Nasscom Data Security Council: India can play important role in global cyber security

  15 Dec 2016 , 13:55

India can aspire to build a cyber security product and services industry of USD 35 billion by 2025, generating a skilled workforce of one million in the security sector, in line with the booming global demand, a report by Nasscom-Data Security Council of India today said.

The global cyber security market is expected to reach about USD 190 billion by 2025 from USD 85 billion currently, driven primarily by increasing digitisation wave and smartphone penetration, it said.

“For India to become a global cyber security hub, a list of 16 initiatives has been formulated by NASSCOM-DSCI. These initiatives vary in terms of priority and should be pursued within the next five years,” DSCI CEO Rama Vedashree said.

These include strengthening policy and regulations, developing skilled manpower, enhancing R&D and innovation, formation of clusters and funding startups working on cybersecurity solutions, she added. “An evaluation of global cyber security clusters shows that policy and financing incentives along with opportunities for skill development emerge as pivotal factors,” she said.

These clusters have contributed immensely to the development of the cyber security industry in the respective countries and are important to promote growth of cyber security startups and SMEs as well, Vedashree said.

PTI

WhatsApp temporarily pauses user data sharing with Facebook in Europe

Representational image: Reuters

  16 Nov 2016 , 10:31

WhatsApp has temporarily suspended giving parent company Facebook information about users in Europe for ad targeting, responding to concerns there over privacy, a source close to the matter said Tuesday. Conversations with officials in Europe over the past few months resulted in the social network deciding to only tapping into WhatsApp user data there for purposes such as fighting spam, according to the source.

The break was described as an effort to give regulators time to share privacy concerns and for Facebook to consider ways to address them. German data protection authorities in September cited privacy concerns when they blocked Facebook from collecting subscriber data from WhatsApp there.

“It has to be (the users’) decision whether they want to connect their account with Facebook,” Hamburg’s Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Johannes Caspar said at the time. “Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance.”

WhatsApp announced in August that it would begin sharing data with Facebook, in a bid to allow better targeted advertising and to combat spam on the platform. Users of the instant messenger were given the ability to opt out of sending information to Facebook through settings in WhatsApp’s applications on smartphones.

European data protection group G29 formally expressed its concerns at the end of October. The G29 sent letters asking Facebook and WhatsApp to stop sharing data until appropriate legal safeguards were in place. The sharing of WhatsApp user information with Facebook went beyond what subscribers consented to in the original terms of service, the G29 reasoned.

Facebook bought WhatsApp about two years ago in a deal valued about $19 billion. In mid-September, the European Commission recommended tighter privacy and security requirements for services including WhatsApp and Microsoft-owned video calling service Skype, saying they should be regulated more like traditional telecoms.

Under the proposal, the commission would require companies like WhatsApp or Skype to offer emergency-calling services when customers dial traditional phone numbers as well as obey stricter privacy rules.

AFP

Did Trump secretly employ Data Analytics for success?

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts - RTX2T3F7

  11 Nov 2016 , 16:42

By Muqbil Ahmar

With Donald Trump becoming the next Republican President-Elect, there is no reason to throw Data Analytics out of the window. His win doesn’t necessarily mean Data Analytics, whose role was established for correctly predicting results during Barack Obama’s 2012 election, is all hogwash. A closer scrutiny of what’s and why’s and putting the dots together can solve the puzzle. From the beginning Trump dumped all data strategies in public. While others entered into partnerships with data strategists, Trump didn’t. He, in fact, criticised the role of data analytics in predicting the outcome.

“I’ve always felt it [Big Data] was overrated. Obama got the votes much more so than his data processing machine. And I think the same is true with me,” he claimed, leading his opponents to berate his data strategies. However, these were purely his claims. He kept everyone under the illusion. In the last moments before the vote it came to be known that Trump had indeed hired a little known analytics company in the UK to provide him data insights. The two had been working for quite some time.

Trump secretly hired British Analytics firm

In the month of September alone, Trump paid British firm Cambridge Analytica $5 million to help target voters. The company claimed it had data on around 230 million adults in the USA and approximately 4000 “data points” on every one of them, including gym and club memberships, charity donations, and card transactions. Trump’s win is confirmation that the data strategy of the British company, which is based on a hyper-targeted psychological approach, has worked. Only some days before the election, the London-based company witnessed an increase in support for Trump: from 1 to 3% in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The firm, which helped the Leave.EU group before the EU referendum in the United Kingdom, utilizes a psychological approach to decipher trends. They analyze data from diverse source: credit card histories, social media, consumer data, purchase history, voting records, supermarket loyalty schemes, phone calls, Facebook surveys and go even as far as documenting TV-watching habits. The data resulted in around 20 models that were constantly updated in real time as the database evolved. “What gave us advantage over the other polling companies is how quickly we were able to react by updating models to take into account where the demographic is shifting,” said Matt Oczkowski, director of product at Cambridge Analytica, in an interview.

Data Analytics evolves fast. “Over the last four years, companies have sharpened Big Data tools, adding Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Sentiment Analysis, Machine Learning, and Language Processing to the mix. As far as I see it, Cambridge Analytica’s data strategy paid off,” said Shashank Dixit, CEO, Deskera, a cloud technology firm that also has a Big Data Analytics tool.

Why the shroud of mystery?

That Trump banked heavily on the British firm is evident due to three reasons: (a) he chose a company across the Atlantic, when most of them are based in the USA itself? (b) Till the last minute nobody knew of the arrangement. (c) Trump kept on rubbishing the role of data analytics. Why should there be secrecy around the firm if Trump didn’t think much of it? Now, all this seems like a well-calibrated strategy on the part of the wiley American. He kept his cards close to his chest till the last. He wanted his opposition to underestimate his strategy. The results show that the billionaire businessman clearly outwitted his opposition by utilising data analytics surreptitiously.

By the time it came out into the open, it was too late. But even if Clinton’s analytics team had known it earlier, they wouldn’t have taken it seriously. Just before the elections, a Clinton aide said: “We really have no idea what Trump is or isn’t doing. We are confident on where campaigns and organisations on the Democratic side of the spectrum are in terms of its analytics capabilities, but it’s important that we continue to innovate and that we can’t worry about what groups on the right are/aren’t doing.”

Trump’s ingenuity has certainly paid off. It was a masterstroke. This piece is not to undermine his appeal with the voters, the final factor which decides the winner. What this could signal is the beginning of a race for sharper more sophisticated tools that are being developed in the remote corners of the world. But all said and done, predicting human actions for such large number of people would always be a puzzle.

With over 10 years of experience in the field of journalism, the author is a technology evangelist and avid blogger.

Russian court upholds decision to ban LinkedIn over data policy

Representational image

  11 Nov 2016 , 09:23

A Russian court on Thursday upheld a decision to block the website of social networking company LinkedIn Corp., Interfax news agency reported, setting a precedent for the way foreign internet firms operate in the country.

Russia’s Roskomnadzor communications watchdog has said LinkedIn, which has more than 6 million registered users in Russia, was violating a law requiring websites which store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so on Russian servers.

Moscow has said the law, introduced in 2014 but never previously enforced, is aimed at protecting Russians’ personal data. Critics see it as an attack on social networks in a country which has increasingly tightened control over the Internet in recent years.

Moscow’s Tagansky District Court ruled in August that LinkedIn’s site should be blocked, but the decision had not yet come into force pending a company appeal. “The decision of the Tagansky District Court has been upheld, the appeal by LinkedIn Corporation is unsatisfactory,” Interfax quoted a court decision as saying. Russia will take action to block LinkedIn’s website within the next week, RIA news agency cited a Roskomnadzor spokesman as saying.

“LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. The Russian court’s decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses,” a LinkedIn’s spokesman told Reuters. “We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.”

Roskomnadzor did not immediately reply to a request for comment. While some companies such as online reservations site Booking.com have said they will transfer the necessary data to Russian servers, it is unclear whether others, including Facebook and Alphabet unit Google, will comply with the law.

Reuters

EU-US Privacy Shield data transfer agreement under scrutiny by privacy advocacy groups

(Image credit: Getty Images)

  03 Nov 2016 , 13:51

A new EU-U.S. pact governing the transfer of personal data faces a second legal challenge, putting the details of the deal which underpins billions of dollars of transatlantic trade in digital services under further scrutiny. French privacy advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, non-profit Internet service provider French Data Network and its Federation FDN industry association have now challenged the adoption of the Privacy Shield pact by the European Commission at the Luxembourg-based General Court, following in the steps of Irish group Digital Rights Ireland.

The Privacy Shield agreement was reached earlier this year after the European Union’s highest court struck down the previous Safe Harbor Principles used by companies to enable them to transfer Europeans’ personal data to the United States, due to concerns about intrusive U.S. surveillance of online data. The new agreement gives businesses storing Europeans’ data on U.S. servers – from human resources information to people’s browsing histories and hotel bookings – an easy way to do so without falling foul of tough EU private data transfer rules.

More than 500 companies have signed up to Privacy Shield so far, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, while over 1,000 are being processed by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The agreement seeks to strengthen privacy protections for EU citizens by giving them a means of seeking redress in the case of disputes, including through a new privacy ombudsman within the State Department who will deal with complaints from Europeans about U.S. spying.

But the objectors say that restrictions on U.S. surveillance activities – in particular the bulk collection of data and the purposes for which the data can be used – are inadequate and therefore the Privacy Shield agreement should be annulled. Under EU law companies or individuals may challenge EU acts before the EU courts if they are directly concerned within two months of the act coming into force, otherwise they have to go through national courts, a process which takes longer.

However both challenges face a strong risk of being declared inadmissible if the court finds that the associations are not directly concerned. In their challenge the French groups say that the U.S. ombudsman is not an effective mechanism for dealing with complaints. “The fact that it relies on so-called ‘independent’ instruments is in no way sufficient to consider it an independent judicial entity,” they said.

A spokesman for the European Commission, which negotiated the Privacy Shield with Washington, said it was aware of the new complaint. “We don’t comment on ongoing court cases. As we have said from the beginning, the Commission is convinced that the Privacy Shield lives up to the requirements set out by the European Court of Justice, which have been the basis for the negotiations,” Christian Wigand said.

The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to questions about the second challenge.

Reuters

Telecom regulator Trai asks telecom operators to inform users about internet speeds and data limits

Representational Image : Reuters

  02 Nov 2016 , 16:43

Telecom regulator Trai Wednesday directed operators to inform customers about the data usage limits of their broadband plans and the extent to which speed of connection will be reduced in case users breach the ‘fair usage’ or data quota cap. Currently, under the ‘fair usage policy’ if a consumer subscribes to an unlimited broadband plan with, say, over 2Mbps speed and his usage breaches a certain quota say 2GB before the billing cycle is over, the provider can reduce the data speed for the remaining period.

The move is aimed at improving transparency and helping customers keep a track of their consumption levels as companies will also have to notify users when their data usage hits 50, 90 and 100 per cent of the prescribed limit under their chosen plan.Trai also said that in

Trai also said that in case of fixed broadband services, operators will have to ensure that download speed for a user does not fall below 512 kbps (as stipulated under Telecom Department norms) under any Fair Usage Plan, even after the assigned data quota expires.

As per today’s directive, broadband operators will have to provide alerts to subscribers through SMS on their registered mobile number/email each time their data usage reaches 50, 90 and 100 per cent of the said limit under their plan. Telecom service providers should also maintain a portal/website, so that users can check their usage at any point of time, it said.

Trai directive said for fixed broadband service users, companies under ‘fair usage policy’ will have to specify data usage limit and the promised speeds, as well as speed of the connection after excess usage. Similarly, for mobile broadband service, operators will have to specify the technology used for providing the data services alongwith the usage quota, and the speeds offered after the such data limits are breached.

This information has to be provided on the telecom operators’ website as well as in advertisements, Trai said. Trai directive said that the move was aimed at ensuring transparency in delivery of internet and broadband services. “…(this will) protect interest of consumers of the telecom sector, and facilitate further growth of internet and broadband services in India,” it said.

PTI

Facebook is not making all your posts public, so everybody relax

Image Credit: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff /  17 Oct 2016 , 11:36

A copy paste campaign on Facebook has people posting a legal notice to prevent Facebook from making all their data publicly available. This is a hoax, and Facebook has reassured users that their data is private, owned by them, and they have control over who can access it. Even if Facebook were to make your data public, posting a legal notice in your timeline is not an effective counter measure against Facebook using your data in any such way. Snopes, a fact checking site that monitors rumours has an extensive page with details on this long lived hoax.

Facebook has put up a post in the FBfacts section of its site that clearly informs users thatusers are in control of the content they post on Facebook. Facebook has requested users not to believe the information in the copy and paste legal notice. Users can download and check all the information that Facebook holds about them, on their own. Users can track the information and connections being monitored by Facebook in the Activity Log, which is a list of all your posts and activity.

This round of rumours are circulating close on the heels of Facebook agreeing to sign a controversial treaty that allows Facebook to store information obtained from EU citizens on servers elsewhere. Some rumours and hoaxes keep circulating in waves and refuse to die. This particular hoax has been around for over four years.

Bluetooth 5: What’s New and What’s Good?

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced a new version of the wireless standard. Bluetooth 5 comes with a host of improvements, some that benefit users and some that benefit advertisers — and we’re going to explore them in this post.

Bluetooth has been around for more than 20 years, ever since Ericsson first invented it. But it really caught on as a major wireless technology only after the formation of the SIG in 1999. Today, it’s a widely used standard for connecting two nearby devices wirelessly. You’ll find it in smartphones, computers, headphones, speakers, cars, and other gadgets.What Is Bluetooth? [Technology Explained] What Is Bluetooth? [Technology Explained]READ MORE

The last major version of Bluetooth was Bluetooth v4.0, released in 2011. Since then, it only got one major iteration (Bluetooth v4.2) in 2014. Now, Bluetooth 5 is looking to take the standard to new heights by connecting every sort of device in your home.

What Is Bluetooth 5?

Bluetooth 5 is the specification agreed upon by the SIG, which is comprised of 30,000 different companies. Having a common standard is important since it means devices can talk to each other more easily and with fewer problems.

Bluetooth 5 includes improvements for range, speed of transfer, power consumption, and bandwidth. It also adopts a new nomenclature. There is no dot or “v” any more, like with “Bluetooth v4.2”. Now it’s just Bluetooth 5. Simple.

Bluetooth 5 Has 4x Longer Range

The biggest improvement in Bluetooth 5 (BT 5) is its range. Anyone who has used Bluetooth knows that it’s effective only up to a certain distance between devices — and that distance increases four times with BT 5.

The new standard theoretically supports distances up to 300 meters (1,000 feet). Of course, that’s in theory and in test conditions, much like the previous standard’s claim of 75 meters. That range holds up only outdoors, with no other interfering signals, and with direct line of sight between devices.

In real world settings, such as in a home or office, Bluetooth 4.2 works at distances of around 10–15 meters. If we assume the same proportional loss in range, Bluetooth 5 should connect at distances up to 40–60 meters, which is still a significant boost. It’s another step in how Bluetooth makes your home artificially intelligent.Here's How Bluetooth Will Make Your Home Artificially Intelligent Here's How Bluetooth Will Make Your Home Artificially IntelligentZuli is taking geofencing to the next level, and their new geofencing-capable plugs show some of the potential of what a smart home can really do.READ MORE

As for immediate benefits from this, the most common uses for Bluetooth just got better, like listening to music on wireless speakers while playing from your phone.

Bluetooth 5 Has 2x Speed of Transfer

As we move into the age of wearables, Bluetooth transfer speeds are getting more important. Right now, your smartwatch connects to your smartphone on Bluetooth. So if you take a photo on your smartwatch and want to sync that to your phone, it has to transfer over Bluetooth.

Bluetooth 4.x supported a maximum speed of 1 Mbps. Bluetooth 5 doubles that to 2 Mbps. So whether it’s transferring data from your smartwatch to phone, or from the phone to a Bluetooth photo frame at home, it’s going to be much faster.

Bluetooth 5 Uses 2.5x Less Battery

For the longest time, there’s been this notion that Bluetooth drains your phone’s battery quickly. That’s a smartphone myth that simply isn’t true any more. It has been power-efficient ever since the introduction of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module, a.k.a. Bluetooth Smart.10 Popular Smartphone Myths That Aren't True 10 Popular Smartphone Myths That Aren't TrueWe're going to tackle 10 of the most prevalent smartphone myths today and see if we can't do our part in ending the misinformation surrounding today's smartphones.READ MORE

Bluetooth 5 takes this to new heights by reducing power usage by as much as two-and-a-half times what Bluetooth 4.2 used.

Technically, this will require your device to be running on Bluetooth Smart. But don’t worry, almost every Bluetooth gadget uses this standard as the default these days.

Bluetooth 5 Transfers More Data Than Before

This one change isn’t going to be directly useful for regular users like you and me, but it will benefit us indirectly: Bluetooth 5 has increased the bandwidth of data it can transfer.

Bluetooth uses something called “connection-less broadcasting”. This lets an advertiser send data to your Bluetooth device even if you aren’t connected to them.

For example, let’s say you’re in a mall and your smartphone’s Bluetooth connection is on. An Apple store at the mall can have a Bluetooth beacon (transmitting device) that sends its latest offers and sale information to your phone. You don’t need to be connected to the Apple store’s beacon for that.

Up until recently, this practice wasn’t widely adopted because the bandwidth of data you could transfer was quite low. Currently, an advertiser can only send 31 bytes of data. With Bluetooth 5, that size increases to 255 bytes.

The big change this facilitates is that Bluetooth 5 will be able to transfer navigational information, which means that once you’re in a certain location, you can get information useful to that location.

Naturally, this will make an impact in how advertisers use Bluetooth beacons. But there are some non-commercial benefits too. As the Bluetooth SIG puts it:

In scenarios where contextual awareness like navigation and pin-point location are crucial — such as hassle-free airport navigation experiences, asset tracking of warehouse inventory, emergency response, even smart city infrastructure that helps the visually impaired be more mobile — Bluetooth 5 will send custom information people actually find useful in that moment without connection and application barriers.

Of course, this can open you up to some smartphone security risks with Bluetooth. But remember, you need to act on the information, like tapping it, to get infected. So be cautious and use safe practices and you’ll be fine.4 Smartphone Security Risks To Be Aware Of 4 Smartphone Security Risks To Be Aware OfThere seems to be a sort of general malaise among users – the tech savvy and everyday users alike – that because your computer fits in your pocket, it can’t be infected by malware, Trojans,...READ MORE

Bluetooth 5 Requires New Hardware

All these changes, unfortunately, won’t be available on your existing phone. Bluetooth is backwards compatible, so a new Bluetooth 5 device will still connect with your old Bluetooth 4.x device. But such a connection is without any of Bluetooth 5’s benefits.

To get the benefits of Bluetooth 5, you need both devices to be running it. And since the changes are massive, Bluetooth 5 will require new hardware. That means the existing Bluetooth 4 chip in your phone or speaker can’t be “upgraded” to Bluetooth 5. You’ll need a new device that comes with Bluetooth 5 built-in.

When Will You See Bluetooth 5 Devices?

The Bluetooth SIG has so far only announced that it has agreed upon the Bluetooth 5 standard’s specifications. It hasn’t yet released the final technology.

That technology will be released to manufacturers in late 2016. Once manufacturers get their hands on it, it takes them a short time to incorporate it into their gadgets.

Best case scenario, you can expect Bluetooth 5 to feature in the first lot of new flagship smartphones in 2017, usually announced at Mobile World Congress in February.

Most Important Takeaways for Bluetooth 5

Here’s a quick summary of what matters to everyday folks:

• Your devices will connect at longer distances. Smart fridges, wireless speakers, and other gadgets in your smart home should be able to talk to each other easily.
• You will be able to transfer data faster between gadgets. This is great for wearable devices, like smartwatches, that are paired with your smartphone.
• You can leave Bluetooth switched on, without worrying about battery life.
• You will need a new device, since Bluetooth 5 won’t work on your current gadgets.

Are You Excited About Bluetooth 5?

The Bluetooth SIG seems to have made all the right changes to make Bluetooth 5 more popular than ever before. The low power consumption and the increased range are especially tempting.

Facebook Prohibited From Collecting WhatsApp Data In Germany

The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has issued an administrative order that prohibits Facebook from collecting data from German WhatsApp users. Facebook was also ordered to delete any of the data that it may have already collected on German WhatsApp users.

The order comes after WhatsApp recently announced that it will automatically begin to share data with Facebook. Users were given the option to manually opt out of the data collection, but for a period of only a month. After that, they would no longer be able to opt out. 

In the U.S., privacy groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) also filed a complaint with the FTC asking the agency to require Facebook to make the data collection an opt-in choice for users, rather than an opt-out one.

According to the Hamburg Commissioner, WhatsApp and Facebook used to be separate entities with their own privacy policies, and when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, it promised no data would be shared between the two. However, the two companies have now gone back on their promises by announcing they will begin to share data with each other, even when users opt out.

The commissioner said that this means the two companies were misleading users, and it’s also an infringement on Germany’s national Data Protection law. He also believes that Facebook should have required permission from every user in advance before collecting WhatsApp data. Data Protection laws in the European Union require that when data is collected, the user must give his or her explicit permission (opt-in) rather than implicit permission (opt-out).

"This administrative order protects the data of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany," said the Commissioner.

"It has to be their decision, whether they want to connect their account with Facebook. Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened," he added.

The order also accuses Facebook and WhatsApp of collecting contact details of users even if they didn’t have Facebook or WhatsApp accounts.

"According to Facebook, this gigantic amount of data has not yet been collected. Facebook's answer, that this has merely not been done for the time being, is cause for concern that the gravity of the data protection breach will have much a more severe impact," said the Hamburg Commissioner.