UN net regulation talks kick off

2 December 2012 Last updated at 20:43 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A UN agency is trying to calm fears that the internet could be damaged by a conference it is hosting.

Government regulators from 193 countries are in Dubai to revise a wide-ranging communications treaty.

Google has warned the event threatened the "open internet", while the EU said the current system worked, adding: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

But the agency said action was needed to ensure investment in infrastructure to help more people access the net.

"The brutal truth is that the internet remains largely [the] rich world's privilege, " said Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union, ahead of the meeting.

"ITU wants to change that."

Internet governance

The ITU traces its roots back to 1865, pre-dating the United Nations. Back then the focus was on telegrams, but over ensuing decades governments have extended its remit to other communications technologies.

It helped develop the standards that made sure different countries' telephone networks could talk to each other, and continues to allocate global radio spectrum and communication satellite orbits.

The current event - the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit) - marks the first time it has overseen a major overhaul of telecommunication regulations since 1988.

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Wcit key facts

Regulators and other delegates have until 14 December to agree which proposals to adopt.

More than 900 changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations have been put forward.

The ITU highlights proposals to block spam messages, cut mobile roaming fees and prioritise emergency calls as some of the event's key topics.

There have been accusations of "secrecy" because the ITU had left it to individual countries to publish proposals rather than release them itself.

Two sites - Wcitleaks and .nxt - have gathered together related documents from a variety of sources but many are still unpublished.

The resulting treaty will become part of international law, however the ITU itself recognises that there is no legal mechanism to force countries to comply.

The ITU says there is a need to reflect the "dramatically different" technologies that have become commonplace over the past 24 years.

But the US has said some of the proposals being put forward by other countries are "alarming".

"There have been proposals that have suggested that the ITU should enter the internet governance business," said Terry Kramer, the US's ambassador to Wcit, last week.

"There have been active recommendations that there be an invasive approach of governments in managing the internet, in managing the content that goes via the internet, what people are looking at, what they're saying.

"These fundamentally violate everything that we believe in in terms of democracy and opportunities for individuals, and we're going to vigorously oppose any proposals of that nature."

He added that he was specifically concerned by a proposal by Russia which said member states should have "equal rights to manage the internet" - a move he suggested would open the door to more censorship.

However - as a recent editorial in the Moscow Times pointed out - Russia has already been able to introduce a "black list" of banned sites without needing an international treaty.

The ITU's leader is also playing down suggestions that Russian demands will see him gain powers currently wielded by US-based bodies such as the internet name regulator Icann.

"There is no need for the ITU to take over the internet governance," said Dr Toure following Mr Kramer's comments.

Pay to stream

One of the other concerns raised is that the conference could result in popular websites having to pay a fee to send data along telecom operators' networks.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (Etno) - which represents companies such as Orange, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom - has been lobbying governments to introduce what it calls a "quality based" model.

This would see firms face charges if they wanted to ensure streamed video and other quality-critical content download without the risk of problems such as jerky images.

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Overseeing the internet

No one organisation is "in charge" of the internet, but the following groups help ensure it continues to function:

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

Charged with producing technical documents to influence the way people design, use and manage the net.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann)

Defines policies for how the domain name and IP (internet protocol) address number systems should run to ensure the net's system of unique identifiers remains stable and secure.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana)

Assigns net address endings (generic top-level domain names), and coordinates the allocation of IP numbers. It currently functions as a department of Icann.

Internet Society (Isoc)

Lobbies governments to ensure the internet's technical standards are open and non-proprietary, so that anyone who uses an application on it in a certain way has the same experience. It also promotes freedom of expression.

Internet Architecture Board (IAB)

Oversees the process used to create internet standards and considers complaints about the way they are executed.

Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

An UN-created forum in which governments, businesses, universities and other organisations with a stake in the internet can share dialogue.

Etno says a new business model is needed to provide service providers with the "incentive to invest in network infrastructure".

A leaked proposal by Cameroon which talks of network operators deserving "full payment" has been interpreted by some as evidence that it is sympathetic to the idea.

Mr Kramer has suggested that "a variety of nations in the Arab states" also supported the idea.

However, the US and EU are against it which should theoretically stop the proposal in its tracks.

The ITU has repeatedly said that there must be common ground, rather than just a majority view, before changes are introduced to the treaty.

"Voting in our jargon means winners and losers, and we cannot afford that," Dr Toure told the BBC.

Rejecting regulation

Such assurances have failed to satisfy everyone.

The EU's digital agenda commissioner, Neelie Kroes, has called into question why the treaty needs to refer to the net.

"The internet works, it doesn't need to be regulated by ITR treaty," she tweeted.

Vint Cerf - the computer scientist who co-designed some of the internet's core underlying protocols and who now acts as Google's chief internet evangelist - has been even more vocal, penning a series of op-ed columns.

"A state-controlled system of regulation is not only unnecessary, it would almost invariably raise costs and prices and interfere with the rapid and organic growth of the internet we have seen since its commercial emergence in the 1990s," he wrote for CNN.

Google itself has also run an "open internet" petition alongside the claim: "Only governments have a voice at the ITU... engineers, companies, and people that build and use the web have no vote."

However, the ITU has pointed out that Google has a chance to put its views forward as part of the US's delegation to the conference.

"They are here, and they're telling everyone that it's a closed society," said Dr Toure when asked about the firm's campaign.

"We will challenge them here again to bring their points on the table. The point that they are bringing - which is internet governance - it's not really a place for discussion [of that] here.

"Therefore we believe they will find themselves in an environment completely different from what they were expecting."

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Heat helps 'heal' flash memory

3 December 2012 Last updated at 06:17 ET

A brief jolt of 800C heat can stop flash memory wearing out, researchers in Taiwan have found.

Flash memory is widely used in computers and electronic gadgets because it is fast and remembers data written to it even when unpowered.

However, flash memory reliability suffers significantly after about 10,000 write and read cycles.

Using heat, the researchers have found a way to "heal" flash memory materials to make them last 100 million cycles.

Hot chip

Heat has long been known to help heal degraded materials in old flash memory. But because the heat healing process meant baking the memory chip in an oven at 250C for hours, few saw it as a practical solution.

Researchers at electronics company Macronix have found a way around this by re-designing chips to put a heater alongside the memory material that holds the data.

In a paper due to be presented at the International Electron Devices Meeting 2012, the Macronix researchers said their onboard heater applied a jolt of heat to small groups of memory cells. Briefly heating those locations to about 800C returned damaged memory locations to full working order.

The re-designed memory chip was safe, they said, because very small areas were being heated for only a few milliseconds. The process also consumed small amounts of power so should not significantly reduce battery life on portable gadgets, they said.

Tests carried out by Macronix on the novel memory chips shows that they can last at least 100 million write and read cycles. The true upper limit of their reliability has not been plumbed, the researchers told IEEE Spectrum, because it takes weeks to write and read data tens of millions of times, even to fast memory chips. Testing for billions of cycles would take "months", said the researchers.

Macronix said it planned to capitalise on its research but gave no date for when the improved flash memory might start appearing in gadgets.

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May warns 'web snooping' critics

3 December 2012 Last updated at 07:45 ET

Home Secretary Theresa May has warned that those opposing plans to let police monitor all internet use are "putting politics before people's lives".

The draft Communications Data Bill would mean internet providers having to retain records of all their customers' online activity for 12 months.

Mrs May told The Sun the powers would help police tackle serious organised crime, paedophiles, and terrorists.

Critics call it a "snoopers' charter" bill which infringes civil liberties.

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• The Bill extends the range of data telecoms firms will have to store for up to 12 months
• It will include for the first time details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming in addition to emails and phone calls
• The data includes the time, duration, originator and recipient of a communication and the location of the device from which it is made
• It does not include the content of messages - what is being said. Officers will need a warrant to see that
• But they will not need the permission of a judge to see details of the time and place of messages provided they are investigating a crime or protecting national security
• Four bodies will have access to data: Police, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the intelligence agencies and HM Revenue and Customs
• Local authorities will face restrictions on the kinds of data they can access

At the moment, the police and intelligence services can get access to information about people's mobile phone use.

The bill would extend those powers to cover email and the internet. The authorities would be able to see details of who communicated with whom, and when and where, but they would not be able to see the content of the message.

Police, the security services, the new National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs would be able to access the data, but the draft Communications Data Bill also gives the Home Secretary the power to extend access to others, such as the UK Border Agency.

Mrs May stressed that the proposal was to store the detail of communications - who talked to who in a Skype internet phone call for example - rather than the content of what was said.

"It is absolutely not government wanting to read everybody's emails - we will not be looking at every web page everybody has looked at," she added.

Mrs May said: "People who say they are against this bill need to look victims of serious crime, terrorism and child sex offences in the eye and tell them why they're not prepared to give the police the powers they need to protect the public.

"Anybody who is against this bill is putting politics before people's lives. We would certainly see criminals going free as a result of this."

There are two parliamentary reports due to be published on the draft bill in the next few days.

Lib Dem sources have told the BBC that party leader Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, might use one of the reports - in which MPs and peers are expected to be critical - as "an opportunity to kill the bill for good".

BBC deputy political editor James Landale said that, in its report, the joint committee on the draft Communications Data Bill would argue that:

• The Home Office has failed to make the case for the new laws, not least by failing to show how the police use existing laws to monitor mobile phone data.
• The bill infringes civil liberties and invades privacy by allowing the police access to a mass of new data without adequate safeguards. In particular, they will argue that in some internet use - particularly social media sites - it is difficult to distinguish between the details of the communication and the actual content of the message.
• The measure would damage British businesses by forcing phone companies and internet service providers to store at huge cost for 12 months masses of new data that they would not otherwise keep.
• The new pool of data would be open to abuse and present a security threat.

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'Revenge porn' site owner threat

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Yahoo to axe chat rooms feature

3 December 2012 Last updated at 08:42 ET

Yahoo has announced plans to permanently axe the public chat rooms feature of its messaging tool.

It said in a blog post it would replace the tool, along with other services being removed, with new features.

The chat-rooms tool came under fire in 2005, with advertisers pulling ads after reports of illegal under-age sex-themed rooms.

Yahoo said the feature was closing because it was not "adding enough value" for users.

Along with public chat rooms, Pingbox and Windows Live Messenger interoperability are all scheduled to be removed on 14 December, and some other features will disappear at the end of January.

"Sometimes… we have to make tough decisions," Yahoo said.

"This helps us spend more energy on creating experiences that make Yahoo the most fun way to spend your time."

The company said it would now focus on modernising its "core Yahoo products experiences".

'Teen girls'

Yahoo Messenger is one of the earliest online messaging tools, launched in 1998.

In 2005, Yahoo closed a number of chat rooms, including "girls 13 & up for much older men," "teen girls for older fat men" and "8-12 yo [year-old] girls for older men".

Many of these rooms were in the "Schools and education" and "Teen" chat categories.

The company then announced it would restrict the service to users aged 18 and older.

Sex chats

Other websites that provide online chat services have also been involved in under-age sex scandals.

In June this year, Habbo Hotel, a popular social network for children, temporarily suspended the chat function on its service, following claims paedophiles were using the virtual hotel to groom youngsters for sex.

A two-month Channel 4 investigation revealed explicit sex chats were common within minutes of logging on to the service.

A spokesman for children's charity Childnet told the BBC: "The message from us is that children need to know how to stay safe."

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Paedophile seeks Facebook damages

3 December 2012 Last updated at 12:02 ET

A convicted child sex offender, who won a landmark court case forcing Facebook to take down a website page monitoring paedophiles, is now seeking damages.

On Friday, Facebook was given 72 hours to take down the page 'Keeping our kids safe from predators', which had focused on paedophiles in Northern Ireland.

The man took the case after discovering that his photograph and threatening comments were posted on the page.

Facebook complied with the order, but a similar page appeared within hours.

The High Court judge who ordered the removal of the original page, Mr Justice McCloskey, held that the contents of the original version amounted to prima facie harassment of the man and risked infringing his human rights.

Catalogue of crimes

While the judge granted anonymity to the sex offender, he also stressed that the ruling does not suppress information about him or his criminal record that is already in the public domain.

A detailed written version of the judge's verdict discloses further details about the man's catalogue of crimes.

Known only as XY, the man at the centre of the case has a total of 15 convictions for sexual offences, all of which were committed in the 1980s.

He was released after serving half his prison sentence, only to be detained for a further six months for breaching a condition of his licence.

The judge who sentenced him reportedly expressed particular concern about his lack of insight into his offending.

Right to privacy

It has also been confirmed that he first offended when he was still a juvenile.

When he issued the proceedings against Facebook, the man claimed harassment, misuse of private information, and a breach of his right to privacy and freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment.

Mr Justice McCloskey's written judgment discloses that one of the remedies being sought is a claim for damages against Facebook Ireland Ltd.

That issue has not been determined, with the ruling only on interim relief.

The court heard the man suffers from ill health and fears being attacked or burnt out of his home.

In a statement filed as part of his case he said: "I am in fear for my safety and in a state of constant anxiety as I believe if this material continues to be published it will only be a matter of time before the threats materialise into an attack on me or my home.

Hatred

"The defendants are publishing comments intended to vilify me, some of which are directly threatening.

"By publishing this material about me, the defendants are providing a vehicle for others who may have criminal intent to gain information about where I live and to stir up hatred against me."

Mr Justice McCloskey ruled in his favour after balancing the competing rights to privacy and freedom of expression.

He pointed out that the interim injunction would cause minimal disruption to Facebook.

The judge added that details about the man's name, physical appearance, criminal record and whereabouts were already in the public domain.

"This information will remain in the public domain, come what may," he said.

"The order of this court does not suppress publication of this information in any way.

Online bullying

"Rather, it simply requires certain modest steps to be taken by the operator of a social networking site to ensure that, pending the substantive trial of this action, the plaintiff is not exposed to further conduct which I consider, to a high level of arguability, to be unlawful."

The judge also emphasised that cases of this type will be "intensely fact-sensitive".

He said: "The court is mindful of the contemporary controversy surrounding other contexts, such as online bullying of schoolchildren and the potentially appalling consequences of this gravely worrying phenomenon.

"This judgement does not speak directly to other contexts. Rather, it is confined to the particular litigation context in which is it provided."

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Student group challenges Facebook

4 December 2012 Last updated at 06:31 ET

Facebook's alleged violations of European data laws are to be scrutinised in court by a student group.

Europe v Facebook is unhappy about "half-hearted solutions" following an audit by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.

The group says it will take the IDPC to court for what is sees as failures to implement the changes.

It believes the case could eventually go to the European Court of Justice.

"If we get these things before the courts, it is very likely that it goes all the way to the European Court of Justice. Such a case would be a landmark for the whole IT industry," said Max Schrems, the spokesman for Europe v Facebook.

Despite the fact that, under Irish law, it will have to take the IDPC to court rather than Facebook, the group still sees it as a battle with the social network.

"In the end it will be us against Facebook because any outcome will affect how it can use data," Mr Schrems told the BBC.

The group has been campaigning for better data protection for Facebook users for over a year and filed numerous complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.

It triggered an audit which required Facebook to disclose more user data and, importantly , to turn off its facial recognition feature in Europe.

The feature put forward suggestions when registered users could be tagged in photographs.

User vote

But the group does not think the changes go far enough.

"The Irish authority is miles away from other European data protection authorities in its understanding of the law, and failed to investigate many things. Facebook also gave the authority the run-around," it said in a statement.

It feels that the social network has failed to fully implement the changes.

Some 40,000 users have exercised their right to get a copy of all the data Facebook is holding on them but the group is unhappy about the tools the social network provides to users and is critical that, in 13 cases, the social network failed to meet the deadline for data delivery.

It is also questioning why facial recognition has only be deactivated for EU citizens given that Ireland is responsible for all users outside of the US and Canada.

In response Facebook issued a statement: "The way Facebook Ireland handles personal data has been subject to thorough review by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner over the past year. The two detailed reports produced by the DPC demonstrate that Facebook Ireland complies with European data protection principles and Irish law,

"Nonetheless we have some vocal critics who will never be happy whatever we do and whatever the DPC concludes," it said.

Facebook also faces a class-action lawsuit in the United States, where it is charged with violating privacy rights by publicising users' "likes" without giving them a way to opt out.

A judge gave preliminary approval for the case to be settled by paying users up to $10 (£6.20; 7.60 euros) each out of a settlement fund of $20m.

Meanwhile users are voting on whether they want proposed changes to privacy settings to go ahead. It could be the last user-generated vote on the network as Facebook is keen to scrap the system.

So far about 35,000 have voted. In order to change the plans, 30% of users - or 300 million - need to take part in the vote.

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Revamp for BBC Red Button service

4 December 2012 Last updated at 07:01 ET

The BBC is giving its Red Button service a makeover which it hopes will make the service fit for the next generation of internet-connected TVs.

Connected Red Button will allow viewers with internet-enabled TVs the chance to watch some channels even if they are off air and catch up with previous episodes of shows.

It will launch initially with Virgin Media's Tivo service.

Other internet-connected TV services will be added over the coming months.

The service will offer more streams and clips from sporting events as well as news and weather headlines.

Viewers will initially have access to CBBC, CBeebies, BBC Three and BBC Four.

New functions and features will also be added over time.

'Exciting future'

It is predicted that, by the end of 2016, there will be almost 22 million internet-connected TVs installed in the UK, with over half of households having a connectable TV set either directly or via set-top box.

The Red Button service was launched 13 years ago and has often proved most popular during major events such as Glastonbury, Wimbledon and Formula 1, with extra streams and clips.

Interest peaked during the summer's Olympic Games where 24.2 million viewers watched up to 24 live streams.

Daniel Danker, general manager of BBC Programmes and On-Demand said: "The BBC is seamlessly bringing the internet together with live TV, while making the technology completely invisible. This is Red Button reinvented, and the beginning of the exciting future of television."

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Motorola fails to win Xbox ban

4 December 2012 Last updated at 07:08 ET

A US judge has ruled that Google's Motorola unit cannot ban sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console because of a patent dispute.

Judge James Robart's ruling came part-way through a trial in which the handset maker is claiming its rival should pay up to $4bn (£2.5bn; 3bn euros) a year for use of its connectivity and video-coding patents.

Microsoft has argued the technologies are only worth a fee of $1m a year.

The ruling also applies to Germany.

Judge Robart denied Motorola's request on the grounds that the patents in question were Frand-type innovations - inventions which the firm has recognised are critical to industry standards and should be therefore be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

They include technologies necessary to make use of videos coded in the H.264 format, and to connect to the internet over wi-fi.

Since Microsoft was not challenging the need for a fee, but rather just how much it should pay, he indicated that the outstanding amount owed could be added to Microsoft's bill once the matter was resolved.

Licence fee precedent

A German court awarded Motorola the right to ban Microsoft's Xbox console, its Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player in Germany in May because of the dispute.

A judge at the US's International Trade Commission (ITC) subsequently recommended an import and sales ban of Microsoft's Asia-made games console on related grounds.

But Motorola was unable to enforce either ruling pending Judge Robart's ruling in Seattle.

The current case will now continue to decide what would be a fair licence rate for the patents involved - a decision that could act as a precedent for other similar disputes.

A jury will subsequently be asked to rule whether Motorola's earlier suggestion that the two firms should negotiate a deal based on the starting point of a 2.25% royalty fee was so high that it placed the company in breach of contract.

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'Transformer' robot made at MIT

4 December 2012 Last updated at 08:25 ET

It may not look like a character from the Transformer franchise, but a tiny robot made in the US is able to change shape.

Built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it uses magnets to mimic molecules that fold themselves into complex shapes.

The research could lead to robots that could be reconfigured to perform many different tasks.

But one expert said a lot of work was still needed.

Part-funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research was presented at the 2012 Intelligent Robots and Systems conference.

"It's effectively a one-dimensional robot that can be made in a continuous strip, without conventionally moving parts, and then folded into arbitrary shapes," said one of the researchers, Neil Gershenfeld, head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms.

To fold itself into a new shape, the device uses an "electro-permanent" motor - similar to the electromagnets used in scrapyards to lift cars.

It is composed of pairs of a powerful permanent magnet and a weaker magnet with a magnetic field that changes direction when an electric current is applied.

The magnetic fields of each magnet either add up or cancel each other, making the robot move.

Research race

The prototype comes a year after the same team published a theory it was possible to create any 3D shape by folding a sufficiently long string of subunits.

Jeremy Pitt, deputy head of the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group at Imperial College London, said it would be challenging for such a robot to work alongside artificial-intelligence machines, but the technology could have many real-world applications.

"It is a fascinating example of what happens when mathematical proof, that an arbitrary 3D shape can be built from a sufficiently long string, meets engineering innovation - the miniaturisation of motors and magnets and the minimisation of power consumption," he said.

"There is going to be an interesting research race between groups trying to create reconfigurable structures out of such chains and those trying to build them out of independent self-assembling units."

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