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New US spy satellite features world-devouring octopus

United Launch Alliance via ODNI President Obama is out to put the public’s mind at ease about new revelations on intelligence-gathering, but the Office for the Director of National Intelligence can’t quite seem to get with the program of calming everyone down. Over the weekend, the ODNI was pumping up the launch of a new surveillance satellite launched by the National Reconnaissance Office. The satellite was launched late Thursday night, and ODNI’s Twitter feed posted photos and video of the launch over the following days. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New US spy satellite features world-devouring octopus

Report: Spotify will introduce free mobile streaming next week

Spotify will soon allow its ad-supported users to stream music for free on their mobile devices, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch . The company is reportedly holding an event next week to announce the service tweak, which takes a bit of the incentive away from subscribing. The Journal reports that Spotify has been negotiating for nearly a year to get mobile streaming rights, and it finally has the blessing of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The rights holders and Spotify not only had to agree on rates but on how the music could be used. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Spotify will introduce free mobile streaming next week

Kingpin behind large chunk of world’s malware exploits led lavish life

A screenshot showing BlackHole statistics. Group-IB An online crime kingpin arrested in October and charged with creating and distributing the Blackhole exploit kit may have had his hand in as much as 40 percent of the world’s malware infections, according to information released by the security firm that helped track him down. The 27-year-old Russian, identified only as Paunch, allegedly earned about $50,000 per month selling BlackHole subscriptions for as much as $500 per month, according to a report published Friday by security firm Group-IB. He is also alleged to be behind the much more expensive Cool Exploit Kit and a “Crypt” service used to obfuscate malware to go undetected by antivirus programs. With more than 1,000 customers, he was able to lead a lavish lifestyle that included driving a white Porsche Cayenne, Group-IB said. A man Group-IB identifies as “Paunch” standing in front of a Porsche Cayenne. Group-IB Exploit kits are the do-it-yourself tools used to embed crimeware into hacked or malicious websites so they target a host of vulnerabilities found on end-user computers. People who visit the websites are exposed to “drive-by” attacks that are often able to install highly malicious software on the computers with no sign that anything is amiss. Group-IB estimated that Paunch may have supplied the code used in as much as 40 percent of the PC crimeware infections worldwide. Researchers arrived at that guess by gauging sales of BlackHole and Cool, which they said accounted for about 40 percent of world revenue for exploit kits. Even assuming that some crimeware is installed independent of exploit kits, it’s hard to overstate the role these two kits played in seeding the Web with exploit code that installed malware used in bank fraud and other forms of online crime. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Kingpin behind large chunk of world’s malware exploits led lavish life

Hack on JPMorgan website exposes data for 465,000 card holders

JPMorgan Chase has warned 465,000 holders of prepaid cash cards that their personal information may have been obtained by hackers who breached the bank’s network security in July, according to a report published Thursday. JPMorgan issued the cards on behalf of corporations and government agencies, which in turn used them to pay employees and issue tax refunds, unemployment compensation, and other benefits, Reuters reported . In September, bank officials discovered an attack on Web servers used by its www.ucard.chase.com site and reported it to law enforcement authorities. In the months since, bank officials have investigated exactly which accounts were involved and what pieces of information were exposed. Wednesday’s warning came after investigators were unable to rule out the possibility that some card holders’ personal data may have been accessed. The bank usually keeps customers’ personal information encrypted, but during the course of the breach, data belonging to notified customers temporarily appeared in plaintext in log files, Reuters said. The notified card holders account for about two percent of the roughly 25 million UCard users. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Anti-GMO crop paper to be forcibly retracted

Chiot’s Run Last year, a French researcher made waves by announcing a study that suggested genetically modified corn could lead to an increased incidence of tumors in lab animals. But the way the finding was announced seemed designed to generate publicity while avoiding any scientific evaluation of the results. Since then, the scientific criticisms have rolled in, and they have been scathing. Now, the editor of the journal that published it has decided to pull the paper despite the objections of its primary author. The initial publication focused on corn that had been genetically engineered to carry a gene that allowed it to break down a herbicide. French researchers led by Gilles-Eric Séralini fed the corn, with and without herbicide, to rats. Control populations were given the herbicide alone or unmodified corn. The authors concluded that the genetically-modified corn led to an elevated incidence of tumors and early death. But even a cursory glance at the results suggested there were some severe problems with this conclusion. To begin with, there were similar effects caused by both the genetically engineered crop and by the herbicide it was designed to degrade. None of the treatments showed a dose effect; in some cases, the lowest doses had the most dramatic effect. And, if the treatment populations were combined, in some cases they were healthier than the controls. Tests of whether the results were statistically significant were completely lacking. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Anti-GMO crop paper to be forcibly retracted

TV news team falls for Facebook doppelgänger scam

The doppelgänger Facebook profile scraped from WBAL producer Chris Dachille convinced many of his friends that it was actually him—and then spammed them with requests for money and malicious links. WBAL Reporters and producers at a television station in Baltimore recently found out the hard way that they shouldn’t blindly accept Facebook friend requests. Last month, they found that their profiles had been cloned by an attacker who quickly used their network of friends to spread malicious links and ask for money. Attacks on media organizations’ social media accounts have been at an all-time high this past year, including “hacktivist” and state-sponsored attacks on media outlets from the Syrian Electronic Army. But the attack on the staff of WBAL-TV was directed toward staff members’ personal accounts. And this initiative was a more workaday one, less targeted at the station itself than the friends, co-workers, and viewers who were connected to the cloned accounts. Because some of WBAL’s staff members mixed their personal and professional social networking together, the attack gave the scammer access to a huge audience’s Facebook news feeds. After the attack was discovered, it took weeks for Facebook to shut down the fake accounts. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Always-on voice search from your desktop: “Ok Google” comes to Google.com

Google Smartphones have changed the computing landscape quite a bit, and it often seems like desktop computers and laptops get left behind. “Always-on” voice search is going to completely change the way we interact with computers, but, until now, it has been strictly-mobile only. Today, Google released a Chrome extension that enables always-on voice search from a desktop. With the extension installed, voice search works just like it does on the Nexus 5. When Google.com is open, just say “Ok Google” and then your search term. This happens when you say “Ok Google” from the search results. Google The hotword even works when you’re already on a search page. You can just say “Ok Google” again and search for something else. It all feels like a step closer to the Star Trek future Google keeps promising us . Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Always-on voice search from your desktop: “Ok Google” comes to Google.com

Report: Amazon’s next Kindle Paperwhite will pick up a 300 PPI screen

The original Kindle Paperwhite. Cesar Torres Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX tablets have already broken the 300 PPI barrier, but the sharpest of its E Ink readers sits at a much lower 212 PPI. According to a report from TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino, that may be about to change—Amazon is apparently working on a new version of its backlit Kindle Paperwhite with a 300 PPI display of an unspecified size and resolution. Since E Ink screens are meant to mimic the printed page, a sharper screen would bring the e-reader that much closer to the experience of reading an actual book. While the new e-reader is still apparently “several months away,” we know a little more about its other planned features. On the hardware side, Amazon will reportedly be adding an ambient light sensor to adjust the device’s backlight based on the light in the room you’re in, and hardware buttons for page turning will be making a return (the current Paperwhite relies on touch input for page turning). On the software side, the device’s UI will of course be upscaled to take advantage of the high-density screen, and Amazon will be introducing some new fonts and other tweaks to improve the Kindle’s typography. Finally, the new Paperwhite’s design will be tweaked to bring it more in line with that of the newest Fire tablets. Amazon isn’t the first to bring a high-density e-reader to market. Kobo’s Aura HD has a 265 PPI, 6.8-inch screen and has been out since May, though Kobo is a bigger presence in its home country of Canada than it is in the US. (The Aura HD was supposedly a limited-edition product, but it’s still on sale for $170 six months later so it’s clearly not that limited.) The newest Paperwhite will however be the first E Ink reader with access to Amazon’s gigantic e-book library and the Kindle brand, two potent weapons in the battle for e-book market supremacy. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Alleged Windows support scammer forfeits money earned by “fixing” PCs

Well, maybe this guy wasn’t quite as smart as Heisenberg. AMC A man accused of tricking PC users into thinking they had viruses and then offering to “fix” their perfectly fine computers has agreed to pay back every penny he allegedly received in the scam. Navin Pasari is a defendant in one of six complaints that the Federal Trade Commission filed in September 2012 against people and entities accused of leading Windows tech support scams.”According to the complaint against Pasari and his co-defendants, the defendants placed ads with Google, which appeared when consumers searched for their computer company’s tech support telephone number,” the FTC noted in an announcement today . “After getting consumers on the phone, the defendants’ telemarketers allegedly claimed they were affiliated with legitimate companies, including Dell, Microsoft, McAfee, and Norton, and told consumers they had detected malware that posed an imminent threat to their computers. The scammers then offered to rid the computer of the non-existent malware for fees ranging from $139 to $360.” Pasari did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to a proposed final judgment and order in which he will forfeit $14,369, “which is the amount of money Mr. Pasari received from the other Defendants,” the document states. The money is being held in escrow and will be transferred to the FTC, assuming the order is approved by a US District Court judge. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Alleged Windows support scammer forfeits money earned by “fixing” PCs

Hack of Cupid Media dating website exposes 42 million plaintext passwords

A hack on niche online dating service Cupid Media earlier this year has exposed names, e-mail addresses and—most notably—plain-text passwords for 42 million accounts, according to a published report. The cache of personal information was found on the same servers that housed tens of millions of records stolen in separate hacks on sites including Adobe , PR Newswire , and the National White Collar Crime Center, KrebsonSecurity journalist Brian Krebs reported Tuesday night . An official with Southport, Australia-based Cupid Media told Krebs that user credentials appeared to be connected to “suspicious activity” that was detected in January. Officials believed they had notified all affected users, but they are in the process of double-checking that all affected accounts have had their passwords reset in light of Krebs’s discovery. The compromise of 42 million passwords makes the episode one of the biggest passcode breaches on record. Adding to the magnitude is the revelation the data was in plain-text, instead of a cryptographically hashed format that requires an investment of time, skill, and computing power to crack. As Krebs noted: Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Hack of Cupid Media dating website exposes 42 million plaintext passwords

Ken May

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