Category: E-gov

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Weibo vs Leica Camera AG: Social Networks and the loss of control over corporate brands

An advertising video titled “The Hunt” and aimed at promoting the “Leica experience” raised controversy in China because of a frame showing a lens that mirrors the Tank Man picture portraying the activist that in Tien An Men Square blocked a PRC Tank just refusing to give way.

As a result for what has been perceived as an infringement of the chinese social networking platfrom Weibo terms and conditions, the word “Leica” (both in English and Chinese) is banned from the platform.

Furthermore, the partnership between Leica and HwaWei to establish a Chinese presence of the German camera manufacturer seems to having being jeopardized, at least for now. Continue reading “Weibo vs Leica Camera AG: Social Networks and the loss of control over corporate brands”

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Phoney and the forensics value of Iphone chat

Phoneys is a software that allows a user to change the content of an Iphone chat thus altering the meaning of the conversation.While this is just an entertainment software, it might have some disturbing impacts on a possible criminal investigation.

Indeed, SMS, chat transcripts and messages are routinely used as a source of evidence by lawyers and prosecutors on the basis that if something is on a phone it can be hardly be faked. Of course, this is not always true, of course evidences must be corroborated by independent checks, of course the legal community is not that dumb to give face value to a text on a phone screen. But…

Phoneys allows a malicious person to create a prima facie deceiving fact, by exploiting the fact that a message has actually been sent, thus leading the investigator into thinking that a conversation took place with the intended correspondent. In an emergency context, the necessity of taking immediate action might push him to under evaluate what has been shown as “evidence”, thus jeopardizing the final result.

Maybe this is a either a minor or non-existent issue. But judicial reality has proven to be more surprising then legal-thriller. So, next time you’re confronted with a message as an evidence, why not double check?

Just in case…