Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: October 12, 2014

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WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news

by Alan Lenton

Stories this week include free wireless access in return for your first born, a smart meter hack, Windows 10's key logger, why it's called Windows 10, Adobe snooping on your e-reader, Marriott hotels jamming Wi-Fi hotspots, Google's new tool for getting nasties out of your browser, a cosmic ray detector app, Antarctic ice, heat resistant underwear, and an amazing, giant sized illusion. URLs take you off to stories about a world-wide failure of Belkin routers, a crystal which would allow underwater breathing, the EU investigating Amazon tax breaks, the first sight of a Majorana fermion, a new Mac botnet, an EU lobbyist register, and a Google transparency report.

Quite a few reports of nasties this week, but I'm afraid it's been one of those weeks.

So, here we go...

Shorts:

Several stories are floating around about a wireless access point whose terms and conditions included handing over your first-born child. A number of people accepted the T&C and used the access point. Gasp, horror, send for the social workers. The story completely missed the warped sense of humour of Londoners. For most people the opportunity to hand over a teenage child 'for all eternity' is something not to be missed! And of course, no one checked up on how many of the people involved actually had children to give away.
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/wifi-security-shame-londoners-hand
http://www.lbc.co.uk/londoners-give-up-children-for-free-wi-fi-97906

Are you suffering from being forced to have one of the so-called 'smart' meters installed on your electricity line? Then I'm sure you'll want to know that at least some of them have major security problems that could allow a hacker to order a power blackout.

A couple of security researchers discovered that one widely used meter has the same set of encryption keys in every meter. Once you have got the key from one, you have the key to all of them, and can reprogram all the meters, blacking out the residences and offices to which they are attached! This is only one type of meter, but frankly I don't doubt that most of them have security flaws, if only because it costs money to install security in these sort of items.

It’s not only the cost to get someone who knows what they are doing to design and write the security programming, but much more the extra cost for every device, because you need more powerful processors and more memory in each device. When you are manufacturing millions of such devices, every byte counts, and the programmers who write the code for these sort of devices (it's called embedded programming) resort to all sorts of programming tricks to keep the memory needed as low as possible.

So, who do you think is going to clean up and pay when you come back from holiday to a freezer full of rotting food?
http://www.darkreading.com/perimeter/smart-meter-hack-shuts-off-the-lights/d/d-id/1316242

Last week I drew your attention to a pre-release version of Windows 10 and how to get hold of it. What no one knew at the time was that Microsoft had included a key logger in the version, so it could see how people were using the beast. To my mind that's a very sneaky thing to do. I'm told that there is something in the EULA*, but who reads the EULA (that’s the thing that's pages long and in tiny print with a box you tick to lie that you've read it). For something as privacy-invading as logging all your keystrokes, no matter how good the reason for it, potential users should be properly and obviously warned in advance.

So, if you are going to play with the preview of Windows 10, be aware that Microsoft is watching you...
http://www.techworm.net/2014/10/microsofts-windows-10-permission-watch-every-move.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2692435/will-windows-10-tps-spooky-data-collection-carry-over-to-final-version.html

Thanks to reader Michael for pointing me at an URL with one of the few suggestions for why Microsoft called its forthcoming version of Windows number '10' instead of number '9', that is logical.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/01/windows-10-9-naming-rumor/

And talking of being spied upon, it turns out that Adobe's e-book reader also sends your reading logs back to Adobe, and does so in plain text. We wouldn't want to make life difficult for the NSA, now, would we... Of course it doesn't just send the log, there's also your user ID, so you can be identified, and a whole lot of other information about your device, reading app, how long you took, how much you read, and so on.

And, what do you know, the authority for them to do this is in the EULA that you 'signed'.

You know what I think? I think it's long overdue for some legislation that says that though a EULA can specify what you can do with software, it cannot authorize the issuing company to do anything to you or access your data.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/08/adobe_says_it_slurps_ebook_data_in_plain_text_
because_privacy_is_important/

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/10/adobes-e-book-reader-sends-your-reading-logs-back-to-adobe-in-plain-text/

Been trying to use your portable wireless hotspot in a Marriott hotel, recently? Odd the way it just wouldn't work, so you were forced to use the hotel's expensive own hotspot, wasn't it?

Well, guess what. It turns out that the hotel was deliberately jamming guests Wi-Fi hotspots. Now it has been fined $600,000 by the FCC for this behaviour. If you did get caught by the Marriott's jamming, then I suggest you demand your money back from them. They'll find it somewhat difficult to argue the case in court when the FCC has already fined them!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/03/marriott_jamming_wifi_fcc/

OK - after a string of nasties, here is something useful. Google has launched a Software and Browser Removal Tool for Chrome. So, when grandma rings you up because her Chrome browser has acquired 18 tool bars, you don't have to jump in the car and drive through three states to fix it - you can tell her to download and run Google's new tool. Good work Google!
http://www.howtogeek.com/198084/google-launches-software-removal-and-browser-reset-tool-for-chrome/
https://www.google.com/chrome/srt/

Homework:

So how would you like your own cosmic ray detector? If you have an Android phone you can have just that by downloading an app for your phone. It's a bit fiddly - you have to mask out the camera lens by putting tape over it so it only detects muons created by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere. However, to buy a fully fledged detector, as used by physicists and astronomers, would cost a lot more than pocket money.

The app also includes a data logger that records the time, location, and events observed to a database designed to match the events to those recorded by scientific observatories.
http://www.gizmag.com/physicist-smartphones-pocket-cosmic-ray-detectors/34121/

You know how we keep hearing about Antarctic ice melting and the glaciers slipping into the water and melting? Well, it seems that it's not quite as simple as that. This year the amount of sea in the Antarctic covered by ice reached an all-time record high.

To say that climate scientists are puzzled by this is probably an understatement. Clearly climate is much complex than most of them originally thought. And much, much more complex than the computer models they used to make predictions of global warming...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/09/we_have_more_to_learn_says_scientist_antarctic_sea_ice_
at_all_time_record/

For Geeks:

Sweden has come up with some interesting underwear for those of you given to messing around with hot stuff. It's a technology transfer from the European Space Agency. As part of its work on spacesuits it came up with a heat resistant fabric, and once developed, the details were passed on to its Technology Transfer program.

The folks in the transfer program got together with Swedish steel workers, men and women, and fashion houses. The result is some amazingly heat proof underwear for welders. Hot stuff, so to speak! An impressive example of technology transfer from a high tech venture.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/TTP2/The_heat_is_on

London:

Going to be in London between now and October 24th? Then you definitely need to take a trip down to Covent Garden's East plaza, where you can see one of the best illusions I've seen for ages. It's called 'Take my lightning but don't steal my thunder', and it's by British artist Alex Chinneck.

It's difficult to describe in words, but the URL has pictures. As you can see from the pictures, part of the facade of the old market is floating unsupported -  or is it? I plan to drop down there and take a look at it one evening after work later on this week.
http://www.gizmag.com/alex-chinneck-take-my-lightning-dont-steal-thunder-covent-garden/34103/

Scanner:

Belkin routers stop working
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/07/massive_belkin_router_outage_boots_customers_off_the_internet/
http://www.myce.com/news/belkin-router-users-worldwide-unable-to-connect-to-the-internet-73019/
https://statuspage-production.s3.amazonaws.com/static/belkin.html

Scientists create crystal which would allow us to breathe underwater
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-create-crystal-which-could-allow-us-to-breathe-underwater-9772871.html

EU competition chief goes after Amazon’s deluxe Lux tax deal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/07/eu_competition_chief_goes_after_amazons_delux_tax_deal/

Majorana fermion: Physicists observe elusive particle that is its own antiparticle
http://phys.org/news/2014-10-majorana-fermion-physicists-elusive-particle.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/majorana-particle-matter-and-antimatter/?WT.mc_id=SA_SPC_20141009

New Mac botnet leverages Reddit
http://www.darkreading.com/attacks/new-mac-botnet-leverages-reddit/d/d-id/1316352

OK, lobbyists. Cough up your details – EU's new first vice-president
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/07/european_commission_veep_lobbying_register_frans_timmermans/

Google Transparency Report: European privacy requests for search removals
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/europeprivacy/

* EULA is an acronym for End User License Agreement

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
12 October 2014

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.

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