Tag: reprints

Apple Remote Desktop admin tool is updated for the first time in forever

There was one other Apple software update that came out yesterday, though it got lost in the shuffle between OS X and iOS system updates and record-breaking financial results . The venerable Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) application has been bumped from version 3.7.2 to version 3.8. Version  3.7.2 was a relatively minor update issued in March of 2014, and version 3.7 goes all the way back to October of 2013. ARD is pretty far off the beaten path, but the short version is that it’s an administrative tool used primarily by IT people to manage large numbers of Macs. It can do standard remote desktop stuff—viewing and taking control of remote Macs’ screens to perform maintenance or help out end users—but it also has a bunch of other handy capabilities. Among other things, administrators can use ARD to push out updates or other software packages to a bunch of Macs at once, run scheduled maintenance, show user and application usage histories, and view hardware and software information for each computer. The biggest addition to version 3.8 is official support for OS X Yosemite, and the update redesigns the app’s icon and UI to mesh better with Yosemite’s new aesthetic. Older versions of ARD supported Yosemite, but performance was quite a bit slower and image quality was visibly poorer than it was for officially supported versions. Improvements to file copying, Full Screen mode, and viewing multiple client desktops at once round out the update. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple Remote Desktop admin tool is updated for the first time in forever

FCC: Blocking Wi-Fi in hotels is prohibited

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission issued an “Enforcement Advisory” stating that blocking W-Fi in hotels is unequivocally “prohibited.” “Persons or businesses causing intentional interference to Wi-Fi hotspots are subject to enforcement action,” the FCC bluntly stated, referencing a dispute between Marriott and its customers who said the hotel chain had blocked their personal hotspots to force them to pay for Marriott’s Wi-Fi services. “The Enforcement Bureau has seen a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal Wi-Fi hot spots on the commercial establishment’s premises,” the FCC wrote. “As a result, the Bureau is protecting consumers by aggressively investigating and acting against such unlawful intentional interference.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FCC: Blocking Wi-Fi in hotels is prohibited

Apple releases OS X 10.10.2 with a pile of security, privacy, and Wi-Fi fixes

Apple has just released the final build of OS X 10.10.2, the second major update for OS X Yosemite since its release. Version 10.10.1, published just a month after Yosemite’s release, focused mostly on quick fixes for the new OS’ most noticeable problems. Apple has been issuing betas for 10.10.2 since November, though, and a longer testing period usually implies that there are more extensive fixes. First up, the new release is supposed to fix more of the Wi-Fi problems that some users have been experiencing since Yosemite’s launch. 10.10.1 also included Wi-Fi fixes, though it apparently didn’t resolve the problems for all. The new update will also address “an issue that may cause webpages to load slowly” and improve general stability in Safari, all of which should go a long way toward improving Yosemite’s network and Internet performance. Several privacy and security problems that we’ve reported on have been resolved in 10.10.2, as well. Though Apple will still share limited search and location information with Microsoft to enable Spotlight’s Bing-powered Web searching feature, the company has fixed a bug that caused Spotlight to “load remote e-mail content” even when the setting was disabled in Mail.app itself. Our original report describes why this is a problem: Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases OS X 10.10.2 with a pile of security, privacy, and Wi-Fi fixes

PlayStation Now review: Sony finally proves streaming gaming is viable

When Sony launched its PlayStation Now service as a beta last year, the ridiculous per-game rental pricing structure stopped us from giving it any serious consideration almost immediately. Last week, though, the service graduated from beta with a more feasible all-you-can-play subscription plan . Suddenly this was an opportunity. Has the idea of running games on remote servers advanced at all since OnLive’s ahead-of-its-time launch back in 2010 ? We’ve been kicking the tires on the service for about a week now, and what we’ve found is a surprisingly compelling addition to the pay-per-game ownership model of retail discs and downloads. If you have the bandwidth and a yearning to sample some PS3 classics among the service’s somewhat limited initial selection on your PlayStation 4, PlayStation Now is well worth checking out. Performance When initially reviewing OnLive back in 2010 , running a game through the offering’s remote servers was a noticeably worse experience than running that same game locally. Even with a 20Mbps FiOS connection, our reviewer “could tell that the game was not running natively” thanks to “framerate bumps, sudden resolution drops, and gameplay blips.” Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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PlayStation Now review: Sony finally proves streaming gaming is viable

Verizon nears “the end” of FiOS builds

It’s been nearly five years since Verizon decided to stop expanding its FiOS fiber network into new cities and towns, so this week’s news won’t come as a huge surprise: Verizon is nearing “the end” of its fiber construction and is reducing wireline capital expenditures while spending more on wireless. “I have been pretty consistent with this in the fact that we will spend more CapEx in the Wireless side and we will continue to curtail CapEx on the Wireline side. Some of that is because we are getting to the end of our committed build around FiOS, penetration is getting higher,” Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said yesterday in the Q4 2014  call with investors . Wireline capital spending totaled $1.6 billion in the most recent quarter and $5.8 billion for 2014, down 7.7 percent from 2013, Verizon said. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon nears “the end” of FiOS builds

Google drops three OS X 0days on Apple

Don’t look now, but Google’s Project Zero vulnerability research program may have dropped more zero-day vulnerabilities—this time on Apple’s OS X platform. In the past two days, Project Zero has disclosed OS X vulnerabilities here , here , and here . At first glance, none of them appear to be highly critical, since all three appear to require the attacker to already have some access to a targeted machine. What’s more, the first vulnerability, the one involving the “networkd ‘effective_audit_token’ XPC,” may already have been mitigated in OS X Yosemite, but if so the Google advisory doesn’t make this explicit and Apple doesn’t publicly discuss security matters with reporters. Still, the exploits could be combined with a separate attack to elevate lower-level privileges and gain control over vulnerable Macs. And since the disclosures contain proof-of-concept exploit code, they provide enough technical detail for experienced hackers to write malicious attacks that target the previously unknown vulnerabilities. The security flaws were privately reported to Apple on October 20, October 21, and October 23, 2014. All three advisories appear to have been published after the expiration of the 90-day grace period Project Zero gives developers before making reports public. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google drops three OS X 0days on Apple

Liveblog: Windows 10 “The Next Chapter” event on January 21st

REDMOND—Microsoft is unveiling the next major beta of Windows 10, the Consumer Preview, with an event at the company’s home in Redmond, Washington. We’ll be on the scene to report on the news and get a first look at the new release. We’re expecting to see the new Continuum feature that adapts the Windows interface on 2-in-1 devices and a new browser that sheds the legacy (and name) of Internet Explorer. Representatives of the Xbox team will also be at the event, with Microsoft having news about Windows gaming—though precisely what that will be is currently a mystery. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Liveblog: Windows 10 “The Next Chapter” event on January 21st

How installing League of Legends and Path of Exile left some with a RAT

Official releases for the League of Legends and Path of Exile online games were found laced with a nasty trojan after attackers compromised an Internet platform provider that distributed them to users in Asia. The compromise of consumer Internet platform Garena allowed the attackers to attach malicious software components to the official installation files for the two games, according to a blog post published Monday by antivirus provider Trend Micro. In addition to the legitimate game launcher, the compromised executable file also included a dropper that installed a remote access tool known as PlugX and a cleaner file that overwrote the infected file after it ran. According to Trend Micro, the attackers took care to conceal their malware campaign, an effort that may have made it hard for victims to know they were infected. The cleaner file most likely was included to remove evidence that would tip users off to a compromise or the origin of the attack. The cryptographic hash that was included with the tampered game files was valid, so even people who took care to verify the authenticity of the game installer would have no reason to think it was malicious, Trend Micro researchers said. The researchers linked to this December 31 post from Garena . Translated into English, one passage stated: “computers and patch servers were infected with trojans. As a result, all the installation files distributed for the games League of Legends and Path of Exile are infected.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How installing League of Legends and Path of Exile left some with a RAT

British spy agency captured 70,000 e-mails of journalists in 10 minutes

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British sister agency of the National Security Agency, captured 70,000 e-mails of journalists in 10 minutes during a November 2008 test. According to The Guardian , which on Monday cited some of its Snowden documents as its source (but did not publish them), the e-mails were scooped up as part of the intelligence agency’s direct fiber taps . Journalists from the BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Sun , NBC, and The Washington Post were apparently targeted. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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British spy agency captured 70,000 e-mails of journalists in 10 minutes

Pirates defeating watermarks, releasing torrents of Oscar movie screeners

When an incomplete and early version of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine leaked to torrent sites in 2009, Twentieth Century Fox announced that the uploader “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” “We forensically mark our content so we can identify sources that make it available or download it,” the studio said in a statement. Nabbed by a watermark, a New York man subsequently pleaded guilty to making the movie available on Megaupload. Gilberto Sanchez was sentenced to a year in prison in 2011. A triumphant US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr . said  that  “sentence handed down in this case sends a strong message of deterrence to would-be Internet pirates.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Pirates defeating watermarks, releasing torrents of Oscar movie screeners