Florida water plant compromise came hours after worker visited malicious site

Researchers find watering-hole attack targeting water utilities.

A small-town water treatment facility.

Enlarge (credit: myoldsmar.com)

An employee for the city of Oldsmar, Florida, visited a malicious website targeting water utilities just hours before someone broke into the computer system for the city’s water treatment plant and tried to poison drinking water, security firm Dragos said Tuesday.

The website, which belonged to a Florida water utility contractor, had been compromised in late December by hackers who then hosted malicious code that seemed to target water utilities, particularly those in Florida, Dragos researcher Kent Backman wrote in a blog post. More than 1,000 end-user computers visited the site during the 58-day window the site was infected.

One of those visits came on February 5 at 9:49 am Florida time from a computer on a network belonging to the City of Oldsmar. In the evening of the same day, an unknown actor gained unauthorized access to the computer interface used to adjust the chemicals that treat drinking water for the roughly 15,000 residents of the small city about 16 miles northwest of Tampa.

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Google and Samsung merge Wear OS and Tizen into a single platform

Samsung’s first smartwatch ran Google’s Android Wear software. But the following year Samsung switched to using its own software based on the Tizen operating system, which has powered Samsung smartwatches ever since. Now Samsung and Google…

Samsung’s first smartwatch ran Google’s Android Wear software. But the following year Samsung switched to using its own software based on the Tizen operating system, which has powered Samsung smartwatches ever since. Now Samsung and Google are combining elements of their wearable operating systems to create what they’re calling a “single, unified platform.” And that’s […]

The post Google and Samsung merge Wear OS and Tizen into a single platform appeared first on Liliputing.

Google and Samsung merge Wear OS and Tizen into a single platform

Samsung’s first smartwatch ran Google’s Android Wear software. But the following year Samsung switched to using its own software based on the Tizen operating system, which has powered Samsung smartwatches ever since. Now Samsung and Google…

Samsung’s first smartwatch ran Google’s Android Wear software. But the following year Samsung switched to using its own software based on the Tizen operating system, which has powered Samsung smartwatches ever since. Now Samsung and Google are combining elements of their wearable operating systems to create what they’re calling a “single, unified platform.” And that’s […]

The post Google and Samsung merge Wear OS and Tizen into a single platform appeared first on Liliputing.

After Threats to Block Twitter & VPNs, Russia Warns Facebook & YouTube

Following demands that Twitter should remove “prohibited” content or face blocking in Russia, the authorities are warning that if Facebook and YouTube don’t clean up their acts too, they could face similar measures. Those thinking of deploying VPNs to circumvent blocking are also on notice, since the government believes it has the necessary tools to thwart evasive technological action.

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

Twitter PirateIn the United States and much of Europe, the idea that certain content should not appear online is not alien but in Russia, the situation is policed directly by government.

So-called “prohibited content” covers a broad spectrum of material, from pirated movies and TV shows to broadly defined terrorist material, the promotion of illicit drugs, and the abuse of minors. And according to Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomndazor, all of these things and more are made available by users of Twitter.

After Being Punished By Throttling, Twitter Faced Total Blocking

For some time, Roskomndazor has been calling on Twitter to remove “prohibited” content, to ensure that the social media platform complies with Russian law. The telecoms watchdog claimed that it had reported thousands of tweets to Twitter but after the platform failed to remove them, Russia adopted its own punitive measures to bring the company into line.

As a first step back in March, Russia reportedly used Deep Packet Inspection in order to identify and then throttle local Twitter traffic down to just 128kbps. That wasn’t without collateral damage but Russia doubled down by warning that Twitter could find itself blocked completely via court order, if it failed to respond to demands.

Given the mantra that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it, some vowed to turn to VPNs, as they had done in the past when pirate sites and Telegram were blocked. But Russia warned that this wouldn’t help, informing the public that “much had changed” since the country attempted to block Telegram in 2018.

Twitter is Now Cooperating With Russia

In an announcement yesterday, Roskomndazor noted the May 15 deadline it had given Twitter to fall into compliance had come and gone. However, it appears some progress has been made.

On March 10, the day Russia began throttling Twitter, Roskomndazor already had demands on the table for the social platform to remove 4,100 “prohibited” items dating back to 2017. After that date, a further 1,800 new items were posted to the site. By last Saturday, however, Twitter had removed 91% of the contentious content and had signaled willingness to combat the problem moving forward.

“The management of Twitter sent a letter to Roskomnadzor, in which it confirmed that it fully shares the agency’s actions to combat socially dangerous content and will take all necessary measures to remove it,” the regulator says.

“The management of the social network expressed its readiness and interest in building a constructive dialogue with Roskomnadzor. The Twitter administration asked us not to take action to block Twitter, as well as to remove the current restrictions on its work.”

More Work Must Be Done Before Throttling is Completely Removed

After expressing appreciation for Twitter’s cooperation, Roskomnadzor appears to be loosening its grip on Twitter, but that comes with some caveats. In return for Twitter’s efforts, Russia says it will not seek to block Twitter entirely and will remove access restrictions on fixed Internet connections. However, throttling will remain on mobile networks until Twitter complies with all demands.

“[I]n order to completely remove the imposed restrictions on Twitter, it is necessary [for Twitter] to remove all identified prohibited materials, as well as bring the response time to the agency’s requirements into line with Russian standards (no later than 24 hours from the receipt of the request),” Roskomnadzor writes.

But as one problem appears to be nearing its conclusion, others are raising their heads.

Russia Warns YouTube & Facebook Of Similar Action

After apparently bringing Twitter much closer to full compliance, Russia appears keen to expand its reach to other media platforms presenting it with similar problems. According to Roskomndazor, “prohibited” content is also making an appearance on Facebook, YouTube and other “Internet sites” and if they don’t take action, they will face similar measures.

“It should be noted that at present, cases have been identified of posting illegal materials on other Internet sites, including Facebook and YouTube. In the event that these platforms do not take appropriate measures, similar sanctions may be applied to them,” Roskomndazor warns.

While no platform wants to be slowed down, the nature of Twitter means that throttling presents less of a problem than it would to Facebook and YouTube, the latter in particular. Whether Russia would apply the same bandwidth restrictions to these platforms is currently unknown but if that was indeed the case, both could be rendered almost entirely unusable.

At the time of writing there’s no renewed mention of VPN blocking in respect of either of these platforms. However, given that VPN use has the ability to undermine the leverage that Russia holds in ‘negotiations’ with user-generated content sites, it seems likely that the same threats will apply. And according to earlier analysis, it’s at least possible that Russia has the necessary tools to carry them out.

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

All fossil fuel exploration needs to end this year, IEA says

Renewable spending needs to double to $4 trillion per year by 2030.

Silhouette Oil Pumps On Field Against Cloudy Sky During Sunset

Enlarge (credit: Jose Luis Stephens | Getty Images)

To limit global warming to 1.5˚C by the end of the century, the world has to deploy clean technologies en masse while slashing investment in new oil, gas, and coal supplies, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.

Getting to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require a historic deployment of widespread renewable power, electric vehicles, and new technologies, many of which are only now in the prototype stage. To get a jump-start, we’ll need to double our investments in clean technologies to $4 trillion by the end of the decade.

“The pathway to net zero by 2050 is narrow but still achievable if governments act now,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a tweet. Most of the reductions in CO2 emissions through 2030 will come from technologies already on the market. But in 2050, almost half will come from technologies that are still in development.

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Google shows off Android 12’s huge UI overhaul

Google confirms Android 12’s color-changing UI, all-new design.

Google I/O kicks off today, and the big news is that Android 12 is getting a huge new design. Google calls the new design "Material You," and just like in the leaks, it's a UI that changes colors like a chameleon. For now, this design will only show up in Google Pixels, but Google says it will roll out across the ecosystem to the web, Chrome OS, smart displays, cars, watches, tablets, and every other Google form factor.

The new interface is powered by a "color extraction" API that can pull the colors out of your wallpaper and apply them to the UI. This sounds exactly like the Palette API that was introduced in Android 5.0 (along with the original introduction of Material Design), but it's apparently a second swing at the color extraction idea, and Google is heavily using it in the UI now. The demo interfaces featured customized highlight colors, clock faces, widget backgrounds, and more, all matching the color of your wallpaper.

Besides new colors, there are also tons of layout changes to the quick settings and notification panel. We'll dive into this more as soon as we get some code to play with, which might only be when the final version of Android launches.

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Android 12 will bring a major UI refresh, privacy updates, and more

It’s been seven years since Google introduced its Material Design language for Android devices. Now the company is revealing the biggest update yet, a customizable new version that’s designed to let you personalize your devices. The update…

It’s been seven years since Google introduced its Material Design language for Android devices. Now the company is revealing the biggest update yet, a customizable new version that’s designed to let you personalize your devices. The update is called Material You, and it’ll launch first on Google Pixel devices when Android 12 rolls out this […]

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Intel’s Optane H20 is the latest attempt at “hybrid” laptop storage

H20 benchmarks well, but real-world performance and price remain to be seen.

The new Intel H20 looks like a standard NVMe SSD—but it packs both slow QLC NAND and ultra-fast Optane into separate chips on the same M.2 drive.

Enlarge / The new Intel H20 looks like a standard NVMe SSD—but it packs both slow QLC NAND and ultra-fast Optane into separate chips on the same M.2 drive. (credit: Intel)

Intel has a new consumer-targeted storage product, called Optane H20—as in H twenty, not water. The new device is an M.2 2280 format drive, using QLC (Quad Level Cell) NAND storage running behind an Optane cache layer.

This isn't Intel's first try at an Optane-backed hybrid SSD—the first, 2019's Optane H10, made its way into a few consumer laptops but didn't make much of a splash. H20 is a second try, with a significantly improved QLC SSD and NAND controller.

What’s a QLC?

Conventional NAND SSDs store data by maintaining charge levels in individual cells aboard a solid-state medium. How much data each individual cell stores is configurable and has dramatic impact upon the cost, performance, and longevity of the NAND as a whole:

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