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FBI relies on Twitter to catch suspects

Ryan — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:43:20 +0000

The FBI is increasingly relying on Twitter and other major social networking sites to catch suspects or fugitives. A growing number of federal authorities in the United States are setting up profiles on major social networking sites, in order to nab people on the run. A US Department of Justice document discovered by the Associated Press clearly outlines the process of going undercover on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and befriending potential suspects in order to gather crucial personal information from them. Detectives also use these sites to look through the tweets, photographs, status updates and videos posted by suspects, in order to verify their alibi once apprehended by authorities. The document reveals that the FBI is especially interested in browsing photos posted on social networking sites in cases of robberies or other felonies, as pictures displaying suspects brandishing a gun or adorned in jewelry can serve as highly potent evidence of their crime.

In many cases, FBI agents will even contact suspects on Twitter or Facebook using their undercover identity and they might befriend them. The use of social networking sites in these investigations shows how much the internet has changed over the past 10 years. A decade ago, police officers were busy patrolling chat rooms run by Yahoo and AOL, in order to uncover suspects . These days, however, most of these chats have fallen out of favour and social networking sites are far better sources of information and online activity.

But the FBI is not the only American organization turning to Twitter and Facebook in order to gather information. As tax time approaches, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly also using Facebook in order to help investigate taxpayers whose filings raise red flags.

Facebook bans “stalker” programs

Dave — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:23:09 +0000

Facebook has decided to disable and remove all applications on the world’s most prominent social networking site that claim to allow users to find out who is viewing their profile. A number of the applications currently available for download indicate that they provide Facebook users with private information and many more have spread over the past few days, usually entitled “stalker apps.” But Facebook is warning its users that these are all examples of rogue software and that none of them provide the private information on who views profiles that they purport to offer. Reports suggest that many of these rogue applications have spread rapidly over the past week, including one called “Stalker Check.” In addition to finding and removing any applications that make such claims, Facebook is urging all users to keep in mind that private information on profile visits is never made public. But it looks like the makers of these stalker applications aim to make money above all else, and some have been successful.

Most of the rogue Facebook applications require users to view or click on advertisements after downloading a program and this has generated an income for their developers. An even more pernicious possibility is the risk that these rogue applications will divert Facebook users to external websites containing spyware or a range of viruses. One way to cut down on the number of rogue applications would be for Facebook to vet any program before it is uploaded onto the social networking site, but the site’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, indicated that he does not favour this more restrictive approach.

Google set to leave China over censorship

Catherine — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:04:24 +0000

According to media reports, Google is set to terminate its presence in China, after the world’s largest search engine failed to comply with Chinese laws requiring the censorship of its web content. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google may close the Chinese branch of its company within a matter of weeks, after it was unable to reach a deal with officials at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Google announced earlier this year that it would no longer filter search results on its Chinese site, in order to adhere to the communist country’s stiff censorship of web content. Ministry officials, however, were quick to warn that if Google did not filter out material that the state found objectionable, the firm would “have to bear the consequences” for its “irresponsible” decision. The most damaging end result for Google would be its removal from a country, which has more than 400 million internet users and therefore represents the world’s largest market for online content.

More than 250,000 people join China’s rapidly growing community of internet users every day and despite this massive audience, this promising online market has virtually no international players when it comes to search engine technology. Google currently controls approximately 36% of the country’s search traffic and revenue, but it faces competition from Baidu, a local Chinese firm offering a search engine closely modeled off of western pioneers, such as Google, Yahoo and Alta Vista. Baidu controls 58% of China’s search revenue. If Google closes its Chinese business in the coming weeks, the world’s largest country will either offer a world of possibilities for another major western internet company to launch a search tool, or will expedite the development of an alternative, filtered internet system based exclusively on local companies, and often referred to as the “Chinternet.”

Google upgrades blogging service

Catherine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:54:41 +0000

Google has announced an important upgrade to Blogger, the world’s first major blogging platform. Founded 11 years ago and after having played a major role in popularizing blogs, Blogger users are now promised more freedom than ever before when it comes to customizing their site’s design. In addition to choosing from a wider range of professionally-designed blog templates, bloggers will have more control when it comes to adding their own personal touch. Users will now have the option of modifying the colour palette they use when setting up their blog, selecting from a wide range of stock photos as background images and even making major design changes to their template by using an HTML and CCS interface.

The new upgrade is still in its testing phase, but users can already access the service by signing on to Blogger in Draft (draft.blogger.com). While these changes may make Blogger much more appealing that before, some Google critics point out that the search engine giant has been slow to adapt and offer services that its competitors in the Blogosphere have long provided. For example, Wordpress has for years permitted users who purchase an upgrade to modify their blog’s design through CCS. Siobhan Quinn, Google’s blog development manager, agreed that this was the most significant improvement to be introduced to Blogger in many years. Quinn added that allowing users to customize their template was crucial, as this serves as the brand image for millions of individual blog enthusiasts, as well as for businesses that turn to the Blogosphere in order to keep in touch with their clients.

Facebook and Twitter add new geographic location tool

Catherine — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:13:42 +0000

Within a month, Facebook users will be able to share with their friends precisely where in the world they happen to be whenever they post status updates to their profile. According to The New York Times, Facebook will unveil this addition in April, at a technology conference, while Twitter is prepared to introduce a similar feature on its micro-blogging site within a matter of days. Both social networking websites have realized that a growing number of users are logging on using mobile devices, particularly iPhones. In fact one quarter of Facebook’s 400 million users now use Blackberries and IPhones to update their status or post comments, and this number appears to be rising each month. Once the new service is introduced in April, users may choose whether or not to have their location information automatically added to each status update.

Twitter, however, seems to be ahead of the game at the moment. According to a report in PC World Magazine, Twitter actually tested its geo-feature earlier this week. Several users noticed the new feature on the micro-blogging site, before it quickly vanished. Most observers predict that Twitter will launch its own geo-feature as early as this Friday, during a web developers’ conference.

Twitter’s geo-locator system reportedly adds maps to all tweets and will provide precise place names within cities. Despite the excitement surrounding these developments, some still have questions as to how Twitter and Facebook will handle and share this sensitive personal information, particularly as privacy remains a key concern for many.

IBM program tries to solve blog fatigue

Oscar Fields — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:06:40 +0000

Blog fatigue is really just another way to describe “writer’s block,” a phenomenon which can wreck havoc in the lives of freelance writers, journalists and novelists alike. According to a recent study produced by IBM, blog fatigue is one of the main reasons why the majority of bloggers—both corporate and personal—give up on their blogging and let their website flounder. In fact, 80 percent of those who launch a corporate blog only end up posting five or fewer posts, before giving up on the project. Yet the world’s largest corporations, the most famous politicians and celebrities all realize what a crucial role blogging can play in reaching and expanding their target audience, so giving up on a blog due to writer’s blog can have very significant ramifications. One solution is to turn to content creation firms, where a large team of skilled freelance writers can produce regular blog posts on just about any topic under the sun. But the most effective option, might be to use this service in conjunction with a new widget introduced by IBM, which predicts the topics that a given blogger’s audience would most like to read.

IBM’s program, entitled Blog Muse, offers two widgets, similar to those already used on platforms such as Wordpress. By using one widget, readers can indicate what topics they would most like their favourite bloggers to write about. By using the second widget, however, they can even vote on topics recommended by other readers. Blog Muse then sends the most popular recommendations to the bloggers that are most likely to write on a given topic. Once blog posts have been published based on these user recommendations, the program will send a notification to anyone who voted for, or recommended the given subject. As such, bloggers are assured regular feedback on what readers are most interested in and more traffic is directed to their site.

Casey Dugan, representing IBM Research, noted that while Blog Muse is still in its early stages, the results seem positive. The 1,000 blogs that have tested this new widget saw the number of comments generated nearly double. While Blog Muse is not yet available commercially, IBM plans to introduce this to a wider audience of bloggers in the near future.

Twitter plays key role in White House communication

Kate — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:26:01 +0000

Robert Gibbs, the White House’s press secretary and his deputy, Bill Burton, have both signed up for separate Twitter accounts and together they aim to use the world’s first micro-blogging site as a way to give President Barack Obama’s policies and message a more informal feel, as well as offer a glimpse into life inside the Oval Office. But Gibbs admitted that the learning curve has been steep, since writing 140 character tweets in a compelling manner can be a challenge for someone schooled in the art of formal press releases and lengthy journalistic analysis. Gibbs admitted that at first the “whole language of numbers and symbols” evaded him, and he added that he might be well advised to turn to his son, in order to get a better grasp of this increasingly powerful form of communication.
But the initial difficulties aside, Gibbs and Burton have already developed a very effective modus operandi when using Twitter to spread Obama’s policies to the most technologically savvy generations. For example, Burton will regularly start tweeting while Gibbs is still hosting a press conference at the White House and is in the process of elaborating on Obama’s policies. Burton’s role is to offer extra nuggets of information that clarify some of Gibbs’ points and potentially pre-empt questions that journalists might have.
Macon Phillips, the White House director of social networking and new media, added that Twitter offers administration officials the opportunity to hear the questions of “ordinary” citizens in raw form, rather than just the input of the politically savvy media elites of Washington, DC. Gibbs has managed to attract over 35,000 followers since his Twitter debut late last year.

Facebook games appeal to unlikely audience

john — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:22:40 +0000

When Facebook first launched its various game applications—such as the popular FarmVille—the assumption was that it would appeal mainly to men. The image of men enthusiastically playing video games in their home’s basement is one that is deeply ingrained in society. But somewhat unexpectedly, Facebook’s games appeal just as much to an unlikely crowd, namely women over 40 years of age. A major survey conducted by PopCap Games shows that middle-aged women are more likely to be playing Facebook games than men, or any other age cohort. In fact, 40-plus women even beat out teenagers when it came to the amount of time they spent on FarmVille.
The survey’s data was collected in the United Kingdom and the United States and it found that a clear majority of social gamers (55%) are women. Even more curiously, the average age of these Facebook enthusiasts is 43. Not only are middle-aged women more likely to start playing games offered through the world’s largest social networking site, but they also tend to spend much more time logging on to this application then men. While 39% of women played this game more than once each day, only 29% of men admitted to sitting down in front of monitor on more than one occasion to try their luck on FarmVille.
Facebook’s FarmVille now boasts 82 million players and 60% of these enthusiasts are actually women. Even Mafia Wars—another popular Facebook game—appears to be most popular among women. Perhaps what these surprising statistics show is that ever more gender stereotypes are being broken down in the world of social networking

Twitter passes milestone with 10 billion tweets

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:23:39 +0000

The number of tweets posted on Twitter hit the 10 billion mark this week, highlighting the very rapid growth of the micro-blogging service which was launched less than four years ago. The only disappointment perhaps for Twitter enthusiasts is that the San Francisco-based company was not able to reveal precisely which of its users sent the 10 billionth tweet, due to privacy regulations and the fact that the tweet was posted on a so-called “protected” profile. This simply means that the individual user’s tweets were only visible to a small handful of followers, rather than the broader public. The number of tweets generated is likely to increase even further with Gigatweet—a website dedicated to tracking Twitter-related statistics—estimating that the micro-blogging service may pass the 20 billion mark as early as July.
If the number of headlines that news of the 10 billionth tweet generated serves as any indication—including in major publications like The Telegraph—this prediction might be accurate. But it need not serve as a surprise that major British papers are paying such close attention to Twitter’s fortunes, considering that London residents send more tweets than users in any other city in the world. Twitter use is also spreading among major companies. For example, a total of 57 FTSE 100 firms already use Twitter in order to stay in touch with their clients.
According to Twitter’s own statistics, users now send nearly 50 million tweets each day, with an average of 600 posts per second worldwide. While all of this is encouraging news for Twitter, the micro-blogging site still has some work to do in order to overcome its two larger rivals, namely Facebook and YouTube.

Top secret Israeli information added to Facebook

Christina — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:50:44 +0000

A soldier caused havoc within the Israeli military earlier this week, when he decided to post classified army information to his Facebook profile on planned operations in a Palestinian settlement. Apparently not realizing the consequences of his actions, the solider in question posted a status update in which he mentioned that on Wednesday his unit would “clean up” the town of Qatanah, before returning home on Thursday. The soldier’s Facebook friends quickly realized that this seemingly innocuous status update constituted a breach of confidentiality. Rather than adding a comment to his profile, or sending him a Facebook message, they reported him directly to the military.

The unnamed soldier was almost immediately court marshalled and he will now have to spend the next 10 days in prison for having released classified military information on Facebook. The military also had no choice but to cancel the planned raid in Qatanah, after these plans had been published on the world’s most popular social networking site.

Israel is now taking much more drastic steps to warn its soldiers about the dangers of posting confidential military information on Facebook. For example, posters have appeared at most Israeli military bases depicting mock Facebook profile pages for some of Israel’s most avowed enemies, including Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and top Hezbollah leaders. At the bottom of the Facebook poster is a rhetorical question: “You think that everyone is your friend?” Israel’s military also issued a statement, in which it warned that foreign spies and intelligence organization regularly scanned social networking sites, in order to gather confidential information.