Adblock's developer has adopted Eyeo's acceptable ads whitelist and sold his browser extension to an unnamed company

The maker of a competing ad-blocking browser extension has joined up with the new program created by Eyeo, owner of Adblock Plus, under which an independent board will decide which ads are acceptable to be placed on a whitelist.

The AdBlock browser extension for Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari—similarly named but independent of Eyeo’s product—claims 40 million users. Its developer  Michael Gundlach said Thursday that he had sold his company, as well.

AdBlock browser extension developer Michael Gundlach announced he had sold his company via a browser pop-up, seen in this screenshot taken Oct. 2, 2015

AdBlock also post a tweets yesterday.

Ad blockers intercept requests by webpages to download ads from external sites on a blacklist. Publishers hate them because they deprive them of advertising income, but some ad-blockers have sought a middle ground, using a whitelist to allow through ads that they consider “acceptable” or where users have opted to support a site’s operators by viewing advertising. Criteria for acceptability often include unobtrusiveness, silence and small size.

Eyeo has long maintained such a whitelist, but caused controversy by also accepting payment from some of the whitelisted companies.

It insists that payment does not influence inclusion on the list, and to make that relationship more transparent, early next year it intends to hand management of the whitelist, including deciding and policing the acceptance criteria, to an independent board.

Gundlach, announcing the sale of his company, said that he had long considered giving users the option to see some ads while still blocking annoying ones, but had not wanted to work with Eyeo up to now due to its close control of the whitelist. The decision to hand control to an independent board changed his mind.

“As a result, I am selling my company, and the buyer is turning on Acceptable Ads,” wrote Gundlach. “My long-time managing director will keep working with the new company.”

He didn’t name the acquirer.

It wasn’t Eyeo, said its communications manager Ben Williams, adding that the company is happy AdBlock will be using the Acceptable Ads program.

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Edward Snowden received 47GB emails notifications from Twitter

Imagine the twitter notifications on that phone app.

Edward Snowden didn’t turn off emails from Twitter and received 47GB of notifications

Sometime between joining Twitter and sending his first tweet, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden forgot to check his notification settings. If he did, he might've noticed that by default Twitter sends email notifications for pretty much every social interaction.

For context, since joining Twitter roughly 27 hours ago, @Snowden has amassed over 1.19 million followers. His first tweet alone has so far been favorited 110,000 and retweeted 120,000 times. He accepts DMs from anyone. He's only used two hashtags, neither of which have ever been featured on @midnight. He only follows one Twitter account (NSA), and it's probably not yours.

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A person managed to buy Google.com domain

Difficult to believe this, as we hardly come across such news. A strange thing happened at 1:20 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, Sanmay Ved, an ex-Google employee and current-Amazon employee,  September 29 experienced something of a shock when he found that the world's largest search engine website, Google.com, was "available" for purchase.

It's the cost of the most-trafficked domain in the world — Only $12.
Expecting to get an error message, Ved added the domain to his shopping cart and made payment. The entire purchasing process went through without any difficulty.

 Ved has posted all the ordeal along with screenshots on his LinkedIn account blog post.

 I received two emails, one from sc-noreply@google.com, and one from wmt-noreply@google.com, which is not the norm when you book domains via Google Domains as I have booked new, previously un-registered domains before, and I have never received emails from the above aliases on booking the domains.  I will not share the contents of the emails here given they relate to the Google.com domain. The domain also successfully appeared in my Google Domains order history.

The purchase got completed and the card was charged (which would not have happened unless I actually successfully completed checkout, as otherwise I would have received an error). The charge was not a pre-auth.

Within moments, his inbox and Google Webmaster Tools were flooded with webmaster related messages confirming his ownership for Google.com.

However, soon he received an order cancellation email and refund from Google Domains, as Google personally owns Google Domains, so it can still control all purchases made through it and revoke them if needed.

Google could do this given the registration service used by  (aka Google Domains) belonged to Google, unlike the 2003 event in which Microsoft forgot to renew their Hotmail UK domain which was registered with Nominet UK. As a result, the Hotmail UK domain was returned to the open market for pickup by anybody who fancied it. 

Somebody else picked it up, and as Microsoft wasn't the registrar themselves, Microsoft wasn't able to cancel the order, and take it back automatically. In this case, I don't know what caused Google to lose ownership of the domain Google.com as a result of which it was available in the open market.

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Microsoft accidentally released a test patch (KB3877432)

Microsoft accidentally released a test patch (KB3877432) to consumer machines running Windows 7, making users believe that the Windows Update service got hacked, and they are infected with malware.

The rogue patch, 4.3MB in size, advertised itself as a Windows Language Pack and flagged as an "Important" update, but featured strange and inaccessible URLs and lacked any detailed information.

A Windows user reported that after the successful installation of the patch, his laptop was "screwed after the update," describing frequent crashes and that it "killed [his] system and compromised [his] gear."

However, several hours later, a Microsoft spokesperson clear the air by confirming that the company had "incorrectly published a test update" and that they are "in the process of removing it."

It is still unclear what was inside the test patch, or whether the patch modified any Windows files, but the fact that the test patch was mistakenly released on the Windows 7 

You may also like to read:

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FireEye Report Finds Asia Pacific Organizations Face Greater Risk of Cyber Attacks Than Global Average

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - October 1, 2015 - FireEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: FEYE), the leader in stopping today's advanced cyber attacks, today released its latest Regional Advanced Threat Report for Asia Pacific. FireEye found that 33 percent of observed organizations in the Asia Pacific region were exposed to targeted cyber attacks in the first six months of 2015. Organizations in all countries included in the report were observed to have greater exposure to targeted attacks than the global average.

India, Thailand faced significant increases; Hong Kong and Taiwan most exposed

Chart: The percent of organizations in each geography which were found to be exposed to attacks from Advanced Persistent Threat groups in the first half of 2015.

Other key findings in the report include:
In Southeast Asia, organizations were 45 percent more likely to be attacked than the global average. The previous report found them only 7 percent more likely to be attacked.
Nearly half of organizations in Hong Kong and Taiwan received targeted attacks.
South Korea topped several rankings in the report, including the highest volume of network traffic phoning home to threat groups' command and control infrastructure.
Australia's rate of exposure grew by 30% from the findings of the company's previous Regional Advanced Threat Report.

The industries most likely to be attacked were found to be telecommunications, government, education, high-tech and financial services. Education rose significantly in rank from past findings.

"Asia's intellectual property and sensitive information attract targeted attacks by sophisticated threat groups," said Eric Hoh, President of Asia Pacific Japan at FireEye. "While awareness of threats in the region is improving, too many leaders still assume their organizations aren't targeted, and they continue to rely on traditional defense systems. Most organizations need to move faster to shore up their security, because these attacks can reach them in milliseconds. I hope these findings drive more organizations to see the urgency of the threat and take steps to improve defenses."

The report's timeframe, the first half of 2015, was a highly eventful period for cyber security in the Asia Pacific region. In April, China was reported to have weaponized its Great Firewall, turning into what some dubbed the Great Cannon. A short time later, FireEye published its APT30 report, which revealed a decade-long cyber espionage campaign--targeting organizations across Southeast Asia and India--that sought political, economic and military information. In May and June, major breaches made headlines in Australia and Japan, respectively.

View the full report: https://www2.fireeye.com/rs/848-DID-242/images/rpt-regional-atr-apac.pdf


Image
Chart: The percent of organizations in each geography which were found to be exposed to attacks from Advanced Persistent Threat groups in the first half of 2015.
http://release.media-outreach.com/i/Download/3694

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http://release.media-outreach.com/i/Download/3524

About FireEye, Inc.
FireEye has invented a purpose-built, virtual machine-based security platform that provides real-time threat protection to enterprises and governments worldwide against the next generation of cyber attacks. These highly sophisticated cyber attacks easily circumvent traditional signature-based defenses, such as next-generation firewalls, IPS, anti-virus, and gateways. The FireEye Threat Prevention Platform provides real-time, dynamic threat protection without the use of signatures to protect an organization across the primary threat vectors and across the different stages of an attack life cycle. The core of the FireEye platform is a virtual execution engine, complemented by dynamic threat intelligence, to identify and block cyber attacks in real time. FireEye has over 3,700 customers across 67 countries, including 675 of the Forbes Global 2000.

© 2015 FireEye, Inc. All rights reserved. FireEye is a registered trademark or trademark of FireEye, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

You may also want to read:

• How to Watch Worldwide Cyberattacks Live

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Tesla’s Model X THE WORLD’S FIRST Luxury Electric SUV

THE WORLD’S FIRST luxury electric SUV is gorgeous. It’s futuristic. And once again, Tesla Motors is redefining the electric vehicle.

The Silicon Valley automaker has teased us for years with the Model X, and tonight it finally gave the world its first look at the production model, then handed six customers the keys.

Tesla is a game-changing company. Its product is a game-changing car — one that Consumer Reports said was the best car they’ve ever tested. The new Model X is a major addition to the line-up and a hotly awaited SUV version of the company’s eco-friendly vehicles. It’s beautiful. It has self-opening doors! Gull-wing doors! It’s gorgeous. Sexy, even. Exciting. And painstakingly designed.

And Musk starts with safety. Minutes and minutes of safety. Maybe 10 minutes of crashes, crumple zones, collision-detection systems, risk of death, and chances of serious injury.

Tesla's new Model X has a 'bioweapon defense mode' button

The button should come in handy "if there’s ever an apocalyptic scenario of some kind," he said. All you apparently have to do is push the button and the Model X's air filter — which is about 10 times larger than a normal car's air filter — should be able to keep you safe. The company claims it's 300 times better at filtering bacteria, 500 times better at filtering allergens, 700 times better at filtering smog, and 800 times better at filtering viruses.

The X is, in a word, stunning. Its most amazing features are its mind-bending acceleration, gorgeous design, and amazing rear passenger doors. Tesla calls them “falcon” doors, because they lift like the wings of a bird. And because it sounds cool.

Another clever trick is the “monopost” design of the second-row seats, which is fancy way of saying that each seat (two if you get the six-passenger model, three if you get the seven), sits on its own chrome-plated post. That makes each seat almost infinitely adjustable fore and aft and provides ample room for everyone’s feet. The designers drew inspiration from high-end office chairs and admit they were, like the doors, a bitch to engineer.

Along with the doors and the seats, Musk is especially proud of the “panoramic” windshield, which extends back over the front seat seats to provide an exceptional view. Tesla claims it is the largest windshield ever installed in a production vehicle—yet, oddly, no one had actually measured the damn thing and so couldn’t say exactly how big it is.

The remainder of the interior is Tesla typical: the seats look nearly concept-spec, mounted on thin, shiny posts that open up additional storage space around the floor of the vehicle. (The third row folds down, but the second row does not.) The dash will be immediately familiar to anyone who's seen a Model S, with a full LCD instrument cluster and 17-inch display in the center stack. The user interface, for better and worse, is identical to the S, apart from pictograms of the car that have been updated for the X.

As with recent builds of the Model S, the X features Autopilot — Tesla's semi-autonomous driving system — and the company says that both vehicles will stay in lockstep as Autopilot becomes more advanced and new software builds roll out. At launch, the Model X will only be available with a 90kWh battery — the largest that Tesla currently offers — but Musk says that a smaller capacity option will be available in the future at a lower price.

Speaking of stuff, the X is cavernous. No one could tell us the internal volume—you’d think someone at Tesla would have had that figure—but one engineer said you could carry a sheet of plywood. Another said the X would easily swallow a surfboard. And yet another said you could carry a load of two-by-fours. Suffice it to say, this thing will swallow as much cargo as any normal person would carry. Tesla offers an accessory hitch that holds four bikes or six pairs of skis, and can be attached to the back of the car in just a few seconds.

Should you somehow manage to run out of room, the Model X has Class 3 towing capacity, which in lay terms means it’ll haul 5,000 pounds.


image source: verge

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Facebook redesigns mobile profiles and begins testing video profile pictures

The new profile, which was first spotted in the wild this summer, puts a large profile photo front and center. The biggest departure from the current product, which is now in testing: looping "profile videos" of up to seven seconds that add a new dimension to the design. It's a big thing that sounds like a small thing, and it's big because for the first time, Facebook is asking users to get creative with their profiles.

Facebook employees have been making profile videos for a while, and many of them are disarmingly cute: faces surrounded by puppies, peering through bushes, or having their hair blown back by a ridiculous fan. Video profiles aren't required — you can stick with a static image — but I expect that they'll become enormously popular, assuming they become available to everyone. (The videos are now being tested among small groups in the United States and the United Kingdom.)

Facebook will also now let you set a temporary profile photo that automatically reverts back to the old one after a specified length of time. Maybe you want to show yourself wearing your favorite sports team's shirt on the day of a big game. Maybe you want to modify your profile to show support for a cause in the news, as when people applied a rainbow filter to their profile pictures to show support for same-sex marriage. Or maybe you want to let people know you are on vacation by adding the text "vacation mode" to a profile of yourself in the ocean. (This is an example Facebook used with me!)

The more philosophical changes to the profile come below the photo. Until now, you've seen your friend's recent check-ins, news about who they've recently befriended, and your mutual friends, if any. Scroll a little lower and you found a carousel with your friend's "About" section, along with links to their photos and friends. These sections were all relatively small, and as a result you could scroll quickly to your friend's posts. The old profiles emphasized posts over all but the profile photo — posts were larger than anything else there.

The new profile asks you to write a short bio of yourself ("Mom, wife, growth hacker. Coffee addict!"), and supports the use of emoji. Next comes the "About" field, which tells people where you live, work, go to school, and so on. And then come photos: instead of the previous small square link, they're now a full-bleed section unto themselves, where they may now be more easily perused by thirsty randos. (Assuming the photos are public, of course — the box respects your privacy settings.) Facebook gives you control over which photos display here: you can choose to "feature" a handful of them. Beneath your featured photos, there's another photos section, featuring your most recent pictures. And then, underneath that, there's a full-bleed section showing your friends. Only after that do posts on your Timeline begin showing up.

At Facebook, major design changes like these are driven by data. And while the company wouldn't share any data with me, I'm sure that its data showed the majority of times someone looks at your profile, it's because they want to see pictures of you, find out where you live or work, and see which friends you have in common. (This describes roughly 95 percent of my own visits to profiles.) And yet I wonder if the things Facebook has chosen to highlight about you in its redesigned profile are the things you would choose to highlight about yourself.

On my Page I found that you can make photo slide show with link on your web site!! up to 5 picture max

Many of the photos that are taken of us, or that we are tagged in, are not how we would wish to present ourselves to the world. (Facebook would say, just hide those photos using privacy settings! And I'd say, why does managing my Facebook privacy settings still feel like a part-time job?) A list of our friends is not likely something we would broadcast ahead of our most recent status update, or an article we found interesting, or an interesting place we visited. But the redesigned profile puts that list above all those things, probably because data shows that's what your friends really want to see. Your profile is now less about what you want, and more about what your friends want.

Facebook 360 Coming soon...



The new options for self-expression in the profile are a lot of fun — maybe the most fun Facebook has ever let you have with your profile. They make the profile feel to me like it always has — like a broadcast message to your friends. But scroll down a bit and it's a different story: Your profile is now a tool built for enjoyment by the curious. You may object to the changes, even as you find they have made Facebook more useful when you look up people yourself. And Facebook can fall back on the rationale of the age: We are only listening to the data.

source: verge

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Telstra to enter Philippines telecom industry partnership with San Miguel

Telstra confirmed on Friday (August 28) that it is planning to invest in the Philippines telecom industry in a joint venture with San Miguel Corporation. The Melbourne-based company also indicated its hunt for financing for the project. It has been selecting banks that can provide funding for the mobile venture.

“We are in discussions in relation to these matters,” Telstra stated. It also specified that both the parties are still talking on the matter and there was hardly any confirmation of success yet.

San Miguel is one of the largest companies of Philippines. It has invested in various businesses ranging from canned food to energy drinks and beer. Telstra CEO Andy Penn said that Asia constitutes one of the key elements in the growth strategy he has formulated for the company. In 2014, the company spent US$697 million (AU$972 million) to buy global telecom firm Pacnet Ltd. so that it could access undersea cables to connect Asia and the Pacific.

“We note recent speculation concerning Telstra considering an investment in a wireless joint venture in the Philippines with San Miguel and that financing is being sought in relation to that joint venture,” Telstra told the Australian Securities Exchange. The points put forward by Telstra indicate investment of millions of dollars in the joint venture with San Miguel, likely to be its subsidiary Vega Telecom.

 A reply on Telstra official page

Telstra played fair by choosing a country that is not only densely populated but also lacks high-speed 4G services. The company’s aim is clear about establishing 4G network across the nation, the telecom market of which will be led by two brands – PLDT and Globe Telecom. On the other hand, San Miguel seems putting tough efforts to make 4G accessible all over Philippines. The governments of other countries allow 4G spectrum on lease for a particular period, while Philippines authorities allow carriers to use it for an indefinite period.

Telstra’s technical partner Ericsson could help it get the 4G services at comparatively lower price, but the CEO of the network provider said he was not concerned with Telstra’s business in Asian regions and it preferred dealing directly with the carriers.

The Australian telco, however, noted that "no agreements have been reached in relation to these matters and there is no certainty" that the joint venture will happen.

No further details have been disclosed as the agreement has not been finalized.

In a separate disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange in July, San Miguel said it will pay P5.75 billion ($123.15 million) in cash to buy out its Qatar-based partner in its subsidiary Liberty Telecoms Holdings, Incorporated.

This is to hold 51.01% stake in Liberty Telecoms.

In June, San Miguel president and Chief Operating Officer Ramon Ang said his company is "not in a hurry to replace [its Qatar-based partner] with a new one. Many are interested but we have yet to make a decision."

Qtel West Bay Holdings S.P.C. owned 23.36% of Liberty while White Dawn Solution Holdings and wi-tribe Asia Limited had stakes of 18.44% and 2.86%, respectively, in the company as of end-March.

Prior to the transaction, Vega Telecom, Incorporated held 35.73% stake in Liberty Telecom.

San Miguel had also announced Vega Telecom bought Express Telecommunications Incorporated (Extelcom) and Vega’s investment in High Frequency Telecommunications Incorporated.

Extelcom, owned by the Ongpin Group and UK-based Ashmore Investment Management Limited is the country’s first mobile telephone operator.

Liberty Telecoms offers 4G internet to the consumer and corporate markets through Wi-tribe.

NOTE:
Telstra is Australia’s largest telco and has been in the Philippines for over six years.

In 2013, Telstra  launched  first ever Telstra directly operated customer service centre in Makati .


Now Telstra opening another customer service centre in Cebu.

 Visit: http://philippines.careers.telstra.com/Home

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Globe Telecom has disconnected nearly 30,000 prepaid numbers linked to spam and scam text messages

MANILA - Globe Telecom has disconnected nearly 30,000 prepaid numbers linked to spam and scam text messages.

Globe said the numbers were found to be consistently sending spam messages as reported by subscribers through its online service globe.com.ph/stopspam, where customers are simply required to provide all the details of spam and scam messages they received on their mobile devices.

The numbers were also identified via an automated filtering system implemented by Globe to keep its customers from receiving the messages.

Globe Chief Information Security Officer Anton Bonifacio said a total of 29,347 numbers were blocked from the service since July last year, of which 24,787 numbers were disconnected for sending scam messages while 4,560 numbers were barred from using the Globe network for sending spam messages.


“Globe will never allow the use of its network by individuals who want to take advantage of our customers. As Globe steps up its campaign to purge its network of spam and scam messages, we expect this number to increase further moving forward,” Bonifacio said in a statement.

The telecommunications company has so far blocked an estimated 30.8 million spam and scam text messages.

The firm said the volume of messages blocked by its network filtering system averages about 90,000/day, reaching a peak of around 200,000 in July this year.

"Recently, bulk of spam and scam messages delivered to Globe customers originate from SIM cards of competition (with prefixes 0922, 0943)," Globe said.

As of end-June, Globe's mobile customers reached 48.4 million, up 13 percent from the 42.7 million a year earlier.

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Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL

Microsoft lists the Lumia 950 as a 5.2-inch handset with a 20-megapixel camera and 32GB of storage. While the larger Lumia 950 is 5.7 inches with the same camera and storage.Previously leaked photos and specifications of the devices also reveal that Microsoft's new Lumias will support a Continuum feature to turn them into PCs, and Windows Hello to unlock the phones with just your face. Microsoft's Lumia 950 XL is also rumored to include support for the Surface Pen, alongside a new smart cover that has a circular cut out for easy access to notifications. Both devices are expected to include support for USB Type-C and Qi wireless charging.

Microsoft is expected to announce both handsets at a special Windows 10 event in New York City next week. 

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WinRaR SFX - Remote Code Execution

According to Mohammad Reza Espargham, a security researcher at Vulnerability-Lab, the stable version of WinRAR 5.21 for Windows computers is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw.

The vulnerability can be used by any attacker smartly to insert a malicious HTML code inside the "Text to display in SFX window" section when the user is creating a new SFX file.
WinRAR SFX is an executable compressed file type containing one or more file and is capable of extracting the contents of its own.

According to proof-of-concept video published by Espargham, latest WinRAR vulnerability allows remote hackers to execute arbitrary code on a victim's computer when opening an SFX file (self-extracting file).

Successful Exploitation requires low user interaction, and results in compromising users’:

• System
• Network
• Devic

The major disadvantage arises because of SFX files, as they start functioning as soon as the user clicks on them. Therefore, users cannot identify and verify if the compressed executable file is a genuine WinRAR SFX module or a harmful one.



Not yet Patched...

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SKYbroadband Get Unlimited 25Mbps for only P3999/mo

Get Unlimited 25Mbps for only P3999/mo from SKYbroadband!

PROMO MECHANICS

• This promo is open to new SKYbroadband residential subscribers in Mega Manila*.
• New subscribers must submit the duly filled-up application form and the following documents to be submitted to the contractor at the time of service installation: photocopy of valid ID and proof of billing (maximum of 60 days old).
• New SKYbroadband 25Mbps Plan 3999 subscribers have to pay the initial cash-out requirement to the authorized SKY representative at the time of service installation.
• The plan has a contract period of 24 months. Pre-termination fee applies.
• Promo period is from August 16, 2015 to December 31, 2015.

*All areas are subject for checking; Mega Manila: Cavite, Laguna, Las Pinas, Makati, Marikina, Manila, Mandaluyong, Muntinlupa, Quezon City, Pasay, Pateros, Pasig, Paranaque, Taguig, San Juan, Camanava and Rizal


Per DTI-FTEB SPD Permit No. 10437. Series of 2015.

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