The NSA's Own Guide To Google Hacking and Other Internet Research
Wired has published a book review of sorts of a freely downloadable book called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research. If that title came from O'Reilly, Apress, or other big name in tech-publishing, it might be perfectly nice but less interesting. Instead, it was prepared as an internal guide for the NSA, and came to public attention through a FOIA request by MuckRock. (See this video interview with MuckRock's Michael Morisy at this year's SXSW.) The version that's been released is several years old. From Wired's report: "Although the author's name is redacted in the version released by the NSA, Muckrock's FOIA indicates it was written by Robyn Winder and Charlie Speight. A note the NSA added to the book before releasing it under FOIA says that the opinions expressed in it are the authors', and not the agency's. ... Lest you think that none of this is new, that Johnny Long has been talking about this for years at hacker conferences and in his book Google Hacking, you’d be right. ...
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Opinions Differ Widely On The Effectiveness of Apple's Apology In China
Tim Cook’s apology to Apple’s Chinese customers has divided observers, some of whom claim that the public mea culpa might undermine the Cupertino company by giving credence to government criticism. Cook’s letter was posted (link via Google Translate) on the Chinese Apple Web site on Monday after two weeks of heated attacks by China’s state-run media. Cook focused on Apple’s communication over its warranty and said the company would change its repair policy for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S devices sold in China. “We realize a lack of communication in this process has led to speculation that Apple is arrogant and doesn’t care about or value consumers’ feedback,” wrote Cook. “We sincerely apologize for any concern or misunderstanding this has brought to customers. The wording of Cook’s apology made it seem like a direct response to an article published by People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s official newspaper, that called the company “arrogant,” as well as a China ...
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Chinese Consumers Scoff At The State-Run Media's Heavy-Handed Swipes Against Apple
Tim Cook has said that China will soon become Apple’s biggest market, but the government is not as besotted as Chinese consumers. China’s state-run media has taken several swipes at Apple this month, moves which may be part of a (heavy-handed) public relations strategy to pave the way for locally grown operating systems as the Chinese government seeks to move its IT industry away from Western software. But if popular response to the anti-Apple articles is anything to go by, Chinese consumers and their iOS devices won’t be so easily parted. Earlier this week, People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s official newspaper, published articles calling Apple’s customer-service practices arrogant. The People’s Daily article followed a story earlier this month by official government press agency Xinhua, which blamed Apple for an increase in high-interest loans taken out by students to buy “fancy electronic products, most Apple devices.” And just a few days prior to the Xinhua ...
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Jared Fliesler, Square’s VP Overseeing Growth, Joins Matrix As General Partner
Jared Fliesler, who oversaw growth and user acquisition at Square, is crossing over to the venture side from the startup world and joining Matrix Partners as a general partner. A firm that has been around for more than 30 years, Matrix does Series A rounds in the enterprise and consumer space. It’s bi-coastal with offices in both Boston and Palo Alto. They are in companies like ZestFinance, Gilt Groupe, Polyvore, Zendesk and Zong. After working at Square, Google and Slide, Fliesler said that venture capital would give him the opportunity to work with many companies at this optimal period in their lives when they may have found product-market fit and are looking to scale. He said he likes this six-month to two-year period in which companies can afford to grow aggressively in both their customer base and employee headcount. While he was at Square, the company grew from $2 billion processed per year to more than $10 billion and from 800,000 activated accounts to more than 3 million. He had ...
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New Atlantic Ventures’ John Backus On Google Glass, The Battle For The Living Room, And Impending Cyberwar
Some of the best conversations I have about the tech space are with investors — along with being rich and generally smart, they seem to have the best predictive insights into the industry. At a time when the Chinese seem to be making very real attacks to our cyber infrastructure, when legislation could make or break the evolution of the television industry, and when Google Glass stands to store more lifestyle data than any other computer in existence, I thought it only fitting to bring on a DC-based investor, John Backus, to chat out the latest news. John Backus is a managing partner at New Atlantic Ventures, and before that, he overlapped at Bain Capital with none other than one Mitt Romney. But John has had his eye on the needle of the tech industry for decades, and offered some interesting opinions of what we can expect to see in 2013 and beyond.
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