Apple under pressure to respond to the iPhone followed

Apple is facing pressure Thursday to respond to claims that its iPhone 4 saves sensitive location data, which are transferred and stored on the user's computer in a protected and non-encrypted format.

A Conference of technology on Wednesday, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, two British researchers, said a program on localization of smartphone records information and timestamp, which are then downloaded to the hard disk of the user.

The news prompted several politicians U.S. to send queries to Apple requesting clarification, including Edward Markey, a Republican member of the Massachusetts.

"I am concerned by this report and the consequences of this functionality for the privacy of individuals," Markey wrote in a letter to Steve Jobs.

Markey has asked the company to explain the question of whether the reports are true, why the company has installed the software and how it intends to serve.

Democratic Senator Al Franken sent a similar letter Wednesday.

In an e-mail Thursday, a spokesman for the Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said "we are following this with interest.".

"The issue is location-based information, which can be very sensitive personal information," senior advisor communications Valerie Lawton wrote in an e-mail, adding that so far, the Organization had received no complaints.

Attempts to contact Apple were not successful, and the company issued a statement on the claims.

Michael Geist, University of Ottawa Law Professor, said that the software is a worrying development.

"I think that there is privacy and security that the information itself is stored in insecurity, non-encrypted, to be potentially vulnerable to hackers and to the fishing expedition by application of the Act," he said.

Geist, who also serves as the Advisory Committee of experts of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, said that it was able to recover its own location data with its iPhone 4.

"It is astonishing to see literally everywhere wherever you've spent the last months plotted on a map," he said.

Allan and park wardens have set up a website describing in detail how the information is recorded, where he is and measures that may be taken to protect the information, including encryption of data.

In a blog on the O'Reilly Radar, a technology Web site, they said that the data collection feature seems to have emerged with the release of iOS 4 in June 2010.

Allan and Wardan said data is transmitted not anywhere elsewhere, but it is normally stored in an unprotected format. He is also transferred to a new phone from Apple when this device is synchronized with the computer.

"We are not sure why Apple is collects these data, but it is clearly intentional, as the database is being restored through backups and even migration of device,"they wrote.""

A BBC News Online article suggests users may be tacitly consenting to the disclosure of this information.

Apple publishes its terms and conditions on its website.

"We may collect information such as occupation, language, code postal, indicative, unique device identifier, location and timezone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products."", services and advertising" the document said.

However, Geist said that society must do more to be transparent about how it collects personal information.

"We are talking about tens of millions of people who are affected." Even if it is in the strict letter of the law, I think that goes outside the expectation of most consumers, "he says.

Geist said that wait to see the Governments in the United States and the Canada take a more active role in the coming days.

"I think that we will see real action here," he said.

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Israel under pressure to offer peace plan - Los Angeles Times

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, talks to Israeli soldiers during a visit to Ashkelon, where an Iron Dome missile defense system is deployed. (Ariel Schalit, Associated Press / April 19, 2011)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to unveil a new plan for solving the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict or risk having the U.S. and international community move ahead with a strategy of their own.

Israel won some breathing space with the postponement last week of a meeting of international powers in Berlin, but American and European Oxford are continuing to prod Netanyahu to lay out his vision for restarting peace talks and ending the occupation of the West Bank. If he does not, Oxford warned, the so-called Mideast quartet--the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - may attempt to jump-start the process by formally endorsing, for the first time, the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borderswith East Jerusalem as its capital. Netanyahu's government has vehemently opposed such a move.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signaled last week that international patience over the stalled peace process was growing thin and that the recent Arab world unrest made a resolution of the conflict more pressing. She promised "active American leadership" and a reinvigorated U.S. approach that would be announced in coming weeks.

"The status quo between Palestinians and Israelis is no more sustainable than the political systems that have crumbled in recent months," Clinton told an audience at the U.S. - Islamic World Forum in Washington. Some viewed the statement as a signal to Netanyahu to move quickly with his own plan.

"the israelis are facing a bit of pressure with the way things are proceeding," said a Western diplomat in Israel, who did not want to be identified while speaking about the sensitive matter. "People are starting to look to the U.S. for some kind of action."

Netanyahu's conservative government formally endorsed a two - state solution at the start of his term two years ago, but U.S. - brokered peace talks later collapsed when Israel resumed settlement construction in the West Bank and the Palestinians walked away from negotiations in protest.

Netanyahu has been hinting that he plans to announce a bold initiative by May, when he is expected to visit the U.S. and may unveil his proposal during a speech to Congress. But his Cabinet, which includes right-wing parties opposed to ceding land for peace, appears divided.

Last month, Israeli government aid floated the idea of an interim peace plan with temporary borders, but the Palestinians rejected it. Now Netanyahu is considering handing the Palestinian Authority more control over some areas in the West Bank or calling for an international conference aimed at restarting talks.

In a speech to European Union envoys last week, Netanyahu offered no. clues. "I have not decided what to say, and when to say it," the prime minister reportedly told the group. On Thursday, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, saying he would not succumb to outside pressure. "we will stand firm against anyone who attempts to dictate conditions to us that will leave us without security and without peace."

Government spokesman Mark Regev said the international community should be holding the Palestinians more responsible for the breakdown in talks.

"In some circles there is an automatic knee-jerk siding with the Palestinian position, and it makes Palestinians think they have a free pass," Regev said. "people are inadvertently hurting the peace process." "If there were a serious message from the international community that the time has come to return to negotiations, there would be a much better chance at negotiations."

Moderate members of Netanyahu's Likud Party are urging the prime minister to sixteen the moment by offering a fresh approach.

"We should take an initiative," said Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor. "time passing is not helping."

President Obama has said he wants to welcome a Palestinian state into the U.N. in September. Not coincidentally, that's also when the Palestinians are promising to take their statehood bid to the U.N. General Assembly, which most predict will approve it.

Though such a step may not change the reality in the Middle East, it would create momentum that many Israelis fear would reduce their leverage at future negotiations over borders and security guarantees.

Palestinian officials expressed disappointment at the delay in this month's quartet meeting. Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called the decision regrettable.

U.N. and EU representatives were hoping to use the meeting to push for a quartet statement endorsing the pre-1967 war borders, with agreed-upon swaps, as a basis for future talks. But U.S. officials argued for a delay, saying they first wanted a guarantee from the Palestinians that if such a statement were released, they would return to the negotiating table. The U.S. also worried that the move might lead to boycott talks Israel.

The Palestinians gave no clear indication that a quartet statement would be enough to persuade them to resume talks, officials said. Some Palestinian leaders are insisting that Israel must also agree to halt all settlement construction on land it seized during the 1967 Middle East War.

"Why should the quartet go out on a limb when there is no hard and fast insurance that the Palestinians would return to the table?" the Western diplomat in Israel said.

Public skepticism about peace talks among Palestinians has only hardened in recent months, with most urging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to boycott the process unless Israeli settlement construction is halted, according to Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.

"If he returns to talks, he makes the public very angry," Shikaki said. "my conclusion is he will not."

Palestinian leaders are nonetheless increasingly confidant that their September statehood strategy is gaining steam. At an international donors conference in Brussels last week to aid the Palestinians, a U.N. report was released that praised Palestinian Authority institutions dealing with finance, law, education and infrastructure as being ready for statehood. But U.N. officials worry that progress could stall if a peace deal is not reached soon.

Israel staunchly opposed U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, saying the Palestinians are trying to avoid the difficult decisions that should be made at the negotiating table.

Israeli analysts say Netanyahu's alternative plan, if he announces one, would need to be ambitious and detailed enough to rival the Palestinians' initiative. U.S. and European officials are pushing Netanyahu to formally embrace using the 1967 borders as a basis for talks, as some of his predecessors have done, and agree to East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

Opposition leaders expressed doubt that Netanyahu's coalition would be able to overcome its differences to propose such a plan.

"I don't see in the current government a political plan for moving forward," said lawmaker Shaul Mofaz of the opposition Kadima party. Yet, he added, "a do-nothing policy is very dangerous for the future of Israel."

Edmund.Sanders@LATimes.com

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Die 4 smuggling Tunnel under the Gaza Strip and the border Egypt - New York Times

Adam Serwer of The American Prospect and Eli Lake of The Washington Times debate on the progressive movement. Any business or brand can claim to be socially responsible, but now, there is a way to prove it.

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