comments (1)Obsessive fans have more tools than ever to invade the private lives of entertainment figures. This chilling tale should make all celebrities shiver just a bit: a fan, Devon Townsend, has hacked the cell phone records, diverted emails, hacked email accounts, compromised PayPal accounts and accumulated private family photos of Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington. Oh yeah, she also made phone threats to Bennington’s wife, Talinda.
This is creepily fascinating, but even more interesting is the criminal complaint sworn out against Townsend. In an affidavit, Special Agent Jeffrey Fauver, who is with the office of the Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Services at the Department of Defense, spells out in detail how the stalker came to be known and how he pursued a cyber-trail until he found out who she is.
It started when Talinda began to suspect a stalker had hacked into the couple’s PayPal and Verizon Wireless accounts. The rocker’s wife then contacted the secret service, which investigated and turned over the sleuthing to DoD when they discovered that the offender used an IP address at a secure facility of a federally funded lab, Sandia National Laboratories, located at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Agent Fauver then engaged in serious forensic investigation, following IP addresses, mirroring hard drives and examining the contents of files to find out that the unhinged fan in fact is Townsend. He even worked with a postal inspector to track packages mailed to Townsend’s house. One of the creepiest bits of evidence (at least to me) is that Townsend diverted emailed photos that Talinda Bennington had taken of her husband, children and friends with a cell phone camera during a trip to Japan.
When confronted with the evidence, Townsend admitted to the cyber-stalking and threatening phone calls and prepared a signed statement explaining how she managed to hack her way into all the personal accounts. This last piece of crucial information didn’t make its way into the public record of Devon’s arrest…much to the relief of rock stars and their wives everywhere.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:36 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Wired News’ Andrew Curry has this interesting piece that highlights how advanced Germany is when it comes to using videocasting or Internet video to promote its political parties’ agendas or to gain exposure for its politicians. German Chancellor Angela Merkel puts out a weekly video podcast in which she holds forth on key topics.
Although Merkel has apparently been the butt of jokes due to what is characterized as her stiff style of delivery, she is nonetheless setting the agenda and reaching the press, party officials and others with no filtering by the media.
“It’s information straight from the chancellor, unfiltered by the media,” says Uwe Spindeldreier, head of the government’s press and information office.
And people are watching. Merkel’s videos are downloaded 200,000 times a week.
Moreover, the videocasts are light years ahead of what President Bush produces, or as Curry puts it, the executive branch in the U.S. “is still stuck in the golden age of weekly radio addresses,” although the administration has recently taken to putting out podcasts of those talks.
Germany’s Merkel has also prompted her party’s rivals to put out their own videos, with dark consequences in the case of the country’s far-right, neo-Nazi NPD party, which is not technically legal. The NPD put out its own videocasts on YouTube, but the site removed them within days. Now the NPD plans to begin streaming directly from its own web sites, although German law permits government censorship of content that promotes Nazi philosophies.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:34 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The New York Times’ Matt Richtel has this ahead-of-the-curve article about a new Internet phenomenon and of course San Francisco leads the way. The phenomenon: piggybacking on unencrypted Wi-Fi connections to make VoIP phone calls with Wi-Fi-enabled phones.
New phones are cropping up that support free phone calling using Skype or Vonage if the user is within reach of a useable Wi-Fi connection. As is the case with Wi-Fi piggybacking using laptops, the question arises: is it wrong to use somebody else’s Wi-Fi signal for your own communication needs?
Richtel walked around a San Francisco neighborhood (San Francisco is rife with unencrypted Wi-Fi signals) testing out how folks react to this kind of “borrowing” of wireless Internet connectivity. The verdict is mixed — some folks seem to think it’s OK as long as it doesn’t interfere with their own use of the Wi-Fi connection and others view this kind of use as free-loading.
The difference between piggybacking using a laptop and piggybacking using a phone is that it’s a lot more difficult to visually see when someone is using a phone to ride on your connection.
Because the Wi-Fi phone looks like a standard cellphone, it is much less conspicuous than a laptop on the street. The proliferation of Wi-Fi laptops and, in turn, hunters of free Internet access has already raised questions about whether borrowers of bandwidth are breaking any laws.
With phones connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots, is it even fair to use the moniker “cell phone” anymore, a label that applies to communication devices that depend on a series of interconnected “cells”? Business Week’s Cliff Edwards asks this question and comes up with no easy answers. Not only do new phones use wireless technologies that don’t fall into the “cell” category, but they also offer a range of functions — web browsing, music playing, video recording — that make the terms “cell phone” look old-fashioned.
Among the replacement terms are “multimedia computer,” “mobile information terminal” or just simply “mobile.” This issue of what to call these all-purpose gizmos plagues tech writers and bloggers. For the time being, I suggest simply “mobile devices” or “handheld devices.”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:50 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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