Facebook’s Wi-Fi Spreads in the Wild

The idea of offering people free Wi-Fi in exchange for their physical coordinates began at Facebook as a one-off experiment, a project by two engineers during an all-nighter in May 2012. Since then, Facebook has gradually spread what it now calls “Facebook Wi-Fi” further and further beyond the company’s corporate walls, deploying the system to cafes in Palo Alto and San Francisco and even into a line of routers made by Cisco.

The growth of Facebook’s free internet offering underscores the extent to which the social network is trying to vacuum up more and more information about its members, including their physical movements, and how valuable such data has become in selling advertising. Intended for use in businesses like cafes, Facebook Wi-Fi asks users to “check in” at the business location using their Facebook account.

Once they do, or once they click a small opt-out link, they are granted wireless internet access. The system was developed during a hackathon at Facebook’s Seattle office by engineers Mohit Talwar and Adrian Potra. After winning raucous applause at a “prototype forum” after the programming marathon, it was forwarded to top Facebook brass, who assigned a team of three at the company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters to develop the idea further.

When we first wrote about Facebook Wi-Fi in November, Facebook told us the system was highly experimental, “a small test with a few local businesses” around headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Within a few months, reports on Twitter indicated the experiment had spread to San Francisco locations of the Philz Coffee chain.

We were able to use the system at the Philz location near AT&T Park and have been told it’s up and running in Philz’s Castro location as well. In May, Facebook Wi-Fi graduated beyond experiment as Cisco announced the service would be included as an optional service on its Meraki line of routers.

Facebook is in discussions with other router makers to get Facebook Wi-Fi adopted more broadly, according to Facebook mobile product manager Erick Tseng. Where Facebook Wi-Fi goes from there remains to be seen.

It was impossible not to wonder if a major expansion might be in store last week, when Facebook sent out java-stained invitations to the press, inviting reporters to “join us for coffee and learn about a new product… a small team has been working on.”

But with Facebook in deals to harness grocery store purchase data and with the company having reportedly considered spending $1 billion to buy an app that shares car location data, there’s no question the social network is hungry for data on where you’re going and what you might be buying.

That’s precisely the sort of siloed information internet giants like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo are increasingly being asked to use for ever-more-precise ad targeting. Given all the private location that’s shared without people even realizing it, Facebook Wi-Fi has the virtue of at least offering the user something valuable in return for her location. Which is why we won’t be surprised to see the long steady march of the system continue.

Read More

The iPhone 5S rumor roundup

It's inevitable...but when will it happen? The rumor roundup for Apple's next iPhone starts now.

iPhone rumors are like flies at a summer picnic: they're nearly unstoppable. Collected in one batch are all the iPhone 5S/6 rumors CNET has reported so far, with some commentary on where these rumors came from.

We always have long wish lists for newer features and further redesigns, but the bottom line is this: nobody knows exactly what we'll get until Tim Cook reveals it on stage later this year.

That said, we've got plenty of educated guesses. But before we get started:

When will we get it:

Odds are strong that the immediate successor to the iPhone 5 will debut in September or October-- the last two iPhones were announced within the same window.

The release will all but certainly coincide with the availability of iOS 7 and the new phone's design should follow the iPhone 5's.

Beyond those obvious notes, the areas that seem most ripe for updating on the "iPhone 5S" would be the resolution of the cameras. And now that there's a 128GB iPad, maybe there will finally be a 128GB iPhone option, too.

What we don't know:

Everything else is pretty much a crapshoot. A bigger screen? CEO Tim Cook says no -- but saying one thing and doing the opposite would hardly be a first for Apple. Beyond a screen size change, though, Apple could also go with a different technology -- say, Igzo or OLED. There are plenty of other unknowns, too.

Will there be another iPhone that debuts with a fall model? Could the iPhone product line split into several differently sized models? Will an affordable "new" budget-line iPhone emerge? Will Apple finally add NFC to the iPhone, as part of a new mobile payments scheme? Anything could happen. Or not.

Read More

In iOS 7, Twitter takes over social -- again

New integrations turn Twitter into an intelligent content provider for iOS device owners, and make Facebook seem less relevant. It's like 2011 all over again.

Showing some repeat favoritism, Apple has once again picked Twitter to power the coolest social experiences for its 600 million iOS device owners.

During a keynote address at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference, the Cupertino company lifted the veil on iOS 7, its next-generation mobile operating system that reflects a new way of thinking around design. Aside from its altered appearance, the redone OS -- coming to consumers' iPhones and iPads this fall -- features a new Control Center, improved multitasking, iTunes Radio, better Camera and Photos apps, and an updated Safari browser.

Twitter is also ever-present in the release, having been upgraded from dumb social pipe to intelligent content provider. The information network has had an intimate connection to Apple and iOS customers since getting system-level integration in the 2011 release of iOS 5. The blessing helped Twitter instantly triple its iOS sign-ups. A year later, Facebook got the same treatment. (Curiously, both Twitter and Facebook status update options have been removed from the Notification Center in iOS 7.)

With iOS 7, Twitter will further infiltrate your device, going deeper into the operating system and becoming one with the system. Facebook not so much.

For starter
s, in the new version of Safari, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch owners will find something called Shared Links, a pre-populated reading list of articles as shared by the people they follow on Twitter. Here they can scroll through all the URLs from their Twitter timeline, as plucked out by Apple and Twitter. The Twitter browser addition, also coming to the new version of Safari for OS X Mavericks, acts as an alternative to searching, and gives people a no-nonsense, all-content view of what's happening on Twitter, as it's happening.

But when it comes to searching, Siri and Twitter can do that too. In iOS 7, Siri has sucked in Twitter intelligence so that when you ask what people are saying about certain topics, she (or he now!) can tell you by showing you their tweets.

As an extra bonus, Twitter gets to play along with Apple's iTunes Radio, the brand-new Pandora-like digital radio service for Apple devices. iTunes Radio comes with more than 200 promoted genre-based stations, including one featured station that plays tracks trending on Twitter.

The music inclusion means that Twitter's own two-month old radio offering won't be getting trounced by the far bigger digital media player. Instead, it will be boosted by the association.

It's not as if Facebook has been booted from Apple handsets -- it's still a part of share sheets for one-click posting -- but the social network has certainly being pushed to the background, relegated to a distance second place in social in Apple's world.

History could repeat itself with Facebook eventually getting the same treatment, but for now Apple is team Twitter.

Read More

North Korea calls U.S 'kingpin of human rights abuses' following NSA leaks

Comments in the country's state newspaper Minju Joson accuse the U.S. of "espionage against mankind," according to Reuters.



North Korea has pounced on the recent revelations of NSA snooping to take a few digs at the United States.

Minju Joson, the country's state-run newspaper, lashed out at the U.S. in the wake of leaks from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that the NSA has been collecting data on U.S. citizens under a secret program known as PRISM.

Snowden also said last week that the U.S. has been hacking into computers in China and Hong Kong for the past several years. A commentary in Minju Joson called the U.S. "a kingpin of human rights abuses as it puts the world under its watch network and has conducted espionage against mankind," Reuters reported Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the allegations by Snowden showed that U.S. citizens and foreigners had been "subject to the espionage that has been applied indiscriminately by the U.S. intelligence institution." U.S. government officials are justifying PRISM as a means to track down terrorists. But Minju Joson called that "just a lame excuse to cover up (the) crime," Reuters added.

The NSA leaks do put the United States in an awkward position, but North Korea is like the pot calling the kettle black. The dictatorship keeps all aspects of its citizens' lives under intense scrutiny.

Read More

Obama: NSA spying doesn't mean 'abandoning freedom'

In an interview with Charlie Rose, the president maintains that the top-secret NSA spying programs were within the bounds of the law and were intended to protect U.S. citizens.

                                                                                            President Barack Obama.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

News about the National Security Agency's classified surveillance programs has been abundant the past few days, and to top it off, President Obama is now giving a 45-minute interview about the issue with Charlie Rose on Monday evening.

Buzzfeed published a partial transcript of the interview before tonight's airing of the show. While Obama goes over the topics of the two NSA spying programs with more detail, it appears he's reiterating much of the same when it comes to the White House's stance on the programs and document leaks. Essentially, it did nothing wrong. "What I've said, and I continue to believe, is that we don't have to sacrifice our freedom in order to achieve security. That's a false choice. That doesn't mean that there are not tradeoffs involved in any given program, in any given action that we take," Obama told Rose. "To say there's a tradeoff doesn't mean somehow that we've abandoned freedom."

The NSA is one of the biggest surveillance and eavesdropping agencies in the U.S. and was where former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden was working when he decided to leak some of the agency's top-secret documents to the press a couple of weeks ago.

This document leak has led to the public finding out that the government has been working to spy on people via metadata from Internet companies and cellular records in two programs -- 2015 Program and PRISM.

The NSA and the Obama administration have said the goal of the surveillance programs were to track down foreign terrorists and terrorist threats. "The way I view it, my job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life, which includes our privacy," Obama said. "And so every program that we engage in, what I've said is 'Let's examine and make sure that we're making the right tradeoffs.'"

The White House has maintained that the secret surveillance programs were legal. In the case of the 2015 Program, which looks at phone records, Obama said that the phone numbers aren't connected to any names or database content -- they're simply "number pairs." And, in the case of PRISM, he said that the program mainly targets foreign nationals and only goes after U.S. citizens when officials have a warrant.

"What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your e-mails... and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they -- and usually it wouldn't be 'they,' it'd be the FBI -- go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause," Obama told Rose.

"So point number one, if you're a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it's not targeting your emails unless it's getting an individualized court order. That's the existing rule." Rose asked Obama whether the system should be more transparent and the president maintained it is since his administration, a federal court (FISA), and Congress oversee the program. Obama said what the NSA is doing is different than former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney's wiretapping program.

"Some people say, 'Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he's, you know, Dick Cheney,'" Obama told Rose. "My concern has always been not that we shouldn't do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances?" Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs two weeks ago with many of the same arguments.

But since then, many politicians and tech leaders have come out opposing the secret program, while digital rights advocacy groups have questioned the full legality of PRISM and 2015. The whistleblower Snowden has recently taken his accusations against the U.S. government a step further.

In an interview with the Guardian on Monday, he said that even though a warrant is required for surveillance on U.S. citizens, the NSA is looking at information from domestic phone calls without warrants.

"Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant," Snowden said. Intelligence analysts at the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other similar arms of the government who have access to raw data can "enter and get results for anything they want," he said. Obama's full interview with Charlie Rose airs Monday evening on PBS.

Read More

Yahoo reveals U.S. government requests for user data

The Web pioneer says it received more than 12,000 requests in the past six months for user information, most related to criminal investigations into the likes of fraud and homicide.

Joining Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, Yahoo has revealed that it received more than 12,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for user information and affected accounts in the past six months.

The Web pioneer said Monday evening that between December 1, 2012, and May 31, 2013, it received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests for user information, most of which were related to criminal investigations involving fraud, homicide, and kidnapping.

The revelation comes amid a furor that erupted earlier this month over allegations that the National Security Agency has engaged in a sweeping effort to surreptitiously acquire information connected to phone calls and Web usage.

Late Sunday, Apple said that it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies for customer data from December 1 to May 31, and that 9,000 to 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in the requests.

Before Apple's disclosure, Facebook stated that it received 9,000 to 10,000 U.S. government requests for customer data during the six-month period that ended December 31.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has disclosed that it received 6,000 to 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas, and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities over the same six-month period. Initial reports earlier this month in the U.K.-based Guardian and in the Washington Post said U.S. Internet companies allegedly cooperated with an NSA program called PRISM. Yahoo denied the allegations regarding its participation in the program, calling them "categorically false."

While noting that it was prohibited by law from detailing the number of requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Yahoo said it urged the federal government to reconsider declassifying the data. "Democracy demands accountability," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and general counsel Ron Bell wrote in a Tumblr post published this evening.

"Recognizing the important role that Yahoo can play in ensuring accountability, we will issue later this summer our first global law enforcement transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year. We will refresh this report with current statistics twice a year."

Read More

Google challenges DOJ's surveillance gag order

Attorney General Eric Holder, shown here in a file photo, and the FBI claim that publication of even aggregate numbers of government requests "is unlawful," Google told a court Tuesday. (Credit: Getty Images) 

Google has asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to lift a gag order, saying it has the constitutional right to clear its name by discussing government data requests. The company filed a five-page motion before the court on Tuesday afternoon, arguing it has "a right under the 

First Amendment to publish" summary statistics about requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, sent an open letter last week to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for "transparency" -- but was unable to reach an accord. 

Tuesday's court filing, which says the Justice Department and the FBI claim that publication of "aggregate numbers is unlawful," is likely to increase political pressure on the Obama administration to divulge more details about its controversial domestic surveillance programs involving the National Security Agency. 

President Obama defended the programs' legality as recently as Monday. A Google spokesman said in a statement to CNET Tuesday: We have long pushed for transparency so users can better understand the extent to which governments request their data--and Google was the first company to release numbers for National Security Letters. However, greater transparency is needed, so today we have petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow us to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately. 

Lumping national security requests together with criminal requests -- as some companies have been permitted to do -- would be a backward step for our users. Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and other Internet companies were left reeling after a pair of articles two weeks ago alleged that they provided the NSA with "direct access" to their servers through a so-called PRISM program. By the next day, however, CNET reported that was not true, and the Washington Post backtracked from its original story on PRISM. Google's filing before the surveillance court Tuesday said the initial news coverage was "misleading." 

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. We will update this story if we get a response. Other large Internet companies have released only totals that combine legal requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with other forms of legal process, including day-to-day state and local police investigations of kidnapping, murder, missing persons, suicide prevention, fraud, and other cases. 

That makes it impossible to determine how many FISA requests they have received. Related stories Yahoo reveals U.S. government requests for user data Obama: NSA spying doesn't mean 'abandoning freedom' Snowden: NSA snoops on U.S. phone calls without warrants Body scanner ruling could squelch NSA domestic spying Microsoft says it received a combined total of "between 6,000 and 7,000" orders from federal, state, and local government agencies for "between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts" during the six months that ended in December 2012. 

Facebook's total: up to 10,000 requests for up to 19,000 accounts. Apple's total: up to 5,000 requests for up to 10,000 accounts or devices. Yahoo disclosed receiving up to 13,000 requests, but did not say how many user accounts were swept in. 

Google wants to go further and reveal how many requests the government made under FISA, an intelligence-gathering law that was amended in 2008. Section 702 of that law says surveillance may be authorized by the attorney general and director of national intelligence without prior approval by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as long as minimization requirements and general procedures blessed by the court are followed. 

In March, Google became the first Internet company to shed light on FBI "national security letter" requests for non-content user data that includes users' names and addresses. CNET disclosed in May that Google was fighting the Justice Department in two different federal courts over the legality of warrantless surveillance requests, not counting Tuesday's filing.

Read More