Tag: digest-golf

US airport screeners missed 95% of weapons, explosives in undercover tests

Transportation Security Administration screeners allowed banned weapons and mock explosives through airport security checkpoints 95 percent of the time, according to the agency’s own undercover testing. ABC News reported the results on Monday, but Ars could not independently confirm them. According to ABC News, a Homeland Security Inspector General report showed that agents failed to detect weapons and explosives in 67 out of 70 undercover operations . The report said: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was apparently so frustrated by the findings he sought a detailed briefing on them last week at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, according to sources. US officials insisted changes have already been made at airports to address vulnerabilities identified by the latest tests. It’s been a bad past two days when it comes to the government’s anti-terror strategy. The ABC News revelation came a day after a Senate impasse Sunday allowed parts of three terrorism-fighting aspects of the USA Patriot Act to expire, including the bulk telephone metadata program that Edward Snowden disclosed. Lawmakers are trying to broker a deal to the legislation that is needed, according to Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) because terrorists “want to kill us all.” Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US airport screeners missed 95% of weapons, explosives in undercover tests

Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Intel, after a couple of months of negotiation, has agreed to buy Altera for $16.7 billion (£11 billion) in cash. The acquisition comes just a few days after Avago announced its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom, the largest deal ever seen by the tech sector. The timing is probably not coincidental: Intel and Altera had reportedly been in talks since March. Much like the Avago-Broadcom deal, Intel-Altera is a consolidation move. Altera is the second largest maker of FPGAs and other programmable logic devices behind Xilinx . Intel makes a wide range of chips, but has only ever dabbled in FPGAs. Buying Altera will let Intel sell a wider variety of chips through its existing sales channels, while also potentially realising some savings through strategic job cuts. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

If you call Verizon FiOS and try to cancel or downgrade your TV package, you might find that the FiOS rep knows almost as much about your TV viewing habits as you do. Verizon’s Rep Guidance software tells Verizon representatives what channels you watch to help them make a more effective sales pitch. The system, which also shows them how much Internet data you use and which pieces of TV equipment you use most, was detailed by a Verizon executive in a public presentation hosted by Data Driven NYC. A Quartz reporter  wrote about the presentation yesterday . Verizon “is now closely tracking exactly what you watch, what devices you use, and how much data you consume,” Quartz wrote. “It knows whether your household spars over DVR conflicts and how many hours your kids spend binge-watching shows on HBO. What’s more, the company is listening in on phone calls to customer service in real-time, with supervisors poised to jump at the moment they sense a fight brewing or hear trigger words from an unhappy customer, such as ‘switching to Time Warner Cable.'” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

NEW YORK—Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison Friday, following a jury’s finding in February that the 31-year-old was the mastermind behind the Silk Road, once the Internet’s largest online drug marketplace. Operating online as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht worked with a small staff to control everything sold on the site. He was arrested in October 2013, and the government made its case against him during a three-week trial here earlier this year. Ulbricht pleaded for leniency  during the hearing. “I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path,” he said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

Android M embraces USB Type-C, MIDI devices

USB Type-C is still a rarity today, but as the year goes on, the new port is going to begin showing up in more and more devices. In anticipation of this, Google has introduced a handful of features in the Android M release to support some of Type-C’s new features. Google hasn’t released a ton of information about the new features, but the most significant ones relate to the USB Power Delivery spec . A menu that pops up when you plug one USB Type-C device to another asks you what kind of connection you’re trying to make. The standard MTP and PTP file and photo transfer protocols, available in current versions of Android, are on this list, but the menu will also ask you if you’d like to charge the device or use it as a power supply for another device. The USB selection pop-up in Android M. Google This effectively makes Android M devices with USB Type-C ports into external batteries. Your tablet can charge your phone. Your phone could charge a camera battery or Bluetooth headset. Not every device combination makes sense (using a large laptop or tablet battery to charge a small phone battery seems useful; using a small phone battery to charge anything else seems ill-advised) but for compatible devices, it will be a handy feature. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android M embraces USB Type-C, MIDI devices

Amazon Prime launches free same-day delivery in 14 cities

Amazon Prime’s list of benefits grew one bigger on Thursday, as the $99/year subscription service now includes free same-day shipping—and same-day delivery—for certain parts of the United States. Should an Amazon Prime member live in one of 14 qualifying metropolitan areas—including the company’s home base of Seattle, along with the Bay area, New York City, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Boston—they can get free same-day delivery on orders of $35 and up. Be advised: you’ll want to check at Amazon’s zip code search site  for your own eligibility if you live in a sprawling region; our test of addresses in the Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth regions proved scattershot. Prime members in these 14 metropolitan areas should double-check the linked zip code search tool before attempting to place a same-day delivery order. Qualifying same-day orders that cost less than $35 will be charged an additional $5.99 for same-day speed, as Prime customers had already paid up until today. Meanwhile, should an order be placed too late in the day, Prime customers will still enjoy free one-day shipping. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Amazon Prime launches free same-day delivery in 14 cities

SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows’ account, wraps installer in bundle-pushing adware [Updated]

SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP’s lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements. Update: In a blog post issued shortly after this story posted, an unidentified member of SourceForge’s community team wrote that, in fact, “this project was actually abandoned over 18 months ago, and SourceForge has stepped-in to keep this project current.” That runs counter to claims by members of the GIMP development community. The GIMP project is not officially distributed through SourceForge—approved releases are only posted on the GIMP project’s own Web page. But Jernej Simončič, the developer who has been responsible for building Windows versions of GIMP for some time, has maintained an account on SourceForge to act as a distribution mirror. That is, he had until today, when he discovered he was locked out of the Gimp-Win account , and the project’s ownership “byline” had been changed to “sf-editor1″—a SourceForge staff account. Additionally, the site now provided Gimp in an executable installer that has in-installer advertising enabled. Ars tested the downloader and found that it offered during the installation to bundle Norton anti-virus and myPCBackup.com remote backup services with GIMP—before downloading the installer authored by Simončič (his name still appears on the installer’s splash screen). Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows’ account, wraps installer in bundle-pushing adware [Updated]

IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]

In an official statement issued today, the IRS announced that it has shut down an online service to obtain tax records after determining that “unusual activity had taken place on the application, which indicates that unauthorized third parties had access to some accounts on the transcript application.” according to an official statement by the agency. An initial review of that activity revealed that “access was gained to more than 100,000 accounts through the Get Transcript application,” according to the statement. The data was obtained not because of a hack of IRS systems, but because of the weak authentication used by the IRS to protect access to taxpayer data. The attackers were able to obtain taxpayer records using stolen personal identifying information—likely pulled from online financial fraud marketplaces. The Get Transcript application, a feature of the IRS’ site that allows taxpayers to download tax return and tax payment transaction data, was apparently targeted by financial fraudsters between February and mid-May. The service was shut down last week as the IRS investigated the activity, which may have been linked to the fraudulent filing of tax returns and transfer of tax refunds. Attempts were made to access over 200,000 accounts; roughly half failed because of incorrect information during the IRS’ authentication process. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]

Database of 4 million Adult Friend Finder users leaked for all to see

E-mail addresses, sexual orientations, and other sensitive details from almost four million AdultFriendFinder.com subscribers have been leaked onto the Internet following a hack that rooted the casual dating service, security researchers said. The cache includes more than 3.8 million unique e-mail addresses of current and former subscribers, Australian security researcher Troy Hunt reported early Friday morning . The data, which is in the form of 15 Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, was first seeded to anonymous sites hosted on the Tor privacy network. It has since spread to sites on the open Internet. Links to sites hosting the data are easily found on Twitter and other social networking sites, (Ars isn’t publishing the locations). The compromise was first reported by British broadcaster Channel 4. In addition to including e-mail addresses and sexual preferences of users, the data also provided other sensitive information, such as ages, zip codes, and whether the subscriber was seeking an extramarital affair. The trove included information for deleted accounts as well as those still current. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Database of 4 million Adult Friend Finder users leaked for all to see

Report: iOS 9 will be optimized for older devices, including iPhone 4S

We’re just a few weeks out from WWDC, and new details about Apple’s next-generation operating systems continue to surface. A new report from the well-sourced 9to5Mac details a handful of features, the most interesting of which is a note about support for older devices. We had assumed that Apple would include support for some devices based on its aging A5 SoC—the fifth-gen iPod Touch, original iPad Mini, and third-gen Apple TV are all still being sold, after all—but the report indicates that we can expect an update for out-of-production devices like the iPhone 4S (the iPad 2 isn’t mentioned by name, but the implication is that it will be supported as well). If true, this would be the longest that Apple has ever provided software updates for any one iPhone model. Normally, iOS releases support four iPhone generations at a time, but iOS 9 could include support for everything from 2011’s iPhone 4S to whatever phones Apple introduces in 2015. New iOS updates have a history of running poorly on older devices— iOS 7 was unkind to the iPhone 4 , and iOS 8 wasn’t much better to the iPhone 4S —but Apple is apparently taking steps to avoid that problem this time around. The report says that Apple is taking a different approach to supporting older devices in iOS 9. In the past, Apple reportedly put the full version of the operating system on older devices and then disabled features that performed particularly poorly. For iOS 9, Apple is apparently starting with a barebones version of the operating system and enabling features one at a time. As usual, owners of older devices will miss out on some features, but they’ll still get the underlying improvements, API changes, and security updates that newer phones and tablets get. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: iOS 9 will be optimized for older devices, including iPhone 4S