Tag: yorker-vanity

iTunes (temporarily) serves porn images to Russian users

iTunes users in Russia got an eyeful on Wednesday (hat tip to Wired ) when a newly released version of the app displayed graphic images of porn instead of the foreign films they were expecting. The bug, reported to be present in the iTunes Store shown to users in Russia, is most likely the result of images that were linked to xxx.xxx. Security experts speculate it was an oversight by Apple developers, who put the address in as a placeholder and then forgot to revise it. The site happens to be the official search directory for domains that carry the .xxx top level domain, which was created last year. As a result, the iTunes section briefly featured a smorgasbord of pornographic images. Apple quickly fixed the mishap, but has yet to explain how it happened. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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iTunes (temporarily) serves porn images to Russian users

Sophisticated botnet steals more than $47M by infecting PCs and phones

Behold—the Eurograbber, visualized. Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock A new version of the Zeus trojan—a longtime favorite of criminals conducting online financial fraud—has been used in attacks on over 30,000 electronic banking customers in Europe, infecting both their personal computers and smartphones. The sophisticated attack is designed to circumvent banks’ use of two-factor authentication for transactions by intercepting messages sent by the bank to victims’ mobile phones. The malware and botnet system, dubbed “Eurograbber” by security researchers from Check Point Software and Versafe, was first detected in Italy earlier this year. It has since spread throughout Europe. Eurograbber is responsible for more than $47 million in fraudulent transfers from victims’ bank accounts, stealing amounts from individual victims that range from 500 Euros (about $650) to 25,000 Euros (about $32,000), according to a report published Wednesday (PDF) . The malware attack begins when a victim clicks on a malicious link, possibly sent as part of a phishing attack. Clicking on the link directs them to a site that attempts to download one or more trojans: customized versions of Zeus and its SpyEye and CarBerp variants that allow attackers to record Web visits and then inject HTML and JavaScript into the victim’s browser. The next time the victim visits their bank website, the trojans capture their credentials and launch a JavaScript that spoofs a request for a “security upgrade” from the site, offering to protect their mobile device from attack. The JavaScript captures their phone number and their mobile operating system information—which are used in the second level of Eurograbber’s attack. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sophisticated botnet steals more than $47M by infecting PCs and phones

Fully loaded new 27-inch iMac will cost over $4,200—before tax

Apple’s newer, thinner iMacs are due to be released  tomorrow , with the 21-inch models showing up in stores and shipping immediately, and 27-inch models shipping some time in December. While base model pricing and configuration options have been  known  ever since the new models were announced in October, Apple has not yet officially announced the pricing of any of the add-on options like video cards and extra storage, so potential purchasers haven’t yet been able to nail down their total pocketbook impact. Enlarge / Base pricing for the new iMacs. Image from store.apple.com However, earlier this week MacRumors  posted  news from an Apple reseller named  Expercom , which reportedly contains the entire set of iMac build-to-order upgrade prices. According to that list, a fully loaded 27-inch iMac will cost an eye-watering $4,249, before tax: Base price, 27-inch iMac, 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX video card, 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM:  $1,999 Upgrade to 3.5GHz Intel Core i7:  $200 Upgrade to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX video card:  $150 Upgrade to 768GB SSD:  $1,300 Upgrade to 32GB of RAM:  $600 Tossing in 6 percent for a guess at sales tax (obviously, this varies by state and even city) yields a grand total of  $4,503.94  for an iMac with every single upgrade box checked. Hope you brought a second pair of underwear… preferably one stuffed with $100 bills. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fully loaded new 27-inch iMac will cost over $4,200—before tax

Windows 8 sales are good, if not great, at 40 million copies in the first month

Tami Reller, corporate vice president (and chief financial officer and chief marketing officer) for Windows and Windows Live, announced today that Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses after its first month of retail availability. Is that number good, bad, or merely mediocre? Probably good, but perhaps not great. Microsoft sold 60 million copies of Windows 7 in the first ten weeks of that operating system’s availability, with the Wall Street Journal estimating that 40 million copies were sold in the first month. With Windows 8 selling 40 million copies in five weeks, it seems to be selling at about the same pace as Windows 7. Considering the different market dynamics—Windows 7 was an iterative release that fulfilled substantial pent-up demand as businesses chose to ignore Windows Vista whereas Windows 8 is a more controversial update being brought to a market that is generally happy with Windows 7 anyway—this is a healthy performance. Windows 7 sold very well and matching it is no mean feat. The apparent failure to surpass Windows 7’s launch could explain the mixed reports on early sales. Strong sales can still be disappointing if they were expected to be stronger still. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 8 sales are good, if not great, at 40 million copies in the first month

Internet Explorer 10 finally comes to Windows 7

The tenth major version of Internet Explorer has been available to users of Windows 8 for months , in both the operating system’s pre-release days and since it hit retail on October 26. But while Microsoft declared IE10 ready to go for Windows 8, users of Windows 7 could not download the browser—until today. Even now, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is only available in a ” Release Preview .” It’s the first preview of IE10 to be usable on Windows 7 since last year’s Platform Preview . But what’s available today is a version of IE10 that is presumably ready for daily use, as installing it replaces the user’s previous version of Internet Explorer. IE10 is only for Windows 7 and Windows 8. The reason for the staggered releases hasn’t been confirmed, but as we noted in an article last month , “The extra time required for Windows 7 may be due to underlying platform differences—Windows 8 supports Direct3D 11.1, compared to 11.0 on Windows 7, for example. So if Internet Explorer 10 depends on Direct3D 11.1 features, either that dependence has to be removed, or Direct3D 11.1 has to be ported to Windows 7.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Internet Explorer 10 finally comes to Windows 7

Best of both worlds: Setting up Wi-Fi for iOS on 2.4 and 5GHz

For a while, it seemed that Wi-Fi was becoming a victim of its own success. In many cities, there are numerous active Wi-Fi networks on those preciously few non-overlapping channels—that’s in addition to microwaves, bluetooth, cordless phones, and baby monitors, which all share the 2.4GHz band. But since about 2007, Apple has also built support for 802.11n Wi-Fi on the 5GHz band into its computers and Airport line of Wi-Fi base stations. Now, the iPhone 5 and the latest iPod touch also have that support. (The iPad has had it since day one.) So, how do you set up a Wi-Fi network that makes the most of this confluence of Wi-Fi bands? Not created equal First of all, it’s important to realize that the two bands are created very differently. The 2.4GHz band suffers from lack of non-overlapping channels and interference from other devices. But the lower frequencies pass through walls and floors reasonably well. The 5GHz band on the other hand, has a much larger number of channels—and they don’t overlap—but the higher frequencies have reduced range, even in open air. In addition to this, Apple only supports using two channels as a single, double-speed wide channel in the 5GHz band. If all else is equal, 5GHz is twice as fast as 2.4GHz. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Best of both worlds: Setting up Wi-Fi for iOS on 2.4 and 5GHz

Judge blocks California’s new ban on anonymity for sex offenders

ax2groin On Tuesday, voters in California overwhelmingly approved Proposition 35, which ratcheted up penalties for those convicted of sex crimes, including human trafficking. The proposition included a provision requiring registered sex offenders to disclose to law enforcement all of their Internet connections and online identities. On Wednesday, two of the 73,900 registered sex offenders in the state who would be affected by the law filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these provisions. The two plaintiffs argued that forcing them to expose their online identities would violate their First Amendment right to speak anonymously. Their appeal is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Late on Wednesday, Judge Thelton Henderson granted a temporary restraining order barring the law from going into effect until he had time to consider the plaintiffs’ constitutional arguments. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Judge blocks California’s new ban on anonymity for sex offenders

Researcher advises against use of Sophos antivirus on critical systems

Antivirus provider Sophos has fixed a variety of dangerous defects in its products that were discovered by a security researcher who is recommending many customers reconsider their decision to rely on the company. “Sophos claim that their products are deployed throughout healthcare, government, finance, and even the military,” Tavis Ormandy wrote in an e-mail posted to a public security forum . “The chaos a motivated attacker could cause to these systems is a realistic global threat. For this reason, Sophos products should only ever be considered for low-value non-critical systems and never deployed on networks or environments where a complete compromise by adversaries would be inconvenient.” A more detailed report that accompanied Ormandy’s e-mail outlined a series of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit remotely to gain complete control over computers running unpatched versions of the Sophos software. At least one of them requires no interaction on the part of a victim, opening the possibility of self-replicating attacks, as compromised machines in turn exploit other machines, he said. The researcher provided what he said was a working exploit against Sophos version 8.0.6 running Apple’s OS X. Attackers could “easily” rewrite the code to work against unpatched Sophos products that run on the Windows or Linux operating systems, he said. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Researcher advises against use of Sophos antivirus on critical systems

Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

When Microsoft first revealed its Surface tablet back in June , many in the rumor mill were expecting the company to reveal a gaming-focused “Xbox Surface,” based on leaked documents pointing to such a tablet. Those rumors have resurfaced again, with The Verge reporting  today that Microsoft is working on a final implementation of a 7-inch tablet tuned for gaming. The Verge’s unnamed source says the previously leaked specs for the tablet were indeed accurate, meaning the system would include a 7-inch, 1280×720 screen, 288MB of RAM, and a “custom IBM engine for scale-out workloads.” Those specs could be altered to allow for different models independent of one specific hardware architecture, however. The tablet will supposedly run a small Windows kernel rather than the full version of Windows that the 10-inch Surface tablet uses, and will work in conjunction with a “stationary computing device” that could be a next-generation Xbox, as outlined in another leaked Microsoft document from the summer . The Verge claims that the full console will be built by contract manufacturers like Pegatron and Foxconn, but that the tablet will be built by the same secret manufacturing process used for the Surface. The Xbox tablet would be released in 2013, ahead of a next-generation console. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Microsoft going to production with 7-inch “Xbox Surface”

Kim Dotcom now plans to give New Zealand free broadband pipe to US

The route of the proposed trans-Pacific fiber link. Pacific Fibre On the heels of the announcement of Megaupload’s pending resurrection as Me.ga , Kim Dotcom has come up with a yet another way to promote himself, annoy the US and New Zealand governments, and rally public support in his battle to stop his extradition and end the copyright infringement case against him: he wants to give everyone in New Zealand free broadband service. The core of the plan is to revive the failed Pacific Fibre , an effort to create a broadband link from Australia and New Zealand directly to the US by way of a submarine cable to Los Angeles. The effort went bankrupt in August before reaching its goal. Dotcom’s plan is to complete the link, and to sell high-speed connections to government, businesses and foreign telecommunications companies—while giving New Zealand ISPs free access to provide connectivity for individual residents. “For every foreign user downloading from NZ (paid),” Dotcom posted on Twitter, “a Kiwi can download from outside NZ (free). The key: Storing data foreign users want in NZ.” Dotcom contends that the high-speed link would make New Zealand an attractive location for data centers; the country’s current shortage of global connectivity makes it an “Internet backwater,” he said. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Kim Dotcom now plans to give New Zealand free broadband pipe to US