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France tells Google to remove search results globally, or face big fines

Public domain. Google’s informal appeal against a French order to apply the so-called “right to be forgotten” to all of its global Internet services and domains, not just those in Europe, has been rejected. The president of the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), France’s data protection authority, gave a number of reasons for the rejection , including the fact that European orders to de-list information from search results could be easily circumvented if links were still available on Google’s other domains. CNIL’s president also claimed that “this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe.” As you’ve probably gathered,  Google disagrees  with CNIL’s stance. In a July blog post regarding the case, the company’s global privacy chief, Peter Fleischer, wrote: “If the CNIL’s proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place. We believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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France tells Google to remove search results globally, or face big fines

Valve hits a Linux landmark—1,500 games available on Steam

A few months after Valve officially launched Steam for Linux in 2013, Gabe Newell gave his LinuxCon keynote crowd a bit of music for their ears. “It feels a little bit funny coming here and telling you guys that Linux and open source are the future of gaming,” the Valve head-man said. “It’s sort of like going to Rome and teaching Catholicism to the pope.”  Linux gaming was by no means a new endeavor, but 2013 stands as a major year for the open-source platform’s gaming prospects with Valve announcing Linux-based Steam Machines and the arrival of SteamOS . When we looked at the state of Linux gaming after its 12-month Valve anniversary, we found  nearly 1,000 professional, commercially distributed games  available as of February 2015. But this weekend there’s an even bigger numeric milestone to celebrate according to the Linux site  Phoronix —1,500 Linux titles are currently available through Steam. Phoronix notes Steam has been adding roughly 100 Linux titles per month throughout the summer. And while the total number of Steam Linux offerings still pales in comparison to competing platforms—Phoronix cites Windows at 6,464 games and OS X at 2,323—the statistical growth in such a short period of time is undeniable. Anecdotal evidence supporting Steam’s Linux gaming growth looks rosy as well. The five most popular Linux titles for Steam include major developer offerings like  Counter-Strike: Global Offensive  and  Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordo r (the rest of the top five according to Phoronix includes ARK: Survival Evolved , Team Fortress 2 , and Dota 2).  And this summer, a small indie game called Don’t Be Patchman   even became the first Linux-exclusive launch on Steam. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Valve hits a Linux landmark—1,500 games available on Steam

Computer systems outage grounds American Airlines at major hubs

American Airlines’ information systems outage is affecting its website as well as flights. An information systems outage at Chicago’s O’Hare International has grounded many American Airlines flights today. As the company tries to restore service, flights from at least three major hub airports—O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Miami—are on a “ground stop” because of the problem. At 1:32pm Eastern Time, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that American had requested a ground stop for flights out of the three airports: FAA Air Traffic Alert: @AmericanAir requested a ground stop for all of their traffic in and out of DFW/ORD/MIA due to their computer issue. — The FAA (@FAANews) September 17, 2015 During the issue, American’s Twitter feed was filling up with responses to customers: “We’re working to resolve technical issues and apologize for the inconvenience.” Some of the complaints had nothing to do specifically with the grounded flights, however—it appears the outage has also affected parts of American’s website, blocking access to frequent flyer accounts and other customer data. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Computer systems outage grounds American Airlines at major hubs

Malicious Cisco router backdoor found on 79 more devices, 25 in the US

ZMap.io The highly clandestine attacks hitting Cisco Systems routers are much more active than previously reported. Infections have hit at least 79 devices in 19 countries, including an ISP in the US that’s hosting 25 boxes running the malicious backdoor. That discovery comes from a team of computer scientists who probed the entire IPv4 address space for infected devices. As Ars reported Tuesday, the so-called SYNful Knock router implant is activated after receiving an unusual series of non-compliant network packets followed by a hardcoded password. By sending only the out-of-sequence TCP packets but not the password to every Internet address and then monitoring the response, the researchers were able to detect which ones were infected by the backdoor. Security firm FireEye surprised the security world on Tuesday when it first reported the active outbreak of SYNful Knock. The implant is precisely the same size as the legitimate Cisco router image, and it’s loaded each time the router is restarted. It supports up to 100 modules that attackers can tailor to the specific target. FireEye found it on 14 servers in India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Ukraine. The finding was significant, because it showed an attack that had long been theorized was in fact being actively used. The new research shows it’s being used much more widely, and it’s been found in countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and China. The researchers wrote: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Malicious Cisco router backdoor found on 79 more devices, 25 in the US

Chicago citizens sue to halt new “Netflix tax,” an increase of 9 percent

michel Six Chicagoans have sued the Windy City over its new 9 percent tax levied as part of the “Amusement Tax Ruling ” that went into effect on September 1. The tax, which the city of Chicago maintains is “not an expansion of the laws,” imposes an additional surcharge on various online services, including Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, Xbox Live, and others. “We will be adding it to the cost we charge subscribers,” Anne Marie Squeo, a Netflix spokeswoman, previously told Ars in a statement. “Jurisdictions around the world, including the US, are trying to figure out ways to tax online services. This is one approach.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Chicago citizens sue to halt new “Netflix tax,” an increase of 9 percent

Zuckerberg confirms a form of “dislike” button coming to Facebook

Facebook In recent interviews, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the social network’s “like” button, which users can use to quickly acknowledge posts or messages—but which also lacks a certain amount of nuance for more sensitive or sad content. As recently as December, Zuckerberg said that he wasn’t interested in a “dislike” button, but a Tuesday “town hall” Q&A saw the cofounder change his tune. “People have asked about the dislike button for many years,” Zuckerberg told a crowd on Tuesday at Facebook’s Menlo Park office (and a livestream crowd at the event’s official site ). “We’ve finally heard you, and we’re working on this.” Like in prior interviews, Zuckerberg commented on fears that a form of “dislike” button would be used to “downvote” posts à la Reddit, but on Tuesday, he acknowledged growing interest in a simple interaction that better fits sad posts—he mentioned topics ranging from personal trauma to international tragedies—that offers “the ability to express empathy.” Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Zuckerberg confirms a form of “dislike” button coming to Facebook

Office 2016 confirmed for September 22 release, February for business

Microsoft today confirmed a previous leak that Office 2016 would be released on September 22nd. But the release of Office 365 ProPlus—the version of the desktop suite that comes with some Office 365 subscriptions—is a little more complex. Office 365 ProPlus, unlike the perpetually licensed, non-Office 365 version of Office, currently receives a steady trickle of monthly feature updates in addition to the security updates that all desktop Office products receive. This will continue with Office 2016—but only for one branch, the “Current Branch.” A new second branch is being created, the “Current Branch for Business” (CBB). The CBB won’t receive these monthly feature updates. Instead, those will happen three times a year—February, June, and October—and these features will lag the Current Branch by four months. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Office 2016 confirmed for September 22 release, February for business

Apple announces iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, with 3D Touch and A9 SoC

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple has officially unveiled its newest iPhones, the 6S and 6S Plus. Like the 3GS, 4S, and 5S before them, the phones are visually similar to their predecessors, and the devices focus mainly on internal upgrades and tweaks. The new phones will be available for preorder on September 11 and will officially launch on September 18. The new phones are built out of the same 7000-series aluminum used in the Apple Watch, a change which should make them sturdier and less prone to bending. The phones retain their 4.7- and 5.5-inch screens, though, as well as the TouchID sensor and button layout used in the iPhone 6. A new color option joins the line-up, too: Rose Gold. This brings the iPhone more in line with the Apple Watch’s exterior appearance options (especially important if you’re the kind of person who clutches their pearls at the idea of your phone’s color not coordinating with your watch). Unlike the Apple Watch,though, the iPhone’s Rose Gold is just annodized aluminum, not actual-for-real Apple Gold . The front of the devices has been given a new type of glass—one which Apple calls “dual ion-exchange” glass. Behind the new face, the phones’ also have Force Touch-style pressure sensitivity, which is called “3D Touch.” The new devices also provide tactile feedback via a Taptic Engine similar to the one in the Apple Watch. In the Apple Watch, Force Touch is usually used to bring up menu items, and 3D Touch provides similar functionality on the new iPhones. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple announces iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, with 3D Touch and A9 SoC

Static RAM created out of carbon nanotubes

We’re already at the point where the features we etch into processors are about the same size as some molecules—hemoglobin, for example, is five nanometers across. Too much smaller, and the behavior of electrons will become dominated by quantum effects, potentially causing some unpredictable behavior. One potential solution to this is to actually use individual molecules to create the features on chips. Carbon nanotubes are promising candidates, as they naturally come in both semiconducting and metallic forms. But getting the right kind of nanotubes into a structure where they perform consistently has been a challenge. Now, a team has shown that the properties of nanotubes can be manipulated and preserved in a way that could make them useful for electronics. While the work was done with populations of nanotubes rather than single molecules, it did manage to turn the nanotubes into functional RAM. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Static RAM created out of carbon nanotubes

Bitcoin cyberextortionists are blackmailing banks, corporations

A number of large UK corporations and institutions, such as Lloyds Bank and BAE systems, have reported a “marked increase” in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks from the Bitcoin extortionist group DD4BC, which has been operational since last year . The increased aggressions appears concurrent with reports from other organisations. A cybersecurity case study released by Akamai identified 114 DD4BC attacks against the company’s customers since April 2015, with 41 cases taking place in June alone. In comparison, there were only 5 attacks in January and February 2015. “The latest attacks—focused primarily on the financial service industry—involved new strategies and tactics intended to harass, extort and ultimately embarrass the victim publicly,” said Akamai Security Division executive Stuart Scholly in a press release. 58% of DD4BC’s targets are financial institutions, according to Akamai. The group begins with ransom emails that state their demands, which vary anywhere between 1 and 100 bitcoins (about £160 to £16,000), a deadline for compliance, and warning of a “small, demonstrative attack.” Should the victim prove uncooperative, the figure is raised and a more forceful show of force is made. This technique is particularly effective against financial institutions as DD4BC threatens to publicise their attacks, negating the institution’s reputation and trustworthiness. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bitcoin cyberextortionists are blackmailing banks, corporations