GM to open third U.S. tech center, hire 1,000 people

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co will open a third U.S. information technology center as part of its plan to bring that work in-house and improve the automaker's efficiency and productivity.
GM said on Thursday it will hire about 1,000 people, including software developers, database experts and business analysts, to staff the center near Atlanta. It will be the third of four centers in the United States GM previously said it would open.
Last summer, GM, a pioneer in outsourcing information technology, said it would reverse that trend with plans to vastly expand the number of in-house IT experts over three years.
At the time of the announcement, GM outsourced some 90 percent of its IT services and provided 10 percent of that work in-house, an approach that had been the model at the Detroit company for most of the last three decades. The U.S. automaker said it planned to flip those percentages.
GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott, a former Hewlett-Packard Co executive, outlined his plans last June to GM's IT employees, which then numbered about 1,500. GM currently employs about 2,200 IT staff and that number will rise to about 9,000 when the transition is completed, Mott said on Thursday.
"We've been on a journey for the past few months to transform GM IT," Mott told reporters on a conference call. "One of the key strategies in this turnaround is the opening of (information technology) innovation centers in key U.S. markets and bringing the work back in-house to GM."
Last October, GM said it would shift 3,000 people over six months to its payroll from HP, which has long handled IT work for the automaker.
In the two months prior to that, GM had announced plans to hire 2,000 workers to staff new IT centers in Texas and Michigan. The location of the fourth IT center will be announced later but employment will be on the same scale, Mott said.
GM said it has hired more than 700 IT specialists to work at the centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan. The Georgia center will be located in Roswell, a northern suburb of Atlanta, and Mott said interviews for the location will begin next week with hiring to occur as soon as possible.

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Best Buy online sales rise as Amazon collects sales tax

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Best Buy Co, the world's largest electronics retailer, said its online sales have increased in certain markets as arch rival Amazon.com Inc collects tax on purchases in more states.
"In California, Texas and Pennsylvania where Amazon.com recently started collecting tax, it is very early, but Best Buy has seen a 4 to 6 percent increase in online sales observed in aggregate versus the rest of the chain," spokeswoman Amy von Walter wrote in an email to Reuters.
"While some people may still prefer to shop online, the sales tax parity has shown that people will shift their buying habits."
Amazon, the world's biggest Internet retailer, began collecting sales tax in California on September 15, weeks before the start of the crucial fourth-quarter holiday season. In the weeks leading up to the move, there were reports of binge buying of higher-priced items such flat-screen TVs by some California shoppers.
Amazon started collecting state sales tax in Texas in July and in Pennsylvania in September.
Critics of Amazon have argued it had an unfair advantage because big retailers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp, have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.
But many states, hungry for extra tax revenue in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, have introduced new laws requiring that Internet-only retailers also collect sales tax.
Big retailers hope the requirement to collect sales tax will reduce Amazon's price advantage and help them recoup some sales that lost to the Internet retailer.
Best Buy also saw an increase of 6 percent to 9 percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states compared with the rest of its chain, von Walter said.
Best Buy, which has been among the hardest hit by competition from Amazon, reports holiday sales results on Friday.
Best Buy shares closed 5 percent higher at $12.21 on Thursday, while Amazon shares were down about 0.4 percent at $265.34.
Despite the tax changes, Amazon's consumer electronics prices were still at least five percent below Best Buy's during the holiday season, according to Anne Zybowski, vice president of digital retail research at Kantar Retail. However, Best Buy may have benefited from even a small change in this area.
"Particularly in consumer electronics, any narrowing of Amazon's price advantage at the margin is important because Best Buy brings service and other shopper benefits to the category," she said.
Best Buy will take away people's old TVs when they buy a new one and the company's Geek Squad service will install devices in shoppers' homes, services Amazon does not provide, she noted.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment when asked if the company saw an impact on fourth-quarter sales from the imposition of sales taxes in California, Texas and Pennsylvania. In the past, Amazon executives have said there was little or no impact from such changes in other regions.
Several analysts have argued that shoppers use Amazon for its vast product selection and convenient, fast shipping and returns, and not just its low prices.
Other retailers may not see a sales boost because, in categories beyond consumer electronics where service is less important, there will not be such a swing to store buying, Zybowski said, citing health, beauty and cosmetics as examples.
"I don't think retailers should get too excited," she added. "Best Buy results are isolated to consumer electronics. Once you start getting over the $100 purchase price level, the tax matters."
The main point is that new state tax laws are making Amazon equal to every other retailer in the United States, she added.
"If this had happened to Amazon when they were just a bookseller years ago, they may not be as big as they are now," Zybowski said.
But Amazon has built huge customer loyalty through programs such as its Prime shipping service and its Kindle gadget-and-content ecosystem and this should drive sales growth, she added.

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Native Canadians could block development, chief warns

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Native Canadians are so angry that they could resort to blocking resource development and bring the economy "to its knees" unless the Conservative government addresses their grievances, an influential chief said on Thursday.
Native Canadian chiefs are due to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada's 1.2 million aboriginals.
"We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough ... . We have nothing left to lose," said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.
Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States in a campaign they call "Idle No More."
Canada has 633 separate native "bands," each of which have their own communities and lands, and not all share the same opinions. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the aboriginal umbrella group, said his members had come to a tipping point, but he made no mention of damaging the economy.
"You cannot ignore what is happening with Idle No More... We will drive the final stake in the heart of colonialism and it will happen in this generation," Shawn Atleo told a separate news conference.
"First Nations are not opposed to resource development, they are just not supportive of development at any cost," he said.
Native Canadian leaders say they want more federal money, a greater say over what happens to resources on their land and more respect from the federal Conservative government.
"These are demands, not requests," said Nepinak. "The Idle No More movement has the people - it has the people and the numbers - that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper's resource development plan," Nepinak told reporters in Ottawa.
"We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we're not here to make requests, we're here to demand attention," he said.
Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc's plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, and some say they will not allow the project to go ahead.
Some aboriginal bands oppose the Enbridge pipeline on the grounds that it is too environmentally dangerous while others say the company did not do enough to consult them before applying for permission to go ahead with the project.
"DIPLOMATIC HAND"
Nepinak said he wants to extend a "diplomatic hand" toward resolving the issues and gave no details about what he meant by bringing the economy to its knees.
Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of two recent budget acts they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers, and make it easier to sell lands on the reserves where many natives live.
"We've been working tirelessly to gain access through various channels into this Harper regime ... . How do we trust the words of this prime minister?" Nepinak asked.
Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.
Ottawa spends around C$11 billion ($11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.
As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.

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Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera

Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can't make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera -- handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That's basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it's a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.
When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $499 on AT&T's network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon's network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a "promotional price" for the monthly charge: Only $5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $10 tablet rate.
A 4G digital camera
While it's capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera's 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.
Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera's.
Not as good of a deal as it sounds
Dropbox is offering two years' worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)
The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera's 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $15 per GB overage fee (plus the $50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.
On top of that, the Galaxy Camera's photos are basically on par with a $199 digital camera's -- you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.
It does run Android, though, right?
The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung's custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.
Some apps don't work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they're camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.

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Selling flak jackets in the cyberwars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.
But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known Internet start-up that serves some of the Web's most controversial characters, sees a business opportunity.
Founded in 2010, CloudFlare markets itself as an Internet intermediary that shields websites from distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks, the crude but effective weapon that hackers use to bludgeon websites until they go dark. The 40-person company claims to route up to 5 percent of all Internet traffic through its global network.
Prince calls his company the "Switzerland" of cyberspace - assiduously neutral and open to all comers. But just as companies like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have faced profound questions about the balance between free speech and openness on the Internet and national security and law enforcement concerns, CloudFlare's business has posed another thorny question: what kinds of services, if any, should an American company be allowed to offer designated terrorists and cyber criminals?
CloudFlare's unusual position at the heart of this debate came to the fore last month, when the Israel Defense Forces sought help from CloudFlare after its website was struck by attackers based in Gaza. The IDF was turning to the same company that provides those services to Hamas and the al-Quds Brigades, according to publicly searchable domain information. Both Hamas and al-Quds, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are designated by the United States as terrorist groups.
Under the USA Patriot Act, U.S. firms are forbidden from providing "material support" to groups deemed foreign terrorist organizations. But what constitutes material support - like many other facets of the law itself - has been subject to intense debate.
CloudFlare's dealings have attracted heated criticism in the blogosphere from both Israelis and Palestinians, but Prince defended his company as a champion of free speech.
"Both sides have an absolute right to tell their story," said Prince, a 38-year old former lawyer. "We're not providing material support for anybody. We're not sending money, or helping people arm themselves."
Prince noted that his company only provides defensive capabilities that enable websites to stay online.
"We can't be sitting in a role where we decide what is good or what is bad based on our own personal biases," he said. "That's a huge slippery slope."
Many U.S. agencies are customers, but so is WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization. CloudFlare has consulted for many Wall Street institutions, yet also protects Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group associated with the Occupy movement.
Prince's stance could be tested at a time when some lawmakers in the United States and Europe, armed with evidence that militant groups rely on the Web for critical operations and recruitment purposes, have pressured Internet companies to censor content or cut off customers.
Last month, conservative political lobbies, as well as seven lawmakers led by Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, urged the FBI to shut down the Hamas Twitter account. The account remains active; Twitter declined to comment.
MATERIAL SUPPORT
Although it has never prosecuted an Internet company under the Patriot Act, the government's use of the material support argument has steadily risen since 2006. Since September 11, 2001, more than 260 cases have been charged under the provision, according to Fordham Law School's Terrorism Trends database.
Catherine Lotrionte, the director of Georgetown University's Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and a former Central Intelligence Agency lawyer, argued that Internet companies should be more closely regulated.
"Material support includes web services," Lotrionte said. "Denying them services makes it more costly for the terrorists. You're cornering them."
But others have warned that an aggressive government approach would have a chilling effect on free speech.
"We're resurrecting the kind of broad-brush approaches we used in the McCarthy era," said David Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project, a non-profit organization that was charged by the Justice Department for teaching law to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist group. The group took its case to the Supreme Court but lost in 2010.
The material support law is vague and ill-crafted, to the point where basic telecom providers, for instance, could be found guilty by association if a terrorist logs onto the Web to plot an attack, Cole said.
In that case, he asked, "Do we really think that AT&T or Google should be held accountable?"
CloudFlare said it has not been contacted about its services by the U.S. government. Spokespeople for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Reuters they contracted a cyber-security company in Gaza that out-sources work to foreign companies, but declined to comment further. The IDF confirmed it had hired CloudFlare, but declined to discuss "internal security" matters.
CloudFlare offers many of its services for free, but the company says websites seeking advanced protection and features can see their bill rise to more than $3,000 a month. Prince declined to discuss the business arrangements with specific customers.
While not yet profitable, CloudFlare has more than doubled its revenue in the past four months, according to Prince, and is picking up 3,000 new customers a day. The company has raked in more than $22 million from venture capital firms including New Enterprise Associates, Venrock and Pelion Venture Partners.
Prince, a Midwestern native with mussed brown hair who holds a law degree from the University of Chicago, said he has a track record of working on the right side of the law.
A decade ago, Prince provided free legal aid to Spamhaus, an international group that tracked email spammers and identity thieves. He went on to create Project Honey Pot, an open source spam-tracking endeavor that turned over findings to police.
Prince's latest company, CloudFlare, has been hailed by groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists for protecting speech. Another client, the World Economic Forum, named CloudFlare among its 2012 "technology pioneers" for its work. But it also owes its profile to its most controversial customers.
CloudFlare has served 4Chan, the online messaging community that spawned Anonymous. LulzSec, the hacker group best known for targeting Sony Corp, is another customer. And since last May, the company has propped up WikiLeaks after a vigilante hacker group crashed the document repository.
Last year, members of the hacker collective UgNazi, whose exploits include pilfering user account information from eBay and crashing the CIA.gov website, broke into Prince's cell phone and email accounts.
"It was a personal affront," Prince said. "But we never kicked them off either."
Prince said CloudFlare would comply with a valid court order to remove a customer, but that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has never requested a takedown. The company has agreed to turn over information to authorities on "exceedingly rare" occasions, he acknowledged, declining to elaborate.
"Any company that doesn't do that won't be in business long," Prince said. But in an email, he added: "We have a deep and abiding respect for our users' privacy, disclose to our users whenever possible if we are ordered to turn over information and would fight an order that we believed was not proper."
Juliannne Sohn, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted computer crimes, said U.S. law enforcement agencies may in fact prefer that the Web's most wanted are parked behind CloudFlare rather than a foreign service over which they have no jurisdiction.
Federal investigators "want to gather information from as many sources as they can, and they're happy to get it," Sussmann said.
In an era of rampant cyber warfare, Prince acknowledged he is something of a war profiteer, but with a wrinkle.

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Merry Christmas, America-Haters?

When TNT was preparing its annual special "Christmas in Washington" with the president of the United States, you'd think the last star musician they would consider to join the official caroling would be Psy, the South Korean rapper. What on Earth is Christmasy about this man's invisible-horse-riding dance to his dorky disco-rap hit "Gangnam Style"? It's not exactly the natural flip-side to "O Holy Night." But TNT couldn't resist this year's YouTube sensation.
This inane publicity stunt backfired when the website Mediaite reported on Dec. 7 that Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) had participated in a 2002 protest in which he crushed a model of an American tank with a microphone stand. But that's nothing compared to the footage of a 2004 performance after a Korean missionary was slaughtered by Islamists in Iraq. These lyrics cannot be misunderstood.
"Kill those f—-ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives ... Kill those f—-ing Yankees who ordered them to torture ... Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers ... Kill them all slowly and painfully."
This isn't just anti-American. It's anti-human.
Guess where this story first surfaced in the American media? CNN, from the same corporate family tree as TNT. It was posted back on Oct. 6 on CNN's iReport, an open-source online news feature that allows users to submit stories for CNN consideration.
The Korean one-hit wonder put out the usual abject careerist apology, but he weirdly said, "I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted." Those darn lyrics and those darn people who misinterpret lyrics about killing Yankees' mothers. It is like Barack Obama expressing regret for the awful things said about Susan Rice, ignoring the awful things said by Susan Rice.
Psy is now a millionaire. As Jim Treacher wrote at the Daily Caller: "So far he's made over $8 million from the song, about $3 million of it from the people he once wanted to kill." Brad Schaeffer at Big Hollywood noted his own father fought for South Korea's independence in the Korean War: "Had it not been for 'f——-g Yankees' like my Dad, this now-wealthy South Korean wouldn't be 'Oppan Gangnam Style' so much as 'Starving Pyongyang Style.'" (Gangnam is a posh district in the South Korean capital of Seoul.)
Despite the controversy, neither the Obama White House nor the TNT brass felt it was necessary to send Psy packing before the Dec. 9 taping. On Saturday, ABC reporter Muhammad Lila merely repeated, "the White House says the concert will go on and that President Obama will attend, saying that they have no control over who performs at that concert."
What moral cowardice. On Monday morning, another pliant publicist, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander, calmly relayed that the White House did take control on the Psy front — on its own "We The People" website, where the people may post petitions to the president for their fellow citizens to sign. A petition asking Obama to dump Psy from the Christmas concert was itself dumped. Alexander explained: "But that petition was removed because the rules say the petitions only apply to federal actions. And, of course, the President had no say over who the private charity chose to invite."
This is double baloney. The White House hasn't removed silly "federal action" petitions like the one asking to "Nationalize the Twinkie Industry," or one to "Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016." They removed one that they didn't want people to sign.
As for Obama having "no say over" who appeared on the TNT show, the president could easily declare he wasn't going to share a stage with this America-hater. Or he could have obviously placed one phone call to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (an Obama donor), and expressed the dismay of the President of the United States.
Instead, the Obamas came and honored Psy. Yes, the president honored a man who despised America enough to want its citizens slaughtered.
John Eggerton of Broadcasting and Cable magazine observed, "At the end of the taping, when the First Family customarily shakes hands and talks briefly with the performers, the First Lady gave Psy a hug, followed by a handshake from the President, who engaged Psy in a short, animated discussion — at one point Psy appeared to rock back with laughter — and patted the singer on the shoulder."
I never thought I'd ever view a Christmas special featuring a hideous hater of America celebrated by the President of the United States.

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Why does Google build apps for its rival Apple's iPhone?

Why help a key competitor? Two words: Advertising and data
There isn't any other way to say it: Apple and Google really don't like each other. Apple CEO Steve Jobs vowed to destroy the Google geniuses behind the Android operating system for allegedly stealing the basic mechanics of the iPhone. Apple and Google-partner Samsung are constantly at one another's throats over patents. And most recently new Apple CEO Tim Cook gave two of Google's most popular products — Google Maps and YouTube — the boot from iOS 6.
Then the unthinkable happened: Fans started turning on Apple. Even the most gushy tech critic had to admit that Apple's replacement for Google Maps was a train wreck, a rare blight on the company's otherwise stainless track record (a failure, notes Zara Kessler at Bloomberg, which ironically might ultimately benefit Apple).
Why, then, would Google throw its chief rival a life preserver this week and deliver Google Maps to iOS — as well as handing over Chrome and an awesome new Gmail app in recent weeks? Two main reasons:
1. Potential advertising: "Google doesn't make money off of Android which is open source; they make money when people use Google services," Joel Spolsky, CEO of Stack Overflow, tells Wired. Google Maps on the iPhone doesn't have ads yet, although the Android version does. In the end, Google's primary concern is to get its services in front of as many eyeballs as possible — even if those eyeballs are peering into an iPhone.
SEE MORE: Steve Jobs' mysterious iMac-controlled yacht
2. More data with which to make its products better: Google Maps is every marketer's dream. Mapping software gives them invaluable consumer data to work with, like the city you live in, the stores you shop at, the restaurants you frequent, where you get your coffee, and much, much more. "Google needs the traffic that iOS users bring," says Casey Newton at CNET. Those millions of iPhone owners unknowingly feed Google the analytics it needs to make Google Maps the superior, celebrated product it's become. The same goes for Chrome. And Gmail.
And "Google is hardly the first company to aggressively support a rival platform for selfish reasons," says Ryan Tate at Wired.
Microsoft was a strong backer of Apple's Macintosh for decades because its core business was selling applications [Word, Excel, etc.], not Microsoft's competing operating system Windows… Google's willingness to ship iOS apps could look smarter as time goes on. The company trounces Apple when it comes to all things cloud, not just maps and e-mail; its social network, search engine, and highly optimized data centers could give its iOS apps an even bigger edge in the coming years.

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Samsung Smart TVs: The next frontier for data theft and hacking [video]

Smart TVs, particularly Samsung’s (005930)last few generations of flat screens, can be hacked to give attackers remote access according to a security startup called ReVuln. The company says it discovered a “zero-dayexploit” that hackers could potentially use to perform malicious activities that range from stealing accounts linked through apps to using built-in webcams and microphones to spy on unsuspecting couch potatoes. Don’t panic just yet, though. In order for the exploit to be activated, a hacker needs to plug a USB drive loaded with malicious software into the actual TV to bypass the Linux-based OS/firmware on Samsung’s Smart TVs. But, if a hacker were to pull that off, every piece of data stored on a Smart TV could theoretically be retrieved.

[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]

[More from BGR: Dell confirms it will exit smartphone business, drop Android]

As if the possibility of someone stealing your information and spying on you isn’t scary enough, according to ComputerWorld, “it is also possible to copy the configuration of a TV’sremote control, which would allow a hacker to copy the remote control’s settings, and remotely change the channel.”

ReVuln told The Register it hasn’t informed Samsung of the vulnerability and plans to sell the details of in hopes of “speeding up” development of a fix. A video of the exploit as proof from ReVuln follows below.

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Internet regulation seen at national level as treaty talks fail

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The world's major Internet companies, backed by U.S. policymakers, got much of what they wanted last week when many nations refused to sign a global telecommunications treaty that opponents feared could lead to greater government control over online content and communications.
In rejecting even mild Internet language in the updated International Telecommunications Union treaty and persuading dozens of other countries to refuse their signatures, the U.S. made a powerful statement in support of the open Internet, U.S. officials and industry leaders said.
But both technologists and politicians fear the Internet remains in imminent danger of new controls imposed by various countries, and some said the rift that only widened during the 12-day ITU conference in Dubai could wind up hastening the end of the Net as we know it.
"If the international community can't agree on what is actually quite a simple text on telecommunications, then there is a risk that the consensus that has mostly held today around Internet governance within (Web-address overseer) ICANN and the multi-stakeholder model just falls apart over time," a European delegate told Reuters. "Some countries clearly think it is time to rethink that whole system, and the fights over that could prove irresolvable."
An increasing number of nations are alarmed about Internet-based warfare, international cybercrime or internal dissidents' use of so-called "over-the-top" services such as Twitter and Facebook that are outside the control of domestic telecom authorities. Many hoped that the ITU would prove the right forum to set standards or at least exchange views on how to handle their problems.
But the United States' refusal to sign the treaty even after all mention of the Internet had been relegated to a side resolution may have convinced other countries that they have to go it alone, delegates said.
"This could lead to a balkanization of the Internet, because each country will have its own view on how to deal with over-the-top players and will regulate the Internet in a different way," said another European delegate, who would speak only on condition anonymity.
Without U.S. and European cooperation, "maybe in the future we could come to a fragmented Internet," said Andrey Mukhanov, international chief at Russia's Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.
HARD LINE IN NEGOTIATIONS
Spurred on by search giant Google and others, the Americans took a hard line against an alliance of countries that wanted the right to know more about the routing of Internet traffic or identities of Web users, including Russia, and developing countries that wanted content providers to pay at least some of the costs of transmission.
The West was able to rally more countries against the ITU having any Internet role than agency officials had expected, leaving just 89 of 144 attending nations willing to sign the treaty immediately. They also endorse a nonbinding resolution that the ITU should play a future role guiding Internet standards, along with private industry and national governments.
Some delegates charged that the Americans had planned on rejecting any treaty and so were negotiating under false pretenses. "The U.S. had a plan to try and water down as much of the treaty as it could and then not sign," the second European said.
Other allied delegates and a U.S. spokesman hotly disputed the claim. "The U.S. was consistent and unwavering in its positions," he said. "In the end—and only in the end—was it apparent that the proposed treaty would not meet that standard."
But the suspicion underscores the unease greeting the United States on the issue. Some in Russia, China and other nations suspect the U.S. of using the Net to sow discontent and launch spying and military attacks.
Ror many technology companies, and for activists who are helping dissidents, the worst-case scenario now would be a split in the structural underpinnings of the Internet. In theory, the electronic packets that make up an email or Web session could be intercepted and monitored near their origin, or traffic could be subjected to massive firewalls along national boundaries, as is the case in China.
Most technologists view the former scenario as unlikely, at least for many years: the existing Internet protocol is too deeply entrenched, said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor who studies Net governance.
"People who want to `secede' from that global connectivity will have to introduce costly technical exceptions to do so," Mueller said.
A more immediate prospect is stricter national regulations requiring Internet service providers and others to help monitor, report and censor content, a trend that has already accelerated since the Arab Spring revolts.
Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet Society, also predicted more fragmentation at the application level, with countries like China encouraging controllable homegrown alternatives to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
Zittrain, Mueller and other experts said fans of the open Net have much work to do in Dubai's wake.
They say government and industry officials should not only preach the merits of the existing system, in which various industry-led non-profit organizations organize the core Internet protocols and procedures, but strive to articulate a better way forward.
"The position we're in now isn't tenable," said James Lewis, a cybersecurity advisor to the White House based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "For us to say 'No, it's got be an ad hoc arrangement of non-governmental entities and a nonprofit corporation ... maybe we could get away with that 10 years ago, but it's going to be increasingly hard."
Lewis said the United States needed to concede a greater role for national sovereignty and the U.N., while Mueller said the goal should be a "more globalized, transnational notion of communications governance" that will take decades to achieve.
In the meantime, activists concerned about new regulation can assist by spreading virtual private network technology, which can national controls, Zittrain said.
Backup hosting and distribution could also be key, he said. "We can devise systems for keeping content up amidst filtering or denial-of-service attacks, so that a platform like Twitter can be a genuine choice for someone in China."

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Israel sees new US poise, including military, to curb Iran

ERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S.-led efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program have resumed since President Barack Obama's re-election and include preparation for possible military action, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday.
The remarks by Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon suggested cautious optimism at prospects for an international resolution to the decade-old standoff with Tehran, though Israel says it remains ready to attack its arch-foe alone as a last resort.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set out a mid-2013 "red line" for tackling Iran's uranium enrichment project. The West says this program is aimed at developing the means to build atomic bombs. Tehran denies this, saying it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful civilian uses.
Yaalon told Army Radio on Tuesday that Israel knew there would be no movement on the issue before the U.S. election in November, but had expected a renewed effort after the vote.
"And indeed it has been renewed," he said.
He cited contacts among the six world powers - the United States, Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany - and Iran about holding new nuclear negotiations, ongoing sanctions against Iran, "and preparations, mainly American for now, for the possibility that military force will have to be used".
Yaalon did not elaborate. Another Israeli official told Reuters the minister was alluding mainly to recent U.S. military mobilization in the Gulf.
The powers said last week they hoped soon to agree with Iran soon on when and where to meet. There have been suggestions it could happen this month, though January now seems more likely.
But, sounding defiant, Iran's top nuclear official was on Tuesday quoted as saying there would be no halt to uranium enrichment to 20 percent fissile purity - an advanced threshold alarming foreign negotiators.
ZONE OF IMMUNITY
A former armed forces chief who belongs to Netanyahu's rightist Likud party, Yaalon questioned Obama's resolve on Iran during the Democratic president's first term. By contrast, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, the lone centrist in Netanyahu's coalition government, argued in Obama's favor.
Yaalon is a frontrunner to succeed Barak, who has announced he will retire from politics after Israel's January 22 election.
On Monday, Barak reiterated Israel's determination to deny Iran the capability to make a bomb. Israel, widely assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a mortal threat.
The prospect of unilateral Israeli air strikes, and ensuing retaliation by Iran, a big oil exporter, and its Islamist guerrilla allies in Lebanon and Gaza, worries world powers, in part because it could destabilize a fragile global economy.
Speaking to Jewish leaders in New York, Barak acknowledged the limitations of Israeli forces against Iran's distant, dispersed and well-defended nuclear facilities.
"The Iranians are deliberately trying to create a level of redundancy and protection for their program, what we call the ‘zone of immunity'. Once they enter the zone of immunity, fate will be out of our hands," Barak said.
"The state of Israel was founded precisely so that our fate would remain in our own hands."
Barak's term "redundancy" refers to Israel's belief that Iran seeks to stockpile raw uranium and enrichment centrifuges on a scale that would allow it to restore independent nuclear capacity should its known facilities be attacked.
Iran's nuclear infrastructure has been dogged by sabotage, including cyberwarfare. Iran's Ministry of Communications and Technology Information said on Sunday it had identified a "new, targeted data-wiping malware". The ministry's statement did not say what computer systems might have been affected.
While Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility for such incidents, Yaalon said there could be more in store, in parallel to global economic pressure.
"Sometimes malfunctions happen there - worms, viruses, explosions. Therefore this schedule is not necessarily chronological. It is more technological," he told Army Radio.
"We are, without a doubt, closely tracking developments in the program there, lest they attempt to pass the red line."

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Three burning questions loom as RIM gets ready to report

Some people say that the November quarter that Research In Motion (RIMM) will report this week is not important. They are wrong. Even though the new BlackBerry model range debuting in 2013 is the key for RIM’s long-term survival, there are three issues that are vitally important for the company right now. RIM must keep certain aspects of its performance from caving in before the new phones begin trickling to the market early next year, and here are three things to watch for as RIM reports its fiscal third-quarter results on Thursday.
[More from BGR: How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]]
Global subscriber base. RIM surprised the market when it reported its summer quarter by showing continuing global subscriber growth despite its U.S. collapse and European trouble. Blackberry’s growth has continued in Africa, Middle Wast and South-East Asia, giving RIM surprising longevity considering its share of new smartphone sales in America may have caved below 3% by now. However, a recent Kantar Worldpanel study showed that in the three months ending in October, BlackBerry market share slipped badly in markets like Brazil and Spain. Until last summer, RIM had maintained a decent grip on Latin America and Mediterranean countries via its cheap Curve devices. They may have finally started eroding even in those countries where BlackBerry had retained some vigor as a low-end youth brand. After its surprisingly robust 80 million subscriber base number from the summer quarter, RIM can afford to show a bit of erosion in November and February quarters. But steep drops would be deeply worrisome — RIM may not get aggressively priced low-end models based on the new OS out before next summer or even autumn.
ASP level. RIM has experienced steep average sales price decline over the past year. Nevertheless, another major plunge is still possible. In the UK market, BlackBerry Christmas promotions are almost entirely built around the cheap Curve 932o — and its price as a pre-paid model has plunged to unprecedented 99 pounds. This is exceptionally low for a model that debuted just last spring. European operators have effectively abandoned RIM’s more expensive business-focused models like the Bold. BlackBerry phones are now being marketed as some of the cheapest smartphones anyone can buy. How deep will this cut into RIM’s ASPs? If the plunge is bad enough, reversing the damage with new high-end models next summer may be extremely difficult. The core customer base for RIM’s high-end devices was built on the U.S. and the UK markets, but RIM has wiped out in America nearly completely and the UK carriers have switched to marketing BlackBerry handsets as bargain bin specials on par with Huawei or ZTE models. If BlackBerry ASP level dives too low during November and February quarters, undoing the damage will be a herculean task.
BlackBerry Messenger popularity. Business News reported last January that BlackBerry Messenger was growing at 140% pace in Nigeria, one of the key African mobile phone markets. BBM’s user base growth last winter was also torrid in South Africa. However, stand-alone messaging apps like WhatsApp and 2go have delivered scorching growth in Africa and Asia during 2012. 2go has soared ahead of Blackberry Messenger in popularity in Nigeria and is spreading rapidly in South Africa. WhatsApp became a top-three iPhone app in more than 100 countries last winter and offers cross-platform support that is a big draw in the South-East Asian markets that remain RIM’s lifeline: Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Globally, WhatsApp has grown from relaying 1 billion daily messages in the fall of 2011 to 10 billion by fall 2012. By now, that rampant growth may have started encroaching on BBM popularity. RIM does not report on Messenger user numbers every quarter, so visibility on this front could remain limited in coming months. But any erosion in the Messenger user base is likely to have an impact on RIM’s overall subscriber base.

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New Android botnet discovered across all major networks

A new Android spam botnet has been discovered across all major networks that sends thousands of text messages without a user’s permission, TheNextWeb reported. The threat, which is known at SpamSoldier, was detected on December 3rd by Lookout Security in cooperation with an unnamed carrier partner. The malware is said to spread through a collection of infected phones that send text messages, which usually advertise free versions of popular paid games like Grand Theft Auto and Angry Birds Space, to hundreds of users each day.
[More from BGR: Facebook’s Instagram monetization plan: License users’ photos without paying for them]
Once a user clicks on the link to download the game, his or her phone instead downloads the malicious app. When the app is downloaded, SpamSoilder removes its icon from the app drawer, installs a free version of the game in question and immediately starts sending spam messages.
[More from BGR: How not to fix Apple Maps]
The security firm notes that the threat isn’t widespread, however it has been spotted on all major carriers in the U.S. and has potential to do serious damage if something isn’t done soon to stop it.

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Samsung Galaxy Note III with 6.3-inch display rumored for 2013 launch

Ridiculous sizes aside, oversized smartphones (“phablets”) that border on tablet territory are here to stay. By next year, the crop of smartphones with 5-inch displays will seem tiny compared to phablets with 6-inch+ screens. According to The Korea Times, Samsung (005930) is reportedly planning to launch the Galaxy Note III with a 6.3-inch OLED display in 2013. By comparison, the current Galaxy Note II has 5.5-inch display. Huawei also (002502) confirmed last week it will release a Galaxy Note II competitor with a 6.1-inch screen. Having pioneered the “phablet” category, Samsung might see no problem with consumers adjusting to even bigger smartphones.
It sounds silly to imagine people carrying smartphones with 6-inch displays, but then again, many people thought “phablets” would be rejected by consumers for their large proportions.
One reason for the shift to even larger displays could be to widen the gap in resolution. In October, a screen expert said that smartphones with 1080p resolution aren’t visibly better than ones with 720p resolution due to their small size. With larger displays, the difference between Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 5 and say, the Galaxy Note III, could become more noticeable.
But where there are upsides to a larger display, there are also downsides. To power a 6.3-inch display, Samsung would have to include a significantly larger battery, especially since it would also support LTE. An even larger Galaxy Note would also mean holding the device with one hand will be more difficult for most people.
With tradeoffs like those, it seems unlikely a 6.3-inch display will appear on the Galaxy Note III unless Samsung can manage an edgeless layout that keeps the phone’s overall footprint roughly the same.

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How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

So Instagram made sharing its photos a lot more annoying for Twitter users Wednesday morning, which stinks, but isn't likely to change. Because, see, the publicly traded, accountable-to-shareholders Facebook owns Instagram. Ergo, like the social network, the filtered photo-sharing site needs to do things that will make it money, which might sometimes get in the way of the user experience. That's exactly what happened Wednesday morning in what's being called a "brewing rivalry" with Twitter: Instagram wants people on its site, and CEO Kevin Systrom  said so. That's not how he sold the move, of course — Systrom thinks seeing pictures on the Instagram app or on those new web pages makes for a better user experience than the littler images in the Twitter stream. The Internet begs to differ, with people like Wired's Mat Honan  noting that it's users who lose now. Given that constant, it's might be you that needs to change. We're here to help with a handy three-step program to getting over this terrible ordeal.

RELATED: Why You Can't See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

1. Get Angry About It

RELATED: Twitter Now Valued at $3.7 Billion

In order to avoid harboring horrible feelings about the new situation, which one day leads to an emotional explosion, do as BuzzFeed's Matt Buchanan did and get mad about this whole situation. "Instagram just broke itself," he proclaims, reminding us there is nothing he or you or anyone can do about it. What he means is that the social network just got less social in the name of business. It doesn't work like the social web should, really. So go scream about it, either in a loud room or on Twitter or something. Now's the time to let it all out.

RELATED: How to Give Hipster Twitter an Identity Crisis

2. Accept That This Is Reality

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Now that you've gotten that part out of your system, acceptance in the next logical step. Like we said, these social networks will sometimes do things to benefit their bottom lines that directly hurt users. Though Instagram doesn't have the same big-brand-name status as Facebook, it still plays by the same public-company rules, as TechCrunch's Drew Olanoff explains in a sober-minded post.  Users need to get used to this kind of thing — not only from Facebook and Instagram but from all these social networks, which ultimately are always going to be companies trying to succeed.

RELATED: Twitter Apparently Makes Congress Nervous

3. Do Something About It

OK, whiners, if you're going to go ahead and care that much, how about you hack Twitter? For those who don't see that as an option, it's not impossible to share Instagram photos on Twitter even without Twitter Cards, as Bits Blogs Nick Bilton points out. The two-step solution isn't as seamless as it used to be, but it works. Option one involves saving photos to your phone library (under the settings) and tweeting them out from there. Or, post the image on another social network and tweet it from there. It's laborious, but it works. Kind of.

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25 top-rated Facebook games from 2012

Games can be both a welcome and an annoying diversion on Facebook, the world's most popular online social network. This year, Facebook crossed a big milestone — reaching 1 billion active users. Game companies such as "FarmVille" creator Zynga Inc. and Rovio Entertainment Ltd. of "Angry Birds" fame seek to tap into that vast base of users to gain more players for their games.

This week, Facebook Inc. issued a list of the 25 top-rated games that launched on Facebook in 2012. The company says the rankings are based on user ratings and engagement with the games. It's the same methodology that Facebook uses to rank apps in its App Center.

Some of the games are played on Facebook's website, while others are only on Apple Inc.'s iOS or Google Inc.'s Android devices using Facebook's app.

Here's the list:

1. "SongPop" (by FreshPlanet, on Facebook.com, iOS and Android)

2. "Dragon City" (by Social Point, on Facebook.com)

3. "Bike Race" (by Top Free Games, on iOS)

4. "Subway Surfers" (by Kiloo, on iOS and Android)

5. "Angry Birds Friends (by Rovio, on Facebook.com)

6. "FarmVille 2" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

7. "Scramble with Friends" (by Zynga, on iOS)

8. "Clash of Clans" (by Supercell, on iOS)

9. "Marvel: Avengers Alliance" (by Playdom, on Facebook.com)

10. "Draw Something" (by Zynga, on iOS and Android)

11. "Hay Day" (by Supercell, on iOS)

12. "Baseball Heroes" (by Syntasia, on Facebook.com)

13. "ChefVille" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

14. "CSR Racing" (by NaturalMotion Games, on iOS)

15. "Candy Crush Saga" (by King.com, on Facebook.com and iOS)

16. "Matching With Friends" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

17. "Legend Online" (by Oasis Games, on Facebook.com)

18. "Jurassic Park Builder" (by Ludia, on Facebook.com)

19. "Dungeon Rampage" (by Rebel Entertainment, on Facebook.com)

20. "Pockie Ninja II Social" (by NGames Ltd., on Facebook.com)

21. "Jetpack Joyride" (by Halfbrick, on Facebook.com)

22. "Social Empires" (by Social Point, on Facebook.com and iOS)

23. "Bil ve Fethet" (by Peak Games, on Facebook.com)

24. "Ruby Blast Adventures" (by Zynga, on Facebook.com and iOS)

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Microsoft #DroidRage Tweet Shows How Malware Has Moved Past Windows

 "Do you have an Android malware horror story?" Microsoft asks through its @windowsphone Twitter account, in what may be one of the most ironic tweets of the year.

After all, it wasn't that long ago that "virus" and "worm" stories made headlines on a regular basis, all of them about "computer viruses" which were really Windows viruses. Just a few years ago, Apple advertised the fact that a Mac "Doesn't get PC viruses" as a reason to buy one.

But this year, 600,000 Macs were infected by the Flashback trojan, an epidemic which exceeded the scale of history's single largest Windows infection. And now ​Microsoft​ is implying that its phones don't get malware, as a way to advertise them. How did things get to be this way, and what will malware and virus authors do next?

​When virii attack

For years, Microsoft's DOS and Windows operating systems were the biggest targets for virus and malware authors simply because they were the least secure. Today's PC security best practices had yet to be built into them, and trying to bolt features on to ancient programming code was a half-baked solution at best. HugeWindows malware epidemics spread as the malware programs were able to install themselves without explicit permission and operate without user intervention.

​Network effects

One reason Microsoft Windows dominated the computing world for years and years was simply because it was dominant. More people using Windows meant more profits for Windows app developers, which meant more games and apps for Windows, which meant more people buying Windows PCs so they could use Windows games and apps.

Like with apps, malware is a business that makes money for the people who write it. And while it was theoretically possible to infect a computer running a more secure operating system, like OS X (used on Macs) or Ubuntu (powered by Linux), it was considered impossible to get it to spread far enough to be profitable. Whereas on Windows it was (and still is) possible to infect vast numbers of PCs, even chaining them into zombified "botnets" which act as supercomputers-for-hire.

​How the mighty have fallen?

OS X's more secure design makes it extremely hard to infect with malware -- normally. The Flashback trojan sneaked in this year using the Java web browser plugin, which is bundled with the Mac's Safari web browser and was poorly maintained.

Plugins like Java and Flash open up new ways to infect a computer, which was one reason why Apple stopped including the Flash plugin (already absent on its iPhone and iPad) by default. Apple created a fix for the problem, but not before over half a million Macs were infected.

​What about on smartphones?

Unlike Apple and Microsoft's app stores, the Google Play store allows anyone to submit anything with no review. It's up to Android smartphone and tablet users to look at the "permissions" each game or app requests, as well as the reputation of their developers, and decide whether or not to install them.

While some consider this approach more "trustworthy" and respectful of users, it's also helped lead to a comparatively enormous number of malware infections on Android, including "The Mother of All Android Malware," which completely took over tens of thousands of phones last year.

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Instagram vs. Twitter: Why their beef is bad news for you

Instagram photos will no longer render inside a tweet, spurring howls of protest from many corners of the internet

Once upon a time, a tiny photo-sharing app named Instagram came out of nowhere to trounce all the other photo-sharing apps — thanks to a helping hand from Twitter, which made it awfully easy for Instagram users to post their photos within 140-character missives. Twitter and Instagram's friendly relationship made sense: Instagram founder Kevin Systrom once interned for Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey was an early investor in the photo service.

But now the two internet services are no longer BFF — and the growing rift is bad news for users.

Today, Twitter announced that Instagram photos would soon no longer be viewable within tweets. Formerly, a user could click on an Instagram link to see that picture expanded inside a Twitter card. Now that link will take them directly to Instagram's website.

Systrom, speaking at the LeWeb technology conference, confirmed the news. "We've decided that right now, what makes sense is to direct our users to the Instagram website," said Systrom. "Obviously things change as a company evolves."

This is just the most recent chill in what's become an increasingly frosty relationship, says Mat Honan at Wired. In April, Instagram was bought by Twitter's key rival, Facebook. In July, Twitter changed its API policy, and Instagram users were no longer able to quickly grow their followings by importing their list of Twitter pals. Twitter is even rumored to be working on its own photo filter and sharing feature. Inevitably those moves "reduce interoperability and cleave the services further apart," says Honan — "no matter who comes out ahead, in each of these battles, the people who use and love both networks are the real and clear losers."

This is frustrating, says Matt Buchanan at BuzzFeed. "Everyone is a multitude on the internet: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and whatever other thing we're on are all little bits of who we are or whatever we're choosing to project outward." These social networks approximate our real-world identities, which is why this seemingly minor annoyance makes it "jarring to think that these identities are actually becoming even more fragmented."

Well, "photo sharing continues to be a volatile battleground for social networking services," says Nick Bilton at The New York Times, and "given the potential advertising dollars at stake, the tensions will likely continue to grow." When Facebook acquired Instagram, the newly-purchased service said in a blog post that the deal "means we can now work together to evolve and build a better Instagram for everyone." Apparently, that "everyone" doesn't include Twitter.

SEE MORE: Twitter censors its first account: Ominous precedent or no big deal?

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Other stories from this topic:

    * The List: Obama's victory tweet — and 9 more of history's most popular tweets
    * Opinion Brief: Twitter censors its first account: Ominous precedent or no big deal?
    * Opinion Brief: Twitter's Facebook-like redesign: Good for business?

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Twitter Q&A: Ask Ian McKellen About 'The Hobbit'

Actor Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf in the upcoming fantasy film The Hobbit, will use Twitter to answer questions about the movie and his role on Wednesday at 4 p.m. EST.

People can tweet questions using hashtag #AskGandalf before and during the Q&A. Answers will appear from the movie's Twitter account, @TheHobbitMovie.

[More from Mashable: To Help or Document: The Citizen Journalists’ Dilemma]

1. Elf (2003)

Where to Watch: Amazon Instant | Google Play/YouTube | iTunes

What's It About?: Buddy, a giant-sized elf, leaves the North Pole to discover himself in New York City.

[More from Mashable: Instagram Declares War on Twitter, Social Media Loses]

Memorable Quote: "You sit on a throne of lies ... You smell like beef and cheese, you don't smell like Santa."

Screenshot via Warner Bros.

Click here to view this gallery.

Photo via Warner Bros.

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