Tech's biggest misfires of 2013

BY BRIAN HEATER

THE NSA GETS CAUGHT READING EVERYONE'S EMAIL
Granted, it's not as if all this went down in the 2013 calendar year, but given the sorts of revelations that were uncovered, we'd be remiss if we didn't include it this time out. The question, then, is where precisely to start with the government agency's laundry list of civil liberties violations? After all, while it's likely that few were genuinely surprised that the government's been doing this manner of snooping, the information revealed by Edward Snowden was shocking in precisely how deep, thorough and extreme the NSA's collection methods were.

PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING BLACKBERRY
while we've been holding out hope that the Canadian smartphone manufacturer would have turned things around by now, each new piece of news out of Waterloo seemingly confirms that it hasn't quite found the bottom yet. By all accounts, it should have been a banner year for the company, wrapping up January by launching the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 with a bang. The release arrived with two new handsets -- the Q10 and Z10 -- and a complete rebranding for the company, finally shedding the stuffy Research in Motion moniker for the more familiar BlackBerry. Shortly after the announcement, the company's newly named creative director (and sometime singer-songwriter) Alicia Keys tweeted from her iPhone. It wasn't a make-or-break moment for the smartphone wars, but it was hard not to read the gaffe as symbolic of the company's larger struggles.

MICROSOFT GETS DRM-HAPPY WITH THE XBOX ONE
After nearly a decade between consoles, Microsoft's Xbox One got off to a bit of an inauspicious start. What should have been a celebratory time for the gaming powerhouse was preceded by something of a muddled mess, thanks to a jumble of confusion surrounding the admittedly obtuse digital strategy put forth by Redmond. One thing was for sure: Gamers were pissed about the console's DRM, most notably the 24-hour physical disc check-in for used games. The plan was even more problematic for those without access to a stable internet connection. Anyone who's ever spouted that tired cliche about there not being any such thing as bad press has clearly never been on the wrong side of a video game flame war, and with its chief competition, the PlayStation 4, launching at virtually the same time, Microsoft saw fit to make a change.

Smart devices get smarter, but still lack security

While many smart devices are coming with more cool features, improved security isn't one of them

by Taylor Armerding

As you shop for that new "smart" refrigerator that can do everything including figuring out when you're low on milk, perhaps you should also think about the risk of some mischievous hacker taking control of it and having 5,000 gallons of milk delivered to your door.

That scenario is real. It has been demonstrated. Security experts have been saying for more than a decade that, in the world of electronic devices, "smart" does not mean secure. They have warned that if security is not made a priority, the convenience provided by those devices will be undermined by cyber criminals.

And most of them say things have gotten even worse since those warnings began, in part due to the explosive growth of consumer devices with embedded computers.

In an interview with PaulDotCom Security Weekly TV this past February, Craig Heffner, a vulnerability researcher with Tactical Network Solutions, put it bluntly. "Go back 15 years in computer security, pick every problem we've had from then to now, and you'll find it in embedded systems," he said.

That would make it a problem growing by orders of magnitude. At a conference on the Internet of Things (IoT) last month, sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the agency's chairwoman, Edith Ramirez, said the 3.5 billion sensors now on the network are expected to grow to trillions within the next decade. Indeed, many of today's new cars already have more than 100 embedded, connected computers.

"Five years ago, more things than people connected to Internet," she said. "By 2020, 90% of all cars will have some kind of vehicle platform, up from 10% today. By 2015, there will be 25 billion things hooked to the Internet. By 2020, that will grow to 50 billion. In the consumer market, smart devices will track our health, help us remotely monitor an aging family member, reduce our utility bills and tell us we're out of milk."

But all that, she said, will come with "undeniable" privacy and security risks. In response, she said, the stance of the FTC is that, "companies need to build security into their products, no exceptions."