Month: April 2018

Myst creators launch Kickstarter to bring every game in the series to Windows 10

Most of the games are already available, but there are some collector’s items.

(credit: Cyan Worlds)

Myst and Obduction developer Cyan Worlds launched a Kickstarter on Monday for a complete collection of every Myst title ready to run on Windows 10. The Kickstarter will also cover some extras like original, hand-drawn artwork from the development of Myst's first sequel, Riven, a replica of Ghen's pen and inkwell, and a real-life, working Myst linking book—sans actual teleportation, of course. It's labeled the "Myst 25th Anniversary Collection," because September will mark 25 years since Myst's debut.

The team at Cyan says it has worked with the team at GOG to update all the games to run in Windows 10. The collection will include Myst, Riven, Myst III: Exiles, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, Uru: The Complete Chronicles, and the fully 3D Myst remake realMyst. Cyan says that, to make this happen, it had to acquire the rights to the games in the series that it previously didn't own:

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working to procure the legal rights to make all of the Myst games available. As an indie developer, resources are limited for development, and acquiring these rights isn’t always an option. But we’ve finally managed to talk with all the right people in all the right places to garner funds to make it happen!

Myst, Riven, Myst V, Uru, and realMyst are all available on GOG and Steam already—and they all work just fine on modern systems. These are the games Cyan already owned the rights to. The other two games—Myst III and IV—have previously been the property of game publisher Ubisoft, which has not made them available digitally. These appear to be the two games that Cyan has managed to secure the rights to.

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Whatever you do, don’t give this programmable payment card to your waiter

Fuze card is wide open to data theft over Bluetooth. A fix is on the way.

Enlarge (credit: fuzecard.com)

The makers of the programmable Fuze smart card say it's powerful enough to be your wallet in one card yet secure enough to be used the same way as traditional payment cards—including trusting it to restaurant servers when paying the bill. But it turns out that convenience comes with a major catch. A flaw makes it possible for anyone with even brief physical control of the card to surreptitiously siphon all data stored on the device.

Fuze representatives said they're aware of the vulnerability and plan to fix it in an update scheduled for April 19. They also thanked the two researchers who, independent of one another, discovered the vulnerability and privately reported it. So far, however, Fuze officials have yet to fully inform users of the extent of the risk so they can prevent private data stored on the cards from being stolen or tampered with until the critical flaw is repaired.

Faulty assumptions

Mike Ryan, one of the two researchers, said he created attack code that impersonated the Android app that uses a Bluetooth connection to load credit card data onto the smart cards. While the official Fuze app takes care to prevent pairing with cards that have already been set up with another device, Ryan's rogue app had no such restrictions. As a result, it allowed him to take complete control of a card, including reading, changing, or adding payment card numbers, expiration dates, and card-verification values.

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Ice Lake SP: Intels übernächste Xeons könnten 2 TByte RAM ansprechen

Ein Dokument der Power Stamp Alliance zeigt, dass Intels Ice Lake SP genannte Server-CPUs mit acht DDR4-Speicherkanälen versehen sind. Die Xeons nutzen daher den neuen Sockel LGA 4189, die thermische Verlustleistung der Chips soll bis zu 230 Watt betra…

Ein Dokument der Power Stamp Alliance zeigt, dass Intels Ice Lake SP genannte Server-CPUs mit acht DDR4-Speicherkanälen versehen sind. Die Xeons nutzen daher den neuen Sockel LGA 4189, die thermische Verlustleistung der Chips soll bis zu 230 Watt betragen. (Xeon, Prozessor)

Publisher Gets Carte Blanche to Seize New Sci-Hub Domains

Sci-Hub, often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science,” remains a thorn in the side of academic publishers. After obtaining an injunction against the site last year, the American Chemical Society went back to court for an update, which now gives it the authority to seize newly registered domain names as well. But will that end the domain whac-a-mole?

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

While Sci-Hub is loved by thousands of researchers and academics around the world, copyright holders are doing everything in their power to wipe if off the web.

Following a $15 million defeat against Elsevier last June, the American Chemical Society (ACS) won a default judgment of $4.8 million in copyright damages a few months later.

The publisher was further granted a broad injunction, requiring various third-party services to stop providing access to the site. This includes domain registries, hosting companies and search engines.

Soon after the order was signed, several of Sci-Hub’s domain names became unreachable as domain registries and Cloudflare complied with the court order. Still, Sci-Hub remained available all this time, with help from several newly registered domain names.

Frustrated by Sci-Hub’s resilience, ACS recently went back to court asking for an amended injunction. The publisher requested the authority to seize any and all Sci-Hub domain names, also those that will be registered in the future.

“Plaintiff has been forced to engage in a game of ‘whac-a-mole’ whereby new ‘sci-hub’ domain names emerge,” ACS informed the court.

“Further complicating matters, some registries, registrars, and Internet service providers have refused to disable newer Sci-Hub domain names that were not specifically identified in the Complaint or the injunction”

Soon after the request was submitted, US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed to the amended language.

The amended injunction now requires search engines, hosting companies, domain registrars, and other service or software providers, to cease facilitating access to Sci-Hub. This includes, but is not limited to, the following domain names.

‘sci-hub.ac, scihub.biz, sci-hub.bz, sci-hub.cc, sci-hub.cf, sci-hub.cn, sci-hub.ga, sci-hub.gq, scihub.hk, sci-hub.is, sci-hub.la, sci-hub.name, sci-hub.nu, sci-hub.nz, sci-hub.onion, scihub22266oqcxt.onion, sci-hub.tw, and sci-hub.ws.’

From the injunction

The new injunction makes ACS’ enforcement efforts much more effective. It effectively means that third-party services can no longer refuse to comply because a Sci-Hub domain is not listed in the complaint or injunction.

This already appears to have had some effect, as several domain names including sci-hub.la and sci-hub.tv became inaccessible soon after the paperwork was signed. Still, it is unlikely that it will help to shut down the site completely.

Several service providers are not receptive to US Court orders. One example is Iceland’s domain registry ISNIC and indeed, at the time of writing, Sci-Hub.is is still widely available.

Seizing .onion domain names, which are used on the Tor network, may also prove to be a challenge. After all, there is no central registration organization involved.

For now, Sci-Hub founder and operator Alexandra Elbakyan appears determined to keep the site online, whatever it takes. While it may be a hassle for users to find the latest working domain names, the new court order is not the end of the “whac-a-mole” just yet.

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A copy of the amended injunction is available here (pdf).

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

TV-Kabelnetz: 300.000 Haushalte bekommen 500 MBit/s von Vodafone

Vodafone schaltet für mehr Haushalte bis zu 500 MBit/s im Download und maximal 50 MBit/s im Upload frei. Die Datenrate wird in größeren Städten und ländlichen Gebieten angeboten. (Vodafone, Telekommunikation)

Vodafone schaltet für mehr Haushalte bis zu 500 MBit/s im Download und maximal 50 MBit/s im Upload frei. Die Datenrate wird in größeren Städten und ländlichen Gebieten angeboten. (Vodafone, Telekommunikation)

Radical Heights: Battle Royale im Stil der 80er Jahre

Das Studio des ehemaligen Epic-Chefdesigners Cliff Bleszinski hat ein neues Projekt vorgestellt: das kunterbunte und kostenlos verfügbare Actionspiel Radical Heights, das auf Battle Royle im Szenario der 80er Jahre setzt. (Battle Royale, Steam)

Das Studio des ehemaligen Epic-Chefdesigners Cliff Bleszinski hat ein neues Projekt vorgestellt: das kunterbunte und kostenlos verfügbare Actionspiel Radical Heights, das auf Battle Royle im Szenario der 80er Jahre setzt. (Battle Royale, Steam)

Oracle vs. Google: Dieses Urteil darf nicht bleiben

Im Fall Oracle gegen Google trifft ein eigentlich nicht zuständiges Gericht ein für die IT-Industrie eventuell katastrophales Urteil. Denn es kann zu Urhebertrollen, Innovationsblockaden und noch mehr Milliardenklagen führen. Einzige Auswege: der Supre…

Im Fall Oracle gegen Google trifft ein eigentlich nicht zuständiges Gericht ein für die IT-Industrie eventuell katastrophales Urteil. Denn es kann zu Urhebertrollen, Innovationsblockaden und noch mehr Milliardenklagen führen. Einzige Auswege: der Supreme Court oder Open Source. Eine Analyse von Sebastian Grüner (Oracle vs. Google, Urheberrecht)

Europäischer Gerichtshof: EU-Staaten dürfen Uberpop verbieten

Für Uber läuft es in der EU auch künftig nicht so wie in den USA: Der EU-Gerichtshof hat entschieden, dass die Mitgliedstaaten den Dienst Uberpop weiterhin verbieten dürfen. Ein umfangreicher Fahrdienst durch Privatleute ist damit im Gebiet der EU in n…

Für Uber läuft es in der EU auch künftig nicht so wie in den USA: Der EU-Gerichtshof hat entschieden, dass die Mitgliedstaaten den Dienst Uberpop weiterhin verbieten dürfen. Ein umfangreicher Fahrdienst durch Privatleute ist damit im Gebiet der EU in naher Zukunft eher unwahrscheinlich. (Uber, Internet)

AMD Zen-APU: Raven Ridge bekommt VP9-Beschleunigung für Linux

Fast ein Jahr nach den ursprünglichen Arbeiten am Video-Decoding unterstützt AMDs neuer Video-Core die hardwarebeschleunigte Wiedergabe von VP9. Genutzt werden kann das in den Raven Ridge und kommenden AMD-Grafikkarten. (AMD Zen, Prozessor)

Fast ein Jahr nach den ursprünglichen Arbeiten am Video-Decoding unterstützt AMDs neuer Video-Core die hardwarebeschleunigte Wiedergabe von VP9. Genutzt werden kann das in den Raven Ridge und kommenden AMD-Grafikkarten. (AMD Zen, Prozessor)