Silent Circle's latest app democratizes encryption. Governments won't be happy. - Slate Magazine

An impetus for multifaceted change

"Until now, sending encrypted documents has been frustratingly difficult for anyone who isn’t a sophisticated technology user, requiring knowledge of how to use and install various kinds of specialist software. What Silent Circle has done is to remove these hurdles, essentially democratizing encryption. It’s a game-changer that will almost certainly make life easier and safer for journalists, dissidents, diplomats, and companies trying to evade state surveillance or corporate espionage. Governments pushing for more snooping powers, however, will not be pleased.
[...]
The cryptographers behind this innovation may be the only ones who could have pulled it off. The team includes Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP encryption, which is still considered the standard for email security; Jon Callas, the man behind Apple’s whole-disk encryption, which is used to secure hard drives in Macs across the world; and Vincent Moscaritolo, a top cryptographic engineer who previously worked on PGP and for Apple. Together, their combined skills and expertise are setting new standards—with the results already being put to good use."

Silent Circle's latest app democratizes encryption. Governments won't be happy. - Slate Magazine

Growing Numbers of Start-Ups Are Worth a Billion Dollars - NYTimes.com

A cloudy future

"But an unprecedented number of high technology start-ups, easily 25 and possibly exceeding 40, are valued at $1 billion or more. Many employees are quietly getting rich, or at least building a big cushion against a crash, as they sell shares to outside investors. Airbnb, Pinterest, SurveyMonkey and Spotify are among the better-known privately held companies that have reached $1 billion. But many more with less familiar names, including Box, Violin Memory and Zscaler, are selling services to other companies.
“A year from now that might be 100,” said Jim Goetz, a partner at Sequoia Capital, a venture capital business. Sequoia counts a dozen such companies in its portfolio. It is part of what he calls “a permanent change” in the way people are building their companies and financers are pushing up values."

Growing Numbers of Start-Ups Are Worth a Billion Dollars - NYTimes.com

Microsoft and Huawei to Unite to Sell Windows Smartphones in Africa - NYTimes.com

I'm guessing Apple is also not oblivious to this market opportunity, and that the rumored lower-cost iPhone will not be sold exclusively in China

"Africa is the world’s fastest-growing region for smartphones, with an average sales growth of 43 percent a year since 2000, according to the GSM Association, an industry trade group based in London.
In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 10 percent of the 445 million cellphone users have smartphones, but that is expected to increase rapidly as operators expand high-speed networks.
By 2017, most consumers in South Africa will be using smartphones, up from 20 percent last year, according to the GSM Association. In Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, the outlook for sustained growth is even greater, with smartphone penetration projected to reach just 30 percent by 2017."

Microsoft and Huawei to Unite to Sell Windows Smartphones in Africa - NYTimes.com

Oracle snaps up Acme Packet - Business - The Boston Globe

Oracle buys its way into Cisco's market domain

"Acme Packet employs about 900 workers and produces obscure but vital products for Internet Protocol networks — communications systems that use the same data protocols that run on the Internet. IP networks can handle all kinds of communications traffic more efficiently than traditional phone networks.
Acme Packet’s chief product, called a session border controller, acts as a sort of middleman between multiple networks. It enables voice, text, and video traffic to move seamlessly between wireline and wireless networks. It also lets companies running private IP networks easily connect them to public phone systems."

Oracle snaps up Acme Packet - Business - The Boston Globe

The Philosophy of Data - NYTimes.com

David Brooks begins a quest for data knowledge; check the full column for some of his starting assumptions

"Over the next year, I’m hoping to get a better grip on some of the questions raised by the data revolution: In what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data? What kinds of events are predictable using statistical analysis and what sorts of events are not?"

The Philosophy of Data - NYTimes.com

Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Check the full article for an overview of big data strategy at Facebook and some Hadoop history

"In the nine years since Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook out of his Harvard dorm room, it has evolved into more than just the world’s most popular social network. Zuckerberg and company have also built one of the most sophisticated engineering operations on the planet — largely because they had to. Facebook is faced with a uniquely difficult task — how to serve a personalized homepage to one billion different people, juggling one billion different sets of messages, photos, videos, and so many other data feeds — and this requires more tech talent than you might expect."

Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Geeks are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties | MIT Technology Review

Lead paragraph from a timely snapshot

"A decade-plus of anthropological fieldwork among hackers and like-minded geeks has led me to the firm conviction that these people are building one of the most vibrant civil liberties movements we’ve ever seen. It is a culture committed to freeing information, insisting on privacy, and fighting censorship, which in turn propels wide-ranging political activity. In the last year alone, hackers have been behind some of the most powerful political currents out there."

From a "Why it matters" sidebar:

"Various governments have proposed laws that would curtail the openness and freedom of the Internet. Without a vocal opposition, those laws likely would have passed."

Geeks are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties | MIT Technology Review

Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks - The Washington Post

The AT&T/Verizon/et al lobbyist full-employment act?

"The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month.
The proposal from the Federal Communications Commission has rattled the $178 billion wireless industry, which has launched a fierce lobbying effort to persuade policymakers to reconsider the idea, analysts say. That has been countered by an equally intense campaign from Google, Microsoft and other tech giants who say a free-for-all WiFi service would spark an explosion of innovations and devices that would benefit most Americans, especially the poor."

Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks - The Washington Post

Oreo, Audi & Walgreens Newsjack Super Bowl "Blackout Bowl" (Marketing Land)

Sign of the times; also see Game Over: Twitter Mentioned In 50% Of Super Bowl Commercials, Facebook Only 8%, Google+ Shut Out (Marketing Land)

"Several brands saw the power outage as a chance to market themselves in clever ways on Twitter, which is no doubt experiencing new, all-time usage levels for a sporting event.
Oreo, which ran a commercial earlier in the TV broadcast that promoted its Instagram account, reacted quickly with this brilliant power outage-related tweet that’s been retweeted and favorited thousands of times in only about 15 minutes"

Oreo, Audi & Walgreens Newsjack Super Bowl "Blackout Bowl"

Hillary Clinton Helps Silicon Valley on Her Way Out the Door - Businessweek

On a more optimistic cyber-outreach note

"One of those new initiatives, the Alliance for an Affordable Internet, barely got a mention in Clinton’s speech. But it merits attention. If successful, the project—a public-private partnership among the State Department, the World Wide Web Foundation, and tech companies such as Cisco Systems (CSCO), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and Intel (INTC)—could end up helping many people in poor countries get onto the Web. It could also cement long-term ties between the State Department and the companies—while opening new markets and reaching new customers for Silicon Valley. “We’re going to help the next billion people come online,” said Clinton, quickly announcing the project before going on to talk about clean cook stoves for women in the developing world."

Hillary Clinton Helps Silicon Valley on Her Way Out the Door - Businessweek

Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes - NYTimes.com

A time for big decisions

"That decision is among several reached in recent months as the administration moves, in the next few weeks, to approve the nation’s first rules for how the military can defend, or retaliate, against a major cyberattack. New policies will also govern how the intelligence agencies can carry out searches of faraway computer networks for signs of potential attacks on the United States and, if the president approves, attack adversaries by injecting them with destructive code — even if there is no declared war."

Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes - NYTimes.com

Exclusive: Google's Eric Schmidt Unloads on China in New Book - Corporate Intelligence - WSJ

Another nation Eric Schmidt can probably take off his vacation destination list

"Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is brutally clear: China is the most dangerous superpower on Earth.
Corporate Intelligence reviewed preliminary galleys of Schmidt’s new book, “The New Digital Age,” (Random House) which debuts in April. And Schmidt’s views on China stand out the strongest amid often predictable techno-utopian views of the future."

Exclusive: Google's Eric Schmidt Unloads on China in New Book - Corporate Intelligence - WSJ

The increasingly blurry line between Big Data and Big Brother — Tech News and Analysis

Yes... (see the full post for a snapshot of recent Nicholas Carr and Evgeny Morozov perspectives)

"Is the world of big data one in which information about us allows us to personalize services and benefit from that personalization, or is it one in which our data is used against us by companies and governments?" 

The increasingly blurry line between Big Data and Big Brother — Tech News and Analysis

Twitter Hacked: Data for 250,000 Users May Be Stolen - NYTimes.com

Time to change your Twitter password, if somebody hasn't beaten you to it...

"“This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident,” Bob Lord, Twitter’s director of information security, said in a blog post. “The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked.”
Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, would not say how hackers were able to infiltrate Twitter’s systems, but Twitter’s blog post alluded that hackers had broken in through a well-publicized vulnerability in Oracle’s Java software."

Twitter Hacked: Data for 250,000 Users May Be Stolen - NYTimes.com

Office 365 Home Premium: The Mac Experience | Office 365 content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

Overview of the Mac part of the Office 365 Home Premium story, which imho is a compelling offer, if you have several PCs and/or Macs, and want to stay current with the latest releases of Office

"If you look closely at Microsoft’s materials for Office 365 Home Premium, the Office licensing isn’t for five PCs, it’s for five devices. In the future, that will include mobile platforms like iOS and Android, we believe. But today, you can still use Office 365 Home Premium with one non-Windows platform, the Mac. Here’s a peek at the Mac experience."

Office 365 Home Premium: The Mac Experience | Office 365 content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

Should you upgrade to Windows 8? Can you handle computers behaving oddly? - Chicago Sun-Times

Concluding paragraphs from an Andy Ihnatko Windows 8 snapshot

"Windows 8 is a clear move towards the future. In a way, Microsoft is putting themselves through the same difficulties that they’re inflicting on their users via Windows 8. Every major player in this market is going to have to transform their entire PC business so that the hardware, OS, and apps of their platform appeal to a generation of users whose first computer was a multitouch phone. The first steps in this process are going to be painful no matter when you start. Why not start sooner, when the competition is still focusing on the Now?

I will end by reminding and cautioning you that Windows 8 is, oh dear, quite a departure. But I think you’ll find that making a departure is indeed the necessary first step towards getting somewhere. And while Windows 8 might not be taking you where you asked to go, it’s definitely bringing you, and Microsoft, to the place where you need to be."

Should you upgrade to Windows 8? Can you handle computers behaving oddly? - Chicago Sun-Times

Bing Bing Apps for Office - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

tbd if the new Bing Apps for Office also work with Office 2010

"Our goal is to make Bing available in convenient and intuitive ways that take advantage of knowledge Bing has assembled for search. You can see this today with features like: voice search on Bing for Mobile, implicit search such as Local Scout on Windows Phone, the ability to search using your phone’s camera with Bing Vision, and touch/contextual search with Bing on Windows 8, With Bing Apps for Office we are introducing ways for you to be more productive without having to leave the applications.
There are currently five Bing Apps for Office including: Bing Finance for Excel, Bing Maps for Excel, Bing Image Search for Word, Bing News Search for Word and Bing Dictionary for Excel and Word."

Bing Bing Apps for Office - Search Blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community

Wall Street Journal Reports Attack by China Hackers - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for more on the need for "new rules of the road"

"On Thursday, The Journal reported that it had been attacked by Chinese hackers who were trying to monitor the company’s coverage of China. It said hackers had broken into its network through computers in its Beijing bureau.
In a written statement, the business newspaper owned by News Corporation described the attack as an “ongoing issue” and said it was working closely with authorities and security specialists to clean up its systems. It said that it completed a “network overhaul” on Thursday in an effort to rid its systems of hackers."

Wall Street Journal Reports Attack by China Hackers - NYTimes.com

Predicting the Future By Mining Online News and Other Web Data | MIT Technology Review

In other proactive protection news...

"Researchers have created software that predicts when and where disease outbreaks might occur based on two decades of New York Times articles and other online data. The research comes from Microsoft and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
The system could someday help aid organizations and others be more proactive in tackling disease outbreaks or other problems, says Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist and codirector at Microsoft Research. “I truly view this as a foreshadowing of what’s to come,” he says. “Eventually this kind of work will start to have an influence on how things go for people.” Horvitz did the research in collaboration with Kira Radinsky, a PhD researcher at the Technion-Israel Institute."

Predicting the Future By Mining Online News and Other Web Data | MIT Technology Review

Apple blocks Java on Macs due to vulnerabilities - Business - The Boston Globe

Proactive and paternalistic platform protection?  Also see Firefox Moves To Block Java, Silverlight, Adobe Reader (InformationWeek)

"Apple sends out virtual ‘‘blacklists’’ to Internet-connected Macs, instructing them not to run certain programs. Apple is blocking the latest version of Java from running on the most recent versions of its Mac operating system, and blocking an older version, Java 6, from running on the older version of its Mac system, called Snow Leopard.
The blocks affect programs and online games that use Java in Web browsers."

Apple blocks Java on Macs due to vulnerabilities - Business - The Boston Globe