Review: Apricorn's Aegis 3.0 portable drive offers an SSD option for better performance

Apricorn's Aegis Portable 3.0 is a handsome 2.5-inch, silver and black, USB 3.0 external drive with an integrated cable—and it ships in both hard-drive and SSD flavors. If that isn't a siren's call to see just how much of a performance boost you get from a solid-state drive in an external USB 3.0 enclosure, I don't know what is. Apricorn thoughtfully shipped us both versions so we could answer that call.

There's no outward difference between the SSD version (outfitted with a 256GB SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I) and the hard-drive model (which comes with a 1TB, 2.5-inch Toshiba MQ01ABD100), aside from the fact that the SSD version weighs an ounce or two less.

ROBERT CARDINThe Aegis Portable 3.0 comes in an attractive enclosure with an attached USB 3.0 cable.

The Lab ran both models through PCWorld's 10GB-file stress tests, copying data to and from a 16GB RAM drive, and the differences were as vivid as Apricorn's advertising claims—at least when writing data to the drives. The 256GB SSD version wrote our single 10GB file at 334 megabytes per second, which is almost three times faster than the hard-drive version's 115.5 MBps.

With a 10GB mix of small files and folders, the difference in write speed was even more pronounced: 102.7 MBps to 22.6 MBps. But 22.6 MBps is poky, even for a hard drive. We saw similarly subpar write performance from Apricorn's Aeigis Bio, so it might be the bridge controller. By way of comparison, Seagate's Wireless Plus 1TB wrote the same test file at 93 MBps, and other external USB 3.0 hard drives we've tested typically measure anywhere from 50 MBps to 80 MBps.

On the read tests, on the other hand, the drives finished in a near dead heat. Both the SSD version and the hard-drive version of the Aegis Portable 3.0 read the single 10GB file at 263 MBps. In the 10GB files-and-folder test, the hard-drive version actually edged out the SSD version 214 MBps to 212 MBps.

The superior write performance of the SSD versions of the Apricorn Aegis Portable 3.0 carries a hefty premium: The 256GB model costs $399 and the 512GB unit sells for $599, compared to just $79 for the 500GB, $109 for the 1TB, and $189 for 1.5TB versions. Clearly there's some pre-purchase contemplation to be done.

That said, the SSD version weighs significantly less than the hard-drive versions, making it a boon for those who like to travel light. And with no moving parts, the SSD version is not subject to damage from drops, bumps, and other physical impacts; you can be as ham-handed as they come and still not have to worry about hurting the drive.

The SSD-based Aegis Portable 3.0 is a nice product for those who regularly back up or copy files onto an external drive, and need to do so in a hurry. In other usage scenarios, you might be better off buying an external hard drive and saving your cash for other purchases.

Note: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that you can grab an unpopulated 2.5-inch USB 3.0 enclosure and populate it with a bare 256GB SSD for considerably less than $400. It might not come with an integrated cable or a carrying case, and you'd have separate warranties for the enclosure and the SSD, but you would save a lot of cash.

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Tackk review: Out of beta, still an excellent way to create simple websites

Tackk, the best way I know of to create one-page websites, has emerged from beta full of new features and surprises. It's the same Tackk you know and love (or should, if you don't already), except it's bigger and better. The platform is now easier to use, offers more personalization, and, in keeping up with the times, is also much more social.

In a nutshell, you can use Tackk to create good-looking websites for any occasion, as long as you don't need more than one page. You need not a shred of coding skills, and even design skills are almost unnecessary. This does not mean all Tackks look the same, though. Tackk's found the golden way to ensure all pages are beautiful, while giving you just the right amount of decision and personalization options.

All embed options are in the same place, and include a contact form, a payment widget, and more.

If you've used Tackk before, you won't be disoriented by the new design. Most options remain where they were, with the addition of a more streamlined creation process, taking you through the steps of designing your page. You can now choose from whole color palettes rather than just one base color, and the embedding options for videos and music now support additional services such as Rdio, 8Tracks and TED. One option I found missing is Instagram embeds, which are nowhere to be found in this version.

The highlight of the new Tackk, however, is in the social features. Unlike the beta version, which included very basic profile details and no social options to speak of, the new Tackk adds the community to the mix. Your new profile includes a photo, a short bio, and links to your personal website and social accounts. You can follow other users and like their Tackks, as well as share Tackks using a new and improved sharing widget. You will now have a username on Tackk, derived from the email you signed up with, which you can change through the settings if you wish. If you don't like all this social stuff, however, just make your Tackks private and forget about it.

The new Tackk profiles are much more elaborate, helping you promote your personal portfolio of Tackks.

A new tagging system makes categorizing and finding Tackks much easier. When searching for Tackks in the public Tackkboard, try searching for a tag or multiple tags to zoom into pages you're interested in. Aside from following users, you can also follow tags or combinations of tags, and remain updated on any new Tackks created under these categories.

When you search for Tackks, it's easy to find out more about them or share them with one click.

No website or service is complete these days without mobile support, and Tackk is no different. The new Tackk's design is completely responsive, letting you easily browse and create Tackks using your mobile or tablet. Tackk shines on bigger screens, especially when creating pages, but it's nice to have the option to work on your Tackks from anywhere. The new Tackk is still as awesome as always. It's still the best way there is to create single-page website. And now, it's a community too. Hurry up, before everyone hears about it.

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Google Nexus phones vulnerable to denial-of-service attack via SMS

Attackers could force phones from Google's Nexus line to reboot or fail to connect to the mobile Internet service by sending a large number of special SMS messages to them.

The issue was discovered by Bogdan Alecu, a system administrator at Dutch IT services company Levi9, and affects all Android 4.x firmware versions on Google Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. Alecu is presenting the vulnerability Friday at the DefCamp security conference in Bucharest, Romania.

Class 0 SMS, or Flash SMS, is a type of message defined in the GSM specification that gets displayed directly on the phone's screen and doesn't automatically get stored on the device. After reading such a message, users have the option to save it or dismiss it.

On Google Nexus phones, when such a message is received, it gets displayed on top of all active windows and is surrounded by a semi-transparent black overlay that has a dimming effect on the rest of the screen. If that first message is not saved or dismissed, and a second message is then received, the latter is placed on top of the first one and the dimming effect increases.

When such messages are received, there is no audio notification, even if one is configured for regular incoming SMS messages. This means that users receiving Flash messages won't know about them until they look at the phone.

Alecu found that when a large number of Flash messages—around 30—are received and are not dismissed, the Nexus devices act in unusual ways.

The most common behavior is that the phone reboots, he said. In this case, if a PIN is required to unlock the SIM card, the phone will not connect to the network after the reboot and the user might not notice the problem for hours, until they look at the phone. During this time the phone won't be able to receive calls, messages or other types of notifications that require a mobile network connection.

According to Alecu, a different behavior that happens on rare occasions is that the phone doesn't reboot, but temporarily loses connection to the mobile network. The connection is automatically restored and the phone can receive and make calls, but can no longer access the Internet over the mobile network. The only method to restore the data connection is to restart the phone, Alecu said.

On other rare occasions, only the messaging app crashes, but the system automatically restarts it, so there is no long term impact.

A live test at the conference performed on a Nexus 4 phone with the screen unlocked and running Android 4.3 did not immediately result in a reboot. However, after receiving around 30 class 0 messages the phone became unresponsive: Screen taps or attempts to lock the screen had no effect. While in this state, the phone could not receive calls and had to be rebooted manually.

A second attempt with the screen locked also failed to reboot the phone because only two of over 20 messages were immediately received. This may have been caused by a network issue or operator-imposed rate limiting. The messages did arrive later and the phone rebooted when unlocking the screen.

Alecu said that he discovered this denial-of-service issue over a year ago and has since tested and confirmed it on Google Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 phones running various Android 4.x versions, including the newly released Android 4.4, or KitKat.

Around 20 different devices from various vendors have also been tested and are not vulnerable to this problem, he said.

This doesn't exclude the possibility that some devices from other vendors are vulnerable, but so far it has only been confirmed on the previously mentioned Google Nexus phones.

Alecu claims he contacted Google several times since he found the flaw, but mostly got automated responses. Someone from the Android Security Team responded in July and said the issue would be fixed in Android 4.3, but it wasn't, Alecu said, adding that this contributed to his decision to disclose the problem publicly.

"We thank him for bringing the possible issue to our attention and we are investigating," a Google representative said via email.

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New Windows privilege escalation flaw exploited in active attacks

Attackers are exploiting a new and unpatched vulnerability in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that allows them to execute code with higher privileges than they have access to.

The vulnerability is located in NDProxy.sys, "a system-provided driver that interfaces WAN miniport drivers, call managers, and miniport call managers to the Telephony Application Programming Interfaces (TAPI) services."

"An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode," Microsoft said in a security advisory published Wednesday. "An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full administrative rights."

This is an elevation-of-privilege (EoP) vulnerability, not a remote code execution one, which means that attackers need to already have access to a low-privileged account on the targeted system in order to exploit it.

According to Microsoft, this vulnerability is already being exploited in "limited, targeted attacks," but doesn't affect Windows versions newer than Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

The company provided a temporary workaround that involves disabling NDProxy.sys, but this will cause certain services which depend on TAPI, like Remote Access Service (RAS), dial-up networking and virtual private networking (VPN), to no longer work.

Microsoft credited security vendor FireEye with helping the company investigate the new vulnerability, which is being tracked as CVE-2013-5065.

This EoP vulnerability is being exploited in attacks in conjunction with a remote code execution vulnerability in older versions of Adobe Reader that was patched in May, FireEye security researchers Xiaobo Chen and Dan Caselden said Wednesday in a blog post. The exploit targets computers running Adobe Reader on Windows XP with Service Pack 3, but users who have the latest versions of Adobe Reader installed should be protected, they said.

According to the FireEye researchers, if the exploit is successful, an executable file is dropped in the Windows temporary directory and is executed.

The exploit is used in targeted attacks, but the FireEye researchers are still investigating the method used to distribute it and the identity of the targets. The exploit installs malware that connects back to and communicates with a few hacked websites, the company said via email. However, other details about what the malware is designed to do have yet to be determined.

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Encrypted social network vies for disgruntled WhatsApp, Facebook users

With the look of Google Plus and Facebook-like elements, a new social network named "Syme" feels as cozy as a well-worn shoe.

But beneath the familiar veneer, it's quite different. Syme encrypts all content, such as status updates, photos and files, so that only people invited to a group can view it. Syme, which hosts the content on its Canada-based servers, says it can't read it.

"The overarching goal of Syme is to make encryption accessible and easy to use for people who aren't geeks or aren't hackers or who aren't cryptography experts," said co-founder Jonathan Hershon.

Hershon is part of a bright trio who have self-funded Syme's development while working out of their homes and studying at McGill University in Montreal. Hershon is studying psychology, Louis-Antoine Mullie is a medical student with a strong technology background, and Christophe Marois, who works on the user interface, studies music.

"We have very low operating costs," Hershon said.

A new social network, Syme, is hoping to attract users with a feel close to Google Plus and Facebook but with encrypted content viewable only to invited members of a group.

It may be the just the right time for Syme, which is now open to all after an invite-only beta trial. The technology industry, shaken by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden's revelations of large-scale surveillance efforts by the U.S. and U.K., is looking for better ways to shield user data from prying eyes.

Law enforcement agencies around the world are also increasingly filing requests for data to companies such as Facebook and Twitter, who are compelled by law to turn over data, sometimes without informing users.

Appropriate for a privacy-centered service, "Syme" is named after a character in 1984, George Orwell's chilling novel describing total state control. In the book, Syme was "vaporized" for being a free-thinking individual.

Syme's user interface is refreshingly free of clutter. A bell icon, which shows the number of unread notifications, and a cog icon, to adjust settings, are both very similar to Google Plus. It has a "Like" button, just like Facebook.

"We wanted to make something that people could easily recognize and feel at home with," Hershon said.

Although Syme has elements of Facebook and Google Plus, it is more of a group messaging tool along the lines of WhatsApp: A person creates a group and invites others, who receive the necessary decryption keys to see posted content.

A JavaScript-based browser extension encrypts content with a person's Web browser before it leaves the computer. Syme is using the Stanford JavaScript Crypto Library in its browser extensions, a vetted open-source cryptography component.

So far, Syme has built an extension for Google Chrome with ones for the Firefox and Safari browsers in the works, as well as mobile applications for iOS and Android, Hershon said.

Content remains scrambled as it traverses the Internet and is unreadable even to Syme, which stores the data on its servers. Co-founder Mullie authored a white paper describing Syme's use of a two-step, hybrid encryption system that is fast, secure and efficient.

Rather than foiling government-sponsored hackers, Syme is aimed more at providing greater privacy. For example, data destined for Syme could be intercepted if a person's computer was hacked.

While it can't read the content, Syme does store metadata, or information describing aspects of communications, which can be useful to interested parties.

People register Syme accounts using an email address, and Syme can see which users have communicated with each other. It also knows when posts were written, when someone connected to Syme and the size of transferred files or photos. Hershon cautions that Syme is undergoing peer review and should not relied on for the transmission of super-sensitive messages.

The profile of a potential Syme user is someone who wants more secure, but not bulletproof, communication without, say, Facebook's sprawl and exposure.

"People are actively looking for alternatives" to securely share information, Hershon said. "That's the need that we're trying to fill."

Marc Beaupre-Pham, a 25-year-old software developer in Montreal, said his friends are increasingly using lean mobile applications for communicating within small groups.

"We've all kind of fallen off of Facebook and almost exclusively use WhatsApp now," he said.

But Beaupre-Pham said he doesn't have much confidence in WhatsApp's security. In early October, a security researcher found a flaw in WhatsApp's cryptography implementation that could have allowed attackers to decrypt intercepted messages.

Syme is "like a perfect replacement," said Beaupre-Pham, who tested the service during the beta period with his wife.

It's unlikely Syme can displace Facebook or Google Plus since the power of those networks is the ability to virtually contact anyone on them, said Thomas Karpiniec, an electrical engineer programmer for a technology consultancy based in Hobart, Tasmania, who has blogged about Syme's architecture.

"I don't think it's able to really compete with traditional social networks, but I think privacy-minded groups of people who have fairly clearly defined boundaries might be able to use it to chat with each other easily," Karpiniec said in a phone interview.

It may also be attractive to smaller businesses without resources to deploy their own private social networking infrastructure or those that do not want to put their data in Google Apps or Microsoft's Office 365 or Outlook.com, Karpiniec said.

Hershon said Syme will be free for now, although it is considering creating a premium paid-for service targeted at industries such as health care, law and publishing.

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Amazon's Kindle Fire still a minor player in China's tablet market

Chinese users had to wait for over a year before Amazon.com officially brought its Kindle Fire tablet to the country back in June. But so far, shipments of the products have been very low as competition in the country's tablet sector continues to remain fierce.

In the third quarter, Amazon's tablet shipments reached 6,300 units in the country, up from 2,000 in the previous three-month period, according to research firm IDC. That put the company's market share at less than 1 percent in the country.

In June, Amazon officially launched its Kindle Fire HD tablet in China, starting at a low price of 1499 yuan ($244). In the previous months, the company introduced a localized version of its Kindle software to support Chinese languages.

In addition to offering the Kindle Fire on its own China site, Amazon is also selling the tablet through Suning, one of China's largest retailers, noted IDC analyst Dickie Chang. But Amazon is still in the early stages of its Kindle business, and facing stiff competition from rival brands and local vendors in the country, he added.

Amazon on Thursday declined to reveal sales figures for its Kindle Fire tablet, but said it was pleased with the product's performance in China and that customer demand had exceeded projections.

Analysts, however, said the Kindle Fire was probably struggling to stand out in the Chinese market. Despite the tablet's low price, little-known local vendors are selling even cheaper Android devices, said Wang Jun, an analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

"These vendors have high shipments numbers, and you can buy their tablets at just 300 yuan ($48)," Wang added. "So the Kindle Fire doesn't really have a huge advantage."

In the third quarter, research firm IDC said 39 percent of China's tablet market belonged to smaller vendors classified as "others". In total, these vendors shipped 2.6 million tablets to the country, up from 2.3 million in the previous quarter.

The big brands also saw rising shipments. Apple in the third quarter remained China's largest tablet vendor, with iPad shipments grabbing a 34 percent share. It's newest products, the iPad Air and iPad mini, launched in China this month and are expected to help boost the company's shipments in the fourth quarter.

Samsung Electronics was in second place with an 11 percent share, while Lenovo held on to the third spot with 8 percent of the market.

In total, 6.7 million tablets were shipped to the country during the period. Next year, IDC projects tablet shipments in China will surpass the country's shipments of portable PCs, but sales of desktops will continue to remain strong.

Amazon did not rank among the top five tablet vendors worldwide in the third quarter, according to IDC data.

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Steam Autumn Sale kicks off with massive discounts on great PC games

Attention gamers: You've now got yet another reason to say "Thanks" as you gobble down copious amounts of turkey and cranberry sauce. Yes, the Steam Autumn Sale is here.

Steam's Autumn Sale might not get as much attention as the service's summer and holiday sales, but the deals flow just as deeply. The fall festivities follow the standard Steam Sale outline, with general deals, daily deals, and 8 hour-long flash sales.

Don't sweat it if family keeps you occupied over the next couple of days, either, as the discounts will flow through Tuesday December 3. The picture below shows today's highlights.

Thursday's cheap games. (Click to enlarge.)

Yes, that's the full first season of the critically acclaimed Walking Dead for $6.49, and Antichamber and Sleeping Dogs are going for just a fiver. What are you waiting for? Say your thanks and go bask in the gaming gravy.

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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.

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Ericsson under investigation by India's antitrust agency over standard patents

India's antitrust agency is investigating allegations that Ericsson is demanding exorbitant royalty rates from an Indian mobile phone vendor for its standard-essential GSM patents.

A "hold-up" by the patent owner, in terms of a demand for higher royalties or more costly or burdensome licensing terms than could have been obtained before the standard was chosen, can subvert the competitive process of choosing among technologies and undermine the integrity of standard-setting activities, the Competition Commission of India said in its order.

Ultimately, the high costs of such patents get transferred to consumers, the CCI order said. Ericsson appears to be dominant in the GSM and CDMA markets in India and holds large number of patents in both mobile technologies, it added.

The Indian mobile phone company, Micromax Informatics, has alleged that Ericsson has sought royalty on the cost of the phones rather than on the value of the technology and chipset used in the phone, which seems to be contrary to guidelines for licensing patents covered under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, CCI said. Ericsson has also declined to share with Micromax commercial terms of FRAND licenses with licensees similarly placed as the Indian company, it added.

Ericsson filed in March a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court that alleged that Micromax had infringed eight of its patents without payment of any consideration.

The CCI said the pending civil suit in the court did not take away the agency's jurisdiction as it has the "obligation and jurisdiction to visit the issues of competition law."

Ericsson no longer sells mobile phones, only network infrastructure, having transferred its handset business into a joint venture now wholly owned by Sony. It claims over 30,000 patents worldwide, including many in the area of cellular telephony. The company has recently pursued revenue from patent licensing more aggressively, including through lawsuits.

The Swedish company said in a statement Thursday that it had made numerous attempts to sign a license agreement with Micromax on FRAND terms. "As this is on-going litigation we cannot comment any further," it added.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Link between 'Satoshi' bitcoin account and the Silk Road dissolves

A research paper speculating Bitcoin's creator may have transferred US$60,000 to the Silk Road marketplace has been dispelled, as the account holder in question came forward on Tuesday, denying he is the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.

Dustin Trammell, a security researcher who is CEO of the vulnerability marketplace ExploitHub, wrote in a blog post that the Israeli researchers failed in their analysis, which was subject to blistering criticism from the bitcoin community.

"I hope this puts to rest any further speculation regarding whether or not I am Satoshi Nakamoto and whether or not I have had any involvement with the Silk Road," Trammell wrote. "I am not and have not."

The paper was written by Adi Shamir and Dorit Ron of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Shamir is a noted cryptographer credited with co-creating the RSA encryption algorithm, which is widely used to protect corporate data.

In an email to IDG News Service, Shamir defended their work, writing that "we were extremely careful in our choice of words and repeatedly stressed that we have no proof."

But later on Wednesday, Shamir wrote in an email that after reading Trammell's blog post, the paper would be revised.

In four paragraphs at the end of their 13-page paper, Shamir and Ron described a 1,000-bitcoin transaction, worth around $60,000 at the time, sent in March. It came from a bitcoin account established just a week after the system launched in 2009, a so-called "founder" account.

Many of the early bitcoin accounts are believed to be controlled by the person who supposedly created Bitcoin, who used "Satoshi Nakamoto" as a pseudonym.

Their analysis claimed the virtual currency eventually ended up in another account belonging to DPR, short for "Dread Pirate Roberts," who controlled the Silk Road marketplace. U.S. federal prosecutors allege DPR is 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht, who faces murder-for-hire, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking charges.

Trammell wrote that he sent the 1,000 bitcoins to Mt. Gox, the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, "for trading purposes."

"Mt. Gox should be able to easily confirm that they indeed control this destination address," he wrote.

Trammell's explanation is "completely believable, and thus we no longer believe that the very early founder account we identified in the full bitcoin transaction graph belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto," Shamir wrote. "We will revise our paper accordingly."

Although the researchers hedged on the claim, their wording in the paper was strong enough to suggest that they might have spotted something stunning.

"The short path we found suggests (but does not prove) the existence of a surprising link between the two mysterious figures of the Bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto and DPR."

The paper touched off a firestorm of criticism on Reddit. By studying Bitcoin's public ledger of transactions, called the "blockchain," commentators quickly cast doubt on it.

"The paper is complete crap," wrote Jeff Garzik, a software engineer who has extensive experience with Bitcoin, in an email to IDG.

Bitcoin's blockchain is public and transparent, showing all transactions since the system was launched. But following the flow of bitcoins can get tricky, especially if "mixing" services are used, which create spider web-like transaction trails.

Gavin Andresen, chief scientist for the Bitcoin Foundation, said the FBI likely has deeper information on the Silk Road's transactions, some of which may not have been illegal.

"If I was an evil mastermind designing a bitcoin mixing service, I would certainly try to mix in perfectly innocent bitcoin transactions to try to hide the illegal activity," he wrote in an email.

Shamir said he and Ron followed well-established approaches in social science research for describing correlations, clearly stating "what is a scientific fact and what is an unproven conjecture."

But controversy over those last four paragraphs unfortunately undermined one of the paper's most interesting conclusions: that the FBI has only seized about 22 percent of the 633,000 or so bitcoins the Silk Road collected in commissions from facilitating contraband sales.

In his email, Shamir said Bitcoin enthusiasts do not like analyses that do "not fully support their beliefs." He also took a swipe at the media.

"It was the media reporting, and not our paper, which made this side issue a cornerstone of our paper," he wrote.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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UN panel passes draft resolution on privacy threats in the digital age

Following reports about U.S. surveillance worldwide, a United Nations panel adopted Tuesday a resolution on potential threats to human rights such as the right to privacy in the digital age.

The draft resolution, approved without a vote, would have the U.N. General Assembly call upon its members "to review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, interception and collection, with a view to upholding the right to privacy by ensuring the full and effective implementation of all their obligations under international human rights law."

It notes that new technologies that increase the ability for surveillance, interception and data collection by governments, companies and individuals "may violate or abuse human rights, in particular the right to privacy."

The mainly symbolic resolution was co-sponsored by Brazil and Germany, both countries whose leaders were reportedly spied on by the U.S. National Security Agency. German officials said in October that U.S. intelligence agencies may have spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. There have also been reports that the U.S. also spied on Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff among other leaders.

The resolution does not name the NSA or its surveillance programs, details of which were leaked since June by its former contractor Edward Snowden, but evidently reflects concerns among governments around the world on the impact of international surveillance on its people and leaders.

The draft resolution that will now go to the General Assembly next month has been watered down in some parts under pressure from the U.S. and some other countries, according to reports. A reference in the original proposal to concerns about potential "human rights violations and abuses" that may result in particular from "massive surveillance, interception and data collection" was, for example, modified. The NSA is accused of dragnet surveillance both in the U.S. and abroad.

Katitza Rodriguez, international rights director of digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a statement that although the resolution passed is not as strong as the original, it is "a meaningful and very positive step" for the privacy rights of individuals, regardless of their countries.

A group of human rights and privacy organizations worldwide launched Tuesday a petition in support of what they call "International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance." The document, which is also known as the "Necessary and Proportionate Principles," lists 13 policies that governments must follow to protect human rights in an age of digital surveillance. The signed petition will be submitted to the U.N., world leaders and policy makers.

Elizabeth Cousens, U.S representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said the country remains committed to working with all states to promote freedom of expression and privacy online. Cousens was explaining her government's position on the resolution. "In some cases, conduct that violates privacy rights may also seriously impede or even prevent the exercise of freedom of expression, but conduct that violates privacy rights does not violate the right to freedom of expression in every case," she added.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Google brings automatic voice search to computers running Chrome

Laptop and desktop users can now do a Google search without typing just by speaking aloud, with a Chrome extension that Google made available on Tuesday.

The browser extension, Google Voice Search Hotword, can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store and is available both for the desktop and laptops. Google designates it as being in beta.

The tool lets users perform a voice search by going to Google.com and saying, "OK Google," then speaking the search term. With the Thanksgiving holiday coming in the U.S., Google gave some cooking-related examples in an explanatory video: Users can say, "OK Google, compare olive oil and butter," or, "OK Google, what is five tablespoons in ounces?" (Answer: 2.5.)

Reminders can also be set with the service, so people can say, "OK Google, set a timer for 10 minutes," or, "Remind me to buy more olive oil on Sunday afternoon."

The active tab in the Chrome browser needs to be Google.com for it to work. But people can also conduct a new search directly from the search results page. Users will know they are good to go if the microphone icon in the search bar appears bold. To save on battery life, users can set the feature to stop listening after five minutes of inactivity.

There's more going on behind the scenes than just talk. Google is working to improve the ranking algorithms behind its search products to provide better answers when users ask more complex questions. When Google Search turned 15 years old earlier this year, the company rolled out some enhanced features such as comparisons and filters.

Google also previewed some of the new voice search functionalities at its I/O conference for developers this past May. The release of the voice search product is part of Google's larger efforts to build more natural language processing into search, to make the process seem as natural as possible.

During the I/O conference, Google Senior Vice President Amit Singhal likened the company's evolving search functionality to asking a friend for information.

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Can a celebrity news team help revive Yahoo?

Yahoo has been hiring hotshot journalists to boost its news cred, and Monday's addition of Katie Couric could help with the company's efforts to reinvigorate itself. But it has to get the content just right.

TV news anchor Katie Couric is headed to Yahoo.

The Internet company confirmed Monday it hired TV news anchor Katie Couric to lead its growing in-house news operation. She follows several other big-name grabs like The New York Times' technology columnist David Pogue and the Times' deputy news editor Megan Liberman.

The moves could give users more reasons to visit the site and help Yahoo sell more ads against its video news reports. But for that to happen, observers said, Yahoo's original news content needs to be just that: original.

To be successful online, you need to supply content that others aren't, said Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism training organization. "Yahoo needs to focus more on insights rather than personality," he said.

In a blog post, Mayer said Couric will lead a team of correspondents who will "cover the world's most interesting stories." But the name Katie Couric isn't synonymous with investigative reporting, according to Tompkins.

"I don't know what she will bring that Yahoo couldn't get somewhere else," he said.

Pogue, on the other hand, brings his own whimsical style to product reviews and technology analysis. He might be better poised to provide Yahoo with a unique voice that will prove popular with users.

Couric's career includes a 15-year run on NBC's The Today Show, but her ability to attract new users to Yahoo, especially the coveted younger crowd, is a big question.

One Twitter user summed up what others may be feeling about the Yahoo-Couric pairing. "I'm not so sure. Feel like they both peaked in the 90s," he wrote.

But if Couric is getting dusty, "maybe that's because television is going down the drain, not because she's lost her journalistic chops," said Karsten Weide, an industry analyst with IDC.

Even if broadcast TV isn't dead, the Internet is becoming a larger part of the mix. TV ratings company Nielsen now includes tweets in its analysis of shows. And Twitter is trying to position itself as a "second screen" to the TV, by encouraging its users to tweet about shows, and serving them targeted ads in response.

With Couric at the helm, Yahoo's expanded journalism operation adds another content stream to an already diversified company that includes search, advertising, email, photo-hosting with Flickr and social networking with Tumblr.

It's good that the company is working harder to provide original news instead of just aggregating what others deliver, analysts said. But original content does not guarantee success online. AOL has been trying it with Patch, which in recent months was hit hard by layoffs.

Yahoo's original news today includes a mix of frivolous and serious topics. Maybe Couric can expand the serious side, because Yahoo can probably manage frivolous on its own: "Dog rescued from 700 foot deep hole in South Africa," read one of the trending headlines Monday.

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Symantec: 'Blackshades' malware still being sold

Cybercriminals are increasingly using the "Blackshades" malware program whose source code was leaked three years ago, according to an analysis by Symantec.

Blackshades, which Symantec identifies as "W32.Shadesrat," has been infecting more Microsoft Windows computers and is being controlled by hundreds of command-and-control servers worldwide, which deliver instructions and receive information, wrote Santiago Cortes, a security response engineer at Symantec, in a blog post.

Blackshades is a remote access tool (RAT) that collects usernames and passwords for email and Web services, instant messaging applications, FTP clients and more. It has been sold on underground forums since at least 2010.

It's common for hackers to use remote access tools, which can be used to upload other malware to a computer or manipulate files. To avoid antivirus software, the programs are often frequently modified.

Lithuania and the U.S. have the highest number of command-and-control servers, Cortes wrote. Nearly all of those servers at one point have hosted exploit kits, a kind of booby trap that delivers malware to computers with software vulnerabilities.

India, the U.S. and the U.K. have the most computers infected with Blackshades, Cortes wrote.

"The distribution of the threats suggests that the attackers attempted to infect as many computers as possible," Cortes wrote. "The attackers do not seem to have targeted specific people or companies."

Earlier this year, Symantec wrote that a license to use Blackshades costs between $40 to $100 a year.

Last year, Symantec wrote that Blackshades had been promoted on underground forums by a person going by the nickname "xVisceral."

In June 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest of Michael Hogue in Tucson, Arizona. It alleged he went by the xVisceral nickname and sold RATs. Hogue was arrested with 23 others in a "carding" scheme, which involved trafficking in financial details.

Hogue entered a plea in the case in January, but it did not appear from the court file that he had been sentenced yet. He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking and distribution of malware.

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Judge refuses to stay Apple-Samsung lawsuit pending patent review

A court in California has ruled against Samsung Electronics' attempt to stay the proceedings in a patent dispute with Apple, agreeing with Apple that the procedure for reexamination of its patent could take years, and there was no certainty the result would benefit Samsung.

Samsung had asked for a stay in a damages retrial even as the jury had started deliberations. It informed the court that the examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had issued an "Advisory Action" finding all claims of the U.S. Patent no. 7,844,915 (the '915 patent) invalid. It described the Advisory Action as the examiner's final word on the invalidity of the patent.

Known as the "pinch-to-zoom" patent, the Apple patent is a key patent in the dispute between Apple and Samsung. It covers the ability to distinguish between the scrolling movement of one finger and two-finger gestures like pinch-to-zoom on a touch-screen to activate certain functions.

The jury would be deliberating on awarding damages on an invalid '915 patent for 12 of the 13 products at issue, Samsung said in its filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division.

Apple countered that the patent reexamination proceedings will not be final even at the USPTO level until the end of 2016 at the earliest. It reserved the option to subsequently appeal to the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and if unsuccessful, seek judicial review in an appeals court.

The damages retrial went ahead despite Samsung's emergency motion, and on Thursday the jury ordered Samsung to pay US$290 million to Apple for infringement of several of its patents in its smartphones and tablets. Judge Lucy H. Koh had ordered a retrial after vacating $450 out of $1.05 billion in damages awarded by a jury to Apple in August last year. She asked the new jury to recalculate the vacated part of the damages.

In her order on Monday, Judge Koh largely agreed with Apple's view of the options available with the company in the reexamination of the patent, including an appeal to the PTAB, and the option of appealing an adverse decision by the board in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

"Apple is correct that it is entitled to file a response to a 'final' rejection within the period allowed for response, and that the response may still result in the Examiner's withdrawal of the rejection or allowance/certification of the claims under reexamination." the Judge wrote.

Apple will also be affected by a stay as already one year and three months after the jury verdict, the company still has received no damages award as compensation because of the retrial, Judge Koh wrote. A stay of the entire case, pending a final decision on the '915 patent, "would thus substantially prejudice Apple," she added.

Rather than wait for a review after a USPTO decision and a PTAB review, it would be more efficient to move forward with post-trial motions concerning the damages retrial and enter a final judgment in the case so that the Federal Circuit may as soon as possible review the entire case on appeal including the validity of all of Apple's patents, the Judge wrote.

"If Samsung is truly concerned about efficiency, the Court encourages Samsung to discuss with Apple an agreement to forgo post-trial motions so that the parties can expeditiously appeal this entire case to the Federal Circuit," she added.

If the Federal Circuit finds other errors with either the 2012 trial or the limited damages retrial, this case will have to be retried again anyway, the Judge noted.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Deals revealed for Surface, Windows 8 laptop holiday sales

Microsoft is whacking prices on Black Friday for its first-generation Surface Windows RT tablets as well as for Windows 8 laptops and Xbox consoles.

While Microsoft has had a tough time putting a dent in Apple's tablet share, one thing for sure is that Microsoft will be discounting its devices more than Apple this holiday season (last year Apple shaved $30 or $40 off its iPads). With Microsoft rolling out the new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets and the Xbox One, older models can be had on the relative cheap come midnight on Thanksgiving. And those models have already had their prices chopped this year. 

Microsoft's sneak peek of its Black Friday deals  (which seem to have been hidden again after making a brief appearance last week) showed a 32G Surface RT going for $199, $150 off the regular price (and $349 for the 64GB model). If you want a keyboard thrown in, Staples will have the 32G model available on Black Friday for $250.

Microsoft is peddling a Dell Inspiron 15Z with an Intel Core i5 processor and 6GB of RAM for $399 ($450 off the usual price).  A 14-inch Samsung Ultrabook and a 15.6-inch Gateway laptop will also feature big price cuts to be revealed as the week goes on.

Xbox 360 with 250GB of storage costs $199 vs. the usual $249. Popular new Xbox games can be had for deep discounts, like Call of Duty: Ghosts for $40 instead of the usual $60.

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Security experts praise Google's tougher encryption

Google's faster-than-expected upgrade of all its SSL certificates to an RSA key length of 2048 bits will make cracking connections to the company's services more difficult without affecting performance, experts say.

Google said last week the move from 1024-bit RSA, announced in May, was completed a month ahead of schedule and the company will start issuing the longer keys immediately.

The upgrade started a couple of weeks before former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sent the nation in shock with revelations of NSA surveillance on Americans in its anti-terrorism program. Nevertheless, Google referred to government spying in announcing the upgrade's completion.

"The deprecation of 1024-bit RSA is an industry-wide effort that we're happy to support, particularly light of concerns about overbroad government surveillance and other forms of unwanted intrusion," Dan Dulay, security engineer for Google, said in the company's blog.

In October, Google was reportedly livid following a report by The Washington Post that the NSA had found a way to bypass the company and Yahoo's security in collecting user data. Google and other companies have also been under pressure to demonstrate they are doing everything they can legally to dampen overzealous government surveillance.

Services duck surveillance

Google's latest security move is part of an industry-wide initiative among web sites that provide SSL connections, a security protocol denoted by the HTTPS in a URL. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the CA/Browser Forum, a voluntary organization of certificate authorities and Web browser makers, have announced that 1024-bit RSA certificates would no longer be valid as of January 1, 2014, Chris Grayson, analyst for security consulting firm Bishop Fox, said.

"End-users of Google products and services will likely notice no difference, but the security-conscious users can rest a bit easier knowing that Google has yet again taken another step forward in improving the security of its products and services," Grayson said.

Google issues certificates to itself through the Google Internet Authority, an intermediate certificate authority.

Doubling the key length makes the decryption time six to seven times slower, experts say. However, today's computers and browsers are powerful enough to handle the additional workload.

"The servers used by Google and the end-user workstations and devices connecting to them are likely powerful enough that the slower decryption should not be an issue," Andrew Hay, director of applied security research at CloudPassage, said.

The stronger certificates protect encrypted connections to Google's sites against brute-force attacks, which systematically check all possible keys until the correct one is found.

Needed: Even stronger keys

Before the NSA revelations, cracking 1024-bit keys was believed to require too much time and computing power to be practical. However, disclosures about the NSA's cryptanalysis capabilities have proven those assumptions wrong.

Industry adoption of the new key length is well on its way. SSL Pulse, which tracks SSL implementations of the most popular websites, said of the 162,000 sites it surveyed, 96 percent have migrated to 2048 bits.

In September, Symantec warned customers that failing to meet the deadline could result in browsers blocking non-compliant sites and visitors receiving warnings that a site is not secure.

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Customer-tracking tactics move to brick and mortar

"Privacy is dead—get over it," has been a mantra of private investigators for years.

But continuing revelations about how many different ways personal privacy is still disappearing are still enough to unnerve people. It is not just about the trail everybody leaves from the websites they visit, or from security cameras in public places. It is also about smart cars. It is about the cellular towers that serve their smartphones. And it is now also about their friendly brick-and-mortar retailer.

One example of many is clothing retailer Nordstrom, which began tracking shoppers in its stores about a year ago through the Wi-Fi signals from their smartphones.

At least the company was somewhat transparent about it—it posted a sign telling customers what it was doing. But that generated enough complaints for it to end the program in May.

Of course, Nordstrom is not the only retailer looking to track shoppers in its physical stores. And at one level, they and their defenders argue that this is not a big deal—that they aren't doing anything more intrusive than those in the online world who track the activities of shoppers and then try to pitch them ads that will be more "relevant." They're just catching up.

Used to it yet?

They could argue that it is less intrusive than plenty of other data collection, from social networking sites like Facebook to government, in the form of the National Security Agency (NSA). Stillman Bradish, co-founder of The Wireless Registry, a D.C.-based start-up that is reportedly designing ways for consumers to opt out of the tracking, told the Washington Post that, in general, Wi-Fi tracking doesn't collect PII (Personally Identifiable Information).

And, as plenty of privacy experts have pointed out, the "new normal" today is for people to spill every detail of their lives online, including where they shopped and what they bought.

Veteran private investigator Steven Rambam has been telling audiences for years that the logical result of all that voluntary sharing is that, "Privacy is dead, and you guys murdered it."

At one point in a presentation to The Next HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference three years ago, Rambam asked how many had Facebook pages. Every hand went up. Then he asked those who had read Facebook's Terms of Service to keep their hands up. Every hand went down.

He was even more critical of users of social networks like Swipely, designed for friends to share their purchase history. "Why would you put your shopping history on (things like that)?" he said. "You deserve every bit of screwing that you get."

How they watch you

Still, consumers have a sense—logical or not—that they have some control over the voluntary sharing they do, while they have little or none over a retailer tracking their movements in a store.

The tracking is possible because of the MAC (Media Access Control) address that all Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-enabled devices have—a unique, 12-digit code to help routers send data to the right recipient. When a Wi-Fi card is on, looking for networks to join, it is detectable by local routers, such as those in a retail establishment.

Through that, the company can learn how long people stand in line at a cash register, what aisles they visit and for how long, what promotions are more effective, who visits their stores more than once, what spot in the store draws the most people and much more.

This information is logged and uploaded to third-party companies that conduct data analytics. According to Jules Polonetsky, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), nine firms have most of the market for analyzing tracking data, but there are 40 or more in the field.

The obvious goal of all this is, on its face, rather benign. "They want to sell you stuff," Rambam said. But privacy advocates say it can and does go well beyond that.

"This tracking is happening generally without people knowing, and it doesn't even leave cookies or make connections that you can monitor," said Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

"It also ignores that different norms govern what's reasonable in different environments. Your doctor can ask questions that would seem much more invasive asked by your mechanic," he added.

They also contend it is not as benign as simply providing consumers with more relevant ads. "Threats to our privacy aren't isolated—they work together," Higgins said. "A tracking device that catches you walking regularly past the door of a store next to a medical clinic may reveal a lot more than intended."

What they'll see

Rebecca Herold, CEO of The Privacy Professor, said that kind of tracking, especially after it is in the hands of third-party firms, "no doubt will be used by many other entities to prove a person was located at a certain place at a certain time, along with what they were looking at. 'Gee, look! Father O'Malley spent 15 minutes reading Hustler magazine right after church! He's a pervert!'" she said is one possible scenario.

"But, you may be implying something that is not the case in real life," she said. "Big Data analytics will be used to reveal a huge amount of perceived activities by individuals, but it will not always be correct."

Presumably, smartphone users could defeat the tracking simply by disabling the Wi-Fi when they are shopping. But Higgins and Herold both contend that the burden should not be on users. "Privacy conscious users shouldn't have to turn off basic features just to avoid excessive tracking," Higgins said.

And Herold said according to some reports, smartphones may be trackable even when they are turned off.

Do Not Track registry proposed

There are some organized efforts being made to give control over tracking back to mobile device users. The FPF and The Wireless Registry are reportedly working to build what would amount to a "Do Not Call" registry for MAC addresses. It would let device owners visit a web site, enter a MAC address, and be assured that tracking companies that have committed to the project will no longer track them.

But it is not certain how soon that will come into being. While the Post reported on October 22 that the site was, "set to launch within the next few weeks," there is little evidence of that. The Wireless Registry website was, as of this week, nothing more than a page with the name of the company on it. Bradish and co-founder Patrick Parodi could not be reached for comment. A public relations spokeswoman said both were attending a conference.

The FPF also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

And Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is dubious about the value of such a registry anyway. He notes that joining the project would be voluntary—there will be no law requiring that companies refrain from tracking users who sign up. "The danger is that it leads to more tracking rather than keeping you from being tracked," he said.

Another effort is an agreement announced last month between FPF and seven major location analytics companies—Euclid, iInside, Mexia Interactive, SOLOMO, Radius Networks, Brickstream and Turnstyle Solutions—to a Code of Conduct that will include, "in-store posted signs that alert shoppers that tracking technology is being used, and instructions for how to opt out."

The standards also limit the use and sharing of the data and how long it is kept. It requires the companies to de-identify the data and says it, "cannot be collected or used in an adverse manner for employment, health care or insurance purposes."

The cops will still have access

However, noticeably absent from that list of prohibited uses is law enforcement. So the agreement is small comfort to advocates like Higgins. "When a company starts collecting this data, it becomes a very attractive target for law enforcement," he said.

Herold adds that, "historically, new technologies such as this were viewed as privacy-benign—until something bad happened." She said this is the kind of information that would be very attractive to law enforcement, divorce lawyers and criminals.

"Using the data to improve the retailer environment can be very beneficial. But you cannot ignore all the other possibilities for how that data may be used," she said.

Herold called the Code of Conduct "a good start," but said it is only a start. "We all need to be more aware of ways in which we are giving out our personal data, and limit that significantly," she said, "but we also need to establish information security and privacy standards by which Big Data can be used. There's scarcely anything being done like this now that I'm aware of."

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Bitcoin gets new friends, but still a bit player

Bitcoin scored several big wins this week, including endorsements from U.S. federal officials and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, signalling its progress toward wider acceptance.

Bitcoin has battled concerns about volatility, criminal use and potential government crackdowns, but people continue to invest in the virtual currency. It may still be a way from mass market acceptance, but developments over the past few days show it gaining support beyond enthusiasts, Libertarians and black market traders.

On Monday, federal officials including the acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice argued that Bitcoin could benefit the financial system and global commerce more broadly. But the anonymous nature of the currency, which makes it attractive for black market transactions, must be watched, they said.

Some see Bitcoin more as an investment—if a potentially risky one—than a legal tender. On Friday a bitcoin was worth more than $800 on the Mt. Gox exchange, up from just $30 earlier this year. Bitcoin is managed and traded on a peer-to-peer network and is meant to be free of regulation by any central financial authority.

The recent positive attention Bitcoin has received increases its legitimacy and means more people now see it as a real currency, said Jordan McKee, an analyst with the Yankee Group, who has been tracking Bitcoin's evolution.

Take British billionaire Richard Branson. The Virgin Group founder's space travel startup Virgin Galactic will start accepting payments in bitcoins, Branson announced Friday, a currency he referred to as "one of the world's most innovative businesses looking to the future."

"For people who can afford to invest a little in bitcoins, it's worth looking into," said Branson, an investor in the currency himself.

There's also a documentary in the works about Bitcoin and the "deep web," by Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure actor Alex Winter. "Guns, drugs and murder, and a new global currency created by hackers that exist outside the control of government and banks," Winter says of the movie on his Kickstarter page.

Bitcoin will even have a role during the U.S.' post-Thanksgiving shopping orgy known as Black Friday, making it part of American consumerism at its best. Through an event organized by the Bitcoin community, a hodgepodge of online merchants like CheapAir, Gyft and Mixed Tees are participating in the shopping extravaganza by giving exclusive deals to shoppers if they pay in bitcoins.

All this traction is great for Bitcoin, but it still has a ways to go before it becomes mainstream. The ways people pay for goods now are pretty well entrenched, Yankee's McKee said.

"Nearly every form of electronic payment rides the rails the [credit] card networks have forged," he said, adding, "it's unlikely anything will circumvent this system anytime soon."

It's a wonder Bitcoin is still around at all, after a series of shutdowns of exchanges, account seizures and massive selloffs. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, one of the largest exchanges, temporarily shut down in April after a huge drop in the currency's price.

Some groups have still not gotten back on their feet. Tradehill, another large Bitcoin exchange, said in August that it would be suspending its trading, citing banking and regulatory issues. Trading has not been resumed, judging by its website.

Still, the number of stores accepting the virtual currency continues to rise. Bitpay, which provides a service that makes it easier for merchants to get paid in bitcoins, says it's now used by 12,000 merchants worldwide.

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FCC's in-flight cellphone plan carries a lot of baggage

Anyone who dreads hearing one end of a loud phone call all the way from Anchorage to Miami, take heart: The plan to allow cellphones on planes could fail in more ways than an overbooked flight at a snowbound airport on Christmas Eve.

On Thursday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it would consider a proposal to let airlines allow passengers to use cellular services while in flight. The services would use special onboard cells instead of regular towers on the ground and wouldn't be allowed below 10,000 feet.

The FCC is scheduled to discuss the subject at its next public meeting on Dec. 12. If the agency adopts the rule, it will be up to airlines to install the onboard cells and decide whether passengers can talk, text or use cellular data.

Nearly everyone welcomed the Federal Aviation Administration's decision last month to let travelers keep electronic devices on from gate to gate, but allowing cellphone calls in flight is a whole other matter. A flight attendants' union came out strongly against the idea, polls indicate most consumers are worried about it, and a congressman who has fought in-flight calling in the past may revive a bill that would ban it.

"Just imagine the nightmare. You're sitting there in coach, three across, and you're in between two people who are yelling on their cellphones," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon. "You can't sleep, you can't work."

History

In 2008, DeFazio introduced the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act, which would have limited in-flight wireless services on airliners to data. The bill failed, but DeFazio said he probably will reintroduce it, if only to give opponents of the FCC's plan something to rally around.

OnAir, a Swiss in-flight cell carrier, links onboard cellular servers to the ground via satellites.

The U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world, if being able to use a cellphone in the air is progress. Many major international airlines, including Air France, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, already offer cellular service over countries where it's allowed. OnAir, a Swiss in-flight cell carrier, links onboard cellular servers to the ground via satellites. It boasts of roaming agreements with more than 350 mobile operators.

But even if the FCC lifts its rule, which was imposed in 1991 to prevent disruption of ground-based cellular networks, nothing will change in the U.S. unless airlines and service providers see a viable business in phone calls, analysts said.

History is not encouraging, according to Roger Entner of Recon Analytics. An earlier in-flight phone service, Verizon Communications' Airfone, used wired phones built into seatbacks and linked them to the ground via satellite. But most fliers balked at the high per-minute cost of using Airfone and Verizon shut the service down in 2006. In-flight cell service is offered on some airlines outside the U.S. at rates similar to international roaming, but it's not yet clear whether it's a moneymaker, Entner said.

"Somebody would have to make a leap and make it affordable, and hope there's enough volume coming," Entner said.

Little interest by U.S. airlines

U.S. airlines had a chance to allow voice calling through Internet services such as Skype when they installed in-flight Wi-Fi, but they have kept it off limits. Delta Air Lines reaffirmed this policy last month when the FAA opened up device use.

"Delta has years of customer feedback on the impact on the customer experience of voice communications and the overwhelming sentiment is to continue with a policy that could not allow voice communications while in flight," Delta said.

In a survey last year by the Consumer Electronics Association and the Airline Passengers Experience Association, 61 percent of respondents listed voice calling as a part of the in-flight experience that should be restricted. An informal online poll by Network World on Friday got similar results: By late in the afternoon, 74 percent of voters had opposed the FCC's plan.

OnAir, not surprisingly, came out in favor of the proposal. In a statement, the company downplayed the social hazards.

"Forget the hyperbole about the chaos inflight cellphone usage could cause. The issue simply hasn't arisen anywhere in the world in the past six years," the company said in a statement attributed to CEO Ian Dawkins. "An aircraft is a noisy environment, so the sound of a conversation doesn't carry very far. Flight attendants can also control the use of Mobile OnAir by disabling the voice element during quiet times, such as the plane's night."

Rep. DeFazio questions why it's even necessary to take the risk if data services provide numerous ways to communicate silently while in flight.

"What is to be gained in a very small tube, which echoes, which is already a very tense environment?" he said.

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Microsoft sells 1 million Xbox One consoles on launch day

Microsoft says the launch of the Xbox One on Friday has been the most successful yet for its Xbox gaming console family.

The company sold 1 million consoles in less than 24 hours, it said, putting it roughly equal with the launch of Sony's PlayStation 4 a week earlier. Gamers on both platforms have been waiting several years for the companies to update their hardware, so strong sales at launch shouldn't come as a surprise.

"We are humbled and grateful for the excitement of Xbox fans around the world," Microsoft said.

Many of the 22 Xbox One games available at launch are played online, enabling Microsoft to collect data from its servers about the frenetic first day of gaming.

It said more than 60 million zombies have been killed in "Dead Rising 3," more than 3.6 million miles driven in "Forza Motorsport 5" and more than 8.5 million enemies defeated in "Ryse: Son of Rome."

The Xbox One has been well received by critics, who praised its graphics. The console's non-gaming features, such as the ability to access live television in some countries and integration of Skype, have also been noted.

With both Sony and Microsoft's consoles launched, game retailers and software makers are hoping for a strong holiday season.

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Silk Road defendant deemed flight risk, denied bail

A New York federal court denied bail on Thursday to Ross William Ulbricht, the 29-year-old accused of running the Silk Road underground marketplace, deeming him a flight risk and a danger to the community.

Ulbricht's friends and family had agreed to post $1 million in assets and co-sign a bail bond. Seventy letters in support of Ulbricht were presented, and he had also agreed to electronic monitoring, said his attorney, Joshua L. Dratel, in a phone interview.

But Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis rejected the bail application based in part on allegations that Ulbricht tried to commission six murders over four months earlier this year.

"We're disappointed because we felt we had presented a sufficient package for bail," Dratel said.

Federal prosecutors showed the court a photograph of nine driver's licenses with what appeared to be Ulbricht's mug shot, some with a beard. Six of the licenses were from U.S. states, and one each from Canada, Australia and the U.K.

Ulbricht also allegedly filed an application with the Commonwealth of Dominica, a country of 70,000 people in the Caribbean, for "economic" citizenship, which costs around $75,000, according to another prosecutor's document.

Image: U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New YorkWhen he was arrested, Ross William Ulbricht was allegedly logged into a Silk Road account showing a balance of more than 50,000 bit coins. (Click to enlarge.)

He was arrested on Oct. 1 in a San Francisco public library while allegedly logged into the Silk Road website under "DPR," a shortened version of the nickname "Dread Pirate Roberts," according to the prosecutor's letter arguing against bail.

Photos of the laptop's screen submitted in court showed an instant messaging program running using a nickname "dread" and a Silk Road control panel for an account holding more than 50,000 bitcoins.

The Silk Road marketplace website was configured to use a privacy feature called TOR that allowed buyers and sellers to transact anonymously using the virtual currency Bitcoin.

The Silk Road took a cut of transactions, netting as much as 144,000 bitcoins from January 2011 until the site was shut down in September. The bitcoins were worth more than $20 million at the time of Ulbricht's arrest, according to prosecutors.

Ulbricht is charged in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York with narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering conspiracies.

Image: U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New YorkFederal prosecutors accused Silk Road defendant Ross William Ulbricht of procuring fake IDs.

A grand jury in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland also indicted Ulbricht on charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, attempted witness murder, use of interstate commerce facilities in commission of murder-for-hire and aiding and abetting.

Ulbricht remains in pre-trial confinement at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. Dratel said he expects New York prosecutors to issue an indictment, but no court date has been scheduled.

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Browser extension creates 'disposable' data for privacy

A Boston-based company, Abine, is beefing its anti-tracking browser extension to let users shield their real credit card details, email addresses and phone numbers during web transactions.

The new features are being added to "DoNotTrackMe," an extension for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari that blocks tracking technologies used by advertising and social networks and data collectors.

The latest capabilities, which were already in Abine's MaskMe password management tool, allow users to give out a one-time use credit card number to e-commerce vendors, along with a disposable email address and phone number.

Data collection is a brisk business these days. Companies sell personal data, share it with ad networks and business partners or transfer it to new companies if they're acquired, said Rob Shavell, Abine's co-founder.

Facebook came under scrutiny last year for its partnership with Datalogix, which collects data on customer purchases from loyalty cards programs and matches it to specific Facebook profiles for targeted advertising.

Giving out disposable data gives users a greater degree of privacy and makes them less traceable across the web, Shavell said.

Email addresses and phone numbers are "widely used and far more relied upon to accurately track individuals because it's their most personal information," he said.

Abine acts as a proxy, receiving an email and then forwarding it to a user's real email address. Users can also turn off the forwarding if they grow weary of frequent communications.

The disposable phone number works in a similar way: Users get a number, and calls are then forwarded to their real number. Unwanted callers can be blocked. Abine supports proxy phone numbers for 20 countries.

With disposable credit-card numbers, consumers face a lower risk of fraud since merchants can't see their real card number, and the disposable number can be deactivated after a purchase, preventing further charges.

The DoNotTrackMe extension is free, but the new features will be sold by subscription at US$5 a month or $45 a year. Through Dec. 26, Abine is letting users try them for free, Shavell said.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Nokia runs into hurdles over transfer of India factory to Microsoft

Nokia has asked a court in Delhi to revoke a freeze on its factory in India over a tax dispute, ahead of the proposed acquisition by Microsoft of its handset business.

The Delhi High Court had earlier ordered the country's Income Tax Department to release bank accounts held by Nokia, but continued a freeze on the factory in Chennai in south India in connection with a US$331 million demand from tax authorities over taxes for mobile phone software licenses.(

Nokia has now asked the court to lift the freeze by Dec. 12 at the latest in view of the Microsoft acquisition, which it still expects will close in the first quarter of 2014. "Should the freeze be lifted, Nokia expects a successful transfer of its Indian factory assets to Microsoft," the company said in a statement.

"If, however, the freeze continues, Nokia must prepare for the eventuality that the Indian factory assets do not transfer to Microsoft," it added.

Microsoft said in September it plans to acquire Nokia's Devices & Services business, which includes the smartphone and mobile phones businesses, for over $7 billion. The deal was approved by Nokia's shareholders earlier this week.

The next hearing in the Delhi court is scheduled for Nov. 28.

If the court does not rule in its favor, Nokia may have to temporarily convert the Indian entity, which runs the factory and research and development in the country, into a contract manufacturer for Microsoft, while merging only its sales entity with the software giant, according to sources close to the situation.

The freezing of the immovable assets prevents them from being sold, but production continues at the factory.

Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's phone business has been cleared in India by the Competition Commission of India. The country's antitrust agency ruled that the combination of the two companies will not likely have an "appreciable adverse effect" on local competition.

Nokia said it is committed to finding a solution with the tax authorities "in accordance with all applicable laws." A number of tech companies including Vodafone have ongoing tax disputes in India, primarily over the interpretation of the country's complex laws.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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HP Chromebook 14 review: It's bigger and better than most other Chromebooks

HP's new Chromebook 14 didn't have to do much to impress me. Most other Chromebooks are small, cheaply made machines with underwhelming specs, including measly 11-inch displays. The one exception, of course, is Google's gorgeous Chromebook Pixel, which almost no one can afford.

The Chromebook 14 is affordable (if not super cheap) at $300, and it has a 14-inch display. It seems not to suffer from the AC-adapter overheating that halted sales of its cousin, the Chromebook 11 (an unfortunate turn of events, because that's a nice little machine). I understand why most Chromebooks are taking the low road to attract student and casual home users, but the Chromebook 14 is a reasonable middle ground that makes for a much better user experience.

There's no way you'll mistake the Chromebook 14 for its predecessor, the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, which debuted earlier this year. That Chromebook came in just one color--black--and aside from its large display, it felt pretty cheeseball, with a lot of hard plastics and a clackety feel. (PCWorld did not review this model, but I bought one for a family member and have used it extensively).

Image: Melissa RiofrioThe half-size cursor and function keys are smaller than we'd like.

The Chromebook 14 offers three cheery color choices: peach coral (a bright, silghtly orangey red), snow white, and our eval unit's ocean turquoise. The color covers the outer surfaces and the display bezel. The colored plastic's slightly soft feel is nice, though it seems to hold greasy fingerprints easily (and we weren't bingeing on potato chips while reviewing this product). The unit weighs a little over 4 pounds, and the AC adapter weighs another 0.7 pounds.

The keyboard panel is silvery plastic. The island-style keys are hard, white plastic, but they have a decent travel and do not make the rattly sound that really bugs me on most other Chromebooks (including the Pavilion 14). Given all the room on this panel, it's somewhat disappointing that the top function keys and cursor keys are half-size, although that does leave lots of room for a large (and responsive) touchpad.

Connectivity on this model is notable for having two USB 3.0 ports as well as one USB 2.0 port. You get 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There's also an HDMI port for attaching an external display, and a slot for Secure Digital media. Dual stereo speakers provide adequate sound. A combination headphone and microphone port and an HD webcam finish out the accessories.

ROBERT CARDINThe ports include two USB 3.0 and one HDMI for external displays.

The display is nothing special, delivering resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels (the same as you'll find on many 11-inch Chromebooks). It has little in the way of vertical viewing angles, but the side viewing angles are pretty good. A buddy could watch a movie with you on this screen without too much trouble. The display's shiny glass is potentially a problem, though. It catches a lot of glare and reflection, especially in a bright room.

The Chromebook 14 performed well in standard activities like streaming a movie (which also depends upon your connection quality, of course). It's powered by a 1.4GHz, dual-core, Intel Celeron 2955U with Intel HD Graphics and 2GB of DDR3/1600 RAM. I saw no hiccup or lag in my experience. A 16 GB SATA SSD provides a nice dollop of on-board storage, plus you get 100GB Google cloud storage free for two years. Battery life was good at nearly 7 hours, though not as close as we'd like to the 9 hours HP specified.

HP's Chromebook 14 does most of the competition one better, just because of its larger display. Maybe you'd weep a little more if your kid destroyed this model rather than one of the cheapies, but anyone who enjoys the Chrome ecosystem will appreciate the better user experience this model provides.

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