Tag Archives: Software

Chrome hack lets websites keep listening after you close the tab

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“Toying around with voice-recognition apps, developer Tal Ater noticed something strange. Because of a quirk in Chrome’s microphone settings, any site enabled for voice-recognition could use a pop-up window to keep recording almost indefinitely, hidden in the background. In Ater’s demonstration, he closes the tab and continues talking, only to reveal a pop-up behind the main Chrome window, transcribing everything he says. The core of the problem is Chrome’smicrophone permissions policy. Once you’ve given an HTTPS-enabled site permission to use your microphone in Chrome, every instance of the site has permission, even windows that pop up unnoticed in the background.”

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5332316/chrome-exploit-lets-websites-keep-listening-after-you-close-the-tab

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Irish TD wants tougher controls of online currencies such as Bitcoin

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“A Fine Gael TD has called for more controls on anonymous internet payments made possible by digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin.  Patrick O’Donovan has written to the Oireachtas Communications Committee asking them to investigate the matter which he says has led to an ‘online supermarket’ for illegal activity.  The Limerick TD has also said that he will also raise the issue in the Dáil with both the Ministers for Justice and Communication ‘with a view to seek assurances that an EU-wide response is developed to respond to the operation of open-source internet browsers which protect anonymity in order to facilitate illegal online activity’.”

http://www.thejournal.ie/bitcoin-ireland-1264791-Jan2014/

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An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent

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“Twister is surprisingly easy to use for an application that’s so new, that isn’t controlled by a central authority, and that places so much emphasis on security. Other decentralized alternatives to Twitter and Facebook — such as Pump.io, Identica and Diaspora — require that you either operate your own dedicated server or trust someone else to run a server for you. Twister works more like peer-to-peer file sharing software: Launch the app, and it connects with other users. There’s no need for a central server.  It manages this trick through the bitcoin protocol, though not the network that actually drives the digital currency.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/twister/

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Android SDK Released – Bitcoin Payment In Your Own Android App

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“The new Android SDK allows you to:  Accept bitcoin payments from within Android apps – the customer never needs to leave the app to pay.  Accept payments with zero transaction fees, and just a few taps for seamless checkout.  Perform micro-transactions on mobile with zero fees.  Initiate debit payments in bitcoin, and support other payment flows which weren’t possible previously using bitcoin.  The SDK is open source and available at https://github.com/coinbase/coinbase-android-sdk”

http://blog.coinbase.com/post/72785739620/android-sdk-released-accept-bitcoin-payment-in-your

Today, in collaboration with BitMonet, we are releasing an Android SDK that makes it super simple for Android developers to accept Bitcoin in their Android app.

Any Android app developer can now accept Bitcoin payments without the customer ever leaving the app.

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Bitcoin’s Future Foretold By Developer Momentum

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“If you think developers predict the future then there is more reason to believe that Bitcoin is the real deal. The crypto currency is a hit with developers, according to data collected on GitHub by the founders of Bitcoin Pulse.  The data shows that Bitcoin grew by 17.8 percent over the 30 days from November 15 to December 15.  In the same period, Paypal grew by 4.4 percent and Stripe by 6.3 percent.  Most developers working with modern tools have a GitHub account. They tend to share their projects and contribute to open-source efforts.  There are other proof points. Bitcoin APIs are now the third largest category on Programmable Web, which now has 94 Bitcoin APIs. In June there were 46.”

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/05/bitcoins-future-foretold-by-developer-momentum/

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How Hackers Will Help Build a Libertarian 21st Century

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“The internet itself is a formidable product of individual unilateral free human action. This is very important to remember. Twenty years ago we imagined flying cars, we didn’t imagine the internet as it happens to exist today.  So what is the internet today? I’ve tried to do this, but before I give you my wording and conclusion, try to think of the internet this way:  It is a medium, by which people with a very low barrier of entry——it is very easy to connect to the internet, it is very low cost to use the internet, it is very easy technically also to contribute to the internet——so it is a medium of exchange that allows the exchanged good to flow freely.”

http://isil.org/how-hackers-will-help-build-a-libertarian-21st-century/

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How The Pirate Bay Plans to Beat Censorship For Good

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“The new tool will create its own P2P network through which sites can be accessed without restrictions.  The new software will be released as a standalone application as well as Firefox and Chrome plugins.  Since the site data comes from other peers, there is no central IP-address that can be blocked by Internet providers. Site owners will still offer webseeds to speed up loading, but sites are fully accessible when these are blocked.  Another important change is that the new software will not use standard domain names. The ‘domain’ registrations will be Bitcoin authenticated, on a first come first served basis. After a year the name will expire unless it’s re-verified.”

http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good-140105/

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The Year in Crypto

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“This was a busy year for crypto.  TLS was broken. And then broken again. Discrete logs were computed. And then computed again. Is the cryptopocalypse nigh? Has the NSA backdoored everything in sight? Also, answers to last year’s exercises will be given.”

The Year in Crypto

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Free Software Foundation Endorses Its First Laptop

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“The Free Software Foundation publicly announced today the ‘Respects Your Freedom’ certification for the Gluglug X60 laptops. These refurbished laptops come from an Internet retailer in the UK that replaces the proprietary ThinkPad BIOS with Coreboot. The free software operating system preloaded on the refurbished X60 is Trisquel GNU/Linux, the Ubuntu derivative backed by the FSF that ships without any proprietary software or firmware options.  The press release says, ‘This is the first laptop the FSF has been able to endorse and encourage people to purchase, because it this is the first laptop sold with a completely free boot system and OS pre-installed.'”

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0Nzg

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BitTorrent serverless chat replaces usernames with crypto keys

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“BitTorrent, Inc. is developing a serverless instant messaging system that relies on public key encryption to protect the privacy of communications, identifying users not with traditional usernames but with cryptographic key pairs.  The company, which develops the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol as well as the BitTorrent and μTorrent file sharing software, announced the forthcoming chat software in September and revealed some details on how it will work in a blog post today.  Underlying this system is a Distributed Hash Table (DHT) which finds IP addresses, removing the need for a central server to route messages, the company explained.”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/bittorrent-serverless-chat-replaces-usernames-with-crypto-keys/

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