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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 17 Issue 40
Volume 17, Issue 40 Atari Online News, Etc. October 23, 2015
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2015
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1740 10/23/15
~ Facebook Warns Targets ~ People Are Talking! ~ Firebee News Update!
~ NES Arrived 30 Yrs Ago ~ Ex-DEA Agent Gets Jail! ~ Windows 10 Update News!
~ No More Kid Pictures! ~ NSA's Cyber Concerns! ~ 11 Worst Web Scams!
~ Hackers Demand Ransom! ~ Google Fair Use Victory ~ USB Killer v2.0!
-* Halo Boss Has High Ambition! *-
-* Tech Firms Join Forces Against CISA *-
-* California Now Has Best Digital Privacy Law *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Brrr! Our recent autumn weather has felt a little more like winter
lately! While the weather folks tell us that our fall foliage has
just about reached peak colors, my neighborhood still looks quite
drab! It's been cold enough to get the colors going, but so far,
the leaves have barely started to turn and they've not started to
fall yet. I guess it will be an extended raking season this year!
Not much time to write some interesting comments this week even
though there's a lot going on in the world lately. Busy at work,
a few doctor appointments, and trying to catch up on some
much-needed sleep has kept me busy. So, rather than take up much
more of your valuable time, let's get to this week's issue!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
FireBee News Update
by Fred Horvat
With the last submission to AONE about Web Browsing with the
FireBee and the feedback I got on http://atari-forum.com it
appears that something is not right with my FireBee Firmware or
my FreeMiNT setup. With some followup messages on the forum it
appears that the FireBee should be able to run the latest Test
Builds of Netsurf 3.4. My FireBee cannot. I am going to reflash
some of the FireBee Firmware and do a fresh install of the
FireBee FreeMiNT 1.18 and test Netsurf 3.4 again. Hopefully this
will correct any issues that I am having with the FireBee. I
will then have to retest all the software that did not run on my
FireBee to see if the software is compatible or not as now I am
not sure. So hopefully in the next week I will be able to do
this and report back my findings.
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Why Did Hideo Kojima Leave Konami?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Halo Boss Wants To Run Franchise Like George Lucas
The NES Arrived in America 30 Years Ago!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Why Did Hideo Kojima Leave Konami?
On Friday, October 9th, Hideo Kojima left the Tokyo offices of
Konami, the video-game company where he had worked since 1986, for
the last time. The departure ceremony, according to one of the
hundred or so guests who attended, and who asked that I not use
his name, took place at Kojima Productions, the directors
in-house studio, and was a rather cheerful but also emotional
goodbye. He said that he did not see Konamis president, Hideki
Hayakawa, or its C.E.O., Sadaaki Kaneyoshi, at the party, but some
of Kojimas colleagues from other studios showed up to pay their
respects, as did many of the people who worked on his most recent
directorial project, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The
game, which takes place in mid-nineteen-eighties Afghanistan and
Zaire, made a hundred and seventy-nine million dollars on its
launch day, in Septembermore than the two highest-grossing films
of the year so far (Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic
World) combined. In the past several decades, Kojimas name has
become synonymous with such blockbusters, and with the Konami
brand itself. His impending resignation had been rumored as early
as March, but the fact of it remains startlingas much as if
Shigeru Miyamoto, the originator of Donkey Kong and the Mario
brothers, left Nintendo.
Why would Konami drop its star game maker and shut down his studio?
Although work on Phantom Pain is known to have been slower and more
expensive than the company planneda Nikkei report estimated the
cost of development at more than eighty million dollarsKojimas
instinct to hold off the games release until he was satisfied with
its quality seems, by both critical and commercial standards,
sound. As such, some people within the video-game industry contend
that his resignation was less a result of personal or artistic
differences than of tectonic changes in the businessnamely, the
move away from console games and toward the domain of the mobile
device.
That shift began in 2007, prior to the launch of the iPhone, when
the Japanese company GREE began to experiment with a new model for
its online games. It started offering its products as free
downloads to consumers, who then paid money for bonus content such
as new characters, costumes, and levels. According to Serkan Toto,
who runs the Tokyo-based consultancy Kantan Games, the so-called
free-to-play model gained in popularity after the collapse of
Lehman Brothers, in 2008, when the cost of television advertising
in Japan plummeted. Companies mass-bought TV spots, contrasting
their free games with the comparable expense of buying dedicated
video-game systems and packaged software, he told me.
The tactic worked. Today, DeNA and GREE, the two largest
mobile-game operators, count more than fifty million registered
users between them. And although mobile games are cheap to produce,
they can bring significant returns. A financial report from Mixi,
the company behind Japans current top mobile game, Monster Strike,
suggests that the company is expected to make around one and a half
billion dollars per year from this single title in Japan alone.
Likewise, Konamis first mobile hit, Dragon Collection, helped
boost its profits by almost eighty per cent between 2011 and 2012.
As Jordan Amaro, a designer who worked with Kojima on Phantom
Pain, put it, Why risk producing pricey and sophisticated games
in an age that favors indulgence in shallow, convenient
entertainment? Ryan Payton, who worked at Konami between 2005
and 2008, went even further. Weve seen the end of the
console-game market in Japan, he said. Even by the time Metal
Gear Solid IV shipped, in 2008, I felt like our team was one of
just a handful of Japan-based developers who were still fighting
to produce blockbuster games.
Although the mobile-game market may be irresistible to
profit-chasing executives, Kojima and other ambitious directors
like him have seemed unwilling to squeeze their creative vision
into the snug confines of a phone or tablet screen. (Kojima
declined to speak with me for the time being, citing a legally
binding agreement with his former employer, but when I interviewed
him in 2012 he said that his childhood love of cinema has had a
profound effect on his art.) There have sometimes been penalties
for those who fail to adapt to the changing industry. According to
Kotakus partial translation of the original Nikkei article, such
employees have, in the past, been redeployed to the assembly line
at Konamis pachinko factory or ordered to work as security guards
or janitors at the companys fitness clubs. (Konami did not
immediately respond to requests for comment on this and other
claims.) Tak Fujii, a former senior producer at Konami, who left
the company in 2014 because of ill health, sees no issue with this
kind of radical reorganization. I saw many colleagues unwillingly
reassigned, he said. Most of them blamed everyone but themselves.
But they were not willing to adapt. They were waiting for the
golden days to return. All they had left were legendary stories of
their products, which are no longer relevant for either the
technology or the market.
Hayakawa, who became president of Konami in April, acknowledged in
an interview with Nikkei in May that mobile is where the future
of gaming lies. The company claims that it is not abandoning
console games entirely; as the sales of Phantom Pain attest,
big-budget projects can still be profitable. Nevertheless, the
effect of the closure of Kojima Productions on other game makers
has been significant. Its a rare case of a highly successful
studio being closed down, so obviously everyone is in a state of
shock about it, I think, Hajime Tabata, the director of Final
Fantasy XV, a console game that, like Metal Gear Solid, has been
in development for years, at vast cost, told me. But we believe
that we can survive. At least, until the company decides to close
us down. The decline of major console games has been mirrored in
smaller, less well-known titles, too. The Japanese games with
which most players are familiar have always been the outliers,
David McCarthy, of the Tokyo-based developer Cybird, told me.
But there has always been a huge iceberg of titles beneath the
surface that Western gamers rarely glimpse.
The growing cost of
console development, allied to a shrinking domestic market, have
made these games increasingly unviable without international
success.
Its likely that, after Kojimas non-compete clause expires, in
December, he will find a new studio and continue making lavishly
produced games. But these future projects will be anomalies in a
mobile-dominated Japanese market. Although Western fans may mourn
the loss, McCarthy doesnt share their despondency. Honestly, I
am not so sure that any threat to yet another shouting, shooting
game full of American grunts saving democracy from the wiles of
dark-skinned terrorists is any great loss to the art, he said.
Halo Boss Wants To Run Franchise Like George Lucas Did With Star Wars
Bonnie Ross, head of Halo developer 343 Industries, has revealed
some interesting new insight into Microsoft's blockbuster sci-fi
shooter series. It might surprise you to learn that when she helped
create 343 Industries in 2009, not everyone inside Microsoft
thought Halo would be around much longer.
"People felt like, 'Let's get another Halo or two out, and it's
the end of the franchise,'" Ross recalled in a new interview with
Bloomberg Business.
When discussing the future of the Halo series and what she wanted
to do as 343's general manager, Ross said she asked to be granted
George Lucas-like control over the franchise. Lucas created the
Star Wars franchise and oversaw it until he eventually sold the
series to Disney in 2012 for $4.05 billion.
"The thing I asked for was: If I take it over, I want to be
George Lucas," she said. "I want to own everything, and I want to
do things differently."
Though there might have been some initial internal skepticism
about the long-term appeal of the Halo brand, that no longer seems
to be the case. In a previous interview, Ross said Microsoft's
hope is for the Halo franchise to remain popular for at least
another 30 years.
Halo franchise director Frank O'Connor is also featured in
Bloomberg's story. He was working at Bungie at the time, and was
part of the team that oversaw Bungie's handover of the Halo
series to Microsoft. He says he remembers meeting with Ross and
expecting her to be a "suit" focused on business above all else.
"Bonnie came in and really surprised everyone," he said. "Because
she'd read all the novels, she was deeply immersed in the
fiction, and she'd played all the games."
O'Connor later quit Bungie and joined Ross at 343 Industries.
The next release from 343 is Halo 5: Guardians, which launches
on October 27 for Xbox One. For lots more on the Halo franchise
and the formation of 343, be sure to read the full Bloomberg
story.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
The NES Arrived in America 30 Years Ago
The original NES.
Nintendo's Famicom console may have celebrated its 30th birthday
back in July of 2013, but it was 30 years ago this week that the
Nintendo Entertainment System technically made its debut.
On October 18, 1985, Nintendo renamed the Famicom and released it
in North America as the NES. Not only did it ensure Nintendo would
have a future outside of Japan, but it ensured gamers would have a
future playing games at home.
At the time, gamers were still feeling the aftershocks of the 1983
home console crash. Scared off by falling stocks and an abundance
of low-quality titles, most retailers at the time suspected home
video games were nothing more than a fad and backed away. The glory
days of the Atari 2600 and Intellivision came to a stunningly fast
end.
Nintendo faced an uphill battle getting the NES on store shelves.
The company first showed off the system at the Consumer Electronics
Show in June of 1985, and it quickly ran into skepticism.
Retailers, still jaded, were afraid of its complexity and balked at
the thought of promoting another video game console.
The reception convinced Nintendo to delay the launch. The company
smartly made some changes, including putting games onto
distinctive looking cartridges. It also packaged an accessory
called R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy), a small robotic toy that
worked with two games and was meant to make the NES look more
sophisticated than past consoles.
Finally, on October 18, Nintendo released the console in limited
quantities in New York. Only about 50,000 units were sold through
the holidays, but it was enogh to prove to Nintendo (and
retailers) that the system had a future. In early 1986, the
system was made available in other cities.
Ultimately, it was the NESs incredible lineup that helped the
system find its footing. Launching with 17 games, the NES enjoyed
a terrifiic suite of games, including Duck Hunt, Excitebike,
Hogan's Alley, and, of course, Super Mario Bros. Gamers in short
order remembered why they had embraced the hobby in the first
place, and the path was set for the industry's revival.
By the time the console was discontinued in 1995, over 700 NES
games had been released and over 30 million systems had been sold
in America alone. And the rest, as they say, is history. Happy
30th, NES!
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Google, Facebook, Amazon et al Join Forces
Against Incoming Cybersecurity Law
Some of the world's largest tech firms have come together to
issue a public protest against a controversial US cybersecurity
bill.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), due to be laid
out for Senate consideration in the next few weeks, has noble
aims based around the sharing of threat intelligence between
private companies and the government.
But its critics say it does not adequately protect users' privacy.
One of those, the Computer & Communications Industry Association
(CCIA), says the current proposal fails to "limit the permissible
uses of information shared with the government."
Furthermore, the association says the existing bill will allow
network defensive measures that could inadvertently cause harm to
innocent third parties.
In an open letter published Thursday, the CCIA, which represents
Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and eBay, as well as several
other major tech firms, said it approved of the goal of the
legislation - to aid in the fight against crime and terrorism -
but could not support it in its current form, saying it:
...recognizes the goal of seeking to develop a more robust
system through which the government and private sector can readily
share data about emerging threats. But such a system should not
come at the expense of users' privacy, need not be used for
purposes unrelated to cybersecurity, and must not enable
activities that might actively destabilize the infrastructure the
bill aims to protect.
The CCIA says it is keen to work with the US government to
improve CISA, as well as other cybersecurity legislation, but it
hopes the end result will be based more around a voluntary
framework backed up by a strong level of privacy protection and
with appropriate restrictions on use baked in.
The current bill has attracted wide support from both Democrats
and Republicans, but there are some dissenting voices on both sides
of the political spectrum:
Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon said:
CCIA represents some of the biggest names in tech and their
opposition to the current version of Cisa is a shot in the arm for
those of us fighting for privacy and security...
These companies understand it is untenable and bad for
business to enact flawed 'cybersecurity' policies that infringe
on users' privacy while doing little to prevent sophisticated
hacks. By coming out against this bill, CCIA's members, including
Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, have made the clear statement that
they have their users' backs.
Republican Rand Paul has been less bashful in expressing his
distaste for CISA - a rewrite of the highly controversial Cyber
Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) - saying that it
would "transform websites into government spies" by granting:
new spying powers that gut privacy laws and allow internet
providers and websites to hand over personal data to ANY agency
in the federal government.
Furthermore, Rand says, CISA would trample Fourth Amendment
privacy protections, circumvent the Freedom of Information Act
and give government agencies the ability to access citizens'
private information without a warrant, all without actually
improving the government's ability to prevent cyber attacks.
Not all government agencies are overly enamoured by the new bill
either - in August, Department of Homeland Security Deputy
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said the Act "raises privacy and
civil liberties concerns", and the legal immunity given to
data-sharing companies could "sweep away important privacy
protections."
Proponents of the bill - such as Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman Richard Burr and Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein - have
an entirely different point of view of course, emphasising how
the sharing of information is entirely voluntary, yet eminently
essential.
The pair cited the recent T-Mobile/Experian breach, although
there's no evidence it could have been prevented had there have
been better lines of communication between industry and
government.
California Now Has the Nations Best Digital Privacy Law
California continued its long-standing tradition for
forward-thinking privacy laws today when Governor Jerry Brown
signed a sweeping law protecting digital privacy rights.
The landmark Electronic Communications Privacy Act bars any
state law enforcement agency or other investigative entity from
compelling a business to turn over any metadata or digital
communicationsincluding emails, texts, documents stored in the
cloudwithout a warrant. It also requires a warrant to track the
location of electronic devices like mobile phones, or to search
them.
The legislation, which easily passed the Legislature last month,
is the most comprehensive in the country, says the ACLU.
This is a landmark win for digital privacy and all Californians,
Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the
ACLU of California, said in a statment. We hope this is a model
for the rest of the nation in protecting our digital privacy
rights.
Five other states have warrant protection for content, and nine
others have warrant protection for GPS location tracking. But
California is the first to enact a comprehensive law protecting
location data, content, metadata and device searches, Ozer told
WIRED.
This is really a comprehensive update for the modern digital
age, she said.
State senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Joel Anderson
(R-Alpine) wrote the legislation earlier this year to give
digital data the same kinds of protection that non-digital
communications have.
For what logical reason should a handwritten letter stored in a
desk drawer enjoy more protection from warrantless government
surveillance than an email sent to a colleague or a text message
to a loved one? Leno said earlier this year. This is nonsensical
and violates the right to liberty and privacy that every
Californian expects under the constitution.
The bill enjoyed widespread support among civil libertarians like
the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation as well as tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook,
Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Twitter, which have headquarters in
California. It also had huge bipartisan support among state
lawmakers.
For too long, Californias digital privacy laws have been stuck
in the Dark Ages, leaving our personal emails, text messages,
photos and smartphones increasingly vulnerable to warrantless
searches, Leno said in a statement today. That ends today with
the Governors signature of CalECPA, a carefully crafted law that
protects personal information of all Californians. The bill also
ensures that law enforcement officials have the tools they need
to continue to fight crime in the digital age.
The law applies only to California law enforcement entities; law
enforcement agencies in other states would be compelled by the
laws in their jurisdictions, which is why Ozer and others say
its important to get similar comprehensive laws passed
elsewhere.
The law places California not only at the forefront of
protecting digital privacy among states, it outpaces even the
federal government, where such efforts have stalled.
Civil libertarians and others have long lobbied federal
lawmakers to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to
offer such protection nationwide. An amendment to that law has
been wending through Capitol Hill, where it has 300 co-sponsors.
But the proposal is less comprehensive than the law Brown signed,
and would merely focus on digital content. Currently, the federal
ECPA requires a warrant for stored content that is newer than 180
days; the amendment would extend the warrant requirement to all
digital content regardless of age.
California has long led the way in privacy protection. Voters
amended the state constitution in the 1970s to provide explicit
privacy rights far more robust than those guaranteed by the
Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. But while the state
amendment ensured a right to privacy for all Californians,
lawmakers couldnt envision the technological advances that would
come in the decades to follow. The law that Brown signed today
closes surveillance loopholes left by that amendment and
codifies what was intended by that privacy right, Ozer says.
We certainly hope that this bill is a clarion call [for the
federal amendment], she told WIRED. This is not only a
comprehensive update for all Californians, but hopefully is a
model for making sure that all Americans have this kind of
digital privacy protection.
California Nixes Warrantless Search of Digital Data
In what's being called a landmark victory for digital privacy,
California police will no longer be able to get their hands on
user data without first getting a warrant from a judge.
Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday signed the California Electronic
Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA), SB 178, which requires
state law enforcement to get a warrant before they can access
electronic information about who we are, where we go, who we
know, and what we do.
US privacy rights groups have long been concerned that law
enforcement hasn't considered it necessary to get a search warrant
before they can search messages, email, photos and other digital
data stored on mobile phones or company servers.
States such as California, tired of waiting around for Congress
to update 29-year-old federal electronic privacy statutes, are
taking reform into their own hands.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called CalECPA a
"landmark win".
Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Director at the
ACLU of California:
This is a landmark win for digital privacy and all
Californians. We hope this is a model for the rest of the nation
in protecting our digital privacy rights.
Hanni Fakhoury, senior staff attorney for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, told NBC News that while California isn't
the first state to guarantee protections such as these - Utah and
Maine have similar laws on the books - the nation's most populous
state has passed the most protective law to date.
The bill was sponsored by Democratic Senator Mark Leno and
Republican Senator Joel Anderson.
The ACLU published an article by the two senators in which they
had decried the state's antiquated privacy laws:
Technology has advanced exponentially, but Californias
privacy laws are still stuck in the digital dark ages. Law
enforcement is increasingly taking advantage of outdated privacy
laws to turn mobile phones into tracking devices and access
sensitive emails, digital documents, and text messages without
proper judicial oversight.
As it is, 82% of Californians have voiced support for the end to
warrantless digital information searches.
According to the ACLU, CalECPA is a direct response to an
"exponential growth in law enforcement demands for digital
information" that's seen demands to Google nearly triple over the
last five years.
Twitter, meanwhile, has reported a 52% jump just this past year.
In its own transparency report, Twitter revealed that it received
4,363 government data requests in the first half of 2015, around
half of which were in the US.
Twitter complied with the US requests 80% of the time.
According to the senators who authored the bill, AT&T received
more than 64,000 demands for location information in 2014;
Verizon received more than 15,000 demands for location data in
the first half of 2014, and only one-third of those came with a
warrant.
According to Senator Leno, that situation ended on Thursday:
That ends today with the Governors signature of CalECPA, a
carefully crafted law that protects personal information of all
Californians. The bill also ensures that law enforcement
officials have the tools they need to continue to fight crime in
the digital age.
The tools to keep fighting crime to which Senator Leno referred
include a number of exceptions: if police or another government
entity believe that a device has been lost or stolen, they can
access information on the device in order to identify, verify or
contact its owner.
What's more, an emergency provision allows a government entity
to search a device if it believes that "an emergency involving
danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires
access to the electronic device information."
That doesn't completely let the government off the hook, though
- the agency doing the search will have three days from obtaining
data in which it will still have to file for a warrant.
Facebook Will Notify You If The Government Hacks Your Account
Facebook has launched a new feature that notifies users if their
accounts have been targeted by government-sponsored hackers.
In a one billion-plus users about how to secure their accounts
Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos said users would
be notified "if we believe your account has been targeted or
compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a
nation-state."
The notification will advise users to turn on a feature called
Login Approvals, which sends them a new security code that must
be inputted each time an account is accessed from a new device
or browser.
Stamos said that receiving such a notification was not an
indication that Facebook's central systems had been compromised
but rather that the user's computer or mobile may be infected
with malware and should be rebuilt or replaced if possible.
Facebook would not reveal how it attributed certain attacks to
state-sponsored actors, Stamos added, but that it would only use
the notification system "where the evidence strongly supports our
conclusion."
In 2013, conducting widespread surveillance operations, including
the allegation that the U.S. National Security Agency hacked
directly into the servers of nine internet firms including
Facebook.
North Korea was also accused of state-sponsored hacking after the
December 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, which
resulted in the personal details of around 6,000 Sony employees
being leaked online, as well as information about upcoming films
and salaries of the company's top executives. North Korea denied
any involvement.
During his recent visit to the U.S., Chinese President Xi Jinping
denied that Beijing engages in state-sponsored hacking.
Facebook To Warn You of Targeted Attacks -
Check This Security Setting Anyway
Facebook has announced that it will notify users it suspects are
being targeted by nation states and urge them to take extra
security precautions.
Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, explained the new
notifications in a 16 October blog post, saying users will only
receive the warnings if Facebook has strong evidence suggesting
they are being targeted by nation-state sponsored attackers.
If the social network believes you are under attack from
state-sponsored hackers, it will show a pop-up message in your
feed explaining that you may have been targeted.
The message asks, but does not require, those users to turn on an
extra layer of protection for their account called Login
Approvals.
Stamos said Facebook "will have always taken steps to secure
accounts that we believe to have been compromised," but will show
the warning to users because these attacks may be "more advanced
and dangerous" than others.
This is how the message looks in the desktop version of Facebook:
Facebook notification
Jay, we believe your Facebook account and other online
accounts may be the target of attacks from state-sponsored actors.
Turning on Login Approvals will help keep others from logging into
your Facebook account. Whenever your account is accessed from a
new device or browser, we'll send a security code to your phone so
that only you can log in. We recommend you also take steps to
secure the accounts you use on other services.
Because of the persistence of state-sponsored attackers, anyone
whose Facebook account is under attack by a nation state is
probably also being targeted on other services, so Facebook
encourages securing those accounts as well.
Google began sending similar warnings to Gmail users back in 2012.
Just like Google, Facebook says it can't reveal how or why it
suspects state-sponsored attacks, for fear of giving away useful
information to attackers about security methods.
Nation states may target individuals for political or national
security reasons, but also attack individuals to gain access to
their employers' intellectual property or customer data, for
example.
Countries like North Korea and China have been suspected of
sponsoring attacks on private companies.
Hackers affiliated with the Chinese military were indicted by the
US two years ago for allegedly hacking into several US steel
companies.
The US claims the Chinese hackers used phishing emails and
malware to gain access to email accounts of company officials, in
order to steal information that would benefit Chinese state-run
steel companies in trade disputes.
Targeted or not, extra security is always a good idea
Even if nation states aren't likely to target you personally, it
would be a shame to fall into the trap of thinking "no one's
interested in little old me."
As Naked Security expert Paul Ducklin pointed out in a post
describing all the bad excuses we make for neglecting our
security, we are all on cybercriminals' radars:
We're all in the sights of cybercrooks somewhere, and we owe
it to ourselves and to everyone else to do the best we can to
thwart them.
Today's cybercriminals are typically in the business of making
money, and to do that they want to compromise as many users and
devices as possible.
One method for attackers to gain access to your accounts is to
implant malware on your computer that can steal passwords.
Malware of this sort can get on your computer in various ways,
such as through boobytrapped email attachments, or by visiting a
malicious website harboring malware that downloads automatically
(called a drive-by download).
Malware can also spread via Facebook.
We recently learned of a hacker using a type of malware called a
"Facebook Spreader" to compromise Facebook accounts via malicious
links in Facebook chat messages.
In August, a US-based hacker named Eric Crocker pleaded guilty to
spreading Facebook malware to hijack thousands of accounts in
order to send spam.
Just like Facebook recommends, we think it's a good idea to add
extra layers of security to your accounts, such as login
verification or two-factor authentication.
Even if you're not likely to be a target of a nation state,
that's no reason to become easy prey for common cybercriminals.
How to turn on Facebook Login Approvals
When you turn on Facebook Login Approvals, you'll need to enter
a special one-time code whenever you log into Facebook from an
unrecognized device or browser.
You'll receive the codes on your phone as a text message, so
Facebook needs your mobile phone number to send Login Approval
alerts.
Login Approvals are similar but more secure than Login
Notification, which alerts you when your account is accessed from
a new device or browser, but without requiring a code.
To turn on Login Approvals:
Click the down arrow at the top right of any Facebook page
Go to Settings > Security
Click on Login Approvals
Check the box and click Save Changes
Finally, once you've set that up, make sure you change this
setting so you can't be searched for by phone number.
NSA Chief: These Are The 3 Cyber Threats That Keep Me Up at Night
Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency
and US cyber commander, doesnt think that the United States will
ever have a digital equivalent of Pearl Harbor.
Speaking on stage at the Wall Street Journals WSJDLive
conference, Rogers dismissed that analogy because he doesnt
think that a massive cyber attacks could ever be as surprising
today as the attack on Pearl Harbor was in 1941.
Its not a matter of if, its a matter of when.
Rogers outlined three things that concern him the most when
thinking about cyber-threats to the United States:
1. Cyber attacks that do infrastructure damage
It is only a matter of when that someone users cyber as a tool
to do damage to the critical infrastructure of our nation,
Rogers said.
Im watching nation states, groups within some of that
infrastructure. At the moment, it seems to be really focused on
reconnaissance and attempting to understand the characteristics
of the structure, but its only a matter of time I believe until
someone actually does something destructive.
2. Data manipulation
Historically, weve largely been focused on stopping the
extraction of data and insights, whether for intellectual
property for commercial or criminal advantage, but what happens
when suddenly our data is manipulated and you no longer can
believe what youre physically seeing? he said.
As a military guy, whos used to the idea that, I can look at a
display, I can look at a set of data, and I can very quickly draw
conclusions and start to make risk-based decisions quickly, what
happens if that gets called into question? I believe thats going
to happen.
3. Non-state actors
What happens when a non-state actor, who literally has no
interest in the status quo take ISIL for an example, whose
vision of the world is diametrically opposed to ours starts
viewing the web as not just a vehicle to generate revenue, to
recruit, to spread the ideology, but instead they view it as a
weapon system? he asked hypothetically on stage.
This stuff is going to happen
Rogers says that he believes that all these concerns will actually
play out.
I fully expect that during my time as the commander and the
director of the NSA, this stuff is going to happen, he said. And
the nation is fully counting on us to be ready.
The NSA has faced intense scrutiny since former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing many
of its intelligence apparatus, including global surveillance
tactics.
Hackers Demand Ransom from British Telecom TalkTalk
British telecom TalkTalk said it has received a ransom demand
following a "significant and sustained cyberattack" that put the
data of four million customers at risk.
"We were contacted by someone claiming to be responsible, and
seeking payment," the company said.
TalkTalk is one of Britain's leading phone providers. It has
admitted that its website was hacked earlier this week, and that
information including the date of birth, address, credit card,
and bank details of its four million customers might have been
stolen.
Police have launched a criminal investigation, but no arrests have
been made. The scale of the breach is still being investigated,
police said.
"We take any threat to the security of our customers' data
extremely seriously and we are taking all the necessary steps to
understand what has happened here," TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding
said in a statement.
TalkTalk said it noticed unusual activity on its website on
Wednesday, and took the site offline in an effort to protect data.
The company said the initial attack was later found to be a DDOS
denial of service attack.
It admitted not all data were encrypted, but said its systems were
"as secure as they could be."
"Unfortunately these criminals are very smart and their attacks
are becoming ever more sophisticated," the company said in a
statement.
TalkTalk's shares in London were down as much as 10 percent after
the attack came to light Friday morning (October 23).
Google's Fair Use Victory Is a Win for Us All
Something crazy happened Friday in the weird world of
intellectual-property law. A judge said it was okay to copy all of
a copyrighted work and then share bits of it with the public
even if youre a giant tech companyand then explained clearly how
that makes sense and makes us better off.
That makes Fridays Google Books ruling from the United States
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit not just good for Google,
but good for readers everywhere. We all benefit when the author
of a book or a movie or a record or another creative workdoesnt
get to veto every possible reuse and remix of it.
This case turned on Googles project, announced in 2004, to scan
and index the full text of millions of books (lent to it by
libraries) so that readers could search their contents and see
brief snippets of matching text.
The Authors Guild, an association of American writes that dates
to 1912, sued Google in 2005 for infringing its members
copyrights and damaging the market for their work. Ten years later
during which a proposed $125 million settlement between Google
and the Guild was scuttled by a judgea unanimous three-judge
Second Circuit panel found Google was within its fair-use rights
to run this project.
Judge Pierre Levals 48-page ruling focuses on the often
overlooked first principle of intellectual property in U.S. law.
As he wrote: The ultimate goal of copyright is to expand public
knowledge and understanding. Improving the ability of creators
to make a living through copyright is a pleasant side effect, not
the fundamental point of the exercise.
But how do you get from there to granting Google permission to
copy all of a book? Through Section 107 of the Copyright Act,
which allows for fair use exceptions to copyright without
actually defining what that phrase should mean in practice.
Judge Leval applied that sections somewhat vague criteria to the
Authors Guilds claims and found them wanting every time. Google
copied entire books? That transformed them into a new searchable
medium that allows things like Ngram queries for the popularity
of certain words over time. Googles a profitable company? Not a
deal-breaker, since such fair-use exercises as news reports and
book reviews are all normally done commercially for profit.
Most important, what about Google Books effect on the market for,
you know, books? Theres none worth fighting over, Leval held: A
Google Books snippet may help you check a fact, but you cant
claim copyright over a data point like that.
But courts havent always had such a forgiving view; their sense
of fair use has shifted considerably since the 1984 Supreme Court
case in which the Betamax VCR was almost held illegal.
This is why people argue over fair use all the time: Not only do
the lawyers involve not agree, they sometimes dont even agree
with themselves.
For example, Berkeley law professor Pamela Samuelson and
University of Maryland law professor James Grimmelmann separately
said that under the pre-search-engine definition of fair use
what Samuelson called a conventional role of fair useGoogle
Books would flunk that test.
As Grimmelmann wrote, the scanning and indexing that Google does
not just to books but to Web pages was once seriously contested
and now is not. It took multiple cases to conclude that its okay
for a search engine to copy and index somebody elses Web page,
then show a preview of that to visitors.
Consider another case that involved a for-profit company
duplicating copyrighted material, but in a way that hardly
threatened to steal a sale from a copyright holder: MP3.com, the
site that in 2000 lost a court case over a feature that let
listeners upload the track lists from their CDs, then listen to
MP3.coms copies of those songs and only those songs over the
Internet.
Grimmelmann called that probably no longer good law. By 2011,
Amazon had no qualms over launching its Cloud Player, a service
functionally identical to MP3.coms offering, without getting
permission from every record label.
Both law professors are strong fair-use advocates, yet neither was
willing to call another widely criticized copyright case this
years jury verdict that Pharrell Williams, Robin Thicke and
T.I.s Blurred Lines infringed Marvin Gayes Got to Give It
Up an unreasonable ruling. See, its complicated!
One thing that hasnt changed much during this expansion of fair
use is the willingness of copyright holders to indulge in
transparent control-freakery. Sometimes, they still get away with
it.
See, for instance, the NFLs absurd complaint that posting GIFs of
plays threatens the market for watching football games, which
Twitter took seriously enough to suspend two accounts. See also,
last years ruling that invented an entirely new category of
software copyright.
(At least U.S. copyright holders have yet to imitate some of the
crazier ideas afloat in the E.U., like requiring search engines to
pay a royalty for displaying a snippet of news stories or
restricting the commercial use of photos or videos taken from
public spaces of buildings and sculptures.)
Another thing that hasnt changed: Copyfight" litigation is not
a good proposition for startups short on cash and time. You may
not like the size and reach of a Google, but when it invests some
of its resources in fair-use fights, the benefits arent confined
to its corporate campus.
USB Killer v2.0 Latest USB Device that Can Easily Burn Your Computer
In March, a Russian security researcher devised a weird USB stick
that is capable of destroying sensitive components of a computer
when plugged-in.
Now, the same researcher, nicknamed Dark Purple, has launched a
new version of his computer-frying USB Killer pendrive USB Killer
version 2.0.
USB Killer 2.0 is much more powerful than the previous version and
is able to "kill" more than just a PC it is plugged in.
The first version of USB Killer was consist of a DC/DC converter,
a few caps and an FET. When plugged into a system, the converter
in the USB Killer would charge the caps up to -110V, apply that
voltage to signal lines of the USB interface, and repeat the
entire process until everything possible in the computer is broken
down.
However, the second version of USB Killer dump -220V directly onto
the signal lines of the USB interface, which is powerful enough to
damage practically any computer with a USB port.
Another major improvement in the new version of USB Killer is the
reaction rate. Once plugged into a computer, USB Killer 2.0 takes
only a few seconds for the PC to shut down and stop working.
While testing his USB Killer 2.0 stick, Dark Purple destroyed his
brand new Lenovo Thinkpad X60 laptop. You can watch the video
demonstration given above that shows the attack in work.
"Do not worry about the laptop, the new motherboard is on the
way - and the laptop will live again," Dark Purple wrote in a blog
post. "Originally did not plan to restore it, the laptop was
purchased specifically for the test."
Killer USB is not at all a new concept, USB drives are used as a
valid weapon to compromise the system in air-gapped networks.
Stuxnet worm is one of the real examples that was designed to
destroy centrifuges at the Nuclear facility, and all this started
with a USB drive.
So it's not false to say that a computer could be converted into
a bomb because a hacker can probably make your computer explode
as well.
Therefore, next time if you find a USB stick that doesn't belong
to you, just beware before inserting it into your laptop. You
could lose your Laptop, along with all your important files and
data stored in it.
Corrupt Ex-DEA Agent Carl Force Gets 6 Years for Extorting Silk Road
A former federal agent who lined his pockets with bitcoins extorted
from the black market site Silk Road has been sentenced to 78
months - more than 6 years - in prison.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Carl Force
agreed, in June, to plead guilty to squeezing what was then valued
at around $50,000 worth of Bitcoin (about £32,000) from Silk
Road's creator, Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht.
Force had posed as a drug dealer and convinced Ulbricht that he
had information on a DEA investigation into the site.
Also in June, Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without
parole.
Force was one of legions of undercover agents that infiltrated
Silk Road's user base. In its report on Ulbricht's sentencing, the
FBI cited "more than 60 individual undercover purchases of
controlled substances".
A couple of those agents were bad apples.
Instead of reporting the payment to the DEA, Force funneled the
digital currency into his own personal accounts.
In late August, Secret Service agent and computer expert Shaun
Bridges also pled guilty to charges of obstruction of justice and
money laundering for using a Silk Road administrator account to
steal around 20,000 bitcoins from various dealers.
At the time, that sum was valued at around $820,000 (about
£530,000).
Bridges and Force worked together on the Silk Road
investigation.
According to the criminal complaint, Force went under the user
name "French Maid" to offer Ulbricht information for $98,000
(about £63,400) in bitcoin that he deposited into his own,
personal accounts.
While prosecutors had pushed to sentence Force to 87 months in
prison, his defence asked for a shorter sentence - 48 months -
due to mental health issues and a family history of alcoholism
and abuse.
Force apologized in court on Monday for a betrayal that the
presiding judge called "breathtaking."
US District Judge Richard Seeborg had this to say:
The extent and the scope of Mr. Force's betrayal of public
trust is quite simply breathtaking. It is compounded by the fact
that it appears to have been motivated by greed and thrill
seeking, including the pursuit of a book and movie deal.
Force told the court:
I'm sorry. I lost it and I don't understand a lot of it.
Bridges is due to be sentenced in December, and Force has been
barred from communicating with his former colleague.
Police: Stop Posting Pictures of Your Kids on Social Media!
Police in Germany created a viral hit this week when they put out
an urgent appeal for people to stop stripping children of their
privacy.
The appeal, from police in Hagen, was posted, appropriately enough,
on Facebook.
It was first posted on Tuesday, and by Friday morning, it had been
shared by more than 245,000 people.
In the post, Hagen police noted that people freely post onto
Facebook pictures of children nude while in a pool or at the
beach, as if there were no consequences for posting such images.
From the translated post:
Maybe you find the photos sweet today, but your child will
find them endlessly embarrassing in a couple of years. Or your
child will even be bullied. Even worse: a pedophile could use
such photos for their purposes, publishing them elsewhere.
We already know that the average parent is like a loving but
voracious paparazzo, uploading an eyeball-popping 973 photos of
their child on social media by the time he or she reaches the age
of 5, as online safety site The Parent Zone has reported.
We applaud Hagen police.
At Naked Security, we often point out, to all the oversharing
parents out there, that posting photos of children is not
necessarily safe behaviour - particularly when photo-posters are
oblivious to privacy controls.
In fact, The Parent Zone study - done on behalf of safety
campaign knowthenet - found that 17% of parents have never
checked their Facebook privacy settings at all, while almost
half (46%) have only checked once or twice, despite Facebook
being the number one spot for sharing kid pics.
Look, we know that you very likely know how to set privacy
controls on Facebook. We're preaching to the choir when it comes
to readers of security blogs - many of you refuse to have
Facebook accounts to begin with.
So do the kids in your life a favor: the next time you see images
of some bare-bottomed tot being posted far and wide, don't just
look away.
Don't tell the poster that the kid is adorable.
Instead, get stern.
Educate your peeps. Tell them what apps and sites their kids
should steer clear of.
Definitely point them to our tips on how to make their Facebook
account safer.
And by all means, please do point them to Facebook privacy
controls.
Who knows? Maybe that little blue privacy dinosaur Facebook came
out with last year can save kids from future harassment and
abuse.
The 11 Worst Internet Scams Were Still Falling For
In 2001, I planned to move to a new town in Connecticut. I put my
house up for sale, but it sat there, unsold in the recession, for
over a year. Not a nibble, even after I dropped the price and
made some improvements.
Then one day, my realtor called with some astonishing news.
Youve got a full-price offer! she said. And get this: The
buyer doesnt need an inspection, shes paying cash, and she wants
to close at the end of this week!
OK, what? She didnt need a mortgage? She didnt want to
negotiate?
Well, whatever. I showed up at the closingbut the buyer herself
was absent.
Her lawyer was deeply apologetic. She just called; shes in
tears. She wont be buying your house after all. She just keeps
saying, The Nigerian man promised that Id have the money by
today!
Oh come on. Really? Theres one person left in America who fell
for the old Nigerian email scam?
No, not one persona lot of people. Internet scams are still a
huge business. We sent Internet scammers $13 billion last year,
and our gullibility shows no signs of abating.
All Internet scams are fundamentally the same: Someone offers you
something you want for nothing. Its usually money, but it might
also be male sexual prowess, weight loss, or a curefor baldness,
herpes, cancer, cellulite, heart disease, diabetes, or deafness.
Heres a shocker: Not everything you read on the Internet is
true. And so, for your own entertainment and education, here they
are: The 11 hottest Internet scams that were still falling for.
1. The Nigerian email scam
It comes to you by email:
I am Mr. Paul Agabi, it says. I am the personal attorney to
Mr. Harold Cooper, a national of your country, who used to work
with Exxon Oil Company in Nigeria. On the 21st of April, my
client, his wife and their only child were involved in a car
accident. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their
lives.
Amazingly enough, rich dead guy left behind millions of dollars
and your correspondent wants you to have it! If youll help Mr.
Paul Agabi get those millions out of the country, using your bank
account as a parking spot, hell share the dough with you.
So you get excited. You write back. Maybe you make an offer on a
house in Connecticut.
But then a funny thing happens: Mr. Agabi asks you to send some
money to him, to cover bribes to officials. Its only a couple
hundred bucks, so you send it.
A week later, theres another problemhe needs another payment,
this time to take care of taxes. You send it.
Then legal fees. Then other fees.
You will never get any money. You will be asked to send more,
more, more money until you come to your senses and realize youre
being bilked. Though it has expanded beyond the country of
Nigeria, it is still called the Nigerian or 419? scam (named
for the section of the Nigerian penal code it violates).
Yes, people still fall for the Nigerian scam. A lot of people.
Commence mass forehead-slapping.
2. The perfect girlfriend scam
Youre on a dating site, and you find The One: Shes gorgeous,
shes witty, and shes really into you. She really wants to meet
you and she hints that your first date will be something youll
never forget. Youre hooked, lined, and sunk.
Ohbut she needs a little money for a ticket to come see you.
Oh, and can you help her out with her rent?
And how does it go when the big night arrives? It doesnt. She
doesnt show up, because shes not a real person. Shes a stock
photo and a con artist whos been playing youprobably a male.
3. The Craigslist scam
Youre trying to sell something on Craigslist, the free
classified-ads sitea bicycle for $300, lets say. You hit paydirt
almost immediately:
Send me your address, and I will mail you check right away for
$1,500 to cover the bike and shipping to me in Germany. Deposit
the check, and then send $450 by Western Union to my shipping
company.
Maybe your spider-sense is tingling. But sure enough, you get a
money order or certified check in the mail. Fantastic!
The only problem is, its a forgery. Youll deposit it, wire this
guy $450 of your real moneyand a couple of days later, your bank
will let you know that the money order was a fake. Now youve
lost your bike and $450.
Three big clues that youre being targeted: (a) The offer is for
more than youre asking; (b) youre supposed to send your item to
another country; and (c?) youre asked to use the other guys
shipping company.
4. The classic phishing scam
You get an email from your bank (or Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Yahoo,
Apple) saying that theres a problem with your account. Youre
encouraged to click the link to fix the problemor else your
account will be suspended!
If you do click the link, though, you go a fake version of the
banks Web site. When you then log in, youre actually providing
your name and password to the slimy Eastern European teenagers who
are fishing for your login information, so they can steal your
identity and make your life miserable. (This scam is called
phishing because theyre fishing for your information. And
millions of people get scammed that way every year.)
If you have any concern that the message could be true, do not
click the link in the email. Instead, open your Web browser and
type in the companys address yourself (www.citibank.com or
whatever). Youll discover, of course, that theres absolutely
nothing wrong with your account.
Usually, though, you can tell at a glance that these emails are
fake. Theyre filled with misspellings, typos, and the wording of
a non-native English speaker. If it purports to be from Yahoo, it
probably includes a graphic of the outdated logo:
Or heres a slick trick: If you point your cursor at the click
here link without clicking, the pop-up bubble shows you what
website will actually open, as you can see here. And guess what?
Its not actually the bank/PayPal/Amazon!
5. The SMishing scam
Same thing as phishing, except that it arrives by text message
(SMS) instead of email.
When you call the number to take care of the account problem,
you get an automated voicemail system that prompts you for your
account information.
6. The mugged on vacation scam
Things got out of control on my trip to London, says an email
from one of your friends. I was mugged, and all my belongings
including cell phone and credit card were all stolen at gunpoint.
I need your help flying back home and paying my hotel bills!
This ones especially confusing because the message comes from
someone you know. (Sometimes, its even purporting to be a family
member. It may even be a brief phone call instead of an email.)
Needless to say, your friend wasnt actually in London and hasnt
been mugged.
Instead, the bad guys have planted software on your friends
computer that sent this same sob-story email to everyone in his
address book. (In a variation on this, a scammer takes over your
friends Facebook profile and sends the message directly from
there.)
If youre even a tiny bit persuaded that this note might be
legitimate, Snopes.com (the Internets clearinghouse for Internet
rumors and scams) offers this superb advice:
Ask the caller a question that an impersonator would be unable
to answer. Be careful to pose a question that requires more than
knowledge of basic family information (e.g., names, birthdates,
addresses), because that information is too easy for outsiders to
look up instead, ask about something like a detail of a family
event.
7. The pre-approved credit-card scam
Your current financial situation isnt so great right now, but
hey, look at thatits your lucky day! Youve just gotten an email
that offers a pre-approved Visa card! Or a loan with an
impressively high credit limit. Hallelujah!
All you have to do is pay the annual fee up front.
Can you guess what happens next? Yes, you can: You never hear from
them again. There never was a credit card or loan.
(Similar cons: Youve won a lottery! Youve landed a great
job! Youre invited to a great investment!)
8. The youve-won-the-sweepstakes scam
Hey, wow! You just won an overseas sweepstakesone that you never
even entered! How lucky can you be?
And get thisonce you supply your mailing address, you actually do
get a check for a huge amount of money! They tell you to deposit
it, but in the meantime, send them a check for a couple hundred
bucks to cover processing fees and taxes.
Only one problem, which you can probably see coming down Sixth
Avenue: Their check was bogus. Your check is real. The only one
who made money from this sweepstakes is the scammer.
9. The work-at-home scam
At this point, you should be rolling your eyes. These Internet
scams all follow a pattern.
The work-at-home scam is when you get an email offering you an
amazing work-at-home job. Maybe its stuffing envelopes,
processing insurance claims, or processing credit-card
transactions.
All you need to do is buy something up front: processing
equipment, or a Web site, or access to a list of some type.
So you send the money, and guess what you get back?
Right. Nothing.
10. The false infection detected scam
Youre on the Web, when a pop-up
message appears, claiming that
your computer might be infected by a virus. Youre invited to
click a link that will scan your system for infections. Surprise,
surprisethe scan discovers one!
And for the low, low price of $50, this mysterious remote company
will clean up your PC for you.
If you fall for it, youll spend the money and not get a cleanup
in fact, you may wind up with a fresh installation of spyware.
11. The faux charity scam
Every time theres a disastera hurricane, an earthquakemillions
of people, grateful to be safe and concerned for the victims, want
to help.
And a few people want to cash in.
If, in the aftermath of a disaster, you get an email seeking money
to help the victims, dont click. Instead, go directly to the Web
site of a charity you know, and contribute there!
Human, meet Internet
None of this is new. None of this is surprising. The Internet may
be the latest conduit for scams, hoaxes, and fraudsbut the greed,
fear, and hope it exploits are as old as homo sapiens.
But heres the thing: homo sapiens means wise person. You have
brains, too. Use them to steer clear of anything thats too good
to be true.
Windows 10 Upgrade Become More Creepy, No Option to Opt-Out
If you are running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and have no plans to
switch to Windows 10, then Microsoft could force you to install
Windows 10, making it harder for you to cancel or opt-out of
upgrading.
Reports are circulating that some Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users
are claiming that the latest Windows 10 OS has begun to
automatically install itself on their PCs.
According to complaints by users, Windows Update screen is only
offering them the option to either:
Start the upgrade process, or
Reschedule the upgrade for a later date
Other users are finding that the dialog boxes they are presented
display a message saying that the "Upgrade to Windows 10 is
Ready," and prompting users to "Restart your PC to begin the
installation."
The issue actually resided in the Windows Update process.
Microsoft has listed Windows 10 as an "Optional" update, and
normally these updates are unticked, meaning a user has to
manually check them to install the OS it shouldn't be installed
automatically.
However, Microsoft mistakenly checked these updates while listing
them, which results in automatically installing Windows 10 on
some computers running Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1.
When reached out to Microsoft, the company said that the issue
occurred with an optional update in Windows Update that was
checked by default. Microsoft has now acknowledged the issue and
reverted the checkbox, calling it "a mistake."
Mistake? Oh Really?
Here's the full official statement provided by Microsoft's
spokesperson to Ars:
"As part of our effort to bring Windows 10 to existing genuine
Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers, the Windows 10 upgrade may
appear as an optional update in the Windows Update (WU) control
panel. This is an intuitive and trusted place people go to find
Recommended and Optional updates to Windows. In the recent Windows
update, this option was checked as default; this was a mistake,
and we are removing the check."
Just last month, Microsoft was caught downloading the Windows 10
installer files large gigabytes in size to Windows 7 and
Windows 8 users, even without their knowledge.
Now this recent so-called mistake by Microsoft shows that how much
the company is desperate to bring Windows 7 and Windows 8 users
onto Windows 10, but there is a fine line between desperation and
trust which the company has crossed many times.
Microsoft Will Release Threshold 2 Update for Windows 10 in November
While Microsoft announced Windows 10 as the final version of its
flagship OS, subsequent updates were always part of the plan. The
company was looking to construct a foundation which could be built
upon for years to come, and now we have word that this process
will start in November. Microsoft will release its Windows 10 Fall
Update previously referred to internally as the Threshold 2
update next month, according to a report from Thurrott. The
release has been given version number 1511 referring to the month
and year of its release, which will apparently be the naming
convention for future updates also. Users will receive this
release as normal, via Windows Update. Along with a host of bug
fixes and other minor tweaks, its also set to add some new
functionality into Windows 10. Microsofts new Edge browser is set
to see some changes, too, although apparently not the
often-requested addition of extensions.
Microsoft plans to launch payments service on Windows 10 soon An
improved Media Creation Tool is set to be released via the
update, and Cortana is set to gain some new abilities, including
SMS text messaging to mobile phones directly from your PC.
Meanwhile, a messaging app will introduce some features familiar
to Skype users, according to reporting from Hexus. Additionally,
extra customization options for the Start Menu are on their way,
as well as some other UI improvements. We should see some icons
swapped out for new versions, as well as changes to context menus
and the option to recolor the title bars on Explorer windows. If
youre currently running Windows 10, this update will be pushed
to your computer as soon as Microsoft makes it available. Users
that havent yet taken the plunge will be able to move directly
from previous versions of the OS to the Fall Update once it has
been made available.
While Microsoft announced Windows 10 as the final version of its
flagship OS, subsequent updates were always part of the plan. The
company was looking to construct a foundation which could be
built upon for years to come, and now we have word that this
process will start in November.
Microsoft will release its Windows 10 Fall Update previously
referred to internally as the Threshold 2 update next month,
according to a report from Thurrott. The release has been given
version number 1511 referring to the month and year of its
release, which will apparently be the naming convention for
future updates also.
Users will receive this release as normal, via Windows Update.
Along with a host of bug fixes and other minor tweaks, its also
set to add some new functionality into Windows 10. Microsofts
new Edge browser is set to see some changes, too, although
apparently not the often-requested addition of extensions.
An improved Media Creation Tool is set to be released via the
update, and Cortana is set to gain some new abilities, including
SMS text messaging to mobile phones directly from your PC.
Meanwhile, a messaging app will introduce some features familiar
to Skype users, according to reporting from Hexus.
Additionally, extra customization options for the Start Menu are
on their way, as well as some other UI improvements. We should
see some icons swapped out for new versions, as well as changes to
context menus and the option to recolor the title bars on Explorer
windows.
If youre currently running Windows 10, this update will be pushed
to your computer as soon as Microsoft makes it available. Users
that havent yet taken the plunge will be able to move directly
from previous versions of the OS to the Fall Update once it has
been made available.
Google Rewarded The Guy Who Accidentally Bought Google.com,
But He Donated It to Charity
Sanmay Ved the man who actually managed to buy Google.com got a
huge reward from Google, but he donated all money to charity.
Last week, an ex-Google employee and now-Amazon employee managed
to buy the world's most-visited domain Google.com via Google's own
Domains service for only $12.
However, Ved owned Google.com for one whole minute before the
Mountain View company realized it was a mistake and cancelled the
transaction.
After acknowledging the mistake, Google rewarded Ved with some
unknown amount of cash, but when Ved generously suggested donating
his prize money to charity instead, Google just doubled the
reward.
Ved believed that his real reward was just being the person who
bought Google.com for a whole minute.
"I do not care about the money," Ved told in an interview with
Business Insider. "It was never about the money. I also want to
set an example that [there are] people who [wish] to find bugs
that it's not always about the money."
Ved donated his reward to "The Art of Living India," an Indian
foundation that focuses on providing education to poorer areas
of the country.
Ved did not disclose the exact sum of cash Google had awarded
him, but he did say that the amount was more than of $10,000.
That is a lot for just a few clicks!
Rare Apple 1 With Original First Manual Written by
Apple Co-founder Ronald Wayne Up for Auction
Auction house Christies currently has an Apple 1 computer up for
auction with a starting bid of GBP 240,000 and an estimated sales
range of GBP 300,000 500,000 [US$773,100].
Christies description reads, in part:
The Apple-1 computer, born in 1976 of the computing genius of Steve
Wozniak and the marketing drive of Steve Jobs, launched Apple
Computer, a company that would define an industry and become the
largest corporation in the world. What began as the attempt of two
techie friends to design and build a microprocessor became the
creation of the first personal computer, ultimately changing life
around the globe. After introducing their new creation to a small
group of like-minded friends at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo
Alto, California, Jobs and Wozniak were able to secure an order
for 50 computers from Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop, a
small local retail outlet. The Apple-1 systems were sold without a
casing, power supply, keyboard or monitor, but offered a
pre-assembled motherboard, something that put them far ahead of
the competing self-assembly kits of the day.
THIS EXAMPLE COMES WITH THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST MANUAL ISSUED BY
THE APPLE COMPUTER COMPANY. Although not credited in the text,
Ronald Wayne is well-known to be its author (and he does receive
printed credit for drawing the enclosed schematics). The
elder-statesmen of the Jobs-Wozniak-Wayne trio, Wayne drew the
first Apple logo that appears on the cover of this pamphlet,
drafted their partnership agreement, and wrote the present manual.
His original logo symbolically connected the nascent Apple
Computer Company to important scientific precedent: Sir Isaac
Newton sits beneath an apple tree writing on several loose
sheets, the glowing apple of inspiration above him, as if about
to fall and spring forth innovation. Wayne also incorporated into
his design Wordsworths homage to Newton from The Prelude: A Mind
forever voyaging through strange seas of thought
alone. The
backward-looking style of the logo, blending the Enlightenments
ideal of science and the Romantics ideal of expression, could not
conceal the overwhelmingly modern import of the simple text it
announced.
Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and the Apple INeither of the electrics
nor electronics have been tested. We assume it could be brought up
to working order again, as it was when last turned on in 2005, but
we recommend a certified engineer attempt this. It is unknown if
the capacitors are working but are seemingly sound. One chip at
B12 incorrectly inserted. Scratches to motherboard by loose
securing screw in bottom left not affecting circuitry. The reverse
side has not been inspected since the motherboard is secured to
the case with three firm screws. Some writing on motherboard in
black ink C4 C14 and 74153 74 139. Some parts possibly
early replacements as is common with these machines that were
initially bought by home enthusiasts. The manual [is] in very good
condition noting the green title page appears to be an 1976
photocopy, as issued.
=~=~=~=
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