Month: July 2017

Sysadmin Day 2017: Zum Admin-Sein fehlen mir die Superkräfte!

“Na endlich!” heißt es, wenn etwas klappt und wenn nicht, dann geht es dem Systemadministrator an den Kragen. Ich habe den Job total unterschätzt – und musste aufgeben, wo andere zu IT-Superhelden werden. Ein Erfahrungsbericht von Oliver Nickel (Sysadmin Day, Studie)

"Na endlich!" heißt es, wenn etwas klappt und wenn nicht, dann geht es dem Systemadministrator an den Kragen. Ich habe den Job total unterschätzt - und musste aufgeben, wo andere zu IT-Superhelden werden. Ein Erfahrungsbericht von Oliver Nickel (Sysadmin Day, Studie)

Ipod Touch günstiger: iPod Nano und iPod Shuffle eingestellt

Apple hat den Verkauf der Musikplayer iPod Nano und iPod Shuffle eingestellt. Im Onlineshop werden die Geräte nicht mehr gelistet, andernorts gibt es noch Restbestände. Der iPod Touch wird günstiger verkauft. (iPod, Sound-Hardware)

Apple hat den Verkauf der Musikplayer iPod Nano und iPod Shuffle eingestellt. Im Onlineshop werden die Geräte nicht mehr gelistet, andernorts gibt es noch Restbestände. Der iPod Touch wird günstiger verkauft. (iPod, Sound-Hardware)

Nissan Leaf: Geringer Reichweitenverlust durch alternden Akku

Der Nissan Leaf ist vom ADAC fünf Jahre lang getestet und dabei 80.000 Kilometer gefahren worden. Das Elektroauto kam fabrikneu auf eine Reichweite von 105 Kilometern. Nun sind es 93 Kilometer geworden. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

Der Nissan Leaf ist vom ADAC fünf Jahre lang getestet und dabei 80.000 Kilometer gefahren worden. Das Elektroauto kam fabrikneu auf eine Reichweite von 105 Kilometern. Nun sind es 93 Kilometer geworden. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

How a podcaster managed to confront his tech support scammer, in person

“Alex, we have seen that your IP address has been compromised.”

Enlarge / This November 2015 photo appears to be a company photo of Accostings, which Reply All identified as an India-based tech support scam company. Kamal Verma is standing in a black shirt with a watch in the center of the photo. (credit: Kamal Verma)

The following post contains spoilers of Reply All episode #102: Long Distance, which was released on July 27, 2017. If you don't wish to know what happens in that episode, read no further.

Here at Ars, we are no strangers to online tech support scammers. For years now, we have played along with scammers, cajoled them, and called them out on their tricks. Such scams are notoriously difficult to shut down.

But we never even dreamed of doing what the podcast Reply All has done in an amazing episode that was released Thursday morning: doggedly pursue corporate records, find Facebook profiles of at least one company executive, and even manage to have extended conversations with one of them before trying to confront him. In person. In India.

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Police body cam footage of man tased in back prompts $110K settlement

However, police board said tasing was “reasonable, appropriate, and within policy.”

(video link)

Body cam footage of an Aurora, Colorado, cop tasing an unarmed black man in the back paved the way for the city to pay $110,000 to settle police abuse allegations, the man's lawyers told Ars Thursday.

Footage from September's tasing shows two black men being questioned by police who are responding to a weapons incident at a nearby apartment building. One of the men is seen and overheard on the video demanding to know why he's being questioned. "For what... ?" he says.

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Specific area of the brain helps keep the body young

Your hypothalamus might be the actual fountain of youth.

Enlarge (credit: Daniele Meli)

Age may not be a state of mind, but the brain is definitely involved. That's the conclusion of a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, which provides compelling evidence that a specific structure in the brain, called the hypothalamus, plays a significant role in controlling the entire body's aging. The results suggest stem cells play a critical role, but only in part via their ability to generate new neurons.

The results come from researchers at the Bronx's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. They, along with several other labs, have generated evidence that suggested the hypothalamus played a key role in aging. That makes a certain amount of sense: aging is a systemic process, and the hypothalamus contains structures like the pituitary that release hormones that influence the entire body. And there's already been some indications that factors that control the dynamics of aging end up circulating through the blood.

Aging and stem cells

But what controls the timing of aging? One intriguing possibility is that neural stem cells are involved. These stem cells continue to divide and produce new neurons even after the brain is fully developed, but their numbers appear to go down over time (possibly because more of them produce new neurons than are replaced by cell divisions). If the key factors are produced by neural stem cells, then their levels should go down over time, allowing aging to proceed.

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As dominance of launch market looms, SpaceX now valued at $21 billion

The updated value of SpaceX places the company in rarefied air.

Enlarge / Maye Musk and Elon Musk attend the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills. (credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

After two serious accidents in 2015 and 2016, SpaceX has been on a tear in 2017 with 10 successful launches, including the historic re-flight of two used boosters and a used Dragon spacecraft. These achievements suggest the company is well on its way toward developing low-cost, reusable boosters, and therefore the rocket company founded by Elon Musk may be on the cusp of capturing much of the global launch market.

A new valuation appears to back up this optimism. According to the New York Times, SpaceX recently raised $350 million in additional funding, and during this process the company was valued at $21 billion. This represents a significant increase from 2015, when Google and Fidelity invested $1 billion in SpaceX, valuing the company at $12 billion.

The new report notes that the updated value of SpaceX places the company in rarefied air, as just six other venture-backed companies are valued at $20 billion or more around the world. These companies include US-based companies Uber, Airbnb, Palantir, and WeWork, as well as Chinese firms Didi Chuxing and Xiaomi.

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Hackers Use Pirate Sites to Ruin Your Life, State Attorneys General Warn

With a new public service announcement, a group of State Attorneys General warns the public that pirate sites are a severe threat to online safety. Hackers use pirate websites to steal IDs and financial information, or even take over people’s webcams without their knowledge, they say.

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

In recent years copyright holders have tried many things to dissuade the public from visiting pirate websites.

They often claim that piracy costs the entertainment industry thousands of jobs, for example. Another strategy to is to scare the public at large directly, by pointing out all the ills people may encounter on pirate sites.

The Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA), which has deep ties to the content industries, is a proponent of the latter strategy. The group has released a variety of reports pointing out that pirate sites are a hotbed for malware, identity theft, hacking and other evils.

To add some political weight to this message, the DCA recently helped to launch a new series of public service announcements where a group of 15 State Attorneys General warn the public about these threats.

The participating Attorneys General include Arizona’s Mark Brnovich, Kentucky’s Andy Bashear, Washington DC’s Karl Racine, and Wisconsin’s Brad Schimel, who all repeat the exact same words in their PSAs.

“Nowadays we all have to worry about cybersecurity. Hackers are always looking for new ways to break into our computers. Something as simple as visiting pirate websites can put your computer at risk.”

“Hackers use pirate websites to infect your computer and steal your ID and financial information, or even take over your computer’s camera without you knowing it,” the Attorneys General add.

Organized by the Digital Citizens Alliance, the campaign in question runs on TV and radio in several states and also appears on social media during the summer.

The warnings, while over dramatized, do raise a real concern. There are a lot of pirate sites that have lower-tier advertising, where malware regularly slips through. And some ads lead users to fake websites where people should probably not leave their credit card information.

Variety points out that the Attorneys General are tasked with the goal to keep their citizens safe, so the PSA’s message is certainly fitting.

Still, one has to wonder whether the main driver of these ads is online safety. Could perhaps the interests of the entertainment industry play a role too? It certainly won’t be the first time that State Attorneys General have helped out Hollywood.

Just a few years ago the MPAA secretly pushed Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood to revive SOPA-like anti-piracy efforts in the United States. That was part of the MPAA’s “Project Goliath,” which was aimed at “convincing state prosecutors to take up the fight” against Google, under an anti-piracy umbrella.

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

Windows 10 Creators Update now available to all, November Update end-of-life’d

Half of Windows 10 users are already on the latest build. The rest should follow soon.

Enlarge / The announcement of the Creators Update in October 2016. (credit: Ars Technica)

Some four months after its initial release, Microsoft says it has opened the floodgates and is now pushing out Windows 10 version 1703, the Creators Update, to every compatible PC (a category that excludes systems using Intel's Clover Trail Atoms).

Earlier this month, AdDuplex, which tracks the penetration of the different Windows 10 versions, reported that as of July 18, the Creators Update had just passed 50 percent of Windows 10 systems. Forty-six percent are on the previous version, 1607 (aka the Anniversary Update).

Until now, the deployment of the Creators Update has been throttled to stage its rollout. That throttle is now removed, so most of that 46 percent should now start upgrading. Microsoft is also saying that with this full rollout, enterprise customers should have confidence deploying the update. With Microsoft getting rid of the "Current Branch" and "Current Branch for Business" nomenclature, this is the closest thing to a signal that the version is enterprise-ready.

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