historian – Tech Today w/ Ken May

APFS is coming soon: iOS 10.3 will automatically upgrade your filesystem

After many years and at least one false start , Apple announced at WWDC last year that it would begin shipping a new, modern file system in 2017. Dubbed APFS (for Apple File System), it is designed to improve support for solid-state storage and encryption and to safeguard data integrity. When released, it will finally replace the nearly two-decade-old HFS+ filesystem that Apple has been tacking new features onto since 1998. An early version of APFS was included in macOS Sierra as a beta for developers to experiment with, but it was intentionally limited in some important ways; it couldn’t be used as a boot drive, it didn’t support Fusion Drives, and you can’t back up APFS volumes with Time Machine. We weren’t expecting to hear more about a final APFS rollout until this year’s WWDC, but it looks like Apple is getting ready to start the party already: according to the beta release notes for iOS 10.3 , devices that are upgraded will automatically have their HFS+ file systems converted to APFS. From the release notes: When you update to iOS 10.3, your iOS device will update its file system to Apple File System (APFS). This conversion preserves existing data on your device. However, as with any software update, it is recommended that you create a backup of your device before updating. Apple’s stated end goal is to perform an in-place file system conversion for all its currently supported devices, including all Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches. iOS 10.3 will provide some early information on how reliable that conversion will be. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

Enlarge (credit: portal gda ) A virulent family of malware that infected more than 10 million Android devices last year has made a comeback, this time hiding inside Google Play apps that have been downloaded by as many as 12 million unsuspecting users. HummingWhale, as the professionally developed malware has been dubbed, is a variant of HummingBad, the name given to a family of malicious apps researchers documented in July invading non-Google app markets . HummingBad attempted to override security protections by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities that gave the malware root privileges in older versions of Android. Before Google shut it down, it installed more than 50,000 fraudulent apps each day, displayed 20 million malicious advertisements, and generated more than $300,000 per month in revenue. Of the 10 million people who downloaded HummingBad-contaminated apps, an estimated 286,000 of them were located in the US. HummingWhale, by contrast, managed to sneak its way into about 20 Google Play apps that were downloaded from 2 million to 12 million times, according to researchers from Check Point, the security company that has been closely following the malware family for almost a year. Rather than rooting devices, the latest variant includes new virtual machine techniques that allow the malware to perform ad fraud better than ever, company researchers said in a blog post published Monday . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

Windows is getting its own built-in book store in the Creators Update

Enlarge (credit: MSPoweruser ) The Windows Store—which already includes apps, games, movies, and TV shows—is going to include books in the Creators Update. This is according to pictures obtained by MSPoweruser . Based on images from an internal Windows 10 Mobile build, books will have their own dedicated section within the Store. The whole process will work much the same way as it does for any other purchase. It appears that Microsoft is not building a dedicated reading application for these purchases. Instead, the Edge browser in the Creators Update has been updated to include support for EPUB books, affording some customization of their appearance in the browser’s reading mode. This isn’t Microsoft’s first foray into the electronic book world. Long, long ago it had an app called Reader, which supported a proprietary HTML-based format. Reader was developed for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile, and notably, it was in Reader that Microsoft first used ClearType sub-pixel anti-aliasing. A Reader app was also available for desktop Windows, though not Windows Phone. The company even had its own online catalog of e-books using its proprietary format, which linked to third-party sites actually selling the books. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows is getting its own built-in book store in the Creators Update

Congress will consider proposal to raise H-1B minimum wage to $100,000

Enlarge / Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is one of two sponsors on an H-1B reform bill. He’s pictured here House Republican Conference meeting in 2015. (credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty) President-Elect Donald Trump is just a week away from taking office. From the start of his campaign, he has promised big changes to the US immigration system. For both Trump’s advisers and members of Congress, the H-1B visa program, which allows many foreign workers to fill technology jobs, is a particular focus. One major change to that system is already under discussion: making it harder for companies to use H-1B workers to replace Americans by simply giving the foreign workers a raise. The “Protect and Grow American Jobs Act,” introduced last week by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. and Scott Peters, D-Calif., would significantly raise the wages of workers who get H-1B visas. If the bill becomes law, the minimum wage paid to H-1B workers would rise to at least $100,000 annually, and be adjusted it for inflation. Right now, the minimum is $60,000. The sponsors say that would go a long way towards fixing some of the abuses of the H-1B program, which critics say is currently used to simply replace American workers with cheaper, foreign replacements. In 2013, the top nine companies acquiring H-1B visas were technology outsourcing firms, according to an analysis by a critic of the H-1B program. (The 10th is Microsoft.) The thinking goes that if minimum H-1B salaries are brought closer to what high-skilled tech employment really pays, the economic incentive to use it as a worker-replacement program will drop off. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Verizon boosts top FiOS speeds to 750Mbps, has multi-gigabit in works

Enlarge (credit: Matthew Stevens ) Verizon will start offering a 750Mbps Internet package for $150 a month in parts of its FiOS fiber-to-the-home territory, the company announced today. “FiOS Instant Internet” with symmetrical upload and download speeds of 750Mbps will launch Saturday “to nearly seven million homes and businesses in greater New York City/northern New Jersey, Philadelphia and Richmond, [Virginia] with more to follow in 2017,” Verizon’s announcement said. The Boston and Norfolk, Virginia markets will get the new speed tier later in the first quarter, the company said. This is an improvement over the top speed tiers currently advertised on the FiOS website , which lists 300Mbps for $170 a month and 500Mbps for $270, plus taxes, equipment charges, and other fees. Those are promotional prices that last only a year before increasing. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon boosts top FiOS speeds to 750Mbps, has multi-gigabit in works

Verizon purges unlimited data customers, targets those using 200GB

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Spencer Platt) Verizon Wireless customers with unlimited data plans who use more than 200GB a month will have to switch to limited plans next month or be disconnected, a company spokesperson confirmed today. Since Verizon stopped offering unlimited data to new smartphone customers in 2011, this change affects only longtime customers who were allowed to hang on to the old plans. Verizon could simply force all customers who aren’t under contract to switch to new plans, but instead it has periodically made moves that reduce the numbers of unlimited data subscribers. “Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month that they must move to a Verizon Plan by February 16, 2017,” Verizon spokesperson Kelly Crummey told Ars today. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

How hackers made life hell for a CIA boss and other top US officials

Enlarge (credit: Flickr user Erica Zabowski ) A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy that illegally accessed the e-mail and social media accounts of Central Intelligence Director John Brennan and other senior government officials and then used that access to leak sensitive information and make personal threats. Justin Gray Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, commit identity theft, and make harassing, anonymous phone calls, federal prosecutors said Friday . Among the 10 people targeted in the conspiracy were Brennan; then-Deputy FBI Director Mark Giuliano; National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper; Greg Mecher, the husband of White House Communication Director Jen Psaki; and other government officials. The group called itself Crackas with Attitude, and it was led by a co-conspirator going by the name of Cracka. “She talks mad shit abt snowden,” Liverman said on December 10, 2015 in an online chat with Cracka, referring to a target who is believed to be Psaki, according to a statement of facts signed by Liverman and filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. (The document refers to Mecher and Psaki as Victim 3 and the spouse of Victim 3 respectively.) “If you come across anything related to [Victim 3’s spouse] let me know. If you find her cell or home number omg gimme.” Liverman went on to say he wanted to “phonebomb the shitt [sic] outta” Psaki. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How hackers made life hell for a CIA boss and other top US officials

“Neon” screenshots leak, showing off a refreshed Windows 10 look and feel

Enlarge / Neon introduces the use of transparency, such as on the left panel of Groove Music. (credit: MSPoweruser ) After reports last year that Microsoft was going to revise and update the design language used for Windows applications, some screenshots have leaked to MSPoweruser giving an indication of how the appearance is going to change. Windows 10 presently uses a design language known as MDL2 (Microsoft Design Language 2), which is an evolved version of the Metro design first introduced with Windows Phone 7. Both Metro and MDL2 put an emphasis on clean lines, simple geometric shapes, attractive typography, photographic imagery, and minimal use of ornamentation. Both heavily borrow from responsive Web design concepts. Google’s Material design language builds on similar themes, adding transitions and animations to better show how pieces of information are related. The new Microsoft look is named Neon. It continues the evolution of Metro—it retains the emphasis on clean text and a generally flat appearance but adds certain elements of translucency (which the company is calling “acrylic”) and greater use of animation and movement. Additional new elements are “Conscious UI,” wherein an acrylic element might change depending on what’s behind the current app, and “Connected Animations.” The current preview of the Groove Music app, available to users of Windows Insider builds, already includes Connected Animations. Headers and pictures shrink as you scroll down the list of songs. As with Metro before it, much of this is already familiar and commonplace in Web design. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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“Neon” screenshots leak, showing off a refreshed Windows 10 look and feel

Two India-based call center employees blew whistle on massive phone scam

Enlarge / This is a call center in New Dehli, India, not the Phoenix 007 operation that was busted. (credit: ILO ) Last year’s unraveling of the massive India-based telephone scam ring may have been helped by a phone call to a Federal Trade Commission lawyer. According to a Tuesday report in The New York Times , the bust seemingly was aided by the efforts of two teenage employees from one of the companies. The pair blew the whistle on their former employer, the Phoenix 007 call center that’s based outside of Mumbai. The workers reached Betsy Broder of the FTC after being shuffled from the Internal Revenue Service’s main switchboard. Indian and American authorities believe that this call center, along with several others, was part of a massive ring to call Americans in the United States and trick them into ponying up thousands of dollars in fraudulent fees. This criminal operation is believed to have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Using Rowhammer bitflips to root Android phones is now a thing

Enlarge / An LG Nexus 5 at the moment it is rooted using Rowhammer-induced bit flips. (credit: van der Veen et al.) Researchers have devised an attack that gains unfettered “root” access to a large number of Android phones by exploiting a relatively new type of bug that allows adversaries to manipulate data stored in memory chips. The breakthrough has the potential to make millions of Android phones vulnerable, at least until a security fix is available, to a new form of attack that seizes control of core parts of the operating system and neuters key security defenses. Equally important, it demonstrates that the new class of exploit dubbed Rowhammer can have malicious and far-reaching effects on a much wider base of devices than was previously known, including those running ARM chips. Previously, some experts believed Rowhammer attacks that altered specific pieces of security-sensitive data weren’t reliable enough to pose a viable threat because exploits depended on chance hardware faults or advanced memory-management features that could be easily adapted to repel the attacks. Now, an international team of academic researchers is challenging those assumptions by demonstrating a Rowhammer exploit that alters crucial bits of data in a way that completely roots name brand Android devices from LG, Motorola, Samsung, OnePlus, and possibly other manufacturers. An app containing the researchers’ rooting exploit requires no user permissions and doesn’t rely on any vulnerability in Android to work. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Using Rowhammer bitflips to root Android phones is now a thing