August 2016 – Page 10 – news.buyenne.com

Officials blame “sophisticated” Russian hackers for voter system attacks

FBI reportedly informed Arizona of possible Russian hack in June.

The profile of attacks on two US state voter registration systems this summer presented in an FBI "Flash" memo suggests that the states were hit by a fairly typical sort of intrusion. But an Arizona official said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had attributed an attack that succeeded only in capturing a single user's login credentials to Russian hackers and rated the threat from the attack as an "eight on a scale of ten" in severity. An Illinois state official characterized the more successful attack on that state's system as "highly sophisticated" based on information from the FBI.

Arizona Secretary of State Office Communications Director Matt Roberts told the Post's Ellen Nakashima that the FBI had alerted Arizona officials in June of an attack by Russians, though the FBI did not state whether they were state-sponsored or criminal hackers. The attack did not gain access to any state or county voter registration system, but the username and password of a single election official was stolen. Roberts did not respond to requests from Ars for clarification on the timeline and other details of the attack.

Based on the details provided by Roberts to the Post, it's not clear if the Arizona incident was one of the two referred to in the FBI "Flash" published this month. The FBI has not responded to questions about the memorandum on the attacks first published publicly by Yahoo News' Michael Isikoff, but a SQL injection attack wouldn't seem to be the likely culprit for stealing a single username and password. It's more likely that the Gila County election official whose credentials were stolen was the victim of a phishing attack or malware.

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The most absurd Internet privacy class-action settlement ever

Lawyers get millions. Consumers get nothing. E-mail snooping continues unabated.

In 2013, Yahoo announced that it would begin scanning its users' e-mail for targeted advertising purposes—just as Google does. As is par for the course, class-action lawsuits were filed. The Silicon Valley media giant, according to one of the lawsuits, was violating the "personal liberties" of non-Yahoo Mail users. That's because non-Yahoo Mail users, who have sent mail to Yahoo mail users, were having their e-mail scanned without their permission.

"Plaintiff and the Class are among the multitude of U.S. residents who have sent electronic communications or emails to a Yahoo Mail user or users, and whose personal liberties have been, and continue to be, intruded upon when these private communications are read or, in the alternative, eavesdropped upon by Yahoo," the lawsuit read. (PDF) The suit said that Yahoo's new scanning policies adopted under Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer violated federal and state privacy laws, and that Yahoo's e-mail scanning regime "seriously threatens the free exercise of personal liberties, and is of the type of behavior that the U.S. Congress and the California Legislature has declared should not be tolerated in a free and civilized society."

The suit, which was one of six that were co-mingled as a single class action, demanded that a judge halt the scanning and award each victim "$5,000 or three times actual damages" in addition to "reasonable attorneys' fees and costs."

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Deals of the Day (8-30-2016)

The Alienware Alpha is a small form-factor desktop computer with an Intel processor, a custom NVIDIA graphics card, and support for Windows or SteamOS software.

Dell currently charges $450 and up for an Alienware Steam Machine or $500 and up for a model with Windows 10. But you can often find entry-level models for lower prices… and today Newegg is offering the best price I can recall seeing.

You can pick up an Alienware Alpha Steam Machine for $320.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (8-30-2016) at Liliputing.

The Alienware Alpha is a small form-factor desktop computer with an Intel processor, a custom NVIDIA graphics card, and support for Windows or SteamOS software.

You can pick up an Alienware Alpha Steam Machine for $320.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (8-30-2016) at Liliputing.

The next fight between Megaupload and the US will be livestreamed

A New Zealand judge said Dotcom should be extradited. Now the appeal begins.

The battle between the US and Kim Dotcom over whether he should face criminal copyright charges is coming to a screen near you.

No, the movie rights haven't been sold (yet). The Internet mogul who ran the once-dominant cyberlocker site Megaupload has won the right to livestream his next court battle online.

Dotcom was arrested and charged in 2012, but the battle over whether he can be extradited from his home in New Zealand has dragged on. In December, a New Zealand judge finally said that Dotcom should be sent to the Eastern District of Virginia to face federal charges that he facilitated copyright infringement by promoting piracy on his website.

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Report: This year’s Google Nexus phones… won’t be called Nexus phones

Google has been partnering with hardware companies to offer Nexus-branded smartphones, tablets, and TV boxes since 2009. But for the first time this year the company may work with a partner to launch a line of smartphones with premium features, Android software, and a name other than Nexus.

Android Central reports that when Google and HTC officially launch two new smartphones this fall, they won’t have the Nexus name anywhere on them, and they’ll have software that differs in some ways from stock Google Android.

Continue reading Report: This year’s Google Nexus phones… won’t be called Nexus phones at Liliputing.

Google isn’t selling the Chromebook Pixel 2 anymore

Earlier this year Google stopped selling the $999 version of the Chromebook Pixel 2. Now the company isn’t selling the $1299 version anymore, and according to VentureBeat, Google has no plans to restock the laptop.

That means that for all intents and purposes, Google has discontinued the Chromebook Pixel 2.

It’s possible that we could see a next-gen Chromebook Pixel in the future. But the Chrome OS laptop space has also changed a lot in recent years.

Continue reading Google isn’t selling the Chromebook Pixel 2 anymore at Liliputing.

That means that for all intents and purposes, Google has discontinued the Chromebook Pixel 2.

It’s possible that we could see a next-gen Chromebook Pixel in the future. But the Chrome OS laptop space has also changed a lot in recent years.

Continue reading Google isn’t selling the Chromebook Pixel 2 anymore at Liliputing.

Europe’s Net Neutrality Doesn’t Ban BitTorrent Throttling

Today, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) published its implementation guidelines for Europe’s net neutrality rules. While public protests resulted in several positive changes from a net neutrality perspective, BitTorrent throttling is still allowed.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

netneutrality When the European Parliament adopted Europe’s first net neutrality rules late last year, many net neutrality proponents were not happy with the outcome.

The rules, which are included in the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) regulation, would still allow targeted throttling of BitTorrent and other traffic, under the guise of network management.

In addition, opponents warned that the rules left the door open for ISPs to charge for fast lanes and restrict or slow down access to parts of the Internet for commercial reasons.

To change this, various activist groups launched a “EU Slowdown” campaign through which they got half a million people to respond to a public consultation that was held by BEREC.

Today, BEREC presented its final guidelines on the implementation of Europe’s net neutrality rules. Compared to earlier drafts it includes several positive changes for those who value net neutrality.

For example, while zero-rating isn’t banned outright, Internet providers are not allowed to offer a “sub Internet” service, where access to only part of the Internet is offered for ‘free.’

However, not all traffic is necessarily “neutral.” ISPs are still allowed to throttle specific categories for “reasonable” network management purposes, as the second subparagraph of article 3 reads.

“In order to be deemed to be reasonable, such measures shall be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and shall not be based on commercial considerations but on objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic.”

This means that network management practices, including bandwidth throttling, could possibly target BitTorrent transfers under a broader file-sharing category, or VPNs as encrypted traffic.

“The requirement for traffic management measures to be non-discriminatory does not preclude providers of internet access services from implementing, in order to optimize the overall transmission quality, traffic management measures which differentiate between objectively different categories of traffic,” BEREC’s guidelines clarify.

In other words, it would still be possible for ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic if that would improve the overall “transmission quality.” This is not a far-fetched argument since torrent traffic can be quite demanding on a network.

While it’s not expected that BitTorrent or VPN traffic will be targeted any more than it is right now, the option remains open. This will be a welcome decision by networking specialists and ISPs in general, which have argued that selectively targeting congestion is a more sensible approach.

Setbacks aside, net neutrality activists have also generally responded positively. Their main goal was to prevent so-called “fast lanes,” which is largely achieved.

“The victory here is that Europe is clearly banning ISPs from creating paid fastlanes, as the US did. That was the biggest threat, because ISPs could have actually *profited* by slowing down our Internet, and then charging sites or apps for a fastlane,” Fight For The Future’s Holmes Wilson tells TorrentFreak.

“My understanding is that the rules still allow throttling under the guise of traffic management. But thanks to the ban on fastlanes, ISPs won’t have the same incentive to throttle, and regulators could stop ISPs from throttling in cases where it clearly had nothing to do with preventing future congestion,” he adds.

The full guidelines and additional background information are available at BEREC’s website.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Samsung launches Exynos 7 Quad 7570 chip for budget phones, IoT devices

Samsung’s latest high-end smartphones may feature fancy new Exynos 8890 octa-core processors (at least in markets where the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note 7 don’t have Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chips). But not every device needs a high-performance processor… sometimes price and power consumption are more important.

So Samsung is adding a new member to its Exynos 7 processor lineup. The Exynos 7 Quad 7570 is a 14nm ARM Cortex-A53 processor designed for budget phones and low-power Internet of Things products.

Continue reading Samsung launches Exynos 7 Quad 7570 chip for budget phones, IoT devices at Liliputing.

So Samsung is adding a new member to its Exynos 7 processor lineup. The Exynos 7 Quad 7570 is a 14nm ARM Cortex-A53 processor designed for budget phones and low-power Internet of Things products.

Continue reading Samsung launches Exynos 7 Quad 7570 chip for budget phones, IoT devices at Liliputing.

Autonomes Fahren: Suchmaschinenkonzern Yandex baut fahrerlosen Bus

Noch ein Suchmaschinenbetreiber, der sich mit autonomem Fahren beschäftigt: Das russische Unternehmen Yandex entwickelt zusammen mit mehreren Partnern einen fahrerlosen Bus. Bei dem Projekt ist auch ein deutscher Konzern dabei. (Autonomes Fahren, Technologie)

No Man’s Sky: Steam wehrt sich gegen Erstattungen

In Foren machen Berichte die Runde, wonach auch nach vielen Spielstunden eine Rückgabe von No Man’s Sky auf Steam möglich sei. Nun macht Valve deutlich, dass die regulären Erstattungsrichtlinien gelten. (No Man’s Sky, Sony)

In Foren machen Berichte die Runde, wonach auch nach vielen Spielstunden eine Rückgabe von No Man's Sky auf Steam möglich sei. Nun macht Valve deutlich, dass die regulären Erstattungsrichtlinien gelten. (No Man's Sky, Sony)