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Google asks Hangouts users to “migrate” their Google Voice accounts

Hangouts integration in Google Voice. Google has added a menu option inside its Android Hangouts app asking users to “migrate Google Voice to Hangouts,” according to a post in the Android subreddit from Tuesday. The dialogue, accessible through debug mode, tells users they can get their voicemail and SMSes through Hangouts instead of the Google Voice app, though it doesn’t specify how the feature works with dedicated Google Voice numbers. As time passes, Google Voice is becoming a Google product that is an increasingly odd combination of dead useful and difficult to use, beloved by its users for its (limited) functionality but long ignored by Google itself. The iOS app’s design is still from the dark days of skeuomorphism, and until recently, Google hadn’t made any attempts to absorb the service into the Google+ black hole it has been using to knit disparate parts of the company together. Hangouts seems like a natural place for Google Voice to be absorbed, but so far, there’s been little movement. Google integrated SMS into Hangouts in October 2013 and introduced an SMS for Hangouts feature for feature phones that would send Hangouts messages as SMSes. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google asks Hangouts users to “migrate” their Google Voice accounts

Millions of dymanic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Microsoft Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users. Microsoft enforced a federal court order making the company the domain IP resolver for the No-IP domains. Microsoft said the objective of the seizure was to identify and reroute traffic associated with two malware families that abused No-IP services. Almost immediately, end-users, some of which were actively involved in Internet security, castigated the move as heavy handed, since there was no evidence No-IP officially sanctioned or actively facilitated the malware campaign, which went by the names Bladabindi (aka NJrat) and Jenxcus (aka NJw0rm). “By becoming the DNS authority for those free dynamic DNS domains, Microsoft is now effectively in a position of complete control and is now able to dictate their configuration,” Claudio Guarnieri, co-founder of Radically Open Security, wrote in an e-mail to Ars Technica. “Microsoft fundamentally swept away No-IP, which has seen parts of its own DNS infrastructure legally taken away.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Millions of dymanic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Serious Android crypto key theft vulnerability affects 10% of devices

Kevlangdo Researchers have warned of a vulnerability present on an estimated 10 percent of Android phones that may allow attackers to obtain highly sensitive credentials, including cryptographic keys for some banking services and virtual private networks, and PINs or patterns used to unlock vulnerable devices. The vulnerability resides in the Android KeyStore , a highly sensitive region of the Google-made operating system dedicated to storing cryptographic keys and similar credentials, according to an advisory published this week by IBM security researchers. By exploiting the bug, attackers can execute malicious code that leaks keys used by banking and other sensitive apps, virtual private network services, and the PIN or finger patterns used to unlock handsets. The advisory said Google has patched the stack-based buffer overflow only in version 4.4, aka KitKat, of Android. The remaining versions, which according to Google figures run 86.4 percent of devices , have no such fix. In an update, IBM said the vulnerability affected only version 4.3, which runs on about 10.3 percent of handsets. There are several technical hurdles an attacker must overcome to successfully exploit the vulnerability. Android is fortified with modern software protections, including data execution prevention and address space layout randomization, both of which are intended to make it much harder for hackers to execute code when they identify security bugs. Attackers would also have to have an app installed on a vulnerable handset. Still, the vulnerability is serious because it resides in KeyStore, arguably one of the most sensitive resources in the Android OS. In an e-mail, Dan Wallach , a professor specializing in Android security in the computer science department of Rice University, explained: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Serious Android crypto key theft vulnerability affects 10% of devices

Apple releases iOS 7.1.2 with iBeacon, mail attachment encryption fixes

Andrew Cunningham Apple today released iOS 7.1.2, the second minor update to iOS 7.1 . The list of changes is short and focused mainly on minor bugs—it “improves iBeacon connectivity and stability,” patches a security hold whereby at-rest e-mail attachments could be accessed by an attacker if he or she had physical access to your phone, and fixes a problem with data transfers from accessories “including barcode scanners.” The e-mail attachment bug is probably the most important thing addressed by the update—it was reported widely back in April when Andreas Kurtz wrote about it on his blog . Kurtz was able to access e-mail attachments using standard tools on several different iOS devices running versions 7.1.1 and 7.0.4. As part of the iBeacon update, iOS 7.1.2 also re-enables Bluetooth on iOS devices, which we verified on an iPhone 5S by disabling Bluetooth before installing the update. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases iOS 7.1.2 with iBeacon, mail attachment encryption fixes

Burglar logs in to Facebook in victim’s house, forgets to sign off

Nicholas Wig. Dakota County Sheriff’s Office A 27-year-old Minnesota man appears to have violated at least two tenets of the digital age: Never log in to your Facebook account in a stranger’s house you’re burglarizing, and don’t forget to sign off if you do. Such egregious violations have led to the arrest of a South St. Paul man charged with burglary allegations. Nicholas Steven Wig is accused of stealing cash, credit cards, a watch, a checkbook, and other items. When the victim came home last week, he noticed a screen missing from a window and his house in disarray. He also discovered his home computer was open to a Facebook page of one “Nick Dub,” who turned out to be Wig, police said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Burglar logs in to Facebook in victim’s house, forgets to sign off

Running WordPress? Got webshot enabled? Turn it off or you’re toast

A zero-day vulnerability in the popular TimThumb plugin for WordPress leaves many websites vulnerable to exploits that allow unauthorized attackers to execute malicious code, security researchers have warned. The vulnerability, which was disclosed Tuesday on the Full Disclosure mailing list , affects WordPress sites that have TimThumb installed with the webshot option enabled. Fortunately, it is disabled by default, and sites that are hosted on WordPress.com are also not susceptible. Still, at press time, there was no patch for the remote-code execution hole. People who are unsure if their WordPress-enabled site is vulnerable should open the timthumb file inside their theme or plugin directory, search for the text string “WEBSHOT_ENABLED,” and ensure that it’s set to false. When “WEBSHOT_ENABLED” is set to true, attackers can create or delete files and execute a variety of other commands, Daniel Cid, CTO of security firm Sucuri, warned in a blog post published Thursday . He said uploading a file to a vulnerable site was possible using URLs such as the following, where a.txt was the file being created: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Running WordPress? Got webshot enabled? Turn it off or you’re toast

Are those lost IRS e-mails “unbelievable”? Not really

Former IRS official Lois Lerner giving testimony to a Congressional committee in 2013. The IRS says it can’t find her e-mails from before 2011. During a hearing held yesterday by the House Oversight Committee, Committee Chairman Darrel Issa said that it was “unbelievable” that the IRS had lost the e-mails of former IRS official Lois Lerner. While Congressman Issa is not generally ignorant on tech issues, he’s clearly not familiar with just how believable such a screw-up is. The IRS claims that many of Lerner’s e-mails were lost when the hard drive on her desktop computer crashed in 2011. In a Monday night hearing, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Issa and the Oversight Committee that there was no way to recover these e-mails. “If you have a magical way for me to do that,” he told Issa, “I’d be happy to hear about it.” The IRS is not the only federal agency to lose e-mails over the past few years. In fact, despite efforts at many agencies to standardize and improve e-mail by moving to services like Google Apps for Government and Microsoft Office 365 Government, many agencies still run their e-mail like it’s 1999. It’s not just a technology issue—it’s an IT policy issue, a staffing issue, and a cultural issue within government, one that the federal government shares with many private corporations. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Are those lost IRS e-mails “unbelievable”? Not really

NASA melds vacuum tube tech with silicon to fill the terahertz gap

Vacuum tubes in a guitar amplifier. Shane Gorski The transistor revolutionized the world and made the abundant computing we now rely on a possibility, but before the transistor, there was the vacuum tube. Large, hot, power hungry, and prone to failure, vacuum tubes are a now-forgotten relic of the very earliest days of computing. But there’s a chance that vacuum tube technology could make its way back into computers—albeit without the vacuum—thanks to NASA research that has put together nanoscale “vacuum channel” transistors that can switch at more than 400GHz. Vacuum tubes have three important components: two electrodes—the negative, electron-emitting cathode, and the positive, electron-receiving anode—and a control grid placed between them. The flow of current between the cathode and the anode is controlled by the grid; the higher the voltage applied to the grid, the greater the amount of current that can flow between them. All three parts are housed in an evacuated glass tube or bulb and look somewhat like a kind of overcomplicated light bulb. The thing that made vacuum tubes so hot and power hungry was the cathode. Electrons can be encouraged to cross gaps by using very high voltages, but these tend to be difficult to work with. Instead, a phenomenon called thermionic emission is used—heat a piece of metal up enough, and the thermal energy lets the electrons escape the metal. Vacuum tubes have heating elements to make the cathode hot enough to emit electrons. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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NASA melds vacuum tube tech with silicon to fill the terahertz gap

Mint 17 is the perfect place for Linux-ers to wait out Ubuntu uncertainty

The team behind Linux Mint unveiled its latest update this week—Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24, nicknamed “Qiana.” The new release indicates a major change in direction for what has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distros available today. Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, and this decision appears to have one major driver. Consistency. Like the recently released Ubuntu 14.04, Mint 17 is a Long Term Support Release. That means users can expect support to continue until 2019. But even better, this release marks a change in Mint’s relationship with Ubuntu. Starting with Mint 17 and continuing until 2016, every release of Linux Mint will be built on the same package base—Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. With this stability, instead of working to keep up with whatever changes Ubuntu makes in the next two years, Mint can focus on those things that make it Mint. With major changes on the way for Ubuntu in the next two years, Mint’s decision makes a lot of sense. Not only does it free up the Mint team to focus on its two homegrown desktops (Cinnamon and MATE), but it also spares Mint users the potential bumpy road that is Ubuntu’s future. Read 53 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Mint 17 is the perfect place for Linux-ers to wait out Ubuntu uncertainty

Microsoft wants you to trade in your MacBook Air for a Surface Pro 3

Ready to kick your MacBook Air to the curb (and wonder how much exactly in in-store credit it’s worth)? Your friendly neighborhood Microsoft Store is ready to help. Peter Bright This weekend, Microsoft Stores launched a trade-in program to encourage sales of the new Surface Pro 3 , but the trade-in promotion named only a single device : the MacBook Air, at a value of “up to $650” toward any Surface Pro 3 purchase. At the lowest specification, that trade-in amount would let buyers walk out of a Microsoft Store with an Intel i3 Surface Pro 3 for as little as $150. Though Microsoft Stores maintain a trade-in program that accepts video games, consoles, Apple iDevices, and PC laptops, this is the first promotion from Microsoft Stores that has actively sought Apple laptops—or, in this case, laptop singular. Seeing as how Microsoft has attempted to position the Surface Pro 3 as the best of both tablet and laptop worlds, the capable, paper-thin MacBook Air is the obvious recipient of Microsoft’s promotional crosshairs. We called the flagship Microsoft Store in Seattle with trade-in value questions, and while the representative said that any Macbook Air could be traded in at stores in the United States and Canada, he insisted that Microsoft won’t break down the exact trade-in value of a given Macbook Air or any other Apple hardware (iPhones, iPads, etc.) without seeing the product in person. The response came even after we tried listing off our MacBook Air’s processor, hard drive, and other specs. This stays in line with Microsoft Store policy through their own website to not disclose trade-in values. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Ken May

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