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Submission + - Apple loses copyright battle against Corellium (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by krakman
krakman writes: Corellium virtualized ios.. and let others have access to the virtualized ios for 'security research purposes'.
Apple supposedly tried to buy the predecessor company and failed.. then they did what apple does best... Sued...for violations of copyright law.

Then .. it happened.. apple lost.. a florida judge threw out apple's case... more on this in (paywalled) article: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

and lost...

Submission + - Flash is about to die, but classic Flash games will live on (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: After years of growing technical irrelevance and security concerns, the Flash browser plug-in will reach the end of the road on January 12 when Adobe blocks its ability to display content. The web will survive just fine. But there’s a huge library of old Flash games—some of them quirky, interesting, and worth preserving. Over at Fast Company, Jared Newman wrote about several grassroots initiatives that will allow us to continue to enjoy these artifacts of the Flash era even after Flash is history.

Submission + - Fantasy and Sci-fi author Debra Doyle, 1952-2020 (locusmag.com)

Submitted by serviscope_minor
serviscope_minor writes: SF writer Debra Doyle, 67, died October 31 of a sudden cardiac event at home in Colebrook NH. She was best known for work written in collaboration with her husband, James D. Macdonald, including Mythopoeic Award winner Knightâ(TM)s Wyrd (1992) and the Mageworlds space opera series.

Doyleâ(TM)s first work of genre interest was story âoeBad Bloodâ (1988, with Macdonald). All her novels were written with Macdonald, beginning with Night of Ghosts and Lightning (1989, as by Robyn Tallis). School of Wizardry (1990) launched the Circle of Magic series and had sequels Tournament and Tower (1990), City by the Sea (1990), The Princeâ(TM)s Players (1990), The Prisoners of Bell Castle (1990), and The High Kingâ(TM)s Daughter (1990). The Mageworlds series began with The Price of Stars (1992) and continued with Starpilotâ(TM)s Grave (1993), By Honor Betrayâ(TM)d (1994), The Gathering Flame (1995), The Long Hunt (1996), The Stars Asunder (1999), and A Working of Stars (2002). Their Bad Blood (1993) was followed by sequels Huntersâ(TM) Moon (1994) and Judgment Night (1995). Groogleman (1996) was a standalone. They wrote Civil War-era fantasy Land of Mist and Snow (2006) and Lincolnâ(TM)s Sword (2010). They also wrote various works of tie-in fiction under their own names and assorted pseudonyms.

Submission + - Nasal Spray Could Prevent Coronavirus Transmission (columbia.edu)

Submitted by Snard
Snard writes: A nasal antiviral created by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons blocked transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets, suggesting the nasal spray also may prevent infection in people exposed to the new coronavirus.

The compound in the spray—a lipopeptide developed by Anne Moscona, MD, and Matteo Porotto, PhD, professors in the Department of Pediatrics and directors of the Center for Host-Pathogen Interaction—is designed to prevent the new coronavirus from entering host cells.

The antiviral lipopeptide is inexpensive to produce, has a long shelf life, and does not require refrigeration. These features make it stand out from other antiviral approaches under development, including monoclonal antibodies. The new nasal lipopeptide could be ideal for halting the spread of COVID in the United States and globally; the transportable and stable compound could be especially key in rural, low-income, and hard-to-reach populations.

Submission + - Facebook Can't Seem to do Anything About 'Stop the Steal' Groups (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday night, Facebook announced it had activated “break glass” measures to try to quell the spread of disinformation, which has been supercharged by the lies being spread by President Donald Trump and his allies. The unprecedented move may have been triggered by Facebook’s decision hours earlier to shut down a viral group called “Stop the Steal” that had racked up 360,000 in the space of 24 hours. The group was spreading disinformation, advocating for gun violence, and organizing real-world protests. But the impact of Facebook’s moves has been negligible.

A VICE News investigation, using the Facebook-owned analytics tool CrowdTangle, found at least three active groups on Facebook using variations of the Stop the Steal name, all of which have tens of thousands of followers and all of which are sharing the same disinformation as the original group. The biggest group identified is called “StoptheSteal” which has almost 70,000 members. The next biggest is called “Stop the Steal 2.0” with 40,000 followers. Finally, a group with an identical name — “Stop the Steal” — has 25,800 members. By allowing the original group to grow so quickly, and to such a scale before removing it, Facebook could have inadvertently made the situation even worse, Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told VICE News. “The challenge in managing copycat groups is that there is additional potential for voter fraud disinformation and threats of violence among communities who may be motivated for further action given the removal of the original group, particularly around possible mobilization at election centers.”

Submission + - Democrats Will Introduce Bill To Bring Back Net Neutrality (thehill.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Monday that Democrats will introduce a net neutrality bill to replace the open internet rules that were repealed in 2017. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said a bill called the Save the Internet Act will be unveiled Wednesday and will be introduced in the Senate as well. The text of the legislation has not been released, and it’s unclear what will be included in the bill. Democrats have railed against the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote to repeal the net neutrality rules, which happened more than a year ago. The 2015 regulations prohibited internet service providers from blocking or throttling websites or creating internet fast lanes.

Submission + - These 120 Data Brokers Just Registered In Vermont Under a Landmark Law (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: Vermont's newly enacted data broker law is the only law of its kind in the US so far, and it's forced any company collecting data on its citizens to register with the state. Fast Company wrote about the limitations of the law and compiled a list of the companies, what they do, and tips for opting-out if possible.

The Vermont law only covers third-party data firms--those trafficking in the data of people with whom they have no relationship--as opposed to "first-party" data holders like Amazon, Facebook, or Google, which collect their own enormous piles of detailed personal data directly from users. It doesn't require data brokers to disclose who's in their databases, what data they collect, or who buys it. Nor does it require brokers to give consumers access to their own data or opt out of data collection. Brokers are, however required to provide some information about their opt-out systems under the law--assuming they provide one.

Submission + - SPAM: Teen hacker posed as CIA boss to access secret military files...

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Kane Gamble, 18, hacked into intelligence head John Brennan's email account, made hoax calls to his family home and even took control of his wife's iPad, judges were told.

The hacks were carried out as part of a campaign of harassment against top US officials motivated by his political views, a court heard.

Gamble was just 15 when he posed as a telecoms worker and Brennan himself to gain information including passwords, contacts lists and sensitive documents about operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Red Hat Will Revert Spectre Patches After Receiving Reports of Boot Issues (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Red Hat is releasing updates for reverting previous patches for the Spectre vulnerability (Variant 2, aka CVE-2017-5715) after customers complained that some systems were failing to boot.

"Red Hat is no longer providing microcode to address Spectre, variant 2, due to instabilities introduced that are causing customer systems to not boot," the company said yesterday. "The latest microcode_ctl and linux-firmware packages are reverting these unstable microprocessor firmware changes to versions that were known to be stable and well tested, released prior to the Spectre/Meltdown embargo lift date on Jan 3rd," Red Had added.

Instead, Red Hat is recommending that each customer contact their OEM hardware provider and inquire about mitigations for CVE-2017-5715 on a per-system basis. Besides Red Hat Enterprise Linux, other RHEL-based distros like CentOS and Scientific Linux are also expected to be affected by Red Hat's decision to revert previous Spectre Variant 2 updates, so these users will also have to contact CPU/OEM vendors.

Submission + - Lenovo Discovers and Removes Backdoor in Networking Switches (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lenovo engineers have discovered a backdoor in the firmware of RackSwitch and BladeCenter networking switches. The company released firmware updates earlier this week. The Chinese company said it found the backdoor after an internal security audit of firmware for products added to its portfolio following the acquisitions of other companies. Lenovo says the backdoor affects only RackSwitch and BladeCenter switches running ENOS (Enterprise Network Operating System).

The backdoor was added to ENOS in 2004 when ENOS was maintained by Nortel's Blade Server Switch Business Unit (BSSBU). Lenovo claims Nortel appears to have authorized the addition of the backdoor "at the request of a BSSBU OEM customer." In a security advisory regarding this issue, Lenovo refers to the backdoor under the name of "HP backdoor." The backdoor code appears to have remained in the firmware even after Nortel spun BSSBU off in 2006 as BLADE Network Technologies (BNT). The backdoor also remained in the code even after IBM acquired BNT in 2010. Lenovo bought IBM's BNT portfolio in 2014.

Submission + - Russia-linked Twitter accounts 'tried to divide UK' after terrorist attacks (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Fake social media accounts linked to Russia were used to influence and interfere with public debate in the aftermath of four terrorist attacks in the UK this year, researchers have found. At least 47 Russian Twitter accounts posted material after attacks at Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Finsbury Park. Of the 47 accounts, eight were especially active, posting at least 475 tweets about the four attacks, which were reposted more than 153,000 times. The accounts intervened on both sides of polarised debates to ramp up the level of discord online, the research found.

Submission + - Secure Apps Exposed to Hacking via Flaws in Underlying Programming Languages (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Research presented this week at the Black Hat Europe 2017 security conference has revealed that several popular interpreted programming languages are affected by severe vulnerabilities that expose apps built on these languages to attacks. The author of this research is IOActive Senior Security Consultant Fernando Arnaboldi. The expert says he used an automated software testing technique named fuzzing to identify vulnerabilities in the interpreters of five of today's most popular programming languages: JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby.

The researcher created his own fuzzing framework named XDiFF that broke down programming languages per each of its core functions and fuzzed each one for abnormalities. His work exposed severe flaws in all five languages, such as a hidden flaw in PHP constant names that can be abused to perform remote code execution, and undocumented Python methods that lead to OS code execution. Arnaboldi argues that attackers can exploit these flaws even in the most secure applications built on top of these programming languages.

Submission + - Gamer Streams Pay-Per-View UFC Fight by Pretending to Play It

Submitted by WheezyJoe
WheezyJoe writes: A Pay-Per-View UFC Match was streamed in its entirety on Twitch and other platforms by a gamer pretending he was "playing" the fight as a game. The gamer, appearing in the corner of the image holding his game controller, made off like he was controlling the action of the "game" when in fact he was re-broadcasting the fight for free.

A tweet showing Lester’s antics went viral, with over 63,000 retweets and 140,000 likes at the time of publication. Another clip shows him reacting wildly yelling “oooooooooooooooh!!!” and “damnnnnnn!” in response to the match.

Submission + - The world's astonishing dependence on fossil fuels hasn't changed in 40 years (qz.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes:

There are few ways to understand why. First, most of the world’s clean-energy sources are used to generate electricity. But electricity forms only 25% of the world’s energy consumption. Second, as the rich world moved towards a cleaner energy mix, much of the poor world was just starting to gain access to modern forms of energy. Inevitably, they chose the cheapest option, which was and remains fossil fuels.

So yes, we’re using much more clean energy than we used to. But the world’s energy demand has grown so steeply that we’re also using a lot more fossil fuels than in the past.

Maybe "Dependence" is a poor description of poor people using the ready availability of cheap energy to help lift themselves out of poverty.

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