Volume 18, Issue 45        Atari Online News, Etc.       December 2, 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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                 Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
                   http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/



                                  =~=~=~=



A-ONE #1845                                                 12/02/16

   ~ Trump & Net Neutrality  ~ People Are Talking!    ~ ARAnyM MiniPack!
   ~ New for Bletchley Park! ~ UK Surveillance Powers ~ Final Fantasy XV!  
   ~ EmuTOS 0.9.7 Released!  ~ Facebook and Fake News ~ New TeraDesk 4.07 
   ~ Facebook Admits "Wrong" ~ Avalanche Taken Down!  ~ Facebook in China?   

                  -* Call for Firebee Donations!  *-
               -*  Video Game Buying Guide for 2016!  *-
           -* Thea Realm Fighters for Jaguar Discovered! *-



                                  =~=~=~=



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



Well, we missed our post-Thanksgiving issue due to a vast shortage
of material - sorry.  A belated Thanksgiving greetings' we all hope
that your holiday was a good one.  My only regret is that my turkey
leftovers didn't last as long as usual!  Next year, I'll have to
plan a little bit better!

It's hard to believe that we're already into the month of December!
No snow on the ground, fortunately!  I'm not ready for a New England
winter, but then again, I rarely am.  I'm not looking forward to
having to deal with the cold and snow; I'm hoping that we can
experience a mild season similar to what we had last year.

We're still dealing with post-election issues, but not surprisingly.
As President-elect Trump moves forward trying to get his Cabinet
put together, we're still facing a variety of backlash from
anti-Trump factions.  This, in my opinion, is going to continue for
quite some time.

Until next time...



                                  =~=~=~=



                              ARAnyM MiniPack


Hi,

ARAnyM <http://aranym.org/> is the GNU/GPL ATARI Virtual Machine
from which a minimal configuration, the *miniPack* is distributed
<http://eureka.atari.org/miniPack.zip> miniPack is modified with
the new release of TeraDesk v.4.0.7. It supports:

- hide quoted text -
`Run_win` allows launching on PC with Windows
`MacAranym` allows launching on PPC Macintosh with OS X
`MacAranym JIT` allows launching on IntelMac with OS X
`run_x86.sh` allows launching on PC with x86-Linux
`run_ppc.sh` allows launching on Mac _and_ PS3 with PPC-Linux

So Macintosh-PC-PlayStation3 are all supported with Windows,
OS X and GNU/Linux.

This simple ARAnyM configuration is running on any machine.
Here is a screenshot at <http://eureka.atari.org/aranym.gif>

Enjoy, it's yours =)

-- 
Franois LE COAT
Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
<http://eureka.atari.org/>



                          TeraDesk 4.07


2016-11-30:

A new version of the TeraDesk desktop is available.

The new 4.07 is mainly a bug fix version with only a minor new
feature: the option to change TeraDesk's behaviour when opening
links to directories (Additional details are available in
TeraDesk's documents).

The new version of TeraDesk can be downloaded at: tera407.zip

As there were no changes in the resource files from version 4.06
to 4.07, old RSC files can still be used. Russian Teradesk 4.07,
with up-to-date documents is already available, while other 4.07
will follow soon. As before, Nationalized version of TeraDesk are
available at the Kurobox ftp server:
ftp://kurobox.serveftp.net:30 ... /desktops/ 



                             EmuTOS 0.9.7


2016-11-23

A new version of our Open-Source Operating System is available.

As we already announced on the mailing list, a new version of the
alternative Open-Source operating system for Atari platforms has
recently been released. EmuTOS will continue to be improved, and
the team around Roger Burrows has once again done a great job.
Besides the "small bugfixes" there are 58 new functions and
larger fixes in this new release! FireBee owners will directly
benefit from many of these improvements. Some good examples would
be the new, extended MBR partitions or the independently runnable
version of EmuCON2.

As always, EmuTOS will be flashed into the ROM of the FireBee
with flash_cf.prg, and can then either be used as the completely
independent standard OS by selecting it through the DIP-switches;
or by selecting it in the boot menu of FireTOS (then it can also
use the USB-drivers of FireTOS).

EmuTOS is a pure ColdFire operating system, so it will harness
the full power of the V4e processor. This is especially
interesting for a ColdFire FreeMiNT multitasking system - the
combination preferred by most "Unixophile" FireBee open-source
users and developers.

The package "emutos-firebee-0.9.7.zip" with the new operating
system can be downloaded from the SourceForge pages of the
project. 



                 Delivery and Call for Donations


Dear Atari-Community. The delivery of the second Firebee-series
has finally begun.

Since we currently are receiving the modified boards in small
batches from the assembly company as announced before, the
computers will be sent out in the order they were ordered. Thank
you once again for your patience. The computers will have, as
had been mentioned several times, two years of warranty.

We now also know the exact costs for the whole "game" with the
busdriver-components. All in all, Medusa Computer Systems now has
to pay 2720.- Euros extra for searching the cause of the problem
and for refitting the boards. Since we calculated the prices very
narrowly in order to be able to pass on the 40.- Euro price
reduction to you, we don't want to just increase the fixed price
again now. Instead, we will try an experiment. We would like to
collect the 2720.- Euro in a solidary effort. Anyone who can
afford it could pay a little more, those who are short on money
only a very small amount. Maybe there are also people that have
not (yet) ordererd a computer and still would like to support the
project. Therefore we would like to ask you to pool up and provide
the money together. Everything that won't come in through you will
have to be paid by MCS itself...

All donations can be sent to the SEPA bank account of MCS or via
Paypal.

MCS Aschwanden
Buchhaldenstr.16
8610 Uster
Switzerland
Bank account Nr.: 202-805498.40F
IBAN: CH22 0020 2202 8054 9840 F
BIC: UBSWCHZH80A
"reason for payment": FB series 2 donation



                                  =~=~=~=



->In This Week's Gaming Section  - All You Need To Know About Final Fantasy XV!
  """""""""""""""""""""""""""""    Video Game Buying Guide 2016!
                                   Atari Jaguar Game Thea Realm Fighters Discovered, Released
                                   


        
                                  =~=~=~=



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



     Everything You Need To Know About Final Fantasy XV


Final Fantasy XV has been a massive undertaking for years now,
but it's finally on the horizon!

The last full-length main Final Fantasy game launched way back in
2009 with Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy XV has been in
development for nearly ten years, which has left fans with a lot
of questions about the game. That's why we're here.

We've put together this guide full of the things you ought to
know before you dive into the meat of the game. We'll cover the
battle system, the world of Eos, the characters, and more!

Final Fantasy XV takes place in the world of Eos. To put it
bluntly, this world is absolutely massive. It has been predicted
that the main continent roughly scales to 780 square miles and
several times the magnitude of the main continent from The
Witcher 3. It's also much, much larger than Grand Theft Auto V.
This means that Final Fantasy XV may be one of the largest open
world games released in recent times.

While there is a main quest, and story to follow, you have much
more freedom in Final Fantasy XV than we've ever seen. In the
past, the open world didn't crop up until you were hours and
hours into the game. That isn't the case here. Since you're on a
road trip, you are given the chance to start exploring the world
within the first ten minutes.

There are also multiple continents on Eos. Each one has it's own
weather patterns, so you can expect to run into storms, snow,
sunny days and more.

There are also several different kinds of transportation that are
available in Final Fantasy XV. Your main mode of travel is the
car that Noctis and his friends all ride around in, The Regalia.
The Regalia is a pretty sweet ride, with some hidden features but
it's far from the only way you can move around. There is of course
always running around on foot, along with the return of a
franchise favorite; Chocobos.

The Regalia is one of the stars of the show, though. It's a
convertible that can switch between a hard top and no roof
depending on the weather. Since the game is based around a road
trip, the Regalia is a consistent part of this. You'll spend a
good chunk of your time driving along scenic roads, and you will
need to stop to camp for the evening, or to refuel your car at gas
stations. The Regalia isn't just a car, though, later on in the
game, it is actually able to fly.

Final Fantasy XV revolves around Noctis, the Prince of Lucis and
his three friends. After years of cold war between Lucis and the
Empire Niflheim over the last remaining crystal of power, a peace
accord has been reached. As part of the agreement, Noctis is to
wed Lady Lunafreya of the imperial province of Tenebrae in the
city of Altissia.

Before the treaty can be signed, Noctis along with Gladiolus,
Ignis, and Prompto head for the site of the wedding. Before they
get very far, though, news reaches them. The Niflheim Empire used
the peace treaty as a guise and invaded Lucis, destroying the
capital city of Insomnia.

Reports that King Regis, Luna and Noctis himself have been killed
reach the party, along with the fact that the Lucian Crystal has
been stolen. Rather than fall to despair, Noctis and his friends
start a quest. They'll have to outrun Niflheim, somehow recapture
the Lucian Crystal, and reclaim the Throne.
The Characters

Unlike earlier games that had a fairly large spread of playable
characters in your party, there are four in Final Fantasy XV.
Noctis, Prompto, Ignis and Gladiolus. Each one has their one
perks and drawbacks, and each one adds to the story in different
ways.

Noctis is the main character, and he is the Prince of Lucis.
This is the guy that the whole story revolves around. One of his
most exciting abilities is used in battle, Warp Strike. Using
this ability Noctis can throw his sword and then teleport to
wherever it lands on the field of battle. Warp Strike makes it
easy to get out of the way of a nasty hit, or to get closer to
the action in question.

Gladiolus Amicitia is Noctis's bodyguard. The eldest son of a
noble family that serves the royal family, Gladiolus takes his
position pretty seriously. However, his relationship with Noctis
is more like a brother than an aloof bodyguard.

Ignis Scientia has been raised alongside Noctis since they were
children. His role in life is to act as an advisor to Noctis.
He's a somewhat reserved, but highly intelligent young man. A
tactical mind, he is the one who cooks for our party when you
stop to make camp on your journey.

Prompto Argentum has been Noctis's friend since high school, but
he is not from a high-born family. Instead of being bound by duty,
he is here because he is loyal to Noctis. He's also the comedic
relief our of the group, trying to lift everyone's spirit. While
Prompto is the weakest member of the time physically, he can
chain attacks with Noctis making him much nastier against enemies.

There is also the Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, the childhood
friend, and now fiancee of Noctis. Luna is a captive of the
Niflheim Empire but is still the youngest Oracle in history. Her
ability to speak to the Gods has given her country of Tenebrae a
degree of autonomy they would not otherwise have. She and Noctis
have a long, and complicated history, and she is the main heroine
in Final Fantasy XV.

One of the core facets of Final Fantasy games has long been it's
combat system. In each game, we see a slightly different system
that has adapted to the way gaming has evolved over time. The
system in Final Fantasy XV is no different, and they have made
serious strides. The aim is to deliver a seamless action RPG
experience that allows you a degree of customization in how you
play.

You receive four slots to equip weapons, magic or shields.
However, you only control Noctis in combat. You can still chain
combos with other members of the team, and combat is entirely
active time. There is no waiting for your turn to attack, and
using Warp Strike you can move quickly and efficiently in and
through the battle. Hitting L1 and a direction on the D-pad will
let you call your friends to you, make strategic strikes easy
and effective as well.

It wouldn't be a Final Fantasy game without magic, right? You'll
find both summons  known as Astrals  and magic in Final
Fantasy XV. Magic is found in the environment around you, and
while there are only four basic types, you can customize things
to your liking. You'll need to draw the magic, and then transfer
it into a flask before use.

When you go to put magic into a flask, you can put two kinds of
magic into it. You can also use items to customize your magic
further, letting you fine tune it to do as much damage as
possible. There is a second magic type beyond the elemental kind,
but there aren't many details on it quite yet.

There is a ton more to see, and then hundreds of things to do
within the game. Multiple mini-games, side quests, and places
for you to explore when Final Fantasy XV releases on
November 29th, 2016. This is just the very surface of things.
You can expect plenty more from us about Final Fantasy XV as
well. Our review is coming next week, followed by all the
content you need for your adventures in Eos.



                    Video Game Buying Guide 2016


Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fast approaching, and that means
tons of great deals on video games and systems. But which should
you buy first? Start with these.

NES Classic Edition
($60)

Its been awhile since Nintendo could claim to have the hottest
holiday tech toy, but make no mistake: gamers are going nuts for
the NES Classic Edition. Sold out within hours of going on sale,
this adorable, pint-sized replica of Nintendos beloved home
console plugs right into your TV to deliver 30 awesome NES games.
It even includes a spot-on version of the NES controller, and
while the cords are all too short, the gaming goodness packed in
this glorious stocking stuffer will last many, many months. Itll
be tough to find, but its worth the effort.

Dishonored 2
($60 | PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Let the elf keep an eye on the kids while you enjoy a little
stealth on the shelf this year. The sequel to 2012s Game of the
Year, Dishonored 2 ups the ante with two unique playable
characters thrust into a stunning steampunk world brimming with
danger and choice. Do you sneak through windows and pounce on
unknowing bad guys, or wreak havoc with potent mystical powers?
Either way, you cant go wrong.

Overwatch
($60 | PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Blizzard Entertainment has made a fortune off this beautifully
polished and brilliantly balanced online shooter, but if you or
someone you love isnt among the 20 million who have already
bought Overwatch, dont hesitate to join the crew. On the fast
track to becoming The Next Big Thing in competitive gaming,
Overwatch is also a ton of fun with a group of friends. Just
dont main Bastion. Seriously.

Pokmon Sun/Moon
($50 | 3DS)

Finally stopped playing Pokmon Go? Good. Now put down your
smartphone and pick up a 3DS: youre ready for a real Pokmon
game. Commemorating 20 years of Pokmon, Sun/Moon takes place
in a new tropical setting yielding plenty of new pokmon and
features. Long time fans will dig refinements like an upgraded
Pokdex and the ability to refresh your pokmon after battle.
Addictive and colorful, its another time-sucking treat from the
masters of the craft.

Skylanders: Imaginators
($75 | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U)

While fellow toys-to-life franchise Disney Infinity closed shop
this year, Skylanders keeps right on ticking. The latest offers
a cool twist that kids young and old alike will love: the ability
to create their own Skylander, customize it, and even order a
3D printed version. Its still a bit devious with how it locks
out content, though, so be prepared to cough up more dough on
extra toys as we roll into the new year. (Starter Pack: $75 for
PS4, Xbox One | $65 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U)

Civilization VI
($60 | PC)

Just one more turn, they say, but they really mean, just 36
more turns and okay maybe 10 more after that. The most
addictive strategy game ever returns in its sixth incarnation,
and its one of the best yet. Richly complex yet still
surprisingly accessible, it retains its core gameplay but
introduces cool new features like unstacked cities and a Civics
tech tree. The result breathes life into the 25-year-old
formula, still the perfect gift for the PC gamer in your life.

Battlefield 1
($60 | PS4, Xbox One, PC)

While Call of Duty forges into the future, EAs Battlefield
series smartly took a step back into history by tackling World
War I. It was a great choice; this is one of the best
Battlefield games in ages, bringing the franchises
brilliantly chaotic multiplayer to a gripping old-school arena.
It also rectifies a longstanding critique of Battlefield by
including a genuinely moving single-player campaign. Enlist
today.

Forza Horizon 3
($39 | Xbox One, PC)

There are a great many reasons to own an Xbox One, but this
season, there is one really, really great one: Forza Horizon 3.
Explore a wide-open virtual Australia from behind the wheel of
vehicles both exotic and mundane. Whether youre smashing through
the outback or needling through tight streets, youll marvel at
the drop-dead gorgeous graphics and perfect handling.

NBA 2K17
($60 | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC)

The 2016-2017 NBA season is just getting started, but the
developers of NBA 2K have been perfecting their league-leading
basketball sim for well over 15 years now. Their work has paid
off with the best looking, best playing, and flat-out best sports
game on the market. An improved Career mode, a deeper MyGM, and
countless nips and tucks to the already excellent gameplay leads
to another championship year for the basketball dynasty.

Titanfall 2
($60 | PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Squeezed between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite
Warfare, this sequel was put in a tough spot on the release
calendar. But Titanfall 2 is the sort of game any shooter fan
shouldnt miss. It once again delivers fantastic giant mech
multiplayer, but this years model includes one of the most
inventive, exciting solo campaigns of 2016, too.

Uncharted 4
($60 | PS4)

Though it came out at the beginning of 2016, Nathan Drakes final
adventure (for now) remains a must-have for PS4 owners. Hang on
ledges, make precarious leaps, and blast bad guys as you hunt
down a legendary pirate treasure. While its gameplay is great,
its cinematic delivery is off the charts. This is perhaps the
best-looking video game of the year.

Watch Dogs 2
($60 | PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Hackers manipulating real-world events by breaking into
supposedly secure online systems? As if that could really happen!
Alas, we have video games like the excellent open-world romp
Watch Dogs 2 to help us experience such far-fetched fantasies.
Set in San Francisco, this sequel improves on the original with
a great script, tons of activities, and a wealth of gadgetry
that let you stick it to The Man by hacking through an
interconnected city.



                                  =~=~=~=



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


Atari Jaguar Fighting Game Thea Realm Fighters Discovered and Released


It is not all that often that we receive news that a new Atari
Jaguar game has been discovered and released. That is exactly
what is going on with Thea Realm Fighters though. Thea Realm
Fighters is an unreleased one-on-one fighting game for the Atari
Jaguar console. For many, this is a Holy Grail of unreleased
games as it was only really shown at the 1995 Consumer
Electronics Show. As with most unreleased titles, there are
multiple versions and only one is available for download at this
time.

Thea Realm Fighters was originally developed by High Voltage
Software, the company behind Fight for Life (3D fighter) and the
port of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition to Atari Jaguar. On an
emulator Thea Realm Fighters supposedly runs almost as slow as
Fight for Life does on an actual Atari Jaguar console. On actual
hardware AtariAge members have reported using various Skunk
Boards to play the beta version of the game and stated that it
is quite decent in speed. Your mileage may very well vary.

Thea Realm Fighters was in development right around the time
that digitized fighting games were still raging on. Even Capcom
got in on it with a Street Fighter II: The Movie game that
featured digitized actors from the feature length filmit didnt
work out all that well for them either.

Our friends over on Retrocollect were able to track down the man
behind this release and get a quote from him. Mr. Nicholas
Persijn told Retrocollect, Im always looking for ways to
expand the Atari Jaguar fan scene. [The Realm Fighters] has been
a personal holy grail for years and when I finally got my chance,
I couldnt keep it for myself.

Allegedly, there were to be 20 fighters featured in Thea Realm
Fighters. This is interesting as it would have definitely been a
large cast for a period when eight to twelve fighters were
common. As you can see in the gameplay video above that the game
featured line scrolling floors and fairly colorful backgrounds.
This was probably due to the fact that the Atari Jaguar was a
color pushing tour de force of a console.



                                  =~=~=~=



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



          Trump Transition Team Appointments Indicate
               A Bid To Dismantle Net Neutrality


President-elect Trump has made it clear that he is more than a
little hostile towards the FCCs implementation of net
neutrality, both in his own words and, today, the appointment of
two long-time adversaries of the policy to his transition team.

Jeffrey Eisenach is an economist and government veteran who
worked at the FTC in the 80s; hes worked for a number of think
tanks and research institutes that transmute industry money into
custom expert critique, and under their auspices was a vocal
opponent of the FCCs current net neutrality rules. The New York
Times did some excellent reporting on the man back in August, if
youre curious about the possibility of conflict of interest.

Eisenach described net neutrality as an effort by one set of
private interests to enrich itself by using the power of the state
to obtain free services from another in his testimony before the
Senate Judiciary Committee in 2014. He suggested ISPs have no
reason to discriminate between services, and they engender
innovation rather than stifle it. You may judge that idea on its
own merits.

Mark Jamison worked on Sprints lobbying team in the 90s, and
like Eisenach has done expert consulting work for several
organizations. In a recent op-ed, he called net neutrality a
growing miscellany of ex ante regulations that frequently work
against the entrepreneurs and consumers the rules are intended to
help.

He and Eisenach are both scholars at the American Enterprise
Institute, a non-partisan think tank (I put that in quotes because
while both are in fact actually professors, the term scholar in
that context is a bit difficult to pin down). They also both
contribute regularly to Tech Policy Daily, a right-leaning tech
policy blog composed mainly of grousing at the inefficacy of the
current administration and organizations like the FCC.

The FCC itself declined to comment on the appointments or whether
they would be working with the Commission in any official way, but
even if Eisenbach and Jamison are strictly advisory, they are in a
position to exert quite a bit of leverage. How Eisenbach in
particular can be considered not to be a lobbyist, however, by an
administration ostensibly critical of employing them, is something
of a mystery.

With the current congressional makeup and a President-elect
hostile to the idea of net neutrality, its probable that the
rules enacted by the FCC have little time left. Republican
legislators opposed the FCC rules but faced the prospect of an
Obama veto if they attempted to pass a law nullifying them or
stripping the FCC of its authority to regulate ISPs as it has. At
this point it seems to be only a matter of time before the rules
are rolled back.



              Net Neutrality, Beloved by Netflix,
              Looks Headed for the Ax Under Trump


President-elect Donald Trump shares a specific agenda for his
first 100 days in office in a newly uploaded video to his
transition team's Facebook page.
netneutrality

The days could be numbered for Net neutrality under the Trump
administration.

Net neutrality rules, passed in February 2015 by the Federal
Communications Commission and supported by Netflix, Google and
other big websites, prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from
blocking and slowing the transmission of content. The contentious
issue triggered lawsuits from the ISPs and drew an unprecedented
outpouring of public comments.

Though Net neutrality wasn't a constant topic for Donald Trump as
a candidate, he has been an opponent of the regulations, calling
the FCC's adoption "a power grab" by President Obama in a tweet
in 2014.

The president-elect's latest appointments suggest he'll try to
bolster that view, supported by telecommunication companies such
as Verizon and others, by reversing the rules. Jeffrey Eisenach,
who joined Trump's transition team in October, and Mark Jamison,
a former lobbyist for Sprint, were named Monday as members of the
"Agency Landing" team focusing on the FCC.

Both advisers opposed Net neutrality. Net neutrality "is not
about protecting consumers from rapacious Internet service
providers. ... Net neutrality is crony capitalism pure and
simple  an effort by one group of private interests to enrich
itself at the expense of another group by using the power of the
state," Eisenach wrote in 2014 in an article on the website of
the American Enterprise Institute, a free enterprise think-tank
where Eisenach was a visiting scholar from 2012 to 2016.

A recent New York Times article noted that some of Eisenach's
work at the think-tank on FCC issues were supported by Verizon and
the GSMA, a wireless trade group of which AT&T and Verizon are
members.

Eisenach, who is the managing director and co-chair of
communication, media and Internet practice at NERA Economic
Consulting, declined comment on the administration's plans.

Jamison has also taken swings at the Obama administration's Net
neutrality stance. The FCC has pursued a "unilateral approach"
on Net neutrality and other rulemaking procedures that "forces
industry and consumers to incur unnecessary litigation costs and
to operate in an uncertain environment," Jamison said in an
editorial last year. Jamison, the director of the Public Utility
Research Center at the University of Florida,  also declined
comment.

The issue of Net neutrality has divided telecom and tech
companies for years. Netflix, Google, Twitter and other household
tech names back the FCC's need for authority to prevent ISPs from
promoting their own content over that of other outlets.

Telecommunication giants such as AT&T and Verizon have countered,
saying the agency used outdated authority given to public
utilties that is more heavy-handed than needed to oversee the
Internet. Their fight has gone to the courts. Verizon
successfully had the FCC's 2010 rules tossed out in its court
challenge in 2014; AT&T and others appealed a federal court's
decision upholding the current rules.

Supporters of a less hands-on FCC see good signs. "l do think the
appointment of Eisenach and Jamison is an indication that
President-elect Trump is serious about achieving communications
policy reform, including curtailing the reach of the agency's Net
neutrality," said Randolph May, president of the Free State
Foundation, a free market think-tank.

In a Washington Times editorial Monday, May said "Its undeniable
that the Obama administrations FCC has been on a regulatory
binge, adopting a number of major overly burdensome and unduly
costly new rules, despite the lack of evidence of market failure
or consumer harm."

How could Net neutrality be overturned? "The new FCC could try to
walk away from the rules.  It could refuse to enforce them, try
to wipe them off the books or stop defending them on appeal,"
said Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, an awareness group
that supported the rules.

The strongest action would be congressional, May said, "because
it is more durable and can't be easily reversed." New legislation
could remove the FCC's oversight of the Internet service
providers as "common carriers" and the Net itself as a public
utility. The FCC based its new rules on authority from Title II
of the Communications Act of 1934.

"Republicans in both Congress and the FCC have expressed their
antipathy towards Title II regulation," research firm
Moffett Nathanson said in a note to investors after the election.
"A congressional rollback of Title II was never a serious option
in a Democratic administration: President Obama made clear that
he stood ready with a veto. With the risk of a veto now gone, a
legislative remedy now not only looks possible, but likely."

Analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson said last week in a
subsequent note, "It is likely ... that virtually every major FCC
rulemaking of the past four years will be undone."

Net neutrality rules are very popular and drew a record number of
comments at the FCC  more than 4 million, said Chris Lewis, vice
president at Public Knowledge, a consumer tech advocacy group.
Perhaps the Trump administration will offer a counterproposal, he
said, because many congressional Republicans were in favor of an
open Internet but against the FCCs Net neutrality proposal.

"We think we have very good rules, and we want to defend them,"
Lewis said, "and if folks want to eliminate these very important
consumer protections that are wildly popular across ideological
lines, the question is how are they going to protect an open
Internet if they eliminate these rules?"

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, when asked about possible reversal of
the rules after the agency's monthly meeting last week, said, "I
think it's an important thing to remember that taking a fast fair
and open Internet away from the public and from those who use it
to offer services to the public would be a real mistake."

Wheeler, a Democrat, noted at the time that serves as chairman at
the pleasure of the president, could be replaced. "I am committed
to the smooth transition," he said.



     Mossberg: Facebook Can And Should Wipe Out Fake News


Totally false news isnt a new thing in the United States. In our
fourth presidential election, in 1800, two of our most brilliant
founders  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson  faced off in a
vicious campaign that involved newspaper editors on the take, and
numerous false, often personal attacks. Some historians even
claim that partisans for Adams spread the rumor that Jefferson was
dead. (He won anyway.)

But they didnt have Facebook to present, amplify, and repeat
those falsehoods instantly to millions of people. And thats why
the fake news problem is so serious, even outside the context of
a presidential election.

Back in May, the Pew Research Center found that roughly 44 percent
of the US adult population got at least some of its news from
Facebook. And that was before the general election. Theres
nothing inherently wrong with this. Many if not most news
organizations, old and new, big and small (including this one),
post stories and videos on the social network. And readers and
viewers are moved to share stories, whether publishers have
embraced the platform or not.

But that puts a heavy responsibility on Facebook to make sure
its not helping to spread outright lies masquerading as news or
publishing the output of made-up news organizations. Yet thats
exactly what happened during the 2016 presidential campaign. In
the best-known example, BuzzFeed discovered that over 100 mostly
pro-Trump fake news sites in a single town in Macedonia were
pumping out false news on Facebook in an effort to make money
from ads.

Since then, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has posted two long
statements on the social network. On November 12th, while he
said, We don't want any hoaxes on Facebook, he also said it was
extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election.
But that was a weaselly excuse. Facebook has done controversial
experiments to investigate whether the News Feed can affect
emotions  surely fake news can affect beliefs as well.

A week later, in the second post, he got more detailed and
outlined a series of steps the company was working on. These
included better detection of fake news, a better reporting system
for users to report fake news, and possibly flagging fake news
with warning labels.

"Facebook has done controversial experiments to investigate
whether the news feed can affect emotions  surely fake news can
affect beliefs as well"

(Oddly, both posts briefly disappeared Tuesday. Shortly after
The Verge reported that they were gone, they returned and the
company said it was due to a system error.)

In both posts, Zuckerberg stressed the difficulty of deciding what
was true or false, what was legitimate opinion or fact, and the
need to balance dealing with fake news with protecting freedom of
speech.

I agree that these considerations, and others, make this a
delicate problem to solve. I especially agree that free speech
and the right to opinions, on politics and everything else, must
be protected  whether they are popular or not  as long as they
arent hate speech.

But I am also convinced that Facebook has the financial,
technical, and human resources to ferret out and totally block
almost all fake news and hate speech, both of which it says it
wants gone from its service. Its a company that earned nearly
$3 billion just last quarter, and which is reportedly building a
tool capable of preventing controversial content from appearing
in its News Feed in countries like China.

Yet the Zuckerberg posts suggest that, while the company is
working to better detect fake news, its still hoping to rely on
the all-too-common Silicon Valley belief that the wisdom of the
crowd, plus third-party input, will save the day.

We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, Zuckerberg
says, but instead rely on our community and trusted third
parties. Thus, among the ideas he lists for banishing fake news
are those labels, that easier user reporting of fake news, and
making fake news economically less enticing for its creators.
(The company did bar known fake news sites from its ad networks,
as did Google.)

"Facebook has the financial, technical, and human resources to
ferret out and totally block almost all fake news and hate
speech"

But Facebook isnt just a technology platform where news happens
to be published, along with baby pictures, vacation bragging and
amateur sports commentary. Its clearly a media company. It is
now publishing articles and videos directly from a host of news
organizations, including The Verge. Including this very column.
These are encoded in a special way to work best on Facebook, and
there are business terms behind the practice. Increasingly,
people read news on Facebook and never even visit the
originating site or publication.

Hell, even those Macedonian teens understood that Facebook was a
media company. They made up fake media organization names from
which to post. (Really, Facebook, you werent even a little
suspicious about DonaldTrumpNews.co?)

So, yes, in my view, Facebook has a direct responsibility to get
rid of fake news, and it cannot simply rely on its audience or
others to shoulder the burden. Im happy to see tools made
available to readers that help report such trash, and happy that
Facebook is working with third-party fact checkers. But the
ultimate responsibility is Facebooks.

Nobody wants Facebook to tinker with legitimate news and opinion
 again, except for hate speech. But getting rid of purely fake
news from purely fake sources is an eminently achievable task,
especially for a well-funded, tech-savvy, huge media company
serving nearly 2 billion people.

Here are a few guidelines, Facebook.

    Assertions by actual people, even if they are false, arent
fake news. People say and believe all kinds of things. So, even
if they dont believe in the moon landings, and form a Facebook
group of like-minded others, thats not fake news.
    Opinions arent fake news. The existence of the new MacBook
Pro is an indisputable fact, as are its specs, design, and price.
Yet some might love it and others might hate it. The same goes
for Donald Trumps promise to build a border wall and for the
Gilmore Girls revival. But neither the lovers nor the haters are
creating fake news.
    Differing interpretations arent fake news. Millions may have
seen the video of a football play, from multiple angles. So
theres a real, actual fact there. I might think there was pass
interference, and somebody else might not, but even if the replay
shows there was a proper penalty, the other guy has a right to
stick to his guns.
    Sensational news stories with little or no reporting that
seem opportune, and arent quickly replicated or even repeated
with credit by reputable news sources, are probably fake news.
You have the means to investigate this. It might be a new, legit,
one-person blog that stumbled onto a great scoop, but its
likelier to be a cash-driven Macedonian teenage fake news poster.
How could you not have questioned one of the Macedonian stories
that had the Pope endorsing a US presidential candidate? Did you
think the Vatican Radio Facebook page would miss that?
    Sketchy personal accounts that give every appearance of
falsehood and spread fake news (see number 4) were probably
established for that very purpose. You know who they are. Humans
can often spot them, even if algorithms cant. You can bar them.

Im encouraged that the November 19th Zuckerberg post says the
company wants to detect what people will flag as false before
they they do it themselves. But, again, I think Facebook needs
to step up and take direct responsibility for expunging fake
news, not just label it or give it less weight in the news feed.

Facebook might even consider hiring a distinguished, nonpartisan
editor and a small staff to help in the effort. The company
abandoned such human input in its little-known Trending box after
conservatives complained that right-leaning stories were being
culled out. But if weeding out verifiably fake news 
conservative or liberal or whatever  angers some users, thats
the price of being a news platform, even if it slightly affects
growth. Its the right trade-off.

All of this would mean Facebook would have to act like the media
company it has become and stop pretending.

The time for pretending is over.



Facebook Admits That Resisting Standards for Fake News Was 'Wrong'


In the wake of criticism about fake news, Facebook has admitted
that its stance of resisting any standards of news on its
platform was "wrong."

For so long, we had resisted having standards about whether
somethings newsworthy because we did not consider ourselves a
service that was predominantly for the distribution of news. And
that was wrong! Facebook VP of global comms, Elliot Schrage,
said on a panel about the election and the media, Vox reported on
Friday.

In recent weeks, Facebook has been taken to task for how widely
and effectively fake news spread on its platform. A study by
BuzzFeed showed that in the lead-up to the election, the top
fake-news stories on Facebook outperformed legitimate news
stories shared by some of the most popular media companies.

Facebook's response was initially dismissive, with CEO Mark
Zuckerberg saying particularly that "the idea that fake news on
Facebook  it's a very small amount of the content  influenced
the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea."

Facebook, however, has recently begun to reevaluate its stance
of fake news. Zuckerberg outlined several steps the company is
taking to clamp down on the spread of misinformation, and other
execs are actively discussing Facebook's role in the spread of
media.

But Facebook has stopped short of pledging to have an editorial
role. It is not clear to me that with 1.8 billion people around
the world, lots of different users and lots of different
languages, the smart strategy is to start hiring editors,
Schrage said. Thats just not what we do.

In a talk on Thursday, Patrick Walker, a Facebook media
partnerships exec, went a bit further. We do not think of
ourselves as editors," Walker said during the News Xchange
conference in Dublin. "We believe its essential that Facebook
stay out of the business of deciding what issues the world
should read about. Thats what editors do.

Still, Facebook has admitted that it needs to take some action.
We have a responsibility here. I think we recognize that. This
has been a learning for us, Schrage said. 



EU, U.S. Authorities Take Down Avalanche Global Crimeware Network


After a four year investigation, the Avalanche
"crimeware-as-a-service" network was taken down by law enforcement
agencies from 30 countries.

Avalanche used as many as 500,000 infected computers daily, and
infected millions of computers with malware for harvesting
banking and email credentials, according to US-CERT. The
crimeware network spread more than two dozen malware families via
more than 800,000 domains and provided command and control
services for at least eight botnets.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI said in a joint
statement, the Avalanche network "is estimated to involve
hundreds of thousands of infected computers worldwide. The
monetary losses associated with malware attacks conducted over
the Avalanche network are estimated to be in the hundreds of
millions of dollars worldwide, although exact calculations are
difficult due to the high number of malware families present on
the network."

The FBI and Justice Department promised more information about
the operation would be provided next week.

A press release from the European Police Office (Europol) - the
EU's law enforcement agency, focused on fighting serious
international crime and terrorism - said, "The global effort to
take down this network involved the crucial support of
prosecutors and investigators from 30 countries."

The investigation was started in 2012 by the Public Prosecutor's
Office in the German town of Verden and the Lneburg Police
(Germany), and was carried out with cooperation from the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the
Department of Justice and the FBI, Europol, Eurojust (the EU
agency for judicial cooperation on cross-border criminal
investigations) and other global partners.

Europol said the law enforcement actions resulted in arrest of
five individuals, searches of 37 premises, and seizure of 39
servers. "Victims of malware infections were identified in over
180 countries. Also, 221 servers were put offline through abuse
notifications sent to the hosting providers. The operation marks
the largest-ever use of sinkholing to combat botnet
infrastructures and is unprecedented in its scale, with over
800,000 domains seized, sinkholed or blocked."

"Cyber criminals utilized Avalanche botnet infrastructure to
host and distribute a variety of malware variants to victims,
including the targeting of over 40 major financial
institutions," according to the US-CERT alert on Avalanche.
"Victims may have had their sensitive personal information
stolen (e.g., user account credentials). Victims' compromised
systems may also have been used to conduct other malicious
activity, such as launching denial-of-service attacks or
distributing malware variants to other victims' computers."

In addition, criminals used the Avalanche crimeware
infrastructure to operate "money mule" schemes in which people
were recruited to commit fraud by transporting or laundering
stolen money or merchandise. The money mules accept stolen money
or merchandise from a criminal or criminal organization and then
forward it, usually after deducting some portion as a
"commission," as directed by the criminals; this makes it
difficult for investigators to trace the identities of the
criminals involved.

According to US-CERT, "Avalanche used fast-flux [Domain Name
System (DNS)], a technique to hide the criminal servers, behind
a constantly changing network of compromised systems acting as
proxies."

Criminals use fast flux DNS techniques, changing DNS records
automatically and frequently, to protect against disruption by
authorities. Avalanche actually used a "double fast flux
network," according to the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the
U.K., one of the law enforcement agencies involved in the
takedown. NCA stated double fast flux changes IP address records
as well as changing the authoritative DNS server for domains,
further muddying the waters for investigators.

The Avalanche operation may serve as a model for future
international efforts to tamp down cybercrime.

"Avalanche shows that we can only be successful in combating
cybercrime when we work closely together, across sectors and
across borders," said Julian King, European Commissioner for the
Security Union, quoted in the Europol press release.
"Cybersecurity and law enforcement authorities need to work hand
in hand with the private sector to tackle continuously evolving
criminal methods."

"Avalanche has been a highly significant operation involving
international law enforcement, prosecutors and industry resources
to tackle the global nature of cybercrime," said Rob Wainwright,
Europol Director. "The complex trans-national nature of cyber
investigations requires international cooperation between public
and private organizations at an unprecedented level to
successfully impact on top-level cybercriminals. Avalanche has
shown that through this cooperation we can collectively make the
internet a safer place for our businesses and citizens."

Investigating cybercrimes is often hampered by the difficulty of
attribution, Chris Pogue, CISO at Sydney-based cybersecurity
company Nuix, told SearchSecurity by email. While the use of
anonymity tools like Tor and the use of compromised systems as
jump boxes to obfuscate the source of attacks can make it
difficult to identify the source of an attack, it's not
impossible.

"The evidence required to satisfy the burden of proof in this
regard is significant, and the investigative analysis must be
flawless," Pogue said. "Adding to the challenge is the acquisition
and execution of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty or MLAT, which
basically allows foreign law enforcement agencies to collaborate
on a case that lies outside the borders of their home country.
Based on the countries involved, and the complexities of their
legal system, an MLAT can take, on average, anywhere from 10 months
to a year (longer in some instances) to successfully process."

The scope and breadth of the investigation - including
investigators located in 41 different countries, investigating
16 criminal leaders in 10 different countries - made the Avalanche
operation unique. "Understanding the complexity of such a far
reaching investigation, and the political and legal challenges
that needed to be addressed, the resulting raids and arrests are
nothing short of amazing," Pogue said. "This is a tremendous feat
by these agencies, and they should be commended for their
dedication, tenacity, and commitment to bring to justice those
individuals that choose to commit these crimes."

"There's no denying the fact that this is a major win for the good
guys. The Avalanche servers that were taken down in this raid
represent a critical piece of criminal infrastructure that was
responsible for a sizable portion of the threats we see
encountered on the internet each day," Michael Covington, vice
president of product at Wandera, the London-based mobile security
company, told SearchSecurity by email. "I suspect we will see a
measurable drop in global threat encounters over the coming days
and weeks. Considering the type of phishing and botnet attacks
typically launched through Avalanche, this is particularly good
news for consumers during the upcoming holiday season." However,
while the takedown may disrupt cybercrime operations it will
likely not end them.

"We can expect that someone else will fill the void left by
Avalanche, as there is an incredible amount of competition in the
criminal underground where crime-as-a-service lives," Ed Cabrera,
chief cybersecurity officer for Trend Micro, told SearchSecurity
by email. "We can expect another cybercriminal group and
infrastructure to take its place in the near future."

Covington said, "We have seen similar takedowns in the past and
the criminals always come back with something new and bolder than
before. When spam servers were taken down in the 2000s, we saw the
rise of distributed botnet services. As C&C infrastructure was
interrupted, we started seeing more clever attacks that involved
evasive, polymorphic malware."

"Arguably, this is not a race with a clean finish line," Cabrera
said. "This is a constant effort for law enforcement, in
partnership with the security industry, to identify, investigate
and mitigate this threat and the cybercriminal groups behind it."

"What enterprise customers need to realize is that these criminal
operations are for-profit entities. An interruption to their
network is an interruption to their cash flow," Covington said.
"The malicious infrastructure will return and it will morph along
the way. They should not become complacent and assume we
understand the attacker."

"Crime, like all ecosystems, adapts as circumstances change. All
we can really do is reduce the incentives for criminality," John
Bambenek, threat systems manager at Fidelis Cybersecurity, told
SearchSecurity by email. "In the end, however, we have not solved
murder, rape or theft and we won't likely end cybercrime either."



Check If You Were Hit by the Massive 'Avalanche' Cybercrime Ring


The U.S. government has posted links for free scanning programs
so companies and individuals can check their computers to make
sure they weren't victims of a massive, international cyber
criminal operation that was taken down Thursday after a four-year
investigation.

This is probably the biggest operation that law enforcement has
ever done against cyber crime, said Catalin Cosoi, chief
security strategist with BitDefender, one of the dozens of
companies worldwide that worked with law enforcement to attack
the group.

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team has posted links to
five scanners on its site. Europol has also posted a list of
sites in multiple languages for potentially infected users.

Known as "Avalanche," the group had been active since 2009,
according to the FBI and Europol, the European law enforcement
agency. It was effectively a criminal company that sold and
rented cloud-hosted software to other criminals who used it to
take over systems, infect networks, launch ransomware or create
enormous robot networks (botnets) to send spam.

Avalanche networks were also used to launch targeted attacks
against banks and to recruit people to illegally transfer stolen
money between countries, known as money mules.

"They sent more than one million e-mails with damaging
attachments or links every week to unsuspecting victims," and
involved as many as 500,000 infected computers worldwide on a
daily basis, Europol said in a release.

They would do whatever you wanted. You just had to call them,
say I need command and control service, or I need to infect
this type of people or this type of business, and theyd do
it, said Cosoi.

The investigation originally began in Germany in 2012 after
prosecutors there detected a ransomware operation that blocked
access to a substantial number of computer systems and allowed
the criminals to do bank transfers from the victims' accounts.

As authorities became aware of the scope and reach of the
criminal organization, the effort to shut it down ended up
involving prosecutors and investigators in 30 countries.

On Wednesday, law enforcement launched a concerted action against
the Avalanche group. It resulted in five arrests, the search of
37 premises and seizure of 39 servers. In addition, over 800,000
Internet domains, or addresses, were seized to block the
criminals access to their customers.

Now that the operation has been taken down, the next crucial
stage is for infected individuals and companies to check to make
sure that their computers do not have Avalanche malware on them.

Companies and consumers should take this opportunity to scan
their systems for the different families of malware that the
Avalanche botnet distributed, said ESET senior security
researcher, Stephen Cobb.

Multiple companies worldwide have written tools to run this scan.

As Europol said on its website, "computer users should note that
this law enforcement action will NOT clean malware off any
infected computers  it will merely deny the Avalanche users
ability to communicate with infected victims computers.
Avalanche victims computers will still be infected, but
shielded from criminal control."

While the effort was hailed in the cyber security world as a
major coup against cyber crime, the differential between how fast
international cybercrime networks proliferate and how quickly
international law enforcement can act is troubling.

It does give some reason for concern that our anti-cybercrime
efforts still can't match the speed and dexterity that cyber
criminals use for their own efforts," said Nathan Wenzler,
principal security architect at AsTech Consulting, a San
Francisco-based security consulting company.

Unfortunately, while he believes that dismantling the Avalanche
network will certainly show some short-term gains, he expects
the cyber criminals will be "back up and running in short
order.



Enigma Codebreaking Site To Become Elite UK Cyber Defense School


Bletchley Park, where British codebreakers famously cracked Nazi
Germany's Enigma cypher, is to become home to the country's
future cyber defenders. An elite school for talented teen hackers
is planned for the site, to open in 2018.

During World War II the mansion house in Buckinghamshire,
England, was home to the British government's Code and Cypher
School, whose critical but top secret work has become well known
through books and movies like the Oscar-winning "The Imitation
Game."

The school, with capacity for up to 500 students ages 16 to 19,
is part of a plan to strengthen the UK's defenses against what
experts say are growing cyber threats.

Alastair MacWillson, chair of Qufaro, the cybersecurity group
behind the project, said he expects the site's distinguished
history to be an inspiration to students.

"It's a rich story. We're leveraging the legacy and heritage,"
he said. "The government says cyber security and the measures to
defend the country are the new codes and cyphers. So where
better to do this?"

MacWillson said the initiative will harness the expertise in
Britain's young hacker community and put them on a pathway to
safeguarding the country's cyber security.

"There is some real talent out there, people with extraordinary
capabilities in this area, and its usually youngsters that are
good at gaming theory and hacking systems," he said.

However, while there are centers of excellence for this
specialization at the university level, gaps in the education
system currently allow talent to slip through the cracks at the
high school level, MacWillson said.

"The government was concerned on two fronts - that the country
isn't capturing raw talent, but also that it's maybe letting raw
talent err onto the dark side," he said.

The school will be a so-called "genius college" for
prodigiously talented students, with 40% of the curriculum
devoted to cyber learning and the rest to STEM subjects such as
math and engineering.

The school would also take advantage of an existing incubator
for tech companies based at Bletchley Park to provide internships
for students.

People drafted in as codebreakers were often found by tests
requiring them to complete The Daily Telegraph&#39;s crossword in
under 12 minutes.

All workers at the estate were ordered to sign the Official
Secrets Act. For many young girls at the park, this meant that
their families had no idea where their 18-year-old daughters had
been sent.

Her Majesty the Queen visited Bletchley Park in 2011, and
received an Enigma machine demonstration from Ruth. The monarch
called the contraption &quot;splendid.&quot;

Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), as the
former Government Code and Cypher School is now known, has
applauded the plan, saying it "welcomes initiatives that promote
and develop skills in cyber security."

A GCHQ spokeswoman said the concept was "interesting, especially
if it can provide a pathway for talented students from schools
that are not able to provide the support they need."

The head of MI5, Britain's security and counterintelligence
agency, warned last month that the country faced a growing covert
threat from Russia, involving "high-volume activity out of sight
with the cyber-threat."

The Kremlin rejected the claims.

Earlier this month the British government unveiled its National
Cyber Security Strategy, aimed at tackling cyber threats facing
the country and making the UK one of the safest places in the
world to do business online.



        The UK Now Wields Unprecedented Surveillance
               Powers  Heres What It Means


The UK is about to become one of the worlds foremost
surveillance states, allowing its police and intelligence
agencies to spy on its own people to a degree that is
unprecedented for a democracy. The UNs privacy chief has called
the situation "worse than scary." Edward Snowden says its simply
"the most extreme surveillance in the history of western
democracy."

The legislation in question is called the Investigatory Powers
Bill. Its been cleared by politicians and granted royal assent
on November 29th  officially becoming law. The bill will
legalize the UKs global surveillance program, which scoops up
communications data from around the world, but it will also
introduce new domestic powers, including a government database
that stores the web history of every citizen in the country. UK
spies will be empowered to hack individuals, internet
infrastructure, and even whole towns  if the government deems
it necessary.

Although the UKs opposition Labour Party originally put forward
strong objections to the bill, these never turned into real
opposition. The combination of a civil war between different
factions in Labour and the UKs shock decision to leave the
European Union means the bill was never given politicians  or
the countrys  full attention. Instead, it will likely inspire
similar surveillance laws in other countries. After all, if the
UK can do it, why shouldnt everyone else? And there will be no
moderating influence from the US, where the countrys mostly
intact surveillance apparatus will soon be handed over to
president-elect Donald Trump.

With this global tide of surveillance rising, its worth taking
a closer look at what exactly is happening in the UK. Heres our
overview of what the Investigatory Powers Bill entails:

The UK government will keep a record of every website every
citizen visits for up to a year, with this information also
including the apps they use on their phone, and the metadata of
their calls. This information is known as internet connection
records, or ICRs, and wont include the exact URL of each site
someone visits, but the base domain. For this particular webpage,
for example, the government would know you went to
www.theverge.com, the time you visited, how long you stayed,
your IP address, and some information about your computer  but
no individual pages.

Each Internet Service Provider (ISP) and mobile carrier in the
UK will have to store this data, which the government will pay
them to do. Police officers will then be able to access a
central search engine known as the "request filter" to retrieve
this information. Exactly how this request filter will work
still isnt clear (will you be able to find every visitor to a
certain website, for example, then filter that down to specific
weeks or days?), but it will be easy to tie browsing data to
individuals. If you sign a contract for your phone, for example,
that can be linked to your web history.

There are a few ways this data could be muddied. For a start,
services like VPNs and Tor, that bounce your internet traffic
around the world, will be difficult to follow. And when it
comes to tracking activity on your phone  for an app like
Facebook Messenger, for example  this information will be
fairly useless, as most of these apps maintain regular
connections to the internet throughout the day. "The government
wont be able to get all of the data all of the time," Jim
Killock, executive director of the UKs Open Rights Group tells
The Verge. "But theyre not expecting most people to bother to
protect their privacy."

The key point about this power, though, is that it has no
judicial oversight. Access to citizens web history will be
solely at the discretion of the police, with a specially trained
supervising officer approving or denying requests. "It makes
this kind of surveillance a simple, routine activity," says
Killock, adding that without oversight, itll be impossible to
know when police target specific groups disproportionately.
Thats definitely a problem in a country where even senior law
enforcement officers admit that claims that the police force is
institutionally racist have "some justification."

Although this power sounds almost farcical in its reach ("The
police will know what porn you look at! Theyll know how much
time you waste on Facebook!"), its no laughing matter. Its not
as intrusive as other measures, but it establishes a dangerous
new norm, where surveillance of all citizens online activity is
seen as the baseline for a peaceful society. Collect evidence
first, the government is saying, and find the criminals later.
The country has a surprising tolerance for this, embracing the
use of surveillance cameras more than most. Now, though, it has
CCTV for the nations online life.

Other parts of the bill dont introduce new powers, but
establish surveillance and hacking activities revealed by the
Snowden revelations. These include the collection of metadata
from around the world, and targeted hacking of individuals'
computers  bugging their phone calls, reading texts, and so on.
Unlike access to browser history, these latter powers will
require a warrant from both the Secretary of State and a panel
of judges.

The government has given hacking the deceptively understated
description of "equipment interference," and splits it into two
camps: targeted and bulk. Targeted equipment interference allows
law enforcement and security agencies to hack specific devices,
phones or computers, while bulk hacking can cover larger groups.
The only difference between the two powers is that bulk hacking
is only authorized for foreign targets.

We already know quite a bit about these capabilities thanks to
Snowdens leaks, and they cover the sort of malware and spyware
you might expect any hacker to use. GCHQs toolkit, for example,
includes a collection of programs named after smurfs: "Nosey
Smurf" activates a devices microphone to record conversations;
"Tracker Smurf" hijacks its GPS to track location in real time;
while "Dreamy Smurf" allows a phone that appears to be off to
secretly turn itself on.

Out of all the new legislation, targeted hacking has probably
been objected to the least. This is because it will require a
warrant approved by both government ministers and a specially
appointed panel of seven judicial commissioners  the so-called
double lock procedure  and will be reserved for "serious crimes"
and threats to national security. This sort of interception also
takes place on a much smaller scale. The UK police made more
than half a million requests for metadata last year, but there
were only around 2,700 warrants for directly intercepting
communications in the same period.

However, what is new is the authorization of "bulk equipment
interference" or the hacking of large groups of people. This
power will be limited to the security agencies and can only be
used outside of the UK, but the government is clear about its
potential scope. Its said that if it needs to hack every phone
and laptop in a "major town" to stop a terrorist attack, it
will; and its suggested that it might be used to take over the
entire internal email system of a "hypothetical totalitarian
state," if its developing biological weapons.

Theres also the worry that the targeted hacking laws could be
used to hack multiple people under the use of something called
a "thematic warrant." Ross Anderson, a professor of security
engineering at Cambridge University who gave testimony about the
IP bill to the government, gives the example of the police chief
of a UK city wanting to stem knife crime, and asking the
government to force Google to get data from Android smartphones.
"The point is that its possible," Anderson tells The Verge.
"Perhaps the government has given some private assurances to
these companies [that it wont happen], but we know from long
experience that such private assurances are not worth the paper
theyre not written on."

In addition to bulk hacking, the IP bill legalizes the bulk
collection of communication data from around the world, activity
that Snowden first revealed in 2013. The UK courts judged that
this activity was in breach of human rights law earlier this
year, but once the IP bill passes, itll be absolutely legal.
Although the government claims that this sort of information is
treated respectfully, its own internal memos have shown staff
abusing their powers; using bulk datasets for things like
finding addresses to send birthday cards, and "checking details
of family members for personal convenience."

One of the biggest trouble spots for the bill, though, isnt so
much an explicit power as an assumption by the government 
namely, that it can force tech companies to decrypt user data on
demand.

Now, there are a lot of caveats to this statement. Firstly,
requests for this data will be on a small scale, like targeted
hacking. Secondly, the wording of the bill is ambiguous. It
doesnt explicitly force companies to install backdoors in
their products, but it does say they should be able to remove
encryption on users data whenever "practicable." What exactly
"practicable" means is never explained. The UK might argue that
its "practicable" for a company to undermine its own
encryption; that company might respond that doing so would
endanger its business around the world.

Earlier this year, big tech companies including Facebook,
Microsoft, and Google lined up to denounce this part of the
legislation. Apple CEO Tim Cook was particularly critical,
noting that the law would have "dire consequences" if
introduced. "If you halt or weaken encryption, the people that
you hurt are not the folks that want to do bad things. Its the
good people," said Cook in 2015. "The other people know where
to go."

What exactly will happen if the UK government demands that a
company like Apple decrypt its data isnt clear. However, it
wont be straightforward replay of San Bernardino, when Apple
battled the FBI over the decryption of a terrorist's iPhone. The
UK has the legal authority to penalize companies that dont
comply, but experts arent sure whether they would bother. "A
lot of this is about setting a precedent of how you think things
ought to function, rather than necessarily expecting to be able
to enforce the laws against overseas companies," says Killock.
In many cases, he suggests, the issue will come down to
leverage. Tech companies without any UK presence will be able
to shrug off demands (whats the government going to do to
them?), but big firms like Apple and Facebook, which have
thousands of staff in the UK, may feel more at risk.
Alternatively, this might give them an advantage against the
government; allowing them to threaten to withdraw jobs, for
example.

Experts say what is even more dangerous, is the fact that any
such battles between tech companies and the UK government will
take place in private. Any warrants issued to a company to
decrypt users data will come with a gagging order, forbidding
the firm from discussing it. "There wouldnt be any public
debate about it," Harmit Kambo, campaigns director at Privacy
International, tells The Verge. "Apple vs. the FBI just wouldnt
happen in the UK." The first we might know of a battle over
encryption could be a company simply withdrawing its services
from the UK. "The invisibility of it is the biggest trick
theyve pulled," says Kambo. "Its sad that the Snowden
revelations backfired so spectacularly here. Rather than
rolling back powers, theyve been used to legitimize these
practices."

The scope of the law reaches far beyond the UK's borders, and
the knock-on effects will likely be felt in countries around
the world. Taken as a whole, it's hard to see the Investigatory
Powers Bill as anything other than a reshaping of the concept
of private civil society.



          Facebook Is Unlikely To Succeed in China,
            Even If It Compromises on Free Speech


Facebook may have laid some of the early groundwork to launch
its social network in China, but the U.S. companys chances of
making a dent in the worlds most populous country remain
remote.

A New York Times report that Facebook is developing a system
that could censor information to appease the Chinese government
is the talk of the tech industry right. The timing couldnt be
worse: domestically, Facebook is under pressure for failing to
adequately manage the influence of fake news on the U.S.
election, yet here it is seemingly prepared to quash legitimate
information on user timelines to kowtow to the Chinese
government and further its interests in a country of 1.3 billion
people.

Facebooks China conundrum hasnt changed much since its IPO in
2012, when it admitted it may not ever find a way into the
country.

Recently, however, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly justified the
development of censorship software, telling staff that its
better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even
if its not yet the full conversation. That triggered a number
of departures, according to the New York Times, but the truth
about China is that it would take a huge effort from Facebook to
be relevant to the general conversation in the first place.

Even if Zuckerberg  who has made little effort to hide his
interest in doing business in China  sold out and agreed to
censorship in exchange for being unblocked, Facebook has a major
challenge in finding a place to sit within the nations
already-developed social media ecosystem.

Sticking to its roots wont cut it because Facebook-style social
networking has already failed in China.

Renren, the company widely labeled as Chinas Facebook, has
long since pivoted. Initial promise saw Renren attract investment
from SoftBank in its early days, and before its U.S. IPO in April
2011, the company claimed 160 million users.

That NYSE listing raised $743 million, but the share price has
fallen from a first-day close of $18.01 to just $1.81 today.
These days Renrens service is barely used and the company is
more notable for its investment deals, which include stakes in a
mortgage lender and a delivery service. That investment business
and its social video platform are being spun out of the company
to give them room to breathe, such is the decline of the core
service and traditional social networks in China.

Renren and lesser rivals like Kaixin withered because they
missed mobile, hugely popular messaging app WeChat didnt and
now it is king.

WeChats dominance has been clear for a long while  I wrote as
much back in 2013  and today it has 846 million monthly active
users, the majority of whom are in China. It is also a critical
part of parent firm Tencents mobile monetization strategy. More
to the point, for Facebook, is that it occupies the space that
Facebook is aiming for in China  and then some.

Messaging apps have taken a huge bite into social networks, no
where more so than China where you frequently notice people out
and about in public using WeChat groups, or holding their phone
to their face to use the push-to-talk walkie talkie feature
to communicate.

But WeChat goes beyond messaging. It is the internet, and more.

It includes a Facebook-style timeline feed from friends  Moments
 consumers can connect with branded accounts as they do with
Facebook Pages, theres a payment system, shopping, banking,
appointments and now a new feature that enables developers to
build their own apps for the messaging platform, thereby
disintermediating official app stores.

WeChat is essentially the mobile portal for Chinese consumers, as
A16z partner Connie Chan put it, while Twitter-like Weibo covers
social with 297 million MAUs, so it is hard to see what new
tricks Facebook can bring to the party

Then theres the fact that, in China, your Western brand means
very little.

Just ask Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who agreed to sell his
companys China business to rival Didi. Facebooks global appeal
is muted in China. Apple and the iPhone are thriving in China as
exceptions to the norm, but Facebook doesnt have that same
brand gravitas.

The average person in China has no immediate need for Facebook.
Sure, you can connect with people who are overseas but, at this
point, people who would find Facebook useful to connect with
friends or family overseas almost certainly already use it via a
VPN. Facebooks ad buying service estimates that the social
network has an audience of around 2.1 million users in China, a
tiny portion of the countrys reported 710 million internet
users.

Zuckerbergs burning desire for China seems to be the catalyst
for the development of the censorship tool, which the Times
report stressed may not ever be deployed, but Facebook should
tread very carefully here. Compromising on free speech can only
lose it friends in the West, and the chances of any kind of
success in China are very slim, which by extension could
negatively impact its stock price.

Sticking to its existing strategy of serving advertising
customers in China that want to reach a global audience is a
better bet but, even then, working with state-run publications 
as Facebook does  throws up plenty of issues around media
manipulation and fake news.



      Google Chrome Now Defaults to HTML5 for Most Sites


Google proposed making HTML5 the default over Flash in its Chrome
browser back in May. With the latest release, Chrome 55, the
company has nearly completed the transition. Chrome now defaults
to HTML5 except when a site is Flash-only or if its one of the
top 10 sites on the web. For every other website you visit,
you'll be asked to enable Flash the first time you go there.

HTML5 by default has been a long time coming for the browser. Two
versions ago, Google began blocking Flash that was running
"behind the scenes." The continued change over to HTML5 should
lead to faster load times, better security and improved overall
performance. The update to version 55 also includes CSS automatic
hyphenation that will help with the look of text blocks and line
wrapping.

For Android users, the new version brings wider availability of
a downloads feature that enables offline viewing of web pages,
images and videos. The mobile update is said to be on its way
soon, but Chrome 55 is rolling out now to Mac, Windows and Linux
users on desktop.



                                =~=~=~=




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