Google claims that UK privacy laws don’t apply to them as they’re faced with a landmark legal case

Internet search giant Google is using an unusual defence against claims that it illegally tracked internet activity, arguing that the British laws they are alleged to have broken do not apply to them.
The UK-based claimants say that Google bypassed a privacy setting on their iPhones and Apple Mac computers in order to illegally track their activity on the internet and are currently trying to bring a landmark group legal case against the company.

Apple’s default privacy settings mean that websites are blocked from installing things like cookies that let companies like Google track the user’s internet usage and target adverts towards them personally. It’s alleged that Google wrote software that was specifically designed to work around these settings without notifying the users beforehand.

Google maintains that it didn’t use these cookies to harvest personal information, but the Federal Trade Commission has already imposed a record $22.5 million fine on them. The company is now battling hard to have the case dismissed from UK courts in order to have it heard abroad, asserting that it is not subject to British laws because its consumer service, Google Inc., is based in Silicon Valley, California.

The claim has sparked outrage among many campaigners as it comes on the heels of the news that Google had failed to pay a significant amount of tax in the UK, prompting some to claim that the company operate in the country only when it suits them.

Google’s attempt to have their case heard elsewhere will be considered in October, but given the fact that the offences were committed under a ‘.co.uk’ web address - and that the firm is currently constructing headquarters worth $1 billion in the UK - it’s not looking promising for the search giant.
If you’re worried about the safety of the personal information you have on your computer, then a VPN service can offer you some extra piece of mind. A VPN provides your computer with an extra level of security when you’re surfing the internet so that your personal data stays private.

Syrian Electronic Army’s latest hack affects the Washington Post, CNN and Time magazine’s websites

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) seem to be everywhere at the moment and their latest hacking conquest has affected the websites of the Washington Post, CNN and Time magazine, placing links on the site redirecting readers to the SEA’s website for a short period of time.

The redirection was due to a security breach at Outbrain, a company that provides link recommendations for all three sites. A spokesperson for the group said that their staff had been fooled by a spoof email that claimed to be from the company’s chief executive. Outbrain immediately took their service down once they realised what had happened, and then took a further seven hours to ensure that everything was fixed and working correctly before they relaunched their site.

For the Washington Post, this attack marks the SEA’s second targeted attempt at the paper in the space of a week. The publication’s managing editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz claimed that, ‘A few days ago, the Syrian Electronic Army, allegedly, subjected Post newsroom employees to a sophisticated phishing attack to gain password information.’ At present, however, all three affected websites believe that nothing else was altered on their pages other than the content of the links.

Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, condemned the attack and warned that it was the same kind of technique used by hackers attempting to get malware out into the web. He claimed that, ‘In this case it may only be sending you to the Syrian Electronic Army's website but it could also be used to install viruses or copy cookies to try and later impersonate a visitor.’

Douglas McCabe, an industry consultant from Enders Analysis, warned that the attack was symptomatic of a wider challenge facing the media: ‘"It is a reminder that while digital news organisations have lower distribution costs, those of technology and security are greater. The technology sophistication required to protect sites is continuously growing. The commercial and editorial implications of down periods during major news events are clearly far-reaching.’

If you’re worried about the security of your personal computer, then using a VPN service can give you extra peace of mind. A VPN acts as a barrier between hackers and your personal data when you’re surfing the web, which means that your private information should stay safe.

Hacker exploits child monitoring camera, cybercriminals using mobile ad networks to siphon money and Google increases the rewards for its bug bounty program

Hacker shouts abuse at child through monitoring camera
A hacker has exploited a vulnerability in a camera marketed as an ideal ‘baby monitor’ in order to shout abuse at a two-year-old child in Texas. The baby’s parents heard a voice coming from the camera as it directed offensive and sexualised language at their young child who was asleep in bed. The camera is manufactured by Foscam, who have recently released an emergency fix for vulnerabilities like this, although it’s not clear whether the parents had applied the emergency updates. The child’s parents have described the fact that their daughter is deaf as ‘something of a blessing’ under the circumstances.

Malware using mobile advert networks to steal money
Cybercriminals from Asia are reportedly using mobile ad networks to steal money from their victims. App developers normally assess the ad networks that they choose to partner with before entering into any agreements, but those that don’t leave themselves open to malicious ad networks. These networks can run their own software in otherwise legitimate apps, and download malware to the user’s smartphone. This malware then sends text messages to premium rate numbers and downloads instructions from a command and control server, effectively siphoning off the user’s money. Android users are advised to only download apps through Google Play, which runs its own scans for these kinds of scams.

Google increases bug bounty programme rewards
Google has announced that it has paid out nearly $2m to security researchers who have uncovered bugs for the company. To celebrate the success of the reward scheme, Google is now set to increase the amount of money on offer to anyone who first alerts them to bugs in future. In some instances this could mean an increase of up to five times the previous reward. Providing a patch along with the bug report will still earn researchers a bonus, and bonuses will continue to be awarded for the discovery of bugs in critical pieces of open source software.

15 days till the end of the HMA Summer Sale!

We’re halfway through August, which now means there is only 15 days left of our summer sale. Don’t leave it too late, grab a discounted HMA! VPN Pro subscription today.

With our 12 month plan receiving the largest discount (save over 56%!), it has therefore been our most popular plan amongst our users. When you order a 12 month plan you will continue receiving the 56% summer sale discount on your renewals for as long as you’re with us.

How to watch Canadian TV in the US with a Canadian IP Address?

Hulu might be an efficient solution to enjoy the American TV programming streaming online, but some might also miss the Canadian TV channels. Actually Canadian expats must be faced with the geo-restriction issue.
This blocking system is operated on content sites, even for Hulu or Netflix. When this kind of website put some content on the internet, it had pay broadcasting rights for each chosen country. Because it’s quite expensive for such companies, they don’t allow every user to access to their contents.
In this case, the sites thus implement a blocking system. It analyzes your IP, that contains your precise location. If it turns out that your don’t live in the granted area, the contents will be blocked.
As other content sites, the Canadian TV sites are concerned with this issue. For example the CBC site implemented this kind of restriction:

How to watch Canadian TV in the US?

As you browse from America, your IP is American. To bypass the restriction you must change your IP and appear as a Canadian.
The VPN is an user-friendly application that provides new IPs. When you use a VPN, you see a list of available servers. If you connect to one of them, you will get a new IP, according to the server location.
Thus to bypass the restriction choose a VPN offer with Canadian servers.

Best providers to unblock Canadian TV in the US

Name of the Provider	Website Address
Hide My Ass	Visit Provider
Strong VPN	Visit Provider
Switch VPN	Visit Provider
Pure VPN	Visit Provider
IPVanish VPN	Visit Provider
Hotspot Shield Elite	Visit Provider

Bottom line

The VPN is an unmissable tool for the expats, it allows to bypass the geo-restriction wherever you are. Aside from unblocking the Canadian TV, you can benefit from a free access to the French, German or British TV.
Furthermore the VPN encrypts your data which prevents you from any kind of security breach on your computer, your mobile phone, your tablet…

How to watch french tv online on the iPad?

Are you a French citizen working abroad or living abroad? Would you like to learn French, or just enjoy what has to offer French television on your Apple iPad 1 / iPad 2 or iPad 3?
Luckily, most of French Tv Channel offers an iPad application that will allow you to stream online French Tv.
However, you have to know that you need to get a French Ip Address in order to be able to stream their program. Those iPad programs will indeed detect where you are connected from and disable your ability to view the program if you are localized outside of France.
We then advice you to get a Vpn (you can see the list of the top rated vpn on the right column of the website). This will allow you to connect from a French ip and stream efficiently the programs.

Which iPad application allows you to stream French TV?

We advice you the below iPad Application:
Watch Tv (many channel from 31 countries)

BFM TV HD (economical news and global information 24/24)

France 24 (news 24/24)

TF1 (first French Channel)

France Television (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5, France Outre Mer)

M6 and M6 Replay (direct program of M6 and access to the archive of the channel)

Now that you get all the useful application to watch french tv on your new ipad, we advice you to read our vpn review to pick up the most suitable for you.

Watch French TV Abroad with Hidemyass VPN

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How to watch ABC iView, News 24 & other Aussie TV services overseas

Want to watch ABC News 24 online when you're travelling overseas -- or just enjot some of your favourite TV shows using online 'catch-up' channels like the ABC's iView and programmes from the commercial channels?

It's not as easy as you'd hope: the TV networks block their online video channels to Internet users from outside Australia.

Fortunately, there's an easy workaround for these restrictions. It's a clever bit of technology called a 'Virtual Private Network' or VPN, which disguises your location to make it appear that your notebook, tablet or even your smartphone is still in Australia.
Just follow the steps outlined in this article (we've covered how to do it for both Mac and Windows).

What is a VPN, and how does it work?

VPN stands for "virtual private network" and it works by creating an encrypted link between your computer and a server somewhere else. It's somewhat similar to the technology used by banks to secure online banking websites between your browser and the bank's computers.
The technology was originally invented to allow businesspeople to connect in to their company network from remote locations safely, encrypting company info as it was transmitted across the internet so nobody else could tap into the connection and harvest it.

However, VPNs have a wonderful side-effect that can help travellers craving a hit of Australian TV while they are overseas: the location of your computer, when connected to a VPN, is disguised. If you are in the USA and connect to a VPN server in Australia, your computer will appear to be located in Australia.

This defeats the 'geoblocking' that the TV networks' websites use to stop people accessing the videos outside Australia.

The VPN service that Australian Business Traveller journos use is Witopia. It's very affordable, starting from US$40 per year with an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee; has 24 hour live-chat tech support; and you can make your computer appear to be in Sydney, many cities in the US, many cities in the UK and Europe, and several cities in Asia.
That means you can also use Witopia while you're in Australia to watch online video from overseas which is usually available only to viewers in that country, ranging from news and sports to regular catch-up services.

Note: Australian Business Traveller is not affiliated or partnered with Witopia — we're just recommending a service we know to be reliable and easy to set up.

How to watch Australian TV overseas with your Windows laptop

Got a Mac? Skip down to our Mac tutorial.

Step 1: sign up at the Witopia website

Go to the Witopia website and choose a plan. Note, Australian Business Traveller is not affiliated or partnered with Witopia — we're just recommending a service we know to be reliable and easy to set up.
If you are not travelling to Belize, Canada, China, Morocco, Guyana, Italy, Oman or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) you can get away with buying the US$39.99/yr PersonalVPN PPTP service.
However, if you are visiting Belize, Canada, China, Morocco, Guyana, Italy, Oman or the United Arab Emirates (UAE), you need to get a more secure service which is less easily blocked by the governments and ISPs of those countries — the  personal VPN SSL service.
Note: if you want to be able to watch Australian TV on your iPad or iPhone, you'll have to subscribe to either the plain PPTP service, or the SSL/PPTP combination service a year. This is because the Apple's iOS supports PPTP VPNs automatically, but not SSL VPNs.
Choose the service appropriate to you and proceed with the sign-up. For this tutorial, we selected the personal VPN SSL service, as it's the most secure and hardest to block type for use on a PC or Mac. Our instructions below are specific to the SSL account type and will not work for the PPTP one.

Step 2 - Download the Witopia software
You should receive an email in your inbox that looks like this. Click the link we've highlighted in red to go to the Witopia page that activates your service and lets you download the software installer.

This page of instructions should appear. You could follow Witopia's instructions from here on, however we've continued our tutorial below so you don't have to change over to a different set of instructions (also, ours is tailored specifically to the issue of watching Australian TV while you're overseas!)

Click the activation link, and you'll be taken to this page, where you'll be asked to put in the order number and your email address. It's important to put "ORD" in all caps before the number, and your email address in lower case.
If you copy and paste the details from the email Witopia sent you, also make sure there are no spaces before or after the information, as that may cause the login to fail.
For example:
ORD123456789
example@email.com.au

The next screen allows you to activate the service.

On the next screen, click continue to start the process of making the Witopia software. This software has your account details baked into it, so don't share it with anyone else. The benefit of this all-in-one approach is you don't have to do any tricky configuration yourself (which is common with most other VPN providers.)

Once that's done, a link will appear on screen that allows you to download the installer.

Step 3 - install the Witopia software
When the file has finished downloading in your browser, locate the personalVPN_Installer.exe file in your downloads folder, and open it.
If a message like the below appears saying you need the Java runtime environment 1.4.0, download and install Java from this website, then re-run the personalVPN_Installer.exe file.

Follow the installer steps as shown below.

After installation, there is one more important step you have to do manually if you are running Windows 7 or Windows Vista. Right-click on the personalVPN desktop icon and select properties, then click the compatibility tab and tick the box "Run as Administrator". Click OK. This allows the software to run correctly; Windows will otherwise block it.

Step 4 - run the Witopia software and connect to the VPN

You can now run the Witopia app by clicking the personalVPN icon that has been installed on your desktop. A small icon should appear in your taskbar in the lower right-hand corner of the screen with two red squares in it.

To watch Australian TV while you are overseas, you need to connect to an Australian VPN server. Right click on the personalVPN icon and select the "au sydney" menu option, then "connect" from the pop-out menu.

Once you've selected the Australian server, you should notice that the personalVPN icon in the taskbar goes green to indicate that it is connected.

You should now be able to access any of the Australian TV websites to watch full episodes online, and live ABC News 24 streaming video.
See our huge A-Z list of full episode Australian TV shows to watch online and which websites to watch them on.

When you're finished watching TV, you can disconnect from the Sydney VPN server by right-clicking on the personalVPN icon again, selecting "au - sydney" again, then "disconnect" from the pop-out menu.