What the PC game industry figured out is that in a world of abundant media, users have endless choices; instead of fighting for scarcity, fight for attention. Maximize user engagement and money will — with enough experiments — inevitably follow.
“Unauthorized code” in Juniper firewalls decrypts encrypted VPN traffic
As involved as that process was, getting unauthorized code covertly installed into an official operating system and keeping it there for years would appear to be an even more complicated—and brazen—undertaking. This 2013 article published by Der Spiegel reported that an NSA operation known as FEEDTHROUGH worked against Juniper firewalls and gave the agency persistent backdoor access.
Source: “Unauthorized code” in Juniper firewalls decrypts encrypted VPN traffic | Ars Technica
Brazil court orders WhatsApp messaging to be suspended
The move against WhatsApp comes as Brazilian phone companies have urged the government to restrict the use of free voice-over-internet services offered through WhatsApp.
The phone companies argue that the rise of WhatsApp has damaged their businesses.
Source: Brazil court orders WhatsApp messaging to be suspended – BBC News
Philips Hue Excludes 3rd Party Bulbs With Firmware Update
Philips just released firmware for the Philips Hue bridge that may permanently sever access to any “non-approved” ZigBee bulbs. We previously covered third party support in January 2015, when Philips indicated it was not blocked – and have since benefited.
Source: Philips Hue Excludes 3rd Party Bulbs With Firmware Update
Sometimes it’s better never to upgrade firmware. Don’t fix what isn’t broke. As a general rule firmware should never need upgrading.
NASA, Google reveal quantum computing leap
Quantum computers rely on fundamentally different principles to today’s computers, in which each bit represents either a zero or a one. In quantum computing, each bit can be both a zero and a one simultaneously. So while three conventional bits can represent any of eight values (2^3), three qubits, as they’re called, can represent all eight values at once. That means calculations can theoretically be performed at much higher speeds.
AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky Fix Common Vulnerability in Their Antivirus Products
The security bug relates to the fact that the AVG antivirus creates a memory space with full RWX (read-write-execute) privileges where it normally runs. For that particular version of the AVG antivirus, this memory space was not randomized and was often shared with other applications, like, for example, Acrobat Reader or the enSilo product that collided with the antivirus.
If an attacker knew about the antivirus’ predictable behavior and where this address space was, they could force their malicious code to execute inside that memory address and have the same privileges as the antivirus process (which is system-level).
Source: AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky Fix Common Vulnerability in Their Antivirus Products
Streaming Video Is 70 Percent of Broadband Use
Again, it’s not surprising to learn that broadband is moving from “the thing that brings you websites and email” to “the thing that brings you video.” But change over time drives it home: Sandvine says that five years ago, video/audio represented 35 percent of prime-time usage. Now it has doubled, to 70 percent.
Source: Streaming Video Is 70 Percent of Broadband Use – Sandvine | Re/code
Q-carbon: A new phase of carbon so hard it forms diamonds when melted
Diamond, being the world’s hardest substance, has a range of uses in creating cutting and polishing tools across industries from mining to medicine. The challenge is that diamond is expensive to mine and to manufacture, requiring high temperatures and high pressures. But by mixing up the substrates and controlling the rate of cooling, Narayan and his team have discovered they can create tiny diamonds within the Q-carbon.
Source: Q-carbon: A new phase of carbon so hard it forms diamonds when melted
Quest to drill into Earth’s mantle restarts
Normally, the crust–mantle boundary is thought to be marked by a feature known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or ‘Moho’, at which seismic waves change velocity. But at Atlantis Bank, the mantle is thought to bubble up as far as 2.5 kilometres above the Moho, making it easier to reach.
Reaching these deep-Earth frontiers “is one of the great scientific endeavours of the century”, says Henry Dick, a geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and co-leader of the expedition.
Source: Quest to drill into Earth’s mantle restarts : Nature News & Comment
Lenovo patches serious vulnerabilities in PC system update tool
One of the vulnerabilities is located in the tool’s help system and allows users with limited Windows accounts to start an instance of Internet Explorer with administrator privileges by clicking on URLs in help pages. That’s because Lenovo System Update itself runs under a temporary administrator account that the application creates when installed, so any process it spawns will run under the same account.
Source: Lenovo patches serious vulnerabilities in PC system update tool