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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 16 Issue 05
Volume 16, Issue 05 Atari Online News, Etc. January 31, 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 #1605 01/31/14
~ Spy Agencies Tap Data! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Yahoo Mail Hacked!
~ FCC Begins "Experiment" ~ Nintendo in Tough Spot ~ PS4 vs Xbox One!
~ Ouya Releases New Model ~ Facebook's and Privacy ~ HP Returns to Win 7!
~ People Hate Live Tiles! ~ Nadella To Be New CEO? ~ Web Votes Baby Name!
-* Borrow Your Neighbor's WiFi? *-
-* Hackers Transform Angry Birds Site! *-
-* Victim of Epic Hack Points Finger at PayPal *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, the weather has "calmed" lately, at least here in the Northeast.
I feel sorry for those down South who aren't really prepared for wintry
weather. It's difficult to prepare for something which you have very
little experience. Cold temps are one thing, but snow and freezing
rain are some things to reckon with!
Here, the temps will get to around "normal" for this area over the
upcoming week. I hope it happens quickly; heating oil prices around
here aren't cheap!
Super Bowl weekend! While our local team (the Pats) got knocked out of
contention, I'll probably still watch the big game. And, it's also
about the commercials! I don't have a "favorite" in this one, but I'm
leaning a little bit toward the Broncos. Hope it's a great game!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Nintendo Is Stuck Between The Past and The Future!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Ouya Releases New 16GB Model!
Nintendo May Institute A New Discount Rewards Program
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Nintendo Is Stuck Between The Past and The Future of Gaming
Nintendo, which posted a 30 percent drop in profits, is undeniably in a
tough spot right now.
How tough, exactly? According to the Associated Press, company president
Satoru Iwata has said hell take a 50 percent pay cut as a way of taking
responsibility for falling sales of Nintendo products, including the
Wii U console and hand-held Nintendo 3DS.
Legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto and another high-ranking director
will also take a pay cut 30 percent and seven board members will cut
their paychecks by one-fifth, the report said.
The actions of the board members and executives may be surprising, but
the losses themselves are not. Nintendo had already indicated it was
disappointed with its sales earlier this month when it drastically
slashed its sales outlook for the Wii U, Wii and 3DS. The company, which
has put a heavy emphasis on promoting family-friendly games, has not only
had to compete with console makers Sony and Microsoft but also smartphone
and tablet makers such as Apple and Samsung, which have taken over much
of the gaming market. Or, put another way, Nintendo is stuck between the
gaming past and the gaming future.
There are more gamers than ever today according to the Entertainment
Software Association: The number of regular gamers in the world broke the
1 billion mark for the first time in 2013. It just happens that a lot of
those gamers are picking up smartphones and tablets to play games instead
of controllers.
Sony and Microsoft have figured out a way to keep the really hard-core
gamers on consoles: Both companies sold more units of their new consoles
in two weeks than Nintendo did all quarter. But, despite plunging profits,
Iwata has eschewed moving Nintendo games onto the next big platform
going as far as to say that the firm isnt interested in putting its
games on smartphones at all.
In a statement to Engadget, the company said that there are no plans to
Nintendo software on smartphones, although it is open to looking for ways
to better promote its games on mobile gadgets.
In a way, its easy to understand where Nintendo stands.
Hardware is an integral part of the company look no further than the
GameBoy. And while the Wii U, launched in 2012, has certainly failed to
gain the foothold the firm needs, its the only real console flop that
Nintendos ever had. The Wii, in fact, broke records at its launch as the
fastest-selling console in history. Even previous consoles, such as the
GameCube, may not have beaten Sony and Microsoft in the market, they did
make money.
What may actually be most troubling out of Nintendos earnings, then, is
that sales of its market-leading 3DS, which has helped Nintendo weather
Wii U losses, are also softening. Without that cushion, Nintendo will
likely have to move fast to either come up with another hit like the Wii
or take a hard look at what its future should be.
Nintendo May Institute A New Discount Rewards Program
Along with the many other announcements coming out of Satoru Iwata in
recent days regarding how Nintendo can turn their fortunes around, it
appears that Nintendo might be adding more incentives for those who are
loyal to the brand. They already have Club Nintendo, a place where you
can register your purchases and earn points towards trinkets and
occasionally get exclusive access to downloadable games, but now they are
fishing around something more substantial.
The plan is to discount future purchases for those who buy tons of games
and refer their friends and family as well. While selling consoles is a
key part of the gaming business, software sales are where the real dough
is made and Nintendo hopes to galvanize those software sales while they
attempt to bring the Wii U up in the rankings. Nintendo has always had
the market cornered on price point, and this could give them even more of
an advantage in the budget gaming area and might just give them the boost
they need.
This is noteworthy for another reason. The only way to track these
purchases would be through a unified account system, something that Iwata
mentioned in the brief and what consumers have been calling for in droves.
The Nintendo Network ID will work across the Wii U and 3DS, and hopefully
itll integrate some of the social networking functionality found on PSN
and Xbox Live.
For Nintendos sake lets hope it isnt too little too late.
PS4 vs Xbox One News, Games, and Comparison:
Microsoft Tries to Take Back Console War By Buying Old PlayStations
In terms of sales, Microsoft's Xbox One is losing to Sony's PlayStation 4
in the console war, but just barely. Now, Microsoft has thought of a way
to outshine another unlikely competitor: gamers' old PlayStation 3
systems.
Microsoft announced that it will give gamers $100 worth of store credit
in exchange for old systems. The company made sure to name the PS3
explicitly. The Xbox 360 S and Xbox 360 E can also be traded in to get
the $100 credit. Customers do not necessarily have to use the credit
toward a new Xbox One, but it is obvious that Microsoft hopes that gamers
will decide to do so.
"Trade up and get your hands on the new Xbox One," the offer page reads.
"Welcome to a new generation of games and entertainment. Where games
push the boundaries of realism. And television obeys your every command.
Where listening to music while playing a game is a snap. And you can jump
from TV to movies to music to a game in an instant. Where your experience
is custom tailored to you. And the entertainment you love is all in one
place."
The deal is available until Mar. 2.
Ouya Releases New 16GB Model
Ouyas Android-console revolution now has extra space for games.
The company is now selling a 16GB version of its microconsole for $130.
This means that gamers can now download and store more games. The system
is available for purchase right now from Ouyas official website.
In addition to the extra storage space, the new system features an all
matte-black finish. The hardware designers also boosted the consoles
Wi-Fi capabilities, which will help it stay connected even when it is
sitting far away from a wireless router.
Finally, the 16GB model comes with a refined controller that also has a
matte-black finish that features better analog sticks and face buttons.
Ouya will continue selling the original 8GB console for $100.
The Ouya system is a tiny console that runs a variation on Googles
Android OS. The idea behind the system is to bring simple, mobile-style
distribution to televisions.
Ouya (the company, not the console) first introduced the product during a
Kickstarter in 2012 that ended up raising more than $8.5 million. The
consumer release went on sale in June.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Rare Nintendo World Championships Cart Fetching $5K on eBay
Nintendo fans and game collectors, listen up: an exceedingly rare game is
available right now on eBay.
An eBay user recently posted Nintendo World Championships on the auction
site. The cartridge, if real as the seller claims, is one of only 116
copies created, making it one of the most exclusive titles ever made for
the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Nintendo World Championships was part of a special event the company held
in 1990 for gamers to compete in Super Mario, Rad Racer, and Tetris. The
game was never actually sold to consumers on store shelves.
As of this writing, Nintendo World Championships is bidding out at $5,500
with another day to go. The cartridge is in somewhat poor state, but the
owner says it's still in working condition.
According to the BBC, which earlier reported on the auction, a copy in
better condition sold at a charity auction in 2011 for $11,000.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Spy Agencies Tap Data Streaming From Phone Apps
When a smartphone user opens Angry Birds, the popular game application,
and starts slinging birds at chortling green pigs, spies could be
lurking in the background to snatch data revealing the players location,
age, sex and other personal information, according to secret British
intelligence documents.
In their globe-spanning surveillance for terrorism suspects and other
targets, the National Security Agency and its British counterpart have
been trying to exploit a basic byproduct of modern telecommunications:
With each new generation of mobile phone technology, ever greater
amounts of personal data pour onto networks where spies can pick it up.
According to dozens of previously undisclosed classified documents, among
the most valuable of those unintended intelligence tools are so-called
leaky apps that spew everything from the smartphone identification codes
of users to where they have been that day.
Today's smartphones are nothing more than nicely packaged tracking
devices that the user proudly and naively brings wherever they go.
The N.S.A. and Britains Government Communications Headquarters were
working together on how to collect and store data from dozens of
smartphone apps by 2007, according to the documents, provided by Edward
J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Since then, the agencies have
traded recipes for grabbing location and planning data when a target uses
Google Maps, and for vacuuming up address books, buddy lists, telephone
logs and the geographic data embedded in photographs when someone sends
a post to the mobile versions of Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and
other Internet services.
This document from 2010, redacted in places, is one of several
undisclosed classified documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former
N.S.A. contractor, and shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and
ProPublica.
The eavesdroppers pursuit of mobile networks has been outlined in earlier
reports, but the secret documents, shared by The New York Times, The
Guardian and ProPublica, offer far more details of their ambitions for
smartphones and the apps that run on them. The efforts were part of an
initiative called the mobile surge, according to a 2011 British
document, an analogy to the troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. An
N.S.A. analysts enthusiasm was evident in the breathless title Golden
Nugget! given to a slide for a top-secret talk in 2010 that described
iPhones and Android phones as rich resources, another document noted.
The scale and the specifics of the data haul are not clear. The documents
show that the N.S.A. and the British agency routinely obtain information
from certain apps, particularly those introduced earliest to cellphones.
With some newer apps, including Angry Birds, the agencies have a similar
ability, the documents show, but they do not make explicit whether the
spies have put that into practice. Some personal data, developed in
profiles by advertising companies, could be particularly sensitive: A
secret British intelligence document from 2012 said that spies can scrub
smartphone apps to collect details like a users political alignment
and sexual orientation.
President Obama announced new restrictions this month to better protect
the privacy of ordinary Americans and foreigners from government
surveillance, including limits on how the N.S.A. can view the metadata of
Americans phone calls the routing information, time stamps and other
data associated with calls. But he did not address the information that
the intelligence agencies get from leaky apps and other smartphone
functions.
And while Mr. Obama expressed concern about advertising companies that
collect information on people to send tailored ads to their mobile phones,
he offered no hint that American spies have routinely seized that data.
Nothing in the secret reports indicates that the companies cooperated
with the spy agencies to share the information; the topic is not
addressed.
The agencies have long been intercepting earlier generations of cellphone
traffic like text messages and metadata from nearly every segment of the
mobile network and, more recently, computer traffic running on Internet
pipelines. Because those same networks carry the rush of data from leaky
apps, the agencies have a ready-made way to collect and store this new
resource. The documents do not address how many users might be affected,
whether they include Americans or how often, with so much information
collected automatically, analysts would see personal data.
N.S.A. does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign
intelligence mission, the agency wrote in response to questions about
the program. Because some data of U.S. persons may at times be
incidentally collected in N.S.A.s lawful foreign intelligence mission,
privacy protections for U.S. persons exist across the entire process.
Similar protections, the agency said, are in place for innocent foreign
citizens.
The British spy agency declined to comment on any specific program, but
said all its activities complied with British law.
Two top-secret flow charts produced by the British agency in 2012 showed
incoming streams of information skimmed from smartphone traffic by the
Americans and the British. The streams were divided into traditional
telephony metadata and others marked social apps, geo apps, http
linking, webmail, MMS and traffic associated with mobile ads, among
others. (MMS refers to the mobile system for sending pictures and other
multimedia, and http is the protocol for linking to websites.)
In charts showing how information flows from smartphones into the agencys
computers, analysts included questions to be answered by the data, like
Where was my target when they did this? and Where is my target going?
As the program accelerated, the N.S.A. nearly quadrupled its budget in a
single year, to $767 million in 2007 from $204 million, according to a
top-secret analysis written by Canadian intelligence around the same time.
Even sophisticated users are often unaware of how smartphones offer spies
a unique opportunity for one-stop shopping for information. By having
these devices in our pockets and using them more and more, said Philippe
Langlois, who has studied the vulnerabilities of mobile phone networks
and is the founder of the Paris-based company Priority One Security,
youre somehow becoming a sensor for the world intelligence community.
Smartphones almost seem to make things too easy. Functioning as phones to
make calls and send texts and as computers to surf the web and send
emails, they both generate and rely on data. One secret report showed
that just by updating Android software, a user sent more than 500 lines
of data about the phones history and use onto the network.
Such information helps mobile advertising companies, for example, create
detailed profiles of people based on how they use their mobile device,
where they travel, what apps and websites they open, and other factors.
Advertising firms might triangulate web shopping data and browsing
history to guess whether someone is wealthy or has children.
The N.S.A. and the British agency busily scoop up this data, mining it for
new information and comparing it with their lists of intelligence targets.
One secret British document from 2010 suggested that the agencies
collected such a huge volume of cookies the digital traces left on a
mobile device or a computer when a target visits a website that
classified computers were having trouble storing it all.
They are gathered in bulk, and are currently our single largest type of
events, the document said.
This document from May 2010, redacted in places, is one of several
undisclosed classified documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former
N.S.A contractor, and shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and
ProPublica.
The two agencies displayed a particular interest in Google Maps, which is
accurate to within a few yards or better in some locations. Intelligence
agencies collected so much data from the app that youll be able to
clone Googles database of global searches for directions, according to
a top-secret N.S.A. report from 2007.
It effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is
working in support of a GCHQ system, a secret 2008 report by the British
agency said.
(In December, The Washington Post, citing the Snowden documents, reported
that the N.S.A. was using metadata to track cellphone locations outside
the United States and was using ad cookies to connect Internet addresses
with physical locations.)
In another example, a secret 20-page British report dated 2012 included
the computer code needed for plucking the profiles generated when Android
users play Angry Birds. The app was created by Rovio Entertainment, of
Finland, and has been downloaded more than a billion times, the company
has said.
Rovio drew public criticism in 2012 when researchers claimed that the app
was tracking users locations and gathering other data and passing it to
mobile ad companies. In a statement on its website, Rovio says that it
may collect its users personal data, but that it abides by some
restrictions. For example, the statement says, Rovio does not knowingly
collect personal information from children under 13 years of age.
The secret report noted that the profiles vary depending on which of the
ad companies which include Burstly and Googles ad services, two of the
largest online advertising businesses compiles them. Most profiles
contain a string of characters that identifies the phone, along with
basic data on the user like age, sex and location. One profile notes
whether the user is currently listening to music or making a call, and
another has an entry for household income.
Google declined to comment for this article, and Burstly did not respond
to multiple requests for comment. Saara Bergstrom, a Rovio spokeswoman,
said the company had no knowledge of the intelligence programs. Nor do
we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned, Ms.
Bergstrom said, referring to the N.S.A. and the British spy agency.
Another ad company creates far more intrusive profiles that the agencies
can retrieve, the report said. The names of the apps that generate those
profiles were not given, but the company was identified as Millennial
Media, which has its headquarters in Baltimore.
In securities filings, Millennial documented how it began working with
Rovio in 2011 to embed ad services in Angry Birds apps running on
iPhones, Android phones and other devices.
According to the report, the profiles created by Millennial contain much
of the same information as others, but several categories that are listed
as optional, including ethnicity, marital status and sexual
orientation, suggest that much wider sweeps of personal data may take
place.
Possible categories for marital status, the secret report said, include
single, married, divorced, engaged and swinger; those for sexual
orientation are straight, gay, bisexual and not sure. It is unclear
whether the not sure category exists because so many phone apps are
used by children, or because insufficient data may be available.
There is no explanation of precisely how the ad company defined the
categories, whether users volunteered the information or whether the
company inferred it by other means. Nor is there any discussion of why
all that information would be useful for marketing or intelligence.
The agencies have had occasional success, at least by their own
reckoning, when they start with something closer to a traditional
investigative tip or lead. The spies say that tracking smartphone traffic
helped break up a bomb plot by Al Qaeda in Germany in 2007, and the
N.S.A. boasted that to crack the plot, it wove together mobile data with
emails, logins and web traffic. Similarly, mining smartphone data helped
lead to the arrests of members of a drug cartel hit squad in the killing
of an American Consulate employee in Mexico in 2010.
But the data, whose volume is soaring as mobile devices have begun to
dominate the technological landscape, is a crushing amount of information
for the spies to sift through. As smartphone data builds up in N.S.A. and
British databases, the agencies sometimes seem a bit at a loss on what to
do with it all, the documents show. A few isolated experiments provide
hints as to how unwieldy the data can be.
In 2009, the American and British spy agencies each undertook a
brute-force analysis of a tiny sliver of their cellphone databases.
Crunching just one month of N.S.A. cellphone data, a secret report said,
required 120 computers and turned up 8,615,650 actors apparently
callers of interest. A similar run using three months of British data
came up with 24,760,289 actors.
Not necessarily straightforward, the report said of the analysis.
The agencies extensive computer operations had trouble sorting through
the slice of data. Analysts were dealing with immaturity, the report
said, encountering computer memory and processing problems. The report
made no mention of anything suspicious in the data.
Hackers Transform Angry Birds Website Into 'Spying Birds' Following NSA Claims
The official Angry Birds website was defaced by hackers following reports
that U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies have been collecting user
information from the game and other popular mobile apps.
Some users trying to access the www.angrybirds.com website late Tuesday
were greeted by an image depicting the Angry Birds game characters
accompanied by the text Spying Birds. The U.S. National Security
Agencys logo was also visible in the image.
The NSA and Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have
been working together to collect geolocation data, address books, buddy
lists, telephone logs and other pieces of information from leaky mobile
apps, The New York Times reported Monday based on documents provided by
former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Mobile apps commonly collect data about their users and share it with
advertising networks, which then use the information to build user
profiles for targeted advertising.
A secret 20-page GCHQ report from 2012 contained code needed to extract
the profiles generated when Android users play Angry Birds, The New York
Times reported. Its not clear if and how this data collection happens,
but the reports were apparently enough to anger some hackers.
The defacement of the Angry Birds website seems to have been the result
of a DNS (Domain Name System) attack where the sites name servers were
swapped with others under the attackers control.
The defacement was caught in minutes and corrected immediately, said
Saara Bergström, vice president of marketing communications at Rovio
Entertainment, the Finnish company that develops Angry Birds. The end
user data was in no risk at any point.
Bergström said the attack was similar to the one against The New York
Times last year, referring to an incident where attackers pointed the
nytimes.com domain to a server they controlled by changing its DNS
settings.
""Rovio does not allow any third party network to use or hand over
personal end-user data from Rovios apps.""
Because of how DNS changes propagate on the Internet, the incident was
only visible to some users.
In many areas the attack was not visible at all, but in some affected
areas it might take time for the correct information to be updated,
Bergström said.
This delay is caused by how DNS resolversservers that resolve domain
names to IP (Internet Protocol) addressescache records. Some servers
might cache the information for a particular domain for a longer time than
others, in which case changes wont be visible to users that rely on those
servers until the cached record expires.
A copy of the angrybirds.com defacement can be viewed on Zone-H, a website
defacement archive. It is attributed to a hacker using the handle Anti-NSA.
Angry ads?
Rovio issued a statement Tuesday on its website denying that it
collaborates or shares data with any government spy agencies.
The alleged surveillance may be conducted through third party
advertising networks used by millions of commercial websites and mobile
applications across all industries, the company said. If advertising
networks are indeed targeted, it would appear that no internet-enabled
device that visits ad-enabled websites or uses ad-enabled applications
is immune to such surveillance. Rovio does not allow any third party
network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovios apps.
Yahoo Mail Hacked: What To Do If Youve Been Affected
Yahoo Mail users, we have some bad news: Its time to change your e-mail
password.
In a company blog post Thursday night, Yahoo revealed that a number of
users passwords and usernames were exposed to cyber-attackers who used
malicious computer software to gain access to lists of Yahoo Mail
credentials.
The information was likely collected from a third-party database, Jay
Rossiter, Yahoos senior vice president of platforms and personalization
products, wrote in the posting.
The company is resetting passwords on accounts that have been affected and
is taking steps to allow users to re-secure their accounts. It is sending
notification e-mails instructing those users to change their passwords;
users may also receive a text message, if theyve shared their phone
number with the company.
Its a song-and-dance that users may be tiring of, but it is important for
Yahoo account holders who were swept up in the attack to change their
passwords for immediately. They should also change their log-in
credentials for any account that may share their Yahoo password,
particularly if they use their Yahoo e-mail as their username. The same
is true if you use a similar e-mail address as the username its not a
big leap for hackers to think that you may be both jdoe@yahoo.com and
jdoe@gmail.com.
Finally, everyone should also be on the lookout for spam, as the attack
also appears to have picked up names and e-mail addresses for the most
recent contacts from affected accounts, according to the companys post.
If you get an odd e-mail from the Yahoo account of someone you know,
ignore the message, and do not click on any links in the message. (Its
also be nice to let the person whose account has been hacked know about
the fraudulent messages, so they can warn others to avoid the e-mails.)
Yahoo has apologized for the inconvenience and has said that it has taken
additional measures to block attacks on its system. The company did not
immediately respond to a request asking how many of its users were
affected.
Yahoo is the world's second-largest e-mail provider, and has an estimated
273 million users, according to a report from the Associated Press.
Victim of Epic Hack Points Finger at GoDaddy and PayPal
Passwords, even strong ones, aren't enough to protect you. Your online
accounts are only as safe as the security policies of the companies that
hold them.
At least that's the apparent lesson to be learned from Naoki Hiroshima's
epic account of how one hacker used a series of simple social-engineering
tactics to gain control of his online accounts without using a single
password.
Naoki Hiroshima claims to have tweeted using the @N handle since signing
up for Twitter in 2007. In that time, he said, he has fended off multiple
attempts by attackers to take control of the coveted one-character
account. He claims he was once even offered $50,000 in exchange for the
handle.
These attempts were unsuccessful until Jan. 20.
On that day, according to Hiroshima's account, a hacker posing as a PayPal
employee called PayPal's customer service and was ultimately able to
obtain the last four digits of Hiroshima's credit card.
The hacker then called GoDaddy's customer service and, after providing
the numbers obtained from Paypal, was allowed to "guess" the first two
digits of the credit card on file. After providing this information, the
hacker gained access to Hiroshima's account and promptly changed the
account information, effectively locking the real Hiroshima out of the
account.
For Hiroshima, who used GoDaddy to host the domains for his personal
websites and email, the significance of being shut out of this account
was huge:
Most websites use email as a method of verification. If your email
account is compromised, an attacker can easily reset your password on
many other websites. By taking control of my domain name at GoDaddy, my
attacker was able to control my email.
Once in control of Hiroshima's email, the hacker also took control of his
Facebook account.
Around this time, Hiroshima says he realized his Twitter account was the
target of the attack. He changed the email linked to the account,
preventing his attacker from changing the password.
Undeterred, the hacker contacted Hiroshima with an ultimatum: Turn over
@N, or lose all of his GoDaddy domains forever. Hiroshima, who had so far
been unsuccessful in his attempts to regain control of the account,
relented.
True to his word, the hacker returned the GoDaddy account to Hiroshima,
now tweeting from @N_is_stolen, and revealed the the details of how he
carried out the attack.
If this story sounds familiar, it's because it bears striking similarities
to the the 2012 hacking of Wired reporter Mat Honan, who had his iPad,
iPhone and MacBook wiped when a hacker used similar social-engineering
methods to obtain Honan's iCloud password. Like Hiroshima, the ultimate
target of that attack was Honan's Twitter account. Honan nearly
irrevocably lost much of his person photos and media, and Hiroshima
didn't want the same thing to happen to him.
"I remembered what had happened to @mat and concluded that giving up the
[Twitter] account right away would be the only way to avoid an
irreversible disaster," Hiroshima wrote.
Honan had his accounts restored and even managed to eventually restore
much of the data from his wiped Macbook.
It's not yet clear whether Hiroshima will be as lucky, though it appears
the sudden publicity his account has drawn may have given GoDaddy, who
did not respond to Mashable's request to comment, more incentive to help
him.
In a statement to Mashable, Twitter said the company does not comment on
specific accounts but confirmed they are investigating the report.
On its part, PayPal has denied disclosing any credit card information to
Hiroshima's attacker.
"Our investigation confirmed PayPal did NOT disclose any credit card
details," the company said in a tweet Wednesday.
PayPal later revealed more details about their internal investigation in a
blog post Wednesday. The company called Hiroshima's situation "difficult"
but reiterated they did not disclose any of his account information and
said his account was never actually compromised.
We have carefully reviewed our records and can confirm that there
was a failed attempt made to gain this customers information by
contacting PayPal.
PayPal did not divulge any credit card details related to this
account.
PayPal did not divulge any personal or financial information
related to this account.
This individual's PayPal account was not compromised.
A New Service Will Let You Borrow Your Neighbor's Wi-Fi for a Stronger Connection
Weve all been there: Your Wi-Fi goes out and, as you wait on hold with
your providers customer service rep, your mouse hovers over your
neighbors networks. If only you could just hop on TheNewmanFamily Wi-Fi,
you would have sweet, sweet Internet again. Besides, theyre probably not
even home!
Spanish broadband provider Telefónica has been experimenting with a system
to put that temptation to use, as detailed in an article from Wired UK.
Their solution, named BeWifi, gathers bandwidth from Wi-Fi routers in a
local area, and uses that to strengthen the speed of the Internet
connection for whomever is actively online at that time.
How does it work? Since 2008, Telefónica has been developing over-the-air
software that aggregates the signals of a communitys routers. It blends
the bandwidth from every router to supplement their usual Wi-Fi connection
at home. According to Telefónicas Director of Product Innovation and
Research Pablo Rodriguez, youll always get at least the bandwidth you
paid for (a big promise in itself for anyone whos ever used Time Warner).
"Your broadband connection is not used 100 percent of the time," Rodriguez
told Wired U.K.. If you bring [connections] together smartly and manage
to aggregate the spare capacity
[its] a much better customer
experience.
BeWifi is still in testing stages (and only in Spain), and results so far
have demonstrated some limitations to the service. First of all, the
software only works effectively in densely populated areas like cities.
Second, the company has yet to roll out plug-and-play routers that dont
require installation from their companys engineers. But the services
pilot program, according to Rodriguez, was successful in doubling some
customerss connection speed. He also mentioned that one user was
experiencing an outage, but didnt even know it, because his connection
was supported by the community network.
Though there is still clearly a lot to iron out here, its exciting to see
technology that could potentially make Internet connection in urban
settings less horribleall through some old-fashioned neighborly
cooperation, no less.
Will shared Wi-Fi ever make it to America? Most Internet Service Providers
expressly prohibit sharing your Wi-Fi with multiple households, though
there are signs that might be easing. Weve already seen whisperings of
this approach from U.S. providers like Comcast, which launched a
Neighborhood Hotspot initiative this summer for its Xfinity Internet
customers. Even non-subscribers are able use the separate hotspots for
free twice per month for up to an hour each time. Though Comcasts
strategy is a little less advanced than what Telefónica has experimented
with, its nice to see that companies arent just banking on more
expensive technologies and Google Fiber for the future.
Take a Trip Down Facebooks Privacy Back Roads
To Keep Your Posts Away from Prying Eyes
I was goofing around on Facebook the other day when I stumbled into a
section Id never seen before, called the Activity Log. Its accessible
via a clearly labeled link at the top of your profile page. This seemingly
endless scrolling list contained not only every post Id ever made, but
also all my likes, comments and even mentions of me by other Facebook
users.
Essentially, it was a kind of cute if occasionally embarrassing tally of
the goofy pictures and musings Ive posted of my kids, my meals and my
travels.
Once I found the list, I was more than a little curious to check my
privacy settings. The occasional public post may be a little embarrassing
or even harmless. Generally speaking, though, its not a good idea to make
all your private activity public. Hackers, identity thieves and even, in
some cases, real thieves, can use the info to crack your online accounts
or break into your house when youre not there. And Facebook has changed
its privacy setting options and policies more than a few times, making it
doubly important to review your activity.
And in that regard, the Activity Log turned out to be highly informative.
Along the top-right side of each individual listing was a tiny icon. Most
were Facebooks familiar friends icons, but some were a gear icon, and a
few had a globe icon.
Investigating further, I discovered that each icon disclosed the privacy
settings of the particular item posted. Hovering my mouse pointer over the
friends icon revealed just whose friends could see the item usually mine
or those of whomever had posted about me. The gear icon indicated that
someone had created a limited, custom group to see the item just people
from work, say, or everyone except people from work.
But it was the globe icon that was ultimately the most intriguing. It
signified a public post. And many of the public posts seemed to be by
friends who dont usually disclose everything on Facebook publicly.
After reaching out to some of these posters, most were puzzled it seems
theyd posted publicly by accident. That used to happen pretty easily with
Facebooks mobile apps, although the company has made improvements,
especially on iOS, to minimize the problem.
Your own overshared posts can be rectified right from the Activity Log.
Hover your mouse near the globe icon and click on the blue triangle that
appears. A menu drops down with various privacy settings, including Only
Me, Friends and Public. Click your preference, and the problem is
solved.
However, only the person who posted the item can change the setting. That
can be a bit annoying if youve made a flippant or impolitic comment on
someone elses post or photograph without realizing that your friend had
left the item and its following chain of comments public for the
world to see. In that situation, you have to ask your friend to change
the setting, or, worst case, delete your comment.
There was one additional puzzling aspect to my Activity Log. It seems at
some point, way back, I agreed to let Spotify, the online music service,
post to my Facebook timeline. I dont really listen to much on Spotify
anymore, though. Its my teenage son who uses it most.
So, there on my timeline, apparently going back years, was a catalog of
cool, hip songs that my friends probably thought I was sampling. These
posts never showed up on my own timeline as I saw it just when friends
looked at my timeline from their point of view.
In this case, the accidental posting by the Spotify app was pretty
innocuous. It may even have enhanced my reputation as some sort of pop
music guru, thanks to my sons eclectic and savvy selections. But you can
imagine that there might be apps you wouldnt want making these kind of
semi-invisible posts.
To fix the problem, go to Facebooks Settings page and click on Apps. You
might be surprised to see just how long a list of apps youve given
permission to at least access your Facebook account. On the right side of
each apps listing is an Edit link. Click it, and you can see just what
the apps been up to and what permissions it has to post. From here, you
can revoke the permissions or delete the apps access to your account
completely.
Besides reviewing the Activity Log for public items, a potentially lengthy
process if youve been active on the social network for a few years,
Facebook also provides a way to make wholesale changes to all your own
posts.
Go to Facebooks privacy settings page and look at the who can see my
stuff section. Theres a subsection called Limit the audience for posts
youve shared with friends of friends or Public. Clicking the link takes
you to a tool for changing the privacy settings for all older posts.
Again, peoples privacy tolerance differs, and yours may evolve over time.
But if youre worried about what youve said and done on Facebook, be sure
to take a look at your Activity Log. Its the key to privacy peace of
mind, Facebook-wise at least.
FCC Begins Voluntary TDM-to-IP Transition Experiments,
Measuring Consumer Impact
The FCC is getting ready to conduct IP service transition tests, a move
that was lauded by U.S. incumbent telco AT&T, which says that current
regulations don't apply to the emerging IP-based wireline network
environment.
The new order considers a broad set of voluntary experiments to test what
impact the migration from TDM to IP-based technology will have on various
sets of end-users.
"Driven by developments in the marketplace, technology transitions in
communications networks are already well underway," the FCC said in its
order. "They include, for example, the transition from plain old telephone
service delivered over copper lines to feature-rich voice service using
Internet Protocols, delivered over coaxial cable, fiber, or wireless
networks."
Through these experiments, the FCC said it will gather information in
three broad areas: service-based experiments; targeted experiments and
cooperative research; and data improvement.
Incumbent telcos such as AT&T and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) still have to abide
by the Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) rule from 1913 that says that every
American household should have access to a phone line.
However, both telcos have continued to see their traditional POTS revenues
and overall subscriber bases decline as customers replace their landline
phones with wireless or a VoIP line. AT&T's consumer POTS access lines
declined from 15.7 million to 12.4 million lines between 2012 and 2013.
Likewise, Verizon reported that voice lines declined to 11.3 million in
Q4 2013.
In a blog post, Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice
president-External and Legislative Affairs, praised the FCC's move.
"Beginning the process for achieving this transformation is overdue, and
all of us should recognize the sense of urgency Chairman Wheeler and his
team have brought to this issue," wrote Cicconi. "They quickly recognized
and credited the leadership shown many months earlier by Commissioners
Rosenworcel, Pai, and Clyburn, as well as the clear public support of
Commissioner O'Rielly, to build a unanimous vote for moving forward. This
is visionary both for its break with the past, its recognition of the
future, and its unanimity in a time of partisan strife."
Following a call last year by former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to
conduct trials, Wheeler cited the TDM-to-IP migration as one of his
initial priorities when he became the regulator's chairman in November.
Calling it the Fourth Network Revolution, he proposed the regulator put
out an order addressing the matter at its upcoming meeting in January.
Wheeler's quick call to action got the attention of AT&T, which has set
2020 as the year when it wants to transition off legacy TDM to all IP
networks. It has asked the regulator for permission to conduct IP trials
in two of its 4,500 wiring centers and had expressed frustration over what
it called the regulator's lack of action.
Proposals from AT&T and other interested parties are due by Feb. 20 and
will be followed by a public comment and reply period ending on March 31.
The FCC will make the final decision on the proposals at its meeting in
May.
Microsoft Needs a Sorcerer, Not the Server Guy
Hopefully, reports that Satya Nadella - Microsoft's cloud and enterprise
chiefwill be Microsoft's next CEO, are just a lot of hype.
Nadella is brilliant. Since he's been top enterprise guy, Microsoft's
business division's success is practically a mirror image of its
consumer's. The company has adroitly moved its iconic on-premise business
wares, including Office and Windows Server, to excellent, streamlined
cloud platforms.
Office 365 and Azure are making great gains in adoption. Gartner and other
industry analysts show Azure heartily gobbling into Amazon's cloud
platform market share. Hyper-V keeps nipping at VMware's heels. While
enteprises will take time to adopt Windows Server 2012 en masse, the new
server OS (dubbed "Cloud OS" by Redmond) is bound to find a comfortable
place in business datacenters as organizations upgrade their server
infrastructures.
Enterprise Microsoft is doing just fine. And Nadella is a big reason for
that health. However, Nadella's success in the business side of Microsoft
does not mean he can translate that into success on the consumer side.
It's almost as if the powers that be (investors, board of directions,
etc
) who make these kind of decisions, took a look at the team
currently making Microsoft the most profit and decided that team's head
should be the new CEO.
Opinions
If so, that's the wrong approach. It's exactly that type of stagnant,
business- and profit-oriented, 90s tycoon mindset that keeps Microsoft
from missing its mark in the consumer space.
Redmond needs the opposite of what Apple needed when Steve Jobs passed.
Apple was and remains rich in creativity and innovation (although some may
argue that innovation has been slipping of late). It's almost as if Jobs's
essence flowed into the engineers, designers, and other Apple employees
and remains so even after his death. With Apple already abundant in
creative energy, a bottom-line, business-savvy Tim Cook was a good choice
for its new CEO.
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Microsoft knows business. What it needs now is magic, a CEO strong in
creativity. Someone who can shake out the stodginess and awaken some real
innovation in the consumer side of the company. A new CEO who will know
well enough to not micro-manage the already-thriving enterprise side of
Microsoft and will give a good kick in the pants to the consumer side.
Personally, I would love to see what Julie Larson-Green, the executive
vice president overseeing devices like the Xbox and Surface tablet, would
do if freed from the direction of Steve Ballmer. I think she could really
flourish at the top and take the consumer side to a new height.
Another great option would be just to recruit from outside of Microsoft.
Bypass the Ballmer holdovers completely. Get an executive from the mobile
or the gaming industry with a proven track record of steering the company
in a creative direction that resulted in massive profit.
What Nadella and the teams that develop the enterprise portfolio at Redmond
know best are the desires of the business community. Going with a CEO who
uses business savvy to influence consumer offerings is directly counter to
current tech trends. It's the consumer products and cloud services and
start-ups that are disrupting and re-shaping business technology.
Microsoft's new CEO should be driven more by creativity than profit.
Microsoft Finally Realizes That People Hate Windows 8's Live Tiles
Its official: Microsoft realizes that most desktop users have no use for
the Live Tiles interface. The Verge reports that the next update of
Windows 8.1 will make the platform boot up to desktop mode by default,
which means that people who buy new Windows 8.1 PCs with the latest
update wont have to look at Live Tiles when they first flip on their
computers.
We understand that Microsoft has been paying close attention to telemetry
data that shows the majority of Windows 8 users still use a keyboard and
mouse and desktop applications, The Verge writes. This same telemetry
data was used to justify the removal of the Start button shortly before
the Windows 8 release, and contributed to its eventual return in Windows
8.1. Microsoft may have wanted to push touch computing to the masses in
Windows 8, but the reality is that users have voiced clear concerns over
the interface on desktop PCs.
This takes us back to Apple CEO Tim Cooks joke about how trying to merge
a desktop OS with a tablet OS was the equivalent of trying to merger a
toaster and a refrigerator. While Microsofts attempt to create one
common interface for all its devices was certainly a noble experiment, it
hasnt exactly been a successful one so far and the company seems to know
it.
HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand'
HP really wants people to buy a Windows 7 PC instead of a Windows 8
machine. The PC maker has been emailing customers over the weekend noting
that "Windows 7 is back." A new promotion, designed to entice people to
select Windows 7 over Windows 8 with $150 of "savings," has launched on
HPs website with a "back by popular demand" slogan. The move is clearly
designed to position Windows 7 over Microsofts touch-centric Windows 8
operating system.
In fact, if you browse to HPs home section and navigate to desktop PCs
then youll only be presented with Windows 7 machines by default as no
Windows 8 PCs are listed until you start customizing the section using
optional filters. The laptop section does include Windows 8 machines, but
it also prominently advertises a Windows 7 laptop. Even HPs all-in-one
section promotes the companys 21-inch Android-powered PC over Windows 8
alternatives.
HPs "back by popular demand" wording is a clear knock towards Windows 8
which has struggled with perception issues thanks to what some see as a
confusing mix of desktop and tablet-style computing. Microsoft has tweaked
some parts of the OS with Windows 8.1, but it looks like Windows 9 will
bring more significant changes and a move away from the Windows 8
branding. In the mean time, HP is the first PC maker to take advantage of
Windows 7 as a selling point over Windows 8, and it follows similar moves
from OEMs who chose to promote Windows XP over Windows Vista years ago.
Expectant Parents Letting Internet Vote On Name Of Baby
In whats sure to be the first in a couples long line of fabulous
parenting decisions, two soon-to-be parents have asked the Internet for
help naming their daughter.
With the approval of his (probably long suffering) wife, the husband set
up namemydaughter.com, where users can vote for their favorite first and
middle names for the unborn baby girl.
The husband explained himself and appealed to potential voters on Reddit,
because obviously:
"I was sitting on the end of the bed after coming home from work and
the idea hit me. I tend to be very forward person (this gets me in a lot
of trouble lol) and I just blurted it out - Hunny, I am going to ask the
internet what we should name our daughter!
She was supportive right from the start. I think at first she didnt
think I was actually going to do it. But once the domain was registered
she knew it was real.
Hell when I saw that namemydaughter.com was available I just knew
that was the sign that I HAD to do it.
Thats simply ridiculous reasoning. Runamarathon.com is probably
available right now, but that doesnt mean Im suddenly not going to
spend two hours watching The Bachelor tonight and stuffing my face with
cheesy jalapeno Pop Chips.
Anyway, in news that should surprise no one, the crazies of Reddit are
really getting into it. Though surprisingly normal name Amelia Mae is
currently in first place, its followed by Cthulu All-Spark. Names likes
Charlotte, Leslie, Renee and Meagan also top the list, but so do Ixtley,
Megatron, Slagathor, Titanium, and Salad. That, ladies and gentlemen, is
what happens when you specifically solicit Reddit for help in your
stupid baby naming plans.
Update: "Cthulhu All-Spark" has climbed into first place as of noon EST
on Tuesday afternoon.
The husband established the rule that users can only vote for each name
once per household per day, wisely protecting his daughter from the
neckbeards whod inevitably spend hours voting for SwordOfDestiny
SuperNova until their thumbs were too sore to play Warcraft that night.
But mayhaps this loony husband isnt fully insane. At the top of the
site, he declares: Unfortunately internet I know better than to trust
you. We will ultimately be making the final decision, Alas my daughter
shall not be named WackyTaco692. Sorry guys the wife wouldnt go for a
free for all.
The very lucky baby is due April 2, so if we start voting now, we can
probably make Beyoncé happen. Lets do it.
=~=~=~=
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