Category: reader

CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video

vivaoporto sends word that in a rare case of an individual taking on large corporations for copyright infrigement, a New York man has sued news networks CNN and CBC after they took a video of his from YouTube and broadcast it on the air without licensing it. His video shows a winter storm in Buffalo generating huge amounts of lake effect snow. The man, Alfonzo Cutaia, decided to enable monetization on his video, selecting the “Standard YouTube License, ” “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of [the video]. All other rights are reserved to the copyright owner and standard copyright laws and exceptions apply.” Cutaia says the CBC used his video with their logo on it. The CBC confirmed this, and said they received a 10-day license from CNN, who had no legal right to do so. His lawsuit now accuses them both of “intentional and willful” copyright infringement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the article here:
CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video

Why Google Became Alphabet, Explained In 120 Seconds

 What are the pros and cons of Google reorganizing itself as Alphabet? Well, Larry gets to play with the future, Google can focus on more ambitious projects, and it could help the company retain top talent. But will the independent Alphabet company CEOs get frustrated relying on Larry for resources? Here’s everything you need to know in a quick two minute video. Read More

Read the article:
Why Google Became Alphabet, Explained In 120 Seconds

Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity

Why does Comcast Internet service have a 300GB monthly data cap? When asked that question today, Comcast’s vice president of Internet services, Jason Livingood, said that he doesn’t know, because setting the monthly data limit is a business decision, not one driven by technical necessity. “Cable Cares,” a parody account on Twitter, asked Livingood, “Serious question, why are Comcast’s caps set so low compared to the speeds they’re being sold at? 100mbps can hit 300GB in 6hr~.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity

My browser visited Drudgereport and all I got was this lousy malware

Millions of people visiting drudgereport.com, wunderground.com, and other popular websites were exposed to attacks that can surreptitiously hijack their computers, thanks to maliciously manipulated ads that exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and other browsing software, researchers said. The malvertising campaign worked by inserting malicious code into ads distributed by AdSpirit.de, a network that delivers ads to Drudge, Wunderground, and other third-party websites, according to a post published Thursday by researchers from security firm Malwarebytes. The ads, in turn, exploited security vulnerabilities in widely used browsers and browser plugins that install malware on end-user computers. The criminals behind the campaign previously carried out a similar attack on Yahoo’s ad network , exposing millions more people to the same drive-by attacks. Malvertising is a particularly pernicious form of attack because it can infect people who do nothing more than browse to a mainstream site. Depending on the exploit, it can silently hijack computers even when visitors don’t click on links. Some browser makers have responded by implementing so-called click-to-play mechanisms that don’t render Flash or Java content unless the end user actively permits the plugin to run on a particular site. Some users have resorted to ad blockers, which have the unfortunate side effect of depriving publishers of much-needed advertising revenue. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See original article:
My browser visited Drudgereport and all I got was this lousy malware

You can now restore deleted iCloud files, contacts and calendars

If you’ve ever accidently deleted a file in a cloud service (or worse had someone delete a shared file) you know that any restore feature is a god send. Apple recently launched its own file restore feature for iCloud.com users that resurrects files, contacts, calendars and reminders. The new feature is buried in the Advanced area within Settings and deleted files seem to be available for restore for up to 30 days. While grabbing old files before they disappear forever is a no brainer, iCloud’s restoring of calendar and contacts carries with them warnings that the restored data will overwrite the calendar and contact data currently on your devices. So you want to be careful before you start going back in time with abandon. Calendar restore is especially touchy. If you restore a calendar all your shared calendars will have to be shared again and events will be cancelled and invitations will be resent. This is really only for when something goes horribly wrong with your calendar or contacts and you need to get back to a previous version. If you do decide to restore a calendar or contact and everything goes haywire, all is not lost. The feature grabs a snapshot of your current data and you can just restore that. Filed under: Storage , Internet , Apple Comments Source: 9to5 Mac Tags: apple, cloud, iCloud

See the article here:
You can now restore deleted iCloud files, contacts and calendars

Former Employees Accuse Kaspersky Lab of Faking Malware

An anonymous reader writes: Reuters reports that two former employees of Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab faked malware to damage the reputations of their rivals. The alleged campaign targeted Microsoft, AVG, Avast, and others, tricking them into classifying harmless files as viruses. The ex-employees said co-founder Eugene Kaspersky ordered some of the attacks as retaliation for emulating his software. The company denied the allegations, and Kaspersky himself reiterated them, adding, “Such actions are unethical, dishonest and their legality is at least questionable.” The targeted companies had previously said somebody tried to induce false positives in their software, but they declined to comment on the new allegations. “In one technique, Kaspersky’s engineers would take an important piece of software commonly found in PCs and inject bad code into it so that the file looked like it was infected, the ex-employees said. They would send the doctored file anonymously to VirusTotal.” The alleged attacks went on for more than 10 years, peaking between 2009 and 2013. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Visit site:
Former Employees Accuse Kaspersky Lab of Faking Malware

A Century-Old Device May Be the Future of Electronics

There’s a new device in the works over at DARPA, the agency known for pushing the technological envelope with mind-controlled prosthetics and drone-launching submarines . This latest innovation? The vacuum tube. You might remember it from the first time humans invented it, way back in 1904. Read more…

See more here:
A Century-Old Device May Be the Future of Electronics

OwnStar car hacker can remotely unlock BMWs, Benz and Chrysler

Last month security researcher Samy Kamar announced a vulnerability that allowed him to remotely unlock OnStar-enabled GM cars . While that issue has been fixed, it looks like the same vulnerability found in OnStar is also present in BMW Remote, Mercedes’ mbrace and Chrysler’s Uconnect. Kumar told Engadget via email, “the issue itself is the same exact SSL certificate issue that affected OnStar/GM (which they’ve resolved two weeks ago). It was barely any tweaking of the original system — a few lines of code to add support per vehicle.” Uh oh. I’ve updated OwnStar to also unlock cars from and attack BMW Remote, Mercedes-Benz mbrace, and Chrysler Uconnect. https://t.co/qRsjtLnRlM — Samy Kamkar (@samykamkar) August 13, 2015 The OwnStar device intercepts communication between a vehicle and its companion app and sends that information — including login information — to Kamar who then has control of the vehicle via the app and can unlock it. If you’re feeling smug about your vehicle because Kamar hasn’t called it out, you might want to curb that. The SSL certificate issue that allows a person to log in to a vehicle is pretty widespread. “Unfortunately it’s prevalent among half the other mobile unlocking apps I’ve tested, ” Kamar said. A Chrysler spokesperson told Engadget, “Consumer safety and security is our highest priority.” And that it “supports the responsible disclosure and remediation of cyber security vulnerabilities. Consistent with our focus on consumer safety and security FCA US opposes irresponsible disclosure of explicit ‘how to’ information that can help criminals gain unauthorized access to vehicles and vehicle systems.” Kamar won’t be releasing the updated code for OwnStar for at least 30 days so the automakers have a chance to update their systems. But if you’re an automaker that hasn’t been called out by hackers or security researchers, you might want to check your systems anyways. We have contacted BMW and Mercedes Benz for this article and will update when they reply to our queries. Filed under: Misc , Transportation Comments Source: Samy Kamar Tags: BMW, Chrysler, MercedesBenz, OwnStar, SamyKamar, Security

Continue reading here:
OwnStar car hacker can remotely unlock BMWs, Benz and Chrysler

Facebook user gets away with nearly a full day of trolling Target commenters

Mike Melgaard 9 more images in gallery While Facebook facilitates plenty of interaction between big companies and their customers, its interface doesn’t scale incredibly well once company-page comments creep into the hundreds (or more) per day. In particular, “comments by users” on a company page are relegated to a sidebar that is pretty hard to parse. On Sunday, one intrepid Facebook user took advantage of that to sneak onto a company page and mess with commenters before the company could get wise to it—and lucky for us, he screencapped the whole thing. This week’s case came from American retailer Target, whose Facebook feed began to blow up with unhappy comments over the weekend after the company announced plans to remove gender-specific signs in departments such as Toys and Entertainment. The retailer didn’t get around to individually responding to commenters, but that didn’t stop a user from creating a new account on Sunday, giving it a Target-styled bullseye icon and pretending to be an official company spokesperson. That user, Scottsdale, Arizona, resident Mike Melgaard , went on to respond to at least 52 negative comments left on Target’s official Facebook page with an account named “Ask ForHelp,” but rarely were his responses helpful . Melgaard heaped on sarcastic smiley faces, grammatical criticisms, and jokes about doing away with all gender-specific labels at the store (including bathrooms and changing rooms). It’s hard to pick a favorite among the jokes—we’ve posted a few of its safe-for-work screencaps above—but our favorite might be when he got into a multiple-comment conversation with one complainer, which he ended with a phony exclamation that it was his “first day, and this is just really frustrating dealing with all of this!” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit link:
Facebook user gets away with nearly a full day of trolling Target commenters