data – Page 8 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

DOJ and 4 states want $24 billion in fines from Dish Network for telemarketing

Four states and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) are seeking up to $24 billion in fines from Dish Network after a judge ruled that the company and its contractors made more than 55 million illegal telemarketing calls using recorded messages and phoning people on do-not-call lists. The trial to decide whether Dish was aware that it was breaking the law and whether the company is responsible for calls made by its subcontractors began yesterday. A spokesperson for Dish, which is based outside of Denver, Colorado, noted in an e-mail to Ars that “Most of the Dish calls complained about took place almost ten years ago and Dish has continued to improve its already compliant procedures.” The spokesperson added that in 2008, the satellite TV and Internet provider hired Possible Now, a company that specializes in marketing and regulatory compliance, to make sure that Dish’s marketing practices were legal. According to Dish, Possible Now gave the company a passing grade on compliance with federal regulatory rules. However, the DOJ as well as Ohio, Illinois, California, and North Carolina say that Dish disregarded federal laws on call etiquette. US lawyers are asking for $900 million in civil penalties, and the four states are asking for $23.5 billion in fines, according to the Denver Post . “Laws against phoning people on do-not-call lists and using recorded messages allow penalties of up to $16,000 per violation,” the Post added. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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DOJ and 4 states want $24 billion in fines from Dish Network for telemarketing

Apple releases OS X 10.11.3 with fixes for bugs and security [Updated]

(credit: Andrew Cunningham) Today Apple released OS X 10.11.3, the third major update for El Capitan since the operating system was released to the public in September. You can grab it now through the Update tab of the Mac App Store, or you can manually download and install the Combo Update version from Apple’s support site. As with the iOS 9.2.1 update, Apple’s release notes are unusually light, and the more detailed release notes aren’t available on Apple’s support site as of this writing (they will be posted here when they’re ready). The security release notes detail a handful of fixes for El Capitan and one for the still-supported Mavericks and Yosemite, most of which have been resolved thanks to memory handling improvements. Update : The general release notes are live. 10.11.3 fixes a pair of edge cases: One where a Mac connected to a 4K display wouldn’t wake from sleep, and one where “third-party .pkg file receipts stored in /var/db/receipts are now retained when upgrading from OS X Yosemite.” Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases OS X 10.11.3 with fixes for bugs and security [Updated]

David Bowie’s ISP, as remembered by the guy who helped create “BowieNet”

David Bowie. (credit: davidbowie.com ) When David Bowie became an Internet service provider in 1998, a man named Ron Roy helped him start the business. Now, three days after the legendary musician’s death at age 69, we’ve interviewed Roy about how “BowieNet” came to life and why it was so important to the artist. “David was tremendously involved from day one,” Roy told Ars via e-mail. Roy appeared in some of the first press releases that followed BowieNet’s US and UK launches; we tracked him down at his current business, Wines That Rock . It was a lot easier to become an Internet service provider in 1998 than it is today. Instead of the enormous expense of deploying fiber or cable throughout a city, ISPs could spring to life by selling dial-up connections to anyone with a telephone line. BowieNet’s dial-up service sold full access to the Internet for $19.95 a month (or £10.00 in the UK), but it was also a fan club that provided exclusive access to David Bowie content such as live video feeds from his studio. Customers who already had a dial-up Internet provider and didn’t want to switch could buy access to BowieNet content separately for $5.95 a month. BowieNet had about 100,000 customers at its peak, Roy said. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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David Bowie’s ISP, as remembered by the guy who helped create “BowieNet”

Et tu, Fortinet? Hard-coded password raises new backdoor eavesdropping fears

(credit: Fortinet) Less than a month after Juniper Network officials disclosed an unauthorized backdoor in the company’s NetScreen line of firewalls , researchers have uncovered highly suspicious code in older software from Juniper competitor Fortinet. The suspicious code contains a challenge-and-response authentication routine for logging into servers with the secure shell (SSH) protocol . Researchers were able to unearth a hard-coded password of “FGTAbc11*xy+Qqz27” (not including the quotation marks) after reviewing this exploit code posted online on Saturday . On Tuesday, a researcher posted this screenshot purporting to show someone using the exploit to gain remote access to a server running Fortinet’s FortiOS software. This exploit code provides unauthorized SSH access to devices running older versions of FortiOS. (credit: Full Disclosure mailing list ) This partially redacted screenshot purports to show the exploit in action. (credit: @dailydavedavids ) Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, a security researcher who helped uncover the innerworkings of the Juniper backdoor , took to Twitter on Tuesday and repeatedly referred to the custom SSH authentication as a “backdoor.” In one specific post , he confirmed he was able to make it work as reported on older versions of Fortinet’s FortiOS. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Et tu, Fortinet? Hard-coded password raises new backdoor eavesdropping fears

Scientists discover 2,100-year-old stash of “fine plucked” tea

Chunks of ancient tea are on the left, and the tomb where they were excavated near Xi’an is on the right. (credit: Houyuan Lu) Researchers in China have positively identified a block of ancient vegetable matter as tiny tea buds that were lovingly tucked away in Han Yangling Mausoleum, a sumptuous tomb north of Xi’an. The city Xi’an was once known as Chang’an, seat of power for the Han Dynasty, and stood as the easternmost stop on the vast trade routes known today as the Silk Road. Previously, the oldest physical evidence of tea came from roughly 1,000 years ago. Coupled with another ancient block of tea found in western Tibet’s Gurgyam Cemetery, this new discovery reveals that the Han Chinese were already trading with Tibetans in 200 BCE, trekking across the Tibetan Plateau to deliver the luxurious, tasty drink. Though the tea was excavated over a decade ago, it wasn’t until recently that researchers had access to tests that could determine whether the vegetable matter was in fact tea. By untangling the chemical components of the leaves, including their caffeine content, the researchers were able to verify that both blocks of leaves, from China and Tibet, were tea. In fact, they even figured out what kind of tea it probably was. In Nature Scientific Reports , they write: The sample contains a mixture of tea, barley ( Hordeum vulgare , Poaceae) and other plants. Therefore, it is likely that tea buds and/or leaves were consumed in a form similar to traditionally-prepared butter tea, in which tea is mixed with salt, tsampa (roasted barley flour) and/or ginger in the cold mountain areas of central Asia. Of course, methods of brewing and consuming tea varied from culture to culture along the Silk Road . We also know the tea was what people today would call “fine plucked” or “Emperor’s Tea,” because it consisted only of the plant’s buds with a few small leaves. These parts of the plant are considered the most valuable and are used to make especially high-grade tea. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Scientists discover 2,100-year-old stash of “fine plucked” tea

Big names gamble big bucks on blood tests for early cancer detection

Forget biopsies, ultrasounds, mammograms, pap smears, rectal exams, and other unpleasant cancer screenings—the race is now on for simple, affordable blood tests that can detect all sorts of cancers extremely early. On Sunday, genetic sequencing company Illumina Inc. announced the start of a new company called Grail, which will join dozens of companies developing such blood tests. Toting big-name investors including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Illumina’s high-profile startup raised more than $100 million to get Grail going. The company hopes that Grail’s tests will be on the market by 2019 and cost around $500 a pop. Though researchers have recently questioned the benefits of early cancer screening—showing in some cases that early detection does not generally save lives —Illumina is confident that the science behind the blood-based screens is at least possible. Illumina Chief Executive Jay Flatley, who will be Grail’s chairman, said Illumina has been working on the tests for about a year and a half. “We’ve made tremendous progress, which gives us the confidence that we can get to the endpoint that we expect.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Big names gamble big bucks on blood tests for early cancer detection

iOS 9.3 brings multi-user mode to iPads, along with more features and fixes

(credit: Apple) Apple has just released the first beta of iOS 9.3 to its public beta testers and developers. The company regularly releases beta versions of its operating systems, but this update is unique because Apple has put together several pages extensively detailing its new features , something we normally don’t get until we see the release notes posted with the final version of the update. Collectively, this list of new features will make 9.3 the biggest release since iOS 9.0 . The first and most significant is a multi-user mode for iPads, aimed primarily at schools where buying a single iPad for each student is too expensive or otherwise undesirable. From Apple’s description, it sounds as though each student will have a roaming user profile that follows them from iPad to iPad so they can access the same apps and data no matter which iPad they use to login. User content can be cached so that students who regularly use the same iPad won’t have to wait for data to download each time they log in. These new user profiles are just one part of a larger group of features meant to make the iPad more appealing for schools. The “classroom” app gives teachers a bird’s-eye view of their students and what apps they’re using. The app can be used for screen sharing to help students out when they need it or to lock students out of specific apps when they’re not supposed to be using them. The Apple School Manager can be used by administrators to create Apple IDs, purchase apps, and manage devices. And a new type of Apple ID, the “Managed Apple ID,” can be created and assigned by schools independently of students’ normal Apple IDs. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iOS 9.3 brings multi-user mode to iPads, along with more features and fixes

Latest tech support scam stokes concerns Dell customer data was breached

Enlarge (credit: Jjpwiki ) Tech-support scams, in which fraudsters pose as computer technicians who charge hefty fees to fix non-existent malware infections, have been a nuisance for years . A relatively new one targeting Dell computer owners is notable because the criminals behind it use private customer details to trick their marks into thinking the calls come from authorized Dell personnel. “What made the calls interesting was that they had all the information about my computer; model number, serial number, and notably the last item I had called Dell technical support about (my optical drive),” Ars reader Joseph B. wrote in an e-mail. “That they knew about my optical drive call from several months prior made me think there was some sort of information breach versus just my computer being compromised.” He isn’t the only Dell customer reporting such an experience. A blog post published Tuesday reported scammers knew of every problem the author had ever called Dell about. None of those problems were ever discussed in public forums, leading the author to share the suspicion that proprietary Dell data had somehow been breached. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

General Motors pledges $500 million to Lyft for driverless taxi research

On Monday, General Motors and ride-sharing company Lyft announced a new partnership to develop a network of driverless taxis. GM has invested $500 million in Lyft as part of a $1 billion funding round. The partnership includes a seat for GM on Lyft’s board of directors. Neither Lyft nor GM mentioned how soon they expect to realize their driverless taxi dream. In a press release , GM said it would work with Lyft to “leverage GM’s deep knowledge of autonomous technology.” Lyft promised “to build a network of on demand autonomous vehicles that will make getting around more affordable, accessible and enjoyable.” GM’s labs have been testing the waters with autonomous concept cars , even hinting in October that the company’s strategy in 2016 would be “aggressive” and would include a fleet of self driving Chevrolet Volts . Lyft declined to comment publicly on how a fleet of driverless taxis would impact current Lyft drivers. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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General Motors pledges $500 million to Lyft for driverless taxi research

First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation

(credit: Krzysztof Lasoń ) Highly destructive malware that infected at least three regional power authorities in Ukraine led to a power failure that left hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity last week, researchers said. The outage left about half of the homes in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine without electricity, Ukrainian news service TSN reported in an article posted a day after the December 23 failure . The report went on to say that the outage was the result of malware that disconnected electrical substations. On Monday, researchers from security firm iSIGHT Partners said they had obtained samples of the malicious code that infected at least three regional operators. They said the malware led to “destructive events” that in turn caused the blackout. If confirmed it would be the first known instance of someone using malware to generate a power outage. “It’s a milestone because we’ve definitely seen targeted destructive events against energy before—oil firms, for instance—but never the event which causes the blackout,” John Hultquist, head of iSIGHT’s cyber espionage intelligence practice, told Ars. “It’s the major scenario we’ve all been concerned about for so long.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation