Google Has Tagged A Vast Database Of Child Porn Images — Making Them Impossible To See | ||
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Google is going to start using a database of thousands of pornographic images and videos of children to block people from searching them. The BBC reports that "digital fingerprints" of known child sex abuse photographs, identified and compiled by a UK charity called the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), will be used to generate flags that prevent browsers from accessing them. The IWF has the sole purpose of tackling child sexual abuse online and its team has manually identified the pictures and flagged them as harmful. The organisation says it "uses intelligence to actively seek out child sexual abuse content", and also researches and analyses trends in the area. A further measure is a national hotline service for the public to report alarming imagery, while it also provides the "Online Child Sexual Abuse Reporting Portal" to countries without such a mechanism. On Wednesday and Thursday UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced Google's technology at the "We Protect Children Online" global summit. The technology is set to be rolled out to other internet search engines: Microsoft and Mozilla are apparently also going to apply restrictions into their web browsers. The UK government has also created a new offence to stop paedophiles soliciting explicit material from children, in the form of selfies, for instance. The law change in England and Wales, the BBC explains, will close a loophole that has allowed people to escape prosecution. In addition, GCHQ and the National Crime Agency are going to get more powers to target abuse. A new unit has been set up to specifically combat people who use encryption techniques — like Tor browsers and the "dark web" — to hide their identities and share material. A Serious Crime Bill was on its way through Parliament today. IWF's chief executive, Susie Hargreaves, said in a statement on Wednesday: “The IWF is acutely aware that regardless of how successful we are at removing content hosted in the UK, this is a global problem which requires every country to stand up and play an active role. By working together across the world we will move one step closer to eradicating this heinous crime. “This is important because every single image or video is of a real child being sexually abused and every time someone views that image or video that child is re-victimised." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Sony Is Launching A Counterattack Against Its Hackers | ||
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Sony has launched a counter-attack against people trying to downloaded leaked files stolen from its servers after a massive hack. Re/code is reporting that Sony is using Amazon Web Services to rent cloud computer power, and aim traffic at sites offering the company's files for download. Sony's attack is actually similar to a tactic used by cyber-criminals. When hackers want to take down a website, they point huge amounts of internet traffic at it. That's called a "distributed denial of service" attack. Sony is essentially doing the same thing to fight back against hackers. Re/code says that Sony is using Amazon's online cloud computing supplier to create a flood of fake "seed" sources for the stolen documents, which are available as torrent files (a peer to peer file sharing service that lets dozens of people share bits of files simultaneously). Anyone requesting a torrent copy of the seed file is likely to get a fake seed — and thus won't get the documents. Sony realises that it can't stop everyone downloading the documents (they're all over the internet). But what it can do is disrupt the networks offering them, making them more difficult to obtain. The move is interesting in part because it shows that Sony isn't just a hapless victim of hackers. It has some tech tools of its own with which is can fight a rearguard action. The tactic of frustrating internet users into quitting their illicit activity is one that Hollywood has been doing for years. Major movie studios upload fake copies of mainstream movies to file-sharing sites. Users only realise the files are fake after spending hours downloading them, which movie studios hope will deter them from illegal file-sharing in the future. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This Girl Became An Instagram Sensation With 1.7 Million Followers But Didn't Know People Could See Her Photos | ||
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“What’s a follower?” These were the words Kayla Itsines, now a global internet fitness sensation, said when she was told she had reached her first 100 fans on Instagram. Now with 1.7 million followers on Instagram, 915,000 likes on Facebook and 163,000 followers on Twitter, you would never think this social media queen originally thought Instagram was simply an app for storing photos privately. “I didn’t even think about it at the time. I used Instagram and had my own blog but, I know this sounds stupid, but I didn’t know people could see what I was uploading,” she recalls. While Itsines had been uploading before-and-after photos of the clients she trained, she had unsuspectingly been gaining a worldwide audience. “I didn’t even know what was happening [at first]… people were following and asking what I was doing, and I realised they were commenting,” she says. “I know it makes me seem silly now, now that I know so much about social media. “I didn’t want to make a name for myself, it just blew out … I can’t explain it. It’s crazy.” This is when Itsines realised she was onto a good thing. She began interacting with her followers, answering the question and providing them with advice. Inspirational photos and exercise ideas, this is what the people wanted. But then her humble following started to grow – fast.
“I was trying to be nice and helpful so I was like ‘Let me make an ebook [of my programs]‘,” she says. That’s when things went pear-shaped. “…then everything was crashing and everyone was freaking out.” So many people we on her website ordering her ebook, the system went kaput. And Itsines, well, she was at a loss. “When I first released the ebook people were saying ‘this doesn’t work’ and ‘that doesn’t work’, because too many people were on it and it was crashing,” she said. “I didn’t think anyone would be interested. I was just like ‘I released an ebook, it’s out there now.’ “I was so stressed because people would have looked at me and thought ‘Oh, she’s really experienced in this’, or ‘She has a business, she has people working for her’, but that was my first thing I ever did. “It was just me, I was answering thousand and thousands of emails and crying and thinking ‘this is too hard’.” Itsines quickly came to the realisation this was beyond her capabilities and she need help, fast. That’s when she brought in the big guns – her boyfriend. “I write programs… I’m a good personal trainer, I can do seminars but Tobi is the one that’s technologically savvy and was able to help me,” she says. “There were heaps of challenges with the website. That’s why Tobi started up Pearce and Co,” (the digital marketing agency which now assists Itsines’s social media empire). “So many things went wrong but now that we’ve got a strong team it’s going fantastically. “It’s just what happens. It’s the journey, and when you work hard and you get rewarded.” Now Itsines is even followed by celebrities, from Victoria’s Secret model Candice Swanepoel to Australian swimmer and Olympic gold medallist Stephanie Rice. Business Insider asked Itsines what was the secret behind her international success. Her reply: the combination of a solid program, focusing the business around fitness and not about “Kayla” and, of course, having a good social media game plan. Having worked on perfecting her routines and testing them out on her clients since she was 18 (she’s now 23), Itsines’s credibility as a trainer who delivers incredible results can be seen in the “hundreds and thousands of transformations” she said their customers have achieved. And by looking at the before-and-after photos she post of her clients, you can tell she’s not exaggerating.
So what is it about Itsines’s training programs that makes it so appealing to 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, mums and men? “The only thing I changed was the fact that you didn’t have to kill yourself at the gym every single day,” she said. “While the workouts are only 28 minutes, they are high intensity and repetitive. “A lot of women lose motivation because they think ‘I have to workout for an hour and a half every single day, five days a week, and when they start not doing that, they think ‘Well, stuff it, I’ve stuffed it now, I’m not going to do it anymore’. “I think that’s what people love about my program – I’ve taught them you don’t need to kill yourself at the gym. It’s 28 minutes, it’s high intensity and then you’re done. “You repeat the exercises for seven minutes straight, and it’s up to you to push your body as hard as you want to. If you have to right mindset you will be absolutely stuffed. “It makes you think ‘I can just push on a little bit more’ and then you do it again, and again and again.
And for those who say they don’t have time to exercise, Kayla has three words for you: “Yeah you do.” Simple as that. “You have time, everyone has time,” she says. “The good thing about this is that you can do it at home.” “I understand that people don’t have time to drive to the gym. The gym might be 20 minutes away and 40 minutes of your day wasted, plus you have to do your workout. I get how people don’t have time but this one you can literally get a few pieces of equipment up in your lounge room and do it. “All you need is the length of your body as space on the ground and you can achieve a great workout.” I must admit, when I first starting following Itsines, I thought “Here’s just another account which posts before and after photos”, but there’s much more to it. Earlier in the year, Business Insider’s Chris Pash wrote an article on how before and after photos are misleading based on the efforts of a trainer by the name of Mel V who proved the “transformation” could be achieved in 15 minutes. But Itsines says while anyone can fake a before and after photos, when done correctly and you are true to yourself, they can be an important element on your fitness journey. “Anyone can sit there push their stomach out and make their legs bigger, and if you want to do that, that’s fine. But what I do differently is that I tagged the girl whose photo it is in the caption so you can… click on that and you can see her step-by-step transformation,” she said. “We are very picky with who we upload because we don’t want to upload a account that just has one transformation, we want to watch their body change and I think that’s the difference.” As well as these before-and after-photos that Itsines’s business is renowned for on Instagram and Facebook, she also posts photos of herself – but rarely of her face. Itsines’s business philosophy isn’t about putting one name or one face to an industry which is meant to motivate an entire population. “If people can’t relate they come unmotivated. I want people to think of the Kayla Itsines program as a program that motivates everyone and that it’s not all about me,” she said. “I can’t simply inspire someone myself because I’m only me, I live in Adelaide, I eat these foods, some people can’t relate to that. But when they see others from all over the world with different body types, that’s when you start getting motivated and relating.” When it comes to her social media prowess, Itsines has listened to the needs of her followers to gauge what and where she posts her content. “My followers always give me awesome ideas,” she says, explaining that they were the ones who first request the ebook which has become the backbone of her business. “The ebook is everything. That’s what started everything. All the transformations from the last year and the half have come from that. “The people I upload, the food that I upload, are people that are doing my guides.”
When it comes posting content on the different platforms, Itsines says it’s about taking time and care to get it right. “You don’t want to upload the same thing on everything. You don’t want to have the photos on Instagram, and the same photos of Facebook, and same photos on Pinterest,” she said. “You want to be original and I guess it’s just a slow process. “And although we go slowly, it grows fast. The more care and the more effort you put into it, the more people are interested. It’s growing fast because we’re putting thought into it and taking care.” While Itsines says she has taken great joy out of growing her business and helping people reach their goals, she says it hasn’t always been fun and games. In fact she almost quit – not something you’d expect from a motivation sensation. But facing constant, daily bullying and criticism from online trolls, it was almost too much for her. “I openly admit that I threw in the towel a year and a bit ago. I said: ‘I give up, I can’t tell with this, I’m sick of people bullying me’. And the things they were saying about me… It freaked me out,” she reflected. “You can’t [filter it], it’s social. You can block them and you can delete the comment but they come back again. “I used to cry, I honestly used to be so upset about it. It was bullying but on a huge scale.” While it took some time – and self-belief – Itsines eventually accepted that some people make fake accounts to try to bring you down but it is your attitude and reaction to the trolling that matters most. “I guess you just have to now who you are and know what you believe in,” she said. “Be confident in yourself and what you say, and just know that what people say about you isn’t true. Don’t let it affect you. You have to remember it’s just one person.” Despite the steep learning curve early on and the online trolls, Kayla says the whole process has been worth it. “I would do nothing differently. I enjoyed the stuff-ups, I enjoyed crying my eyes out because… everything worked out perfectly and if I had changed something then I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she says. “I wouldn’t want it to be handed to me and for everything to be easy, and I always say that, I enjoy learning from my mistakes.”
Since her success, Itsines has made a habit of chatting with other local businesses and entrepreneurs about the pros and cons of running an online business, sharing her advice, stories and wisdom. “I’d say be organised, have goals, think about what you’re doing before you do it and where you want to be,” she says. “If you want to climb a mountain, make sure you have another goal set for when you get to the top so that you don’t lose motivation. Stay on top of it, and double check everything. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help, and build your resources and relationship. “Be positive and have a tough skin.” Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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PSG fans knifed after Barcelona match | ||
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Barcelona (AFP) - Two Paris Saint-Germain supporters suffered knife wounds in two separate incidents following the French side's Champions League match on Wednesday against Barcelona in the Spanish city, police said. The two victims, whose lives were not in danger, were taken to hospital for treatment, a police spokesman said, adding that the identity of their attackers was not known. One of the two victims remained in hospital. The attacks come less than two weeks after a Deportivo fan was killed after being beaten and pushed into a river during clashes outside Atletico Madrid's Vicente Calderon stadium before a La Liga match between the two sides. The Spanish government sacked the security heads of the two clubs after the death and Spain's Football Federation and the government-controlled Higher Sports Council have said tougher sanctions for clubs over violent behaviour by supporters will come into force on December 15. Barcelona won the match 3-1 but both sides qualified for the last 16 knockout stages of the competition.
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Russian Central Bank Hikes Rates | ||
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The Russian central bank has raised rates to 10.5% from 9.5% in its latest attempt to halt the collapse of the rouble. The currency has been hit by a combination of collapsing oil prices, which the country's economy is heavily dependent on, and Western sanctions over Russia's role in supporting anti-government rebels in Ukraine. The rouble dropped to over 55 roubles to the dollar following the announcement. The central bank has tried to use shock tactics before to limited effect. At the end of October it raised rates from 8% to 9.5% in a widely unexpected gamble that higher rates will halt the rouble's slide against the dollar and the euro. Unfortunately, while the economic outlook certainly declined as expected the move failed to prevent the rouble from sliding further as oil prices continued to slump. As you can see from the chart below, rouble falls against the dollar (orange line) have closely tracked drops in the price of oil (green line):
Market analysts were forecasting a hike of the central bank's key interest rate of 9.5% by anything from 25 basis points to as much as 250 basis points, according to the Wall Street Journal. That is, people expected anything from 9.75% to 12%.
The rate of price rises and ongoing falls in the value of the currency has put pressure on the central bank to increase interest rates in order to slow the pace of spending in the economy by encouraging people to save more of their money. However doing so risks worsening the already parlous state of Russia's economy, which is now expected to fall into a recession next year. After growing at an average pace of around 6.9% between 1999-2008 Russia has struggled to regain its momentum since the Great Recession. According to the Bank of Russia, the annual GDP growth rate in 2014 was 0.6%.
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Inflation in Russia hit 9.4% last month as sanctions on imports and the collapsing rouble drove up prices in the country — well above the central bank's target of 5.5% for 2014. The Bank of Russia forecasts that inflation may exceed 10% in the first quarter but is expected to decline after that.
Europe's Latest Cheap Credit Scheme Is Falling Flat Again | ||
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The European Central Bank lent €130 billion ($162.17 billion) to banks in its latest cheap credit programme, in an attempt to get Europe's stagnant economy moving again. The TLTRO figure (targeted long-term refinancing operation) is likely to be seen as a disappointment. Straight after pretty poor figures in September, analysts were expecting €175 billion to be extended by Frankfurt. ECB vice president Benoit Coeure says that the figure is "within the ECB’s and market estimates and expectations", but that's only because the increasingly grim outlook for Europe has pushed estimates so low: they fell to just €130-150 billion by the beginning of December. The ECB wants to offer credit to banks in Europe, attached to conditions that they will turn it into loans for the private sector. €82.6 billion ($103.4 billion) in loans were taken up by banks in the first round of lending this September. The higher the numbers, the more money that European financial institutions would likely be lending out into the economy. If the figure is seen as low, financial markets may take that as a sign that the ECB will do more easing in the months ahead. A Bloomberg report earlier this month suggested that the central bank will go for a much more wide-ranging stimulus plan in January. Here's what Capital Economics has to say about the announcement: Banks were entitled to borrow a total of €400bn at a fixed rate of just 0.15% in the September and December operations together and the total of €212.6bn falls a long way short of that. This is another worrying indication that banks do not intend to lend, either because of their own risk aversion or a lack of demand... Crucially, the news surely confirms that the ECB will not achieve the intended €1 trillion expansion of its balance sheet using existing tools alone, so a full-blown QE programme, including sovereign bonds, will be required. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Oil Is Going Nowhere | ||
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Oil is holding its value this morning, after both Brent and WTI Crude fell to their lowest price levels since 2009 yesterday. At 9.30am GMT (4.30am ET), Brent was trading at $64.58, gaining 0.21%.
Crude is also stable at $61.27 a barrel at 10am GMT (5am ET).
Yesterday's price crumble means that the oil has lost 42% of its value since its highest in July this year.
Further drops in oil prices are likely in sight, though. Yesterday, Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum Ali Al-Naimi restated his country's intention not to cut production in the foreseeable future, meaning that there will probably be even more overproduction next year. As Business Insider's Shane Ferro wrote, this is a clear signal that the OPEC does not have the power to influence the market by manipulating the world's output of crude. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Putin Handed Over $8 Billion Of Contracts To His Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Friends | ||
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The deals included a 228-billion- rouble project to build a bridge to Crimea from the Russian mainland as well as a large chunk of the 770-billion-rouble Power of Siberia gas pipeline. The two men were sanctioned due to their links to key Russian industries. Rotenberg, a childhood friend of Putin's, owns SMP bank along with his brother Boris. The US Treasury claims the brothers "have provided support to Putin’s pet projects" by winning and completing "approximately $7 billion in contracts for the Sochi Olympic Games and their personal wealth has increased by $2.5 billion in the last two years alone". SMP Bank, which is also subject to sanctions and unable to trade with companies in the EU and the US, received a 10-year state loan of about 100 billion roubles at an interest rate of 0.51%, according to Bloomberg. The money was provided under the condition that Rotenberg's firm rescue another Russian bank, Mosoblbank, which had fallen into difficulties. Timchenko meanwhile is one of the founders of Gunvor, one of the world’s largest commodity trading companies. He also appears on the US sanctions list as the Treasury claims his "activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin...[and] Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds". Bloomberg reports that Anton Kurevin, a spokesperson for Volga Group that manages his holdings, said contracts won by Timchenko "were obtained fairly through a competitive process". Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Companies linked to Russian billionaire Arkady Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko, both close allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, were given contracts worth 309 billion roubles (£3.6 billion, $8.1 billion) since western sanctions were imposed on the men in March, Google Has Tagged A Vast Database Of Child Porn Images — Making Them Impossible To See | ||
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Google is going to start using a database of thousands of pornographic images and videos of children to block people from searching them. The BBC reports that "digital fingerprints" of known child sex abuse photographs, identified and compiled by a UK charity called the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), will be used to generate flags that prevent browsers from accessing them. The IWF has the sole purpose of tackling child sexual abuse online and its team has manually identified the pictures and flagged them as harmful. The organisation says it "uses intelligence to actively seek out child sexual abuse content", and also researches and analyses trends in the area. A further measure is a national hotline service for the public to report alarming imagery, while it also provides the "Online Child Sexual Abuse Reporting Portal" to countries without such a mechanism. On Wednesday and Thursday UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced Google's technology at the "We Protect Children Online" global summit. The technology is set to be rolled out to other internet search engines: Microsoft and Mozilla are apparently also going to apply restrictions into their web browsers. The UK government has also created a new offence to stop paedophiles soliciting explicit material from children, in the form of selfies, for instance. The law change in England and Wales, the BBC explains, will close a loophole that has allowed people to escape prosecution. In addition, GCHQ and the National Crime Agency are going to get more powers to target abuse. A new unit has been set up to specifically combat people who use encryption techniques — like Tor browsers and the "dark web" — to hide their identities and share material. A Serious Crime Bill was on its way through Parliament today. IWF's chief executive, Susie Hargreaves, said in a statement on Wednesday: “The IWF is acutely aware that regardless of how successful we are at removing content hosted in the UK, this is a global problem which requires every country to stand up and play an active role. By working together across the world we will move one step closer to eradicating this heinous crime. “This is important because every single image or video is of a real child being sexually abused and every time someone views that image or video that child is re-victimised." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things In Tech You Need To Know Today (EBAY, NKE, UAL, FB, AAPL) | ||
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Good morning! It's going to be a pretty cold day in London. (It's winter. What did you expect?) Here's the tech news you need to know. 1. eBay may be planning to cut thousands of jobs next year. It's getting ready to spin off PayPal. 2. eBay CEO John Donahoe is expected to leave the company's board and join PayPal's board when the service is spun off next year. Decisions on board members will made closer to the split, eBay says. 3. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel was chased out of a lecture by angry protestors at UC Berkeley. They held signs referencing Ferguson and NSA spying. 4. Nike's CIO is leaving the company after just 10 months. He was the only openly gay CIO at a Fortune 100 company. 5. United Airlines is giving each of its 23,000 flight attendants an iPhone 6 Plus. They'll use them for email and training documents. 6. Instagram has 300 million active users. That makes it bigger than Twitter. 7. Apple is fighting against the release of a video of Steve Jobs giving testimony. It's part of the iPod antitrust case. 8. Chicago is going to build its own app to help people hail taxis. It's motivated in part by Uber's strong presence in the city. 9. Box's growth is slowing down. Its updated S1 filing shows that the company is cutting back on sales and marketing expenses. 10. Jack Dorsey says that Square has never been in acquisition talks with anybody. He also denied that the company is planning an IPO. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 10 Things In Advertising You Need To Know Today | ||
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Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you head into your first meeting. 1. Facebook is tackling recent publisher concerns head-on with a suite of new targeting and insight tools. Facebook hopes it will convince the media to invest more resources into distributing their content across the social network. 2. Alan Rusbridger, who has been the editor-in-chief of the Guardian for almost 20 years, is stepping down from the role in 2015. He is set to become chair of the Guardian's sole shareholder and ownership body, The Scott Trust. 3. A new study has shown Millennial Media, Yahoo, and AOL are among the big name companies selling low quality ads. Pixalate’s analysis of 400 ad tech companies rated Google AdExchange the top programmatic advertising seller. 4. Instagram now has 300 million users. That makes it larger than Twitter. 5. McDonald’s is paring down its menu in order to improve customer service. The fast food giant is removing eight items and five extra value meals from the menu next month. 6. Former Yahoo COO Henrique de Castro has spoken out for the first time about being fired last year for failing to meet ad sales goals. He told LinkedIn’s Isabelle Roughol: “I was fired and that’s OK. Being fired is part of your career options.” 7. The “tremor” threatening traditional TV viewing has turned into a “quake,” according to a new PwC report, covered by the Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today. For younger viewers, digital alternatives are “slowly chipping away at cable — and on their way to replacing it entirely,” the report says. 8. Unilever’s Dove Men+Care is returning to the Super Bowl after a five year absence, Adweek reports. The brand’s director of marketing Jennifer Bremner says the ad will celebrate and define what it means to be a man today and challenge typical macho stereotypes in advertising. 9. Insurance company Nationwide is another brand returning to the Super Bowl after a hiatus, AdAge reports. The company’s last Super Bowl appearance was in 2006. 10. Facebook held a whiteboard session at the company’s headquarters Wednesday to showcase the utility of combining Atlas + LiveRail + the Facebook Audience Network, TechCrunch reports. The subtext of the session was that attempting to pump up its stance as a successor to TV advertising. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Sony Is Launching A Counterattack Against Its Hackers | ||
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Sony has launched a counter-attack against people trying to downloaded leaked files stolen from its servers after a massive hack. Re/code is reporting that Sony is using Amazon Web Services to rent cloud computer power, and aim traffic at sites offering the company's files for download. Sony's attack is actually similar to a tactic used by cyber-criminals. When hackers want to take down a website, they point huge amounts of internet traffic at it. That's called a "distributed denial of service" attack. Sony is essentially doing the same thing to fight back against hackers. Re/code says that Sony is using Amazon's online cloud computing supplier to create a flood of fake "seed" sources for the stolen documents, which are available as torrent files (a peer to peer file sharing service that lets dozens of people share bits of files simultaneously). Anyone requesting a torrent copy of the seed file is likely to get a fake seed — and thus won't get the documents. Sony realises that it can't stop everyone downloading the documents (they're all over the internet). But what it can do is disrupt the networks offering them, making them more difficult to obtain. The move is interesting in part because it shows that Sony isn't just a hapless victim of hackers. It has some tech tools of its own with which is can fight a rearguard action. The tactic of frustrating internet users into quitting their illicit activity is one that Hollywood has been doing for years. Major movie studios upload fake copies of mainstream movies to file-sharing sites. Users only realise the files are fake after spending hours downloading them, which movie studios hope will deter them from illegal file-sharing in the future. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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