Month: August 2019

Enlarge / They did. (credit: Getty Images)

Early on August 16, a total of 23 local government organizations in Texas were hit by a coordinated ransomware attack. The type of ransomware has not been revealed, and Texas officials asserted that no state networks were compromised in the attack.

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Information Resources (TDIR) told Ars that authorities are not ready to reveal the names of the entities affected, nor other details of the attack. State and federal agencies are in the midst of a response, and TDIR did not have information on whether any of the affected governmental organizations had chosen to pay the ransom.

But the TDIR did reveal that the ransomware came from a single source. "At this time, the evidence gathered indicates the attacks came from one single threat actor," a spokesperson said. "Investigations into the origin of this attack are ongoing; however, response and recovery are the priority at this time."

Enlarge / Trolls. (credit: Kimli)

Automated Transactions LLC (ATL) is a small firm known for its aggressive enforcement of broad patents related to automated teller machines. Numerous critics labeled ATL a patent troll, and in 2016 the firm sued several of them in New Hampshire state courts, arguing that the label was defamatory.

On Friday, the New Hampshire Supreme Court dismissed ATL's lawsuit. To win a libel lawsuit, a plaintiff has to prove that a statement is both false and defamatory. A statement of opinion can't be proven false and, hence, can't be the basis for a libel claim. New Hampshire's Supreme Court ruled that calling someone a "troll" was just such a statement of opinion—and so it can't be defamatory.

“Nothing more than a shakedown”

In the 1990s, ATL founder David Barcelou invented a machine for automated gaming that made cash payouts to winners. While his invention never became commercially successful, he patented some of the underlying concepts—including patents related to the process of paying out cash to customers. Around 2008, the firm began asserting its patents against banks, arguing that banks infringed his patent when they connected their ATMs to the Internet. The firm generated more than $3 million in licensing revenues between 2011 and 2012.

Enlarge / A person smokes a Juul Labs Inc. e-cigarette. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday that it’s investigating a puzzling burst of severe lung-disease cases linked to e-cigarette product use or “vaping.”

Between June 28 and August 15, health officials have counted 94 probable cases of severe lung illness in 14 states, the CDC said. Officials haven’t found any conclusive evidence to suggest that an infectious illness is behind the cases, the agency added. The only common thread so far appears to be recent vaping by those afflicted.

The CDC is working in close consultation with officials in some of the hardest-hit states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Indiana, and Minnesota. Wisconsin alone reported 30 of the 94 cases.

Enlarge / Artist's conception of DARQ's developers sadly walking away from Epic Games Store exclusivity.

If you've been following the PC gaming space in recent months, you know Epic has been throwing a lot of money around to secure exclusives big and small for its Epic Games Store (EGS) on PC. But there has also been a small and growing trend of developers who are publicly rejecting Epic's money and exclusivity terms for a variety of reasons.

Rise of Industry creator Alex Mochi, for instance, said in a screengrabbed Discord conversation that Epic's "deal didn't appeal to me" because "I want for as many people to have access to the game as possible." SkateBIRD developer Megan Fox tweeted that Epic told her they were "focusing on exclusives, and SkateBIRD promised Steam keys in its [KickStarter], therefore, nah [on Epic Games Store availability]." Factorio developers Wube Software said in a blog post it would see any potential exclusivity deal as "selling-out to big companies that would use the game as cash grab while destroying the brand." And so on.

Indie developer Unfold Games is the latest to publicly turn down an Epic exclusivity offer for its dream-like adventure game DARQ. The team went into more detail than most on the decision in a Medium post this weekend, explaining why "getting some upfront payment on top of guaranteed revenue" from Epic was not enough to entice them.