Google finishes 2048 bit security upgrade

Never again are you going to get a Google Web site whose security certificate is protected with comparatively weak 1,024-bit encryption.

The Net giant has secured all its certificates with 2,048-bit RSA encryption keys or better, Google security engineer Dan Dulay said in a blog post Monday. Certificates are used to set up encrypted communications between a Web server and Web browser.

That means two things. First, traffic will be harder to decrypt since 1,024-bit keys aren't in use at Google anymore. Second, retiring the 1,024-bit keys means the computing industry can retire the technology altogether by declaring such keys untrustworthy.

Google has been aggressively moving to stronger encryption because of U.S. government surveillance by the National Security Agency. According to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the agency gathered bulk data off Internet taps, including unencrypted data sent between company data centers on its own network, and actively worked to undermine encryption.

Google said it beat its internal end-of-year deadline for the 2,048-bit move. It's also moved to encrypt its internal data transfer between data centers, a move that Yahoo also is making.

In other words, the Net's technology giants are working actively to make surveillance, authorized or not, significantly harder.

"Worry in Silicon Valley/Puget Sound: furor over NSA will cost billions cuz foreign customers fear US companies can't guarantee security," tweeted Strobe Talbott, president of analyst firm Brookings Institution, referring to the geographic regions where tech powers such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter, Apple, LinkedIn, and Amazon are located.

There's a lot of work to be done yet, though Google also supports a standard called "forward secrecy," which uses different keys for different sessions so that decrypting a single message doesn't mean previous messages can likewise be decrypted using the same key. But many other Net giants don't support forward secrecy – though that's changing, too.

 CNET News

W3schools, removed because of W3Fools

W3schools was good resource, but now everybody is pointing how much bad advice they are giving and that they aren’t affiliated with W3C. Site we cannot trust anymore unfortunately.

Facebook now makes Public

The social network's recent privacy recalculation prevents excluding your profile picture, cover photo, and other formerly hide-able information from search results.

You may have been one of the many Facebook users contacted by the company last week about the demise of the "Who can look up your Timeline by name" search setting. The Facebook e-mail announcing the discontinuation of the feature goes on to explain how to limit what information you share on the service. Unfortunately, there's no longer a way to limit globally the personal information Facebook shares with everyone; you can do so only for each separate post using the audience selector.

The Facebook Help Center states the following:

"Your name, gender, username, user ID (account number), profile picture, cover photo and networks (if you choose to add these) are available to anyone since they are essential to helping you connect with your friends and family."

Of particular concern to privacy advocates is the ability of third-party app developers to access your friends list. Last August, CNN's Katie Lobosco reported that at least one financial-lending company uses your Facebook friends list to help determine your creditworthiness.

According to Lobosco, if your friends have a history of late payments, your credit score with the company goes down. (Note that another credit company reduces the score of any applicant whose online form is completed in all caps, or without any caps.)

Prevent Facebook apps from accessing your private data
One of the tips in last September's article about how to secure your Facebook account easily, explains how to put a muzzle on nosy Facebook apps. The simplest way to enhance your Facebook privacy is to delete the apps. Unfortunately, removing an app doesn't delete the information the developer has already collected about you.]

As the Facebook Help Center's App Privacy Settings page describes, you have to contact the developer directly using Facebook's Report a Problem feature. The page states that not all apps provide a way to contact the developer.

Facebook users are installing apps from developers who help themselves to the users' private information without offering a clear mechanism for retrieving the data. Users have no way of knowing what the information includes or how it will be used, let alone whether it is accurate. Nope, no privacy risk there.

The Facebook App Settings page lets you control the information about you that friends can share when they use apps. You can uncheck any or all of the 17 categories of information presented.

Uncheck the categories of personal information you don't want your friends to be able to share with the Facebook apps they use.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET)

The App Settings page indicates that you can prevent apps and Web sites from accessing other categories of information by "turning off all Platform apps." To do so, click Edit to the right of "Apps you use" on the App Settings page, and click the Turn Off Platform button.

Privacy promises to European users come up empty
Imagine if Facebook, Google, and other services had to notify you of the information they collect about you, how the companies will use the information, the third parties they will share the information with, and how you can restrict use and disclosure of the information.

Now imagine you're given the ability to opt out of the collection and use of your information beyond what is necessary to transact your business with the companies. Even better, imagine having to opt in to the use of your personal information in any way other than the original purpose for which you supplied the information.

These are two of the seven Safe Harbor Privacy Principles that US companies agree to comply with for their customers residing in European Union countries. Export.gov provides an overview of the Safe Harbor requirements. The principles specify that individuals be afforded access to the personal information the companies collect about them and be able to correct, amend, or delete the information.

As Politico's Erin Mershon points out, the Safe Harbor Framework is intended to allow US companies to comply with the EU's stringent privacy regulations. The rules have been a sticking point in light of the National Security Agency's widespread surveillance. Some Europeans believe US firms use the Safe Harbor Framework to avoid complying with the EU's privacy requirements.

While Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Julie Brill defends the Safe Harbor Framework, EU officials point out the lack of enforcement efforts by the FTC. Safe Harbor guidelines rely on companies self-certifying, so to a great extent the framework operates on the honor system.

At a meeting last month of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee, an executive at Galexia, an Australian management consulting firm that researches Safe Harbor compliance, highlighted the program's lax enforcement. According to InfoSecurity, Galexia's Chris Connolly told the committee that 427 US companies make false claims about their Safe Harbor compliance.

A more-widespread compliance shortcoming relates to the Safe Harbor regulations' dispute-resolution requirements. Connolly testified that about 30 percent of the 3,000 self-certifying organizations offer no dispute-resolution options, and a large number of those companies that claim to provide dispute resolution, instead refer customers to the American Arbitration Association, which charges complainants from $120 to $1,200 per hour, with a minimum of 4 hours, on top of a $950 administration fee.

Some EU officials are calling for the cancellation of the Safe Harbor program, which has been in place for 13 years. Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission and EU justice commissioner, spoke at a seminar in Washington, D.C., late last month and recommended the only way for the US to restore Europe's trust is to enact privacy legislation that provides EU citizens with a right of redress when their privacy is violated, as Bloomberg BNA's Stephen Gardner reported last week.

Sounds like a law US citizens could benefit from as well. In the absence of such protections, Facebook needs to follow Google's lead with Gmail and admit, once and for all, that users have no expectation of privacy when using the social network.

This story has been corrected to state that you can limit Facebook sharing on a per-post basis via the Facebook audience selector. It has also been updated to remove details about a previous EPIC complaint to the FTC about a previous Facebook policy.

CNET news.

How Walmart will fight off Amazon on Black Friday

Walmart is going all out to ensure it is the destination for this year's holiday shopping season -- whether that may be its physical or virtual store.

Late Thursday, it unveiled a dizzying array of promotions, from a lower minimum purchase to qualify for free shipping to select Black Friday doorbuster promotions -- available online ahead Thanksgiving morning. Cyber Monday -- which Walmart will naturally be starting on Saturday -- is extended to an entire week.

Its emphasis to bolster both its online and in-store promotions comes as the retailing industry deals with the impact of online giant Amazon, which has largely eaten the lunch of the traditional brick-and-mortar players. Once staid stores such as Borders and Circuit City have already shuttered, while Walmart and others have reported falling sales and profits.

Walmart, for its part, said the decisions it has made are based on its customers. In fact, Joel Anderson, CEO of Walmart.com US, spent more than 30 minutes talking about the promotions without once mentioning Amazon, even if there were hints of the online retailer in his comments.

"We follow our own playbook, which is unique," Anderson said on a conference call with reporters.

Retailers have traditionally eyed the critical Black Friday period -- which now stretches from Thanksgiving to well beyond the following Cyber Monday -- as a major source of their sales of the year. But the online component is expected to be even more vital this year, especially as traditional retailers try to go toe-to-toe with Amazon online.

In a survey held by Nielsen, 46 percent of consumers said they would shop online on Cyber Monday, up from 30 percent a year ago. In comparison, only 13 percent of respondents said they would shop at physical stores on Black Friday, down from 17 percent in 2012.

Anderson said last year's Cyber Monday was the highest grossing day online in the company's history.

Starting Friday, Walmart online customers only need to order $35 worth of goods on nearly any item to qualify for free shipping. That's the same minimum level at Amazon, which the online retailer raised by $10 in October.

Anderson denied there was any link between its new offer and Amazon's policy.

"Customers have told us shipping cost is very important in their decision," he said.

Shoppers can also upgrade to three-to-five-day shipping for $2.97, Anderson said, adding the point that no subscription fee is required -- which could be interpreted as a veiled reference to Amazon's subscription-based Prime program.

Walmart will also match the prices of competitors such as Target and Best Buy, but the company didn't mentioned Amazon.

Several Black Friday deals slated to be found in stores on Thanksgiving evening will be available on Walmart.com that morning, although Anderson warned there would be limited quantities. The decision to add the online component was to create "anytime, anywhere access" to Walmart, and dismissed concerns that the online deals would draw people away from the physical stores.

Walmart.com, meanwhile, is making its big online push starting Saturday, attempting to rebrand Cyber Monday into Cyber Week, which stretches to the following Friday.

Anderson said he opted to kick off Cyber Monday on Saturday because he saw consumer traffic to the Web site spiked that day. To better take advantage of the interest, he opted to kick things off two days in advance.

He promised a large assortment of online deals -- including one-time offers and specials -- as Cyber Week rolls along. Consumers will also be able to order online and pick it up at a nearby store.

Consumers are expected to fork over some big bucks this year. Nearly a third of consumers from all income ranges surveyed by Nielsen say the will spend between $250 and $500 this season, with 20 percent spending $500 to $1,000.

Walmart is hoping a larger share of those dollars end up heading in its direction.

 C|Net News

Working with Jquery Animation

In this tutorial, we are going explore the basics of jQuery animations for you to get prepared for advanced designs. Animations is the core functionality behind the interactive elements in web design.

The design of a website plays a major role in attracting visitors on a consistent basis. Interactive designs get more attention compared to the plain old static designs.

Technology is improving at a rapid pace to cater the advanced modern web designs. As a result, CSS3 offers the animations without the help of JavaScript. Even though CSS3 and HTML5 are improving in leaps and bounds, jQuery seems to be the popular choice for creating interactive designs.

Let’s get started!

Practical Usage of jQuery Animations

jQuery has been used widely for designing interactive elements such as sliders, menus, scrollers and so on. Before we start the animation aspects, I suggest you to have a look at the following practical implementations, which illustrates the power of jQuery animations.

• Lateral On Scroll Sliding
• Merging Image Boxes with jQuery
• Dream Night Animation
• Animate a Curtain Opening with jQuery
• Create Sliding Navigation Menu with jQuery

As a beginner, you can’t  just jump into the types of designs illustrated in the preceding section. So here we are going to cover the basics of jQuery animations from the beginner’s perspective.

Introduction to Basic Animations with jQuery

Most designers have the knowledge of working with basic jQuery or JavaScript codes. Changing the visibility of an element is a common task that is included in almost every website design. We can just hide/show the element using CSS display or visibility attributes. jQuery simplifies the process by introducing two functions called hide and show. Consider the following code for showing and hiding an HTML element.

1	$("#panel").show();

2

3	$("#panel").hide();

With the preceding code, the element appears and disappears in a very limited time range. Use the following jsFiddle link to see a demo of the preceding code in action.

http://jsfiddle.net/nimeshrmr/bMmFS/

Ideally, we should smoothen the process of hiding and showing elements using animations to provide better user experience. jQuery provides two built-in techniques for showing and hiding elements with simple animation effect.

• Fading – Integrates a fading motion into HTML elements by changing the element’s opacity.
• Sliding – Integrates a sliding motion into HTML elements by changing the element’s height.

Let’s see how to use the above techniques to show and hide the elements with an animated effect.

jQuery encapsulates the complexity of animations by providing built-in methods to cater various tasks in web design.

Fading

Fading is mainly provided by the functions called fadeIn and fadeOut. Opacity of the element is increased by the fadeIn function and decreased by the fadeOut function. We can also pass the time interval for fading as shown in the following code.

1	$("#panel").fadeIn("slow");

2

3	$("#panel").fadeOut("fast");

We have the option of choosing slow or fast as the predefined values for the time interval . Also,we can pass the number in milliseconds to define the duration of animation. Here is the jsFiddle demo for working with fadeIn and fadeOut functions.

http://jsfiddle.net/nimeshrmr/zcRzL/

Sliding

Sliding functions change the height of the element instead of opacity for animating elements. Functions and syntaxes work exactly similar to fading, where slideUp is used for hiding and slideDown is used for showing elements. Following code previews the basic usage of sliding functions.

1	$("#panel").slideDown("slow");

2

3	$("#panel").slideUp("fast");

Duration parameter also works similar to the usage of fading functions. Here, you can see the actual beginning of the animations by moving the element. Consider the following URL for a demo usage of sliding functions.

http://jsfiddle.net/nimeshrmr/nDz6J/

Getting Started with jQuery Animate Function

Most beginners will think that building animations is a quite complex task. Definitely it’s difficult if you are doing it from scratch. jQuery encapsulates all the complexity by providing a single standalone function, which handles any type of animation. Basically, the animations will be created by altering the values of the CSS attributes. Once you get used to the jQuery animate function, building complex animations will become a simple task. Let’s get started by looking at the basic syntax of animate function.

1	$( "#panel" ).animate({

2

3	// CSS Properties and values

4

5	}, 5000, "linear", function() {

6

7	// Completion Handler

8

9

});

Preceding code illustrates the syntax for using the animate function. The first parameter contains all the CSS properties and values. The next optional parameter defines the duration of the animation. The third parameter defines the easing( animation type) and the final parameter defines an anonymous function for handling animation completion. Having looked at the basic usage, we can move into creating something practical with jQuery animations.

Animating Image Parts

In this section, we are going to look at how we can display an image by animating image parts. First, we have to split an image into smaller images. You can use the technique provided in my tutorial on Create Jigsaw Puzzle Using jQuery and PHP for splitting images.

Here, is the image that we are going to use for animation.