Tag Archives: technology

Pentagon looking at 3-D technology to revolutionize national defense

WASHINGTON – Last November, the Department of Defense unveiled its Defense Innovation Initiative. A core component of the initiative is the formation of a new Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program that will purportedly target several technology areas, including how to use 3-D printing to revolutionize national defense.

Already, 3-D printing is capable of producing artificial limbs, guns and even cars. But what is limiting its wide-range use in military?

“Just because a new technology can provide a service, like printing new things, doesn’t mean it necessarily should provide us service,” said Brennan Hogan, program manager of LMI Research Institute, a private corporation that provides management consulting, research and analysis to governments.

A lot of concerns should be taken into account before massively applying this technology. For example, what’s the implication of applying it? How to ensure the quality? How to test different parts of a machine? How big the testing scale should be? And where to test — lab or market?

“Next two or three years would be additive manufacturing. And so the democratization of the ability of manufacturing,” said Jim Joyce, manufacturing strategy and operation specialist leader of Deloitte. “The breaking of the tyranny of the scale of capital machine or people who are manufacturing will be the basis of the profound revolution.”

“We do have the taxpayer in mind, but there seems to be a struggle between those of the current leadership on the Hill and their understanding of what the industrial bases is trying to do,” Hogan said.

The government’s procurement system provides lots of protections to taxpayers, but when it comes to additive manufacturing – which basically is able to reach all aspects of people’s life – some of the requirements don’t actually meet the needs of what things are being proposed.

“The potential for revolutionary advancement is absolutely there. Where we are, though, is that we have an acquisition system that is ill-suited to deal with that,” said James Kenyon, director of advanced programs and technology at Pratt & Whitney. “Why? Because these things cost taxpayers’ money.”

The current stage of additive manufacturing is still evolutionary as DoD is working on determining which hardware out of the hundreds of thousands should be replicated using this new technology instead of using them to do something logistically different.

However, we’ve already seen many 3-D printing use in military. The naval dental school has been printing bridges for people in their mouths for almost 30 years. The customization of an individual’s physiology and the lack of infection makes it a perfect alternative for traditional artificial teeth. It is also used in modification of weapons so that they are more customized for individuals, rather than mass produced. Another typical example for its military use is its rapid equipping ability. Whenever troops need something that they didn’t have at the moment, they can just print it out in a short time.

“The revolution comes by when you can certify the results of additive manufacturing,” Joyce said. “We should break the logistic pressure by unleash the technology in various ways.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

How self-healing concrete could fortify America’s crumbling roads

WASHINGTON — As Congress navigates another last-minute scramble to approve funding for the nation’s highways ahead of a July 31 deadline, engineers far-removed from the Capitol Hill gridlock are hard at work improving the stuff that sustains our nation’s roads and bridges: concrete.

Recent innovations point to stronger and higher-performing highways and bridges in the future. Some products are already on the market; others are a long way off.

It may sound far-fetched, but the technology exists for self-healing concrete. The auto-mending material contains limestone-producing bacteria that activates when wet. The bacteria can lie dormant for up to 200 years, according to the European Patent Office, where the technology is registered.

When a structure made of self-healing concrete develops a crack, water inevitably seeps in, prompting the bacteria to feed on calcium lactate in the concrete. The feeding process breaks down different minerals in the concrete and consumes oxygen from the air. This sets in place a process that converts the calcium lactate, which can be dissolved in water, to limestone, which fills the crack.

“This is kind of ‘The Jetsons’ stuff,” says Georgene Geary, with a laugh. Ms. Geary is principal engineer at GGfGA Engineering in Georgia, and chairs the Task Force on Nanotechnology-Based Concrete Materials at the Transportation Research Board in Washington.

“This is the future,” she says.

Hendrik Jonker, a microbiologist in the Netherlands who owns the patent to the technology, came up with the idea by considering how the human body repairs broken bones through mineral processes. The process for concrete works on a crack of any length, as long as it is no wider than 0.03 inches, according to the European Patent Office.

New technology also opens the door for self-cleaning concrete. Engineers such as Kimberly Kurtis, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, are studying ways to use light as a catalyst for cleaning the surface of concrete or binding pollutants in the surrounding air.

Ms. Kurtis’ team has examined the use of a special form of the mineral titanium dioxide, which has been manipulated to make the mineral react to light. When light hits the surface of a concrete structure containing this special type of titanium dioxide, it begins a chain of events that eventually destroys organic material on the surface of the concrete, such as bacteria. Moss and fungi that feed on bacteria are unable to grow without the food source.

“They can also interact with pollutants in the air – things like nitrogen oxides or volatile organic compounds – and bind those to surfaces to essentially clean the air,” Kurtis says.

Kurtis noted that the high cost of self-cleaning concretes make them best suited for smaller scale projects in particularly dirty environments, such as a section of wall facing a street with heavy pollution.

While self-cleaning concrete has been commercially available for the past decade, its use remains limited. Sculptures near the new Interstate 35 bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis – built after the 2007 collapse of an earlier bridge  – use self-cleaning concrete, as does the Jubilee Church in Rome, a building celebrated for its stunning white walls and unique architecture.

If special concretes can kill bacteria, could they also purify water? Researchers at the University of Central Florida are working to develop a cleansing coating for concrete surfaces that will kill bacteria. According to Boo Hyun Nam, assistant professor of civil, environmental, and construction engineering, the idea is to cover the inside walls of pipelines and storage tanks with the coating to purify the water inside and prevent contamination. Mr. Nam would not specify what the coating is made of.

“It’s their secret recipe,” he says.

Published in conjunction with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Logo

Tagged , , , , , , ,

United Airlines shut down after computer glitch

 

WASHINGTON – Bill Graham had just boarded a United Airlines flight to Boston at Washington Dulles International Airport when United experienced an airline-wide computer glitch, grounding 3,500 flights nationwide.

“We were sitting on the plane and the technology went down for all of United,” said Graham, who said he waited over two hours on the tarmac before passengers were allowed to get off the plane. “Everyone was pissed.”

Graham added he was thankful his flight was not in the air when the technology shutdown happened.

A technology executive from Washington, Graham missed the business meeting he was scheduled to attend because of delays associated with the flight grounding. To avoid long lines for flight waivers at Dulles, Graham rebooked another flight himself out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

“Because I guess that’s the best option. So I drove here and now I hope this flight’s on time,” Graham said.

Around 9:30 a.m. the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control command center issued a ground stop for United flights due to an automation issue. Thirty minutes later, the FAA lifted the ground stop and said that that the automation issue had been resolved.

But the effects were already being felt in the flight cancellations and delays rippling across the country.

A contractor who handles baggage for United Airlines at Reagan and spoke on the condition of anonymity said gate agents for United wrote out tickets and luggage tags by hand while computer systems were down.

Customers in the United line at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport said they were “absolutely concerned” about flying the same day as the massive glitch, and were skeptical that a computer glitch could have had such a massive effect.

“I was so nervous when I watched the TV and heard the news,” said Erica Gill, a D.C. resident in line to check in for a flight to Detroit. “But I don’t know about the computer glitch. I know they’re a major corporation. But they had enough connectivity to tweet out that they were delayed. I don’t know how much I believe them.”

In a statement, United confirmed this wasn’t a hacking or cyberattack, and said it would issue flight waivers for passengers affected by grounded flights.

“We experienced a network connectivity issue this morning. We are working to resolve this and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience,” a United spokesperson said.

At 8:43 a.m., United tweeted “We’re recovering from a network connectivity issue & restoring flight ops. We’ll have a waiver on united.com to change flights.”

Brynn Olson, a Navy public affairs officer whose United flight from D.C. to Houston was delayed an hour and a half, worried about the sensitivities of airline computer systems.

“I’m surprised that computers shut down the whole thing, but I guess that’s today’s world,” said Olson, who said she learned of the flight grounding and delays not from the airline, but from TV and radio reports.

“You’ve got a computer-based system, and everything’s done over electronics today, so it wouldn’t be unrealistic,” said Greg Bamford, a Marine helicopter pilot flying United to Alaska, about the computer glitch.

While the check-in lines for United at Reagan dwindled by midday, aviation experts said that delays could have a snowball effect triggering flight delays for other airlines, and that resuming normal operations may take 48 hours.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

VIDEO: The 3-D-printed arms race

evanscreenshot_32ratio

In May of 2013, the online organization Defense Distributed publicly released the blueprints for a plastic 3-D printed handgun they designed and built. Within two days, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered the group to remove this information, but it was too late. By then, over 100,000 people had downloaded the plans for the single-shot pistol, dubbed the Liberator.

The process of 3-D printing involves the layering of an additive, such as plastic, to create a model based on a digital file. This technology has the potential to revolutionize several industries and sectors, including manufacturing, medical implantation and art, but some are fearing the dangerous implications of 3-D printed firearms.

Last year, Illinois State Senator Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago) and Illinois State Representative Elgie Sims (D-Chicago) proposed respective bills in the Illinois Senate and House that would ban the production of 3-D printed firearms without a Federal Firearms License. Both proposals are active in the Illinois General Assembly.

The current federal law, the Undetectable Firearms Act, outlaws firearms that could go unnoticed by a metal detector. That means a gun must have at least a 3.7-ounce metal component.

However, gun control advocates argue that 3-D printed firearms can be built with a purely superficial metal piece that can be removed and still yield the gun operable. Furthermore, the guns tend to have a short shelf life, making them particularly dangerous.

“They’re not reliable,” said Mark Walsh, program director for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. “There are only a certain number of opportunities to fire a bullet before the weapon malfunctions and has the potential to injure the person using it or someone else.”

The Liberator, a plastic 3-D printed gun, disassembled. (Photo: Justin Pickard)

The Liberator, a plastic 3-D printed gun, disassembled. (Photo: Justin Pickard)

Julie Friedman Steele, founder and CEO of the 3-D Printer Experience, a Chicago facility that manufactures 3-D printed objects, disagrees with restrictions placed on the technology.

“The first human innovation was fire, you could either use it for good or you could be an arsonist,” Friedman Steele said. “No matter what innovation it is, you’re going to find people using it for good or using it for bad, but if you take away the ability to use it, then there is so much innovation for good that we won’t be able to access.”

Back in 2013, Philadelphia became the first U.S. city to ban the production of 3-D printed firearms. That same year, the United Kingdom passed strict legislation banning all 3-D printed guns or gun components. Violators in Great Britain could face up to 10 years in prison.

In a city like Chicago that’s no stranger to gun violence, gun control advocates are hoping for similar legislation.

(Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on Medill Reports: Chicago.)

 

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FBI director calls tech giants’ stance on strong encryption ‘depressing’

Comey

FBI Director James Comey told an audience he thinks the government should have a back door to gain access to secure devices. (Holly LaFon/MEDILL NSJI)

 

WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday criticized tech giants including Apple and Google for opposing so-called “back doors” in security software for government agencies to access encrypted phones, computers, and other devices.

The tech companies along with academic experts and advocacy groups wrote a letter to President Obama on Tuesday opposing statements by administration officials who have come out strongly against more robust encryption on consumer products. In fact, some officials have advocated that tech companies stop selling encrypted products altogether unless the government has a way to decrypt the data.

The letter makes the case that weakening products’ security would only make them more vulnerable to “innumerable criminal and national security threats.”

But Mr. Comey, addressing the Cybersecurity Law Institute at Georgetown University, said the FBI faces increasing difficulty in unlocking encrypted devices – and those who signed the letter were either not being fair-minded or were failing to see the societal costs to universal strong encryption.

“Either one of those things is depressing to me,” he said.

Citizens’ privacy interests and public safety are coming closer to “a full-on collision,” he said. Acknowledging “tremendous societal benefits” to encryption, Comey said the inability of law enforcement officials to gain access to encrypted devices when they have probable cause and strong oversight threatens public safety.

“As all of our lives become digital, the logic of encryption is all of our lives will be covered by strong encryption,” he said. “Therefore all of our lives … including the lives of criminals and terrorists and spies will be in a place that is utterly unavailable to court-ordered process. And that to a democracy should be utterly concerning.”

However, tech companies and encryption advocates argue in the letter that creating back doors would also pose an economic threat to the companies, especially in light of the Edward Snowden leaks.

“US companies are already struggling to maintain international trust in the wake of revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Introducing mandatory vulnerabilities into American products would further push many customers – be they domestic or international, individual or institutional – to turn away from those compromised products and services,” the letter said.

What’s more, critics – including many lawmakers – who oppose efforts to weaken encryption say that creating a system in which government agencies have access to secure data would also create vulnerabilities exploitable by criminal hackers and other governments.

Comey acknowledged the business pressures and competitive issues involved, but urged tech companies to find a safe way to cooperate with government needs to access information.

“Smart people, reasonable people will disagree mightily, technical people will say it’s too hard,” he said. “My reaction to that is, ‘Really? Too hard? Too hard for the people that we have in this country to figure something out?’ I’m not that pessimistic.”

Published in conjunction with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Logo

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Defense Department shows off cutting-edge tech

WASHINGTON — More than 100 display booths popped up in the Pentagon courtyard for the first-ever Defense Department Lab Day. These innovations, most of which are still under development, were designed by about 38,000 scientists and engineers.

Published in conjunction with USA Today Logo

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cracking the code: Workshop gives journalists a crash course in encryption

  • TestBed's Aaron Rinehart lectures to seminar attendees prior to the hands-on portion of the day on April 3, 2015. (Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory/MEDILL NSJI)

WASHINGTON — The minds behind TestBed, Inc., a Virginia-based IT consulting firm specializing in IT planning, analytics, testing, prototyping and business advice for the public and private sectors, gave journalists a crash course in digital safety and encryption techniques at an April 3 seminar in Washington.

The daylong event, “Cyber Security Skill Workshop for Journalists: Sending Secure Email,” was co-sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and the Military Reporters & Editors Association, and held in the Medill Washington newsroom.

The seminar began with an introductory lecture on cybersecurity basics and common misconceptions about online privacy and security. Security-related superstitions, such as the idea that browsing in so-called “incognito” or “invisible” modes will keep your digital whereabouts truly hidden, were promptly dispelled.

TestBed’s Aaron Rinehart and David Reese then transformed the event into a hands-on lesson in PGP – an acronym for “Pretty Good Privacy” – as well as understanding other aspects of digital fingerprints (including how to create a public key, how to register it in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s PGP directory so that you are more widely contactable by those in the encryption know and how to revoke (or deactivate) a key for security reasons.

The program also included a brief introduction to the Tor network, a group of volunteer-operated servers that allows people to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Tor, originally developed by the U.S. Navy, hides the route taken from a computer’s IP address to its eventual browsing destination.

Learn how Tor works via Medill reporter William Hicks’ helpful primer and infographic here.

When asked for the top three lessons he hoped attendees would take away from the event, Rinehart emphasized the importance of “good key management,” or not sharing your private PGP key with anyone, operating “under good security practices”(such as updating software and antivirus programs) and making email encryption a regular habit.

“Don’t compromise convenience for security,” Rinehart said in a post-workshop interview. “Try to make this something you can use everyday.”

The event drew a mix of reporters, security experts and students, which included military veterans and defense journalists.

Northwestern University in Qatar journalism student James Zachary Hollo attended the event to research encryption resources available for foreign correspondents and to report on the workshop for the Ground Truth Project in Boston, where he is currently completing his Junior Residency.

Hollo said the seminar gave him a better understanding of how to use PGP.

“I had sort of experimented with it before I came here, but this gave me a much better and deeper understanding of it, and I got to sort of refine my ability to use it more,” he said.

Hollo said he was surprised that many attendees came from military service or military reporting backgrounds, since, in his view, “one of the blowbacks against the NSA story [involving whistleblower Edward Snowden] was that it’s like reporting is like betraying your country.”

 

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

White House pushes for student data regulations

WASHINGTON — When the educational company ConnectEDU filed for bankruptcy about a year ago, it tried to do what any business would — sell off its most valuable asset: student data.

Millions of students submitted personal information such as email addresses, birth dates and test scores to the college and career planning company.

The Federal Trade Commission eventually stopped any transactions involving the data after noting that they violated ConnectEDU’s privacy policy.

Some student educational records are protected through the Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act, or FERPA. Originally signed into law in 1974, FERPA essentially protects the records schools collect on students and gives parents certain oversight and disclosure rights.

The growing influence of technology in classrooms and in administrative data collection, though, is making FERPA out-of-date.

Teachers, students and parents now routinely submit information to educational services companies, such as ConnectEDU. FERPA does not regulate how these companies use that data. And there is no other federal law that does. The companies’ own privacy policies are the only limit to what the companies can do with the information users provide.

The concern is that ConnectEDU may not be the only education technology company that is trying to sell its data to third parties.

ConnectEDU’s databases, for example, were filled with students’ personally identifiable information including names, birthdates, email addresses and telephone numbers. The sale of that information to other companies is not regulated.

In order to make FERPA up-to-date, President Barack Obama, in conjunction with partners in the private sector, called for a legislation to establish a national standard to protect students’ data in January.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Obama said in a speech at the Federal Trade Commission. “We’re saying the data collected on students in the classroom can be used for educational purposes — to teach our children, not to market to our children. We want to prevent companies from selling student data to third parties for purposes other than education. We want to prevent any kind of profiling about certain students.”

Dubbed the Student Digital Privacy Act, the White House’s plan is loosely based on a 2014 California law that prohibits third-party education companies from selling student information. While other states have laws regulating and increasing the transparency, regulation and collection of student data, the California law seems to be the most far-reaching.

Because FERPA doesn’t cover third-party use, some private sector leaders have taken a vow to establish clear industry standards for protecting student data through the Student Privacy Pledge.

Created by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Software and Information Industry Association in the fall of 2014, Obama mentioned the pledge as an encouraging sign for the protection of student information.

“I want to encourage every company that provides these technologies to our schools to join this effort,” Obama said. “It’s the right thing to do. And if you don’t join this effort, then we intend to make sure that those schools and those parents know you haven’t joined this effort.”

So far, 123 companies have signed the pledge, including tech and education giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“There was a lack of awareness, information and understanding about what school service providers did and didn’t do with data and what the laws required and allowed,” Mark Schneiderman, senior director of education policy at SIIA, said. “Rather than waiting for public policy and public debate to play itself out, we figured, let’s just step in and make clear that the industry is supporting schools, is using data only for school purposes, not selling the data, not doing other things that there was a perception out there that maybe [companies were doing].”

The National Parent-Teacher Association and other groups support the pledge, according to Schneiderman.

“It is imperative that students’ personal informational formation is protected at all times,” the National PTA wrote in a statement.

The companies that signed the pledge are not subject to any policing body, but by signing the pledge they show consumers their commitment to student privacy, Schneiderman said.

But many notable educational technology companies, like Pearson Education, have not signed the pledge. Pearson was recently the subject of a POLITICO investigative report that revealed that the company’s use of student data was unmonitored.

According to the report, Pearson claims it does not sell the students’ data it collects.

The College Board, ACT and Common Application are often viewed as integral to the college admissions process, but are also not included in the pledge.

Instead, these education companies point consumers to their privacy policies, which can often be difficult to understand because of the legal jargon and ambiguous terms.

Some groups such as the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy think the pledge and the privacy policies aren’t enough.

“We also need strong enforcement and security mechanisms to prevent against breaches,” Leonie Haimson, one of the group’s co-chairs, said in a statement responding to Obama’s speech. “This has been a year of continuous scandalous breaches; we owe it to our children to require security provisions at least as strict as in the case of personal health information.”

Out of the 12 commitments listed in the pledge, only one deals with preventing leaks or breaches.

The signees must “maintain a comprehensive security program that is reasonably designed to protect the security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of student personal information against risks,” the pledge states.

Haimson said the policies are a decent start, but do not go nearly far enough in protecting educational data.

Regardless, a bill for a comprehensive national standard has yet to be introduced despite the White House’s push.

In early February, though, the White House said that it had been working closely with Republican Rep. Luke Messer of Indiana and Colorado Democrat Rep. Jared Polis to introduce a bipartisan bill to Congress.

The bill’s release is expected by the end of the month, according to Messer’s office.MINTZERPRIVACY (9) 2

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Internet currency Bitcoin lacks privacy protections

WASHINGTON — Bitcoin lacks the anonymity that many users have come to expect and desire, especially for a currency advertised as “cash for the Internet.”

All transactions made using the online currency is logged in a public ledger to ensure their validity.

“It’s inherent in the system to have it be transparent,” said Jim Harper, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and a member of the board of directors at the Bitcoin Foundation. “You could have greater privacy if it was a system that one party controlled, but that would have costs relying on that party to get it right.”

Bitcoin is a digital currency that has no central authority and can be used, in many ways, like cash. Many businesses, from restaurants to WordPress, have begun to accept bitcoin as payment. To get started, it only takes a few minutes to go online to set up a Bitcoin wallet.

“It is fast and free,” said David Barrett, the CEO of Expensify, a company that supports Bitcoin use for international transactions. “It’s secure. And I would say it works everywhere in the world. And it is a very powerful technology for moving money around the world.”

Bitcoin offers an “acceptable level of privacy,” according to Bitcoin.org, which is managed by its developers. And for many Bitcoin users, any potential loss of privacy is an acceptable trade-off to circumvent traditional financial institutions.

“The idea of having this flexible payment system where you can pay someone on the other side of the world without having to turn to Western Union or something, that is quite an appealing concept,” said Sarah Meiklejohn, a lecturer at University College London who has done research on the currency.

Because this cybercurrency is not tied to any country or bank, it can be a relatively stable option for those in developing countries, where the local currency is often unreliable.

But, because of Bitcoin’s transparency, it is relatively easy to track a user’s entire transaction history. The public ledger shows the location of the Bitcoin user who is making a transaction as well as the history of the Bitcoin they are spending.

The public ledger shows a Bitcoin's transaction history and the user's location.

The public ledger shows a Bitcoin’s transaction history and the user’s location.

“It is kind of anonymous, but the second that you do any transaction with Bitcoin, every transaction is there,” said Barrett. “Once you pay me a bitcoin, basically I can look at the log and see every transaction you’ve made.”

Bitcoin.org claims no responsibility for any “losses, damages or claims,” for invasions of privacy or thefts, according to its terms and conditions. It suggests encrypting Bitcoin wallets and using secure connections to avoid thefts.

There are ways to improve the anonymity of the currency, but they require a concerted and technology-intensive effort that many do not even know is an option.

“There’s a thing called mixing, which is a process where you commingle your bitcoins with the bitcoins of others and the output of those transactions is harder to trace back to individuals,” said Harper, the Cato fellow. “It might make it a probabilistic calculation rather than drawing a direct line.”

This process is the equivalent to moving funds through banks in countries like the Cayman Islands and Panama which have strict bank-secrecy laws.

Today, some experts are cautious in accepting Bitcoin as a widespread currency. However, many see the Bitcoin concept as one that will remain.

“It’s actually a good alternative to a currency if there is inflation,” Barrett said. “In Venezuela and Africa, it is getting larger adoption. Russia also has a big growth in bitcoin. It’s a safer and less volatile way to keep your currency. Over time, Bitcoin will, in certain parts of the world, become a daily occurrence.”

Bitcoin and its supposed anonymity gained prominence in its role with the Silk Road, an online black marketplace known for selling illicit drugs and weapons. Buyers and sellers were able to connect virtually and use the cybercurrency to conduct anonymous transactions.

“This perception of anonymity might be driving groups towards Bitcoin, but then the transparency is giving law enforcement or anyone interested in these illicit transactions this beautiful view of all of these types of illicit transactions,” said Meiklejohn, the Bitcoin researcher. “Instead of going to somewhere like Western Union and wiring cash over to the Islamic State or whatever, if you’re doing it with Bitcoin then you are creating this paper trail that is never going to go away, literally ever.”

What may scare off more potential Bitcoin users, however, is not its lack of anonymity, it’s the volatility of the currency. In the last 12 months, the value of the currency has fallen by nearly half.

“Maybe I’m just cynical, but it’s hard to see why Bitcoin, as it is now, would achieve widespread adoption, which ultimately is what you would need to have any kind of stable currency,” Meiklejohn said. “So, as long as Bitcoin is this niche market, it is going to remain pretty volatile.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who’s afraid of the World Wide Web? Major advertisers agree to ‘do not track’ technology

WASHINGTON — In an effort to ensure online privacy for consumers, major online advertisers have come together after more than a year to install “do not track” technology into Web browsers in compliance with new White House privacy guidelines.

The technology is one of several requirements included in the Obama administration’s “Privacy Bill of Rights” announced this month.

A “do not track” button allows users to opt out of having their Web history tracked by third parties, including advertising networks, analytics services and social platforms. These groups commonly use consumer data to craft customized ads and other offers related to employment, credit, health care and insurance.

However, the button will not put an end to all tracking. Advertisers will still be able to use online consumer information for market research and product development. In addition, all online data will still be available to law enforcement officials.

Loopholes will still exist for certain companies as well, according to Consumer Reports. Even if users click the “do not track” button, Google will be able track searches if conducted while users are signed into Google services, such as their Gmail account. The same is true for Facebook, which will be able to track logged-in users through the “Like” and “Share” buttons on outside pages.

“It’s a good start,” Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said of Obama’s privacy initiative in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “But we want you to be able to not be tracked at all if you so choose.”

Implementation of “do not track” is not new – several companies already offer the technology on their browsers, including Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Apple has promised a version of the button in its next edition of Safari, according to The Washington Post. Google is expected to install the button on its Chrome browser by the end of this year.

Despite the option’s presence and calls to implement it by the Federal Trade Commission beginning in 2010, until recently all advertisers had not agreed to honor the system.

Now, 400 companies in the Digital Advertising Alliance have agreed to abide by the request from the White House, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal.

“Central to the value proposition of the Internet is trust,” said a representative for the group in a statement. “Consumers must trust that their personal data will be kept private and secure as they surf the Web aboard myriad devices seeking news, services and entertainment tailored to their very personal interests.”

“[This] marks not the end of a journey, but the beginning of an important collaboration among government, business, and consumer organizations to assure that the free Internet…can continue to flourish.”

Members of the Alliance will begin honoring the agreement within the next nine months.

The White House released its bill on Thursday, after the conclusion of a two-year study on the collection of consumer data online. The proposal outlines seven privacy guidelines pertaining to personal data: individual control, transparency, respect for context, security, access and accuracy, focused collection and accountability.

The framework would allow users more personal control over what information is collected about them and how it is used.

According to PC Magazine, even if the administration’s rules are not approved by Congress, the measures could still be put in place if a cohesive industry agreement is made.

 

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,