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Apple has been served with a court order at the FBI's request, demanding that it assist the government agency with unlocking an iPhone 5C that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 and injured 24 in an attack in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015.

In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the FBI was demanding the equivalent of a backdoor and that complying with the FBI's demand would undermine the security of all iPhones.

Whether you call it a "backdoor" or not, it's important to recognize that the ordered changes to the iPhone operating system would not circumvent the core of the iPhone's encryption. The court isn't asking Apple to defeat the encryption in any way. Nor does the court require Apple to create a vulnerability that would jeopardize the security of any other phone. Rather, it's asking Apple to do the one thing that Apple alone can do: use the iPhone's built-in method of installing firmware written by Apple.

Enlarge / John McAfee and Ars Technica deep cover operative Sean Gallagher at an unnamed location that looks suspiciously like Las Vegas. (credit: Sean Gallagher)

In an op-ed for Business Insider titled "I'll decrypt the San Bernardino phone free of charge so Apple doesn't need to place a back door on its product," libertarian presidential candidate and former antivirus developer John McAfee waded into the ongoing battle of words between Apple and the FBI with some choice words of his own.

Never one to bring a knife to a verbal gunfight, McAfee unleashes a howitzer of invective, blasting the United States government for undermining the country’s "already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems." It takes only four short paragraphs for McAfee to start talking about Nazis and Hitler. Two paragraphs later—not counting blockquotes—McAfee proclaims that by pressing Apple to "back door" (his words) the iPhone and bypass or defeat the mechanisms keeping its data secure, the government is seeking to bring about the end of the world (as we know it).

This is heavy stuff.

(credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim)

With notable gaps in scientists’ understanding of Zika, there have been plenty of pet theories, ridiculous rumors, doubts, and fears to fill the spaces. Among the ideas circulating as the mosquito-born virus continues to spread in the Western hemisphere, rumors have swirled that Zika’s emergence is the making of mad scientists who unleashed genetically engineered mosquitoes or that it's from drinking water “tainted” with a harmless, mosquito-killing insecticide. Another theory says it's a Scrooge-like plot by the one percent to decrease the surplus population.

While the World Health Organization and other experts have quickly smacked down those more far-fetched explanations—usually with responses that include “ridiculous,” “not credible,” and “no scientific basis”—other theories have been a little harder to bat away as scientists await more data. In particular, there’s lingering speculation that the commingling of Zika and dengue viruses may be to blame for Zika’s suspected link to microcephaly—a birth defect that leaves babies with malformed heads and brains. On the other hand, there are persistent rumblings among media and some scientists that the alarming uptick in microcephaly in Brazil, which is currently seeing an explosive outbreak of Zika, may simply be due to poor medical reporting.

Amid the competing chatter and conjecture, the WHO is attempting to coordinate emergency international efforts to fight the virus’ spread, treat those affected, and keep the facts straight. On Wednesday, the organization put out a $56 million plan (PDF) to get it all done—with the largest chunk, $15.4 million, going to communications. As part of those communication efforts, "[n]ews and social media channels will be monitored and analysed to identify audience concerns, knowledge gaps, rumours, and misinformation,” the agency wrote. The rest of the money will go to surveillance, mosquito control, healthcare for the affected, research, and coordination.

Time to start photoshopping at least one new face on the old box art now that we have a release date and a new star in Ryan Gosling. (credit: Warner Bros.)

Though principal filming of Blade Runner 2 has not yet begun, producing company Alcon Entertainment has already locked down the sequel's release date: January 12, 2018.

Deadline Hollywood announced the news Thursday with a roundup of everything else we currently know about the upcoming film's production. The film will be directed by Denis Villeneuve (who made 2015 thriller Sicario) and co-written by the original film's co-writer Hampton Fancher, based on a story he previously worked up with Ridley Scott. (Scott has indicated in interviews that his work on Prometheus 2 will prohibit him from contributing any further to the Blade Runner sequel.)

The lead acting gig is Ryan Gosling's, but we've yet to find any good "hey girl" meme images about Gosling's Blade Runner 2 role. (Might we suggest: "Hey girl, you're a benefit and you're my problem.") The studio has already confirmed that Blade Runner 2 will take place "decades" after the original film—which means Harrison Ford's real-life aging should match what we see in his reprisal of Rick Deckard, which was announced in February 2015.

Carnegie Mellon professor José Moura, inventor on two patents that led to a $750 million settlement with Marvell Technology. (credit: Carnegie Mellon University)

In what appears to be the second-largest payment ever over technology patents, Marvell Technology has agreed to pay Carnegie Mellon University $750 million to end a patent infringement case.

After a massive win at the district court level, CMU was on track to collect as much as $1.54 billion. The university won a $1.17 billion jury verdict in 2012, to which a judge added penalties and interest. But an appeals court cut the win significantly, approving $278 million in damages and ordering other damages issues to be re-tried at the district court level.

Rather than further litigate the case, the two sides reached the deal for the $750 million payment, which was announced late yesterday.

Lookit that imp fly!

11 more images in gallery

Everything about Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 seems designed to get in the way of the thing it gets right: giant, instantly accessible team battling on the Internet. If you're looking for an enjoyable evolution of the Team Fortress formula, complete with diverse, complementary character classes and 22-minute battles across staggeringly large maps, this one's pretty danged good—and easily the most kid-friendly team-battling game of its kind.

But boy, do EA and Popcap seem to have it in for players in search of that content. GW2 does a lousy job inviting players into its universe, because it wallops them over the head with a sloppily curated single-player campaign, a confusing meta-structure, and a ridiculous focus on grinding for content unlocks. In short, everything good about the original 2014 game has gotten better, and everything bad about it has gotten worse.

Rambo-styled cobs of corn

GW2's core concept remains the same as the original—meaning the series barely resembles the popular, accessible tower-defense game it's named after. Instead of hovering over a garden and placing amped-up plants to defend against a variety of silly, undead fighters, you now take direct control of a single creature on either side of the conflict and engage in one of a few types of online, third-person-shooter battling. Each character comes with its own primary, unlimited-ammo weapon and three recharge-to-use, class-specific powers, ranging from rocket launchers to acrobatic maneuvers, bombs, healing powers, and more.

Sonny Vleisides (right), is Butterfly Labs' cofounder and largest shareholder. A federal judge told him in January 2014 that there was a "strong smell" of fraud with respect to his company. (credit: Nasser Ghosieiri)

On Thursday, all-but-defunct Bitcoin miner manufacturer Butterfly Labs (BFL) finally settled with the Federal Trade Commission in a lawsuit that has dragged on since September 2014. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in Kansas City next month.

For the last two and a half years, Ars has followed BFL as it has gone from being a curious hardware startup in a nascent Bitcoin mining industry to the target of a federal investigation. Customer orders totaling millions of dollars were significantly delayed or never fulfilled. Back in 2013, Ars received an early model of a BFL miner and successfully used it to mine $700 worth of bitcoins, which we sold for cash and then donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Any miners that shipped now, though, are largely worthless, as Bitcoin mining has moved to the cloud and away from individuals.

Under the terms of the new agreement, which is expected to be formally certified by the federal judge overseeing the case, BFL must pay the FTC more than $38.6 million. However, that sum will be suspended as soon as the company pays a largely symbolic $15,000 and co-founder Sonny Vleisides pays $4,000.