Matt LeBlanc joins Chris Evans as co-host for BBC 'Top Gear' revamp

Found on CNet News on Thursday, 04 February 2016
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LeBlanc, who presented standalone spin-off show "Top Gear: The Races" and has appeared on the show twice before as a "star in a reasonably priced car", will join production "immediately", the BBC said in a statement.

Co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May followed Clarkson out of the door, and along with ex-"Top Gear" producer Andy Wilman have now signed up to produce a new online-only show for the streaming service Amazon Video. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has previously said that signing the trio was "very, very, very expensive."

Top Gear is dead. The BBC is trying to keep a corpse alive after all those left who turned Top Gear into what is was.

Microsoft makes Windows 10 a 'recommended update' for Windows 7 and 8.1 users

Found on Betanews on Wednesday, 03 February 2016
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Microsoft has been accused of pushing Windows 10 rather aggressively, and the company's latest move is going to do nothing to silence these accusations. For Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users, Windows 10 just became a 'recommended update' in Windows Update.

For anyone who has Automatic Updates turned on, this means that they will simply be given the option of downloading and installing (assuming installation files have not already been downloaded, that is...). If the 'Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important update' option is enabled, the update will not only be downloaded, but the installation will be started.

It always has been a good decision to disable Automatic Updates right after you installed Windows. It was a good idea for security updates, but using it to force users to an OS upgrade is reason enough to turn it off.

YouTube stars U-turn on trademarks after online fury

Found on BBC News on Tuesday, 02 February 2016
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Some of The Fine Brothers' most successful series include Kids React, Teens React and YouTubers React.

In reaction videos, people - from children to celebrities - are shown an object or video clip and their response is filmed.

For example: a child in 2015 marvelling at the size of an old style printed encyclopaedia.

That is the genre for one of the biggest channels? Watching people react to everyday stuff?

Using IPv6 with Linux? You’ve likely been visited by Shodan and other scanners

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 01 February 2016
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By setting up an IPv6-based network time protocol service most Internet-connected devices rely on to keep their internal clocks accurate, the operators can harvest huge numbers of IPv6 addresses that would otherwise remain unknown. The server operators can then scan hundreds or thousands of ports attached to each address to identify publicly available surveillance cameras, unpatched servers, and similar vulnerabilities.

Within seconds of one of the Shodan's NTP servers receiving a query from an IPv6 device, Shodan's main scanning engine would scan more than 100 ports belonging to the device. The Shodan scanner would then revisit the device roughly once a day.

If you connect a device to the Internet, you should not rely on something like "it won't be seen".

NSA’s top hacking boss explains how to protect your network from his attack squads

Found on The Register on Sunday, 31 January 2016
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“If you really want to protect your network you have to know your network, including all the devices and technology in it,” he said. “In many cases we know networks better than the people who designed and run them.”

To protect against this admins need to lock things down as far as possible; whitelisting apps, locking down permissions, and patching as soon as possible, and use reputation management. If a seemingly legitimate user is displaying abnormal behavior, like accessing network data for the first time, chances are they have been compromised, he said.

That's an ideal world. In reality, most of the users and bosses will complain nonstop if you put them on a NSA-proof network.

Hackers try to con the wrong mom. Knitting circle not the same

Found on CNet on Saturday, 30 January 2016
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Char, noticed the padlock icon -- the way your computer tells you your connection is private -- was missing from the top left corner of a shopping website she was visiting. Worried, she got in touch her son.

He took a look at the code behind the suspicious website and it turned out hackers behind a Russian website were receiving a copy of everything his mom typed into the checkout form. That included her credit card information, which Char immediately canceled.

The article is quite misleading, making it sound like SSL magically makes the code secure. If the site got hacked, the code itself can be altered and of course this will run via SSL too.

Trump’s ‘Egg Yolk Yellow’ Helmet of Hair Has Stylists Shaking Their Heads

Found on Alternet on Friday, 29 January 2016
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The Republican frontrunner’s do — which descends down his forehead and ranges in shade from canary yellow to tawny orange depending on the season and lighting — has become so synonymous with the man himself that it even made it onto a cover of The Economist.

If that's all they have to discuss when it comes to Trump...

Facebook appeals Belgian cookie rule because it says ‘cookie’

Found on Politico on Thursday, 28 January 2016
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The court’s ruling contained some English words — like cookie, homepage and browser — which could violate a Belgian law that says all rulings must be in the official languages of the country: French, Dutch and German. Facebook has said this means the whole ruling must be annulled.

Seriously now? How desperate do you have to be to think that this will work?

Android Ransomware Threatens to Share Your Browsing History With Your Friends

Found on Softpedia on Wednesday, 27 January 2016
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When everything has finished, the ransomware uses its administrative permissions to push a permanent message to the user's screen, asking the user to pay a ransom to recover his encrypted files.

To make the threat more convincing, the Lockdroid ransomware also threatens the user to pay the ransom or it will send all his browsing history to all his contacts.

There already is a malware which shares your most private information with your contacts. It's called Facebook.

Multiple Google Services Experience 90-Minute Disruption

Found on eWEEK on Tuesday, 26 January 2016
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Reports on Google's App Status dashboard show the disruption lasted for about 90 minutes before the company was able to restore normal service levels.

Last September, for instance, Amazon Web Services, which is regarded as having one of the best cloud service uptimes in the industry, experienced problems with its DynamoDB database service. The disruption lasted for 5 hours and seriously affected services at Netflix, Viber, Reddit and multiple other sites.

Azure customers had to suffer through nearly 36 hours of intermittent service before Microsoft was able to address the issue.

You cannot expect any service to have a 100% uptime. Remember that next time you complain about a 5 minute outage or busy service.