Month: November 2017

NASA

On Saturday, the Dream Chaser space plane completed a milestone in its development. During an “approach and landing” test, the spacecraft was dropped from a helicopter to fly back to a landing strip at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The company behind the space plane confirmed the successful test in a tweet on Saturday night, saying, “The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing!”

The company released no immediate, additional details about the test. (It promised more information Monday). But Saturday’s flight clearly marks a significant milestone for Dream Chaser and its manufacturer, Sierra Nevada Corporation. During the last free-flight test in 2013, the spacecraft had a problem with the deployment of its left landing gear, causing the plane to skid off the runway and leading to minor damage.

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Enlarge / Derelicts start weak but are potentially some of the most powerful cars in the game—assuming you grind enough. (credit: Electronic Arts)

Despite being an overall fantastic year for games, 2017 has brought some real lemons in the racing world. Need for Speed: Payback should have been poised to flip that narrative. The once-annual series had a year off to center itself and looked like it was leaning into a promising premise—a Fast and Furious-like tale of professional car thieves/street racers. The stars seemed downright aligned to light the way for Need for Speed’s comeback.

Unfortunately, even next to relatively weak Gran Turismo and Forza releases, Payback might just be the worst major racing game this year. It's certainly the worst Need for Speed in some time, which is saying something given the series’ own flailing in the last few years.

Sanitary revenge

The game’s issues begin almost immediately, with the revenge plot that gives Payback its name. It's an almost comically low-stakes setup in which one member of a gang of five street-racing heroes betrays the others over a Koenigsegg Regera (that’s a fancy sort of car). Nobody dies, goes to prison, or is grievously hurt over it. The betrayed gang members just get different jobs—as a getaway driver, mechanic, valet, and stunt driver for YouTube celebrities, respectively.

That indignity is apparently worth the gang getting back together and plotting life-or-death raids against “The House,” a vaguely criminal organization that wants to rig all gambling in Fortune Valley (aka “Fake Las Vegas”). All such raiding involves street racing of some form or another, because that’s what a Need for Speed must be about, regardless of any seemingly unrelated MacGuffins the plot wraps around it.

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Samsung’s DeX dock lets you connect one of the company’s recent phones to an external display, mouse, and keyboard to use your phone like a desktop PC… assuming you’re comfortable with a desktop PC that runs Android. But soon you may also be able to use your Android phone as a Linux PC. Samsung recently […]

Samsung’s Linux on Galaxy software will bring full-fledged Ubuntu desktop to your phone (with an external display) is a post from: Liliputing

Sci-Hub, often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science,” hasn’t had a particularly good run in US courts so far.

Following a $15 million defeat against Elsevier in June, the American Chemical Society won a default judgment of $4.8 million in copyright damages late last week.

In addition, the publisher was granted an unprecedented injunction, requiring various third-party services to stop providing access to the site.

The order specifically mentions domain registrars and hosting companies, but also search engines and ISPs, although only those who are in “active concert or participation” with the site. This order sparked fears that Google, Comcast, and others would be ordered to take action, but that’s not the case.

After the news broke ACS issued a press release clarifying that it would not go after search engines and ISPs when they are not in “active participation” with Sci-Hub. The problem is that this can be interpreted quite broadly, leaving plenty of room for uncertainty.

Luckily, ACS Director Glenn Ruskin was willing to provide more clarity. He stressed that search engines and ISPs won’t be targeted for simply linking users to Sci-Hub. Companies that host the content are a target though.

“The court’s affirmative ruling does not apply to search engines writ large, but only to those entities who have been in active concert or participation with Sci-Hub, such as websites that host ACS content stolen by Sci-Hub,” Ruskin said.

When we asked whether this means that ISPs such as Comcast are not likely to be targeted, the answer was affirmative.

“That is correct, unless the internet service provider has been in active concert or participation with SciHub. Simply linking to SciHub does not rise to be in active concert or participation,” Ruskin clarified.

The above suggests that ACS will go after domain name registrars, hosting companies, and perhaps Cloudflare, but not any further. Still, even if that’s the case there is cause for worry among several digital rights activists.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that these type of orders set a dangerous precedent. The concept of “active concert or participation” should only cover close associates and co-conspirators, not everyone who provides a service to the defendant. Domain registrars and registries have often been compelled to take action in similar cases, but EFF says this goes too far.

“The courts need to limit who can be bound by orders like this one, to prevent them from being abused,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz informs TorrentFreak.

“In particular, domain name registrars and registries shouldn’t be ordered to help take down a website because of a dispute over the site’s contents. That invites others to use the domain name system as a tool for censorship.”

News of the Sci-Hub injunction has sparked controversy and confusion in recent days, not least because Sci-hub.cc became unavailable soon after. Instead of showing the usual search box, visitors now see a “403 Forbidden” error message. On top of that, the bulletproof Tor version of the site also went offline.

The error message indicates that there’s a hosting issue. While it’s easy to conclude that the court’s injunction has something to do with this, that might not necessarily be the case. Sci-Hub’s hosting company isn’t tied to the US and has a history of protecting sites from takedown efforts.

We reached out to Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan for comment but we’re yet to receive a response. The site hasn’t posted any relevant updates on its social media pages either.

That said, the site is far from done. In addition to the Tor domain, Sci-Hub has several other backups in place such as Sci-Hub.io and Sci-Hub.ac, which are up and running as usual.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons

Sci-Hub, often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science,” hasn’t had a particularly good run in US courts so far.

Following a $15 million defeat against Elsevier in June, the American Chemical Society won a default judgment of $4.8 million in copyright damages late last week.

In addition, the publisher was granted an unprecedented injunction, requiring various third-party services to stop providing access to the site.

The order specifically mentions domain registrars and hosting companies, but also search engines and ISPs, although only those who are in “active concert or participation” with the site. This order sparked fears that Google, Comcast, and others would be ordered to take action, but that’s not the case.

After the news broke ACS issued a press release clarifying that it would not go after search engines and ISPs when they are not in “active participation” with Sci-Hub. The problem is that this can be interpreted quite broadly, leaving plenty of room for uncertainty.

Luckily, ACS Director Glenn Ruskin was willing to provide more clarity. He stressed that search engines and ISPs won’t be targeted for simply linking users to Sci-Hub. Companies that host the content are a target though.

“The court’s affirmative ruling does not apply to search engines writ large, but only to those entities who have been in active concert or participation with Sci-Hub, such as websites that host ACS content stolen by Sci-Hub,” Ruskin said.

When we asked whether this means that ISPs such as Comcast are not likely to be targeted, the answer was affirmative.

“That is correct, unless the internet service provider has been in active concert or participation with SciHub. Simply linking to SciHub does not rise to be in active concert or participation,” Ruskin clarified.

The above suggests that ACS will go after domain name registrars, hosting companies, and perhaps Cloudflare, but not any further. Still, even if that’s the case there is cause for worry among several digital rights activists.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that these type of orders set a dangerous precedent. The concept of “active concert or participation” should only cover close associates and co-conspirators, not everyone who provides a service to the defendant. Domain registrars and registries have often been compelled to take action in similar cases, but EFF says this goes too far.

“The courts need to limit who can be bound by orders like this one, to prevent them from being abused,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz informs TorrentFreak.

“In particular, domain name registrars and registries shouldn’t be ordered to help take down a website because of a dispute over the site’s contents. That invites others to use the domain name system as a tool for censorship.”

News of the Sci-Hub injunction has sparked controversy and confusion in recent days, not least because Sci-hub.cc became unavailable soon after. Instead of showing the usual search box, visitors now see a “403 Forbidden” error message. On top of that, the bulletproof Tor version of the site also went offline.

The error message indicates that there’s a hosting issue. While it’s easy to conclude that the court’s injunction has something to do with this, that might not necessarily be the case. Sci-Hub’s hosting company isn’t tied to the US and has a history of protecting sites from takedown efforts.

We reached out to Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan for comment but we’re yet to receive a response. The site hasn’t posted any relevant updates on its social media pages either.

That said, the site is far from done. In addition to the Tor domain, Sci-Hub has several other backups in place such as Sci-Hub.io and Sci-Hub.ac, which are up and running as usual.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons

Enlarge / To get the Dolby Atmos version of Automatic For The People, you'll have to buy this complete 3-CD, 1-Blu-ray edition. (credit: R.E.M./Craft Recordings)

As much as I love overpriced gizmos in my living room, I still tend to be reluctant about new standards. TVs are a great example. I've appreciated the bonuses offered by 3D, 4K, and HDR, but I concede they all lack content and are less amazing than salespeople would lead you to believe. They're also generally not worth replacing TVs that are only a few years old.

The same goes for audio, which fortunately hasn't strayed far from a "5.1" surround-sound profile since the dawn of DVD adoption. Really, I've been fine with two good speakers and a subwoofer for my entire adult life. I laugh at overblown, pre-film Dolby intros in a theater. I shrug at the surround effects in hectic action movies. I have failed A/B tests in picking out major differences between 5.1 and 7.1 systems.

Surround audio can be cool, sure. But if I were to ever change up my entire living room, I'd need something to blow my aural expectations away. This week, that might have finally happened.

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Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Fancy Bear, the advanced hacking group researchers say is tied to the Russian government, is actively exploiting a newly revived technique that gives attackers a stealthy means of infecting computers using Microsoft Office documents, security researchers said this week.

Fancy Bear is one of two Russian-sponsored hacking outfits researchers say breached Democratic National Committee networks ahead of last year's presidential election. The group was recently caught sending a Word document that abuses a feature known as Dynamic Data Exchange. DDE allows a file to execute code stored in another file and allows applications to send updates as new data becomes available.

In a blog post published Tuesday, Trend Micro researchers said Fancy Bear was sending a document titled IsisAttackInNewYork.docx that abused the DDE feature. Once opened, the file connects to a control server to download a first-stage of piece of malware called Seduploader and installs it on a target's computer. DDE's potential as an infection technique has been known for years, but a post published last month by security firm SensePost has revived interest in it. The post showed how DDE could be abused to install malware using Word files that went undetected by anti-virus programs.

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Enlarge (credit: Charles Theel)

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

Games Workshop is making a play. While the large UK publisher has dominated the miniatures world for decades, it has only recently returned to the cardboard jungle. New game Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire is the key element in Games Workshop’s push to capture the overlapping market of miniatures and board game enthusiasts—much like Fantasy Flight Games has done with its enormous hit, X-Wing. But where X-Wing will let you yell “pew-pew” as you move spaceships around the table, Shadespire has you screaming, "Blood for the blood god!"

Here’s the setup: the mirror city of Shadespire has been sealed off by the enraged Nagash, Lord of Undeath. Trapped within the walls of the labyrinthine ruins are bands of warriors representing several iconic factions from the Warhammer “Age of Sigmar” universe. These gangs clash, seeking glory and the death of their foes.

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Enlarge / Downtown Fresno's skyline can be seen below snow caps the Sierra Nevada mountains and clouds along the foothills. (credit: Craig Kohlruss/Fresno Bee/MCT via Getty Images)

A man in Fresno, California was indicted this week on federal criminal charges—prosecutors say that Michael Vincent Alvarez fired a laser pointer repeatedly at a local police helicopter.

According to the criminal complaint filed on October 30, 2017, Alvarez fired a green laser at a police helicopter shortly after midnight on October 22.

The Fresno Police helicopter, Air-1, was responding to reports of a domestic disturbance before it was struck three times. The pilot, who was not named, was hit in the eyes directly each time.

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