New Tool Keeps Censors in the Dark

Current anti-censorship technologies, including the services Tor and Dynaweb, direct connections to restricted websites through a network of encrypted proxy servers, with the aim of hiding who's visiting such sites from censors. But the censors are constantly searching for and blocking these proxies. A new scheme, called Telex, makes it harder for censors to block communications. It does this by taking traffic that's destined for restricted sites and disguising it as traffic meant for popular, uncensored sites. To do this, it employs the same method of analyzing packets of data that censors often use.

"To route around state-level Internet censorship, people have relied on proxy servers outside of the country doing the censorship," says J. Alex Halderman, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. "The difficulty there is, you have to communicate to those people where the proxies are, and it's very hard to do that without also letting the government censors figure out where the proxies are."

The Telex system has two major components: "stations" at dozens of Internet service providers (ISPs)—the stations connect traffic from inside nations that censor to the rest of the Internet—and the Telex client software program that runs on the computers of people who want to avoid censorship.

To disguise the destination of the traffic the user wants to send, Telex employs a form of cryptography called "steganography," which is the practice of hiding secret messages within readable messages.

The Telex client software starts by making an outgoing connection to a nonblocked website, encrypting the traffic in the same way that an e-commerce or online banking site does (the address in the browser bar begins with https:// instead of http://). The identity of the censored site is then encoded in a special string, or "tag," that's embedded in the encrypted request. A Telex station at an ISP can examine incoming traffic and detect the presence of these tags, providing it has the right encryption key. The tag would be indistinguishable from random gibberish without the key.

When the Telex station detects an incoming request that includes a tag, it redirects that connection to the site specified in the encrypted message. This behavior resembles a controversial technology called "deep packet inspection" (DPI), which governments and ISPs have used for censorship and for blocking or throttling certain types of Internet traffic, such as peer-to-peer file-sharing.

"DPI has been used notoriously as a means of censorship, but Telex uses DPI in a completely different way," Halderman says. "We're basically turning the concept on its head to create something that's a really powerful anti-censorship tool."

Halderman says the design is such that it doesn't matter if the location of ISPs employing Telex stations are known to the censors. "The key thing is that we want to put the stations at enough points in the Internet so that blocking all the routes that go through those would be tantamount to making the Internet unavailable," he says. "The vision is that if we deploy Telex widely enough, it can make connecting to the Internet for a government that might want to do censorship an all-or-nothing proposition. Either you live with the fact that people can get to sites you want to censor, or you effectively pull the plug entirely."
In a paper on Telex submitted to the Usenix Security Symposium this month, Halderman and others describe in detail how their system would resist attacks by censors.
"We've gotten a lot of comment from people who don't understand the system, who are pointing out ways they believe the system could be defeated, but in almost every case, it's something we've thought about and addressed in the paper," he says, adding that the system was designed to adapt to increasingly sophisticated censorship methods.

"Censored users today have moderate success using normal proxy servers, but what we're seeing is that major countries involved in censorship are adapting quite quickly to that," Halderman says. "For example, China has gotten very effective in blocking Tor, and Iran has also made some quite sophisticated countermeasures against Tor."

Bruce Schneier, a cryptography expert and chief security technology officer at BT, calls Telex "well-thought-out and designed," but says the system would not work without widespread adoption by ISPs around the world.

"There are two ways to deploy this system: ask nicely, or make it a law [for ISPs to implement it]," Schneier says. "It would be great if the governments of the world backed this idea, because in general this sort of thing is why you don't see these technologies widely adopted. No one is willing to pay for them, and no one is going to support them otherwise."

The researchers are working to expand a test Telex network that they've been using for months to surf the Web, and even to watch YouTube videos. They note that the test system works with "acceptable stability and little noticeable performance degradation," and that it performed well in the face of some unexpected stress testing. A researcher accidentally misconfigured one of the Telex stations to act as an open Internet proxy; it wasn't long before the system was being used by outsiders hoping to hide their identities.

Is Your Internet Connection as Fast as You Think It Is?

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released its first comprehensive study of broadband speeds across the United States on Tuesday. The study revealed that many Internet providers still advertise speeds higher than they deliver.
The report, "Measuring Broadband America," was commissioned as part of the FCC's efforts to promote improved broadband services across the United States. According to the Internet networking company Akamai, the U.S. ranks 14th in the world in terms of average Internet speeds, behind the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Belgium. Some U.S. ISPs have also been criticized for delivering Internet speeds that are lower than those advertised to users. The new report suggests that most providers now operate within 20 percent of their advertised speeds, even during peak hours; that's an improvement over the figures recorded in a 2009 report from the FCC.
The report also quantified the effects on home broadband connections of peak-time Internet traffic, which happens between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. While fiber-optic connections were barely affected, cable and DSL users saw decreases of about 5.5 percent and 7.3 percent in download speeds, respectively.
The report highlights two metrics as most indicative of broadband service quality: throughput, measured in megabits of data per second (Mbps), and latency, measured in milliseconds, which is the time it takes for information to travel across a segment of a network. On faster networks, the effects of latency are proportionately more noticeable.
While other reports, including that of Akamai, have taken a wide view of broadband use around the world, this study offers a more in-depth examination of services in the United States. Shane Greenstein, a professor of management and strategy at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, says this kind of report is needed. "We did not have a mature electricity industry until everybody agreed on how to measure use of electricity. And we cannot reach a similar state in our broadband industry without a similar agreement. This is a big step towards that, even though we still have a longer conversation in front of us."
The report is the result of a collaborative study with 13 major ISPs, including Comcast and Verizon; academics and other researchers, including from MIT; and consultants and consumer organizations. SamKnows, an analytics company, was selected to administer the FCC's broadband performance testing initiative.
According to the report, the FCC examined 6,800 homes and "conducted 13 different tests in each home, multiple times per day, over several months, to produce more than four billion data points from more than 100 million tests of broadband performance."
The report also quantifies the connection speeds required by consumers for various tasks. For basic Web browsing—"accessing a series of Web pages, but not streaming video or using video chat sites or applications"—a speed of one Mbps is sufficient, says the report, which also found that after 10 Mbps, there's no significant increase in page download speeds for basic Web browsing.
Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative, points out that some providers seem much better at delivering their promised speeds than others. "This study is indicative of the need for some sort of truth in ISP advertising," he says.
Meinrath also says that because the FCC did not release this data in advance, his group and other third-party researchers are only now beginning to review the data. He expects thorough analyses to take a few days.
A statement by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski summed up the FCC's perspective: "I expect broadband providers will look closely at the data we're releasing today and ensure they're providing accurate, relevant, and easily understandable information to consumers about their services. Providers should be aware that this survey isn't intended as a one-time thing."

Ultrafine Location Fixes

The GPS technology that allows cell phones and other devices to pinpoint their location to within a few meters has made possible new services ranging from location-aware social networks to self-driving cars. A new location technology accurate to a few centimeters will refine those services and unlock another wave of novel ideas, claims Australian company Locata. The company's technology can work alongside GPS to provide superaccurate positioning or fill in the gaps in places where GPS signals are blocked.
Locata's technology involves installing a network of "LocataLites"--devices about the size of a hardback book--in several known locations across an area. These devices function like grounded versions of GPS satellites, sending out signals that receivers use to get a location fix. LocataLites transmit signals using the same frequency as Wi-Fi, and they can each cover several kilometers. "We introduce a local constellation that works like the one in space," says Nunzio Gambale, one of Locata's two cofounders. "It's just much cheaper and more accurate."
The technology will be used to track aircraft on the U.S. Air Force's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where an upgraded system will soon cover an area of 6,474 square kilometers. The Boddington gold mine in Western Australia is using Locata's technology to position digging and drilling equipment with high accuracy. It is a convenient alternative to manually surveying the insides of the deep opencast mine, the walls of which block GPS signals. The same effect often weakens or blocks GPS signals in urban environments. Locata's technology is also attractive for any city wanting to offer its own "location hotspot" to fix that, says Gambale.
Next month, Locata will release information that will allow other companies to manufacture receivers, a move intended to see the technology added to devices that already use GPS signals. "It's like the early days of GPS," says Gambale. "The real explosion will happen when there are chip-scale receivers that can fit into your pocket."
Ultimately, this could mean smart phones that know their location with remarkable accuracy, enabling apps such as augmented reality to be much more powerful. Before that, however, construction sites, warehouses, and factories will likely benefit. Tracking goods and machines with high accuracy can enable greater use of robotics and automation, says Gambale.
Locata's technology was enabled by a cheaper alternative to the atomic clock found inside every GPS satellite. Each satellite uses its clock to timestamp the signal it sends back to Earth. A receiver can use that timestamp to calculate its distance from a satellite, based on the time it took for the signal to travel. Repeating this trick with several satellites reveals a gadget's position through triangulation.
Locata's satellite mimics are built with timing chips much less accurate than an atomic clock. That's possible because they only keep in sync with one another, not to an external standard, says Gambale. LocataLites do this by listening to each other's signals. Each LocataLite adjusts the timing of its outgoing signal based on the timing of the signals it picks up from other LocataLites, creating a feedback loop that ensures all the signals are in sync. "All the clocks drift together," says Gambale, and all the signals are synchronized to within two nanoseconds.
"Synchronizing this kind of device is a big research task," says Per Enge, professor and leader of the GPS research lab at Stanford University. His group is working on similar devices known as pseudolites that will be deployed across the U.S. by the Federal Aviation Authority to boost the reliability of GPS and to protect signals against jamming or natural interference. The goal is to make it possible for civilian aircraft to rely on GPS more heavily so they can use more sophisticated autopilots that help cut fuel use.
Enge says it is likely that these pseudolites will rely on time signals sent over the Internet, using a new protocol that enables high accuracy. Some may tune in to time signals broadcast by Iridium communications satellites, which are in lower orbits than GPS satellites and so yield stronger signals back on Earth.
Locata's approach of using feedback among its devices sounds "valid," Enge says, although those at the edge of a network might be more likely to lose their timing if they cannot correlate with as many of their fellows as those nearer the center.
Gambale hopes Locata's technology could also aid aviation, and he says he has conducted test flights in Australia using the technology. However, civil aviation adopts new technology very cautiously due to the need for absolute safety. "Locata will make their money from construction and agriculture," says Enge.

Google's Vision for TV Proves a Turnoff

Google's hopes of becoming a force in television by releasing software that brings Web video and other online content—including ads—to the small screen appear to be fading fast. In recent months, stores and distributors selling one flagship Google TV device returned more of them than they sold as consumer demand fell.

That embarrassing statistic appeared in a July 28 earnings announcement released by Logitech. The announcement covered the fiscal quarter ending June 30. The company's Revue set-top box was announced in partnership with Google when the search giant introduced its TV software last October. Sony was also part of the launch, and sells television sets with Google TV built in.

But Google TV devices have gained little traction. They launched to poor reviews citing them as difficult to use, and met opposition from broadcast and cable networks wary of the Web content might undermine their hold on viewers. Competition from less expensive machines from Apple and Roku, as well as from game consoles, has been intense.

Logitech chairman and acting CEO Guerrino De Luca told analysts that Google TV has "not yet fully delivered on its own promises." His company had already cut the price of the Revue from $299 to $249. Now the price will be slashed to $99, on par with Apple and Roku's Internet TV devices. Logitech has other challenges, such as distribution problems in Europe that led to flat revenues. However the first Revue price drop and the returns cost Logitech $34 million, and contributed to the departure of De Luca's predecessor, Gerald Quindlen.

Google TV is not finished, though. Apple TV soared in popularity after a similar price drop last September, and Google says it's not giving up. "We launched Google TV with a firm belief that bringing the power of the Web into the living room will significantly enhance the television experience," a spokesman said in a statement. "We believe in this now more than ever."

A new version of Google TV will soon be released for new and existing devices later this summer. These devices may come with a simpler interface (consumers and reviewers have complained that the current version is too complicated).

Google appears to have long-term plans, too. It recently acquired SageTV, which makes software to turn a personal computer with a TV tuner card into a media center capable of recording, pausing, and streaming shows to devices around the home. Observers said Google bought the company more for the talent of its management team than its product, but it will take more time to apply that expertise to new software.Google may also have an ace up its sleeve in the form of its mobile app store, the Android Market, a version of which is due to appear on Google TV devices later this year. Software developers are expected to create apps that bring new services to TV, from online social games to apps that turn smart phones and tablets into remote controls. "When Android Market opens up Google TV to more apps, we'll start to see things come about that we haven't thought of before," says Rakesh Agrawal, CEO of SnapStream, which sells technology that enables government agencies and TV production companies to search TV content.

Yet Google's toughest challenge is to convince TV studios and networks to stop deliberately obstructing its service. Days after Google TV debuted last October, CBS, NBC, and ABC started blocking shows freely available on their websites from being viewed using Google TV devices. Attempts to convince the broadcast and cable networks that Google TV was a complement, not a competitor, were fruitless.

That has left a big hole in what users can view on Google TV devices. Virtually every other competitor offers access to the online TV service Hulu, for example, which is operated by a coalition of broadcasters.

Google TV isn't yet a lost cause, according to people who closely watch the still-emerging market for so-called Connected TVs and devices. "The consumer home media experience is set for massive disruption," says Jeremy Toeman, chief product officer for Dijit, a San Francisco startup whose software turns a smart phone into a TV remote control with a program guide and social networking. But unless Google can give consumers a reason to crave Google TV, the company may play only a bit part in that disruption.

DuPont Inks a Deal to Improve Solar Cells

DuPont just bought Innovalight, a company that makes silicon ink that increases the efficiency of certain types of solar cells. The acquisition will help DuPont double the size of its $1 billion solar materials business and enable it to develop ways to make cheaper, highly efficient solar cells.
DuPont is already one of the largest suppliers of solar panel materials, selling products including the silver paste used to make electrical contacts on solar cells, and polymers and resins for sealing solar cells against the elements.
Innovalight manufactures silicon inks that can increase a cell's efficiency from about 18 percent to 19 percent, a significant improvement in the solar industry. Printing the inks in patterns on the surface of a silicon solar cell helps the cell absorb more light. Innovalight also licenses a manufacturing platform for applying the inks to solar cells, a technology that has been licensed by several Chinese solar cell makers, including JA Solar.
Innovalight was originally founded with the intention of printing entire solar cells using its ink, but the company found it difficult to compete with Chinese solar panel makers, which have come to dominate production worldwide in recent years. Now Innovalight's strategy is to license innovations that can be introduced into existing solar panel manufacturing lines; this offers one way for U.S. companies to succeed in the solar panel industry without competing with Chinese companies.
DuPont Innovalight, as the company is now called, is working to improve its silicon ink technology, making it work better with the silver paste DuPont already produces. It is also developing new applications for the silicon ink.
In a conventional solar cell, electrical contacts on the front block 6 percent to 7 percent of incoming light. A company called Sunpower has developed a method for modifying the properties of silicon that makes it possible to put all of the electrical contacts on the back, which has helped Sunpower make some of the most efficient silicon solar cells on the market. But the process it uses is expensive.
Using silicon ink to modify silicon cells to allow for back contacts would be much cheaper, says Rob Cockerill, business manager of Dupont Innovalight. He says the ink could also be used to reduce defects that trap electric charges on the back surface of solar cells, increasing solar efficiency by another 1 percent.
Such new applications, along with Innovalight's existing business, could help DuPont reach its goal of $2 billion in solar revenue by 2014, Cockerill says.

Would an iPhone 'Assistant' Really Help?

Are we on the cusp of an era of ubiquitous "virtual personal assistants"? If Steve Jobs has his way, we just might be.
Back in the spring of 2010, Apple acquired Siri, a company that produced an app that described itself in just those terms. Now, clues dug up recently by 9to5Mac, a site dedicated to scrutinizing all things Apple, suggest that Apple may be ready to introduce Siri-like features in the next version of iOS, its operating system for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
If Apple is indeed about to launch a personal assistant, it could help set the iPhone apart from other smart phones in the market. Android's voice-command system is considered one of its chief advantages over the iPhone, but a Siri-derived personal assistant would add more voice functionality, eliminating Android's advantage. But it will be a gamble, as other efforts to foist a personal assistant upon computer users have backfired badly. Remember Clippy, the animated paper clip that would pop up every time you tried to write a letter in Microsoft Word?
In a screenshot that 9to5Mac turned up, apparently from the menu on an iPhone "test unit," one button reads "Assistant"; another reads "Speaker," suggesting that the assistant can talk back, if you want it to; and a tab reading "MyInfo" suggests that the assistant will be able to use data on your phone such as address book contacts and location to help find the information you want. 9to5Mac further claims to have plumbed the depths of an iOS software development kit and found lines of code that correspond to the features in the screenshot.
Siri's original app, which licensed voice recognition technology from Nuance, a company based in Burlington, Massachusetts, enabled users to perform searches and make appointments or reservations using voice commands. It worked remarkably well for these simple tasks. (You can see a video of it in action here.)
Work on Siri began about eight years ago, when DARPA funded a massive AI initiative called CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes). The idea, says Norman Winarsky, vice president of ventures at SRI, based in Menlo Park, California, the prime contractor for CALO, was to develop a virtual personal assistant as good as the character of Radar O'Reilly on the TV show M*A*S*H. "Radar always knew what the captain wanted before the captain knew what the captain wanted," says Winarsky.
As the CALO program wound down, SRI recognized a massive market opportunity in the research it had been doing. Over a period of a few years, SRI built the company Siri and launched an app.