Tech firms 'in denial' over extremists

4 November 2014 Last updated at 13:48

Web giants such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp have become "command-and-control networks... for terrorists and criminals", GCHQ's new head has said.

Islamic State extremists had "embraced" the web but some companies remained "in denial" over the problem, Robert Hannigan wrote in the Financial Times.

He called for them to do more to co-operate with security services.

However, civil liberties campaigners said the companies were already working with the intelligence agencies.

None of the major tech firms has yet responded to Mr Hannigan's comments.

Encryption challenge

Mr Hannigan said IS had "embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits."

The "security of its communications" added another challenge to agencies such as GCHQ, he said - adding that techniques for encrypting - or digitally scrambling - messages "which were once the preserve of the most sophisticated criminals or nation states now come as standard".

GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, could not tackle these challenges "at scale" without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web, he wrote.

Analysis

By Leo Kelion, BBC News website technology editor

One of GCHQ's key concerns is over the shift to encryption - techniques to digitally scramble messages and make their creators anonymous - becoming the default option for many leading internet services.

Both Apple and Google recently switched to making encryption opt-out rather than opt-in in their mobile operating systems iOS8 and Android Lollipop. Apple said it wanted to provide "security and privacy", while Google said the move was intended to protect data from "thieves and snoops". Other tech firms such as Yahoo and Microsoft are taking similar steps.

The firms compare the moves to safes being built with locks, and note that the authorities still have ways to obtain records. For example, Google can still pass on documents and calendars if they have been backed up from a smartphone to its cloud services.

The companies say that while they are willing to co-operate, government surveillance must occur under a legal framework and with oversight.

Mr Hannigan calls for a "mature debate" on just how much privacy these firms should offer, but has yet to be specific on what restrictions he proposes.

GCHQ v tech firms: Internet reacts

GCHQ, terrorists, and the internet: what are the issues?

Snowden leaks

Mr Hannigan wrote: "They [US technology companies] aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics.

"But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.

"However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us."

The challenge was to come up with "better arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation by security and law enforcement agencies than we have now", he said.

The debate about whether security agencies should be allowed to access personal data was brought to the fore in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked details of alleged internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence and GCHQ.

Mr Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, faces espionage charges over his actions.

Earlier in the year, an investigation by the Guardian revealed how IS was using popular hashtags - including ones used during the Scottish referendum - to boost the popularity of its material on Twitter.

Analysis

By Gordon Corera, BBC security correspondent

This is a hard-hitting article from the new GCHQ director in his first move on taking up the role. His aim is clear - to pressure tech companies to work more with government.

Following the Edward Snowden disclosures last year, some of those companies have been less willing to share data with intelligence and law enforcement and more inclined to encrypt it - making it harder for authorities to gain access.

Tech companies may be surprised by the ferocity of the attack. And they - and privacy activists - may also argue that the spies started this fight with the scale of their intelligence collection and by hacking into some of those companies.

But Robert Hannigan has wasted no time in wading into the debate over security and privacy and making clear he will not shy away from a fight.

'Immense powers'

Emma Carr, director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said the companies were co-operating with the authorities.

She said: "It's a very funny way to go about doing this. On one hand he's saying we need the co-operation of the tech companies while at the same time, pretty much on the first day of his new job, pointing the finger at the tech companies and implying that they just aren't co-operating with law enforcement.

"Which we know from these companies' own transparency reports that's simply not true."

Eva Galperin, from internet freedom group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is part-funded by the technology industry, said Mr Hannigan was going too far.

"If GCHQ wants the co-operation of American internet companies they have many, many avenues through which to do so," she said.

"GCHQ is responsible for what has come out in the Snowden files as the largest internet surveillance programme we have found to date. Their powers are already immense. I think asking for more is really quite disingenuous."

Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com, said he thought there should be a compromise.

He said: "We need more trust in the security services, I agree, and there were too many people that had access to the Snowden files - 800,000 people or something - that's too many for high-level security.

"But if we had enough confidence that they were only under due process with a warrant that was specific in limited cases - I want the security services to be able to get into my phone."

Rachel O'Connell, a former chief security officer at social networking site Bebo, said the security services were taking a "polarised position".

She said this was the case "particularly post-Snowden, where we were realising that there was a suspicion, in some cases substantiated, that the security services have total access to whatever is happening online".

Security minister James Brokenshire recently met representatives from technology companies - including Google, Microsoft and Facebook - in Luxembourg to discuss ways to tackle online extremism.

The government's Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), set up in 2010, has removed more than 49,000 pieces of content from the internet that "encourage or glorify acts of terrorism" - 30,000 of which have been removed since December 2013.

Scotland Yard's head of counter-terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, has previously said that officers are removing more than 1,000 online postings a week, including graphic and violent videos and images.

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Coating makes batteries child-safe

3 November 2014 Last updated at 21:43 By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

Engineers in the US have produced child-safe batteries with a special coating that stops them causing harm if they are swallowed.

Small, button-shaped batteries can be easy to swallow and cause thousands of injuries every year, some fatal.

The new coating only conducts electricity when squeezed - such as when a battery is inside its spring-loaded compartment.

The rest of the time it insulates the battery, making it inactive and safe.

The process is described in the science journal PNAS. The insulation is critical, because the injuries and deaths happen when batteries get wet and release current after they are swallowed.

"Current is released and this breaks down the water, producing hydroxide ions which are caustic," explained senior author Dr Jeff Karp, a biomedical engineer at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The battery effectively makes caustic soda, which can eat through tissue and damage the oesophagus or the vocal cords, and sometimes reaches major blood vessels.

'Horrific' injuries

Two years ago, one of Dr Karp's colleagues saw the statistics on the problem - more than 3,000 ingestions per year in the US - and his team started looking for a solution.

Their new pressure-sensitive design makes use of a property called quantum tunnelling, which is also used in touch pads and screens.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

"That would be superb, if something this simple could solve a major problem"

End Quote Dr Kate Parkins North West Paediatric Transport Service

The negative terminal of a battery was covered with a 1mm-thick layer of a material called a "quantum tunnelling composite" (QTC). It is mostly silicone, but is laced with tiny particles of metal.

When it is squeezed firmly, the metal particles get closer together which allows electrons to "tunnel" between them: a process that can only be explained by quantum mechanics.

"Quantum tunnelling is a wild phenomenon," said Dr Karp. "It essentially achieves the impossible."

Baffling though their details may be, QTCs are already found in many applications. A Yorkshire-based company, Peratech, developed QTCs and licensed them to smartphone manufacturers and to Nasa.

So Dr Karp's team didn't have to look far once they hit upon the idea of making batteries touch-sensitive.

"As a first attempt, we thought, what if we just purchased some of this from a catalogue and place it onto the battery and see if it works?" he told the BBC.

"And it worked quite well!"

With QTC stuck on one side, the edges of the battery were then covered with a sealant, so that the whole thing was waterproof.

Now, the battery would only deliver current if it was under pressure. The rest of the time it was completely inert.

Together with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Dr Karp set about thoroughly testing the new design.

When placed on samples of gut tissue or inside the intestines of live pigs, the armoured batteries did no damage at all.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

We hope to work with battery manufacturers in the near future"

End Quote Dr Jeff Karp Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston

Even dropped into simulated stomach fluid and left for 24 hours, they remained intact. The same test caused a normal, uncoated battery to short-circuit and leak badly.

Dr Kate Parkins has seen several small children suffer terribly after swallowing batteries, including two recent deaths. She specialises in intensive care and is the lead consultant for the North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service.

She said it was "pretty horrific" to see internal bleeding that doctors can't stop, no matter what they try.

"You're throwing the kitchen sink at things to try and control it," Dr Parkins told BBC News.

"You're following all of the stuff about major haemorrhage that we've learned from places like Camp Bastion. Even with all of that and, in one case, surgical intervention, we still couldn't get control."

Patent pending

The only solutions Dr Parkins had seen proposed, until now, were ideas such as making the batteries taste bad, or painting them with dye so that parents would notice if a child had swallowed one.

She said the protective coating idea was "fantastic".

"That would be superb, if something this simple could solve a major problem."

Dr Paul Shearing, a chemical engineer who works on battery technology at University College London, agreed the design was an "exciting possibility", as long as it could be widely applied.

"These things are made at such enormous scale that you need quite widespread adoption, in order to bring in something new," he said, adding that the coating design "does seem relatively scalable and inexpensive".

Dr Karp and his team in Boston have filed a patent on the design, and have already had "a few conversations" about putting it into practise.

They expect the cost impact would be "in the order of pennies, and certainly not dollars" per battery.

"We hope to work with battery manufacturers in the near future, to help prevent these injuries from happening," he said.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter

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Microsoft stops selling Windows 7, 8

3 November 2014 Last updated at 13:49

Microsoft has officially stopped selling retail copies of some versions of Windows 7 and 8.

The date to stop selling the software was set some time ago and should help Microsoft move people on to more recent versions of its operating system.

Separately, statistics suggest people are finally moving away from some very old versions of Windows.

The next version of Windows, called Windows 10, is due to be released in late 2015.

Old code

From 31 October, consumers could no longer buy copies of the Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Windows 7. Now, Windows 8 is also no longer available. The change affects both copies bought in shops or loaded on PCs and laptops.

The current version of Windows, 8.1, will be the default version offered on PCs.

The change will take time to feed through into the market, as many PC makers have large stocks of older versions of Windows and will continue to sell PCs running the software.

Those keen to get a computer running Windows 7 will be able to "downgrade" from 8.1 to Windows 7 Professional but relatively few PC firms offer this option.

Gordon Kelly, writing in Forbes, said the policy revealed "Microsoft's determination to distance itself from the original form of Windows 8" despite it being released just over two years ago.

The original version of Windows 8 did not prove popular because it did away with some familiar elements of the desktop version of the operating system.

By contrast, he said, Windows 7 has been available since late 2009 and is still very popular among users. About 53% of Windows users are on the various editions of Version 7 of Windows, he said. The more recently released Windows 8 has only grabbed a 6% market share and has already been surpassed by 8.1, said Mr Kelly.

The change will also clear the path for the arrival of Windows 10, he added.

Separately, market analysis reveals that the numbers of people using the venerable Windows XP operating system has suddenly seen a sharp decline. Data from Netmarketshare suggests that in October this year its share dropped from almost 24% to just over 17%. It is not yet clear what was behind the fall.

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Facebook sets up 'dark web' service

3 November 2014 Last updated at 13:58 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Facebook has created the ability for users to connect directly to the social network via anonymising "dark web" service Tor.

While it was already possible to access Facebook via Tor, the new set-up means all data is encrypted and Tor users are not mistaken for hacked accounts.

Users could access the site "without losing the cryptographic protections" of Tor, Facebook said.

It may appeal to people in places where the network is blocked.

China, Iran, North Korea and Cuba are among countries that have attempted to prevent access to the site.

So too have such countries attempted to block access to Tor itself. China in particular has attempted to implement measures to disrupt the network.

The creators of Tor have been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with governments to keep the service accessible.

Stop tracking

Facebook is the first Silicon Valley giant to provide official support for Tor, a network built to allow people to visit web pages without being tracked and to publish sites whose contents would not show up in search engines.

Facebook's move would prove popular among those who wanted to stop their location and browsing habits from being tracked, said Dr Steven Murdoch, from University College London, who was consulted by Facebook for the project.

He explained users would still need to log-in, using real-name credentials, to access the site.

He told the BBC: "It's quite hard to use a social network completely anonymously, it somewhat defeats the point, unless you're just reading information.

"But just because you want to tell Facebook your name, doesn't mean they should be able to find out your location and your browsing habits."

The crucial change is the new Tor service - accessed through a Tor browser at https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/ - means all communication remains in the anonymous Tor network. Previously, some traffic would leave the closed network and access the open internet, potentially exposing a user's location and other information.

Dr Murdoch dismissed suggestions the move could anger governments who regularly approached Facebook with requests to hand over user information.

"It's not so much protecting people from governments," said Dr Murdoch, "but protecting from people who are spying on communications - that could be anyone from criminals to marketers."

Facebook, along with other major web companies, is currently pushing for permission to be more transparent over government requests it receives.

Dr Murdoch said Facebook's Tor service did not increase the risk of Facebook being used for illegal purposes.

"Preventing Facebook from recording the IP address [location] makes tracing users harder," he said. "But it was possible to access Facebook without disclosing your IP address before."

Security blockage

It has been possible to access Facebook through Tor for some time, albeit with some frustrations.

Tor is a network that anonymises users. One of the key ways it does this is by routing internet traffic through several locations - making it hard to track down where the user is browsing from.

But when accessing Facebook, this causes problems. One of the site's security measures is that if a user tries to log-in from an unexpected location, it will flag this as evidence the account has possibly been compromised.

Of course, it could just mean that a user has changed location - holidaymakers often find they must go through additional security steps, such as naming people in pictures, before being able to log-in while abroad.

"[Tor's] design means that from the perspective of our systems a person who appears to be connecting from Australia at one moment may the next appear to be in Sweden or Canada," explained Facebook engineer Alec Muffett, who has led the site's Tor efforts, in a blog post.

"In other contexts such behaviour might suggest that a hacked account is being accessed through a 'botnet', but for Tor this is normal."

It meant accounts were being wrongly locked out. Other problems, such as fonts not displaying correctly, marred Facebook use on Tor.

What is Tor?

Tor is a special part of the internet that requires software, known as the Tor Browser bundle, to access it.

The name is an acronym for The Onion Router - just as there are many layers to the vegetable, there are many layers of encryption on the network.

It was originally designed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, and continues to receive funding from the US State Department.

It attempts to hide a person's location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several "nodes" - which, in this context, means using volunteers' PCs and computer servers as connection points.

Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity.

To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain - known as an "exit relay" - rather than the person responsible.

As well as allowing users to visit normal website anonymously, it can also be used to host hidden sites, which use the .onion suffix.

Tor's users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists - who use it as a way of communicating with whistle-blowers - as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret.

But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Wi-fi hotspot for every 150 people

3 November 2014 Last updated at 08:19 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, BBC News

The UK has one wi-fi hotspot for every 11 people and worldwide there is one for every 150, new research from wi-fi provider iPass indicates.

It suggests there will be 47.7 million public hotspots worldwide by the end of 2014.

France currently has the most hotspots, followed by the US and UK.

Hotspots are designed to fill the gaps in coverage left by mobile networks and are often offered free of charge.

The study is one of the first comprehensive looks at the distribution of global wi-fi. A clickable map of hotspots around the world shows the numbers in each region and where they are located - in homes, on trains, planes, airports and retail outlets.

Homespots

Over the next four years, global hotspot numbers will grow to more than 340 million, the equivalent of one wi-fi hotspot for every 20 people on earth, the research finds.

But this growth will not be evenly distributed. While in North America there will be one hotspot for every four people by 2018, in Africa it will be one for every 408.

While Europe currently has the most dense wi-fi coverage, Asia will overtake it by 2018, according to the report.

The research suggests that the vast majority of hotspots - nearly 34 million - are in homes. These hotspots are part of a growing trend to extend home wi-fi to the local community.

Increasingly firms such as BT are turning home wi-fi routers into public wi-fi hotspots which will provide free net access to other subscribers to the network.

It does so without affecting the bandwidth allowance of the customer whose home it is in.

US provider Comcast caused controversy when it introduced its public home wi-fi service in the summer because customers were not given the option to opt out before receiving it.

Such "homespot" public wi-fi will see explosive growth rising to more than 325 million in 2018 and taking wi-fi "from the cities to the suburbs", according to the research.

"Every second home you walk past will be a public hotspot that you can use if you are part of that provider's network," said June Bower, chief marketing officer at iPass.

There are nearly 7.5 million hotspots in shops, cafes and hotels and and a much smaller number - nearly 11,000, on trains, planes and in airports. But wi-fi on transport is also set to grow massively, the report indicates.

Google wi-fi

Unlike the mobile network, which tends to be run by three or four big players in each country, wi-fi hotspots are controlled by many different providers.

According to the research, more than 50% of all commercial hotspots are controlled by brands whose core business is not telecommunications.

Run by cafes, hoteliers and retailers, it can make the network "somewhat chaotic", according to Ms Bower.

"At the moment you have to have a separate log-in for every hotspot and ultimately the winning providers are those that will offer the easier access experience," she said.

And there is opportunity there for the big technology brands.

"Everyone has a Google log-in. Google could become a hotspot provider as could Facebook or Apple."

In fact Google is already dabbling in the wi-fi market.

In 2013, it made a deal with Starbucks to offer free wi-fi to 7,000 coffee shops in the US and it recently filed a request with the US Federal Communications Commission to test high-speed wireless spectrum at several locations in California.

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Russian iPhone statue dismantled

3 November 2014 Last updated at 16:14 By News from Elsewhere... ...media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring

A Russian company that put up a giant iPhone statue in memory of Steve Jobs has taken it down again, after the new head of Apple came out as gay, according to local media.

A Western European Financial Union (ZEFS) press release accuses Apple CEO Tim Cook of "promoting homosexuality", the Ekho Moskvy news website reports. The 2m (6ft 6in) interactive installation allowed users to learn about the life of Mr Jobs, who died in 2011. But as it stood in the courtyard of an IT university in St Petersburg, the ZEFS statement says it could violate a recent Russian law banning the "advocacy of lifestyles contrary to traditional family values among minors". ZEFS founder Maxim Dolgopolov also alleges that the US security services can use Apple technology to monitor private communications worldwide. If the giant iPhone is reinstalled, he says in the statement, it will let passers-by use the interactive feature to "send a message direct to the US National Security Agency and Apple HQ, saying they are refusing to use technology that spies on its subscribers".

Despite Mr Dolgopolov's statement being widely reported in the media, there is some uncertainty over the story. The National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, where the monument stood, tells state news agency Tass that ZEFS had contacted it before Tim Cook's announcement, to say it was taking the iPhone down to carry out repairs.

Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.

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Taylor Swift music taken off Spotify

For the last few weeks, Taylor Swift's Shake it Off has been one of the most streamed tracks on Spotify in the UK.

Now, none of her albums are available on the music-streaming service, after the singer removed her entire back catalogue.

So far there's been no word from Swift on why she's taken the tracks down.

Spotify meanwhile has released a statement saying that the company hopes "she'll change her mind" and return to the site.

If you're really desperate for some Taylor Swift - Newsbeat has managed to find two tracks on Spotify that seem to have been left behind.

Love Story still features on a compilation called Heart Breakers and The Hunger Games soundtrack has Safe & Sound on it - but there's no guarantee they'll be on there for long.

"We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more - nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days, and she's on over 19 million playlists," said Spotify.

"We hope she'll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone."

They added, in reference to one of her hits, Stay Stay Stay: "PS - Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there's more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It's a love story, baby, just say, Yes."

Representatives for Swift have yet to return a request for comment.

The 24-year-old's fifth album, 1989, was released last week and has topped the album charts in the UK.

It sold 90,000 copies, making it the fastest-selling album of the year by a female artist, but it was not put on Spotify.

Swift has been outspoken in the past about music piracy and in an article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, she described how the business models used by some artists have devalued music.

"Piracy, file-sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently," she said.

"In recent years, you've probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal.

"My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet… is that they all realize their worth and ask for it."

Spotify claims that its business model, in which revenue is shared with the "music community", helps to tackle the issue of piracy.

"We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy," it said.

"That's why we pay nearly 70% of our revenue back to the music community."

The site has compiled two playlists in response to her departure, one of which is called What to Play While Taylor's Away.

The other - A Little Playlist Poetry for Taylor Swift - features tracks whose titles when read in order say: "Hey Taylor We Wanted to Play Your Amazing Love Songs And They're Not Here Right Now."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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Wearable tech can monitor dog health

3 November 2014 Last updated at 17:27

Communication between dogs and humans could be improved with wearable tech for canines.

Developed in the US, the harness is fitted with sensors that monitor both a dog's posture and its vital signs and can pass the information to an owner.

It also contains vibrating motors so owners can communicate with a dog even if it is out of sight.

The harness could help with training or refine how working dogs and their handlers cooperate.

Stress test

The harness was fitted with motion detectors to help interpret a dog's body language - their primary means of communication, said Dr David Roberts, an assistant professor of computer science at the North Carolina State University, who helped develop the prototype.

"We can determine when they're sitting, standing, running, even when they're out of sight," he said in a statement.

More subtle information about a dog's wellbeing is also gathered via heart-rate and body-temperature sensors. These can alert people if a dog is stressed or excited.

"We're reliant on the physiological and behavioural sensors to give us a picture of the dog's mental and emotional state," said Sean Mealin, a PhD student at NC State, who has also worked on the project.

"This can help handlers identify and mitigate stress for the dogs," said Mr Mealin. "It's an important issue. Particularly because guide dogs are bred and trained not to display signs of stress in their behaviour."

In addition, handlers can add another layer to the way they communicate with a dog, by making motors on the harness nudge a dog to reinforce a spoken command or prompt a dog to take action if it is a long way away.

Finally, the wearable tech can be augmented with a variety of other devices, such as microphones, cameras and environmental sensors that can gather data, as from dogs being used in disaster zones.

The creators of the harness are now working on a miniaturised version and improving its sensors so they can be used in animal shelters and hospitals to monitor the wellbeing of animals in care or recovering from treatment.

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Thailand arrests Pirate Bay founder

4 November 2014 Last updated at 13:27

A co-founder of Swedish file-sharing website Pirate Bay has been arrested while trying to cross into Thailand from Laos, local police say.

Hans Fredrik Lennart Neij, known to hackers as TiAMO, was detained in the north-eastern Thai town of Nong Khai.

He was subject to an international warrant after he was convicted in 2009 of aiding copyright infringement.

Pirate Bay, which offers an expansive list of links to pirated content, is one of the world's most-visited sites.

The 36-year-old Swede was convicted by a Swedish court five years ago.

He and three others were given one-year sentences and ordered to pay $3.6m (£2.4m) in damages.

Neij fled Sweden whilst on bail.

"Mr Neij was detained ... while trying to cross into Thailand from Laos where he had been living since 2012," Thailand regional police chief Chartchai Eimsaeng told reporters.

Neij had been living in Laos since 2012 and travelled nearly 30 times to Thailand, where he has a house on the resort island of Phukat, Maj Gen Eimsaeng added.

Another Pirate Bay co-founder, Gottfrid Warg, was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 and sent back to Sweden to serve his sentence for the same conviction, as well as face a separate hacking trial in Denmark.

Last week, he was sentenced by a Danish court to three-and-a-half years in prison for hacking into computers and illegally downloading files from IT giant CSC.

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Investors flock to gay 'hook-up' app

4 November 2014 Last updated at 13:32

A "hook-up" app for gay men in China has secured $30m (£19m) funding from venture capitalists DCM.

Blued, created by social media site DanLan in 2012, claims to have 15 million active users.

According to news website Tech in Asia, those users seem to be mainly based in three cities - Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Homosexuality in China was illegal until 1997 and defined as mental disorder until 2001.

Xiaofeng Wang, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in a report for the firm that data-light services such as messenger apps enjoyed high popularity in China because mobile internet speeds were slow.

However while dating and hook-up apps are openly used by heterosexuals - a flirting app called Momo has 52 million users - the gay scene in China is traditionally rather quiet.

"Beijing's gay community is often quite reserved," wrote Rupert Angus-Mann on a website about being a tourist in the city.

"You will not find many people who feel the need to broadcast their sexuality."

Official statistics suggest that there are 118 boys for every 100 girls born to Chinese families.

Mr Angus-Mann added that China's policy of allowing families to have only one child, in place since 1979, meant most people aged 29 and under had no siblings.

"When a son is gay, he faces a hugely difficult set of decisions and it makes coming out to his family infinitely more difficult.

"Not only is he telling them he is gay, that there will probably be no grandchildren, that there will be no wedding and no wife, he is also telling them that the family line, the rhythm of hundreds of years of Chinese tradition will end with him, because there is no brother who can step into the role."

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