Today it’s commissions, tomorrow the world!
Chinese Company Behind Adware That Infected Over 250 Million
Computers
A Chinese digital marketing company named Rafotech is
behind a wave of inter-connected adware families that found their way onto the computers
of millions of users, says Israeli cyber-security firm Check Point.
According to an extensive investigation, Check Point
claims Rafotech has designed a very intrusive adware that hijacks people's
browsers with the primary purpose of redirecting traffic to fake search
engines.
These fake search engines do nothing more than divert
search queries through Google and Yahoo's affiliate programs, earning the
Chinese company a commission.
… The adware's
reach inside corporate networks is a big issue because adware, in general, has
evolved in the past year. As Bleeping
Computer's malware expert Lawrence Abrams wrote numerous times in our adware
removal guides, most of today's adware contains the same features found in
banking or backdoor trojans.
Fireball is one of those adware families. Check Point experts said yesterday in a report that Fireball contains features that allow the Chinese company to push and execute any file (malware) to
the victim's computer.
Because the adware is so intrusive at the browser level,
experts fear that its maintainers would have no technical impediment from switching
from a revenue model that's based on traffic redirection and ad injection to
something that involves stealing user credentials.
For my students.
'Tallinn Manual 2.0' - the Rulebook for Cyberwar
Tallinn - With ransomware
like "WannaCry" sowing chaos worldwide and global powers accusing
rivals of using cyberattacks to interfere in domestic politics, the latest
edition of the world's only book laying down the law in cyberspace could not be
more timely.
The Tallinn Manual 2.0 is a unique collection of law
on cyber-conflict, says Professor Michael Schmitt from the UK's University of
Exeter, who led work on the tome.
Published by Cambridge University Press and first compiled
by a team of 19 experts in 2013, the latest updated edition aims to pin down
the rules that governments should follow when doing battle in virtual reality.
Toward WiFi as a right?
Digital Single Market: EU negotiators agree on the WiFi4EU
initiative
… The political
agreement includes a commitment by the three institutions to ensure that an
overall amount of €120 million shall be assigned to fund equipment for public
free Wi-Fi services in 6,000 to 8,000 municipalities in all Member States.
…and then we’ll send our virtual auditors to review your
books!
Massachusetts Tries Something New To Claim Taxes From Online
Sales
… Massachusetts is
one of the latest states to step up the fight for tax dollars, issuing a new
directive for out-of-state online retailers to begin collecting the 6.25
percent state sales tax starting July 1.
As a trigger, the state is adopting a hyperliteral
definition of physical presence — one that relies on any downloaded apps as
well as "cookies," the little bits of data that websites store on
users' computers or phones to track their visits. Massachusetts
is now considering them a physical in-state operation for a company.
"Massachusetts is arguing that these vendors with no
property and no people and no offices in this state, they still have physical
presence because of Internet cookies," Jones says.
… Steve DelBianco
is on the shameless-tax-grab side. He
leads NetChoice, a national trade
association representing e-commerce sites. He says under this strange Massachusetts
theory, "your business is subject to the taxation [and] regulation in any
state where a user simply enters their website address. That can't hold up to legal scrutiny, because
it certainly doesn't hold up to common sense."
Perspective.
… Today tech is
the new oil, and it’s changing the game for producers of major commodities such
as oil, coal, iron ore, natural gas, and copper. In this new commodity
landscape, incumbents and attackers will race to develop viable business
models, and not everyone will win.
Consider how the dynamics of demand are changing. The adoption of robotics, internet-of-things
technology, and data analytics — along with macroeconomic trends and
changing consumer behavior — are fundamentally transforming the way
resources are consumed. Technology is
enabling people to use energy more efficiently in their homes, offices, and
factories. At the same time,
technological innovation in transportation, the largest single user of oil, is
helping to lower energy consumption as engines become more fuel efficient and
the use of autonomous and electric vehicles grows.
As a result, demand for resources is flattening out. (Copper, often used in consumer electronics,
is the exception.) At the McKinsey
Global Institute, we modeled these trends and found that peak demand for major
commodities like oil, thermal coal, and iron ore is in sight and may occur as
soon as 2020 for coal and 2025 for oil. At
the same time, renewable energies including solar and wind will continue to
become cheaper and will play a much larger role in the global economy’s energy
mix. We estimated that renewables could
jump from 4% of global power generation today to as much as 36% by 2035 in our
accelerated technology scenario.
For the toolkit. (I
use Notepad++ myself.)
Something my gamers might want. Not free.
Pixar veteran creates A.I. tool for automating 2D animations
Artificial intelligence is going to change just about
everything — like animating video games, for example.
Animation-technology startup Midas Touch Interactive has a
new tool called Midas Creature,
which the company claims can automate the process of creating complicated
animations for two-dimensional characters.
Something my gamers might want. Cheap?
Regardless of what storyline you’re into (or looking to
try), it’s probably on sale right now. Want to read about Wolverine as an old man
struggling to get by (like the plot of the recent movie)? You can get 224 pages of comics for $3 on just that! That particular book normally sells for $15 in
digital form, so it’s quite a steal.
Of course, that’s just one example of what’s on sale. You’ll find deals on X-Men, Hulk, Guardians of the
Galaxy, Spider-Man, Deadpool, Star Wars, and much more. Have a look, and we’re sure you’ll find
something that interests you!
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