Month: October 2023

Enlarge / Cables run into a Cisco data switch. (credit: Getty Images)

On Monday, Cisco reported that a critical zero-day vulnerability in devices running IOS XE software was being exploited by an unknown threat actor who was using it to backdoor vulnerable networks. Company researchers described the infections as a "cluster of activity."

On Tuesday, researchers from security firm VulnCheck said that at last count, that cluster comprised more than 10,000 switches, routers, and other Cisco devices. All of them, VulnCheck said, have been infected by an implant that allows the threat actor to remotely execute commands that run at the deepest regions of hacked devices, specifically the system or iOS levels.

"Cisco buried the lede by not mentioning thousands of Internet-facing IOS XE systems have been implanted," VulnCheck CTO Jacob Baines wrote. "VulnCheck scanned internet-facing Cisco IOS XE web interfaces and found thousands of implanted hosts. This is a bad situation, as privileged access on the IOS XE likely allows attackers to monitor network traffic, pivot into protected networks, and perform any number of man-in-the-middle attacks."

Enlarge / A woman walks past a logo for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2022. (credit: Getty Images)

"The beginning of the long dash, followed by 10 seconds of silence, indicates exactly 1 o'clock Eastern daylight time."

Millions of Canadians grew accustomed to hearing a version of this daily affirmation on CBC Radio One. The National Research Council Time Signal, and the series of 800 Hz "pips" that preceded and followed the time-setting dash, worked its way into everyday rituals. Human listeners, and automated radio receivers at railways, shipping firms, and other entities, could set their mechanical clocks to it. That is why it started broadcasting on November 5, 1939, one year into Canada's entry into World War II.

The long dash's last broadcast was, somewhat unexpectedly, October 9, 2023.

Enlarge (credit: Chesnot / Contributor | Getty Images Europe)

Today, X (formerly known as Twitter) became the first platform fined under Australia's Online Safety Act. The fine comes after X failed to respond to more than a dozen key questions from Australia eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who was seeking clarity on how effectively X detects and mitigates harms of child exploitation and grooming on the platform.

In a press release, Inman Grant said that X was given 28 days to either appeal the decision or pay the approximately $380,000 fine. While the fine seems small, the reputational ding could further hurt X's chances of persuading advertisers to increase spending on the platform, Reuters suggested. And any failure to comply or respond could trigger even more fines—with X potentially on the hook for as much as $493,402 daily for alleged non-compliance dating back to March 2023, The Guardian reported. That could quickly add up to tens of millions if X misses the Australian regulator's deadline.

“If they choose not to pay, it’s open to eSafety to take other action or to seek a civil penalty through the courts,” Inman Grant told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We’re talking about some of the most heinous crimes playing out on these platforms, committed against innocent children.”

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images )

An advertising industry group urged Comcast to stop its "10G" ads or modify them to state that 10G is an "aspirational" technology rather than something the company actually provides on its cable network today. The National Advertising Division (NAD), part of the advertising industry's self-regulatory system run by BBB National Programs, ruled against Comcast after a challenge lodged by T-Mobile.

In its decision announced Thursday, the NAD recommended that Comcast "discontinue its '10G' claims" or "modify its advertising to (a) make clear that it is implementing improvements that will enable it to achieve '10G' and that it is aspirational or (b) use '10G' in a manner that is not false or misleading, consistent with this decision."

Comcast plans to appeal the decision, so it won't make any changes to marketing immediately. If Comcast loses the appeal and agrees to change its practices, it would affect more than just a few ads because Comcast now calls its entire broadband network "10G."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images )

An advertising industry group urged Comcast to stop its "10G" ads or modify them to state that 10G is an "aspirational" technology rather than something the company actually provides on its cable network today. The National Advertising Division (NAD), part of the advertising industry's self-regulatory system run by BBB National Programs, ruled against Comcast after a challenge lodged by T-Mobile.

In its decision announced Thursday, the NAD recommended that Comcast "discontinue its '10G' claims" or "modify its advertising to (a) make clear that it is implementing improvements that will enable it to achieve '10G' and that it is aspirational or (b) use '10G' in a manner that is not false or misleading, consistent with this decision."

Comcast plans to appeal the decision, so it won't make any changes to marketing immediately. If Comcast loses the appeal and agrees to change its practices, it would affect more than just a few ads because Comcast now calls its entire broadband network "10G."

Enlarge / The Leaf was given a midlife facelift last year. (credit: Nissan)

While it is true that the recent wave of new electric vehicles has been anything but cheap, there are still a few relatively affordable EVs out there for people who don't mind smaller cars— including the Nissan Leaf. An early pioneer in the electrification game, the venerable Leaf has been rather forgotten. Well, forget no more because there's now Nissan Leaf news: The car once again qualifies for a federal tax credit.

We saw a big revamp of the federal EV incentive this year thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. Before, the tax credit was tied to the storage capacity of the car's battery. Now, it's determined by how much of the pack was domestically sourced or assembled.

For this year, if at least half the pack's critical minerals were refined in the United States (or a country with a free trade agreement with the US), then the EV is eligible for a $3,750 tax credit, provided that final assembly also occurs in North America. Another $3,750 is available if half or more of the pack's components were assembled in the US.

Enlarge / The Analogue 3D is the company's next FPGA-based retro console, but the company isn't showing the whole thing off yet. (credit: Analogue)

Retro game enthusiasts will know Analogue for its consoles’ dedication to accuracy. From the original Analogue Nt, which used chips harvested from broken NES consoles, to the Analogue Pocket, which uses an FPGA chip to accurately emulate handheld hardware, the company has always focused on modern hardware that can play actual game cartridges while preserving the idiosyncrasies of the original game consoles.

Today, Analogue is announcing the Analogue 3D, a console that will use an FPGA to run games made for 1996’s Nintendo 64. Because FPGAs emulate consoles at a hardware level, they're much better at replicating all of the specific quirks of the original hardware, making games look and run like they would have on the original consoles without any performance problems or rendering inaccuracies. Like Analogue's other home console replicas, the Analogue 3D is designed to play original cartridges and not ROM files, and the cartridge slot is region-free, so it'll work with games from all over the world.

Analogue didn't reveal a price or a specific launch date for the Analogue 3D, just that the console will show up sometime in 2024. It also didn't show off the design of the console itself or the controller, though it did tease both—if you look closely, you'll see an 8BitDo logo on the controller, the same company that made Analogue's replica controllers for its Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx retro consoles.