Russian security service has hit Ukrainian state institutions with 6,500 hack attacks

Image Credit: Venture Beat

  30 Dec 2016 , 09:21

Hackers have targeted Ukrainian state institutions about 6,500 times in the past two months, including incidents that showed Russian security services were waging a cyberwar against the country, President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday. In December, Ukraine suffered attacks on its finance and defense ministries and the State Treasury that allocates cash to government institutions. A suspected hack also wiped out part of Kiev’s power grid, causing a blackout in part of the capital.

“Acts of terrorism and sabotage on critical infrastructure facilities remain possible today,” Poroshenko said during a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council, according to a statement released by Poroshenko’s office.  The statement said the president stressed that “the investigation of a number of incidents indicated the complicity directly or indirectly of Russian security services waging a cyberwar against our country”.

Relations between Kiev and Moscow collapsed in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement. Among the 6,500 attacks Poroshenko said the country had been hit by, the attack on the State Treasury halted its systems for several days, meaning state workers and pensioners had been unable to receive their salaries or payments on time.

Cyber security firm CrowdStrike said last week a hacking group linked to the Russian government likely used a malware implant on Android devices to track and target Ukrainian artillery units from late 2014 through 2016. Its findings are the latest to support a growing view among Western security officials and cyber security researchers that Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly relied on hacking to exert influence and attack geopolitical foes.

Russia has repeatedly denied hacking accusations. Poroshenko’s comments come as the Obama administration plans to announce retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Trump has dismissed the assessments of the U.S. intelligence community.

In December 2015, Ukrainian regional power company Prykarpattyaoblenergo reported an outage, saying the area affected included the regional capital Ivano-Frankivsk. Ukraine’s state security service blamed Russia. Experts widely described that incident as the first known power outage caused by a cyber attack. The U.S. cyber firm iSight Partners identified the perpetrator as a Russian hacking group known as “Sandworm”. As a result of the cyber attacks, Ukraine’s security council agreed measures to protect state institutions, the statement said. It did not disclose what the measures were.

Reuters

Why I think Donald Trump could make Silicon Valley even greater

Image: Reuters

  11 Nov 2016 , 10:21

By Vishal Gondal

The improbable has truly happened. Donald Trump is going to be the President of the Unites States of America. I have never seen such widely divided opinions or stance against any elected representative in modern politics.

Although the world might truly be in a state of shock, if you ask people around me, they will tell you that I predicted the improbable way back when he was chosen as the Republican nominee. Well the thing is, coming from a startup background I have seen quite a few Davids vs Goliaths in my lifetime.

I have seen this in the Silicon Valley itself where the new innovators and thinkers have overthrown the established order against all odds.

We call this disruption. And when used in a very positive connotation, it is nothing but a byproduct of innovation. Trump said many things good and bad but in essence Trump spoke a lot about disrupting the established order – creating jobs, bringing back the industries and that has resonated with a lot of Americans.

They wanted change and Trump showed them a path towards it. While most failed to see or predict what the public wanted, this landmark judgement will force them to look inwards, ask questions and come up with answers. A lot of folks have started predicting doom for America and how it may lose its edge, talks of California separating from USA.

I have spent a lot of time Silicon Valley and I can tell you that this judgement will not be bad given how smart and resilient the people of America are. Every dark cloud has a silver lining and I see a lot of new startups focused on areas of healthcare, manufacturing, security, infrastructure, fin-tech getting a major boost from the Trump administration and its policies.

If there is anyone who has the license to distrust the system it’s Donald Trump. The same goes for India and Indians living in the United States. Indian software companies who have been traditionally focused on software services will be forced to look at products and IP based solution.

This shift from services to product will benefit both startup ecosystems of America & India and many of these companies will be looking at investments & acquisitions. I believe the trade relations between the two largest democracies will strengthen leading to a powerful alliance owing to the geopolitical scenarios and rapid industrialisation in India.

Most Indians living in the US are small business owners or white collar workers and they will have a greater role to play in this changing landscape as both of them will be focused on creating more jobs and more value. To conclude, while Trump may not be perfect, in his quest to make America great again a lot of that greatness will rub off on the people dealing with America.

The author is CEO, GOQii.

Silicon Valley could gain key data privacy ally in next month’s Senate election

  28 Oct 2016 , 17:38

Next month’s Senate election in Wisconsin could gain Silicon Valley a key ally in Washington in the high-tech industry’s battle against the U.S. government’s growing appetite for more access to private data. Democrat Russ Feingold, 63, the only lawmaker to vote against the USA Patriot Act in 2001, leads incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson in the state in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Johnson, 61, rode a wave of support from conservative Tea Party activists to victory six years ago, sweeping Feingold out of office. But polls this year have consistently shown Feingold ahead, although recent surveys show a tighter race.

Privacy advocates and former Feingold staffers said they expected Feingold, if returned to office, to be sympathetic to the privacy concerns of technology companies and civil liberties groups on issues such as encryption and domestic spying, at a time when many lawmakers are being pressured to confront security threats from Islamic State and other militant groups.

The Feingold campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and other tech giants have tussled in recent years with government agencies over how much user data the companies should be forced to retain and share with investigators hunting for criminal suspects or national security threats.

Those tensions grew after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secrets about U.S. surveillance practices in 2013. They reached a crescendo earlier this year when the FBI tried to force Apple to unlock an iPhone tied to one of the shooters in a San Bernardino, California, attack that killed 14 people.

Chief among the goals of many companies and privacy advocates is reforming a foreign intelligence authority used to justify once-secret broad internet surveillance programs exposed by Snowden that will expire in December 2017 unless Congress reauthorizes them.

Should Feingold return to Capitol Hill, former staffers said he would probably seek a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he would have privileged access to classified information about government spying.

Feingold’s campaign has received far more contributions than Johnson’s from donors employed by tech companies including Alphabet Inc’s Google and

Banks uses blockchain to the make first cross-border international trade transaction

Image Credit: Commonwealth Bank of Australia

  24 Oct 2016 , 15:48

The first cross-border transaction between banks using multiple blockchain applications has taken place, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Wells Fargo & Co said on Monday, resulting in a shipment of cotton to China from the United States. Australian cotton trader Brighann Cotton Marketing bought the shipment bound for the port city Qingdao from U.S. division Brighann Cotton in Texas, the companies and their banks said in a joint statement. The blockchain trade, for 88 bales, totalled $35,000, Commonwealth Bank told Reuters.

Blockchain is a web-based transaction processing and settlement system whose efficiency banks say could slash costs. It creates a “golden record” of any given set of data that is automatically replicated for all parties in a secure network, eliminating any need for third-party verification. “Existing trade finance processes are ripe for disruption, and this proof of concept demonstrates how companies around the world could benefit from these emerging technologies,” Michael Eidel, Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager for cash flow and transaction services, said in the statement.

The transaction is not the first involving the decentralised database, used since 2009 for the digital currency bitcoin. But it is a milestone for the traditional banking industry which at first shied away from the technology, partly because it makes money flows harder for law enforcement agencies to track.

Led by a consortium of over 70 of the world’s biggest financial institutions – called R3 – the banking industry has been researching ways to harness the speed, accuracy and efficiency afforded by blockchain. One of its benefits is removing people from transaction processing. That has been seen as especially appealing for cross-border trades, which are typically held up by duplication of payment processing and time zone differences.

R3 has been researching ways to expand the use of blockchain to include “smart contracts”, or payments triggered when certain conditions are met. The cotton transaction, for instance, involved automatically making payments when the shipment reached certain geographic locations, the statement showed. The shipment is currently between Singapore and Hong Kong, and is due to arrive in early November, Commonwealth Bank said. The bank also said that R3 – of which it and Wells Fargo are members – did not play a part in the trade.

Brighann Cotton was not available for comment when contacted by Reuters. Wells Fargo’s head of international trade services, Chris Lewis, said in the statement that his bank was committed to new technology. He also said, “significant regulatory, legal and other concerns remain to  be addressed.”

Reuters

Microsoft Tasks Pegatron with Making New Surface Hardware

Chinese manufacturer Pegatron Technology will build Microsoft’s next generation of

Surface products, including the Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2.

By Luke Jones -

October 12, 2016 4:32 pm CEST

Microsoft’s current plans for the Surface line are currently up in the air. The company has confirmed nothing. Certainly the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are unlikely to be refreshed this year. However, a Chinese outlet has offered the clearest indication that the company is developing new products.

Economic Daily News (EDN) says that Chinese manufacturer Pegatron Technology has been tasked with building new Surface devices. Beyond that, we are still left speculating exactly when Microsoft will launch new products. More importantly, we do not know which devices will be launched.

Of course, there is plenty of insider information and speculation to chew through. For example, we know that no new Surface tablets or laptops will arrive this year. However, Microsoft is reportedly going to launch its much-rumored Surface all-in-one PC.

At the moment, Cardinal (PC codename) is expected to arrive in three screen sizes (21, 24, and 27 inches). However, we would say the 24-inch is unlikely, so expect just a 21-inch and 27-inch version. While we are dubious about the need of a Surface desktop, it is a logical hardware progression.

It makes sense that Microsoft will give the all-in-one a clear run without any other competing product launches.

Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2

That leaves Microsoft planning the Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2. This is where Pegatron’s involvement comes into play. The Chinese company has likely already started building those devices ahead of their launch next year.

Awards and accolades continue to arrive for Microsoft’s excellent hardware. In other words, the Pro 5 and Book have plenty of time before they need to be refreshed. We have reported before that Microsoft is waiting until the launch of Windows 10 Redstone 2 before launching the new hardware. That would mean a spring 2017 announcement.

CIA ‘Siren Servers’ can predict social uprisings 3-5 days in advance

The CIA claims to be able to predict social unrest days before it happens thanks to powerful super computers dubbed Siren Servers by the father of Virtual Reality, Jaron Lanier.

CIA Deputy Director for Digital Innovation Andrew Hallman announced that the agency has beefed-up its “anticipatory intelligence” through the use of deep learning and machine learning servers that can process an incredible amount of data.

“We have, in some instances, been able to improve our forecast to the point of being able to anticipate the development of social unrest and societal instability some I think as near as three to five days out,” said Hallman on Tuesday at the Federal Tech event, Fedstival.

This Minority Report-type technology has been viewed skeptically by policymakers as the data crunching hasn’t been perfected, and if policy were to be enacted based on faulty data, the results could be disastrous. Iraq WMDs?

Read More: Partnership on AI vs OpenAI: Consolidation of Power vs Open Source

The CIA deputy director said that it was “much harder to convey confidence for the policymaker who may make an important decision from advanced analytics with deep learning algorithms.”

JARON LANIER’S SIREN SERVERS

Computer science philosopher and author of “Who Owns the Future?” and “You are not a Gadget,” Jaron Lanier, coined the phrase “Siren Servers” to describe these types of giant computer networks that can crunch huge amounts of data.

“A siren server is the biggest and best computer on a network. Whoever has the most powerful computer would be the most powerful person, whether they plan to be or not,” said Lanier in an interview with the Huffington Post.

Lanier’s siren server definition was conceived to describe how companies with the most powerful computers can gain wealth by

Samsung buys Viv Labs, whose team originally created Siri

By Tim Schiesser on October 6, 2016, 6:15 AM


Samsung wants its own personal assistant to compete with Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa and Cortana, so they've bought a company that designs them. As confirmed in a Medium post, AI assistant startup Viv Labs has been acquired by Samsung for an undisclosed price.

The Viv Labs team, namely Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham, is best known for designing and then selling its previous assistant technology, Siri, to Apple. The team gradually left Apple after the acquisition of Siri in 2012 and formed Viv Labs, who have been working on a next-gen assistant called Viv for several years.

Under Samsung, Viv Labs will operate as an independent company and will continue to work on their virtual assistant. Viv is reportedly a more powerful version of Siri with better integration of data and services, with the ability to understand more complex queries and remember important context from previous questions.

Viv Labs will provide services to Samsung and their various platforms, but it's not clear whether the assistant or its technology will be available outside Samsung's ecosystem. However it does give Samsung a tool to compete with heavyweights from Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and even Facebook, who are all developing their own AI assistant products.

According to Kittlaus, Samsung are setting their signs on "on becoming a major player in software and services, and specifically AI." The fact that Samsung ships more than 500 million devices a year was a tasty proposition for Viv Labs, whose technology could be seen in Galaxy devices and Samsung televisions as soon as next year.

Why the university of the future will have no classrooms, no lectures, and lots of tech

By Alison DeNisco  | October 3, 2016, 11:48 AM PST

Former MIT dean Christine Ortiz is building a radical nonprofit research institution focused on the intersection of technology and humanity, to increase college access for underprivileged students.

Imagine a university without classrooms, lectures, disciplinary departments, or majors.

Such is the goal of Dr. Christine Ortiz, former dean for graduate education at MIT, who is using technology to build a new kind of residential research institution from the ground up. At IdeaFestival 2016, Ortiz explained that universities are not keeping up with technology advances, or adequately preparing students for life in the 21st century. She is laying out a plan to change that.

"Technology is accelerating, and modernization and expansion of the higher education system is desperately needed," Ortiz said. "Our higher education system is still stuck in the Middle Ages."

Our current university system has not changed significantly in over 1000 years, Ortiz said. So she and her colleagues are building a nonprofit university that:

• focuses on the transdisciplinary interface between

Apple owes $302.4 million after losing patent retrial to VirnetX for technology used in FaceTime

#APPLE

Image Credit: REUTERS

  01 Oct 2016 , 12:17

A federal jury in Texas on Friday night ordered Apple Inc to pay more than $302 million in damages for using VirnetX Holding Corp’s patented internet security technology without permission in features including its FaceTime video conferencing application. The verdict came in a new trial in Tyler, Texas that had been ordered by the judge in the case, Robert Schroeder, who last August threw out VirnetX’s $625.6 m