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Submission + - VoIP.ms victim of week long sustained DDoS attack

Submitted by Striek
Striek writes: VoIP.ms, a Canadian VoIP provider, has been under a sustained, and presumably massive DDoS attack which started on the September 16th, 2021. The attack has been disruptive enough to be covered by major media outlets, including Hacker News, ZDNet, Ars Technica, BleepingComputer, CTV News, and The Toronto Star.

They have so far refused to pay a ransom demand, which has grown from 1 bitcoin at the outset ($45,000 USD at that time), to 100 bitcoin now, or $45 million. Similar attacks have occurred recently on several UK based VOiP providers.

With DDoS attacks against VOiP infrastructure difficult to defend against — or at least more difficult than your bog-standard denial of service, this may be setting a worrying trend.

Bleeping Computer wrote:

Threat actors are targeting voice-over-Internet provider VoIP.ms with a DDoS attack and extorting the company to stop the assault that's severely disrupting the company's operation. VoIP.ms is an Internet phone service company that provides affordable voice-over-IP service to businesses around the world. As customers configured their VoIP equipment to connect to the company's domain name, the DDoS attack disrupted telephony services, preventing them from receiving or making phone calls. As DNS was no longer working, the company advised customers to modify their HOSTS file to point the domain at their IP address to bypass DNS resolution. However, this just led the threat actors to perform DDoS attacks directly at that IP address as well. To mitigate the attacks, VoIP.ms moved their website and DNS servers to Cloudflare, and while they reported some success, the company's site and VoIP infrastructure still have issues due to the continued denial-of-service attack. "A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack continues to be targeted at our Websites and POP servers. Our team is deploying continuous efforts to stop this however the service is being intermittently affected. We apologize for all the inconveniences," says an announcement posted to the VoIP.ms website. At the time of this writing, the site is bouncing back and forth between being accessible and displaying a 500 Internal Server Error

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is ReactOS A Serious Alternative To Windows? (reactos.org)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: So I just discovered the ReactOS 0.4.4 Alpha. I have not tried it out yet, but it seems like this is basically a free, open source Windows replacement in the making. Does anyone have serious experience with ReactOS? Do you think that ReactOS will ever reach the point where you can basically say "bye bye" to Microsoft Windows, but keep using all your favorite Windows software under ReactOS? Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU? Or will ReactOS wind up being "mildly compatible" with Windows software — e.g. basic Office productivity type software works, but professional grade 3D software like Maya/CATIA does not? Thanks.

Submission + - The recent changes in Earth's magnetic field (spaceweather.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: New data from Europe’s Swarm constellation of satellites detail the recent bigger-than-expected changes that have been occurring in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Data from Swarm, combined with observations from the CHAMP and Ørsted satellites, show clearly that the field has weakened by about 3.5% at high latitudes over North America, while it has strengthened about 2% over Asia. The region where the field is at its weakest – the South Atlantic Anomaly – has moved steadily westward and weakened further by about 2%. These changes have occured over the relatively brief period between 1999 and mid-2016.

It was already known that the field has weakened globally by about 10% since the 19th century. These changes appear to be part of that generally weakening. Some scientists have proposed that this is the beginning of an overall flip of the magnetic field’s polarity, something that happens on average about every 300,000 years and last occurred 780,000 years ago. At the moment, however, we have no idea if this theory is correct.

Submission + - How Social Isolation Is Killing Us (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Social isolation is a growing epidemic — one that’s increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental and emotional consequences. Since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who say they’re lonely has doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent.

About one-third of Americans older than 65 now live alone, and half of those over 85 do. People in poorer health — especially those with mood disorders like anxiety and depression — are more likely to feel lonely. Those without a college education are the least likely to have someone they can talk to about important personal matters.

A wave of new research suggests social separation is bad for us. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent.

Another analysis that pooled data from 70 studies and 3.4 million people found that socially isolated individuals had a 30 percent higher risk of dying in the next seven years, and that this effect was largest in middle age.

Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.

Submission + - SPAM: 48 Organizations Now Have Access To Every Brit's Browsing Hstory

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Last week, in a troubling development for privacy advocates everywhere, we reported that the UK has passed the "snooper charter" effectively ending all online privacy. Now, the mainstream media has caught on and appears to be displeased. As AP writes today, "after months of wrangling, Parliament has passed a contentious new snooping law that gives authorities — from police and spies to food regulators, fire officials and tax inspectors — powers to look at the internet browsing records of everyone in the country."

For those who missed our original reports, here is the new law in a nutshell: it requires telecom companies to keep records of all users' web activity for a year, creating databases of personal information that the firms worry could be vulnerable to leaks and hackers. Civil liberties groups say the law establishes mass surveillance of British citizens, following innocent internet users from the office to the living room and the bedroom. They are right.

Which government agencies have access to the internet history of any British citizen? Here is the answer courtesy of blogger Chris Yuo, who has compiled the list:

Metropolitan police force
City of London police force
Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
Police Service of Scotland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Royal Navy Police
Royal Military Police
Royal Air Force Police
Security Service
Secret Intelligence Service
GCHQ
Ministry of Defence
Department of Health
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
National Crime Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Department for Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
Competition and Markets Authority
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
Financial Conduct Authority
Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
Food Standards Agency
Food Standards Scotland
Gambling Commission
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Health and Safety Executive
Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
Information Commissioner
NHS Business Services Authority
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
Office of Communications
Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
Scottish Ambulance Service Board
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serious Fraud Office
Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Has the 'impossible' EM drive being tested by NASA finally been explained? (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: The EM drive, the so-called “impossible” space drive that uses no propellant, has roiled the aerospace world for the past several years, ever since it was proposed by British aerospace engineer Robert Shawyer. In essence, the claim advanced by Shawyer and others is that if you bounced microwaves in a truncated cone, thrust would be produced out the open end. Most scientists have snorted at the idea, noting correctly that such a thing would violate physical laws. However, organizations as prestigious as NASA have replicated the same results, that prototypes of the EM drive produces thrust. How does one reconcile the experimental results with the apparent scientific impossibility? MIT Technology Review suggested a reason why.

Submission + - Children to Parents: 'Don't Post About Me on Facebook Without Asking Me'

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Sites like Facebook and Instagram are now baked into the world of today’s families. Many, if not most, new parents post images of their newborn online within an hour of birth, and some parents create social media accounts for the children themselves — often to share photos and news with family, although occasionally in the pursuit of “Instafame” for their fashionably clad, beautifully photographed sons and daughters. Now KJ Dell'Antonia writes in the NYT about the growing disconnect between parents and their children and the one surprising rule children want that their parents to know: Don’t post anything about me on social media without asking me. “As these children come of age, they’re going to be seeing the digital footprint left in their childhood’s wake,” says Stacey Steinberg. “While most of them will be fine, some might take issue with it.” Alexis Hiniker studied 249 parent-child pairs distributed across 40 states and found about three times more children than parents thought there should be rules about what parents shared on social media. “Twice as many children as parents expressed concerns about family members oversharing personal information about them on Facebook and other social media without permission,” says co-author Sarita Schoenebeck. “Many children said they found that content embarrassing and felt frustrated when their parents continued to do it.”

When researchers asked kids what technology rules they wished their parents would follow — a less common line of inquiry — the answers fell into seven general categories: 1) Be present — Children felt there should be no technology at all in certain situations, such as when a child is trying to talk to a parent. 2) Child autonomy — Parents should allow children to make their own decisions about technology use without interference. 3) Moderate use — Parents should use technology in moderation and in balance with other activities. 4) Supervise children — Parents should establish and enforce technology-related rules for children’s own protection. 5) Not while driving — Parents should not text while driving or sitting at a traffic light. 6) No hypocrisy — Parents should practice what they preach, such as staying off the Internet at mealtimes. 7) No oversharing — Parents shouldn’t share information online about their children without explicit permission.

Submission + - CRTC Enforced $25/mo Cable TV Is Now Available To Canadians, But With Caveats

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: Last March, Canada's regulatory agency for all things broadcasting, CRTC, ruled that cable TV providers would soon be forced to offer $25/mo packages. With enforcement having kicked-off on March 1, these inexpensive packages have now been made available. As Techgage has discovered, though, the first packages out-of-the-gate pack a number of caveats, and in some cases, are outright misleading. And, despite a simple framework to worth with, the two largest providers in the country, Rogers and Bell, offer vastly different packages, and ultimately vastly different values to the consumer.

Submission + - Windows 10 Now Showing Full Screen Ads on Lock Screen (consumerist.com)

Submitted by Striek
Striek writes: Several media outlets are reporting that Windows 10 has now started showing full screen ads on users' lock screens. They can be turned off, but how many people will actually bother with this?

Tips site How-To Geek discovered that Windows Spotlight—which normally rotates between a selection of photographs—was being used to display an ad for Square Enix’s Rise of the Tomb Raider. Understandably, most people probably don’t want to be hit in the face with a full-screen ad for a video game before they even unlock their computer. If you want to make sure you’re not hit with these ads, follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight:

Open the Start Menu and search for “Lock Screen Settings.”

Under “Background,” select either Picture or Slideshow, instead of Windows Spotlight.

Scroll down to “Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen” and this toggle.

Apparently the “and more” is where Microsoft hid the advertisements. (emphasis mine)

Submission + - Don't hate perky morning people: It might be their DNA's fault. (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Striek
Striek writes: Aggregated genome data from 23andme.com was analyzed and published in Nature magazine, and now further evidence has been added to the belief that being a morning person or a night owl is wired in our DNA.

It's not the first time such research has been published, either.

So those of us who work late into the night and prefer to rise at noon, much to the chagrin of our partners, can point to our DNA as the reason, not our lazy habits.

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