Clinton’s private e-mail was blocked by spam filters—so State IT turned them off

Security measures were disabled because Clinton’s e-mails were “going to spam.”

Documents recently obtained by the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch show that in December 2010, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff were having difficulty communicating with State Department officials by e-mail because spam filters were blocking their messages. To fix the problem, State Department IT turned the filters off—potentially exposing State's employees to phishing attacks and other malicious e-mails.

The mail problems prompted Clinton Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to suggest to Clinton, "We should talk about putting you on State e-mail or releasing your e-mail address to the department so you are not going to spam." Clinton replied, "Let's get [a] separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal [e-mail] being accessible."

The mail filter system—Trend Micro's ScanMail for Exchange 8—was apparently causing some messages from Clinton's private server (Clintonemail.com) to not be delivered. Some were "bounced;" others were accepted by the server but were quarantined and never delivered to the recipient. According to the e-mail thread published yesterday by Judicial Watch, State's IT team turned off both spam and antivirus filters on two "bridgehead" mail relay servers while waiting for a fix from Trend Micro.

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Deals of the Day (6-23-2016)

Deals of the Day (6-23-2016)

Yesterday you could snag a free Moto 360 Sport smartwatch with the purchase of a Moto X Pure Edition. Today there’s an even better deal for folks that don’t want a smartwatch.

A number of stores are selling the Moto X Pure Edition for $239 and up.

That’s the price for a model with 16GB of storage… but the 64GB model is also available at a deep discount too: it’s going for $319.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (6-23-2016) at Liliputing.

Deals of the Day (6-23-2016)

Yesterday you could snag a free Moto 360 Sport smartwatch with the purchase of a Moto X Pure Edition. Today there’s an even better deal for folks that don’t want a smartwatch.

A number of stores are selling the Moto X Pure Edition for $239 and up.

That’s the price for a model with 16GB of storage… but the 64GB model is also available at a deep discount too: it’s going for $319.

Continue reading Deals of the Day (6-23-2016) at Liliputing.

Edge lasts longer on battery? Not so fast, says Opera

Is this the opening of a new front in the browser wars?

(credit: Opera)

Earlier this week, Microsoft made some bold claims about the battery life of its Edge browser, saying that laptops running Edge lasted much longer during video playback and used less energy during normal browsing operations than Chrome and Opera.

Opera, however, disagrees. The company has run its own tests and has written up the results: with power saving mode, Opera offered 22 percent more battery life than Edge and 35 percent more than Chrome. Unlike Microsoft, Opera has provided a lot more information about what its test did and how someone might replicate it. The test loaded a number of pages into different tabs and simulated button presses to scroll up and down.

While Microsoft hasn't yet formally responded, Edge Program Manager Kyle Pflug tweeted to point out that Opera's testing enabled not just power saving mode but also its built-in ad blocker, which is off by default. The test also compares Opera's latest developer build to Edge's current stable build. The latest Edge developer build supports ad blocking (through its extension mechanism) and makes a number of optimizations to further reduce battery drain.

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NSA-Spionage: BSI durfte Merkels Handy nicht untersuchen

Wie hat der US-Geheimdienst NSA das Handy der Bundeskanzlerin abgehört? Offenbar sah Merkel keinen Anlass, diese Frage von ihrer eigenen Sicherheitsbehörde klären zu lassen. (NSA, Malware)

Wie hat der US-Geheimdienst NSA das Handy der Bundeskanzlerin abgehört? Offenbar sah Merkel keinen Anlass, diese Frage von ihrer eigenen Sicherheitsbehörde klären zu lassen. (NSA, Malware)

Markenrechte: Comodo will Let’s Encrypt den Namen klauen

Der Erfolg von Let’s Encrypt ist spektakulär, es wurden bereits mehr als fünf Millionen Zertifikate ausgestellt. Jetzt will die Sicherheitsfirma Comodo Markenrechte an dem Namen durchsetzen. Let’s Encrypt reagiert empört. (Let’s Encrypt, Firefox)

Der Erfolg von Let's Encrypt ist spektakulär, es wurden bereits mehr als fünf Millionen Zertifikate ausgestellt. Jetzt will die Sicherheitsfirma Comodo Markenrechte an dem Namen durchsetzen. Let's Encrypt reagiert empört. (Let's Encrypt, Firefox)

Photonic crystal club will no longer admit only puny lasers

Making delicate structures in a plasma with a laser sledgehammer.

Crystal growth, imaged using a CARS microscope. (credit: Martin Jurna, Optical Sciences Group, University of Twente)

Research is like any other human endeavor, as subject to trends and fads as the fashion industry. Everyone wants to jump on the latest new thing. In the world of optics, that means photonics. I'll explain photonics in a second, because it's cool and everyone should be able to talk knowledgeably about photonics to their older relatives.

Photonics involves carefully structuring materials to bend light to the experimenter's will. But photons don't always cooperate. They're a bit like ants—while one photon doesn't do much, several photons carry off all your breadcrumbs and threaten the honey, and the entire photon colony will repossess your fridge, contents included. In other words, photonics labs are filled with the burnt remains of experiments because careless researchers cranked up the laser power.

This is kind of sad, because photonic crystals are incredibly useful, and the world of high power lasers is missing out on all the cool tricks that have been developed by the photonics community. Until now, that is.

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Cable company overcharges might be even worse than you realized

Senate report compares billing and service records, finds massive overcharges.

That's your money, just flying away. (credit: Getty Images | Colin Anderson)

Charter and its new subsidiary Time Warner Cable (TWC) have been overcharging customers at least $7.2 million per year for equipment and service, a US Senate investigation has found.

Time Warner Cable over-billed customers nationwide an estimated $639,948 between January and April of this year, which projects to a yearly total of $1,919,844. Charter, meanwhile, "informed the [Senate's investigative] Subcommittee that it over-billed customers by at least $442,691 per month," the report said. That works out to overcharges of at least $5,312,292 per year. When added to Time Warner Cable's overcharges, that's $7.2 million that customers paid in erroneous charges over and above the already high prices of cable TV.

The report was released today as senators grilled cable company executives from Charter, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T-owned DirecTV, and Dish on customer service and billing problems. The Senate report, as well as video of the hearing and transcripts of cable executive testimony, is available here.

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iOS 10 beta still encrypts user data, but not the kernel

Apple says it improves performance without putting user data at risk.

The iOS 10 developer betas come with an unencrypted kernel. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple has made encryption and user privacy a pillar of the iOS platform in recent years, but earlier this week, security researchers made a curious discovery: as reported by the MIT Technology Review, the operating system kernel in the iOS 10 betas released at WWDC last week is unencrypted. This makes it much easier to dig into the code and look for security flaws.

There was some speculation as to why Apple had done this or whether the company had even released an unencrypted kernel on purpose. After declining to comment initially, an Apple spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the kernel had been left unencrypted on purpose but that user data continues to be encrypted as it normally is.

“The kernel cache doesn’t contain any user info, and by unencrypting it we’re able to optimize the operating system’s performance without compromising security,” the spokesperson said.

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Samsung launches Notebook 7 Spin convertible for $800 and up

Samsung launches Notebook 7 Spin convertible for $800 and up

Samsung introduced a sleek new line of notebooks at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, including the super-slim and light-weight Samsung Notebook 9 and Notebook 9 Spin convertible laptops. But if the $1000+ price tags for those laptops seems a bit steep, now the company has more affordable options.

The Samsung Notebook 7 Spin is a convertible notebook with a starting price of $800.

The “spin” in the name refers to the notebook’s 360-degree hinge, which lets you fold the screen back and hold the notebook like a tablet.

Continue reading Samsung launches Notebook 7 Spin convertible for $800 and up at Liliputing.

Samsung launches Notebook 7 Spin convertible for $800 and up

Samsung introduced a sleek new line of notebooks at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, including the super-slim and light-weight Samsung Notebook 9 and Notebook 9 Spin convertible laptops. But if the $1000+ price tags for those laptops seems a bit steep, now the company has more affordable options.

The Samsung Notebook 7 Spin is a convertible notebook with a starting price of $800.

The “spin” in the name refers to the notebook’s 360-degree hinge, which lets you fold the screen back and hold the notebook like a tablet.

Continue reading Samsung launches Notebook 7 Spin convertible for $800 and up at Liliputing.