Tag Archive
The FTC Takes on the Cloud
The Federal Trade Commission is urging the FCC to take into account the privacy and security concerns it has regarding cloud services when the FCC presents its recommendations for a national broadband policy next month. The FTC is concerned with who has jurisdiction over data as it loses a geographic …(306 words) Related Topics: 4G,... »
Code That Protects Most Mobile Phone Calls Is Divulged
A German computer engineer said Monday that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world’s digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of global wireless systems. The action by the encryption expert, Karsten Nohl, aimed to question the effectiveness... »
Editorial: US Court Says Police Need Warrant to Search Mobile Phones
The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable.... »
What Happened in Tech This Week
Twitter bought Mixer Labs (12.23.2009) View 2. HTC became a smart phone hero (12.23.2009) View O2/Telefónica Buys Jajah for $207M (12.23.2009) View Blippy launched. View App analytics firms, Flurry and Pinch Media merged. View Google released its Open manifesto. View Incubators made a return. View Twitter might actually be profitable. View MyTown proved to be bigger than FourSqure and GoWalla. View In addition,... »
Google execs face prison over user-generated video in Italy
The city state of Milan is prosecuting Google for defamation and breach of privacy after a video showing a down-syndrome boy being attacked by bullies was posted on the search engine’s video site. Yesterday (16 December), four Google executives were in the stands protesting their innocence under EU laws on Internet freedom. Google, alongside other... »
New European Telecoms Rules enter into force
New EU telecoms rules will officially become EU law tomorrow following their publication in today’s Official Journal of the European Union. The new rules composed of the Better Regulation Directive and the Citizens’ Rights Directive will need to be transposed into national laws of the 27 EU Member States by June 2011. The new... »
Dragon Dictation for iPhone Addresses Privacy Concerns
There was a bit of controversy surrounding the cool Dragon Dictation speech-recognition app for the Apple iPhone. Namely, some privacy advocates weren’t happy that the app would upload their entire iPhone contact list to Dragon Dictation’s servers. The purpose was merely to improve name recognition and no personally identifiable information such as phone... »
Nuance Dragon Dictation for iPhone Rocks!
Nuance Dragon Dictation for iPhone is the most amazing text-to-speech application you will find on the iPhone. Employing a client-server architecture along with the iPhone’s superb high-quality microphone means near dead-on accuracy. When you click the record button your voice is temporarily stored locally on the iPhone. When you are finished recording or reach... »
US Supreme Court to Review Employer Access to Text Messages
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether government employers can read text messages that their workers send and receive on workplace devices. The case centers on whether a police officer in Ontario, Calif., had a right to privacy for the text messages he sent and received on a pager provided by the police... »
EU Telecoms Reform: 12 reforms to pave way for stronger consumer rights, an open internet, a single European telecoms market and high-speed internet connections for all citizens
“The EU telecoms reform brings about consumer choice, a new dose of competition, an effective European system of independent telecoms regulators, new investment into competitive infrastructures, more space for new wireless services and a more open Internet for all citizens. The reform also strengthens the single telecoms market by promoting effective competition... »
European Commission welcomes European Parliament approval of sweeping reforms to strengthen competition and consumer rights on Europe’s telecoms markets
With a broad majority across political parties, the European Parliament has today, at its plenary session in Strasbourg, formally approved the EU’s telecoms reform package, proposed by the Commission in November 2007 (IP/07/1677). 500 million EU citizens will soon benefit from more consumer choice through enhanced competition on Europe’s telecoms markets,... »
T-Mobile confirms Britain’s biggest phone customer data breach
Personal details of thousands of mobile phone customers have been stolen and sold to rival firms in the biggest data breach of its kind, the government’s privacy watchdog said today. An employee of phone operator T-Mobile sold the customer records, including details of when contracts expired. The millions of items of information were sold on... »
Tips for installing VoIP
Network World has some helpful tips on how to install a VoIP network and things to keep in mind like cables, power, switches and privacy. Article Related Topics: privacy, VoIP »
Is Google Voice Violating Its Own Privacy Policy?
Michael Arrington submits: I’ve had a nagging frustration in my otherwise perfect relationship with Google Voice. The service systematically replaces my friend’s phone numbers with their Google Voice numbers when they call, even when they aren’t calling from Google Voice. Not only has this led to a lot of confusing and time wasting “how... »
Mashup Google Wave, Skype, and Asterisk = Ultimate Coolness
Skype Journal wrote about one of the coolest mashups I’ve ever seen. Certainly one of the coolest VoIP mashups. Skype Journal explains PhoneFromHere Tim Panton’s demo that he gave at Astricon where Tim mashes up Google Wave, Skype, Asterisk running Skype for Asterisk and Ibook to make Skype calls from within a browser-based Google... »
Blabbelon Opens a New (VoIP) World for Gamers
Blabbelon, the cross-platform web-based VoIP app designed for video gaming, which I tested yesterday and posted a review today released an official statement about their new offering. I thought I’d share it since it has some good info to compliment my review posted this morning: Stop Venting: Blabbelon Opens a New World for Gamers... »
Security firm demoed hacking and eavesdropping on IPhone mobile VoIP calls
Over the weekend, Sipera Systems demonstrated how easy it was to eavesdrop and record VoIP calls made over an unsecured WiFi network on the iPhone. Using open source software called UCSniff, the security team hacked into the iPhone’s VoIP calls proving that without security software, mobile VoIP calls might not be ready for business... »
How the Web Is Changing — Event Videos & More Analysis
Earlier this week, we hosted our “What’s Next for the Web?” event here at our office, dividing the discussion along three basic topics: context, consumption and serendipity. After taking a few days to digest all the conversations and comments, we’ve now posted two long analyses over on our GigaOM Pro research service (subscription... »
Telecoms reform tabled as EU plots spam clampdown
The European Commission is calling on tougher action to fight spammers and protect online privacy. A Commission-funded study found that enforcement action against junk mailers across the EU is inconsistent. It wants to see spam laws tightened up, alongside “clearer and more consistent enforcement rules”, funds to support national privacy watchdogs and better cross-border cooperation. To... »
AT&T Grants Us Mobile VoIP Freedom
On September 17th I wrote about how siphon, a SIP app for the iPhone was working over 3G for me in Los Angeles but not in Connecticut. Apparently, port 5060, the SIP port was blocked in Connecticut but not in Los Angeles. Sources have informed me that AT&T was trialing opening up port... »
US Telecoms Win Dismissal of Wiretap Suits
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out more than three dozen lawsuits claiming that the nation’s major telecommunications companies had illegally assisted in the wiretapping without warrants program approved by President George W. Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker of Federal District Court in Northern California said that although consumer... »
Vishing on the Rise, Federal Government Starts To Take Action
I was happy to read this story today about Vishing, a subject I have been pushing our nations banks to become more aware of. Late last year I contacted representative of American Express, Citibank, Wells Fargo and one other bank to ask what they were doing to prevent vishing and to educate their customer base... »
Google Voice – The return of GrandCentral
After many, many moons of silence, Google Voice has been rolled out as a “preview.” The born-again GrandCentral service first will be available to existing GrandCentral users, with others being able to sign up “soon.” Google bought GrandCentral back in July 2007, where upon the hosted mobile UC solution fell into a black hole, with... »
ooma Telo vs. magicJack
Rich met with ooma recently to see their latest wares and hear about their current business model. Recently, ooma ditched the ‘P2P voice network’ idea where users actually “share” their home landline with others and instead became a traditional VoIP broadband provider. Apparently, the privacy issues were too much to overcome, since users were... »
UK mobile networks use traffic data for advertising stats
All five UK mobile phone networks have monitored users’ web surfing habits and submitted the data to an industry body to help generate advertising. Users’ permission was not sought but the GSM Association says the project did not break privacy laws. Industry body the GSM Association (GSMA) hired media monitoring company comScore to analyse the... »
Your Mobile Carrier Will Sell You for Pennies
Five major UK carriers are banding together to pool customer data so that it can be put into a giant database and then be used to sell advertising, The Register reports today. How long do you think it will take before this “database” idea lands on American shores? First they charge you hundreds of... »
Three Reasons Why Google Latitude is Not Sticky for Me
Google Latitude has been launched a couple of days ago, with the promise to offer users a very interesting and effective way to keep track of friends’ position and easily get in touch with them. While it is certainly a great and innovative service and, as usual for Google, very well designed and implemented, I... »
How To Increase Your Business by Building Your Network: Go Social
It’s pretty clear to everyone that business is made by people and one of the main aspects that everyone must take care of is the quality of the relationship you are capable of building with other people. I’m not referring to the relationship between you and people you already know, but with others you still... »
U.S. Social Security Blows $300 Million on Nortel VoIP system
According to CNN: Nortel Government Solutions, a U.S. company wholly owned by Nortel completed the core network for the massive new U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) VoIP system within 180 days of initial purchase orders, an aggressive requirement of the 10-year, US $300 million Telephone Systems Replacement Project (TSRP) award. Now I’m all for Social Security... »
Steve Jobs to Take Health-related Leave of Absence
Steve Jobs is handing over the company to COO Tim Cook as he is going to take a medical leave of absence that could last until the end of June 2009. Jobs in his letter says he is going to be back, but his recovery is going to take a lot longer than originally... »