Showing posts with label TechBeat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TechBeat. Show all posts

Are Hackers Taking Over Your Phone?

In the latest installment of “are hackers taking over your tech and costing you a lot of money,” the BBC has a report on a bug in VoIP phone software that lets hackers in with just a few lines of code. They can then use the phone system to make expensive calls, and even listen in on your phone conversations.

hackers

The mechanism is frighteningly simple: VoIP users–whether they’re residential or commercial–typically use the same internet connection to run their computers and their phones. By finding some specific lines of code in a site that the user has visited via the computer, the hackers can then apply those lines of code to the software running the phone. This is a massive oversimplification of the process, but never fear, scammers have it down pat.

Then, one of two processes occurs, both if you’re extremely unlucky. The hackers can eavesdrop on your phone conversations, and they’re able to rack up phone charges to charge-per-minute phone numbers. In an even funnier twist, the premium phone services can hire hackers to break into your VoIP phone system and quietly make these calls, thereby lining the premium service’s pockets and leaving you or your company to foot the bill. This becomes a lot less humorous when you factor in a company’s potential response to finding out your desk phone was used to make thousands of dollars’ worth of phone sex calls.

Unfortunately, experts are already predicting that this is just the latest in what could be an epidemic of hacking our IoT devices. We’ve already seen fears over hacking internet-connected insulin pumps and pacemakers, we’ve had issues with thermostats receiving a software bug in an update that upended their systems, and other inherent flaws. One expert interviewed by the BBC even said that the phone security issue is easily fixed with a couple of settings changes, but that most companies probably wouldn’t bother to do it since their phone systems still work (yeah, they work so well that premium phone scams are making millions). Hopefully this will be yet another reason for developers and consumers alike to start questioning how much of our lives can be seen–and overheard–by others through our devices.

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Datadog: Cloud Monitoring That Works

What is Datadog?

Essentially, Datadog is a Software-as-a-service solution that serves as focal hub that builds business metrics about you and your business based on information gathered from all your data points. It then displays this information via rather nice graphs, charts and easy to understand rolling timelines. Datadog also uses the information it collects to trigger alerts whenever your compiled metrics reach critically high (or low) levels.

data dog 3

The core of what makes Datadog tick, and sets it apart from the crowd, is the design. The Datadog devs work on the proposition that modern day application monitoring is markedly different from what was going on as recently as 5 years ago.

Good?

Yes. Datadog works, and from what I have seen is impressive. System monitoring of course brings some real advantages. And Datadog does it seamlessly.

The greatest advantage of Datadog is of course the fact that it’s web based, and it’s easy to get going with it. Deploying Datadog took me no time at all, across the 6 machines I have running. It connected easily to my Linux notebook, the Mac, and also the Windows 10 PC. The start-up wizard easily helps you get setup. Installing the agents required to run Datadog across machines and servers etc. was incredibly easy, and it just worked, which is always refreshing.

datadog 1

Once setup, configuring what you want to monitor is pretty straightforward. The biggest obstacle here is probably going to be working out what you actually need to monitor. On a whim, I chose to monitor network throughput and Disk I/O.  Filtering results via the Events section was, I found, to be very intuitive.

The Metrics section was where it was at for me though. Here, Datadog lets you define what graphical options you want to see, and how you want to see it for your managed systems. Sharing the information can also be easily accomplished in the Team section which allows you to filter what information you share, who you share it with, and when it should be shared.

2 key features:

Integrations
One of Datadog’s big strengths is the way it can integrate with various other cloud-based tools and services, such as Amazon Web Services, and GitHub.

Graphing Metrics
The ability to generate graphs, which include real-time data from multiple sources is a very powerful feature. The graphs can be customized to suit the specific needs of your business, and give you the ability to zoom in to focus on specific points of interest, which is nice. 

Downside:

None actually that I can think of. Datadog knows what it does well, and does it very well. For anyone and any business that needs a monitoring solution that doesn’t cost the earth but still does a great job of measuring, monitoring and displaying metrics in fine detail, Datadog is a great choice.

You can get Datadog here.

 

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Female Coders Better Than Men, Latest Research Shows

A study published this week has found that code written by women via GitHub is in fact more likely to be approved and accepted by their coding peers than code written by men. That is, at least when their reviewing peers don’t know they’re female…

github

The results came as a surprise to the student researchers who had expected their research to confirm that gender  bias in software development was overwhelmingly prejudiced against code written by women.  While the study paper has yet to be peer reviewed, the results are still intriguing.

The authors examined “pull requests” on GitHub, one of the largest and most well-known open source software development communities in the world. They looked specifically at the behaviour of coders. The researchers studied how women programmers are treated on GitHub, using a variety of different methods.

The researchers found that despite 92% of software developers being men, the small number of female coders were proportionally more likely to have their work approved and viewed favourably on GitHub, as long as they didn’t actually identify themselves as women.

The study’s authors wrote:

“Our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s…However, when a woman’s gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often.

Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless.”

The researchers looking, at around 3 million individual pull requests on GitHub, discovered code written by women was approved at a rate of 78.6%. Code written by men however had a rate of 74.6%.

But this figure was found to only be true when female coders gender was not “identifiable.” The acceptance rate for women coders when their gender was noted in their profile, was worse than men’s, dropping to 62.5%.

The paper concludes:

“Women have a higher acceptance rate of pull requests overall, but when they’re outsiders and their gender is identifiable, they have a lower acceptance rate than men.”

The full report of the study can be read, here.

 

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Chinese Tech Consortium To Buy Opera For $1.2B

A group of Chinese tech powerhouses led by Golden Brick Silk Road has made an astounding offer to buy Oslo-based Opera Software ASA’s top-selling product, the Opera web browser, for a little over a billion dollars. The offer, which the board unanimously recommended to its shareholders, would pay out to investors more than 40% higher than the last per-share closing price.

opera

Opera is the world’s fifth most widely used web browser with 7.3% of the mobile browser market, a ranking made possible mostly due to its incorporation on mobile devices like smartphones made by Xiaomi Corp and Samsung. The company says that Opera is currently running on more than 280 million devices worldwide… except China. This deal would open up the user base that Kunlun and Qihoo–two of the tech companies involved in the acquisition–currently enjoys in the country. China has an interesting internet-using demographic in that the majority of its population is considered mobile-first or even mobile-only in that they do not own or use a PC or laptop, opting instead to conduct all internet activity on a mobile device.

But what do these tech companies want with Opera? Well, what does any tech giant want with a new acquisition?

Opera has made huge strides in mobile advertising, with the overwhelming bulk of Opera’s entire revenue coming from mobile ads. Of course, part of developing a great and lucrative mobile ad division (Opera Mediaworks) has meant getting streaming video on a mobile device to work seamlessly and unobtrusively. That capability can be very enticing to tech companies whose customers are primarily mobile. At the same time, one of the companies involved in the acquisition bought a majority share of dating app Grindr last month; Kunlun Tech may have significant plans for monetizing on that return by bringing a mobile-dominant web browser to the table.

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Tech Giant Google Increases ‘Right To Be Forgotten.”

Google has said it will now hide more content that has been removed from its ‘right to be forgotten.’ The new decision will apply to all versions of the tech giants search engine results when viewed from countries that have approved the removal.

GOOGLE

Previously, the ‘right to be forgotten,’ only applied to citizens from within the European Union, who could ask search engines to remove information that pertains to them. The restriction did not apply, and was not enforced in other jurisdictions. Now though, removed results will be hidden from Google’s search engines worldwide.

Currently, Google only hides ‘right to be forgotten’ information on European search engine homepages such as Google.co.uk, Google.fr and Google.de. However, any individual choosing to search from the US version of Google, or any other country, will reveal EU omitted results. A quick Google search will reveal a myriad of guides and step by step instructions on how to accomplish this.

Going forward, Google will now hide this information from all other global homepage results as well, but crucially, only if the user is in Europe.  While not providing the specific manner by which they will accomplish this, Google is most likely to filter the results by utilising IP addresses.  If this is case, then in theory, anyone using a VPN should still be able to find ‘forgotten’ pages.

Google released a statement to Fortune.com where they stated:

 “In addition to our existing practice of delisting on all European domains, we’ll soon also remove delisted search results from all Google domains for people searching from the country of the requester, reflecting evolving European law in this area.”

Regulators within the EU have been chasing Google for some time to persuade the company to change the way it deals with ‘right to be forgotten’ requests. Google though seem only to have made this decision in light of the fact that the French Data Protection authority had threatened the US firm with fines, if they did not remove ‘forgotten’ data from all global sites.

Users from outside the EU will still be able to see search results that have been left unfiltered.  The changes are due to come into effect at the end of this month.

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Google Sets Date For End Of Flash Based Adverts

As of the 2nd of January, 2017, Google will no longer display adverts made with the Adobe Flash plugin, and from June this year, Google will stop accepting adverts made with Flash.

GOOGLE

Ad makers will now have to use HTML5 for animations in adverts if they want to use either of Google’s advertising wings, DoubleClick, and Google Display Networks.

Isn’t this old news? 

Kind of. In fairness, Flash has had a lot of nails hammered into its coffin over the last few years. But this decision from Google, may herald the final one. A statement from Google read:

“Over the last few years, we’ve rolled out tools to encourage advertisers to use HTML5, so you can reach the widest possible audience…To enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices, the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Digital Marketing are now going 100% HTML5…”

The new move from Google is just the latest salvo against the much maligned plugin however. In September 2015, Chrome started blocking Flash elements as standard, requiring users to click on the affected adverts if they wanted to view the animations; something few people are likely to do.

Amazon has also blocked Flash ads from displaying on its websites in recent months as well. YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also rid itself of Flash videos in favor of HTML5, or Microsoft’s Silverlight.

Market share

The banning of Flash adverts by Google should have a significant impact on ad makers. Chrome currently makes up around almost 50% of browser traffic worldwide, but as of last year 84% of all banner ads on websites still used Flash.

Google’s timeline for the end of Flash Ads

- Starting June 30th, 2016, display ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing. 
– Starting January 2nd, 2017, display ads in the Flash format can no longer run on the Google Display Network or through DoubleClick. 

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Amazon Suspends TOS In Event Of Disease Outbreak

Ah, click bait headlines…how fun, right? But that’s the effect that a recent discovery in Amazon’s term of service is having this morning. Of course, it’s just a major coincidence that so many websites and social media users are sharing this NOW, with media outlets around the world running amok with their take on the Zika virus, right?

Image from Dying Light by Paullus23

Image from Dying Light by Paullus23

Let’s back up and bring some voice of reason to what is arguably going to result in a lot of misunderstood venom towards the “evil empire” (Amazon) and its efforts to control humanity.

Amazon has launched a beta-test of its free gaming development platform called Lumberyard. There is a virus called Zika that is–largely thanks to “journalists” who were wrong about Ebola and therefore have to be right about something–reportedly spreading among humans.

And that is officially the only connection between Amazon and a raging human infection.

Probably just for kicks, somebody over at Amazon’s development team included an item in Lumberyard’s terms of service that allows the company to suspend its regulations in the event of a zombie apocalypse, one that involves a widespread illness that specifically causes human death and reanimation. In other words, one that isn’t real.

What is real, however, is that Lumberyard’s TOS state the platform is not to be used for any mission-critical application to human life. It gives specific examples, but basically, you’re not supposed to build your own nuclear reactor and then use Lumberyard to develop any safety simulations or contingency plans. Ditto building an airport; don’t use Lumberyard to construct your air traffic control planning. It’s sad that Amazon had to point this out, but you know it’s because somebody would do it.

However, Amazon is willing to let you–nay, practically inviting you–to use Lumberyard to develop an emergency management strategy should a virus give rise to a country of zombies and you have to fight your way out. This is actually really smart thinking, if you examine it too closely. After all, Lumberyard is a game creation tool, and since a significant percentage of its users will probably incorporate zombies into their projects, what better tool do we have if the zombie apocalypse actually happens? Trust me, I don’t need the beautiful cast of The Walking Dead running the show if hordes of reanimated creatures stalk my town; I’ll want gamers who have years of carefully honed experience dealing with these things.

[Author’s Note: Can’t be sure who first discovered this gem in the TOS, but just in case, crediting @codepo8, whose tweet was the first that I saw about it.]

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Welcome To The MS-DOS Malware Museum

An newly built online archive of old computer malware has managed to attract thousands of visitors since it launched last week.

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It can be easy to think that serious malware and cybercrime are somehow products of the 21st Century. There’s hardly a week goes by without either me or Arianna posting a news story relating to some latest company or government hack, or some new ransomware menace surfaces threatening to encrypt or sell your personal information.

But it wasn’t always like this

001

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, viruses and malware were often written by so called ‘happy’ hackers as opposed to organized criminals,whose real aim was to prove their coding genius by creating annoying jokes rather than the apocalyptic dooms day threats we’re used to seeing these days.

It was, to all intents and purposes, young men sitting alone in their bedrooms  like a teenage  Matthew Broderick, experimenting with the limits of their coding abilities. It was a far happier, and more innocent time.

Back to the Future

003

But now, if you want, you can go back and relive the happy days of malware yore via Malware’s very own museum of antiquity. The virus museum is currently being hosted at the Internet Archive.

The Malware Museum consists of viruses mostly written and distributed for MS-DOS home based computers. A lot of them probably aren’t really even malware, not in the way we use the term today.  In fact, very few, if any were actually designed with financial gain in mind. The worst that could be said of many of them, is that they are annoying. But then these old viruses were all about making sure that users knew they’d been virussed. 

Stealth, and avoiding detection are guaranteed hallmarks of 21st century malware, but back in the 80’s and 90’s it was often as much about prestige as anything else. As a result, the collection does steer toward mischief and high jinks. But there was still some fairly sinister stuff out there.

Resident Evil

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The viruses now resident in the museum are completely safe to view, with the actual destructive parts of their code either having been removed or rendered safe, even though there wasn’t all that much a danger to modern computers in the first place. Indeed, it’s highly unlikely, that any of them could even be ran in a modern Windows environment.  But that said, it is a nostalgic walk down memory lane to be actually able to see what the viruses of yesteryear actually did to computers.

You can visit the Malware Museum, here.

 

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French Crack Down On Facebook Privacy Violations

The French government is known for some of its more people-centric privacy laws, which is part of the reason so many celebrities choose to make their home in-country. Now, the government is cracking down on some seemingly innocuous terms of service in Facebook’s system, claiming that the current terms violate their privacy laws.

Facebook in eye

Facebook, like many other internet entities, uses cookies that it tracks for up to two years, even on people who are not members of the site and therefore did not agree to the lengthy terms of service. If an internet user clicks a link and watches a video that was uploaded to Facebook instead of YouTube, for example, that individual can view the video without being a member, and that person’s web behavior is tracked.

France has said that’s against their laws.

While issuing the desist order that Facebook must comply with within three months (at the risk of facing heavy fines), the government also took some further steps to safeguard its citizens privacy. Facebook must now require an eight character password instead of six, as it currently requires around the world. In a much bigger step, Facebook must also stop sharing information on French users’ web activity–site members or not–with the US government. Under a previous agreement called the Safe Harbour Agreement, Facebook could voluntarily or be compelled to turn over information on its users to US officials. That agreement has been rescinded and a new agreement put in place, but the new agreement has yet to go into effect. The French government isn’t taking any chances, though; agreement or not, the social media site has been warned to stop sharing information.

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Alibaba Fails To Notice 99 Million Log-In Cyber Hack

According to a state media report, hackers in China have attempted to gain access to more than 20,000,000 active accounts on Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce website using the company’s own cloud computing service.

"Full protection." Lolz

“Full protection.” Lolz

Cyber crime is on the rise globally, but China has experienced a sharper rise than most other countries internationally. In Alibaba’s case, hackers managed to get their hands on a database containing ninety-nine million usernames and passwords from a variety of other websites, said a corroborating report from the Chinese Ministry Of Public Security. Of the ninety-nine million usernames the hackers used to login to Alibaba’s cloud service, 20.59 million of them were also currently being used at the same time for Taobao accounts.

2015

The hack against Alibaba began in October 2015, but the company’s security team only discovered the profligate cybercrime activity in November.  Alibaba has however denied that its security system is to blame for the incident. A statement from the company said that “Alibaba’s system was never breached,” and also denied that the company was itself to blame for the stolen credentials.

“This incident involved suspects using account login information stolen from other websites to attempt to match with Taobao accounts. Our world-class security team detected these criminal attempts in the first instance and mitigated the potential effects by swiftly reminding users to change their passwords and not use the same password on multiple platforms.”

Really?

It would be quite easy to raise a classically skeptical eyebrow at such a statement. After all, 20 million fraudulent login attempts isn’t exactly a small number. But then Taobao does experience a vast amount of traffic on a daily basis, and then there’s also the fact that the hackers may only have needed try each username/password combination once.

The main aim of the hackers, according to reports, was to place fake orders on Taobao to boost sellers’ ratings, in a technique known as ‘brushing’ in China.  Several thousand accounts were also reportedly sold on.

The hackers have since been caught, the Chinese Ministry has said.

 

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Google Thinks Its AI Software Can Beat The Best

Computer’s have come a long way since Pong, and an even longer way since the early chess programs with their lo-res graphics and monochromatic color schemes that made game play difficult. But the term “playing against the computer” hasn’t had this much importance since chessmaster Kasperov lost to IBM’s version of outsmarting the smartest.

Go

Google’s DeepMind Lab has been hard at work on all kinds of AI innovation, and the goal is far more involved than just beating a game. But one of the truest tests of how capable the mechanical intelligence of a computer is depends on its ability not just to retrieve information–as in the case of the game software Watson that readily beat multiple Jeopardy! champions with its ability to seek and recall factual nuggets of information–but in its ability to reason based on countless parameters in front of it.

That’s why the ancient and well-loved Asian game Go is the perfect test of reasoning ability. Like chess on steroids, Go requires its players to manipulate their pieces on a 19-grid board and make constant determinations about what moves are significant and which moves are just “throwaways.” And thanks to Google’s AI program AlphaGo, the real test–beating the world champion–is only weeks away.

In a live-streamed event broadcast from Seoul, AlphaGo will take on Lee Sedol in a five-game match over the course of a week next month. Both sides, Sedol and the head of Google’s AI division Demis Hassabis, are alarmingly confident that their abilities will prove to be superior, but one of them is about to come away disappointed. Rather than feel the sting of loss, though, this match should either show us just how powerful DeepMind’s tech is, or will demonstrate that there are still advancements to be made.

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LastPass Gets Long-Awaited Update

In a world rife with hacking events, cybercrime, and record-setting numbers of data breaches, it falls to tech users to be as proactive as they can about guarding their content. All too often, the user names and passwords that protect our accounts are the gold standard in identity theft-related crimes, such as in the announcements last week that two online tax prep services had been breached by hackers who’d used stolen user names and passwords.

lastpass

The experts have long warned that the best passwords are the ones that can’t be guessed or deciphered by software that thieves use specifically to try out random variations of letters and numbers. (We’ll ignore, for the moment, the fact that “password” is still the most commonly used password…just ask the executives at Sony who had their accounts stolen in their data breach a couple of years ago.) So unless you have a didactic memory for keeping your 8 to 12 letters, numbers, symbols, and cases straight on every single account you own, you’re going to run into trouble keeping all of your accounts unique and secure.

That’s why LastPass was created. This one-site password manager lets you create wild strings of generated password combinations, then rely on LastPass’ security to protect all of those. You essentially log in only to LastPass with the most secure password you can remember, and let the platform keep up with your 20+ symbol and alphanumeric passwords, generated uniquely for every single account.

LastPass has been wildly popular from a security standpoint, but has needed to make a few upgrades based on ease of use and customer feedback. The company has now rolled out those features in the 4.0 version, and users should see some pleasant changes.

The first change, though, is ironically one that may have a few hyperaware tech users questioning their logins. Due to an unexpected trademark lawsuit, LastPass has dropped the asterisk from its logo, which was there to symbolize the asterisks that appear when you type in a password. Don’t be alarmed, though; the asterisk is gone but it’s not a copycat site masquerading as the real deal in order to get your login credentials.

Beyond the initial cosmetic change, the site has a few more face lift features now. The icons are large and easier to identify, the vault is more user-friendly and approachable, and the color scheme is a little more inviting. In all, it’s meant to be an easier, more appealing navigation experience.

One of the best features is the Emergency Access option. Utilizing the concept of the “password heir,” or someone who is designated to get into your accounts in the event of an emergency but who doesn’t need to actually know your passwords until such an event occurs, LastPass lets you setup a profile now that grants certain permissions to someone you appoint to use your account if needed.

The new Sharing Center is also going to be very popular with users, as it takes into account all those passwords that may need to be shared among a small group but without granting access to all of your passwords to the group. Users can select which passwords can be shared, and with whom. Be aware, some of the sharing features do require paid or business account setup.

Overall, the update addresses some issues that LastPass has been at work on for some time, and once the initial readjustment period is over, most users are going to be pleased with the new look and feel.

 

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TaxSlayer Software Developers Reveal Data Breach

As if citizens didn’t have enough to worry about during the tax filing season, yet another data breach has claimed the identities of nearly 9,000 people. TaxSlayer announced a January 13th data breach, discovered during a routine security check, that released the personal identifiable information of many of its customers to an “unauthorized third party.”

IRS Sign

Tax information is highly sought after, so much that even notoriously violent street gangs in the US have given up dealing drugs or robbery in favor of organized identity theft rings that steal tax refunds by filing fraudulent returns. The very image of tattooed, hardened criminals sitting around with their laptops and a ream of stolen identifying information would be laughable if it weren’t such a rampant crime. How large is this crime? Current estimates state that the IRS pays out billions of dollars a year in stolen tax refunds; in 2015 alone that number was $5.8 billion.

In a filed letter about the breach, which occurred between October and December of 2015, the company stated, “The unauthorized third party may have obtained access to any information you included in a tax return or draft tax return saved on TaxSlayer, including your name and address, your Social Security number, the Social Security numbers of your dependents, and other data contained on your 2014 tax return.”

TaxSlayer believes the hackers accessed their customers’ user names and passwords through another online service, but didn’t specify what that meant. They did point out that the TaxSlayer system was not compromised and had no discovered security flaws. In the letter that went out to affected customers, the company offered instructions for resetting the passwords, monitoring their credit reports for any unauthorized activity, and enrolling in free credit monitoring. It would also be wise for the victims to get their tax returns filed as quickly as possible in order to attempt to beat the hackers to it.

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“Safe” Browsing Just Got Safer

Despite decades of widespread existence (and even more years of basically military-only use before that), the internet is still a veritable Wild West playground. The unfortunate fact is that a lot of the issues that come up for users stem from a segment of the online population who doesn’t really know how the thing works. That’s why Google rolled out its Safe Browsing option some time ago, and launched a stronger set of features for it last year.

Image courtesy of imgkid.com

Image courtesy of imgkid.com

Now, Google is working on warning users of the potential dangers on a site-by-site basis, meaning your next venture to browse for a good deal on shoes could result in a popup screen that tells you there may be malicious software lurking in the waters ahead.

One of the chief protections is against social engineering, which works to dupe users into downloading viruses and malware by masking as official information from known tech giants. You’ve seen these a hundred times, warnings that crop up and appear to inform you that your Flash is out of date, or your security settings aren’t strong enough for this content. (RE: this is why my mom keeps downloading viruses every time a popup box with flashing letters tells her that her computer is already infected, and she can clean it if she’ll just “click here”…I can’t get her to quit doing this.)

Of course, a lot of how Google knows about these perpetrators is through user reporting, so the option to submit a security report is included via check box on the warning screen.

There’s an unfortunate downside to all of this: sometimes it’s the site’s owners who’ve been taken advantage of. Google’s Safe Browsing will warn users away from websites that contain this type of social engineering, regardless of whether the site admin put it there, didn’t put it there, or doesn’t even know it’s there. That’s bad for online business, obviously, and Google is warning site admins to troubleshoot their setups if traffic is directed away for security reasons.

 

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Microsoft Trials Underwater Natick Data Center

Meet Project Natick.

Microsoft have unveiled their latest research project, and it could be a major game changer in how large companies increase the way they think about cloud computing, by submerging a 38,000-pound container a thousand meters out into the Pacific Ocean.

According to Microsoft, 50% of us live close to a coast, so while dropping data centers under the ocean might sound a bit nuts to start with, it actually makes a lot of sense.

NATICK

With the ever faster expansion of the cloud and the ever increasing need for more internet, large technology firms have been keen to find energy efficient ways to store their increasing amounts of data. Data centers consume up to 3% of the world’s electricity, and are essential for modern everyday computing.

One of the major power draws on these data centers is heat, or rather the cooling of it.  As a result in a bid to lower power costs, tech firms are routinely considering new options and ideas for housing data. Facebook, including moving them to countries with colder climates, and in Microsoft’s case, under the sea.

The prototype vessel used to test the theory, the Leona Philpot (named after an X-Box character, apparently) was sitting one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States from August to November of 2015.

Sounds a bit expensive doesn’t it?

Yes, it does, and yes it is. But with the end of Moore’s law, (the idea that computing processing power doubles every 18 months), the costs involved are no longer cripplingly expensive. Microsoft are postulating that each set of digital server racks within the underwater data centers will last for 5 years, with the actual Natick data centers steel casing will be usable for up to 20 years.

But there are other reasons, and here, according to Microsoft are the main reasons for their ocean testing

  • AIR CON:  Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling. Air conditioning is one of the major costs with running data centers. Sticking them in the ocean, will practically eliminate the cooling costs.
  • SUSTAINABLE: (Maybe) Natick data centers are envisioned to be fully recycled, with perhaps the exception of the actual computer bits inside of them. They will be made from recycled material which in turn will be recycled at the end of life of the datacenter.
  • RENEWABLE: With offshore renewable energy sources, Natick data centers might actually be truly zero emission, especially if they are powered by renewable energy. There should be absolute minimum wastage.
  • LATENCY:  Gamers of the world unite. As stated above, around half the world’s population lives within 200 km of the coast. By placing data centers offshore, Microsoft would dramatically be reducing latency and providing better responsiveness, because data would not be as restricted as much as it currently is.
  • RAPID DEPLOYMENT: Demand for extra bandwidth and the need for more cloud could be met quickly and efficiently.  This could prove to be extremely helpful for natural disasters and special events such as World Cup

Project Natick is currently at the research stage. Microsoft only began its research program back in 2013, so it’s still early days whether this concept will ultimately ever be deployed, but initial feedback from the prototype Natick has been mostly positive.

 

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Amazon Kindles To Get An Update

When the Kindle e-reader hit the shelves, it took the market by storm. It wasn’t the first digital device for reading ebooks, but it was the first one to come with a user-friendly download process and a full library of books to back it up (it was no fun reading ebooks on a device when there were no mainstream ebooks to load into it). But even better than the abundance of titles or the ease of use was Amazon’s never-obsolete design concept.

kindle voyage

The devices were built to accept seamless software updates that gave them new capabilities and even new functions, such as in the case of the early Kindles eventually becoming internet browsing-compatible and turning into MP3 players. This was accomplished without the release of a whole new model to meet consumer demand, but instead incorporated the new features by piggybacking off the existing capabilities of the devices.

The best part of these updates–at least from a user-friendly, consumer-centric model–was that the owners needn’t have done anything to install them. In much the same way that their books appeared on their devices after purchase, the software updates installed and took root.

Now, the next big thing in Kindle updates will add new sought-after features to some of the existing models. These changes may seem small on the surface, but interestingly, they address some of the key issues that readers have complained about.

The first is a better ability when it comes to buying books directly from the device itself. The library is easier to navigate and the recommended books are more visible without being obnoxious.

More importantly, the new update gives a facelift to a much-touted feature that until now served no discernible purpose. For years, multiple e-reader manufacturers and booksellers have bragged about the ability to annotate and share key lines from books, but it’s a feature that most casual readers never really took a shine to. Ignoring the benefits of this feature for non-fiction or collaborative texts, when you consider the function of a typical fiction book, posting a line from the text on your Facebook wall is the social media equivalent of reading snippets of your book aloud to your spouse. They’re simply trying to watch television while you annoy them with disconnected, disjointed sentences of a book they’ve never heard of.

Now, however, there’s a purpose in this text-sharing: readers who post quotes on their social media feeds will actually be sharing the direct link to read the full sample of the book and the option buy it. While critics will sneer and say it’s just another bookselling ploy, the reality is there’s no function in sharing lines from a book if the followers aren’t being given all the particulars of the book, a way to read more of it for themselves, and the ability to buy the book if they so choose.

This new firmware–and the other features that it includes–will instantly reach newer models of the Kindle Paperwhite, the Kindle Voyage, and the recent versions of the standard Kindle later this month.

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Remote Connecting Made Easy With NoMachine

NoMachine is a remote desktop utility designed for people of all skill levels.

The ability to connect to other PC’s and devices legitimately has been around for a long time. But having used several other similar based programs such as TeamViewer, No Machine is the one I’ve managed to pick up the quickest.

No Machine

That’s because not only is it an effective little program, it’s also incredibly well designed, and easy on the eyes. The most striking thing about NoMachine is how good it looks compared to some of its competitors.

As well as that the step by step guide walks details everything you need to know to setup a remote connection to another PC in a simple and straightforward manner.

No Messing NoMachine

There’s no messing about with trying to connect to other machines either. The only requirements really needed to get it up and running is the remote PC’s IP address, and that NoMachine be installed on the remote PC you want to connect with.

Once linked in to the remote computer working with any content is simple and efficient. It’s possible to utilise documents, music, and videos in exactly the same way you can with your own computer. You can even print locally, on your own printer straight from the remote computer. Another really nice feature is the fact that if you insert any external media such as a USB card in your own machine, you can open them from the remote machine.

Speed

NoMachine is also fast compared to some similar products out there. NoMachine utilises an NX protocol that connections with both low bandwidth and high latency almost guarantees responsiveness between local and remote machine that will often make it feel like you’re working on your own PC.

Customised features

This is where NoMachine excels.

You can highlight the remote machine’s mouse cursor, emulate a bunch of features, and hide the different context menus and panels when focussing on the remote PC’s desktop.

The screen resolution can be changed and the display quality can be optimised, as well as the overall performance. Another nice touch is that any noise or annoying sound NoMachine might make can be turned off or lowered from within the program itself, meaning you don’t have to mute your own machine to get rid of them. This is nice, especially as audio from the remote connection is automatically forwarded to the host machine.

Different OS, and Old Machines

NoMachine worked well on all the different PC’s I tried it on. These included Window 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and I also found it worked surprisingly well on Windows XP. This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise as NoMachine is designed with backward capability in mind, but I didn’t read the release notes before trying it. I have no idea if it works on Windows Vista.

The one dark side downside

The only issue I have with NoMachine is the fact that it starts automatically with Windows, and will run every time you boot your machine, and this doesn’t get a mention when the program is installed. On the plus side of that though, NoMachine will scan for fellow NoMachine installed PCs in your network when it starts which could be a real timesaver if you’re in a rush.

Final Words

NoMachine is a powerful and extensive remote desktop program that comes packed with features and is easy to learn and use. The fact that it’s free and available for download here, is just a bonus.

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Pale Moon : A Real And Fun Alternative Browser

“Your Browser, Your way.” (Allegedly.)

I’ve used a lot of different browsers over the years and I remember writing about the Linux based Pale Moon browser back in 2014, and I liked it. But now Moonchild Productions has released Pale Moon 26.0, the browser’s first big update in two years, and the new build has some really nice new things going for it.

Pale Moon

Looks Good And Simple To Use

I like the way Pale Moon looks. It’s colourful, and the home splash screen can be customised to carry whatever news, link buttons, or feeds you want it too. In some ways it’s like having a second desktop, and I found it easy to navigate and work my way round quickly.  The new graphics and presentation update have also worked wonders and it’s fast. I also liked the dropdown history button, and the way it’s positioned next to the history bar, so there’s very little fiddling to be done.

Security

Pale Moon has also updated a lot of its internal security features, including adding support for 128 bit Camelia GCM ciphers and the removal of several modules whose security had become hazardous due to the passage of time.

What Makes It Different

Pale Moon now comes with its own browser rendering interface, Goanna. Pretty much every media is supported, and the addition of improved scaling for vector images was a welcome touch. While Pale Moon is originally based on the Gecko Firefox browser engine, the adoption of Goanna marks a definitive split away from the Mozilla browser. That said, Goanna is still fairly similar to Firefox in lots of ways. The biggest difference is the result of the layout engine, and the way it works.  Pale Moon has a different set of features to other browsers while remaining easy to use. Thankfully Pale Moon has also struck a close adherence to official web specification and web standards in it implementation and seems not to have compromised, and instead the browser has struck a fine balance between technical advancement, general use, and performance.

Extensions.

It’s surprising how many of even the latest Firefox extensions actually work in Pale Moon. This is partly down to the shared history between the two browsers, but is mostly down to the Firefox extension compatibility present within Pale Moon. That said, the two browsers are, as already stated, not the same, and you’ll have to be aware of the need to check your extensions if you’re coming from Firefox.  Not all of them will work, and some of them just won’t be available.

Not that this is an issue in itself, Pale Moon does have its own array of specific extensions and while AdBlock Plus isn’t available, you can use AdBlock Latitude instead, and as far as I can tell it does the same good job as the former.

Dark Side Downsides

Well, there had to be one somewhere. Despite the compatibility mode and the closeness to Firefox and other Gecko based browsers, people who want and need specialised accessibility features or integrated Windows parental control mean that while you may like Pale Moon’s distinctive pretty GUI, it might not be the best option for some. The Goanna move has also reduced the number of languages that Pale Moon can support overall, but that said, it does cover all the main ones, so most people won’t even notice.

Compatibility

It works fine on Windows 10, 8.1, and 7. I didn’t trial it on Vista. It’s also available for Linux and has a low power version for Atom powered processors, which is nice.

Final Words

Overall, Pale Moon is a fast, easy to use and nice to look at browser that is a real contender for almost anyone looking to get away from Chrome and who fancies a bit of a change from Firefox. And, of course, it’s completely free, and you can get it here, if you want to give it a go.

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NSA Created “Backdoor” That Hackers Exploited

What do you do when your efforts to catch a bad guy only result in helping him do his evil deeds? That may be the case in what is arguably one of the most ludicrous possible scenarios to come out of software security news in a long, long time. While the public will most likely never get the full story due to built-in confidentiality and “need to know basis” regulations, it seems like the National Security Agency may have blown a giant hole in its own security software, allowing hackers to waltz right in.

NSA

Juniper Networks, a software developer who supplies a number of programs for the government, discovered some unauthorized code in one of their products, code that was put there intentionally and seems to have been intended to provide a “backdoor” for monitoring purposes. It didn’t take long for hackers–some that the government presumes are working for a foreign government with the means to support their work–to exploit the code and use it as their own portal into government servers. Outside security experts now have reason to believe it was this very backdoor code that let hackers breach a number of government agencies, including the now very-famous Office of Personnel Management breach that exposed the complete profiles of 4 million federal employees–including many who had top-level security clearances–and another 18 million profiles of people those federal employees had listed as contacts, references, and family members.

The three-year span during which time the government used this faulty software may have exposed some of the highest levels of state secrets to outside hackers, which has now prompted an investigation by the House Oversight Committee. One of the chief concerns of the Committee is that some agencies didn’t install the patch that Juniper provided that would have secured the software.

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Alphabet (Google) Becomes World’s Richest Company

Alphabet, the parent company of Google (ahem) has surprised many industry commentators by becoming the world’s most valuable company after a report has revealed its latest earnings.

Google

According to the report, Alphabet made a profit of $4.9bn for the fourth quarter of last year, and Alphabet is now worth $568 billion compared to Apple, which currently has a value of $535 billion.

The news didn’t come from nowhere though.  The value of Google’s shares has risen by 44% since July 2015 while in the same amount of time, Apple’s shares dropped by 16%.

Alphabet’s new claim to the most valuable company title has been seen by some as a passing of the technology baton.

It is not however the first time that Google has been considered more valuable than Apple. But the last time the shift occurred was back in February 2010 when both companies were worth less than $200 billion. Of course, then, Apple had yet to release their first iPad, and the current iPhone on the market was the 3GS, and the humble Mac was still the company’s biggest production item, accounting for one-third of revenue. Steve Jobs was also still at the helm.

The news has surprised some in the industry. Alphabet had  worried investors over the sheer number of technology gambles it has been part of in recent years; such as helium powered internet balloons, driverless cars, and the eponymous Google Glass.

Apple and Google have overtaken each other several times over the years, especially between 2008 and 2010.  Then Apple dominated for the next 5 years, rocketing from a value of $180 billion to$650 billion by the end of 2012. In September of that year, Apple were worth $400 billion more than Google.   flopped multiple times between 2008 and early 2010, before Apple went on a historic tear, jumping from $180 billion in value to over $650 billion in September 2012. Apple only assumed the most valuable company in the world title in 2011, when it pipped Exon to the prize.

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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...