Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - December 2nd, ’17

[JackSpratts]

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December 2nd, 2017




Kodi ARRESTS and Pirate Bay CRACKDOWN Aren't Working, as Almost HALF Still Stream for Free

DESPITE the recent crackdown on piracy in the UK – with a spate of arrests, warnings around the fire risks linked to so-called Kodi Boxes, and blocks on popular torrent domains, like The Pirate Bay – almost half of all users who watch content illegally are happy to continue breaking the law, an exclusive survey for Express.co.uk has revealed.
Aaron Brown

Blocks to add-ons for Kodi, as well as restrictions on torrent repositories like The Pirate Bay have failed to stop a significant number of users from watching content illegally.

Some 47 per cent of those who watch content online illegally have not been perturbed by the recent blocks and restrictions, an exclusive survey for Express.co.uk has revealed.

The survey was conducted by price comparison site Finder.com – the biggest comparison site in Australia, which launched in the UK back in February 2017.

It surveyed some 2,000 adults from across the UK.

According to the research, the recent efforts to blocks Kodi Box add-ons and torrent sites have stopped 52 per cent of those who watched paid-for content illegally from pirating in future. Meanwhile, more than 47 per cent haven’t been put off by the new restrictions and penalties in place in the UK.

According to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), more than one million illicit streaming boxes have been sold in the UK within the last two years.

For those unaware, Kodi is a neutral, open-source media player that can be installed on a broad range of devices – from discount set-top boxes powered by Android, to known brands, like Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Apps – known as add-ons – can be built by third-party developers to allow users to stream premium content, like paid-for sports and movie channels for free.

The abundance of these illegal streaming add-ons has left Kodi with an unfortunate reputation.

So-called Kodi Boxes are devices, manufactured by a number of different brands, with all the requisite third-party software to stream paid-for content for free preinstalled on the set-top box.

Likewise, torrent files are not in and of themselves intrinsically illegally. But those used to download copyrighted content for free without the permission of the rights holders are.

Torrents do not contain the file you wish to download, but instead, enables your computer to download the requested data in small chunks from a network of online participants.

Popular torrent websites like Kickass Torrents, ExtraTorrent and Torrentz.eu have all shutdown within the last year.

The Pirate Bay – the most well-known example of a torrent repository – is currently banned in the UK by most Internet Service Providers, or ISPs.

Those who download copyrighted content using a torrent site might find themselves the recipient of a warning letter from their broadband provider.

Dubbed Get It Right, the anti-piracy sees UK ISPs mail-out warnings to subscribers whose accounts have been used to download copyrighted material.

The email cautions subscribers they have 20 days to stop downloading copyrighted material using peer-to-peer websites.

Should your Internet service provider detect more illegal activity from your IP address during the 20 day grace period – another educational email from the Get It Right campaign will be sent.

A similar campaign in the United States only offers torrent site users seven-days to comply.

According to the campaign website, "The Get it Right Educational Email programme is designed to educate consumers about what’s happening on their Internet Service Provider (ISP) account.

"The programme is to help to make sure they, or people that use their connection, are not infringing copyright and to direct them to sources where they get the content they want from genuine sites and services."

Sky, BT, NowTV, PlusNet, Talk-Talk and Virgin Media have all signed-up to the Get It Right campaign.

The news comes as research from Electrical Safety First, the UK’s electrical safety experts, and FACT, the UK's leading intellectual property protection organisation, has demonstrated the risk posed by these illicit streaming devices.

Researchers conducted a series of product safety tests on a number of popular Kodi-style streaming boxes – and found 100 per cent failed to meet national electrical safety regulations.

That represents a significant risk to the general public.

Product Safety Manager at Electrical Safety First, Steve Curtler said: “This year consumers thinking about buying an illegal streaming device for Christmas need to know that by plugging them into their TV they could be potentially be putting themselves, their home and their family at risk.

“We urge anyone with one of these devices to unplug it and stop using it immediately.

“Not only are these devices breaking the law, but they could be putting your loved ones at risk.”

Earlier this year, the EU issued a recall for the OTT TV Box 4K – a Chinese-made Kodi Box – because of a serious risk of electric shock.

It called for owners of the set-top box to stop using it immediately.

The Kodi Boxes in question had faulty power supply units which did not comply with Europe’s Low Voltage Directive, meaning users were at risk from touching live components.

Director General of FACT, Kieron Sharp said: “The fact that so many illegal streaming devices have all failed to meet UK safety standards is shocking.

“Alongside the risks of exposing your home network to damaging malware and your children to inappropriate content, it should now be clear that the dangers these illegal devices pose far outweigh any benefit of buying them.

“We believe hundreds of thousands of illicit streaming devices were sold between Black Friday and Christmas last year.

“This year, if you want to safely and reliably enjoy premium sports, TV or films go directly to the official provider.”

Earlier this year, a 55-year-old shop owner was spared time behind bars after pleading guilty to selling so-called Kodi Boxes.

Brian Thompson had originally denied the offences, setting up the prospect of a landmark court case relating to the sale of Kodi-powered devices.

The 55-year-old runs Cut Price Tomo's TV store in Middlesbrough.

At Teesside Crown Court, Brian Thompson was sentenced for one count of selling and one count of advertising devices “designed, produced or adapted for the purpose of enabling the circumvention of effective technological measures”.

Judge Peter Armstrong told him: “If anyone was under any illusion as to whether such devices as these, fully loaded Kodi boxes, were illegal or not, they can no longer be in any doubt.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that in all the circumstances, an immediate custodial sentence is not called for.

“As a warning to others in future, they may not be so lucky.”

The judge gave Thompson an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style...y-Ban-Block-UK





Google: We Could do More on Piracy
Colin Mann

Matt Brittin, President of EMEA Business & Operations, Google, has admitted that the web giant could do more in its efforts to combat breaches of copyright on its YouTube platform.

Speaking at a Royal Television Society Event in London, Brittin noted that there had never been a better time to build an audience. “There’s three and a half billion people online; five billion online in 2020, and you can reach all of those people frictionlessly. That’s an enormous opportunity.”

He suggested that Google was regulated, but not in the same way as newspapers or TV. “I think that’s appropriate … we do have laws and responsibilities that we comply with. When we have interaction with government, I think they are really constructive when they say: ‘Hey, we read in the Daily Mail that … What actually is going on here?’. You get the chance to take them through ‘This is how it actually works’. That’s really helpful.”

As an example of how Google worked with government, Brittin said that copyright on YouTube was something that everyone worried about. “We listened hard to the industry and government and we built Content ID, which is extremely popular. I’m sure we could always improve it, but it’s a good example of how working with industry, how we can protect rights under existing regulations, but with new technology, allow content creators to do new things; allow fans to have new experiences, and create something that is taking us forwards. There’s a model for doing that well. I’m sure that we’ll continue to have to answer questions. All I ask is that we get chance to answer the questions. If we’re wrong, and we can improve, we want to engage in the debate.”

Discussing Google’s efforts to move people away from pirated content, Brittin said “Combatting bad acts and piracy is obviously very important to us. What we do with Content ID to stop people pirating content against the wishes of the content creator. On search, we do a similar thing, which is when we have something notified to us as pirated content, we demote or remove the source from the search in music and video. These are the key ways we try to combat people finding pirated content.”

He admitted that across the entire Internet, which Google tried to index, it was difficult to know that something has arisen that someone owns the rights to, but that when notified that this was the case, it would take action. “The music industry has been quite tough with us on this. They’d like us proactively to know this stuff. It’s just not possible in this industry. What we’ve tried to do is build tools that allow them to do that at scale easily and that work all together … I’m sure there are places where we could do better. There are teams and millions of dollars invested in this.”
http://advanced-television.com/2017/...ore-on-piracy/





Consumer Group Warns of Pirated Content Risk
Colin Mann

US consumer-orientated coalition the Digital Citizens Alliance has launched new efforts to educate law enforcement, regulators, and parents about the dangers of pirated content, releasing a new video demonstrating the potential dangers of pirated movies and television shows that gets into peoples’ homes.

According to the Alliance, the rise of illegal streaming devices (ISDs) has made it easier than ever for kids to get access to illicit videos (including child pornography) and unlicensed content which is often loaded with malware that infects our electronic devices.

The video, Protect Your Data from Digital Pirating Devices and Apps, can be found on the Digital Citizens website and YouTube page.

This new educational effort comes as increasingly more ISDs – including Kodi boxes with unauthorised addons – find their way into the homes of unsuspecting consumers. Toronto-based tech company Sandvine reports that six per cent of North American households have a ‘Kodi’ device configured to access unlicensed content.

Earlier in November 2017, TVAddons (a popular library well-known for linking Kodi pirates to a wide range of unauthorised apps) claimed that millions of consumers are using ‘jailbroken’ Apple TV 2 devices with a huge security flaw which puts them at greater risk for spam, DDoS attacks, malware and access to child pornography. Apple TV 2 devices are popular with Kodi pirates. A jailbroken device can access unauthorised apps, but also lose some of the security protections created by Apple.

“There is nothing on jailbroken equipment to protect your kids from illicit and/or malicious material,” said Digital Citizens Alliance Executive Director Tom Galvin. “Pornography lives right next to popular movies. There is nothing distinguishing whether the content comes from a licensed provider or if it is stolen and laced with malware. Once that material comes in to your home and infects your devices, it’s not easy to clear it out.”

Some consumers have bought ISDs from stores and websites that also sell legitimate streaming devices, with no idea what kind of content is on those boxes they’ve brought home.

Galvin called on federal and state regulators to join with Attorneys General from more than two dozen states who have taped commercials running on television and social media asking citizens to be more alert and vigilant regarding pirated materials.

“More than half of the States’ Attorneys General and the Federal Trade Commission are telling consumers ‘beware of pirated content,’” Galvin said. “We’ve seen a lot of progress in 2017, but the bad actors are evolving even faster. Criminals will always look for new ways to funnel illegal and illicit content and they’ll target our most naïve and innocent people to be their audience. We need to let consumers know there are more options for legal and safe content than ever before. With awareness of the dangers, we believe consumers will shop for safer entertainment options.”
http://advanced-television.com/2017/...-content-risk/





InternetNZ and Vocus Slam Sky’s Anti-Piracy Moves
Stuart Corner

InternetNZ has joined Vocus is its criticism of legal action by Sky TV aimed at forcing New Zealand’s largest ISPs to block access to web sites hosting pirated content

InternetNZ CEO Jordan Carter described the move as “an extreme step in response to a problem of limited scale, and one that is unlikely to achieve the stated goal.”

Vocus consumer general manager Taryn Hamilton said Sky was seeking to be able to “pick and choose the websites Kiwis can access via Spark, Vocus, Vodafone and 2Degrees networks.”

He said the request was in direct opposition to the idea that the Internet is a free and open resource, accessible without censorship.”

Sky responded to Vocus’ claims by saying Vocus had “got it wrong,” noting: “Over 40 countries around the world have put in place laws to block [piracy] sites [including Australia and the UK] and we’re just looking to do the same.”

Sky claimed that Internet piracy threatened thousand of New Zealand jobs and entire industries. “With piracy, not only is the sport and entertainment content that we love at risk, but so are the livelihoods of the thousands of people employed by these industries,” Sky said.

“Illegally sharing or viewing content impacts a vast number of people and jobs including athletes, actors, artists, production crew, customer service representatives, event planners, caterers and many, many more.”

Carter said blocking would likely not achieve its purpose and could even make matters worse. “Site blocking is very easily evaded by people with the right skills or tools. Those who are deliberate pirates will be able to get around site blocking without difficulty,” he said.

"If blocking is ordered, it risks driving content piracy further underground, with the help of easily-deployed and common Internet tools. This could well end up making the issues that Sky is facing even harder to police in the future.”

He said InternetNZ was taking legal advice to understand better whether the Court has the ability to order such a block.

Vocus also said blocking would be futile and claimed that legal, affordable streaming services were undermining use of pirating sites.

“According to Vocus stats, New Zealand interest in The Pirate Bay has less than halved since Netflix launched in New Zealand. Today traffic to The Pirate Bay is only 23 per cent of its 2013 peak and Netflix has fast become the largest content provider in the country,” Vocus said.
https://www.computerworld.com.au/art...-piracy-moves/





Mall Theater Accused of Showing Pirated Movies
Jonathan Rozelle

A South Arkansas mall is being accused of showing what some believe are bootleg movies at its theater.

Moviegoers at the Pines Mall in Pine Bluff said the owner is making profits off of pirated movies and they're not happy.

If it's the latest movie out, you'll probably find in playing at the Pines Mall.

It's one reason Shay Burrough decided to take her 4-year-old daughter to see the movie "The Star" there last Friday.

"I want to make it a tradition take my daughter to watch a movie on Thanksgiving, or you know Thanksgiving break," said Burrough.

She took a picture of something on the screen that quickly caught her eye.

"I noticed that there was a logo on the top screen and it was really blurry," said Burrough. "At the bottom, it had a download sensor showing me how much had played."

Burrough spoke with the mall's owner, Judy Vu.

"She told me she didn't have the key yet for the original and I told her if I would have known she didn't have the original, I would have gone somewhere else to watch the movie," said Burrough.

Burrough watched the rest of the movie, but when it got about midway through ...

"I could start hearing people laughing in the background of the recording and a lot of scuffling going on," said Burrough.

She was convinced she'd just watched a bootleg movie.

"I felt disappointed for daughter, because I wanted her to see this movie that is now illegal to watch

"I don't understand bootleg, what is it?" said Vu.

Vu the problems were caused by a broken piece on the movie projector, not pirating.

"The clamp ... makes the movie sometimes clear or not clear," said Vu.

Vu said she buys her movies from distribution companies. She then downloads them to her computer and controls which of the eight screens a movie is shown on.

"I feel very bad," said Vu.

But Burrough isn't buying it.

"I just feel like she needs to pay the penalty, for what it is, if anybody did that," said Burrough.

Pine Bluff police said investigators are looking into piracy claims about the theater.
http://www.arkansasmatters.com/news/...vies/866149254





Disney Sues to Block Redbox’s Digital Movie Sales
Todd Spangler

Disney has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Redbox from selling digital codes for purchasing Disney movies to download or stream.

In October, Redbox launched a service offering “digital codes” (redbox.com/digital-movie-codes) for customers to be able to purchase Disney movies at from its nationwide network of kiosks. The kiosks dispense a printed code with information on how to stream or download them to various devices from Disney’s services or affiliated sites.

In response, a Redbox spokeswoman said, “While we don’t comment on pending litigation, we feel very confident in our pro-consumer position.” The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Disney said in a statement, “Redbox is selling our digital movie codes in blatant disregard of clear prohibitions against doing so. Their actions violate our contracts and copyrights, and we have filed this action to stop Redbox’s unauthorized conduct.”

Disney’s lawsuit, filed Thursday in a federal district court in Los Angeles, alleges copyright infringement and seeks an injunction on Redbox’s sale of its movies. Disney is asking for damages of up to $150,000 per title sold by Redbox for “willful infringement” (or monetary damages to be determined at trial), and also wants Redbox to fork over the money it has made from sales of its movies.

Disney titles that Redbox offers for sale through the digital codes service include “Cars 3” for $14.99; “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” for $7.99; “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” for $7.99; and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” for $4.99.

Redbox hasn’t had a direct distribution deal with Disney since 2012. For DVD titles from the Mouse House that Redbox offers for rent, the company purchases discs on the open market.

According to Disney’s lawsuit, Redbox purchases Disney DVD and Blu-ray Disc “Combo Packs,” which include a code for accessing digital copies of the movies. Redbox then separates the physical discs (which it rents) from the codes, and re-packages the code inserts into Redbox cases for resale, the complaint states. Disney noted that the packaging on the Combo Packs include the notice that “Codes are not for sale or transfer.”

Redbox’s move to sell access to Disney movies may have been intended to apply pressure on Disney to reach a direct deal for DVD distribution. Disney operates its own digital movie service, Movies Anywhere, which in addition to titles Disney (including Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm) offers selections from Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Earlier this year, Redbox inked new deals with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Lionsgate for day-and-date rentals (available same day as retail Blu-ray and DVD release) and with Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox for rentals seven days after home-video release.

Redbox, based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., is owned by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management, which bought former Redbox parent company Outerwall last year.

Redbox says it averages more than 1 million rentals per day, charging $1.50 per day for DVD rentals and $2 per day for Blu-ray rentals; the kiosks also vend video-game discs. The company expects to have installed more than 1,500 net new rental kiosks in 2017, to have about 41,500 kiosks across the U.S., with more planned in 2018.

Disney filed suit against Redbox in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, in Los Angeles. The case number is 2:17-cv-08655.
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news...ds-1202627882/





Popular File Sharing Site Hacked, 995,000 User Accounts Compromised

Have I Been Pwned (HIPD), the website that allows users to check if their login credentials have been compromised has said that file-sharing site Bolt has been hacked, putting around one million accounts in jeopardy.

HIPB is a site that allows users to find out if their personal data has been accessed via unauthorised parties by collating data from hundreds of millions of leaked accounts. You can check your information using your email address or username.

New breach: File sharing site Bolt was hacked in appx March exposing 955k accounts with salted MD5 hashed passwords. 77% were already in @haveibeenpwned https://t.co/hv1u9SEsMR

— Have I been pwned? (@haveibeenpwned) November 24, 2017

Most of the information in the tweet was clear although “salted” maybe a term that many are unfamiliar with.

“Salt” refers to data which may have been used to help disguise or protect passwords using something called “hash”.

Hash, is a technique that which makes a unit of information or data encrypted.

Using a salt, means companies can store passwords in an encrypted form, rather than using plaintext which would make it easy for them to be accessed should they be compromised by hackers.

File sharing is becoming increasingly common both for business and personal uses. Insightpartners.com revealed that the industry was worth $1.35 billion in 2015 but by 2025 that is expected to be $10.57 billion.

Generally, the security of sites such as Google Drive and Dropbox is extremely high with these sites being viewed as safe ways to store sensitive digital documents. However, as their popularity increases so too does their attraction to hackers aiming to steal sensitive data for their own gain.

Even back in 2004, sites were targeted by worms such as Phatbot and, as you can imagine, in 2017 the amount of data contained on file sharing networks has increased dramatically.

Currently, it is not known who is responsible for the cyber attack on Bolt.
https://tech.thaivisa.com/popular-fi...romised/25896/





Patent ‘Trolls’ Recede as Threat to Innovation. Will Justices Change That?
Eduardo Porter

In August, real estate agents in Texas fended off a company’s demands for royalty payments for a feature of many websites: the ability to show prospective home buyers where local schools, parks and grocery stores are. Administrative law judges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office found that the patent claims were simply not valid.

A few months before, in February, judges at the patent office put an end to “Project Paperless,” an attempt to extract royalties from small businesses using off-the-shelf scanners to scan documents to email. The litigants pressing for payment, the judges determined, had no right to the technology.

In September last year, they stopped Teva Pharmaceutical from extending its exclusive right to sell the blockbuster multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone, and fend off generic drug manufacturers for years after its original patent expired, simply by patenting the method to administer it in a 40-milligram dose three times a week.

In the five years since it began its work — a result of the America Invents Act of 2011 — the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has saved companies more than $2 billion in legal fees alone, according to Joshua Landau, patent counsel at the Computer and Communications Industry Association, offering an expeditious and relatively cheap avenue to challenge patents of doubtful validity.

The benefits of stopping bad patents from snaking their way through the economy have been even greater.

Companies no longer have to pay ransom so the threat of lawsuits over dubious royalty payments — filed by aggressive litigants known as trolls — will go away. Consumers no longer have to pay for bogus intellectual property covering, say, a method to take their pills. The appeal board has rejected questionable patent claims over technology to clean up polluted groundwater and wastewater, over podcasting, and over a system that Los Angeles wanted to introduce that looks a lot like E-ZPass.

“It probably hasn’t made patent trolls go away, but it’s changed their demands,” noted Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University. “Now they sue and ask for $50,000 rather than sue and ask for $1 million.”

After years of aggressive intellectual-property claims, experts argue that the new panel is helping to push patent law in a much-needed direction: to relax its stifling effects on the economy.

“At a high level, we have made an impressive amount of progress over the last five to 10 years in getting the patent system more into balance,” said Carl Shapiro, an expert on competition policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

But for all the benefits of culling faulty intellectual-property rights, the board is under existential threat. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge that the patent office’s new procedure is unconstitutional because invalidating a patent amounts to an unlawful takeover of private property.

The accusers in the case, Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group, argue that taking private property is something only a court — not a government agency like the patent office — can do.

It’s hard to tell how the Supreme Court will rule. Patents are not standard-issue private property, like a plot of land. They are granted by the government to encourage innovation, a public good, because inventors might not invent without a period of exclusivity over the fruits of their idea.

Beyond the constitutional questions, I would suggest to the justices on the court that they consider the ramifications of their decision on the United States economy.

Charging royalties for ideas that are obvious or were concocted so long ago that they are already in the public domain — like making a call by touching numbers on your smartphone screen, or fastening your trousers with a zipper — exact a cost but provide no benefit. Striking down a bad patent is less about confiscating property than about discovering that the property right should not have been awarded in the first place.

Stringent intellectual-property laws seem to be doing little to encourage real innovation and entrepreneurship. Indeed, an increasingly robust body of research finds that the gradual strengthening of patents has hindered innovation rather than foster it.

The patents Teva was trying to uphold, which the patent office tribunal shot down, were designed not to establish its exclusive rights over a new technology but to prolong its exclusive rights to an old one. Its case is not unusual: Researchers are finding that more and more pharmaceutical companies are recycling and repurposing old medicines rather than inventing new ones.

Researchers at the University of California Hastings College of the Law found that three-quarters of the drugs associated with new patents in the records of the Food and Drug Administration were not new drugs coming on the market, but existing drugs. Pharmaceutical companies extended their exclusivity over blockbuster drugs 80 percent of the time, attaching new patents on dosage and other aspects that had nothing to do with the original invention.

Here’s how it works: Pharmaceutical companies start moving doctors to the tweaked formulation before the initial patent runs out, so that by the time it expires nobody is prescribing the original drug. That gives them an extra 20 years of exclusivity in which they can charge patients and their insurance companies exorbitant fees. Society has nothing to gain.

In a brief to the court, the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge — a nonprofit group arguing for broader access to affordable medicines — argued that the patent office’s panel “is an important and necessary tool in the fight to lower drug prices because it allows the timely removal of unmerited patents, which promotes competition.”

Tahir Amin, a co-executive director of the initiative, added that “there are a lot of patent trolls trying to extort rents from low-quality patents.”

The Supreme Court has in recent years shown itself sympathetic to the argument that patent protections have become too restrictive. On half a dozen occasions since 2013, it has overturned decisions by Federal District Courts granting patent rights over what were ultimately fairly intuitive processes.

Notably, the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International held that where a patent claim is based on an abstract idea, which is not patentable, using generic computer implementation does not transform that idea into a patentable invention.

Corporate interests are not aligned in this case, though. Pharmaceutical companies despise the patent office’s new powers. Information-technology corporations, which incorporate thousands of ideas into one gadget and see themselves as victims of patent trolls, are strong supporters of this relatively cheap and expedient avenue to challenge patents once they have been written.

The Goliaths of technology are, of course, out for themselves alone. Yet in this case they are aligned with the economy’s interest. For too long, innovation has been narrowed to fit patent holders’ argument for sacrosanct property rights. For these rights to hold, however, at the very least we need a system to undo those that prove to be invalid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/b...eme-court.html





For years, HBO was a Juggernaut. But its Future after ‘Game of Thrones’ is a Lot Less Clear.
Steven Zeitchik

This fall, executives at HBO grew interested in purchasing a buzzy series from Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston about the wormy world of network morning programs, according to a person familiar with the network's strategy.

But any hope of landing the scripted project was shot down when the technology giant Apple swooped in with a sizzling offer. Not only did the maker of the Mac and iPhone toss more money at producers, it offered a two-season commitment without so much as a pilot - the kind of creative carte blanche HBO has been reluctant to provide.

By many measures, HBO appears to be a television juggernaut, powered by "Game of Thrones," one of the biggest hits in the history of cable. But as the fantasy series began shooting its final six-episode season last month, the network faced a series of new hurdles. It has no obvious successor to "Thrones," and it must contend with a highly competitive landscape in which Apple, Amazon and Netflix pour billions into content.

Industry experts say HBO's problems, among other things, pose a challenge to the Justice Department's effort to block AT&T's acquisition of the network's parent, Time Warner. Justice put HBO's power at the center of its legal action last week, citing the network 18 times in its enforcement action, which said that an Internet and cable giant like AT&T could withhold HBO to disadvantage other providers. The department's case could be substantially weakened if HBO turns out to be on shakier ground.

"HBO has been the holy grail - they invented the business of subscription television," said James Goss, a senior analyst at Barrington Research in Chicago. "But the world is changing. A lot of channels are competing on the programming front."
Justice Department suing AT&T to block $85 billion bid for Time Warner

HBO, which declined to comment, in some ways remains in a privileged position. "Game of Thrones" continues to hit ratings highs. The show's popularity - and the subscribers it has drawn - fueled a revenue jump of 12 percent in the third quarter, according to SEC filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the network now tops 130 million global subscribers. And HBO remains a top destination for artists with provocative new ideas.

"I still think of them as a leader in cutting-edge content," said Jordan Peele, the comedian and actor who directed the film "Get Out" and recently sold a new show he is producing, the race-themed horror tale "Lovecraft Country," to the HBO. " 'Lovecraft' is a great example of their mandate in pushing boundaries."

But industry experts say that when it comes to the key metric of shows in their prime - several seasons in, with an established fan base but still a large number of seasons ahead - HBO is lacking. It has several scripted series past the five-season mark with dim long-range prospects ("Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Veep") and a slew of unproven newer shows ("Westworld," "The Deuce," "Vice Principals"). Only "Silicon Valley" and "Ballers" are past their third season without being near their end - and "Ballers" has been at best a modest hit.

Just five years ago, HBO had a cluster of hits in the prime of their TV lives, including "Girls," "True Blood" and "Boardwalk Empire."

The crossroads is partly a function of executive change. HBO reset its development slate when Programming President Casey Bloys took over for Michael Lombardo 18 months ago. Bloys sent a number of projects to the scrap heap and greenlighted a pack of new ones.

Without a glut of viable franchises, HBO has tried to create value with one-offs, including a potential "Deadwood" movie, which a small but vocal fan base has called for; a documentary about the comedian Garry Shandling from Judd Apatow; and a cross-platform storytelling experience from Steven Soderbergh.

It has also relied on semi-stand-alone programming known as the anthology series - concepts into which new ideas and personalities can be inserted every season, which appeals to high-end film talent wary of a grueling series commitment.

These are, by definition, wild cards, as HBO learned when the second season of "True Detective" crashed. (It is trying to revive its fortunes with a third season.)

Executives also are attempting a new stand-alone show, this one based on Gillian Flynn's bestseller "Sharp Objects," bringing together showrunner Marti Noxon and the director Jean-Marc Vallee for an eight-episode event series.

Perhaps its best bet to establish consistency is with "Big Little Lies," the dramatic-mystery series directed by Vallee, written by David Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman. The show cleaned up at September's Emmy Awards. The network is developing a second season, according to a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to talk about it publicly, with Kelley writing and Vallee moving into a producing role.

But the problem with one-off events is that they tend to attract subscribers in drips and drabs and don't always retain them when the shows end. That makes HBO more vulnerable.

"They're still the blue-chip company, but they've been knocked off their perch a little bit," said a high-ranking Hollywood executive who is not affiliated with either HBO or its competitors, asking for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. "There's so much competition that it just puts them in a tricky spot."

That distinguishes this from a time of similar uncertainty at HBO, after "The Sopranos" wound down a decade ago: new entrants like Apple, Netflix, Amazon and recently anointed Emmy drama winner Hulu are driving up prices for the top-tier projects it once paid reasonable dollars for. Amazon, for instance, recently agreed to shell out an estimated $250 million simply to license TV rights to "Lord of the Rings." (Its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)

"The bubble keeps getting bigger and HBO is trying to keep up," said a high-profile producer who has a show set up at HBO and asked for anonymity so as not to jeopardize relations with the network.

To many, the relationship between revenue and costs was summed up by HBO's tale-of-two cities 2016. The company's subscription revenue reached $5 billion for the first time last year. But its programming costs were also sky-high, at $2.18 billion - up 10 percent from just two years before.

To keep the "Game of Thrones" mojo going, HBO is developing five prequels and spinoffs. Whether those shows see the light of production remains to be seen. Bloys has said he doesn't intend for all of them to make it to air.

The desire for a new "Game of Thrones"-size hit in fact caused a headache for HBO last summer after it signed up the creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, for a new counterfactual series called "Confederate."

The premise - a post-Civil War country in which slavery is legal - caused a storm on social media and forced an HBO apology. Though the show is still in development, the creators are not actively working on it, a person familiar with the process said.

As it faces a court battle with the Justice Department, AT&T and Time Warner may be in the complicated position of having to argue that HBO isn't quite the crown jewel it's been touted as for years.

Legal scholars say the case is far from a slam dunk. AT&T and Time Warner are not direct competitors, and the hypercompetitive environment that faces HBO is one example of how the business of entertainment is fast changing.

"It's an uphill battle but it's not impossible," said Eleanor Fox, a professor at New York University who specializes in antitrust matters.

The Department of Justice declined to comment for this story.

HBO has already been shifting its business model, introducing a $15/month service a few years ago for people to subscribe directly. But it's been far less popular than rival Netflix's.

"The question used to be 'will customers pay for a subscription service,'" said Goss, the analyst. "We see that they will." But, he added. "there are now a lot of services. And the question is 'will they pay for all of them?' "
http://www.courant.com/entertainment...127-story.html





Forget Fast-Forwarding, Plex DVR Can Now Remove Commercials for You
Kris Wouk

Over the years, Plex has grown from a relatively simple home media server into an all-in-one entertainment powerhouse. Notable feature additions include streaming personalized news, the ability to operate entirely in the cloud instead of on your server, and a full-fledged DVR. Now that DVR has gotten even more powerful, adding a new feature to automatically remove commercials, which was spotted by Cord Cutters News.

The feature was added in an update the Plex team pushed out over the weekend. While most of the update was focused on fixing bugs, this new feature was also included. You’ll need to manually enable the feature by heading into your Plex DVR settings and finding the option, labeled “Remove Commercials.”

You may not want to turn the feature on immediately without looking into reports from other users. The description in the settings warns that while the feature will attempt to automatically locate and remove commercials, this could potentially take a long time and cause high CPU usage. If you’re running your Plex server on a powerful computer, this may not be an issue, but if you’re running it on an old laptop, you might want to hold off.

This new feature also changes your DVR recordings permanently, removing commercials from the files themselves. This shouldn’t be a problem as long as the feature works as intended, but if it detects wrong portions of the file as commercials, you could end up missing out on part of your favorite shows.

Of course, to even use the Plex DVR, you need a fairly specific setup, using a USB Tuner or HDHomeRun to connect an antenna to your computer in order to receiver over-the-air (OTA) signals. Initially, hardware options were limited, but they have been expanding. Plex has a full list of supported hardware listed on its website. You’ll also need a Plex Pass subscription in order to use the feature, which costs $5 per month, $40 per year, or $150 for a lifetime subscription.

If you’ve never tried Plex before but think this seems like a great time to jump on board, you can get started by taking a look at our guide to getting Plex up and running on your PC.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-t...s-commercials/





Verizon to Launch Residential 5G Service Next Year

Sacramento, California, will be the first city to get the network, which promises to be up to 100 times faster than existing cellular connections.
Steven Musil

Verizon said Wednesday that it plans to launch wireless 5G service in up to five US cities by the end of next year.

Sacramento, California, is likely to be the first city to get access to the 5G network, which promises to be 10 to 100 times faster than the company's speediest existing cellular connections. That service should begin in the second half of the year, Verizon said in a statement, adding that it will reveal the other markets at a later date.

"Verizon estimates the market opportunity for initial 5G residential broadband services to be approximately 30 million households nationwide," the company said.

5G networks were previously expected to arrive in 2019. The conventional wisdom is that the early examples will be for what are known as "fixed wireless" connections, bringing fast broadband to your house without the need to dig a trench for a fiber-optic cable.

The announcement comes after Verizon, one of many companies trumpeting its work in 5G, completed trials of the technology in 11 US markets earlier this year. Verizon said the launch was made possible by its confidence in new technology powered by millimeter-wave spectrum -- very high frequencies that can carry large amounts of data and transfer signals with minimal delay.

Verizon isn't the only company racing toward 5G. AT&T has already tested 5G as a broadband replacement in an Intel office in Austin, Texas, and has tested its DirecTV Now video service over 5G in that city as well.
https://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-to...ice-next-year/





Net Neutrality Hits a Nerve, Eliciting Intense Reactions
Cecilia Kang

It usually doesn’t take much to get people on the internet worked up. To get them really worked up, make the topic internet regulation.

In the week since the Federal Communications Commission released a plan to scrap existing rules for internet delivery, more than 200,000 phone calls, organized through online campaigns, have been placed to Congress in protest. An additional 500,000 comments have been left on the agency’s website. On social media sites like Twitter and Reddit, the issue has been a leading topic of discussion.

In some cases, views on the sweeping change, which would repeal landmark regulations meant to ensure an open internet, have turned into personal attacks. The agency’s chairman, Ajit Pai, said threatening calls and emails had poured into his home and his wife’s work. An image of a protest poster with his children’s names was posted online and spread widely. Ethnic slurs aimed at Mr. Pai, whose parents immigrated from India, littered his Twitter feed.

There are also echoes of the 2016 presidential election, with accusations that not all of the reaction is coming from Americans. The federal agency is for the first time dealing with a powerful technology foe as automated software, known as bots, appears to have sent many comments to the site, according to data researchers.

And at least 400,000 comments about the issue since April on the F.C.C. site appear to have originated from an apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia, the agency said. It is unclear whether the emails did originate from there, or were made to look as if they did.

But none of that has overshadowed the heated reaction to the agency’s proposal.

“There doesn’t seem to be middle ground on this issue,” said John Beahn, a lawyer at Skadden Arps who specializes in regulation.

At the center of the debate is whether telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon should be able to charge internet sites for delivering their data to consumers’ homes. In 2015, the F.C.C. voted to prohibit those charges, in a policy often called net neutrality.

But Mr. Pai, a Republican nominated for the chairmanship by President Trump, said the regulations were heavy-handed and prevented telecom companies from pursuing new business models. His proposal, by stripping away the existing rules, would allow telecom companies to charge websites to deliver their data at higher speeds.

In a speech on Tuesday, Mr. Pai addressed some of the concerns that have been voiced since he released his proposal, pointing specifically to comments by celebrities like Cher and Kumail Nanjiani of “Silicon Valley.” He said their tweets warning that his rules would lead to authoritarianism and a handout to big cable companies were “utterly absurd.”

“I’d like to cut through hysteria and hot air and speak in plain terms about the plan,” Mr. Pai said, adding that the plan would bring back the regulation-free policy that helped the internet thrive. He said big tech companies might be a bigger threat to online speech than telecom companies.

The proposal is expected to be approved at a meeting of the five F.C.C. commissioners on Dec. 14. The two other Republican commissioners have already expressed their support for Mr. Pai.

The 2015 rules also elicited strong interest. The F.C.C. site was overwhelmed with comments after a monologue from the late-night host John Oliver went viral online. Some people who wanted the stronger rules blocked the driveway of the chairman at the time, Tom Wheeler, to try to persuade him to change the agency’s plan.

Big web companies like Google and Netflix played activist roles as well, supporting the stronger rules. They argued that telecom companies should not be able to split sites into fast lanes and slow lanes, because that would allow them to become a sort of gatekeeper for information and entertainment. In addition, they say, it would hurt start-ups without the money to pay for the faster lanes.

Mr. Pai, who opposed the rules as a commissioner in 2015, gave broad outlines of his plans early this year. For months, comments to the F.C.C. website piled up, to more than 20 million. President Barack Obama’s clean power plan, perhaps his biggest policy change at the Environmental Protection Agency, attracted 4.3 million comments over six months.

But the intensity has increased even more since Mr. Pai released the details of the proposal — perhaps in part because few people expected him to try to strip all of the existing rules.

“We never expected this,” wrote Craig Moffett, an analyst at the research firm MoffettNathanson.

Lawmakers, celebrities, founders of start-ups and consumers have continued to hash out the debate into this week.

Conservative groups like FreedomWorks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute praised the rollback. The radio host Rush Limbaugh defended Mr. Pai’s plan on Monday in an online post. He dismissed concerns by supporters of the rules, whom he described as liberal “millennials and tech bloggers.”

“What the tech bloggers and the left don’t like is that there are options and that there is a freedom in the marketplace and that people can choose superior service if they’re willing to pay for it,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “And if somebody’s willing to pay for superior service, the providers had better provide it.”

Public interest groups like Free Press and organizations like Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the popular Firefox browser, said they were prepared to file suit against the plan as soon as the vote on Dec. 14.

“The action hit a nerve because the internet is central to the vast majority of people’s daily lives, and so people were very eager to understand what was happening over the weekend,” said Denelle Dixon, chief legal officer for Mozilla.

The reaction from the biggest tech companies, however, has been noticeably subdued. Instead of forceful pleas from their executives, like those in years past on this issue, they are largely speaking through their trade group, the Internet Association, which has expressed disappointment over Mr. Pai’s plan.

“Internet companies are firm supporters of the 2015 Open Internet Order and will continue our push for strong, enforceable net neutrality rules going forward,” said Noah Theran, a spokesman for the Internet Association. “We are reviewing the draft order and weighing our legal options.”

Taking their place are start-ups such as Airbnb, Twitter and Reddit, which joined dozens of smaller start-ups on Monday warning Mr. Pai that the rules would hurt innovation and the economy.

Sorting out the real individual commenters from fake or automated accounts is far more tricky. The F.C.C. said it did not have the resources to investigate every comment on its site.

Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, said that after a six-month investigation, his office had found that the identities of tens of thousands of state residents were fraudulently used to post comments to the F.C.C.

“If law enforcement can’t investigate and (where appropriate) prosecute when it happens on this scale,” Mr. Schneiderman said, “the door is open for it to happen again and again.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/t...-reaction.html





Prepare for the New Paywall Era

Digital media’s free-for-all days are ending, but will the new strategy work?
Alexis C. Madrigal

If the recent numbers are any indication, there is a bloodbath in digital media this year. Publishers big and small are coming up short on advertising revenue, even if they are long on traffic.

The theory of digital publishing has long been that because people are spending more time reading and watching stories on the internet than other places, eventually the ad revenue would follow them from other media types. People now spend more than 5.5 hours a day with digital media, including three hours on their phones alone.

The theory wasn’t wrong. Ad dollars have followed eyeballs. In 2016, internet-ad revenue grew to almost $75 billion, pretty evenly split between ads that run on computers (desktop) and ads that run on phones (mobile). But advertising to people on computers is roughly at the level it was in 2013. That is to say, all the recent growth has been on mobile devices. And on mobile, Facebook and Google have eaten almost all that new pie. These two companies are making more and more money. Everyone else is trying to survive.

In a print newspaper or a broadcast television station, the content and the distribution of that content are integrated. The big tech platforms split this marriage, doing the distribution for most digital content through Google searches and the Facebook News Feed. And they’ve taken most of the money: They’ve “captured the value” of the content at the distribution level. Media companies have no real alternative, nor do they have competitive advertising products to the targeting and scale that Facebook and Google can offer. Facebook and Google need content, but it’s all fungible. The recap of a huge investigative blockbuster is just as valuable to Google News as an investigative blockbuster itself. The former might have taken months and costs tens of thousands of dollars, the latter a few hours and the cost of a young journalist’s time.

That’s led many people, including my colleague Derek Thompson, to the conclusion that supporting rigorous journalism requires some sort of direct financial relationship between publications and readers. Right now, the preferred method is the paywall.

The New York Times has one. The Washington Post has one. The Financial Times has one. The Wall Street Journal has one. The New Yorker has one. Wired just announced they’d be building one. The Atlantic, too, uses a paywall if readers have an ad blocker installed (in addition to the awesome Masthead member program, which you should sign up for).

Many of these efforts have been successful. Publications have figured out how to create the right kinds of porosity for their sites, allowing enough people in to drive scale, but extracting more revenue per reader than advertising could provide.

Paywalls are not a new idea. The Atlantic previously had a different one for a while in the mid-’00s. The Adweek article announcing that this paywall was being pulled down is a fascinating time capsule. Paywalls, back then, were often seen as a way of protecting the existing print businesses.

“Despite worries that putting a print magazine’s full content online for free will erode the subscriber base, nothing could be further from the truth,” wrote Adweek. “Subscribers largely obtain magazines for advantages that can be garnered only from the print version (portability, ease of use); those looking only for free articles to read can easily look at websites that offer similar content instead.”

The idea that the paid revenue from a site itself could contribute to earnings in a meaningful way was not even considered. And that made sense. The scale of most magazine sites was tiny.

“In 2007, TheAtlantic.com tripled its traffic to 1.5 million unique users and 8 million page views,” Adweek continued. “During that period, digital ad sales grew to 10 percent of total ad sales, and traffic has grown faster than The Atlantic’s digital-marketing investment.”

The first time around, many paywalls simply did not work. But times have changed. The New York Times’ success in transforming itself into a company that is markedly less dependent on advertising than it has been in recent years has emboldened many other publishers. The Times now makes more than 20 percent of its revenue on digital-only subscriptions, a number which has been growing quickly. In absolute terms, last quarter, the Times made $85.7 million from these digital products.

The question is: Can media organizations that are not huge like the Times or The Washington Post, or business-focused like the Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal, create meaningful businesses from their paywalls?

Here’s the optimistic case that they can.

For one, many digital-media properties have much larger audiences than they used to. The Atlantic had 42.3 million visitors in May. It’s hard for sites to capture the value of that whole audience with advertising alone, especially because traffic can be spiky. But in marketing terms, that whole audience is just the top of the funnel. And that’s a big funnel. Let’s say that 1 percent of visitors to The Atlantic’s site subscribed for $10 a month. (I’m not privy to conversations about pricing. I’m just making this up.) Do the math: That’s $50 million a year, which would be very significant for the magazine’s business.

It’s not just the difference in scale for different media properties, though. The reigning ideology of the internet has broken apart. In the wild days of the ’00s, paywalls were seen as breaking the way the web worked, with sites linking to each other to build on the knowledge we were collectively producing. As it turns out, the culture of links fell apart as digital journalism became more focused on traditional sections publishing individual stories and not blogs that linked to each other frequently. The rise of platform-specific video and the dominance of Facebook finished off the web as it was known in the ’00s.

Today’s intentionally porous paywalls, too, keep information flowing, even as they help companies capture subscribers.

The infrastructure for buying stuff on the internet also has gotten a lot better. There are the different payment platforms like PayPal and ApplePay. There are initiatives at Apple and Facebook to make it easier to sell subscriptions. There is the mere fact that people buy tons of stuff on their phones now, and have become increasingly comfortable with the idea of paying for content. (Thanks, New York Times!)

When the paywall was first introduced in early 2011, people flocked to Google to search for the term. It just wasn’t a familiar idea.

Six years later, this way of charging people for websites is no longer unusual. People may not always love them, but they know the deal.

Smaller magazines may be able to use the same digital-marketing tools to drive subscriptions in the way that other “lifestyle” brands have. One reason that Facebook has grown so quickly is that it has proven to be a very effective machine for putting in marketing dollars and getting out revenue. In the ’00s, or even five years ago, it would have been very difficult to target ads at readers except on one’s own site. Now, all the targeting tools that have made the digital-advertising business more difficult for publications can help the paid-content business.

A lot of questions remain, however, especially as more publications turn to paywalls. The group of people who pay for any kind of journalism is still relatively small. Based on the current numbers of subscribers to the big publications, we’re probably talking a group of people that numbers in the single-digit millions. That’s the addressable market.

So, as more and more publications try to woo these particular consumers, how will they split up their dollars? How annoyed will subscribers become remembering another half dozen passwords? If everyone goes all-in on paywalls, who would make your list?

Maybe the whole model of single sites running their own paywalls will not carry the day. Somebody is going to try to make the process of accessing this paid content easier and cheaper, whether it’s Apple, Flipboard, Facebook, or a new entrant.

So, expect lots of paid-content experiments, many taking the form of paywalls, but there’ll be everything from apps to merch to live events. Digital media has lived and died with advertising, but now it’s mostly just dying.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...ywalls/547091/





N.Y. Times Scales Back Free Articles to Get Readers to Subscribe
Gerry Smith

• Users will access only five stories before being asked to pay
• Move marks first change to Times online pay model since 2012

The New York Times, seeking to amass more paid subscriptions in an era of non-stop, must-read headlines, is halving the number of articles available for free each month.

Starting Friday, most non-subscribers will only be able to read five articles rather than 10 before they’re asked to start paying. It’s the first change to the paywall in five years. A basic Times subscription, with unlimited access to the website and all news apps, is $15 every four weeks.

Scoops on the Trump administration’s scandals and sexual-harassment allegations in Hollywood have already contributed to a surge in Times subscriptions, which jumped 60 percent in September from a year earlier to 2.5 million. With demand for journalism “at an all-time high,” the Times decided this was the right moment to experiment with giving away less online content for free, said Meredith Kopit Levien, New York Times Co.’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“It’s a very hot news cycle,” Levien said. “We think it’s as good conditions as any to demonstrate to people that high-quality journalism is something to be paid for.”

As Facebook and Google capture a growing share of the online advertising market, publishers from the New York Times to Conde Nast are trying to shift their digital businesses from selling ads to persuading readers to pay for their journalism.

Trump Impact

Fueled in part by demand for news about President Donald Trump, the Times’ subscription business has thrived in the past year. The Times added 154,000 digital-only subscriptions last quarter, a 14 percent increase in new customers from a year earlier, though many signed up through promotional deals and may leave when regular rates kick in.

The subscriber boost has led to a surge in Times Co. shares, which are up 41 percent this year.

But enticing casual readers to open their wallets raises a tricky question: Just how many free articles do you let them sample before requiring them to sign up?

The decision comes with trade-offs. By reducing the number of free articles, the Times will likely see a drop in traffic at the website, which could hurt ad revenue.

Levien said that tightening the Times’ paywall would have a “modest impact” on its digital advertising business, which increased 11 percent last quarter from a year earlier. The increase failed to offset the continued decline in print ad sales, which fell 20 percent.

Potential Risk

The potential decline in traffic is worth the risk, she said, if it leads to more people signing up. And most of the Times’ web visitors are already paying digital subscribers, she said.

Other publishers have experimented recently with tightening their paywalls. The Boston Globe in May reduced its number of free articles to two from five, leading to a surge of new subscribers. The Washington Post tested requiring readers to enter their email address and sign up for its daily newsletter to keep reading articles for free.

The Wall Street Journal started blocking Google users from reading free articles in February, boosting paying customers while causing a decline in web traffic from the search engine. Google has since announced it will end its policy that required subscription-based publishers to offer a few free articles a day through its search engine.

Since last June, the Times has limited the number of free articles for readers who arrive via social media, which contributed to its subscriber gains. Previously, articles read via Facebook or Twitter didn’t count toward the paywall.

The Times may eventually offer a different number of free articles to non-subscribers based on how they arrive or their reading habits.

The publisher has struck deals with other media companies to sweeten the offer of a digital subscription. Earlier this year, for instance, the Times began working with Spotify Ltd. to give new paying digital customers subscribers free access to the music-streaming service.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...s-to-subscribe





How a Radio Shack Robbery Could Spur a New Era in Digital Privacy
Adam Liptak

The case that could transform privacy law in the digital era began with the armed robbery of a Radio Shack store in Detroit, a couple of weeks before Christmas in 2010. In the next three months, eight more stores in Michigan and Ohio were robbed at gunpoint.

The robbers took bags filled with smartphones. Their own phones would help send them to prison.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether prosecutors violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches, by collecting vast amounts of data from cellphone companies showing the movements of the man they say organized most of the robberies.

Experts in privacy law said the case, Carpenter v. United States, No. 16-402, was a potential blockbuster.

“Carpenter could be the most important electronic privacy case of the 21st century,” said Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit group devoted to educating the public about the Constitution.

In a pair of recent decisions, the Supreme Court expressed discomfort with allowing unlimited government access to digital data. It limited the ability of the police to use GPS devices to track suspects’ movements, and it required a warrant to search cellphones.
Continue reading the main story

Technology companies including Apple, Facebook and Google have filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to continue to bring Fourth Amendment law into the modern era. “No constitutional doctrine should presume,” the brief said, “that consumers assume the risk of warrantless government surveillance simply by using technologies that are beneficial and increasingly integrated into modern life.”

The court’s decision, expected by June, will apply the Fourth Amendment, drafted in the 18th century, to a world in which people’s movements are continuously recorded by devices in their cars, pockets and purses, by toll plazas and by transit systems. The court’s reasoning may also apply to email and text messages, internet searches, and bank and credit card records.

“The case is hugely important in that it defines the constitutional role in a really wide range of cases,” said Orin Kerr, a law professor who will soon join the faculty at the University of Southern California.

The case concerns Timothy Ivory Carpenter, who witnesses said had planned the robberies, supplied guns and served as lookout, typically waiting in a stolen car across the street. “At his signal, the robbers entered the store, brandished their guns, herded customers and employees to the back, and ordered the employees to fill the robbers’ bags with new smartphones,” a court decision said, summarizing the evidence against him.

In addition to presenting testimony, prosecutors relied on months of records obtained from cellphone companies to prove their case. The records showed that Mr. Carpenter’s phone had been nearby when several of the robberies happened. He was convicted and sentenced to 116 years in prison.

Mr. Carpenter’s lawyers said cellphone companies had turned over 127 days of records that placed his phone at 12,898 locations, based on information from cellphone towers. Prosecutors could tell whether he had slept at home on given nights and whether he attended his usual church on Sunday mornings.

“Never before in the history of policing has the government had the time machine it has here,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Carpenter. Mr. Wessler said prosecutors should be required to obtain a warrant when they seek more than 24 hours’ worth of location data.

Older Supreme Court decisions indicate that no warrant was required. In 1979, for instance, in Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that a robbery suspect had no reasonable expectation that his right to privacy extended to the numbers dialed from his landline phone. The court reasoned that the suspect had voluntarily turned over that information to a third party: the phone company.

Relying on the Smith decision’s “third-party doctrine,” federal appeals courts have said government investigators seeking data from cellphone companies showing users’ movements also do not require a warrant.

A federal law, the Stored Communications Act, does require prosecutors to go to court to obtain tracking data, but the showing they must make under the law is not probable cause, the standard for a warrant. Instead, they must demonstrate only that there were “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe” that the records sought “are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Professor Kerr said Congress was better suited than the courts to strike the right balance between the government’s need for information and privacy rights. In Mr. Carpenter’s case, he added, the Fourth Amendment should not apply because there was no search.

Mr. Carpenter’s lawyers rely on two recent and unanimous Supreme Court decisions expressing discomfort with the collection of large amounts of digital data. In 2014, in Riley v. California, the court said the police must generally have a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest.

“Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court. Even the word cellphone is a misnomer, he said. “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, Rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps or newspapers,” the chief justice wrote.

But the Riley case concerned information possessed by the person arrested. Mr. Carpenter’s case concerns information held by cellphone companies.

The second case, United States v. Jones, in 2012, concerned a GPS device that the police attached to a suspect’s car, allowing them to track his movements for 28 days.

All nine justices agreed that this was problematic under the Fourth Amendment, but they were divided on the rationale for the decision. The majority said the police were not entitled to place the device on private property. But five justices in concurring opinions expressed unease with the government’s ability to vacuum up troves of private information.

“The use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for four justices. “Society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not — and indeed, in the main, simply could not — secretly monitor and catalog every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.”

Cellphone tower information is not nearly as accurate as that generated by GPS devices, but it is catching up.

Mr. Rosen, who favors broad privacy protections, said Mr. Carpenter’s case could transform Fourth Amendment law however the court rules.

“If the court squarely recognizes what it’s been suggesting in recent cases, namely that we do have an expectation of privacy in our digital data and public movements and that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from tracking us door to door for weeks in public, that would be an occasion for dancing in the streets,” he said. “If the court holds that we don’t have an expectation of privacy in public except when there is some sort of physical trespass involved, that could be a huge setback for privacy.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/u...ellphones.html





Russia Wants to Launch Backup DNS System by August 1, 2018
Catalin Cimpanu

The Russian government is currently discussing plans to build its own "independent internet infrastructure" that will be used by BRICS member states — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

The plan was part of the topic list at the October meeting of the Russian Security Council, and President Vladimir Putin approved the initiative with a completion deadline of August 1, 2018, according to Russian news agency RT (formerly Russia Today).

Russia to build its own DNS system backup

The Russian Security Council has today formally asked the country's government to start the building of a backup global DNS system that Russia and fellow BRICS member states could use.

The Russian Security Council cited the "increased capabilities of western nations to conduct offensive operations in the informational space."

Russia and fellow BRICS nations would like the option to flip a switch and move Internet traffic from today's main DNS system to their own private backup.

Russia, China have long criticized the US' control over DNS

Russia, China, and many other countries have criticized the US for hoarding control over the domain naming system (DNS), a position they claim has allowed the US to intercept and tap global Internet traffic.

Last year, the US handed over control over the DNS system to ICANN, an independent organization. While Russia and China welcomed the move, they actually wanted the DNS system to be controlled by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union. This is because the two countries have more power in UN matters than control over an NGO, like ICANN.

The US was fearful to hand over control over the worldwide DNS system because it argued this would allow oppressive regimes to censor what Internet sites citizens can access.

Control over DNS means control over the Internet

With a backup DNS system in place, all BRICS members can simply switch off the main DNS system and use their own in times of crisis.

This also allows BRICS members to limit access to any website they wish when the backup DNS system is activated, such as social networks when used to rally anti-government protests.

Furthermore, the backup DNS system also allows oppressive regimes to deanonymize Tor traffic and hunt for dissidents, via an attack called DefecTor.

A backup DNS system means an advantage in "the cyber"

In addition, the backup DNS system also allows these states to isolate websites and services that other countries could not access.

Some might argue this might allow Russian and Chinese hackers to go after any target they want but would give both countries a place to hide their own critical infrastructure.

NATO declared "cyber" as a fourth battleground after air, sea, and land in June 2016.

The news today comes after Russia ran a test of a backup DNS system in 2014, and after in May this year, Russian officials said they planned to route 95% of all Internet traffic locally by 2020. Also today, NATO countries announced they were mulling a stronger response to cyber attacks.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...august-1-2018/





Millions of Insecure Gadgets Exposed in European Cities – Report

A year after a wave of denial-of-service attacks knocked out major websites around the world, millions of unsecured printers, network gear and webcams remain undefended against attack across major European cities, a report published on Tuesday said.

Computer security company Trend Micro said that Berlin has more than 2.8 million insecure devices, followed closely by London with more than 2.5 million exposed gadgets. Among the top 10 capitals, Rome was lowest with nearly 300,000 visible unsecured devices, the researchers said.

The study was based on calculating the number of exposed devices in major European cities using Shodan, a search engine that helps to identify internet-linked equipment.

Trend Micro said that electronics users must take responsibility for managing their own internet-connected devices because of the failure by many gadget manufacturers to build in up-front security by default in their products.

The warning comes one year after a wave of attacks using so-called botnets of infected devices caused outages on popular websites and knocked 900,000 Deutsche Telekom users off the internet. (reut.rs/2BjdRII)

Computer experts say the failure to patch millions of insecure devices after last year’s Mirai denial-of-service attacks means it is only a question of time before further broad-based outages occur.

Research company Gartner recently forecast that there would be 8.4 billion connected products or devices in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and expects the number to triple by 2020. (goo.gl/thR54Q)

Reporting by Jamillah Knowles; Editing by Eric Auchard and David Goodman
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-cy...-idUKKBN1DS170





Three Quarters of Android Apps Track Users with Third Party Tools – Study

Yale University’s Privacy Lab using research to call on developers and Google ‘for increased transparency into privacy and security practice’
Alex Hern

More than three in four Android apps contain at least one third-party “tracker”, according to a new analysis of hundreds of apps.

The study by French research organisation Exodus Privacy and Yale University’s Privacy Lab analysed the mobile apps for the signatures of 25 known trackers, which use various techniques to glean personal information about users to better target them for advertisements and services.

Among the apps found to be using some sort of tracking plugin were some of the most popular apps on the Google Play Store, including Tinder, Spotify, Uber and OKCupid. All four apps use a service owned by Google, called Crashlytics, that primarily tracks app crash reports, but can also provide the ability to “get insight into your users, what they’re doing, and inject live social content to delight them”.

Other less widely-used trackers can go much further. One cited by Yale is FidZup, a French tracking provider with technology that can “detect the presence of mobile phones and therefore their owners” using ultrasonic tones. FidZup says it no-longer uses that technology, however, since tracking users through simple wifi networks works just as well.

The Yale researchers said: “FidZup’s practices closely resemble those of Teemo (formerly known as Databerries), the tracker company that was embroiled in scandal earlier this year for studying the geolocation of 10 million French citizens, and SafeGraph, who ‘collected 17tn location markers for 10m smartphones during [Thanksgiving] last year’. Both of these trackers have been profiled by Privacy Lab and can be identified by Exodus scans.”

Yale Privacy Lab is using its research to call on developers, as well as Google, “for increased transparency into privacy and security practice as it relates to these trackers.”

The researchers added: “Android users, and users of all app stores, deserve a trusted chain of software development, distribution, and installation that does not include unknown or masked third-party code.

“Scholars, privacy advocates and security researchers should be alarmed by the data, and can provide further analysis now that these findings and the Exodus platform have been made public.”

Although Yale didn’t examine iOS apps, the company warns that the situation may be no better on Apple’s App Store. “Many of the same companies distributing Google Play apps also distribute apps via Apple, and tracker companies openly advertise Software Development Kits (SDKs) compatible with multiple platforms,” said the researchers. “Thus, advertising trackers may be concurrently packaged for Android and iOS, as well as more obscure mobile platforms.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ale-university





Google’s New Android App Stops Other Apps from Wasting Your Data
Jacob Kastrenakes

Google is launching another stylish and simple Android app designed to help people manage one of the core functions of their phone — in this case, data usage.

The app is called Datally, and it’s supposed to help you understand where you data is going and cut down on how much you’re using. Datally will show which apps are using data the most and at what times your data is getting used up; it’ll also recommend ways to cut down data usage based on your own activity and suggest nearby Wi-Fi networks for you to connect to.

More importantly, there’s a big button at the top of the app that lets you stop all background data usage, so only the app that’s actively onscreen can use mobile data. A chat-head style bubble will also pop up to let you know how much data your currently running app is using up. And if you don’t want to block every single app from using background data, Datally will let you go in and control data usage on an app by app basis, too.

If you’re a longtime Android user, Datally might not sound all that exciting. Nearly all of the app’s functions are already built into Android directly. But those features are hidden inside the settings menu, and they aren’t spelled out quite as neatly as they appear to be inside Datally. As a standalone app, it’ll also be much easier for people to find and remember to use.

Datally is being released as part of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, which is focused on making Google products more usable in countries that have limited mobile connections and where lower-end hardware remains widespread. That’s why the initiative is focusing on basic features like storage management — as with its last standalone app — and data usage. It’s also why Datally takes up a tiny 6MB of space.

Josh Woodward, the product manager overseeing Datally, says the idea for the app came from seeing the lengths that people go to preserve data, particularly in countries where mobile plans remain relatively expensive. In Delhi, Lagos, and Buenos Aires, Woodard said his team saw people who would keep their phone on airplane mode at all times to prevent data usage. When they wanted to check their notifications, they’d turn airplane mode off, let all the info rush in, and then turn airplane mode back on while they looked over the new information.

“A bunch of us on the team spent a lot of time on long flights observing people in their homes, bus stations, classrooms, and kept seeing this airplane mode behavior,” Woodward told The Verge.

Google has been testing Datally in the Philippines since this summer. The company says it’s already hit over 500,000 users and that it’s been able to save people, on average, 30 percent of their data. As of today, the app is being released to the rest of the world and is available to any phone running Android 5.0 or higher.

Obviously, if you can afford to use the extra data, you probably won’t want to use this app. Cutting off background data use will hurt your overall phone experience, as not only will apps not refresh content in the background, but apps won’t send you push notifications either (which means you wouldn’t be able to chat with someone over anything but SMS). But if you’re constantly bumping up against your data cap, Datally seems like an easy way to start figuring out where the problem is.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/...oid-app-google





This Interview Was Conducted on an Anonymous, DIY Cell Phone Network

Sopranica is a surveillance-free cellular network built by volunteers from around the world. It’s easy to use and free to set up.
Daniel Oberhaus

Most people in the United States—and increasingly, around the world—carry the most sophisticated surveillance devices ever created in their pockets day in and day out. Although smartphones have enabled governments and corporations to track our movements and monitor our conversations with unprecedented ease, these devices are also an incredibly useful personal tool and have become an indispensable part of modern life.

It’s a crappy trade off, but evidently one that most of us seem OK with. But Denver Gingerich, a programmer based in New York City, doesn’t see why we can’t have our smartphones and our privacy, too.

For the past few years, Gingerich has been laying the groundwork for Sopranica, an open source, DIY cell network that allows smartphone owners to make calls, send texts and eventually browse the internet with total anonymity.

In January, Gingerich published the code for the first part of Sopranica called JMP. This is essentially a way of using a secure instant messaging protocol called XMPP, better known as Jabber, to communicate over voice and text from an anonymous phone number. JMP is the first phase of the Sopranica network.

The next phase—called WOM—will create the physical infrastructure for the cell network with a community radio network. This will essentially involve people hosting small, inexpensive radio devices in their home that plug into their routers to provide internet access points to Sopranica users in the area.

In October, Gingerich presented the first part of his plan for Sopranica at Radical Networks, an annual conference celebrating creative and subversive approaches to the Internet. Gingerich said that he and 15 others have been collaborating in a chatroom to continue developing the network since its initial launch earlier this year.

After hearing about Sopranica during this presentation, I was eager to sign up for the cell network and give it a try.

Getting set up with JMP is easy. First, you need to create a free and anonymous Jabber ID, which is like an email address. I had already created a Jabber ID with the Chaos Computer Club (a German hacking group), but there are a lot of other servers you can register with as well. The only difference will be the web address in your Jabber ID will be different—for example, motherboard@jabber.ccc.de or motherboard@xmpp.jp.

Next, you need to install a Jabber app on your phone. I use Android and opted for Xabber, but again, there are plenty of options to choose from (Conversations is a good choice if you want to use Sopranica for picture messaging, for instance). You’ll also need to install a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) app, which allows your phone to make calls and send texts over the internet instead of the regular cellular network. For Android users, the best choice is probably CSipSimple and for iPhones your best bet is Linphone.

Finally, it’s time to get your phone number. If you navigate to Sopranica’s JMP website, there is a list of numbers at the bottom. These phone numbers are generated by Sopranica’s Voice Over IP (VOIP) provider which provides talk and text services over the internet. Click whichever number you want to be your new number on the Sopranica network and enter your Jabber ID. A confirmation code should be sent to your phone and will appear in your Jabber app.

Once you’ve entered this code, you’re ready to use your new, anonymous number. To do this, use your SIP app and send a text or dial a number just like you would otherwise. This communication will be made through your new Sopranica number, rather than whichever cell carrier you normally use.

In many ways, JMP is kind of like getting a free VOIP number with Google Voice and then using that number to register for an account on the encrypted messaging platform Signal.
The downside of this, of course, is that the VOIP number you get from Google is registered under your name with Google, so even if the people who you communicate with using that number can’t trace it to you, Google can. On the other hand, all aspects of JMP are anonymous—neither the Jabber ID nor the JMP phone number require identifying information to register.

Once I had set up JMP on my phone, the first thing I did was use it to call Gingerich to learn more about how Sopranica works and about his plans for the network’s future.

Motherboard: What’s the simplest way to describe Sopranica?
Denver Gingerich: Sopranica is a project intended to replace all aspects of the existing cell phone network with their freedom-respecting equivalents. Taking out all the baseband firmware on the cellphone, the towers that track your location, the payment methods that track who you are and who owns the number, and replacing it so we can have the same functionality without having to give up all the privacy that we have to give up right now. At a high level, it’s about running community networks instead of having companies control the cell towers that we connect to.

How does JMP protect against surveillance?
A conventional way of tracking people is with their phone numbers. So the government can—maybe with a warrant, maybe they don't need one—ask the cell carrier to tell them where the person who has this phone number happens to be right now. If you're communicating with someone using your JMP number, your cell carrier doesn't actually know what your JMP number is because that's going over data and it's encrypted. So they don't know that that communication is happening.

Does JMP only work on the cellular network?
You can use JMP today without using a cell carrier at all if you're fine using your phone and texting when you're in range of Wi-Fi and get rid of all that tracking. For some people that would be fine, they spend most of their time at home or work. But other people that are out a lot more that might not work as well for them. That's why we have this WOM component that would give you that service even when you're not near Wi-Fi.

At Radical Networks, you described WOM gateways as the physical infrastructure for the Sopranica network. So these are essentially cell towers that provide access to the internet for people using the Sopranica network?
Hosting a WOM gateway would just be buying a radio device and plugging it into your router. Ideally you'd position this radio somewhere where it can see a lot of the outside. Hopefully on the exterior of whatever building you’re in, but if not then by a window or something. You could operate it as a repeater if you wanted to, in which case you wouldn't have to plug it into your router, but ideally you'd plug it into your router so that it would be able to provide that internet connection to people who connect to the WOM node, which would then be a gateway.

But you’d also want people on the Sopranica network to mesh between their phones to route data locally, too?
The idea is to have a lot of infrastructure that is fixed, but also having mesh in the phones themselves so that we can extend the range when possible.

Do these radio units for WOM nodes exist yet?
Right now it's just local and a few prototypes at this point. We don't really have all the protocols we'll be using long term all solidified yet. I’ve been doing testing on two radios. They are fairly simple boards with an Arduino chip and a 900 MHz (radio) chip. They also have this nice antenna connector so you can get some decent range on them.

Once you’re done testing these units, how much do you anticipate them costing if someone wanted to buy one and run a Sopranica node?
It would be less than $100.
A ‘Freakduino’ 900MHz wireless unit that Gingerich is using to test the WOM protocols. Image: FreakLabs

If total strangers are connecting to Sopranica WOM access points through people’s personal routers at home, won’t that also make them vulnerable to network attacks on their personal home network?
That is a concern. There are a few ways that we're looking into solving that. That's partly why the protocol stack isn't solidified yet. One of the major ways that we're considering doing that is through Cjdns. That kind of provides a layer on top of IP that allows you to communicate with trusted neighbors and encrypting your data in that way. Ideally, forcing people onto Cjdns so that they can't see anything outside of this.

You also spoke a bit at Radical Networks about developing SIM cards specifically for the Sopranica network. How’s that going?
I've read a lot of information about how to program a SIM card, but a lot of it is kind of gated on having access to certain keys you'd only get from your carrier. So until I find someone who knows a lot about how to do this, it's the sort of thing where it's hard to make a lot of progress. The main option I would see for this is either becoming a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) to issue your own SIM cards with your own information and keys on them. The other aspect would be to try to use a little thin strip that has some electronics on it that you literally stick onto your SIM card and it intercepts a lot of the stuff going on between your SIM card and your phone.

Besides finalizing the protocols for the WOM nodes, what’s the biggest challenge for Sopranica going forward?
Getting people to be motivated to switch away from their existing cell carriers. I think it will be hard to convince average people to move away from the cell carriers they're using until WOM is at a fairly mature point. A big part of it is because the cell carriers have significant coverage and substantial bandwidth. That's one of the long term things that will be tricky for Sopranica generally: competing with the multi-megabit speeds of most carriers.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...-diy-anonymous





Huge Security Flaw Lets Anyone Log Into a High Sierra Mac
Devin Coldewey

Update: Apple has acknowledged the issue and is working on it. Statement and workaround below.

Wow, this is a bad one. On Macs running the latest version of High Sierra — 10.13.1 (17B48) — it appears that anyone can log in just by putting “root” in the user name field. This is a huge, huge problem. Apple will fix it probably within hours, but holy moly. Do not leave your Mac unattended until this is resolved.

The bug is most easily accessed by going to Preferences and then entering one of the panels that has a lock in the lower left-hand corner. Normally you’d click that to enter your user name and password, which are required to change important settings like those in Security & Privacy.

No need to do that any more! Just enter “root” instead of your user name and hit enter. After a few tries, it should log right in. There’s no need to do this yourself to verify it. Doing so creates a “root” account that others may be able to take advantage of if you don’t disable it.

The bug appears to have been first noticed by Lemi Orhan Ergin, founder of Software Craftsman Turkey, who noted it publicly on Twitter.

Needless to say, this is incredibly, incredibly bad. Once you log in, you’ve essentially authenticated yourself as the owner of the computer. You can add administrators, change critical settings, lock out the current owner, and so on. Do not leave your Mac unattended until this is resolved.

So far this has worked on every preference panel we’ve tried, and when I used “root” at the login screen it immediately created and pulled up a new user with system administrator privileges. It didn’t work on a 10.13 (17A365) machine, but that one is also loaded up with AOL bloatware — sorry, Oath bloatware — which may affect things.

Apple offered the following statement:

“We are working on a software update to address this issue. In the meantime, setting a root password prevents unauthorized access to your Mac. To enable the Root User and set a password, please follow the instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012. If a Root User is already enabled, to ensure a blank password is not set, please follow the instructions from the ‘Change the root password’ section.”

You can find Directory Utility via the instructions in that link, but you can also hit command-space now to open Spotlight and just type it in. Once it opens, click the lock and enter your password and then under the Edit menu you’ll have the option to change the root password. It looks like this:

Anything’s better than nothing, which is the password the root user has now, but make it strong just in case.

We hope Apple has a fix soon because even though this workaround exists, we can’t be sure of the extent of this particular flaw until Apple takes a look. No one should leave their Mac unattended until this is resolved.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/28/as...ierra-machine/





Apple Breaks File Sharing on Macs while Fixing 'Huge' Password Security Flaw

Emergency patch for bug that allowed anyone to take control of a Mac running macOS High Sierra prevented some users from sharing files
Samuel Gibbs

In its haste to fix the macOS High Sierra bug that allowed anyone to take control of a Mac computer with a blank password, Apple broke file sharing for some users.

Having been notified of the “huge” security hole on Tuesday, the company’s security engineers raced to fix the problem, releasing an update that was pushed out to users of macOS High Sierra on Wednesday afternoon.

Unfortunately, that fix introduced another bug, this time within the file sharing system of macOS, preventing some users from authenticating with or connecting to file shares, which are used both in business and on home networks.

The company quickly acknowledged the problem, releasing a support document guiding users through how to fix the problem caused by the critical bug patch. Unfortunately, to perform the necessary repair, users have to use an advanced feature of the operating system called the Terminal and perform command line actions:

1. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
2. Type sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC and press Return.
3. Enter your administrator password and press Return.
4. Quit the Terminal app.

Despite the straightforward explanation and commands provided by Apple, many Mac users will not have experience of running commands within Terminal, a program designed to give advanced users direct, text-based access to underlying systems within macOS. Some took to Twitter to vent their frustration.

Olivier Charavel (@charavel)

I'm looking forward to having to explain to my family why they have to use the terminal to fix file sharing they use at home or at work because of Apple's fucking incompetence.
November 30, 2017

Others were more pragmatic, saying that breaking file-sharing tools was better than leaving the root-access bug unpatched for longer.

Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith)

Oof, the cost of rushing out a macOS update overnight. Acceptable losses, all things considered https://t.co/Dupn7jpnl1
November 29, 2017

Apple apologised on 29 November for the original bug, saying that security was still a top priority for the company and that it had “stumbled” with macOS High Sierra. A spokesperson said: “We greatly regret this error and we apologise to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...mergency-patch

















Until next week,

- js.



















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