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Aadhaar Gains Global Popularity, Russia & Morocco Follow Suit

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India’s biometrics-based identification system Aadhaar is gaining popularity globally with countries like Russia, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia showing interest in adopting the model. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has enrolled more than 1 billion people under the Aadhaar scheme, about five-and-a-half years after the programme was launched.

 The department of IT, Ministry of External Affairs and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman R.S. Sharma, are part of an effort to promote the Aadhaar model overseas.

R.S. Sharma, who served as UIDAI Director-General from 2009-13, recently addressed a seminar on financial inclusion in Russia. After returning t India, he said in an interview that, “Morocco wants to do what India has done in the space. On India’s recommendation, Morocco has included provisions for biometric identification and authentication in its proposed national population register (NPR).” “They seem to have changed their strategy and approach, now more aligned with the UID project of India,” he added.

 Morocco’s attempt to reform its system of identification is being facilitated by the World Bank and the country envisions giving each citizen a unique identification number and developing an NPR covering its entire population.

The Indian government has made Aadhaar the pivot for delivering subsidies and other social welfare benefits directly to the people by transferring cash to their bank accounts, seeking to cut out middlemen and curb leakages. Aadhaar is also observed as a key element in India’s move towards a cashless economy.

However, the journey for Aadhaar hasn’t been smooth enough. Privacy rights activists have raised questions that data gathered by the system, which uses biometric information based on fingerprints and iris scans, may be abused.

TRAI’s Sharma said the Bank of Russia, which is like the Reserve Bank of India, has conceived of an identification project based on biometric information. He added that the World Bank also wants to roll out similar projects in Algeria and Tunisia.

The World Bank said Aadhaar was worthy of replication by other countries, calling it an example of technology leading to economic transformation.
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Bitcoin price drops amid halving

The bitcoin network saw its mining reward—the amount of bitcoin miners receive for confirming transaction—get cut in half on Saturday (July 09). The event occurs after every 210,000 blocks are mined, or confirmed, by the system.

 It’s called the “halving,” a preprogrammed feature in bitcoin’s internal plumbing which was put in by its creator Satoshi Nakamoto.When it was invented back in 2008, the creator had written in it’s code a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. 

Bitcoin can be used to send money instantly around the world, using individual bitcoin addresses, free of charge with no need for third party checks, and is accepted by several major online retailers.

In the web based digital currency world, federal banks to add new money to the system but computers which are awarded fresh bitcoins for processing blocks.

In recent months, a run-up in the price of bitcoin was attributed in part to the halving since it will effectively cut by 50% the rate of production of new bitcoins.

Experts believe that halving spurs bitcoin’s price to new heights. In November 2012, when the first halving took place, the price had touched an all time high of &1,000.

For the people who make a living off maintaining bitcoin’s global network, it will have very real effects. Many miners keep tens of thousands of computers running 24 hours a day in fierce competition with others across the globe to earn bitcoins. For miners, it results in a big drop in revenue—for one block mined, a miner would make around $16,000. Now, it’s $8,000. Though the good news for miners is that the rising price of bitcoin in the past few months may compensate for the worst potential hazards of the halving.
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Facebook to enable end to end encryption

Facebook would roll out a new optional feature "end to end encryption" for its Messenger application. However, the end-to-end encryption setting will not be default unlike WhatsApp here users can choose to turn it on.

Facebook said in a post, “We’ve heard from you that there are times when you want additional safeguards — perhaps when discussing private information like an illness or a health issue with trusted friends and family, or sending financial information to an accountant”. “That means the messages are intended just for you and the other person — not anyone else, including us,” it added.

Facebook's vice president David Marcus said, "Providing more ways for people to safely share is an important part of making the world more open and connected."

"Whether you're asking a doctor for medical advice, sending sensitive account information to your spouse, or even your Social Security number, it's important to have options available for sharing these kinds of very sensitive messages."

Feature will enable users to choose the duration for encrypted messages. Facebook says their technology uses the Signal Protocol developed by Open Whisper Systems.

The encrypted messages could only be seen or read on one device. Facebook says that users can keep the secret message feature optional as people would want Messenger to work in different devices, such as a tablet, desktop computer or phone.

The end-to-end encryption don’t support GIFs and videos or making payments.

"Secret conversations are available on a limited test basis right now, but we will be making the option more widely available this summer," the statement said.

But some law enforcement officials and lawmakers have criticized this moves, saying "The strong encryption can allow criminals and other bad actors to operate in secret where traditional wiretaps don't work."

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Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence still has to fight living consciousness


In today’s technology driven world, the debate on the role of artificial intelligence is gradually heating up. According to computer scientists Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, the term “Artificial Intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics ‘cognitive’ functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as ‘learning’ and ‘problem solving’.

 In contrast to artificial intelligence or AI, is the process automation which takes manual tasks that do not need much learning and simply mechanizes them.

Automation simply mechanizes routine tasks. But in AI, the computer program itself learns as it goes along, creating a database of information which themselves generate additional computer programming code as they learn more, without the need for an army of computer programmers. In AI speak, this is now often referred to as ‘deep learning’.

While AI as a term is familiar to the industry, deep learning is what's been in the limelight lately. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, which in turn falls under the much broader umbrella of AI, all of whose broad goals are to make computers do things outside of the box of precise programmed instructions.
Deep learning refers to the use of specialised computer programs called neural networks — computational representations of points resembling biological neurons in the brain — stacked in (deep) layers, where information flows between the layers. Such a program can be fed large amounts of information — for instance, images, from which they automatically detect and learn implicit features that they can later use to make predictions about novel information.
While deep-learning programs are incredible feats of engineering and promise great advancements in AI, they cannot be applied to all problems. These programs are highly specific to their scopes and require a lot of tuning and trial and error by humans.
While tasks, whether or not they need continuous learning, can be automated, there is one thing that a soulless machine can never do, and that is to have living consciousness.







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Avast Software to buy AVG Technologies for $1.3 billion

Security software provider Avast Software is all set to buy its rival AVG Technologies for $1.3 billion in an all-cash tender offer.

Czech Republic-based security software Avast, which provides both free and paid software for personal computers and mobile devices, said that it is acquiring AVG to “gain scale, technological depth, and geographical breadth” and so it can “take advantage of emerging growth opportunities in internet security, as well as organizational efficiency.”

Avast said they will pay the amount with internal resources and debt financing provided by lenders Credit Suisse Securities, Jefferies, and UBS Investment Bank.

In an statement released by Avast,“We are in a rapidly changing industry, and this acquisition gives us the breadth and technological depth to be the security provider of choice for our current and future customers,” said Vince Steckler, chief executive officer of Avast Software.

“We believe that joining forces with Avast, a private company with significant resources, fully supports our growth objectives and represents the best interests of our stockholders,” added Gary Kovacs, chief executive officer, AVG. “Our new scale will allow us to accelerate investments in growing markets and continue to focus on providing comprehensive and simple-to-use solutions for consumers and businesses, alike.

“As the definition of online security continues to shift from being device-centric, to being concerned with devices, data and people, we believe the combined company, with the strengthened value proposition, will emerge as a leader in this growing market.”

The deal would make Avast the world’s biggest antivirus software firm by number of active users, exceeding even Microsoft’s market share of antivirus technology on consumer devices.

“Our new scale will allow us to accelerate investments in growing markets and continue to focus on providing comprehensive and simple-to-use solutions for consumers and businesses alike,” said AVG Chief Executive Officer Gary Kovacs.



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Telecom
Telecom

Reliance to disrupt CDMA Services ahead of 4G Launch

In 2002, the Ambani brothers-Mukesh and Anil, had stepped on a rather challenging and less popular Code Division Multiple Access  (CDMA) technology in their telecom business, wherein the world was getting adapted to the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) technology. 

But, 14 years after backing the CDMA technology, Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani's telecom services bet on the fourth-generation long-term evolution (LTE) technology is ironically set to relegate the CDMA radio technology. 

The CDMA never had the hold on the telecom market unlike GSM. As on 31 December, 2015, CDMA had less than 5% share of the total wireless subscriber base in India, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). CDMA subscribers accounted for just about 47 million of the total 1.1 billion wireless users as on 31 December. The rest are GSM subscribers.

Now, the Reliance Communications' success in lobbying the government to allow telecom companies operating on the CDMA platform to also use the GSM technology has pushed the technology to the back foot.

Reliance Jio has spent 1.2 trillion in financial year 2015-16 for the 4G launch.

"As we approach the launch of fourth-generation (4G) services by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (R-Jio), we believe it could likely mark the end of CDMA services," Sanjesh Jain, research analyst, wrote in an ICICI Securities Ltd.

"It is critical for R-Jio as completion of 850MHz (megahertz) spectrum refarming by R-Com infers that R-Jio could use the spectrum (through sharing/trading route) for its 4G-850MHz pan-India launch. R-Com has already vacated 850MHz in nine circles. Due to strong data card business, 55% of CDMA revenue comes from post-paid, which could be a low hanging target for R-Jio," added the ICICI Securities report.

Meanwhile, sources say that Reliance Communications is expected to complete the migration of CDMA to 4G LTE service by mid-August, as most of its customers have already opted for the offered upgrade to 4G LTE services.












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Spotify pissed off with Apple

"You discovered a premium feature! You must have a Premium subscription to unlock it.”

According to the reports of Recode,  Spotify is pissed off with Apple as they are not allowing them to pop up the above message in front of users of its ad-supported service.

Apple has told Spotify that the message violates its App Store rules. It is allegedly refusing to approve Spotify’s latest app update unless Spotify uses Apple’s billing system.

Recode obtained a letter in which  Spotify’s head lawyer says that Apple is “causing grave harm to Spotify and its customers” by rejecting the company’s latest app update. Apple’s app review team apparently says that Spotify should use Apple’s billing system if it “wants to use the app to acquire new customers and sell subscriptions.”

The letter continued, “This latest episode raises serious concerns under both U.S. and EU competition law. It continues a troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to exclude and diminish the competitiveness of Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music, particularly when seen against the backdrop of Apple’s previous anti competitive conduct aimed at Spotify … we cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon to harm competitors.”

Spotify did support App Store billing for a period of time, but after the launch of Apple Music in June last year, things have changed.

Spotify’s in-app subscription price on Apple devices stands at $12.99 – three dollars higher than its standard $9.99 per month Premium charge. The company has disabled the App Store billion option in its app, instead prompting users to sign up through the Spotify website.
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Celebgate hacker pleads guilty

An Illinois man accused of breaking into the Apple iCloud and Gmail ACCOUNTS of people in the Los Angeles entertainment industry to obtain their private photos and videos has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Twenty eight years old Edward Majerczyk, a resident of Chicago and Orland Park is the second man to plead guilty to the photo-hacking scandal which took place in September 2014 which saw hundreds of illegally obtained private photographs leaked online.

A plea was entered in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that between November 23, 2013 through August 2014, Majerczyk had engaged in a phishing scheme to obtain usernames and passwords from around 300 people, including 30 celebrities.

Majerczyk gained access to the victims’ usernames and passwords after he sent them emails that appeared to be from security accounts of internet service providers. These mails directed the victims to a website that would collect their usernames and passwords. After illegally accessing the email accounts, he obtained personal information including sensitive and private photographs and videos, reported the US Attorney’s office.

In March, 36-year-old Ryan Collins of Lancaster, Pennsylvania negotiated a guilty plea deal with authorities in exchange for the police recommending that he serves 18 months, as opposed to five years, in prison.

Collins sent out emails to his victims that appeared to be from Apple or Google from November 2012 until the beginning of September 2014. By illegally accessing the email accounts, Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, most of which belonged to female celebrities.

Authorities are presently not able to tie two men together in the federal offence neither can they link them directly to circulating the photos.

The investigations are in connection with the leaks of intimate photographs of numerous female celebrities in September 2014 known as “Celebgate.”

The high profile Hollywood actresses who were the victims of this hack included Oscar winner Jennifer 
Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Cara Delevingne, Mary-Kate Olsen, Amber Heard, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna among others. In October 2014, Lawrence spoke to Vanity Fair about the incident, saying: "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting."

While no victims were named in court documents, the investigation began after Lawrence and other celebrities complained in interviews about having their private photos end up publicly disseminated online.

It is not the first time celebrity nude photos obtained through by computer intrusions led to a criminal prosecution.

A Florida man was sentenced in 2012 to 10 years in prison for hacking into email accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis and Christina Aguilera to leak private information and explicit photos.


A Bahamian man in New York pleaded guilty in May to charges of hacking into celebrities' email accounts to steal unreleased movies and television scripts. And a Filipino man was charged last month in New Jersey with running a scheme to hack into the bank and credit card accounts of celebrities.
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U.S. opens investigation in Tesla fatal crash while in autopilot mode

An accident which claimed the life of a driver of a Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O) Model S car prompted an investigation by federal highway safety regulators.

Joshua Brown, of Canton, Ohio was killed on May 07 in Williston, Florida when he operated in Autopilot mode and collided with a truck.

According to government records and Tesla statement his car's cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer rig from a brightly lit sky and didn't automatically activate its brakes.

The first person to die in a US crash involving a car in self-driving mode was the tech-savvy 40-year-old owner of a Tesla Model S who nicknamed his car "Tessy" and praised its sophisticated "Autopilot" system. He also owned a technology company, Nexu innovations.

America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it is investigating the design and performance of the system aboard 25,000 Tesla Model S sedan which are equipped with Autopilot system.
Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk expressed his grief over the fatal accident. He said in a tweet, “Our condolences for the tragic loss.”

The investigation comes as Tesla and other automakers are gearing up to offer systems that allow vehicles to pilot themselves under certain conditions.

The development is going to cause consumers to second-guess the trust they put in the booming autonomous vehicle industry.

Frank Baressi, 62, the driver of the tractor-trailer and owner of Okemah Express LLC, said the Tesla driver was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" and driving so quickly that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him." Tesla Motors Inc. said it is not possible to watch videos on the Model S touch screen.

This isn't the first time we've seen a potential issue with Autopilot not being able to sense obstructions of a certain height. Earlier this year a Model S owner claimed that his Autopilot-equipped car crashed itself into a trailer.

Model S's Autopilot system relies on a forward-facing radar and camera to see obstacles, and though it can be easy for humans to lose an object against the sky, a tractor trailer is a very big object to miss if you are actively engaged in the driving experience.

This accident will add fuel to a debate within the auto industry and in legal circles over the safety of systems that take partial control of steering and braking from drivers.


There have been instances of the Autopilot preventing incidents, there have also been numerous smaller accidents and even reports of drivers sleeping while at the wheel.
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Hackers Take Off $10 Million from Ukrainian Bank

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A Ukrainian bank has now fallen prey to the widespread cyber attack on banking and financial sectors by hackers who have reportedly stolen $10 million from it.

According to reports emerging from the region citing an independent IT monitoring organisation called the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), hackers have exploited the Swift messaging system.

"At the current moment, dozens of banks (mostly in Ukraine and Russia) have been compromised, from which has been stolen hundreds of millions of dollars," a member of the ISACA reportedly said in a press release.

The hackers have already made a number of victims, including Bangladesh central bank, the Banco del Austro (BDA) bank in Ecuador and an unnamed commercial bank. In February, cybercriminals accessed the central bank of Bangladesh and made 35 transfer requests totalling $951 million to its account with the New York Federal Reserve. Ecuadorian bank call BANCO  del Austro  lost about $12 million in the cyber heist carried out at the beginning of last year by attacking the Swift global network.
 
The chief executive of Swift, Gottfried Leibbrandt has warned that banks need to tighten security or risk suspension from the global collective – which has come under increasing strain since the hacks began.

Speaking to The Financial Times, he said: "We could say that if the immediate security around Swift is not in order we could cut you off, you shouldn't be on the network [...] the days when you needed to break into a bank and carry guns and blow torches are over. You can now rob a bank from just your own PC and that does change the game completely."

The recently attacked bank in question had not yet been named, as investigators are restricted by strict non-disclosure agreements until the firm itself agrees to go public with information.

According to sources "SWIFT network has neither been ‘hacked’ nor ‘attacked’ as part of any of the recently reported cyber incidents. The attackers compromised the banks’ environments, whilst the banks’ access to the SWIFT network was simply used as a way to execute the theft – something that would not have been possible had the banks’ environments not been compromised".

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Google,EFF opposing access to data by law enforcement agencies

In their letter, Google, EFF, Demand Progress, FightForTheFuture, TOR, VPN providers Private Internet Access, Golden Frog and Hide My Ass, plus many others, urge Congress to “consider and debate” the implications of the new rule.

“The changes to Rule 41 give federal magistrate judges across the United States new authority to issue warrants for hacking and surveillance in cases where a computer’s location is unknown,” the letter reads.

“This would invite law enforcement to seek warrants authorizing them to hack thousands of computers at once — which it is hard to imagine would not be in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

Noting that the changes would allow for the hacking of innocent computer users, the coalition describes the proposal as dangerously broad.

“It fails to provide appropriate guidelines for safeguarding privacy and security, and it circumvents the legislative process that would provide Congress and the public the critically necessary opportunity to evaluate these issues,” they continue.

But perhaps most importantly, the proposed changes will undermine the security of those who need it most – those who have taken legitimate steps to protect their privacy with anonymizing tools such as VPNs and TOR.

“There are countless reasons people may want to use technology to shield their privacy. From journalists communicating with sources to victims of domestic violence seeking information on legal services, people worldwide depend on privacy tools for privacy, personal safety, and data security,” the letter reads.

“Many businesses even require their employees to use virtual private networks for security, especially during travel. Such tools should be actively promoted as a way to safeguard privacy, not discouraged.”
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