Month: June 2025

Wie sich Microsoft-365-Umgebungen absichern lassen - von Entra ID über Threat Protection bis zum Gerätemanagement mit Intune -, vermittelt dieser dreitägige Praxisworkshop mit Testumgebung. (Golem Karrierewelt, Verschlüsselung)

Back in March, we outlined six features we wanted to see on what was then just a rumored Xbox-branded, Windows-powered handheld gaming device. Today, Microsoft's announcement of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally hardware line looks like it fulfills almost all of our wishes for Microsoft's biggest foray into portable gaming yet.

The Windows-11 powered Xbox Ally devices promise access to "all of the games available on Windows," including "games from Xbox, Game Pass, Battle.net, and other leading PC storefronts [read: Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, etc]." But instead of having to install and boot up those games through the stock Windows interface, as you often do on handhelds like the original ROG Ally line, all these games will be available through what Microsoft is calling an "aggregated gaming library."

Asus and Microsoft are stressing how that integrated experience can be used with games across multiple different Windows-based launchers, promising "access to games to can't get elsewhere." That could be seen as a subtle dig at SteamOS-powered devices like the Steam Deck which can have significant trouble with certain titles that don't play well with Steam and/or Linux for one reason or another. Microsoft also highlights how support apps like Discord, Twitch, and downloadable game mods will also be directly available via the Xbox Ally's Windows backbone.

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Apart from a short teaser in April, we haven't seen much of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' upcoming third season, debuting next month. But Paramount+ has finally released the official trailer.

(Spoilers for S2 below.)

As previously reported, the S2 finale found the Enterprise under vicious attack by the Gorn, who were in the midst of invading one of the Federation's colony worlds. Several crew members were kidnapped, along with other survivors of the attack. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) faced a momentous decision: follow orders to retreat, or disobey them to rescue his crew. Footage shown last October at New York City Comic-Con picked up where the finale left off, giving us the kind of harrowing high-stakes pitched space battle against a ferocious enemy that has long been a hallmark of the franchise. (Of course Pike opted to rescue his crew.)

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The first Xbox-branded handhelds are on the way and, as expected, they’re not made by Microsoft… or at least the hardware isn’t. Instead Microsoft is partnering with Asus to launch a new ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. While the names sort of make it sound like these are just Xbox-branded versions of existing handhelds […]

The post Microsoft and Asus introduce ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X appeared first on Liliputing.

Auf Basis von AMDs Threadripper-Pro Plattform hat Gigabyte einen Komplett-PC für Gaming und KI vorgestellt. Der Preis dürfte fünfstellig sein. (PC, Prozessor)

Mehr Konsolen hat kein Hersteller in so kurzer Zeit verkauft. Die Switch 2 ist auf dem Weg zum erfolgreichsten Hardware-Launch aller Zeiten. (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo)

For years, gray market services known as “bulletproof” hosts have been a key tool for cybercriminals looking to anonymously maintain web infrastructure with no questions asked. But as global law enforcement scrambles to crack down on digital threats, they have developed strategies for getting customer information from these hosts and have increasingly targeted the people behind the services with indictments. At the cybercrime-focused conference Sleuthcon in in Arlington, Virginia on Friday, researcher Thibault Seret outlined how this shift has pushed both bulletproof hosting companies and criminal customers toward an alternative approach.

Rather than relying on web hosts to find ways of operating outside law enforcement's reach, some service providers have turned to offering purpose-built VPNs and other proxy services as a way of rotating and masking customer IP addresses and offering infrastructure that either intentionally doesn't log traffic or mixes traffic from many sources together. And while the technology isn't new, Seret and other researchers emphasized to WIRED that the transition to using proxies among cybercrminals over the last couple of years is significant.

“The issue is, you cannot technically distinguish which traffic in a node is bad and which traffic is good,” Seret, a researcher at the threat intelligence firm Team Cymru, told WIRED ahead of his talk. “That's the magic of a proxy service—you cannot tell who’s who. It's good in terms of internet freedom, but it's super, super tough to analyze what’s happening and identify bad activity.”

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In common with many services provided by Google, its search engine is wide open and free of charge at the point of delivery.

The quid pro quo is the user’s consumption of Google ads, placed by millions of advertisers for all kinds of products.

Given the scale, it’s no surprise that some offer products of dubious origin. The question is who can be held liable beyond the seller, and under what specific circumstances.

Textbook Pirates

In June 2024, some of the world’s largest publishers came together in a joint lawsuit targeting Google. In a complaint filed at a New York federal court, companies including Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, Elsevier, and McGraw Hill bemoaned Google’s ‘systemic and pervasive advertising’ of infringing copies of their copyrighted textbooks.

The publishers’ allegations concerning Google Shopping describe ads that use unauthorized images of the publishers’ genuine textbooks, some with visible trademarks, to promote sales of pirated copies. A ‘bait-and-switch’ by Google, the publishers allege. More generally, the publishers claim that Google searches for their textbook titles return piracy-heavy results, making their original products more difficult to find.

The publishers claim ‘pirate’ ad takedown notices were sent repeatedly to Google, but to little effect. Notifications identifying specific ‘pirate sellers’ as repeat infringers didn’t lead to Google terminating their accounts “within a reasonable time, if at all.”

Google’s Motion to Dismiss

In a recent motion to dismiss, Google sought to thin out the publishers’ claims, which include vicarious copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and violation of New York’s deceptive business practices law.

In an opinion and order handed down this week, United States District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon analyzes the publishers’ claims and relevant legal precedents. Google believes the publishers’ vicarious copyright infringement claim should be dismissed; the Judge put that to the test.

A vicarious copyright infringement claim must contain two elements:

• The right and ability to supervise the infringing conduct and
• Direct financial interest in the infringing activity

Google moved to dismiss based on the publishers’ alleged failure to plead both elements. The Court had no need to go further than the first.

Ability to Supervise or Control

A finding of vicarious liability in this case turns on Google’s relationship to the pirate textbook sellers (direct infringers), not just the infringement itself. The first element must show that Google had the ability to supervise or control the third parties’ infringing activity yet failed to do so.

Google says that because the alleged direct infringement (sales of pirated textbooks) took place on the pirate sellers’ third-party websites, it’s clear that its ability to supervise or control doesn’t extend that far.

Citing precedents such as Perfect 10 v. Amazon and Perfect 10 v. Visa, Judge Rochon agrees with Google.

In these cases, the ability to terminate an advertising or payment processing relationship, which might indirectly reduce infringement on third-party websites, was not considered to be the ‘direct control’ over infringing activity required for a claim of vicarious liability.

In cases including Napster, the opposite was true due to the infringement taking place on a system under Napster’s control, where it had the right to terminate access.

Indirect Effect is Insufficient

The Court accepts that the removal of infringing ads and the termination of accounts may have an indirect effect by reducing traffic to the pirate sellers’ websites. However, that doesn’t mean that Google has any control over the websites where the infringement takes place, or that any measures applied to search would change that.

“The fact that ‘search engines [can] effectively cause a website to disappear by removing it from their search results’ is not enough to give rise to vicarious liability,” the order reads.

“Plaintiffs have not adequately pleaded that Google has sufficient ability to control or supervise the Pirate Sellers’ infringement, and therefore, Plaintiffs’ vicarious copyright infringement claim fails to state a claim.”

Court Denies Request to Dismiss Trademark Claim

Google’s request to dismiss the publishers’ trademark claim was rejected.

The publishers’ claim under 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1)(b) relates to “advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services” when such use is likely to “cause confusion or deceive.”

The plaintiffs claim that Google included unauthorized reproductions of their trademarks in the pirate sellers’ ads, having acquired the images containing the marks from the sellers themselves. Google denied that, insisting that it only displayed images where the marks were already applied.

The Court found that the publishers had sufficiently pleaded their direct trademark infringement claim, so this element of Google’s motion to dismiss was denied.

The case will continue with the trademark claim intact, alongside a contributory copyright infringement claim that was not included in Google’s motion to dismiss.

Judge Rochon’s opinion and order is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Eine ungesicherte Internetverbindung, über die Leaks und Spionage möglich sind, sollte nicht existieren. Elon Musk ließ sie trotzdem installieren. (Doge, Datenschutz)

Fest verlötete Bauteile und verklebte Batterie erschweren Reparaturen. Auch Nintendos Ersatzteilpolitik senkt die Bewertung. (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo)