Tag: california

Seattle announces its own gigabit Internet service

This map only shows some parts of the city that Seattle Gigabit aims to serve. Gigabit Seattle One day after Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, proclaimed Google Fiber was ” not an experiment ,” the Emerald City decided that it too wants in on some of that sweet gigabit speed . On Thursday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced  the city reached an agreement with Gigabit Squared and the University of Washington to bring 1 Gbps connections, taking advantage of the city’s own underused fiber. Seattle abandoned its plan for a municipal network last summer. A connected city wireless network, which would obviously be slower, is also in the works. “The plan will begin with a demonstration fiber project in twelve Seattle neighborhoods and includes wireless methods to deploy services more quickly to other areas,” the city wrote in an online statement . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Seattle announces its own gigabit Internet service

New Mac trojan tricks users into paying pricey cell phone fees

Doctor Web Researchers have discovered new Mac-based malware that’s designed to trick users into paying pricey subscription fees. Dubbed Trojan.SMSSend.3666, the trojan masquerades as “VKMusic 4 for Mac,” a name that closely resembles an app used to listen to music on a popular Russian social networking site, according to a report published on Wednesday by Russia-based antivirus provider Doctor Web. An installer prompts users for a cell phone number, purportedly as part of the registration process. Users who respond to a subsequent text message then receive a bill charged to their mobile account. “Trojans of this family used to plague Windows users, but Trojan.SMSSend.3666 targets owners of Apple computers,” Wednesday’s advisory stated. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Mac trojan tricks users into paying pricey cell phone fees

California law enforcement moves to buy drones, draws controversy

UAV set up for Wylye intersection. QinetiQ group Since Congress passed legislation in February ordering the Federal Aviation Administration to fast-track the approval of unmanned aerial vehicles—more colloquially known as drones—for use by law enforcement agencies, police and sheriff departments across the country have been scrambling to purchase the smaller, unarmed cousins of the Predator and Reaper drones which carry out daily sorties over Afghanistan, Yemen, and other theaters of operation. Alameda County in California has become one of the central battlegrounds over the introduction of drones to domestic police work. Earlier this year , Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern raised the hackles of local civil libertarians (and there are quite a few of those in the county, which encompasses Berkeley and Oakland) by declaring his intention to purchase a drone to assist with “emergency response.” According to Ahern, Alameda Sheriff’s personnel first tested a UAV in fall 2011 and gave a public demonstration of the machine’s usefulness for emergency responses during the Urban Shield SWAT competition in late October. Were Alameda County to purchase a drone, it would set a precedent in California, which has long been an innovator in law enforcement tactics: from SWAT teams (pioneered in Delano and Los Angeles) to anti-gang tactics such as civil injunctions. The first documented incident of a drone being used to make an arrest in the United States occurred in North Dakota in June 2011, when local police received assistance from an unarmed Predator B drone that belonged to US Customs and Border Protection . The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration have also reportedly used drones for domestic investigations. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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California law enforcement moves to buy drones, draws controversy

FCC and mobile carriers commit to nationwide text-to-911 by May 2014

It seems almost stupid that it’s nearly 2013 and we’re still unable to communicate with our emergency services in any way other than picking up the phone and calling them. We can certainly imagine situations where you’d want to be able to send a quick  text message  to local police. The US is a bit behind here—British mobile phone users have had access to  EmergencySMS since 2009. For years, we’ve been covering the slow ascent of text-to-911 . But now, the Federal Communications Commission says that the nation’s Big Four mobile carriers have agreed to “accelerate” text-to-911 capabilities for debut in 2013, with a nationwide deployment by May 15, 2014. “Building on text-to-911 deployments and trials that are already underway, this agreement will accelerate progress and ensure that over 90 percent of the nation’s wireless consumers, including millions of consumers with hearing or speech disabilities, will be able to access emergency services by sending a text message to 911, where local 911 call centers (known as a Public Safety Answering Points, or PSAPs) are also prepared to receive the texts,” the FCC said in a statement Thursday. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FCC and mobile carriers commit to nationwide text-to-911 by May 2014

iTunes (temporarily) serves porn images to Russian users

iTunes users in Russia got an eyeful on Wednesday (hat tip to Wired ) when a newly released version of the app displayed graphic images of porn instead of the foreign films they were expecting. The bug, reported to be present in the iTunes Store shown to users in Russia, is most likely the result of images that were linked to xxx.xxx. Security experts speculate it was an oversight by Apple developers, who put the address in as a placeholder and then forgot to revise it. The site happens to be the official search directory for domains that carry the .xxx top level domain, which was created last year. As a result, the iTunes section briefly featured a smorgasbord of pornographic images. Apple quickly fixed the mishap, but has yet to explain how it happened. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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iTunes (temporarily) serves porn images to Russian users

How Windows tech support scammers walked right into a trap set by the feds

Aurich Lawson Three weeks ago, Jack Friedman got a call from a man with an Indian accent claiming to be from the Windows technical team at Microsoft. Friedman, a Florida resident who is my friend Elliot’s grandfather, was told by “Nathan James” from Windows that he needed to renew his software protection license to keep his computer running smoothly. “He said I had a problem with my Microsoft system,” Friedman told me. “He said they had a deal for $99, they would straighten out my computer and it will be like brand new.” Friedman’s three-year-old Windows Vista computer was running a bit slow, as many PCs do. Friedman is often suspicious of unsolicited calls, but after talking with Nathan on the phone and exchanging e-mails, he says, “I figured he was a legitimate guy.” Friedman handed over his Capital One credit card number, and the “technician” used remote PC support software to root around his computer for a while, supposedly fixing whatever was wrong with it. “I could see my arrow going all over the place and clicking different things on my computer,” Friedman said. But that $99 Capital One credit card charge turned into a $495 wire transfer. Then Bank of America’s fraud department called Friedman, and said, “somebody is trying to get into your account.” Whoever it was had entered the wrong password multiple times, and as a precaution Friedman’s checking account was shut down. Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How Windows tech support scammers walked right into a trap set by the feds

Windows 8 takes 1 percent of Web usage as Internet Explorer gains

Enlarge Net Marketshare November saw Firefox climb back up above 20 percent, Internet Explorer grow further still, and Chrome apparently suffer a surprisingly sharp drop. Enlarge Net Marketshare Enlarge Net Marketshare Internet Explorer was up 0.63 points at 54.76 percent, its highest level since October 2011. Firefox was up 0.45 points to 20.44 percent, all but erasing the last six month’s losses. Chrome, surprisingly, was down a whopping 1.31 points to 17.24 percent, its lowest level since September 2011. We’ve asked Net Applications, the source we use for browser market share data, if it has made any change in its data collection that might account for this large Chrome drop. The company attributed this in part to the exclusion of Chrome’s pre-rendering data. It estimates that 11.1 percent of all Chrome pageviews are a result of pre-rendering (where Chrome renders pages that aren’t currently visible just in case the user wants to see them) and accordingly excluded this from its figures. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 8 takes 1 percent of Web usage as Internet Explorer gains

Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don’t know how to use

Nick Getting the agencies responsible for national security to communicate better was one of the main reasons the Department of Homeland Security was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But according to a recent report from the department’s inspector general, one aspect of this mission remains far from accomplished. DHS has spent $430 million over the past nine years to provide radios tuned to a common, secure channel to 123,000 employees across the country. Problem is, no one seems to know how to use them. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don’t know how to use

Romney campaign got its IT from Best Buy, Staples, and friends

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulhami/ Imagine you’re launching a company and only have six months to deliver a product. You face a competitor that has been in your industry four years longer than you with twice your staff and twice the budget. If you don’t make your deadline, you’re out of business. That, in a nutshell, was the situation facing the technology team for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. The Obama for America (OFA) organization had the advantage: it didn’t have to wade through the primary season first, allowing OFA’s technology team to focus on building an infrastructure. Based on an Ars analysis of the Romney campaign’s financial reports, Romney’s team had less to work with and passed the lion’s share of technology-focused spending directly to advertising companies and telemarketers. This left Team Romney’s tech squad with only a fraction of the budget for consulting, services, and infrastructure. So, the campaign did what a lot of small businesses would do: they went to Best Buy. Or more accurately, they went to Best Buy’s subsidiary, MindShift Technologies, a managed service provider that specializes in small and medium business consulting. And when they were in a pinch for tech help, they called Staples’ subsidiary ThriveNetworks and a collection of small consulting firms with links to Romney and the Republican Party. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Romney campaign got its IT from Best Buy, Staples, and friends

Apple’s stock price falls to lowest point in six months

On Friday Apple’s stock price closed at $527.68 per share , the lowest it’s been in six months . Since September, the company has lost about 25 percent of its value from its peak of $702 per share. So what’s gone wrong? Analysts say that Apple has had a string of misfortunes lately, ranging from missed  earnings estimates ,  management shakeups , missteps on mapping software , supply chain problems , and increased pressure from competitors. “I think it’s the perfect storm for Apple,” Van Baker, an analyst with Gartner Research, told Ars. “There’s a combination of a lot of things, and add to that, people are starting to think that Apple won’t bring out something that’s truly innovative every few years.” Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple’s stock price falls to lowest point in six months