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Meet the Google Executive Who Plans to Cheat Death

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Google engineering director and futurist Ray Kurzweil believes we are close to realizing everlasting life and is dead-set on getting us there.

The inventor and noted author believes the key to such a scientific breakthrough is a system of ‘bridges’ that enable the body to move from strength to strength over time.

The youthful 65-year-old currently takes 150 supplements a day, which he argues if the first bridge.

The idea is to build enough bridges to ensure the body holds out long enough for life-lengthening technology to come into its own.

He has likened the biology of the body to computer software and believes we are all ‘out of date’.

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Google Must Face Most Claims in Gmail Wiretap Lawsuit

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photo credit: brionv

photo credit: brionv

Google Inc. (GOOG) must face most claims in a lawsuit alleging it illegally reads and mines the content of private messages sent through its Gmail e-mail service in violation of federal wiretap laws.

U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, today granted Google’s request to throw out state claims, while allowing the plaintiffs to refile. She refused to dismiss federal claims, rejecting the company’s argument that the plaintiffs agreed to let Google intercept and read their e-mails by accepting its service terms and privacy policies.

“The court finds that it cannot conclude that any party — Gmail users or non-Gmail users — has consented to Google’s reading of e-mail for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing targeted advertising,” Koh said in the ruling.

Users of Gmail and other e-mail services from states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida contend that Google “does not disclose the extent of its processing,” according to a May 16 court filing. The case consolidates seven individual and group lawsuits.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and are considering our options,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “Automated scanning lets us provide Gmail users with security and spam protection, as well as great features like Priority Inbox.”

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We’ll be Uploading our Entire MINDS to Computers by 2045, Google Expert Claims

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Photo Credit: Science Photo Library

Photo Credit: Science Photo Library

In just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal – an event called singularity – according to a futurist from Google.

Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100.

Kurweil made the claims during his conference speech at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York at the weekend.

The conference was created by Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov and featured visonary talks about how the world will look by 2045.

Kurzweil said: ‘Based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we’ll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold.’

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Report: Google Knows Nearly Every WiFi Password in the World

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Google knows nearly every WiFi password in the world, according to a new report published Thursday in a prominent tech website.

Computerworld’s Michael Horowitz explained in his “Defensive Computing” blog that if you, or even a friend, have logged on your WiFi network with an Android device, chances are Google has your secret password stored in their servers.

“If an Android device (phone or tablet) has ever logged on to a particular Wi-Fi network, then Google probably knows the Wi-Fi password,” wrote Horowitz. “Considering how many Android devices there are, it is likely that Google can access most Wi-Fi passwords worldwide.”

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NSA Disguised Itself as Google to Spy, say Reports

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Photo Credit: CNET

Photo Credit: CNET

Here’s one of the latest tidbits on the NSA surveillance scandal (which seems to be generating nearly as many blog items as there are phone numbers in the spy agency’s data banks).

Earlier this week, Techdirt picked up on a passing mention in a Brazilian news story and a Slate article to point out that the US National Security Agency had apparently impersonated Google on at least one occasion to gather data on people. (Mother Jones subsequently pointed out Techdirt’s point-out.)

Brazilian site Fantastico obtained and published a document leaked by Edward Snowden, which diagrams how a “man in the middle attack” involving Google was apparently carried out.

A technique commonly used by hackers, a MITM attack involves using a fake security certificate to pose as a legitimate Web service, bypass browser security settings, and then intercept data that an unsuspecting person is sending to that service. Hackers could, for example, pose as a banking Web site and steal passwords.

The technique is particularly sly because the hackers then use the password to log in to the real banking site and then serve as a “man in the middle,” receiving requests from the banking customer, passing them on to the bank site, and then returning requested info to the customer — all the while collecting data for themselves, with neither the customer nor the bank realizing what’s happening. Such attacks can be used against e-mail providers too.

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Test Reveals Facebook, Twitter and Google Snoop on Emails’: Study of Net Giants Spurs New Privacy Concerns

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been caught snooping on messages sent across their networks, new research claims, prompting campaigners to express concerns over privacy.

The findings emerged from an experiment conducted following revelations by US security contractor Edward Snowden about government snooping on internet accounts.

Cyber-security company High-Tech Bridge set out to test the confidentiality of 50 of the biggest internet companies by using their systems to send a unique web address in private messages.

Experts at its Geneva HQ then waited to see which companies clicked on the website.

During the ten-day operation, six of the 50 companies tested were found to have opened the link.

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Microsoft and Google to Sue Over US Surveillance Requests

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Microsoft and Google are to sue the US government to win the right to reveal more information about official requests for user data. The companies announced the lawsuit on Friday, escalating a legal battle over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the mechanism used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other US government agencies to gather data about foreign internet users.

Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, made the announcement in a corporate blog post which complained of the government’s “continued unwillingness” to let it publish information about FISA requests.

Each company filed a suit in June arguing that they should be allowed to state the details under the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and in the process defend corporate reputations battered by Edward Snowden’s revelations. Critics accused the companies of collaborating in the snooping.

“On six occasions in recent weeks we agreed with the department of justice to extend the government’s deadline to reply to these lawsuits. We hoped that these discussions would lead to an agreement acceptable to all,” Smith wrote.

The negotiations failed, he wrote, so Google and Microsoft were going to court. He did not specify when, or to which court.

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Google Outage Reportedly Caused Big Drop in Global Traffic

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Photo Credit: CNET

Photo Credit: CNET

For a very brief few minutes on Friday you may have noticed some Google services, most notably search, appeared to be down. If not, maybe you noticed the ensuing freak-out across Twitter and the rest of the Internet.

At first glance the flash outage was little more than an opportunity for a few good one-liners and a chance to actually stand up from the keyboard and walk around for a few minutes. If we had connected nanobots floating around in our bloodstreams, certainly they would have registered a worldwide uptick in caffeine intake during those few moments.

As it turns out though, Google’s downtime did appear to have global, measurable repercussions, according to analytics firm GoSquared, which estimates that it caused a 40 percent drop in global traffic during a five-minute window.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Says Users of Gmail Should Expect that Others Will Have Access to Their Email

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If you happen to send an email to one of the 400 million people who use Google’s Gmail service, you shouldn’t have any expectation of privacy, according to a court briefing obtained by the Consumer Watchdog website.

In a motion filed last month by Google to have a class action complaint dismissed, Google’s lawyers reference a 1979 ruling, holding that people who turn over information to third parties shouldn’t expect that information to remain private.

From the filing (emphasis added):

Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS provider in the course of delivery. Indeed, “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979). In particular, the Court noted that persons communicating through a service provided by an intermediary (in the Smith case, a telephone call routed through a telephone company) must necessarily expect that the communication will be subject to the intermediary’s systems. For example, the Court explained that in using the telephone, a person “voluntarily convey[s] numerical information to the telephone company and ‘expose[s]’ that information to its equipment in the ordinary course of business.” Id. at 744 (emphasis added).

…“Google has finally admitted they don’t respect privacy,” said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director, in a news release. “People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents’ privacy don’t use Gmail.”

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Apple, Google and AT&T Meet Obama to Discuss NSA Surveillance Concerns

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Photo Credit: APBarack Obama hosted a summit on government surveillance and digital privacy attended by Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Google vice-president Vint Cerf and the boss of US telecoms network AT&T on Thursday.

The US president attended in person, sources told the Politico blog, as did other technology company executives. Additional attendees included representatives of the Center for Democracy and Technology and Gigi Sohn, leader of internet campaign group Public Knowledge.

The meeting was apparently prompted by growing concerns among US technology companies that revelations from the Guardian and others about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National Security Agency, and the companies’ obligation to allow access to data under secret court rules, could be damaging their reputation and commercial interests abroad.

The gathering followed a closed-doors meeting earlier this week with Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler at the White House.

On the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting were the surveillance activities of the NSA, commercial privacy issues and the online tracking of consumers.

Read more from this story HERE.