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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 17 Issue 36
Volume 17, Issue 36 Atari Online News, Etc. September 25, 2015
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2015
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1736 09/25/15
~ More Firebee Updates! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Gmail Block Button!
~ Nasty URL Bug in Chrome ~ Rise of the Tomb Raider ~ New Indian Policies
~ Halo 5 & Master Chief ~ 3/5 of World w/o Web! ~ Fiefox's New IM!
~ Self-destructing Chip! ~ ~ Anarch Ride Trailer!
-* Wyden Blocks Surveillance Law *-
-* Big Names Defending Net Neutrality! *-
-* Brit's 'Karma Police' Surveillance Program *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, with the official end of summer ariving this week, cooler,
Fall-like weather has also arrived. Not that I'm complaining; I
prefer cooler temperatures. Maybe I can take down the air
conditioners and pack them away until next year - and sabe some
money on electricity!
Not much news happening this week, unless you want to discuss
the Pope's ongoing visit to the U.S. Personally, I figure that
there's plenty of coverage everywhere. And, I'm not a Catholic,
so other than a historical event, it's really not a big deal for
me personally.
So, let's move right into this week's issue, shall we!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
FireBee News Update
by Fred Horvat
Something I want to do on the FireBee is to add Unix like
capability to MiNT. Mostly for me what I would be after is to
have a BASH (Unix Shell or Command Line) be able to run some
useful commands like PING, IFCONFIG, TOP, etc. I can add BASH
and some of the commands I am looking for from here
http://vincent.riviere.free.fr/soft/m68k-atari-mint/archives/mint/
Currently I have not researched how to install these programs
and commands into MiNT. Another way to get the Command Line into
MiNT is to install SpareMiNT. SpareMiNT can be found here
http://sparemint.org/sparemint/ and a bit of info here
http://wiki.sparemint.org/index.php/Main_Page It has been years
since I looked into how to install SpareMiNT into MiNT so I do
not recall anything anymore. Lastly I can install EasyMiNT which
has FreeMiNT 1.19 Alpha and SpareMiNT that can be installed and
configured automatically. There is much more to EasyMiNT. This
is a full blown Operating System Installer that besides
installing FreeMiNT and SpareMiNT, has options to install TCP/IP
and network, XaAES, Desktop (Currently Thing), Development
Enviroment and more. The current version of EasyMiNT is 1.90.
It can be found here
http://atari.st-katharina-apotheke.de/home.php?lang=en&headline=EasyMiNT&texte=easymint
If I remember correctly I started using EasyMint when the project
started 15 years ago under the emulator Gemulator
http://emulators.com/ and not on a real Atari. It worked great
back then. Then last year I read about EasyMiNT again and used
it to set up my current Aranym setup http://aranym.org/ I cant
praise EasyMiNT enough on how complete and simple it is to get a
fully working FreeMiNT system up and running. I cant guess how
long it would take me to download, put together, and configure a
similar FreeMiNT setup. In reading the latest updates to
EasyMiNT on the web site it states that it was updated for
Coldfire (FireBee) support. This was perfect for me as now I
dont have to attempt to add Unix capability to FreeMint
manually. The EasyMiNT Installer ZIP File is about a 200MB
download. I dont recall how big it is unzipped. Once
downloaded and unzipped you do need to prepare your hard drive.
What is recommended is at least three partitions. A Boot, Unix,
and Applications partitions. You can obviously have more but
these are the minimum recommended.
I just recently had my original 16GB CF card replaced under
Kingstons Warranty as it was defective. So I inserted the new
16GB CF card into my Windows Vista PC that has a built in CF
Reader and booted off a CD-ROM from http://gparted.org/livecd.php/
The CD I created from this site boots into Linux and you can
run GPARTED to partition in my case the CF Card to be used in the
FireBee. I partitioned the CF card with the following drives C:
990MB formatted as FAT16 flagged as boot, D: 4GB formatted as
EXT2, and E: 10GB formatted as FAT32. I downloaded and unzipped
the EasyMiNT 1.90 file to a 1GB SD card. I inserted the SD card
and newly prepared CF card into the FireBee and turned the
machine on. A majority of the EasyMiNT installer is in German.
For me this was not an issue as I have installed EasyMiNT no
less than 20 times in the past 6 months under Aranym in trying
different configurations. To be able to follow along at first I
used Google Translate and typed in phrases I didnt understand
to get through the first couple of installs. Now it is second
nature and I can install EasyMiNT without assistance. I get to
the step where you get a menu asking you all the options to
install and configure, I fill all that out and click continue
and the installer crashes. I reran the EasyMiNT Installer and
it failed at the same point again. I decided to start all over
from scratch and repartition and format the CF card. I ran the
EasyMiNT installer and it crashed at the same point yet again.
EasyMiNT 1.90 works fine under Aranym as I tried it out before
installing it on the FireBee. Thats how I found of that there
was support for the FireBee. Unfortunately on the FireBee it
does not work. I will see if EasyMiNT 1.83 has FireBee support.
If it does I will try that version and hope it works. If that
does not work then I will have to research how to add some of
the Unix capability manually to EasyMiNT. I will let you know
how this turns out in a future submission.
FireBee Followup
Short status update with my EasyMiNT 1.90 installation attempts.
Since version 1.90 failed to install I tried the EasyMiNT 1.83
installer in Aranym and saw that installation to the FireBee was
an install option. When trying it on the FireBee the installer
stopped and said that EasyMiNT requires a 680X0 CPU. So in
EasyMiNT 1.83 FireBee support was not fully baked in.
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Explaining 'Master Chiefs' Arrival on Xbox One!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' Is More of the Same!
Anarcho Ride Trailer - Atari STe Game!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Halo 5: Guardians Executive Producer Explains
Master Chiefs Arrival on Xbox One
Halo 4 was the end of the Master Chief and Cortana love story.
But the iconic hero supersoldier is coming back in Halo 5:
Guardians for his first appearance on the Xbox One.
The game debuts on October 27, and it represents Microsofts best
chance to capitalize on the community of 60 million Halo fans and
create a competitive advantage for its Xbox One game console in
competition with Sonys PlayStation 4. This time, theres a new
conflict between Master Chief and one of his own, agent Locke,
who is a kind of rival Spartan.
The title is also a big chance for Microsofts 343 Industries
(the studio created to handle the Halo franchise after original
creator Bungie spun out to create another first-person shooter,
Destiny) to show what it can do with huge investment of time and
money. We played all parts of Halo 5 a preview of the
single-player campaign, the esports-like Arena, and the massive
Warzone multiplayer mode and then talked to one of the
guardians of the Halo franchise, Josh Holmes, the executive
producer for the game.
Holmes talked to us about how 343 is servicing the longtime fans
of Halo and how it has honed the story, multiplayer, and
cooperative play in the upcoming game. Will the new title be
worthy of the Halo name? In the background, we were listening to
cheers as multiplayer combat rounds became more intense. Heres
an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: I got to play two of the missions here. I dont quite
grasp entirely what the story is getting at. If youre setting
this up without really spoiling it for anybody, what sort of
preamble do you tell?
Josh Holmes: The story takes place after the events of Halo 4.
At this point we have a series of cataclysmic events threatening
colonies across the galaxy, mysterious events. The UNSC is trying
to figure out whats going on. Early in the story Master Chief
goes AWOL for uncertain reasons. This leads the UNSC to deploy a
new squad of Spartans to find out why Chief and Blue Team have
left the ranks, and what connection if any that has to these
events.
Gaming is in its golden age, and big and small players alike are
maneuvering like kings and queens in A Game of Thrones. Register
now for our GamesBeat 2015 event, Oct. 12-Oct.13, where well
explore strategies in the new world of gaming.
Thats the setup. Its told like a mystery, deliberately. The
player, as Locke, is following in Chiefs footsteps and trying
to unravel why hes doing what hes doing and where everything
will lead.
GamesBeat: This is why Master Chief and Locke seem to be at
odds? Theyre not on the same mission.
Holmes: Theyre very different characters. Thats intentional.
Designing Locke and writing the new character, we wanted him to
feel distinct from Chief. We wanted him to be a person who would
ask Chief the kind of questions we want him to ask over the
course of this mission.
GamesBeat: As far as airtime goes, is it largely about those
two? When I think back on Halo 4, a lot of time was spent
focused on Chief and Cortana.
Holmes: This is an interesting departure from Halo 4 in that its
an ensemble cast. In Halo 4 we were very focused on those two
characters and this intimate relationship they had against a
backdrop of action and high-stakes drama. In this game, we still
have Chief at the center of it all, but hes now surrounded by a
team of Spartans. We have a second team of four that are
tracking him. Finding the time to explore all those characters
and give each of them a chance to establish themselves was an
interesting creative challenge.
GamesBeat: How did Nightfall set up some of this?
Holmes: Nightfall introduces Spartan Locke. At the time, Locke
was still an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Its his
background before he became a Spartan. It shows viewers the man
he was and who he is at his core before he joined the Spartan
program.
As a new Spartan in Halo 5, hes been put at the helm of
Fireteam Osiris. Theyre a brand new squad, which is very
different from Chief and Blue Team, who have known each other
since childhood. Theyve fought together and trust each other.
They know what each other member of the team is going to do
without even thinking about it. They operate on instinct. Locke
and Osiris are still finding their groove together, learning
about one another and figuring out their places. Locke is still
learning what it means to be a leader. Thats all fertile ground
for the story.
GamesBeat: Playing Blue Team really seems to change the campaign.
All of a sudden, the Hunters dont seem so invulnerable anymore.
Holmes: Introducing three more Spartans requires us to rethink
the way we build our encounters and design our characters. In the
case of the Hunters, they have new behaviors and new attacks they
can do in reaction to the way players can surround them. Before,
you could trick a Hunter and get behind them and lay waste to
them. Now they have the ability to rapidly turn and smash you.
Its more challenging to take on those mini-boss characters like
the Hunters and the Knights than youd think.
Halo 5: Guardians
GamesBeat: Youve shown more levels and modes from multiplayer.
What do you have thats going to surprise returning players?
Holmes: Weve gone big with this game in multiplayer. Weve built
two distinct experiences within the multiplayer suite. Arena is
purpose-built for competitive play. It celebrates everything at
the core of Halo multiplayer. We have even starts, a level
playing field, a variety of game modes that cater to that taste.
Its built from the ground up for eSports, but its there for
players of all skill levels.
On the Warzone side, weve tried to bring all the best parts of
Halo into one colossal mode. Its multiplayer at a scale thats
never been done before in Halo the size of the maps, the number
of players, dozens of AI integrated into the mode. You have AI
bosses coming in. The scoring system is very different. You have
all these choices as a player. Do I want to try and support my
team by taking down bosses? Do I want to go capture bases and
score that way, maybe even get a shot at taking out the core in
the enemy home base? Or do I just want to contribute by shooting
opposing players and whittling them down? There are all these
different ways you can contribute in that mode. It never plays
the same way twice.
GamesBeat: How do you explain the requisition system since thats
brand new to everyone? What should players strategize around?
Holmes: Requisition is a reward system, basically. It supports
all of our multiplayer experiences. You earn req packs by playing
in Warzone or Arena. There are cosmetic items that carry across
both experiences.
For Warzone specifically, all the weapons and vehicles and
power-ups and gameplay-impacting things you can unlock within the
req system are limited to Warzone. New players, I hope, will have
a great sense of discovery as they open packs and find cool stuff
and deploy these cool weapons in Warzone. But there is a lot of
strategy there as far as what you deploy, when you deploy it, and
how you expend your req energy within each Warzone match. You
have this governing system that prevents you from going
willy-nilly with any part in your inventory.
GamesBeat: One of the worst things you can do is go in and lose
your vehicle to the opposing team.
Holmes: I did that earlier today. I got myself an awesome rocket
Hog, took it over to the enemy base, and promptly got sniped. It
was disappointing.
GamesBeat: I found that if I got a Warthog, I couldnt count on
someone getting in the back to shoot people. I was just driving
around.
Holmes: I should have let you guys know ahead of time, but we
added a new mechanic in the game where you can rapidly switch
from the drivers seat to the gun by pressing jump. Youll swing
out of the drivers seat, get on the gun, and start shooting.
But it takes a half-second or so. Thats what I was doing when
they sniped me.
GamesBeat: It seems necessary. Otherwise, its risky to get in
the Warthog and just make yourself a target. Beyond that, do you
want to save up for a big item toward the end, something that
can tip the balance of power?
Holmes: What I usually doI love vehicles. Im a big vehicle
player. I save up all my req energy for later in the game to
bring out something big like a Banshee or Wraith or Scorpion.
But plenty of players in the studio focus on power weapons
instead. They might bring out several smaller, lower-tier
weapons and rack up kills throughout the game. It comes down to
how each player likes to play the game.
GamesBeat: Coordination seems to matter a lot.
Holmes: It makes a huge difference. We do play tests at the
studio that we call our try hard tests. Both teams are pushing
really hard to win, playing very competitively. The team that
wins, invariably, is the one with the best communication and
collaboration.
Coordinating between 12 players is really tough. But you can
coordinate well between three or four players at a time. Thats
more reflective of what I believe well see when the game goes
live. Three or four friends will get together and say, Lets
take out this boss or Lets push on that base.
GamesBeat: Going back to single-player, I saw that you could take
a lot of different paths to get through each level.
Holmes: Absolutely. Thats been one of the design pillars for
campaign from the beginning, trying to give players more freedom
and flexibility in how they approach the combat encounters and
how they navigate the space. All the spaces throughout our
campaign have been built around the new suite of Spartan
abilities, all the new mobility options. There are plenty of
places you can discover and clamber up to or smash through. That
adds a lot of replay value. Even for players who only play the
campaign once, too, it lets us all have our own story in how we
approach each encounter. We can all share those stories with
each other, which I think is really powerful.
GamesBeat: Some of the more complex new abilities can be easier
to forget. Do you have ways of introducing them so people learn
them and use them throughout the campaign?
Holmes: We have tutorial moments early in the campaign at
specific points where we teach the new abilities. From there,
its up to players whether they want to keep using them and which
ones they take advantage of. The hope is that knowledge then
transfers over to multiplayer and people can put the abilities to
use in that space.
GamesBeat: If you invest the time to learn those and get good at
them, is that going to separate you from players who dont?
Holmes: In multiplayer it makes a big difference, mastering the
different abilities. Theyre designed to work with all of our
maps. They can chain together to produce some pretty spectacular
results. Just simple things like the thruster abilityI was just
playing Quinn. I had him dead to rights, but he managed to jump
up and thrust over my head and take me out. You can do some
things once you start to master those skills that really set you
apart.
Halo 5: Guardians
GamesBeat: That seems to [speak] to why Halo 5 is different. You
have at least four major iterations here. People could get tired
of it. But there are lots of new things for them to master here.
Its not going to be the same old multiplayer.
Holmes: We definitely have new skills to master. Weve tried to
stay true to the core of what Halo is as an experience, tried
to continue to expand the universe and the story. Its still
very much Halo. Its just evolved. Players have a whole new
suite of abilities that they can learn and put to good use.
GamesBeat: What sort of feeling do you hope people will get when
theyre done with the campaign?
Holmes: I hope theyll be surprised. I hope they enjoy the
journey we take them on. Its a different approach to
storytelling in Halo, but were excited about it. We think its
fitting for Halo as we move to Xbox One, to make this big leap
in the way we tell stories and let people experience the
universe. I hope they come away pleasantly surprised.
GamesBeat: Day one is always a nail-biter for the people who run
servers and things like that. Is there anything in the design
that you thought about and said, With tens of millions of people
playing this, maybe we shouldnt take the risk of doing this
right away? Just to ensure that the game scales well.
Holmes: Scale is something we think about all the time. We have
an in-house services team thats been focused on Halo 5 for the
past three years, building the services at the core of the
experience. Its the same team that built the services for
Halo 4. Theyre constantly testing for scale and ensuring that
all of our services are hardened and ready for the users coming
in when we launch.
Weve also been able to employ beyond just the beta we did
almost a year ago testing resources around the world, doing
closed external beta testing. Weve put those services under
stress and ensured they can stand up to real-world conditions.
Were confident going into launch. But obviously its always a
big deal launching a game of this size and scale. For us as
developers, the joy comes from seeing people have fun with this
thing weve been working on for years and being able to go
online and play alongside them.
GamesBeat: Did anything change in your design, though? Are there
situations where you dont want to push a particular idea as far
as you could because it wont work with 10 million people playing
at once?
Holmes: We always take that into account in the design process,
the technical requirements and scale requirements that go into
the experience. Weve been lucky to partner closely with the
platform team, the Xbox team, in building this experience. Being
able to take advantage of things like Xbox Live cloud compute
Its been a real shift for us technologically as we rewrite our
engine for Xbox One and move our online experience to dedicated
servers and take advantage of cloud compute. Thats taken a lot
of investment from us and a lot of work in concert with the Xbox
team. But yeah, our designs have all been built with an
understanding of whats possible.
GamesBeat: What are some instances where you can use cloud
compute?
Holmes: Warzone is a great example. We have dozens of AI active
on the map simulating, making decisions, reacting to players.
AI bosses are coming to the map. We have large environments and
large player counts and lots of vehicles. We can do that all at
once because we can use cloud compute to simulate things like
physics and AI, augmenting the power of the console itself.
GamesBeat: Do you feel like youve pushed the console to the
edge of its capability yet?
Holmes: I wouldnt say that. As developers, were constantly
learning on any platform. Were still early in the cycle for
Xbox One. This is only the first title weve built from the
ground up for Xbox One. Were pushing the console pretty hard,
but Im sure that as we continue to develop for the console,
well learn more. Thats the way with every console generation.
'Rise of the Tomb Raider' Is More of the Same, and That's Okay
Crystal Dynamics' 2013 Tomb Raider reboot pulled off a tough
task: It successfully brought life back to an aging, muddled
franchise and provided heroine Lara Croft with an excellent
origin story. Now that Croft has made her transition from a
terrified shipwreck survivor to adventuring (but still
vulnerable) badass, what does she do for an encore? Rise of the
Tomb Raider (coming to the Xbox One and 360 as a timed
exclusive on November 10th) answers that by tightening up and
refining the first game's core experience while throwing
players into an entirely new environment. The world is bigger,
there are more skills to improve, more secrets to find and,
yes, more tombs to raid. It isn't wildly different than the
last game, but that's not a knock: If it ain't broke, don't
fix it.
It's easy for players to jump right in whether they're familiar
with the previous game or not; the controls remain mostly
intuitive and the story stands up well on its own. It's a story
that's a bit of a cliche: Croft is continuing her father's
research into reincarnation and "tangible evidence of the
immortal soul." The search for immortality is hardly new, but
fortunately the ensuing fight for survival and world exploration
aren't dulled by the reason behind Lara's mission.
While the first game did a great job of presenting a lush,
detailed island of terror, developer Crystal Dynamics is really
harnessing the next-generation power of the Xbox One to craft a
massive and beautiful world to explore - and one that puts you
in the kinds of environments not typically associated with Lara
Croft. Creative director Noah Hughes says that focusing on
"virtual tourism" is always a part of location design in Tomb
Raider games. "You go to these exotic destinations and feel like
you've been there on some level," Hughes said. "That leads to a
natural focusing on environment as part of the concepting phase,
thinking 'where are the cool places we can take her' that are
ultimately different than we've been in the past."
A good chunk of the game's first hour flashes back two weeks
and takes you out of Siberia to a more "standard" Tomb Raider
environment (the sun-baked deserts of Syria). But the majority
of what I played put me in a vast, frozen wasteland where the
weather feels as much of a threat as the enemies stalking you.
But despite the consistent, snow-covered aesthetic, the details
of each location continue to be quite varied - Hughes noted
that they focused on making sure each location had a wide
diversity of terrain to keep any one environment from getting
stale.
The remastered version of Tomb Raider that hit the PS4 and Xbox
One last year should give you a good idea of what to expect
visually, but Rise of the Tomb Raider improves on even that
title in some pretty significant ways. For starters, it's not
just the landscapes that are rendered so dramatically: Character
facial expressions, movements and hair are all rendered in far
more detail than in the previous game. They're safely far away
from the dreaded Uncanny Valley here, and it's not just in the
cutscenes - everything looks great throughout, whether or not
you're in a pre-rendered storytelling scene.
The Xbox One's extra horsepower also allowed Crystal Dynamics
to build areas that are much larger and more in-depth than
anything the team was able to do in the first game. In fact,
Hughes says the game's hub areas are two to three times larger
than in the previous game. You'll be able to spend plenty of
time getting lost in the world, searching for the many
collectible artifacts spread throughout that fill in the game's
back story.
The biggest gameplay change I noticed was to the crafting system
for upgrading weapons. You can still find the generic salvage
around the world, but some puzzles will require you to scour the
environment for specific materials you'll need to survive. At one
point in the demo, I was confronted with an enormous grizzly bear
that mauled me to pieces when I tried to get around it. The game
helpfully informed me that poison might be a way to get around
the beast, and so I was sent off to search the snowy forest for
mushrooms and other supplies I could use to craft a poison arrow
- something that made felling the bear much easier. Fortunately,
the requirements for crafting these special items weren't too
onerous; I never felt like I was being forced into unnecessarily
long fetch quests to pad the game's running time.
Rise of the Tomb Raider strikes a nice balance between driving
the story forward and allowing players the time to explore areas
for secret items as well as the titular tombs players felt were
missing a bit from the first game. There are definitely more side
quests, and the ones I tried felt a lot more challenging than the
ones in the first Tomb Raider. In fact, a few ended up being too
time-consuming. I moved on to keep the story going because of my
limited demo time - but if I were playing at my own pace, I would
have been happy to spend more time exploring.
In the end, this is a Tomb Raider game, through and through. Rise
may not break any new ground for the series, but the 2013 reboot
successfully reinvented the game's formula well enough that I'm
not at all disappointed to have another chapter to enjoy.
There's more to explore, the world and its inhabitants looks
better, and the frozen, desolate old-world Russian landscape is
a huge departure from the previous game. All of which is to say
that Rise of the Tomb Raider could be the best kind of sequel:
One that delivers even more of what people loved about the
original.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Anarcho Ride Trailer - Atari STe Game
Atari STe emulated with STEEM SSE. Running on original 8mhz
system speed. Written in GFA Basic.
With graphics by Alan Garrison Tomkins.
Music by xFalcon (very likely this is not the final game
Music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMUYydbv86Y
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Big Names Defend Net Neutrality
About 30 Democratic lawmakers submitted arguments that a plain
reading of communications law grants the Federal Communications
Commission the authority to adopt the rules. Other defenders
included The Internet Association, Engine, the American Civil
Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Tim Wu, who
coined the term "net neutrality," the American Library
Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries
and others.
"In sum, the FCC has done precisely what Congress intended the
Commission to do classify broadband Internet access service
according to its best understanding of the technology of the
day, and how consumers use that technology," the lawmakers
argue in the brief, led by Democrats, Sen. Ed Markey (Conn.)
and Rep. Anna Eshoo (Calif.).
Monday was the deadline for supporters of the Federal
Communications Commission's Internet rules to file their friend
of the court briefs, defending the regulations from a lawsuit
brought by Internet service providers. Oral arguments are
scheduled for December.
British Government's 'Karma Police' Surveillance Program
Tracks Your Internet Browsing Habits
Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) launched
a mass surveillance program to track every Internet user's web
browsing habits worldwide.
Karma Police is more than just a classic Radiohead song its
apparently the code name of a British government web surveillance
program.
Britain's Government Communications Headquarters has been running
a cybersecurity program that was created seven years ago to track
the browsing habits of people around the world, according to
Edward Snowden's documents published by the Intercept.
The mass surveillance operation was started between 2007 and 2008,
so if you were surfing the web for porn, signed up for a social
media account or read an article from an online news publication
around that time, chances are the British government has seen what
you've been doing.
The operation has collected more than 1.1 trillion metadata
records between August 2007 and March 2009, increasing to 50
billion per day by 2012, according to the Intercept.
The existence of "Karma Police" was unearthed by whistleblower
Edward Snowden, who made global headlines after leaking classified
information that shed light on the National Security Agency's
surveillance practices.
The origin of the codename for GCHQ's program was not found in
the newly released documents.
But plans for "Karma Police" were laid out to help give the agency
"either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the
Internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the
Internet," the Intercept reported.
The program was initially used to find intelligence on people who
listen to online radio shows - collecting over 7 million metadata
records within three months.
GCHQ closely scrutinized radio stations that would broadcast
recitations from the Quran.
US Senator Blocks Proposed Surveillance Law
Opposed by Facebook and Google
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has dropped proposed language
in legislation that would require social media companies to report
any "terrorist activity" to government authorities.
The controversial measure was included in the 2016 Intelligence
Authorization Act, which annually updates the legal authority of
the US's 16 intelligence agencies, The Hill reports.
But steady lobbying pressure from big internet companies and
civil liberties groups, and the steadfast resistance of one US
senator, forced the committee's leadership to withdraw the
language.
Back in July, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon placed a "hold" on the
intelligence bill due to what he called the "overly vague and
dangerous provision," known as Section 603.
Any US senator can place a hold on legislation and prevent it
from coming to a vote - Wyden used that authority to block the
intelligence bill for 56 days.
On Monday this week, Wyden announced that the Section 603
provision on terrorist activity was removed from the bill, which
he called a victory for free speech.
Social media companies aren't qualified to determine what
communications should be interpreted as terrorist activity, Wyden
said:
Social media companies aren't qualified to judge which posts
amount to "terrorist activity," and they shouldn't be forced
against their will to create a Facebook Bureau of Investigations
to police their users' speech.
The tech companies applying pressure to remove the provision
included the Internet Association, with members including
internet giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Snapchat,
Amazon, Reddit and dozens of others.
Those companies strongly objected to the provision in a 5th
August letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The association derided Section 603 for potentially "chilling
free speech" and the enormous burden it would place on internet
companies to seek out any speech or deeds that could be
connected to terrorism.
Backing up the tech companies, the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CD&T) objected to turning social media companies into
de facto spies for the US government.
In its own letter to the intelligence committee, the CD&T - a
coalition of human rights and civil liberties organizations -
said the proposed law would encourage social media companies to
"over-report" the activities of innocent people.
Section 603 did not include any safeguards against abuse, CD&T
said:
Unfortunately, this provision would create strong incentives
for providers to over-report on the activity and communications
of their users, in order to avoid violating the law. This
provision risks bringing wholly innocent people under the
scrutiny of the US government in a procedure that includes no
limits on the use of the reported information and no safeguards
against abuse.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top-ranking Democrat on the
intelligence committee and a supporter of Section 603, previously
said it was modeled off existing law requiring tech companies to
report child abuse imagery to the government.
However, the tech companies didn't buy that argument because,
they said, finding and reporting child abuse imagery is
"fundamentally different" from finding and reporting terrorist
activity:
The proposed reporting obligation is fundamentally different
to existing mandatory reporting obligations for child sexual
abuse imagery in US law, which concern content that is per se
unlawful, generally easy to detect, and is never
constitutionally protected speech.
Social media companies do have policies in place for taking
down extremist, hateful or violent content, sometimes at the
request of law enforcement.
Yet some lawmakers and intelligence officials in both the US and
UK say that's not enough.
Andrew Parker, head of the UK's MI5 security service, recently
criticized social media companies for not proactively
approaching the government with information on suspected
terrorist activities.
The tussle over Section 603 comes at a time when technology
companies are also fighting off law enforcement demands for
backdoors allowing them to read encrypted messages of criminal
suspects.
FBI Director James Comey has highlighted the use of encryption
by terrorist groups, and has argued that technology companies'
use of encryption impedes law enforcement investigations.
UK lawmakers are considering a contentious piece of
legislation, known as the "snooper's charter," which could force
internet companies to give the government backdoor access to
terrorists' communications.
Removal of Section 603 from the intelligence bill indicates that
Silicon Valley's clout in Congress may help it win the so-called
crypto-wars in the US, but it remains to be seen whether those
tech companies have the same influence abroad.
Nasty URL Bug Brings Google Chrome to a Screeching Halt
If you use Google Chrome, youll want to watch out for this bug:
According to VentureBeat, a specific character string of text
could bring your browser crashing to the ground.
According to VentureBeat, merely appending %%30%30 to the end
of a URL will cause Chrome to hang and crash. The cruelest
twist? You dont even have to open a malformed URL to cause the
crash merely mousing over the link is enough to bring down
Chrome. (In other words, don't add the above string to URLs
unless you like cussing at your computer. Don't say we didn't
warn you.)
Security researcher Andris Atteka originally discovered the bug
by entering a URL with the added characters tacked on (a total
of 26 characters), but VentureBeat noted that it takes even
fewer charactersonly 16 in totalto crash the browser.
Atteka says this is only a DOS vulnerabilitythat is, a
crash-causing bug so it isnt a security flaw in the truest
sense of the word. Still, this bug has the potential to be
quite a nuisance since youll lose all your open browser tabs
and windows.
The bug affects current versions of Chrome as of this writing,
and will crash both Windows and OS X versions of the browser.
While you probably wont come across it in the wild, Google has
yet to release a patch for this bug, so be careful out there.
Google Just Introduced A New 'Block' Button to Gmail
Google just answered many email-users' prayers by launching a
new "block" button.
"Sometimes you get mail from someone whos really disruptive.
Hopefully it doesnt happen oftenbut when it does, you should
be able to say, 'Never see messages from this person again,'"
the company writes in its blog post on the news.
Any emails from addresses that you choose to block will now
automatically go into your spam folder. See ya later, trolls.
Gmail's also introducing its "unsubscribe" button to its Android
app.
Although you could unsubscribe to emails on your web-based Gmail
account, Android users can now do it from their apps.
Google's Gmail Finally Adds the Ability To Block Email,
But There's A Better Way
Google said Tuesday that users will now be able to block
specific email addressesexcept that theyre not really blocked,
and Google already has more powerful tools to eradicate
offensive email that are already in Gmail.
As of Tuesday, blocking an email will actually send an email
from that specific email address to the spam folderwhere it will
technically live on, even if no one really checks their spam
folder.
ADVERTISING
Technically, neither Gmail nor Yahoo Mail offer a block
option, in which a hateful email is simply never received.
Microsofts Outlook app for Office allows you to Junk an
emaileither from the specific sender or the senders domain
something that Googles Gmail doesnt allow.
Why this matters: If you whack a spider and miss, and then it
crawls under your bedwell, thats going to creep some people
out. Ditto for your psycho ex-: some people dont want to even
see an email (and its header) in their inbox. Blocking that
email is one solution; totally eradicating it via a delete
filter may appeal to others. How do you do the latter? Read on.
How to set up an automated filter to delete unwanted email in
Gmail
Gmail does allow users to set up an automated filter to take
email from specific senders and apply various rules to it,
including deleting it. Heres how to do it:
In your inbox, select one or more messages using the little
checkboxes to the left of the message. At the top of the list
of messages, youll see a number of icons with drop-down menus.
Click More . > Filter messages like these.
That will open up a screen, pre-populated with the email
addresses of the senders of the emails you highlighted. Note that
you can also add specific words in the fieldsthe subject line,
and more, if you want to fine-tune this further.
Where this gets confusingand this is possibly the reason for the
new Block command is that clicking Create filter with this
search does not actually create the filter.
Instead, it takes you to a second page, where you have a number
of options to apply to the message. The one youll want, in this
case, is Delete. Granted, deleting an email means that its gone
forever. But if youre desperate to never hear from a particular
email address ever again, youve found a possible solution.
Use this filter to automatically delete an email in Gmail.
Theres another twist: The Block feature will be added to the
Gmail Android app next week. You can only dial up the Gmail
filters weve shown you above, however, on the desktop version
of Gmail. Block may become a weapon of last resort if you dont
own a PC.
Fortunately, theres a kinder, gentler option to those automated
mailing lists that you wanted to see, once, and never want to
see again. The Gmail Unsubscribe function is also coming to the
Android app. That allows you to both issue an automated
unsubscribe command, as well as hide that spammy list from your
inbox, Google said.
Deleting WhatsApp Messages Before 90 Days Could Land you in Jail
While the Indian people continue to struggle for Net Neutrality,
a new problem surrounded them with the release of the latest
policy for National Encryption Policy by the Indian
Government.
If you delete your WhatsApp Messages or Emails that you receive
or send before 90 days, it might be a crime and you can End-up
In Jail.
If the new National Encryption Policy implements that come up
with weird suggestions one should not delete WhatsApp
onversation, Gmail or any email for 90 days, it would be an
Internet Disaster.
With the aim to provide confidentiality of information and
ensure protection of sensitive or proprietary information, the
draft policy, proposed by an so-called expert panel from the
Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY),
requires:
The government wants to have access to all your encrypted
information including your personal emails, text and voice
messages, and data stored in a private business server.
The Policy will enforce Internet users to save all encrypted
communication data in plaintext for at least 90 days, which
includes: WhatsApp messages, emails, sensitive banking or
e-commerce transactions details.
National Encryption Policy also want Indian Internet Users to
give up their encryption keys to the Government and Security
Agencies.
In India, More than 80% of Internet users are addicted to
Non-Indian services like WhatsApp, Facebook, Gmail, Skype,
Telegram and thousands more.
But, the National Encryption Policy requires Service Providers
located outside India to enter into an agreement with the
Indian Government, which says:
Encryption algorithms and key sizes will be prescribed by
the Government, the policy reads.
The draft National Encryption policy has triggered national
outrage among citizens of India that are forced to store their
online messages send through WhatsApp, SMS, e-mail or any such
service for up to 90 days.
Now Lets see what the government decides.
Firefox's New IM, Privacy Features Are Worth A Look
There's a lot going on with Firefox. Two new versions of the
browser debuted in just two days; one's ready to go, and the
other, more interesting one is still in beta.
The finished version, Firefox 41, offers a number of tweaks, but
its main claim to fame is an enhanced instant messaging (IM)
feature. Firefox 42 is all about making it harder for sites to
track people who visit them.
One of the best things about the Mozilla Foundation, and its
Firefox browser, is the "openness;" the beta version is open to
anyone who cares to tinker with it, as long as they understand
that it may have some rough edges.
I tried both new versions on Windows 7 and Windows 10 and didn't
notice any significant problems. I've used Firefox as my main
browser for years, and although it's not as popular among Web
surfers as it once was, it gets the job done without unnecessary
drama. If you already use Firefox, I see no reason not to
upgrade to Firefox 41. Ordinarily, I don't encourage people to
use beta products, but my experience with Firefox 42 has been
smooth so far. It's worth a download, but keep in mind that
issues certainly could arise, and Mozilla might add or delete
certain features.
A while back, Mozilla built a new video communications feature
it called "Hello." Firefox users can now use Hello to send and
receive IMs during video calls in the browser on Windows, Mac
and Linux. The people on the other end of those calls or chats
do not have to use Hello. You can simply send an invitation from
Firefox to the recipient via email, and if he or she is using
Chrome, Opera or Firefox and chooses to accept, you're
connected. Unfortunately, the feature only currently works in
the desktop version of Firefox.
The release also includes updates that let users personalize
their Firefox accounts with photos, and sync seems to work a bit
better, so it's easier to share browsing data, such as
passwords, bookmarks, and history, across your various devices.
The private modes in most of today's browsers purposefully don't
save your history. Firefox 42 takes private browsing a step
further. From Mozilla:
"The experimental Private Browsing enhancements ready for
testing today actively block website elements that could be used
to record user behavior across sites. This includes elements
like content, analytics, social and other services that might be
collecting data without your knowledge."
The feature also blocks some ads, but that's not its primary
purpose. If ads don't contain trackers, Firefox 42 will load
them.
The new private browsing mode also has a "Control Center" that
provides quick access to all of Firefox's security and privacy
controls. It's a notable enhancement, because it makes it easier
for users to take advantage of the safeguards. And because some
websites won't load if you disable tracking, Mozilla added a
button to the toolbar that lets you turn off the no-tracking
feature for individual sites.
Three-fifths of the World Is Still Without Internet
Most of us like to complain about slow Wi-Fi connections or too
many popup ads on websites. But billions of people around the
world wish they had these problems.
A new report from the United Nations' Broadband Commission found
that a whopping 57 percent of the world or a total of 4.2
billion people don't have regular access to the Internet.
Access is worst in least developing countries (LDCs), where only
one in 10 people is online, the report found. A gender divide is
also "proving incredibly difficult to overcome, reflecting
broader social gender inequalities."
"The digital divide is proving stubbornly persistent in terms of
access to broadband Internet, including the challenge of
extending last-mile access to infrastructure to remote and rural
communities," according to the report.
The report comes as a growing number of tech companies, led by
Facebook and Google, are trying to come up with ways to connect
the world. Facebook, for example, wants to use solar-powered
drones to connect 4 billion people across the world on the
Internet. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk also said he wants
to deploy an array of small satellites to deliver low cost
Internet access around the world.
The report called on countries to adopt "effective policies and
strategies to make broadband available, affordable and
accessible, as a vital enabler of sustainable development in
modern-day knowledge societies." It also called for all
countries to draw up a National Broadband plan, which can "play
an especially important role in coordinating public and private
sector actions and in prioritizing and promoting national
broadband development."
Currently only 148 countries have such a plan.
"It is increasingly vital to extend access to digital education
services, new capabilities, culture, entertainment, healthcare,
financial and commercial services, along with training and
education," according to the report. "An 'information revolution'
is needed to help inform and improve policy-making. Public and
private sectors must work together in close partnership to
achieve broadband for all."
Despite the gaps in access, the report found that telecoms in
much of the world are on the rise.
Citing data from the consultancy IDC, the report found that the
total telecom sector was worth $1.67 trillion in 2013, growing by
1 to 2 percent per year, driven mainly by expansion in China and
emerging markets. Global IT and telecom spending is expected to
grow by 3.8 percent to around $3.8 trillion for 2015 alone.
The mobile sector has also shown strong growth, with the
International Telecommunications Union projecting that the
number of mobile phone subscriptions by the end of the year will
soon rival the global population, reaching upwards of 7.1
billion.
According to Ovum, which analyzes the telecom, mobile and media
markets, mobile cellular subscriptions will grow to 8.5 billion
by 2019, of which 6.5 billion will be mobile broadband
subscriptions.
The research firm Infonetics also estimates that mobile data
services including text messaging and mobile broadband rose
across the board in every region in 2014, thanks to the growing
use of smartphones.
But the report said that growth has been inconsistent, noting
that European mobile operators have seen a decline in revenues
for the past several years.
This Computer Chip Self-Destructs in 10 Seconds
(On Command) To Keep Secrets Safe
The Secret Messages are often designed to be destroyed without
a trace.
In Spy thriller movie Mission Impossible, every time Tom
Cruise receives a secret message, the last words state - This
Tape message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...and BOOM!
Theres a sudden explosion, and smoke comes out of the device;
containing sensitive information few seconds ago.
This Self-destructing thing has become a reality now.
Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated (PARC) a Xerox company,
involved in R&D in IT and hardware has under Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agencys (DARPA'S) Vanishing Programmable
Resources (VAPR) achieved success in developing
Self-Destructing computer chips capable of destruction in
10 seconds.
The phenomenon is quite familiar
.isnt it?
Now, with DARPAs initiative this is soon going to become a
reality intended mainly for the military personnel. With the
idea of - Protection of data that once existed.
PARC showcased this breathtaking technology at the Wait, What?
event of DARPA in St. Louis Thursday, as part of the agencys
VAPR project.
The early model build of the Integrated Circuit (IC) by PARC
focuses on mainly two technologies namely:
Transient technology
DUST (Disintegration Upon Stress-Release Trigger) technology
The data stored in these chips may be encrypted data or a secret
message intended for an authenticated person.
The chip designed on a Gorilla Glass substrate is capable of
shattering on demand into millions of pieces which cannot be
reconstructed. The same glass that is being used as a protective
cover for the smartphones.
We take the glass and we ion-exchange temper it to build in
stress, said Gregory Whiting, a senior scientist at PARC. What
you get is glass that, because its heavily stressed, breaks it
fragments into tiny little pieces.
The team of security researchers from PARC in the demonstration
in St. Louis showed (See link below) how a laser light activated
self-destructing circuit, also the activator could be an RF
signal or a physical switch.
Vanishing electronic devices can be used to address
military security, data privacy, and environmental science,
says PARC.
DARPA awarded PARC with $2,128,834 amount of money as the
contract award for the research under their VAPR program.
This discovery will prove to be of greater importance as, in
military operations a piece of sensitive information is marked
i.e. an authorized person shall only be able to access the
information.
For this many authentication methods and procedures are being
utilized by the military but somewhere or the other they are
prone to get either stolen or victims of the cyber attack as
seen in the current scenario.
The self-destructing chips leave no evidence for the data to be
restructured.
This is not the first time such chips have been developed, DARPA
has earlier awarded IBM with $3,455,473 in December 2014 for
Developing and establishing a basis set of materials,
components, integration, and manufacturing capabilities to
undergird this new class of electronics.
At that time, IBM stated different use of materials and
engineering to build the Self-destructing chips. Well, now lets
wait for their proposed idea to become a reality soon.
=~=~=~=
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