Total IT

Ben Grubb – Above are messages left by a stalker using a hacked Facebook account.

A Sydney mother-of-three, her daughter and daughter’s friends have been subjected to a two-week ordeal at the hands of a Facebook stalker and they have been unable to get the social networking company to intervene.

The mother, who wished to remain anonymous due to a police investigation, said she, her 12-year old daughter and her daughter’s friend had been stalked, harassed and sent pornographic images.

“Our daughters are so scared,” the mother said.

The abuse began last month when someone hacked into the daughter’s Facebook profile. Since then, the stalker has used the account to try to lure the adolescent’s friends to divulge information about her.

The person has had online chats with people and knows where the family live, the mother said. The stalker has also used the 12-year-old’s account to post vulgar and threatening messages on the mother’s profile.

“f—-ng give me your daughters they love me and i love them, you know you cant keep me away from them forever!  i am going to be with them they are the mother of my children (sic),” reads one message posted by the hacked account on her profile.

“i will find ur girls (sic),” reads another.

Whilst out at a work conference, the mother said she received a call from her daughter who was being babysat.

“My daughter rings me in tears, saying ‘He knows what street I live in mum, friends told me’,” the mother said.??

She said this was because the stalker was talking to her friends.

“She was in tears, saying ‘I’m scared, they say he’s going to get me and stuff’,” the mother recalls her daughter telling her.??

Having heard this, she raced home. Ever since then she has not been able to leave her daughter alone.

The mother said she found out about the matter after her daughter was asked by school friends about things said on the site that seemed odd.

“We tried reporting [the account] on Facebook,” she said.

“We got all her friends to report it on Facebook. Facebook won’t reply. They don’t want to contact us. They don’t want to know about it, basically. You cannot ring Facebook.”

Initially both the mother and daughter couldn’t see what was occurring as the stalker was using Facebook’s chat function to carry out their fact-finding mission using the daughter’s account.

Facebook’s chat function, by default, doesn’t save a transcript of what has been written for users to check when they next login.

The mother said that she didn’t know how the stalker gained access to her daughter’s account.

Facebook does not have an Australian office, but a Sydney public relations firm that works for it directed this website  to its usage policy, which states that users should be 13 years or older.

In a statement it said: “Facebook cooperates with Australian law enforcement agencies to help ensure that Facebook remains a safe place for our users to connect with friends and family.

“We have a dedicated resource for the Australian [Attorney-General's Deparment] and AFP [Australian Federal Police] to contact, as well as a 24-hour hotline to enable them to reach the company directly for help in cases of emergency, as well as for assistance in investigations and prosecutions,” it said.

“Nothing is more important to Facebook than the safety of the people who use our site. On Facebook there are a variety of measures people can use to protect themselves from unwanted contact and we strongly encourage their use.”

After trying and failing to shut down the profile, the mother contacted police.

She says they told her they could shut down the account, but two hours later informed her that would not be possible.

“They said Facebook won’t co-operate with the police,” she said.

NSW Police declined to comment on a continuing investigation, other than to say that they had “commenced inquiries”.

They urged young people to be extra vigilant when using social networking sites.

Facebook has been criticised in the past for failing to address the privacy and safety concerns held by its 500 million users.

This website revealed last week that Facebook management failed to reveal the activity of an international child pornography syndicate operating on the site and ignored admissions by one of the ring’s Australian members.

STAY SAFE

• Don’t give out your Facebook password to anyone.
• Be sure to customise your privacy settings.
• If you wouldn’t be prepared to put it in a résumé, don’t post it.

SOURCE: facebook.com/help/?faq=16897

LIA TIMSON – Adobe’s chief executive Shantanu Narayen responds to Apple’s Steve Job’s public attack on Flash.

Following a very public high-profile rant by Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs, Adobe’s top man Shantanu Narayen has come out to defend the company’s Flash software and the developers who build with it.

Narayen gave a video interview to the Wall Street Journal this morning, saying the technology company had a very different view of the world from Apple’s.

“Our view of the world is multi-platform and we will stick to it,” Narayen said.

Job said in an earlier post today that Adobe’s popular Flash software was “closed”, “unreliable and ill-suited” to mobile devices. Apple’s products – including the iPhone and the new iPad have been heavily criticised by a section of the market for not allowing the integration of Flash videos or applications.

Adobe makes many of today’s most popular software packages, including Flash, Acrobat, Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver.

In a nearly 1700-word manifesto entitled “Thoughts on Flash,” Jobs laid out a laundry list of complaints about the technology, raising questions about its security, “technical drawbacks”, and power-management.

But Narayen called on Jobs to let consumers decide.

“We’re saying let consumers pick. If this technology doesn’t work, consumers won’t pick it. The fact that people have built applications using our technology, the fact that they’ve deployed it means it benefits publishers and it benefits consumers,

“It doesn’t benefit Apple and that’s way you see this reaction,” Narayen said.

He said developers preferred to build one web application and deploy it across multiple devices.

Adobe’s chief technology officer Kevin Lynch also posted comments titled “Moving Forward” on a company blog to clarify its position:

“Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and our technologies. We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a
terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

However, he said given the legal terms Apple imposes on developers, “we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR.”

“We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.

“We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a general release in June,” Lynch said.

with Reuters

Flashy Apple not keen on Flash

For iPhone users who’ve been wondering whether their devices will support Flash technology, the answer is…

Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs sharply criticised Adobe Systems’ popular Flash multimedia software, calling it unreliable and ill-suited for mobile devices, escalating a pitched battle between the two companies.

In a nearly 1700-word manifesto entitled “Thoughts on Flash,” Jobs laid out a laundry list of complaints about the technology, raising questions about its security, “technical drawbacks”, and power-management.

“Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs,” he said. “But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.”

Jobs said Flash is “closed” because it is a proprietary system from Adobe, which controls everything from its features to its pricing. Similar charges are routinely lobbed at Apple’s products and services, such as the App Store and iTunes.

Flash-based video and games are found on many internet sites, but Apple has not allowed Flash on its iPhone and iPad.

“Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven — they say we want to protect our App Store — but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true,” Jobs said.

Adobe declined to comment. But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, chief executive Shantanu Narayen called the technology problems noted by Jobs “a smokescreen.”

He labeled Jobs’ letter an “extraordinary attack and denied Flash is a closed platform and said Apple’s restrictiveness makes it difficult for developers who create applications for multiple devices.

Narayen has now responded to the criticism in a video interview with The Wall Street Journal saying “We have diffent views of the world. Our view of the wolrd is multi-platform and we’re going to stick by it”.

Old feud
The hostility between Apple and Adobe has been brewing for months. Apple has criticised Flash as a buggy battery hog, while Adobe has accused Apple of exerting tyrannical control over developers creating programs for the iPhone and iPad.

The rhetoric has grown ever more heated. Earlier this month, Flash “platform evangelist” Lee Brimelow ended a blog post by saying, “Go screw yourself Apple.”

Jefferies & Co analyst Ross MacMillan said Job’s letter didn’t raise any new criticisms about Flash, but simply put them on a very public pedestal.

“It’s not positive in the sense that what Jobs is outlining is that Flash is in effect yesterday’s technology and we shouldn’t consider it as go-forward technology.”

Jobs said he was concerned that allowing Flash-based applications on Apple’s mobile devices would leave it “at the mercy” of a third party.

“We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform,” he said.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall said Apple clearly wanted to fire back to critics who have complained about the lack of Flash on its mobile devices.

And he said Apple also wanted to make clear that it doesn’t plan to cede an inch of control on its fast-growing mobile platform, which now boasts more than 200,000 apps.

Jobs goes public again
Jobs has taken on an increasingly public role over the past few months, sitting down for magazine profiles and responding frequently to emails from Apple customers.

The enigmatic Apple chief executive has a history of issuing public treatises on hot-button issues. In 2007, Jobs posted two such essays, “Thoughts on Music” – where he urged for the abolition of the digital rights management system for music – and “A Greener Apple,” where he responded to criticism from environmental groups.

In his essay on Flash, Jobs said that while Apple’s operating system for iPhone and iPad is proprietary, the company prefers open standards for the web and favours technologies such HTML5 for creating multimedia programs.

Adobe has said 75 per cent of all video on the web is Flash-based. Popular Flash-based sites such as Hulu can’t run on the iPhone or iPad. But sites like YouTube have worked around this by specially designing non-Flash apps for those devices.

Jobs noted that outlets such as Netflix, ESPN, newspapers and TV networks have all designed offerings that can be played on its devices.

Jobs’ rant was so significant for the share market, it caused Adobe shares to fall and Apple’s to rise.

Reuters

THREE major Australian mining companies have been the targets of Chinese cyber attacks, with one coming around the time of Stern Hu’s arrest there on bribery and spying charges.

ABC Television’s Four Corners program said mining giants BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group had all been the subject of cyber attacks emanating from China.

One, targeting Rio’s computer network, happened around the time of Hu’s arrest in July.

Hu last month was sentenced by a Shanghai court to 10 years in jail for taking bribes and stealing commercial secrets.

A Rio spokesman said the issues involved were “sensitive” and refused to talk about them, however former employees and senior government sources confirmed the attack did happen.

The company is said to have thought it serious enough to take their Singapore office offline for almost three days following Hu’s arrest, so it could upgrade network security.

It also apparently affected Rio’s Perth office, as crisis managers confronted China’s claims of spying and bribery.

Major Nicholas Chantler, a former army counter-intelligence officer and now cyber security lecturer, heard of the attack.

“I would have to say that it shook a lot of cages, because we’d already been aware of these sorts of situations, albeit at a much lower level,” he told the ABC.

“This has taken things to somewhat of an extreme.”

Sources have said the Government knew of the attack, and officers from the Defence Signals Directorate were brought in to investigate.

BHP Billiton came under attack during its attempted takeover of Rio as well, with a former senior company executive saying there were several attempted hacks of its computer system during this period.

Meanwhile, senior mining executives at Fortescue Metals Group have said the company’s systems in the Pilbara and Perth had also been subject to cyber attack.

Fortescue chief executive Andrew Forrest said the company hadn’t taken any precautions when it came to doing business with China.

“We have a very, very strong play-straight-down-the-line view with China,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean we will always agree with China.”

Director of international security studies at Sydney University Alan Dupont said the Government was concerned about the perceived level of cyber attacks coming from China.

“It’s moving quickly to make it more difficult to penetrate national systems, as well as commercial systems, and also briefing Australian business organisations on an ad hoc basis … about some of the risks,” he said.

“It’s doing it quietly because it doesn’t want this to emerge publicly because of the sensitivities in the relationship with China.”

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Australia denied the country was involved in cyber attacks.

“China is firmly opposed to any kind of cyber attacks … China is the victim of cyber attack and hopes to co-operate with other nations to prevent this attack,” he said.

“It is groundless to accuse China of making so-called cyber attack on others.” – AAP

by ASHER MOSES – “Internet has to be free” … US ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich. Photo: Sahlan Hayes

The US ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich has criticised the Rudd government’s plan to filter the internet, saying the same goals can be achieved without censorship.

The federal government’s $128.8 million Cyber Safety policy includes forcing ISPs to block access to certain websites and blacklist offensive material. Legislation to enable the scheme is set to be introduced this year.

On ABC’s Q&A program last night, Mr Bleich said the “internet has to be free” and that there were other means of combating nasty content such as child pornography.

“We have been able to accomplish the goals that Australia has described, which is to capture and prosecute child pornographers … without having to use internet filters,” he said.

“We have other means and we are willing to share our efforts with them … it’s an ongoing conversation.”

The US State Department has previously said it has raised concerns regarding the filtering policy with the Australian government.

The comments came just as Communications Minister Stephen Conroy finished defending the filters in a speech to The Sydney Institute last night. Senator Conroy described the policy as a modest regulatory measure that will combat illegal activity.

“For all its technical brilliance, the internet is a distribution and communications platform. Having no regulation to combat illegal activity actually weakens all that is good about the internet,” he said.

“This is a modest measure, which reflects long-held community standards about the type of content that is unacceptable in a civilised society.”

Senator Conroy’s comments were similar to those he made in an interview with this website this month. However, web experts have recoiled at the minister’s suggestions that the internet is “not special” and should be regulated like other mediums.

Simon Sheikh, chief executive of the online activist group GetUp, quickly seized on Mr Bleich’s comments as further evidence that Senator Conroy’s comments lacked support in the community. He called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to “step in and end this farce”.

“The US ambassador is the latest to join the swelling ranks opposing the scheme, which now include Google, Yahoo, Save The Children, Reporters Without Borders, The Greens, Senator Nick Xenophon, and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey,” he said.

“Over 120,000 Australians have joined GetUp’s campaign against the internet filter, and polls show 86 per cent of Australians are concerned about the government’s internet filter plans.”

- with AAP