Snowden leaks and NSA reporting win Pulitzer Prizes

Both The Guardian and The Washington Post were announced as Pulitzer Prize winners today in the public service category. The prizes were awarded for The Guardian‘s Edward Snowden work, which revealed dozens of details about the United States government spying on citizens the world over, and for Washington Post’s ongoing National Security Agency coverage, which uncovered Prism and myriad other surveillance overreaches. Of the 14 awards given, only two were given for reporting on NSA surveillance and Edward Snowden’s leaks.

At The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald broke and wrote the story of NSA surveillance. He worked with Snowden directly, and uncovered dozens of the US government’s surveillance programs (much of which was collected and categorized by the ACLU). Greenwald and his colleagues laid out a wide range of surveillance programs, from American companies handing the US government information to spying on international allies.

At The Washington Post, Laura Poitras revealed similarly damning evidence from Snowden’s archive (only Poitras and Greenwald are said to have access to said archive). Beyond the individual programs, Poitras identified the finances dedicated to running surveillance at that scale, and The Washington Post helped to break down the archive into readable material.

Both outlets (and one dozen others) are being celebrated by the Pulitzers in late May at Columbia University.

Filed under: Networking, Internet

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Source: Pulitzer

How to install the Google Play Store on the Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire is a great little tablet, at a fantastic price point and is perfect for those hooked into the Amazon ecosystem. The Kindle range runs Android, albeit a very customised Android to a point where it is almost unrecognisable. As part of this customisation and integration into the Amazon ecosystem, the Google Play Store is nowhere to be seen. Luckily, with a bit of work, you’ll be able to hook your Kindle Fire back into the Google services.

Here we’ll show you how to get the Google Play Store on your Kindle Fire.

For this method to work, you’ll need to have your Kindle Fire rooted.

1. First off, download the ES File Explorer App from the Amazon App Store which will allow you to transfer and launch the necessary files.

2. Download the necessary Google Play files from here and extract the files from the compressed file.

3. Open ES File Explorer and enable ‘Root Explorer’ by going into ‘Settings’ and selecting ‘Root Settings’ and checking the ‘Super User’, ‘Root Explorer’, and ‘Mount File System’ options.

4. Return to the folder where you extracted the downloaded files and install ‘GoogleServicesFramework.apk’ and reboot your Kindle.

5. Once the reboot is complete, cut the ‘vending.apk’ file and paste it in the /system/app directory.

6. Long press on the ‘vending.apk’ once it’s moved and select ‘Properties’. You’ll need to change the permissions to make sure that ‘read’ and ‘write’ are checked for ‘User’ and ‘read’ is checked for ‘Group and Other’.

7. Install ‘vending.apk’.

8. Return to your homescreen and look in your Home-> Apps section and open the ‘Market’ icon to launch it and sign into your Google account.

9. Finally, you’ll want to return to the folder with the extracted files and install the file ‘gplay.apk’, reboot your Kindle, and enjoy Google Play on your Kindle Fire.

Drop us a comment to let us know if you have any issues with getting the Google Play Store on your Kindle Fire.

The post How to install the Google Play Store on the Kindle Fire appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Watch SpaceX’s ambitious launch of a reusable rocket

Haste makes waste, and you have to move awfully fast to break out of Earth’s atmosphere. After today, however, space travel might be a tad more sustainable. SpaceX is testing a new, reusable version of its Falcon 9 rocket today. The test is tacked on to the company’s regularly scheduled cargo mission, which carts supplies to the International Space Station — but today’s capsule will be pushed into orbit by a modified rocket featuring four large landing legs.

The new design is supposed to break off during launch and slow its decent with a re-entry engine, eventually landing safely in the ocean to await recovery. Think of it as the natural evolution of the company’s “Grasshopper” vertical takeoff and landing tests. If the recovery technology can be successfully developed, SpaceX says that it’ll save millions of dollars on every launch. Unfortunately, there’s only about a 30 to 40-percent chance of success. Either way, NASA is broadcasting the attempt at 3:45 PM ET today; Update: Scratch that, NASA just announced that the launch has been scrubbed. According to the organization Twitter account, it’ll try again at 3:29pm ET this Friday.

Launch scrub today for @SpaceX #ISS cargo resupply flight. More information to follow. Next opportunity is 3:29pm ET Friday. #SpaceX3

– NASA (@NASA) April 14, 2014

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Source: Space, NASA

Mozilla picks interim CEO as it tries to move past controversy

Previous CEO Brendan Eich lasted just 11 days as head of the Firefox company. He resigned last week amid political backlash; Eich contributed $1,000 to California’s controversial Proposition 8, a bill that would’ve ended the legality of same-sex marriage in California. That bill was eventually struck down by the US Supreme Court, and last week Eich was similarly struck down by uproar to his financial contribution. As of today, Mozilla’s appointing Chris Beard to its CEO position (as well as giving him a seat on the company’s board). Beard’s been with Mozilla for years, and the company says it was exploring the idea of adding him to the board for some time (regardless of recent news, in so many words). Executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker doesn’t mention Eich or the reasons for his exit in her announcement. “In this time of transition there is no better person to lead us,” Baker says of Beard.

Given Beard’s position is “interim” CEO, it sounds like Mozilla’s still on the hunt for a new leader. Let’s go right ahead and put this out there now: any interested parties should be prepared for an especially thorough vetting process. Just a guess.

[Image credit: Greylock Partners]

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Mozilla

LogAnalysis maps the structure of gangs using phone records

It’s no surprise that law enforcement agencies use mobile phone records to investigate criminal activity, but a platform called LogAnalysis could facilitate some of the most sophisticated analysis for all that raw data. Developed by Emilio Ferrara and his team at Indiana University, the software uses call records and other info to map hierarchies within criminal organizations according to “social network theory.” (Hint: Those who make the most calls are usually at the bottom, while those in charge tend to communicate the least.) And by automatically importing call records and removing ambiguous or redundant information, LogAnalysis streamlines the process of analyzing that data.

In a paper, Ferrara and other researchers describe how LogAnalysis processed call records for a group convicted of several robberies, drug trafficking and extortion. By clustering together calls based on the time and date, the software revealed which numbers traced back to gang members involved in a particular robbery or murder. The data also clumped calls together in 14 different subgroups, revealing individuals (or at least phone numbers) involved in specific crimes. As the MIT Technology Review points out, many of the researchers behind this paper are based in Sicily, so it’s likely that some of the call data in this case comes from Italy. If that’s true, we have a pretty good idea what criminal organization they’re talking about here.

Filed under: Networking

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Via: MIT Technology Review

Source: Detecting Criminal Organizations in Mobile Phone Networks (paper)

Crooks use Heartbleed exploit to steal 900 Canadian tax IDs

While it might not be the worst case scenario, a security breach at the Canada Revenue Agency could be the worst known real-world exploit of the Heartbleed vulnerability since it went global last week. The CRA claims that almost 1,000 Social Insurance Numbers, as well as unspecified business data was removed from the CRA systems by hackers using the high profile server vulnerability. Most significantly, the breach happened after the CRA (and the world) learned about Heartbleed. While the agency took swift action to start securing its own systems (which were affected by the bug), it looks like the opportunistic hackers beat them to it, and managed to bag the identifying data before being shut out. Further analysis by the government agency assures the public that there is no evidence of any similar breach either before or since this incident. The Canadian authorities will be applying additional security measures to the accounts that were compromised to hopefully prevent any misuse of the data. While this might be of little comfort to the 900 or so taxpayers who had their information pilfered, it highlights the importance for organizations, — government or otherwise — to not waste anytime stemming the flow.

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Via: The Verge

Source: Canada Revenue Agency