Month: April 2020

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Google's mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Google Fi is getting eSIM support on the iPhone. Previously, you would need to order a plastic SIM card to use Google Fi, but now iPhone users can set up service with just a few taps and clicks. You can even use it as a second mobile service on the iPhone now, with Google Fi on the eSIM and some other carrier in the physical SIM slot.

The support page, first spotted by 9to5Google, warns that, for now, eSIM support is only open to new signups for Google Fi. You'll need an iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, or 11 series for it to work. The setup process is a bit strange since it can't all be done through the app like normal. Instead you have to go to the Google Fi website and sign up for service first, presumably so that Apple doesn't get a cut of the Google Fi subscription. After signing up and opting into "quick setup," you can download the Google Fi app and do the rest of the setup on your phone.

At its maximum power, Google Fi combines the networks of T-Mobile, Sprint (which is now part of T-Mobile), and US Cellular, but this only happens on "Google Fi Compatible" devices. On devices like the iPhone, Google Fi is just a regular, old T-Mobile MVNO. There are still reasons you might want to sign up for Google's version of T-Mobile service, though, since it's often more flexible than other carrier plans.

Enlarge / Doug Hurley, right, will command the Crew Dragon spacecraft. (credit: NASA)

On Friday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the space agency has set a launch date for the first human launch to orbit from the United States in nearly a decade.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon will launch on May 27, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, at 4:32pm ET (20:32 UTC). This test flight will carry NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station for a multi-month mission—as long as 110 days but probably less.

The flight will have a nice symmetry with the last human orbital launch from US soil, which occurred on July 8, 2011 with the final flight of the space shuttle. Hurley served as pilot on that spaceflight, which lasted nearly 13 days and delivered supplies to the station. For the Dragon test flight, Hurley will be "spacecraft commander," whereas Behnken will be "joint operations commander." Effectively this means that Hurley commands the vehicle when in flight.

Enlarge (credit: ReversingLabs)

More than 725 malicious packages downloaded thousands of times were recently found populating RubyGems, the official channel for distributing programs and code libraries for the Ruby programming language.

The malicious packages were downloaded almost 100,000 times, although a significant percentage of those are likely the result of scripts that automatically crawl all 158,000 packages available in the repository, Tomislav Pericin, the cofounder and chief software architect of security firm ReversingLabs, told Ars. All of them originated from just two user accounts: “JimCarrey” and “PeterGibbons.”

The accounts, which ReversingLabs suspects may be the work of a single individual, used a variation of typosquatting—the technique of giving a malicious file or domain a name that's similar to a commonly recognizable name—to give the impression they were legitimate. For instance, “atlas-client,” a booby-trapped package with 2,100 downloads, was a stand-in for the authentic “atlas_client” package. More than 700 of the packages were uploaded from February 16 to 25.

Enlarge (credit: hanibaram)

ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees the Internet's domain name system, has given itself another two weeks to decide whether to allow control of the .org domain to be sold to private equity firm Ethos Capital. The decision comes after ICANN received a blizzard of letters from people opposed to the transaction, including California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Becerra's letter was significant because ICANN is incorporated in California. That means it's Becerra's job to make sure that ICANN is living up to the commitments in its articles of incorporation, which promise that ICANN will operate "for the benefit of the Internet community as a whole."

Becerra questioned whether ICANN was really doing that. "There is mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders," he wrote.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | ljhimages)

AT&T falsely reported to the Federal Communications Commission that it offers broadband in nearly 3,600 census blocks spread across parts of 20 states.

AT&T disclosed the error to the FCC in a filing a week ago. The filing provides "a list of census blocks AT&T previously reported as having broadband deployment at speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream/3 Mbps upstream that AT&T has removed from its Form 477 reports." The 78-page list includes nearly 3,600 blocks.

With Form 477 reports, ISPs are required to tell the FCC which census blocks they offer service in. The FCC uses the data to track broadband-deployment progress and, crucially, to decide which census blocks get government funding for deploying Internet service. AT&T falsely reporting broadband-data coverage could prevent other ISPs from getting that funding and leave Americans without broadband access.