Remember the bus company owner who threatened to sue a redditor for libel, sued a customer for complaining about offensive comments made by a driver, and filed over 100 lawsuits against passengers for "liquidated damages" over issues like handing over the wrong printed ticket for a round trip or violating his company's terms of service?

Well, he's now trying to re-open the lawsuit against the complaining passenger with a new attorney after his previous attorney had the case dismissed with prejudice. And he's trying to intimidate redditors by filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the University of Illinois in an attempt to expose their personal data. Also, he—or someone posing as him—has returned to reddit to trash-talk.

Dennis Toeppen, once a notorious domain-squatter, filed a FOIA request with the University of Ilinois requesting "Any and all communications to which Joel Steinfeldt of Office of Public Affairs is a party which mention, relate, or pertain to to Suburban Express, Matthew Finnicum, Murph Finnicum, or Jeremy Leval, for the period 1/1/2013 to present." A link to the electronic files generated in response to the FOIA request was then posted to reddit.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The top 10 most commonly used words contained in default iPhone hotspot passwords, ordered by relative frequency.

Kurtz, et al.

If you use your iPhone's mobile hotspot feature on a current device, make sure you override the automatic password it offers to secure your connections. Otherwise, a team of researchers can crack it in less than half a minute by exploiting recently discovered weaknesses.

It turns out Apple's iOS versions 6 and earlier pick from such a small pool of passwords by default that the researchers—who are from the computer science department of the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany—need just 24 seconds to run through all the possible combinations. The time required assumes they're using four AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards to cycle through an optimized list of possible password candidates. It also doesn't include the amount of time it takes to capture the four-way handshake that's negotiated each time a wireless enabled device successfully connects to a WPA2, or Wi-Fi Protected Access 2, device. More often than not, though, the capture can be completed in under a minute. With possession of the underlying hash, an attacker is then free to perform an unlimited number of "offline" password guesses until the right one is tried.

The research has important security implications for anyone who uses their iPhone's hotspot feature to share the device's mobile Internet connectivity with other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets. Adversaries who are within range of the network can exploit the weakness to quickly determine the default pre-shared key that's supposed to prevent unauthorized people from joining. From there, attackers can leach off the connection, or worse, monitor or even spoof e-mail and other network data as it passes between connected devices and the iPhone acting as the access point.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The ramifications of the National Security Agency’s telephony metadata scandal are starting to work their way through the legal system in cases not related to national security.

Earlier Wednesday, we reported on a California case where a defense attorney was not allowed to see a secret court opinion outlining why he couldn’t compel the government to produce a surveillance application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

In a new 21-page legal filing (PDF) for a separate Florida-based federal criminal case, the government seemed to indicate that its routine collection of metadata by the National Security Agency does not include cell-site location information (CSLI). The dragnet of collected metadata referenced by the government was described in a recently-leaked FISC order requiring Verizon to give up millions of such records daily. However, it’s certain that the government has the ability to acquire such location information for specific targets over specific periods of time.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

Some day, far down the road, we'll be sitting with our grandchildren at our feet. As we rock in our holochairs watching the virtual sunset in our Googlezon immersi-room, we'll get all nostalgic. We'll look back on the period of May to June 2013 fondly, remembering all those memes we posted and those angry diatribes we wrote. We'll look down fondly at those tiny children, busy killing zombies in ActiBethesdaValve-Blizzard's Portal to World of Call of Fallout 6, and we'll say something like the following:

"Little Jimmy, did I ever tell you about the days when I fought and won in the great Microsoft used-game/Internet check-in battle of '13?"

It's a bit too easy to say that Microsoft's surprise reversal of its controversial game licensing policies today was just a reaction to the strident voices of a few on the Internet—that may have been how it started, though. In the high-pressure echo chamber of E3 last week, the unfortunate impression of Microsoft's next system started to leak into the mainstream, getting ink in big name newspapers and magazines and even ranking an applause-grabbing negative mention on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. When your system is on the verge of becoming a joke for a late night comedian, you know something must be done.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft was in advanced talks to buy Finnish smartphone manufacturer Nokia. However, a sale is now unlikely. The newspaper reports that talks faltered and "aren't likely to be revived."

The WSJ claims that the two parties were close to an oral agreement but that Microsoft walked away from the deal after disagreements over the asking price. Additionally, Nokia's market position—trailing both Apple and Samsung as it is—was a sticking point. Nokia is, nonetheless, the biggest manufacturer by far of Windows Phone handsets and appears to be slowly increasing its market share.

The deal may have potentially been sweetened by the fact that Microsoft could have used offshore cash to make the purchase. This would've allowed the company to avoid the tax liability incurred by moving the money to the US. Microsoft did this for its 2011 Skype purchase.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

On Wednesday, the 3D printing industry saw one of its largest financial deals to date: Stratasys, a large, publicly-traded 3D printing and rapid prototyping company, acquired the well-known MakerBot for $403 million in stock “with an additional $201 million in performance-based earn-outs.”

Stratasys’ stock price is up slightly (around three percent) on the news in after-hours trading.

The Brooklyn-based MakerBot is only four years old as a company, and it has been targeting the higher-end “prosumer” market. The company sells its Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer for $2,200. It also has a 3D scanner on the way. Stratasys is a well-established company that has been around since 1989 and its roots are in industrial printing and prototyping.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Remember what happened to the HTC First? The Android handset was a solid device, but it didn't sell well despite (or because of?) its inclusion of Facebook Home right out of the box. It looks like Samsung has been paying attention because, as the Korea Herald reports, the company has turned down the opportunity to launch a phone with a Facebook interface.

According to Herald sources, Mark Zuckerberg visited Seoul to meet with Samsung executives yesterday and to discuss the possibility of another Facebook-type phone. But Samsung is reluctant to jump into that boat, considering the aforementioned struggles of the HTC First. “Samsung doesn’t want to help nurture a second Google,” claims one source. “[Google] is now becoming a formidable rival for Samsung in the handset business.” Additionally, the sources claimed that Facebook does not offer the premium image that Samsung wants to exude, and a partnership really wouldn't provide much benefit.

Facebook Home is already available for both of its major flagship handsets, the Galaxy S 4 and last-generation Galaxy S III, so there’s not much incentive for Samsung to even consider that kind of out-of-the-box branding.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Hanna-Barberra

Recent revelations of the National Security Agency's (NSA) data mining capabilities have come to the forefront recently, making "big data" a new subject of interest and concern for many people.

So what better time than now to launch a data analytics tool based on the very technology that the NSA uses to perform its real-time analysis of massive amounts of data being pulled in from sources like the PRISM program?

The timing of the launch may not have been ideal for startup Sqrrl Data, which announced version 1.1 of its flagship product Sqrrl Enterprise today. Sqrrl is a commercially extended version of Apache Accumulo, the big data analysis platform originally developed by the NSA for real-time data mining, with built-in protections designed to hide certain kinds of information from people without the clearance to view it. (Last week, Ars took an in-depth look at Accumulo and other tools that the NSA uses to tap into the firehose of data that it has access to.)

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Aurich Lawson

YET ANOTHER UPDATE (5:24 Eastern): Microsoft has confirmed to Kotaku that the "family sharing" and digital cloud library access features that were planned to be in the Xbox One are indeed gone thanks to today's policy reversal. Xbox one users will also apparently have to download a "Day One" patch to enable the offline mode.

FURTHER UPDATE:

"You can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360." That is now the official word from Microsoft.

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Tinhte

We haven’t heard much from Motorola this year beyond the rumors surrounding its forthcoming “superphone,” the Moto X. The company has yet to announce anything beyond a mention of the phone at the All Things Digital D11 conference. If you’re going by the amount of rumors that have circulated, however, you’d think that Motorola already has a hit on its hands.

Late last year, we learned that Motorola was going to be working alongside Google to manufacture a new Android smartphone. We didn't know much about it other than the fact that Google was investing in a team and the technology to do something different. Because of the search giant’s involvement, that led many to believe great things were ahead.

As mentioned, Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola, walked onto the D11 conference stage back in May with the purported “superphone” in his pocket and refused to take it out. Woodside made great declarations that the phone was real and that we’d be seeing it in October.

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Fallon: "Behold! The only used game player on the market!"

So far, I've generally been enjoying the "Video Game Week" Jimmy Fallon has been putting on through his "Late Night" program on NBC. Bits like the "Do Not Game" list are generally funny and entertaining, and having Anamanguchi as a musical guest was an inspired choice. Even the specially created pixelated parody intro manages to capture some old-school cool.

But a statement Fallon made when talking about the PS4's used game support on last night's program was not only factually inaccurate, but it also helped highlight just how bad Microsoft's messaging has been regarding its licensing policies for Xbox One games.

Speaking with Sony Chief System Architect and Knack Director Mark Cerny, Fallon seemed struck by a random thought before leading in to the live demo. "Oh, the big story that everyone is talking about is this system is the only one where you can still play used games," Fallon said, almost off-handedly. Cerny replies accurately that "we support used games and we don't require an Internet connection." Fallon answered back over audience applause, "that's pretty major, 'cause you can go to GameStop and pick up that stuff."

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

In a testimony before the United States Senate Intelligence committee on Wednesday, the director of the FBI admitted that the agency was using drones in American skies “for surveillance,” adding that they were being used “very seldom” and in a “very very minimal way.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller testified before the committee to defend the agency’s practice of digital and telephony surveillance which was recently revealed.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also asked Mueller about the FBI’s “policies, procedures, and operational limits on the use of drones and whether or not there are any privacy violations on American citizens.”

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Smithsonian's National Zoo

Researchers have discovered how one of the world’s oddest mammals developed resistance to cancer, and there is hope that their work could help fight the disease in humans.

Naked mole rats live underground, where environmental conditions are harsh but predators are few. They can live for more than 30 years, almost twenty-seven years longer than their close cousin the house mouse—which is particularly susceptible to cancer. They breathe slowly due to the limited supply of oxygen, survive on very little food, have poor sight, and are largely indifferent to pain.

Naked mole rats are also the only mammals that do not regulate their body temperature. Because they live in colonies where the queen rat does the job of producing progeny and only a few males father the litters, their sperms become lazy.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Some bugs aren't worth very much cash.

Daniel Novta

Microsoft has announced that it will give security researchers cash rewards for devising novel software exploitation techniques, creating new exploit mitigation systems, and finding bugs in the beta of Internet Explorer 11 when it's released later this month.

Bug bounty programs, where security researchers receive a cash reward from software vendors for disclosing exploitable flaws in those vendors' software, have become an important part of the computer security landscape. Finding flaws and working out ways to exploit them can be a difficult and time-consuming process. Moreover, exploitable flaws have a market value, especially to criminals, as they can be used to propagate malware and attack systems.

Bounty programs address both concerns. They provide a means for compensating researchers for their efforts, and they provide a market for flaws that won't lead to compromised machines and harm to third parties. Google, Mozilla, Facebook, PayPal, and AT&T, among others, all offer monetary rewards for bug disclosures.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Kim Dotcom today said on Twitter that Megaupload user data in Europe has been "irreversibly lost" because it was deleted by a Netherlands-based server hosting company called LeaseWeb.

"VERY BAD NEWS: #Leaseweb has wiped ALL #Megaupload servers. All user data & crucial evidence for our defense destroyed 'without warning,'" Dotcom tweeted.

Dotcom said LeaseWeb informed his team today that Megaupload servers were deleted on Feb. 1, 2013. "Our lawyers have repeatedly asked #Leaseweb not to delete #Megaupload servers while court proceedings are pending in the US," Dotcom tweeted. "We asked the DOJ to release some of #Megaupload's frozen assets to buy ALL servers. They refused." The lost data includes "[m]illions of personal #Megaupload files, petabytes of pictures, backups, personal & business property," Dotcom wrote.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A 40-channel version of the new holographic display.

Daniel Smalley

Three-dimensional films and TVs may seem cutting-edge, but existing technologies all require optical tricks to create the illusion of depth (in some cases, very old tricks). The only truly 3D display technology we have, holography, has primarily been limited to displaying static images. That situation has slowly begun to change, but the existing technology is complicated and expensive, and it suffers from a slow refresh rate.

Now, some researchers have come up with a completely different method of creating the light pattern necessary to build a holographic image. The functional units in their device can be manufactured for pennies: the researchers suspect they could build a large holographic display for as little as $500, one that could potentially be driven by a commodity PC sporting a suite of high-end graphics cards.

The key to building a hologram is the ability of photons to interfere with each other, creating patterns where some regions have constructive interference and become bright, while others experience destructive interference and go dark. A carefully crafted diffractive can bend and redirect light so that this interference pattern recreates patterns of light that look as if they just reflected off the surface of a three-dimensional object. Most importantly, this 3D appearance is retained even as the viewer's perspective shifts around the surface.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Now that the National Security Agency (NSA) and other law enforcement institutions have begun to pull back the veil on surveillance tactics and their newly disclosed relationship in suspected terrorism cases, at least one defense attorney is starting to challenge previously closed cases.

Among the cases officials cited where NSA surveillance proved useful in securing a conviction was that of Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a San Diego cab driver. Moalin was convicted in February 2013 on five counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab.

"We're going to evaluate our options as to what to do now to get to the bottom of this," Joshua Dratel, a New York-based defense attorney representing Moalin, told Wired on Tuesday. "We can't learn about it until it's to the government's tactical advantage politically to disclose it. National security is about keeping illegal conduct concealed from the American public until you're forced to justify it because someone ratted you out."

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Aurich Lawson

The Wi-Fi Alliance has begun certifying network hardware, chips, smartphones, PCs, and tablets for the new "Gigabit Wi-Fi" standard. But while the certification program covers hardware with speeds of up to 1.3Gbps, vendors can make equipment that goes faster—and at least one already has.

The 802.11ac certification program, announced today, covers equipment pushing 1.3Gbps of data by using three spatial streams of 433Mbps each. This is the speed that has been supported in chips and routers for more than a year. Vendors got an early start with 802.11ac because the standard has been stable for a while, even though certification hadn't begun.

But the real-world limit is not 1.3Gbps. We saw recently that chipmaker Quantenna unveiled 802.11ac Wi-Fi chips that push 1.7Gbps of data by using four wireless streams instead of three. This is possible because while 11ac certification covers only three spatial streams, the 802.11ac standard allows more than that.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Sony has temporarily taken down the version 4.45 PS3 system update that was supposed to provide "improved system stability" after a number of users reported the new firmware was bricking their systems.

"Hi guys, we're aware of reports that the recent PS3 update (4.45) has caused," PlayStation Europe tweeted out in a series of updates early this morning. "We have temporarily taken 4.45 offline and are investigating. We will announce when the system update is available for download as soon as possible and we apologise for the inconvenience."

Reports of system bricking problems began filtering in after the required update was released yesterday evening and soon filled up a 92-page thread on the official PlayStation US forums. "I updated my fatty to 4.45 now it just sits at the sparkley [sic] ribbon screen," one user wrote. "I have done multiple file restores and I am not about to reformat, or else I would probably kill myself. PLEASE tell me I am not the only one having this issue?"

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Aurich Lawson

Apple has issued a press release this morning announcing that both HBO Go and WatchESPN are now available on Apple TVs. This is welcome news to customers who have cable or satellite subscriptions and can use the applications; for everyone else, the news means very little.

"HBO GO and WatchESPN are some of the most popular iOS apps and are sure to be huge hits on Apple TV," the press release quotes Apple VP Eddy Cue as saying.

The Apple TV applications will function in the same way as their iOS counterparts already do. For HBO Go, existing HBO customers can enter their subscriber information and watch HBO content (like Game of Thrones or True Blood); those without cable or satellite can continue to not watch HBO content, despite the blindingly obvious opportunity HBO has to take additional revenue out of the growing technologically savvy "cord cutter" demographic.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The Telex machine is kept so clean and it types to a waking world. Still.

Arnold Reinhold

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported what many people may have assumed had already happened years ago: the death of the telegram. With the pending closure of Indian national telecommunications company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's telegraph service offices, the Monitor reported that "the world's last telegram message will be sent somewhere in India on July 14."

But news of the death of the telegram has been greatly exaggerated. "Somehow they got the impression that this meant the end of telegrams worldwide," Colin Stone, Director of Operations for International Telegram, a telegraphy service based in Canada, said in a phone conversation with Ars. "We'll still offer services in India, even though the state-run service is closing."

Samuel Morse's version of telegraphy—Morse code over the wire—died a long time ago. It was replaced by Telex, a switch-based system similar to telephone networks, developed in Germany in 1933. The German system, run by the Federal Post Office, essentially used a precursor to computer modems and sent text across the wire at about 50 characters per second. Western Union built the US' first nationwide Telex, an acronym for Teleprinter Exchange, in the late 1950s.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Goodbye, XrossMediaBar. We hardly knew ye. Hello brand new, Facebook-inspired social news feed, which packs a whole lot of social updates right onto your PS4 home screen, as shown in a new Sony video that showed off the system interface for the first time.

A series of large, text-and-graphics-filled blocks running down the screen in a trio of columns lets a PS4 user see things like new games on the PlayStation Store, friends playing new games for the first time, trophies earned recently by your friends, and players that are broadcasting video of their play sessions. The video shows a user diving in to one of the trophy updates and giving it a quick Facebook-style thumbs up before jumping into a game, then watching a gameplay video before switching straight back to the game itself with a tap of the PS button.

Probably the most intriguing new feature shown in the new interface is the option to "download multiplayer mode first" or "download single player mode first" when buying a game like Killzone online. This follows comments from Sony's Mark Cerny about PlayGo, a PS4 feature that lets games be playable even before their data is fully downloaded or installed from a Blu-ray disc.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

Though television has existed for well under a century, its mark on culture and society is indelible and undeniable. Last week, we described how TV got to where it is today: by traveling a winding road of antennas, black and white broadcasts, news and game shows, broadcast formats, reels, and remotes.

These days, TV as we’ve known it is facing a confusing time. After a long, comfortable, monogamous relationship between cable and satellite providers and the living room, the Internet has come at the concept of TV in full force. A rush of power has been handed back to the consumer.

Unease pervades most of what is happening with regard to video content, from the hardware we use to watch it to the services we pay to access it—if we pay for services at all. The power balance has been disrupted, and there is no clear resolution in sight.

Read 40 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs talks up the 800 series chips at the company's CES keynote.

Andrew Cunningham

At this point, almost every high-end Android phone we've seen this year has arrived sporting Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 SoC, which combines four of the company's Krait 300 CPU cores with the Adreno 320 GPU used in last year's Snapdragon S4 Pro.

But there's another chip that Qualcomm mentioned at its big, strange CES press conference in January: the Snapdragon 800. This chip combines four Krait 400 CPU cores (basically identical to Krait 300 save for faster L2 cache and higher clock speeds) with a faster Adreno 330 GPU—Qualcomm has allowed some journalists to benchmark its reference platform for the chip, and the initial numbers are quite impressive.

Of the primary sources we have for these numbers, AnandTech is probably the most thorough—they've got plenty of numbers comparing the Snapdragon 800's CPU and GPU to chips like the Snapdragon 600, Apple's A6 and A6X, and the Exynos 5 Dual and Octa. The chip's CPU represents a modest upgrade over the 600, while the GPU is a massive step up that trades blows with the powerful Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX554MP4 in Apple's fourth-generation iPad.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

On Tuesday Nvidia announced that it would make its GPU technology widely available to device manufacturers looking to license it, starting with the company's current Kepler architecture. This build is found in Nvidia's GeForce 600-series GPUs and now may end up in graphics cores from other manufacturers, too.

Nvidia said Kepler's improved performance and efficiency, as well as its Direct3D 11, OpenGL 4.3, and GPGPU capabilities would endear device makers to its licensees. In turn, licensees will receive designs, collateral, and support from the company.

Citing a slowing PC market, Nvidia's post suggested that it wants to take advantage of the mobile boom. “[I]t’s not practical to build silicon or systems to address every part of the expanding market. Adopting a new business approach will allow us to address the universe of devices,” the company wrote.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments