Tag Archives: Technology

Google Removing Google+ Requirement From Other Products

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“When Google first revealed its answer to social media giants Facebook and Twitter in 2011, it was met largely with a fizzle. With membership in Google Plus far underperforming its goals, Google took a somewhat drastic step: much to the chagrin of users, Google began requiring people to have a Google Plus account to use Google services like YouTube or Google Drive.  Despite immediate backlash from users, Google pressed on with this endeavor for several years. Now, however, Google seems to have finally caved to its users, and will begin to remove Google Plus requirements from its most popular service, YouTube, in the coming months.”

http://www.techzone360.com/topics/techzone/articles/2015/07/28/407356-google-removing-google-plus-requirements.htm

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Google, Samsung phones will now receive monthly over-the-air security updates

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“Mere hours after Samsung shared plans to issue over-the-air (OTA) security updates ‘about once per month’ for its Android devices, Google has announced pretty much the same strategy. Starting this week, Nexus devices will receive regular OTA updates each month focused on security, in addition to the usual platform updates.  Just like Samsung, Google didn’t explicitly say why the new Android security update process is being unveiled now, but it did mention Stagefright, a vulnerability disclosed last week that affected roughly 95 percent of Android devices. In short, the security hole could allow a hacker to remotely access an Android smartphone using only a person’s telephone number.”

http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/05/google-announces-nexus-devices-will-now-receive-monthly-over-the-air-security-updates/

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Google pushes fixes for critical code-execution bug in Android

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“Google and its Android partners on Wednesday started distributing a fix for a vulnerability that could cause millions of phones to execute malicious code when they’re sent a malformed text message or the user is lured to a malicious website.  The flaw in an Android code library known as Stagefright was disclosed last week, several months after security researchers privately reported it to engineers responsible for Google’s Android operating system. Google engineers, in turn, have introduced changes to the Android text messaging app Messenger. The changes mitigate the threat by requiring users to click on videos before playing them.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/google-pushes-update-for-critical-android-bug-but-wont-say-if-its-fixed/

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Rowhammer.js Is the Most Ingenious Hack I’ve Ever Seen

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“The bad news is that if your computer is vulnerable, it’s a hardware issue, and there’s very little you personally can do about it. No software patches are coming to the rescue any time soon. The good news is that this hack is so complicated to pull off, you’re probably safe just from its level of difficulty alone.  So what exactly is Rowhammer.js? While it still needs to be tested further, the researchers claimed it is the ‘first remote software-induced hardware-fault attack’ in existence, written entirely in JavaScript. In other words, it’s scalable, powerful, takes more than a little luck to pull off, and if you understand how it works, it’s the most clever thing you’ll see all week.”

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/rowhammerjs-is-the-most-ingenious-hack-ive-ever-seen

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0-day bug in fully patched OS X comes under active exploit to hijack Macs

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“Hackers are exploiting a serious zero-day vulnerability in the latest version of Apple’s OS X so they can perform attacks that install malware without requiring victims to enter system passwords, researchers said.  As Ars reported last week, the privilege-escalation bug stems from new error-logging features that Apple added to OS X 10.10. Developers didn’t use standard safeguards involving additions to the OS X dynamic linker dyld, a failure that lets attackers open or create files with root privileges that can reside anywhere in the OS X file system. Researchers from anti-malware firm Malwarebytes said a new malicious installer is exploiting the vulnerability to surreptitiously infect Macs.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/0-day-bug-in-fully-patched-os-x-comes-under-active-exploit-to-hijack-macs/

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New attack on Tor can deanonymize hidden services with 88% accuracy

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“Computer scientists have devised an attack on the Tor privacy network that in certain cases allows them to deanonymize hidden service websites with 88 percent accuracy.  Hidden services allow people to host websites without end users or anyone else knowing the true IP address of the service. The deanonymization requires the adversary to control the Tor entry point for the computer hosting the hidden service. It also requires the attacker to have previously collected unique network characteristics that can serve as a fingerprint for that particular service. The new research underscores the limits to anonymity on Tor, which journalists, activists, and criminals alike rely on to evade online surveillance.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/new-attack-on-tor-can-deanonymize-hidden-services-with-surprising-accuracy/

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Skype Co-founder Funds Blockchain Based Startup Marketplace

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“Funderbeam, an Estonian company that offers data-intelligence on startups for angel investors, has announced it will launch a blockchain based trading platform for startup-investment. By doing so, the company that is – among others – funded by Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn sets out to create liquidity in the startup marketplace.  Using colored coins, all members of a syndicate will own a digital representation of their stake in that syndicate. These stakes are then immediately tradable on Funderbeam’s blockchain based market platform. As such, backers can for instance sell their share once they have made a decent return – or if they want to cut their losses.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115007/skype-co-founder-funds-blockchain-based-startup-marketplace

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Uberocracy: How the Sharing Economy Changes Politics

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“Uber’s request that drivers keep working in areas where the service is illegal is a sign that they know people want the service. The fact that people keep using the service while it is illegal shows that entrepreneurship outpaces politics. While they are technically engaged in civil disobedience, users likely neither care nor know the legal status of the services.  Airbnb hosts rent out their apartments against the terms of their leases. They probably violate some hospitality regulations in their cities. They don’t really care. The experience is so positive that both hosts and users win.  What makes this entrepreneurship new is that the barrier to entry is so low for somebody to engage in the exchange.”

https://medium.com/life-learning/uberocracy-how-the-new-entrepreneurship-changes-politics-99bc515e31b0

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Google rejects French order on global ‘right to be forgotten’

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“Google is rejecting an order by the French data privacy agency to remove search results worldwide upon request, saying European law allowing the ‘right to be forgotten’ doesn’t apply globally.  In a statement posted late Thursday, Google said bowing to CNIL’s request would force it also to agree to similar requests worldwide from any government that doesn’t agree with how the company posts content. ‘The Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place,’ the company wrote on its Europe policy blog.  Europe’s highest court ruled in May 2014 that people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online.”

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/google-rejects-french-order-world-forgotten-082428875–finance.html

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Windows 10: keylogging, harvesting browser history, purchases, and covert listening

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“By default, Microsoft gets to see your location, keystrokes and browser history — and listen to your microphone, and some of that stuff is shared with ‘trusted [by Microsoft, not by you] partners.’  You can turn this all off, of course, by digging through screen after screen of ‘privacy’ dashboards, navigating the welter of tickboxes that serve the same purposes as all those clean, ration-seeming lines on the craps table: to complexify the proposition so you can’t figure out if the odds are in your favor.  Oh, and if you’ve already chosen to use Firefox as your default browser, Microsoft overrides your decision when you ‘upgrade’ and switches you to the latest incarnation of Internet Explorer.”

http://boingboing.net/2015/08/03/windows-10-defaults-to-keylogg.html

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