Popular BitTorrent Client Transmission Suffers from a Critical “Low Complexity” Flaw

Dan Goodin, reporting for ArsTechnica:

There’s a critical weakness in the widely used Transmission BitTorrent app that allows websites to execute malicious code on some users’ computers. That’s according to a researcher with Google’s Project Zero vulnerability reporting team, who also warns that other BitTorrent clients are likely similarly susceptible.

The issue is explained here and is said to likely affect other BitTorrent clients too.

Although the flaw was reported to the Transmission developers back in November 2017, an update with a patch has still not been issued. If you’re a Transmission user, you can temporarily disable the “Remote Access” option to mitigate any attacks.

January 16, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Cloudflare Gets Ready for a Massive Expansion in 2018 with Two New Data Centers in India

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, announces their 120th data center in Salt Lake City, Utah and says the company has planned a “massive expansion” for 2018.

We have big plans. By the end of the year, we’re forecasting that we’ll have facilities in 200 cities and 100 countries worldwide. Twelve months from now we expect that 95% of the world’s population will live in a country with a Cloudflare data center.

In the post linked above, I noticed the network map includes five (maybe six) dots for India.

Cloudflare Network Map for India

Cloudflare Network Map for India

This includes the three existing Cloudflare data centers in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai, which the company launched in November 2015. The fourth dot, seen in Orange, looks like a new data center in progress in or around Nagpur in central India. Similarly, the fifth dot, seen in teal here looks like a new data center in or close to Bengaluru planned for sometime in 2018. It also looks like Cloudflare will be launching a new data center in Nepal.

As someone who lives in Mumbai and builds websites for clients — the majority of whom are located in the Indian subcontinent, I’m incredibly excited about all this.

January 12, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Airtel Starts Offering Complimentary Amazon Prime Membership for its Postpaid and V-Fiber Customers

Airtel — one of the largest telecom operators in India — has started offering complimentary Amazon Prime memberships to its postpaid and broadband customers in the country. Airtel and Amazon have partnered to offer these free Prime memberships to Airtel customers who’re either subscribed to the company’s Infinity Postpaid plans or are using Airtel’s V-Fiber broadband services.

For Airtel Postpaid customers, you can claim this complimentary benefit if you’re subscribed to a Infinity postpaid plan of ₹499 or higher. For Airtel V-Fiber broadband customers, you need to be on a ₹849 or higher plan to be eligible for the complimentary one-year membership to Amazon Prime.

Unfortunately, Amazon users who already have an existing Prime memberships cannot take advantage of this offer, as the offer is valid for new users only.

To claim the offer, you need to download the Airtel TV app available for iOS and Android and click on the banner in the app. You’ll be asked to sign into your Amazon account, or you can sign up for a new Amazon too.

This offer is not currently available for Airtel’s Prepaid customers.

January 12, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Apple’s Privacy Feature in Safari Costs Ad Companies Millions

Alex Hern, writing for The Guardian,

Internet advertising firms are losing hundreds of millions of dollars following the introduction of a new privacy feature from Apple that prevents users from being tracked around the web.

The feature in question is Safari’s ability to prevent cross-site tracking.

Advertising technology firm Criteo, one of the largest in the industry, says that the Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature for Safari, which holds 15% of the global browser market, is likely to cut its 2018 revenue by more than a fifth compared to projections made before ITP was announced.

LOL!

January 10, 2018 ✚ Permalink

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman

Oh. My. God!

Netflix and David Letterman are teaming up for a new show titled My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman

TV legend David Letterman teams up with fascinating global figures for in-depth interviews and curiosity-fueled excursions in this monthly talk show.

This isn’t a super-early reveal either — the first episode is right around the corner, available online on January 12th.

January 6, 2018 ✚ Permalink

App Store Sees Record-Breaking Numbers

Apple has announced that its App Store had a fantastic run in 2017, especially during the holiday season leading up to the new year.

App Store customers around the world made apps and games a bigger part of their holiday season in 2017 than ever before, culminating in $300 million in purchases made on New Year’s Day 2018. During the week starting on Christmas Eve, a record number of customers made purchases or downloaded apps from the App Store, spending over $890 million in that seven-day period.

Apple says that it paid out $26.5 Billion to iOS developers, an increase of over 30 percent compared to 2016. Since its launch in 2008, the App Store has made $86 Billion for iOS developers around the world.

The new App Store introduced in iOS 11 got a lot of things right, and Apple knocked it out of the park with their approach. I’m loving the curation on the US App Store — I just wish I had landed that App Store Editor job I had applied for at Apple India.

January 5, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Apple Developer Program Membership Fee Waivers

We’re pleased to announce that Apple Developer Program membership is now available at no cost for eligible organizations. Nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, and government entities based in the United States that will distribute only free apps on the App Store can request to have their annual membership fee waived.

If you’re a nonprofit organization, accredited educational institution, or government entity based in the United States and plan to distribute only free apps on the App Store, you’re eligible for this fee waiver. You have to apply and wait for Apple to review your request and approve it.

I hope this comes to other countries as well.

January 4, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Twitter Announces it will “Off-board” Advertising from RT and Sputnik

Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately. This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government.

Hmm.

Also,

Twitter has also decided to take the $1.9 million we are projected to have earned from RT global advertising since they became an advertiser in 2011, which includes the $274,100 in 2016 U.S.-based advertising that we highlighted in our September 28 blog post, and donate those funds to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation, with an initial focus on elections and automation.

Wow!

October 26, 2017 ✚ Permalink