John Lister

An unfortunate error has led to a massive leak of confidential data online. It's led to calls from users to review their passwords and change the most sensitive ones. The leak involves Cloudflare, which ironically is a security company. It offers a ... service by which it acts a little like a gatekeeper for websites, passing on valid requests for data and blocking those designed to cause disruption. In particular, it combats denial of service attacks (DoS) that aim to bring a website down by sheer weight of incoming traffic - usually bogus traffic. As part of Cloudflare's operations, it ... (view more)

The British government says insurers should have to pay out if a customer's self-driving car crashes, whether or not the human was in control. It's the latest in a series of legal questions raised by the technology. The government has published the ... Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill and will now try to make it law through the country's parliamentary system. If adopted, the rules would mean the government would legally classify cars as self-driving on a model-by-model basis. With any car that fits into this category, the legally-required insurance policy would have to be set up ... (view more)

Chrome browser users have been warned to watch out for a sneaky malware attack. The trick involves a bogus on-screen message that claims the user needs to download a missing font. The people responsible are using hacked websites on the WordPress ... platform to operate the scam. They've altered the page so that the text appears to have been corrupted and is made up largely of symbols such as black diamonds and question marks. The page then displays an on-screen message that's carefully designed to look like a genuine Chrome error message, complete with the correct logos, shapes and even ... (view more)

Controversial file sharing site owner Kim Dotcom has come another step closer to being extradited to the United States. It comes despite a New Zealand court agreeing with one of Dotcom's key arguments against extradition. Dotcom, who changed his ... name from Kim Schmitz, was the man behind one of the biggest alleged piracy websites, "Megaupload." It was a site where users could upload files, either as a form of back-up, or as a way to share files with other people. Not surprisingly, many users found that Megaupload was an excellent way to illegally share copies of copyrighted music ... (view more)

Researchers have found a way to track web users even if they switch web browsers. It could improve security but also weaken online privacy. The researchers at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania were trying to find ways of improving fingerprinting. ... That's a way to attempt to identify an individual user (or at least their computer) without relying on single identifiers such as login details, browser cookies, or an IP address. Instead, fingerprinting involves taking multiple pieces of information provided by a user's browser such as the browser name, it's version, whether they have an ad blocker ... (view more)

IBM's artificial intelligence system Watson is to lend its hand to security. It will help scour millions of reports to try to learn more about current online threats. The Watson system was originally designed to see if a computer could compete on ... Jeopardy!, the show where contestants are given an answer and have to try to figure out the question. It was considered a challenge for computers because, although they can store a lot of information and process it quickly, they don't always have the human ability to decipher meaning and context. In the event, Watson prevailed against two human ... (view more)

Facebook is to make it easier for people to offer practical help after a crisis or natural disaster. It's an update to an existing tool for people to check up on loved ones. When triggered, the "Safety Check" feature will check which Facebook users ... are in the relevant physical area, based on their IP address or the location information on their mobile device. They'll then be asked to choose options of "I'm safe" or "I'm not in the area." Their Facebook friends will then see them listed as safe. The idea is that publicizing somebody as being " ... (view more)

Vizio is to pay $2.2 million in fines after tracking viewing habits on 11 million smart TVs without their owners' knowledge or permission. They then sold the details, including personal information, to advertisers. As part of a settlement, Vizio has ... now agreed to inform customers about the practice and promises to always get their express consent before tracking any viewing. It will also have to delete much of the data it has already collected. Vizio had relied on the idea that customers retained enough control because there was a setting named "Smart Interactivity" that could ... (view more)

A US court has ordered Google to hand over emails that it stores on computers in another country. That's a contrast to a previous ruling involving Microsoft, and highlights the complexity of applying national laws to Internet issues. The case ... involves an FBI search warrant that applies to a criminal suspect. Google had refused to comply with the warrant on two grounds: that there wasn't enough evidence for a seizure to overcome the restrictions placed by the constitution, and that the emails were physically stored outside of the US and thus couldn't be covered by a domestic ... (view more)

An artificial intelligence program has beaten professional poker players for the first time. It may sound trivial but marks a major advance in technology that could have practical benefits. Computers beat human experts at chess many years ago, and ... last year a computer beat the world champion at the far more complex board game "Go" for the first time. That was significant because the sheer number of possible moves available in Go means ever the most powerful computer can't assess every possible move. Instead the program had to learn to use human tactics such as heuristics (in ... (view more)