Global Media News

eBay's Security Flaw Existed for Months

    A security flaw on eBay's website has been exposing eBay's customers to malicious websites.  This has been happening on eBay's site since Feburary. It has been revealed that by clicking on some of the listings on the site will automatically redirect customers to harmful sites. eBay has failed to fix and inforem users about the security flaw, despite having known since Feburary.

    According to BBC News, an eBay user Paul Castle contacted eBay in order to report the problem in a chat log which outlined the problem in detail with eBay's staff. This is not the first time that eBay has been hit with a security breach. eBay had a massive security breach which happened in May. The breach affected 145 million customers, which was performed by unknown hackers. The information stolen was email addresses, encrypted passwords, mailing addresses, and birth dates.

    The site eBay gives permission to many of their users who sell on eBay to use Javascript and Flash to make their listings more attractive, which is related to the security flaw. The search engine of eBay only allows customers to find completed auctions that are more than 15 days old. In each case of the listings, it appears that cross-site scripting (XSS) was used to steal the customer's information using Javascript. Cross-site scripting (XSS) is not allowed on eBay and eBay uses a range of security features, which are designed to detect and remove the listing containing the harmful codes. BBC News uncovered that many of their listings have been posted for more than 15 days, which posed dangers to eBay's users.

    In an interview BBC News reporter Dave Lee, a spokeswoman for eBay, "The company assures that they have a security team for the site, but the hackers used tactics capable of by passing their security. These hackers intentionally adapt to their code and tactics to try to stay ahead of the most sophisticated security team."      

    The site eBay is being heavily criticized by security experts for failing to react quickly to the problem and allowed it to go on for so long. This is the second time eBay has had security issues this year.  

The Social Media War: Brazilian Newspapers vs Google

Back in October of 2012 Brazil's Newspapers decided to ban their information from google. The reason behind this decision was simply  because Brazil newspapers felt that they were getting the wrong end of the deal. Brazil's newspapers feels as if the Google is not doing their job to benefit both sides. 

 The BBC News reports: 

"Brazil's National Association of Newspapers says all 154 members had followed its recommendation to ban the search engine aggregator from using their content.

The papers say Google News refused to pay for content and was driving traffic away from their websites."

To hear Google that are not doing the simplest of tasks which they are know for is very unheard of. Google is known for providing information over the world to any who uses the search engine. Lately there seems to be a lot of countries pulling out of Google's search engine. 

The Guardian: quoted: National Association of Newspapers for Brazil, Carlos Fernando Lindenberg Neto

"Staying with Google News was not helping us grow our digital audiences, By providing the first few lines of our stories to internet users, the service reduces the chances that they will look at the entire story in our websites."

Brazil newspapers seems to be very upset and dissatisfied with the job Google has done and feels that a split is the best thing for all newspapers in the country. Google has been going though some problems with Brazil first the arrest of a Google senior executive for refusing to take down a video from YouTube and another similar event when a french newspaper company decided to pull its stories form Google. 

 

Online journalist killed in Mexico

Being a journalist in Mexico can be a death sentcnce for many. Especially because most of the news they write, are about corruption and drug trafficking. Jaime Gonzalez Dominguez, an online 
journalist reporter and founder of Ojinaga Noticias was killed on March 3rd, 2013.

Mr. Dominquez was a reporter with Contacto for many years. In 2011 he left Contacto, because of the huge backlash and death threats the press was getting. Mr. Dominguez decided to start an online news portal called, Ojinaga Noticias, by 2012 it was also available in print.  According to guardian.co.uk, Ojinaga Noticias covered many topics in the town of Ojinaga,  Chihuahua such as local politics, sports, education, and also crime.

According to Amnesty.org, journalist in Mexico are being killed left and right, because the charges and conviction against the killer is non-existant if any.

On March 3, 2013 Univision News, reported that the El Siglo de Terreon receieved  three attacks the week before.  Javier Garza Ramos, an editor at the newspaper believes the attack was towards the police officers guarding the newspaper building.

Mexico is known as one of the most dangerous countries for journalist. So when are we going to instill a since of comfort for the news to be published in Mexico. When journalist can feel free to write or say what is going on without fearing for their lives.

 

 

Fascination with Korean tv Drama

It feels like it was just yesterday when I was channel surfing one night and stumbled on an Asian show with sub-titles. It seemed interesting, so I continued to watch it. A few days later I found myself at 11pm watching the same show. Like a bait to a fish I was hooked. I loved the story line, the music, and I loved the culture.

This was in 2004 when I lived in Philadelphia, nine years later back in New York City I find myself more in-depth with  the Korea culture and their language. I can tell if someone is speaking Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. I know how to say thank you, hello, good-bye, and how are you. If someone is speaking Korean I can even catch words and phrases and know their meaning. I can attribute all of this to my watching of Kdramas.

I never thought this would be a phenomenon, until four years ago when my niece who also lives in Philadelphia was watching a Kdrama via online. I wasn't really surprised my niece was fascinated with Kdrama, because as a child she was engrossed in Japanese anime movies, and tv shows. She even took Japanese as a second language in grade school. She actually got into the kdrama because her other aunt would watch it and she fell in love with the culture.

I was shocked never knew it was online, I never imagined or thought to google it. My niece told me all the platforms that were available to watch not only Kdramas, but dramas from China, Japan, and Taiwan. The site is Drama Style, Viki(similar to hulu), Drama Fever, and there were more. On these sites there were also movies, and American movies as well. It was great.

Kdrama can be watched by all ages. The dramas are very PG. There are also all types of dramas such as a family drama, an action drama, a teen drama, and historical dramas. Unlike American dramas where sex is displayed all the time, in Kdramas kissing is like having sex.

According to PR Newswire, Tom Larsen, President, YA Entertainment.

"The 'Korean Wave' and high quality K-dramas have captivated US audiences, including a growing viewership turned off by the sex, gore, and violence that drives today's American entertainment industry."

Could it be Americans want to watch something that has a happy ending. Even if it fake and very unrealistic. Are Americans over the raunchiness and over the top sex craze on tv. Maybe. This past year we have lost iconic daytime soap operas that's been on for years on tv. One by one we are losing what made American soap a hot thing to watch.

The best thing about a Kdrama is (drumroll please) they end. A storyline ends and I can watch another. Most of the shows can run about 16-20 episodes and is about an 30-45 minutes per episode. Others can be 50 episodes, but those are usally the long dragging ones that needed to end around episode 30. Historical dramas can be around 150 episodes depending on the storyline.

I love watching my Kdramas and the fact that I am able to pick up and watch it whenever I am  available is great.

 

 

 

Google Governing Free Speech!

    Have you ever thought of google as a quasi state, because that is what is has become.  In 2010 the New York Times wrote an article called “Google Searches for a Foreign Policy”. This concept of google having a foreign policy is still relevant today.  The most recent example would be the current hype around the Muslim “hate” video. The article written over two years ago discusses the idea that companies like google need to have a foreign policy for the US government has yet to come up with a solid foreign policy in the digital world. This is still true today.  The article brings up a very good point,

“...the fact that the World Wide Web is no longer just a force for freedom and diversity but also a tool for repression. Governments use it to spy on dissidents, human rights activists, and other troublesome elements.This change happened so fast that it left the foreign policy establishment gasping to catch up”

It seems that companies like Google should be sitting at the tale with government leaders writing foreign policies and deciding what information should be free and to whom.  Does everyone realise that a corporate company, where there are no elected officials and no representation by the people has the control over our freedoms!

Is Google’s new privacy settings causing too much of an uproar?

Google has announced that after March 1st they will imply changes to the privacy settings to allow data to be shared over all of their platforms. Yet with this announcement there has already a lot of criticism as well as accusations over bypassing safari, and the urgency to stop the privacy policy change. With all of these problems it seems like Google's attempt to better their platforms against their competitors may actually backfire.

As seen in a BBC article from January the author quoted Google's director of privacy, product and engineering Alma Whitten who said, "We're rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect and how we use it in a more readable way." She also talked about how this policy would benefit other parts of Google’s functions. Even though this seems like a great way to get a step up against the competition, it seems that the issue that no one can opt out of this new policy posed more criticism.

A major criticism came from a EU group who sent a letter to the search giant to pause their change until they could finish their analysis of the change. The group was quoted to stating that they wanted to, “check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a co-ordinated way." The article also proceeded to state the concern to the change, yet Google restated that the policy was just to simplify the policy for all the platforms and connect all the data between them making integration easier.

Lastly in recent news it seems an accusation about Google cookies bypassing Safari's privacy has also risen in the large stir of controversy recently. The claims state that recently advertisers have been able to store their cookies on web pages accessed by Safari users. In the article they quoted Ms. Whetsone saying, "We didn't anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It's important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information." Even with this reassurance Google declined to provide further comment on the issue.

In conclusion with this much controversy over this new policy, it seems that Google may need to return back to the drawing board and tweak it more before releasing a final policy.

Global Media News from China: Our Sixth Webcast

Click to Listen: Media News from China

China:  From Censorship to the Exponential Growth of the Social Media:

• Chinese social media:  Tencent Qzone, Baidu SNS, Kaixin001, Renren, 51.com, QQi
• No LinkedIn for you:  Censorship of the Internet and foreign social networks
• Have the Chinese people heard about the Jasmine Revolution?
• Covering China: Why is the government restricting foreign journalists?
• Google vs. China
• Online-shopping in China: Stalled by fraud?
• Sports media Chinese style

In Three Weeks:  Media News from India & South Asia 

Thursday, April  31, @ 11am:

Listen to our webcast streaming live every Thursday @ 11am EST.

Can't listen live?    Our next webcast will be posted by 1:00pm, Thursday, April 31.

Subscribe Now!

Can China have their own Jasmine Revolution?

China's communist government has been on alert since the uprisings have begun in North Africa and the Middle East.  The are similarities between what is going on in these regions.  According to a NY Times article by Didi Kirsten Tatlow from 2/23/2011:

"Even the government concedes that China shares many of Egypt’s problems, like rampant corruption, social injustice, a growing wealth gap and inflation."

Since all of Chinese media is state run they have controlled  over what is being written and shown about the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.  It was strange looking and searching different Chinese news websites and not seeing the same kind of coverage about the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa as you would see in privately owned media. 

 

Our Last Stop: Central and South America

   

For our last show this semester, we’re taking out global media trip to Central and South America. We took a look at Blogging in Cuba, telenovelas in Mexico, Ceneorship in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and President Hugo Chavez’s war with the media in Venezuela.

Click Here To Take Our Last Tour!

Our music today was provided by Etan Wishnevski and Martini Jean

Mexico - james tailor - mexico

Mexico - Lost Acapulco - Que Monstruoson

DR - Aventura - Dile Al Amor

DR- Aventura-Obsession

DR - Frank Reyes - No Tay Vayas

Haiti - Tabou Combo - A Mi Me Gusta el Kompa

Haiti – Wyclef Jean & T-Vice - Party By The Sea

Cuba - Cuban Link - Still Tellin Lies

Cuba - Susana Baca- Ne Quelque Part

Venezuelan - Tambor [Parranda Central]

Venezuelan - Los Amigos Invisibles - Mentiras

Listen next semester to our new show topics in “The Digital Revolution”

The Middle East: A Land Of Never Ending Conflict

This week on our global media world tour we stopped in the Middle East. On this media journey we took a look at media in Iraq, Israel, free media in Lebanon, Muslim media in the UK, social media, and how the media cover regional conflicts.

Click Here To Take Our Tour!

Next week we are on our way to Africa to learn about media, new media, music and politics in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.