World’s most destructive botnet returns with stolen passwords and email in tow

Noticing an uptick in spam from people you know? You can probably blame Emotet.

Cartoon image of a desktop computer under attack from viruses.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

If you've noticed an uptick of spam that addresses you by name or quotes real emails you've sent or received in the past, you can probably blame Emotet. It's one of the world's most costly and destructive botnets—and it just returned from a four-month hiatus.

Emotet started out as a means for spreading a bank-fraud trojan, but over the years it morphed into a platform-for-hire that also spreads the increasingly powerful TrickBot trojan and Ryuk ransomware, both of which burrow deep into infected networks to maximize the damage they do. A post published on Tuesday by researchers from Cisco's Talos security team helps explain how Emotet continues to threaten so many of its targets.

Easy to fall for

Spam sent by Emotet often appears to come from a person the target has corresponded with in the past and quotes the bodies of previous email threads the two have participated in. Emotet gets this information by raiding the contact lists and email inboxes of infected computers. The botnet then sends a follow-up email to one or more of the same participants and quotes the body of the previous email. It then adds a malicious attachment. The result: malicious messages that are hard for both humans and spam filters to detect.

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In India, you don’t need a Google phone to have a Google Assistant

A new toll-free Google Assistant service in India can be accessed from any phone.

Photograph of a payphone in India.

Enlarge / Google Assistant isn't just for smartphones anymore—at least, not in India. (credit: McKay Savage / Flickr)

India is an enormous developing market for international companies like Google—who list Hindi as the second most-used Google Assistant language, after English—but many of those potential Indian customers don't have smartphones and may frequently be in areas with little or no data coverage. Today, Google announced a partnership with telco carrier Vodafone Idea that brings the Google Assistant to those users by way of a simple, toll-free dial-in service.

Indian users can now call 000-800-9191-000 and interact with the Google Assistant entirely by voice in either English or Hindi, with other language support planned over time. Most of the standard "Hey Google" functionality is available—you might ask what actress played a particular movie role, who sings a popular song, or where to find a nearby store.

This version of the Assistant isn't tied to any individual user's Google account, so it can't do things that require personal data access, such as creating a calendar event or calling a friend. Whether this is a bug or a feature is left as a thought exercise for the reader—Incognito Mode Google Assistant, anyone?

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Comcast promised not to raise prices—guess what happened next

Comcast accused of reneging on “lifetime” price promise in Google Fiber city.

A Comcast sign at the Comcast offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Enlarge / A Comcast sign at the Comcast offices in Philadelphia. (credit: Getty Images | Cindy Ord )

Comcast offered customers in Utah a "lifetime" price guarantee in order to compete against Google Fiber, then later violated the lifetime promise by raising those customers' prices, according to a lawsuit pending in a federal court.

"In 2016, Comcast was under intense competitive pressure from Google's high speed fiber-optic data service," the lawsuit says. In Salt Lake City, "Comcast engaged extra sales staff to try to effectively beat the Google Fiber sales staff as they made their way up and down the streets of each neighborhood. To compete, Comcast sales staff began to offer 'lifetime' contracts to some of its customers and sold Comcast's broadband services by using door to door salespeople, especially in cities and neighborhoods where Google was aggressively offering its fiber-optic service."

Customer Brian Baker, the plaintiff in the proposed class-action suit, says that in July 2016 he took up Comcast's offer for a $120-per-month plan including TV, Internet, and phone service. Baker's lawsuit says he received a mailing from Comcast that said the $120 price would be locked in for as long as he wanted.

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Forget the marshmallow test; this could be the real secret to kids’ future success

It could be possible to ID at-risk children based on a single teacher’s assessment.

For decades, Walter Mischel's "marshmallow test" was viewed as a key predictor for children's future success, but reality is a bit more nuanced.

Enlarge / For decades, Walter Mischel's "marshmallow test" was viewed as a key predictor for children's future success, but reality is a bit more nuanced. (credit: Igniter Media)

Kindergarten children whose teachers rate them as being highly inattentive tend to earn less in their 30s than classmates who are rated highly "pro-social," according to a recent paper in JAMA Psychiatry. In fact, inattention could prove to be a better predictor of future educational and occupational success than the famous "marshmallow test" designed to assess a child's ability to delay gratification. And a single teacher's assessment may be sufficient to identify at-risk children, the authors claim.

The marshmallow test was a landmark behavioral study conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s and 1970s. He brought in some 600 children between the ages of four and six—all from Stanford University's Bing Nursery School—and gave each of them a marshmallow in a private room. Mischel told the children they could eat the marshmallow right away, or they could wait 15 minutes. If they chose the latter, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Then Mischel would leave the room, and a hidden video camera would record the children's behavior.

You can find videos of different versions of the marshmallow test all over YouTube. They're hugely entertaining. As with Mischel's original study, some kids eat the marshmallow immediately, cramming it into their mouths with unabashed delight. Others try to find a handy distraction: covering their eyes or kicking the desk. Some children poke at the marshmallow with their fingers, sniff it, lick it, or take tiny nibbles around the edges. My personal favorite is a little girl who participated in a recreation of the study with children in Colombia by motivational speaker Joachim de Posada. She carefully ate just the inside of the marshmallow, leaving the exterior intact, in hopes of fooling the researchers into thinking she had resisted temptation. ("I predict she will be successful, but we will have to watch her," Posada joked.)

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Kobo Libra H20 eReader now available for $170

The Kobo Libra H20 is an eBook reader with a 7 inch, illuminated E Ink display with adjustable color temperature and 300 pixels per inch. As the name suggests, it’s wateproof, making it safe to use on the beach or in the kitchen or bathroom. And …

The Kobo Libra H20 is an eBook reader with a 7 inch, illuminated E Ink display with adjustable color temperature and 300 pixels per inch. As the name suggests, it’s wateproof, making it safe to use on the beach or in the kitchen or bathroom. And it has physical page turn buttons. In other words, […]

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Dealmaster: A bunch of Amazon devices are on sale for Prime members today

Plus deals on Logitech accessories, Apple Watch and iPad pre-orders, and more.

Dealmaster: A bunch of Amazon devices are on sale for Prime members today

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with another round of deals to share. Today's list is headlined by a new round of discounts on Amazon devices, including the company's Fire TV Stick streamers, Fire tablets, and Kindle e-readers, among others. The catch? Most of the discounts are for Prime members only.

Still, that covers a whole lot of people, and a few of the discounts here either match or come close to the prices we saw during Amazon's Prime Day event in July. The company's latest (and waterproof) Kindle Paperwhite, for one, is down to $90, while the entry-level Kindle is down to $65. Both are $5 more than they were on Prime Day. At $50 and $30, respectively, the Fire HD 8 and Fire 7 are now matching their Prime Day prices and are still generally worthwhile choices for people wanting to spend as little as possible on a tablet. The Fire TV Stick 4K and 1080p Fire TV Stick aren't as steeply discounted, meanwhile, but they're both $15 off for those in need of a new streaming stick. The company's Cloud Cam security camera and Echo Show 5 smart display are significantly discounted for those who don't have Prime, too.

The big caveat here is that Amazon is announcing new hardware of some sort next week. The company held an event last September where it mainly introduced new Echo devices and other smart home accessories, so it's not certain that the Fire and Kindle devices here will be replaced, but there's at least some chance that these discounts are designed to clear out inventory. Still, most of what's here is a good value all the same. And if you're not interested in having more Amazon in your life, we also have deals on Roku streamers, Logitech keyboards and mice, external hard drives, and more. Have a look at the full rundown below.

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Apple launches iOS 13, watchOS 6, and Apple Arcade

iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS releases are still on the way, though.

Apple's Craig Federighi unveils iOS 13 at WWDC 2019.

Apple's Craig Federighi unveils iOS 13 at WWDC 2019. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica)

Apple has begun pushing iOS 13 and watchOS 6 to supported iPhones and Apple Watches. Both updates bring substantial changes—especially iOS 13—and mark the beginning of a new annual update cycle.

While it may take some time, most users should see iOS 13 become available in the Settings apps on their iPhones or iPod touches by the end of the day today. The watchOS update will pop up in the Watch app on iPhones that are connected to an Apple Watch.

Also launching today is a new service called Apple Arcade, a $4.99/month subscription service that gives users access to 100 or more mobile games. None of the games are microtransaction-driven titles. They are all premium titles, and many are from prestigious designers and studios like Zach Gage (SpellTower, Really Bad Chess), Snowman (Alto's Odyssey), Dinosaur Polo Club (Mini Metro), The Gentlebros (Cat Quest), and more. Apple has added a dedicated tab in the App Store for Arcade.

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Daily Deals (9-19-2019)

The Epic Games Store has been giving away a free game or two every week since it launched earlier this year. But this week’s deal may be the most impressive to date: you can snag 6 Batman PC games. For free. The only catch is that you’ll ne…

The Epic Games Store has been giving away a free game or two every week since it launched earlier this year. But this week’s deal may be the most impressive to date: you can snag 6 Batman PC games. For free. The only catch is that you’ll need to sign up for an Epic Games […]

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Creative Assembly: Das nächste Total War spielt im antiken Troja

Viele Gerüchte gab es bereits um das nächste Total-War-Spiel. Jetzt ist es offiziell: A Total War Story: Troy erzählt die Sage um Achilles, Hector, Odysseus und die antike Stadt Troja. Der Titel soll 2020 erscheinen. (Creative Assembly, Steam)

Viele Gerüchte gab es bereits um das nächste Total-War-Spiel. Jetzt ist es offiziell: A Total War Story: Troy erzählt die Sage um Achilles, Hector, Odysseus und die antike Stadt Troja. Der Titel soll 2020 erscheinen. (Creative Assembly, Steam)