US Army website defaced by Syrian Electronic Army

Early today, the official website of the US Army (www.army.mil) was defaced by attackers claiming to be with the Syrian Electronic Army. In addition to a message on the page claiming attribution, the attackers also included a pop-up message to anyone visiting: “Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting.” One of several messages popped up by the defaced Army.mil sites. At the time of publication, the Army main homepage is down, although other Army websites have not been affected. However, the website of the US Strategic Command —the joint Department of Defense command overseeing space and nuclear forces—is also down, as is the official page for US Cyber Command hosted on its domain. Screenshots of the attack were posted this afternoon on a Syrian Electronic Army Twitter account, one which has in the past posted links to “leaked” files about connections between the US, Turkish, and Saudi Arabian governments and Syrian rebels. This account has also previously shared information about defacements of other websites (including that of the International Business Times and the Telegraph last year) and the hijacking of Twitter accounts belonging to a number of western media outlets. The SEA claims to have created its own distribution of Linux based on Ubuntu for use by its supporters. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US Army website defaced by Syrian Electronic Army

Fallout 4 won’t be coming to Xbox 360 or PS3

Last week’s big announcement of the long-anticipated Fallout 4 included confirmation of Xbox One, PS4, and PC versions of the game. But there was no official word on any versions for the tens of millions of gamers who still use an Xbox 360 or PS3. Now, Bethesda has confirmed that those gamers will need to upgrade their hardware if they want to revisit the wasteland. “[ Fallout 4 ] is not coming to 360 and PS3,” community manager Matt Grandstaff said in a NeoGAF thread about the game. “The stuff we’re doing will never work there.” That’s good news from a technical standpoint—the development team won’t have to hold back the game’s design to make it run on aging hardware—but bad news for those who have yet to buy a new console. Fallout 4 is part of a small wave of major franchises ignoring older consoles in upcoming releases. Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will be on “Xbox One, PS4 and PC. That’s it,” Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia told Eurogamer . Street Fighter V will be coming to PlayStation 4 and PC but not the aging PS3. And then there are first-party titles like Halo 5 , Forza Motorosport 6 , Uncharted 4 , and Ratchet & Clank that will be eschewing older consoles this time around. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fallout 4 won’t be coming to Xbox 360 or PS3

County sheriff warrantlessly used stingray 500+ times, claims to have no records

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department (SCSD), the largest law enforcement agency in California’s capital region, has operated a stingray at least 500 times without a warrant in the last decade. But if you asked SCSD directly, even recently they wouldn’t give you a definite figure. As part of an ongoing investigation into stingray use nationwide, Ars filed a public records request with the SCSD  this year. And at the end of April, the SCSD responded. The department claimed that “no responsive documents exist,” essentially saying that there are no  records  detailing how many times its stingray has been used. That seemed a bit odd because in 2013,  local Sacramento television station News 10  obtained a Homeland Security grant application written by the SCSD. The proposal aimed to upgrade  the department’s stingray capabilities, and as part of its justification, the SCSD claimed to know how successful its device has been: Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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County sheriff warrantlessly used stingray 500+ times, claims to have no records

Yes, you’ll be able to do clean installs of the free Windows 10 upgrade

Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to most Windows 7 and 8 users for one year after its July 29 launch. This has led, inevitably, to a number of questions about what happens to those who want or need to reinstall their operating system. Microsoft’s Gabe Aul has provided some much-needed clarification on this issue. On Twitter he confirmed that once upgraded , Windows 10 users will be able to perform clean installs of the operating system at any time, even after the one-year free period has ended. Users won’t be required to install Windows 7 or 8 and then re-upgrade, and they won’t need the Windows 7 or 8 product key , with Aul confirming that clean installs from an ISO will be possible. There’s still some uncertainty about Microsoft’s promise to provide free updates to the operating system for the “supported lifetime” of the hardware it’s installed on, especially in regard to the impact that hardware upgrades will have on this. This question has always been a little awkward for Windows licenses; a newly built machine clearly needs a new license (which won’t be free ), but an old machine upgraded piece by piece to be a new machine will probably be able to keep its free license, especially if the upgrades are staggered so that the product activation threshold is never hit. What does this mean for the “supported lifetime”? Is it extended indefinitely? Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Yes, you’ll be able to do clean installs of the free Windows 10 upgrade

Comcast issuing $5 credits after Internet outage caused by DNS failure

Comcast customers on the West Coast will be able to get $5 credits due to a multihour Internet outage that happened Monday night. Though Internet service providers might offer refunds to customers who call and complain, they aren’t generally in the habit of proactively issuing refunds after outages. But Comcast, the country’s largest cable and broadband company, has been trying to improve its reputation for awful customer service . “We are directly reaching out to those who reported problems last night to offer our apologies and a credit for lost service,” Comcast Senior VP Mark Muehl wrote in a blog post yesterday. The credit will be $5,  USA Today  reported . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast issuing $5 credits after Internet outage caused by DNS failure

Bethesda counting down to an apparent Fallout announcement

We’re usually a bit reluctant to write about news that amounts to an announcement that an actual news announcement is coming soon. But when the announcement in question regards the much-loved  Fallout series, we’ll make a rare exception. So here we are, announcing that Bethesda has set up a countdown clock at fallout.bethesda.com letting us all watch the seconds tick by until… well, we’re not sure exactly. The only hints that we’re even expecting a Fallout announcement at all are that URL and the background “Indian head” test pattern familiar to anyone who has seen a recent Fallout loading screen. We’ll all find out what it means together when the countdown runs out at 10am EDT Wednesday morning, I guess. Bethesda recently announced that it would be hosting its first-ever pre-E3 press conference on June 14 , so it makes some sense that it would have big news to share for one of its biggest franchises. An teaser announcement of a new Fallout tomorrow could help soften the ground for a fuller reveal at that press conference. That would be similar to the extremely short Doom 4 teaser that came out last month, ahead of a promised longer trailer at the press conference. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bethesda counting down to an apparent Fallout announcement

Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Intel, after a couple of months of negotiation, has agreed to buy Altera for $16.7 billion (£11 billion) in cash. The acquisition comes just a few days after Avago announced its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom, the largest deal ever seen by the tech sector. The timing is probably not coincidental: Intel and Altera had reportedly been in talks since March. Much like the Avago-Broadcom deal, Intel-Altera is a consolidation move. Altera is the second largest maker of FPGAs and other programmable logic devices behind Xilinx . Intel makes a wide range of chips, but has only ever dabbled in FPGAs. Buying Altera will let Intel sell a wider variety of chips through its existing sales channels, while also potentially realising some savings through strategic job cuts. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

If you call Verizon FiOS and try to cancel or downgrade your TV package, you might find that the FiOS rep knows almost as much about your TV viewing habits as you do. Verizon’s Rep Guidance software tells Verizon representatives what channels you watch to help them make a more effective sales pitch. The system, which also shows them how much Internet data you use and which pieces of TV equipment you use most, was detailed by a Verizon executive in a public presentation hosted by Data Driven NYC. A Quartz reporter  wrote about the presentation yesterday . Verizon “is now closely tracking exactly what you watch, what devices you use, and how much data you consume,” Quartz wrote. “It knows whether your household spars over DVR conflicts and how many hours your kids spend binge-watching shows on HBO. What’s more, the company is listening in on phone calls to customer service in real-time, with supervisors poised to jump at the moment they sense a fight brewing or hear trigger words from an unhappy customer, such as ‘switching to Time Warner Cable.'” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

NEW YORK—Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison Friday, following a jury’s finding in February that the 31-year-old was the mastermind behind the Silk Road, once the Internet’s largest online drug marketplace. Operating online as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht worked with a small staff to control everything sold on the site. He was arrested in October 2013, and the government made its case against him during a three-week trial here earlier this year. Ulbricht pleaded for leniency  during the hearing. “I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path,” he said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

Android M embraces USB Type-C, MIDI devices

USB Type-C is still a rarity today, but as the year goes on, the new port is going to begin showing up in more and more devices. In anticipation of this, Google has introduced a handful of features in the Android M release to support some of Type-C’s new features. Google hasn’t released a ton of information about the new features, but the most significant ones relate to the USB Power Delivery spec . A menu that pops up when you plug one USB Type-C device to another asks you what kind of connection you’re trying to make. The standard MTP and PTP file and photo transfer protocols, available in current versions of Android, are on this list, but the menu will also ask you if you’d like to charge the device or use it as a power supply for another device. The USB selection pop-up in Android M. Google This effectively makes Android M devices with USB Type-C ports into external batteries. Your tablet can charge your phone. Your phone could charge a camera battery or Bluetooth headset. Not every device combination makes sense (using a large laptop or tablet battery to charge a small phone battery seems useful; using a small phone battery to charge anything else seems ill-advised) but for compatible devices, it will be a handy feature. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android M embraces USB Type-C, MIDI devices