IPv6 Winner for Digital Advertising, Why?

For everyday users, yesterday’s big shift in Internet addresses — from the IPv4 to IPv6 — will go unnoticed. To anyone doing business on the Web, though, it’s of extreme interest, and there’s one group who may benefit from the re-organization more than others: advertising networks.

First, a little background: Since its inception, the Internet has been based on an system called IPv4. This is how IP addresses get distributed — those numbers in your device’s network preferences that usually look like “192.168.1.1″ — and determine how machines talk to each other.

However, IPv4 only allows for about 4 billion total addresses, and the supply has been completely used up. That’s why the Internet today finally officially opened the doors on IPv6, a newer standard that provides more than 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses — so many that we’ll (probably) never run out. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and major sites (like Google) have already begun to switch.

Beyond the mere benefit of keeping with the times, Google may have another good reason to support the change to IPv6: It has direct benefits to digital advertising, says Bob Hinden, chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and one of the architects of IPv6 along with Steve Deering.

Here’s why: The 4 billion or so addresses in IPv4 aren’t nearly enough for even the number of connected devices in the world today. But they don’t have to serve every single one, since network address translators (NATs) can distribute “private” addresses to devices on a local network. It’s analogous to an apartment building — each unit has the same street address, but their numbers are different.

Those NATs are how your printer, laptop and tablet can all connect to the Internet via your home router through the same address. The same tech is at play in other parts of the network, at a larger scale. Network operators like AT&T and Comcast sometimes have bigger NATs, distributing addresses to large areas.

However, every time there’s another layer of these private addresses it gets harder to tell who or what is on the other end of a connection — a real problem if your business model depends on that information, the very lifeblood of digital advertising.

“If all they’re seeing is the address of this big carrier-grade NAT in the middle of some network, they lose the ability to see who’s viewing those ads,” Hinden told Mashable. “That has a big effect on their current business model. They see [IPv6] as being very important to them for that reason.”

Today, networks can use many alternatives to direct IP addressing if they want to find out information about their users. Using cookies, detecting device IDs, and looking at which ports are being accessed are all possible tools.

“[Networks] can tell who’s connecting to some degree already,” says Hinden. “But when that information looks the same for a whole city, their ability to know more about the user is compromised.”

With IPv6, determining a precise IP address becomes a much simpler task due to the system’s “end to end” nature, Hinden says. Since the number of IPv6 addresses is nearly limitless, private addresses become unnecessary, and those unwieldy NATs should eventually disappear.

That opens up another potential benefit of the switch to IPv6: a faster Internet. As use of network translators decreases, there should be fewer delays in web traffic.

“You won’t have as many boxes in the middle that are trying to do things to traffic,” Hinden says. “There are two things that a router can do when it gets a packet — it can either forward the packet to the next stop, or it can think about doing that. Thinking about doing that adds delay.”

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Google alerts Googlemail customers of 'state-sponsored' hacks

It was the second time in the last two weeks that Google has deployed security-related alerts to a small fraction of those who use its services.

But the company was coy about how it knows whether a specific individual has been targeted by attacks paid for or designed by governments.

"You might ask how we know this activity is state-sponsored," said Eric Grosse, Google's vice president of security engineering, in a Tuesday blog. "We can't go into the details without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad actors."

The new warning states: "We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer." It will appear at the top of the Gmail page if the user has logged in with his or her Google account. The message is not limited to those who use Google's own Chrome, but will pop up in any browser.

Grosse was equally vague about what might trigger the alert.

"It does not necessarily mean that your account has been hijacked. It just means that we believe you may be a target, of phishing or malware for example, and that you should take immediate steps to secure your account," he said.

But it seems Google knows, or thinks it knows, a state-sponsored attack when it sees one.

"Our detailed analysis -- as well as victim reports -- strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored," Grosse claimed.

Google is in a better position than most to know.

More than two years ago Google was one of several Western companies victimized by Chinese hackers -- a rumpus that led it to relocate its search servers to Hong Kong -- and the company has cleaned up several large-scale phishing and hacking campaigns directed against Gmail users, including one in 2011 that targeted senior U.S. government officials and another later that year that affected hundreds of thousands of Iranian users.

Google has displayed similar warnings before today's.

Two weeks ago, for example, Google began alerting users whose Windows PCs or Macs remain infected with the DNSChanger malware. Those users face the loss of their link to the Internet on July 9, when authorities switch off substitute DNS (domain name system) servers that took the place of criminal-controlled machines shut down last year.

In July 2011, Google also warned customers whose systems were infected with fake antivirus software, or "scareware." In that instance, Google became suspicious when it uncovered "unusual search traffic" while doing maintenance at one of its data centers.

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Google shows new applying technologies

While it boasts one billion users, Google Maps has recently seen defections by some key developers and partners.

Reports suggest Apple may abandon Google Maps next week at its annual developer conference.

They suggest Apple may announce its own mapping application to replace Google Maps on its smartphones and tablets.

To counteract any negative publicity, Google executives held a media event on Wednesday in San Francisco to preview new mapping features and trumpet a decade of achievements in digital mapping, including its use of satellite, aerial and street-level views.

Among the stand-out features were 3D enhancements to Google Earth, a portable device for taking "street view" panoramic photos and offline access to Google Maps on Android phones.

"It's much more than finding a way home," said Brian McClendon, vice president of engineering for Google Maps.

"Personal helicopter"

Google Imagery, the company's most sophisticated 3D rendering to date, makes use of an automated process to generate very detailed models from 45-degree aerial photos. Google has actually commissioned a fleet of planes to do the job. The end result is zoomable, three-dimensional cityscapes, complete with top and side level views of buildings, streets and landscaping.

Fly-over views of San Francisco's Civic Center, City Hall, AT&T Ballpark and waterfront were shown during Wednesday's demonstration.

"We are trying to create magic here," said Peter Birch, program manager for Google Maps, who compared the offering to "Superman wings."

"It's almost as if you are in a personal helicopter hovering over the city," he said.

The feature will be available on both Android and iOs devices in a matter of weeks, Mr Birch told the BBC.

He would not be drawn on the possibility of a snag with Apple if Google Maps is de-bundled from Apple's smartphones and tablets: "I can't really speculate on what the rumours may be… Apple is a good partner of ours.

"We have a lot fantastic applications already on the platform. Google Earth is one of the top applications, and we've been on Apple devices since 2008," he said.

"It's a really fantastic showcase for the platform and we're really excited to be offering new features."

Google aims to bring the new 3D imagery to desktops later this year.

By the end of the year, the California-based company anticipates 300 million people will be able to look at their communities using this technology. The initial metropolitan areas were not specified, but Mr Birch indicated both American and international cities would be part of the initial rollout.

'Platform battle'

Should Apple actually divest Google Maps from its mobile screens later this year, as the Wall Street Journal first reported, experts say it would be a strike against the search giant.

"It's a negative for Google, but it's not going to have a big revenue impact, and it may in fact motivate them the create a more powerful mapping application that people can download from the iTunes store if Apple doesn't try to block it," said Greg Sterling, a long-time Google watcher and contributing editor at Search Engine Land.

"It's a platform battle," according to Di-Ann Eisnor, a social mapping expert and vice president of Waze, a commuter tool that relies on real-time crowdsourced data from its 18.5 million users to inform its mobile mapping application.

But the war goes beyond Android versus iOs.

Google created a backlash of sorts when it began charging for commercial use of its API last autumn. Developers and publishers like Foursquare, the location-based, mobile check-in app with 20 million users, opted to go with the free and volunteer-driven OpenStreetMap, the world's largest crowdsourced atlas, as its baseline mapping technology, instead of Google Maps. So did the mobile version of Wikipedia.

With 600,000 registered users, OpenStreetMap also has the support of Microsoft. As more big players start working on OpenStreetMap, Ms Eisnor and others say it could be another "viable alternative" to Android and iOs.

John Jackson, a technology analyst with CCS Insight in Boston agrees with the notion of platform wars, calling it "an epic battle for the future of mobile computing".

Between Apple, Google and Microsoft, "we may end up with three centres of gravity", he told the BBC.

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Fire malware a new age internet spy tool

Internet defenders on Wednesday were tearing into freshly exposed Flame malware (malicious software) that could be adapted to spread to critical infrastructures in countries around the world.

While the components and tactics of Flame were considered old school, the gigantic virus's interchangeable software modules and targeted nature were evidence that malware is a potent weapon in the Internet era.

"We are seeing much more specific types of malware and attacks," said McAfee Labs director of security research David Marcus.

"When you talk about a situation where the attacker knows the victim and tailors the malware for the environment it jumps out," he said. "That speaks to good reconnaissance and an attacker who knows what they are doing."

Gathering intelligence on targets and then crafting viruses to exploit specific networks as well as the habits of people using them is "certainly in vogue" and is an attack style heralded by the Stuxnet malware, Marcus said.

Stuxnet, which was detected in July 2010, targeted computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Most Stuxnet infections were discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there, especially the Russian-built atomic power plant in the southern city of Bushehr.

Suspicion fell on Israel and the United States, which have accused Iran of seeking to develop a weapons capability under the cover of a civilian nuclear drive. Tehran denies the charges.

"Stuxnet and Duqu belonged to a single chain of attacks, which raised cyberwar-related concerns worldwide," said Eugene Kaspersky, founder of Kaspersky Lab, which uncovered Flame.

"The Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war, and it's important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any country."

Flame malware was larger than Stuxnet and protected by multiple layers of encryption.

It appears to have been "in the wild" for two years or longer and prime targets so far have been energy facilities in the Middle East.

High concentrations of compromised computers were found in the Palestinian West Bank, Hungary, Iran, and Lebanon. Additional infections have been reported in Austria, Russia, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.

File photo shows Kaspersky Lab employees in Moscow. Kaspersky Lab, one of the world's biggest producers of anti-virus software, said its experts discovered a new computer virus with unprecedented destructive potential that chiefly targets Iran and could be used as a "cyberweapon" by the West and Israel.

Compromised computers included many being used from home connections, according to security researchers who were looking into whether reports of infections in some places resulted from workers using laptops while traveling.

While Stuxnet was crafted to do real-world damage to machinery, Flame was designed to suck information from computer networks and relay what it learned back to those controlling the virus.

Flame can record keystrokes, capture screen images, and eavesdrop using microphones built into computers.

In an intriguing twist, the malware can also use Bluetooth capabilities in machines to connect with smartphones or tablets, mining contact lists or other information, according to security researchers.

"There is lot of intelligence gathering and espionage-like behavior from the malware," Marcus said. "You can turn that to target any industry you want.

"It looks like the infection spread is specific to Middle East, but malware is indiscriminate in a lot of things so it can jump," he continued.

Marcus advised companies to not only keep network software up to date but to ratchet up security settings because threats such as Flame are carefully crafted to "fly under the radar."

For example, Flame reportedly sneaked back out to the Internet by activating a seemingly innocuous Internet Explorer online browsing session.

Geographically targeted cyber espionage and even modular components in viruses have been around for years, Rik Ferguson of security firm Trend Micro said in his blog at countermeasures.trendmicro.eu.

Flame stands out for being a malware behemoth of nearly 20 megabytes and for its use of Bluetooth capabilities, according to Ferguson, who branded the malware a tool, not a weapon.

"You can't get around the fact that the thing is gigantic," Marcus said. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to really confound researchers. We are going to be ripping this sucker apart for a long time to figure everything it was doing."

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Iran recognizes that Fire virus has contaminated computer systems nationwide

Iranian officials have acknowledged that a sophisticated virus has infected computers across the country and, echoing the conclusions of security researchers, suggested that the malicious code is related to the virus that damaged centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility two years ago.

In a statement, Iran’s National Computer Emergency Response Team said that “investigations during the last few months” had resulted in the detection of the virus, which has been dubbed Flame and is capable of stealing data from infected computers.

“It seems there is a close relation to the Stuxnet and Duqu targeted attacks,” the statement said, referring to two other viruses. Stuxnet damaged hundreds of centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear plant. Duqu, like Flame, was apparently built for espionage but shared characteristics with Stuxnet.

The Iranians also said they had developed tools to detect and remove Flame from infected computers.

Iran has in the past blamed Israel and the United States for creating Stuxnet, but there has been no proof of authorship.

Although Israeli officials have generally not commented on Iranian accusations that their country was behind that virus, a deputy to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday appeared to hint at Israel’s possible involvement in manufacturing Flame.

Speaking on Israel’s Army Radio, Moshe Yaalon, the vice prime minister and minister for strategic affairs, said the virus was “apparently” state sponsored.

“Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat — and it’s not only Israel, it’s the whole Western world, led by the United States — it’s certainly reasonable that he uses all means at his disposal, including these, to harm the Iranian nuclear system,” Yaalon said.

He added, “Israel is blessed with being a country rich in high-tech, and from that perspective, these achievements we take pride in, both in the civilian sector and defense sector, open up very many opportunities.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the CIA; U.S officials at the Defense Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security. A spokesman for DHS said the agency has been made aware of the malware and is working with other U.S. agencies to analyze its potential impact on the United States.

Security researchers say Flame is capable to logging keyboard strokes, activating microphones to record conversations and taking screen shots.

Experts have cautioned that it is still far too early to draw conclusions about who might have created the virus and why. “There’s a lot of guessing going on out there, and I don’t think a lot of it is based on facts,” said Jody Westby, chief executive of Global Cyber Risk, a consulting firm.

Iran was among several countries that about a week ago reported the infection to a U.N. agency responsible for communications technology, the International Telecommunication Union, said Mohd Amin, head of ITU’s global cyber center, which analyzes and shares data on cyber threats.

ITU asked the Russian-based Kaspersky Lab, which provides software to clients around the world, to investigate. Kaspersky checked its database and found samples of the virus in countries across the Middle East. Iran had the highest number of infections, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the firm, whose database is limited to infections reported by its clients.

Kaspersky also has detected a few infections in Europe and the United States, but it is unclear whether those reflect people in the Middle East accessing the Internet through U.S. and European servers to circumvent Web filters, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.

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Motorola deal comes Google

Google has completed its $12.5 billion purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility in a deal that poses new challenges for the Internet’s most powerful company as it tries to shape the future of mobile computing.

The deal closed Tuesday, nine months after Google Inc. disclosed that it wanted to expand into the hardware business with the most expensive and riskiest acquisition in its 14-year history.

The purchase pushes Google deeper into the cellphone business, a market it entered four years ago with the debut of its Android software, now the chief challenger to Apple Inc.’s iPhones.

In Motorola, Google gets a cellphone pioneer that has struggled in recent years. Motorola has not produced a mass-market hit since it introduced the Razr cellphone in 2005. Once the number two cellphone maker, Motorola now ranks eighth with 2 percent of the worldwide market share, according to Gartner.

As had been expected, Google chief executive Larry Page immediately named one of his top lieutenants, Dennis Woodside, as Motorola’s chief executive. He replaces Sanjay Jha, 49, who will stay on just long enough to assist in the ownership change.

Woodside, 43, has spent the past three years immersed in online advertising as president of Google’s America region, which accounted for $17.5 billion of Google’s revenue last year.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. booked $13.1 billion in revenue during its final year as an independent company.

Nevertheless, Woodside’s background in online advertising is likely to raise questions about whether he is the best choice to oversee a company that specializes in making smartphones, tablet computers, and cable-TV boxes.

The takeover became possible only after government regulators were satisfied that the acquisition wouldn’t stifle competition in the smartphone market.

China removed the final regulatory hurdle by granting its approval Saturday. Regulators in the United States and Europe had cleared the deal three months ago.

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Issue: Google working on Music deauthorization

Over the past couple of days, Google Music users discovered that they once they hit the 10 device authorization limit they were restricted from removing devices. Users quickly found out that Google had changed the deauthorization number to four devices a year, bad news for those who frequently flash ROMs or move to different devices. Now Google has issued a statement regarding the change, saying they’re working on the problem.

Google acknowledges that the new method is an issue for people who are authorizing and reauthorizing the same device, but the service treats new ROMs and wiped software as a new device. At the same time, the change comes after a request from the record labels “in an effort to limit abuse.” The company goes on to say that it’s working on a method that will hopefully satisfy both music partners and users.

In the meantime the “old” policy is in effect, so you can deauthorize as many devices as you want until Google works around the problem. Right now there’s no time frame for when Google will update its policy on the matter, but it notes that the support page will be updated with more information when it becomes available.

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Falls plant to Twitter genocide hoax of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Rumours of a genocide of a good Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez have been, in a imperishable difference of Mark Twain, severely exaggerated.

Magical realist Márquez won a Nobel esteem for literature in 1982 for “his novels as well as reduced stories, in that a illusory as well as a picturesque have been total in a richly stoical universe of imagination, reflecting a continent’s hold up as well as conflicts”. Yesterday dusk a Twitter comment purporting to go to a Italian writer as well as educational Umberto Eco stated: “Gabriel García Márquez dies. you perceived a headlines right away from New York.” Writer Mario Vargas Llosa as well as Márquez’s family reliable a news, according to a account, that “will be strictly voiced by a sister Aida as well as by publishers in couple of hours”.

With a Eco comment followed by roughly 2,000 people, a headlines fast widespread as well as well read amicable media went in to anguish – until doubts proposed to aspect about a veracity. The Eco comment has not been accurate by Twitter as belonging to The Name of a Rose author, as well as a tweets were in a future discharged as a hoax. “What if you pronounced Umberto Eco died? A feign account,” tweeted a strong – nonetheless not accurate – comment of a 85-year-old Márquez himself, @ElGabo. Jaime Abello Banfi, executive of a Gabriel García Márquez Foundation, additionally denied a rumours, whilst Reuters’ Mexico match Cyntia Barrera Diaz pronounced a co-worker had oral with a Colombian envoy to Mexico, as well as Márquez was in Los Angeles on vacation family.

“Don’t be dissapoint about Twitter present rumours of Gabriel García Márquez’s passing – this is only how enchanting realism works,” pronounced New York Times publisher Michael Roston. “Looks similar to a García Márquez headlines is hoax. What bastards. Chronicle of a Death Foretweeted …” said writer Stephanie Merritt, referencing Márquez’s novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Márquez is only a ultimate plant of a supposed Twitter death-rumour mill, fasten Pope Benedict XVI, Fidel Castro as well as Pedro Almodóvar. Many of a hoaxes were instigated by a Italian schoolteacher Tommaso De Benedetti, who has additionally been related to a feign Eco account. “Social media is a many unverifiable report source in a universe though a headlines media believes it since of a need for speed,” De Benedetti told a Guardian in March.

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