Month: January 2016

A security scheme that Britain's spy agency is promoting for encrypting phone calls contains a backdoor that can be accessed by anyone in possession of a master key, according to an analysis published Tuesday by a security expert at University College in London.

The MIKEY-SAKKE protocol is a specification based on the Secure Chorus, an encryption standard for voice and video that was developed by the Communications Electronics Security Group, the information security arm of the UK's Government Communications Headquarters. British governmental officials have indicated that they plan to certify voice encryption products only if they implement MIKEY-SAKKE and Secure Chorus.

According to Steven J. Murdoch, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Information Security Research Group of University College, MIKEY-SAKKE contains a backdoor that allows communications to be decrypted in bulk. It can be activated by anyone who has access to a master private key that's responsible for generating intermediate private keys. Because the master key is required to create new keys and to update existing ones, network providers must keep the master key permanently available.

Microsoft is recalling the power cords used by the Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, and Surface Pro 3 due to concerns that the cables can overheat when they are wound too tightly, twisted, or pinched. The company will be offering free replacement cables to affected owners with a process that will be disclosed on Friday 22nd.

The recall notice appears to cover all Surface Pro-family devices sold prior to July 15, 2015. The new Surface Pro 4 is apparently fine.

Uncharted developer Naughty Dog has already said that the upcoming Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be the last game in the series that the studio plans to work on directly. But there's still the possibility that franchise owner Sony will decide to continue the Uncharted series with a new developer at the helm (for an example of how something like that could happen, look no further than the late history of Naughty Dog's own Crash Bandicoot series).

Potential spoilers ahead...

In a new interview, though, series director Neil Druckmann suggests that Uncharted 4 will put a hard stop to the story of series protagonist Nathan Drake, one that would make it difficult for the series to continue under Sony.

Ars is constantly trying to better understand our diverse audience: what you like, what you do, and what you want from us. Today, we’ve partnered with TE Connectivity to conduct a survey about upcoming technology growth areas. The survey has a focus on engineering topics and concerns, but anyone can take it. Fans of STEM should definitely dive in. The survey itself will take two to five minutes.

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Over in the UK, Car reports that BMW is going to expand its innovative i brand in 2020. According to Car's Georg Kacher, the i3 and i8 are to be joined in 2020 by the i6. The new car will be a crossover with a 300-mile range, although BMW hasn't decided whether to make the i6 a battery electric vehicle, fuel cell EV, or hybrid.

The plan is to use lithium polymer batteries, with the idea that the technology will have matured sufficiently to make 500kWh batteries cheap enough. As with the i3 and i8, the focus will be on making the car as light as possible. However, BMW wants to sell many more i6s—Kacher says 60,000 a year—so we ought not to expect quite as much carbon fiber.

Styling is said to be something like Citroën's DS5, which makes the i6 name slightly odd. BMW's naming convention seems to have broken down recently, but even numbers are usually reserved for coupes (except when they're not, like the 2 Series hatchback, X6, or 6 Series Gran Coupe).