wired – Page 3 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

FDA flexes regulatory muscles, says vaping, e-cigs now under its control

(credit: Flickr/ecig click ) The US Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it has extended its authority and will now regulate electronic cigarettes, hookah tobacco, cigars, and other tobacco products under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act . The regulatory move, first proposed in 2014, is largely aimed at protecting kids from tobacco and nicotine products. The result is that e-cigs and the other products will now be subject to the same federal regulations as regular cigarettes. These regulations include some relatively uncontroversial rules such as a ban on selling e-cigs to minors (which some states have already done), requiring a photo ID to buy e-cigs, not selling e-cigs out of vending machines, and a ban on free e-cig samples. But the regulations also require that e-cigarette manufactures register with the agency and put any new devices through a pre-market regulatory approval process. By “new,” the FDA means any novel devices put on the market after February 15, 2007. Devices released before then will be grandfathered into the regulations. However, in the relatively young e-cig market, the vast majority of current products were introduced after 2007 and will be subject to the approval process. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FDA flexes regulatory muscles, says vaping, e-cigs now under its control

Verizon: Network sabotage during strike disrupted thousands of customers

Poorly maintained equipment, as shown in a union complaint about Verizon maintenance. (credit: Communications Workers of America ) Verizon says its network has suffered 57 incidents of vandalism in seven states in the two weeks since 36,000 workers went on strike . The “incidents of sabotage,” mostly involving the severing of fiber optic cables or damage to terminal boxes, “have cut off thousands of Verizon customers from critical wireline services,” the company said Wednesday . Under normal conditions, there are only about a half-dozen incidents of sabotage over the course of a year, a Verizon spokesperson told Ars today. Verizon says it is still investigating the incidents and hasn’t pinned the blame on anyone specific. But the company’s announcement pointed out that “these malicious actions take place as Verizon is experiencing a strike.” Verizon reported similar incidents of vandalism during another strike in 2011 . Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon: Network sabotage during strike disrupted thousands of customers

From TV trailblazer to IP afterthought: TiVo bought for $1.1 billion

(credit: cncphotos ) Entertainment company Rovi announced that it has officially acquired DVR maker TiVo in a deal worth $1.1 billion. Rovi will pay for the deal mostly in stock at $10.70 per share, with approximately $277 million to be paid in cash at $2.75 per share. Rovi’s CEO Tom Carson will continue to run the company, although it will now assume the “iconic TiVo brand” as its name. The deal seems to be centered on patents. According to The New York Times , Rovi’s interactive TV program guides account for less than half of its $526 million revenue last year, while the rest is made up of its licensed intellectual property. TiVo made a name for itself with its DVR technology, but the patents that make its DVR hardware and software work are proving to be more valuable. Together, Rovi and TiVo have over 6,000 patents issued and pending in the digital entertainment space. “Rovi’s acquisition of TiVo, with its innovative products, talented team, and substantial intellectual property portfolio, strengthens Rovi’s position as a global leader in media discovery, metadata, analytics, and IP licensing,” Carson said in a statement . “It’s an exciting time as the media and entertainment landscape undergoes a significant evolution…. By working together, Rovi and TiVo will revolutionize how consumers experience media and entertainment and at the same time build value for our stockholders.” Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A Comcastic miracle: Data caps will go from 300GB to a terabyte

Comcast today announced that it will boost its data cap from 300GB per month to 1TB beginning June 1, but will also charge more to customers who want unlimited data. Comcast has been trialling different caps in various cities in preparation for a potential nationwide rollout. Typically, customers would get 300GB per month and have to pay another $10 for each additional 50GB when they go over. Comcast also allowed customers to pay an extra $30 to $35 a month for unlimited data, depending on the city. After the June 1 change, fewer customers will need to buy unlimited data—but it will cost them $50 a month to do so instead of $30 or $35. Overage fees will stay the same, $10 for each additional 50GB. Thus far, Comcast has allowed customers to exceed the cap in three “courtesy months” before charging them overage fees. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

7 million unsalted MD5 passwords leaked by Minecraft community Lifeboat

(credit: Lifeboat ) As security breaches go, they don’t get more vexing than this: 7 million compromised accounts that protected passwords using woefully weak unsalted MD5 hashes, and the outfit responsible, still hadn’t disclosed the hack three months after it came to light. And as if that wasn’t enough, the service recommended the use of short passwords. That’s what Motherboard reported Tuesday about Lifeboat , a service that provides custom, multiplayer environments to gamers who use the Minecraft mobile app. The data circulating online included the e-mail addresses and hashed passwords for 7 million Lifeboat accounts. The mass compromise was discovered by Troy Hunt, the security researcher behind the Have I been pwned? breach notification site. Hunt said he had acquired the data from someone actively involved in trading hacked login credentials who has provided similar data in the past. Hunt reported that some of the plaintext passwords users had chosen were so weak that he was able to discover them simply by posting the corresponding MD5 hash into Google. As if many users’ approach to passwords were lackadaisical itself, Lifeboat’s own Getting started guide recommended “short, but difficult to guess passwords” because “This is not online banking.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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7 million unsalted MD5 passwords leaked by Minecraft community Lifeboat

“Nuclear” exploit kit service cashes in on demand from cryptoransomware rings

The web console for Nuclear, the customer-friendly malware-as-a-service platform. Some Nucleus infrastructure operating on DigitalOcean servers was recently disrupted. (credit: Check Point) Security researchers at Cisco Talos and Check Point have published reports detailing the inner workings of Nuclear, an “exploit kit” Web service that deployed malware onto victims’ computers through malicious websites. While a significant percentage of Nuclear’s infrastructure has been recently disrupted, the exploit kit is still operating—and looks to be a major contributor to the current crypto-ransomware epidemic. Introduced in 2010, Nuclear has been used to target millions of victims worldwide, giving attackers the ability to tailor their attacks to specific locations and computer configurations. Though not as widely used as the well-known Angler exploit kit , it has been responsible for dropping Locky and other crypto-ransomware onto over 140,000 computers in over 200 countries, according to statistics collected by Check Point (PDF). The Locky campaign appeared to be placing the greatest demand on the Nuclear pay-to-exploit service. Much of Talos’ data on Nuclear comes from tracking down the source of its traffic—a cluster of “10 to 15” IP addresses that were responsible for “practically all” of the exploit infrastructure. Those addresses were being hosted by a single cloud hosting provider—DigitalOcean. The hosting company’s security team confirmed the findings to Talos and took down the servers—sharing what was on them with security researchers. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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“Nuclear” exploit kit service cashes in on demand from cryptoransomware rings

Office up, Surface up, cloud booming in Microsoft’s $20.5 billion quarter

Microsoft posted revenue of $20.5 billion in the third quarter of its 2016 financial year, down 6 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Operating income was $5.3 billion, a 20 percent drop, net income was $3.8 billion, down 25 percent, and earnings per share were $0.47, a 23 percent decline. Over the past few quarters, Microsoft and other tech companies have reported significant impact from the high value of the US dollar, and have offered equivalent financial figures that show what their numbers would have been had the value of foreign earnings not been eroded by this conversion. This currency impact was estimated as reducing revenue by about $0.8 billion. The company also reports that there was a $1.5 billion impact from a combination of revenue deferrals due to Windows 10 upgrades and restructuring charges. Excluding this impact, and assuming constant currency values, the company says that its revenue was $22.1 billion (up 5 percent), operating income was $6.8 billion (up 10 percent), and net income was $5.0 billion (up 6 percent). The commercial cloud annualized revenue run rate—the forecast number that former Steve Ballmer dismissed as ” bullshit “—crept up to $10.0 billion; three months ago, it was estimated at $9.4 billion. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Help save 17 years of PC game modding history

The FileFront logo, as it existed before the 2010 renaming to GameFront. One of the Web’s oldest and largest repositories for classic and current PC gaming mods will be shutting down for good later this month. GameFront announced today that its servers will be going offline on April 30 and that “any files not downloaded by that time will no longer be accessible.” “Since our founding as FileLeech almost 20 years ago, we have always strived to offer the best file hosting alongside quality gaming content,” former GameFront staffer Ron Whitaker wrote. “To all of our fans who have supported us throughout the years, we thank you for making us your destination for gaming files. Despite name changes, ownership changes, and staff changes, you have always made our jobs rewarding and fun.” The shutdown is a blow to those who rely on GameFront for access to tens of thousands of mods, demos, patches, tools, maps, skins, and add-ons for PC games dating back to the mid-’90s. It’s especially significant to those looking for mods and patches for older games with smaller communities or defunct publishers, which can be hard or impossible to find elsewhere. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Help save 17 years of PC game modding history

Netflix quietly rolls out HDR content, starts with first season of Marco Polo

(credit: Netflix ) Netflix is bumping up the video quality of one of its original shows in an effort to get ahead of the high dynamic range (HDR) streaming game. According to a report by FlatPanelsHD , Netflix released the first season of Marco Polo in HDR as well as 4K, and more HDR-capable shows will come soon. Season two of the show has been confirmed for release in June 2016. Netflix’s corporate communications manager Yann Lafargue confirmed that certain programs will support HDR streaming now but was cryptic about shows to come in the future. “We are indeed live with HDR. It works with compatible TVs, both in HDR10 and Dolby Vision,” Lafargue told FlatPanelsHD. “We have season one of Marco Polo for now, but much more content should be available shortly, so stay tuned.” HDR improves picture quality by making blacks darker and whites brighter, resulting in an image sharper and crisper than that of regular HD. Netflix appears to be embracing HDR more than 4K at the moment, although the company has been streaming some 4K content since 2014. At that time, Netflix’s 4K content was limited not only by the number of shows available but also by the few TVs that could support the resolution. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Netflix quietly rolls out HDR content, starts with first season of Marco Polo

Ancient shopping lists point to widespread Bible-era literacy

The fortress in Arad. Around 2,600 years ago, in a military fortress in Southern Judah, a man called Eliashib sent and received messages written in ink on fragments of pottery. The contents were mundane, mainly concerning food supplies, but they provide evidence of literacy that could inform the debate about when major Biblical texts were written. Eliashib’s correspondence happened on the cusp of the fall of the Kingdom of Judah, which took place during 588-87 BCE. The date plays an important role in an ongoing debate among Biblical scholars: were the first Biblical texts produced before the fall of Jerusalem—as events were unfolding—or afterwards? One part of the debate hinges on the literacy levels at the time: if the pre-demolition population wasn’t generally literate, it wouldn’t have been likely that important historical texts were created in this era. But Eliashib and his colleagues in the Arad military fortress provide some evidence that literacy in this era may have been more widespread than previously thought. A multidisciplinary group of researchers from Tel Aviv University have combined their expertise in applied math, Jewish history, and archaeology to assess communications from the fortress, trying to establish how many people, and of what rank, were writing messages. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Ancient shopping lists point to widespread Bible-era literacy