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Verizon

Verizon Injects Unique IDs Into HTTP Traffic 206

Posted by Soulskill from the doing-the-wrong-thing-badly dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier, is now also a real-time data broker. According to a security researcher at Stanford, Big Red has been adding a unique identifier to web traffic. The purpose of the identifier is advertisement targeting, which is bad enough. But the design of the system also functions as a 'supercookie' for any website that a subscriber visits. "Any website can easily track a user, regardless of cookie blocking and other privacy protections. No relationship with Verizon is required. ...while Verizon offers privacy settings, they don’t prevent sending the X-UIDH header. All they do, seemingly, is prevent Verizon from selling information about a user." Just like they said they would.

Comment let them eat fries with that (Score 5, Insightful) 720

by Thud457 (#48221915) Attached to: Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes

You do realize that people aren't, you know, actually, like, supposed to be able to support themselves with the lowest-paid jobs in the country? These are the kind of jobs that used to be done by kids still living at home, not those who expected to make a career and raise a family by saying 'Do you want fries with that?' a thousand times a day?

But with today's fucked economy, that's the only type of job many adults with kids, rent and car payments can find.

Our society has deep structural problems relating to automation that have been ignored for forty years and those chickens are coming home to roost. One of those major problems is that we've given preferential tax treatment to capital gains over income (labor).

We can either have egalitarian democratic society, or we can be like Mexico. I hope the walls on your gated community are high enough and you pay your private security contractors enough not to steal from you.
Hardware

FTDI Removes Driver From Windows Update That Bricked Cloned Chips 572

Posted by Soulskill from the righteous-backpedaling dept.
New submitter weilawei writes: Last night, FTDI, a Scottish manufacturer of USB-to-serial ICs, posted a response to the ongoing debacle over its allegedly intentional bricking of competitors' chips. In their statement, FTDI CEO Fred Dart said, "The recently release driver release has now been removed from Windows Update so that on-the-fly updating cannot occur. The driver is in the process of being updated and will be released next week. This will still uphold our stance against devices that are not genuine, but do so in a non-invasive way that means that there is no risk of end user's hardware being directly affected." This may have resulted from a discussion with Microsoft engineers about the implications of distributing potentially malicious driver software.

If you design hardware, what's your stance on this? Will you continue to integrate FTDI chips into your products? What alternatives are available to replace their functionality?
Hardware

FTDI Removes Driver From Windows Update That Bricked Cloned Chips 572

Posted by Soulskill from the righteous-backpedaling dept.
New submitter weilawei writes: Last night, FTDI, a Scottish manufacturer of USB-to-serial ICs, posted a response to the ongoing debacle over its allegedly intentional bricking of competitors' chips. In their statement, FTDI CEO Fred Dart said, "The recently release driver release has now been removed from Windows Update so that on-the-fly updating cannot occur. The driver is in the process of being updated and will be released next week. This will still uphold our stance against devices that are not genuine, but do so in a non-invasive way that means that there is no risk of end user's hardware being directly affected." This may have resulted from a discussion with Microsoft engineers about the implications of distributing potentially malicious driver software.

If you design hardware, what's your stance on this? Will you continue to integrate FTDI chips into your products? What alternatives are available to replace their functionality?
Government

Michigan Latest State To Ban Direct Tesla Sales 256

Posted by samzenpus from the not-in-my-town dept.
An anonymous reader writes As many expected, Michigan Governor Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a bill that bans Tesla Motors from selling cars directly to buyers online in the state. When asked what Tesla's next step will be, Diarmuid O'Connell, vice president of business development, said it was unclear if the company would file a lawsuit. "We do take at their word the representations from the governor that he supports a robust debate in the upcoming session," O'Connell said. "We've entered an era where you can buy products and services with much greater value than a car by going online."
Encryption

Deutsche Telecom Upgrades T-Mobile 2G Encryption In US 27

Posted by timothy from the tell-all-your-grandparents dept.
An anonymous reader writes T-Mobile, a major wireless carrier in the U.S. and subsidiary of German Deutsche Telecom, is hardening the encryption on its 2G cellular network in the U.S., reports the Washington Post. According to Cisco, 2G cellular calls still account for 13% of calls in the US and 68% of wireless calls worldwide. T-Mobile's upgrades will bring the encryption of older and inexpensive 2G GSM phone signals in the US up to par with that of more expensive 3G and 4G handsets. Parent company Deutsche Telecom had announced a similar upgrade of its German 2G network after last year's revelations of NSA surveillance. 2G is still important not only for that 13 percent of calls, but because lots of connected devices rely on it, or will, even while the 2G clock is ticking. The "internet of things" focuses on cheap and ubiquitous, and in the U.S. that still means 2G, but lots of things that might be connected that way are ones you'd like to be encrypted.

Comment do you even tinfoil, bro? (Score 5, Funny) 700

by Thud457 (#48206737) Attached to: FTDI Reportedly Bricking Devices Using Competitors' Chips.
Fine, I'll just come out and say it, it's what we're all secretly thinking anyhow.

This is just another nail in the coffin pushed by none other than then N S A.
They want to be able have a documented chain of custody for every component in every piece of your equipment so the cyberpolice can backtrace any illegal encryption and punish scapegoats to justify their exponentially growing budgets. This way they can automatically tell if you done goofed and make sure the consequences will never be the same.

WARNING : may contain MKPUPPET triggers. Processed on machinery that may have also been used to process peanuts. Oops, maybe we should have put that up front.

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