Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts

Sunday, September 22, 2013

BT CEO Ian Livingston to leave in September, accept government role

Gavin Patterson to be appointed chief executive of BT Group

BT announces today that Gavin Patterson will succeed Ian Livingston as chief executive of BT Group plc.

Ian has agreed to take up a role in government as Minister of State for Trade and Investment. He will continue as chief executive of BT until he steps down from his post and from BT's Board in September.

Gavin Patterson has served as chief executive of BT Retail and as a BT Board member since 2008, having joined the company as a senior executive four years prior to that. He will take over as chief executive of BT Group in September.

Sir Michael Rake, Chairman of BT, said: "Ian has done a tremendous job in transforming BT. His decision to accept a government post demonstrates the sense of public service which many of us know to be characteristic. He leaves behind him a very capable team, one which will take forward the strategy that has served BT well and which lays out the path to further success.

"We have a fitting and experienced successor in Gavin Patterson. He has a detailed knowledge of all parts of our business and a track record of success. He was closely involved in creating our strategy and is the right person to take it forward. BT will make yet further progress under his leadership."

Gavin Patterson said: "It is a privilege to have been offered the position of chief executive of BT Group, and I am delighted to accept.

"The company is in a strong place. We have great opportunities ahead and are well placed to take advantage of them, in the UK and internationally. We have the people, the technology and the plans we need to build on our current successes. I look forward to leading a dynamic team to ensure we do just that."

Ian Livingston said: 'I am honoured to have been asked by the Prime Minister to take on the role of Minister for Trade and Investment, with a remit of helping the growth of British companies and the country's future economic success.

"It has been an incredibly hard decision to leave BT at such an exciting time. However, the opportunities ahead and the strength of the management team that Gavin will lead mean that the company is in a great position.
"I am immensely proud to have led this company over the last five years. We have made huge progress over the last few years but I know there is still so much more that BT can and will do."

Ian will join the House of Lords prior to taking up his front-bench government post in December.

An announcement about the specific September date on which Ian will hand over the BT chief executive's post to Gavin will follow in due course.

June 2013

Biography of Gavin Patterson

Gavin Patterson, 45, became Chief Executive of BT Retail in May 2008 and joined the BT Group plc board a month later. He will succeed Ian Livingston as chief executive of BT Group in September.

Gavin joined BT in January 2004 as managing director of its consumer division. He previously spent four years at Telewest (which later merged with NTL to become Virgin Media), including as managing director of its consumer division. Before entering the communications sector, he spent nine years at Procter and Gamble, rising to become European marketing director.

As well as leading BT's retail division, Gavin oversees corporate responsibility programmes for BT Group and represents the company on the CBI's Climate Change Board. He has served as President of the Advertising Association since June 2011, is a non-executive director of British Airways and a Trustee of the British Museum. He also sits on the advisory board of the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Gavin graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in chemical engineering and is married with four children.


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Posted by Chris Holman at 9:08 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Apple releases statement on customer privacy, received over 4,000 government information requests in six months

Apple releases statement on customer privacy, received over 4,000 government information requests in six months data = {blogUrl: "www.engadget.com",v: 315};when = {jquery: lab.scriptBs("jquery"),plugins: lab.scriptBs("plugins"),eng: lab.scriptBs("eng")}; var s265prop9 = ('20623758' !== '') ? 'bsd:20623758' : ''; var postID = '20623758'; var modalMNo = '93319229', modalVideoMNo = '93320648', modalGalleryMNo = '93304207'; when.eng("eng.omni.init", {pfxID:"weg",pageName:document.title,server:"acp-ld39.websys.aol.com",channel:"us.engadget", s_account: "aolwbengadget,aolsvc", short_url: "",pageType:"",linkInternalFilters:"javascript:,",prop1:"article",prop2:"internet",prop9:s265prop9,prop12:document.location,prop17:"",prop18:"",prop19:"",prop20:"", prop22:"mat-smith", prop54:"blogsmith",mmxgo: true }); adSendTerms('1')adSetMOAT('1');adSetAdURL('/_uac/adpagem.html');lab._script("http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ads/adhesion/js/adhads-min.js").wait(function(){var floatingAd = new AdhesiveAd("348-14-15-14d",{hideOnSwipe:true});}); onBreak({980: function () { adSetType("F");htmlAdWH("93319229", "LB", "LB"); adSetType("");}}); EngadgetMenu NewsReviews Features Galleries VideosEventsPodcasts Engadget ShowTopics Buyers Guides Sagas Store HD Mobile Alt Announcements Cameras Cellphones Desktops Displays Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Household Internet Laptops Meta Misc Networking Peripherals Podcasts Robots Portable Audio/Video Science Software Storage Tablets Transportation Wearables Wireless Acer Amazon AMD Apple ASUS AT&T Blackberry Canon Dell Facebook Google HP HTC Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Nokia NVIDIA Samsung Sony Sprint T-Mobile Verizon About UsSubscribeLike Engadget@engadgettip uswhen.eng("eng.nav.init")when.eng("eng.tips.init") onBreak({980: function () {htmlAdWH("93308280", "215", "35",'AJAX','ajaxsponsor');}});Apple releases statement on customer privacy, received over 4,000 government information requests in six monthsBypostedJun 17th, 2013 at 3:05 AM 0

Following the likes of Microsoft and Facebook, Apple has publicly responded to the explosion in interest in the NSA's PRISM program, and has been authorized to reveal some of the data on what it's shared with the US government in the past. It apparently first heard of the program when the media started to ask about it earlier this month and has reiterated that it provides no government agency with direct access to its servers. It does, however, get its fair share of requests for customer data from US law enforcement, receiving between 4,000 and 5,000 of them between December 1 2012 and May 31 2013. These requests covered over 9,000 accounts or devices, and come from federal, state and local authorities. Apple elaborated a little on these information requests too, saying that the majority of these requests have involved searching for missing children, preventing suicides and robberies. The company says it has "always placed a priority on protecting our customers' personal data," and its legal team evaluates each request. Apparently, Apple can't decrypt (and thus share) iMessage and FaceTime data, which is encrypted end-to-end. We've added its full statement after the break.

Show full PR textApple's Commitment to Customer Privacy

Two weeks ago, when technology companies were accused of indiscriminately sharing customer data with government agencies, Apple issued a clear response: We first heard of the government's "Prism" program when news organizations asked us about it on June 6. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order.

Like several other companies, we have asked the U.S. government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data, and we are providing it here in the interest of transparency.

From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple 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. The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide.

Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it.

Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers' personal data, and we don't collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.

For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers' location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

We will continue to work hard to strike the right balance between fulfilling our legal responsibilities and protecting our customers' privacy as they expect and deserve.

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Posted by Chris Holman at 11:49 AM 0 comments
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Friday, September 6, 2013

Facebook reveals government data request numbers, is first to include national security stats

Facebook reveals government data request numbers, is first to include national security stats data = {blogUrl: "www.engadget.com",v: 315};when = {jquery: lab.scriptBs("jquery"),plugins: lab.scriptBs("plugins"),eng: lab.scriptBs("eng")}; var s265prop9 = ('20622903' !== '') ? 'bsd:20622903' : ''; var postID = '20622903'; var modalMNo = '93325862', modalVideoMNo = '93320648', modalGalleryMNo = '93304207'; when.eng("eng.omni.init", {pfxID:"weg",pageName:document.title,server:"acp-ld39.websys.aol.com",channel:"us.engadget", s_account: "aolwbengadget,aolsvc", short_url: "",pageType:"",linkInternalFilters:"javascript:,",prop1:"article",prop2:"microsoft",prop9:s265prop9,prop12:document.location,prop17:"",prop18:"",prop19:"",prop20:"", prop22:"richard-lawler", prop54:"blogsmith",mmxgo: true }); adSendTerms('1')adSetMOAT('1');adSetAdURL('/_uac/adpagem.html');lab._script("http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ads/adhesion/js/adhads-min.js").wait(function(){var floatingAd = new AdhesiveAd("348-14-15-14c",{hideOnSwipe:true});}); onBreak({980: function () { adSetType("F");htmlAdWH("93325862", "LB", "LB"); adSetType("");}}); EngadgetMenu NewsReviews Features Galleries VideosEventsPodcasts Engadget ShowTopics Buyers Guides Sagas Store HD Mobile Alt Announcements Cameras Cellphones Desktops Displays Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Household Internet Laptops Meta Misc Networking Peripherals Podcasts Robots Portable Audio/Video Science Software Storage Tablets Transportation Wearables Wireless Acer Amazon AMD Apple ASUS AT&T Blackberry Canon Dell Facebook Google HP HTC Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Nokia NVIDIA Samsung Sony Sprint T-Mobile Verizon About UsSubscribeLike Engadget@engadgettip uswhen.eng("eng.nav.init")when.eng("eng.tips.init") onBreak({980: function () {htmlAdWH("93325870", "215", "35",'AJAX','ajaxsponsor');}});Facebook reveals government data request numbers, is first to include national security statsBypostedJun 14th, 2013 at 9:17 PM 0

Facebook reveals government data request numbers, is first to include national security stats

Facebook lawyer Ted Ullyot revealed in a post tonight precisely how many user-data requests it receives from government entities, and that it's negotiated the ability to include national security-related (FISA and National Security Letters) inquiries in the report. Until now, the companies that receive such requests, whether through the recently uncovered PRISM program or not, have not been able to say anything about them, or report how many there are. Still, the stats it's able to release aren't specific, and include all requests from the last six months in a range, said to be between 9,000 and 10,000, covering between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts. We still have no official reports on what those inquiries cover, how wide reaching a single one can be or what information has been passed along. Facebook however, is quick to point out that these cover "only a tiny fraction of one percent" of its 1.1 billion active user accounts.

Along with Microsoft and Google, Facebook has publicly petitioned the government to let it be more transparent about the size and scope of the requests it receives, and Reuters reports tonight that "several" internet companies have struck an agreement to do so. Expect more reports to arrive soon in similar formats, however Ullyot states Facebook will continue to push the government to be "as transparent as possible."

For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat. The total number of Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

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Posted by Chris Holman at 2:44 AM 0 comments
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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Microsoft releases government data request stats: over 6,000 in six months

Microsoft releases government data request stats: over 6,000 in six months data = {blogUrl: "www.engadget.com",v: 315};when = {jquery: lab.scriptBs("jquery"),plugins: lab.scriptBs("plugins"),eng: lab.scriptBs("eng")}; var s265prop9 = ('20622949' !== '') ? 'bsd:20622949' : ''; var postID = '20622949'; var modalMNo = '93319229', modalVideoMNo = '93320648', modalGalleryMNo = '93304207'; when.eng("eng.omni.init", {pfxID:"weg",pageName:document.title,server:"acp-ld39.websys.aol.com",channel:"us.engadget", s_account: "aolwbengadget,aolsvc", short_url: "",pageType:"",linkInternalFilters:"javascript:,",prop1:"article",prop2:"",prop9:s265prop9,prop12:document.location,prop17:"",prop18:"",prop19:"",prop20:"", prop22:"richard-lawler", prop54:"blogsmith",mmxgo: true }); adSendTerms('1')adSetMOAT('1');adSetAdURL('/_uac/adpagem.html');lab._script("http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ads/adhesion/js/adhads-min.js").wait(function(){var floatingAd = new AdhesiveAd("348-14-15-14d",{hideOnSwipe:true});}); onBreak({980: function () { adSetType("F");htmlAdWH("93319229", "LB", "LB"); adSetType("");}}); EngadgetMenu NewsReviews Features Galleries VideosEventsPodcasts Engadget ShowTopics Buyers Guides Sagas Store HD Mobile Alt Announcements Cameras Cellphones Desktops Displays Gaming GPS Handhelds Home Entertainment Household Internet Laptops Meta Misc Networking Peripherals Podcasts Robots Portable Audio/Video Science Software Storage Tablets Transportation Wearables Wireless Acer Amazon AMD Apple ASUS AT&T Blackberry Canon Dell Facebook Google HP HTC Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Nokia NVIDIA Samsung Sony Sprint T-Mobile Verizon About UsSubscribeLike Engadget@engadgettip uswhen.eng("eng.nav.init")when.eng("eng.tips.init") onBreak({980: function () {htmlAdWH("93308280", "215", "35",'AJAX','ajaxsponsor');}});Microsoft releases government data request stats: over 6,000 in six monthsBypostedJun 14th, 2013 at 11:10 PM 0

Like Facebook earlier, Microsoft has revealed some details about the number of government requests for data that it receives, and is for the first time including national security requests in the total count. Also similar to Facebook, Microsoft says the requests cover a tiny fraction of the accounts it serves, with between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security requests covering between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts received over the last six months. Microsoft also noted precisely what it can reveal (included below), adding the numbers between all agencies, all company consumer services, in bands of 1,000 and for the period between July and December last year. Microsoft also parroted Facebook's hope that the government would allow "greater steps" in allowing transparency in the future. Returning to a previous Microsoft transparency report, Reuters points out it indicated receiving requests concerning 24,565 accounts in 2012 -- by halving that number it roughly estimates national security requests are touching the majority of the accounts counted.

Here is what the data shows: For the six months ended December 31, 2012, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal). This only impacts a tiny fraction of Microsoft's global customer base.

We are permitted to publish data on national security orders received (including, if any, FISA Orders and FISA Directives), but only if aggregated with law enforcement requests from all other U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement agencies; only for the six-month period of July 1, 2012 thru December 31, 2012; only if the totals are presented in bands of 1,000; and all Microsoft consumer services had to be reported together.

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Posted by Chris Holman at 7:06 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Huawei CEO Says Company Isn't Conspiring With Chinese Government

Huawei1Samantha-murphy By Samantha Murphy2013-05-09 15:02:44 -0700

After not talking to the media for 25 years, founder and CEO of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei Ren Zhengfei told reporters Thursday it is not working with the Chinese government to spy on the United States.

Huawei has been under fire since a 2012 report from the U.S. House Intelligence Committee accused it along with ZTE of being a national security risk for providing information about the United States to the Chinese government. The report said the companies did not comply with an investigation on its practices.

Zhengfei has denied those claims, according to Reuters: "Huawei has no connection to the cybersecurity issues the U.S. has encountered in the past, current and future."

"Huawei equipment is almost non-existent in networks currently running in the U.S. We have never sold any key equipment to major U.S. carriers, nor have we sold any equipment to any U.S. government agency," he added.

The news comes as Huawei left the U.S. market in April, citing "geopolitical reasons."

“Huawei and ZTE seek to expand in the United States, but as a result of our investigation, we do not have the confidence that these two companies with their ties to the Chinese government can be trusted with infrastructure of such critical importance,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said.

Image via Aaron tam/AFP/Getty Images

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Posted by Chris Holman at 3:35 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Government Lab Reveals Quantum Internet Operated for 2 Years

SparkleopticThe Physics arXiv Blog for MIT Technology Review 2013-05-06 18:44:09 UTC

One of the dreams for security experts is the creation of a quantum Internet that allows perfectly secure communication based on the powerful laws of quantum mechanics.

The basic idea here is that the act of measuring a quantum object, such as a photon, always changes it. So any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum message cannot fail to leave telltale signs of snooping that the receiver can detect. That allows anybody to send a "one-time pad" over a quantum network which can then be used for secure communication using conventional classical communication.

That sets things up nicely for perfectly secure messaging known as quantum cryptography and this is actually a fairly straightforward technique for any half decent quantum optics lab. Indeed, a company called ID Quantique sells an off-the-shelf system that has begun to attract banks and other organisations interested in perfect security.

These systems have an important limitation, however. The current generation of quantum cryptography systems are point-to-point connections over a single length of fibre, So they can send secure messages from A to B but cannot route this information onwards to C, D, E or F.

That's because the act of routing a message means reading the part of it that indicates where it has to be routed. And this inevitably changes it, at least with conventional routers. This makes a quantum Internet impossible with today's technology

Various teams are racing to develop quantum routers that will fix this problem by steering quantum messages without destroying them. We looked at one of the first last year. But the truth is that these devices are still some way from commercial reality.

Today, Richard Hughes and his team at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum Internet, which they say they've been running for two and half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub.

This is not the first time this kind of approach has been tried. The idea is that messages to the hub rely on the usual level of quantum security. However, once at the hub, they are converted to conventional classical bits and then reconverted into quantum bits to be sent on the second leg of their journey.

So as long as the hub is secure, then the network should also be secure.

The problem with this approach is scalability. As the number of links to the hub increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to handle all the possible connections that can be made between one point in the network and another.

Hughes and co say they've solved this with their unique approach which equips each node in the network with quantum transmitters—ie lasers—but not with photon detectors which are expensive and bulky. Only the hub is capable of receiving a quantum message (although all nodes can send and receiving conventional messages in the normal way).

That may sound limiting but it still allows each node to send a one-time pad to the hub which it then uses to communicate securely over a classical link. The hub can then route this message to another node using another one time pad that it has set up with this second node. So the entire network is secure, provided that the central hub is also secure.

The big advantage of this system is that it makes the technology required at each node extremely simple—essentially little more than a laser. In fact, Los Alamos has already designed and built plug-and-play type modules that are about the size of a box of matches. "Our next-generation [module] will be an order of magnitude smaller in each linear dimension," they say.

Their ultimate goal is to have one of these modules built in to almost any device connected to a fibre optic network, such as set top TV boxes, home computers and so on, to allow perfectly secure messaging.

Having run this system now for more than two years, Los Alamos are now highly confident in its efficacy.

Of course, the network can never be more secure than the hub at the middle of it and this is an important limitation of this approach. By contrast, a pure quantum Internet should allow perfectly secure communication from any point in the network to any other.

Another is that this approach will become obsolete as soon as quantum routers become commercially viable. So the question for any investors is whether they can get their money back in the time before then. The odds are that they won’t have to wait long to find out.

Image via iStockphoto, muratkoc

This article originally published at MIT Technology Review here

Topics: Apps and Software, internet, Science, security, Tech, U.S. MIT Technology Review is a Mashable publishing partner that identifies emerging technologies and analyzes their impact for technology and business leaders. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Google: Government Censorship Attempts Increasing

Government-censorshipLorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-04-25 17:38:49 UTC

Google released its traditional six-month Transparency Report Thursday, the seventh since the company started releasing this type of data in 2010. And, according to the report, which covers July to December of 2012, attempts by governments around the world to censor political content on the Internet are increasing.

"From July to December 2012, we received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content—an increase from the 1,811 requests to remove 18,070 pieces of content that we received during the first half of 2012," Google's Legal Director Susan Infantino wrote in a blog post.

These types of requests have doubled since the second half of 2011, when governments made 1,054 requests to remove 12,071 items.

Google Transparency Report Graph

In the blog post, Infantino points out the dramatic increase in government censorship attempts. "It’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown," she wrote. "In more places than ever, we’ve been asked by governments to remove political content that people post on our services."

For Google, Brazil is a particularly striking example. The country's total requests (counting both court orders and "other requests") in the first half of last year were 191, in the second half they grew to 697. The Brazilian municipal elections are the main reason behind it. Infantino adds that half of the total requests were alleging violations of the Brazilian Electoral Code, which forbids defamation against candidates.

Infantino reveals that Google is appealing many of those requests, "on the basis that the content is protected by freedom of expression under the Brazilian Constitution," she wrote.

Another example of a country with sharp increases in these attempts is Russia. After the approval of a new Internet blacklist law last fall — which YouTube legally challenged in February — Russian government requests grew from just six in the first half of the year to 114.

Finally, Google refers to the controversial YouTube video "Innocence of Muslims," which in September spurred violent protests around the Middle East. Google reveals 20 countries made inquiries about the video. And "after receiving formal legal complaints," the company restricted access to the video in "several countries in accordance with local law," Infantino wrote.

As for the United States, the number of requests has slightly increased from 273 in the first half of 2012 to 321 in the second half of the year.

Take a look at Google's full Transparency Report here.

Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, MHJ; chart courtesy of Google.

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Posted by Chris Holman at 10:30 AM 0 comments
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