Two UK-Based Nigerians Jailed Over £19 Million Internet Scam

Two young Nigerians based in Manchester, United Kingdom have been punished by a Crown Court for their part in a Nigerian inspired internet banking scam which could have netted a phenomenal £19 million after hacking the accounts of nearly 2,500 people. The Mail Online reported, yesterday, that Aderoju Bammeke, 22, and his girlfriend, Jessica

Microsoft is finally tired of bashing Apple, sets sights on Samsung instead

ry as Microsoft might, it just can’t seem to put a dent in iPad sales with its Apple-bashing Surface ads. The company has issued several different ads that deal various jabs at Apple’s popular tablets, but the Windows RT-powered Microsoft Surface has yet to catch on with consumers while iPad sales came in at 14 million units last quarter. So, Microsoft decided to try something new. Since Android tablet sales have been growing far more quickly than iPad sales over the past year, why not start bashing them instead? And so we have Microsoft’s newest Surface RT advertisements, which set their sights on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 instead of Apple’s iPad lineup.

While the target of Microsoft’s attack in new, the subject matter is quite familiar. In one ad, Microsoft goes back to the full-size USB port on its Surface tablet, pitching it as a key differentiator while points out that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 only has a microUSB port. In a separate ad, Microsoft shows us how much better the Surface is for sharing among family members thanks to multiple account support and parental controls.

Both ads are embedded below. Will they hit home with consumers a bit better than Microsoft’s iPad-bashing ads and drive Surface sales this holiday season? You be the judge:

Microsoft advert rubbishes the Samsung Galaxy Tab

ABLET UPSTART Microsoft has posted an apparently desperate Surface 2 tablet advertisement as a Youtube video that claims its device is better than Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

The video claims Microsoft's Surface 2 tablet is superior, highlighting the rival Samsung Galaxy Tab's lack of a full-size USB port.

"Surface has a full-size USB port, Galaxy Tab doesn't," the ad states right at the outset, continuing to compare the port options of the Surface 2 and the Galaxy Tab side by side.

After a mindless attempt by an actor to put a second USB plug into the Galaxy Tab's single USB port, the 40 second ad ends, saying, "No full-size USB? No thanks."

The Redmond firm is definitely keen to compare the Surface 2 tablet against its rivals, concentrating less on promoting its own product and more on ridiculing the competition.

Just yesterday Microsoft posted similar videos with other slurs, one attacking Apple and one against Google.

One mocked Apple's iPad Air for its alleged lack of features, while another explained that the iPad Air doesn't have the abilities to create multi-user profiles or display a user's activity to see what they've been up to.

Of course, you can with the Surface 2, released by the company that was the first in the industry to volunteer surveillance assistance to the US National Security Agency (NSA) but is constantly harping on about other companies' alleged infringement of other people's privacy.

Apple sued for patent infringement by DSS

Apple has been sued by patent company DSS Technology Management for infringing two patents relating to the use of wireless peripheral devices, parent company Document Security Systems said Wednesday.

DSS has accused Apple's products including its iMac, Mac mini, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, iPod nano and the forthcoming Mac Pro of infringing one or more of the claims of its patents in providing wireless Bluetooth connections to a plurality of peripheral devices.

DSS said in October it acquired two patent portfolios from two different owners in the third quarter, covering semiconductor manufacturing and the use of low-power Bluetooth peripherals. It said it would monetize its acquisitions through licensing.

The patents bearing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,699,357 and 6,128,290 are both titled "Personal Data Network." From July this year, Lexington Technology Group, a privately-owned company that owned and managed intellectual property assets, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Document Security Systems and "provides strategy" for DSS' IP portfolio. It was renamed as DSS Technology Management.

Apple's consumer devices like the iPad and iPhone provide a battery powered system for communicating data in which the server and the peripherals communicate in low duty cycle RF bursts as claimed in one or more claims of the '357 Patent, according to DSS' complaint in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.

The computer products from Apple named in the suit are said to provide a system for communicating data in which the server and the peripherals communicate in low duty cycle RF bursts as claimed in one or more claims of the '290 Patent.

DSS is suing for damages that may include lost profits but should not be less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the inventions of the asserted patents. Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.

In October last year, Lexington Technology Group subsidiary Bascom Research sued five companies, including Facebook and LinkedIn, for infringement of several patents described as instrumental to social and business networking technology.

Six more arrested in breathtaking $45 million ATM theft

An iPhone photo allegedly taken by one defendant showed $800,000 packed into a suitcase

Six more alleged participants were arrested Monday in a US$45 million global ATM fraud, including one man who was photographed stuffing $800,000 into a suitcase, federal prosecutors in New York said.

The defendants are alleged to be part of a New York cell that used bogus payment cards to withdraw millions of dollars from more than 100 ATMs in a matter of hours, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Defendants Anthony Diaz, 24; Saul Franjul, 23; Saul Genao, 24; Jaindhi Polanco, 29; and Jose Angeley Valerio, 25, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. They face a possible seven-and-a-half years in prison. A sixth defendant, Franklyn Ferreira, was arrested later on Monday but had not been arraigned, the spokesman said.

Hackers raised the withdrawal limits on the cards after breaking into prepaid Visa and MasterCard credit card processors in the U.S. and India, which handled transactions for the Bank of Muscat, based in Oman, and the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC, also known as RAKBANK, in United Arab Emirates.

The style of attack is known as an "unlimited operation," prosecutors said. Neither of the prepaid debit card processors has been identified.

The Bank of Muscat lost $40 million in February when criminals made withdrawals, prosecutors said in May when they announced the first indictment.

Franjul is alleged to have packed $800,0000 cash in a suitcase and given it to co-conspirators who then boarded a bus for Florida. The cash was to be delivered to Alberto Yusi Lajud-Peña, one of eight people indicted in May, but who was subsequently found to have been murdered in April in the Dominican Republic.

The attorney's office released an iPhone photo taken by a co-conspirator that allegedly shows Franjul handling the cash. The New York cell spent proceeds from the heists at high-priced nightclubs and on luxury cars and watches, prosecutors allege.

Two other photos provided by the attorney's office showed a Facebook post with expensive bottles of alcohol and a receipt for more than $4,000 worth of booze purchased at a New York lounge.

RAKBANK was hit with $5 million in losses after 4,500 ATM withdrawals were made in 20 countries on Dec. 22, 2012. A second large attack between Feb. 19 and 20 saw the Bank of Muscat lose $40 million, withdrawn by people in 20 countries in just 10 hours.

The New York cell is alleged to have withdrawn $2.8 million of RAKBANK's money in thousands of transactions from 140 ATMs around New York, sending the bulk of it to organizers of the attacks.

Of the eight people indicted in May, four have pleaded guilty to charges related to the thefts, and three others remain charged under a superseding indictment released Monday, prosecutors said.

Data centers play fast and loose with reliability credentials

The Uptime Institute says some data centers are getting creative with their reliability claims
By James Niccolai, IDG News Service |  Data Center

How reliable is your data center service provider? Perhaps not as reliable as you think.

The Uptime Institute says some data centers are playing fast and loose with its "tiering" system for rating data center reliability, making false claims or at best being economical with the truth about how resilient their facilities are.

The upshot, the Institute says, is that some companies may be running important applications in data centers that are more susceptible to failure than is advertised, and they may get a rude awakening the next time a hurricane strikes or a transformer blows out in the local power grid.

"At a time when more enterprises are moving at scale to an outsourcing option, the stakes couldn't be higher," said Julian Kudritzki, Uptime Institute's chief operating officer, who along with a few data center operators is trying to raise awareness of the issue.

The Institute's tiering system is only one way of indicating data center resiliency, but it has become well known in the industry. It gives four tiers of certification, with Tier III the most common type awarded. A Tier III data center has multiple delivery paths for power and cooling, and redundant critical components, so that downtime is minimized and maintenance can be performed without taking the computing services offline.

Customers can be misled in a variety of ways. Some data centers imply they're Uptime certified when they're not, while others advertise their Uptime "design" certification, which shows only that the plans for a facility met certain criteria. Vendors are expected to follow that up with a "constructed facility" certification to verify the data center was built to spec, but many never do.

Complicating matters is that Uptime's "tier" language has become part of the industry vernacular. Some operators say they use it as a shorthand to convey a certain level of reliability, and that they're not trying to intentionally mislead customers.

Not surprisingly, data centers that have made the investment to get certified don't buy that argument.

"It's a bit of sleight of hand," said Chris Crosby, founder of Compass Datacenters.

Two of Compass' data centers are Tier III constructed facilities, and Crosby wants the system better policed so that the credentials remain meaningful. In the long run, he argues, better policing is good for the rest of the industry, too. More and more customers are outsourcing their computer operations, and if enterprises start to think they can't trust their service provider, the commercial data center industry as a whole will suffer, he says.

Users need to educate themselves about the various certifications and press commercial data centers to verify their credentials, Kudritzki said. "The counsel is 'buyers beware.'"
Some data centers certainly appear to make questionable claims. Arsalon Technologies of Lenexa, Kansas, says on its website that its hosting facilities "comply with Uptime Institute data center standards." A page headed "Data Center Certifications" refers several times to "tier III" standards.

In reality, Arsalon doesn't have any certification from the Uptime Institute. The company didn't return calls and emails seeking comment.

More common are data centers that advertise their tier "design" logo. It's a real certificate, but it was introduced as a way to help data centers secure "anchor tenants" before a facility is built, Kudritzki said, not for marketing a data center once it's operational. A lot can change in between: contractors cut corners, plans change and budgets get cut.

To be certified as a constructed facility, data centers go through extensive on-site testing by Uptime staff. But some data centers imply their design certificate is the only one customers need to care about. Recovery Point Systems of Gaithersburg, Maryland, for example, describes its design certificate as "the industry's most coveted recognition."

Others use the tier language as a general shorthand for reliability.

"We're a tier 3 on the electrical side, Tier 4 on mechanical, Tier 4 on communications and security, and we'll go through several audits to determine physical security and data connectivity," Don Phares, a contractor for Nebraska Colocation Centers, told the Journal Star newspaper last month about a data center he was building.

"Then once you get through everything, we're a 2 enhanced almost to a 3," he told the paper.

That type of language is Kudritzki's worst nightmare, but Phares says he wasn't trying to mislead anyone. In a telephone interview, he said that even some of his equipment vendors market their products as meeting certain tier requirements.

Ken Moreano, president of Scott Data Center, said customers should be specific when they're shopping for services. His company runs a Tier III constructed facility in Omaha, Nebraska, and he's concerned at the number of RFPs (requests for proposals) he sees that don't ask for any type of verification.

"Many RFPs provide the latitude for people to claim a tier level without an actual certification," he said.

He doesn't think all data centers that claim a tier level without certification are being "malicious," but he says he's seen facilities that fall far short of the level they claim to have achieved, "and I have to question their motives."
Uptime Institute charges a fee for certification, and some data centers say they simply don't want to pay it, but Moreano thinks those arguments are spurious. The fees are "very minor compared to the overall cost of these large-scale data centers," he said.

In some ways, Uptime Institute has created problems for itself. The design certification arguably opened the door to misuse. And the Institute has licensed its rating system to the Telecommunications Industry Association, which incorporated the tier language into its own data center standards, known as TIA-942-A.

Uptime says the TIA has been misusing the tier language, and in June it wrote the association a letter asking it to stop using it.

Kudritzki said the Institute generally doesn't file lawsuits against data centers; its goal is to help the industry rather than cause it problems. But it has asked some facilities to make clear that they are not Uptime certified, with some success.

In the meantime, he said, customers should ensure they know what level of service they're paying for. The Institute keeps an up-to-date list of the data centers that are design certified and construction certified on its website.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

Google wins digital library legal battle

Google has defeated a legal action mounted to stop it scanning and uploading millions of books.

In 2005, the US Authors Guild sued Google alleging that its plans to create a digital library amounted to massive copyright infringement.

In its defence, Google said its plans constituted "fair use" because it was only putting excerpts of texts online.

US judge Denny Chin has now sided with Google and dismissed the case brought by the Guild.
Long fight

Judge Chin accepted Google's argument that its scanning project was "fair use" adding that the project provides "significant public benefits".

The decision could be a significant milestone for the long-running legal battle between Google, the Authors Guild and US publishers. Both the publishers and authors started legal action over the scanning project in 2005.

Initially, authors and publishers negotiated with Google together. This led to a settlement agreement in 2008 that would have involved Google paying $125m (£78m) into a fund that would be used to compensate the writers of copyrighted works that appeared in the online library. The agreement also placed restrictions on how much of a book Google could make searchable.

In March 2011, the settlement agreement was thrown out by a US court which said it gave Google a "de facto monopoly" to copy books.

This led US publishers to negotiate separately and they reached an agreement with Google in October 2012. Financial terms of that deal have not been released.

The latest decision denies the copyright claim brought by US authors. Neither Google nor the Authors Guild have commented on the decision.

In April 2013, Google said it had scanned more than 30 million works ready for inclusion in its digital library

Microsoft abandons employee-ranking system

Microsoft is abandoning a ranking system that has been blamed for hampering innovation and pitting employees against one another.

Employees learned of the move in an email from Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's executive vice president of human resources, on Tuesday.

The system, known as "stack ranking," has become emblematic of much that is wrong with Microsoft's corporate culture.

Employees have called it the most destructive process inside the company, blaming it for crippling Microsoft's ability to innovate, according to a Vanity Fair article, "Microsoft's Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant," published in June last year.

Stack ranking forced managers to give a predetermined proportion of employees in a team a top, fair or bad annual review, even when all team members did an excellent job.

This led to employees competing with each other instead of competing with other companies, according to one developer cited by Vanity Fair.

Now, though, Microsoft has decided to stop the ranking system, Brummel told employees via email on Tuesday. The email was shared with IDG News Service by Microsoft's German corporate communications department on Wednesday.

"I am pleased to announce that we are changing our performance review program to better align with the goals of our One Microsoft strategy. The changes we are making are important and necessary as we work to deliver innovation and value to customers through more connected engagement across the company," she wrote.

Stopping the rating system was one of the changes made: "No more ratings. This will let us focus on what matters -- having a deeper understanding of the impact we've made and our opportunities to grow and improve," Brummel wrote.

Microsoft will also stop its pre-determined targeted distribution rewards program, she wrote, adding that managers will have flexibility to allocate rewards in the manner that best reflects the performance of their teams and individuals, as long as they stay within their compensation budget. This will make it easier for managers to allocate rewards, she said.

'Lover Spy' hacker makes FBI 'most wanted' list

A man who allegedly created malware purporting to catch out cheating lovers has made it on to the FBI's "most wanted" list of cybercriminals.

The FBI says Carlos Enrique Perez-Melara ran a website offering customers a way to "catch a cheating lover" by sending spyware masquerading as a greeting card.

Opening the card downloaded the malware on to the recipient's computer and recorded keystrokes and messages.

The "Lover Spy" program cost $89 (£55).

Mr Perez-Melara was indicted in July 2005 but has avoided capture ever since, only now making it on to the FBI's most wanted list.

He ran the operation from his San Diego home in 2003, the FBI says, while he was in the US on a student travel visa.

The charges against Mr Perez-Melara, 33, included making, sending and advertising an interception device, and unlawfully intercepting electronic communications.

The indictment said Lover Spy was designed "with stealth in mind, claiming that it would be impossible to detect by 99.9% of users".

But Mr Perez-Melara has avoided the authorities ever since and his last known location was San Salvador, the FBI said.

The agency appears to have added the hacker to its list partly out of frustration at his elusiveness.

"These are sophisticated folks who know how to hide themselves on the internet,'' said John Brown, who oversees the FBI's cyber-division.

The agency has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

According to the 2005 indictment, Mr Perez-Melara sold the malware to 1,000 customers, who then used it to infect the computers of about 2,000 victims.

Victims took the bait about half the time, the government said.

People who bought the spyware were charged with illegally intercepting electronic communications.

MTN Cautions Customers on New SIM Swap Fraud

 There is a new SIM Swap fraud currently going on, and MTN Nigeria has warned its customers to beware of such fraud being perpetrated by some individuals, with the intent to dupe unsuspecting telephone subscribers.

According to MTN, the deception, which has been noticed in jurisdictions outside Nigeria, is similar to ‘phishing’ and its sole aim is to mislead telephone subscribers into divulging personal information that could later be used to defraud them.

In the latest incidents, the individuals behind the deception initiate calls to telephone subscribers, purporting to be staff of a telecoms service provider and request sensitive personal information from the telephone subscribers. Unsuspecting subscribers who willingly provide information will subsequently become victims of illegal SIM swaps, paving the way for online banking fraud and international calling theft.

Corporate Services Executive, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Akinwale Goodluck, who gave the warning recently, said “As a responsible corporate citizen, MTN is always on its toes. We are obliged to alert our customers of all the possible ways in which their personal or financial security can be compromised by unscrupulous elements, through the fraudulent use of our platform.”

Goodluck said while it is not unusual for some customers to occasionally receive calls from MTN Customer Care, to verify information on SIM registration, he stressed that such calls would only be made from one dedicated number.

“That number is 180. Anything short of that is suspect, and customers should be careful. Also, we will never call, send emails or text messages asking anyone to divulge sensitive security information such as their MTN Security Number, bank details or ATM PINs,” he said.

He urged customers to utilise their unique MTN Security Number, which he said, was designed to prevent identity theft and further safeguard the confidentiality of all MTN customers.

“The security number comprises a 12-digit Customer Identification Number as well as a four-digit Security Key, all of which are totally unique and personal to each customer. These numbers were dispatched to customers via SMS. Customers who did not receive theirs or those who do not remember theirs are advised to visit any of the MTN Walk-in Centres.”

Goodluck advised customers to keep their security numbers secret and never divulge them to anyone. “Beyond securing customers’ confidentiality, the MTN Security Number also enables customers on the MTN network to resolve by themselves, basic issues they may have with their MTN lines. Customers may do so by calling the MTN Customer Care line - 180 or through the internet at mtnonline.com," he said.

Porn-surfing corporate bosses infect networks, then keep data breaches a secret

57% of U.S. enterprise malware investigations involve data breaches that are never disclosed, with many executives surfing to infected porn sites.

The boss may know better -- the dreaded do as I say, not as I do -- but 40% of malware infections on corporate senior executives' PCs came from visiting infected porn sites. According to a blind survey of 200 security professionals, more than half, or 57%, have investigated data breaches that were kept a secret from customers, partners or stakeholders.Porn-surfing corporate bosses infect networks, then keep data breaches a secret


As if IT pros don't have enough to do, it's often the boss that is causing the problems. The survey [pdf], commissioned by ThreatTrack, found that bosses, or senior leadership, end up with malware on their PC or mobile device by:

    56% clicked on a malicious link in a phishing email.
    47% attached an infected device to a corporate PC.
    45% let a familiy member uses a company computer.
    40% surfed to a malware-infected porn site.
    33% installed a malicious app.

Who hides the truth about data breaches?

Smaller companies with less than 50 employees are the least likely to hide a data breach, but still 18% from smaller corporations are not disclosed. Two-thirds, or 66%, of U.S. corporations with more than 500 employees do not report data breaches. The survey of IT professionals found that utility and manufacturing companies are the most likely industries to hide that they've been hacked. Breaches go unreported in:

    79% of manufacturing and utility companies
    57% of IT and Telecom industries
    56% of healthcare

Biggest hindrances to combating cyberattacks

Although 40% of corporate IT professionals who worked on a data breach reported they do not have enough highly-skilled personnel on staff to combat cyberattacks, 58% blame ineffective anti-malware solutions. 35% of IT pros responded that the lack of automated malware analysis tools are a "pain point" when it comes to defending against sophisticated threats.

ThreatTrack graph on malware attacks

Time it takes to analyze new malware

Only 4% of security professionals can analyze a new malware sample in less than an hour. 45% said it takes between one to two hours; 39% said the analysis requires two to five hours; 14% reported it takes between five and eight hours to analyze.

IT security budgets and data breaches




The size of IT security budgets also plays a part in data breaches that go unreported. 76% of U.S. enterprises that spend between $500,000 and $10 million on IT security do not disclose data breaches to customers. 37.5% of corporations with an IT security budget of over $10 million do not report data breaches. 30% of companies that spend less than $500,000 on IT security do not disclose breaches.

"Not only are unreported compromises doing a disservice to customers, they may even be inhibiting proper attention that needs to be placed on the cybersecurity industry in general," concluded ThreatTrack [pdf]. Furthermore, security pros "face enough challenges trying to protect their companies’ networks from external threats. They certainly don’t need internal forces hindering those efforts. Yet that seems to be what’s happening, with senior executives who let family members use corporate PCs and can’t keep away from pornographic websites."

Hey Samsung, Don't Look Back, Apple May Be Gaining On You

Objective truth is the kind of information that isn’t open to much interpretation. Apple , for example, shipped 33.8 million iPhones last quarter, a big boost from the 26.9 million in the equivalent period last year. No reasonable person would argue with that. Furthermore, while the total count of phones shipped worldwide varies depending on who does the counting, it’s fair to say two things that are also objectively true: Apple gained market share in phone sales and Apple lost share… in smartphone sales. The latter category soared 45% to 250 million according to Strategy Analytics, so Apple’s 26% increase wasn’t enough to keep pace, leading to an overall 13.4% share in smartphones. But in total phones, which grew by just 7% to 417 million, Apple actually went from 6.9% to 8.1% as sales of featurephones declined in favor of smartphones. All that is stuff you just accept as fact.

Leveling the phone field

But subjective truth is a trickier beast because it tells a more nuanced story that might read as follows: Apple is gaining market share in all smartphone segments in chooses to compete in, at the expense of everyone including Samsung. Wait what? Samsung is selling a ton of smartphones, including around 85 million in the last quarter alone, according to Canalys. That’s obviously far more than Apple’s paltry 33.8 million! Yes, it is, but by way of analogy, Samsung says everything from the Nissan Versa of smartphones to the Mercedes S-Class while Apple only offers models that represent things from Acura up to Mercedes. And Samsung admits that its high-end smartphones aren’t growing much (or quite possibly at all). Thanks to some excellent analysis at AppleInsider, I was alerted to the recent Samsung earnings report where Samsung itself says: “High-end model shipments stayed at similar levels [quarter over quarter].” Similar levels doesn’t sound like Apple’s 26% growth does it?

So if Apple is growing in premium phones and Samsung isn’t, could it be possible that Apple is actually taking share from everyone else, too? It seems quite likely. Consider that Nokia also had strong market-share growth on the quarter, but the average Lumia sold to carriers for less than $150 — more than $400 less than Apple’s average selling price. While U.S. marketing might give the impression that the high-end Lumia 1020 is making inroads, the reality is that Nokia is gaining share with bargain-basement pricing of its decent, inexpensive models. That market share is coming from someone not named Apple, which offers nothing at those prices. No one else gaining share is selling anything above $400; Apple sells nothing below.

Samsung, for its part is targeting sales of 126 million “premium models” in 2014, which is significantly below the 150 million Apple sold in the category last fiscal year. While growth predictions are inherently a dangerous thing, it seems likely Apple will reach at least 180 million this coming year, nearly 50% higher than Samsung’s total. It’s important to note two things here. First, no one is suggesting this is the right strategy for the long run. Second, in the short run, Apple will make more profit than Samsung doing this, as it has every year since iPhone sales started to meaningfully take off. If, as expected, Apple introduces a larger-screen iPhone in the coming year, it will close a major hole in its product offering and likely capture an even larger share of profits.

CEO Tim Cook likes to talk about Apple’s lack of obsession with market share, but he may be sandbagging a bit. The truth is Apple’s share is growing in the U.S. and U.K. If the emerging markets and lower-performing economies where Apple seems to be doing poorly were segmented by premium and non-premium, the picture might be different there too. In other words, Apple might be obsessing about market share of the markets and segments it wants share in. Expect Apple to edge its pricing lower over time to compete for more customers (the iPhone used to sell for nearly $100 more on average than it does now), but don’t expect a radical change in a strategy that — for Apple — is working precisely as intended.

Tablets too?

A similar situation exists in tablets, though Apple probably sees Samsung as an even more important competitor than it does in phones. The reason is that Samsung’s tablets tend to be a bit cheaper than Apple’s, but it doesn’t offer anything truly low end, like the $100-200 tablets that are proliferating in Asia. Nor does Samsung offer the priced-at-cost models that Amazon and Google have tried to establish, at least in part to harm Apple’s margins on iPad. But some data suggests that strategy may be flagging as well. Both the new Nexus 7 and the Kindle HDX are running below the equivalent models from a year ago, according to the only sometimes reliable DigiTimes.  The report suggests both are losing ground despite very attractive pricing and improved hardware.

That’s not good news for either given Apple just began shipping the new iPad Air and the Retina iPad Mini is coming in about 2 weeks. Further, Apple again reminded listeners to its latest earnings report that both corporations and education customers overwhelmingly prefer the iPad to competing tablets. So while the headline numbers read, “iPad Market Share Slips Below 30 Percent,” it’s not clear Apple even perceives the market that way. In that latest IDC report, 35% of the market was “other,” which consists almost entirely of inexpensive models that neither Samsung nor Apple compete with. For Apple, it’s probably more accurate to say, “Apple 30%, Samsung 20%… Good, but we can do better.” Whether the new models allow for that will be determined in the coming quarters.

This will likely be read by Apple critics as some kind of defense of the company’s increasingly weak position in a competitive market. It is and isn’t. There’s a strong argument for Apple pursuing at least somewhat more market share and that argument has been made in this space several times before. A simplistic version of it goes like this: Apple ought to cut $100 off the price of every iPhone and iPad it sells. It would make up in volume what it lost in margins. But until its situation actually deteriorates or it changes course to follow such a path, it’s fair to characterize the status quo as nowhere near as dire as the doomsaying headlines make it out to be. And it’s fair to characterize Apple’s market share as stronger than it seems at first glance. At least subjectively.

Nigeria Encourages Increased Female Participation In ICT

 Nigeria has launched the “SmartWoman Nigeria” and “1000 Girls in Training” programmes to encourage more female participation and skills development in ICT.

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Technology (FMCT) on Monday partnered with Huawei, a leading global ICT solutions provider to kick-start the “1000 Girls in Training” Programme.

Within a year, the three-day programme is expected to train 1000 unemployed girls in Telecommunication Networks, Transmission Network and GSM, LTE, WCDMA and other ICT skills – which will enhance their employment opportunities.

On completion of the first phase which began on Monday, the top 200 students will be trained to become Huawei Certified Network Associates.

The Ministry also launched the “SmartWoman Nigeria” initiative in collaboration with US-based social enterprise, ChangeCorp and WIMBIZ to empower Nigerian women and girls in ICT.

“Smart Woman Nigeria” is targeted at low- to middle-income urban and high-income rural women business owners to help them harness the power of mobile communication tools provided by ICTs in the areas of communication, banking, finance, health, and family work/life balance issues.

Featured at the first meeting of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development Working Group on Gender in Mexico City, the SmartWoman initiative was developed by US based social enterprise, ChangeCorp.

Speaking at the launching of the programmes, Nigeria’s Minister of Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson said it is time to remove gender imbalance in ICT adoption and appropriation.

According to the minister, ICTs have the transforming power to accelerate the development of women by helping them to be more efficient and effective in their jobs, careers, and businesses and to generate new employment opportunities.

She posits that through software development and innovation, ICT has the unlimited potential to significantly contribute to increasing the social welfare of women.

Vice President of Huawei West Africa, Hover Gao, corroborated the Minister saying: “The programme was part of Huawei’s commitment to localisation, technology transferring to Nigeria and employment promotion.”

Gao said “Huawei and FMCT orientation programme on ICT Basic Knowledge for female students is not a one time off event. On the contrary, Huawei and FMCT will develop this campaign into a long-term project.”

“The training also enables us to create an ICT talents pool and some of the trainees will become Huawei employees”, he added.

Meanwhile, the FMCT also plans to launch the ICT Girls Clubs by January, 2014, in partnership with two recognized NGOs (Women in Technology in Nigeria WITIN and Women Empowerment Centre WTEC) in selected schools across the country’s six geo-political zones.

Its goal is to ensure more girls embrace and adopt careers in ICTs.

The Clubs will teach animation, website development, blogging, software development, graphics design, games, computer programming et al.

Google Apps, once a leader, faces growing cloud app rivals

When Google Apps arrived in 2006, it stood on the cutting edge of Web-hosted email and collaboration suites for businesses, a bold pioneer clearing a path in the new, wild frontier of enterprise cloud computing.

Seven years later, complacency has diluted that innovative spirit, and Google Apps now trails competing suites from IBM, Cisco and Microsoft in areas like enterprise social networking (ESN) and unified communications (UC).

Although Google improves Apps continually, the suite's main draw remains its Gmail component, as has been the case from the beginning. But is cloud email still enough to attract prospective customers and retain existing ones? Is Google leaving Apps vulnerable to rivals by taking its time boosting its ESN and UC capabilities?

One company eyes rival Office 365

At healthcare company Schumacher Group, Google Apps is at risk of losing its place to Microsoft's Office 365. The Lafayette, Louisiana, company uses Apps to provide email to about 3,000 independent contractor doctors and Microsoft Exchange on premises for its full-time employees.

After relying on Apps for about four years, Schumacher Group is taking a close look at Office 365, which comes with online versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office, said Schumacher CIO Douglas Menefee.

"We're evaluating Office 365 and Google Apps, and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of both products," he said. "Microsoft has made great strides with Office 365. The sleeping giant awoke two years ago."

Menefee was referring to the launch of Office 365 in 2011, when Microsoft finally released a cloud email and collaboration suite that was comparable to Google Apps. "We have seen a major shift in the maturity of Microsoft's cloud-based products," he said. "They seem to be gaining a lot of traction."

Currently, Schumacher Group uses an on-premises Lync server for unified communications, and Salesforce.com's Chatter for ESN.

Customers want more

Even new customers adopting Apps with unbridled enthusiasm want Google to know they expect it to continue developing the suite in innovative ways.

That's the case at Whirlpool, the home appliances giant, which recently announced plans to migrate from an IBM Lotus Notes system to Google Apps. Getting cloud email and other basic productivity functions wasn't what tilted the scales in favor of Apps.

"Email and calendaring are commodity services," said Whirlpool CIO Michael Heim. "You don't do this kind of implementation just for email and calendaring."

In fact, Whirlpool, which will deploy Google Apps to about 30,000 employees worldwide, hopes to reduce its reliance on email. "If we could make email go away, we would, because there are better ways to work, and that's what's exciting for us," he said.

BlackBerry ditches CEO and accepts $1B loan from Fairfax, others

BlackBerry will change its CEO and accept a US$1 billion loan from a consortium involving shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings as it struggles with inventory and strategy problems. The company has abandoned plans to sell itself.

CEO Thorsten Heins will resign when the deal is complete, with former Sybase CEO John S. Chen joining the company as chairman and interim CEO, BlackBerry announced Monday.

The $1 billion loan takes the form of convertible debentures, exchangeable for shares at a price of $10, a 28.7 percent premium over Friday's closing price, the company said. Fairfax has agreed to acquire $250 million of the debentures, with other institutional investors agreeing to take the rest. If all the debentures were converted, they would amount to around 16 percent of outstanding shares, BlackBerry said. In addition, the investors could purchase another $250 million of debentures, potentially raising their combined stake to 19.2 percent.

In September, Fairfax made a conditional offer of around $9 per share, valuing BlackBerry at around $4.7 billion, although it had not obtained financing for the deal at that time. The new arrangement puts a higher value on the company, but means Fairfax has to find less money to finance the deal.

BlackBerry thanked Heins for establishing a more efficient cost structure and overseeing delivery and adoption of the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES

Acer CEO resigns as company plans restructuring and layoffs

 Acer CEO J.T. Wang is resigning from his post at the Taiwanese PC maker and will be replaced by president Jim Wong as part of a corporate restructuring that will try to revitalize the company's sagging fortunes.

Citing the company's recent run of poor financial results, Wang said in a statement on Tuesday: "It is time for me to hand over the responsibility to a new leadership team to path the way for a new era."

Wang will remain as company chairman until the end of his tenure in June, while Wong will take over as CEO at the start of next year.

Along with the departure of Wang, Acer will cut employee numbers by 7 percent, resulting in annual savings of US$100 million from next year.

However, the company will take a one-time accounting charge of US$150 million related to the reduction in staff and a "product plan termination", Acer said without elaborating.

In addition, a newly formed advisory committee will propose changes to the company's strategy pending approval from Acer's board of directors. Following the changes, Acer intends to introduce more competitive products in the PC, tablet and smartphone space to stabilize its market share, the company said.

The shakeup comes as PC shipments continue to decline, partly as a result of competition with tablets and smartphones that are more in demand. Acer has been one of the PC vendors worst hit by the downturn, resulting in quarterly losses.

On Tuesday, the company reported its third quarter earnings, posting a NT$13.1 billion (US$445 million) loss for the period. Revenue, at NT$92.2 billion, was also down year over year by 11.8 percent.

Wang started as CEO for Acer back in 2005, and has been at the company for over two decades. He briefly gave up his position as CEO to Gianfranco Lanci from 2008 to 2011 only to return to try to revive the company's struggling PC business.

So far, however, the company has yet to find much success, especially as response to Microsoft's Windows 8 PC operating system remains tepid. In the third quarter, Acer's PC shipments fell by 35 percent year over year, according to research firm IDC. To diversify, Acer is releasing more Android tablets, smartphones, and even putting the Google operating system on desktops.

Acer's Jim Wong has also been at the company for decades, having joined in 1986. In an interview last year, Wong said he wanted Acer to focus more on creating innovative products, rather than focusing solely on market share.

Hacker tests biometric device by implanting "Circadia 1.0" in his arm

Seeing the finished product in place is not for the faint of heart, but the “Circadia 1.0,” an open-source biometric device that has been implanted in a hacker's arm, appears to work.

According to Tim Cannon, a biohacker and developer at Pittsburgh-based Grindhouse Wetware, the device lighting up his arm is capable of recording an individual's temperature and uploading the data via Bluetooth to any Android device.

On Friday, online tech and science magazine Motherboard published an article and video about the biochip implant, which was surgically placed in Cannon's arm without anesthesia by body modification artist Steve Haworth.
According to its website, Grindhouse Wetware was founded in early 2012 as a means of "augmenting humanity" through the development of open source technology.

BBM for Android and iOS is a smash hit, gets 20 million users in the first week

BBM for Android and iOS has been downloaded by 20 million users within its first week of release, never mind the initial issues BlackBerry stumbled upon in late September. For those who don’t remember, the company was forced to pull the app from Google Play Store when an unfinished version of it went live by mistake. Within a space of 8 hours, the leaked messenger tool had 1.1 million active users.

BBM

But the bumpy launch of BBM has apparently done little to discourage people from getting it. BlackBerry has taken to its official company blog to boast about 20 million downloads within a week of its release. The figures include iOS as well as Android device owners. This brings the total number of active BBM users to 80 million a month.

It’s the first time that the messenger app has gone cross platform and it was greeted by an enthusiastic 10 million downloads within 24 hours of launch. To think of the millions of fans the company had been ignoring all these years by restricting the application to BlackBerry phones only! It is free for the present, but who knows if it’ll go the WhatsApp way and charge users a minimal fee in the future?

BlackBerry has taken care to ensure we notice a ‘hidden gem’ in the software – a sharing option which eases the process of adding contacts to BBM. There’s also this dedicated portal which allows iOS and Android users to share their PINs with others without breaking a sweat. But more than any of that, it’s the security the company offers that counts, right?

FBI on the hunt for eBay car 'fraudster'

The FBI has issued wanted posters for a man they say is behind an eBay car scam that has netted $3m (£1.8m).


Authorities in the US also want to track down six other fugitives in relation to the charges.

The gang were described as "masters of illusion" who convinced people to pay for cars that did not exist.

"They thought their distance would insulate them from law enforcement scrutiny. They were wrong," said US attorney Loretta Lynch.
Convincing scheme

The FBI put out a wanted poster for 33-year-old Romanian Nicolae Popescu, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

"They siphoned funds from victims to fuel their greedy desires and created false identities, fake websites and counterfeit certificates of title in order to make the scheme more convincing," said FBI Assistant Director, George Venizelos.

"Popescu and his co-conspirators were masters of illusion, but they can't escape their ultimate reality.

"With the help of our law enforcement partners at home and abroad, we will bring them to justice."

In a statement, eBay said: "We have partnered with law enforcement to alert consumers about the type of scams described in the indictment - which involve exploiting well-known, trusted brand names like eBay to attract consumers and then lure them onto fake websites and into fraudulent transactions.

"Auto shoppers can be confident in their purchase by ensuring they start and complete their transactions on eBay Motors and never use money wire services to send payments."
Romanian notoriety

In a recorded conversation, the FBI said Mr Popescu boasted that he was "beyond the reach" of US authorities.

As well as eBay, the gang is said to have used Cars.com, AutoTrader.com, and CycleTrader.com to sell the non-existent cars, usually priced between $10,000 (£6,150) and $40,000 (£24,700).

"After the 'sellers' reached an agreement with the victim buyers, they would often email them invoices purporting to be from Amazon Payments, PayPal, or other online payment services, with instructions to transfer the money to the US bank accounts used by the defendants," an FBI statement explained.

Romania has gained increasing notoriety as a hub for cybercrime.

A report from technology magazine Wired detailed a town dubbed "Hackerville" by locals - where cybercriminals are said to learn their craft at an early age.

How your compiler may be compromising application security

Researchers at MIT develop a tool to identify code that your compiler may inadvertently remove, creating vulnerabilities

Compilers: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em - at least not if you write code for a living. Compilers are great at taking your hand crafted human-readable program, translating it into machine code and, in the process, optimizing it so it runs as efficiently as possible. Sometimes, though, as new research from MIT points out, in their zeal to optimize your code, compilers can go too far and remove code that they shouldn’t, which can make the system or application more vulnerable.

Four researchers in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in a paper which is to be presented next week at the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, looked at the problem of optimization-unstable code, which is code that gets removed by a compiler because it includes undefined behavior. Undefined behavior is code which can behave unpredictably, such as dividing by zero, null pointer dereferencing and buffer overflows. Unlike other code, compiler writers are free to deal undefined behavior however they wish. In some cases, they choose to eliminate it completely, which can lead to vulnerabilities if the code in question contains security checks.

The MIT researchers studied a dozen common C/C++ compilers to see how they dealt with undefined code. They found that, over time, compilers are becoming more aggressive in how they deal with such code, more often simply removing it, even at default or low levels of optimization. Since C/C++ is fairly liberal about allowing undefined behavior, it is more susceptible to subtle bugs and security threats as a result of unstable code.

British man charged with hacking NASA and US military computers

The Briton allegedly worked with others in Australia and Sweden to plant backdoors and steal confidential data.

The U.S. government needs to answer for human rights abuses related to the National Security Agency's massive worldwide surveillance of Internet communications and telephone records, privacy advocates told an international human rights board Monday.

The NSA is conducting surveillance on "hundreds of millions" of people worldwide, said Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, speaking to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), part of the Organization of American States (OAS).

"The government has sought to justify this mass surveillance on national security grounds, yet official reports indicate that the NSA has conducted surveillance of the communications of world leaders , of allied foreign powers, U.N. and E.U. offices, foreign corporations and endless numbers of innocent Americans and foreign nationals," Watt continued.

Press reports this year on the surveillance programs raise questions about unchecked authority and the effect on freedom of speech, added Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on the freedom of expression at the United Nations. Secret surveillance programs will "inevitably" lead to abuses, he said.

"What is not permissible, from a human rights point of view, is that those who hold political power or those who are in security agencies ... decide by themselves, for themselves, what is going be the scope of breaching the right to privacy," La Rue said.

Members of the IACHR asked pointed questions of a U.S. delegation, but Lawrence Gumbiner, deputy permanent representative of the U.S. to the OAS, said the U.S. did not have time to prepare a response for the board. A half-month partial government shutdown earlier in October prevented U.S. officials from gathering the needed materials after they were given notice of the hearing in late September, he said.

The U.S. will respond to the commission's questions in writing, Gumbiner said.

IACHR Commissioner Rodrigo Escobar Gil of Colombia chided Gumbiner for using the government shutdown as an excuse for not responding to the hearing, which was initiated by an ACLU request. The U.S. delegation missed an "important opportunity" to explain its surveillance programs and provide transparency, he said.

Escobar Gil also questioned the scope of the NSA surveillance. Nations have the right to conduct surveillance to project themselves, but they should not have "absolute power to do so," he said. "It must be subject to restrictions, rules, procedures."

Some estimates have the NSA conducting surveillance on 1 billion people, Escobar Gil said. "What are the limits?" he said. "The first question is whether there is actually such broad leeway to be able to surveil such a wide range of people, or are there limits? What are the restraints on that power?"

Five Microsoft services to make any business smarter (including yours)

Device management, basic server infrastructure, SEO analytics, and more are available for affordable subscription prices.

Microsoft's operating system may be the primary engine in most businesses, but there is a world outside Windows. Microsoft offers an array of services that address some of the most common headaches small businesses face and enable them to operate like much bigger organizations. Here are five of the gems.

1. Office 365

You can buy Office 365 Small Business Premium for only $150 per user per year. That's less than the cost of a single Office 2013 Professional license, but it allows you to install the full Office 2013 Professional suite on up to five devices--including iPhones and Android smartphones.

But Office 365 is more than Microsoft Office in the cloud. Office 365 Small Business Premium also includes Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, which give you a complete business infrastructure without the cost and overhead of buying and maintaining your own servers. Plus, Microsoft manages the server back-end. It's like getting an IT department thrown in for free.

2. Power BI

Data is power. Power BI, Microsoft's business intelligence service, lets you analyze and leverage data through a tool most businesses are already comfortable with--Excel. You can create analytical models, build interactive visualizations, and more.

You can also share insights with other team members, track who is accessing what data, and see which data sets are used most. Power BI is included in an Office 365 subscription.

3. Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials

Many businesses are too small to have a dedicated IT department and lack the skills and resources required to manage Windows Servers. The Catch-22 for these businesses, though, is that their needs exceed the capabilities of the Windows desktop OS as well.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials provides an affordable, simple server option for businesses with 25 to 50 users. It's a stepping stone that takes your business from a random group of separate Windows PCs, to a more capable business network. Instead of having individual users back up their own PCs (which is likely a pipe dream anyway), Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials can automatically back up client computers to a central location--a lifesaver in the event that a laptop with crucial information is lost or stolen. You can also easily restore entire PCs or specific files or folders as needed.

You can use Remote Web Access to connect with company data and resources over an encrypted connection from virtually anywhere. The Remote Web Access interface is designed to be a touch-friendly experience, allowing users to connect from any Web-enabled device.

Using Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials gives your business the ability to manage and protect data, implement and enforce policies on endpoint PCs, and more, without requiring a full-time IT administrator or Windows Server guru to run it.

4. Windows Intune

The BYOD movement is particularly advantageous for small businesses, so you need a tool that lets you reap the benefits while mitigating the risks. Windows Intune gives your business a unified platform for managing both PCs and mobile devices running Windows, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, iOS, and Android. The service lets you implement policies, distribute software, and track device inventory from one Web-based console.

A single license of Windows 8.1 costs $120 in the Microsoft Store. For a little more than that--per year--you can subscribe to Windows Intune with Software Assurance ($11 per user per month), which includes licensing for Windows 8.1 Enterprise (or whatever the current Windows OS is). You can also subscribe to just Windows InTune without the Windows license for $6 per user per month.

5. Bing Webmaster SEO reports

SEO is part science and part dark art. It's also crucial for ensuring your website ranks high and attracts traffic. But understanding search-engine algorithms and mastering SEO can be a full-time job.

Bing Webmaster Tools provides information in a way that non-Web gurus can understand, and lets you see how your Web pages rate. It generates reports based on a set of SEO best practices and helps you fine-tune your website with page-level recommendations. The Bing reports explain any potential issues and show a sample of pages affected by non-compliance with established SEO guidelines.

These five services just scratch the surface of Microsoft's offerings, but using them can save your business money and give you tools to operate more effectively and efficiently. More importantly, they'll put you on level playing field with much larger enterprises, and give your company a strategic edge over the competition.