california – Page 20

FTC Takes D-Link To Court Citing Lax Product Security, Privacy Perils

Reader coondoggie writes: The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against network equipment vendor D-Link saying inadequate security in the company’s wireless routers and Internet cameras left consumers open to hackers and privacy violations. The FTC, in a complaint filed in the Northern District of California charged that “D-Link failed to take reasonable steps to secure its routers and Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, potentially compromising sensitive consumer information, including live video and audio feeds from D-Link IP cameras.” For its part, D-Link Systems said it “is aware of the complaint filed by the FTC.” According to the FTC’s complaint, D-Link promoted the security of its routers on the company’s website, which included materials headlined “Easy to secure” and “Advance network security.” But despite the claims made by D-Link, the FTC alleged, the company failed to take steps to address well-known and easily preventable security flaws such as “hard-coded” login credentials integrated into D-Link camera software — such as the username âoeguestâ and the password âoeguestâ — that could allow unauthorized access to the cameras’ live feed, etc. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FTC Takes D-Link To Court Citing Lax Product Security, Privacy Perils

Two India-based call center employees blew whistle on massive phone scam

Enlarge / This is a call center in New Dehli, India, not the Phoenix 007 operation that was busted. (credit: ILO ) Last year’s unraveling of the massive India-based telephone scam ring may have been helped by a phone call to a Federal Trade Commission lawyer. According to a Tuesday report in The New York Times , the bust seemingly was aided by the efforts of two teenage employees from one of the companies. The pair blew the whistle on their former employer, the Phoenix 007 call center that’s based outside of Mumbai. The workers reached Betsy Broder of the FTC after being shuffled from the Internal Revenue Service’s main switchboard. Indian and American authorities believe that this call center, along with several others, was part of a massive ring to call Americans in the United States and trick them into ponying up thousands of dollars in fraudulent fees. This criminal operation is believed to have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Automatic Brakes Stopped Berlin Truck During Christmas Market Attack

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deutsche Welle: The truck that plowed into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12, came to a halt due an automatic braking system, according to German media reports on Wednesday. The automatic braking system potentially saved the lives of many more people in the recent terrorist attack. An investigation by newspaper “Suddeutsche Zeitung” and broadcasters “NDR” and “WDR” found the Scania R 450 semi-trailer stopped after between 70 and 80 meters (250 feet). The system was reportedly engaged after sensing a collision. Previous reports speculated that the truck had driven erratically and stopped due to the heroic actions of the truck’s Polish driver, who lay fatally wounded in the cabin. In 2012 the European Union adopted regulations requiring all new trucks exceeding 3, 500 kilograms be fitted with advanced emergency braking systems. The systems initially alert drivers and then take evasive action. The regulation was adopted to reduce the number of rear end collisions by trucks. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Windows 10 Getting a Game Mode That Would Improve Game Performance – Report

Microsoft may have plans to improve gaming experience on Windows 10. The speculation comes after long time watcher @h0x0d found a new “gamemode.dll” in the latest Windows 10 developer build, reports GameSpot. The feature appears to allow Windows 10 to adjust CPU and GPU resources when running a game to allocate more power for the game that’s running instead of toward any background apps. From the article: The feature will reportedly launch as part of the Creators update and will be enabled for Windows Insider users soon. What’s unclear is exactly which games this is compatible with. It’s possible it could be limited to only to those downloaded from the Windows Store, or it might be much more far-reaching. We should know more once Windows Insiders testers get their hands on the feature. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Getting a Game Mode That Would Improve Game Performance – Report

Ford’s new self-driving Fusion almost looks like a regular car

Ford has shown the first images of its new self-driving Fusion Hybrid with a more powerful computer and improved, better-integrated sensors. It uses an upgraded version of the Fusion Hybrid platform, bolstered by self-driving hardware, a large new computer and electrical controls that “are close to production-ready, ” the company said in a press release . It also packs lower-profile LIDAR units that appear to be the ” Puck ” models from Velodyne, a company in which it recently invested $150 million . Cameras and other bits are smoothly built into the roof, making the hybrid less “hey, look at me, I’m a self-driving car” than other models. By contrast, the last autonomous Fusion model used since 2013 featured no less than four bulky LIDAR units. Ford was able to cut the number to two, while still giving the vehicle wider and better targeted vision. The hefty computer installed in the trunk (see the video, below) can process a terabyte of data in an hour to do navigation, object recognition, AI and computer vision, among other chores. The new Fusion is a step towards a “high-volume, fully autonomous SAE level 4-capable vehicle by 2021, ” a goal Ford revealed earlier this year. (SAE level-4 cars are fully autonomous in set geographic zones like college campuses, while level 5 means a vehicle can drive anywhere by itself.) The automaker plans to build 90 of the vehicles and test them in Arizona, California and Michigan over the next few years. Source: Ford

Windows 10 For PCs Build 14997 Leaks Online

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft had last week said that it wouldn’t be releasing a new Windows 10 build for insiders on Fast ring this year. But the supposed build has leaked online. The build 14997 contains a few new features, such as a refreshed Settings app, theme support from the Store (you might recall that with 14986, you could download them from the Store, but had to install them manually), a number of Edge improvements such as tab expansion, blue light reduction features, and more. Since it’s a leaked build, we would suggest treading carefully before downloading it. You might just want to avoid it until it’s available from the official channel. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 For PCs Build 14997 Leaks Online

Nigerian Man Charged in Hacking of Los Angeles County Emails

A ‘mere’ 10.8% phishing success rate has forced Los Angeles County to notify approximately 756, 000 individuals that their personal information may have been compromised. The attack occurred on May 13, 2016 when 1, 000 County employees received phishing emails. 108 employees were successfully phished. A Nigerian national has been charged in connection with the hack. From a report on The Guardian: Many large organizations would welcome a 10% success rate in their internal anti-phishing training sessions, with 30% and above being common. The 2016 Verizon DBIR suggests that 30% of all phishing emails are opened. The high number of individuals affected from a relatively low number of successes in LA County demonstrates how dangerous phishing attacks can be. The nature of the potentially compromised information is also concerning. “That information may have included first and last names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license or state identification numbers, payment card information, bank account information, home addresses, phone numbers, and/or medical information, such as Medi-Cal or insurance carrier identification numbers, diagnosis, treatment history, or medical record numbers, ” said the County of Los Angeles Chief Executive Office in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nigerian Man Charged in Hacking of Los Angeles County Emails

Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1

Google is rolling out Android 7.1.1 for Pixel and Nexus smartphones, including the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus Player, Pixel C and General Mobile 4G (Android One). You can download it over-the-air when it becomes available “over the next several weeks” or flash it yourself. Engadget details some of the new features found in Android 7.1.1: As for what you can find from a feature perspective, Google has added support for its “image keyboard” that lets you easily find and send pictures and GIFs without leaving your messaging app of choice. Google says it’ll work inside of Hangouts, Allo, and the default Messaging app. Ironically enough, the feature has been available in the Gboard iOS keyboard that Google launched in the spring, but it’s good to see it coming to more Android phones now. Android 7.1.1 also includes Google’s latest set of more diverse emoji, specifically focused on showing a “wider range of professions” for women. And it also contains the excellent app shortcut feature that originally launched on the Pixel — if you press and hold on an app’s icon, a sub-menu of shortcuts will show up. You’ll be able to quickly send a message to a specific contact or navigate to a saved location using these shortcuts, for example. They’re very much like the “force touch” shortcuts found on the iPhone, but that doesn’t make them any less useful. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1

Ancient Bug Discovered in the Heart of Antarctica

Insects aren’t the first thing that come to mind when we think of Antarctica, but as the discovery of a rare Antarctic beetle shows, this frozen continent was quite different millions of years ago. Read more…

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Ancient Bug Discovered in the Heart of Antarctica

VLC Media Player Previews 360-degree Video Support

VideoLAN has released a technical preview of VLC Media Player 3.0 with 360-degree video support. The new build handles videos following the Spatial Video format, and photos and panoramas following the Spherical spec (the official test page has sample files). From an article on SoftwareCrew:The files play back just like any other video, but you can now left-click and drag within the screen or use the numeric keypad arrows to look around. VideoLAN says there are multiple display modes — Zoom, Little Planet and Reverse Little Planet — although we couldn’t immediately see how they were activated. This initial release is only available for Windows and Mac, but eventually 360-degree support will arrive for Android, iOS and Xbox One, with VR headset support likely to arrive in 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken May

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