digest-golf – Page 37

Texas man must pay $40.4M for running Bitcoin-based scam, court rules

A federal judge in Texas has convicted a local man of conducting a massive Bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme, and ordered him to pay $40.4 million. The court found on Friday that Tendon Shavers had created a virtual bitcoin-based hedge fund that many suspected of being a scam—and it turned out they were right. The Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST) shut down in August 2012, and by June 2013 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against its founder . In a statement at the time, the SEC said Shavers “raised at least 700,000 Bitcoin in BTCST investments, which amounted to more than $4.5 million based on the average price of Bitcoin in 2011 and 2012 when the investments were offered and sold.” Judge Amos Mazzant wrote: Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Texas man must pay $40.4M for running Bitcoin-based scam, court rules

iCloud for Windows update means PCs can use iCloud Drive before Macs can

iCloud Drive is now available on Windows, but not OS X. Andrew Cunningham Apple officially released iCloud Drive yesterday as part of the iOS 8 update , but it came with a caveat: turning it on disables the “old” way of iCloud syncing, but OS X doesn’t yet support iCloud Drive and won’t until OS X Yosemite is released later this fall. If you use iCloud to sync application data between your phone, tablet, and desktop, this means you’ll need to keep living with the more limited version of iCloud until Yosemite is out (or roll the dice and give the Public Beta a try ). If you’re a Windows user with an iPhone, though, you can go ahead and pull the trigger on that iCloud Drive update now. Apple today released an updated version of the iCloud for Windows application that adds full support for iCloud Drive. Install the program and sign in, and iCloud Drive will appear in your user profile folder and your Favorites menu in Windows Explorer, much like Microsoft’s own OneDrive cloud storage service. This is the first opportunity that Windows users will have to view and directly manipulate iCloud data, not counting the more limited capabilities of the iCloud.com Web apps, and it’s a nice new addition for people who like iOS but don’t care to use Macs. Otherwise, iCloud for Windows continues to be more limited than iCloud on either iOS or OS X. It can sync with your Photo Stream and sync Safari bookmarks with either Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome, and if you have Outlook 2007 or later installed it will also offer to sync your iCloud mail, calendars, contacts, and reminders. However, it can’t use iCloud Keychain to sync passwords, nor does it provide any kind of “Find My Device” functionality as it does in both iOS and OS X. You can’t sync Notes data directly either, though that feature is accessible via iCloud.com. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iCloud for Windows update means PCs can use iCloud Drive before Macs can

Apple releases OS X 10.9.5 with fixes, new code signing requirements [updated]

Yesterday evening Apple released OS X 10.9.5 to the general public, the fifth major update for OS X Mavericks. As usual, the update comes with a handful of fixes for user-facing features as well as a small pile of security updates . Many of these security patches are also available for OS X 10.7.5 and 10.8.5 in separate updates. Like OS X 10.9.4 , the update focuses on smaller problems that affect a subset of Macs. The new features include Safari 7.0.6, improved “reliability for VPN connections that use USB smart cards for authentication,” and better reliability for connecting to file servers that use the SMB protocol. For businesses using OS X, the update fixes a problem that could keep system admins from “performing some administrative tasks successfully” on larger groups of Macs, and it also speeds up authentication “when roaming on 802.1x networks which use EAP-TLS.” Among the security updates are fixes for Bluetooth, CoreGraphics generally and the Intel graphics driver specifically, and OS X’s version of OpenSSL among many others. The latter problems were fixed by updating from OpenSSL version 0.9.8y to 0.9.8za. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases OS X 10.9.5 with fixes, new code signing requirements [updated]

Artificial sweeteners may leave their users glucose intolerant

Flickr user Bukowsky18 People who are watching their weight will often opt for a diet soda, reasoning that the fewer calories, the better. But the availability of drinks and foods made with artificial sweeteners like saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame hasn’t seemed to help much with our booming obesity levels. Now, some researchers might have identified a reason for this: the sweeteners leave their users with elevated blood glucose levels. But they don’t seem to act directly on human metabolism. Instead, the effects come through alterations in the bacterial populations that live inside us. The paper that describes this work, which was performed by a large collaboration of researchers from Israel, is being released by Nature today. The researchers note that epidemiological studies about the effects of artificial sweeteners have produced mixed results; some show a benefit, while others indicate that they’re associated with weight gain and diabetes risk. Given that human populations haven’t given us a clear answer, the researchers turned to mice, where they could do a carefully controlled study. They started taking a group of genetically matched mice and spiking their drinking water with either sucrose or a commercial prep of an artificial sweetener (either saccharin, sucralose, or aspartame). After five weeks, they checked the blood glucose levels of these animals. Eleven weeks later, the groups that were given the artificial sweeteners all had elevated blood glucose levels compared to those that received sucrose. This is typically a sign of metabolic problems, most often caused by insulin losing its effectiveness. It can be a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Why T-Mobile needs Wi-Fi calling: its network can’t match AT&T and Verizon

T-Mobile’s “data strong network.” T-Mobile T-Mobile US’ latest “Un-carrier” move is just about the most amazing thing ever, CEO John Legere said last week. “This is like adding millions of towers to our network in a single day,” Legere boasted in a press release . “The difference between us and the traditional carriers is that they’ll do everything they can to make more money off you. We’ll do everything we can to solve your problems.” The innovation is actually something that T-Mobile has had since 2007: Wi-Fi calling. It makes sense for T-Mobile to promote Wi-Fi calling now, given that Apple is adding the capability to iPhones in iOS 8. The initiative has some nice benefits for customers—T-Mobile offered to upgrade all customers to phones that can make Wi-Fi calls and is giving out a free “Personal CellSpot,” a Wi-Fi router that prioritizes voice calls. Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Why T-Mobile needs Wi-Fi calling: its network can’t match AT&T and Verizon

Android Browser flaw a “privacy disaster” for half of Android users

Thanks to a bug in the Android Browser, your cookies aren’t safe. Surian Soosay A bug quietly reported on September 1 appears to have grave implications for Android users. Android Browser, the open source, WebKit-based browser that used to be part of the Android Open Source Platform (AOSP), has a flaw that enables malicious sites to inject JavaScript into other sites. Those malicious JavaScripts can in turn read cookies and password fields, submit forms, grab keyboard input, or do practically anything else. Browsers are generally designed to prevent a script from one site from being able to access content from another site. They do this by enforcing what is called the Same Origin Policy (SOP): scripts can only read or modify resources (such as the elements of a webpage) that come from the same origin as the script, where the origin is determined by the combination of scheme (which is to say, protocol, typically HTTP or HTTPS), domain, and port number. The SOP should then prevent a script loaded from http://malware.bad/ from being able to access content at https://paypal.com/. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android Browser flaw a “privacy disaster” for half of Android users

Watch out, California’s self-driving car permits take effect today

Audi On Tuesday, permits for self-driving cars issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) took effect for the first time. Applications for the permits began in May 2014. Only the Volkswagen Group (which includes Volkswagen and Audi cars among others), Mercedes Benz, and Google have been issued permits for their 29 total vehicles. Overall, that represents a miniscule fraction of all 32 million registered cars in the Golden State. Bernard Soriano, a DMV spokesman, told Ars that Tuesday also marked the first time those numbers had been disclosed outside of the agency. “There are a handful of different companies that are completing their application,” he added, noting that the DMV expected to issue more permits soon. “They’re all large automakers.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Watch out, California’s self-driving car permits take effect today

Hacker exploits printer Web interface to install, run Doom

Doom on a printer’s menu screen! Personally, we can’t wait until someone makes Descent playable on a toaster. Context Internet Security On Friday, a hacker presenting at the 44CON Information Security Conference in London picked at the vulnerability of Web-accessible devices and demonstrated how to run unsigned code on a Canon printer via its default Web interface. After describing the device’s encryption as “doomed,” Context Information Security consultant Michael Jordon made his point by installing and running the first-person shooting classic Doom on a stock Canon Pixma MG6450. Sure enough, the printer’s tiny menu screen can render a choppy and discolored but playable version of id Software’s 1993 hit, the result of Jordon discovering that Pixma printers’ Web interfaces didn’t require any authentication to access. “You could print out hundreds of test pages and use up all the ink and paper, so what?” Jordon wrote at Context’s blog report about the discovery , but after a little more sniffing, he found that the devices could also easily be redirected to accept any code as legitimate firmware. A vulnerable Pixma printer’s Web interface allows users to change the Web proxy settings and the DNS server. From there, an enterprising hacker can crack the device’s encryption in eight steps, the final of which includes unsigned, plain-text firmware files. The hacking possibilities go far beyond enabling choppy, early ’90s gaming: “We can therefore create our own custom firmware and update anyone’s printer with a Trojan image which spies on the documents being printed or is used as a gateway into their network,” Jordon wrote. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

US gov’t threatened Yahoo with $250K daily fine if it didn’t use PRISM

Yahoo reports that it is on the verge of releasing 1,500 pages of documents related to a long court battle over its participation in the PRISM program, a National Security Agency program revealed last summer as part of the Snowden leaks. A leaked top-secret slide about PRISM shows that Yahoo was one of the first participants, having begun contributing to the database in March of 2008. It did so under severe duress. Company executives believed the government’s demand for data was “unconstitutional and overbroad” and fought it in court. “Our challenge, and a later appeal in the case, did not succeed,” explained Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell in a blog post published today. “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)… ordered us to give the U.S. Government the user data it sought in the matter.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US gov’t threatened Yahoo with $250K daily fine if it didn’t use PRISM

A big chunk of the Sierra Nevada caught fracturing on video

If you like geology, you’re used to relying on an active imagination. Most geologic processes occur too slowly to see them play out for yourself. Many of the exceptions are dangerous enough that you might not want a front row seat or rare enough that the odds of being there to witness it are disheartening. Sometimes, though, the Earth throws us a bone—or in this case, a gigantic slab of granite. One interesting way that rocks weather and crumble apart is called “exfoliation.” Like the skin-scrubbing technique, this involves the outermost layers of exposed igneous or metamorphic bedrock sloughing off in a sheet. Over time, this tends to smooth and round the outcrop—Yosemite’s Half Dome providing a spectacular example. We’re not entirely sure just what drives the peeling of an outcrop’s skin like this, but the classic explanation is that it’s the result of bringing rocks that formed at great pressure up to the surface. Once there, the outer layers can expand slightly, creating a physical mismatch with the layers below them. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ken May

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