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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 18 Issue 20
Volume 18, Issue 20 Atari Online News, Etc. May 20, 2016
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2016
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 #1820 05/20/16
~ Computer Held Hostage! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Changes to Chrome!
~ Falcon King Solitaire! ~ New Police Camouflage! ~ Wi-Fi Sense Gone!
~ El Capitan Is Updated! ~ Hell Is Hot, in Doom! ~ Twitter 140 Tweak!
-* British Hacker Wins A Battle *-
-* Atari Has "Haunted House" Exclusive? *-
-* Google May Get Hit With EU Antitrust Fine! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It's starting to feel more and more like Spring, finally! Here
we are, nearing Memorial Day, and the temps have been ranging
around early Spring numbers rather than late Spring. I guess
it's better late than not at all! It's also time to head out and
pick up a new barbecue grill; the old one is rusting out all over!
It's just plain un-American not to do a little barbecuing over
the long holiday weekend!
I'm tempted to talk politics this week, but I'm not going to go
in that direction again this week. Nope, not going there!
So, while we all relax and start making preparations for Memorial
Day, I'll just mosey along and get right into this week's issue!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
Falcon 030 King Solitaire
Hello!
Cleaning my hard disk....
Playable on Falcon 030, VGA and 4 Mb of ram min.
Download : http://paradize.final-memory.org/games.shtml
Enjoy !
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Hell Is Hot, Multiplayer's Not in ëDoomí
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Atari Argues Only It Can Make 'Haunted House'
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Hell Is Hot, Multiplayer's Not in Gloriously Gory ëDoomí
Itís been 12 years since the release of Doom 3. Thatís more than a
decade without chainsaws and miniguns and super shotguns and BFGs.
Without Cyberdemons and Imps and Hell Knights and a solitary space
marine with a nasty right hook.
God, Iíve missed it.
But itís back. Doom has finally returned, and developer id
Software has taken its latest entry in the infamous first-person
franchise back to its roots. Hell, even the gameís title is a
throwback. And itís for the better, because for all its
heavy-metal fury, Doom is flat-out fun.
Unlike 2004ís Doom 3, which focused heavily on foreboding
atmosphere, jump scares, and the need to use a flashlight to see
what was happening 95 percent of the time, the new Doom harkens
back to the simple joy of battling wave after wave of demons and
exploring hidden rooms ó the stuff that made the original Doom
and its sequel such beloved (and influential) shooters.
Indeed, this is a game out of time. It eschews the excessive
narrative exposition or grandiose ruminations on the human
condition youíll see in many of todayís games. This is a game
about cutting monsters in half with a goddamn chainsaw, and it
makes no apologies for it.
As usual, you play as a nameless space marine whose goal is to
blast armies of demons off of Mars and back to Hell. Why are
demons invading Mars? Something, something, power source,
something, something. It doesnít matter. Doom lets you know its
intentions from the very outset. The gameís first scene sees you
chained to a sarcophagus, only to break free and smash a demonís
skull to bits with your bare hands.
And thatís pretty much the gist of Doomís campaign. Through the
first hour or so, you traverse nondescript hallways, blasting some
easy demons while slipping around in the entrails of the employees
of Union Aerospace Corporation, who made the unfortunate decision
to solve Earthís energy crisis by opening up a portal to Hell.
That obviously didnít work out too well.
Once you reach the Martian surface, the game really opens up. Each
time Doom introduces a new type of enemy, youíll think itís some
kind of intense boss battle. But after you finally kill your new
foe, the game starts throwing them at you by the truckload. That
wasnít a boss battle, that was Doomís way of letting you know that
the partyís just getting started.
The first time this happened to me, I was battling a Revenant, a
demon with giant guns on its shoulders. I pumped my entire payload
into it before it fell. After regrouping for a second and moving
into the next area, there were three more waiting for me. Doom is
a cruel teacher, testing you over and over, and just before you
break, it gives you a short breather before it throws even more
your way.
Luckily, youíre capable of carrying an enormous weapons cache on
your broad marine shoulders. Doom adds a good amount of upgrading
and customizations to the mix, too. You can, for example, attach a
scope to your heavy machine gun to pick off Imps from a distance,
or slap on an attachment that fires six rockets in succession.
You earn weapon upgrade points by completing in-game challenges
displayed in the pause menu. Unfortunately, the menu is a bit too
cluttered and clunky, which makes finding the challenges a, well,
challenge. Naturally, you can also upgrade your Praetor Suit to
increase your health, armor, or ammo capacity.
And make no mistake ó youíll need to upgrade everything to keep up
with Doomís frenetic pace. This is a blazing fast shooter, and
while armor and health pickups initially seem plentiful, they
quickly vanish in the gameís many large-scale fights.
To make things a little easier, Doom introduces Glory Kills, melee
attacks that yield Doomís most brutal moments and, more
pleasantly, a cache of health pickups. Theyíre gruesome,
disgusting, and all too satisfying. Over time you start to depend
on these up-close attacks to stay alive, turning even the most
passive player into an aggressive, forward-charging maniac.
Eventually, however, the chaos wears a little thin. After fighting
wave after wave of demons, battles start to blend together, making
each fight feel less remarkable than the last. Doom always throws a
new challenge at you before the game begins to feel rote, but the
campaignís later stages just arenít as thrilling as they should be.
Doom is technically impressive as well, buttery smooth with nary a
framerate hiccup. That said, the PlayStation 4 version of the game,
which I reviewed, doesnít offer nearly the graphical punch as the
PC version. Textures occasionally pop in, and the outdoor scenery
looks particularly bland. I get that Iím supposed to be looking at
a desolate Martian landscape, but do the boulders have to look like
blobs of orange Jell-O?
Doom also features a full-fledged multiplayer component, though it
sadly canít match the solo experience. You get six gameplay modes,
including standard Team Deathmatch and Domination as well as
offerings like Soul Harvest, which sees you collect the souls of
your opponents for points. There are plenty of opportunities for
character customization and upgrades, but the whole experience
suffers from some particularly uninspired levels.
Itís partly by design ó Doom embraces its old-school sensibilities
everywhere - but compared to the exciting, dynamic levels in games
like Call of Duty Black Ops 3 and Overwatch, Doomís multiplayer
just doesnít hold up. Sure, if youíre playing with a group of
friends, youíll still have a good time with Doom, but youíll
likely find yourself tiring of it rather quickly.
There is hope for Doomís multiplayer, though, in the form of
SnapMap. A built-in multiplayer level editor, SnapMap lets you
design your own hellish playground in which you and your friends
can hunt demons and generally cause a ruckus. Itís called SnapMap
because you literally snap chunks of the world together like
giant blood-drenched puzzle pieces.
Itís not just about slapping levels together, though. You can
also add demons, in-game effects, weapon drops, anything you can
see in the single-player campaign. Itís incredibly intuitive ó you
can put together a level in a few minutes and start playing right
away.
So kudos to id and Bethesda for managing to make an old game feel
new again. Thatís not easy to do, and while its multiplayer
stumbles, Doom will leave you exhausted from its intensity, sick
from its brutality, and yearning for more when you complete its
13-hour campaign. If you like your shooters fast and deadly, Hell
is pretty heavenly.
Whatís hot: Ridiculously fast-paced combat; satisfying weapons
upgrades; Glory Kills; CHAINSAWS!
Whatís not: Mediocre multiplayer; occasionally bland graphics;
battles can blend together
Platform reviewed: PS4
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Ex-Game Maker Atari To Argue To The US PTO
That Only It Can Make 'Haunted House' Games
We noted several years ago that Atari, once the king of the video
game industry, has since devolved into a zombie company built only
for intellectual property trolling. Copyright, trademark, or
patents: Atari will use all of them to try to milk the modern
gaming industry for cash. In fact, in past public statements,
Atari has made it clear that it has no interest in producing any
new games, instead relying on its remaining staff to license its
trademarks and port a few decades-old games over to the mobile
market. Quite a fall for the once giant of the industry.
And that fall will now include going in front of the PTO's Appeal
Board to explain why Atari and Atari alone should be allowed to
title a game using the phrase "Haunted House." Why? Well, because
it made a game called Haunted House in the early 80's, you see.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has set oral
arguments for Atariís claim against developer Hazy Dreams of
Infinity over its use of ìHaunted Houseî in the game Haunted
House Tycoon. Atari and defendant Andrew Greenberg, Hazy Dreams
founder, present oral arguments on Thursday. In 2011, Atari filed
a ìnotice of oppositionî against the Hazy Dreams in an effort to
prevent the developer from launching the game, which is still in
development. The classic-gaming publisherís stance is that it owns
that trademark in the gaming industry after releasing Haunted
House in 1982 for the Atari 2600 console ó although Atari did not
file for that mark until 2010.
So Atari is going to bully a current game maker over a generic
term it once used on a game it made over three decades ago, but
didn't trademark until 2010. It's hard to think of an example that
better shows how trademark law is abused today, deviating from its
intended purpose and spirit. There's no customer confusion here to
worry about. Nobody is going to mistake Atari's block graphics for
the modern Haunted House Tycoon title. This is simply a bullying
tactic, likely to generate licensing revenue. That's what Atari is
now, after all.
Greenberg, of course, isn't pleased.
ìTrying to claim no one else can use the words ëHauntedí and
ëHouseí is especially ridiculous, considering games have been
using the term ëHaunted Houseî in titles ever since Magnavox
released a game by that name for the Odyssey in 1972,î he said in
a statement. ìAtari has a horrible reputation for attacking
independent game developers, including recently going after TxK
developer Jeff Minter,î the Hazy Dreams of Infinity president
said.
That's true, of course, but the folks running Atari these days
don't care about that reputation. It isn't the public that is
making them money, after all.
All of this comes as Atari has lost much of its original
identity. The company, which has shifted from owner to owner over
time, filed for bankruptcy in 2013. It emerged later that year
under the ownership of venture capitalist Frederic Chesnais, who
says that company is now 10 people primarily responsible for
managing its past assets.
Ten people working for a company designed to troll actual makers
of gaming content, potentially successfully blocking the release
of a game because it carries a fairly generic phrase in its
title? Yeah, we've gotten so far away from the original purpose
of trademark at this point that it's basically unrecognizable.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Google May Get Hit With Record EU Antitrust Fine
Google may face a record antitrust fine from the European
Commission in the coming weeks, according to the British newspaper
The Sunday Telegraph.
The EU is considering levying a fine of about 3 billion euros
($3.4 billion) against the web giant over its dominance in the
search market, the newspaper reported. Google did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Google and the European Union have engaged in a drawn-out battle
over search for six years. At issue are the EU's claims that
Google has abused its position as the world's most dominant search
engine in unfairly prioritizing its shopping services over those
of competitors.
The EU's probe of Google began in 2010 but has repeatedly stalled
because the company and the commission could not agree on
settlement terms.
The biggest antitrust fine to date was the 1.06 billion euros
($1.45 billion) levied against Intel in 2009 for engaging in
illegal anticompetitive practices to exclude competitors from the
market for computer chips.
British Hacker Wins Legal Battle Over Encryption Keys
Britain's top crime fighting force has failed in a legal attempt
to force alleged hacker Lauri Love to hand over his hard disk's
encryption keys. In a landmark case, District Judge Nina Tempia
said the investigative agency should have used the normal police
powers rather than a civil action to obtain the evidence. Lauri
Love, a 31-year-old hacker, has been accused of aiding
cyber-attacks against U.S. targets, including NASA, FBI, US Army
and US Federal Reserve networks.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has failed in a legal attempt to
force the British citizen and political hacktivist Lauri Love to
hand over the keys to encrypted data that has been seized from
his home two years ago.
At a Tuesday hearing in Court Seven at Westminster Magistrates'
Court, the NCA's application to make Love disclose his encrypted
computer passwords was refused by the judge.
Love, 31, is currently fighting extradition to the United States
where he faces up to 100 years in prison for allegedly hacking
into the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Missile
Defence Agency, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2012
and 2013.
United States Prosecutors claim that Love was allegedly involved
in the online protest #OpLastResort linked with the Anonymous
group, following the untimely death of online activist Aaron
Swartz, who committed suicide in 2013 while under federal charges
of data theft.
Love was initially arrested from his home in Stradishall, England
back in October 2013, when the British police seized his encrypted
computers and hard drives. The NCA later asked the courts to force
Love to turn over keys to decrypt his computer's hard drives.
The files that authorities say could contain data from the US
Senate and the Department of Energy on Love's computer has been
encrypted with Truecrypt, a popular software for encrypting data.
Initially, the British agency attempted to compel Love to hand
over his encryption keys and passwords under Section 49 of the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000, but was failed
after his refusal.
Love, who is currently on bail, launched a legal action against
the NCA to return his computer equipment. However, the agency
refused, claiming the devices could contain data that he did not
legally belongs to him ñ for example, hacked files.
So, as part of those civil proceedings, the agency made an
application to force Love to hand over his "encryption key or
password" for the encrypted data found on his computer and hard
drives.
However, Judge Nina Tempia of Westminster Magistrates' Court in
London ruled in favor of Love, saying the NCA can not force Love
to disclose his passwords and encryption keys to prove his
ownership of the data.
Tempia also said the NCA has attempted to "circumvent" the RIPA
act, which she described as the "specific legislation that has
been passed to deal with the disclosure sought."
"I am not granting the application because to obtain the
information sought the correct procedure to be used, as the NCA
did two-and-a-half years ago, is under section 49 RIPA, with the
inherent HRA safeguards incorporated therein," Tempia wrote in
her ruling on Tuesday.
The NCA has yet to comment on the court proceedings. However,
Love was "happy" with the result. Speaking outside court, he
said: "It is a victory, although it is a more an avoidance of
disaster."
The court hearing revolving around the return of Love's computer
equipment is scheduled for July 28.
Police Camouflage Surveillance Truck as Google Maps Van
I bring good news.
If you live in Philadelphia and you're concerned that Google's
Street View vans are spying on you, relax.
It might merely be your friendly local police instead.
I deduce this after Matt Blaze, a University of Pennsylvania
assistant professor of computer and information science, tweeted a
photograph of a van that had a Pennsylvania Police Department
placard and a Google Maps logo on its window.
As Motherboard reports, he espied it near the Philadelphia
Convention Center. It was equipped with two sophisticated
license-plate readers on its roof.
Why, though, would the police wish to pretend - and so obviously -
that one of its surveillance vehicles was actually just mapping
the roads for Google?
Neither the Philadelphia Police Department nor Google responded to
requests for comment.
But the police department did issue this statement to Motherboard:
"We have been informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs to the
police department. However, the placing of any particular decal on
the vehicle was not approved through any chain of command. With
that being said, once this was brought to our attention, it was
ordered that the decals be removed immediately."
The department added that it is investigating what might have
happened.
Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford told NBC Philadelphia that his
officers were "being creative." Is that as in "creative with the
truth"?
What of Google, though? One might imagine it would be outraged that
its auspices had been co-opted by the police. The ELSAG MPH-900
equipment mounted on the truck is highly efficient and can capture
many license plates simultaneously. That's not the sort of thing
Google would wish to be involved in, surely.
There again, we're all being surveilled multiple times by multiple
organizations. Some police forces have reportedly used Stingray
devices, which pretend to be cell towers but actually monitor all
calls within the vicinity, without a warrant.
And Google, Facebook and the rest follow us around the Web like
men in beige coats and shades, wanting to know about our likes
and behaviors.
We're trapped.
How odd, though, that a police force would want to pretend that
we're trapped by Google rather than the authorities. Doesn't that
show a slight lack of self-worth?
What To Do If Hackers Hold Your Computer Hostage and Demand Cash
Youíre sitting at your computer when you get an email from your
local bank saying you were just hit with a charge for a new
$1,200 MacBook that you never bought. You click the email and
follow the embedded link or download the included receipt to find
out whatís up.
Just like that, your computer has been infected with ransomware.
You canít access your files, and all you can see is a timer
counting down the time until hackers delete your computerís drive
unless you pay them a fee in iTunes gift cards.
All you can do is scratch your head and wonder what the hell just
happened. Well, Iím here to explain that to you ó and to help you
fight back against ransomware criminals.
The most important thing to remember is this: Never, ever pay the
ransom.
Ransom?
Letís start with the basics. A particularly nefarious form of
malware, ransomware is a piece of software criminals use to lock
you out of your computer by encrypting its files and holding them
for ransom for a specific dollar amount.
If you donít pay up, you can potentially say goodbye to your
photos, tax documents, pay stubs, and any other documents youíve
saved throughout the years.
This isnít some idle threat, either. If you donít pay, your
documents will disappear or simply stay locked up until you
completely reformat your system.
Ransomware programs sometimes require you to pay in Bitcoin, an
anonymous currency that canít be tracked.
However, criminals have increasingly begun demanding payment in
the form of iTunes or Amazon gift cards, since the average person
doesnít know how to use Bitcoin, according to Gary Davis, chief
consumer security evangelist at Intel Security.
The amount you have to pay to unlock your computer can vary,
with some experts saying criminals will ask for up to $500.
To be clear, ransomware doesnít just target Windows PCs. The
malware has been known to impact systems ranging from Android
phones and tablets to Linux-based computers and Macs.
According to Davis, ransomware was actually popular among
cybercriminals over a decade ago. But it was far easier to catch
the perpetrators back then since anonymous currency like Bitcoin
didnít exist yet. Bitcoin helped changed all that by making it
nearly impossible to track criminals based on how victims pay
them.
There are multiple types of ransomware out there, according to
Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor with the computer
security company Sophos. Each variation is tied to seven or eight
criminal organizations.
Those groups build the software and then sell it on the black
market, where other criminals purchase it and then begin using it
for their own gains.
How they get you
Ransomware doesnít just pop up on your computer by magic. You
actually have to download it. And while you could swear up and
down that youíd never be tricked into downloading malware,
cybercriminals get plenty of people to do just that.
For example, hackers can determine your location and send emails
that look like theyíre from companies based in your country.
ìCriminals are looking are looking up information about where you
live, so youíll click (emails),î Wisniewski explained to Yahoo
Finance. ìSo if youíre in America, youíll see something from Citi
Bank, rather than Deutsche Bank, which is in Germany.î
Cybercriminals can also target ransomware messages to the time of
year. So if itís the holiday shopping season, criminals might send
out messages supposedly from companies like the US Postal Service,
FedEx or DHL. If itís tax time, you could receive a message that
says itís from the IRS.
Other ransomware messages might claim the FBI has targeted you
for using illegal software or viewing child pornography on your
computer. Then, the message will tell you to click a link to a
site to pay a fine ó only to lock up your computer after you
click.
Itís not just email, though. An attack known as a drive-by can get
you if you simply visit certain websites. Thatís because criminals
have the ability to inject their malware into ads or links on
poorly secured sites. When you go to such a site, youíll download
the ransomware. Just like that, youíre locked out of your
computer.
Ransomware attacks vulnerabilities in outdated versions of
software. So, believe it or not, the best way to protect yourself
is to constantly update your operating systemís software and apps
like Adobe Reader. That means you should always click that little
ìupdateî notification on your desktop, phone, or tablet. Donít put
it off.
Beyond that, you should always remember to back up your files. You
can either do that by backing them up to a cloud service like
Amazon Cloud, Google Drive or iCloud, or by backing up to an
external drive.
That said, youíll want to be careful with how you back up your
content. Thatís because, according to Kaspersky Labís Ryan
Naraine, some ransomware can infect your backups.
Naraine warns against staying logged into your cloud service all
the time, as some forms of malware can lock you out of even them.
Whatís more, if youíre backing up to an external hard drive,
youíll want to disconnect it from your PC when youíre finished,
or the ransomware could lock that, as well.
Naraine also says you should disconnect your computer from the
internet if you see your system being actively encrypted. Doing
so, he explains, could prevent all of your files that have yet to
be encrypted from being locked.
Above all, every expert I spoke with recommended installing some
form of anti-virus software and some kind of web browser
filtering. With both types of software installed, your system up
to date, and a backup available, you should be well-protected.
Oh, and for the love of god, avoid downloading any suspicious
files or visiting sketchy websites.
Even if you follow all of the above steps, ransomware could still
infect your computer or mobile device. If thatís the case, you
have only a few options.
The first and easiest choice is to delete your computer or mobile
device and reinstall your operating system. Youíll lose
everything, but you wonít have to pay some criminal whoís holding
your files hostage.
Some security software makers also sell programs that can decrypt
your files. That said, by purchasing one, youíre betting that it
will work on the ransomware on your computer, which isnít always
the case. On top of that, ransomware makers can update their
malware to beat security software makersí offerings.
All of the experts agree that the average person should never pay
the ransom ó even if it means losing their files. Doing so, they
say, helps perpetuate a criminal act and emboldens ransomware
makers.
Even if you do pay up, the ransomware could have left some other
form of malware on your computer that you might not see.
In other words: Tell the criminals to take a hike.
Google Is Making A Major Change To Chrome
To Make The Internet More Secure
As long as thereís been a modern Internet, thereís been Adobe
Flash. And as long as there has been Adobe Flash, there have been
webmaster and internet nerds who loathe it with every fiber of
their being. So theyíre celebrating that by the end of the year,
Flash will effectively be banned from Google Chrome. But why is
Google doing this, and what does it mean for you?
Adobe Flash is, at root, an animation program; back in the mid
í90s, it was created to build vector graphics and cartoons for
web applications. Over time, it became more complex and
feature-rich, allowing users to build programs inside Flash.
These started as simple web games but have become more and more
elaborate over time.
Unfortunately, itís also meant that Flash is, by far, the easiest
way for hackers to breach your computer and execute malicious
code. In fact, Flash is probably the biggest security problem on
the internet and itís been criticized as such for nearly 20
years. The iPhone doesnít allow Flash for precisely this reason.
Facebook wants to phase it out entirely and older versions of
the Flash player arenít allowed to interact with modern browsers.
The internetís common language, HTML, was updated with a host of
new features specifically designed to get rid of Flash.
Itís a credit to how persistent Flash is that Chrome canít kill
it entirely. But what it is doing is, aside from a handful of
major websites, blocking Flash by default, although it will
prompt you to enable Flash if you trust the site in question.
That would seem a near-fatal blow, forcing websites to either
update to HTML 5 or risk being functionally invisible to much of
the Internet. Then again, Flash has outlived two different
companies that have owned it and survived Apple rejecting it, so
itís hard to believe this might be the final straw
On a practical level, not much will likely change for your
average internet user, aside from the fact that restaurants will
finally update their websites. It will mean you run into a lot
fewer security problems on Chrome. But since the future is full
of fascinating new ways hackers can make your life miserable,
youíll likely be too preoccupied to notice.
Microsoft Removes Its Controversial Windows 10
Wi-Fi Sense Password Sharing Feature
Microsoft has finally decided to remove one of its controversial
features Wi-Fi Sense network sharing feature from Windows 10 that
shares your WiFi password with your Facebook, Skype and Outlook
friends and enabled by default.
With the launch of Windows 10 last year, Microsoft introduced
Wi-Fi Sense network sharing feature aimed at making it easy to
share your password-protected WiFi network with your contacts
within range, eliminating the hassle of manually logging in when
they visit.
This WiFi password-sharing option immediately stirred up concerns
from Windows 10 users especially those who thought the feature
automatically shared your WiFi network with all your contacts who
wanted access.
But Wi-Fi Sense actually hands over its users controls so they
can select which networks to share and which contact list can
access their Wi-Fi.
Also, the feature doesn't share the actual password used to
protect your Wi-Fi, but it does give your contacts access to your
network.
However, the biggest threat comes in when you choose to share
your Wi-Fi access with any of your contact lists.
But, Who really wants to share their Wi-Fi codes with everyone
in the contacts?
Of course, nobody wants.
Since the feature doesn't give you the option to share your
network with selected individuals on Facebook, Skype or Outlook,
anyone in your contact list with a malicious mind can perform
Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.
We have written a detailed article on Wi-Fi Sense, so you can read
the article to know its actual security threat to Windows 10
users.
Although Microsoft defended Wi-Fi Sense network-sharing as a
useful feature, Windows users did not give it a good response,
making the company remove WiFi Sense's contact sharing feature in
its latest Windows 10 build 14342.
"The cost of updating the code to keep this feature working
combined with low usage and low demand made this not worth further
investment," said Microsoft Vice President Gabe Aul. "Wi-Fi Sense,
if enabled, will continue to get you connected to open Wi-Fi
hotspots that it knows about through crowdsourcing."
Microsoft just released its latest Windows 10 build for testers.
The company will remove the Wi-Fi Sense password sharing feature
as part of its Anniversary Update due in the summer, but will keep
the Wi-Fi Sense feature that lets its users connect to open
networks.
Apple Releases OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan With
Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements
Apple recently released OS X 10.11.5 to the public, marking the
launch of the fifth update to the El Capitan operating system
that was first released on September 30, 2015. OS X 10.11.5 comes
nearly two months after the release of OS X 10.11.4, an update
that introduced Live Photos for Messages and password protected
notes in the Notes app.
The OS X 10.11.5 update can be downloaded through the Software
Update mechanism in the Mac App Store. It is available to all
OS X El Capitan users.
Most of the updates to OS X El Capitan have focused largely on
under-the-hood improvements, bug fixes, and security enhancements
rather than outward-facing changes, and OS X 10.11.5 is no
exception. No obvious feature changes were discovered in the
beta, and according to Apple's release notes, OS X 10.11.5
includes bug fixes, performance improvements, and security
updates.
Prior to releasing the OS X 10.11.5 update, which has been in
testing since April 6, Apple seeded four betas to developers and
public beta testers.
Twitter To Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
Twitter Inc. is making a major shift in how it counts characters
in Tweets, giving users more freedom to compose longer messages.
The social media company will soon stop counting photos and links
as part of its 140-character limit for messages, according to a
person familiar with the matter. The change could happen in the
next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because
the decision isnít yet public. Links currently take up 23
characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The
company declined to comment.
Itís a step in a larger plan to give users more flexibility on
the site. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said in January that
the company was looking for new ways to display text on Twitter,
and would experiment based on how people use the service. For
example, some people tweet screenshots of longer text in articles,
or send many tweets one after the other to tell a story.
Twitterís 140-character limit was originally adopted because it
was a way to send Tweets while fitting all the information within
a mobile text message -- a common way for sending Tweets when the
service debuted in 2006, before the proliferation of smartphones.
The company earlier this year considered raising the limit to as
many as 10,000 characters. But the quick, concise nature of Tweets
has helped set the site apart from the competition. Executives
have spent the last few months emphasizing how Twitter is a
destination for live events and discussion. Removing the character
requirement for links and photos may encourage users to add more
media to their posts.
Twitter has been making video a priority as part of its push for
live events. Earlier this year, the company agreed to pay $10
million to the National Football League for the rights to stream
10 Thursday night games during the 2016 season, people familiar
with the matter have said. Twitter is working on more content
deals for streaming sports, political events and entertainment.
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