Is anyone really surprised?

“We have found their data in the middle of other investigations,” he said. “They are shocked and, in many cases, they’ve been breached for many months, in some cases years, which means that an adversary had full visibility into everything occurring on that network, potentially.”

Mr. Henry said that while many company executives recognize the severity of the problem, many others do not, and that has frustrated him. But even when companies build up their defenses, their systems are still penetrated, he said. “We’ve been playing defense for a long time. …You can only build a fence so high, and what we’ve found is that the offense outpaces the defense, and the offense is better than the defense,” he said.

Testimony Monday before a government commission assessing Chinese computer capabilities underscored the dangers. Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Mandiant, a computer-security company, said that in cases handled by his firm where intrusions were traced back to Chinese hackers, 94% of the targeted companies didn’t realize they had been breached until someone else told them. The median number of days between the start of an intrusion and its detection was 416, or more than a year, he added.

In one such incident in 2010, a group of Chinese hackers breached the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobbying group, and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members, according to several people familiar with the matter.

via U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War – WSJ.com.

We here at thefourdoves have been going through the early Gossip Girl episodes, and we have one comment:  what happened?

They were so much better early on!

Some quick comments:

1.  What is going on with the hair in Season 5? It’s horrible.  Dan’s is too long; Nate’s looks like cropped bowler; Chuck’s has too much hair gel; Blair would never rock that Ophelia heading to the river mess for her own wedding, unless the look is a sign of her own self-destruction (which it probably is), but the problem with Season 5 is that the main characters have lost their control, and their strange hair is a sign of having no idea what’s going on.  Someone at production really needs to get on this.  Season 1 and Season 2 were magical because they rocked the line between needing power/control and vulnerability.  Season 5 seems to have lost that line of displaying the crucial moments of how vulnerable people feel in daily life.

2. Speaking of daily life, part of the greatness of Gossip Girl is that, like any drama documenting the social escapades of the rich (Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald), it showed the bling in all its glory.  Lily van Der Woodsen / Bass / Humphrey in her spectacular array of beiges, greys, and other assorted neutrals and large statement jewelry?  We love it.  Blair’s bold colors and head pieces?  Serena’s who knows what?  We like seeing Chuck Bass’s limo.  Something happened recently:  the bling has gone away.  Bring it back.  Remember, producer friends, that this is America, as the plot line is demonstrating, and royalty (Louis) doesn’t necessarily mean glamour, as the earlier plot line demonstrated with the delicious juice of “Lord Marcus” who had that crazily hilarious line:  “I’m British…and I’m a lord” (or something like that).

3.  Which brings us to the parody.  The parody is gone (sing to the tune of B.B. King’s The Thrill is Gone).  Whereas Lord Marcus and his lordship was a complete and total parody of the monarchy and its lesser affiliations (remember: the plot line was literally incestuous?  Lord Marcus sleeping with his stepmother?  If that’s not a twinge of social irony, I don’t know what is) While Nate needs to sleep with same stepmother in order to save the family (Vanderbilt) estate from his father’s criminal dealings?  Except as much as Lord Marcus was parodied and came across as ridiculous, Nate’s very real dilemma as he faced eviction from his house and property was not:  he was, and still is, always portrayed sympathetically, as a character who felt trapped in his father’s shady behavior, behavior which resulted from the same money (the wife’s Vanderbilt line) which was meant to protect them. But where is the parody with Prince Louis?  He’s just annoying, and not even that attractive, and brings no added bling.  (They really could have done an excellent episode when Blair meets the family, equivalent to the brunch scene in season 1).

4.  Everyone seems desperate.  Serena is chasing after Dan in a way that she never would have done (remember when she left him standing alone and the whole school abandoned him in Season 1)?  Blair and Chuck alike have just switched sides and made a pact with the devil–Georgina Sparks.  Don’t get me wrong, I was as delighted as the next thrillseeker when she reappeared, but old Blair and old Chuck never would have stooped so low because they had the world under their control.  Blair and Chuck needing Georgina?  Bad times indeed.  Is this like Seasons 3 of AMC shows when the main character (Walter White in Breaking Bad, Don Draper in Mad Men) goes into a total downward spiral before somehow finding his way out again?  (We are convinced someone at AMC is an Aristotelian, because all their plots follow classic Aristotelian tragedy structures).  We digress.  The point is that Gossip Girl is simply not as much fun to watch:  the characters have bad haircuts, the social irony and parody is gone, and the characters seem to have lost themselves .  As a result, the action seems aimless.   Or is it the other way around?

Escape your search engine Filter Bubble!.

We have always loved ducks.  Naturally, the search engine name simply delights us.

March 22, 2012, 12:34 PM — Despite Google’s month-long campaign to warn consumers about a change in its privacy policies, some customers are still angry about Google’s decision to combine data from about 60 separate services into a single database that offers a more complete picture of each customer’s interests and activities.Two new class-action lawsuits, filed on opposite coasts Tuesday, aim to represent the anger of customers unhappy at their inability to stop Google from changing the rules after users have come to depend on separate services without the need to worry someone was assembling a dossier on their activities more comprehensive than they would like.The new suits follow an earlier effort to punish Google for alleged violations of privacy, though the one filed a month ago focused on even more covert data collection: Google’s admission that it had bypassed privacy controls in Apple’s Safari web browser.A class-action lawsuit filed March 20 in federal district court in San Jose, Calif. Tuesday, claims Google actually compelled users to give up their own privacy by requiring those buying Android phones set up Gmail accounts in order to use them. Text of the complaint posted here.

via Lawsuits call Google privacy change a felony, not a simple business decision | ITworld.

We’re Google…we’re *awesome* at buying companies.

via Google Hones M&A Strategy – Venture Capital Dispatch – WSJ.

In 2011 alone, Google topped all of its previous acquisition records, snatching up 78 companies and assets for $2.32 billion, according to a regulatory filing. And executives have said they expect to keep the pace in 2012.

David Lawee, Google’s vice president of corporate development, said the success of early purchases YouTube and DoubleClick triggered a greater appetite for fresh acquisitions around 2009.

“It just became obvious that this (acquiring companies) was something we were really good at,” Lawee said.

By JOHN LETZING

Facebook Inc. has purchased hundreds of patents from International Business Machines Corp. IBM +0.11% in a bid to bolster its intellectual-property standing as it squares off against Yahoo Inc. YHOO -0.77% in a high-profile infringement lawsuit.

Facebook has purchased about 750 patents from IBM, which is regularly among the top U.S. patent winners on an annual basis. The patents cover a broad range of technologies including software and networking.

A Facebook spokesman confirmed the purchase, but declined to provide further comment. An IBM spokesman declined to comment.

Facebook has sought to win more patents for defensive purposes as the eight-year-old company nears a high-profile initial public offering of stock, which could value it at $100 billion.

While Facebook has garnered roughly 850 million active users with its popular service, the young company remains at a disadvantage when it comes to intellectual property.

Last month, Yahoo informed Facebook the social-networking site was infringing on more than a dozen of its patents. Earlier this month, Yahoo filed suit against its younger peer, alleging it has infringed on 10 patents related to online messaging, advertising and other technologies.

While Yahoo has more than 1,000 U.S. patents, Facebook had just 56 patents issued in the U.S. as of the end of last year, according to regulatory filings.

Facebook has called Yahoo’s lawsuit “puzzling,” and hasn’t indicated it will seek to settle the matter before its impending IPO.

Facebook’s purchase of the IBM patents was first reported by Bloomberg News.

Facebook isn’t the first Silicon Valley company to tap IBM to broaden its own patent portfolio. Google Inc. GOOG -0.29% has purchased thousands of IBM patents as the Internet search company seeks to augment its own inventions with additional legal protections.

Google’s Android mobile software has become the subject of a number of patent-infringement lawsuits filed by rivals. Google is also in the process of purchasing Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. MMI +0.04% due in part to Motorola’s extensive collection of patents.

IBM topped the list of U.S. patent winners for last year, according to IFI Claims Patent Services, with 6,180.

—Shara Tibken contributed to this article.

Write to John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com

via Facebook Buys Hundreds of IBM Patents – WSJ.com.

‘Pinterest’ Wades In Murky Copyright Waters : NPR.

Hold your pins, kids, because if you pin something that you don’t hold the copyright to, it’s on your back, and you are responsible for all legal fees.

The government has it. The Internet needs it.

Minutes ago, I went to YouTube, unfortunately still logged in to my gmail account, to search for something.  Yes, it was old fashioned search methodology, but I typed in “youtube” to google instead of just typing “youtube.com.”

Imagine my horror when up came the following:  ” 1 personal result. This is a limited preview.Upgrade to Google+.”

I will never upgrade to Google+.  Here’s why.  Because this is creepy.

Because my Gmail account and YouTube and now linked by the powers that are Google, Youtube has borrowed (stolen?) information from my email contacts and imported that into its Youtube filter.  Up popped a picture of one of my contacts, and it directed me to his Youtube channel.

When I clicked on “1 personal result,” personX’s channel on YouTube was the first thing that popped up, followed by profiles of personX-Google+, personZ-Google+, personA-Google+, personB-Google+.

Did I ask for this intrusion?  Did I ask for Google to export my contact information to YouTube?  What if I were in a public place, and didn’t want that contact information to come up?

Yes, you could argue that this is my fault for not logging out of my email each time I surf the web–because I know that Google is tracking (STALKING) me.  But you could also argue that this is an invasion of privacy and that there is a problem when disparate functions are linked under one corporation–such as the email function, which includes contact information (Gmail), is connected to the music, video, and search function (YouTube), which arguably has nothing to do with how or when I communicate.  The problem is further exaggerated when both of these functions are connected to social profiling, as is the case with Google+ and tailored to results specific to the user (“personal results”).

The best part about the Internet is anonymity.  Stop stalking me.

It looks like it’s time to start exploring other email options.

Sgt. Bales was also treated for traumatic brain injury when the vehicle he was traveling in during a deployment in Iraq in 2010 rolled over, military officials said.

via Staff Sgt. Robert Bales Identified as Suspect in Afghan Attack – WSJ.com.

The print version of this article concludes with this paragraph.  My question is:  why doesn’t it lead with this information?  The brain is one of the least understood frontiers in medicine.  Why was a soldier treated for traumatic brain injury returning to the field?