Software

• Google deliberately throttled ad load times to promote AMP, claims new court document

  'Nice comparative boost' for AMP claimed to be achieved by actively slowing other formats
  Tim Anderson Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 08:30 UTC 4

  More detail has emerged from a 173-page complaint filed last week in the lawsuit brought against Google by a number of US states, including allegations that Google deliberately throttled advertisements not served to its AMP (Accelerated Mobile) pages.

  The lawsuit – as we explained at the end of last week – was originally filed in December 2020 and concerns alleged anti-competitive practice in digital advertising. The latest document, filed on Friday, makes fresh claims alleging ad-throttling around AMP.

  Google introduced AMP in 2015, with the stated purpose of accelerating mobile web pages. An AMP page is a second version of a web page using AMP components and restricted JavaScript, and is usually served via Google's content delivery network. Until 2018, the AMP project, although open source, had as part of its governance a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life), this being Google's Malte Ubl, the technical lead for AMP.

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• Samsung boss Lee Jae-Yong convicted and fined for drug abuse

  Took Propofol, aka ‘the milk of amnesia’ or 'the drug that killed Michael Jackson'
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 07:48 UTC

  Samsung boss Lee Jae-Yong has been convicted of drug abuse and fined 70 million won (US$60K).

  Lee is the CEO of Samsung Electronics – the largest member of the Samsung group – and is expected to become company chair in the future. He was accused of taking Propofol, an anaesthetic, at a plastic surgery clinic. Lee was alleged to have visited the clinic 41 times between between 2015 and 2020 – rather more visits than needed for touch-ups.

  Propofol is a legitimate anaesthetic but is sometimes abused in pursuit of certain erotic experiences, or as a sedative for those who struggle to sleep.

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• GCHQ director outlines plan to 'go after' links between ransomware crims and state actors

  Sir Jeremy Fleming paints picture of a cultural battle over the internet, AI and the soul of future technology
  Laura Dobberstein Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 06:32 UTC 3

  The UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) boss Sir Jeremy Fleming has outlined a plan to pursue criminal actors who deploy ransomware as well as the state actors that are aware of their efforts.

  Speaking remotely to The Cipher Brief Annual Threat Conference on Monday, Fleming discussed the increasing threat of cybercrime – in particular ransomware – and GCHQ's strategy to reduce threats.

  "We have to be clear on the red lines and behaviours that we want to see. We've got to go after those links between criminal actors and state actors and impose costs," Fleming argued, in order to make ransomware and other cybercrime less profitable.

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• Facebook's greatest misses: The five nastiest bits from recent leaks

  Zuck says criticism is unfair and – look over here at our huge revenue growth, billions for future holo-conferences, and pivot to young adults
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 05:15 UTC 13

  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes the media has made "a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company".

  In prepared remarks [PDF] delivered along with the company's Q3 2021 results, Zuckerberg told investors that reporting on recent leaks – collectively known as "The Facebook Papers" – doesn't honestly reflect the company's efforts to stem misinformation, and that Facebook is not the main driver of societal polarisation.

  Zuckerberg felt the need to make that argument before revealing rapid revenue growth for Q3 2021. (For the record: quarterly revenue of $29.01 billion handily topped Q3 2020's $21.47 billion, while net income grew less rapidly to $9.194 billion from $7.846 billion.)

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• South Korean telco goes down, blames DDoS attack, later admits its BGP broke

  Good thing the government didn't crank up the national alert system or anything ... Oh no, it did
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 00:58 UTC 2

  South Korean telco KT, which has around 30 per cent of the nation’s mobile market, has admitted that a network outage was caused by its own blunder and not a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

  The outage struck the carrier on Monday at 1120, and meant that subscribers had no internet access and struggled to make phone calls or accept payments. Service for some customers resumed 85 minutes later, though the downtime was felt nationwide and restoration times varied.

  The telco initially cried DDoS, and news that it was under attack was taken seriously – as is proper when your nation is technically still at war with hostile neighbors. Korean media reported that the authorities rushed to investigate the attack and the nation's Ministry of ICT even invoked its emergency warning system and rated the incident as a SEV-3 on a five-point scale.

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• Jeff Bezos wants to build a business park in space

  Pretty ambitious – none of this Blue-Origin-led consortium can put humans in orbit yet
  Iain Thomson in San Francisco Tue 26 Oct 2021 // 00:04 UTC 15

  Blue Origin is leading a consortium hoping to put the first commercial space station into orbit. The craft is set to combine research and tourism facilities, and provide an office address in space for businesses.

  Dubbed Orbital Reef, the two initial partners are Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which will get the platform into orbit atop the as-yet unflown New Glenn reusable rocket, and Sierra Space, developers of a mini-shuttle spacecraft and the inflatable habitats the space station will need.

  Bezos just lately enjoyed a brief, incredibly expensive trip to space, so obviously the tech tycoon's next step is to create a sub-WeWork in orbit.

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• Amazon warehouse workers in New York to labor watchdog: We want our union vote

  Unions face test on Staten Island after defeat in Bessemer, Alabama
  Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Mon 25 Oct 2021 // 23:18 UTC 2

  On Monday, a group representing workers at Amazon's warehouses on Staten Island, New York, electronically delivered a petition with at least 2,000 signatures to America's National Labor Relations Board in an effort to demonstrate there's enough employee support to hold a vote on whether to unionize.

  In an email to The Register, a spokesperson for the NLRB confirmed the filing had been made to its Region 29 facility in Brooklyn, New York. We understand the petition is likely to be published on the NLRB website on Tuesday.

  The board did not yet have a count of the signatures in the petition but the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) requires at least 30 per cent of the workers who would be represented by the proposed union to ask the NLRB to oversee an election. With Amazon's Staten Island workforce estimated to be around 7,000, about 2,100 people would need to support the petition to hold a unionization vote. To establish a union, at least half the workforce will need to vote in favor.

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• If you're using this hijacked NPM library anywhere in your software stack, read this

  US govt issues alert over JS package downloaded 8m times a week – plus more news from world of infosec
  Iain Thomson in San Francisco Mon 25 Oct 2021 // 22:13 UTC 3

  In brief The US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned developers that a version of the ua-parser-js JavaScript library, available via NPM, was infected with data-stealing and cryptocurrency-mining malware.

  The package, which is fetched nearly eight million times a week, is used by software to extract information about users' browsers, operating systems, and host hardware from their clients' user-agent strings. It's useful for web apps to predict or figure out the devices connecting to them.

  The NPM account hosting it was seemingly compromised by miscreants, who modified the package so that when installed, it would bring in various bits of malware on whatever system was running the code.

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• Non-profit's IT manager accused of embezzling $400k by buying gear, services from his own fake companies

  Boss used org's credit card to buy stuff from Amazon, Square accounts he set up, say prosecutors
  Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Mon 25 Oct 2021 // 20:10 UTC 10

  An IT manager in the US was arrested on Friday for allegedly embezzling about $370,000 from an unidentified non-profit organization.

  Prosecutors said Kyriakos 'Rick' Kapiris, 35, of Northborough, Massachusetts, was indicted on two counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.

  Released on $10,000 bond to await the resolution of the charges, Kapiris is alleged to have used his Sturbridge-based organization's credit cards to purchase IT equipment and services from firms he supposedly created to fake sales and embezzle funds.

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• The future: Windows streaming through notched Apple screens

  Choice is the word for Jamf's Dean Hager
  Richard Speed Mon 25 Oct 2021 // 18:45 UTC 5

  Interview As Apple's devices continue to find favour with enterprise users, the fortress that is Windows appears to be under attack in the corporate world.

  Speaking to The Register as the Jamf Nation User Conference wound down, the software firm's CEO, Dean Hager, is - unsurprisingly - ebullient when it comes to the prospects for Apple gear in the world of suits.

  Jamf specialises in device management and authentication, and has long been associated with managing Apple hardware in business and education environments. In recent years it has begun connecting its products with services such as Microsoft's Azure Active Directory as administrators face up to a hybrid working future.

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• There’s a wave of ransomware coming down the pipeline. What can you do about it?

  AI can help. Here’s how…
  David Gordon Mon 25 Oct 2021 // 18:00 UTC

  Webinar The Colonial Pipeline attack earlier this year showed just how devastating a ransomware attack is when it is targeted at critical infrastructure.

  It also illustrated how traditional security techniques are increasingly struggling to keep pace with determined cyber attackers, whether their aim is exfiltrating data, extorting organisations, or simply causing chaos. Or, indeed an unpleasant combination of all three.

  So, what are your options? More people looking for more flaws isn’t going to be enough – there simply aren’t enough skilled people, there are too many bugs, and there are way too many attackers. So, it’s clear that smart cyber defenders need to be supplemented by even smarter technology incorporating AI. You can learn what this looks like by checking out this upcoming webinar, Securing Critical Infrastructure from Cyber-attack, on October 28 at 5pm BST.

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