MOSCOW: Russian news reports say that Google has agreed with national authorities to delete links to websites banned in Russia.

Last December, Roskomnadzor fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,600) for failing to delete links to the banned sites. It threatened to cut access to Google if it fails to comply with the demand.

The daily Vedomosti reported Thursday that Google has reached an agreement with the Russian state media oversight agency, Roskomnadzor, to regularly receive updated lists of banned sites and delete links to them upon review. The newspaper says Google has already removed about 70 percent of the banned websites from its search results.

The RIA Novosti news agency quoted Roskomnadzor as saying it has established a “constructive dialogue” with Google.

Last December, Roskomnadzor fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,600) for failing to delete links to the banned sites. It threatened to cut access to Google if it fails to comply with the demand.

“We’re committed to enabling access to information for the benefit of our users in Russia and around the world,” Google spokesman Nu Wexler said. The company offered no further official comment.  (Associated Press)

HONGKONG: The death of Gerald Cotton, 30, the Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of Quadirga and co-founder of Canada’s biggest crypto currency exchange, having a sole password, has left a huge stash of crypto currencies locked off from the people who own them. He died because of complications arising from Crohn’s disease while traveling in India, according to CNN.
Quadriga, which is based on Vancouver, has said it’s unable to gain access to $145 million of bitcoin and other digital assets, according to CNN. Many of the digital currencies held by Quadriga are stored offline in accounts known as “cold wallets,” a way of protecting them from hackers. Cotten is the only person with access to the wallets, according to the company.

Cotten’s death has plunged Quadriga into crisis and left it struggling to figure out how to refund more than 100,000 of its users. On Tuesday, the company said it was granted creditor protection in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court as it tries to sort out its financial mess. Cotten’s widow, Jennifer Robertson, said that the laptop that Cotten used to run the currency exchange is encrypted, according to a copy of her affidavit posted online by cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk.

Quadriga also owes about 70 million Canadian dollars ($53 million) in cash that it’s unable to pay back, Jeniffer said, citing difficulties accessing funds through the traditional banking system, CNN has said.

(With inputs from CNN)

KATHMANDU: Twelve years old Rohan Thapa was good in his studies until two to three years back. Thereafter, his studies started taking a downturn in the recent months, giving a cause for concern to his parents. “Now, the problem is such that he (Rohan) does not even bothers to take out his books from the school bag once he comes home from school and straight away looks for the smart phone,” said Raman Thapa of Satdobato, Rohan’s dad. Rohan studies in grade four.
Worried over his son’s declining interest towards his studies and his detached habit, Raman one day took Rohan to a private hospital for medical examination. The doctor at the private hospital referred him to the Mental Hospital at Lagankhel and Raman brought the child at the mental hospital last week.
Even teachers at Rohan’s school had noticed the change in his behavior, according to Raman. Only when the doctor at the mental hospital examined Rohan he came to know that the change in behavior was due to the internet addiction. Thapa is but one among the many parents in urban areas of the country including Kathmandu valley who are grappling with this increasing problem of internet addition among their children.

Many worried parents have been coming to the hospital to see the psychiatrists with the complain that their child has started losing interest in studies, becoming inattentive in school and only spending much time using the internet, the hospital stated.

With the expanding internet access, a growing number of school children are knowingly or unknowingly gripped by this menace of internet addition. The children start neglecting their studies, don’t do their home work and also play less. Their only centre of attraction is to get hold of mobile, laptop or computer and dive into the unlimited world of the web.
Many worried parents have been coming to the hospital to see the psychiatrists with the complain that their child has started losing interest in studies, becoming inattentive in school and only spending much time using the internet, the hospital stated.
Chief consultant psychiatrist at the Mental Hospital, Ananta Adhikari, said the number of parents coming to the hospital with the problem of their children’s internet addiction has increased. According to him, this problem is mostly found in children between 10 to 18 years age. Chief consultant psychiatrist Adhikari said although use of internet is not in itself a problem, its excessive use can cause many mental and physical health problems.
The children addicted to the internet have problems like insomnia, disinterest in studies and lost in oneself, among others problems, according to the hospital.
World’s developed countries have already accepted the internet addiction as a problem or disorder of the current generation. In this era marked by the rapid IT development, more and more people are having access to internet facility.
As Adhikari said, over use of the internet by school students is disconnecting them from the family communications, sending them to the world of isolation. They either do not listen to their seniors or feel irritated to respond to the calls. The situation would worsen if no remedy was sought on time, he asserted. The problem may push the affected into depression and other sorts of mental diseases. This health risk factor should not be overlooked.
Though adults also use the internet a lot, unlike the children they are not so vulnerable to its bad effects and addiction. Overuse is not good for all, but the children are more vulnerable to the internet addiction. Children below 10 years force parents/ guardians to give them internet devices such as I-pad, smart phones. They behave annoyingly and turn impatient if they do not get such devices whenever they want. At times they can be very demanding. Internet addiction can cause memory loss among the children, thus affecting their study and the future as well, psychiatrist Adhikari said.
Internet addiction disorder has not emerged as burgeoning challenge in Nepal as in the developed countries. But with the deepening penetration of internet in the country, the growing number of children coming to hospital lately shows that addiction of the same seems to be hugely increasing among the children. He said, “If we don’t seek to curb the internet addiction on time, the issue could reach a crescendo in future for sure.”
Owing to the growing internet addiction among children, cases of cybercrime involving children were also recorded to have increased lately. The negative influence of internet could also instigate children to use narcotic drugs in future too, he warned.
All the government mental hospitals in the country have been referring to this Hospital as the central hospital for mental healthcare. Although the private hospitals have long begun rendering the mental healthcare services, the number of patients related to mental illness coming to this hospital is growing lately.
The OPD in the hospital receives around 150 patients on average in a day while the 50 beds in the hospital are often occupied, according to him.

HONOLULU: Good news for aspiring satirists: Scientific analysis of real and joke headlines has uncovered a hack for writing witty one-liners.

To identify the secret ingredients of satire, researchers compared farcical headlines with nearly identical, but unfunny headlines. The investigation, presented January 31 at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, revealed a strategy for changing words in serious statements to make them satirical. The technique could help AI write its own jokes or distinguish satire from fake news (SN: 8/4/18, p. 22).

The researchers compiled a dataset of satirical and serious headlines using the online game Unfun.me, where players edit humorous headlines from the satirical publication The Onion as little as possible to make them serious. These tweaks “put a finger onto the exact switch that induces the humor,” says Robert West, a computer scientist École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. He and coauthor Eric Horvitz, director of Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash., amassed about 2,800 serious versions of nearly 1,200 headlines.

Most of the joke headlines followed a common logical structure, which West and Horvitz call “false analogy.” Words switched between spoof and serious headlines share a crucial similarity, as well as a fundamental difference.

Consider the humorless headline “BP ready to resume oil drilling” and its comedic counterpart “BP ready to resume oil spilling.” Subbing spilling for drilling works because both share the critical commonality of being activities famously associated with BP, but with one being intended and the other accidental. West and Horvitz identified several types of oppositions between words in serious and satirical headlines, such as modern versus outdated, human versus animal and obscene versus not.

These findings could help programmers create AI systems that better understand and have more natural interactions with humans, says Dan Goldwasser, an AI and natural language processing researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., not involved in the analysis. Other research on computational humor has focused on simply predicting whether a text is comical; a more fundamental knowledge of satire’s structure could help AI understand why something is funny and create humor of its own.

But the false analogy formula alone is not enough to build an AI that cranks out witticisms, Goldwasser says. Knowing what is and isn’t obscene, for example, requires a lot of common sense that AI generally doesn’t have yet.

The insights can also help humans try their hand at satire. After decoding the false analogy pattern, West used the sublime versus mundane opposition to transform the headline “2018 Bordeaux vintage benefits from outstanding grape harvest” into “2018 Pepsi vintage benefits from outstanding high-fructose corn harvest.”

Even for a human, “it’s still hard to make a headline that really punches,” West says. “But at least there is some recipe now.”

(Agencies)

The federal government’s lead cyber security agency has set about finding a new platform to improve how it monitors global cyber threats and shares intelligence with partners. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) last week put out the call for the cyber threat intelligence solution to replace its existing platform, which is currently used to exchange information with private and public sector partners automatically.

A spokesperson told iTnews the new platform was needed to “improve compatibility with industry standards and allow sharing with our partners in an automated and efficient way”. “A commercial solution will be easily accessible and in a format that can used by the widest number of systems and security teams,” the spokesperson said.

Tender documents indicate information, which will be provided in a variety of formats including advisories, would be “context-rich, actionable and timely”. ACSC expects this will allow partners to “prioritise and implement countermeasures in the face of a threat”, while freeing them to “focus on activities that cannot be automated”.

The preferably commercial-off-the-shelf solution will also allow the agency to “constantly monitor cyber security threats” by tapping insights from local and global sources that include governments and business computer emergency response teams (CERTs).

The solution will be integrated into the government’s cyber.gov.au portal, which the agency plans to further develop into “the authoritative source of cyber security advice and assistance for the Australian economy” during 2019. The portal has been up and running as a “static” alpha website since August last year.

The proposed one-stop shop or central hub of cyber security information will consolidate a number of existing cyber security websites, including for the ACSC, CERT Australia and ACORN, and offer a range of services in addition to threat intelligence sharing.

ACSC expects the incoming solution to “be capable of ingesting multiple threat intelligence feeds”, including attack patterns, malware, exploits and vulnerabilities. It will also enable advanced analysis and sharing of the threat intelligence, with context added to ensure that it is understandable.

ACSC said it had already identified six products from companies outside of Australia that “may potentially” satisfy its requirement, but that further market research was needed. The products are: Anomali (Threat Stream), Eclectic IQ, TC Complete (Threat Connect), NC4 (Soltra Edge), Threat Quotient (ThreatQ) and TruSTAR (Threat Intelligence), all of which have been invited to respond to the request for information.

(Agencies)

You can see some brilliant new laptops already, and there are sure to be more to come as the year progresses. Of course, we’ve also got the best laptops that were released last year as well, as these machines are still formidable notebooks that are worth considering.

No matter what kind of laptop you’re looking for, our best laptop guide lists a wide range of excellent laptops, from super-slim and all-powerful Ultrabooks, to high-end laptops, Apple MacBooks, gaming laptops and budget laptops as well. We’ve also included our own price comparison tool that will check the most popular online retailers on the internet and highlight the best prices for the best laptops.

Every entry in this best laptops buying guide has been thoroughly tested by us, and we only include laptops that have seriously impressed us and convinced us they are worthy of a place in this list.

1. Huawei MateBook X Pro
2. Dell XPS 13

3. Asus ZenBook Flip S UX370
4. Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13-inch 2018

5. MSI GS65 Stealth

(Agencies)

Redmi Note 7 lineup is the first one branded only as “Redmi,” and the sub-brand company wants to come in strong. It advertises flagship-worthy build quality, great 48MP main camera on the back and powerful enough SoC no matter which Redmi 7 device you choose – the vanilla Redmi 7, the bigger Note 7 or the Pro. The one we have with us is the Redmi Note 7 – perhaps the most sought after model due to its low price and big screen.

The Redmi Note 7 is an embodiment of Xiaomi’s philosophy when it comes to smartphones, and the Redmi phones have become the benchmark for mid-range devices. And one would argue that the mid-range segment has seen the biggest improvement over the years with the ever declining prices of components and tech. It will be interesting to see whether the Redmi Note 7 was able to benefit from that and whether it will match the success of its predecessors.

Xiaomi Redmi Note7 specs
Body:159.2 x 75.2 x 8.1 mm, 186 grams, Gorilla Glass 5 back, polycarbonate side frame.
Screen:6.3″ IPS LCD, 1080 x 2340px resolution (19.5:9); ~409 ppi.
Chipset:Qualcomm SDM660 Snapdragon 660 (14 nm) chipset: octa-core CPU (4×2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 260); Adreno 512.
Memory: 4GB RAM, 64GB built-in storage, microSD slot support (takes the second SIM slot).
OS: Android 9.0 Pie; MIUI 10.
Rear camera: 48MP f/1.8, 1/2″, 0.8µm, PDAF support, 5MP depth sensor, LED flash; 1080p@30/60/120fps video recording, EIS.
Front camera: 13MP, 1080p@30fps video recording.
Battery: 4,000mAh, Quick Charge 4.0 support 18W (9V/2A).
Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE Cat.12 download/ Cat.13 upload, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Dual-band MIMO, 2×2 antennas, GPS; Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C 2.0.
Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint reader, FM radio support.
We would also like to investigate the differences and similarities between the Redmi Note 7 and the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite. They both have the same chipset, screen size and are closely priced. However, the Redmi Note 7 has a bigger battery and perhaps, a better camera. But we can’t judge only by the specs sheet, right? Let’s dig in.

Unboxing the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
The unit comes in a standard white box with Redmi’s branding on top – it doesn’t say Xiaomi anywhere, but it does advertise the extended 18-month warranty in China. Redmi is confident in its product’s quality and extends the warranty of the handset with six additional months.

Anyway, the box also contains the usual user manuals, the USB-A to USB-C cable for file transfer and charging, a charging brick and a semi-transparent silicone case. But keep in mind that the smartphone supports Quick Charge 4.0 speeds while the included adapter maxes out at 5V/2A so you will have to look for a QC 3 or QC 4-capable brick to enjoy faster charging.

KATHMANDU: ‘CAN Info-tech’ – an annual fair of information technology – this round has drawn around 400,000 visitors. Ranjeet Kumar Poddar, general secretary, Computer Association of Nepal (CAN), informed there was exciting presence of visitors at the information technology fair that kicked off on 29 January.  As many as 100,000 people had observed the fair in its concluding day on 3 February (Sunday), the host confirmed.

The 25th edition of six-day CAN Info-tech held at Bhrikutimandap in the capital had showcased the use of drone for drugs transportation, distance learning, smart home and technological uses in agriculture sector.
Named as ‘SUBISU CAN Info-tech-2019 in Association with e-Service’, the fair had also exhibited innovative ICT technology and equipments, new software, security instruments and home-grown technological innovations of Nepal.

Hementa Chaurasiya, Chair, CAN Federation, shared the rationale behind the fair has become more pronouncing with spurt in the production and development of Nepali technology. Arrangement was made for the government school students, senior citizens and people with disability to visit the fair free of cost. In the Robot Battle competition under mini push category, Suraj Patwari won the medal while Pawandev Sharma became first-runner-up. Likewise, Sonam Ghimire got the winner title and Pawandev Sharma first-runner-up in combat robot battle. Under autonomous robot battle category, Rajesh Ghusu, Rabin Parajuli, Sushil Shrestha and Saroj Gurab registered their wins while Sanjeeb Gosai, Prakash Shrestha, Bijaya Kumar Phuyal and Sagar Kharel became first runner-up.

Kathmandu: The Metropolitan Crime Division of Nepal Police received 926 complaints relating to cyber crime to date in the current fiscal year. The cyber crimes are the criminal activities carried out with the use of computers and internet.

The record shows that the more number of youths than the people of other age groups are found involved in the cyber crime. Many of them belong to 15-25 age group. Division Chief and Senior Superintendent of Police Dheeraj Pratap Singh, use of Facebook accounts in other’s names, hacking twitter accounts, sending of unnecessary and suggestive texts, phishing, misuse of personal information are some forms of cyber crimes which take place through digital devices including computers, tablets and smart phones connected to the internet, the network of the networks.

With the increasing use of the internet technology and social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, and Viber, the cases of the cyber crime are on the rise of late. According to the Division Spokesperson and Superintendent of Police Narendra Prasad Upreti, fraudsters are misusing the social networking sites as a means of making illegal money. They make a contact with their possible victims via internet with ‘false’ information that they (victims) won a lottery or are getting free gift hampers from abroad and for that they have to send a certain amount to complete a process.
It is found that people have been deceived of millions of rupees from such fraudsters.
The record shows that the more number of youths than the people of other age groups are found involved in the cyber crime. Many of them belong to 15-25 age group. Division Chief and Senior Superintendent of Police Dheeraj Pratap Singh, use of Facebook accounts in other’s names, hacking twitter accounts, sending of unnecessary and suggestive texts, phishing, misuse of personal information are some forms of cyber crimes which take place through digital devices including computers, tablets and smart phones connected to the internet, the network of the networks. Of the registered cases, prosecutions have begun in only 40 cases.
He insisted on the need of education from the school level on the safe use of internet to control cyber crimes. Some people are unknowingly involved in cyber crime as they get suggestions to visit the prescribed link or like the posted link or download such materials. The Nepal Police deals with the case relating to cyber crime under the Electronic Transactions Act 2008 which puts the time limitation to file the first information report regard with the violation of this Act with 35 days.
The ETA recommends a fine not exceeding 100 thousands or jail sentence up to five years or both as punishment to a guilty convicted in the cyber crime.
The study of the Division shows that homelessness, school/college dropout, and suicide have increased in the society due to consequences of cyber crime. Recently, the Nepal Police has established a cyber bureau to deal with the growing cases of cyber crime. RSS

JAKARTA  – Facebook Inc has removed hundreds of Indonesian accounts, pages and groups from its social network after discovering they were linked to an online group accused of spreading hate speech and fake news. Indonesian police uncovered the existence of the group, called Saracen, in 2016 and arrested three of its members on suspicion of being part of a syndicate being paid to spread incendiary material online through social media.

“These accounts and pages were actively working to conceal what they were doing and were linked to the Saracen Group, an online syndicate in Indonesia,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of Cybersecurity Policy, said on Friday. “They have using deceptive messaging and… networks of concealed pages and accounts to drive often divisive narratives over key issues of public debates in Indonesia,” Gleicher told Reuters in an interview.

The world’s largest social network has been under pressure from regulators around the globe to fight spread of misinformation on its platform. In January, it announced two new regional operations centers focused on monitoring election-related content in its Dublin and Singapore offices. Indonesia is currently in the run-up to a presidential election set to take place in April, with internet watchdogs flagging the impact of fake news as a concern.

Indonesia is estimated to be Facebook’s third largest markets, with over a 100 million users. Indonesia’s police cyber crime unit has previously told Reuters that Saracen was posting material involving religious and ethnic issues, as well as fake news and posts that defamed government officials.

The country has an ethnically diverse population of 260 million people, with a big majority of Muslims but with significant religious minorities, and ensuring unity across the archipelago has been a priority of governments.

Gleicher said Facebook’s investigation found Saracen agents would target and compromise accounts, but stressed the removal of the accounts was due to “coordinated deceptive behavior (by Saracen)… not due to the content they had shared”.

The pages and accounts deleted had 170,000 followers on Facebook and more than 65,000 on Instagram, but the reach of the people exposed to the content is believed to be higher. Police alleged there were financial links between Saracen and a handful of organizers of 2016 protests against the former governor of Jakarta, who was condemned for blasphemy after a doctored video of supposed anti-Islam comments went viral. However, the Indonesian supreme court ruled in April 2018 that Saracen had not been guilty of spreading hate speech and that the police’s case could not be proven.

Facebook results beat Wall Street, shares jump
A national police spokesman said they were continuing to monitor Saracen’s social media activity and would ask Facebook for the data from their investigation.

A lawyer for Jasriadi, whom prosecutors allege was one of the masterminds of the Indonesian syndicate, said “that based on the facts of the case and our hearing, there remains no evidence that Saracen exists”.

(REUTERS)