Google settles lawsuit with shareholder | ET | Google's $5 Million Plan To Rid The Internet Of Child Porn

Google settles lawsuit with shareholder

SAN FRANCISCO: Google has resolved a shareholder lawsuit blocking a long-delayed stock split, clearing the way for the internet search leader to issue a new class of non-voting shares later this year. The settlement announced came on the eve of a scheduled Delaware chancery court trial that threatened to cast an unflattering light on Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The class-action by the Brockton Retirement Board in Massachusetts and another Google shareholder, Philip Skidmore, alleged that Page and Brin engineered the stock split in a way that unfairly benefits them while shortchanging the rest of the company's shareholders. Google denied the allegations and maintained that the proposed stock split announced 14 months ago would benefit shareholders by ensuring that Page and Brin would preserve the power that has enabled them to make the same kinds of bold bets on technology that has helped increase the company's market value by more than $260 billion during the past nine years. 

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Google-settles-lawsuit-with-shareholder/articleshow/20644563.cms

                                            EVEN THOUGH

Google vs. Child Porn: The Search Giant Will Try To Eradicate All Of The Internet's Child Porn

Google's founding mission is to "organize the world's information." But there's some disgusting data that the tech giant will spend millions to scrub off the web.

Over the weekend, Google announced that it has been creating a database tagging child pornography on the Internet in an effort to eradicate images of child abuse entirely from the web. The company plans to spend $5 million to fight child pornography online

Difference between spying and hacking : Barack Obama | ET | NYPD Commissioner Slams NSA Secrecy

Difference between spying and hacking, Barack Obama
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is drawing a distinction between China's alleged     
                 intellectual property theft and what he calls "standard fare" spying on other countries. 

Obama says every country engages in intelligence gathering, which he called an occasional source of tension. But the president says there's a big difference between China trying to find out what he's saying in meetings with the Japanese and a hacker connected with the Chinese government breaking into Apple or other US companies. 

Obama pressed China's president on cyberhacking earlier this month during a meeting in California. Obama said their conversations on the topic were "very blunt." 

Obama spoke in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service's Charlie Rose. 
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Difference-between-spying-and-hacking-Barack-Obama-says/articleshow/20642673.cms

                                                                EVEN THOUGH

Ray Kelly, NYPD Commissioner, Slams NSA Secrecy About Surveillance

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly slammed the Obama administration for its handling of the National Security Administration scandal -- but not because he thinks the government was overextending its reach.

U.S. Surveillance: China Asks USA | ET | UK Spies Hacked Diplomats Phones & Emails

U.S. Surveillance: China Asks Washington To Explain Monitoring Programmes

BEIJING, June 17 (Reuters) - China made its first substantive comments on Monday to reports of U.S. surveillance of the Internet, demanding that Washington explain its monitoring programmes to the international community.
Several nations, including U.S. allies, have reacted angrily to revelations by an ex-CIA employee over a week ago that U.S. authorities had tapped the servers of internet companies for personal data.
"We believe the United States should pay attention to the international community's concerns and demands and give the international community the necessary explanation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing.
The Chinese government has previously not commented directly on the case, simply repeating the government's standard line that China is one of the world's biggest victims of hacking attacks.
A senior source with ties to the Communist Party leadership said Beijing was reluctant to jeopardise recently improved ties with Washington.

                                       EVEN THOUGH

UK Spies Hacked Diplomats' Phones, Emails, Guardian Report Claims

LONDON — A newspaper report that British eavesdropping agency GCHQ repeatedly hacked into foreign diplomats' phones and emails has prompted an angry response from traditional rival Russia and provoked demands for an investigation from Turkey and South Africa.

Apple: How Authorities Nibbled Customers' Private Information | ET | Yahoo Forced To Join Secret Program

Apple Reveals How Authorities Nibbled Into Customers' Private Information

NEW YORK — Apple says it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data for the six months ended in May.

The company, like some other businesses, had asked the U.S government to be able to share how many requests it received related to national security and how it handled them. Those requests were made as part of Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies.

Prism appears to do what its name suggests. Like a triangular piece of glass, Prism takes large beams of data and helps the government find discrete, manageable strands of information.

Prism was revealed this month by The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, and has touched off the latest round in a decade-long debate over what limits to impose on government eavesdropping, which the Obama administration says is essential to keep the nation safe.

Apple Inc. said that between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in data requests between Dec. 1, 2012, and May 31 from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters.

For More 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/apple-nsa_n_3453183.html

Yahoo Was Reportedly Forced To Join PRISM By A Secret Court

Yahoo fought PRISM, and PRISM won.

Fewer than 300 phones under lens in 2012: US | ET | Obama Thinks It Violates Customer Privacy

Fewer than 300 phones under lens in 2012: US

300 Phones under lens

WASHINGTON: The US government only searched for detailed information on calls involving fewer than 300 specific phone numbers among the millions of raw phone records collected by the National Security Agency in 2012, according to a government paper obtained by Reuters on Saturday.

The unclassified paper was circulated on Saturday within the government by US intelligence agencies and apparently is an attempt by spy agencies and the Obama administration to rebut accusations that it overreached in investigating potential militant plots.

The administration has said that even though the NSA, according to top-secret documents made public by former agency contractor Edward Snowden, collects massive amounts of data on message traffic from both US based telephone and internet companies, such data collection is legal, subject to tight controls and does not intrude on the privacy of ordinary Americans.

The paper circulated on Saturday said that data from the NSA phone and email collections programmes not only led US investigators to the ringleader of a plot to attack New York's subway system in 2009, but also to one of his co-conspirators in the United States.

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Fewer-than-300-phones-under-lens-in-2012-US/articleshow/20624174.cms

NSA Wants To Filter People's Emails And Tweets | ET | NSA snooping: Facebook reveals details of data requests

Keith Alexander, NSA Director, Wants To Filter People's Emails And Tweets, According To Expert

The National Security Agency isn't quite sure that it's doing enough when it comes totuning into people's digital lives. A profile of NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander in Wired magazine offers this frightening possibility: One day the organization may intercept online communications directly.

"In his telling, the threat is so mind-bogglingly huge that the nation has little option but to eventually put the entire civilian Internet under his protection, requiring tweets and emails to pass through his filters, and putting the kill switch under the government’s forefinger," wrote James Bamford for the magazine. It may seem like an exaggeration, but Bamford, author of about a half dozen books on the agency, should know better than anyone else.

Read the rest of Wired's profile of Alexander.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/keith-alexander_n_3436726.html?utm_hp_ref=technology

                                         EVEN THOUGH

NSA snooping: Facebook reveals details of data requests

Facebook reveals snooping details

WASHINGTON: Facebook revealed on Friday it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data from US authorities in the second half of last year, as it seeks to shield itself from a growing scandal. 

The requests covered issues from child disappearances to petty crimes and terror threats and targeted between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts, the social networking site said, without revealing how often it complied with the requests. 

Facebook "aggressively" protects its users' data, the company's general counsel Ted Ullyot said in a statement. 

"We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested. And we respond only as required by law," he added. 

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/NSA-snooping-Facebook-reveals-details-of-data-requests/articleshow/20600365.cms

Bill Gates joins LinkedIn

Bill Gates joins LinkedIn

Bill Gates Joins LinkedIn

SYDNEY: Microsoft mogul Bill Gates' has joined LinkedIn. Gates made his debut on the professional social networking site with a blog post about the three skills he has learned from Warren Buffet. 

According to news.com.au, Cinton's profile is a bit light on endorsements and summaries of his skills. However, his 38 years of experience as co-founder and chairman of Microsoft speaks for itself. 

Gates is one of LinkedIn's super influencers, whose blog posts can be followed on the site, the report added.