As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I’m starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here’s my opinion on the whole matter… First off, let me say that I love the Android phone platform. Until last week, I used my developer G1, that I bought, every day. It worked wonderfully for me, and as a user, I was more than happy. I’m also very happy about Android from a technical perspective. It’s amazing that Google has taken the Linux kernel, and nothing else from a “traditional” Linux system, and created a portable and robust phone platform. It’s so different that you can drop in a “real” Linux system image on top of the Android system, and they both work just fine with no changes needed.

Full Article (linux kernel monkey log - kroah.com/log/linux)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement of a new U.S. policy on global Internet Freedom included a bold new statement about the responsibilities of American technology companies:

“…We are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance. The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply what’s a quick profit.”

We couldn’t agree more. While Clinton focuses on media companies — meaning Internet media companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft — there are plenty of other companies deserving scrutiny. Specfically, many U.S. (and multinational) technology companies may be knowingly selling Chinese authorities the surveillance equipment used to commit or facilitate human rights abuses. We think it’s high time to pay attention to them as well.

Full Article (EFF - eff.org)

Easily the most-viewed post at krebsonsecurity.com so far has been the entry on a cleverly disguised ATM skimmer found attached to a Citibank ATM in California in late December. Last week, I had a chance to chat with Rick Doten, chief scientist at Lockheed Martin’s Center for Cyber Security Innovation. Doten has built an impressive slide deck on ATM fraud attacks, and pictured below are some of the more interesting images he uses in his presentations.

Full Article (Krebs on Security - krebsonsecurity.com)

As we continue our collective foray into the brave new world of social networking, we keep learning the same lesson over and over again: don’t post photos of yourself doing stupid things. This is doubly true if said stupid thing is illegal, as yet another intellectually challenged Facebook user has discovered.

Full Article (Ars Technica - arstechnica.com)

Those with no technical knowledge generally believe that they are anonymous when simply browsing the Web. Those who know more might recognize that IP addresses can be used to do some rough targeting, while browser cookies can be used to track someone across sessions and across IP addresses. But what if your browser itself—even with cookies off and IP addresses out of the picture—was leaving a digital fingerprint at every site you visit?

Full Article (Ars Technica - arstechnica.com)

A school district in Riverside County has pulled the Merriam-Webster’s 10th edition dictionary from school shelves because it includes the term “oral sex.” The Menifee Union School District took the action last week after a parent complained about the dictionary.

Full Article (Los Angeles Times - latimes.com)

“Buying You: The Government’s Use of Fourth-Parties to Launder Data about ‘The People’,” a paper by Columbia Law School’s Joshua L. Simmons in the Columbia Business Law Review, describes the way that US government agencies circumvent the fourth amendment and privacy statutes by outsourcing their surveillance to private credit reporting bureaux and other mega-databases. He argues that the law should ban the use of this improperly gathered information, binding paid government informants to the same rules that the government must follow.

Full Article (Boing Boing - boingboing.net)

The leader of the Mozilla Project, whose Firefox Web browser now has 350 million users, said Sunday that she is concerned that legal restrictions could limit Internet expansion. Mitchell Baker said she worried about “the increase in laws that make it difficult to run an open network,” especially rules about content. “You suddenly become liable for anything that gets downloaded, whether it’s legal or not,” she said. “If you said to a municipality, if you build a road, you have to guarantee nothing illegal happens on it — that’s what’s happening on the Internet now. So that’s the kind of regulatory disruption that’s going to have some long-term consequences.”

Full Article (Associated Press - yahoo.com)

Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such as Gmail, in a politically motivated attempt at intelligence gathering. The news here isn’t that Chinese hackers engage in these activities or that their attempts are technically sophisticated — we knew that already — it’s that the U.S. government inadvertently aided the hackers.

Full Article (CNN - cnn.com)

In the wake of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s major speech yesterday on Internet freedom, a speech in which she called out countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Iran, and China, most governments have yet to respond. China, however, was quick to reply after dealing with the Google issue for a week already.

Full Article (Ars Technica - arstechnica.com)

Following the report earlier this week that the FBI regularly broke the ECPA law, in obtaining information from telcos without going through the proper process (and, in some cases using just a post it note!), some interesting details from the full report have come to light. The two key ones? First, “the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections.” And, second, the original idea to use these bogus “exigent letters” didn’t come from the FBI, but from an AT&T employee. We noted in the original report that no one seemed to be placing any blame on the telcos for allowing this, and why they’re clearly abusing the law, in giving out such info without the proper rules being followed, seems like a big question:

Full Article (Techdirt - techdirt.com)

A selection of applications written and uploaded by an Android Marketplace user/developer have been found to contain malicious code that attempts to compromise banking information stored on the device in order to commit bank/credit card fraud.

Full Article

Earlier today, The Rumpus published a very revealing interview with someone claiming to be a Facebook employee. The interview covers a variety of subjects, including privacy restrictions at the world’s largest social network and some of the technological hurdles the site has to deal with. The biggest revelations? That Facebook collects more data about your habits than you may realize, and that there was once a ‘master password’ that would grant employees access to anyone’s Facebook profile — a password that some employees abused.

Full Article

As the Kindle takes off in popularity, losses and thefts will as well. After hearing one reader’s tale of woe after losing his Kindle, we discovered that there are not that many options for recovery, though there could be if Amazon really wanted to offer them.

Full Article