Great news (and hopefully true): Microsoft planning to close Windows 8

One can only hope that this is true:

If you are tired of Windows 8 and 8.1, which pointlessly forced on consumers a touch-screen interface when most PCs lacked touch screens, take heart.
Even Microsoft has figured out that Windows 8 is a flop and plans to replace it by 2015, or, given the pending management change at the company, perhaps earlier. While Microsoft hasn’t announced this yet, it is being reported by tech website zdnet.com based on conversations with unnamed sources inside Microsoft.
It appears that Microsoft is developing new versions of Windows that will return most PCs to the traditional Windows user interface that relies on a mouse and keyboard. The touch-screen Windows 8 and 8.1 interface will be limited to tablet computers and smartphones, which is where it belonged in the first place.
A return to traditional Windows is good news for millions of consumers who have been vexed by Windows 8, and for a PC industry that has watched shipments fall more than 10 percent this year, partly because Windows 8 and 8.1 gave consumers no reason to buy a new computer.

I am one of the unfortunate customers who bought a computer with Windows 8 installed. The sooner Microsoft replaces the garbage called Windows 8, the better. And the people at Microsoft who brought us this totally useless interface should all be fired!

Russian FSB (former KGB) wants to close Skype, Gmail and Hotmail

The Russian security service FSB (former KGB) wants to close down Skype, Gmail, Hotmail and other similar popular internet services:

The comments from the head of the service`s information and special communication centre Alexander Andreyechkin were disowned by the Kremlin but come amid mounting concern over state meddling in the Internet in Russia.

Control of Internet traffic through these services is done from servers outside Russia, and so they are often used by extremist organizations, Andreyechkin was reported as saying before the meeting continued without the press.
Deputy communications minister Ilya Massukh later said that recommendations on regulating the mass usage of encryption technology would be given to the government by October 1.
The FSB would like to ban these services in Russia because "security authorities cannot access them," Massukh was reported as saying.
Russian agencies quoted a Kremlin source later Friday as saying that Andreyechkin`s statements were "his own opinion and don`t reflect the government`s policy regarding development of the Internet."
"Andreyechkin overstepped his authority and made hasty remarks about these popular services," the source said, RIA Novosti reported.
"State policy in the sphere of Internet technology is not set by security services."

Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev affirmed later that there were "no plans to cut off Skype, Gmail, Hotmail or any other foreign services working in Russia," the Interfax news agency reported.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin`s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on the other hand defended Andreyechkin`s view, calling it "based on the (FSB) service`s duties" and "well-reasoned", Interfax reported.
All points of view will be discussed before any further recommendations are made, Peskov added.
 

The FSB warning came the same week that the LiveJournal blogging site, hugely popular in Russia, fell victim to repeated cyber-attacks that bloggers blamed on the Russian security services and the authorities` desire to disrupt internet communication ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who prides himself on his use of Twitter and also maintains a LiveJournal weblog, called the attack "outrageous and illegal".
 
A spokeswoman for LiveJournal Russia told AFP on Friday that the company was preparing to file an official complaint on the attacks so the interior ministry could launch a criminal investigation.
Oppositional newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Friday reported a similar attack on its website, which was down most of the day. The paper claimed in its blog that the attack was carried out by the same hackers who crashed LiveJournal.
 
The secretive FSB, which is a successor to the Soviet KGB, has denounced popular non-Russian Internet services in the past.
But this is the first time the FSB appears to propose restrictions on a national level, said security analyst Andrei Soldatov.
"This is definitely alarming," he told AFP, saying the FSB`s goal may be not to close access to the public, but to improve its own access to encrypted information.
"The goal may be to bargain with these services to disclose at least partially their encryption technology," he said.
Internet usage in Russia grew rapidly in the last decade, from less than two percent of residents in 2000 to 29 percent in 2009. Internet penetration now stands at 42.8 percent, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

Read the entire article here.

PS
It is easy to agree with analyst Andrei Soldatov. This is a very alarming development. There must be a lot of frustrated former KGB officers (now in the FSB) who nostalgically yearn for the good old days, when closing the mouths of dissidents was so easy. Now they want to stop free speech in the internet. And in spite of what Medvedev and his assistants in the Kremlin say, the old KGB-men may very well succeed, because they have a powerful friend - their former colleague, Vladimir Putin, the real ruler of Russsia.

Bad news for dictators: easy way to avoid internet shutdowns

Dictators and authoritarian regimes are desperately trying to prevent access to the internet. Fortunately, it is not very difficult to circumvent politically motivated internet shutdowns, reports The Economist:

WITH a tin can, some copper wire and a few dollars’ worth of nuts, bolts and other hardware, a do-it-yourselfer can build a makeshift directional antenna. A mobile phone, souped-up with such an antenna, can talk to a network tower that is dozens of kilometres beyond its normal range (about 5km, or 3 miles). As Gregory Rehm, the author of an online assembly guide for such things, puts it, homemade antennae are “as cool as the other side of the pillow on a hot night”. Of late, however, such antennae have proved much more than simply cool.

According to Jeff Moss, a communications adviser to America’s Department of Homeland Security, their existence has recently been valuable to the operation of several groups of revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. To get round government shutdowns of internet and mobile-phone networks, resourceful dissidents have used such makeshift antennae to link their computers and handsets to more orthodox transmission equipment in neighbouring countries.

Read the entire article here.

Here is Gregory Rehm´s page, with more information:

How To Build A Tin Can Waveguide WiFi Antenna

Here is one simple way of building a mobile phone internet antenna booster: