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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 18 Issue 30
Volume 18, Issue 30 Atari Online News, Etc. July 29, 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 #1830 07/29/16
~ Russia Behind DNC Hack? ~ People Are Talking! ~ Firebee News Update!
~ Old School Sonic Mania! ~ 2FA Declared Insecure! ~ Vine Source Code!
~ Tor Nodes Dark Web Spy! ~ Console Sales Down! ~ Wii U Has No Games?
~ VPN Use in UAE Illegal! ~ Ransomware Victim Help? ~ Atari's 3DO Console!
-* KeySniffer Steals Keystrokes *-
-* Trying To Kill Net Neutrality Again! *-
-* Microsoft Is Updating Windows 10 Again! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Firstly, let me apologize for the excessive delay with this issue. I
knew that it might be a littler late because I was scrambling for enough
articles to make the issue, but then I realized what day it was. You
see, I put A-ONE together using a number of "tools" on a PC. Lack of room
years ago put me in the position of having to mothball my Atari machines;
I haven't found space to put them back into service yet. Getting back to
the date - it was the last day that Microsoft was allowing customers to
upgrade to Windows 10 for free. We bought PC less than a year ago, but
decided to wait before installing Windows 10. I had heard enough horror
stories that I wanted to wait. Well, we decided to upgrade for free
rather than pay later.
Getting Win 10 took a lot longer than I anticipated. My system installed
all of the outstanding upgrades for Win 8.1 - either something that it had
to do, or user error on my part. I also backed our systems up ahead of
time, just in case! Next came the Win 10 download, which took forever!
And finally, installing the upgrade! I started just after lunch when I
got home from work; the upgrade finished a little after 9:00 p.m. Let's
just say that I was exhausted, and there was no way I was going to be able
to put the issue together for our usual Friday release deadline!
Well, I primarily use NotePad and WordPad to edit and put the weekly
issue together. The Win 10 versions of those programs are a little
different from their predecessors. And WordPad is very different. None
of my A-ONE templates stayed formatted correctly under either program, so
I'm still playing around making that happen. This week's issue was done
purely in NotePad - not a great replacement for a pseudo word processor!
I have no idea what the final appearance will be on your end, yet! But,
the show must go on, some way, some how - so here we are, a few days late!
You have no idea how much I miss being able to use the Flash 2 TA buffer
on my Atari Falcon!
I was going to comment on the presidential conventions, but I'll forego
those comments due to lack of time. Thankfully, they're over!
In the meantime, let me get this issue out the door, and maybe I'll have a
few extra minutes to take a walk around the block and play some Pokemon Go!
Yes, I have become mildly addicted to this "new" phenomenon!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
Firebee News Update: Delivery Delay of the New Series - The Whole Truth
The new FireBee series should already be delivered by now. Today we will
ruthlessly uncover why this isn't the case yet. Read here exclusively what
ACP has to fight with. Some already had a hunch; others were informed in
personal mails about it. Now, the whole world will come to know. The new
series of FireBee computers has a delivery delay.
It all began with the fact that the orders for the new series were
processed in the new year - after the holidays. Unfortunately, the Swiss
manufacturer could not meet the production period of 12 weeks that was
agreed upon in 2015. Therefore, the new agreement was that the computers
would arrive at MCS around the end of May 2016. But then there was another
delay at the manufacturer, and the end of June was communicated to MSC as
the new delivery date (including an apology for the delay). So far,
everything was still just about OK, especially since we had decided to
also produce the LED-/speaker-clips, which would have delayed the
production by a few more weeks anyway.
In the meantime, a new problem also arose in Vienna (sounds almost like a
global enterprise...). The producer of the cases, with whom it had been a
pleasure to work with so far, suddenly wanted to increase the prices of the
mini-cases by 24% for the final order. Our hint that this would represent a
100% inflation was countered by a minimal "price reduction" and a brief
explanation. The price increase was explained with, among other things,
"that all screws would be included now..." At that point, all our trust had
vanished, since the cases contain exactly one single screw - the black
knurled screw on the lid. And those were always provided by ourselves in
the previous series. Since we were not willing to accept an increased price
(which we would have had to pass that on to you by a 100%) for inexistent
screws, we started looking for a new producer for our cases, as we were
convinced that you would prefer waiting for another 4-5 weeks to increased
costs.
We now have the new producer, and we also can keep the price of the
mini-cases. As soon as we had that, and (thanks to Milan Tirnanic) also a
new, perfectly constructed 3D-model of the mini-case, the new computers
arrived at Medusa on July 1st. And: none of them work! Most of the boards
wouldn't even start. A few would boot, but then suck so much power that the
45W PSU failed.... so, more a heating device than an Atari clone.
Fredi Aschwanden has spent the last three weeks trying to find the reason,
which is proving to be anything but trivial. To this date we don't know
what is wrong with the computers. It could be a short-circuit anywhere in
the system. Or some parts were badly soldered to the boards, or the boards
themselves might even be defective, or defective parts were used. As of
now, the manufacturer has received one of the boards from us, and is
removing all the parts and soldering new ones on it. Hopefully this will
result in an indication of the source of the problem.
Despite these problems we are really glad to work with a Swiss
manufacturer, who is accessible and trustworthy. The bad production will
be fixed without additional costs. We're please not least because aside
from the Medusa and the Hades, the first FireBees were also produced
there. Had we chosen to let them be produced somewhere in Asia, we would
now have a truly serious problem and could probably write off the money,
or file a lawsuit in China (haha).
So we are confident that we will eliminate the problems by the end of
August, but we don't want to make any specific delivery promises here,
except that you will receive 100% working FireBees, including two years
warranty, for your money. As soon as there is more news, we will inform
you here.
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Old-School Sonic Mania Coming for Sonicís 25th Anniversary!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Wii U Has No Games", A Study!
Console Sales Were Down for June 2016!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Old-School Sonic Mania Is Coming for Sonicís 25th Anniversary
Sonic the Hedgehog is 25 years old this year, and the blue bur is getting
two new games to celebrateóeven though they wonít see release until 2017.
In a fitting tribute to a character whoís found limited success in modern
times, Sonic Mania will take the series back to its roots and give the
fans the 2D, sidescrolling Sonic sequel theyíve been waiting for.
Weíre not talking about any broken-physics, Sonic 4 nonsense here,
either. Mania is the real deal, with ìreimaginedî levels from the Sega
Genesis Sonic games (and Sonic CD) as well as new ones and gameplay that
matches that of the seriesí í90s glory days. Thereís also at least one
new movement technique and some smoothed out sprite animations, but the
game looks decidedly, gloriously old-school in a way only fan projects
have managed to capture in the post-Genesis era. Finally, Sega is giving
the people what they want.
Mania was announced on Friday alongside ìProject Sonic 2017î (which is
clearly supposed to be the next great modern entry in the franchise, but
putting a year next to it just gives me bad memories of the terrible
game thatís come to be known as ìSonic 06î) as part of a 25th anniversary
celebration live stream that did not instill the kind of confidence that
the retro gameplay video did. Sonic 2017 only got a cinematic trailer, so
itís hard to say what the actual game will be like, but it once again
features modern and classic Sonic side by side like Sonic Generations.
Right now, Mania (which features Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails as playable
characters) is only slated for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in
spring 2017, with no mention of Nintendo hardware. You can watch
additional gameplay footage here for more retro goodness, including some
pretty great music. Sonic 2017 is arriving on those same platforms,
along with Nintendoís mysterious NX, for the 2017 holiday season.
"The Wii U Has No Games", A Study
Of all the complaints levelled against the Wii U over the years, the most
common one is usually ìthere arenít any gamesî. With Nintendo putting out
some lifetime release figures overnight, letís see how that claim
actually holds up.
Before we begin: in case you need this spelled out, nobody literally means
there are no games. Everyone knows there are some games. Some of them are
even very good games! But with third parties all but ignoring the system,
and Nintendoís attentions split between the Wii U and 3DS, it doesnít take
a retail manager to note that big releases (or, well, any releases) for
the console have been few and far between.
But thatís a gut feeling, and gut feelings can be out. Numbers, on the
other hand...
Here are the figures Nintendo released last night, covering almost every
single console and handheld the company has ever manufactured (sorry,
Virtual Boy, you were left off the list). They tally every single game
released on cartridge/disc on these systems in Japan, the US and ìOtherî
(mainly Europe), and divide the number between those published by
Nintendo and those released by OEMs (third parties).
Taking a look at these numbers, the NES saw 72 games released in the
United States by Nintendo, with a further 590 games coming from third
parties. The SNES breakdown was 52/667, the N64 was 53/244, the GameCube
had 48/504 and the Wii a staggering 55/1206.
Two things jump out at you from those numbers. Firstly, the number of
first-party releases was fairly consistent. Second, holy shit, look at
those Wii figures.
Now to the Wii U. To date Nintendo has released 39 games in the US, while
third parties have released just 118. While the system isnít quite done
just yet, the few games left in the pipeline (and the NXís imminent
reveal) wonít move those numbers much.
Itís important to note that the Wii U figure doesnít include games (like
indie titles) that were only released digitally. And that some of those
earlier third-party figures, especially on the Wii, are inflated due to a
mountain of shovelware. So the discrepancy between the companyís last two
consoles isnít quite as immense as it first seems.
In terms of big releases, though, thatís still a big drop-off in support
from earlier consoles, especially when you look at the Nintendo numbers
(which are normally the biggest/best games on a Nintendo system). And
while you can argue that the Wii U has had a pretty short life cycle, you
can also argue in chicken-and-egg fashion that the lack of games has
played a part in that (and also point out that the GameCubeís lifespan
was just as brief).
Aside from that? Feel free to make even more guesses as to what it all
means. You could ponder that the Wii U has been a case of quality over
quantity, as despite the overall scarcity it still saw classics like Super
Mario 3D World, Super Smash Bros., Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8 and
Pikmin 3. You could also argue that the lack of big, original games in the
Zelda and Metroid series left a gaping hole in the systemís catalogue, and
that the complete abandonment of major third party titles after the
release of the PS4 and Xbox One killed one of the consoleís original
selling points (remember, the Wii U was originally marketed as being a
Nintendo console you could also play games like Assassinsís Creed III and
Deus Ex on).
Me, I think Iím going to stick to this: that the Wii Uís dry spells would
make me forget I even owned one for months at a time. But when the rains
did fall, like re-visiting a sunken Hyrule in HD or enjoying Yoshiís Wooly
World with my kids (and literally playing with their Amiibo, like
adorable, immovable action figures), they were still some very good times.
Overall Console Sales Were Down for June 2016
According to sales number released by the NPD Group, hardware sales
declined by 42% over the same period last year.
In its monthly statement, the NPD Group said "Eighth-generation
hardware," meaning Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U, were the "primary driver"
of the decline, with sales across the 3 down by 43% over June 2015.
Sales of both hardware and software were down, something the NPD Group
attributes to a lack of major title launches such as last year's Batman:
Arkham Knight.
Nintendo released a statement saying sales of the 3DS were up 39%, but
that increase is month-to-month, rather than year-over-year as is the case
with numbers from the NPD Group. Nintendo attributes the increase to the
newly discounted 2DS, which can be bought for $80.
Nintendo also revealed lifetime sales of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U have
no passed 2 million unit mark in the U.S., with the 3DS version of Smash
passing 3 million.
NPD reported sales for PS4 and Xbox One are ahead of their predecessors by
40% when compared to the same period in the PS3/Xbox 360 life cycles.
At the end of May, Sony revealed lifetime sales of the PS4 had reached
40 million units worldwide.
NPD now reports sales of digital copies of games in addition to physical
copies. Overwatch was June 2016's best selling game.
Man Crashes Car Into MapleStory Developer's Office,
Said Its Games 'Ruined' His Life
A man on Sunday crashed a car into a South Korean game developer's
office, claiming its games "ruined" his life.
The Chinese man, surnamed Lee, was in South Korea visiting when he
decided to drive his older brother's car into developer Nexon's offices,
reports the Korea Herald.
A PC and mobile game studio, Nexon is known for titles like MapleStory
and Atlantica Online. Lee told police he had become addicted to the
company's games and impulsively decided to crash the car into the
company's office, according to the publication. His blood alcohol level
was over the limit when tested by local police.
Video game addiction is a real thing with many publicised cases -
particularly in South Korea. A two-year-old boy died in 2014 after his
father left him unattended for several days to play video games. In 2010,
a three-month-old child starved to death while her parents played a game,
which ironically involved raising a virtual child, at an internet cafe
for days.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
What if ñ Atari Released Their 3DO Console?
It is no secret that when Atari released their Jaguar console that they were
going up against the 3DO. In some markets there were other options such as
the CD32 (Amiga based) console and other lesser known platforms. This was
all prior to the launch of the Playstation (which would kick everyone in
the butt) and the Sega Saturn consoles. What if Atari had licensed the 3DO
hardware and released a version of it instead of the Jaguar? There is
proof that Atari had a 3DO prototype running, there were even games released
for it.
Before we get too far into this article it is probably worth mentioning
that there were two Atariís for many years. Atari Games was the arcade arm
of Atari while Atari Inc was the home platform division. It is the arcade
arm that licensed the 3DO hardware but it is unknown if that license was
exclusive to arcade machines or if the home division would be able to make
use of it too. I am basing this article on the assumption that the home
division could use the hardware also.
I am not going to bore you with technical speak, suffice to say that Atari
modified the 3DO hardware almost creating a new platform. Atari was
floundering quite hard when they released their Jaguar console which did
not help their bottom line.
3DO was created from a group of companies coming together to make a console
on the revolutionary idea of licensing out the hardware to others to make.
It was to be the ìcomputer marketî meets the console market- there are tons
of computers over the years that run the same software in varying levels of
quality. 3DO was to have a minimum hardware specification and
compatibility requirements- outside of that licensed manufacturers could
improve all they wanted. Some were planned with improvements such as the
AT&T 3DO which was to come with a modem (none of the other 3DO consoles
offered that).
There were two games known at this time for the Atari 3DO- Beavis and
Butt-Head and Die Alien Scum. Beavis and Butt-Head appears to have been a
3D brawler similar to Final Fight and Streets of Rage. Die Alien Scum
looks to have been shaping up to be a 3D rails style shooter like Total
Eclipse or maybe free roam like Star Fighter.
It would have been interesting to see Atari throwing their hat in the ring
with 3DO rather than developing the Jaguar console. What do you think?
Would saving the R&D costs of the Jag maybe turned Atariís fortunes around
just a little longer?
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Broadband Industry Tries Again To Kill Net Neutrality and Title II
Six weeks after federal judges preserved net neutrality rules for the
broadband industry, ISPs are seeking a full court review of the decision.
ISPs' attempt to overturn the Federal Communications Commission rules were
rejected when a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 in favor of the FCC. Now the
broadband industry's trade groups are seeking an "en banc" review in front
of all of the DC Circuit court's judges instead of just a three-judge
panel. If this fails, ISPs can appeal to the Supreme Court, but the odds
against them winning appear to be long.
One en banc petition submitted this morning before the case's deadline came
from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the
American Cable Association (ACA), the two biggest cable lobby groups.
En banc petitions were also filed by CTIAóThe Wireless Association, the
mobile broadband industry's primary lobby group; the United States Telecom
Association (USTelecom) and CenturyLink (representing DSL and fiber
providers); and a small Texas ISP named Alamo Broadband.
"We donít celebrate this petition, but we believe this action is necessary
to correct unlawful action by the FCC," the NCTA wrote today. The cable
group claims to support net neutrality protections but not the related
reclassification of Internet service providers as common carriers. While
the FCC passed net neutrality rules using weaker underlying authority in
2010, Verizon successfully sued to overturn them. That proved to be a
hollow victory, as it led to the FCC using its stronger Title II common
carrier authority to police the broadband industry in its latest set of net
neutrality rules.
"As regulators for decades have acknowledged and consistently determined,
dynamic Internet networks do not resemble or deserve to be treated like
archaic telephone systems," the NCTA wrote.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said today's petitions were expected and
predicted that the FCC will win in court again.
ìIt comes as no surprise that the big dogs have challenged the three-judge
panelís decision," Wheeler said in a written statement. "We are confident
that the full court will agree with the panelís affirmation of the FCCís
clear authority to enact its strong Open Internet rules, the reasoned
decision-making upon which they are based, and the adequacy of the record
from which they were developed.î
The NCTA/ACA petition argued that the FCC didn't provide good enough
reasons for its net neutrality order, saying that a more detailed
justification was needed because the Title II reclassification "rests upon
factual findings that contradict those which underlay its prior policy."
The DC Circuit panel judges "paid only lip service to these principles,"
the petition complained.
The NCTA/ACA petition also claims the FCC didn't give the industry
adequate notice before imposing Title II regulations on broadband.
The CTIA's arguments touched specifically on mobile broadband, which had
enjoyed weaker requirements until the FCC's Title II order put fixed and
mobile broadband under the same regulatory scheme. The FCC "unlawfully
reclassified mobile broadband" based on a finding that mobile broadband
service is "interconnected" with the traditional telephone network, the
CTIA said. Mobile broadband's interconnectedness with the phone network
was one of the findings made by the FCC in justifying its decision to
reclassify cellular Internet access as a common carrier
telecommunications service.
The DC Circuit panel decision said it accepted the FCC's view that "VoIP
applications now function as an integrated aspect of mobile broadband,
rather than as a functionally distinct, separate service.î The CTIA
disputed this, writing that "Mobile broadband service does not offer the
ability to make phone calls just because consumers can use their
connection to interact with distinct services offered by different
companies that perform the functions needed to bridge the gap between the
Internet and telephone lines."
USTelecom and CenturyLink argued that Congress never intended to give the
FCC Title II authority over Internet service. "En banc review is
necessary to ensure that a largely unaccountable agency does not obtain
significant legislative and judicial power that Congress never delegated
to it," their petition said.
Last year, CTIA, USTelecom, CenturyLink, and AT&T all claimed the FCC
violated the First Amendment with the net neutrality rules. But today, the
Alamo Broadband petition was the only one to make a First Amendment
argument.
The judges' panel erred when it concluded that the First Amendment does
not limit the FCCís authority to regulate Internet service because "the
rules strip broadband providers of their First Amendment right to
exercise discretion about whether and how to carry Internet traffic over
their networks," Alamo claimed. "The Panelís rationale would allow the
government to not only order the blocking of Internet content it deems
objectionable, but could also be used to try to strip other mediaócable
operators, broadcasters, and new media conduitsóof First Amendment
protection by declaring them to be common carriers."
Is Russia Behind the DNC Hack To Help
Donald Trump? FBI Initiate an Investigation
On [last] Friday, just three days prior to the start of the party's
national convention, WikiLeaks released almost 20,000 e-mails with more
than 8,000 stolen from the US Democratic National Committee (DNC)
following a cyber attack in June.
Two days later, on Sunday, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
announced her resignation and now had no major role on the party's
convention stage.
Many of the leaked emails indicted that the top DNC officials were
actively working against the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders and strongly
favoring Hillary Clinton over Sanders during the primaries, when they
were supposed to be neutral.
The controversy ruined the start of the DNC's national convention in
Philadelphia and forced the Wasserman Schultz to resign.
The leak, from January 2015 to May 2016, is believed to be an attempt by
the Russian government to influence the presidential election, some U.S.
lawmakers and cybersecurity experts say.
The leak features DNC staffers debating on things like dealing with
challenging media requests and coordinating the party's message with
other powerful interests in Washington.
The emails were leaked from seven DNC officials' accounts. One email
shows how DNC staffers attempted to reference Bernie Sanders' faith in an
effort to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters.
Another represents an attorney advising DNC on how to defend Clinton
against Sanders campaign's accusation of not living up to a joint
fundraising agreement.
From the beginning of the DNC hack, it has been speculated that the breach
of the committee's systems exposed in June was the work of Russian
intelligence.
Multiple security firms, including CrowdStrike, Mandiant (part of FireEye)
and Fidelis, have conducted a forensic analysis of the DNC's systems and
found strong evidence linking to "the Russian government's powerful and
highly capable intelligence services."
The Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook has also argued that Russian
intelligence officials are trying to ensure that Republican Donald
Trump, who has had an interesting relationship with Vladimir Putin, wins
the White House.
"There have been larger forces at work to hurt Hillary Clinton,"
Mook said. "They [the emails] are being released at this time to create
maximum damage to Hillary Clinton to help Donald Trump."
Although Trump has always praised Putin, Clinton has tried to tie Trump
to the Russian leader throughout her campaign.
"He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our
friends," Clinton said last month. "Putin will eat your lunch," she once
said. Moreover, if Trump were elected President, it would be like
"Christmas in the Kremlin," she said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now investigating the DNC breach
and is working "to determine the nature and scope of the matter."
"A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and
the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose
a threat in cyberspace," the FBI said on Monday.
The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, currently residing in Russia, has
also blasted his host country for its alleged DNC hack.
Despite a staunch supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Snowden condemned the
DNC email leaks but pointed NSA's secret data analysis program Xkeyscore
that can be used to easily determine the location from which the
organization is hacked.
"Even if the attackers try to obfuscate origin, #XKEYSCORE makes following
exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops," Snowden
tweeted. Though, he criticized the NSA for not sharing information.
New Portal Offers Decryption Tools For Some Ransomware Victims
Nomoreransom.org, a joint initiative between Europol, the Dutch National
Police, Kaspersky Lab and Intel Security, offers help in getting
encrypted data back.
Victims of crypto ransomware now have an online portal they can turn to
for help in trying to recover encrypted data.
Kaspersky Lab in collaboration with Europol, the Dutch National Police
and Intel Security have launched www.nomoreransom.org a site that
currently provides decryption tools for four ransomware families and will
soon feature tools for several more.
The site provides users will general information on ransomware, how such
malware works and how to mitigate exposure to the threat. It also provides
an option where victims can upload two encrypted files to the site to help
identify the ransomware on their systems and to see if any of the
available tools can help decrypt the data.
Ryan Naraine, director of the global research and analysis team at
Kaspersky Lab US, says the impetus for the initiative stems from the
rapidly growing scope of the ransomware threat.
ìItís no secret that ransomware, which encrypts data on usersí systems and
then demands a ransom, has become a huge problem over the last few years,î
Naraine says. ìIt has become so widespread that it could easily be called
an epidemic,î he says pointing to the sharp increase in the number of
ransomware victims over the past year, from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to
718,000 over the past year.
Police and security researchers alone cannot fight the threat, Naraine
says. Disrupting ransomware campaigns involves a coordinated effort
between multiple stakeholders. ìResponsibility for the fight against
ransomware is shared between the police, the justice department, Europol
and IT security companies,î he says.
Nomoreransom.org currently offers tools for decrypting data encrypted by
the CoinVault, Rannoh, Rakhni and Shade crypto ransomware families.
Victims of these malware samples and others like Autoit, Pletor, Rotor,
Lamer and Lortok can use the tools to try and get their locked data back
without having to pay any ransom for it.
The decryptor for Shade is the newest of the lot and was developed in
June 2016 after a command and control server containing decryption keys
for the ransomware was seized by law enforcement. The tool is designed to
help users roll back the strong 256-bit AES encryption used by Shade to
lockup user files.
The decryption tools currently available on nomoreransom.org are just the
beginning, Kaspersky Lab and the other founders of the initiative said in
a joint statement. Over the next few months expect the initiative to be
expanded with participation from many more organizations and law
enforcement agencies around the world.
ìThis collaboration goes beyond intelligence sharing, consumer education,
and takedowns to actually help repair the damage inflicted upon victims,î
said Raj Samani, chief technology officer of Intel Securityís Europe,
Middle East and Asia regions. ìBy restoring access to their systems, we
empower users by showing them they can take action and avoid rewarding
criminals with a ransom payment.î
The nomoreransom.org initiative is another indication of the level of
concern caused by the spread of ransomware over the past year. In
addition to individual Internet users, many of the cyber extortion attacks
have targeted organizations as well, including those in the healthcare and
government sectors.
The crypto protocols used to encrypt data in many of these attacks have
been so strong and sophisticated that victims have had little option but
to pay the demanded ransom to get their data back.
Security researchers and law enforcement authorities have warned against
the trend and said that paying ransoms only encourages more attacks. But
so far, few have offered victims any actual help in getting their
encrypted data back.
Nomoreransom.org is the first initiative to attempt to do that and could
well prove a turning point in the fight against the ransomware epidemic.
KeySniffer Lets Hackers Steal Keystrokes from Wireless Keyboards
Radio-based wireless keyboards and mice that use a special USB dongle to
communicate with your PC can expose all your secrets ñ your passwords,
credit card numbers and everything you type.
Back in February, researchers from the Internet of things security firm
Bastille Networks demonstrated how they could take control of wireless
keyboards and mice from several top vendors using so-called MouseJack
attacks.
The latest findings by the same security firm are even worse.
Researchers have discovered a new hacking technique that can allow
hackers to take over your wireless keyboard and secretly record every key
you press on it.
Dubbed KeySniffer, the hack is death for millions of wireless,
radio-based keyboards.
The KeySniffer vulnerability affects wireless keyboards from eight
different hardware manufacturers that use cheap transceiver chips
(non-Bluetooth chips) ñ a less secure, radio-based communication
protocol.
The issue with these chips is that they donít receive Bluetoothís
frequent security updates.
Moreover, the affected keyboards use unencrypted radio transmission.
This means anyone within 100 meters range of your computer and around
$15-$30 long-range radio dongle can intercept the communications between
affected wireless keyboards and your computer.
Eventually, this allows the attacker to collect secretly everything you
type, including your passwords, credit card numbers, personal messages
and even weird porn searches.
The keyboards from a surprising range of vendors, including Anker,
EagleTec, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Insignia, Kensington, Radio
Shack, and Toshiba, are vulnerable to KeySniffer.
This isnít the first time researchers have targeted wireless keyboards.
In 2015, a white hat hacker developed a cheap Arduino-based device,
dubbed KeySweeper, which covertly logs, decrypts and reports back all
keystrokes from Microsoft wireless keyboards.
Although KeySweeper was due to the weak encryption used by Microsoft, the
KeySniffer discovery is different as in this case; manufacturers are
actually making and selling wireless keyboards with no encryption at all.
One of the affected hardware makers, Kensington responded to this matter,
saying that only a single version of its keyboards was affected by
KeySniffer flaw and that a firmware update with AES encryption has been
released.
Since there are millions of people who do use one of the wireless
keyboards identified by Bastille Networks, it has been advised to you to
either go back to the wires or at least switch to Bluetooth.
The radio-based wireless keyboards and mice are a good target for hackers.
Two months back, the FBI also issued warning for private industry partners
to look out for highly stealthy keyloggers that quietly sniff passwords
and other input data from wireless keyboards.
Hacker Downloaded Vine's Entire Source Code. Hereís How...
Guess What? Someone just downloaded Twitterís Vine complete source code.
Vine is a short-form video sharing service where people can share
6-second-long looping video clips. Twitter acquired the service in
October 2012.
Indian Bug bounty hunter Avinash discovered a loophole in Vine that
allowed him to download a Docker image containing complete source code of
Vine without any hassle.
Launched in June 2014, Docker is a new open-source container technology
that makes it possible to get more apps running on the same old servers
and also very easy to package and ship programs. Nowadays, companies
are adopting Docker at a remarkable rate.
However, the Docker images used by the Vine, which was supposed to be
private, but actually was available publically online.
While searching for the vulnerabilities in Vine, Avinash used Censys.io
ñ an all new Hackerís Search Engine similar to Shodan ñ that daily scans
the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices.
Using Censys, Avinash found over 80 docker images, but he specifically
downloaded 'vinewww', due to the fact that the naming convention of this
image resembles www folder, which is generally used for the website on a
web server.
After the download was complete, he ran the docker image vinewww, and
Bingo!
The bug hunter was able to see the entire source code of Vine, its API
keys as well as third-party keys and secrets. "Even running the image
without any parameter, was letting me host a replica of VINE locally,"
he wrote.
The 23-year-old reported this blunder and demonstrated full exploitation
to Twitter on 31 March and the company rewarded him with $10,080 Bounty
award and fixed the issue within 5 minutes.
Avinash has been an active bug bounty hunter since 2015 and until now
has reported 19 vulnerabilities to Twitter.
PornHub Pays Hackers $20,000 To Find Zero-day Flaws in Its Website
Cyber attacks get bigger, smarter, more damaging.
P*rnHub launched its bug bounty program two months ago to encourage
hackers and bug bounty hunters to find and responsibly report flaws in
its services and get rewarded.
Now, it turns out that the world's most popular p*rn*graphy site has
paid its first bounty payout. But how much?
US $20,000!
Yes, P*rnHub has paid $20,000 bug bounty to a team of three researchers,
who gained Remote Code Execution (RCE) capability on its servers using a
zero-day vulnerability in PHP ñ the programming language that powers
P*rnHub's website.
The team of three researchers, Dario Weifler (@haxonaut), cutz and Ruslan
Habalov (@evonide), discovered two use-after-free vulnerabilities
(CVE-2016-5771/CVE-2016-5773) in PHP's garbage collection algorithm when
it interacts with other PHP objects.
One of those is PHP's unserialize function on the website that handles
data uploaded by users, like hot pictures, on multiple paths, including:
http://www.P*rnH*b.com/album_upload/create
http://www.P*rnH*b.com/uploading/photo
This zero-day flaw let the researchers reveal the address of the server's
POST data, allowing them to craft a malicious payload and thereby
executing rogue code on P*rnHub's server.
The hack was complicated and required a massive amount of work that
granted a "nice view of P*rnHubís /etc/passwd file," allowing the team to
execute commands and make PHP run malicious syscalls.
The PHP zero-day vulnerabilities affect all PHP versions of 5.3 and
higher, though the PHP project has fixed the issue.
The hack could have allowed the team to drop all P*rnHub data including
user information, track its users and observe behavior, disclose all source
code of co-hosted websites, pivot deeper into the network and gain root
privileges.
P*rnHub paid the team $20,000 for their incredible efforts, and the
Internet Bug Bounty HackerOne also awarded the researchers an additional
$2,000 for discovering the PHP zero-days.
The sophisticated hack on P*rnHub's servers that allowed the team to gain
full access to the entire P*rnHub database has been explained in two
highly detailed blog posts. You can head on to them for technicalities of
this attack.
Using VPN in the UAE? You'll Be Fined Up To $545,000 If Get Caught!
If you get caught using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) in Abu Dhabi,
Dubai and the broader of United Arab Emirates (UAE), you could face
temporary imprisonment and fines of up to $545,000 (~Dhs2 Million).
Yes, you heard that right.
Online Privacy is one of the biggest challenges in today's interconnected
world. The governments across the world have been found to be using the
Internet to track peopleís information and conduct mass surveillance.
Here VPNs and proxy servers come into Play.
VPNs and proxy servers are being used by many digital activists and
protesters, who are living under the most oppressive regimes, to protect
their online activity from prying eyes.
However, using VPN or proxy in the UAE could land you into great
difficulty.
The UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued new
sovereign laws for combating cyber crimes, which includes a regulation that
prohibits anyone, even travelers, in the UAE from using VPNs to secure
their web traffic from prying eyes.
According to the laws, anyone using a VPN or proxy server can be
imprisoned and fined between $136,000 and $545,000 (Dhs500,000 and Dhs2
Million).
The laws have already been issued by the UAE President and have now been
reported to the official government news service WAM.
For those unfamiliar, Virtual Private Network (VPN) securely routes your
Internet traffic through a distant connection, protecting your browsing,
hiding your location data and accessing restricted resources.
Nowadays, VPNs have become a valuable tool not just for large companies,
but also for individuals to dodge content restrictions as well as to
counter growing threat of cyber attacks.
The UAE's top two telecom companies, Etislat and Du, have banned VoIP -
the phone calling features in popular apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook
Messenger and SnapChat that deliver voice calls over the Internet for
free - from within the Gulf nation.
However, soon the vast number of UAE residents who use VPNs and proxies
within the UAE for years to bypass the VoIP ban could be in difficulty.
Out of two new laws issued last week, one lays out fines for anyone who
uses a VPN or proxy server, local news reports. The new law regarding VPNs
states:
"Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP
address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other
means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery,
shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than
Dhs500,000 and not exceeding Dhs2 million, or either of these two
penalties."
The new move is in favor of telecom companies for whom VoIP 'over-the-top'
apps have long been a major issue, as consumers no longer need to pay
international calling rates to speak to their loved ones.
Warning: Over 100 Tor Nodes Found Designed to Spy On Deep Web Users
Researchers have discovered over 100 malicious nodes on the Tor anonymity
network that are "misbehaving" and potentially spying on Dark Web sites
that use Tor to mask the identities of their operators.
Two researchers, Amirali Sanatinia and Guevara Noubir, from Northwestern
University, carried out an experiment on the Tor Network for 72 days and
discovered at least 110 malicious Tor Hidden Services Directories (HSDirs)
on the network.
The nodes, also known as the Tor hidden services directories (HSDirs) are
servers that act as introductory points and are configured to receive
traffic and direct users to hidden services (".onion" addresses).
In other words, the hidden services directory or HSDir is a crucial
element needed to mask the true IP address of users on the Tor Network.
But, hereís the issue:
HSDir can be set up by anyone.
"Tor's security and anonymity is based on the assumption that the large
majority of its relays are honest and do not misbehave," Noubir says.
"Particularly the privacy of the hidden services is dependent on the honest
operation of hidden services directories (HSDirs)."
The pair introduced around 1,500 honeypot servers, which they called
HOnions (Honey Onions), running a framework to expose "when a Tor relay
with HSDir capability has been modified to snoop into the hidden services
that it currently hosts."
After the experiment, conducted between February 12, 2016, and April 24,
2016, the researchers gathered and analyzed all the data, revealing they
identified at least 110 malicious HSDirs, most located in the US, Germany,
France, UK and the Netherlands.
Over 70 percent of these 110 malicious HSDirs were hosted on professional
cloud infrastructures, making it hard to learn who is behind the malicious
nodes.
Furthermore, 25 percent of all 110 malicious HSDirs functioned as both
HSDir and Exit nodes for Tor traffic, allowing the malicious relays to
view all unencrypted traffic, conduct man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks,
and snoop on Tor traffic.
The paper, "Honions: Towards Detection and Identification of Misbehaving
Tor HSDirs," [PDF] describes the researchers work in detail and will be
presented next week at the DEF CON security conference.
While most malicious nodes queried for data like server root paths,
description.json server files, and the Apache server status updates,
others carried out malicious attacks such as XSS, SQL injection attacks,
and path traversal attacks.
"We detected other attack vectors, such as SQL injection,...,
username enumeration in Drupal, cross-site scripting (XSS), path
traversal (looking for boot.ini and /etc/passwd), targeting Ruby on Rails
framework (rails/info/properties), and PHP Easter Eggs (?=PHP*-*-*-*-*),"
the research paper reads.
The researchers presented their findings on Friday at the Privacy
Enhancing Technologies Symposium in Germany.
The researchers say Tor Project is aware of the HSDir issue and is working
to identify and remove malicious HSDirs from the network.
"As far as we can tell, the misbehaving relays' goal in this case is
just to discover onion addresses that they wouldn't be able to learn other
waysóthey aren't able to identify the IP addresses of hosts or visitors to
Tor hidden services," the Tor Project says in its blog.
Although Tor Project is working to remove malicious HSDirs, the long-term
solution is a new design for hidden services: Mission: Montreal!
The code of the new design has been written, but a release date is still to
be finalized, as the project says, "Tor developers finished implementing
the protocol several months ago, and since then we've been reviewing,
auditing, and testing the code."
According to the Tor developers, the new design will deploy a distributed
random generation system that has "never been deployed before on the
Internet."
Attacks on Tor are nothing new for Tor Project. This research is the
latest indication for hidden services and Tor users that the network can
not ultimately guarantee their anonymity.
Last year, the FBI unmasked TOR users in an investigation of the worldís
largest dark web child pornography website 'Playpen' using its "Network
Investigative Technique" (NIT) that remains undisclosed to this day.
The Tor Project reportedly accused the FBI of paying the security
researchers of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) at least $1 Million to
disclose the technique they had discovered that could help them unmask Tor
users.
The researchers canceled their talk demonstrating a low-cost way to
de-anonymize Tor users at 2014ís Black Hat hacking conference with no
explanation. The project has since patched the issues that made the FBI's
exploit possible.
Recently, the MIT researchers have created Riffle ñ a new anonymity
network that promises to provide better security against situations when
hackers introduce rogue servers on the network, a technique to which TOR
is vulnerable, though it is a long way from becoming reality.
End of SMS-based 2-Factor Authentication; Yes, It's Insecure!
SMS-based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) has been declared insecure and
soon it might be a thing of the past.
Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA adds an extra step of entering a random
passcode sent to you via an SMS or call when you log in to your account as
an added layer of protection.
For example, if you have 2FA enabled on Gmail, the platform will send a
six-digit passcode to your mobile phone every time you sign in to your
account.
But, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has
released a new draft of its Digital Authentication Guideline that says
SMS-based two-factor authentication should be banned in future due to
security concerns.
Here's what the relevant paragraph of the latest DAG draft reads:
"If the out of band verification is to be made using an SMS message
on a public mobile telephone network, the verifier SHALL verify that the
pre-registered telephone number being used is actually associated with a
mobile network and not with a VoIP (or other software-based) service. It
then sends the SMS message to the pre-registered telephone number.
Changing the pre-registered telephone number SHALL NOT be possible without
two-factor authentication at the time of the change. OOB [Out of band
verification] using SMS is deprecated, and will no longer be allowed in
future releases of this guidance."
Due to rise in data breaches, two-factor authentication has become a
standard practice these days. Many services are offering SMS-based 2FA to
its consumers, just to ensure that hackers would need both their passwords
and mobile phone in order to hack their accounts.
However, NIST argues that SMS-based two-factor authentication is an
insecure process because it's too easy for anyone to obtain a phone and
the website operator has no way to verify whether the person who receives
the 2FA code is even the correct recipient.
In fact, SMS-based two-factor authentication is also vulnerable to
hijacking, if the individual uses a voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP)
service, which provides phone call service via a broadband internet
connection instead of a traditional network.
Since some VoIP services allow the hijacking of SMS messages, hackers
could still gain access to your accounts protected with SMS-based
two-factor authentication.
Also, the designing flaws in SS7 or Signalling System Number 7 also allows
an attacker to divert the SMS containing a one-time passcode (OTP) to
their own device, which lets the attacker hijack any service, including
Twitter, Facebook or Gmail, that uses SMS to send the secret code to reset
account password.
Even some devices leak secret 2FA code received via SMS on the lock
screen.
The DAG draft notes that two-factor authentication via a secure app or
biometrics, like a fingerprint scanner, may still be used to secure your
accounts.
"Therefore, the use of biometrics for authentication is supported,
with the following requirements and guidelines: Biometrics SHALL be used
with another authentication factor (something you know or something you
have)," the draft reads.
Moreover, Many tech companies such as Facebook and Google offer in-app
code generator as an alternative solution for two-factor authentication,
which does not rely on SMS or Network carrier.
Last month, Google made its two-factor authentication a lot easier and
faster by introducing a new method called Google Prompt that uses a
simple push notification where you just have to tap on your mobile phone
to approve login requests.
Why Instagram's Plans To Combat Online Harassment Won't Work on Twitter
Since the beginning of the internet, online harassment has been a
problem. We created this big, beautiful digital landscape that lets people
be completely unfiltered, and we all do different things with this
freedom. I, for example, use my platform to make sex memes and lightly neg
Silicon Valley billionaires. Others take this opportunity to become the
most scary-ass, shitbag, bigoted versions of themselves, hiding behind the
comfy anonymity of their computer screens, facing no real consequences for
threatening to rape, kill, and torture people.
Since it looks not great for social media companies to allow this on their
platformsónot addressing bad behavior condones it, according to the
liberal lamestream mediaócompanies are now scrambling to deal with their
massive abuse problems.
So on Friday, Instagram announced its plan to let users filter their
comment streams, which came as no surprise. The Facebook-owned,
image-sharing network plans to let each user build their own ìbanned words
listî to filter out comments on their posts, a smart move that is mindful
of the reality that everybodyís definition of harassment is different. The
Washington Post reported that users will also have the ability to turn off
comments for individual posts, while The Verge claims that Instagram has
yet to decide whether it will let all users disable comments.
This comes on the heels of some recent high profile harassment incidents
on Twitter, the nerdy debate team president to Instagramís hot popular
girl. In the past weeksóand months and yearsóthe microblogging network has
taken a lot of flack for the way it deals with abuse. Actress Leslie Jones
quit the network after being the victim of a horribly racist campaign,
initiated, in part, by Breitbart ìtechî blogger Milo Yiannopolous. After
receiving a flood of bad press about all this, Twitter fired back by
banning Yiannopolous from its site.
Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart blogger better known as @Nero on Twitter,
has been permanentlyÖ
The Verge wrote that ìInstagram is building the anti-harassment tools
Twitter wonít.î While Instagramís new plan is cleveróthe easiest way to
make your users happy is to give them the choice to use it however the
fu*k they want, which is what the new plan appears to doóthere is a
reason Twitter has a more difficult time dealing with these issues.
Instagram is a photo-sharing network. Its purpose is to allow users to
brag about their brunches with bae (f***ing murder me), cute dogs, fire
memes, and selfies with friends. Comments are a secondary feature on the
platform, so allowing each person to be in complete control of how people
respond to their posts makes sense. At its core, Instagram is pictures.
Without a comments section, the network would still flourish.
Instituting the same strict comment moderation policies on Twitter isnít
a possibility because Twitter is the comments section. ìTwitter in its
very structure creates a flawed kind of level playing field,î writes Davey
Alba at Wired. The network assigns the same inherent value to a tweet and
a reply. Turning off or filtering out words you donít like for your replies
would defeat the purpose of Twitter: screaming your hot takes and dumb
jokes into a chaotic void. Some voices are inevitably louder than others,
because of a sexy blue checkmark or lots of followers.
Iíve heard people argue Twitter needs abuse to survive, in part because
itís desperate for more monthly active usersóit has a paltry 310 million,
compared to Instagramís 500 million. But really, itís about what ultimate
purpose these networks serve and why people decide to use them. People log
on to Twitter to express their worldview, to make jokes and vent with
other users about both the personal and the political. Instagram is for
posting pictures. Thatís why this will work for them.
There is no ìone size fits allî method to fixing online abuse. While every
major social network should be working hard to combat the harassment their
platforms facilitate, at the end of the day, social media serves as an echo
chamber for peopleís shitty and offensive takes. The internet is full of
harassment because the world is full of harassment. Filtering out offensive
phrases in the comments section is placing a little bit of gauze onto an
open infected wound: itíll help the bleeding, but it wonít cure sh*t.
Microsoft Is Updating Windows 10 Again, in Its Latest Bid To Win You Back
A new update to Microsoft's Windows 10 is coming, but you're forgiven if
you didn't know. It turns out not many people are going to tell you.
Admittedly, there's not much to talk about. The list of refinements for
Microsoft's free paper-anniversary update to Win 10 can fit on a small
sheet with less than a dozen bullet points. The changes boil down to
features like making the digital pen more useful, new technology to detect
hacking attacks and the ability to log into a computer with a wearable
device instead of a password.
The company's Cortana voice-activated assistant will gain new features
too, each of which was designed to bring the technology closer to, as
Microsoft spokeswoman Laura Jones put it, "the same features of a
real-life personal assistant."
With this in mind, Microsoft and the PC industry are largely treating the
August 2 launch as just another Tuesday.
That's just fine to Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies
Associates, who said Microsoft is better off focusing its efforts on
convincing businesses to upgrade than teaching consumers - who largely
don't know what version of Windows they're running anyway - about an
incremental upgrade. "People are probably not very excited by it," he
said.
This is not the Microsoft you might remember from days of old, when the
company and its partners would plow considerable resources into informing
the world that a new version of Windows has arrived. In the years since
Windows 8's debut in 2012, when the company spent hundreds of millions of
dollars spent telling the world about it, Microsoft has signaled change.
Satya Nadella took the reins as Microsoft's new CEO two years ago, the
Windows leadership team has changed, and the company is now releasing its
widely used Word, Excel and PowerPoint Office software for phones and
tablets, not just PCs. It's even begun releasing new pet projects first,
like a computer intelligence-powered camera app for Apple's iPhone.
Windows is changing as well. The software behemoth is making good on its
promise to run Windows "as a service," meaning it will send refinements
and new features to PCs a couple of times a year. The result is our PCs
get new features quicker, and regular refinements of existing ones.
Microsoft also offered its latest Windows 10 software for free to nearly
everyone who bought a PC in the past decade, a break with its tradition
of charging hundreds of dollars for upgrades. That offer ended Friday.
Learning from the past
The PC makers say they're changing too. No longer focused on the
computer-equivalent of talking about horsepower all the time, companies
have settled on discussing the "experience" of using a computer. The new
software, called "Windows 10 Anniversary Update," it just a part of the
overall puzzle.
Dell has opted to market its computers in two ways: ads showcasing how good
they look, and others about what people do with them (like making the
Ghostbusters reboot). After all, why spend time marketing Windows features
every other computer maker offers? "HP has Cortana too," said Allison Dew,
head of marketing for Dell's PCs.
HP has also chosen not to directly market Windows or its features. "Our job
is testing the new PCs shipping with the anniversary release and testing
existing PCs," said Mike Nash, VP of customer experience and portfolio
strategy at HP.
To be sure, that's not a small job. In recent years, HP has stepped up its
communication with Microsoft in an effort to make sure its computers offer
the best experience running the latest Windows 10 features, not merely
support them.
As part of that effort, Nash, who used to work at Microsoft before leaving
for Amazon and eventually HP, identified the most frustrating problems
with computers and sought to fix them one-by-one. Among the changes, PCs
start up faster these days and battery life is getting better too.
Dell, for its part, is continuing its efforts to break with the perception
that it makes bare-bones ugly workhorse PCs. "The perception of Dell as
innovative is starting to turn around," Dew said.
It's unclear whether that's enough at a time when Microsoft and the PC
industry are clawing back respect from customers wooed by tablets,
impressed by Apple's Mac laptops, or frustrated by Windows 8.
"Is it going to stem the tide in terms of migration from the PC to mobile
devices? Absolutely not," said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner. Still, he
said, Windows Anniversary Update is worth the download.
=~=~=~=
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