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'Lame' Mac malware finds success in spearphishing

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Previously unseen Mac spyware that was recently found an Angolan activist's laptop was made by a well-organised group of Indian hackers who have been in the espionage business for the past three to four years, according to new research by Norwegian security firm Norman.

Norman's chief researcher Snorre Fagerland began investigating the group after Norway's largest carrier Telenor revealed it was compromised in a spearphishing attack on executives in March.

Telenor made the rare move of handing samples of the malware to Norway's National Security Authority, NorCERT, which Fagerland and Shadowserver Foundation researcher Ned Moran were able to analyse for their investigation.

According to Fagerland, the group behind the malware used in the Telenor attack have built an extensive command and control network of over 600 domains that have been used to distribute hundreds of pieces of keylogger and other information-stealing malware created by the group, or simply host phishing pages. 

"I think we have about 800 different [malware] samples in our sample set that we know are related to this," Fagerland told ZDNet.

The group's main method of attack is phishing emails combined with malware, said Fagerland, who has dubbed the operation 'HangOver' because the term is encoded in a family of malware created by the group. Much of the coding is outsourced to contractors, however.  

"The data we have appears to indicate that a group of attackers based in India may have employed multiple developers tasked with delivering specific malware," said Fagerland.

For example, one sample included a reference to 'VB Team Matrix Production', which indicated a team was dedicated to building with Visual Basic development tools. "The projects seem to be delegated into tasks, of which some seem to follow a monthly cycle," Norman notes in its report. 

Targets were based in a range of countries, including Pakistan US, China, Iran, Thailand, Jordan, Indonesia, the UK, Norway, Germany, Austria, Poland and Romania.

Fagerland said he's certain the Mac spyware found on the Angolan activist's computer, which was signed with a valid Apple Developer ID account and designed to siphon screenshots from victims, was the work of HangOver hackers.

"The reason we're certain this malware was from the same group is because we know that it connects to the same command and control," said Fagerland.

Despite successfully compromising Telenor, the hackers are not advanced and rely on exploits for old, patched Internet Explorer, Java and Microsoft Word flaws. However, the group is well-organised, according to Fagerland.

"They're good at bulk actions like registering domains in bulk and managing many computers, but the code is not that advanced and the operational security appears to have been really bad in terms of covering their tracks; other players in this environment are much better at that," he said.

The researchers uncovered a number of unsecured command servers that contained data that had been stolen from malware infected computers, while the hackers signed their malicious creations with the same certificate. 

"The group appears not to be very advanced, but they are really aggressive in picking targets and once they have picked the target they are trying over and over again," said Fagerland.

The company is certain the group is located in India due to repeat use of the same IP addresses, website domain registrations and identifiers in the malicious code itself. 

And that key is almost older than dirt – cut prices.

"A price point that low seems far-fetched considering the mobile PC prices of today, with Ultrabooks and other ultrathins going as high as $1,000 or more," said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS. "However, the small laptops known as netbooks saw their prices reach down into the $200 range at the height of their popularity a few years ago, and a cost analysis of netbooks shows how such a low level of pricing can be used to support a no-frills type of ultrathin PC."

Stice arrives at this conclusion by examining the major components of a netbook on a third-quarter 2013 timeline, and pricing them out at $207.82.

"Hitting this kind of price point is not impossible for the PC industry, already a cutthroat market accustomed to razor-thin margins," wrote Stice on a statement to ZDNet. "Such a possibility was stated by outgoing Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who during Intel’s first-quarter earnings call in April made the bold prediction that touch-enabled, ultrathin Intel-based notebooks using non-core processors could be available by the end of this year."

Crunching the numbers, Stice found that Intel can control up to 33 percent of the total bill-of-materials cost for a PC just through the CPU and motherboard, and that a price break on these components would allow OEMs to drive down prices, which, in turn, would be further pushed down through competition.

While netbooks floundered because of their limited computing power, which in turn made them more suite to content consumption than creation, IHS believes that Intel's Bay trail hardware – assuming it delivers the promised power and excellent battery life – should give the PC market a "much-needed shot in the arm" and could ignite a new mobile PC market revolution.

While IHS's optimistic outlook is a valid one, there are a lot of ifs and buts. It relies on Intel delivering the goods with Bay Trail, Microsoft giving OEMs the chance to pick up Windows 8 licenses at a competitive price, consumers being interested in the form factor, the likes of Apple not disrupting the market with another 'must have' device, and Amazon not unleashing a $99 Kindle on the market.

Bay Trail is important to the PC market, but there's plenty of variables that could derail the juggernaut.

Veja is one of the oldest weeklies in the country with distribution of over a million copies. Its cover stories could be about anything from Angelina Jolie’s mastectomy to the latest corruption scandal, but last edition covered the basics of big data and what it means to the man on the street.

The piece, written by a magazine correspondent in New York, used US case studies of how analytics capability is employed at businesses such as Target, Amazon and Google. Examples such as gunfire locator ShotSpotter and Brad Pitt's movie Moneyball were used to illustrate big data scenarios.  An infographic explaining information storage units, as well as processing speed,  was also included.

While all of this of this may seem a bit basic – especially for ZDNet readers – a bit of context gives some food for thought:

Veja’s typical reader, according to its publisher Abril, belongs to the top of the social pyramid (about 71% belong to the so-called A and B classes, basically the wealthiest chunk of Brazilian society) and the largest slice of its readership pie is about 25-34 years old.  

These people own the latest gadgets, publish their photos on Instagram and videos on Vine, access company mail through a BYOD client, stream music via Spotify and watch movies on Netflix without ever thinking about what a zettabyte is – despite talking about technology all the time, all they know is that they want instant access to any information they want and ability to store anything they need.

Veja’s cover story could have been published by a publication in the US – as it doesn’t include any big data examples that reflect the trends in Brazil –  but the cheat sheet is relevant to the magazine’s audience, particularly when it comes to how businesses are using the information that they give away. 

Sure, the magazine readers might know about how credit scoring works, but did it cross their minds that MasterCard knows that people who fill up at the gas station are likely to spend 50 dollars at a supermarket or restaurant? From my personal experience and observations, Brazilians are a lot more relaxed about how their data is collected and used than their European or American counterparts – but this might well change as people start to get a better understanding of these practices.

Regardless of how it is approached, it is interesting to see that a generic publication would print a story entirely focused on big data, because it highlights that the priorities of technology decision-makers and what Joo and Maria do in their digital lives is totally intertwined. And that IT is definitely no longer for geeks only.

I've decided that my problem with Windows 8 is not Windows 8, but my PC's lack of support for touch. Can you suggest a way I can add touch to my PC without replacing my entire PC?

I sure can. In fact, I can suggest a number of ways you can add touch support t an existing PC.

Touch monitor

When we think of touch, we automatically think of touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets, which is why when we think of a touch-enabled PC, we think of a touchscreen PC. And there are a number of touchscreens on the market that you can buy to add to an existing system.

There are a number of displays on the market, but here are three worth taking a look at.

• Acer T232HL: 23-inch display with 10-point touch support. Price: $550.
• Dell S2340T: 23-inch display with 10-point touch support. A gorgeous display packed with features such as a webcam, USB 3.0 ports, and a versatile stand. The only drawback is the steep price tag. Price: $650.
• Viewsonic TD2220: A nice, cheap 22-inch display. The biggest drawback of this is that the bezel around the display makes getting to the edges for edge-gestures a bit of a pain. Price: $285.

There are pros and cons to touchscreens.

Pros:

• Easy and intuitive to use.
• Easy upgrade to carry out.

Cons:

• You have to replace the whole monitor (unless you keep the old one and add it as a second screen).
• Expensive.

Pen tablet

Another touch option is to add a pen tablet. This gives you a quick and easy way to add touch at a low price and without much fuss.

I recommend taking a look at the Wacom range of tablets, in particular the Intuos5 range, which come in small, medium, and large, and can not only be used with a pen, but also feature a touch-sensitive surface. Prices range from $230 to $500, depending on size.

Pros:

• Great dual-use tool.
• Perfect for artists, photographers, and creative types.
• Option to switch between pen and tablet.

Cons:

• Quite pricey.
• Tablets take up a lot of desk space.

Touch-enabled peripherals

Windows 8 has spawned a mass of touch-enabled peripherals from companies such as Logitech and Microsoft, ranging from touchpads to touch-enabled mice.

Pros:

• Cheap.
• Easy to add to a system.
• Plenty of choice.

Cons:

• Can be confusing to set up.
• Not as intuitive to use as a touchscreen.
• Not a pure touch experience.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the Friday rumor, and now Monday morning confirmation, that Yahoo will buy social microblogging network Tumblr for $1.1 billion. In typical tech industry fashion, the news spilled out in bits and pieces over the weekend. (No rest for the weary, as they say.)

The deal is interesting for a number of reasons.

First, it is the latest bold move by chief executive Marissa Mayer, made shortly after the 10-month anniversary of her installment in Yahoo's top spot. Whatever your criticisms of her, you can't fault her for trying to rock Yahoo's purple boat, and Tumblr's massive install base certainly gives the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet stalwart the younger, more social audience it seeks for its advertising business.

Second, it is equal validation and capitulation for Tumblr founder David Karp, who successfully created a product that users—84 million of them, in just six years' time—adored but also a company (with 175 employees and $125 million in venture funding) that lacked revenue to match, totaling just $13 million in 2012. It is exceedingly difficult to create something that will catch on with millions of people worldwide; Karp did so with an unbroken focus on his end user. But it is twice as hard to do this in a way that turns a profit. (Karp famously said in 2010: "We're pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.")

Finally, Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr demonstrates, as has been demonstrated with many M&A deals before this, that large companies—particularly public ones, awash in quarterly thinking—continue to have grave issues in fostering disruptive innovation. It is true that Mayer is on a tight timetable: the average length of a contemporary Yahoo CEO's tenure is less than two years, and Mayer doesn't have the job security to make six-year bets, even if she has the stomach for them. But really, which large Internet company does?

In an industry where the question, "Build it, or buy it?" is oft-repeated, how come so many companies build it (once they're too late) and buy it (only to later ruin it)? Why is it so hard for Yahoo or AOL or Facebook or Mayer's former Google or even ZDNet's own parent company, CBS Interactive, to make an early bet on the smartest 20-year-old in the office?

The great Clay Christensen explains in his landmark 1997 book, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms To Fail:

The established firms were, in fact, aggressive, innovative, and customer-sensitive in their approaches to sustaining innovations of every sort. But the problem established firms seemed unable to confront successfully is that of downward vision and mobility, in terms of the trajectory map. Finding new applications and markets for these new products seems to be a capability that each of these firms exhibited once, upon entry, and then apparently lost. It was as if the leading firms were held captive by their customers, enabling attacking entrant firms to topple the incumbent industry leaders each time a disruptive technology emerged.

You can see the parallells in today's Internet giants: Yahoo's customer base is now considered "old," though it wasn't in the company's late-1990s heyday, and so it finds itself on the prowl for new blood. AOL is in a similar situation, and acquired The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and the entire Weblogs network (Engadget, Joystiq) for this reason. Google has managed to keep some focus on the future by prioritizing talent acquisition and "Innovation Time Off," even as it makes big-company missteps (Motorola, Zagat) elsewhere.

"We promise not to screw it up," Mayer wrote on her hours-old Tumblog this morning.

And so the big lesson in the $1.1 billion Yahoo-Tumblr deal is that the Internet's largest companies remain astonishingly good at sustaining themselves but frightfully bad at disrupting the market, even in an industry that prizes and even idolizes such activity. Year after year, they continue to pay the steep price for not fostering their own disruptive innovation, even as those innovations are born from their own ex-employees. (Google alone counts Instagram's Kevin Systrom, Foursquare's Dennis Crowley, Pinterest's Ben Silbermann and Twitter's Evan Williams among its alumni. Recent valuations of those companies: $1 billion, $700 million, $2.5 billion, $10 billion.)

And so now we have Tumblr. Many have already suggested that if Mayer is smart, she'll leave Tumblr's (clean, restrained, intuitive, iterative, mobile-first) product development alone and simply enjoy the benefits of having its many users in the company database; I would go one further and say that this deal's success is predicated on keeping David Karp and the talented team he has assembled on the company payroll and flush with authority and resources.

My company would know. In July 2006, the former CNET Networks acquired the website Karp was working on, UrbanBaby, but not the then-20-year-old product director himself. Seven months later, he launched Tumblr.

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes told reporters in Brussels, according to a European publication, that the European Commission will soon bring forward proposals to knock down the virtual cellular walls between member states in order to create a single market for all mobile users.

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EU tells member states to open up spectrum for more 4G

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"A telecoms market without borders, without fragmentation, and that is the major priority for the rest of my mandate," Kroes said. She added that she has "no intention to retire" until she has "knocked down all the barriers to the single market."

In a nutshell, this would kill any inter-country roaming charges that currently bite customers' mobile bills. The executive body of Europe also wants to improve spectrum uptake for next-generation broadband services.

Kroes empathized with businesses that find roaming charges a "costly irritant," and warned that in the upcoming "Internet of things" trend, it will become even more difficult for machine-to-machine (M2M) to succeed.

With your European passport travel freely to any other European member state without security restrictions, thanks to the Schengen Agreement of unrestricted travel across the continent. But the same doesn't apply for your mobile or cell provider. Roaming charges still bitterly hurt many consumers and businesses alike, particularly those with branch offices around Europe.

Already, thanks to a directive passed by the European Parliament, data roaming charges have begun to fall. Data roaming charges will be fully limited to 70 euro cents per 1MB of data downloaded from last July, which will fall further to 50 euro cents per 1MB downloaded this July.

According to the Commission at the time: "For a typical businessperson travelling in the EU this will mean savings of over €1,000 [$1,285] per year. A family taking an annual holiday in another EU country can expect to save at least €200 [$257]."

The Commission says completing the "internal mobile market" will add an additional 0.8 percent to Europe's gross domestic product (GDP), or €110 billion ($141.4bn).

The hope is that EU-based firms can gain a competitive edge over their U.S.-based counterparts. Because while the U.S. has six major cellular firms to cover a population of 310 million, the EU has more than 100 cellular firms covering more than 500 citizens.

But it’s worth taking a look back at the company’s history. Five years ago this month, Yahoo turned down an unsolicited acquisition offer by Microsoft that would have netted YHOO stockholders $33 per share. If you owned Yahoo shares five years ago and decided to stay the course, it’s been a pretty miserable five years, as this chart attests:

Chart: Marketwatch.com

That might have been the biggest bullet Microsoft ever dodged. And it’s not just the $47.5 billion in cash that would have disappeared from the company’s bank accounts that would have been at risk.

The goal of a combined Microsoft-Yahoo was to compete directly with Google on advertising and search. It would have been the culmination of an acquisition spree in which Microsoft bought at least eight search and advertising related companies. And in an interview at the D6 conference five years ago this week, CEO Steve Ballmer still spoke bravely about advertising. But it was clear that drastic changes were afoot.

Given Google’s effective monopoly on search, it’s unlikely that adding Yahoo’s resources would have made a difference in total share. And that’s not just speculation. Three years ago, Microsoft and Yahoo signed a 10-year revenue-per-search deal that was supposed to create an effective Google competitor. It’s been a dud.

Instead, the failure to complete the Yahoo acquisition seems to have ended Microsoft’s dreams of being a giant in online advertising. There were no further acquisitions in that space, and last year Microsoft took a $6.2 billion writeoff of its biggest acquisition in that space, aQuantive.

What else would have happened if that acquisition had succeeded?

• Microsoft management would have been distracted during one of the most crucial times in the company’s history, as it recovered from Vista’s real and perceived problems and prepared to launch Windows 7 and Office 2010 (those two products were still nearly 18 months away from public release).
• Engineering resources would have been strained, at a time when much of the engineering work on multi-touch support for the next release of Windows was just beginning. Microsoft introduced multi-touch support in Windows 7 but it wasn’t fully integrated into the OS until Windows 8.
• On a global scale, efforts to protect online privacy would have spiraled downward. One of the unintended consequences of Microsoft’s failed acquisition was that it de-emphasized the ad business and eventually turned online privacy into a potential competitive advantage. In early 2008, Microsoft’s advertising division had enough clout to veto a genuinely innovative privacy feature in Internet Explorer. Today, Do Not Track is enabled by default in IE 10 and Microsoft is attacking Google publicly and privately on its privacy flaws.
• The efforts to make an ad-supported Office might have accelerated. Office 2010 included a Starter Edition (Word and Excel only) that was free with new PCs and ad-supported. Thankfully, Microsoft dropped Starter Edition completely in Office 2013, instead focusing on free Web apps as the right way to reach consumers.

After dropping its ambitions to become an online advertising giant, Microsoft chose to pursue a “devices and services” strategy instead. There’s no guarantee that this business model will succeed, but there’s also no question that Microsoft is better prepared to fight this battle than it would have been if it had been dragging around the weight of Yahoo for the past five years.

The biggest threat to the U.S. Air Force may not be ground-to-air missiles, hostile Russian forces on the Bering Strait, or a foreign invasion of British troops across the eastern seaboard.

It's paper. And iPads are saving the day, according to reports.

The U.S. Air Force will save approximately $50 million across ten years — more than $5 million per year — on replacing heavy, cost-ineffective paper manuals and flight plans, which in some cases contain tens of thousands of pages of information, with Apple-branded tablets. 

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iPhones, iPads cleared for U.S. military use; DOD fortifies cloud

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According to The Street, the need to deploy Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) will free up weight taken on board the aircraft and allow additional resources to be loaded instead. 

"We're saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper pile," Major Brian Moritz, the U.S. Air Force's EFB program manager, told the financial publication.

Last year, the Air Force's Air Mobility Command (AMC) was granted a $9.3 million contract for 18,000 iPads — despite not at the time being cleared for U.S. government use — in order to replace the bulky flight manuals. 

According to the report, the weight of a stocky person can be saved in a four-person C-17 transport plane, and up to double that in a C-5 behemoth. By comparison, the latest iPad with Retina display weighs just 1.46 pounds and can store millions of flight plans and document pages. 

The Air Force is aiming to save at least $5.7 million in fuel costs alone, which is "well over $50 million," according to the major. But the cost saving isn't everything. Being able to quickly pull up "engine fire" through a simple PDF search is far easier — and less stressful — than flicking through tens of thousands of pages of text. It also might save the U.S. taxpayer even more money in the long run by not crashing the $168 million mega-plane into a mountain or a Taliban stronghold.

Now 16,000 third-generation iPads are being dished out to crew members, with the other 2,000 iPads deploying across other units. 

Last week, the U.S. military certified Apple's iOS 6 operating system, used on both iPhones and iPads, secure enough for low-level clearance work. This came just days after the U.S. government cleared the software for government use earlier in May after being granted FIPS 140-2 status.

Weeks after the new measure was signed into law, Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s staff received an email expressing the NSA concerns about the new tax, pointing out that it came as a surprise and that stable power prices were one of the major factors that led to the selection of the Utah site. The surprise part was itself surprising, as an attorney for Utah stated that the agency had been informed of the proposed tax before the measure had been signed by the Governor.

With an estimated yearly power bill of $40 million, the tax would add an additional $2.4 million to the operating costs of the datacenter. All of the major state level players who were involved in attracting the datacenter project are claiming that they were unaware of the potential tax, nor were any of them consulted about the impact it could have on the datacenter facility. At this point in time, the newspaper is reporting that there are negotiations ongoing about the facility, and its tax liability is scheduled to be resolved by September.

The technology works by keeping orders, back orders and inventory information synchronized across brick and mortar stores, telephone support forums, and multiple social or online venues. The service also supports merchandising by allowing businesses to analyze purchasing behavior and to connect that information with outbound marketing resources.

In any event, Brightpearl has quietly been building up support for several key small-business e-commerce platforms. At the beginning of May, it announced integrations with Shopify, Big Commerce and Amazon.com Marketplace.

Here's what's new:

• Under the Shopify relationship, retailers will be able to use Brightpearl to manage the inventory needs for multiple storefronts and multiple brands. 
• Likewise, the Big Commerce deal will help create a master inventory function across multiple locations and product types. 
• The Brightpearl service can now be used with Amazon.com marketplaces in the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Among other things, the software will let a retailer pull listings into its stock-listing system in bulk, creating an SKU record for each one.

Bigpearl also supports Magento, eBay and eKMPowershop.com. It is priced starting at $99 per user per month; there is a $120 connector fee to set up the connections to all the e-commerce channels that it currently supports.

If you are in the process of evaluating the inventory management piece of your e-commerce strategy, here are some other companies you might want to evaluate, aside from Brighpearl:

• Cyber-Stockroom, which starts at $25 per month for up to 100 products
• Clearly Inventory, priced starting at $25 per user per month
• Stockpile (from Canvus), right now, it's free
• Netsuite Inventory Management, for which there is no clear pricing information
• Stitch Labs, starting at $25 per month for up to 25 orders and integration with one e-commerce channel. Note: another reason to look at this solution is support for social commerce marketplace Etsy (see my recent blog about social commerce vs. e-commerce)

This motivation, for example, was behind 8KMiles' acquisition this week of FuGen Solutions, which is a cloud identity services broker.

Cloud identity management technology is also behind an update to the ADSelfServicePlus tool from ManageEngine, the IT management development arm of Zoho. 

The software lets IT administrators synchronize passwords between Active Directory and supported cloud applications or services. The supported platforms include Microsoft Office 365, Azure, Oracle E-Business, Salesforce Apps, Google Apps, Box, and Dropbox.

"Our users are finding that passwords to cloud services are just as difficult to remember as passwords to traditional applications when there's no single sign-on solution in place, and the help desk pays the price in a deluge of password reset requests," said Manikandan Thangaraj, director of product development at ManageEngine, in a press release about the software updates.

If you choose not to synchronize the passwords, they can still be reset individually. That all depends, of course, on an organization's security policy.

The ADSelfService Plus tool also allows companies to embrace customized password complexity policies, such as password length or parameters that are necessary for verification.

The Standard Edition of the software starts at $595 per year for 500 users.

Here's what Desktone has to say about its new offerings

Desktone, Inc., the pioneer of Desktops as a Service (DaaS), announced today it has extended its cloud-hosted desktop platform with a new on-premises, cloud-managed virtual desktop solution. The new offering resides at the customer site and is managed remotely by a Cloud Provider, giving enterprises and SMBs the flexibility to choose the cloud model that best suits their business: public, private, or hybrid. Now, Desktone provides the ultimate flexibility by offering different desktop options, including Microsoft RDS, VDI, and Remote Apps, across public, private and hybrid cloud environments — eliminating the barriers associated with traditional VDI deployments.

Desktone’s on-premises, cloud-managed virtual desktop solution enables Service Providers to deploy virtual desktops in the customer’s data center and remotely mange provisioning and ongoing management. By leveraging Desktone’s unique multi-tenancy and multi-data center capabilities, Service Providers can securely manage virtual desktops for multiple customers using a single platform, while IT can easily add, remove and edit their virtual desktops across locations.

The new on-premises offerings include both enterprise and SMB/Branch Office configurations:

• Enterprise customers can leverage existing private cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environments or use the Desktone blueprint, which includes a choice of server hardware, NetApp or EMC storage, and desktop virtualization software.
• SMBs and branch office deployments can deploy a pre-configured, all-in-one virtual desktop appliance, which includes GreenByte’s vIO virtual storage, as well as compute and desktop virtualization software.
  
  Leading cloud providers, such as Dell, Fujitsu, Time Warner Cable and Dimension Data, have selected Desktone’s Platform to offer hosted desktops and apps as a cloud service due to unique cloud features that enable them to deliver the easiest-to-deploy and lowest-cost virtual desktops in the market.

Snapshot analysis

Desktop as a Service (DaaS), or putting virtualized desktop environments out into the clouds, would appear, on the face of it, to be a low-cost but flexible option for those not wishing to deal with a personal computer on every desktop. It also appears to solve software installation, software maintenance, data sharing and remote data access problems as well. Why hasn't its use skyrocketed?

Concerns about performance and reliability, as well as putting corporate data into the hands of a service provider, all come to mind as inhibitors to adoption.

Desktone, one of the originators of the concept of DaaS, believes it has a solution. Why not, Desktone asks, make the infrastructure software that supports DaaS available to enterprises and service providers alike? That way, the company believes, companies can deploy DaaS in-house, in the clouds or use both approaches depending upon the individual, the workloads, or other categories.

Will Desktone's move change DaaS adoption strategies? The answer isn't clear yet. What is clear is that Desktone is doing its best to remove obstacles to DaaS adoption.

Wall Street is expecting earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of $28.08 billion for the second quarter. Analysts are modeling that HP will project a weaker third quarter sequentially with sales of $27.78 billion.

Evercore Partners analyst Rob Cihra said that he sees "almost no way for HP to meet consensus revenue expectations." Earnings, however, can do well do to a weaker Yen — HP's printing components are made in Japan — and restructuring. Weak PC sales should also help gross margins.

Cihra projects that HP's PC sales will be down 21 percent year over year due to bloated inventory levels with enterprise revenue down 7 percent due to weak results from x86 servers, business critical systems and storage. Services sales are likely to also be weak.

The bottom line:

We continue to see much of HP's hoped-for fiscal year 2013 stability flowing from its most recent, deep rounds of restructuring cuts. But HP has already booked more than $7B in pre-tax restructuring charges over the past 8yrs and yet we do not think that has helped its revenue or competitive momentum, with year over year revenue erosion continuing across every business and margin compression in every segment but printing. We just don’t see how HP can cut its way to a sustainable turnaround.

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore had a similar view. "We believe underlying fundamentals at HP remain under significant pressure due to challenging demand conditions in PCs, printers, servers and storage," said Whitmore.

There are a few things that can go right. For starters, HP recently launched new printers and that could help that unit. The printing industry overall remains weak. HP's launch of Project Moonshot should give the company something positive to mention for its server business.

Dell makes HP's life difficult

After multiple quarters of deciding market share in PCs didn't matter, Dell went to bolster its position in its most recent quarter. Given Dell is going private, the company needs to fortify its sales base amid the uncertainty. As a result, Dell's share vs. profit approach on PCs likely hurt HP in a big way.

Whitmore added:

Dell’s recent earnings results show it was very price aggressive in PCs (focused on share vs. profitable growth) which points to material weakness for HPs PC revs and profitability.

In other words, HP's PC results are going to struggle largely due to a price war initiated by Dell. Dell's plan is to acquire customers at the expense of profit margins. "We believe Dell’s pricing strategy is in response to aggressive tactics from Lenovo and HP last year, which resulted in Dell share losses," explained Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty.

Dell CFO Brian Gladden said last week on the company's earnings conference call:

We are trying to run the business based on that and be in a position where we are in this thing for the long term, and we position the business for success for the long term.

Most analysts said they expected HP to forgo market share and preserve profits this quarter. Dell did the same thing in recent quarters, but then cracked.

There is a free app in the Chrome App Store that turns the Chrome browser into a remote control system to access Windows PCs and Macs remotely. Remote control using the Chrome Remote Desktop app is possible from any Chrome browser, but is particularly useful when the Chromebook Pixel is used with its touch screen.

In the video below, the Chromebook Pixel is demonstrated running Windows 8 remotely on an HP Envy x2 hybrid PC. The camera angle was chosen to show the Pixel display running Windows 8 remotely while leaving a corner of the Envy x2 screen in view. This clearly demonstrates the slight lag between the two systems.

The Chrome Remote Desktop app is installed on every system you wish to use as either a host or client during remote control sessions. Each system has a unique PIN number, ensuring security is maintained.

The app passes only single touch controls from the Pixel touch screen, so multi-touch gestures cannot be used to control the remote system. Simple controls such as touching icons on the Pixel screen work fine on the Windows system. The Pixel trackpad can control the Windows 8 system without issues.

The lack of a dedicated Windows key on the Chromebook Pixel is not a problem. Ctrl-Esc can be used to switch between the Metro start screen and any app. The Chrome Remote Desktop app can control both Metro and desktop apps with ease.

The good performance of the Chrome Remote Desktop app lends itself well for using Chromebooks in enterprise settings. The cheap Chromebook can be used for most work tasks with access to work systems when needed.

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In India's latest round of tax demands hurled at tech firms, Infosys is expected to pay $105.3 million.

India's second-largest software services exporter, Infosys, is planning to appeal an income tax demand of 5.77 billion rupees ($105.3 million) set by Indian authorities, according to Reuters.

The demand has been made in relation to software development completed overseas — and therefore accounting for tax benefits which follow — in addition to revenue generated from "special economic zones in India," according to a company statement. The firm contends that the latest demand disregards tax clarification set by the Indian government in January.

Infosys is also contesting a number of similar tax demands made for the fiscal years from 2005 to 2009, according to a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing reads:

"The company has received demands from the Indian IT authorities for payments of additional taxes totalling USD 214 million, including interest of USD 62 million upon completion of their tax review for fiscal 2005, fiscal 2006, fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2008."

The software services exporter plans to appeal the demand.

Infosys is not the only company to fall foul of India's tax laws. Vodafone was first to sit up and take notice of India's changing tax legislation. In March 2012, the Indian government revealed plans to amend tax laws dating back to 1962, and in response, Vodafone considered setting aside capital for a $2.2 billion tax bill to mitigate potential legal risks.

Smart move, it seems, as Google India was next to receive a slap on the wrist and a $13.8 million fine from the income tax office for allegedly "misleading the department, underdeclaring its income, violating accounting rules and attempting to show wrong revenues." Google India denied the claims and has appealed. This year, the department has claimed that Samsung India owes 1.14 billion rupees ($207 million) in back taxes, and has demanded that Nokia pays out $383 million over tax evasion claims.

Indian authorities may be quick to issue demands, but the government may not be so agreeable to paying back funds from IT companies. According to reports, the Indian government owes at least $547.6 million in service tax refunds to IT firms alone, but for some companies, delays in receiving money have stretched as far as nine years.

A website that can be described as "DDoS for hire" is perfectly legitimate, according to the owner. Considering the FBI is secretly monitoring the site's customers through a backdoor, is that the end of the story?

Ragebooter.net is one of many sites that accepts payment — through PayPal — in order to flood sites with junk traffic, overloading servers and denying others access. The service uses a technique called DNS reflection to flood a website and amplify the amount of traffic directed at an address; the attacker is required to spoof the IP address of lookup requests and then bounce them off open domain name system servers. This has the potential to amplify a traffic torrent by up to 50 times.

However, what makes Ragebooter different is the hidden backdoor allegedly used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which allows the agency to secretly monitor what customers are up to.

In a recent profile of the DDoS hiring service by KrebsonSecurity reporter Brian Krebs, the owner of the site is revealed as Tennessee-based Justin Poland. After hunting down the owner through social media and securing an interview, Krebs found the proprietor unapologetic and defensive about the legality of the service. Poland told the reporter:

"Since it is a public service on a public connection to other public servers this is not illegal. Nor is spoofing the sender address. If the root user of the server does not want that used they can simply disable recursive DNS. My service is a legal testing service. How individuals use it is at their own risk and responsibilities.

I do not advertise this service anywhere nor do I entice or encourage illegal usage of the product. How the user uses it is at their own risk. I provide logs to any legal law enforcement and keep logs for up to 7 days."

Poland then revealed that he works with the FBI, which allows the business to stay online in return for full access and the ability to monitor customer activity. The agency also added an IP logger to the backdoor system so it could log user IPs as they access the service.

Krebs recounts that Ragebooter's owner did not stipulate off-the-record conversation, and threatened to sue if the agency's involvement with the service was shared. After contacting the FBI's press office, they could neither confirm or deny Poland's claims. Spokesman for the Memphis FBI field office commented:

"People come forward all the time and make claims they are working with us, and sometimes it's true and sometimes it’s not. But it wouldn't be prudent for us to confirm that we have individuals helping us or assisting us, either because they're being good citizens or because they're somehow compelled to."

What gives the story another twist, however, is that researchers found that junk traffic floods include the ragebooter.net username. In addition, the site itself was hacked this year and the credentials of users were leaked online.

Ragebooter.net appears to account for more than 400 attacks per day.

With this increasing fast, it becomes a challenge for businesses to manage these signups on their own especially if the startup or enterprise has a global offering or service. Keeping track of recurring bills manually is certainly not an option. Businesses should focus on providing their product or service to customers and can save money and time if they're able to resolve the hassle that comes with managing these online subscriptions. That's where Chargebee comes in. 

The Chennai-based startup is your off-the-shelf plug-and-play billing tool that's delivered on the cloud. You can connect with ChargeBee via API (application programming interface) if you are technically inclined or use PCI-compliant hosted payment pages to collect payments, and go live in a matter of minutes.

ChargeBee says it provides a robust and flexible billing system to enable your sales and marketing team to run special promotions, as well as the right tools for your support team to bill accurately and respond faster for billing queries. And it helps collect payments online from payment gateway of your choice.

I had a word with Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Chargebee, over an e-mail interview where he gave an idea of what his product does and how it helps various startups and enterprises. 

Q: How did the idea for Chargebee come about?
Krish: Zoho was one of the early companies that saw the opportunity in cloud and transformed itself from a Network Management Service provider (then called Adventnet) to a cloud-based services provider. That is a well documented story.  

KP Saravanan was one of the early employees of Adventnet, and Rajaraman Santhanam and T. Thiyagarajan had been with Zoho for over 10 years. So the opportunity was very clear to us. Rajaraman and I were classmates during engineering days and we have always wanted a startup of on our own. So that is how we all came together and decided to start ChargeBee.

We could see rapid SaaS (software-as-a-service) adoption as an area which requires subscription, besides the fact that the world is moving toward a subscription economy.

 Sample of the subscription economy:

• Online TV, digital magazine, retail subscriptions, health center, school fees--all of them have an element of recurring payments about them.
• Today you no longer need to buy a BMW or Audi to use it. You can lease it. The pay-as-you-go model is not new to car rental, real estate rental, media or insurance industries.
• Adobe, one of the big players in traditional installable software is soon moving away from the one-time licensing model and taking the leap toward subscriptions.
• With large-scale adoption of SaaS and supporting services coming up online, we see this as a huge opportunity to build a platform that serves the SMB segment in providing billing services. The application of online subscription billing as a model is tremendous across multiple verticals, as the business model by itself is quite nascent. It has a long way to mature.

What business problems were you looking to solve through Chargebee?
If you are building an online product or service, there is a core value proposition that your customers try out before they decide to buy. The quality of the product and, more importantly, the service itself is what sets you apart from your competitors. You need to continuously iterate and improve on the product while customers continue to use it on a daily basis. This is like changing the engine of your car while it's running.

To help you deliver that service phenomenally well, you also need some great supporting applications to enable you do it well. For example, you'll need CRM, analytics, helpdesk, and accounting systems to automate your operational pieces and gain insights. We believe ChargeBee is a service in this category that will continue to enable cloud applications to serve their customers way better by being a subscription-based infrastructure provider.

Since three of the founding team members are from Zoho, we understand which components get built over and over again, and subscription management is a component that needs to be built for every service that is launched--just like login management. We believe we are emerging as a billing infrastructure player for online businesses to provide customer lifecycle management and recurring billing.

When you started out, were there startups in the market offering similar services?
Zuora is the biggest player in the subscription billing space serving enterprise customers. Other players addressing the SMB segment are Chargify and Recurly, specializing in recurring payments.

Interestingly we joined hands with our competitor Spreedly, which is pivoting to a slightly different model, to provide support for additional payment gateways and the external vault for storing the credit card data. Times of India's BoxTV.com is one of our first customers under this partnership. 

What kind of pricing do you offer customers. Is this customized?
Our pricing model is based on the number of invoices generated and not as a percentage of the transaction amount, unlike what our competitors offer. This ensures we make money only when our customer makes money. We offer three price-points: Silver plan at US$49 per month for 200 invoices; Gold at $149 per month for 750 invoices; and Platinum $249 per month for 2,000 invoices. Rates for additional invoices vary as per plan.

The service is free until our clients hit 10 invoices per month. And of course we offer custom pricing for customers with higher volume.

This is an interesting point that most subscription businesses need to think about--it is essential to experiment with pricing until you figure out your ideal price-points. However, you also need to ensure clients you are on firm ground. By this, I mean you should always "grandfather-in" the pricing for existing customers even while introducing new pricing for new customers. This is absolutely non-negotiable or you may break the trust with your customer base.

So, at ChargeBee, we assure minimum guarantee of two years grandfather clause in our prices. We also make pricing experimentation a breeze for our own customers. Grandfather-in of prices is the default behavior for even those businesses that use ChargeBee for their payments.

How many transactions does your company now support? Can you provide some stats?
We are doing over 5,000 transactions a month with over 100 customers which have integrated with us. We're growing at 25 percent month-on-month in terms of the number of transactions. There are close to 50 customers that have live transactions delivered via our system right now.

What are the biggest online billing problems your customers face which you want to address?
In SaaS, the pricing model is either based on number of transactions, licenses, or number of users--similar to how it's done for CRM and helpdesk systems. And you expect the customer's business to grow and pay higher amounts while using the service. This brings interesting opportunities and challenges.

Your product not only needs to do its core functions well, you also need a set of tools integrated with the application to manage them well. It requires a customer lifecycle management system and recurring billing tool that helps track, retain, manage, and nurture users that are signing up to become paid customers.

Because you need to collect repeat monthly payments, you need the ability to do frictionless payments and collect these automatically. This is non-negotiable as any amount of friction will lead to customer churn. Typically payment gateways with recurring capability are not built for these use cases.

And you need to allow thousands of customers to "try" the service before a small percentage of them become paid users. A low-touch sales model is required to hand-hold customer, convince them to use product, and explore it themselves while staying engaged through the trial period. Businesses that figure ways to build engagement are super successful.

This is definitely one area where Chargebee helps online businesses.

Who are your primary customers? Can you share some insights on the demographics?
Chargebee caters primarily to SMB customers in the United States, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific--primiarly Singapore and the Australia and New Zealand regions.

We provide verticalized products for SaaS, subscription commerce, and digital media services which are mostly premium newsletter services. We make invoice generation, payments receivables run like clockwork besides providing value-added services like conversion analytics, transactional e-mail system, and integrations with CRM and accounting softwares.

What's the future of subscription billing like for India? 
ChargeBee's primary customer base is outside India. We work with over 30 payment gateways like Braintree, Stripe, and Authorize.net. That said, we support 2Checkout as the payment gateway for Indian businesses that have a global customer base. 

As you may be aware, recurring billing is still a challenge for Indian businesses due to the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) regulation, particularly if you are selling within India. We support 2checkout.com which is a PayPal alternative for Indian businesses that sell globally.

What major challenges do you face as a startup?
Although we do not have much to complain about I feel that, as a ecosystem, we have much work to do to enable startups to thrive within proper regulations. Subscription as a business model is a raging phenomenon in SaaS community globally and validated in various verticals, but it is unfortunate that it is stifled in India due to regulation challenges. 

Many startups are spending precious time solving a regulation problem with technology, when we should be focusing on solving business problems. In the context of India, I hope regulation challenges can be overcome sooner. We have more than 400 startups in India registered with us asking for a tool, but we have fewer than 10 customers using our product from India. The reason being it is hard to solve the problem completely. 

Imagine the possibilities if e-commerce companies can experiment with newer business models like the Zaarlys and BirchBoxes of the world here in India. Or even for the pharma industry to deliver medicines for chronic illnesses. The possibilities are endless, only if startups can focus on solving real-world issues than having to overcome regulation challenges.

What's one key feature in your product that's popular with your customers?
That would be the frictionless upgrade and downgrade of plans. We also provide our customers the ability to easily configure add-ons and promotional offers such as coupons, discounts and so on within seconds. 

Are you hiring? 
We are a 13-member team. We also have five interns--three engineering interns from Anna University and VIT, and two management interns from IIM-K. We are always on the lookout for some great talent to join us on the engineering and marketing side, in entry-level positions with product experience.

The Chinese telecommunications equipment makers could be subject to a formal inquiry to investigate anti-competitive behavior which is affecting European markets, according to Reuters.

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said that the investigation is necessary to protect a "strategic" sector of the European economy. Reference to the two firms comes before global talks expected to begin in July, where the EU will engage in negotiations with the United States to create a free trade pact.

China is second only to the U.S. as critical trading partners with Europe.

De Gucht told the publication that "Huawei and ZTE are dumping their products on the European market," and Chinese state support -- resulting in cheap capital -- creates a "distorted playing field" which can only do European competitors harm.

European telecom equipment makers have not made official complaints against their Chinese rivals, and so if the investigation goes ahead, it will be on the European Commission's own initiative, also known as ex-officio.

Chinese exports to the 27-member bloc totaled $372 billion last year.

In an emailed statement, Huawei denied breaking European laws, commenting that the firm "always plays fair and we win business and trust from our customers through our innovative technology and quality service, rather than via pricing or subsidies."

The official China Daily quoted Tao Jingwen, the president of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in the West Europe Region, who said that the EU should not be judgemental of Chinese firms. The executive denies that Huawei receives government subsidies in order to flood markets with cheap products, and the company will take "strong action" if an investigation is launched.

In addition, Jingwen told the publication that innovation, not subsidies, is critical in order to keep customers -- and if European companies blame China for financial losses, it is "sometimes caused by their own laziness."

An investigation is ready to launch but has been put on hold, giving Europe and China time to come together for a solution before moving down the route of potential sanctions.

Project Ophelia was first shown off at this year's CES. The device -- akin to a USB memory stick -- can be plugged into any monitor or display through the HDMI port to transform it into a smart device. Dell's Project Ophelia will then give both consumers and businesses access to data remotely, providing a virtual window without the need for a PC, tablet or smartphone.

Supporting both private and corporate content, the USB-enabled gadget connects to virtualization platforms from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, increasing security required by those who have to tote information around. IT managers concerned with security have the power to manage and secure individual devices, and so data can be wiped from Ophelia in the case of theft or loss. Administrators can also use the "cloud client manager" to keep tabs on how and where Ophelia is being used.

In addition, Ophelia is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, can connect to peripherals including keyboards and mice, and will run Android 4.0.

Consumers may also find the gadget useful, as it can transform any display in to a console in which to download apps, play Android games, watch movies or use services such as Hulu and Netflix; Jeff McNaught, executive director of cloud client computing at Dell told PC World.

Ophelia also comes with Wyse's PocketCloud, which allows users to access files stored on PCs, servers or mobile devices including tablets and smartphones.

The gadget will cost $100 and begin shipping in July, although Android developers will have the first chance to get their hands on Ophelia.

Inquiring minds want to know: How will Yahoo! ghettoize Tumblr's porn?

The Yahoo! board has agreed to buy Tumblr, whose desirable user base currently has the freedom to post non-commercial adult-themed content.

But Yahoo! is well-known for misunderstanding the user base of properties it acquires and ruining - then scrapping - once-active, and beloved properties.

Many are speculating as to what Yahoo! is going to do with Tumblr's currently successful, user-retaining NSFW content policy.

But if Flickr's rep with poorly policing 'art nudes' is any hint of Tumblr's fate, then we're likely to see lots of once-happy users forced into confusing self-rating protocols, having their accounts banned and years of content deleted with no recourse, and a new content policy practically written by trolls who want the easiest path to shut down people they don't like.

Get out the popcorn, and go back up your Tumblr.

• If Yahoo Buys Tumblr, What Will It Do With All That Porn? (Businessweek)

Odd timing: Tumblr caught hiding search exclusion from its NSFW users

Prior to the Yahoo! sale, Tumblr appears to have been lying to its thousands of NSFW blog users. Even though users were shown an active interface to opt-in to search engine crawlers, any blog self-selected was secretly being blocked from search indexing.

Well-respected, decade-plus sex blogger Bacchus from Eros Blog discovered the issue just before the Yahoo! talks were announced, and attempted to find out what was going on.

Exasperated from getting no answers about the apparent bait-and-switch from Tumblr Bacchus wrote,

If you’ve got an adult blog on Tumblr, there’s a good chance Tumblr uses robots.txt to exclude the search engines from indexing it.

If you’ve got an adult Tumblr, go look at your own settings. Do you see that first checkbox, the one that says “allow search engines to index your blog”? That checkbox is a lie. It’s nicely checked, it’s not greyed out, but if your blog is flagged “adult” it’s a lie.

It would be very interesting to know when the adult search bait-and-switch was implemented in regard to Tumblr's price tag talks with Yahoo!

• Thou Shalt Not Seach Adult Tumblr Blogs (Eros Blog; website is NSFW)

Nintendo: same-sex marriage is a "bug"

Techdirt writes,

Gamers playing Nintendo’s Tomodachi Collection: New Life noticed that this latest iteration of the game, which is very much like The Sims, had the option for the first time to have their male characters marry other male characters and raise children together.”

Nintendo responded by releasing a patch to fix the “bug”, which it says allows for “human relations that become strange.”

• ‘Bug’ Allows Same-Sex Marriage In Nintendo Game, Nintendo Releases Patch To ‘Fix’ It  (Techdirt)

Despite legalities, LinkedIn bans escorts from social network

Even though escorting and sex work is legal in some U.S. states and jurisdictions as well as countries around the world, social site LinkedIn has suddenly banned escorts from using the site. Perhaps Yahoo! is in talks to buy them as well?

Mashable writes,

Linkedin updated its user agreement terms last Monday, adding to the section entitled “Don’t undertake the following,”

LinkedIn now includes this statement: Upload, post, email, InMail, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

• LinkedIn Bans Users From Promoting Prostitution, Escort Services (Mashable)

LinkedIn cracking down on all things grown-up?

Not more than a week after launching a beta version of an app, LinkedIn is revoking its API access to social hook-up app “Bang With Professionals,” a site which aimed to connect potential bangers using LinkedIn’s professional network.

• LinkedIn Shuts Down “Bang With Professionals” Hook-Up App  (AllThingsD)

Determined to fight revenge porn

The Atlantic's title misleads – this is not actually a how-to on fighting back against revenge porn.

But it’s well worth reading: For those whose privately shared photos have made their way to the web, an argument of implied confidentiality may be a good bet.

• How to Fight Revenge Porn  (The Atlantic)