John Lister

Apple has been forced to fix a major security flaw in the latest edition of the Mac operating system. The fix makes it far easier for a thief to access a computer's files. The bug is in MacOS High Sierra, which was released two months ago. It's ... widely used as its compatible with most Mac computers released in the past eight years or so. The problem is with root access on the system. That's the highest level of access, giving complete control of the computer and even the opportunity to alter key system files. Normally only the most confident users would enable root access (which then acts a ... (view more)

Google researchers are working on a way to warn users when someone else might be sneaking a peek at your smartphone. They say it can spot a gaze in just two milliseconds. The project is the work of Hee Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff, who'll ... demonstrate their work at a conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. It's based on a remarkably simple concept with some smart technology. Front Camera is Key to Tool In its current form, the system runs on a Google Pixel phone and takes advantage of the front-facing camera - the one typically used for face / video conferencing before it became ... (view more)

Facebook is to use artificial intelligence to spot posts made by people who might be suicidal. However, it will continue using human moderators to decide how to act over such posts. The site already has a tool that moderators can activate to display ... special messages to people whose wellbeing may be in question. These messages include details of local professional support services and help lines. The messages also encourage the user to talk over their problems with a friend and even include suggested wordings for how to ask for help. Facebook says this tool was developed with the help of ... (view more)

A key security feature in Windows doesn't work as planned. It's not a vulnerability in itself, but means that hackers who find bugs in software are much more likely to be able to do damage. The problem is with Address Space Layout Randomization ... (ASLR). It deals with the way a computer organizes different programs in memory. As an analogy, it's like organizing vehicles of different sizes and makes in a parking lot. Most operating systems support ASLR, which means that when a program starts up and needs to use the computer's memory, it's assigned a random location. In the analogy, think of cars ... (view more)

Google has admitted it tracked the location of cellphone users even when they had location services switched off. It says it's now stopped an 11-month program designed to improve "message delivery." Having location services switched on allows an ... Android phone to collect information about a user's location, commonly combining GPS data, details of nearby WiFi networks, and the location of nearby cellphone towers - all of which can be detected by a phone. Google - and third party app makers - use this data for tools such as mapping, navigation and finding nearby outlets of a particular chain of ... (view more)

More than 400 leading websites could be compromising user security by collecting everything the user types - whether or not the user is aware. A Princeton University study also found the collected information was not always adequately protected and ... anonymized. The problem highlighted by the study was the use of third-party tools that website owners can use to find out more about how people navigate their site. These tools often track precisely where the user moves a mouse cursor along with information they type in, even if they then delete it. In principle these "session replay" tools can be ... (view more)

The final route to getting a free upgrade to Windows 10 will officially end on December 31, 2017. That's when Microsoft has decided to ditch a special program that many users have been using as a free upgrade loophole. Officially home users could ... only get the free upgrade (from Windows 7 or 8.1) between July 2016 and July 2017 - the one year after the new system launched. That meant avoiding the standalone price of $119 for the Home edition or $199 for the Professional Edition. No Proof Needed For Loophole However, eagle-eyed users noted after this date it was still possible to upgrade by ... (view more)

Mozilla has launched a new version of the Firefox browser aimed at winning over Google Chrome users. It says the new version is twice as fast as earlier versions of Firefox that were available this year. The key is the "web rendering engine," which ... is the part of the browser that interprets the code on a website page and visually combines it on the user's computer. Mozilla has replaced its old engine with a new one dubbed Firefox Quantum. It's also put together videos showing that Firefox is now quicker than Chrome to fully load most (but not all) of the more popular websites. ... (view more)

Facebook has come up with a controversial way to help people whose compromising pictures are shared online without their permission. The term is dubbed "revenge porn" - and to solve the problem, Facebook wants users to upload naked pictures of ... themselves to Facebook servers. Yes, you read that correctly. The test program is known as the "Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot." It's designed to counter cases where somebody - often a former partner - tries to humiliate the victim by sharing images of them in revealing situations on the victim Facebook wall. Such behavior can be ... (view more)

Chrome browser users should see fewer cases of web pages unexpectedly being replaced by ads and other annoyances with some upcoming updates. The changes aim to tackle unwanted content appearing in three ways. The first change deals with the problem ... of the page the user wants to visit suddenly being replaced by another page, usually advertising and often with no clear way of going back to the desired content. This is usually caused by rogue content in code on third-party ads that are meant to appear besides the content on the original web page. Auto-Redirection Won't Work Once Chrome gets the ... (view more)