Tag: events

US Appeals Court Dismisses AT&T Data Throttling Lawsuit

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court in California on Monday dismissed a U.S. government lawsuit that accused ATT Inc of deception for reducing internet speeds for customers with unlimited mobile data plans once their use exceeded certain levels. The company, however, could still face a fine from the Federal Communications Commission regarding the slowdowns, also called “data throttling.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it ordered a lower court to dismiss the data-throttling lawsuit, which was filed in 2014 by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC sued ATT on the grounds that the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier failed to inform consumers it would slow the speeds of heavy data users on unlimited plans. In some cases, data speeds were slowed by nearly 90 percent, the lawsuit said. The FTC said the practice was deceptive and, as a result, barred under the Federal Trade Commission Act. ATT argued that there was an exception for common carriers, and the appeals court agreed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Appeals Court Dismisses AT&T Data Throttling Lawsuit

Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7

Apple just sent out press invites for its next major event. As expected, the event will take place on September 7. Like last year, the iPhone event will be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Read more…

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Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7

New Ransomware Poses As A Windows Update

Slashdot reader MojoKid quotes an article from Hot Hardware: A security researcher for AVG has discovered a new piece of ransomware called Fantom that masquerades as a critical Windows update. Victims who fall for the ruse will see a Windows screen acting like it’s installing the update, but what’s really happening is that the user’s documents and files are being encrypted in the background… The scam starts with a pop-up labeled as a critical update from Microsoft. Once a user decides to apply the fake update, it extracts files and executes an embedded program called WindowsUpdate.exe… As with other EDA2 ransomware, Fantom generates a random AES-128 key, encrypts it using RSA, and then uploads it to the culprit. From there, Fantom targets specific file extensions and encrypts those files using AES-128 encryption… Users affected by this are instructed to email the culprit for payment instructions. While the ransomware is busy encrypting your files, it displays Microsoft’s standard warning about not turning off the computer while the “update” is in progress. Pressing Ctrl+F4 closes that window, according to the article, “but that doesn’t stop the ransomware from encrypting files in the background.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Ransomware Poses As A Windows Update

US Unveils Charges Against KickassTorrents, Names Two More Defendants

A total of three men are said to be operators of file-sharing site KickassTorrents (KAT), according to U.S. prosecutors. Last month, federal authorities arrested the 30-year-old Ukrainian mastermind of KAT, Artem Vaulin, and formally charged him with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Two other Ukrainians were named in the new indictment (PDF): Levgen (Eugene) Kutsenko and Oleksander (Alex) Radostin. While only Vaulin has been arrested, bench warrants have been issue for the arrest of all three men. Ars Technica reports: “Prosecutors say the three men developed and maintained the site together and used it to ‘generate millions of dollars from the unlawful distribution of copyright-protected media, including movies, television shows, music, video games, computer software, and electronic books.’ They gave out ‘Reputation’ and ‘User Achievement’ awards to users who uploaded the most popular files, including a special award for users who had uploaded more than 1, 000 torrents. The indictment presents a selection of the evidence that the government intends to use to convict the men, and it isn’t just simple downloads of the copyrighted movies. The government combed through Vaulin’s e-mails and traced the bitcoins that were given to him via a ‘donation’ button.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Unveils Charges Against KickassTorrents, Names Two More Defendants

Dropbox Will Make You Change Your Password If You Haven’t Since 2012

If you’ve been using Dropbox for over four years and you haven’t changed your password since then, then two things are true. One, you haven’t been reading Lifehacker very long . More importantly, two: Dropbox is about to make you change it. Read more…

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Dropbox Will Make You Change Your Password If You Haven’t Since 2012

Israeli Cyber Weapon Dealers Figured Out How to Hack Every iPhone

NSO Group, a company that sells hacking services to governments so they can spy on journalists and dissidents, exploited gaping security holes in iPhone software, according to a report byLookout Security and Citizen Lab. But don’t worry: Apple just pushed a fix. Read more…

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Israeli Cyber Weapon Dealers Figured Out How to Hack Every iPhone

Drone Footage Shows the Earthquake in Italy Was Far Worse Than Anyone Thought

Yesterday, a massive 6.1 magnitude earthquake rocked central Italy . It was followed by nearly 200 aftershocks, devastating whole towns and burying residents under rubble. Over 4, 000 rescuers have been dispatched and the death toll has jumped to 247, the BBC reports . Read more…

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Drone Footage Shows the Earthquake in Italy Was Far Worse Than Anyone Thought

New Earth-Like Exoplanet Could Be Discovery of the Century

In what’s being hailed as one of the biggest astronomical discoveries of the century, scientists with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today confirmed the discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri—our nearest neighboring star. Details of the team’s discovery were just published in Nature . Read more…

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New Earth-Like Exoplanet Could Be Discovery of the Century