In The News

US Tech Firms Could Feel Backlash in China After Hacking Indictments

Paul Mozur and Carlos Tejada May 21, 2014
The United States indicted five Chinese military officers for cyber-espionage of major US companies. “The U.S. move on Monday adds to growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over cybersecurity issues that are creating obstacles for U.S. companies in the nearly $324 billion Chinese information technology market,” report Paul Mozur and Carlos Tejada for the Wall Street Journal. Chinese...

Is Brazil Losing Global Momentum?

Alistair Burnett May 6, 2014
Brazil, the world’s seventh largest economy and sixth most populous nation, is host to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. The global focus highlights the nation's ongoing need to confront social challenges at home including deficits in infrastructure investment and development, suggests Alistair Burnett, editor of The World Tonight, a BBC News program. Some critics suggest that Brazil’s...

Palestinian Agreement on Unity Government Troubles Israel, US

Ahmed Abuhamda and Nicholas Casey April 25, 2014
Palestine factions plan a unity government, and United States and Israel argue the move undermines peace talks shepherded by US Secretary of State John Kerry. The West Bank has been controlled by Fatah and Gaza Strip by Hamas, a group committed to the destruction of Israel. The Israeli prime minister canceled a meeting of peace negotiators and Hamas reported Israel fired rockets into the Gaza...

Future of the Internet Debated at NetMundial in Brazil

Leo Kelion April 23, 2014
Following reports that the US National Security Agency had monitored her phone calls and emails, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff organized a meeting to analyze internet governance. Brazil's secretary for Information Technology Policy urges shared global responsibility. “Ahead of NetMundial's start, Brazil's Senate has unanimously passed the Marco Civil - a law that enshrines...

Media Under Attack From Hackers: Google Researchers

Jeremy Wagstaff March 28, 2014
Some countries block the internet for news they don’t like; others actively try to disrupt the computers of news gatherers. Journalists and news organizations are a frequent target of state-sponsored hacking attacks, suggests research by two Google security engineers, presented at the Black Hat conference in Singapore. “Both researchers declined to go into detail about how Google monitors such...

NSA Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat

David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth March 24, 2014
US officials long blocked the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei from business deals for its supposed link with the Chinese military. “But even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors – directly into Huawei’s networks,” report David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth...

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

Kevin Kelly March 20, 2014
Monitoring and surveillance by corporations and government will be the norm by 2060 if not now. “The internet is a tracking machine,” writes Kevin Kelly. “Everything that can be measured is already tracked, and all that was previously [unmeasurable] is becoming quantified, digitized, and trackable.” Kelly argues that human propensity to share trumps privacy. Individuals can improve by learning...