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NSA, GHCQ Implicated In SIM Encryption Hack

First time accepted submitter BlacKSacrificE writes Australian carriers are bracing for a mass recall after it was revealed that a Dutch SIM card manufacturer Gemalto was penetrated by the GCHQ and the NSA in an alleged theft of encryption keys, allowing unfettered access to voice and text communications. The incident is suspected to have happened in 2010 and 2011 and seems to be a result of social engineering against employees, and was revealed by yet another Snowden document. Telstra, Vodafone and Optus have all stated they are waiting for further information from Gemalto before deciding a course of action. Gemalto said in a press release that they “cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication” and are continuing internal investigations, but considering Gemalto provides around 2 billion SIM cards to some 450 carriers across the globe (all of which use the same GSM encryption standard) the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NSA, GHCQ Implicated In SIM Encryption Hack

Only Twice Have Nations Banned a Weapon Before It Was Used; They May Do It Again

Lasrick writes: Seth Baum reports on international efforts to ban ‘killer robots’ before they are used. China, Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are apparently developing precursor technology. “Fully autonomous weapons are not unambiguously bad. They can reduce burdens on soldiers. Already, military robots are saving many service members’ lives, for example by neutralizing improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq. The more capabilities military robots have, the more they can keep soldiers from harm. They may also be able to complete missions that soldiers and non-autonomous weapons cannot.” But Baum, who founded the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, goes on to outline the potential downsides, and there are quite a few. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Only Twice Have Nations Banned a Weapon Before It Was Used; They May Do It Again

Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair"

journovampire writes with this story about how much artists make on Spotify. “Pandora founder Tim Westergren has claimed that the company is paying out ‘very fair’ sums to artists, despite its per-stream royalty weighing in at just one sixth of Spotify’s. The digital personalized radio platform has previously gone on-record as saying that it pays music rights-holders approximately $0.0014 for each play of their tracks: Westergren blogged in 2013 that Pandora pays ‘around $1, 370 for a million spins’. That’s around 80% smaller than Spotify’s per-stream payout, which officially stands somewhere between $0.006 and $0.0084.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair"

Intel forges ahead to 10nm, will move away from silicon at 7nm

This week at the 2015 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Intel will provide an update on its new 10nm manufacturing process and new research on how it’s maintaining the march of Moore’s law to 7nm and beyond. The first chips based on Intel’s new 10nm process are expected in late 2016/early 2017, and the company says it’s hoping to avoid the delays that haunted the belabored release of 14nm Broadwell. To hit 7nm, Intel says new materials will be required—as in, it looks like 10nm will finally be the end of the road for silicon. The most likely replacement for silicon is a III-V semiconductor such as indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), though Intel hasn’t provided any specific details yet. ISSCC 2015, being held in San Francisco this week, is where all the big players in silicon (Intel, Samsung, TSMC, IBM, etc.) meet to talk about their latest manufacturing processes and how they might go about overcoming the current barriers to smaller, faster, and denser computer chips. It’s not unusual for Intel to have one of the largest presences at the conference, and this year is no different: it will be presenting three papers on its 14nm technology, hosting sessions on a variety of topics, and Mark Bohr—one of Intel’s most esteemed researchers—will be sitting on a panel that discusses Moore’s law beyond 10nm. The steady march of new CMOS processes driving ever smaller transistors. Intel Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel forges ahead to 10nm, will move away from silicon at 7nm

Linux Kernel Switching To Linux v4.0, Coming With Many New Addons

An anonymous reader writes Following polling on Linus Torvald’s Google+ page, he’s decided to make the next kernel version Linux 4.0 rather than Linux 3.20. Linux 4.0 is going to bring many big improvements besides the version bump with there being live kernel patching, pNFS block server support, VirtIO 1.0, IBM z13 mainframe support, new ARM SoC support, and many new hardware drivers and general improvements. Linux 4.0 is codenamed “Hurr durr I’ma sheep.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux Kernel Switching To Linux v4.0, Coming With Many New Addons

Al-Shabaab Video Threat Means Heightened Security at Mall of America

Reuters and other news outlets carry the news that the Minnesota’s gigantic Mall of America is under heightened security after a video threat posted online by terrorist group Al-Shabaab. Also at CNN and CBS News. According to Reuters’ version of the story: The U.S. homeland security chief said on Sunday he takes seriously a threat made by Somali-based Islamist militants against shopping malls, including the Mall of America in Minnesota, and urged people going there to be careful. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was reacting to a video released by al Shabaab appearing to call for attacks on Western shopping areas, specifically mentioning Mall of America, the West Edmonton Mall in Canada and London’s Oxford Street. … Mall officials issued a statement about the threat made by the group, saying they are monitoring events with the help of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. “Mall of America has implemented extra security precautions, some may be noticeable to guests, and others won’t be, ” the officials said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Al-Shabaab Video Threat Means Heightened Security at Mall of America

If you skipped Windows 8, here’s some new stuff you get with Windows 10

It’s a shame that Windows 8’s interface was so divisive. The UI dominated the conversation around the OS to the extent that its other, subtler changes got buried. People who stuck with Windows 7 never saw these updates at all. Windows 10, as we’ve covered, is Microsoft’s effort to repackage Windows 8’s improvements in a way that will be more appealing to Windows 7 loyalists. As if to drive that point home, Microsoft is giving current Windows 7 users a whole year after launch to hop on the Windows 10 train at no charge . Microsoft has made a bunch of changes to Windows in the last two years that have nothing to do with the new user interface. This list doesn’t have anything new on it, but if you’re still running Windows 7 and you decide to upgrade to Windows 10, it’ll be new to you, and you’ll get to use it all without having to figure out how to live life without a Start menu. (If you’re interested in seeing some of the UI stuff that you’ll be sidestepping, ZDNet’s Ed Bott recently published this piece about Windows 8 features that got cut from Windows 10). Read 27 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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If you skipped Windows 8, here’s some new stuff you get with Windows 10

Verizon will speed up San Francisco data by installing ‘small cells’

Some carriers use “small cells” to boost their coverage, because these relatively tiny transmitters are 1.) a lot cheaper, and 2.) more inconspicuous than their traditional counterparts. Verizon is one of those carriers — in fact, it’s planning to install 400 small cells in certain high-traffic areas in San Francisco starting this second quarter. These devices (designed by Ericsson) will be integrated into street lamps and will generally blend into the surroundings within SF’s Financial District, SOMA, Market Street and North Beach neighborhoods. The cells do have a limitation, though: each one can only cover an area that has a 250 to 500-foot radius. That’s why for this particular rollout, Verizon plans to lay down the structure for a dense network made up of numerous small cells covering some parts of the city only. Verizon’s VP of entertainment and tech policy, Eric Reed, told GigaOm that San Francisco is a great place to prove the technology works: “Verizon’s customers, ” he said, “scarf down mobile data there like few other places in the country.” The company is expecting its LTE network speeds in those locations to be around three times faster once the installation is done by the end of 2015. According to Recode , Big Red wants all 400 units up and running before the year ends in preparation for Super Bowl 50 in February 2016, which might bring as many as a million visitors to the city. Not on Verizon? If you’re on AT&T, don’t worry — by then, Ma Bell could also be done installing over 40, 000 small cells across the United States to beef up its own coverage. [Image credit: Jon Fingas/Flickr ] Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Mobile , Verizon Comments Via: GigaOm

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Verizon will speed up San Francisco data by installing ‘small cells’

Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan

reifman (786887) writes “Last June, my post “Yes, You Can Spend $750 in International Data Roaming in One Minute on AT&T” was slashdotted and this led to T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeting ‘how crappy @ATT is’ and welcoming me to the fold. Unfortunately, now it’s TMobile that’s having trouble tracking data; it seems to be related to the rollout of their new DataStash promotion. Just like AT&T, they’re blaming the customer. Here are the ten lies T-Mobile told me about my data usage today.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan

Save yourself from your OEM’s bad decisions with a clean install of Windows 8.1

Crapware is a fact of life for Windows PC buyers. Most of the time, it’s relatively harmless: limited anti-virus subscriptions you don’t want, WildTangent games, and demoware you don’t need, and Microsoft Office demos you can’t use without spending more money. Sometimes, as we’ve seen with today’s “Superfish” news , it can be actively harmful, putting users’ security at risk. With some effort, this unwanted and unsafe software can usually be uninstalled. If you have an affected Lenovo PC, we’ve outlined the multi-step process for removing the software and the root certificate here . If you want to be sure that everything is completely removed (and if you’re willing to do the work), the more comprehensive solution is to completely reinstall Windows yourself. It’s not for everyone, but there are benefits to doing it this way—you get a totally clean PC that you’re in full control over. Read 38 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Save yourself from your OEM’s bad decisions with a clean install of Windows 8.1