Volume 18, Issue 23        Atari Online News, Etc.       June 10, 2016   
                                                                           
                                                                              
                  Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2016
                            All Rights Reserved

                          Atari Online News, Etc.
                           A-ONE Online Magazine
                Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
                      Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
                       Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor


                       Atari Online News, Etc. Staff

                        Dana P. Jacobson  --  Editor
                   Joe Mirando  --  "People Are Talking"
                Michael Burkley  --  "Unabashed Atariophile"
                   Albert Dayes  --  "CC: Classic Chips"
                         Rob Mahlert  --  Web site
                Thomas J. Andrews  --  "Keeper of the Flame"


                           With Contributions by:

                                Fred Horvat



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                                  =~=~=~=



A-ONE #1823                                                 06/10/16

   ~ Zuckerberg Gets Hacked ~ People Are Talking!     ~ Firebee News Update!
   ~ What To Expect at E3!  ~ Re-think Your Passwords ~ OS X Going to MacOS?
   ~ StarBlitz for the 2600 ~ Russia Arrests Hackers! ~ Retro Freak Console!
   ~ "Like Us" Intimidation ~ Zero-Day Exploit Sells! ~ New Opera Update!    

                  -* Atari Is Making IoT Devices! *-
              -* MySpace Breach Could Be Biggest Ever *-
           -*  FBI Wants Warrantless Access to History!  *-



                                  =~=~=~=



->From the Editor's Keyboard              "Saying it like it is!"
  """"""""""""""""""""""""""


Thanks to our faithful pal, Fred Horvat, we've got a jam-packed
and interesting issue this week!  The issue was looking bleak when
I resumed work on it earlier today, but Fred had been sending me
stories and they started to add up!  Thanks, Fred!

Here's hoping that Bernie Sanders continues to make things
interesting on the Democrat side of the election process.  While
Hilary received enough delegates, I don't think that she's got
everything wrapped up yet!  We still have a bit to go before the
conventions get underway - stay tuned!

Until next time...
 
 

                                  =~=~=~=



                         FireBee News Update


By Fred Horvat
	

Well this week I attempted to install EasyMiNT 1.90 on the FireBee.
It is a very long process what I did and I will summarize the
events this week.  After a couple of attempts as it stands right
now EasyMiNT is not running properly yet on the Network.

The Error I got a couple of months ago that I did not record is
coming up every attempt this week to when installing.  The error I
get at the very beginning of the EasyMiNT 1.90 installation is
ERROR OHCI usb-uPD720101-0 error: DEVICENOTRESPONDING : Device
did not respond to token (IN) or did  not provide a handshake
(OUT).  I get this error 3 times and respond OK all 3 times and
the installation continues.

I retried installing EasyMiNT with DHCP for networking and that
did not work like a couple of months ago.  Then I tried installing
EasyMiNT with manual networking and during installation I lost USB
communication to the keyboard and mouse about half way through.  I
figured it was because of being attached to my 4-port  USB KVM.
So I took the FireBee off the KVM and did it stand alone with its
dedicated mouse and keyboard like in the past.  So I tried again
installing EasyMiNT with manual network settings and I lost USB to
the mouse and keyboard at the same point in the installation
process so the USB KVM had nothing to do with the issue.  I
powered off the FireBee and when I powered it back on it appeared
to recover the installation about where it lost the USB
communication.  It finished and the networking is still not
working at this point.

So thats where I am at currently.  I plan on trying again this
week with a slightly different game plan and maybe this time I
will get networking working properly.

Until Next Time.



     Atari Is Making IoT Devices, Destroying Childhoods


Remember when the word Atari used to mean something? When it
meant a wasted youth spent flipping quarters in front of a
haggard Pac Man arcade cabinet while mouthing "don't you want me
baby?" to the girls gathered by the change stand? Or jostling
joysticks in front of a ropy CRT TV and a battered copy of Space
Invaders while your parents, disgruntled with your failing
schoolwork, mutter something about square eyes before retreating
to the kitchen for a well deserved glass of pinot?

Actually, come to think about it, I'm neither American enough nor
old enough to actually remember any of that. But dammit, I remember
enough to know that Atari, the once great voice of video games,
shouldn't be making IoT devices and smart home products with French
wireless networking company Sigfox. It's just not cricket.

According to Sigfox, the company will licence the Atari branding
and slap it in on a range of connected home, pet, lifestyle, and
safety products, all of which will connect directly to Sigfox's
wireless network, rather than to the Internet directly. Sigfox's
network, which currently only works in Europe with a US launch
planned, is typically used for relaying small chunks of
information infrequently, such as data from an electricity meter.
This, the company says, means that its IoT devices will have much
better battery life and won't require any complex pairing or
setup.

According to Engadget, Atari and Sigfox are focusing on the mass
market and the charity sector, with devices providing functions
such as GPS tracking, temperature info, and panic buttons. Work
on the new products will begin later this year, although there's
no date set yet, or the exact products we might see.

Which is fine. After all, if pre-pubescent me thought that the
mighty Atari would give up on games and move into the high flying
world of temperature tracking, I don't think he'd be too bothered
about the end result. Then again, maybe Atari and Sigfox can trade
in on the brand nostalgia and convince folks to lay down some cash
for a suite of IoT devices with questionable functionality. After
all, stranger things have happened.



                                  =~=~=~=



->In This Week's Gaming Section  - What To Expect at E3 2016!
  """""""""""""""""""""""""""""    Retro Freak Game Console!
                                   Cinemaware Catalog Sold!
                                   And much, much more!


        
                                  =~=~=~=



->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News   -  The Latest Gaming News!
  """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""



     What To Expect at E3 2016: Your Guide to Livestreams,
                 New Consoles, and Games Galore


In years to come, we might look back on E3 2016 as the transition
year. Many of the biggest names in gaming have already pulled out
or reduced their presence at whats traditionally gamings biggest
news event of the year. EA is hosting its own show, while
Activision and Wargaming pulled their booths off the show floor.
And rumor has it (though you know how rumors go) that E3 might
abandon Los Angeles next year and head to a different convention
center.

Crazy.

But weve still got at least one more of these things. Next week
well get an idea of whats coming in the rest of 2016and beyond.
Plus theres...a Doritos event happening next door? Heres what to
expect next week.
Short weekend

Dont forget: Like last year, E3-ish festivities now start on
Sunday  and even earlier in the day this year. EA has moved its
traditional Monday afternoon press conference to 24 hours
earlier, essentially kicking off E3 even though its technically
part of the publishers own EA Play event.

You can catch it live at 1 p.m. Pacific/4 p.m. Eastern. Expect
news about EAs fall slate, including Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1,
and sports sports sports. Mass Effect Andromeda also seems like a
safe bet, even though its not releasing until 2017.

Later in the night (almost too late for East Coasters) is
Bethesdas press conference, which starts at 7 p.m. Pacific
(Twitch) and I guess is technically the actual start of E3, given
EAs defection. Despite some will-they-wont-they last year about
whether Bethesda would ever hold another, the publisher is back
this yearthough presumably without any Fallout 4-sized news.

Still, my interest has been piqued by rumors of a potential
sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order. You can also bet on
Dishonored 2 making an appearance, maybe some Doom stuff, and...
a Skyrim remaster? Presumably that ones not coming to PC though,
unless Bethesdas worked a miracle on their engine  Fallout 4
wasnt a big enough upgrade over Skyrim for me to think itd be
worth a second buy on PC.

Id kill for a Morrowind remake, though.

Find a comfy chair on Monday (or a place where your boss cant
see your screen). Its going to be a long day.

We start bright and early in the morning, with Microsoft at
9:30 a.m. Pacific/12:30 p.m. Eastern. Then we wrap up, as usual,
whenever the hell Sony decides to get off-stageusually around 7
or 8 p.m. Pacific. Youre going to need the family-sized bag of
Doritos for this one.

Theres a longer-than-usual break in the middle of the day
though, if you need to do normal human things like Stand up or
Walk around or Remember what it feels like to be alive again.
EA dropped to Sunday and Ubisoft moved its conference to an
earlier time slot. That leaves us with nearly four hours of
downtime. Beautiful.

You can catch all four streams through various streaming sites,
of course. Here are the official links and times:

    Microsoft (9:30 a.m. Pacific)
    PC Gaming Show (11:30 a.m Pacific)
    Ubisoft (1:00 p.m. Pacific)
    Sony (6:00 p.m. Pacific)

Notice anything about that list? Yes, the PC Gaming Show is back
for the second year, ready to show off all the weird games that
make this the best platform. Last year we got a look at Rising
Storm 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Strafe, Tacoma, Dirty Bomb,
and more.

This year? I expect well see...uh...Rising Storm 2, Deus Ex:
Mankind Divided, Strafe, Tacoma, Dirty Bomb, and more. Its a
celebration of all things PC, even when some of those things
disappear and we barely see them again from E3 to E3. We may also
hear more about AMDs new graphics cards.

I do hope they condense the show this year though. PC Gamer tried
to be smart and steal EAs old early-afternoon slot, but then
Ubisoft snaked the same slot anyway and now the two are literally
back-to-back. And it doesnt help that last years show went on
longer than the wait for...well, I expect PC gamers know what to
finish this sentence with. (Topical Half-Life 3 joke ho ho ho.)

Dont be surprised if the PC shows up on the big stages too.
Microsoft is still pushing its unified Windows/Xbox platform goal,
and while the focus will no doubt be on the Xbox I bet we hear the
words console exclusive more often that not at E3 2016  which
means the games coming to the PC too. At this point, pretty much
every third-party game comes to the PC, and quite a few of
Microsofts first-party titles. Its a great time to be a PC gamer.

Now if only we could get Sony to bring over Uncharted

Im also hoping for Sony and Microsoft to bury the peace pipe or
smoke the olive branch or however the saying goes and announce
cross-platform play this yearat least in one or two major titles,
like say...Rocket League. A thawing of platform tensions could
only be a good thing for the modern eras
blink-and-youve-missed-it multiplayer communities, and
Microsofts already said its interested.

Also important to this years E3 rumor mill: New consoles. Yes,
the Xbox One and PS4 just launched in 2013. No, its not that long
ago. Yes, its kind of crazy theyre already planning refreshes.
But I guess it goes to show how comparatively
underpowered-to-the-PC this generation of consoles was from the
start.

The unofficial-official rumor names are the Xbox 1.5 and PS4.5,
because these arent entirely-new machines. Instead theyrewell,
theyre basically PCs. If rumors prove correct then Microsoft and
Sony are upgrading the hardware, but the same software will run
on both the original models and these new ones. Maybe well even
see graphics settings. On consoles.

Hell, maybe the Xbox will finally be able to hit 30 frames per
second at 1080p.

    Editors note: As this article was being published, Sony
executive Andrew House confirmed the PlayStation 4.5s existence,
saying itll output games and video at 4K, cost more than the
PlayStation 4, and will coexist beside the current modelgames will
run on both sets of PS4 hardware. It wont be shown at E3, though.

Anyway, this is PCWorld and we dont really care about consoles
(or at least we pretend not to care about consoles). Still, expect
to see ripples if these rumors do come to pass. Just as we saw
technology leap forward after the launch of the Xbox One and PS4,
expect a similar leap here.

And if you care about virtual reality, this could be an important
moment. The PS4.5 upgrade is supposedly in service of Sonys
PlayStation VR headset, while the Xbox 1.5 is rumored to have its
own VR system prepped. Maybe a partnership with Oculus?

Console VR will never be up to par with a decent PC rig, but it
does have the advantage of being relatively affordableand right
now, VRs best hope lies in hitting critical mass with consumers.
Something that wont happen as long as its a $1,500-plus
investment for a capable PC and headset.

Speaking of VR, expect to see a sizable presence from Oculus, HTC,
and myriad developers this year. After all, this is the first E3
since the consumer VR launch, and you can bet everyone is staking
out a solid fall lineup now that early adopters have chewed
through launch contentassuming youre not still waiting for your
Rift to arrive, that is. If were really lucky, well get an
Oculus Touch launch date.

The jurys out on whether Microsoft will bring HoloLens back to
E3 though. It seemed like the reception from gaming press was
quite a bit frostier than the reception from enterprise/gadget
folks, and I wouldnt be surprised if Microsoft left it behind
this year. If not, it means were in for another incredibly
misleading stage demo during Microsofts press conference.

Our list of long-shot games is getting pretty slim at this point.
Fallout 4 happened (and was mediocre). Tony Hawk happened (and
was terrible). The Last Guardian...is still happening. Somewhere.
Supposedly.

That leaves just perenially-absent Half-Life 3 and a Red Dead
Redemption sequel on my list from last year. Theres also
Prey 2  though some rumors place that one at Bethesdas
conference this year. Well see.

Oh yeah, and Doritos constructed a six-story arcade cabinet
next-door to the LA Convention Center. Yes, its functional, and
its controlled by a six-foot tall joystick. At least if E3 is
on its way out, its going out in the stupidest way possible.

Its a lot of stuff, and well be there. If you prefer your E3
news in easily-digested highlights format, well have them. If
you prefer it in in-depth previews of games format, well have
those too. Some videos. Some recaps. The usual.

Regardless of whether E3 2016 ends up being The Transition Year,
fact is right now its Just Another E3. Lots of games, lots of
trailers, lots of people really excited about the future of this
medium. And a whole lot of snarking on Twitter.



                                  =~=~=~=



->A-ONE Gaming Online       -       Online Users Growl & Purr!
  """""""""""""""""""
 


          A Console That Lets You Play All Your Old
          Game Cartridges in One Place? Let's-a-go!


As any geek will tell you, the coolest people are collectors,
especially if your habit extends to collecting retro games.

Collecting the bulky consoles is another matter.

But one gadget at Computex in Taiwan is throwing a lifeline to
collectors (while surely thumbing its nose to any concept of
copyright and intellectual property).

The Retro Freak is a nifty little console that will provide a
home for all your favourite old games, with slots for well-loved
cartridges and an '80s-perfect controller to boot.

It also promises a bunch of features that certainly weren't
around in the '80s:

    HDMI connectivity
    1,280x720-pixel upscaling
    Display filter to smooth out pixelated edges
    In-machine game saving (via SD card)
    Support for USB controllers such as PS3/PS4
    Supports NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Megadrive (with
converter), Game Boy (Original, Color and Advance), Turbo
Grafx-16, PC Engine and PC Engine Super Grafx games

Just pop in your SNES edition of Super Mario Kart, plug the
Retro Freak into your TV's HDMI port and you can recreate the
experience of your youth, right down to the vintage-look scan
lines on the screen that give those games a their real arcade
flavour.

The interface is a little spare, but you can change your game's
appearance by toggling features, such as those scan lines, on and
off. You can also change the display filter to smooth out
pixelated lines and adjust the refresh rate from what the original
game demanded to up to 60Hz -- all to make the games adjust a
little more easily to modern TVs.
computex-retro-freak-mario.jpg

And purists, block your ears: You can also use the cheat function
to play games on "invincible mode" with the maximum amount of
money or lives.

It's worth noting that the Retro Freak makes a lot of claims in
its glossy brochure that we didn't get a chance to check out in
our short demo. And the console isn't distributed in the US yet,
though it's available in Asia for 20,000 yen (roughly $180, AU$250
and 125), with Australian distribution reportedly coming soon.

But the picture certainly looked the part, and had me dreaming of
the old Mario Kart tournaments I devoted hours to in my earlier
years. It's a great way to get the feel for your favourites,
especially if the consoles are long gone.

Just don't tell the lawyers. 



    Cinemaware Catalog Sells for Eye Opening Amount of Money


Starbreeze AB has recently acquired the rights to the complete back
catalog of Cinemaware.  For those that do not recognize that name,
Cinemaware was a company that pushed the envelope in the 80s.
Some of the classic titles they published include Rocket Ranger,
Wings and Defender of the Crown among many others.  Several of
their titles have even seen release on consoles such as the Turbo
Grafx-16 (CD-ROM attachment required) and Nintendo Entertainment
System.

Defender of the Crown is one of the games that made me and many
others at Starbreeze go into the gaming industry all those years
ago. For many, Cinemaware set the bar for fun and immersive
gaming in the ATARI and AMIGA-era. For us, as a developer, it will
be a pleasure to re-energize and bring these great brands into the
new era of VR and other platforms, said Bo Andersson Klint,
Starbreeze CEO. The classic Cinemaware games are concepts that
still in this day are epic imaginations. We will make them excel
in excellent VR-experiences at our location based IMAX centers. 

Titles, game properties, etc included in the sale along with all
rights to the name, logo and trademarks Cinemaware include -

    The Cinemaware brand
    Defender of the Crown
    Wings
    The King of Chicago
    Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon
    Lords of the Rising Sun
    Rocket Ranger
    It Came from the Desert
    It Came from the Desert II: Antheads
    SDI
    TV Sports: Basketball
    TV Sports: Baseball
    TV Sports: Boxing
    TV Sports: Football
    TV Sports: Hockey

The price that Starbreeze AB paid for all things Cinemaware was
about 525,000 Euros ($585,192.95 at time of writing).  That is a
staggering amount of money.  That is about $39,012 per game in
the Cinemaware catalog.

Plans to build off of the acquisition include internal
development and external publishing.  This could mean we may see
these games re-released on newer platforms individually or in
collections.  It also could mean we will never see any of these
games re-released in the future and simply kept for internal
education towards developing other titles (that would suck
somewhat).

I am interested in knowing how Starbreeze feels about fan
reproduction releases of beta software.  There is also the It
Came from the Desert for the Sega Genesis release- I wonder if
Starbreeze will be interested in doing more stuff like that?
There are a lot of people porting some of these titles to other
platforms and there are even people selling these games
illegally on the web.

Good news or bad that is still a ton of money per game.  I hope
Starbreeze come out of this in a better position and dont forget
the fans.



      StarBlitz Reminds Atari 2600 Fans Defender Rocks


New games on old platforms such as the Atari 2600 are more and
more common place than they used to be.  This is probably thanks
to more tools and better understanding of the hardware being
available.  Developers are working on all kinds of new games for
the first Atari console.  StarBlitz is a new Atari 2600 title
that pulls HEAVY inspiration from Defender.

The interesting thing about StarBlitz is that it is programmed in
Tiny Basic and compiled to the Atari 2600.  The overall size of
the game is about 3.5K with Tiny Basic taking up a good 2K of
that.  For fans of games today that is smaller than the
description text on store pages for newer games.  Think about
that.  The whole game fits in less than 4K of memory.

Another interesting trait of StarBlitz is that it runs at a
constant 30 frames per second.  StarBlitz is also a side
scrolling shooter.  For those that understand the limitations of
the Atari 2600 is that, well, it is not supposed to be able to
do left/right scrolling well.  That is why games like Superman
and Pitfall use screen flipping rather than scrolling.  This is
also something that Nintendo used to their advantage with their
Nintendo Entertainment System.

The point of StarBlitz is to save the cities from comets and
meteors that are falling from the sky.  You are basically shooting
them out of the sky before they destroy the buildings below.

For some reason, you can purchase a copy of StarBlitz on cassette,
vinyl and cartridge for the Atari 2600.  Now, I know the Atari
2600 had a cartridge slot but I am not sure how those other two
options are supposed to work.  I mean, being available on a vinyl
record is an interesting release option.  It does offer more room
for artwork and such but other than that can someone fill me in
on the benefits of a vinyl release?



      Atari 2600 Receives Anguna Work in Progress Port


Anguna, a title that was released for the Game Boy Advance and
Nintendo DS several years ago is coming to the Atari 2600.  The
developer behind the game is making an official port to the
extremely limited 8-Bit hardware.  The question is, how close is
it to the originals?

Not very.  At least graphically.

Come on, you surely cannot be surprised that the Atari 2600 version
of Anguna is not as detailed as the Nintendo portables version.
What we do have is a rather interesting looking new game coming to
the Atari 2600.

Remember that one game by Atari that touted Nolan Bushnell on the
cover and was meant to take Nintendos Legend of Zelda head on?
Oh yeah, it was called Secret Quest.  It was also not that
impressive, certainly not on the level of Zelda anyhow.

Anguna for Atari 2600 is an attempt at bringing a large open world
action game to the 8-Bit console.  The multiple keys, weapons,
powerups and tons of enemies are currently planned to make the
jump. Just look at the video above for a good bit of what to expect
in this demake style port.

The developer has dropped a few hints.  For one, find the bow and
arrow in the first dungeon.  If you accomplish that then you can
hold the attack button down to make use of them.  The only problem
is that there is a second and a half delay before that arrow is
going to leave your bow.  Ouch.

The to do list is pretty inclusive.  Improvements to the player
animation and adding more enemies are planned.  Also there will
apparently be checkpoint screens that keep you from starting
COMPLETELY over at the beginning upon your demise.  There is even
a password system planned to be implemented later.

If you are rocking the Game Boy Advance, or a REVO K101 GBA Clone,
and want to grab a copy of Anguna, head over to Piko Interactives
website.  Piko currently has a deal with the Anguna developer to
release LEGAL copies of the game on cartridge.  The cartridge
version of Anguna for the GBA features an exclusive 6th dungeon
made of ice.



          Conjoined Atari 2600 Game Kickstarting Now


Okay, I will be honest here.  When first contacted about covering
the upcoming Kickstarter for a new Atari 2600 game, I was
apprehensive that it would succeed.  I mean, in this day and age?
I am used to people making illegal ports of games to the Atari
2600 - stuff you cannot easily take to crowdfunding services like
Kickstarter or IndieGoGo.  Joe Grisaffi, independent film maker,
and our very own Jason Santuci have teamed up to bring Conjoined
to the Atari 2600.  The cool thing is, it is already funded on
Kickstarter and has 24 days to go.  Color me surprised.

The story behind Conjoined, the indie movie, is a love story at
its heart.  See, this guy who is lonely finds his true love -
amazing in life really if you think about it.  There is a problem
though - she has a twin.  A conjoined twin.  It gets worse though
- this twin is quite the evil little thing.  The twin has a love
too - a love of ending the lives of other people.  This puts a
major strain on the romance of the star and the good twin.

The Atari 2600 game is all about collecting hearts from the good
twin while avoiding broken hearts and daggers that the evil twin
throws. Man, she is certainly evil.  The gameplay, based on the
video footage on the Kickstarter page, is very reminiscent of
Turmoil by 20th Century Fox also on the Atari 2600.  You move up
and down the ladder in the middle of the screen collecting/avoiding
the items that come flying in from either side of the screen.

Conjoined, the movie, is available on Amazon Instant Video for
$1.99 but if you have a Roku device and the Independent Network
Channel, you can view it for free.

There are some limitations on Conjoined for the Atari 2600 -
limited editions and the like.  That means, if you want one, get
your butt over to Kickstarter and pledge while it is still
available.



                                  =~=~=~=



                           A-ONE's Headline News
                   The Latest in Computer Technology News
                       Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson



Facebook Boss Mark Zuckerbergs Social Media Accounts Have Been Hacked


The founder of the worlds biggest social network has had his
accounts attacked by online hackers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and
Facebook-owned Instagram appear to have been breached temporarily
on Sunday.

A hacker group going by the name OurMine claims to have obtained
Zuckerbergs password as a result of the 2012 LinkedIn hack, in
which some 117 million username and password combinations were
stolen.

According to the hacker, the Facebook boss made the mistake of
using the same password across various accounts.

The hackers sent a number of tweets from Zuckerbergs @finkd
Twitter account which have since been removed, though not before
Engadget snapped them and posted them online.

In the tweets, the hackers bragged that they had hacked the
account and invited Zuck to contact them.

A similar message was left on his Pinterest account.

The hackers also claimed to have gained access to Facebook-owned
Instagram, but Zucks company denies that there was any breach.

Zuckerberg could have avoided the hacking of his Twitter account by
using the two-step authentication process, which also requires the
phone number of the user.

However, the social media guru hasnt tweeted from his account on
the rival social network since 2012, before the extra security
feature was introduced.

Zuckerberg is the first high-profile individual that has apparently
been hacked as a result of the LinkedIn data breach, and there
could be more to come.

Ageing music-based social network MySpace was also hacked around
the same time, and its likely that many users are still using the
same login details for other accounts.



MySpace Breach Could Be The Biggest Ever  Half A BILLION Passwords!


Not two weeks ago, LinkedIn made big data breach news when hackers
claimed to have more than 100 million usernames and passwords up
for sale.

Fortunately, the data wasnt new, coming from a breach that
happened four years ago.

What was new was the size of the list that was up for sale, nearly
20 times the size of the 6.5 million passwords that were reported
to have been stolen back in June 2012.

The LinkedIn breach was made worse by the way the passwords were
stored, using unsalted SHA-1 hashes.

What that means is that although LinkedIn didnt keep your actual
password, it didnt do enough to secure it against a breach.

LinkedIn simply computed a SHA-1 cryptographic hash of your
password and stored the hash instead, so that anyone who chose
PASSWORD, for example, would end up with a hash of
112b b791 3047 91dd cf69 2e29 fd5c f149 b35f ea37.

Even though attackers cant use a mathematical algorithm to go
backwards automatically from a hash to its input value, they can
go forwards at enormous speed, trying out passwords from from a
huge list by churning out their hashes one after the other.

Modestly-priced cracking servers (modest for nation-states and
cybercriminal gangs, at least) can process hundreds of thousands
of millions of SHA-1 calculations per second.

Thats fast enough to try out all possible 10-character upper
case passwords in well under an hour.

Also, modern password cracking software doesnt blindly go from
AAAAAAAAAA to ZZZZZZZZZZ, but knows that PASSWORD is more likely
than OSTEOPATH, which is in turn more likely than VNNQMVHZJL.

Current best practice is to stretch each password before storing
it by hashing it repeatedly, typically thousands or tens of
thousands of times, so that any sort of try em all attack takes
correspondingly longer to pull off.

Worse still, hashing raw passwords directly means that as soon as
one cracker knows that OSTEOPATH comes out as
075b 3a59 32b4 8df1 13e3 9ba4 df41 954b 2419 e705, he can tell
everyone else, so that cracking a password for the second time is
as simple as looking it up in a giant list of known hashes.

Current best practice is to generate a random salt (so called
because it spices up the output) that is combined with the
password before you start hashing, so that even identical
passwords produce different outputs, and so every
salt-plus-password combination has to be cracked independently.

Well, its happened again.

This time, the breach is said to come from MySpace, and the
number of passwords claimed is an eye-popping 427 million.

Apparently, there are only 360 million users on the list, but some
accounts have more than one password listed, for reasons that
arent explained.

Once again, the passwords allegedly exposed in this breach were
simple, unsalted SHA-1 hashes, vulnerable to just the same sort
of high-speed try em all attack as in the LinkedIn breach of
2012.

According to Leaked Source, lots of passwords have already been
cracked, with the top 50 choices so far accounting for more than
6 million passwords, or 1.5% of the total.

Interestingly, password1, abc123 and the entirely-expected 123456
come in second, third and fourth respectively.

Top place is the unusual (but nevertheless easily-cracked)
password homelesspa, attached to more than 850,000 accounts that
Leaked Source suggests were created by some sort of automated
process, presumably orchestrated by a gang of scammers to use for
nefarious purposes.

Is it true?

Of course, password breach stories arent always all they seem to
be.

We recently wrote about a claim that more than 250 million
accounts were breached, allegedly belonging to users of services
from Mail.ru (Russias most popular email provider), Google,
Yahoo and Microsoft.

In the end, it looks as though the data in this breach was either
so out-of-date as to be useless, or made up in the first place.

But journalists at Motherboard claim to have sent Leaked Source
five email addresses of MySpace accounts to which they knew the
passwords

and to have received the actual passwords back in return,
implying that at least some of the leaked data is both genuine
and current.
What to do?

    Change your password as soon as you suspect that an account
may have been breached, either because the password was stolen
from you, or because a hash of the password was stolen from the
service provider and could be cracked. The sooner you change it,
the shorter the window during which crooks can attack your
account.
    Pick proper passwords. Even if a service provider doesnt
salt-hash-and-stretch your passwords properly, a strongly-chosen
password will hold out against crackers longer than obvious
choices such as dictionary words with digits tacked on the end.
    If you run an online service, store your users passwords
securely. Your authentication database shouldnt get breached in
the first place, of course, but you should nevertheless make
things much harder for crackers in case you do get breached.
    Patch early, patch often. If youre a user, a patched system
is less likely to be infected by malware that steals your
passwords as you type them in; if youre a service provider, a
patched system is less likely to be penetrated by hackers looking
for internal trophy data such as authentication databases.
    Consider using two-factor authentication (2FA) if its
available. 2FA typically involves a one-time code that you use
along with your password when you log in. 

2FA codes might be sent to you via SMS, or generated by a
dedicated app on your phone, and theyre different every time, so
your password alone just isnt enough to access the account.

Generally speaking, 2FA is a minor hassle to use, but a major
obstacle for the crooks, so we recommend it.



          Hackers Selling Unpatched Microsoft Windows
                 Zero-Day Exploit for $90,000


How much a Windows zero-day exploit that affects all versions of
Windows operating system costs on the black market?

It's $95,000, at least, for the one recently spotted by security
researchers.

Researchers from Trustwave's SpiderLabs team have uncovered a
zero-day exploit on Russian underground malware forum exploit.in,
affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows OS from Windows 2000
all the way up to a fully patched version of Windows 10.

The zero-day exploit for the previously unknown vulnerability in
"every version" of Windows is openly sold for $90,000 (over
62,000).

The security team originally discovered the zero-day exploit last
month when the firm saw its ad on a Russian hacking forum for
$95,000. However, the price has now been dropped to $90,000.

The zero-day vulnerability in question claims to be a Local
Privilege Escalation (LPE) bug in Windows that offers admin
access to run malicious code on a victim's PC and is less
dangerous than Remote Code Execution flaws that allow attackers
to compromise systems remotely.

In other words, the zero-day exploit by itself will not be able
to compromise a system, but as Trustwave explained, would
nonetheless be used in almost any scenario as "a very much needed
puzzle piece in the overall infection process."

The seller, who goes by the name "BuggiCorp," claims the flaw is
located in the win32k.sys kernel driver, and exists through the
way Windows handles objects "with certain properties," saying:

    "The exploit successfully escapes from ILL/appcontainer
(LOW), bypassing (more precisely: doesn't get affected at all
[by]) all existing protection mechanisms such as ASLR, DEP, SMEP,
etc. [The zero-day exploit] relies solely on the KERNEL32 and
USER32 libraries [DLLs]."

Additional zero-day exploit capabilities include the installation
of a rootkit, use on a POS systems and steal credit card data,
limited control over a web server and installation of malware on
systems, according to Trustwave.
The author went to prove the authenticity of his claims by
providing two videos of the exploit on YouTube, from which one
can be viewed below.

Trustwave alerted Microsoft of the potential Windows exploit.

    "Windows is the only platform with a customer commitment to
investigate reported security issues, and proactively update
impacted devices as soon as possible," Microsoft said in a
statement. "We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the
Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection. Our standard
policy is to provide solutions via our current Update Tuesday
schedule."



           Think You Have A Strong Twitter Password?
                   3 Reasons It's Not Enough


When a high-profile Twitter account gets hacked, people take
notice. When a whole bunch of them get hacked in the span of a
few days, and one of the users is known to have used "dadada" as
his password, it prompts widespread calls for better password
practices.

Certainly, using a strong password  for any service  is a good
recommendation. Using two-factor authorization is even better. But
there are problems with focusing on those obvious tips: They don't
address some of the biggest holes in account security. And with
Twitter specifically, two-factor authentication is a very
imperfect solution to the problem of unauthorized access.

If you look at most account hacks, you'll notice a pattern: The
hackers almost never simply guess the password. "Brute force"
isn't used. Usually they get the password from some hacked
database, or discover it through social engineering.

    Hackers almost never simply guess the password. "Brute force"
isn't used. 

So while it's good to have a strong password, it wouldn't have
made any difference if Mark Zuckerberg's password was "dadada,"
"zuckbatteryhorsestaple" or "&&w3^pHvR0Rl#g6E55." If the database
is compromised, or the hacker finds it on another service, it's
all over  no matter how many characters you use.

The obvious takeaway is: It's more important to use unique
passwords for all of your accounts and services than for all
those passwords to be ironclad-strong. If Zuckerberg had unique
passwords for all of his services, the hack of his LinkedIn
password would have ended there. Unique passwords stop the
dominoes from falling, and it's the main reason you should be
using a password manager  even if it's just your browser.

One tip you don't often read after a hack is to revoke your app
authorizations  that is, all the apps that you've given access to
the account in question. On Twitter, click on Settings and then
Apps, and you'll probably see a long list of services and devices
that you've authorized over the years.

What you may not know is that, once you give something access to
your Twitter account, that access is essentially permanent until
you revoke it  even if you change the password of both Twitter
and the other service. So if you ever gave Twitter access to, say,
Instagram, an old HTC phone or  as Twitter co-founder Ev
Williams found out this week  Foursquare, that other service is
a potential way (or "vector" in security parlance) for hackers to
get at your account.

To use the chain metaphor: Each app that's authorized to access
your Twitter account is essentially a link  that can be exploited
 to your account. So, if you've authorized Foursquare to post to
Twitter for you, like Williams did, then that's a potential route
to access your account. If hackers infiltrated your Foursquare
account, they could send tweets on your behalf.

Of course, this doesn't just go for Twitter. Facebook, LinkedIn
and virtually any other service provide APIs that allow
third-party access. If it isn't part of your regular security
refresh to examine these connections and revoke any that are old
or you're unsure about, it should be.

Twitter does offer two-factor authentication, but most account
holders don't use it. Twitter doesn't even require verified
accounts to use it, even though it probably should. That's because
many of those account holders would certainly balk at the
requirement.

    Twitter's two-factor authentication is a giant pain in the
ass. 

Twitter's two-factor authentication is a giant pain in the ass,
to put it mildly. When it launched, its limitations made it
unsuitable for teams, and even though it's more usable now, it
still doesn't have certain capabilities (like support for Google
Authenticator) that could make it more convenient.

Also, the nature of Twitter works against two-factor auth.
Twitter's biggest strength is real-time  that you tweet something
and it's instantly seen by your followers, letting you share and
discuss a moment. But if you happen to be on a browser, app or
device that you've never tweeted from before, you're going to be
asked to log in. No one wants to mess around with codes when a
conversation is happening  you just want to tweet. Right. Now.

That's why most Twitter users don't and will probably never
activate two-factor authorization. It's not really laziness as
much as it is a considered trade-off. For Twitter, there's an
urgency in the interactions that swings the security-vs.-
convenience pendulum further toward the latter.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it does put the onus
on Twitter to make two-factor auth more usable, and to begin a
broader rethink of how the service approaches security in general.
Because, while account hacks are a problem for any company, for
Twitter  with its unique mix of celebrities, real-time
interactions and team-run accounts  solutions that work
elsewhere may instead become weak spots ... and tempting targets
for people who have beef with Roger Goodell.



  Russia Arrests 50 Hackers Who Stole $25 Million from Banks


Russian authorities have arrested a gang of 50 hackers suspected
of stealing more than 1.7 Billion Rubles (over US$25 Million)
from banks and other financial institutions in the country since
2011.

The same criminal gang had tried to steal a further 2.273 Billion
Roubles by issuing false payment instructions, but that were
blocked.

The group allegedly used a Trojan called "Lurk" to set up a
network of bots on infected computers to carry out the attacks,
according to Russia's FSB (Federal Security Service).

Initially identified in 2012, Lurk is a "fileless" Trojan that
runs in RAM and has mostly been used for collecting banking
credentials, especially for banks in Eastern Europe and the
Russian Federation.

The criminal gang allegedly seeded some of Russia's most popular
websites with Lurk. Once infected, the malware downloaded more
software modules, allowing the hackers to gain remote access to
victims' computers.

The hackers then stole login names and passwords for victims'
online bank accounts, especially accounts held at Sberbank,
Russia's largest bank in terms of assets held.

Since Lurk was injected into the RAM, the malware made it
difficult for security software to detect and analyze the
malicious code once it had compromised a machine.

Sberbank helped the Russian authorities to conduct a large-scale
operation in 15 regions of Russia and detain around 50 people;
18 of those are currently behind bars in Moscow.

"As a result of [home] searches a large quantity of computer
equipment was confiscated along with communications gear, bank
cards in false names, and also financial documents and
significant amounts of cash confirming the illegal nature of
their activity," a press release by the FSB stated.

All of the 50 suspects were charged with the development,
distribution and use of malicious computer programs.



           FBI Wants Email Privacy Act To Allow
         Warrantless Access to Browsing Histories


Fixing a typo in a law governing domestic surveillance is the
top priority for the bureau this year, FBI Director James B.
Comey has said.

A typo? Tech companies and privacy advocates are strenuously
disagreeing with his characterization of the proposed amendment,
which would give the FBI explicit authority to access a persons
internet browser history and other electronic data without a
warrant in terrorism and spy cases.

At the FBIs request, lawmakers have put forth legislation that
would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA),
which Comey claims now lets some tech companies refuse to hand
over data that, the government claims, Congress had intended for
them to provide.

The proposed legislation would do away with the necessity to get
a warrant for such data and would let the government get a
national security letter (NSL) instead: a subpoena that doesnt
require a judges approval.

The Senate Intelligence Committee panel recently voted out an
authorization bill with the NSL amendment, but its since crept
back, reintroduced in an amendment to the ECPA floated last week
by  Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Cornyns on-message with the FBI. As reported by The Washington
Post, he referred to Comeys typo in the law as a scriveners
error thats needlessly hamstringing our counterintelligence
and counterterrorism efforts.

If the amendment passes, it would allow the FBI to access
internet browsing records without a warrant in terrorism and spy
cases. That doesnt mean theyd get at the content of email:
rather, with an NSL, the Feds could access a host of online
information, including IP addresses, routing and transmission
information, session data, and more.

The bureau told The Washington Post that theres a limit to how
specific the browsing history would be. For example, somebody
could visit any part of the newspapers website, but law
enforcement would only see that theyd visited washingtonpost.com.

Privacy advocates say thats bunk.

A letter signed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
Amnesty International USA, the Computer & Communications
Industry Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),
Google, Facebook and Yahoo, among others, pointed out that a
2007 audit found that the FBI illegally used NSLs to collect
information that wasnt permitted by NSL statutes.

This history of abusing NSLs compounds the civil liberties and
human rights concerns brought up by expanding the use of the
subpoenas, the letter said.

As it is, even without email content, the Electronic
Communication Transactional Records (ECTRs) the Feds are after
would paint an incredibly intimate picture of an individuals
life, the letter signers said.

    ECTRs could include a persons browsing history, email
metadata, location information, and the exact date and time a
person signs in or out of a particular online account.

    This information could reveal details about a persons
political affiliation, medical conditions, religion, substance
abuse history, sexual orientation, and, in spite of the exclusion
of cell tower information in the Cornyn amendment, even his or
her movements throughout the day.

According to The Hill, Cornyns amendment was one of a few that
delayed the Senate Judiciary Committees consideration of the
Email Privacy Act last week.

That bill, which the House of Representatives unanimously passed
in April, would require investigators to get a warrant before
they can force technology companies to hand over customers email
or other electronic communications, no matter how old.

The Senate committees slated to mark the bill up on Thursday.



Apple Again References 'MacOS', This Time on Developer Website


Because iOS, watchOS, and tvOS all share a common naming scheme,
there's been some speculation that OS X, the operating system
for Macs, could see a name change to "MacOS" at this year's
Worldwide Developers Conference.

Earlier this year, Apple referenced "MacOS" in an environmental
website update, and today the company has made the same gaffe on
a developer FAQ page outlining new App Store revenue sharing
policies, again raising the question of whether a name change is
on the horizon.

In a section on when the new revenue split goes into effect,
Apple references the types of apps that are eligible, listing
iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.

Unlike the first time "MacOS" was spotted on the Apple website,
the iTunes Connect mention uses "macOS" with a lowercase "m" that
better fits with the lower case letters used in iOS, watchOS, and
tvOS.

It continues to be unknown if the macOS mention is a mistake made
because of the naming of Apple's other operating systems or an
error made because of an imminent name change planned for OS X.

If Apple is planning to switch from "OS X" to "macOS" or "MacOS,"
it is not clear if the company will continue on with naming each
iteration after California landmarks, a tradition that started
with OS X Mavericks in 2013. tvOS, watchOS, and iOS operating
system upgrades follow a number-based naming scheme.

We don't have long to wait to find out if there's a naming change
in store for Apple's Mac-based operating system. The Worldwide
Developers Conference is set to kick off next Monday with a
keynote event that will take place at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.



           Opera's Battery-saving Browser Update
           Is A Must for Low-end PCs or Tablets


The new free Opera browser offers a bonus: Its battery-saving
technology simply makes browsing feel faster, especially on older
hardware. For aging rigs that could use a speed boost, this is
the browser to download. 

Really, Opera is marketing this latest feature in the wrong way.
Opera 39  which will enter the stable channel for general
release on Wednesdaywill save you up to 50 percent more battery
life by reducing the amount of CPU horsepower the browser
consumes. That also means you can more effectively browse the
web, using more tabs, on an old or underpowered PC.

Operas latest improvement isnt immediately apparent. On the
preview build I tried, the battery-saving technology doesnt
appear until you browse with your power cord detached. Then, a
battery icon will appear inside your search bar, with a toggle to
turn the feature on and off. Fortunately, it remains (and the
battery saver remains active) when you plug in again. 

Why this matters: Those of you with up-to-date hardware may shrug
off Operas battery-saving features as irrelevant. But my own
parents, bless them, have hung on to an old Dell that must be a
decade old, simply because it still does what they need it to do:
browse the Web, run a spreadsheet or two, and not much else. More
than 50 percent of existing PCs use either Windows XP or
Windows 7, according to Net Applications. The ancient Internet
Explorer 11.0 is still the most popular browser in the world.
Opera may finally offer something these older machines cant get
with Explorer. 

I recently spent some time with the Chuwi HiBook, a hybrid
Windows 10 - Android tablet that intrigued me with its dual-boot
capabilities. Its Intel Atom (Cherry Trail) chip disappointed me
when it came time to do anything productive, however.

In my review, I noted that the tablet had enough horsepower to
play an HD video in YouTube using Microsofts Edge browser, but
it stuttered and ground to a halt with multiple tabs open 
especially when browsing popular media sites like (ahem)
PCWorld.com. Operas latest browser takes a mighty swing at
solving that problem.

Using Windows 10s default browser, Microsoft Edge, I opened five
popular media sites in separate tabs, waited 30 seconds, and then
measured the CPU and memory load. That might seem like forever
when browsing the web, but with ads enabled Edge shambled like a
beached elephant seal, quickly pegging the CPU at 100 percent
utilization and leaving it there for several minutes. Fifteen
minutes later or so, and 70 percent of the CPU was still being
consumed.

Google Chrome also struggled, pegging the CPU at 100 percent
until the 30-second mark exactly, when it dropped to 91 percent.
To be fair, enabling ad blocking via AdBlock cut Chromes CPU
consumption to a low of about 9 percent, though it seemed like
the average CPU usage was generally higher than Operas overall.

I also blocked ads in Opera that I didnt in Edge, if only
because Opera can block them natively, while Edge cannot. (I ran
a stock version of Windows 10; Edge ad-blocking extensions can be
enabled only via Insider builds at the moment.) 

The comparison isnt to point out the deficiencies in Edge, but
to highlight how a tuned, optimized browser can dramatically
improve your browsing experience. 

I then tried the the developer edition of Opera, however, and
wow! The difference was night and day. After enabling ad blocking
(previous versions of Opera enabled ad blocking by default, and
this feature may be turned on in the stable release of Opera 39
as well) CPU utilization dropped to an astounding 7 percent
after 30 seconds, after hovering at about 22 percent or so for
most of the duration.

Opera seemed to fight continually to keep the CPU usage low. I
would add a tab, and CPU usage would spike, then drop. At about
16 tabs, CPU consumption settled in at about 50 to 60 percent,
and twenty tabsmy historical testing threshold, though I use
about 40 tabs normallywas acceptable as well. Chrome didnt
quite offer the CPU savings of Opera, though the fluctuations in
CPU usage over time meant that this was more of an observation
than actual fact.

To preserve power in the new low-power mode, Opera says that
parts of the browsers code have been simplified, and its
animated themes optimized. Additional improvements include
reducing activity in background tabs, adapting page-redrawing
frequency, and tuning video-playback parameters, according to the
company. It seems like the browser is essentially tombstoning
tabs that are not in use, putting them in suspended animation
until you revisit them.

Operas new browser does have its limitations. As I opened a new
tab, CPU usage spiked, and the browsers ability to open a new
tab was clearly constrained by the microprocessors limited power.
Dont expect it to improve your overall performance in Windows or
other apps, either. But importing bookmarks from Firefox or
Chrome is a snap, and Operas interface is similar enough to that
of Internet Explorer or other browsers to make it easy to switch.

On a PC, however, more and more of our time is spent online, in a
browserthats the whole reason Google invented Chromebooks.
Combining Operas ad blocking and CPU management capabilities
makes Web browsing feel less constrained than before, and thats
reason enough to give it a whirl.



          Like Us on Facebook or Break Your Lease,
                Threatens Apartment Complex


Ever have somebody in your life who tries to control you? Maybe
they use fear, intimidation, and guilt to manipulate you into
doing something not necessarily in your best interest.

Those people are toxic.

But what about when its an apartment building, threatening that
youll have breached your lease unless you not only friend it on
Facebook but agree to let photos of you and your visitors be
posted to its Facebook page?

The emotionally needy inanimate object in question is City Park
Apartments, a condominium and apartment building in Salt Lake
City.

Though its obviously seeking warm and fuzzy  its also outlawed
bad Yelp reviews  the business was getting frigid and barbed
comments and a miserable rating on its Facebook page as of
Tuesday (the page was down at the time of publication of this
article).

One such review:

    The fact that you force people to like you on Facebook is
straight hostile what if that person does not have Facebook you
are going to force them to create one for face a penalty. Guess
what you were looking for is lots of likes but what you got is
lots of negative reviews that you only have a 1 star rating.
Wont move here Ill find someone who allows me to Be free and
not force me to do something like this Facebook mandatory. Good
luck!

As local news outlet KSL reports, the new Facebook addendum to
the lease showed up taped to residents doors on Thursday night.

The addendum gave tenants five days to friend the complex, even
though some had already signed a lease months ago. Attached was
a photo release that would allow building management to post
pictures of tenants and their visitors on the Facebook page.

What if you dont have, or want, a Facebook account? What if
youre unable to create an account for whatever reason?

Well, exactly, Zachary Myers  a lawyer who specializes in tenant
rights  told KSL:

    The biggest issue that I have with it is that it seems to be
discriminatory against elderly individuals and disabled
individuals who are unable to utilize an online presence such as
Facebook.

He also said that if a lease has already been signed, this add-on
addendum likely isnt enforceable in court.

This isnt the first manipulative building to try to blackmail
its tenants into adoring it.

Last year, it was Windermere Cay: the premiere, luxury, 100%
smoke-free Florida community thats just minutes from Walt Disney
World and was apparently just millimeters from fining residents
$10,000 for posting candid reviews on sites like Yelp, Apartment
Ratings, Facebook or the like.

Of course, its understandable that a business wants to protect
itself from bogus reviews.

Before it got to its 5-figure threat, Windemere Cays Social
Media Addendum claimed that defamatory and unjustified reviews
were being foisted on the apartment leasing industry by tenants
trying to extort lower rental fees or other concessions from
landlords.

That could be true.

One similar case is that of an incensed online mob that slammed a
Manhattan restaurant for banning Google Glass, launching a
campaign of low-star reviews from people whod never stepped foot
in the place.

Phony reviews from non-patrons hurt. That was established by a
Harvard Business School study that found that for every one-star
increase, restaurants see revenue increases between 5-9%.

City Park Apartments lawyers werent responding to news outlets
as of Tuesday afternoon.

Punitive fines may seem like a great way to avoid the painful hit
to a businesss bottom line, but legal experts say that such
contracts are not only unenforceable; theyre also dangerous for a
business, given the potential legal repercussions.

Santa Clara University Law Professor Eric Goldman explained it
this way in the Windmere Cay case:

    It would be a terrible idea to enforce this in court. A judge
is going to shred it. If a person posts an Instagram photo of
them having a party in their apartment, the landlord is saying
they own that as well. The overreach reinforces that this clause
is bad news, and it may be actionable just to ask.

But non-enforceability of such clauses is not a given. Its best
to avoid signing an addendum such as the ones presented by either
of these property management outfits. Myers said that if you do,
it just might be legally binding.

Besides the potential legal quagmire such a contract might put a
business in, fining patrons for negative reviews is a proven
path to getting reams of the negative reviews such clauses are
designed to do away with.

Windemeres Yelp reviews at the time of the misbegotten social
media addendum are a case in point: it was sporting a
gutter-dwelling 1.5 star average, mostly from people furious over
news coverage of the addendum.

True to form, City Park Apartments was straddled with an even more
woebegone Facebook rating of 1.1 stars as of Tuesday.

The practice of fining patrons for bad reviews isnt new, by any
means. In fact, California passed a bill in September 2014 that
protects customers from getting penalized by companies after
writing bad reviews.

The so-called Yelp Bill was passed in order to protect consumers
against non-disparagement clauses that businesses sneak into
consumer contracts and which forbid customers from leaving
negative reviews on sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor.

If I were a City Park Apartments resident, Id print out the text
of that bill and staple it to the front of that Facebook addendum
before handing it over to the property managers.

Sure, California law doesnt hold in Utah, but my guess is if
building managers actually think they can legally force Facebook
likes out of people, the lights in that building are, shall we
say, too dim to discern much.



                                =~=~=~=




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material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.
