O2 accidentally exposes customers' phone numbers

FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2005 file photo, pedestrians walks past an O2 shop in London. An untold number of U.K. residents may have unwittingly broadcast their numbers to sites across the Web while browsing the Internet with their cellphones during the past two weeks, mobile service provider O2 said Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2005 file photo, pedestrians walks past an O2 shop in London. An untold number of U.K. residents may have unwittingly broadcast their numbers to sites across the Web while browsing the Internet with their cellphones during the past two weeks, mobile service provider O2 said Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

LONDON (AP) ? An untold number of U.K. residents may have unwittingly broadcast their numbers to sites across the Web while browsing the Internet with their cellphones during the past two weeks.

Mobile service provider O2 said Wednesday that a glitch had exposed the numbers of smartphone-toting customers who connected to the Internet over the company's network.

The company, a major subsidiary of Spain's Telefonica, S.A., has some 22 million customers in Britain. It was unclear how many of those may have been affected and a call seeking further comment from O2 was not immediately returned.

The glitch was "potentially very serious," said Matt Bath, the technology editor for British consumer watchdog Which?

"You are making private information available into the wilds of the Web," he said. "A lot of good websites won't do anything with that data at all (but) there's a potential for a rogue website to harvest the information. That is an open door when it comes to spam, which is annoying, but also outright scams."

O2 said in a blog post that the company routinely shares its customers' telephone numbers with what it described as "trusted partners" for purposes such as age-verification and billing for premium content. But because of a glitch introduced during a routine maintenance operation around January 10, "there has been the potential for disclosure of customers' mobile phone numbers to further website owners."

O2 said it had fixed the bug Wednesday and apologized for any concern caused. But Bath said the damage may already have been done.

"This genie is completely out of the bottle," he said. "Some unruly website may be rubbing their hands with glee at the data bounty that's landed on their laps."

The Information Commissioner's Office, Britain's data protection watchdog, said it was looking into the potential breach.

"When people visit a website via their mobile phone they would not expect their number to be made available to that website," the office said in a statement.

___

Online:

O2's blog: http://blog.o2.co.uk/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-25-EU-Britain-Phone-Nos-Exposed/id-d7dfd7ac238b42708e42086245bee573

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IMF and Germany at odds over how to rescue Europe

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde gestures during her speech about the economic Challenges in 2012 in the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde gestures during her speech about the economic Challenges in 2012 in the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, reacts after she received a 'Golden Goose' by Prince Frank I., right, and Princess Petra I. during a reception of carnival clubs from all over Germany at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Global leaders are sharply at odds over how to rescue Europe from its escalating debt crisis: Should they focus more urgently on economic growth or on budget cuts?

The disagreement presents another obstacle to solving the region's financial crisis, and it pits one of the world's most important lenders against Europe's strongest economy.

The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday that encouraging growth should be policymakers' highest priority. It issued the warning on a day when the lending organization cut its estimates for global growth this year and predicted a recession in Europe.

But Germany, the economic engine of Europe, is afraid it could get stuck paying much of the cost to bail out its weaker European neighbors. It is pushing instead for budget cuts, which the IMF says could weaken growth further and undermine market confidence.

The IMF is already lending to the region's bailout fund and has a lead role in monitoring the progress that nations such as Greece make in reducing their government deficits. Germany, meanwhile, is also a large contributor to the bailout fund.

"There is a fundamental divergence in points of view," said Eswar Prasad, a former IMF official and economics professor at Cornell University. The IMF's emphasis on growth is "a subtle but important shift in the prioritization of the reforms."

On Tuesday, the IMF reduced its forecasts for global growth this year to 3.3 percent. That's below the 4 percent pace that the IMF projected in September. It's also lower than the estimated 3.8 percent growth for 2011 and the 5.2 percent in 2010, the year after the U.S. recession ended.

The 17 nations that share the euro will shrink 0.5 percent this year. In September, the IMF had predicted 1.1 percent growth for the region.

Europe's recession should have only a modest impact on the United States. The IMF projects 1.8 percent growth for the year in the U.S., unchanged from its September forecast and equal to its 2011 estimate.

If Europe doesn't take several steps recommended by the IMF, such as reducing its emphasis on budget cuts, the 17 nations that share the euro could contract at a much faster pace, the fund said. That could possibly plunge the rest of the world into recession.

"The world recovery, which was weak in the first place, is in danger of stalling," Olivier Blanchard, the fund's chief economist, said at a news conference. "The epicenter of the danger is Europe, but the rest of the world is increasingly affected."

Governments should avoid extreme austerity measures ? spending cuts and tax increases ? in weaker economies, such as Italy and Spain, the IMF said in an update to its World Economic Outlook. And healthier European countries whose governments are facing lower interest rates "should reconsider the pace" of their short-term budget cuts.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde made a similar argument Monday during a speech in Berlin. The 187-member IMF conducts economic analysis and provides emergency lending to countries in financial distress.

Germany is expected to grow this year, albeit at a slow pace. It has had to foot a big chunk of the bailout for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed other countries to restructure their economies, as Germany itself did about 10 years ago. But her priority right now is to get a broad agreement among European countries to limit their government deficits.

German leaders fear that "if these countries don't get their public finances in order ... then Germany will end up footing the bill," Prasad said. "That doesn't play very well in Germany."

Austerity measures likely won't work without faster growth, Prasad said. More growth can boost tax revenue and reduce government spending on social programs.

Greece is cutting its budget deficit, Prasad said, but that's causing its economy to contract sharply. As a result, its government debt is increasing relative to the size of its economy, despite the cuts. That makes it harder for Greece to pay off its debts.

Many European governments do need to cut deficits, Blanchard said, "but at an appropriate pace."

It may take two decades or longer to pay off the debts accumulated during the 2008 financial crisis and global recession, Blanchard cautioned. He notes that it took that long to pay off the debts Europe ran up during World War II.

European governments should also build up the region's permanent bailout fund, Blanchard said. That's necessary to support larger nations, such as Italy and Spain, which are paying high interest rates on their debts.

The IMF's projections are based on the idea that Europe's leaders will take those steps, Blanchard said. If they don't, Europe's economy will shrink by much more and "the world could be plunged into another recession," he said.

Last week, the IMF said it is seeking $500 billion to boost its own resources in the event more lending is needed in Europe or elsewhere.

European banks, meanwhile, are cutting back on lending in order to increase their capital reserves, the fund said. That's likely to hammer Central and Eastern European economies this year, which depend heavily on European bank loans.

Blanchard said banks should shore up their finances by raising more capital, rather than cutting back on loans.

"The good news," Blanchard said, is that "with the right set of measures, the worst can definitely be avoided, and the recovery can be put back on track."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-24-IMF-World%20Economy/id-0d42f69ce5284201b02378e90b9640d3

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Russian Mars Probe Crash Sets Off Confusion, Conspiracy Theories (SPACE.com)

When an ill-fated Russian Mars probe fell to Earth over the weekend, the spacecraft's untimely demise set off a flurry of conflicting media reports and conspiracy theories.

Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probe suffered a debilitating malfunction shortly after its November 2011 launch, which stranded it in low-Earth orbit for more than two months before it succumbed to gravitational forces and plummeted through the atmosphere on Jan. 15.

The $165 million spacecraft reportedly broke apart over the Pacific Ocean, but inconsistent reports soon surfaced, which sparked different theories about where the probe had landed, and what had caused it to malfunction in the first place.

The Russian Federal Space Agency is notorious for closely controlling any information released, but part of the issue is the tricky nature of calculating re-entry predictions for dead satellites and other pieces of orbital debris.

"Predicting an impact point is problematic because it involves fundamental factors that cannot be noted in advance and cannot be measured in real time, such as atmospheric density," space consultant James Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle mission control engineer, told SPACE.com. "These can only be averaged or guessed, sometimes even after re-entry. These known unknowns are more than enough to throw off any kind of prediction by thousands of kilometers." [Photos: Russia's Phobos-Grunt Mission to Mars Moon]

A curious case

Still, the Phobos-Grunt saga was shrouded in mystery long before it crashed back to Earth. The cause of the spacecraft's malfunction has not yet been determined, and claims ranging from accidental radar interference to outright sabotage have been reported by Russian news outlets.?

Russian space officials suggested that strong emissions from an American radar station on an island in the Pacific Ocean could have accidentally interfered with Phobos-Grunt, reported the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

But, these claims were later dismissed by a Russian scientist who was involved with the development of Phobos-Grunt. Alexander Zakharov, a scientist at the Russian Academy of Science Space Research Institute, told Ria Novosti that the radar theory is "far-fetched," and suggested instead that issues with the spacecraft itself were likely to blame.

American experts were also quick to write off the idea that a U.S. radar station could have been the source of the spacecraft's demise ? accidental or otherwise.

"I do not see any evidence that supports the suggestion that the United States somehow played a role in the failure of Phobos-Grunt," Brian Weeden, an orbital debris expert at the Secure World Foundation in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com in an email. "I have examined the claims made about the U.S. tracking radar on the South Pacific potentially interfering with Phobos-Grunt and they are without any credibility whatsoever."

Following Phobos-Grunt's fall from space, the Russian Federal Space Agency released an official statement confirming that the spacecraft had landed in the Pacific Ocean. But, the agency admitted this impact zone was based on orbital predictions, and they lacked tracking or visual data.

This fueled speculation that the spacecraft had overshot its predicted landing zone and broke apart elsewhere along its orbital track, such as over Argentina or Brazil. [6 Biggest Spacecraft to Fall Uncontrolled From Space]

"You're never quite sure," said Emmet Fletcher, Space Surveillance and Tracking Manager at the European Space Agency (ESA). "Eyewitness accounts are good, so if someone sees it coming in and takes a picture, that can tell you about where it lands. But, if you're fortunate and it lands in the ocean, which is where we like things to go, there shouldn't be anyone there. So, if something lands in the South Pacific, you won't have anyone there to observe it."

Tracking a falling spacecraft

Fletcher is part of ESA's Space Situational Awareness team which monitors space junk and operates a network of tracking stations. Fletcher could not comment specifically on Phobos-Grunt, but he has worked on coordinated international efforts to deal with spacecraft and orbital debris that has re-entered the atmosphere.

"It's all a learning experience," Fletcher said. "There are lessons learned and conclusions about what we can do better. A lot of work is being done to standardize data."

Right now, different agencies and organizations have different methods for calculating re-entry predictions. This has advantages and disadvantages, Fletcher said, but ultimately, a more standardized approach could help foster more efficient cooperation between entities.

But the story of Phobos-Grunt doesn't end there.

In a recent development, the U.S. military appeared to have removed links to Phobos-Grunt tracking data on a public website that ordinarily details such events.

Information about the doomed Russian probe's re-entry was removed from Space Track, a website operated by U.S. Strategic Command. The military also did not publish any confirmation of the probe's fall, which breaks with standard protocol.

This handling of the data seemed unusual, said Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force officer, who once also directed the Joint Space Operations Center's orbital analyst training program.

"[T]he final re-entry prediction data is still missing from the U.S. military's website where they normally publish the information," Weeden said. "I do not really have any idea why they would withhold this information for Phobos-Grunt. They have published the full re-entry prediction data on three other space objects so far this year, and they are continuing to publish re-entry predictions as normal for the next object, Cosmos 2176, which is a Russian Kompass-2 satellite that is due to re-enter in the next several days. "

Falling spacecraft and human error

But Friday evening (Jan. 20), a spokesperson from U.S. Strategic Command told SPACE.com that data was not, in fact, removed from the Space Track website. Rather, a human error had accidentally misfiled the information.

"All actions taken during the Phobos-Grunt re-entry were designed to improve international data sharing on this event," Julie Ziegenhorn, Deputy Chief of Public Affairs at U.S. Strategic Command, said in an email statement. "Unfortunately, shortly after the re-entry event, there was human error that led to all Phobos-Grunt entries on spacetrack.org being misfiled into the year 2011 data, which made it difficult for customers to access the information. Shortly after the error was discovered, the information was re-posted to the site and is accessible at this time."

Still, experts are hoping that more precise information about Phobos-Grunt's impact zone will be released, but it's unclear which agencies will make their reports available to the public. ESA plans to release a final report on Phobos-Grunt, but officials are currently still waiting for "additional data from non-ESA sources," agency spokesperson Andreas Schepers said in an email.

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was designed to collect soil samples from the Mars moon Phobos and return them to Earth in 2014. The botched mission is one of several space failures that plagued the Russian Federal Space Agency over the past year.

"It was one of the boldest cavalry charges, and they said it was a cavalry charge to restore Russia's honor in space," Oberg said. "But, cavalry charges can also wind up disastrously, so the use of that metaphor was particularly apt."

You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120122/sc_space/russianmarsprobecrashsetsoffconfusionconspiracytheories

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Euro zone may skirt recession as PMIs surprise (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? The euro zone may escape recession thanks to a surprise upturn in the service sector this month but the overall economy is still struggling to gain any traction outside Germany and to a lesser extent France, surveys showed on Tuesday.

Markit's Flash Eurozone Purchasing Managers' Composite Index (PMI), a reliable indicator of overall economic performance, showed the euro zone economy grew in January for the first time since August, confounding forecasts for a contraction.

Survey compiler Markit said that if sustained, the data pointed to no growth in the first quarter - but no contraction either.

Germany's service sector expanded at its fastest pace in seven months in January - far quicker than expected - while manufacturing business grew for the first time in four months, according to a PMI survey.

France's service sector grew at its fastest pace since August, but manufacturing shrank for the sixth straight month. Business activity also contracted across the rest of the 17-member bloc, where demand has been hit by tough austerity measures and waning confidence as the region struggled to contain its debt crisis.

The euro zone composite PMI, jumped to 50.4 from 48.3 in December, its highest in four months, and breaking above the 50 level that marks growth in activity.

The reading easily beat the highest forecast of 49.5 in a Reuters poll and a median prediction of 48.5.

"The numbers are very encouraging. We're just seeing more and more evidence that ... things in the euro zone, or at the very least in the core, are bottoming out," said Alan Clarke, economist at Scotiabank.

A Reuters poll last week predicted the euro zone would be mired in a mild recession until the second half of this year, shrinking by around 0.3 percent for 2012 as a whole.

While Tuesday's data suggests the economy is doing slightly better than expected it is still very weak outside the core.

"They beat expectations, but the manufacturing sector appears to be contracting and services is broadly flat," said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank.

"What this seems to be telling us is that the economy is struggling to gain any traction outside of Germany."

Some of the growth in activity this month clearly was spurred by fulfilling old orders. The composite backlogs of work sub-index remained below 50 at 47.2, but up slightly from 46.4 in December.

Firms were also forced to cut prices for the second month to drum up business, despite rising input costs.

OPTIMISTIC OUTCOME

The sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece over two years ago rages on, threatening to rip the currency union apart.

Euro zone finance ministers on Monday rejected an offer made by private bondholders to help restructure Greece's debts, sending negotiators back to the drawing board and raising the threat of a disorderly Greek default.

The euro zone has also been hurt by slowing economic growth in some of its major export markets.

Even German's big exporters are feeling the pressure with Siemens (SIEGn.DE), Europe's biggest engineering conglomerate and a bellwether for the region, reporting an unexpectedly sharp fall in core profits on Tuesday and warning that 2012 would be a difficult year.

The European Central Bank is expected to cut its official interest rate from a record low of 1 percent, having taken measures to ease banks' funding strains in an effort to spur growth and relieve pressure from the debt crisis.

Services firms, ranging from banks to hotels, grew more optimistic about the future this month with the business expectations index jumping to 56.0 from December's 53.6, the highest reading since August.

The euro zone services PMI rose to 50.5 this month from 48.8 in December, the first time it has been above the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction since last August, and beating both the consensus of 49.0 and the highest forecast of 50.0 in a Reuters poll.

The euro zone manufacturing PMI came in at 48.7, above December's 46.9 and also beating both the top-end forecast and a median prediction for 47.3 in a Reuters poll.

The figures showed that factories took on a few extra workers this month but service sector firms cut staff.

Official data showed the unemployment rate held steady at 10.3 percent in November but a Reuters poll predicts it will rise this year.

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/bs_nm/us_economy_europe

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Gingrich Tells South Carolina Man He?d Talk to Al Sharpton (Michellemalkin)

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Banned Android apps welcome in unofficial app store

By Rosa Golijan

Sam Spratt

Just because an app is banned from Google's official Android Market doesn't mean that plenty of users aren't itching to install it on their devices. But where can those folks get the contraband downloads they crave?

They could hunt through back-alley websites and dig through shady forums ? but that's pretty dicey business.?What would be simpler is a visit to an (unofficial)?alternative app store, which serves as a one-stop shop in the app black-market.

TechCrunch reports that an?Android developer by the name of Koushik Dutta is in the process of building such an app store.

Dutta is no stranger when it comes to software that isn't approved by Google ??he's a member of the CyanogenMod Android hacking team and the creator of ClockworkMod, a custom recovery console for Android devices?? and the Android community appears to be responding positively to his project so far.

Dutta's alternative app store will serve as a place for customized versions of the Android operating system (also known as ROMs), rooting apps (which allow users to easily gain full control of their devices), tethering apps banned thanks to cellular carrier complaints, and more. It certainly won't be a place where everyone will want to download apps as many may be aimed at Android users with advanced technical knowledge.?

There is also a security risk to consider, as with just about any alternative market. Details are still vague as to whether Dutta will police his store somehow in order to prevent malicious apps from slipping in or if the general policy will simply be "buyer beware."

Either way ??assuming the project remains on track?? Dutta's app store is bound to leave those who love to push the limits of customizing their Android devices quite happy.

Related stories:

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+. If you're more interested in?Sam Spratt???the guy who made the cute Android illustration above ? then you'll want these?Facebook, Twitter?and?Tumblr?links instead.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216252-banned-android-apps-welcome-in-unofficial-app-store

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