Really looking forward to running around with this. Their updated Bash Bunny is next on my list.
A new tool from @Hak5 came in today
Category Archives: Tech!
MSN Sports metro app will be discontinued July 20 2021
If you launch the MSN sports metro app in Windows 10 today, there is a pop-up window saying the “app will be discontinued on Tuesday, July 20, 2021. The app will no longer be accessible past this date. We appreciate your interest in the app and want to thank you for the time you’ve spent with us.”
Short notice!
Reminder: Paramount Movies library will be offline after July 31st
Just a reminder to everyone who has purchased movies through paramountmovies.com that the service is completely shutting down on July 31st.
If you have any movies in the Paramount Movies system, you need to link them ASAP to an Ultra Violet library (which is ALSO closing on July 31st), and then from the Ultra Violet library create a link to a VUDU and/or Fandango Now account.
Once you create that final link to VUDU and/or Fandango Now, the movies you purchased from paramountmovies.com will appear in the account to play.
Paramount has instructions here on how to link out the movies if you have not done so already.
A new bill to address “malicious” drones is headed to congress
A new article on GCN says the White House has sent a bill directly to congress that “would allow the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to use technology to detect, disrupt communications, seize or take down drones deemed to pose a malicious threat” as they are “concerned about drones being used for terrorism and more general criminal activity”.
While this sounds like the beginnings of a common-sense law on the surface, there’s one paragraph that just might warrant a red flag.
“The legislation would effectively set up a temporary restricted airspace around these “sensitive missions” and require DHS and DOJ to notify unmanned aerial systems operators of the temporary restriction.”
A big flag. On fire.
So in other words, the White House would like a create a law that sends out occasional warnings to drone pilots along the lines of “whatever you drone people do, don’t fly over here. Not right here at these specific GPS coordinates. And definitely not from this time all the way to this time. And don’t forget to tune in to this public channel for future updates.”
Establishing a permanently restricted airspace is one thing. Creating a temporarily restricted airspace and advertising it to the public at large is just screaming for attention.
This law might have had a slim chance of working if drones were already regulated and a system was in place to tie drones and their operators together, but right now, drones are still in their “wild wild west” phase.
On a related note, even though the Wright brothers’ plane first took flight in 1903, it wasn’t until 1927 that the first federal pilot license was issued.
The GCN article on the proposed “don’t look in this direction” drone bill is here.
Amazon Echo devices keep 60 seconds of recordings. The big question – is this in perpetuity?
For several years, Amazon had been telling the tech world their Echo home devices don’t “…actually do anything with your voice until you say their “wake word,” which is usually just … ‘Alexa’”
There was a big story that threatened to poke a hole in that narrative. Specifically, that an Amazon echo device’s recordings were needed to solve a murder case.
Amazon initially pushed back against releasing the recorded data, claiming “the First Amendment’s free speech protection applies to information gathered and sent by the device”, but eventually agreed to release the data after “after the user… consented to the disclosure”. The murder case was eventually dismissed, but there was never any explicit information on how much data Amazon handed over to the police regarding the investigation or what the data entailed.
The core issue remains. How exactly would an Echo device be useful in solving a murder case if it remains “off” until it is activated by the “wake word”? Why would the police want an Echo’s supposedly limited recordings?
A new finding in a very interesting tweet from Matteo ( @geminiimatt ) a few days ago might shed some light on that discrepancy.
On examining the extracted data from an Amazon Echo device…
We are walking through the extracted data on an Amazon Echo. The device keeps the last 60 seconds of recording (stored in the cloud), app & device. wifi username/password. sqlllite database contents. @B1N2H3X is giving us the tour. pic.twitter.com/FCyU6WyShG
— Matteo (@geminiimatt) April 14, 2018
Amazon Echo devices keep 60 seconds of recording and stores it “in the cloud”.
In their Alexa Terms of Use page, section 1.3 states very clearly that “Amazon processes and retains your Alexa Interactions, such as your voice inputs, music playlists, and your Alexa to-do and shopping lists, in the cloud to provide and improve our services.”
What is not stated at all is the length of retention or what happens to the data once it arrives “in the cloud”.
With this new finding that Echo devices keep 60 seconds of recording, and combined with Amazon’s admission they do “retain” Alexa interactions, I think it is time to ask a few questions.
Off the top of my head…
- Is this data stored in perpetuity?
- Is there any way for any person to review the data sent from an Echo device?
- Who has authority to review data sent from an Echo device?
- Is there a backup of this data?
- Is this data “mined”?
- How is this data secured?
- Is this data shared with any other party outside of Amazon?
Here’s my “worst case” thinking. Amazon pulls 60 seconds from an Echo device and uploads it to the cloud. Then “deletes” the previous 60 seconds on the local device and starts a new 60 second pull. The data uploaded from the local Echo device to the Amazon servers is never deleted on the Amazon servers. The data is stored forever, stamped by device name, location, wifi username and password, and sqlllite database contents. Every 60 seconds on every Echo device.
If this isn’t the case, if Echo devices really do just wait for the “wake word” and the findings by the community and the beliefs of the police are in error, a clear and detailed statement from Amazon on the Echo’s data retention would go a long way.
Personally, I’m still wondering why Amazon Dash buttons have embedded microphones.
Amazon is deleting uploads to their music storage service on April 30th
Not an April fools post. Late last week, Amazon announced they are “retiring” their online music storage service.
Up until this email, Amazon allowed users to upload up to 250 songs to their “personal cloud library” for streaming or downloading. For some reason, Amazon has decided to kill this feature on April 30th of this month.
Customers who uploaded music to their Amazon services have until April 30th to login to their Amazon music page, navigate to their settings page, and select KEEP MY SONGS.
Here is a copy of the email I received from Amazon…
—-
Amazon Music is retiring the Music Storage service, which allows customers to upload and store up to 250 songs in a personal cloud library. Our records indicate you have uploaded one or more songs through your Amazon account in the past.
To keep, download, and play your uploaded songs at no extra cost, simply open a web browser, go to your Music Settings and click the “Keep my songs” button to direct us to save your music to the cloud. Otherwise your uploaded songs will be removed from your library on April 30, 2018.
Your Amazon Music digital purchases will continue to remain securely stored for playback and download — no further action is required to retain those. These changes will not impact your ability to stream Prime Music or Amazon Music Unlimited.
QNAP NAS users: QFinder update now collects usage information
If you use QFinder or QFinder Pro as part of your QNAP NAS management, the
most recent version of the app (QNAP Qfinder Pro 6.3.0) now collects information on your NAS usage.
You can click CANCEL and not OK at the legalese screen after the software installs, but it isn’t immediately apparent if this exempts you from the new TOS or is just a “close window” action.
Following is the “Consent to User Information Collection” that appears after the application updates. (The concerning parts I placed in bold.)
Consent to User Information Collection
Thank you for using QNAP Systems, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as the “Company”) products. To provide a better user experience, the Company will collect usage-related information when you use Qfinder Pro (hereinafter referred to as the “Product”), as detailed below:
Purpose
User information and user behavior helps the Company to better understand user habits and preferences. The Company collects such information to improve the Product and services to meet the needs of users and to improve the overall service quality.
Information Collected
The information collected includes (but is not limited to):
Operating system information, device identification codes, country and language settings, computer model, firmware version and other basic information.
App-related information including: version information, update and shutdown time, usage frequency, and usage time.
User preferences: device settings, product configuration, usage time of the application and hardware.
Other relevant but non-personal information.
Use of information
With your agreement, the aforementioned information will be automatically collected and sent back to the Company. The Company will analyze the collected information to identify improvements that can be made to future products and services. The Company has effective mechanisms and procedures to protect the security of the information collected and shall only use the relevant information internally.
Disclaimer
The Company hereby disclaims all warranties including express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose in connection with this consent or in any manner whatsoever. In addition to the foregoing, the Company shall not be held accountable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages, such as loss of profits, loss of data, equipment use or functional damage, interruption of business and events of a similar nature, regardless prior notice exists for such occurrence or not.
Flickr is shutting down their photo books and wall art services
Flickr announced earlier today they “are transitioning our photo book offering to Blurb and shutting down our wall art offering.”
“Beginning October 16, 2017 you will be able to connect your Flickr account to Blurb’s online photo book-making tool… you have until December 1, 2017 to complete any in-progress wall art or photo book orders. After December 1, 2017, you will not be able to access the Flickr wall art tool or the Flickr photo book tool and your progress will be lost.”
As for reprints, “you will need to go to your Flickr Wallet before December 1, 2017. After December 1, 2017, we will remove the wall art and photo book order history. You can manage your new orders on Blurb’s website.”
The Flickr forum for questions on this migration is here. This shutdown will NOT affect “regular” Flickr users or photos hosted on their service. Only the Photo Book and Wall Art sections will be discontinued.
Microsoft Groove is shutting down. Download your music before December 31st
In a late night email I just received, Microsoft announced it is shutting down their Groove music service as part of their upcoming merger with Spotify.
If you have any albums or singles through their service, you have until December 31st to download them before they are deleted.
From the email…
“Groove Music is excited to announce that we’re partnering with Spotify to bring you the world’s largest music streaming service. On December 31, 2017, the option to stream, purchase, and download music from Groove Music will be discontinued. After December 31, 2017, you’ll still be able to listen to your purchased music if it has been downloaded.”
“Keep your current music collection intact by downloading to your devices any albums and tracks that you’ve already purchased. You can download your purchased music through the Groove Music App until December 31, 2017.”
“To download your music, open Groove, go to your music collection and select the Purchased filter. Right-click or press and hold your music files and select Download from the menu.”
CDMaST Phase 2 is going to change naval warfare
I’m constantly amazed at the level of tech we are achieving in a relatively short period of time. The “future” is coming fast, and sometimes in ways that even the best of science fiction didn’t anticipate.
Case in point – the CDMaST Phase 2 project from DARPA. Long story short, the idea behind this project “revolves around real-time secure networks of manned and unmanned aircraft, surface ships, and submarines able to attack and defend vast areas of the world’s oceans to hold enemy ships and submarines at risk over wide contested areas.”
The CDMaST project wouldn’t be the only line of defense. The project “would augment aircraft carrier battle groups and manned submarines with networked manned and unmanned systems of systems (SoS) that work collaboratively to control the seas.”
Imagine hundreds or thousands of drone-based ships in the ocean, playing basic defense and surveillance “over ocean areas as large as a million square kilometers”. This 24/7 armada would “hold the line” so to speak, and keep the Navy’s “12 aircraft carriers, 52 attack submarines, and 18 ballistic- and cruise-missile submarines” on a more focused and as-needed basis.
It’s brilliant.
Of course CDMaST is going to be target #A1 for hacking, and CDMaST is probably going to be the focus of some terrible movies when the mainstream media gets wind of this, but the idea that technology has reached the point of 24/7 global defense is astounding.
