• “Development , deployment and operation of a national -level URL filtering and blocking system “
• Central database of desirable URLs
• Regular updates by subscribing to an international source of such database
• Able to block 50 million URLs
• Processing delay to be less than one milliseconds

The apparent purpose of the firewall is to block URLs detrimental to national security , public morality . Another possible purpose is to restrict blasphemous content on internet . Government has so far been following an adhoc apporach in internet censorship by ordering ISPs to block certain URLs .

This is very serious as far as freedom of expression and internet are concerned in Pakistan. This kind of open plan to censor the internet has really angered free speech activists in Pakistan. This is a unique move by a democratic country . Some of companies are voluntarily withdrawing from this project and urging other companies to do same . One such company , Websense , has put up this statement on their website :

“Broad government censorship of citizen access to the Internet is morally wrong,” Websense said. “We further believe that any company whose products are currently being used for government-imposed censorship should remove their technology so that it is not used in this way by oppressive governments.”

With already a poor standing as far as press freedom is concerned ( country is ranked 151st out of 179 in a ranking by Reporters Without Borders ) , this measure would mean that Pakistan further slides down the road of autocracy in a democratic dispensation .

Reporters Without Borders has urged on Pakistan Government to abandon this project of internet censoring .

“Reporters Without Borders urges you to abandon this project, which would reinforce the arsenal of measures for communications surveillance and Internet censorship that have already been put in place by your government,” Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

With credit card companies taking more secure measures to ensure safety of their databases , the identity thieves are targeting end users with smartphones who are generally less cautious about security . The number of people whose information was compromised rose by 67 percent in 2011 due to some high profile data breaches like Sony Copr’s Playstation hacking in April 2011 . The study reported that almost 7 percent of smartphone users were victims of identity fraud in 2011 . It was also revealed that users with smartphones were a three times more likely to be victims of identity theft than users without smartphones. It was revealed that 67 percent of the smartphone users do not use passwords to lock their screens.

Javelin study also found that people reveal too much information on social media . The private information like birth dates , high school , phone number and other privately identifiable information are easily accessible for most of the users on social media.

“You don’t leave your money lying on a table,” said Mike Urban of Fiserv Inc who provides consultancy to financial institutions on information security . “You don’t want to leave your important information out there.”

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“If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture,” Gates told theInternational Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) in Rome .

Bill Gates , the former chairman of Microsoft and one of the richest people alive , has said that the latest donation will be used to invest in projects aimed at research for new drought-tolerant varieties of maize , livestock vaccines and training and capacity building of small farmers.

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Chomp was launched in early 2010 and enabled users to write short reviews for apps and receive feeds of other people’s reviews and recommendations . Chomp had more than 400,000 users by August 2010 and its CEO said that : ”Apple is insanely excited about this.”

The acquisition of Chomp would help users meet one of the key challenges on its App Store :  to help users find best apps hidden among more than 550,000 apps . This is also an admission by Apple that its existing Genius technology for apps search is not optimized. Going forward , Chomp is extremely likely to drop its non iOS offerings like its Android app and proposed app for Verizon Wireless Android app store. It is also likely that Apple would substitute the present iPhone app of Chomp with an Apple app now.

Earlier in the month , passwords of another site of the company named Brazzers had been published online and Manwin said that it had notified the affected users of the breach .

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Proview is in negotiations with Apple over the China part of the trademark but has also used different means to suspend iPad sales in China . It requested local governments to pull the device from stores but only succeeded in one city . Two major electronics retailers have also been sued by it over iPad sales. Proview has won court ruling against one of the retailers , who is likely to appeal the ruling.

The new service , called Boku Accounts , pits it in competition to Paypal who is also trying to push through its online service into physical stores. Google is also trying to grab a share of the market with Google Wallet in partnership with Citigroup and MasterCard. Paypal’s service is compatible with the existing POS terminals but it requires software upgrade . Google Wallet requires phones with NFC ( Near-Field Communication ) capability .

Boku’s offering works with a sticker attached at the back of the phone which turns it into an NFC enabled device . It can also be used at existing PoS terminals without requiring any software upgrade.

“We wanted this to be available in any store,” said Ron Hirson, co-founder of Boku. “You don’t need a new phone or a new terminal.”

Currently 22 out of the top 30 most popular apps do not give privacy notices to users . Some of the apps also download customers address books . Google has welcomed the California Agreement and said that it will make even easier for Android users to make privacy decisions .

Online Privacy Protection Act 2004 of California requires privacy disclosures but not many developers pay attention to it. The Attorney General hinted at future legal action if the developers do not publish privacy notices for users’ informed decision making .

It would be a difficult decision to enforce. There are an estimated 50,000 developers on the leading platforms. More than 600,000 apps are available on Apple’s App Store and Android Market has more than 400 , 000 apps . Harris said that users have downloaded more than 35 billion apps. She estimated that an estimated 98 billion apps would be downloaded by 2015 and the apps market is expected to grow to $25 billion .

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Chief Executive Meg Whitman has , however , asked for patience . He said : “It took us a while to get into the situation in which we find ourselves. It’s going to take us a little while to get out.”

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This is the second time that Amazon has took the drastic step of removing the books from its site to pressurize the publishers. Two years ago , it did the same with Macmillan in a price dispute . However , Amazon finally ceded to Macmillan. But this time , Amazon has picked up a smaller publisher and may get its way .

Readers expect ebooks to be cheap , which Amazon is aiming in this case , but traditional publishers worry that if ebooks are priced too low , they might eventually disappear from the scene . Amazon , especially would love to do away with the middle parties like distributors and talk directly in terms of reader and author .

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