Facebook suffers widespread fault

27 January 2015 Last updated at 08:56

Social network Facebook became inaccessible across much of the globe for a time on Tuesday, before returning to normal service.

Millions of users were unable to access their accounts.

Users in some countries also had difficulties accessing photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook said it believed its own engineers had caused the problem, downplaying claims that a hacking group had been responsible.

"Earlier this evening many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram," a spokeswoman told the BBC.

"This was not the result of a third-party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems.

"We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone."

The sites appeared to have been unavailable for about 40 minutes before coming back online.

Dating app Tinder, which relies on Facebook to provide its service, was also affected by the problem.

A hacker group called Lizard Squad had tweeted about the services going offline, leading to reports that it might have been responsible. The group has been blamed for attacks at the end of last year that forced Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live gaming services offline.

Some users took to Twitter to comment on the outage on Tuesday.

"I hope you all took advantage of the 35 second Facebook outage to Like a person in real life. #Faceboogeddon," wrote media analyst Arthur Goldstuck.

"While Facebook was down, I nailed a picture of my breakfast to a tree outside our house. Seven people have knocked to say they liked it," wrote Alistair Coleman.

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TalkTalk forces porn filter choice

26 January 2015 Last updated at 12:45

TalkTalk says customers who have not yet chosen whether to activate net filters must opt out of its safety system if they wish to continue viewing adult material online.

The net provider will block access with pop-up boxes until decisions are made.

In a blog post, TalkTalk adds it will prompt customers to review their settings every year.

Sky announced last week that it would activate filters for inappropriate content by default.

BT and Virgin have yet to reveal any proposals for automatic filters.

Prime Minister David Cameron has previously called on ISPs to offer services with pre-activated filters in the interests of family safety.

TalkTalk customers are presented with information about the HomeSafe filter activation in their account settings pages.

TalkTalk says 95% of its 4.2m customers have already decided whether to activate the filters.

"We pre-tick the 'on' option, but it's the customer's choice," writes TalkTalk spokeswoman Alex Birtles on the firm's blog.

"Filters will only ever be applied if the customer has consented and they're able to change their mind or edit their level of protection at any point."

Those who have not yet visited the settings page will be confronted with a pop-up box if they try to access a web page that would be blocked by the filter, Ms Birtles adds.

'No silver bullet'

Like most filters, HomeSafe does not block material accessed via a web proxy or Virtual Private Network (VPN).

"There is no silver bullet when it comes to internet safety and we have always been clear that no solution can ever be 100%," said the firm on its website in a section for businesses who feel their sites have been unfairly blocked by the filter.

According to the website blocked.org, a project by the Open Rights Group (ORG), around 11% of the 100,000 top websites (according to Amazon-owned analytics firm Alexa) are currently blocked by default filters.

"Censorship should never be turned on by default," Jim Killock, executive director of ORG told the BBC last week.

"Filters block all kinds of websites, including some that provide useful advice to children and young people."

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China blocks virtual network use

26 January 2015 Last updated at 11:15

China has blocked several popular services that let citizens skirt state censorship systems.

Three providers of Virtual Private Network (VPN) systems reported that updates to China's firewall had hindered people using their services.

The providers affected are Astrill, StrongVPN and Golden Frog.

Many Chinese people use VPNs to visit websites outside the country that they would not be able to reach without the aid of such tools.

Sites blocked in China include services operated by web giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

China operates a very sophisticated net censorship system that both limits the places people can go online and what they can search for and discuss.

A VPN works by setting up a dedicated, encrypted link between a person's computer and the website or service they want to use and makes spying on the data flowing across the connection difficult.

Chinese state media said the blocks had been imposed "for safety". Reuters reported that a cybersecurity expert at a state-backed think tank said the upgrades to the nation's firewall had been carried out to preserve China's "cyberspace sovereignty".

The renewed attempt to stifle use of VPNs comes as the ruling Communist party seeks to clamp down on corruption by top officials, Prof Xiao Qiang from Berkeley's School of Information told AP.

The clampdown was "a very clearly related fact with the amount of political rumours and information related to China's high politics showing up in websites outside of China,'' he said.

The services that have been hit are almost exclusively used by individuals and are often accessed via mobile phones. China has not put any restrictions on the use of VPNs inside large corporations.

Sunday Yokubaitis, president of the Golden Frog VPN service, told Reuters: "This week's attack on VPNs that affected us and other VPN providers is more sophisticated than what we've seen in the past."

Despite this, Golden Frog said access to some of its servers was still unimpeded.

StrongVPN said via its blog that it was "working diligently" to restore access to servers it had in China. In addition, it said customers should attempt to connect at non-peak hours to limit the load on its network.

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Revived snoopers' charter shelved

27 January 2015 Last updated at 14:52 By Kevin Rawlinson BBC News

A last-minute attempt to revive a "snoopers' charter" before the general election has been dropped.

Four peers tried to push through measures from the bill, rejected in 2012, adding them to draft legislation currently before Parliament.

But their fellow Lords were unconvinced and the amendment withdrawn.

The BBC understands they will try again next week unless the Home Office publishes a government redraft of the bill, of which the Lords has been told.

Last week, Lords King, Blair, Carlile and West proposed adding whole sections of the defeated Communications Data Bill to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, which is currently being considered by Parliament.

'Snoopers' charter'

But Lord Blencathra, whose joint committee scrutinised - and was heavily critical of - the original legislation, told a House of Lords debate on Monday that the government had subsequently redrafted the bill.

The new draft, he said, addressed his concerns and could not be considered a "snoopers' charter".

In response, the peers withdrew the proposed amendments, which threatened to enshrine the controversial measures in law, and called on the government to produce its draft.

A source told the BBC that if the Home Office was to refuse that request, the "snoopers' charter" proposals would be revived once again and added to the draft counter-terrorism legislation.

The Internet Service Providers Association (Ispa) said it agreed that the government should produce its private draft.

But both Ispa and the Open Rights Groups, which campaigns for digital freedom, said it should wait until after the general election, in order to avoid rushing the legislation through.

"Ispa, along with many others, have not seen the amended Communications Data Bill, nor had a chance to scrutinise it.

"As many peers and the joint committee argued, it is crucial that industry is involved in a full and proper consultation at an early stage," said Ispa's secretary general Nicholas Lansman.

During Monday's debate, the four peers defended the wholesale reintroduction of the rejected draft legislation because, they said, there was a dangerous gap in Britain's ability to deal with the threats posed by terrorists and serious criminals.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Four Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem peers try re-introduce Communications Data Bill powers to aid security services.

Similar to the Communications Data Bill, their proposed amendments to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill sought to require internet service providers to hold records of customers' browsing habits for a year.

However, they cut the number of agencies that could demand access to the data from the hundreds included in the original bill to just three: the police and the two security services.

Data laws

• Draft Communications Data Bill 2012 - Would have extended the range of data communications companies have to store for 12 months. It would have included, 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. Officials would not have been able to see the content of the messages without a warrant. The bill, dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics, was blocked by the Lib Dems
• Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014-15 - Introduced as emergency legislation to maintain the requirement for phone and internet companies to log records (but not content) of calls, texts and internet use
• Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill 2014-15 - Part of the bill going through Parliament would add to the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act to allow internet protocol (IP) address matching. This would identify the individual or the device that was using a particular IP address at any given time. The peers proposed - then dropped - the idea of adding elements of the Draft Communications Data Bill 2012 to it

On Monday, Lord Blencathra said he stood by his committee's criticism of the original bill, which it said was "too sweeping, and goes further than it need or should". He could not support the amendments, he said.

Ispa and the Open Rights Group added to the criticism last week, calling the attempt to add such comprehensive amendments at a late stage in the bill's progression through Parliament an "abuse of procedure".

The Home Office has not responded to a request for comment.

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Police raid Amazon's Tokyo offices

27 January 2015 Last updated at 11:45

Japanese police raided Amazon's Tokyo offices as part of an investigation into alleged sales of images of child sexual abuse.

Amazon said it was "co-operating fully" with police after the raid.

The raid is part of a continuing operation against people believed to be selling books featuring abuse images via Amazon's Japanese store.

The operation began in September 2013 with the arrest of two men selling illegal photo books via the site.

The raid on 23 January was the second mounted against Amazon in Japan. A separate distribution centre in Kanagawa was raided in November last year as part of the same operation.

The crackdown by police follows a change to Japanese laws enacted in June last year that criminalised the possession of real images of child sexual abuse. The creation and distribution of such images has been illegal since 1999.

The latest raid targeted Amazon's head office in Tokyo and one of the firm's distribution centres outside the city. It was mounted after police discovered more people attempting to sell books of illegal images via Amazon, local newspapers reported.

"We take this investigation seriously and we are co-operating fully with the authorities," Amazon said in a statement.

"We don't permit illegal items on our site, and we have systems and processes designed to prevent and remove illegal items from being listed," it added.

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Facebook complies with Turkey block

26 January 2015 Last updated at 17:42

The BBC has learned that Facebook has complied with a Turkish court order demanding the blocking of a page it said offended the Prophet Muhammad.

If the social media platform had refused, the court had threatened to block access to the entire site.

The site is believed to have around 40 million members in Turkey.

Facebook declined to comment but it does have a policy of blocking access to content within a country if it breaks local law.

Facebook publishes a report of requests from governments around the world for user data. The latest report, which covers the period January - June 2014, shows that 1,893 "content restrictions" were made inside Turkey during that time.

Also during that period, Turkey temporarily blocked access to both Twitter and YouTube.

"These companies might be US-based but their users are global - they have to respect local traditions and customs," said cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University.

"They are obliged to obey the laws of the country - the key is transparency.

"There's danger in a government censoring what people in a country see, so the people deserve to know if something is being censored."

According to Amnesty International one of Turkey's biggest newspapers, Cumhuriyet, is under criminal investigation for publishing a selection of images from French magazine Charlie Hebdo following the massacre of its editorial staff.

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Device triggers White House alert

26 January 2015 Last updated at 18:42

A flying device triggered a security alert when it landed in the grounds of the White House, a US official says.

The US Secret Service said a "quad copter" - a small machine powered by four rotor blades - had been found. An investigation has been launched.

President Barack Obama and the First Lady are currently on a visit to India.

The US Secret Service, which is tasked with the president's security, has been criticised for recent lapses, leading to a leadership reorganisation.

In September a man armed with a knife scaled the White House perimeter fence and gained access to the building.

Days earlier an armed private security guard had been allowed to ride in the same lift as the president.

Although Mr and Mrs Obama were in New Delhi when the device was found, their children are believed to be in Washington DC, according to the New York Times.

At a press briefing in India, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "I don't have any reason to think at this point that the first family is in any danger."

US media reports initially described the device as a small drone, but the Secret Service later said it was a two-foot-wide quad copter.

The device flew into the White House grounds at about 03:08 local time (08:08 GMT) and crashed into the south-eastern side of the complex, it said.

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Scanner locates potential potholes

27 January 2015 Last updated at 11:47 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Smart scanners that can identify the sites of potholes before they form are being developed by academics at Nottingham Trent University.

An algorithm processes data captured by 2D and 3D scanners and sensors positioned at the front of a van.

It identifies signs of "ravelling" - damage to the asphalt that leads to cracks and potholes.

Drivers claimed more than £3m compensation for pothole damage in the UK last year, according to the RAC.

The scanner system can distinguish ravelling from other textural differences on the road, such as oil spills, tyre marks and previous pothole repairs.

In a test, the device correctly identified 900 potential sites. It took 0.65 seconds to process the data, the researchers say.

While the technology would be adopted by paving specialists Dynatest, who collaborated on the research project, it would also be open-source, said Dr Senthan Mathavan, lead researcher and visiting fellow at Nottingham Trent University.

The sensors used on the device were the same as those developed to help robots perceive their environment, he said.

"These sensors are common to us and to civil engineers," he said.

"The technology is established, but we're using the data to look for much smaller defects."

Fellow researcher Dr Mujib Rahman added: "Dealing with road-surface damage like potholes in the early stages is cheaper in the long-term than reacting to potholes when they occur.

"This technology will also allow councils to plan ahead better and be more efficient with any programme of repairs.

"If councils know that there's likely to be a pothole in a certain part of a road in say three years' time, they can plan the repair before it gets to the point that an emergency repair is needed."

The research has been published in the journal Transportation Research Record.

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Web attacks 'growing' in volume

27 January 2015 Last updated at 13:39

Hacktivists and gamers are becoming big users of net attacks that knock sites offline by bombarding them with data, suggests a report.

Compiled by Arbor Networks, the report looks at 10 years of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The ease with which they could be staged had made them a favourite for groups with a grudge, said Arbor.

Also, it said, insecure home routers were being enrolled into large groups of devices that mounted the attacks.

Extortion attempt

In the early days of DDoS, cybercrime gangs had used them to extort cash from websites run by betting and gambling firms that could not afford to be knocked offline, said Darren Anstee, a senior analyst at Arbor.

Now, he said, attacks were being mounted by different groups and had grown considerably in size.

In 2011, the biggest attacks had flung about 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) of data at targets, found the report. In 2014 that peak had hit 400Gbps and in the same year there had been four times as many attacks over 100Gbps than in the previous 12 months.

"There's been a massive jump in the number of very large attacks going on out there," said Mr Anstee.

"In 2014 we saw more volumetric attacks, with attackers trying to knock people offline by saturating their access to the internet."

Almost 40% of the organisations Arbor contacted for its report said they were being hit by more than 21 attacks per month, said the report.

Part of the reason for the shift to the large attacks could be explained by a change in the technologies being used to stage them, he said.

When cybercrime gangs had been behind the majority of attacks, the data barrages had been generated by the thousands of hijacked home computers they had had under their control, he said.

Botnets were still used to mount extortion attacks, he said, and were also used to divert the attention of a company's security team so they did not notice a separate attack on another part of a company's infrastructure.

Figures in the report suggested that companies were getting better at spotting the early stages of an attack and recovering once they were hit, he said.

However, said Mr Anstee, building a botnet was difficult for hacktivists and others, who had instead turned to other net-connected devices and technologies to generate the huge data flows.

Some attacks abused the net's timekeeping system or the domain servers that kept a list of which website was where, he said.

Other groups had found ways to enrol insecure home net gateways and routers into attacks, he added.

Hacktivists, hacker groups such as Lizard Squad and gamers who wanted revenge on other players were the bigger users of these tactics, said Mr Anstee.

It was now easy to find so-called "booter" services online that let gamers kick rivals off a particular gaming network or title by attacking that network, he said.

DDoS was also being used by people keen to use their technical skills express their feelings about a real-world conflict.

"If you look at DDoS attacks and try to tie them up with geopolitical events in the last few years, you will always see those events echoed in cyberspace," he said.

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Thailand draws up tough drone laws

27 January 2015 Last updated at 15:04

The Transport Ministry in Thailand is seeking to ban all unlicensed drone flights, including flights by individuals, local media reports.

Those caught flying drones unauthorised could face a year in prison and a fine of 40,000 baht (£813; $1229), Transport Minister Prajin Juntong said.

Attaching cameras to drones would also be prohibited except for business reasons, under the proposals.

The plans are being drawn up by the country's Civil Aviation Department.

They would be sent to the cabinet for approval and could come into force as early as next month, said Mr Juntong, who is also commander-in-chief of the country's air force.

Drones should also only be airborne for a maximum of one hour (although current battery life limits most flights to about 20 minutes) and be within 15-150m (50-500ft) of the ground, the proposals state.

This is to limit their potential to interfere with commercial air traffic and to ensure the noise they make does not annoy the public.

In addition, the rules will specify how big and heavy drones can be.

Photographers, film-makers and journalists will be able to use drones fitted with cameras, but others will not.

The Ministry of Transport will oversee and approve all applications to use drones, by both businesses and individuals.

Thailand is one of many nations seeking to limit what drone owners can do with their craft.

The US Federal Aviation Authority has issued guidelines on where and how they can be flown and put limits on how they can be used commercially.

The agency is also drawing up more detailed proposals on how they can be used commercially.

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