Showing posts with label FileHippo News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FileHippo News. Show all posts

Russia Blocks More Porn Sites, including Youporn and Pornhub

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Hackers Learning How To Shut Down Internet

A security expert has warned that a group of hackers is attempting to see if it’s possible to bring down the internet completely.

According to Bruce Schneier writing in a blog post, hacker collectives, most likely to have been sanctioned by either China or Russia, is testing the defences of companies that run critical parts of the Internet.

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“Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services… What can we do about this? Nothing, really. We don’t know where the attacks come from.”

The attacks on crucial structural links of the internet have been steadily increasing over time, and are consistently trying to find a weak point they can breach in order to try and bring it down.

“We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation state. China or Russia would be my first guesses,” writes Schneier. “These attacks are significantly larger than the ones they’re used to seeing. They last longer. They’re more sophisticated. And they look like probing. One week, the attack would start at a particular level of attack and slowly ramp up before stopping. The next week, it would start at that higher point and continue. And so on, along those lines, as if the attacker were looking for the exact point of failure.”

These type of attacks, according to Schneier, are uncharacteristic behaviour of normal hackers. Instead, they do resemble the core profiling activity of basic infrastructure that is commonly seen in espionage and intelligence gathering.

“It feels like a nation’s military cybercommand trying to calibrate its weaponry in the case of cyberwar. It reminds me of the US’s Cold War program of flying high-altitude planes over the Soviet Union to force their air-defense systems to turn on, to map their capabilities.”

Schneier states that at the end of the day, the US National Security Agency, (NSA) is probably more than aware of who the hackers are, and where they come from, but without creating an international incident, there’s probably not much anyone can do about it.

The important thing, Schneier says, is that someone somewhere is trying to take down the internet, and that people should know about it.



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Are You Ready For iOS10?

If you don’t plan to shell out the big bucks for a brand-new iPhone–the one that notoriously doesn’t have a headphone jack, by the way–you can still take advantage of a lot of the highly-touted new features with your very own download of iOS10, compatible with versions of the device dating back to the iPhone 5 or higher, along with a handful of iPad Minis and iPads.

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But why you should take the plunge? At its March developers conference, Apple discussed some exciting changes in this new version, ones that have been consumer requests and market catch-ups for some time. The biggest single change is probably to iMessage, which is now catching up in a more Facebook Messenger-like way. Users will be able to do fun things like send stickers in their conversations, but will also be able to do useful things like send money through mobile payment apps.

Siri is getting a little pick-me-up as well, and this one has been a long time coming. Seemingly taking its cue from the widely successful Amazon Echo, Siri has been opened up to third-party apps under Apple’s strict scrutiny (much like its oversight over its own App Store). Siri will now potentially be compatible enough to respond to commands like, “Siri, get me an Uber,” or “Siri, read me a message from WhatsApp.” This third party compatibility also extends to some of the other features, like Maps. Now, instead of telling Siri just to find you a restaurant, you can locate the restaurant and book a table in the same process.

In terms of productivity, the Phone app will now produce a text-based message of your voicemails for reading important voice messages when listening to them isn’t convenient. There is also a new Home app, that will eventually form the basis of Apple’s own IoT (or is that iOT) connected HomeKit features; this app will allow you to activate these devices from within one app instead of switching around.



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EU Wants Free WI-FI For All By 2020

Free WIFI for everyone was just one of the major proposals from the European Commission annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday made by President Jean-Claude Juncker.

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The idea is to try and ensure that free Wi-Fi European Commission will be available across all public spaces throughout the EU by 2020, less than 4 years from now. Juncker also said that the EC would hope to have at least one city in each EU country to have deployed a 5G mobile network by the same time.

Of course the new program may not necessarily apply to the UK because of the recent Brexit vote meaning it may no longer be part of the EU by 2020 it may have quit the EU before the end of the decade.

The project, called WIFI4EU (Do you see what they did there?) hopes to have free Wi-Fi hotspots open and readily available to all EU citizens in public spaces such as parks, squares, libraries and other public spaces.

In order to facilitate such a bold program, the EC will give over €120 million to help cover the setup and maintenance costs in more than 6,000 locations currently shortlisted.  The actual day to day running costs however will be left in the hands of the resident local authorities.

There is a catch however.

If a paid for Wi-Fi network already exists in a public space, then any new Wi-Fi networks won’t receive an EU subsidy. According to the EC, WIFI4EU is intended solely to increase overall internet access to areas previously underserved by internet providers.

Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip said:

“Without first-class communication networks, there will be no Digital Single Market. We need connectivity that people can afford and use while on the move. To achieve that, spectrum policies must be better coordinated across the EU. More competition and further integration of the European market will allow us to reach these goals, helped by the right environment created by the new Communications Code.”

Time will tell.



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In With The Old: Macro-Based Malware Is Back

As if IT guys and cybersecurity pros didn’t have enough to worry about, some of the old tactics for spreading malicious software are back, taking tech users by surprise in the process. Macro-based malware, which was pretty much abandoned after word got out that it was a known virus attempt (kind of like how people finally got wise to the fact that Nigerian princes don’t need help getting their fortunes out of the country), is making a comeback to prey on a new generation of computer users.

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The macros primarily relied on Word documents that were attached to emails as the mechanism for infection. That’s because Word macros are built to execute a lot of different functions in a single command. Where the user might only be executing “open this document,” the macros were also dumping malware installers at the same time. The recipient opens the attachment under the guise of say, an overdue invoice, then the installation is triggered from the gibberish in the document.

But it turns out you can teach an old dog a few new tricks. This old-school mechanism comes with a 21st century facelift in that it contains a new packet of malicious software directly in the Word doc itself. If the macros don’t get you, the document will. That’s why the old warnings are still in effect: never download anything that comes in an email or message, unless you were specifically expecting it or can trust the sender email.

Fortunately, Microsoft has enabled some security features since the old days, and they specifically allow users to disable all macros coming in from internet sources. It’s annoying in its own way, since you have to re-enable them if needed. But with the sophistication now that allows these viruses to bypass typical security protocols, it’s an added layer of protection in an era of record-setting numbers of data breaches.



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AI Just Became More Human

The first really great “bad” computer voice had to be Joshua from War Games (1983). Before that, actors dubbing voice over spouted nasally, monotone lines (“Danger, Will Robinson!”) to make audiences believe they were programmed, but Joshua had all the right pieces: sometimes monotone, sometimes the slightest of inflections, and an endearing, almost childlike innocence to his chunky, cold-hearted attempts to destroy the world.

brain neurons. Google AI

But today’s tech fans are a little more discerning, so computers just got a little more human thanks to Google’s efforts to make its AI sound more like a person and less like a machine. The DeepMind project has used a new model called WaveNet to produce voice sounds that are far more natural than previous attempts.

Long ago, programmed voices strung together pre-recorded words in the correct order, and the effect was very choppy and disconnected. After that, programmers began relying on pre-programmed diphthongs, or chunks of words that the computer would pull together. It made for more natural sounding speech, which was such a leaps and bounds improvement for its time.

But now, Google’s “neural network”-based project has “taught” its computer to speak with a more natural, human inflection. By repeatedly training the computer in both English and Mandarin, the developers claim to have reduced the “it’s not human” factor by almost fifty percent, according to survey results from listeners.

Of course, the goal isn’t just to make a better Alexa (or Google Home, per the developers), but to create a humanoid voice that can actually interact with the user. Right now, that capability isn’t here, as the AI team is still working to teach the computer to create its own responses rather than select from a menu of programmed choices. In the meantime, there are potential applications for more human-sounding voices from technology, especially in rehabilitation, assistive technology for disabled individuals, and education.



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Tesla Says Upgraded Autopilot Will Improve Safety

Tesla has announced a number of software upgrades to its semi-autonomous cars that will be installed into all existing production cars ‘over-the-air,’ in the next few weeks.

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“This is quite a massive enhancement,” said Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, of the software upgrades. “I wish we could have done it earlier.”

The new software will primarily upgrade the Autopilot function with new safety features that increase the use of on-board radar to detect obstacles and prevent collisions. No new hardware will be required for the software upgrade, but Musk had to admit, getting it to fit had been a challenge in itself.

The Tesla autopilot feature uses 12 ultrasonic sensors and a radar in the front bumper. Previously however, Tesla’s car relied mostly on a forward mounted camera to avoid collisions. The new software upgrade has instead pushed the collision avoidance burden to the forward facing radar.  Pinging outward 10 times every second, the radar builds a 3d image with each returned reflective pulse as the car moves, with the hope of being more effective and accurate in real world driving conditions.

Musk pointed out that radar worked better in low visibility situations like fog, or bright facing sunlight, and is able to sense stopped obstacles such as car accidents before the on-board camera or driver can.

The new software upgrade will also include more monitoring and warnings for drivers to make sure they are paying attention when driving their Tesla car manually. Musk also said that he hoped the new software would help soften some of the negativity by some groups of the company’s self-driving technology.

Tesla and its rollout of self-driving cars has been criticised by some consumer rights groups as both “aggressive,” and extremely misleading. Key among their points is the idea that the term “autopilot” was at worst dangerous, and at best extremely misleading.

Musk admits that it’s impossible to avoid every accident. “You have these rare events occasionally—they’re tragic—but to eliminate all of them we’d be limited to sitting at home on a pillow. I think we’re making the Model S and X by far the safest cars on the road. I don’t think there’s even a model within a multiple,” he says.

In May this year, a Tesla driver was tragically killed when his Tesla car hit a lorry that had been turning. The autopilot on-board camera failed in that instance to differentiate between the stopped white trailer against the bright sky.



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Seagate Sued By Staff After Phishing Data Leak

Seagate the hardware manufacturer most well-known for making hard drives for computers is this week facing down a lawsuit launched by some of its own employees after their personal information was handed over in a sophisticated phishing scam.

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Information about staff was apparently willingly attached to an email and sent to the scammer by another executive at the company. In fairness to the unlucky sender, the fake message did to all intents and purposes seem like it had originally been sent by Seagate’s own chief executive.

“In order for the cyber criminals to have obtained employees’ spouses’ Social Security numbers, Seagate would have had to have disclosed more than just the Form W-2 data for employees,” the lawsuit alleges. “Seagate would have to have disclosed additional information, such as retirement fund or insurance beneficiary, that contained the personally identifiable information of third parties.”

The staff lawsuit alleges that the personal information given to the scammers, including, names, addresses, and social security numbers was already being used the scammers, an argument that Seagate itself denies. For its part, Seagate lawyers have tried to The company has filed a motion in a California court to dismiss the class action arguing that the employee legal action was currently based purely on allegations and not fact.  Seagate also contend that there has been no negligence on their part, and that the firm cannot reasonably be held responsible for the actions of criminals.

However, Seagate management may already have shot itself in the foot, having already admitted that the data loss could have been prevented. The firm’s chief financial officer sent an email to employees after the incident saying the data loss “was caused by human error and lack of vigilance, and could have been prevented.’

Seagate’s own internal response to its employees has sparked criticism from some commentators after it offered a credit monitoring facility to those employees who were affected, as the benefit was already widely available to Seagate employees.

Seagate’s official response so far is that it is up to the complainants to prove Seagate’s negligence on a corporate level as opposed to the failure of any one individual.

If you are concerned about phishing attacks or spam, here is a  link to some free software that may help.

And here is the wikipedia definition of phishing



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Chrome Update Will Flag Unsecured Shopping Sites

If you’ve paused to read this article, you’re probably already “in the know” when it comes to the distinction between HTTP and HTTPS. Ideally, you look for the tiny but crucial difference in the designation before doing anything profound, like filling in an online form or handing over your credit card to make a purchase. But for those who are not as tech savvy about security designations, Google is ramping up its warning system to protect consumers.

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Right now, sites that collect sensitive information and do not carry the HTTPS designation get a little symbol in the top of the task bar. It’s not an offensive or intrusive symbol, and that’s the problem. If you don’t know not to shop online through a website that is only HTTP-level secure, an innocuous little neutral symbol isn’t exactly a warning sign. (At the same time, the little green “you’re good to go!” symbol on HTTPS-designated shopping sites probably isn’t much of a boost, either.)

All that’s about to change. Google’s update to Chrome scheduled for early 2017 will include a far more ominous-looking red warning icon on websites that haven’t updated their security to reach the gold standard of HTTPS. That’s an important step in consumer safety considering Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world, and the page views run through Chrome are about evenly split between HTTP and HTTPS sites. That means that more consumers use Chrome than any other browser, but also that about half their traffic is to unsecured websites.

Of course, some tech news sites feel like this isn’t so much a safety net for hapless internet shoppers as it is a push to web developers to get their act together when it comes to security. If you don’t want a bright red warning sticker slapped on your website, get it under control and make it meet Google’s standards for consumer safety.



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WPS Office 2016 – All Your Office Tools In One Place!

Not too many years ago, the world was plagued with a compatibility issue that had the power to stop business in its tracks. Okay, that might sound a little bit melodramatic, but it’s true. The issue stemmed from the various office suites, more specifically in the lack of communication between the different document file types they produced. If you were waiting on an important document to come through email, there was an excellent chance your computer couldn’t open it if you weren’t writing drafts in the same software.

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Fortunately, that’s one of the innovations in office productivity software that’s made huge strides in the past few years. Now, consumers have a wide variety of choices–especially free, open source options–that will still maintain that vital compatibility. The days of sheepishly admitting you’d written the proposal using the free (weak) word processor that came pre-installed on your computer–and therefore, looking somewhat unprofessional–are over.

One of the top picks for free productivity software is WPS Office 2016 Personal Edition, available for download here. The suite does everything you could possibly want from an easy-to-use, easy-to-install free edition. It includes the three major office tools: a word processor, a spreadsheet maker, and a presentation maker (we’re not supposed to call it a PowerPoint maker, but much like “kleenex” or “coke,” that’s becoming the generic industry-wide term for presentations). Best of all, its resulting files will be compatible with many other software suites, including some of the high dollar professional suites.

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While WPS 2016 includes all the regular features like spell check, easy paragraph adjustment tools, and a document-to-PDF converter, it also packs an international punch: one-click language control. No, it’s not exactly an insta-translate button, but it is a single mouse click to switch the screen and keyboard interface between English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish.

One of the unsung features of WPS 2016 that could prove to be its strongest draw may be its PowerPoint to Document conversion, allowing you to create a document file out of a presentation, no matter which software suite created the original.

To try the free WPS Office 2016 Personal Edition, take a look on FileHippo by clicking here.



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Facebook Co-Founder Donates $20 million to Clinton Campaign

Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of social media giant, Facebook, has given a ‘number of organisations’ a $20,000,000 boost for the sole purpose of helping Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election.

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Announcing the multi million dollar contribution in a blog post on Medium, entitled “Compelled To Act“, Moskovitz writes that:

“This decision was not easy, particularly because we have reservations about anyone using large amounts of money to influence elections. We hope these efforts make it a little more likely that Secretary Clinton is able to pursue the agenda she’s outlined, and serve as a signal to the Republican Party that by running this kind of campaign — one built on fear and hostility — and supporting this kind of candidate, they compel people to act in response.”

Contrary to some early reports, the $20 million has not been directly given to Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, but has instead been shared by several different organisations, most notably, The League of Conservation Voters, the Hillary Victory Fund, and also the Our Future PAC.

Muskovitz commented that while he and his wife had voted primarily Democratic in previous elections, this was the first time they had publicly endorsed a candidate, and chosen to donate.

Although one of the original founders of Facebook, Muskovitz went on launch Asana with prominent libertarian and Donald Trump supporting Peter Thiel.  “If Donald Trump wins,” Muskovitz writes, “the country will fall backward, and become more isolated from the global community.” Thiel by contrast, was one of the main speakers at the Republican convention earlier in the summer, and only last week wrote a strong endorsement for Trump in the Washington Post.

Muskovitz has also previously distanced himself from Thiel’s views regarding Trump, particularly those concerning Muslims, and also the Republican candidate’s intention to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.



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Airbnb To Combat Inherent Discrimination Among Renters

Online accommodation site, Airbnb, has published an in depth report about the racial discrimination and prejudice that some paying guests experience at the hands of renters.

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As a result, the website is set to  introduce new policies that will aim to prevent Airbnb renters from discriminating against paying guests for reasons of race, gender, or for taking lower priced pubic transport…

Airbnb has been dogged by criticism that it has takes next to no action against prejudiced renters. The company though, has now decided to change its ways and is rolling out new on-site laws in an attempt to combat racism and discrimination.

 “Airbnb was founded to bring people together. Fighting discrimination is fundamental to the company’s mission, and I am confident that our work as advocates in concert with the company itself will help create a community that welcomes everyone.”

The new policy will Begin in November this year, and everyone who uses Airbnb around the world will be asked to affirmatively agree to uphold the following commitment before they book a listing or share their space on the Airbnb platform.

“We believe that no matter who you are, where you are from, or where you travel, you should be able to belong in the Airbnb community. By joining this community, you commit to treat all fellow members of this community, regardless of race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age, with respect, and without judgment or bias.”

One of the biggest policy changes will be Airbnb’s push to allow more bookings that don’t require pre-approval and punish those who appear to reject guests improperly.

 “If a host rejects a guest by stating that their space is not available, Airbnb will automatically block the calendar for subsequent reservation requests for that same trip.”

In a widely welcomed move by commentators, the company also recognised that it is itself, like many of its California tech contemporaries, woefully un-diverse. The company has vowed to ensure “that the percentage of employees from under-represented populations in the U.S. increases to 11 percent by the end of 2017.”

The full report and its recommendations can be read here.  



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Concerns Over Medical Software Security

With record numbers of hacking events and data breaches exposing hundreds of millions of individuals’ personal identifiable information every year, you’d think by now there’d be no one left to have an unblemished, untarnished, “unpublished” security record. In fact, experts like the ITRC have begun warning consumers about data breach fatigue, or the lack of a concerned response to the news that their identities had been compromised.

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But there’s a growing interest in a specific prime target for hackers, and it should have consumers terrified. The recent wave of attacks against hospitals, medical centers, and doctors’ offices means victims in a breach have a lot more to lose than their identities. They could potentially lose their lives.

Medical offices are hot targets for a variety of reasons. First, they gather just about every piece of information you’ve got, literally including your DNA. But more importantly, something like a ransomware attack is more likely to work if the trap snares a medical office; with the severe penalties for violating privacy laws–even if a hacker was at fault–the hospital often chooses just to pay the ransom in order to avoid the hefty fines and the lawsuits from the patients.

There’s yet another reason why your medical records might be at more risk than something like your bank account. Too many doctors’ offices and hospitals are using outdated or underperforming software, and then not protecting it from intrusion.

An article from ZDNet on an investigation into dental office software, for example, revealed that the three most commonly used software titles had severe vulnerabilities that could give the right hacker administrative and root access to patients’ records. One of the three titles is simply an open source software title that comes with a blank password, and another one indicated in the study is even in use by the US government for its military medical offices and Veteran’s Administration healthcare facilities.

The very unfortunate truth is you’re not getting medical care without turning over all of your information–sometimes even Social Security numbers in the US, and certainly NHS numbers in the UK–but as patients you have zero ability to know what software is powering the storage of your data, and whether or not the person typing your entire life into a dusty old desktop computer has updated it in a while.



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Nest Just Got Smarter…And Creepier

Google re-acquired its own Nest thermostat back from its parents company, Alphabet, earlier this year (it makes sense if you don’t overthink it), and already the innovations are rolling out. The latest change to the company’s smart-home product line? More intuitive software powering the security cameras, which stop alerting your phone every time the cat walks in the room, but instead can detect whether the creature it sees in the frame is human or not.

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The new process relies on Google’s deep learning software to analyze the footage from the home’s security camera and then determine whether or not the image shows a human. Users will get one of two alerts: that’s probably a human in your living room, or that’s definitely a human in your living room. Eventually, Nest plans for its software to become so smart that it can tell you precisely which person is in your house, whether it’s your mom dropping off a casserole or the scary guy from up the street.

Now a little bad news for the tinfoil hat crowd…yes, in order for Nest to get this smart, it has to take your camera’s feed and send it over to its servers to be stored and studied. For reasons that make sense if you’re not squeamish about having your house recorded and sent to faceless servers somewhere, it has to store the footage in order to create a database of feeds for “intelligence gathering” analysis. Security cameras can’t get smarter if the software doesn’t know what it’s looking at, and what better way to make that happen than with lots and lots of practice? Nest, for its part, says this footage is stored on its own servers, not Google’s, so your not in danger of having hours and hours of your daily life sent to the search engine giant’s network.



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EU Considers Relaxing Broadband Regulations For Telecom Companies

The EU may be considering slashing the regulations that Internet Service Providers have to abide by in order to increase the roll out of fibre optic networks across Europe.

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At present, any company that installs fixed line fibre broadband infrastructure is legally obliged to grant access to other broadband companies at a ‘fair price’ in order to fuel competition in the market.

This also acts as a measure to control and prevent a few ISPs from dominating the market and creating monopolies.

However,  if the companies that install the broadband are to be believed, the rules that force them to share their infrastructure and determine the ‘fair price’ fees they can charge to other ISPs on their network, make it hard to justify their initial investment.

And now, according to Reuters, EU officials are seriously considering relaxing the rules that insist Telecom operators open up their networks to competitors.

If the new proposals see the light of day, the EU will hand down new rules to national regulators that will oblige them to consider fibre broadband installers existing commercial contracts with other ISPs, when it comes to creating new fibre broadband infrastructure, and effectively determine the level of competition, and crucially regulation, that telecoms companies will have to endure.

The move by the EU comes as the EU parliament actively seeks to reform its 15-year-old telecoms laws for the 21st Century.

Encouraging investment in new fibre optic networks that can meet the ever rising demand for data services across Europe, is one of the key aspects being focussed on by European law makers.

And in a way, it does make sense.

The costs associated with both the installation and subsequent operational are relatively high, and firms such as Orange, Telecom Italia, and Deutsche Telekom, argue that returns on investment for installing broadband networks are difficult to justify.

One of the major planks of the new proposals is the hope that lighter rules will encourage telecom companies to increase their fibre rollout programs to more rural and isolated areas.

Once the new proposals are published, they will still have to go before the EU parliament for debate, and also be approved by governments at a national level before becoming official regulations, a process that could take several more years.



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98M Russian Email Accounts Hacked

Just when everyone likes to point this finger at Russian hacker groups for some of the recent major-scale data breaches, the tables have turned. According to research by Leaked Source, Rambler.ru (kind of like the Russian equivalent of Yahoo) was breached and around 98 million users’ email and password combinations were exposed online.

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Data breaches are kind of becoming old news, aren’t they? Just do a search for “latest data breach” and you’ll come up with dozens of entries just from that month’s activity alone. It’s actually such a serious problem that organizations like the Identity Theft Resource Center are warning the public about “data breach fatigue,” which happens when victims of a known breach fail to take the incident seriously.

But there’s something even more telling about the information from Leaked Source, and that’s the list of top password combinations that users rely on to protect their information and their accounts. Weak passwords and re-used passwords seem to be a global phenomenon, and it’s mind boggling that today’s tech user hasn’t been made aware of the danger. The more likely culprit goes back to “it won’t happen to me” syndrome, or even the previously mentioned data breach fatigue: if there’s nothing I can do to prevent breaches and hacking, why bother with the nuisance of a strong password or a password manager?

According to their data, more than 700,000 Rambler users relied on “asdasd” as their password (awfully close to a famous social media founder’s use of “dadada,” isn’t it?), while more than 400,000 people got a little bit more secure with “asdasd123.” Because everyone knows adding 123 to something is like locking it up in Ft. Knox? The close third place choice was the ever-popular “123456,” followed by people who didn’t want to bother with the trouble of sequential numbers and just went with “000000.”

It’s possible that part of the issue is in how account breaches occur, or more specifically, how users think breaches occur. Hackers don’t employ tech-sweatshops full of laborers to sit at computers and guess your account. There are bots that can handle that for them nicely, and do it with lightning speed. That’s why experts have long recommended–and apparently still need to get the word out–using a strong, unique password with between eight and twelve characters, containing a combination of uppercase, lowercase, numeric, and symbol characters.



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Hack Sees 800,000 Brazzers Porn Site Accounts Released

The names of almost 800,000 registered users of porn site Brazzers have been exposed in a data breach…Kind of.

The exposed user data actually originated from a separate forum associated with the Brazzers website, but Brazzers users who never signed up to the forum may unfortunately also have had their details dumped on the net.

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News website Motherboard who broke the story said details of the mass data dump was given to it by Vigilante.pw, a well-respected industry website that monitors online data breaches.

“Motherboard was provided the dataset by breach monitoring site Vigilante.pw for verification purposes. The data contains 790,724 unique email addresses, and also includes usernames and plaintext passwords. (The set has 928,072 entries in all, but many are duplicates.)”

The exposed user information appears to have mostly come from 2012 or 2013, includes email addresses, user names and passwords, but crucially doesn’t appear to have been encrypted.

Brazzers public relations manager Matt Stevens said in an email:

“This matches an incident which occurred in 2012 with our ‘Brazzersforum,’ which was managed by a third party. The incident occurred because of a vulnerability in the said third party software, the ‘vBulletin’ software, and not Brazzers itself…That being said, users’ accounts were shared between Brazzers and the ‘Brazzersforum’ which was created for user convenience. That resulted in a small portion of our user accounts being exposed and we took corrective measures in the days following this incident to protect our users…Note that the data provided contains many duplicates and non-functional accounts. We banned all non-active accounts in that list in case those usernames and passwords are re-used in the future…Brazzers takes the privacy and safety of its users very seriously,”

As of Tuesday afternoon the Brazzers forum was unavailable to users and anyone visiting the site for *ahem* more information were informed by a web page that the it was “currently under construction.”



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What’s In Store For The New iPhone?

The upcoming release of the iPhone 7 has carried all the usual hush-hush speculation and squashed rumors, but so far, this iteration of the popular mobile device looks to be one of the most truly “changed” versions yet. While it was still carry its none-too-tiny Apple product price tag, some big upgrades have already been predicted.

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Probably the first change that the average, everyday consumer will notice is the rumored lack of a headphone port. This is already being called a blessing and a curse by some sources. While the thinking is that the phone will come with either headphones that connect via the lightning port or Bluetooth “AirPod” ear buds (smaller than many hearing aids), it does mean you won’t be using your expensive Beats headphones. However, there are some rumors that the phone with possibly include a lightning-port-to-headphone-jack converter; sadly, everything that’s good about switching to the lightning port, namely its better sound quality, just went out the window when you add a small converter cable to the mix.

This design feature has been speculated due to leaked images from the factory, but one of the more telling aspects that supports it is Square Reader’s rollout of a Bluetooth version of its product. The company has an entire line of gadgets for small retailers who can’t afford a major cash register system, or who take credit card payments on the go for their services. Square launched its new product quite some time ago, possibly ahead of the rush to lose the headphone jack.

As for the software that powers the new device, CNET had some very interesting clues for what users will love in iOS 10. The most exciting may be the third-party integration with Siri, meaning developers will finally be able to incorporate Siri into their own products’ functionality. That would be a huge step forward in competing with some other VA giants. Other than that, typical users will be thrilled to finally be able to delete some of the pre-installed proprietary apps that they don’t plan to use, rather than hiding all of those unwanted apps in a folder on their home screens. Finally, the new map upgrades mean easier navigation and less likelihood of being taken to the geographic center of a town if the map can’t pinpoint exactly where you want to go.

As always, Apple has a few tricks up their sleeves that won’t be revealed until the device actually hits the market, but so far the rumors mean this may be the most useful device launch in terms of actual changes the company has produced in a while.



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Online Applications Make Student Loan Fraud Easy

With schools around the country heading back for another school year, a wave of Internet crimes is about to be uncovered. Thanks in large part to the ease of online applications for scholarships, grants, and financial aid, scammers have an easier than ever time of making off with a student’s identity and money.

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College has long been a problem age in terms of fraud and identity theft. Many young people don’t even discover they’ve been the long-time victims of identity theft until they graduate high school; applying for actual jobs, requesting financial aid, or even enlisting in the military can uncover years of identity theft when their credit reports are unearthed for the first time.

Now, however, simply skimming off a young person’s credit identity is no longer providing the necessary payouts. That’s why ultra-savvy thieves are going after financial aid fraud and other forms of education-related scams.

This issue was once thought to be simply a matter of ineligible applicants requesting and receiving government assistance, but the technology–and often the weak software and internet protocols associated with application websites–has also resulted in something far more involved. Part of the issue is in how students apply for higher education, and then for aid. The sheer amount of data required on each applicant is staggering, and all too often there’s no indication of how the recipient plans to keep that data secure.

So what are hapless students to do? Nothing. Short or not applying for grants and loans, thereby footing the bill for higher education themselves, they’re left to enter all of their personal data and hope that a hacker doesn’t intercept it. Once the information has been submitted, it’s up to students to request copies of their credit reports on a routine basis, hoping to catch any suspicious activity as soon as it starts.



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Chrome 53 Release: Squashes Bugs, Better Battery Life, Kills Flash (Some More)

Chrome 53 has been released for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, but are there any real changes.

The latest version of Chrome fixed over 30 security issues present in the previous release, made more inroads in Google’s fight against Flash, and takes steps to improve battery life for notebook and laptop users.

 

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Flash no more

Chrome 53 also shows that Google are tightening the noose against the outdated Flash extensions that are still prevalent on websites. Google claims that the kind of Flash used on desktops slows down the loading of web pages for users, and is a security vulnerability.

Chrome 53 begins, what Google hope will be, the final push to force web developers to start using HTML 5 as their default option when creating web pages. Google said back in August of Flash:

“This kind of Flash slows you down, and starting this September, Chrome 53 will begin to block it. HTML5 is much lighter and faster, and publishers are switching over to speed up page loading and save you more battery life. You’ll see an improvement in responsiveness and efficiency for many sites.”

Not so Power hungry

Chrome 53 has also seen improvements into the power usage of the world’s most used browser.  Chrome has historically, been criticised for being a battery sucking power hungry behemoth of a browser when it wants to be.  Obviously, that’s not such an issue if you’re plugged in, but if you are working off battery power, like I have to a lot of the time, then yes it’s an issue alright.  It’s also a weakness that has been exploited by rival browsers such as Opera and Edge, who have highlighted their own battery saving performance versus Chrome.

Chrome’s updated browser however has tried to address that ‘power’ issue. Both CPU and GPU video playback has been improved, and Google claim to have tweaked the overall efficiency and power usage of the browser in general.

Any tweaks that Google take regarding battery performance are of course welcome, but only time will tell just how good the results are in the real world.

More money, more problems?

Finally, Google also paid out just under $60,000 to hackers who found and reported an abundance of security issues with the last release of chrome. 13 of the security issues that were fixed were rated as being of a high severity.

One person, a computer science student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,  was issued a cheque for US$7500 for filing a report about script injection in Chrome extensions.



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Chrome 123 to Replace GoogleUpdate.exe with New Updater.exe Tool

SUMMARY: Chrome 123.0 and later versions will use a new version of Google Update tool. The previous GoogleUpdate.exe will be replaced with n...