Month: July 2016

If you sign into Pokémon Go on iOS, you may be giving it more access than it needs. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Update: Niantic has confirmed in a statement that the Pokémon Go app requests more permissions than it needs, but that it has not accessed any user information. Google will automatically push a fix on its end to reduce the app's permissions, and Niantic will release an update to the app to make it request fewer permissions in the first place. The full statement:

"We recently discovered that the Pokémon Go account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user's Google account. However, Pokémon Go only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your user ID and e-mail address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected. Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google account information, in line with the data we actually access. Google has verified that no other information has been received or accessed by Pokémon Go or Niantic. Google will soon reduce Pokémon Go's permission to only the basic profile data that Pokémon Go needs, and users do not need to take any actions themselves.

Original story: A word of warning if you're playing Pokémon Go on iOS: signing into the app through Google currently gives the game full access to your Google account (hat tip to Adam Reeve for discovering the issue). External apps that you sign into with Google often ask for a small subset of permissions based on what they need to do—view your contacts, view and send e-mail, view and delete Google Drive documents, and so on. But Niantic's Pokémon Go iOS app doesn't ask, and with full account access, it can theoretically do all of those things and more. You can check on and revoke permissions for Pokémon Go and any other external app on this page.

We've independently verified that the game requests full account access on iOS, but the Android version doesn't appear to have the same problem; you can sign in with Google but the app doesn't show up on the permissions page. And, of course, you don't need to use a Google account to play Pokémon Go—an account created through the Pokémon site will also work. However, that site is currently having server problems and you may not be able to create an account right now if you don't already have one.

I've wanted Mr. Robot to return so badly that my work notebooks are filled with schoolboy doodles. Unfortunately, my Elliot looks too much like Doug Funnie. (credit: Nathan Mattise)

If there are two things the Ars staff has been itching for over the past year, it's a return to podcasting and the return of Mr. Robot. If you feel similar, we have some good news.

Welcome to Decrypted, Ars Technica's weekly podcast for season 2 of Mr. Robot.

For our debut episode, we look back to season one exclusively through the eyes (err, words) of main character Elliot Alderson (played by Rami Malek). Despite the Internet's (justified) obsession with the show's realistic depiction of tech, Ars reviewer Jonathan Gitlin said the characters and especially how "they break down and experience their delusions" is what makes Mr. Robot compelling. So if breakdowns and delusions are what you're after, there's no better way to relive season 1 than through Elliot's words.

Hamas and its supporters have published images like this on Facebook. (credit: Force v. Facebook)

On Sunday, the families of several terrorist victims sued Facebook under an American anti-terrorism law. The victims died in multiple terrorist attacks in Israel in 2015 and 2016, and the families are seeking at least $1 billion in damages.

The plaintiffs allege that the social networking giant is liable as it provides “material support” to Hamas—which the United States government considers a terrorist group—by allowing its leaders and followers to openly use the service.

The case, known as Force v. Facebook, is the latest example of families attempting to use terrorism statutes as a way to shut down objectionable speech online and gain a monetary benefit for their deceased loved ones from social networks. None of the other efforts so far have been successful.

The cell's powerhouse, which looks a bit like a heavily compartmentalized kidney bean. (credit: NIH)

Mitochondria are “the powerhouse of the cell” (or so every fifth grade biology book will tell you) because they use aerobic respiration to generate ATP, the molecular form of energy that enables cellular processes to occur.

Structurally, mitochondria are unusual in that they have their own DNA. This is because they were initially bacterial cells that long ago got subsumed by other cells, relinquishing their independence for a safe harbor and giving their hosts an energy boost in exchange.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encodes many of the proteins required for aerobic respiration—but not all of them. Respiration still requires many proteins that are encoded by the cell's regular chromosomes. A new study suggests that the right match between mtDNA genes and chromosomal genes could be key to an organism's health and that some mtDNA may actually be beneficial.

(credit: City of Columbus)

Vaccination has improved health and lengthened life spans over the last two centuries, but it takes time to develop vaccines in response to emergent health threats. A paper published in PNAS presents a new type of nanoparticle vaccine technology using RNA to encode proteins that trigger immune responses. This new vaccine technology could allow us to respond more quickly to new threats, potentially saving many lives during future outbreaks.

Currently, four types of vaccines are commonly used. Inactivated vaccines contain bacterial cells or viruses that are killed or inactivated—they can’t replicate, but they can produce an immune response. Attenuated vaccines contain live bacteria or viruses that have low virulence, so they will evoke an immune response, but won’t cause a full-fledged infection. Virus-like particle vaccines contain the shell of a virus, but lack any genetic material. Finally, subunit vaccines contain proteins derived from the infectious agent, which can provoke an immune response without introducing the pathogen.

The new vaccine technology presented in this paper relies on what’s called “replicon mRNA,” which is based on a deactivated virus. It can make copies of itself and trigger the production of the proteins it encodes but can’t make new viruses, so it never escapes beyond the cells it first gets into. Replicon mRNA can be used to produce large quantities of specific proteins within the body, which in turn can provoke an immune response against those proteins.