Microsoft sales beat Street hopes, cloud profits up

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue, helped by stronger sales of its phones, Surface tablets and cloud-computing products for companies, while keeping its profit margins largely intact.<br /><br /><a href="http://us.mobile.reuters.com/do/getNewsImages?n=technologyNews&u=USKCN0IC2EZ20141023&i=1" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://us.mobile.reuters.com/do/getNewsImages?n=technologyNews&u=USKCN0IC2EZ20141023&i=1" /></a>The results on Thursday allayed fears of investors in recent days that the industry shift toward lower-margin cloud services was proving hard for established technology leaders to master.<br /><br />Microsoft shares, which have climbed 33 percent over the past year, rose another 3 percent in after-hours trading to $46.36.<br /><br />"In light of recent negative earnings results from tech bellwethers Oracle, IBM, SAP, VMware, and EMC, Microsoft is bucking the trend and we would label these September results as a solid accomplishment," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.<br /><br />Investors were keenly watching Microsoft after harsh warnings from International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and SAP (SAPG.DE) about operating profits as they make tentative inroads into the cloud, which generally yields thinner margins than technology companies are used to.<br /><br />Microsoft did not disclose its cloud-based revenue for the fiscal first quarter, but said commercial cloud sales rose 128 percent, while sales of services based on its Azure cloud platform rose 121 percent.<br /><br />Perhaps more importantly, it said gross profit margin in the unit that includes Azure rose 194 percent, despite rising infrastructure costs, which includes the huge expense of building and operating datacenters.<br /><br />In the last four years, Microsoft's gross profit margin has drifted down to about 65 percent from above 80 percent, largely due to its move into the less profitable business of making tablets and phones, but accelerated by the move to the cloud.<br /><br />Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund figures Microsoft is on track to hit $6 billion a year in cloud revenue soon, which would make it the industry's largest cloud vendor by his calculations. That represents only about 6 percent of overall expected revenue this fiscal year, but investors are highly sensitive to a business they see as key to the future.<br /><br />"We're the only company with cloud revenue at our scale that is growing at triple digit rates," said Satya Nadella, on a conference call with analysts.<br /><br />Nadella was keen to stress that Microsoft is more focused on selling higher-margin services via the cloud to its commercial customers rather than just storage and computing power. "Our premium services on Azure create new monetization opportunities in media, data, machine learning, fast analytics, and enterprise mobility," he said.<br /><br /><b>PROFIT FELL ON CHARGE</b><br /><br />Microsoft's fiscal first-quarter profit actually fell 13 percent, largely due to an expected $1.1 billion charge related to mass layoffs announced in July, which lopped 11 cents per share off earnings.<br /><br />Including that charge, the world's largest software company reported profit of $4.5 billion, or 54 cents per share, compared with $5.2 billion, or 62 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.<br /><br />Still, it easily beat Wall Street's forecast of 49 cents per share, including the charge, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8jhSFrKkGu3ELUubqBEefrnsa9e16EdlbbTjVML28luSV7De_aQfmW7hw7O6B-m8_G4BidW_-__bhlOWFaOKWFt3pFSGLJA2Ihdq0zo5KzAuLMuJIYG7S_PEbVr7HD-3assktluhbR8/s1600/nothumbnail.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8jhSFrKkGu3ELUubqBEefrnsa9e16EdlbbTjVML28luSV7De_aQfmW7hw7O6B-m8_G4BidW_-__bhlOWFaOKWFt3pFSGLJA2Ihdq0zo5KzAuLMuJIYG7S_PEbVr7HD-3assktluhbR8/s1600/nothumbnail.gif" width="200" /></a>The charge resulted from Microsoft's plan, launched in July, to cut 18,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, with most of those cuts coming from its newly acquired Nokia phone business.<br /><br />Revenue rose 25 percent to $23.2 billion, helped by the phone business it bought from Nokia in April, handily exceeding analysts' average estimate of $22 billion.<br /><br />Sales of its Lumia smartphones hit 9.3 million in the first full quarter since the close of the Nokia deal. Sales of the Surface tablet more than doubled to $908 million from $400 million in the year-ago quarter.

Microsoft sales beat Street hopes, cloud profits up

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue, helped by stronger sales of its phones, Surface tablets and cloud-c...

Bill Gates has finally admitted "theControl-Alt-Delete was a mistake"

Bill Gates has finally admitted the puzzling Control-Alt-Delete key combination used to access the login screen on personal computers was a mistake.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPA_5YABMCEBNC3eqJECa403YWsH2lwAfNhlVnCBIG8NlAhPYvYUeQBrxc_e0tWKqiqBjBi9W7w5m-mt4SFKcqqVDUZi7ftLeg9KByn6pGEMVxRD5zT6R5qdXJN_zthjo_ZWRdXL-DGQ/s1600/Bill-Gates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPA_5YABMCEBNC3eqJECa403YWsH2lwAfNhlVnCBIG8NlAhPYvYUeQBrxc_e0tWKqiqBjBi9W7w5m-mt4SFKcqqVDUZi7ftLeg9KByn6pGEMVxRD5zT6R5qdXJN_zthjo_ZWRdXL-DGQ/s1600/Bill-Gates.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />"It was a mistake," Gates, co-founder and former chairman of Microsoft, said during a recent appearance at Harvard University. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button.<br /><br />“You want to have something you do with the keyboard that is signaling to a very low level of the software — actually hard-coded in the hardware — that it really is bringing in the operating system you expect, instead of just a funny piece of software that puts up a screen that looks like a login screen, and then it listens to your password and then it’s able to do that,” the billionaire software mogul explained.<br /><br />The odd combination was originally designed to reboot a PC, but it became part of PC folklore as a login prompt in early versions of Windows. The IBM PC that Gates helped develop was introduced in the fall of 1981.<br /><br />Gates' admission came after years of debate over the origin of Control-Alt-Delete.<br /><br />"Finally," Taylor Soper wrote on GeekWire.com.<br /><br />In a 2001 interview marking the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, David Bradley, the engineer who came up with the Control-Alt-Delete sequence, blamed the oddity on Gates.<br /><br />"I may have invented it," Bradley said, "but Bill made it famous."<br /><br />That left Gates "looking rather awkward" for more than a decade, TheVerge.com said.<br /><br />In 2011, Bradley said he still didn't know why Gates used the Control-Alt-Delete for the login screen.<br /><br />“Why they used it for the login also, I don’t know,” Bradley told CNET. “I guess it made sense for them.”<br /><br />While Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen, the Control-Alt-Delete requirement is still used in Windows XP and Windows 7, and it still works in Windows 8 as a shortcut for locking your PC or accessing the task manager. <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cBHJ-8Bch4E?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>

Bill Gates has finally admitted "theControl-Alt-Delete was a mistake"

Bill Gates has finally admitted the puzzling Control-Alt-Delete key combination used to access the login screen on personal computers was a ...

Microsoft’s Surveillance Collaboration:Voluntary Aid, or New Legal Tactic?

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVDoTyF-ZRlV9dn1WnpxnVUSEEzY6rhGay7xQkyZpXiMiYKJQ4fPzzVSI4LGyVi0lV484ITaObEIUKc5IB5JdwjwXDg3hEW0YA4kq9z-oYUCqXTaZbfyQtnp4O_4XtxgaY_-Gfsviz5QY/s1600/microsoft_nsax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVDoTyF-ZRlV9dn1WnpxnVUSEEzY6rhGay7xQkyZpXiMiYKJQ4fPzzVSI4LGyVi0lV484ITaObEIUKc5IB5JdwjwXDg3hEW0YA4kq9z-oYUCqXTaZbfyQtnp4O_4XtxgaY_-Gfsviz5QY/s1600/microsoft_nsax.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wiretapped: Microsoft <br />is said to have redesigned<br /> its systems to help intelligence<br /> agencies perform surveillance.</td></tr></tbody></table>In July of last year, Microsoft began publicly testing an online e-mail and chat service called Outlook.com. Soon afterward, according to the British newspaper the <em>Guardian</em>, the company reëngineered it in a way that allowed the National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program collect chat data before it was encrypted.<br /><br />Privacy campaigners and surveillance experts are now pondering whether Microsoft’s actions were forced by a previously unknown legal tactic, or whether the company voluntarily made the changes to aid surveillance.<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data" target="_blank">The <em>Guardian </em>report</a> marks the first time that a major Internet company has been described to have modified its systems to enable government surveillance, as opposed to simply providing access to data it already held.<br /><br />“The $1 million question is whether Microsoft was forced to reëngineer its systems to include new surveillance capabilities, or whether it did so voluntarily,” says <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/author/chris-soghoian" target="_blank">Christopher Soghoian</a>, principal technologist and senior policy analyst with the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-11statement.aspx" target="_blank">A Microsoft statement released Thursday</a> said that “we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.” Soghoian believes that Microsoft could have enabled the interception of communications but then only allowed those capabilities to be used when presented with a court order.<br /><br />The <em>Guardian</em>’s report says that in addition to modifying how Outlook.com functioned, Microsoft worked with the FBI to enable access to data in its cloud storage system, SkyDrive, and to increase the government’s access to calls over Skype, which Microsoft owns.<br /><br />The FBI acts as an intermediary between intelligence agencies, including the NSA, and Internet companies.<br /><br />The changes made by Microsoft were part of an NSA program called PRISM that also collects data from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Apple. Data from PRISM is passed from the NSA to the FBI and CIA.<br /><br />In its statement Thursday, Microsoft hinted that some of its actions were made under legal duress. It said that “when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request.”<br /><br />Federal law seems to protect companies from being required to enable surveillance access, says <a href="https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/people/jennifer-granick" target="_blank">Jennifer Granick</a>, a lawyer and director of civil liberties at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society.<br /><br />The part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act governing wiretapping-style access to online communications makes provisions only for court orders that compel installation and use of surveillance devices, says Granick. “That seems to me to say they can install equipment on the system. But they can’t force system design.”<br /><br />However, if Microsoft chose to object to NSA and FBI requests for data its fate would be decided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which last month was shown to have been using interpretations of existing laws that surprised some scholars of surveillance law (see “<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/515861/nsa-surveillance-reflects-a-broader-interpretation-of-the-patriot-act/">NSA Surveillance Reflects a Broader Interpretation of the Patriot Act</a>”).<br /><br />The court handles requests for warrants made using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and allows collection of a person’s data, including his communications with others, if there is a “51 percent” likelihood that the person in question is not a U.S. citizen and is outside the United States.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/julian-sanchez" target="_blank">Julian Sanchez</a>, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, believes the FISC might now see the law in a way that allows the government to compel changes—at certain times—to computer systems to aid surveillance.<br /><br />“One never knows with a secret court, but it seems extremely unlikely the FISC would order a company to fundamentally redesign their software or network architecture to enable interception,” he says. “It is certainly possible, however, that if Microsoft was independently engaged in a redesign, they could be ordered to do it in a way that enabled compliance with a surveillance order, within limits.”

Microsoft’s Surveillance Collaboration:Voluntary Aid, or New Legal Tactic?

Wiretapped: Microsoft is said to have redesigned  its systems to help intelligence  agencies perform surveillance. In July of last year, Mic...

Microsoft unwilling to "kill one" of its Internet Explorer twins

<h4>What's the point of having two versions of Internet Explorer 11 within Windows 8.1?</h4><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwS9XklnDuE-iGvE0WkHwzFzGJSgYeofz0DborS2CLHUNzi5hz9bY5lU5VKXkXIN0HsRKisgZEcqvEHbNU9dhYf_xBMfe9O0FKUudk4cUq_0L9WREovR8bOn7nbXMKwa74hUYJWdUdyJ4/s580/ie10_official_logo_screen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwS9XklnDuE-iGvE0WkHwzFzGJSgYeofz0DborS2CLHUNzi5hz9bY5lU5VKXkXIN0HsRKisgZEcqvEHbNU9dhYf_xBMfe9O0FKUudk4cUq_0L9WREovR8bOn7nbXMKwa74hUYJWdUdyJ4/s580/ie10_official_logo_screen.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />It’s a good question, and one that Microsoft executives say they haven’t completely solved. Dean Hachamovich, the corporate vice president in charge of Internet Explorer, said that the browser—which appears on both the desktop and Start screen, but in different forms—is bifurcated to satisfy two different sets of users.<br /><br />“One IE engine does all this wicked-fast, cool stuff,” Hachamovich said Wednesday during Microsoft’s Build 2013 conference in San Francisco. “Why two? Some people live in the desktop for some activities, and we want to make sure when you’re in Windows you have good experiences,” he said.<br /><br />“Why two? Some people live in the desktop for some activities, and we want to make sure when you’re in Windows you have good experiences."<br /><br />Hachamovih said that IE11, the version of IE that ships with Windows 8.1, differs from both competing browsers and earlier IE versions in several key ways.<br /><br />From a hardware-acceleration standpoint, IE11 is wicked fast because it can shift various workloads, including the JPEG rendering pipeline, to a PC’s graphics card.<br /><br />This reduces the load on a PC's CPU, allowing that chip to process other tasks. Microsoft presented SunSpider benchmarks to support its claim.<br /><br />The new browser version is also more flexible in how it surfaces web content.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1TRLJGskqkZcwNw11rYPnOI3ivIy7e_uMQiDTbixkICLOMIkasQlQkacIC1OK7HRyeesxLLkxzniQzSy2jdr_M_WY22hlr9Xz754TtFVlXgUdbQgCkoSmbRnXxoHaqZWp_F83hY3V3LE/s636/steveballmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1TRLJGskqkZcwNw11rYPnOI3ivIy7e_uMQiDTbixkICLOMIkasQlQkacIC1OK7HRyeesxLLkxzniQzSy2jdr_M_WY22hlr9Xz754TtFVlXgUdbQgCkoSmbRnXxoHaqZWp_F83hY3V3LE/s636/steveballmer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Within Windows 7, IE9 bookmarks could be pinned to the taskbar. Within Windows 8, IE10 bookmarks could be pinned to the Start screen.<br /><br />But within IE11, those bookmarks can be pinned to Start and serve as live tiles or widgets, dynamically updating information, Hachamovich said.<br /><br />Then there's a new, efficient approach to tabbing. Microsoft said 100 tabs can be used by IE11 at once, all without putting an undue strain on battery life. This is because IEthe new browser shifts resources away from older, unused tabs, yet it can bring back these tabs almost instantly. IE11 can also increase performance by prefetching an undisclosed number of links and pre-rendering—essentially preloading—two more links, before the user even clicks on them.

Microsoft unwilling to "kill one" of its Internet Explorer twins

What's the point of having two versions of Internet Explorer 11 within Windows 8.1? It’s a good question, and one that Microsoft executi...

Microsoft to unveil latest Windows adjustments

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ueFrpRzN0XHUR4Wu1AKFgY6WSelCRwcP2BLVxQRVbw6tDEXYb91mtL4vOyuPWifiC46faR8TxjQchZLfD9IbKeOE5XC7uBsEGIGiqg2F-tHExsOGbEp8N1w8VpHrJcmTnXzxAeoMzeo/s1600/cle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ueFrpRzN0XHUR4Wu1AKFgY6WSelCRwcP2BLVxQRVbw6tDEXYb91mtL4vOyuPWifiC46faR8TxjQchZLfD9IbKeOE5XC7uBsEGIGiqg2F-tHExsOGbEp8N1w8VpHrJcmTnXzxAeoMzeo/s1600/cle.jpg" width="320" /></a>SAN FRANCISCO  — Microsoft is giving people a peek into Windows 8.1, a free update that promises to address some of the gripes people have with the latest version of the company's flagship operating system. <br /><br />Although the preview version of Windows 8.1 is meant for Microsoft's partners and other technology developers, anyone will be able to download it for free starting Wednesday, exactly eight months since desktops, laptops and tablets with Windows 8 went on sale. The version of the Windows 8.1 update meant for the general public will come out later in the year, though a specific date hasn't been announced.<br /><br />Many of the new features have been shown off already. A three-day Build conference, which starts Wednesday in San Francisco, will give Microsoft developers a chance to learn more about the new system and try it out. It also will give the company a chance to explain some of the reasoning behind the update and sell developers on Microsoft's ambitions to regain relevance lost to Apple's iPad and various devices running Google's Android software.<br /><br /><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrxiGWYgV2TsqxWQt18UxkXcL-4-DqriZgQoeHFyb6IpCWBFP10lCANk9qMb8FyK_xDlEHX2xD_9WA2RJ4jyR18Np0iYZrCCAY6bnwHb7b5Q4-ZHP8JK-7xi1epd0L3AKtZb6XxNEcCyc/s1600/23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrxiGWYgV2TsqxWQt18UxkXcL-4-DqriZgQoeHFyb6IpCWBFP10lCANk9qMb8FyK_xDlEHX2xD_9WA2RJ4jyR18Np0iYZrCCAY6bnwHb7b5Q4-ZHP8JK-7xi1epd0L3AKtZb6XxNEcCyc/s1600/23.jpg" /></a>There's also speculation that Microsoft could show off a new, smaller version of its Surface tablet computers. One of the new features in Windows 8.1 is the ability to work well on smaller-screen devices. </div><div><br /></div><div>Windows 8, which was released Oct. 26, was meant to be Microsoft's answer to changing customer behaviors and the rise of tablet computers. The operating system emphasizes touch controls over the mouse and the keyboard, which had been the main way people have interacted with their personal computers since the 1980s. </div><div><br /></div><div>But some people have been put off by the radical makeover. </div><div><br /></div><div>Although Microsoft has said it has sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses so far, some analysts have blamed the lackluster response to the operating system for a steep drop in PC sales in the first three months of the year, the worst drop since tracking by outside research firms began in 1994. </div><div><br /></div><div>Among the complaints: the lack of a Start button on the lower left corner of the screen. In previous versions of Windows, that button gave people quick access to programs, settings and other tasks. Microsoft replaced that with a tablet-style, full-screen start page, but that covered up whatever programs people were working on, and it had only favorite programs. Extra steps were needed to access less-used programs. Settings, a search box and other functions were hidden away in a menu that had to be pulled out from the right. How to do that changed depending on whether a mouse or touch was used. </div><div><br /></div><div>And while Microsoft has encouraged people to use the new tablet-style layout, many programs — including Microsoft's latest Office software package — are designed for the older, desktop mode. People were forced into the tablet layout when they start up the machine and had to manually switch the desktop mode each time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Windows 8.1 will allow people to start in the desktop mode automatically. In that mode, it is restoring a button that resembles the old Start button. Although the Start button will now take people back to the new tablet-style start screen, rather than the old Start menu, the re-introduction of the familiar button may make it easier for longtime Windows users to get accustomed to the changes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Other new features of Windows 8.1 include more options to use multiple apps. People will get more options to determine how much of the screen each app takes while showing up to four different programs, rather than just two. The update will also offer more integrated search results, showing users previews of websites, apps and documents that are on the device, all at once. </div><div><br /></div><div>Although Microsoft is addressing much of the criticisms with Windows, it is positioning the update as more than just a fix-up job. From its perspective, the tuneup underscores Microsoft's evolution into a more nimble company capable of moving quickly to respond to customer feedback while also rolling out more innovations for a myriad of Windows devices — smartphones, tablets or PCs. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's crucial that Microsoft sets things right with Windows 8.1 because the outlook for the PC market keeps getting gloomier. IDC now expects PC shipments to fall by nearly 8 percent this year, worse than its previous forecast of a 1 percent dip. IDC also anticipates tablets will outsell laptop computers for the first time this year. </div><div><br /></div><div>The growing popularity of tablets is now being driven largely by less expensive devices with display screens measuring 7 inches to 8 inches diagonally. Microsoft built Windows 8 primarily to run on tablets with 10-inch to 12-inch screens, an oversight that Microsoft is also trying to fix with Windows 8.1. </div><div><br /></div><div>Microsoft has said the company was working with other manufacturers to make smaller tablets, but it has yet to confirm reports that it is making its own. A smaller Surface with an 8-inch screen would be significantly smaller than its current, 10.6-inch models and would put the Surface in closer competition with Apple's iPad Mini, Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD. </div><div><br /></div><div>Such a device would coincide with Intel Corp.'s recent release of a new chip line called Haswell. The company says Haswell chips offer a 50 percent improvement in battery life over the previous generation when playing back high-definition video. </div><div><br /></div><div>In an indication that Microsoft Corp. is clearing out inventory of a Surface tablet running the lightweight Windows RT operating system, the company is effectively cutting the price of that by including a keyboard cover for free. The cover sells for $120 or $130 on its own. </div><div><br /></div><div>Microsoft also said this month that it would give buyers of the RT version of Surface the Outlook email and calendar program at no extra charge — joining other Office freebies Excel, Word and Power Point — and sweetening the offer for the device that is priced starting at $499. That will come as part of the Windows 8.1 update. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-iR36XjmMijIAyWqV1EiXQfJzNfQpN_VNYnqX0p2-jfODuqKaHcyOP2xSJLbh89abudcRHu_kwxA-nZhMB3dPw5LCNuwomtUx7UKpxnX8LuLy-7eIFU442ZzEEaxveH8Syu8xBL03oXg/s1600/tech.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-iR36XjmMijIAyWqV1EiXQfJzNfQpN_VNYnqX0p2-jfODuqKaHcyOP2xSJLbh89abudcRHu_kwxA-nZhMB3dPw5LCNuwomtUx7UKpxnX8LuLy-7eIFU442ZzEEaxveH8Syu8xBL03oXg/s1600/tech.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>

Microsoft to unveil latest Windows adjustments

SAN FRANCISCO  — Microsoft is giving people a peek into Windows 8.1, a free update that promises to address some of the gripes people have w...

Yahoo discloses user data requests from US law enforcement agencies

Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple have also provided similar data.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvZ4KZ6d-5pSZXjNAiwKFUZuztAgqjzu5XlWpsFg0Eiae26o7H2YhEDvW_OPH_hXmPu_72tWqbQ-_vPoVD0Ri5d81I4yv3ErWLSonNzMR4HWGiCX5iVlT0IKesG17_JirNxAW5ZniOTE/s1600/ria_ru.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvZ4KZ6d-5pSZXjNAiwKFUZuztAgqjzu5XlWpsFg0Eiae26o7H2YhEDvW_OPH_hXmPu_72tWqbQ-_vPoVD0Ri5d81I4yv3ErWLSonNzMR4HWGiCX5iVlT0IKesG17_JirNxAW5ZniOTE/s1600/ria_ru.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div id="first_paragraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">IDG News Service -</span> Yahoo has received between 12,000 to 13,000 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and May 31 this year, the company said Monday.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell wrote <a href="http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/53243441454/our-commitment-to-our-users-privacy" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">in a blog post.</a></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">The company did not disclose how many of the requests for customer data were under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which has been at the center of a controversy after reports surfaced that the government was collecting data from a large number of users under the Act, including call metadata from telephone customers of Verizon.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">"Like all companies, Yahoo! cannot lawfully break out FISA request numbers at this time because those numbers are classified; however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its stance on this issue," the executives wrote.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Internet company joins other companies like Apple, Facebook and Microsoft that disclosed similar numbers over the weekend in a bid to convey greater transparency to their users, after reports in the Guardian and the Washington Post alleged that the U.S. National Security Agency has real-time access to content on the servers of Google, Facebook and other Internet companies as part of a surveillance program called Prism. The companies have denied their participation. (</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Following widespread criticism of the U.S. government's surveillance programs and the role of the Internet companies, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft last week <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/facebook-twitter-support-googles-call-transparency-in-surveillance-requests-220583" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">called</a> for greater transparency in disclosure of data on government requests for customer information.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Mueller, Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, for example, asked that the company should be allowed to publish in its Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including disclosures under FISA, in terms of both the numbers received and their scope. Government restrictions on disclosure of the information has fueled speculation "that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users' data," Drummond added.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">After obtaining limited permission from U.S. authorities, Facebook and Microsoft <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/061513-facebook-microsoft-disclose-little-on-270881.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">released data</a> on requests from the government, but both didn't say how many were related to national security.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Facebook <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/News/636/Facebook-Releases-Data-Including-All-National-Security-Requests" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">said</a> it had received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests from all government entities in the U.S. including local authorities for the six months ending Dec. 31. The company, after discussions with security authorities, is allowed to include in a transparency report as part of an aggregate number and as a range all national security-related requests including FISA as well as National Security Letters, which was prohibited earlier. Microsoft <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2013/06/14/microsoft-s-u-s-law-enforcement-and-national-security-requests-for-last-half-of-2012.aspx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">said</a> it had got between 6,000 and 7,000 requests affecting 31,000 to 32,000 consumer accounts for the same period.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Apple <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/061713-apple-received-thousands-of-data-270884.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">said</a> that from Dec. 1 to May 31, it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters, it said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Yahoo said Monday it plans to issue later this summer its first global law enforcement transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year. Other companies like Google already provide such updates, though Facebook's General Counsel Ted Ullyot said <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">in a post</a> last week that the company had not issued a transparency report in the past, as it would be incomplete and misleading because of the government restrictions on disclosure.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court often come with a "gag order" that prevents those receiving the order to publicly discuss it. The order from the court that authorized the U.S. National Security Agency to collect telephony metadata from customers of Verizon in the U.S. also came with a gag order.</div>

Yahoo discloses user data requests from US law enforcement agencies

Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple have also provided similar data. IDG News Service -  Yahoo has received between 12,000 to 13,000 requests for...

How to keep your data safe from Russia

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjub5_WYsxoM51v3N0F4GXWf4DQru0RTXZZXtVa8Dzq7dTd51fInC9sSipcwuFjLPvkNH9F4MblRI4Vx8is75I5xq2SKYMQGqQAymqK-VA6E9jdrmkrWRQfPUHyjhmQvA4zuVqW8EXQcQY/s1600/slatebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjub5_WYsxoM51v3N0F4GXWf4DQru0RTXZZXtVa8Dzq7dTd51fInC9sSipcwuFjLPvkNH9F4MblRI4Vx8is75I5xq2SKYMQGqQAymqK-VA6E9jdrmkrWRQfPUHyjhmQvA4zuVqW8EXQcQY/s1600/slatebook.jpg" width="295" /></a><b>From email and social media to credit cards and phone calls, get some basic tips to keep your private info private.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /> | — Call logs, credit card records, emails, Skype chats, Facebook messages, and more: The precise nature of the NSA's sweeping surveillance apparatus has yet to be confirmed, but given the revelations spilling out into the media there hardly seems a single aspect of daily life which isn't somehow subject to NSA spying.<br /><br />For some, it's a matter of indifference who or what is rifling through their electronic records. Others, mindful of spy agencies' history of abuse, are more concerned.<br /><br />Here are some basic tips to avoid having your personal life turned into an intelligence report.<br /><br />|—ENCRYPT YOUR EMAILS<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6TdbSg4qiAWbqSYb8xAJXSp3z2Omu291jJmq8h1cgegnQVwux6GF84C54-m9Udl0MpLDzYyq5Crtoz-8HQLeb5pPaGGjT1IH6TcmUJe2UpbgXLWUKTt8r9U4pElu-ryiQQROWOF1qWxY/s1600/p-world.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6TdbSg4qiAWbqSYb8xAJXSp3z2Omu291jJmq8h1cgegnQVwux6GF84C54-m9Udl0MpLDzYyq5Crtoz-8HQLeb5pPaGGjT1IH6TcmUJe2UpbgXLWUKTt8r9U4pElu-ryiQQROWOF1qWxY/s1600/p-world.png" /></a>Emails sent across the Web are like postcards. In some cases they're readable by anyone standing between you and its recipient. That can include your webmail company, your Internet service provider, and whoever is tapped into the fiber optic cable passing your message around the globe — not to mention a parallel set of observers on the recipient's side of the world.<br /><br />To beat the snoops, experts recommend encryption, which scrambles messages in transit so that they're unreadable to anyone trying to intercept them. Techniques vary, but a popular one is called PGP, short for "Pretty Good Privacy." PGP is effective enough that the U.S. government tried to block its export in the mid-1990s, arguing that it was so powerful it should be classed as a weapon.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Encryption can clunky. And to work, both parties have to be using it.<br /><br /><br />|—USE TOR<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSeATMVwaw3IG2x8dH4cHJ45tFxWdta_1YbSDPx3CcyfLGamgSsydZV_HUOhXVpeJZ7EIjZx8W6GE2gBB6Gv0FCW7Aa5r7p1qbCfZq1qInxFgBZYLOtr-d_EvS_U4YfGckjhg2WH7SAU/s1600/nac.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSeATMVwaw3IG2x8dH4cHJ45tFxWdta_1YbSDPx3CcyfLGamgSsydZV_HUOhXVpeJZ7EIjZx8W6GE2gBB6Gv0FCW7Aa5r7p1qbCfZq1qInxFgBZYLOtr-d_EvS_U4YfGckjhg2WH7SAU/s1600/nac.png" width="320" /></a></div>Like emails, your travels around the Internet can easily be tracked by anyone standing between you and the site you're trying to reach. TOR, short for "The Onion Router," helps make your traffic anonymous by sending it bouncing through a network of routers before spitting it back out on the other side. Each trip through a router provides another layer of protection, thus the onion reference.<br /><br />Originally developed by the U.S. military, TOR is believed to work pretty well if you want to hide your traffic from, say, eavesdropping by your local Internet service provider. And criminals' use of TOR has so frustrated Japanese police that experts there recently recommended restricting its use. But it's worth noting that TOR may ineffective against a powerful government equipped with powers of global surveillance.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Browsing the web with TOR can be painfully slow. And some services — like file-swapping protocols used by many Internet users to share videos and music — aren't compatible.<br /><br />|—DITCH THE PHONE<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvZ4KZ6d-5pSZXjNAiwKFUZuztAgqjzu5XlWpsFg0Eiae26o7H2YhEDvW_OPH_hXmPu_72tWqbQ-_vPoVD0Ri5d81I4yv3ErWLSonNzMR4HWGiCX5iVlT0IKesG17_JirNxAW5ZniOTE/s1600/ria_ru.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvZ4KZ6d-5pSZXjNAiwKFUZuztAgqjzu5XlWpsFg0Eiae26o7H2YhEDvW_OPH_hXmPu_72tWqbQ-_vPoVD0Ri5d81I4yv3ErWLSonNzMR4HWGiCX5iVlT0IKesG17_JirNxAW5ZniOTE/s1600/ria_ru.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Your everyday cell phone has all kinds of privacy problems. In Britain, cell phone safety was so poor that crooked journalists made a cottage industry out of eavesdropping on their victims' voicemails. In general, proprietary software, lousy encryption, hard-to-delete data, and other security issues make a cell phone a bad bet for storing information you'd rather not share.<br /><br />An even bigger issue is that cell phones almost always follow their owners around, carefully logging the location of every call, something which could effectively give the NSA a daily digest of your everyday life. Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum has described cell phones as tracking devices that also happen to make phone calls. If you're not happy with the idea of an intelligence agency following your footsteps across town, leave the phone at home.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Not having a cell phone. Other alternatives, like using "burner" phones paid for anonymously and discarded after use, rapidly become expensive.<br /><br /><br />|—CUT UP YOUR CREDIT CARDS<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-iR36XjmMijIAyWqV1EiXQfJzNfQpN_VNYnqX0p2-jfODuqKaHcyOP2xSJLbh89abudcRHu_kwxA-nZhMB3dPw5LCNuwomtUx7UKpxnX8LuLy-7eIFU442ZzEEaxveH8Syu8xBL03oXg/s1600/tech.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-iR36XjmMijIAyWqV1EiXQfJzNfQpN_VNYnqX0p2-jfODuqKaHcyOP2xSJLbh89abudcRHu_kwxA-nZhMB3dPw5LCNuwomtUx7UKpxnX8LuLy-7eIFU442ZzEEaxveH8Syu8xBL03oXg/s1600/tech.png" /></a></div><br />The Wall Street Journal says that the NSA is monitoring American credit card records in addition to phone calls. So stick to cash, or, if you're more adventurous, use electronic currencies to move your money around.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Credit cards are a mainstay of the world payment system, so washing your hands of plastic money is among one of the more difficult moves you can make. In any case some cybercurrency systems offer only limited protection from government snooping and many carry significant risks. The value of Bitcoin, one of the better-known forms of electronic cash, has oscillated wildly, while users of another popular online currency, Liberty Reserve, were left out of pocket after the company behind it was busted by international law enforcement.<br /><br />|—DON'T KEEP YOUR DATA IN AMERICA OR WITH AMERICAN COMPANIES<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzIHaWqBxpY99IMHX-MEEpqE_NqAF4FjxGH9zXgSra8GHEhuU-PrK1HVMxygKjG8hp9DsUzJdCXmYIAb54tIVfyqJ6hLX7yo3Hik8z2RZ9G617E-3tr0g6Q4PjurVBk1fKn4bhbNa1JY/s1600/11nm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizzIHaWqBxpY99IMHX-MEEpqE_NqAF4FjxGH9zXgSra8GHEhuU-PrK1HVMxygKjG8hp9DsUzJdCXmYIAb54tIVfyqJ6hLX7yo3Hik8z2RZ9G617E-3tr0g6Q4PjurVBk1fKn4bhbNa1JY/s1600/11nm.jpg" /></a>U.S. companies are subject to U.S. law, including the Patriot Act, whose interpretations are classified. Although the exact parameters of the "PRISM" data mining program revealed by the Guardian and The Washington Post remain up for debate, what we do know is that a variety of law enforcement officials — not just at the NSA — can secretly demand your electronic records without a warrant through an instrument known as a National Security Letter. Such silent requests are made in their thousands every year.<br /><br />If you don't like the sound of PRISM, National Security Letters, or anything to do with the Patriot Act, your best bet is to park your data in a European country, where privacy protections tend to be stronger.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Silicon Valley's Internet service providers tend to be better and cheaper than their foreign counterparts. What's more, there's no guarantee that European spy agencies don't have NSA-like surveillance arrangements with their own companies. When hunting for a safe place to stash your data, look for smaller countries with robust human rights records. Iceland, long a hangout for WikiLeaks activists, might be a good bet.<br /><br />|—STEER CLEAR OF MALICIOUS SOFTWARE<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ueFrpRzN0XHUR4Wu1AKFgY6WSelCRwcP2BLVxQRVbw6tDEXYb91mtL4vOyuPWifiC46faR8TxjQchZLfD9IbKeOE5XC7uBsEGIGiqg2F-tHExsOGbEp8N1w8VpHrJcmTnXzxAeoMzeo/s1600/cle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ueFrpRzN0XHUR4Wu1AKFgY6WSelCRwcP2BLVxQRVbw6tDEXYb91mtL4vOyuPWifiC46faR8TxjQchZLfD9IbKeOE5XC7uBsEGIGiqg2F-tHExsOGbEp8N1w8VpHrJcmTnXzxAeoMzeo/s1600/cle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If they can't track it, record it, or intercept it, an increasing number of spies aren't shy about hacking their way in to steal your data outright. Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, warned the Guardian that his agency had been on a worldwide binge of cyberattacks.<br /><br />"We hack everyone everywhere," he said.<br /><br />Former officials don't appear to contradict him. Ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden described it as "commuting to where the information is stored and extracting the information from the adversaries' network." In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, he boasted that "we are the best at doing it. Period."<br /><br />Malicious software used by hackers can be extremely hard to spot. But installing an antivirus program, avoiding attachments, frequently changing passwords, dodging suspicious websites, creating a firewall, and always making sure your software is up to date is a good start.<br /><br />Disadvantages: Keeping abreast of all the latest updates and warily scanning emails for viruses can be exhausting.<br /><br />So will all this keep my data safe from spying?<br /><br />Safer, maybe.<br /><br />Using anonymity services and encryption "simply make it harder, but not impossible for a dedicated investigator to link your activities together and identify you," Ashkan Soltani, an independent privacy and security researcher, said in an email.<br /><br />"Someone can always find you — just depends on how motivated they are (and how much information they have access to."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUM5nmmKXVRbXpYiNizbc7V4DCb2azkokkgMJnp-cBfpTnaZ7TKc-qsD_jRIKFkwNzFZTjwzjozy7vy8xBAtk1HPKrw-veGFPpOyx1j-CCqNApbpYphKsK4V1ghf03rIENb3AIQYbbYQ/s1600/012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUM5nmmKXVRbXpYiNizbc7V4DCb2azkokkgMJnp-cBfpTnaZ7TKc-qsD_jRIKFkwNzFZTjwzjozy7vy8xBAtk1HPKrw-veGFPpOyx1j-CCqNApbpYphKsK4V1ghf03rIENb3AIQYbbYQ/s1600/012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>

How to keep your data safe from Russia

From email and social media to credit cards and phone calls, get some basic tips to keep your private info private.  | — Call logs, credit c...

Here's where NSA will store all of your phone records

<h4>The super-secret NSA's new Utah Data Center is 'just a big file cabinet,' says one ex-spy,the place where everything the agency collects is stored.</h4><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt=" NSA's secret data center: Aerial view of the NSA's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah " class="image" height="359" src="http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/8c/249df6e61ab5c022f369773d35dd5a/_h353_w628_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title=" NSA's secret data center: Aerial view of the NSA's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah (AP Photo: Rick Bowmer)" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AP Photo: Rick Bowmer. NSA's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah, spans 1.5 million square feet and will be where the agency stores all the electronic information it collects. </td></tr></tbody></table>BLUFFDALE, Utah — The nation's new billion-dollar epicenter for fighting global cyberthreats sits just south of Salt Lake City, tucked away on a National Guard base at the foot of snow-capped mountains. The long, squat buildings span 1.5 million square feet, and are filled with super-powered computers designed to store massive amounts of information gathered secretly from phone calls and emails.<br /><br />Two small, weathered signs in the sagebrush greet interlopers to this place with a stark warning: "Military reservation. No trespassing." But there is no visible marker bearing the facility's name and operator: The Utah Data Center, brought to you courtesy of the National Security Agency.<br /><br />When it opens this fall, the facility will be the NSA's largest data storage center in the U.S. Just don't ask Utah officials, and certainly not the residents of tiny Bluffdale, just north of the new center, to tell you exactly what will go on inside. They either don't know, or aren't saying. And the NSA is famously tight-lipped.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMGovkdBJmy7epploPxPkwLBknTF-nBaw96sGtXN3mLJvzd1evSY3hkkj5RU5YbtDwKsYS04TnuMjuQ_wwJBvUT9jqZeV5cddRlZ5C9LLmguuZ5Ei_p1CucS4uCDzgUmnAXbumSATfJs/s1600/P-USA.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMGovkdBJmy7epploPxPkwLBknTF-nBaw96sGtXN3mLJvzd1evSY3hkkj5RU5YbtDwKsYS04TnuMjuQ_wwJBvUT9jqZeV5cddRlZ5C9LLmguuZ5Ei_p1CucS4uCDzgUmnAXbumSATfJs/s1600/P-USA.png" /></a>"We know it's a spy center. But who are they spying on?" said Connie Robbins, an upholstery shop owner who lives in Bluffdale, a community of 8,000 some 25 miles south of Salt Lake City that is known for its rodeo and annual Old West Days.<br /><br />The dearth of information has perpetuated a mystery that has spawned dozens of theories and a spoof website that even includes a phony code name for the facility: "Bumblehive," a play on Utah's nickname of the "Beehive State."<br /><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ZFg2G6MrXW5qyGoJSuBBl0Vu3xIkbKW_StIU4xpGUTQneETcbBc5QfvW8z2dkueLtBZJ4IRasF9KFIKYmdkUIprCqcQP4Xb4DzhkTZDLEztxIh0Nm8-zC2-kAv3IlLfxTf022HhvdR8/s1600/NationalSecurityAgency.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ZFg2G6MrXW5qyGoJSuBBl0Vu3xIkbKW_StIU4xpGUTQneETcbBc5QfvW8z2dkueLtBZJ4IRasF9KFIKYmdkUIprCqcQP4Xb4DzhkTZDLEztxIh0Nm8-zC2-kAv3IlLfxTf022HhvdR8/s1600/NationalSecurityAgency.jpg" width="320" /></a>Last week's revelation that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. phone records along with digital communications stored by nine major Internet providers illustrates how aggressively personal information is being congregated and analyzed — and shines a brighter light on what will be going on in secret at the Utah facility, scheduled to open in October.</div><div><br /></div><div>NSA officials say the center will play a key role in the nation's effort to protect national security networks, and allow U.S. authorities to monitor for potential cyberthreats. In an email, agency spokeswoman Vanee Vines said that "many unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities" of the center.</div><div><br /></div><div>"NSA would like to confirm, on the record, that the Utah Data Center is a state-of-the-art data facility designed to support the U.S. intelligence community's efforts to further strengthen and protect the nation. Its operations will be lawfully conducted in accordance with U.S. laws and policies," Vines wrote.</div><div><br /></div><div>She provided no additional details, however.</div><div><br /></div><div>GIANT STOREROOM</div><div><br /></div><div>Richard "Dickie" George, who retired from the NSA in 2011 after 40 years, said the facility isn't nearly as interesting or mysterious as some think. He calls it little more than a giant storeroom. Inundated with increasing volumes of secretly taped phone calls, intercepted emails and poached records of online purchases, the NSA needed a mega-warehouse to put it all, he said.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/8a/beaf9c61e8e8fb20b0a6ad6c5764d6/_h0_w295_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="NSA's secret data center: Cooling units at the NSA's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah" border="0" class="image articleimage" data-class="img1" height="424" src="http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/8a/beaf9c61e8e8fb20b0a6ad6c5764d6/_h0_w295_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg" title="NSA's secret data center: Cooling units at the NSA's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah (AP Photo: Rick Bowmer)" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AP Photo: Rick Bowmer. These units will keep the NSA's new Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah, cool. The center will use enough electricity to power 33,000 homes. </td></tr></tbody></table><div>"It's just a big file cabinet out in the Western area," said George, once a senior technical leader at the agency. "There is no spying going on there."</div><div><span class="media"></span></div><div>NSA agents elsewhere will comb through the data stored in Utah as the agency attempts to understand how terrorist groups operate and who plays what roles, George said. Emails, articles, websites and videos on the Internet may hold clues about such activities, he said.</div><div><br /></div><div>James Bamford, the author of several books on the NSA who last year wrote about the Utah center in Wired magazine, asserts that the facility will serve as the central depository for everything the NSA intercepts, functioning as the agency's "cloud." Analysts at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., and other agency sites will be able to access the information by way of secure, fiber-optic cables, he said.</div><div><br /></div><div>The mammoth center, which cost some $1.7 billion, will allow the agency to store more and, perhaps more importantly, keep information for much longer. Bamford theorizes the facility will be able to hold a so-called yottabyte of information, the largest measurement computer scientists have. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text, said Bamford, who believes the Utah center will store those phone records NSA gathered from Verizon Communications.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Every day you pick up a telephone and call your grandmother or call your sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and whoever, records of those calls will be all kept in there — and may be kept in there forever. Who knows?" Bamford said.</div><div><br /></div><div>In response, NSA spokeswoman Vines stressed that the agency is not "unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens."</div><div><br /></div><div>NSA officials have said the agency chose the Bluffdale location over 37 others because electricity is cheaper here, and land more easily available. The center will constantly use 65 megawatts of power — enough to power 33,000 houses.</div><div><br /></div><div>The secrecy and security surrounding the facility are necessary because the center will store classified information, and the code-breaking and spying activities of its staff are also highly classified and a target for foreign spies, said a former U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the program publicly.</div><div><br /></div><div>AIR OF UNCERTAINTY</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlO6cFv1fO1VaMbxuPmUxnb8-14sg3-vwJJKI3ZJcPbkJwIR8mojJuthe2SDgrM7V_-VFxB7qB0NVTiXRh18dgg56wJhGbkyZ81jVXp-Gp6Q_-phFh-gv2eunsoN6QWXH3_FBRTDRkd0c/s1600/nsa1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlO6cFv1fO1VaMbxuPmUxnb8-14sg3-vwJJKI3ZJcPbkJwIR8mojJuthe2SDgrM7V_-VFxB7qB0NVTiXRh18dgg56wJhGbkyZ81jVXp-Gp6Q_-phFh-gv2eunsoN6QWXH3_FBRTDRkd0c/s1600/nsa1.jpg" /></a>George said the agency probably doesn't need to be as hyper-secretive as it is but said such precautions are meant to avoid letting slip any insight that could tip off terrorist organizations and those who may wish harm upon the United States.</div><div><br /></div><div>"It's just not in your best interest to be talking about what you are doing," he said.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's that air of uncertainty that has unnerved residents who live and work near the facility, located on the Camp Williams National Guard base. Some worry the center could become a target of terrorists if it holds so much valuable information.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Say they were collecting data somebody didn't want, say a terrorist," said Shannon Neilson, a convenience store manager whose house is just miles from the center. "What if that's a target for a plane hitting that, destroying everything?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Late last month, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the center to mark work being finished on the exterior. The celebration, however, was closed to the public — an exclusive, invitation-only gathering that barred even the mayor of Bluffdale. The NSA also rejected a request by city officials to take a group of visiting Utah mayors on a bus tour of the outside of the facility. The agency said all tours — even of the exterior — are prohibited.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bluffdale City Manager Mark Reid said he hopes the NSA center serves as a magnet for other, privately run data centers to the area. Unlike the NSA facility, those would be required to pay property taxes. Reid will travel to a data center conference in Washington, D.C., this month to promote Utah's cheap power and ideal workforce. But if attendees ask about the new NSA facility, he'll be short on answers.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I know very little," Reid said. "We just deliver the water."</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucx7_-knnilA3_rQsv-1fyWO9ixEFCvK73ah0uNIScNqZ-gFxcPTZGX5SyTTQJIQJuqKI9VnzrOHW01bUWClrMfzVCN7LKVvwVSK33cYpPMKjBTJ_pOT4JBDWNw_oWO4k9YFAVCHQ5dU/s1600/index.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiucx7_-knnilA3_rQsv-1fyWO9ixEFCvK73ah0uNIScNqZ-gFxcPTZGX5SyTTQJIQJuqKI9VnzrOHW01bUWClrMfzVCN7LKVvwVSK33cYpPMKjBTJ_pOT4JBDWNw_oWO4k9YFAVCHQ5dU/s1600/index.png" /></a></div><div><br /></div>

Here's where NSA will store all of your phone records

The super-secret NSA's new Utah Data Center is 'just a big file cabinet,' says one ex-spy,the place where everything the agency ...

Google asks U.S. govt to allow more disclosure of national security request data

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuVoi6cJOvqz9J9JXj8s5xa4S_-MQlLcaz-qTRqbIiCSL3nj5t91aS3Rynu4E5Rpo6SOf82GgRdKWhuNN2jrOVuryZu6JGthnszPTpdtSkzSQoI4exh-spMPjqwBRLcanSPY5AtFpNFI/s1600/63911.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuVoi6cJOvqz9J9JXj8s5xa4S_-MQlLcaz-qTRqbIiCSL3nj5t91aS3Rynu4E5Rpo6SOf82GgRdKWhuNN2jrOVuryZu6JGthnszPTpdtSkzSQoI4exh-spMPjqwBRLcanSPY5AtFpNFI/s1600/63911.jpeg" width="320" /></a>WASHINGTON, - Google on Tuesday asked the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI to allow it to disclose more details about the national security request for its users' data, amid ongoing controversy over the government's internet surveillance programs.<br /><br />The search engine company sent a letter to the office of U.S. Attorney General and the FBI on Tuesday morning, according to a statement released by Google.<br /><br />In the letter, David Drummond, Google's Chief Legal Officer asked permission to publish "aggregate numbers of national security requests," including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests, in terms of the number and the scope of these requests.<br /><br />Google said it had worked "tremendously hard" over the past 15 years to earn the users' trust, said the company.<br /><br />"Assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users' data are simply untrue," wrote the letter.<br /><br />Google stressed that the government nondisclosure obligations about the FISA national security requests and the number of accounts covered by those requests fueled the speculation.<br /><br />"Transparency here will likewise serve the public interest without harming national security," said Google in the letter.<br /><br />Google has revealed statistics about government requests for user data in its Transparency Reports, but the company is barred from discussing or even acknowledging the existence of FISA orders.<br /><br />Google and other major Internet companies denied news reports over the past week that they have given the National Security Agency (NSA) direct access to their servers to mine users' data as part of an internet surveillance program called PRISM.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZODbm_3usi5h40ba6iUKHMlWKkzJkhmRUA231D6hWYPbFIjhj-nOaa6t17nhlInIAX_PBhNr2Hpn1S-fUQcFpAE3EAxsEZgavz8k3Y3tJ8LdV_gvKe9LzTzL23neeFeWbWn_PqA5w9Y/s1600/tech.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZODbm_3usi5h40ba6iUKHMlWKkzJkhmRUA231D6hWYPbFIjhj-nOaa6t17nhlInIAX_PBhNr2Hpn1S-fUQcFpAE3EAxsEZgavz8k3Y3tJ8LdV_gvKe9LzTzL23neeFeWbWn_PqA5w9Y/s1600/tech.png" /></a></div>According to the Guardian and the Washington Post reports last Thursday, the NSA and the FBI had been secretly tapping directly into the central servers of nine U.S. internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time.<br /><br />The technology companies that participated in the programs reportedly include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.<br /><br /><div><div>• Google asked U.S. gov't to allow it to disclose more details about the national security request data.</div><div><br /></div><div> • Google sent a letter to the office of U.S. Attorney General and the FBI on Tuesday morning.</div><div><br /></div><div> • Google has revealed statistics about government requests for user data in its Transparency </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>

Google asks U.S. govt to allow more disclosure of national security request data

WASHINGTON, - Google on Tuesday asked the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI to allow it to disclose more details about the national securi...

Lobby group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA

A lobbying organization that counts Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and other tech giants among its clients has lent support to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which is lined up for a vote in the US House of Representatives next week.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgRrwM5NvQ69QcBlPcDAJyqMdB4rAenz195iOGcZYtV-FH06-UqCMl2PezLNWr3h_shnHGc8jXuS1dDiOZBdePJzM3sKkx5_Vekj8WlLoNMUT_SQXmscIxjopBvcVPRpEX-Sp_Be6ApHy/s1600/dv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgRrwM5NvQ69QcBlPcDAJyqMdB4rAenz195iOGcZYtV-FH06-UqCMl2PezLNWr3h_shnHGc8jXuS1dDiOZBdePJzM3sKkx5_Vekj8WlLoNMUT_SQXmscIxjopBvcVPRpEX-Sp_Be6ApHy/s1600/dv.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Rey Ramsey, the CEO of TechNet, sent a letter to Representatives Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger praising the controversial cyber-security bill - which both the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have criticized for failing to protect online privacy. <br /><br />The civil liberties groups assert that recent CISPA amendments haven't given enough power to oversight committees that would prevent major companies from sharing an Internet user's personal information with legal impunity.<br /><br />"This bill recgonizes the need for effective cyber-security legislation that encourages voluntary, bi-directional, real time sharing of actionable cyber threat information to protect networks," Ramsey wrote in the letter Wednesday. <br /><br />"We commend the committee for providing liability protections to companies participating in voluntary information-sharing and applaud the committee's efforts to work with a wide range of stakeholders to address issues such as strengthening privacy protections. <br /><br />"As the legislative process unfolds, we look forward to continuing the dialogue with you and your colleagues on further privacy protections, including discussions on the role of a civilian interface for information sharing." <br /><br />Morgan Stanley, Intel, Cisco Systems, NASDAQ and other companies from a wide range of industries also fall under TechNet's umbrella. <br /><br />Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Oracle President Safra Catz are just a few of the newsmakers who sit on TechNet's executive council, according to The Hill. Facebook was initially a backer of the bill but, perhaps because of the bad publicity, representatives for the social networking site renounced their support in March 2013. <br /><br />In an attempt to address the widespread privacy concerns the House Intelligence Committee met for a closed-door session Wednesday. Led by Rogers and Ruppersburger, the lawmakers voted 18-2 to amend the law - but the provisions were not enough to sway the ACLU or EFF. <br /><br />A representative for the latter said the changes fail to "tackle the core concerns" voiced by the over 30,000 companies that have petitioned against the measure.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDZOoROBlVQxIT2l0wYYzqD07otQf2kI-L652WQKrkfundmolnjIgWglNykmvMnVmC6YeY3_jJxYQhP133VkHstmwtwRL7EBpY8RMW5UeW1U_YKp2zXyIvkbAUSq1kkTvRhsxQyoG6Lr-v/s1600/%2540publimetro.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDZOoROBlVQxIT2l0wYYzqD07otQf2kI-L652WQKrkfundmolnjIgWglNykmvMnVmC6YeY3_jJxYQhP133VkHstmwtwRL7EBpY8RMW5UeW1U_YKp2zXyIvkbAUSq1kkTvRhsxQyoG6Lr-v/s1600/%2540publimetro.png" width="320" /></a></div>

Lobby group representing Google, Yahoo backs CISPA

A lobbying organization that counts Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and other tech giants among its clients has lent support to the Cyber In...