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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 16 Issue 18
Volume 16, Issue 18 Atari Online News, Etc. May 2, 2014
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2014
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 #1618 05/02/14
~ HS Suggestion: Dump IE ~ People Are Talking! ~ Fixing The IE Flaw!
~ AOL: Change Passwords! ~ New, Revamped Firefox! ~ Watch Out, Yahoo!
~ When BASIC Was Young! ~ Google To Stop Mining! ~ The New MacBook Air!
~ Google Hit With Lawsuit ~ Warhol Work Disk-overy ~ Gov't Data Requests!
-* Searchers Unearth Grave of ET *-
-* Is The FCC Letting Net Neutrality Die? *-
-* Proposals Far from Gutting Net Neutrality! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I apologize for the lateness with this week's issue. Lots of work, lots of
necessary time to put it together, but little time to get ahead of the game!
Speaking of games, the Atari E.T. game urban legend has proven to be true!
This past weekend, E.T. and more, was dug up in a New Mexico landfill. All
the rumors have finally been laid to rest. We have the story in this issue!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Trailer Released
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" EA, Comcast Close To Signing Streaming Game Deal
Diggers Find Atari's E.T. Games in Landfill
And more!
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->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
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Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Trailer Officially Released
Following leaks earlier, Activision officially released the full trailer
for their next Call of Duty game.
The trailer, which was meant to debut on May 4 with details about this
year's Call of Duty game, has come out well ahead of its intended date.
The next Call of Duty will officially be titled Call of Duty: Advanced
Warfare and has a scheduled release date of November 4 this year.
Kevin Spacey will play a prominent role in the game. And Advanced Warfare
also features hoverbikes and exosuits with enhanced jumping abilities.
EA, Comcast Close To Signing Streaming Game Deal
Are games coming to Comcast's X1 service?
According to a report from Reuters, Electronic Arts and Comcast are close
to finalizing a deal that would bring EA-published games to Comcast's X1
TV operating system through cloud-powered streaming. Five separate
sources told Reuters that this was the case.
According to Reuters, Comcast and EA have tested such a streaming service
for more than two years. Games from the Madden, FIFA, Monopoly, and
Plants vs. Zombies franchises were called out as those being available
for streaming. The report goes on to say that you'll be able to use a
tablet you already own as a controller to play the games, suggesting the
games on offer will be smaller, mobile games rather than bigger,
console-level titles. The list of available games is reportedly still
being hashed out.
Sources told Reuters that Comcast will focus on casual and family games
first, before later considering FPS and action games. It will all come
down to user preference, the report says.
Comcast has more than 22 million customers in the United States, which
would (potentially) make the company a major player in the home gaming
space if the deal goes through. An EA representative declined to comment
when approached by GameSpot, while we've yet to hear back from a Comcast
representative about this reported deal.
Sources told Reuters that EA and Comcast want to make buying games as
easy as ordering a pay-per-view movie. "This could create a new
distribution model that circumvents console and video-streaming device
makers," Reuters points out.
Both EA and Comcast were featured in this year's Worst Company In
America poll from consumer affairs blog The Consumerist. After "winning"
two years running, EA was knocked out in the first round this year,
while Comcast "won" it all, taking home the Golden Poo award.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Documentary Crew Solves Mystery Around Worst Video Game Ever Made
Documentary filmmakers digging in a New Mexico landfill on Saturday
unearthed hundreds of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges, considered
by some the worst video game ever made and blamed for contributing to the
downfall of the video game industry in the 1980s.
Some gamers had speculated that thousands or even millions of the
unwanted cartridges made by Atari were buried in a landfill in
Alamogordo, about 200 miles southeast of Albuquerque.
Who dumped the videos, how many they buried, and why they did it inspired
the dig and a documentary of the event by Microsofts Xbox Entertainment
Studios.
The first batch of E.T. games was discovered under layers of trash after
about three hours of digging, a Microsoft spokeswoman said, putting to
rest questions about whether the cartridges would be found at all.
She could not immediately provide an exact count of how many cartridges
were uncovered.
The game was a design and marketing failure after it was rushed out to
coincide with the release of Steven Spielbergs 1982 hit movie, E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, and it contributed to a collapse of the video game
industry in its early years.
Atari is believed to have been saddled with most of the 5 million E.T.
game cartridges produced. According to New York Times reports at the
time, the manufacturer buried the games in the New Mexico desert in the
middle of the night.
A game enthusiast later tracked down the suspected burial site and spread
the word about the location, said Sam Claiborn, an editor at video game
news site IGN.
The approximate size of the dig site at an old Alamogordo landfill
measures 150 feet by 150 feet off the citys main commercial street.
For a lot of people, its something that theyve wondered about and its
been rumored and talked about for 30 years, and they just want an
answer, said Zak Penn, the films director.
When the game was first released in 1982 it retailed for around $29.99,
but now often sells on eBay for less than $5.
I dont know how much people would pay for a broken E.T. game, but as a
piece of history, it has a much different value, Penn said.
Searchers Unearth Grave of "E.T.," The Video Game Atari Wanted Us To Forget
"E.T." may have soared in the movies. But as a video game, it was an epic
turkey.
When electronics pioneer Atari rushed a game based on the 1982 Hollywood
blockbuster to market for its then-dominant home consoles, it was a flop,
compounded by the fact that the infant industry was hitting its first
slump at the time.
So Atari literally buried the project, dumping truckloads of unsold games
in a desert landfill in New Mexico. And amid a decade of
entertainment-industry disasters bookended by the movie "Heaven's Gate"
and Milli Vanilli, the "E.T." game quickly faded into urban legend.
"Riiiight," you say.
No, really. And over the weekend, with a couple of hundred onlookers
watching, excavators led by a documentary film crew began to unearth
stacks of 30-year-old Atari cartridges from a landfill outside
Alamogordo.
"Urban legend CONFIRMED," Larry Hryb, one of the creators of Microsoft's
Xbox gaming platform, reported via Twitter from the dig site. Microsoft's
Xbox Entertainment Studios is one of the backers of the planned
documentary, tentatively titled "Atari: Game Over." Hryb also tweeted a
photo of the first cartridge to be dug out.
Not so fast, Atari historian Curt Vendel said Monday. "E.T." cartridges
were just one of more than 20 titles found over the weekend, and may not
make up more than a fifth of the estimated 700,000-plus units the ailing
Atari discarded in 1983, he said. As far as he's concerned, the great
"E.T." caper remains "a myth."
"This was a write-off dump," said Vendel, the co-author of a 2012 book on
the company. Atari was being hit from all sides by a saturated market for
arcade games, competition from other companies making games for its
famous 2600 console and by a large volume of returns from retailers - a
problem it had never before faced and wasn't prepared to handle.
"Poor sales, the video game crash, 'E.T.'s' not a great game - the whole
thing kind of snowballs together, and then you find Atari is dumping
cartridges in the desert," he said. "That's how this whole myth kind of
self-generated."
One of those on hand at the landfill Saturday was Howard Scott Warshaw,
the game's designer. When excavators started to retrieve the first of
what may be hundreds of thousands of copies of his misbegotten baby,
"Everybody went nuts," Warshaw said.
"I've been carrying this thing, the theoretically worst video game of all
time, for 30 years now," he said. "It was a game that was done in five
weeks. It was a very brief development. I did the best that I could, and
that's OK."
But seeing the cartridges emerge from the desert dust was a rush for
Warshaw, who's now a Silicon Valley psychotherapist.
"Something that I did 32 years ago is still creating joy and excitement
for people," he said. "That's a tremendously satisfying thing for me
now."
Today's Atari, which still sells games but no longer makes its own
platforms, did not respond to a request for comment Sunday. The original
company folded in 1984, and several successive companies have bought the
name, Vendel said.
"E.T" was rushed to stores in time for Christmas 1982, hobbled not only
by its short development time but by a license and royalty agreement that
promised the film's director, Steven Spielberg, $21 million, Vendel said.
The company needed to sell out of the 5 million units it produced to
break even; it sold about 3.5 million by the following fall, he said.
By that time, Atari was collapsing. About the time "E.T." hit the
shelves, a poor and badly delayed earnings report spooked investors, "and
everybody started running to go sell," Vendel said. At its peak, it
employed about 11,000 people; it was shedding employees by the thousands
in 1983, and had only about 900 left by the time it closed down.
"They were just cutting the meat off the bone," he said.
And so in 1983, the company dumped 14 truckloads of merchandise from its
service center in El Paso, Texas, in the Alamogordo landfill, about 90
miles away, Vendel said. To keep scavengers from reselling them, the
cartridges were covered by a layer of concrete.
None of the "E.T." cartridges unearthed over the weekend was playable,
Warshaw said. But he said there may be as many as 750,000 of them in the
landfill, with many successful titles mixed in with the "E.T." games.
"It was the end of the first product life cycle, and nobody really knew
what they were doing," Warshaw said. Now, manufacturers are designing
their next systems even as their new ones start shipping to stores.
"It was a very wacky company, but that's one of the things that made it
amazing place to work," said Warshaw, who's come to embrace the game's
infamy.
"I don't really believe it's one of the worst games ever, but I really
like it when people identify it that way," Warshaw told CNN. And because
he also designed of one of Atari's best-rated games, "Yars' Revenge," he
said, "I have the greatest range of any game designer in history."
Diggers Find Atari's E.T. Games in Landfill
A decades-old urban legend was put to rest Saturday when workers for a
documentary film production company recovered "E.T." Atari game
cartridges from a heap of garbage buried deep in the New Mexico desert.
The "Atari grave" was, until that moment, a highly debated tale among
gaming enthusiasts and other self-described geeks for 30 years. The story
claimed that in its death throes, the video game company sent about a
dozen truckloads of cartridges of what many call the worst video game
ever to be forever hidden in a concrete-covered landfill in southeastern
New Mexico.
The search for the cartridges of a game that contributed to the demise of
Atari will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the biggest video
game company of the early '80s.
As a backhoe scattered a huge scoop of 30-year-old trash and dirt over
the sand, the film crew spotted boxes and booklets carrying the Atari
logo.
Soon after, a game cartridge turned up, then another and another.
Film director Zak Penn showed assembled gaming fans one cartridge
retrieved from the site and said that hundreds more were in the
surrounding mounds of garbage.
About 200 residents and game enthusiasts gathered early Saturday at the
old landfill in Alamogordo to watch crews search for up to a million
discarded copies of "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" that the game's maker
wanted to hide forever.
"I feel pretty relieved and psyched that they actually got to see
something," Penn said as members of the production team sifted through
the mounds of trash, pulling out boxes, games and other Atari products.
Most of the crowd left the landfill before the discovery, turned away by
strong winds that kicked up massive clouds of dust mingled with garbage.
By the time the games were found, only a few dozen people remained. Some
were playing the infamous game in a makeshift gaming den with a TV and an
1980s game console in the back of a van, while others took selfies beside
a life-size E.T. doll inside a DeLorean car like the one that was turned
into a time machine in the "Back To The Future" movies.
Among the watchers was Armando Ortega, a city official who as a teenager
back in 1983 got a tip from a landfill employee about the massive dump of
games.
"It was pitch dark here that night, but we came with our flashlights and
found dozens of games," he said. They braved the darkness, coyotes and
snakes of the desert landfill and had to sneak past the security guard.
But it paid off as they found dozens of crushed but still playable
cartridges.
The game's finding came as no surprise to James Heller, a former Atari
manager who was invited by the production to the dig site. He says in
1983 the company tasked him with finding an inexpensive way to dispose
of 728,000 cartridges they had in a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. After a
few local kids ran into trouble for scavenging and the media started
calling him about it, he decided to pour a layer of concrete over the
games.
"I never heard about again it until June 2013, when I read an article
about E.T. being excavated," he remembers. He was not aware of the
controversy and never spoke out "because nobody asked."
The documentary about the search is being developed by companies
including Xbox Entertainment Studios, and the film is expected to be
released later this year on Microsoft's Xbox game consoles.
The city of Alamogordo agreed to give the documentarians up to 250
cartridges and plan to sell the rest that are unearthed.
Mayor Susie Galea hopes this brings more tourists to this southeastern
New Mexico town that is home to an Air Force base and White Sands
National Monument.
"Lots of people just pass through, unfortunately," she said.
The "E.T." game is among the factors blamed for the decline of Atari and
the collapse in the U.S. of a multi-million-dollar video game industry
that didn't bounce back for several years.
With the whether-or-not E.T. was buried in Alamogordo controversy solved,
the other, subtler debate remains. Was it the worst game ever unleashed
on gamers?
Tina Amini, deputy editor at gaming website Kotaku, says the game tanked
because "it was practically broken" with that the E.T. falling into traps
that were almost impossible to escape and would appear constantly and
unpredictably.
The game designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, says he does not mind his
creation being called that. "It may be a horrible game, but 32 years
after, you are here, talking to me about it. It's a tremendous honor,"
that it still generates public discourse.
He, however, manages to stress that the company took too long to secure
the rights for the game and with Christmas production schedules pressing
he was left with just five weeks to design, write and test "the worst
game ever."
Former Atari Employee Talks About Buried Games
A story about Atari games buried in a New Mexico dump has become the
stuff of legend and one Idaho man says he can solve the mystery.
"The urban legend was that Atari had gone out in the middle of the desert
and buried somewhere between 3-and-a-half and 5 million ET cartridges,"
Heller said.
James Heller of Nampa worked for Atari back in 1983. He was told to get
rid of some 750,000 video games that were in a warehouse in El Paso, TX.
"I had been charged with getting rid of it as quickly and inexpensively
as possible and so I did," Heller said. "That was my job."
That's when the rumors started.
"There was many, many things written that it was done in the middle of
the night," Heller said. "It was not. That Atari was trying to hide
something, they were not. It was just my job."
He says after kids raided the dump, six truckloads of cement were used to
cover the games. Then, thirty years later, back in June of last year, the
games surfaced in a story about the Atari gravesite.
"I looked at the article and I go, 'I did that!'" Heller said.
A film crew shooting a documentary about Atari showed up last Saturday to
find what was buried. They invited Heller to be there. He says they found
the whole lot.
"It was just not ET," Heller said. "It was like Missile Command, and
Centipede, Warlords."
Heller said the games were in good shape. He says all the hype about
Atari hiding the games is just a story.
"It was excess inventory that they couldn't sell and they had to get rid
of it," Heller said.
He says no Roswell, no conspiracy and no mystery.
"No mystery whatsoever, just people made it a mystery," Heller said.
And James Heller knows all about it.
"It's the biggest urban legend that ever happened in video gaming history.
It's lasted for thirty years."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
The FCC Appears To Be Letting Net Neutrality Die. Heres Why That Matters
This illustrates the worst-case scenario of the proposal the FCC began
sketching out last week: In rewriting net neutrality rules that were
punctured by a court ruling in January, it would allow commercially
reasonable paid prioritization deals. In other words, rich companies
could fork over money to Internet providers to ensure that their
high-bandwidth traffic like video would arrive at high speed. Others?
Maybe not.
Early reaction has been none too kind. Think headlines like The FCC
doesnt want to destroy net neutrality, but its going to anyway which
ran atop one of the less pessimistic stories, a nuanced explanation by
Stacey Higginbotham on GigaOM.
Under this new regime, the warning goes, while big-name companies would
pay for elite status to lock in their privileged positions, smaller
competitors would be left apologizing for their lagging performance,
while startups would starve for funding as investors get spooked.
And executives at Big Telecom will mutter Excellent! as they spend
their bonuses, secure in the knowledge that they face little effective
competition.
Its a real risk. And I was reminded of it in very real terms when
Netflix paused and rebuffered repeatedly over the weekend, even though
my Verizon FiOS connection delivers more than enough bandwidth for an HD
stream. Then on Monday, Netflix announced that it had agreed to a form of
paid prioritization with Verizon.
What we dont know?But this worst-case interpretation deserves closer
inspection, because there are some facts that we dont yet know.
The biggest unknown in the doomsday forecasts is the experience that
would befall sites and services that dont pay for an upgrade. If the FCC
leaves that up to Internet providers, then we really are on the way to
stratified Internet.
But as Higginbothams post notes, the commission is considering requiring
a minimum level of service in addition to banning providers from blocking
sites. If that floor is high enough at an optimistic extreme, to ensure
reliable streaming HD video then paid prioritization might come into
play only for extravagances like Netflixs venture into 4K Ultra High
Definition. Or maybe faster lanes wouldnt be economically viable.
A lower or vaguer baseline, however, would give startups and their
potential funders the heebie-jeebies over what they might have to pay to
unavoidable, under-accountable Internet providers.
This is a very bad idea, wrote John Backus, managing partner of New
Atlantic Ventures. It is a huge boondoggle for anyone that owns pipes
because they can basically auction off delivery times/speeds.
A second unknown is the FCC making Internet providers disclose the
principles governing their plumbing. If these transparency requirements
expose details like peering and interconnection deals, it would be more
obvious whos to blame for these holdups.
Aside from outright blocking, its extremely difficult to establish when
a broadband provider is engaging in any sort of throttling or
prioritization of traffic, wrote Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson. He
noted thats especially tricky in wireless networks which have been
under exceptionally permissive net-neutrality rules since 2010.
As FCC chair Tom Wheeler related at the State of the Net conference in
Washington this January, Netflix didnt work reliably in his own home,
and his wife wanted answers: Youre chairman of the FCC, why is this
happening?
The third unknown is what else the FCC could do to boost competition
among broadband providers, which could lower any one companys ability to
demand a paid-prioritization tax from a content site. Without that,
theres little that customers will be able to do except complain.
The FCC cant make cable operators invade one anothers territory for
competitive purposes. But it could challenge state bans on municipal
broadband, contest local regulations that impede building telecom
infrastructure, and free up unlicensed spectrum for broadband use.
It could also kick Comcasts proposal to buy Time Warner Cable to the
curb. Or (cue the cries of Socialism!) it could accept the deal on the
condition that the combined company agree to resell capacity to other
firms, much as wireless carriers already do.
And its worth noting that while players in the more competitive wireless
market have more liberty to discriminate for or against sites, they
havent rushed to cash in on that privilege.
AT&T backed down on its attempt to reserve FaceTime video calling to
customers on more expensive plans; its more recent sponsored data
venture, a rough equivalent of letting advertisers pay for toll-free
calls, is far more modest.
Why we should be wary?A move toward letting Internet providers charge for
data coming and going represents a fundamental change in how the market
of data transmission works today. It also feels like a victory for
blowhards like former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre in 2005, he told
BusinessWeek that dot-coms would like to use my pipes free, but I aint
going to let them do that even if it falls short of that greedy dream.
Over the past dozen years, the FCC has often appeared to be losing a
negotiation with itself. In 2002 it let cable Internet out of common
carrier requirements that mandated net neutrality and instead labeled it
an information service along the lines of an e-mail service; then in
2005 it gave phone-based broadband the same help; then its attempt to
reconstitute net-neutrality rules got nuked in court; then this January a
second try got shot down again.
The FCC now seems to feel that the philosophically simpler fix of undoing
those changes and reclassifying broadband as a common-carrier service
one that moves bits from Point A to Point B without discriminating by
content or source (which I suspect is how most of you see your ISP)
would take too long to get through court challenges. So its left with
this workaround, hacked together to erect some protections for customers
on the limited legal framework left by Januarys court ruling.
And the guy leading this charge, Wheeler, happens to have led both the
cable and wireless trade associations at earlier points in his career. He
cant possibly be surprised at the skeptical hearing hes getting. And
hed best get to the specifics of his plan soon so we can debate them
intelligently.
Proposed Rules Far from Gutting Net Neutrality, FCC Tells Critics
The U.S. communications regulator on Thursday sought to tame an outcry
over its plan to allow fast lanes for some content on the Internet,
insisting that the agency will monitor and punish broadband providers
that treat Web traffic unreasonably.
The Federal Communications Commission is weighing rules that would ban
Internet providers from blocking access to websites or applications, but
would allow content companies to pay for faster Internet speeds
delivering their traffic as long as such deals are deemed commercially
reasonable.
Consumer advocates assailed the proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler,
saying it would let certain content providers pay for access to fast
lanes and discourage consumers from going to competitors sites where
videos or other content may load more slowly by comparison.
The five-member FCC will negotiate the rules before it votes on May 15
to formally propose them and seek public comment.
This move is likely to favor the companies with the deepest pockets and
hurt the scrappy startups, Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for
Consumers Union, said in a statement.
The debate is over the principle known as open Internet or net
neutrality, which establishes that owners of networks that deliver online
content should treat all of that content equally.
There are reports that the FCC is gutting the Open Internet rule. They
are flat-out wrong, Wheeler said in a statement late Wednesday. In a
blog post Thursday, he said the rules, which he intends to finalize by
year-end, would not harm consumers or change the FCCs underlying goals
of transparency.
The FCC for years has struggled to set rules that would prohibit Internet
providers from restricting how consumers surf the Web but would also
withstand legal challenges from broadband providers who have said they,
as owners of the networks, should be able to manage them or charge for
their use without what they see as regulatory overreach.
In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit for the second time struck down the FCCs previous
anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules after a challenge from
Verizon Communications. But the judges did affirm the agencys authority
to regulate broadband, giving the FCC new legal opportunity to rewrite
the rules.
It was the courts direction that guided Wheelers proposal to allow
commercially reasonable preferential treatment of traffic, senior FCC
officials said Thursday.
The agency will seek public comment before determining how to define
commercially unreasonable behavior or a violation of net neutrality,
but it will focus on whether broadband companies treatment of traffic
hurts competitors or consumers, hurts free speech or is done in good
faith, the officials said.
The FCC would have the authority to go after companies that violate the
commercially reasonable standard on a case-by-case basis. The review
would be prompted by formal or informal complaints, as well as the FCCs
own monitoring of how broadband providers treat online traffic, the
officials said.
One of the ideas the FCC is considering would be to have a commission
ombudsperson to monitor the industry with consumers and content
providers in mind, one FCC official said.
In striking down the FCCs old rules, the court said the agency had
improperly treated Internet service providers as regulated public
utilities providing telecommunications services, like telephone
companies, while they were actually classified as information service
providers.
Consumer advocates have called on the FCC to reclassify Internet
providers as more heavily regulated telecommunications services, an idea
that has faced tremendous pushback from the broadband industry and
Republican lawmakers who have urged the FCC to tread lightly.
Virtually all large Internet providers, such as Verizon, AT&T, and Time
Warner Cable, pledged after Januarys ruling to continue abiding by the
principles of open Internet and have not weighed in since then.
The fees that content providers pay for faster access to their sites or
applications recently grabbed the spotlight after video streaming service
Netflix struck a deal known as an interconnection agreement with cable
provider Comcast in February.
However, such deals are struck on the back end of the network that gets
content from a server to the broadband network and so are outside of the
scope of the FCCs net neutrality rules. The rules have applied only to
deals related to traffic going over the last mile of broadband
networks, where content moves directly to the consumer.
AOL Urges Password Change for Tens of Millions of Members
AOL Inc on Monday urged its tens of millions of email account holders to
change their passwords and security questions after a cyber attack
compromised about 2 percent of its accounts.
The company said it was working with federal authorities to investigate
the attack, in which hackers obtained email addresses, postal addresses,
encrypted passwords and answers to security questions used to reset
passwords.
It said there was no indication that the encryption on that data had
been broken.
A company spokesman declined to say how many email accounts are
registered on its system.
AOL said that it identified the breach after noticing a significant
increase in the amount of spam appearing as spoofed emails from AOL
addresses. Such emails do not originate from a senders service
provider, but their addresses are edited to make them appear that way.
U.S. Government Suggests That You Switch from Internet Explorer
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security advised computer users to
consider using alternatives to Microsoft Corps Internet Explorer
browser until the company fixes a security flaw that hackers have used
to launch attacks.
The United States Computer Emergence Readiness Team said in an advisory
released on Monday morning that the vulnerability in versions 6 to 11 of
Internet Explorer could lead to the complete compromise of an affected
system.
Microsoft is rushing to fix a bug in its widely used Internet Explorer
Web browser after a computer security firm disclosed a flaw over the
weekend, saying hackers have already exploited it in attacks on some U.S.
companies.
PCs running Windows XP will not receive any updates fixing that bug when
they are released, however, because Microsoft stopped supporting the
13-year-old operating system earlier this month. Security firms estimate
that between 15 and 25 percent of the worlds PCs still run Windows XP.
Microsoft disclosed on Saturday its plans to fix the bug in an advisory
to its customers posted on its security website, which it said is present
in Internet Explorer versions 6 to 11. Those versions dominate desktop
browsing, accounting for 55 percent of the PC browser market, according
to tech research firm NetMarketShare.
Cybersecurity software maker FireEye said that a sophisticated group of
hackers have been exploiting the bug in a campaign dubbed Operation
Clandestine Fox.
FireEye, whose Mandiant division helps companies respond to cyber
attacks, declined to name specific victims or to identify the group of
hackers, saying that an investigation into the matter is still active.
Its a campaign of targeted attacks seemingly against U.S.-based firms,
currently tied to defense and financial sectors, FireEye spokesman Vitor
De Souza said via email. Its unclear what the motives of this attack
group are, at this point. It appears to be broad-spectrum intel
gathering.
He declined to elaborate, though he said one way to protect against them
would be to switch to another browser.
Microsoft said in the advisory that the vulnerability could allow a
hacker to take complete control of an affected system, and then do things
such as viewing, changing, or deleting data; installing malicious
programs; or creating accounts that would give hackers full user rights.
FireEye and Microsoft have not provided much information about the
security flaw or the approach that hackers could use to figure out how to
exploit it, said Aviv Raff, chief technology officer of cybersecurity
firm Seculert.
Yet other groups of hackers are now racing to learn more about it so they
can launch similar attacks before Microsoft prepares a security update,
Raff said.
Microsoft should move fast, he said. This will snowball.
Still, he cautioned that Windows XP users will not benefit from that
update since Microsoft has just halted support for that product.
The software maker said in a statement to Reuters that it advises Windows
XP owners to upgrade to one of two most recently versions of its
operating system, Windows 7 or 8.
What You Need To Know About Internet Explorer Fix
Microsoft will deliver a patch to fix an Internet Explorer security flaw
that left users of the browser vulnerable to attacks that were so
worrisome it prompted federal officials earlier this week to issue a
warning.
Microsoft said they will deliver the patch for all versions of Internet
Explorer and also release a patch for users of the Windows XP operating
system, despite discontinuing technical assistance and updates for the
12-year-old operating system last month.
If users have automatic updates turned on, there will be no need to take
any action to get the patch.
Microsoft also encouraged any holdout users of XP to consider upgrading
their operating system.
"The threat landscape has changed, and attackers have become more
sophisticated. Modern operating systems like Windows 7 and 8.1 have more
safety and security features than older operating systems, like Windows
XP," a company blog post said.
The glitch, which was announced less than a week ago, works by tricking
users into visiting a malicious website that then quietly installs
malware, turning control of the system over to hackers, according to a
Microsoft security advisory released Sunday.
Internet Explorer is the top desktop browser, accounting for nearly
58 percent of users last month, according to NetMarketShare.
How To Switch from Internet Explorer and Bring Your Bookmarks with You
A newly discovered Internet Explorer security bug has left Web security
in jeopardy. Though Microsoft has agreed to soon release a patch
unless youre one of the poor souls still on Windows XP youre
probably going to want to consider switching to another Web browser in
the meantime.
That isnt just our advice: Even the federal government has suggested
changing Web browsers until Microsoft fixes Internet Explorer.
Lucky for you, there are a few good alternatives to Microsofts
built-in browser, including Opera, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.
Chrome and Firefox are the two most popular alternatives. Each of these
browsers will let you import your old browser history and bookmarks,
too, so you dont have to start from scratch after switching.
Note: The following instructions will be for Windows 8 computers, but
installing on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 should be nearly
the same steps.
Switching to Chrome?First youll have to visit the Chrome.com website
from your current browser.
Click the Download now button, and then follow the onscreen instructions.
Chrome will ask you to make it your default browser. This will make it so
that Chrome, not Internet Explorer, will pop up when you click Web
address links in emails and other programs. To do this, click Next at the
prompt, and then select Google Chrome from the Windows settings pop-up.
Chrome will then launch for the first time and ask that you sign in with
your Google/Gmail account. You can skip this, if you want. Logging in
allows Google to automatically sync Android and Chrome desktop browsing
history and bookmarks between devices. That means if you use Chrome on
another computer, and sign in to the browser, then all your bookmarks
and preferences will appear there, too.
Lastly, to import your computers Internet Explorer bookmarks and
browsing history, just click the settings button in the upper-right
corner of your Chrome browser. Mouse over to Bookmarks and click Import
bookmarks and settings.
The pop-up window will ask what youd like to import. Check everything
youd like, and click Import.
And thats it.
Switching to Firefox?Visit Firefox.com to download Mozillas browser.
Click the Free Download button and then run the installation file by
clicking Run in the pop-up that appears at the bottom of your Internet
Explorer browser window.
The setup application will open. Click Install to continue, and when you
get to the Import Wizard pop-up, be sure to select the button beside the
Microsoft Internet Explorer and click the Next button to bring in your
computers IE history and bookmarks. In the following window, you can
also elect to Import your home page from Internet Explorer by selecting
that bubble and clicking Next there.
After youre finished with these steps, Firefox should open, and youll
be asked to make it your default browser. Again, this will prevent
Internet Explorer from opening when you click Web links from your email
or other applications.
Check the Always perform this check when starting Firefox box to ensure
that Internet Explorer doesnt default back to your main browser, and
then click Yes. In the Windows settings pop-up that will appear, click
Firefox.
And youre done!
Congratulations. Youre fully set up with a non-Internet Explorer Web
browser.
Now you can browse safely until Microsoft announces a fix for that nasty
security bug. Though who knows; once you go not-Internet Explorer, you
may never go back.
Google To Stop Mining Student Emails for Ad Ideas
Google will stop looking for advertising ideas in the emails of students
using a suite of the Internet company's free products tailored for
schools.
The changes announced Wednesday affect Google's "Apps for Education"
service that has been offered to schools for the past seven years.
Among other things, Google Inc. says it will no longer pore through
Gmails sent through Apps for Education for clues about students'
interests. The scanning helps the Mountain View, Calif., company figure
out what types of ads might appeal to the students.
Although Google didn't show ads in Apps for Education unless school
administrators choose to allow the commercial pitches, the company could
still use the personal data collected in Gmail scanning to peddle
products when students might be using other online services.
More than 30 million students, teachers and administrators use the Apps
for Education suite.
"Earning and keeping their trust drives our business forward," Bram Bout,
Google's director of education wrote in a blog post. "We know that trust
is earned through protecting their privacy and providing the best
security measures."
Google's habitual scanning of Gmail had become the focal point of a
federal lawsuit alleging the practice violated users' privacy. The case
included claims by students at the University of Hawaii and the
University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. that they were required to
use Apps for Education as part of their enrollment in schools.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh dealt the lawsuit a setback last month when
she denied a request to certify it as a class action representing tens of
millions of Gmail users.
Google's scanning of Gmail in schools also had been facing questions about
whether it violated the 40-year-old Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act, which is meant to protect student privacy.
Bout's blog post didn't cite the legal issues facing Gmail-scanning in his
blog post outlining the revisions to Google's Apps for Education policies.
"Google executives are always pushing the limits and only back off when
their hands are caught in the cookie jar," said John Simpson, privacy
project director for Consumer Watchdog, a group that has railed against
Google's data-collection practices for years.
Google is also removing the option that allowed school administrators to
show Gmail ads when students were using Apps for Education.
Apple, Facebook, and Other Tech Companies Will
Disclose More About Government Data Requests
Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google will tell their users more about
government requests for their data, in the wake of a series of leaks
exposing the NSA's secret bulk data collection programs. As the
Washington Post reports, companies that have already adopted a practice
of notifying users of government requests "have found that investigators
often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries."
Here's more from the Post:
Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to
expand routine notification of users about government data seizures,
unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority, officials
at all four companies said. Yahoo announced similar changes in July.
But that doesn't mean that every government request for data will become
public knowledge. Orders making their way through the FISA Courts which
grants the authority for the NSA's data queries are automatically
secret. And as the Post notes, so are the FBI-issued national security
letters. In the end, all four companies confirming the changes to the
Post say they'll end up disclosing information on requests with more
frequency, and will have clearer policies on when those requests are
withheld from the public, and why.
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr responded to the Post's story
with a statement, claiming that the move will endanger their
investigations:
"These risks of endangering life, risking destruction of evidence, or
allowing suspects to flee or intimidate witnesses are not merely
hypothetical, but unfortunately routine.
If you want to know which other tech companies already disclose data
requests to their users, you can check out the Electronic Frontier
Foundation's "Who Has Your Back?" resource.
Watch Out, Yahoo! EFF Looses BADGER on Sites That Ignore Do Not Track
In the wake of Yahoo!'s decision to stop honoring browsers' Do Not Track
signals, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has released a new
blacklisting tool that will automatically block tracking cookies from
sites that refuse to support DNT.
Dubbed Privacy Badger, the tool is available as a browser plugin for
Chrome and Firefox that keeps track of any third-party cookies, images,
or scripts it finds embedded in the web pages you visit.
If these elements appear to be using unique identifiers to track you
across multiple sites, Privacy Badger automatically blocks content from
the site they came from unless, the EFF says, the site has made a
"strong commitment" to support DNT.
Yahoo! and other DNT dissenters have dropped support for the scheme
because they claim they don't know what the DNT signal is supposed to
mean, and that there's no "single standard" for how sites should handle
it.
The EFF would like to negate that argument, and to that end it has opened
discussion on a draft standard DNT compliance policy that companies could
eventually use as a model for their own policies.
The document is listed as version 0.1 for now, and at more than 1,300
words long, it's not a quick read. But the EFF has given online companies
an incentive to pay attention to it, even at this early stage: post a
copy of the policy to your site at a specific URL where Privacy Badger
can find it, and the plugin will unblock content from your domain (as
long as you aren't sending tracking elements to browsers with DNT
enabled).
"So users who install Privacy Badger not only get more privacy and a
better browsing experience for themselves, but actually contribute to
making the Web as a whole better for everyone," the EFF explained in a
blog post.
The current version of Privacy Badger looks only for cookies and other
tracking elements that are sent by third-party sites, but the EFF says
that future versions will also examine tracking items sent by sites you
actually visit.
"We are doing things in this order because the most scandalous, intrusive
and objectionable form of online tracking is that conducted by companies
you've often never heard of and have no relationship with," the plugin's
FAQ explains meaning the myriad networks that serve ads to and harvest
data from websites.
You can download Privacy Badger from its homepage today, and if you're
interested in contributing to the code, you can find the repositories on
Github somewhat ironically, because as Privacy Badger reveals, Github
does not honor DNT.
Google Just Got Hit With A Major Class Action Lawsuit
Hagens Berman, a consumer rights law firm, has filed a class-action
lawsuit against Google, claiming "the search engine giant illegally
monopolized, and financially and creatively stagnated the American market
of internet and mobile search." Do they have a case?
The lawsuit accuses Google of creating secret "Mobile Application
Distribution Agreements." Berman believes these agreements were hidden
from the public, only available for view to the legal team, and that the
secret agreements are key to the monopoly: "Googles monopoly of these
markets stems from the companys purchasing of Android mobile operating
system to maintain and expand its monopoly by pre-loading its own suite
of applications onto the devices by way of secret [agreements]." Berman
goes on to state that Google's role in making their own apps preloaded
(such as Google Play and YouTube) hurt the market, artificially
inflating prices for competitors Samsung and HTC.
Steven Berman, founding partner at Hagens Berman and the representative
attorney, said, Its clear that Google has not achieved this monopoly
through offering a better search engine, but through its strategic,
anti-competitive placement [...] Simply put, there is no lawful,
pro-competitive reason for Google to condition licenses to pre-load
popular Google apps like this.
That argument sounds not unlike the the arguments used against Microsoft
in the late 1990s, when they faced years of lawsuits over claims they
illegally bundled Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system;
although the circumstances and the stakes are quite different this
time around.
The class is seeking a major pay out: It asks for damages for anyone who
purchased the devices affected by the alleged Google monopoly which
would be basically all Android devices since Google bought Android in
2005.
A lawsuit of this size is incredibly ambitious. First, Berman must have
their class certified, meaning they must prove that everyone they are
seeking damages for has similar enough cases to be considered a cohesive
unit. In the event they do prove this, Google can also file a motion to
dismiss. Google certainly has the funds to fight a lawsuit like this.
They will likely be in the dismissal process (and if necessary, an appeal
process to that) for years before this case ever sees a jury. There is
also the possibility of settlement, if a dismissal is not approved.
However, given Google's power and size (and quite frankly, ego), they may
prefer to fight the case and lose rather than settle.
In a statement to Reuters, Google said: "Anyone can use Android without
Google and anyone can use Google without Android. Since Android's
introduction, greater competition in smartphones has given consumers more
choices at lower prices."
This price competition may also be a key factor in the case. Google can
try to make the size of the class smaller by arguing that Android prices
were different based on mobile carrier, promotional offers, and the model
of the device.
Regardless of the tactic used to fight the case, it'll be a long time
before we see a resolution. On average, it takes about a year from the
filing of a notice of appeal to get to the final deposition for all
federal cases. Class action and antitrust suits take even longer, and
this case is both. And years in the legal world are like decades in
fast-developing tech world. By the time, this gets sorted out, the
mobile market may have changed so much, we could all be using Windows
phones.
New, Revamped Firefox Looks and Acts More Like Google Chrome
With version 29 of its Firefox browser, Mozilla debuts the Australis
interface and a new Accounts function, allowing users to synchronize data
and settings across multiple devices. All in all, the updates place
Firefox more in line with Google Chrome, which is currently the worlds
most popular browser.
Australis is characterized by its redesigned tabs, which have rounder
corners and are brought forward when open, and by an intuitive and
customizable menu. Located in the upper-right corner, the menu offers
quick access to the browsers features, settings, and functions
(add-ons, history, developer, full-screen mode, and so on). On opening
the new Firefox for the first time, users will find a short guide to the
changes.
The updated Firefox interface is unmistakably similar to that of Googles
Chrome. And, like Chrome fans, Firefox fans can now create an account and
sync their bookmarks, passwords, and settings in order to access them
from any device.
To download the latest version of Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac, and
Linux, you can run an update on your current version or download the
latest version directly from Mozillas server here.
The New MacBook Air: Apple Unveils New Air, Lowers Price
The Air just got a little refresher.
On Tuesday morning, Apple announced a new version of its MacBook Air,
its slim, lightweight, oft-imitated laptop computer. The new MacBook Air
looks the same as last years model, but Apple has upgraded the
computers processor, making it speedier at things like multitasking,
and also taken $100 off the starting price.
The design, weight, and screen sizes and quality remain the same. What
Apple has improved here are the guts of the computer, improving its zip
and likely its battery life, too. Last years MacBook Airs, which
launched in June, started with Intel dual-core 1.3 GHz processors; this
years MacBook Airs will come with newer Intel dual-core 1.4 GHz
processors.
That means better speed. The cheapest MacBook Air configuration, for a
laptop with an 11-inch display, costs $899, down from $999 a year ago. A
new MacBook Air with a 13-inch display starts at $999, also down $100
from a year ago.
Though Apples super-skinny laptop was one of a kind when it debuted in
2008, similarly lightweight, slim models from Windows manufacturers like
Samsung and Asus have been challenging the Air as of late. Many of these
models are cheaper than the Air and offer similar processing power and
lightness. But none of those myriad Windows ultrabooks, as they are
called, has caught on like the Air has.
For the gear-heads, tech specs are available at Apples website. The new
MacBook Air is available now on Apple.com and in Apple Stores.
When BASIC Was Young: Great Memories
The programming language BASIC will be 50 years old in May. Though much
has changed it's still alive and well in the form of Microsoft Visual
Basic, presently the sixth most popular programming language, according
to the TIOBE index for April 2014.
Although there are many modern programming languages better suited to
today's technology - Python and Lua are personal favorites - BASIC still
matters to many who write code. And it matters as an example of openness.
BASIC was developed by John G. Kemeny (1926-1993) and Thomas E. Kurtz
(1928-), who described it as an effort "to give students a simple
programming language that was easy-to-learn."
That goal of accessibility becomes ever more important as our devices
and networks become more complicated. Without accessibility, we risk
denying people the opportunity to create the technological systems that
shape social, political, and economic interaction. BASIC invited everyone
to tinker with machines that were previously tended by a mainframe
priesthood. Its birth hastened the personal computing reformation.
BASIC debuted at 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, when two BASIC programs ran at
the same time on the General Electric 225 mainframe housed at Dartmouth
College. Since then, it has given rise to many different versions and
has played a vital role in computer education.
BASIC gave rise to Microsoft. The company's first product, Altair BASIC,
written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, was an interpreter for BASIC that
ran on the MITS Altair 8800.
Kemeny and Kurtz's creation of BASIC not only made programming fun, it
made the case for computer literacy as part of every educated person's
life, said Michael T. Jones, chief technology advocate at Google, in an
email. "They made that true at Dartmouth 50 years ago and it is true
today the world over."? ?We have much to thank them for, said Jones. You
could even say they started the open-source software movement. "By
making the BASIC environment so friendly, they created a safe place for
people to play and explore. The computer game movement came from BASIC.
People shared games, long before there were networks, by printing the
BASIC programs in Creative Computing and BYTE magazines for others to
enter in and enjoy. Today we call it open source software but the
origins date back fifty years."? ?"Many Google engineers have told me
that their first introduction to computing was in BASIC, that BASIC is
how they first saw the beauty and magic of programming," Jones
continued. "No doubt this is true at other leading technology companies
all around the world. This is the ultimate legacy of professors John
Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz -- a world where the computer is a pleasant and
helpful part of everyday life for billions of people."
A simpler time?For me, BASIC recalls a simpler time, when Apple was more
open than it is now. I began learning BASIC in 1982 on an Apple II+, back
when I was in high school. The following year, my friend Alec and I were
deputized to teach BASIC under the supervision of our physics instructor,
George Lang, to a handful of interested peers in a short-lived elective
class.
Alec was the superior programmer (he knew Assembly Language) but BASIC was
never intended for experts. The name stands for Beginner's All-purpose
Symbolic Instruction Code. The language is so simple that anyone can pick
it up with a bit of effort.
I never accomplished anything noteworthy with BASIC. Probably the biggest
project I undertook was to write an application to assist the playing of
Avalon Hill's Squad Leader, a favorite board game of mine at the time.
But playing around with BASIC gave me an understanding of programming
and technology that has informed my career over the years since.
Alec and I, faced with the desire to apply to college in a way that
distinguished us from other applicants, turned our knowledge of BASIC
into a school computer magazine that we called Interpreter. With the help
of other friends who recognized the transcript-padding potential of
involvement in our publishing venture, we turned out our first issue in
June 1983. That was more or less the point I decided to focus on writing
for people rather than machines.
We made our magazine before the era of desktop publishing. Imagine using
X-Acto knives for layout. We ran a full-page ad from Beagle Bros., a maker
of Apple II software that we admired, as a courtesy and to fill a blank
page. The ad said, "All Beagle Bros. disks are Unlocked, Copyable, and
Compatible with Apple* II, II+, and IIe. Don't settle for less."
BASIC was open in a similar way, designed to be operating system
independent and hardware independent. Kemeny and Kurtz didn't patent it
or protect it; they gave it away for free. That's worth remembering.
Previously Unknown Warhol Works Discovered on Floppy Disks from 1985
A multi-institutional team of new-media artists, computer experts, and
museum professionals have discovered a dozen previously unknown
experiments by Andy Warhol (BFA, 1949) on aging floppy disks from 1985.
The purely digital images, trapped for nearly 30 years on Amiga floppy
disks stored in the archives collection of The Andy Warhol Museum (AWM),
were discovered and extracted by members of the Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) Computer Club, with assistance from the AWMs staff,
CMUs Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry (FRSCI), the Hillman
Photography Initiative at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA), and New York
based artist Cory Arcangel.
Warhols Amiga experiments were the products of a commission by Commodore
International to demonstrate the graphic arts capabilities of the Amiga
1000 personal computer. Created by Warhol on prototype Amiga hardware in
his unmistakable visual style, the recovered images reveal an early
exploration of the visual potential of software imaging tools, and show
new ways in which the preeminent American artist of the 20th century was
years ahead of his time.
The impetus for the investigation came when Arcangel, a self-described
Warhol fanatic and lifelong computer nerd, learned about Warhols
Amiga experiments from the YouTube video of the 1985 Commodore Amiga
product launch. Acting on a hunch, and with the support of CMOA curator
Tina Kukielski, Arcangel approached the AWM in December 2011 regarding
the possibility of restoring the Amiga hardware in the museums
possession, and cataloging any files on its associated diskettes. In
April 2012, he contacted Golan Levin, a CMU art professor and director
of the FRSCI, a laboratory that supports atypical, anti-disciplinary
and inter-institutional arts research. Offering a grant to support the
investigation, Levin connected Cory with the CMU Computer Club, a
student organization that had gained renown for its expertise in
retrocomputing, or the restoration of vintage computers.
CMU Computer Club members determined that even reading the data from the
diskettes entailed significant risk to the contents, and would require
unusual tools and methodologies. By February 2013, in collaboration with
collections manager Amber Morgan and other AWM personnel, the Club had
completed a plan for handling the delicate disk media, and gathered at
The Andy Warhol Museum to see if any data could be extracted. The
Computer Club set up a cart of exotic gear, while a video crew from the
Hillman Photography Initiative, under the direction of Kukielski,
followed their progress.
It was not known in advance whether any of Warhols imagery existed on
the floppy disksnearly all of which were system and application
diskettes onto which, the team later discovered, Warhol had saved his
own data. Reviewing the disks directory listings, the teams initial
excitement on seeing promising filenames like campbells.pic and
marilyn1.pic quickly turned to dismay, when it emerged that the files
were stored in a completely unknown file format, unrecognized by any
utility. Soon afterwards, however, the Clubs forensics experts had
reverse-engineered the unfamiliar format, unveiling 28 never-before-seen
digital images that were judged to be in Warhols style by the AWMs
experts. At least eleven of these images featured Warhols signature.
The images depict some of Warhols best-known subjectsCampbells soup
cans, Botticellis Venus, and self-portraiture, for examplearticulated
through uniquely digital processes such as
pattern flood fills,
palletized color, and copy-paste collage. Whats amazing is that by
looking at these images, we can see how quickly Warhol seemed to intuit
the essence of what it meant to express oneself, in what then was a
brand-new medium: the digital, says Arcangel.
The teams efforts are documented in the Hillman Photography
Initiatives new short film, Trapped: Andy Warhols Amiga Experiments.
Trapped will premiere at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 10, at Carnegie Library
Lecture Hall in Pittsburgh. The screening will be followed by a
conversation with some of the teams key players, including artists
Arcangel and Levin; Michael Dille, who just completed his Ph.D. in
robotics at CMU, and Keith A. Bare of the CMU Computer Club; and outside
guest Jon Ippolito, a professor of digital media curation at the
University of Maine.
The Trapped documentary will be available online at
http://nowseethis.org on May 12.
A detailed report about the CMU Computer Clubs retrocomputing work on
the Warhol/Amiga image recovery project can be found:
http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/public/warhol_amiga_report_v10.pdf
=~=~=~=
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