Posted on Dec 29, 2009 9:11 pm by Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Computer security researchers say that the GSM phones used by the majority of the world’s mobile-phone users can be listened in on with just a few thousand dollars worth of hardware and some free open-source tools.

In a presentation given Sunday at the Chaos Communication Conference in Berlin, researcher Karsten Nohl said that he had compiled 2 terabytes worth of data—cracking tables that can be used as a kind of reverse phone-book to determine the encryption key used to secure a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) telephone conversation or text message.

While Nohl stopped short of releasing a GSM-cracking device—that would be illegal in many countries, including the U.S.—he said he divulged information that has been common knowledge in academic circles and made it “practically useable.”

Intercepting mobile phone calls is illegal in many countries, including the U.S., but GSM-cracking tools are alreadyavailable to law enforcement. Knoll believes that criminals are probably using them too. “We have just basically copied what you can already buy in a commercial product,” he said.

The flaw lies in the 20-year-old encryption algorithm used by most carriers. It’s a 64-bit cipher called A5/1 and it is simply too weak, according to Nohl. Using his tables, antennas, specialized software, and $30,000 worth of computing hardware to break the cipher, someone can crack the GSM encryption in real time and listen in on calls, he said. If the attacker was willing to wait a few minutes to record and crack the call, the total cost would be just a few thousand dollars, he said.

There are about 3.5 billion GSM phones worldwide, making up about 80 percent of the mobile market, according to data from the GSM Alliance, a communications industry association representing operators and phone-makers.

Because even discussing wiretapping tools can be illegal in the U.S., researchers have steered clear of this type of work. But after consulting lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Nohl and his collaborators set upon a way of conclusively disclosing the flaws in the GSM system without —they believe — breaking the law.

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Get Satisfaction, a third-party customer service app/community, allows customers to offer feedback, make suggestions, get their questions answered, and generally get help with a product or service.

A good idea

Building support/community infrastructure is a pain point for a lot of companies. The help section, forums, FAQs, and whatever else you have to build to offer comprehensive customer support is a big undertaking. It’s often the last thing you want to do after you’ve just worked for months on a product or service.

So for those companies that would prefer to outsource this infrastructure to a third party, or use an alternative sanctioned support outlet in addition to their own, Get Satisfaction is a handy service.

But…

But if you prefer to provide great support on your own site with your own forums and your own help section and your own feedback mechanisms and your own FAQs, well, Get Satisfaction doesn’t play fair.

If you fail to subscribe to Get Satisfaction’s way of doing things, Get Satisfaction suggests to your customers that you’re “not yet committed to an open conversation.” That’s unfair and unreasonable. Just because we don’t team up with Get Satisfaction it doesn’t mean we’re not committed to an open conversation.

Continue with the article from 37Signals.

Great read as I was thinking of using them ourselves.

Original article at techcrunch.com

1. The Tablet: It’s the most anticipated product of the year. The mythical tablet computer (which everyone seems to be working on). There are beautiful Android tablets, concept tablets, and, of course, the one tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet. Or iSlate or whatever it’s called. If Steve Jobs is not working on a tablet, he’d better come up with one because anything else will be a huge disappointment.Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone? We won’t really know until we have it. But the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need. As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials. It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines, and a portable Web TV.
2. Geo: The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app. I’m not just talking about social broadcasting apps like Foursquare and Gowalla. The advent of Geo APIs from Twitter , SimpleGeo, and hopefully Facebook will change the game by adding rich layers of geo-related data to all sorts of apps. Twitter just recently launched its own Geo API for Twitter apps and acquired Mixer Labs, which created the GeoAPI.
3. Realtime Search: After licensing realtime data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, Google and Bing are quickly ramping up their realtime search. But realtime search is still treated as a silo, and is not regularly surfaced in the main search results page. In 2010, I expect that to change as the search engines learn for what types of searches it makes sense to show Tweets and other realtime updates. In the meantime, a gaggle of realtime search startups such as Collecta, OneRiot, and Topsy will continue to push the ball forward on the realtime search experience. Realtime search will also become a form of navigation, especially on Twitter and Facebook. The key will be to combine realtime search with realtime filters so that people are delivered not only the most recent information but the most relevant and authoritative as well
4. Chrome OS: In November, Google gave the world a sneak peek at its Chrome operating system, which is expected to be released later this year. The Chrome OS is Google’s most direct attack on Windows with an OS built from the ground up to run Web apps fast and furious. Already a Google is rumored to be working on a Chrome Netbook which will show the world what is possible with it a “Web OS.” It sounds like it would be perfect for Tablet computers also (see above). Chrome is a risky bet for Google, but it is also potentially disruptive.
5. HTML5: The Web is built on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and the next version which has been taking form for a while is HTML5. Already browsers such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome (the browser, not the OS) are HTML5-friendly. Once HTML5 becomes more widespread across the Web, it will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, or other rich applications. They will all just be Web-native. HTML5 also supports offline data storage, drag-and-drop, and other features which can make Web apps act more like desktop apps. A lot of Websites will be putting HTML5 under the hood in 2010.
6. Mobile Video: With video cameras integrated into the latest iPhone 3GS and other Web phones, live video streaming apps are becoming more commonplace—both streaming from phones and to them. As mobile data networks beef up their 3G bandwidth and even start to tiptoe into true broadband with 4G (which Verizon is heading towards with its next-gen LTE network), mobile video usage will take off.
7. Augmented Reality: One of the coolest ways to use the camera lens on a mobile phone is with the increasing array of augmented reality apps. They add a layer of data to reality by placing everything from photos to Tweets to business listings directly on top of the live live image captured by the camera. Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, Layar, GraffitiGeo and even Yelp are examples of augmented reality apps.
8. Mobile Transactions: As mobile phones become full-fledged computers, they can be used for mobile commerce also. One area poised to take off in 2010 are mobile payments and transactions. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s latest startup Square turns the iPhone into a credit card reader. Verifone has its competing product, as does Mophie. The idea is that any mobile phone can become a point of sale, and those mobile transactions can tie into back-end accounting, CRM, and other enterprise systems.
9. Android: Last year saw the launch of nearly two dozen Android-powered phones, including the Verizon Droid. In a few days, Google’s Nexus One will launch as the first Android phone which can be unlocked from any given carrier (it is launching with T-Mobile). Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone, and as it reaches critical mass across multiple carriers and handsets it is becoming increasingly attractive to developers. There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, next year there will be even more. And other devices running on the mobile OS are launching as well.
10. Social CRM: We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools. This year, those modes of realtime communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise. Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, it’s realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.

If the relationship between Apple and Mac CPU provider Intel was any closer, the two companies might have to start labeling their record collections and discussing whether to keep the wagon wheel table. In an intriguing technology demonstration last week, it was pointed out that the in-development Intel ultrafast optical connection called Light Peak was being shown on a rather elaborate hackintosh, running good old Mac OS X. This raised an eyebrow or two, but the background story seems to be just as interesting.

Engadget reports today, based on conversations with an ‘extremely reliable source,’ that Apple is behind the Light Peak technology, with C-suite-level discussions between the two companies dating back to 2007 about the specific implementation and capabilities of Light Peak. The post goes on to suggest that Apple will be doing rapid adoption of the optical tech a year from now, with Mac introductions slated for autumn of 2010 with the new port, and a low-powered version to follow along in the 2011 timeframe with future iPhones.

With the initial specification set to transfer data at a blistering 10Gpbs full duplex over cables as long as 100 meters (and with speeds up to 100Gbps lined up for future revisions), a single Light Peak connection could replace DVI, USB, gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, eSATA and just about anything else that would connect your computer to its environs.

One cable for everything, reducing clutter and increasing elegance? You have to admit, it does sound rather Jobsian.

Thanks to Josh Topolsky and everyone who sent this in.

Developer Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch kicked off his annual C4 indie Mac developer conference in Chicago on Friday night with a provocative claim cribbed from Steve Jobs: He showed a slide of the AppleScript logo in a coffin and declared it dead.

As with Jobs when he declared Mac OS 9 dead back in 2002, Rentzsch was making a point to a group of developers. In this case, Rentzsch was using JSTalk, a JavaScript-based method of scripting applications implemented by Flying Meat Software’s Gus Mueller in his image-editing app Acorn, as a call to arms for developers to embrace a new system for scripting applications and to stop focusing on AppleScript.

It’s an interesting point of view, and one that was tailored to Rentzsch’s audience, since adding AppleScript support to apps is hard and professional computer programmers are comfortable with more formal languages like, say, JavaScript.

I will admit that I’m deeply skeptical of the entire suggestion, not because I think AppleScript is a great language—though I use AppleScript every day, I am painfully aware of how difficult it can be to use—but because I’m concerned that programmers might not truly grasp that their customers aren’t as comfortable writing complex syntax full of brackets and semicolons as they are.

AppleScript, for all its faults, is a language that most power users can understand if they open a script and stare at it for a while. (Its great failing is that this is basically the only way to learn AppleScript.) I can stare at perl or JavaScript for a while and still end up not quite understanding what I’m looking at. Find out more…

A sea change may be coming to cyberspace with Web addresses ending in anything from .a to .z. That has businesses increasingly worried they will have to spend millions to guard their brand names.
The familiar .com, .net, .org and 18 other suffixes — officially “generic top-level domains” — could be joined by a seemingly endless stream of new ones next year under a landmark change approved last summer by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, the entity that oversees the Web’s address system.

Tourists might find information about the Liberty Bell, for example, at a site ending in .philly. A rapper might apply for a Web address ending in .hiphop.

“Whatever is open to the imagination can be applied for,” says Paul Levins, ICANN’s vice president of corporate affairs. “It could translate into one of the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history.”

Many businesses see more problems than profits — opportunities for scammers to exploit brand names and mislead consumers, or even attack brands.

Find out more…

The latest rumor to circulate the Internet is that Google is in the final stages of negotiation to buy Twitter, the micro-blogging service.

Twitter sign-ups have exploded in the past year, partly owing to endorsements by celebrities and features within the popular press. Twitter would certainly be a logical choice for Google in its bid to own the Internet.

Twitter has recently been valued at $250 million although the company is yet to earn a penny. It turned down Facebook’s offer of $500 million only a few months back (although part of that included Facebook stock which has no distinct value as yet). Google’s offer will need to be good.

But what is Twitter’s real value to Google? The likely possibilities include:

News: breaking stories are often posted to Twitter first, e.g. the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the plane crash into the New York Hudson river, and the shocking revelation that Stephen Fry was stuck in a lift.
Hot topics: Google could gather valuable marketing knowledge about the latest buzz on the net.
User base: Twitter has almost 10 million users that Google can target.
Advertising revenue: chat-sensitive adverts could appear.
Search: if Google can not monetize Twitter’s search, then no one can.
Market domination: owning Twitter makes Google bigger and stronger than before.
Google would also be able to offer Twitter the technology and expertise to scale up their operation effectively and reliably.

However, Google does not always get everything right: YouTube, for example, is yet to return a profit. There is also the likelihood that Twitter is a fad and will only remain popular until the next “big thing” appears.

What do you think? Would Google and Twitter make a good partnership? How would competitors such as Microsoft react? Can Twitter be profitable and have a long-term future?

by Craig Buckler

Original article from Engadget
Know Your Rights is Engadget’s technology law series, written by our own totally punk ex-copyright attorney Nilay Patel. In it we’ll try to answer some fundamental tech-law questions to help you stay out of trouble in this brave new world. Disclaimer: this isn’t legal advice, but it is best read aloud by a text to speech app.

Yeah, that’s totally ridiculous! Wait, what?

Well, think about it this way — once you get it on the Kindle 2, an ebook can serve as both a regular book (that you read) and a recording (that you listen to). What the Authors Guild seems to be saying — in a totally backwards and potentially inaccurate way — is that while Amazon has the rights to sell you the book, it doesn’t have the rights to sell you the recording.

Are you seriously saying that I don’t have the right to read a book out loud? Girl, you crazy.

No, you absolutely have the right to read a book out loud — but you’re not allowed to make recordings of yourself and sell them. That’s something only authors are allowed to do, and it’s hard to have a problem with that. You’d be pretty miffed if someone started selling recorded versions of your blog without compensating you, wouldn’t you?

But the Kindle isn’t playing back recordings — it’s synthesizing sounds based on the words in the book! Isn’t that just a private reading?

Sure, and a MIDI piano isn’t playing back song recordings, it’s just playing notes from a file that sound exactly like the sound recording, right?

This is actually pretty tough stuff — as far as edge cases go, this one pushes right up against the boundaries of the current law. On one hand, you definitely have the right to read books that you own out loud using whatever tools you want, and on the other, authors definitely have the right to prevent others from selling audio versions of their works. The Kindle’s text-to-speech feature blurs the lines between books and recordings, and that means those two rights are in conflict with each other.

Come on, text-to-speech has been around forever! What’s next, suing Apple for MacInTalk?

It’s always gotta be Apple, doesn’t it?

Answer the question, smartass.

Well, sure, you can buy ebooks and play them back using OS X’s text-to-speech voices. But here’s the thing — no one really does that, so no one cares. The Kindle is the first major text-to-speech device that could impact audiobook sales, so it’s not surprising it’s the first to garner this kind of scrutiny. Remember: just because someone can file a lawsuit doesn’t mean they have to.

Okay, but who’s honestly going to choose the Kindle’s computer voice over a real person reading an audiobook?

You’re right, nothing’s ever going to compare to a real live person reading to you, but it’s not like technology ever stops progressing — while the Kindle 2′s voice isn’t the best, we’d bet almost anything that the Kindle 5 or the Kindle 10 will be more than adequate for a lot of people. Remember, people happily listen to 128kbps MP3s through crappy iPod headphones all day long — eventually the quality tipping point will come, and the Authors Guild is just trying to protect its own before they get totally bowled over.

So basically Amazon just has to pay up?

Well, maybe — it’s not exactly terrific public policy to say that text should be considered a recording as well, especially given the prevalence and intrinsic value of computerized text-to-speech. We’d say that means Amazon should fight this one out, honestly, but that doesn’t mean Jeff Bezos won’t just cut a check and make this all go away for now. You can do that when you’re Amazon.

Look, just make this easy for me: who should I flame in comments? That’s all I really need to know.

Doesn’t matter — we read everything back in the OS X “Princess” voice anyway, tough guy.

Thanks again to Matt Gavronski of Michael Best & Friedrich for his assistance!

Original Article Engadget…

Recently, a lot of new non-relational databases have cropped up both inside and outside the cloud. One key message this sends is, “if you want vast, on-demand scalability, you need a non-relational database”.

If that is true, then is this a sign that the once mighty relational database finally has a chink in its armor? Is this a sign that relational databases have had their day and will decline over time? In this post, we’ll look at the current trend of moving away from relational databases in certain situations and what this means for the future of the relational database.

Relational databases have been around for over 30 years. During this time, several so-called revolutions flared up briefly, all of which were supposed to spell the end of the relational database. All of those revolutions fizzled out, of course, and none even made a dent in the dominance of relational databases.

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