Tag: california

Skylake for desktops: New socketed processors from Core i7 to Pentium

It’s been over two years since Intel’s entire lineup of socketed desktop processors got a true refresh. We got a smattering of high-end Broadwell chips this year and a small speed bump to the Haswell lineup last year , but it’s been a while since system builders and desktop buyers had much to be excited about. We’ve already looked at a couple of these CPUs, particularly the high-end unlocked i7-6700K. But today Intel is announcing (alongside many mobile CPUs) a more comprehensive desktop refresh that also encompasses mainstream dual- and quad-core CPUs, a few low-power options for smaller systems, and wallet-friendly chips from the Pentium line if you’re trying to build a modern system on a budget. Intel tells us that all of these should be available for purchase before the end of the year. Before we get into it, you should familiarize yourself with the features of the new 100-series chipsets , since we won’t be covering that ground again in this article. You should also know that ultra-low-end Skylake Celeron chips are coming, but won’t be released until early 2016. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Skylake for desktops: New socketed processors from Core i7 to Pentium

Sneaky adware caught accessing users’ Mac Keychain without permission

Last month, Ars chronicled a Mac app that brazenly exploited a then unpatched OS X vulnerability so the app could install itself without requiring people to enter system passwords. Now, researchers have found the same highly questionable installer is accessing people’s Mac keychain without permission. The adware taking these liberties is distributed by Israel-based Genieo Innovation, a company that’s long been known to push adware and other unwanted apps . According to researchers at Malwarebytes, the Genieo installer automatically accesses a list of Safari extensions  that, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, is stashed inside the Mac Keychain  alongside passwords for iCloud, Gmail, and other important accounts. Genieo acquires this access by very briefly displaying a message asking for permission to open the Safari extensions and then automatically clicking the accompanying OK button before a user has time to respond or possibly even notice what’s taking place. With that, Genieo installs an extension known as Leperdvil. The following three-second video captures the entire thing: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sneaky adware caught accessing users’ Mac Keychain without permission

DNA used as velcro to form cells into 3D structures

One of the great hopes for stem cells is that they’ll allow us to eventually replace injured or damaged tissues. But there’s a big gap between the cells of stem cells and anything resembling an organ. Organs are complex, three-dimensional structures populated by multiple cell types. Getting a bunch of cells to form these structures is a significant challenge. One idea has been to use 3D printers. With multiple print-heads and a protein polymer gel, it’s possible to construct a rough approximation of the structure of a mature organ. Now, a team of California scientists has come up with an interesting alternative: use DNA as a sort of cellular velcro to get cells to stick to each other and form a complex, three-dimensional tissue. The basic idea is pretty simple. If they have the appropriate sequences, individual DNA molecules will pair up to form a double helix. If you coat one cell type with a short DNA sequence and then a second cell type with the sequence’s partner, the two cells will stick to each other. And it’s possible to coat a cell’s surface with DNA simply by adding a lipid molecule to the end of the DNA strand. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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DNA used as velcro to form cells into 3D structures

Wikipedia blocks hundreds of linked accounts for suspect editing

The Wikimedia Foundation, the host of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, said late Monday that it has suspended 381 accounts or “socks” that it claims accepted or charged money “to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation.” The foundation said that it believed that activity from so-called “sockpuppet” accounts “were perpetrated by one coordinated group.” The foundation said that volunteer editors spent weeks investigating what it said was a violation of its terms of use . “The editors issued these blocks as part of their commitment to ensuring Wikipedia is an accurate, reliable, and neutral knowledge resource for everyone,” Wikimedia said in a statement. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Wikipedia blocks hundreds of linked accounts for suspect editing

City of Chicago sues red light camera maker Redflex for more than $300 million

Red light cameras in Arizona. Robert Couse-Baker The city of Chicago has joined a lawsuit against Redflex, an Australian company that sold the city red light cameras starting in 2003. Redflex announced the legal action in a statement to stockholders  (PDF) today, sending the company’s already-suffering stock down to $0.17 per share. The suit alleges  (PDF) that Redflex bribed a former Department of Transportation manager, John Bills, with $2 million in kickbacks to secure contracts with the city. The debacle has already resulted in corruption convictions, and the company’s CEO, Karen Finley, pleaded guilty to bribery earlier this year. Beyond these issues, Redflex cameras have been implicated in faulty ticketing accusations , with the company’s cameras allegedly issuing some 13,000 undeserved tickets to motorists in 2014. Redflex cameras have reportedly raised more than $500 million in traffic fines since 2003, according to the Chicago Tribune . Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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City of Chicago sues red light camera maker Redflex for more than $300 million

Six UK teens arrested for being “customers” of Lizard Squad’s DDoS service

On August 28, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency announced the arrest of six teenagers, ranging in age from 15 to 18, for launching distributed denial of service attacks against multiple websites. The attacks were carried out using an attack tool created by Lizard Squad , the group behind denial of service attacks on gaming networks and the 8Chan imageboard site last winter. Called Lizard Stresser, the tool exploited compromised home routers, using them as a robot army against targeted sites and services. The six arrested “are suspected of maliciously deploying Lizard Stresser, having bought the tool using alternative payment services such as Bitcoin in a bid to remain anonymous,” an NCA spokesperson wrote in an official statement on the case. “Organizations believed to have been targeted by the suspects include a leading national newspaper, a school, gaming companies, and a number of online retailers.” Those sites, according to a source that spoke with Bloomberg Business , included Microsoft’s Xbox Live, Sony’s Playstation network, and Amazon.com. The timing of the attacks wasn’t mentioned by NCA. However, the user database of Lizard Stresser was leaked in January of this year. The NCA has been investigating individuals listed in the database and has identified a substantial number of them living in the UK. “Officers are also visiting approximately 50 addresses linked to individuals registered on the Lizard Stresser website, but who are not currently believed to have carried out attacks,” the NCA spokesperson noted. “A third of the individuals identified are under the age of 20, and the activity forms part of the NCA’s wider work to address younger people at risk of entering into serious forms of cyber crime.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Six UK teens arrested for being “customers” of Lizard Squad’s DDoS service

Newer Android Wear Watches Now Work On iOS

 More than a year after the launch of the first Android Wear watches, Google is now finally bringing iOS support to its smartwatch platform with the launch of its Android Wear mobile app in Apple’s App Store today. This probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given that Huawei spoiled this launch by announcing iOS support for its upcoming Android Wear watch last week, … Read More

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Newer Android Wear Watches Now Work On iOS

CenturyLink Takes $3B In Subsidies For Building Out Rural Broadband

New submitter club77er writes with a link to a DSL Reports article outlining some hefty subsidies (about $3 billion, all told) that CenturyLink has signed up to receive, in exchange for expanding its coverage to areas considered underserved: According to the CenturyLink announcement, the telco will take $500 million a year for six years from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Connect America Fund (CAF). In exchange, it will expand broadband to approximately 1.2 million rural households and businesses in 33 states. While the FCC now defines broadband as 25 Mbps down, these subsidies require that the deployed services be able to provide speeds of at least 10 Mbps down. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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CenturyLink Takes $3B In Subsidies For Building Out Rural Broadband

Uber hires researchers who hacked Chrysler Uconnect

Less than a month after their command performances at the Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas, security researchers Charlie Miller (late of Twitter) and Chris Valasek (formerly of the security firm IOActive) have been poached by Uber—which ironically had security flaws in its own in-car technology exposed by University of California-San Diego researchers this month as well. According to a report from Reuters , Uber will announce the hiring of Miller and Valasek on Monday. Miller and Valasek’s research on Fiat Chrysler’s Uconnect system  exposed vulnerabilities in the design of the system that allowed them to take remote control of many of the systems of a targeted vehicle—as they demonstrated by shutting down the throttle of a 2014 Jeep Cherokee while it was being driven on an interstate by Wired reporter Andy Greenberg . The research, coordinated with Fiat Chrysler, led to the distribution of a fix by Chrysler and blocking of vulnerable ports by Sprint, the mobile carrier providing the network for Uconnect. But the attention garnered by the video led to Chrysler announcing a recall of 1.4 million vehicles to accelerate the installation of the software patches. Uber announced grants to the University of Arizona to fund autonomous vehicle technology earlier this week. The hiring of Miller and Valasek is likely part of an effort to ensure that Uber’s autonomous vehicle development work remains secure and may be partially prompted by the findings of the UCSD researchers Ian Foster, Andrew Prudhomme, Karl Koscher, and Stefan Savage. The group presented research at the Usenix Security conference two weeks ago that showed a telematics device used by Uber and some auto insurers could be compromised to take remote control of systems in a similar fashion to Miller and Valasek’s hack of the Jeep. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Uber hires researchers who hacked Chrysler Uconnect

Coin Unveils The Next Generation Of Its All-In-One Credit Card

 Coin, the device that wanted to replace all of your credit cards with a… card, is prepped and ready to dig into the future with Coin 2.0. Coin 2.0 uses NFC and is EMV-compatible so that users can not only tap to pay, the way you would with Apple Pay on an iPhone, but can integrate their chip-and-pin cards to the device. The original Coin, debuted in November 2013 on Kickstarter, … Read More

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Coin Unveils The Next Generation Of Its All-In-One Credit Card