How the world sees Greece
The ancient Athenian site just got an important contemporary update to its environment. Professors, researchers and students of educational institutions around the world will now have access to the internet upon their visits to the Acropolis. The new option is available thanks to a global roaming access service for members of educational institutions called Eduroam. The Greek Research and Technology
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Popcorn Time, the Netflix-like website for pirated movie content, may be vulnerable to a hack attack, TorrentFreak reports. This is according to a Greek security researcher named Antonios Chariton who published a blog post this past weekend. Using a series of techniques, Chariton wrote that he demonstrated how "someone can get complete control of a computer assuming they have a Man In The Middle position in the network." A 'man-in-the-middle' attack is when a hacker intercepts a data request between two machines. It is then able to swap the intended data for something malicious. So, if an attacker is able to execute one of these intercepting attacks, he or she can wreak havoc on the computer running Popcorn Time. The attack is based on the clever way Popcorn Time avoids being banned by internet service providers (ISPs). The application is able to connect directly to the CloudFlare network. This, put in the simplest of terms, means that if an ISP wants to block the Popcorn Time program it would have to ban the entire CloudFlare website and not just the pirated content program. This is a smart way to avoid widespread ISP blocks. The problem, however, is that the connection to CloudFlare is made over the HTTP protocol, and it's been shown that HTTP is just not secure. Chariton didn't mince his words: "HTTP is insecure. There's nothing you can do to change this. Please, use HTTPS everywhere, especially in applications that don't run inside a web browser." Because of HTTP's vulnerability, Chariton wrote that he was able to inject malicious code into a victim computer using Popcorn Time. Popcorn Time penned a blog post responding to these claims. It assured users that they “don’t need to worry.” For one, man-in-the-middle attacks are “very unlikely,” and require a hacker gaining access into a victim’s personal network. The site does admit that there are some security issues to be dealt with. It says it will release a fix to these shortly, but adds that what Chariton brought to light isn't as dire as it may seem.SEE ALSO: The malware that's been holding gamers' files hostage for $500 is now even more destructive Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: All the incredibly useful things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do
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Cyber-attacks are ten a penny now, and the FBI and other authorities that investigate these crimes around the world have many hurdles to cross if they want to catch a hacker. Police forces can often be hindered by the dark web and anonymizing tools used by cyber-criminals to cover their tracks, but there are also political barriers in arresting cyber-criminals in other countries as well as lengthy trials and investigations into home-grown perpetrators. A couple of high profile cases from recent years have shined a light on how cyber-crime cases are carried out. There is now a growing underground economy for cyber-crime. It is no longer the preserve of just the hacker elite. The market is thriving, said Symantec in one of its most recent threat reports. More cyber-criminals, whether sophisticated or glorified script kiddies, means more work for authorities as they try desperately to keep up with a flood of international attacks. International cyber arrests Many of the world’s most active hackers are dotted across the globe, from Russia to China, from the UK to Australia. The FBI’s most wanted cyber-crime list includes numerous foreign nationals. The most recent hacker snagged from across the pond was British man Lauri Love, who is charged with infiltrating US government computers and now faces extradition. American authorities encounter many hurdles when trying to capture and extradite an international cyber-criminal. Recently, they scored a rare win with the extradition of alleged hacker Ercan Findikoglu, a Turkish man who’d been arrested in Germany in 2013 and had been sitting in prison there since. Findikoglu, 33, is accused of leading a criminal group that hacked ATMs in New York and 23 other countries, stealing over 50 million dollars. Findikoglu had been described as one of the most wanted cyber crooks in the world, and if convicted he could face life behind bars — in the form of a 247 year prison sentence. A Swedish man named Alex Yucel, who led the Blackshades group, was convicted by a New York court in June and sentenced to four years and nine months for developing and selling malware. He had been arrested in Moldova in 2013 and successfully extradited following years of creating remote access tools that could gain control of victims’ computers. His software is believed to have infected over 500,000 computers. Yucel pleaded guilty and Judge P. Kevin Castel described him and other cyber-criminals as “spreading misery” across the world’s internet users. “The message must go forth that this is a serious crime worthy of a serious punishment,” said the judge. “Yucel’s computer hacking days are now over,” said Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Forming cross border bonds There are many wanted hackers in Europe that are of interest to American authorities. One of the most notorious is Nicolae Popescu, a Romanian national, wanted for orchestrating an Internet fraud scheme. Local Romanian authorities take the threat of hackers very seriously, says Alexandru Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Romanian security software company Bitdefender. Academics, the security industry, and governments need to form bonds to carry out international efforts. “[Authorities are] in the underground forums, they’re doing a lot of arrests,” he says. “I know that there are a lot of specialists in the law enforcement agencies that are very skilled and are very eager to solve these issues.” Academics, the security industry, and governments need to form bonds to carry out international efforts, adds Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, director of the Cyber Security Research Center at the University of Texas, Dallas. “We need not just technical solutions, we need political solutions,” she says. In Europe, organizations like Europol and the private security sector work together to investigate and eventually arrest cyber-criminals, says Ilias Chantzos, senior director of government affairs EMEA at Symantec. “We will work together, collect intelligence to understand what is the criminal infrastructure we want to go after,” says Chantzos, who also sits on Europol’s Cybercrime Centre (EC3) advisory group. “What will happen, will be an effective, regular interaction between corporations and law enforcement, exchanging information, and when there’s a green light, the operation will take place.” Europol also collaborates with the FBI, as seen recently in the shuttering of dark web forum Darkode, which included Romanian authorities, for example. The operation was led by the FBI and included law enforcement agencies from 20 countries. “Obviously jurisdiction is an issue,” explains Chantzos, but effective communication and collaboration makes a difference. “We need to know that the criminal is in a territory that we can do the arrest or that we know that some of the criminal infrastructure we’re going to disrupt is in a territory that we can exercise jurisdiction. Some of it will not be there and we need to accept that so often the effectiveness will be as good as it possibly can be.” Safe in Russia? The top man on the FBI’s most wanted cyber-crime list is the Russian hacker Evgeniy Mikhailovitch Bogachev, with a three million dollar bounty on his head, the highest reward of anyone else on the list. The FBI says he’s likely still at his residence in Anapa, Russia on the Black Sea, which poses immense challenges for investigators. The US doesn’t have a formal extradition treaty with Russia, unlike Sweden, Turkey, and Germany, and diplomatic relations between the countries are fraught. Russia’s decision to grant asylum to Edward Snowden in 2013 worsened relations between Russia and the US on this matter. We will use every available legal and diplomatic means to bring all cyber-criminals to justice wherever they reside. “We will use every available legal and diplomatic means to bring all cyber-criminals to justice wherever they reside,” said David Hickton, US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where the charges were filed. Bogachev (AKA “lucky12345″ and “slavik”) was formally indicted last year under his real name for developing strains of ransomware and coordinating the GameOver Zeus botnet, an attack network that could be used to siphon off online banking details. His malware is believed to have infected at least one million computers globally and raked in an estimated $100 million. The Russian’s charges are exhaustive and include computer fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft. He’s considered a major threat to the US banking industry and the possible head of a cybercrime “gang” working out of Russia and Ukraine, which has made him a high priority. There are rumors that Russian authorities have willingly turned a blind eye. According to a Telegraph report from last year, he is even seen as a hero of sorts among the residents of his hometown. That makes catching him much more difficult — though it’s still not impossible. “Cybercriminals like normal people like to travel,” says Chantzos. “[Russians] might go to Cyprus for holiday. Well, guess what, there’s a European arrest warrant waiting for him. The moment he arrives in Cyprus, he’s going to get picked up.” Many hackers, regardless of nationality, are known to have traveled in the hopes of evading capture, but it may give the FBI a chance. Latvian Alexsey Belan, wanted for hacking US ecommerce companies, was last known to be in Greece. Peteris Sahurovs, who allegedly sold fraudulent security software, may still be in Latvia. These hackers, if picked up in their travels, can be extradited regardless of nationality. An unsolved mystery As criminals like Bogachev have proven, there are still major gaps in international cyber-crime enforcement, and a smart hacker can exploit them to operate with near impunity. Nevertheless, international stings have become more commonplace, and much more intensive. In recent news, the FBI is seeking the extradition of two Israeli suspectsfollowing their arrest over the JPMorgan hack. And in June, Europol successfully shut down a major cyber-crime organization in Ukraine. “There’s a lot of countries that will not extradite. That will not stop us from pressing forward and charging those individuals and making it public,” Robert Anderson, the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, told a conference in May, promising more arrests under his tenure. Bogachev may still be in Russia, but with a $3m incentive for his arrest, hacktivists and online sleuths could end up being the FBI’s friend. Countries across the globe are well aware of the threat foreign hackers can pose, and are working together to tighten the noose. Today’s Internet at times feels a bit like the wild west, it will in all likelihood be tamed. Eventually.Join the conversation about this story »
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Today, Google announced that it's turned over one of its key technologies to a new industry consortium — the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, an industry association dedicated to helping developers build web apps the way the big companies do. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, or CNCF, is housed under the Linux Foundation, with a membership roster that includes companies like Twitter, IBM, Intel, Cisco, and Goldman Sachs, among others. The basic idea is that, over the years, big companies like Google have gotten really good at "achieving very efficient deployment, development, and scalability" of applications running on the modern web, says Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. The industry term "cloud native" itself speaks to the mission of the foundation: It's the current favored buzzword for applications that are designed to run on a cloud computing infrastructure, like Amazon's giant cloud, or Google's own. The benefit is that these apps are intended to be reliably run at the huge scales demanded by a mobile-dominated, data-driven world. "This has happened inside tech giants, I think it'll happen inside enterprises," says Google Product Manager Craig McLuckie. This discussion all comes back to what we call "containers," a super-hot technology that Google's been using for the better part of a decade. Containers make it super-easy to package up a bunch of code into a metaphorical box (a container, get it?) so that it can run on any computing infrastructure, anywhere. Google put these containers to good use early on in its corporate lifetime, and figured out all kinds of tricks and built all kinds of tools to use them as the "plumbing" behind its search advertising empire. More recently, a startup called Docker (also a member of the CNCF), rumored to be valued at $1 billion, released its own container technology, making that kind of technological wizardry more accessible to the masses. Suddenly, everybody in enterprise technology was talking about doing things the Google way with containers, working towards getting their applications up to Google's size and Google's speed. To meet the growing demand, Google released a piece of free software called Kubernetes (from Greek, meaning "pilot" or "helmsman"), based on its own internal container management code, to help people solve the same problems that Google had done years before. And as an "open source" software project, Kubernetes was free for anybody around the world to contribute code. Kubernetes was a hit with web companies like Box and Zulill, which use it to run their apps more efficiently. Meanwhile, back in June, Google and Docker, among many others, joined the Open Container Foundation, a group to define a container standard. As part of its OSCON announcements today, Google announced that Kubernetes hit the Version 1.0 milestone, with 400 contributors adding code, meaning that it's ready for enterprises to use it for their production applications. CoreOS, a Google-backed startup that joined the CNCF as well, also announced a paid preview of its Tectonic service, which takes Kubernetes and makes it easier for businesses to use. To get the new foundation off the ground, Google is actually handing over the Kubernetes code to the CNAF for them to manage and maintain. Using Kubernetes as a "seed," the CNAF has a mandate to build more technologies that make it easier to build and manage web-scale applications. "Efforts designed to simplify and improve the overall developer experience, such as the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, are a great step forward," says Cisco CTO and Chief Architect Dave Ward. Google's turning over Kubernetes is a "subtle" but "important" move, notes CoreOS CEO Alex Polvi: It's a show of good faith that the Internet search giant doesn't want to exert an unfair amount of influence over the standards it's working to define. Still, it's notable that Amazon and Microsoft are not members of this new CNCF -- so the announcement could be interpreted as Google trying to make its own Google Cloud Platform the cloud of choice for the discerning developer by enlisting the help and expertise of a who's who of tech players.SEE ALSO: The 'ugly' truth about what Microsoft has to do to sway Wall Street Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Scientists are astonished by these Goby fish that can climb 300-foot waterfalls
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Good morning! Here's what you need to know in tech today. 1. It looks like Apple Watch sales are tanking. Apple hasn't broken out specific sales figures for its new smartwatch, but analytics firm Slice Intelligence thinks they have plummeted to around 5,000/day, down from roughly 35,000/day on April 13. 2. Some of the world's leading cryptography and security experts have condemned UK/US proposals to mandate backdoors in encryption. They warn that "the costs would be substantial, the damage to innovation severe, and the consequences to economic growth difficult to predict." 3. Facebook is opening a new wind-powered data centre in Fort Worth, Texas. It is the social networking giant's fifth, and will cost at least $500 million. 4. Tinder is introducing verified profiles. It means that if you encounter someone famous, you will know it's really them. The company also announced it is currently seeing 26 million matches a day. 5. Sony says it will "never" exit the smartphone business. Hiroki Totoki, the CEO of Sony Mobile, has given an interview reaffirming the company's commitment to the mobile business — despite its recent struggles. 6. Facebook is revamping its video player, letting users pop videos out of the newsfeed and move them wherever they want on the page. It's part of the social networking giant's efforts to juice up its video offerings to take on YouTube. 7. Amazon may be forced to stop showing the names of products it doesn't sell in search results. The online retail giant currently displays competitors' products if a customer searches for an item from a brand that doesn't sell on the site. 8. Google is facing increasing pressure to extend the "right to be forgotten" to US users. Currently, the ability to have search results about yourself removed in certain circumstances is only implemented in Europe. But US privacy group Consumer Watchdog is lobbying the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether Google should introduce the controversial "right" in the US too. 9. Greece is losing financial access to the internet. Capital controls put in place in the country have left Greeks unable to pay for internet services like iTunes and cloud storage services. 10. The team that discovered Heartbleed have found another "high severity" security flaw affecting the internet. Heartbleed was the biggest security issue discovered in 2014, and researchers think they have now found another similar problem.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 6 mind-blowing facts about Greece's economy
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At this week's DockerCon in San Francisco, about 2,500 developers and engineers gathered to discuss software containers — a much-beloved technology made popular by hot, billion-dollar startup Docker. Developers love software containers becuase they let you write an application once and run it anywhere, from your laptop all the way up to a big public cloud like Google's, without needing to change a single line of code. It's simple and powerful, and makes it easy for coders to be productive without worrying about the servers they're running on. In fact, software containers are such a good idea that Google has put them to use for the better part of a decade behind the scenes to run literally every piece of its own websites. As of last year, Google makes two billion new containers a week, as reported by The Register. That's because, while Docker may have made the idea of containers easy for average developers to use, a more basic version has been a feature of the Linux operating system for servers for many years. Google developed containers out to suit its own needs early on in its corporate lifespan, and has been building on the concept ever since. Playing the movie "We often say 'we're playing the movie,'" says Google Senior Staff Software Engineer Brendan Burns. In other words, everything going on with Docker and software containers right now is something Google has dealt with itself, one way or another. Almost exactly a year ago, Google released Kubernetes (Greek for "Pilot" or "Helmsman"), a piece of free software for managing containers of which Burns led the development. It was designed to take a lot (but not all) of the stuff that Google uses to wrangle its own container usage and package it up in a way that developers could take advantage of with Docker. Kubernetes has made Google kind of a rockstar in the Docker world — one of the world's largest technology companies is offering tools and expertise to help developers crest a growing wave. That love has encouraged Google developers on to keep engaged with the Docker community, Burns says. "So many people at Google never get to talk about what they do," Burns says, but Kubernetes has thrust a lot of the back-end stuff that never gets any glory straight into the spotlight. In fact, right before our conversation started, a random DockerCon attendee wanted to take a selfie with Burns (he acknowledged it was weird, but guessed that there was a scavenger hunt going on for DockerCon on-stage speakers). From a more mercenary standpoint, Burns says his job is "to sell data centers." Kubernetes and the Google Container Engine service, which takes Kubernetes and automates a lot of it for heavy-duty business users, launched into beta at DockerCon this week. Those are big features to draw users to the Google Cloud Platform, where customers can swipe a credit card and get access to huge amounts of computing power hosted from Google's big old data centers. Down from the mountain At the same time, Burns says that the last thing he wants to do is come to conferences like DockerCon and tell developers the best way to take advantage of containers. After all, most Docker users are approaching a completely different set of problems, and Google is willing to learn. "We don't have all the answers," Burns says. "We did it one way, but that doesn't mean it's the right way." At Google, Burns says, building software is an internal affair. If, on the backend, a Google developer is having an issue with a database or web server not running quite right, you have to call the person in the company who developed that service in the first place and get them to fix it. It's all Google stuff talking to other Google stuff behind the scenes, Burns says. Outside of Google, though, apps are built from a lot of moving parts that can come from many different vendors. One part of the app might use a MySQL database, and another might use a Redis database, and the way they "talk" to the main app can be totally different from each other. "The way the world builds applications is different from how Google builds applications," Burns says. Burns describes this as a very classic Google sort of problem: The mismatch between how Google likes to do things and how the rest of the world likes to do things. He cites an anecdote of how internally, Google loves long, drawn out Gmail conversation threads that can go into the "hundreds." But according to Burns, the Gmail team found that the average thread length outside of Google is just over one single, solitary message. In short, Google has a lot to learn from watching how people use technology in production. Google thinks you'll pick its cloud Docker and other software containers have this huge potential to upend the cloud market. Since your code can run anywhere, there's nothing stopping you from picking it up from one cloud vendor and dropping it elsewhere. Even Google's Kubernetes, which again is free software, can be run in competing clouds at the developer's whim. That's not really a problem for Google, though. Burns says that with its container know-how, and everything it's learned by being a part of the community, Google Cloud Platform will be the best place to run these Docker containers — even as competitors like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure look to include container support on their own platforms. "Running those things on the Google Cloud just makes more sense," Burns says. Still, Docker is a fast-growing startup and a fast-growing technology, and Burns says that even if he's seen this movie before, there are still plenty of twists and turns to come. "I don't know the ending this time," Burns says. SEE ALSO: Two simple reasons IBM loves free software Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here are all of Google's awesome science projects — that we know about
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Greece’s Cyber Crime Unit is warning Internet users of the reappearance of a virus targeting users on social media network Facebook.
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The Greek police cyber crime unit has opened a case file against an internet user from the United Kingdom for participating in a suicide. According to Greek police, the accused, whose electronic traces have been found but have not been identified yet, tried to help a Greek woman who had expressed her wish to commit suicide on Facebook. He advised her to use a gun and even offered to provide one for her. The case investigation was initiated following a complaint made to the cyber crime unit by another internet user. The District Attorney of Athens has already been informed about the case and ordered to conduct a preliminary examination and get access to all the necessary data by the social network website and internet providers. The online police investigation showed that the accused’s electronic traces came from a UK internet provider. Furthermore, the Greek woman who expressed her intention to kill herself has been identified and is in good health. The file was provided to the Athens District Attorney to examine the possibility of submitting a request letter for the identification of the accused by British authorities.
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A survey on the search “obsessions” of internet users has been circulating the web over the last few days. The survey conducted by cost-estimating website Fixr.com recorded Google user searches on the prices of various products, depending on their country of residence. Although the survey is based on users’ Google search history and may fuel many stereotypes about countries and peoples, the ending result was eye-opening. For example in Russia people often search about the price of flying with a Russian MIG aircraft, while people in South Korea are interested in finding out the price of rhinoplasty surgeries. The most common search in Greece, in regards to pricing, has to do with the cost of a wedding ceremony and party. In other countries, such as Mauritania, internet users appear more concerned about the cost of slaves, Brazilians are obsessed with finding out the cost of hiring a prostitute and Germans are always searching about beer prices.
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This week, the Global Cyberspace Conference takes place in The Hague (16-17 April). In March, UNESCO hosted a conference on Connecting the Dots in Digital Space. The NETmundial Initiative had a meeting in Stanford recently. In early May, the Freedom Online Conference will take place in Ulan Bator (for dates and a list of events see the 2015 timeline). In the Internet field, prefix-switching (cyber/digital/net/online/e-/) does not usually change the meaning of the word or phrase. The Hague conference could have been called the DIGITAL or ONLINE Space Conference; NETmundial could easily be CYBERmundial. Although these events have different prefixes, they deal with the same set of issues defined by the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development as 'international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet'. They address all or some of 40+ issues that can be classified in seven baskets, as illustrated in Diplo's 'IG Building Under Construction'. Why do prefixes matter, if they can be used interchangeably? First, subtle trends in the use and implications of prefixes have started to emerge. 'E-' is used typically for commerce, 'cyber' for security and crime, and 'digital' for development divides, to name a few. These trends are confirmed by a recent DiploFoundation study analysing nine years of Internet Governance Forum (IGF) transcripts. For example, the study shows a clear trend for the use of 'cyber' in discussion on security-related issues. This process is not surprising. Each policy field tends to develop its own vocabulary, and to frame discussion in certain ways. However, there is a potential risk if the entire Internet policy field comes to be framed through one lens, such as security. For example, although the EU has the Digital Agenda as its core Internet-related document, the EU Council introduced the concept of cyber diplomacy. One would have expected digital diplomacy to be a more appropriate name for a foreign affairs representation of the EU Digital Agenda. In the USA one can identify a wide range of prefixes. The e-Diplomacy unit of the US State Department manages its Digital Diplomacy (use of the Internet in diplomatic activities) and runs, for example, a virtual embassy to Iran. On the national level there is a cybersecurity strategy. A similar 'prefix salad' can be found in many other countries worldwide. Survey: What is your favorite PREFIX in the Internet politics? The second reason prefixes matter is that different prefixes could create confusion for governments, companies and organisations that have to deal with Internet public policy issues. Different prefixes may convey subtle - and perhaps incorrect - implications about who should cover different issues. During a recent lecture tour in Asia, I realised how difficult is for governments to decide how to deal with these 'differences'. Who should be in charge of the various issues? Should it be the ministry for communication (digital) or security (cyber) or human rights (online) or...? For small countries with limited resources, this is becoming a real problem. In a way, by creating more possibilities to participate (more events and more modes of participation), we risk of creating a 'paradox of inclusion' (more events, but fewer possibilities for small states to participate actively in most of them). The same challenge of managing the cyber/net/virtual/e- avalanche of events faces companies and the non-governmental sector. Third, this process of covering similar issues under different titles may increase the difficulty of overcoming policy silos. Policy silos create sub-optimal coverage of multidisciplinary issues such as Internet governance. For example, one cannot effectively address cybersecurity without taking into consideration questions of privacy and freedom of expression, or business interests. Describing similar processes using different prefixes (cyber, digital, net,...) can accentuate the existing gap, making it even more complicated to bridge the policy silos. What can be done? One has to be realistic in attempts to make policy-making rational. In spite of all efforts, policy-making is rarely optimal. It will always have an element of irrationality, reflecting our imperfection as a society. Security people will meet in their own circles, while human rights, technical communities, and others will tend to stay in their own spaces. We have to accept this reality, but we should not cease our efforts to have multidisciplinary coverage of issues. In many cases we will fail, but the efforts should be made. A few practical steps: Invest heavily in facilitation of communication among different policy communities (human rights, security, technology). It is not enough to put different communities around a table and expect to have effective communication. Creative and careful facilitation is required. Reduce the 'lost in translation' risk among different professions by providing simple explanations of different concepts. Sometimes this will involve explanation of homographs such as 'protocol'. Protocol in diplomacy is not the same as protocol in Internet technical communication (although both of them include 'handshaking'). Create structural encouragements for communication among different professional groups. The IGF has been particularly successful in fostering diversity in the composition of discussion panels and other activities. In essence, all of these prefixes (cyber, digital, net,..) refer to the same thing - the Internet. While the process of differentiating meanings and claiming terminology is a natural one, we should be aware that we are creating differences, rather than naming differences which already exist. For background reading on Internet governance and digital politics you can consult the book 'An Introduction to Internet governance'. For events and resources you can consult the Geneva Internet Platform and DiploFoundation. You can follow Jovan Kurbalija on Twitter at @jovankurbalija _____________________________________________ Annex - Short Guide for Digital Prefix Etymology The etymology of cyber goes back to the Ancient Greek meaning of 'governing'. Cyber came into use in our time via Norbert Weiner's book Cybernetics, dealing with information-driven governance. In 1984, William Gibson coined the word cyberspace in the science fiction novel Neuromancer. The growth of the use of the prefix cyber followed the growth of the Internet. In the late 1990s, almost anything related to the Internet was cyber: cyber community, cyber law, cyber sex, cybercrime, cyber culture, cyber... You named anything on the Internet and you had cyber. In the early 2000s, cyber gradually disappeared from wide use, remaining alive principally in security terminology. One of the reasons is that cyber was used in 2001 to name the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention. It is still the only international treaty in the field of Internet security. Today we have, for example, the USA's Cyberspace Strategy, the ITU's Global Cybersecurity Agenda; NATO's cyber defence policy, and Estonia's Cyber Defence Center of Excellence. E- is the abbreviation for 'electronic'. It got its first and most important use through e-commerce, as description of early commercialisation of the Internet. In the EU's Lisbon Agenda (2000), e- was the most frequently used prefix. E- was also the main prefix in the declarations of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS, Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005). The WSIS follow-up implementation is centred on action lines including e-government, e-business, e-learning, e-health, e-employment, e-agriculture, and e-science. Nonetheless, e- is not as present as it used to be. Even the EU has abandoned e- recently, trying, most likely, to distance itself from the failure of the EU's Lisbon Agenda. Today, the EU has a Digital Agenda for Europe. Digital refers to '1' and '0' - two digits which are the basis of whole Internet world. Ultimately, all software and programmes start with them. In the past, digital was used mainly in development circles to represent the digital divide. During the last few years, digital has started conquering Internet linguistic space. In addition to the EU, Great Britain now has digital diplomacy. Prefix Net almost disappeared after initial popularity, in particular, in Germany (Netzpolitik). It re-emerged with the growing importance of net neutrality discussion and last year with NETmundial in Sao Paolo (April 2014). Future of prefix Relevance of prefix Net will depend on the success of the N. a few years ago after Net was popular in early 2000s Virtual relates to the intangible nature of the Internet. Virtual introduces the ambiguity of being both intangible and, potentially, non-existent. Virtual reality could be both an intangible reality (something that cannot be touched), and a reality that does not exist (false reality). Academics and Internet pioneers used virtual to highlight the novelty of the Internet, and the emergence of 'a brave new world'. Virtual, because of its ambiguous meaning, rarely appears in policy language and international documents. You can find more information in the website 'Emerging Language of Internet Diplomacy'. Please let us know if you would like to receive updates. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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Facebook is building a fleet of V-shaped unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, to help the company with its Internet.org project that aims to beam Internet access to the 5 billion people that don't have it yet. According to a report from The New York Times, Facebook has a codename for its drone: Aquila, which is also the name of the eagle in Greek mythology that carries Zeus's thunderbolts for him. Aquila can reportedly stay in the air for up to three months at a time, and beam high-speed internet from between 60,000 and 90,000 feet in the air. They'll be lighter than a small car, but as long as a Boeing 767. The first flights will reportedly begin this summer, although "commercial deployment may take years," the Times notes. Facebook executives are not sure how much the final version of Aquila will cost the company. Aquila was accomplished via Facebook's acquisition of the drone maker Ascenta in 2014, according to the Times. But now that this project is under Facebook's wing, the company is also looking for partners to help get the project off the ground, in return for allowing those companies to use their data and technology. The Internet.org initiative, which was created in August 2013, is one of the main ways Facebook looks to spread its influence. By partnering up with mobile companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, and Microsoft, Facebook hopes to eventually offer universal affordable internet access, similar to Google's Project Loon, where high flying balloons beam down WiFi to areas without internet. Check out the whole story over at The New York Times.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How drones are changing the way we see things
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Today's deadly attack at Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo is an attack on freedom of expression and on freedom of the press, core values of our own democracy. Such acts of terrorism are not the answer and cannot be accepted, even when such expression takes the form of controversial cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad, repeatedly published in the last months by the French satirical newspaper. This unprecedented attack comes about a month after the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) released a propaganda video calling on Muslims in France to carry out attacks there. While it is still unclear who was actually behind this episode, it cannot be ruled out that some local "Islamic fighters" could have decided to take up that call in their own hands. Today's deadly attack shows one more time that terrorism is an actual threat and that, in order to protect, monitor and prevent such attacks, Western nations must deploy sophisticated technologies and cooperate with each other. It is probably true that the US National Security Agency (NSA) is making a big mistake by spying on millions of people without compelling reasons -- but a bigger mistake would be to pursue a zero surveillance state. Smart intelligence and data gathering are necessary steps in a world so shaky and still marked by wars and conflicts. As repeatedly documented, terror groups take full advantage of the Internet and modern communication technologies. While "loose" or potential IS sympathizers can easily access their propaganda material circulating on mainstream media or TV outlets, more often than not Internet is the preferred channel for the following step -- to get in touch and/or even join those terror groups -- by reading their blog posts or social network feeds, downloading files and other original content. In his recent pivotal book, @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex, Shane Harris (Senior Correspondent at The Daily Beast reporter and former Foreign Policy contributor), details the importance of having access to the most advanced technologies to win today's wars or to protect a country's interests. However, Europe as a whole lags well behind the US in its approach to cyber-security and, despite their recent efforts, EU countries provide an uneven framework. While Germany and France have great intelligence and communication control infrastructures, other countries (i.e., Greece) allocate a very low-budget to such issues and still others lack basic technological knowledge -- thus exposing a deeper cultural problem, whereas cyber-security is clearly not on their priority list. As explained by cyber-security expert Stefano Mele, EU countries are currently drafting a document to pinpoint such issues and how to properly address them in regards to public policies and military involvement -- the so-called EU Cyber Defence Policy Framework. This is an initial step to improve communication security, provide local training and increase International cooperation to advance both defense and offensive strategies for each country and the entire EU as well. Needless to say, such documents drafted must then be applied on the ground in order to make a difference, something easier said than done. It is also worth noting that such collaborative efforts are in danger of being compromised by the lasting effects of last year's NSA revelations. Many are indeed worried by the on-going tension between Germany and the US, as exposed again by Der Spiegel last week and the recent revelation about British surveillance operations against Belgium's largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. One thing is certain, though: if many people will still believe that we only need protection from the NSA, we may be stuck, forced to deal with the aftermath of more terror attacks at any level. Maybe broader cooperation and funding efforts could not prevent such tragic events such as today's attack in Paris, but in many other instances they will surely have an actual impact. Prevention is key, and sometime select surveillance strategies are needed -- it is a small price to pay to be better safe than sorry.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com |
Online purchases in Greece have shown significant increase in the first quarter of 2014. Three out of ten Greeks between the ages of 16 and 74 have been ordering goods or services via the internet, according to a recent survey conducted by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). While the percentage of online purchases remained stable in 2013, this year it increased for both men and women. The survey data show that 55.3% of online buyers are men and 46.7% are women. The percentage of women who shop via the internet has been gradually increasing between 2012-2014, while the deviations between men and women have decreased from 13.8% to 11.6% and 6.6%, respectively. Furthermore, 29.4% of people who shop online come from the 25-34 age group. Internet users with a high educational level amount to 51.8%, while users with an average education level stand at 38.7%. In regards to payment, 51.8% of people who purchased goods or services for personal use, paid in cash or deposited money in a bank account, 37.3% paid with a debit or credit card, 22.3% via a prepaid card or a prepaid account and 4.8% by transferring money via online banking. Most Greeks prefer to make online purchases from local companies (73.3%), while 40% shop from other European Union countries and 21% from countries outside the EU. Finally, during the first quarter of 2014, 18.7% of Greeks who go online used a cloud storage service, with 60% of men and 40% of women using the service to store photographs (76.2%), documents, spreadsheets and electronic presentations (59.2%), music (38,2%) and videos (31,9%).
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com |
Penetration of information technology continues to increase in Greece, as Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) figures on Tuesday showed a significant rise in the number of Greek households with a Web connection and in the portion of the population tha... ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ekathimerini.com |
by Associated Press EU holds largest-ever cyber security exercise Associated Press - 30 October 2014 11:27-04:00 ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A European Union cyber-security agency was in Athens to conduct the largest exercise ever held on the continent to prevent attacks on Europe's public utilities and communications networks. The director of the European Network and Information Security Agency, Udo Helmbrecht, told The Associated Press that Thursday's one-day exercise involving 29 countries and 200 agencies dealt with attack scenarios against "critical infrastructure." Helmbrecht said European countries were working to improve their coordination between national security agencies and to further standardize protective software and methods. Examples of serious past incidents, he said, include a wave of cyber attacks against Estonia in 2007 that severely affected the country's banks and government agencies, and the Stuxnet computer virus that was used to target energy and industrial sites in Iran. News Topics: General news, Computer and data security, Computing and information technology, Technology People, Places and Companies: Europe, Athens, Greece, Western Europe Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.neurope.eu |
Greek Cyber Crime Unit Head Manolis Sfakianakis presented shocking data to the Parliament regarding pedophiles, operating mostly in Athens. According to data released by Sfakianakis, one particular pedophile had managed to lure ten children from Athens, using an online game called “Dress up Doll.” The man got the children to photograph themselves or have their parents take a photo of them naked in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Education Minister Andreas Loverdos submitted a report regarding a school teacher in Chania, Crete, who had seduced a sixth-grader in the past and was later reappointed as a substitute teacher in Heraklion, while her file only included the comment “innapropriate behavior during service.” Sfakianakis presented further data regarding internet crimes. Over the last three years, a total of 1,028 people have been arrested on charges of Internet crimes, 271 of which were accused of child pornography. He also said that during the last eight years, the Cyber Crime Unit has managed to prevent 1,060 suicides. “When I was in New York, someone said that there was a young person in my country who was injuring herself on camera. I immediately found the channel and notified the Unit who tracked her down and alerted the Greek Police and the Health Service. The FBI has rewarded us for this case,” he said. Furthermore, he mentioned the TLO program which scans the web in Greece and monitors everything that is happening, for example, tracking child pornography material. “This program has been approved by the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy and the Supreme Court prosecutor who believe that it is not violating any personal data,” said Sfakianakis.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com |
An increase in the spread of malware through mobile storage devices, such as USBs, CDs and DVDs, was recorded in Greece during the first half of 2014, according to data released by Kaspersky Security Network. More than 2,615,000 cases of malware were ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com |