When it comes to online games, you have to be careful when you play because some will find ways to cheat and increase the odds in their favour through less than legitimate reasons. When this happens on consoles and even more so on PC’s you are often found out by one of the many anti-cheat systems that are in place, but sometimes they don’t work 100% and will do bad things to good players, such as those currently playing Dark Souls III.
Dark Souls III is having the problem where players are experiencing a soft ban without any reason provided. The problems got so big that J Kartje, the community manager for Dark Souls III tweeted that they were “gathering all the information”.
A soft ban is much like its name, is lighter than a normal ban, letting players keep using the online component of Dark Souls III but only with other players who have been soft banned, including those that have actually cheated. How do you tell a legitimate ban from one that seems to be due to corrupted save data or a bad network connection with a wonky anti-cheat system? It would seem for now you can’t but with the problem being investigated there is hope for those of you who wish to enjoy and feel like you are being punished for bad coding.
The Division is Ubisoft’s’ latest game and lets players explore and conduct missions in the destroyed husk of New York city, with the latest introduction, Falcon Lost, introducing raid-like missions titled “incursions” that gave you a challenging experience before you finally faced the first boss in order to gain rare loot. Some players couldn’t wait to get the new gear and found a quick way of grabbing the gear, but now Ubisoft is warning that exploiting bad coding in the Division will get you banned.
Falcon Lost was designed to only drop the rare lot once a week, offering players a week’s break before they could collect the next piece in the set, that was until players found a way to speed run the incursion in 20 minutes, with a successful loot drop each time. This was done by using two skills, survivor link, and mobile cover, to warp through walls and avoid the triggers that activated key spawns and moments in the incursion, effectively ghosting you through the events.
In a thread titled “Deactivate the incursion already” on the Divisions forums, community Manager Natchai reminded users that any “exploitation of any new or known issues or bugs is forbidden and may result in account suspension or revocation”. Fans have been less than supportive of this statement, with some saying that if they don’t want people using the bad code, they shouldn’t write it like that.
Remember the days before people had contract phones, when you ran out of credit and had no way to contact your family because you had no money on you? The answer was to do a reverse call and get your family to foot the phone bill as you explained that extra burger you needed for lunch instead of bus fare. Uber looks to do something similar by letting you pay for your friends and families Uber rides.
Currently, the new scheme will be tested out in Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix and will let you add up to 10 friends or family members to a profile. The new system will let you keep track of their status and provide you with details regarding their rides.
The person footing the bill for the Uber Family account will have to send invites to other members, who after accepting will be able to “charge” the group account only to then have someone else pay for their trip to town.
Uber Family is also advertised for groups like work, meaning you could have your manager pay for the ride to and from work in the morning or even to a business meeting. Offering this means that groups of friends and families can keep track of one another while also offering more flexible payment options for everyone
The security company Kaspersky released a new report that clearly shows just how much of a problem the Steam Stealer malware is. Not only does the malware infect thousands of people each month, it is also very to easy to use and to cheap to purchase for criminals that want to get their hands on your Steam accounts.
The Steam multi-OS distribution entertainment platforms owned by Valve has over 100 million registered users and several thousand games available for download worldwide. Such a popularity makes it a prime target for criminals that want to make a quick buck of your hard earned collection. A recently published report shows that 77 thousand Steam accounts are highjacked and pillaged every month, making it a huge problem.
The prime suspect in the account highjackings is the malware known as Steam Stealer (Trojan-psw.Msil.Steam, Trojan.Msil.Steamilik, and Trojan.Downloader.Msil.Steamilik, amongst others). The malware is thought to originate from Russian-speaking cybercriminals, but it doesn’t matter as much where it originates from as how it is being used.
Steam Stealer works as a malware-as-a-service business model which in itself isn’t that new. Other malware types are using the same business model, but there is a difference in the costs. Previously known models have cost in the range of £350, making it something you really want to do in order to pay up the cash to use the service. Steam Stealers, on the other hand, are available for prices as low as £20. That’s something people will pay just to make a joke, which makes everything worse. On top of that, Steam Stealer malware-as-a-service is available with distinct features such as free upgrades, user manuals, custom advice for distribution and more.
The malware is mainly distributed via fake cloned websites or social engineering attacks with direct messages. Once you’ve got the malicious file and opened it, the malware will steal the entire set of Steam configuration files, locate the Steam KeyValue file that contains your credentials, and even grab your session data. With this information, your account is wide open to the criminals to plunder and pillage.
Where a steam account once only had a smaller value due to the games being locked into the account, that has changed with the introduction of all sorts of collectables and in-game items that at times can be worth thousands of pounds each. That makes Steam accounts a highly valuable target.
“The gaming community has become a highly desirable target for cybercriminals. There has been a clear evolution in the techniques used for infection and propagation, as well as the growing complexity of the malware itself, which has led to an increase in this type of activity. With gaming consoles adding more powerful components and the Internet of Things on our doorstep, this scenario looks like one that will continue to play out and become more complex. At Kaspersky Lab, we hope that our research will develop into an ongoing investigation, bringing a much-needed balance to the gaming ecosystem. Security should not be something developers think about afterwards, but at an early stage of the game development process. We believe that cross-industry cooperation can help to improve this situation,” comments Santiago Pontiroli, Global Research & Analysis Team, Kaspersky Lab.
To stay safe, you should make sure that you have up-to-date security software installed and it couldn’t hurt to check out Valve’s own security measures either. Maybe you can secure your account better than you already have and take that extra step to protect your valuable gaming content.
As many of you are probably aware, it was that American extravaganza known as the Super Bowl, this year’s event was extra special as it was the 50th incarnation and saw the Denver Broncos triumph over the Carolina Panthers by 24 – 10 at Levi’s Stadium.
Among the host of special guests and celebrities was Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook, he decided to post a pic of the event, the results were not good.
Below is the image which Mr Cook uploaded to his own Twitter account, the image is intended to convey the end of the Super Bowl where various people were showered with confetti while standing on the field. What it actually conveys is both a blurry mess and also a not very good advert for what presumably was an iPhone.
Twitter was also not very impressed with this snap and reacted with some typically funny comments.
Translation from Portuguese to English-ish from Google, “tim_cookdamntim,this picture was takenwith an iPhone? becauseit does not seemgoodpropagandacamera qualitynot”
This image was snapped on the spur of the moment with the aim of capturing the experience of the event, it just goes to show that when you are the CEO of a gigantic company that is known for manufacturing gadgets that contain cameras, you might want to check your images before uploading them in case you receive negative PR.
Another day another hack. After the likes of VTech and TalkTalk, it was only a matter of time before hackers did the truly unthinkable, they started targeting your games (again)!
While not strictly targeting your games they are looking to target Nexus mods, one of the most popular sources for people to post and download files to augment your experience with a variety of games. Similar to how Steam workshop works, nexus mods lets you upload, download and endorse people’s adjustments meaning you can do everything from upgrading the graphics in Oblivion to wearing Buzz Lightyears armour in Fallout 4 if the developers don’t break mods.
The breach is reported to have affected users registered before mid-2013 but as a general rule of thumb, if someone is hacked you change your details quick. While being hacked is one issue there has been another one which is slightly more worrying, the mods have been changed.
Popular mods Higher Settlement Budget, Rename Dogmeat and the BetterBuild have found that someone other than their creators made changes to the above-mentioned mods. The addition of “dsounds.dll” to the files have been sent off to a malware research team to check and act upon the file should it appear to be dangerous.
As a precaution, if you own a Nexus Mods account you should change your password and if you are a mod creator, check your mod’s not been altered, reporting any suspicious action if you believe your account or mod have been compromised.
Facebook has revealed a new feature that will notify users if it suspects their account has been hacked by parties “working on behalf of a nation-state,” including the US. If your account has potentially been compromised, a message reading “Please Secure Your Accounts Now. [User], we believe your Facebook account and other online accounts may be the target of attacks from state-sponsored actors,” will be displayed the next time you log in. Seeing such a message means that your account specifically has been compromised, rather than Facebook itself.
“While we have always taken steps to secure accounts that we believe to have been compromised,” writes Alex Stamos, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, “we decided to show this additional warning if we have a strong suspicion that an attack could be government-sponsored. We do this because these types of attacks tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others, and we strongly encourage affected people to take the actions necessary to secure all of their online accounts.”
“It’s important to understand that this warning is not related to any compromise of Facebook’s platform or systems,” he adds, “and that having an account compromised in this manner may indicate that your computer or mobile device has been infected with malware. Ideally, people who see this message should take care to rebuild or replace these systems if possible.”
While Stamos says that Facebook cannot reveal the methods it uses to detect such attacks to maintain their integrity, he assures users that they will never appear frivolously. If you see such a message, take it seriously and change your password. Using log-in verification is also advised. Stamos adds that Facebook “will continue to improve our ability to prevent and detect attacks of all kinds against people on Facebook.”
The Metal Gear Solid franchise has been a global success, my first experience of this series came courtesy of Sons Of Liberty on the PS2, I liked the way you could hide in lockers and peer out through the vents at balaclava-clad soldiers. This title also came with a bonus making-of disc which was actually quite informative, although trying to play it on the PS2 with a PS2 controller was hit and miss, until I bought the DVD remote, which was worse.
Anyway, enough reminiscing as we now fast forward to details for the announced new title which goes by the name of “The Phantom Pain.” Not sure about the title, sounds like an excuse which is given to your boss, this game will be published by Konami for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and PC. The developer has confirmed that the title will be longer than the previous games in the series; this is on top of the side missions which will further extend the game’s playthrough length.
It’s also been confirmed that Snake cannot swim, he can walk through streams, but not swim the 100 meters as he did near the end of the PS2 game. If you would like to play and build your own Forward Operating Base, you would need PS Plus or Xbox Live Gold. However, the base can be developed and customized even if you are offline or you can altogether skip this feature and remain offline, but the features will be limited.
A noteworthy development is the eyewear which Snake uses may be customizable; this is speculation at the moment but has been hinted by the dev team. I look forward to the release of the game, I hope it will be worthwhile and live up to the hype, but then again, what does these days.
Thank you Metal Gear Official Twitter page for providing us with this information.
How weird can a name be for Facebook decides to ban you from creating profile page? Well, apparently not that weird. This is the case of Al Overdrive, who got his Facebook account disabled second time around. Before you ask, yes, his real name is Alister Overdrive, or Al Overdrive for short.
It looks like Al Overdrive is a photographer who deals in the world’s biggest fashion and music, but Facebook seems to not be convinced he exists. Al said he already sent a photocopy ID to Facebook in the past, when the first problems started, to certify his name on an actual government-issued ID. Even so, his profile is said to have been disabled again from the same reason.
Al states that this problem is serious from a business perspective too. Being locked out of Facebook, he no longer has access to professional groups on the social media and people are unaware of his reason for being absent. But this is not the first time Facebook does this, having well-known performers, trans people and those who use pseudonyms to protect themselves from abusers suffering from the same social media treatment as Al.
Facebook did apologize about these misunderstanding in the past and promised it would look into its ‘real name’ policy, but it looks like apologies and promises don’t mean anything for the social media giant. Have you been the victim of such an act or know someone who has? Let us know!
Thank you TheNextWeb for providing us with this information
Google has announced it will begin scaling back Google+ social integration following user feedback. Google+ profiles were initially introduced as an optional measure and designed to streamline Google services into an easily accessible profile. However, it didn’t take long before Google+ accounts became mandatory to comment on YouTube videos. Furthermore, the system was a shambles and made it extraordinary difficult to reply to comments. Also, Google+ led to an increase in spam which made a number of high-profile YouTube personalities disable the comments section. Bradley Horowitz, VP of Streams, Photos, and Sharing, said in a blog post,
“When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life.”
“While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we’ve needed to rethink.”
“So over the next few months, we’re going to be making some important changes.”
“So in the coming months, a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google.”
“YouTube will be one of the first products to make this change, and you can learn more on their blog.”
This is a positive move because users now have the freedom to use a Google+ profile or their Google account to communicate on YouTube. Google’s ambitious plan to create an alternative to Facebook was always going to be an uphill challenge and they have finally acknowledged the widespread lack of enthusiasm.
Did you think that email confirmations and generated code needed to log into unauthorized computers would stop hackers from hijacking your Steam account? Well, think again! But to be fair, it seems like the real problem was mainly down to the security team at Steam.
Before you freak out, the security problem has been fixed, but you should change your password on your Steam account just to be on the safe side. All this seems to have started when users from NeoGAF, Reddit and Twitch TV reported that their accounts have been hacked.
A redditer claims that he lost some items from his account on July 21st when his account got hacked, but Steam never sent him an email to authorize a new PC login. Also, streamers such as Summit1G, Phant0ml0rd, Goldglove, and JoshOG have also reported that their accounts were hacked.
All of this happened during a Steam service outage, but they immediately brought everything back up and assured everyone that the problem has been dealt with. However, another NeoGAF user told everyone in a post on Sunday that Steam is experiencing a massive attack and that he had woken up with a lot of password reset requests from somewhere in the Russian Federation.
What we know so far, it seems that Steam was experiencing a massive security problem. To better explain how the hack worked, watch the video below, but also take note that the security breach in the video has now been fixed.
Has your account been compromised? Have you lost anything from your inventory? Let us know in the comments below.
Thank you Dual Pixels for providing us with this information
In a rather extraordinary tale, a woman has changed her official name by deed poll on the sole basis of accessing her Facebook account. Jemma Rogers, now called Jemmaroid Von Laalaa initially created her account with an alias to avoid pestering from random people or individuals she didn’t want to accept. She argued that rejecting friend requests was too awkward. This was her main account with photos of life events, Status Updates and more! Recently, Facebook has been cracking down on accounts which don’t resemble a person’s actual name. As a result, she had to prove her identity and e-mailed Facebook of the situation.
Bizarrely, they didn’t take her word seriously and still requested information proving the account’s authenticity. In a very rash, silly move, she even tried to alter her bankcards using Photoshop to show the false name. Without getting into how illegal this is, it does seem a rather extreme measure just to retrieve an online account. Ironically, Facebook didn’t take the information on board and suspended her account. The final straw was to change her name by deed poll and this didn’t make any difference whatsoever. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, she said:
“I know I’ve been a complete moron, but Facebook are being ridiculous,”
“I’ve been locked out of my account for five weeks now and have lost all of my photos, messages and precious memories.
“So many people set up accounts in fake names so random people can’t add them or so they don’t have to awkwardly decline requests from people they know but don’t want to be ‘friends’ with.
“But Facebook have been over the top, they should be able to tell it’s a genuine account but just under a fake name. I can’t believe I am being punished like this.”
Thankfully, this absurd story has a happy ending and Facebook decided to reactive the account based on media evidence. A spokesperson for Facebook said to Digital Spy,
“Facebook asks people to use their authentic names, as we believe this makes people more accountable for what they say.”
“In this instance we made a mistake but we reactivated the account last week. We apologise for any inconvenience that this caused.”
I would love to hear your thoughts on her behaviour. What lengths would you go to access an online account with personal information?
It looks like Facebook wants more money out of its services and is now looking into monetizing Instagram. Though there were limited ads present on the service, a lot of marketers and investors were eyeing the service for a long time and with good reason too. The service now has more than 300 million users and could be seen as a gold mine.
The company said that it also plans on using data from users’ Facebook accounts in order to deliver more targeted ads on accounts. Also, to provide more support for companies interested in placing their ads on Instagram, a new Instagram Ads API and Facebook ad buying interface will roll out “over the coming months“.
Facebook noted that it is currently testing out new types of ads that would allow advertisers to make their ads more interactive. This means that users will be able to install apps and buy goods inside Instagram, maximizing the monetizing potential from the very start.
However, when it comes to the actual user, I personally don’t think people will be happy to see one picture of their friends followed by several ads. But that is just my opinion, so how about you? Are you happy with Facebook’s new monetizing strategy for their Instagram service? Let us know!
Thank you BGR for providing us with this information
Tesla, electric motoring giant; like many companies have taken to social media to boost the brand and also get into direct contact with consumers and just about anyone that is interested in their products.
What comes with social media however is a massive risk of hacking. We’ve seen it before with some pages, but normally these are returned to the owner within an hour or so and nothing malicious follows. However, it seems Tesla Motors’ twitter account has been hacked and the new ‘owner’ is having a bit of a joyride on their.
The hacking group behind this seems to be Lizard Squad when following the “@ripprgang” account that was linked in the profile description.
If you are interested in taking a look at the twitter feed, follow this link. Please take discretion when reading some of the tweets as some of them may offend.
This currently seems to be an isolated incident to this one Twitter account, as activity on the company Facebook page and the website still seem normal. Lets hope that this is rectified quickly.
Update: It seems that the hack has been reversed with all offending tweets removed.
We will keep you up to date with any further updates as they come in.
Companies encourage more and more customers to switch to e-billing in order to cut down on the amount of paper used for bills. However, even if bills come in your email, you still have to go out to pay them or use an online payment system to do so.
Google apparently is said to be working on an alternative to the above, in an attempt to make life easier for people. The company is planning to add a new feature to its Gmail that would allow users to receive and pay their bills directly from Gmail itself.
The service, dubbed Pony Express, is said to provide Gmail users with a separate dedicated folder which would help sort out the bills from the rest of the emails in the account. Also, the company is said to provide a way to share bills with another Gmail account, a good feature to have if you are living with roommates and need to split the bill.
While Google has the same features present in its Google Wallet, the project wouldn’t seem too complicated to achieve for its Gmail service too. The new billing and payment system is rumored to roll out in the fourth quarter of this year.
Thank you Ubergizmo for providing us with this information
A number of Steam users have recently stumbled upon a bizarre account that is part of almost 200,000 groups. The account has one friend, no profile image and is level zero but is part of an insane number of groups.
The first mention of it came from a Reddit user who wondered what the account could be for, considering its really strange circumstances. For some, the account shows up as private, for others as disabled, while a number of people can see the page in all its glory. It’s been suggested that it’s a bot to be used by Steam according to SteamDB programmer Martin Benjamins, but that still can’t be confirmed.
Valve or the page itself has yet to comment on it, but we’ll keep you updated when this gaming mystery is solved.
The easiest way for a hacker to gain access to another person’s online account is to crack a weak passwords, so users have to work hard to make sure their accounts are as secure as they can be. However, if the following list of the 25 most commonly used passwords in 2014 is anything to go by, too many people are becoming apathetic over making their data secure:
Security provider SplashData compiled the list of most popular passwords, and it makes for depressing reading. If you want your data to be secure, and you really need telling, opt for a more cryptic password.
Google currently enforces an age limit in the U.S of 13 years old on their services. But reportedly, they’re going to offer the younger population to sign up for a YouTube account in a child safe version of the website according to a report by The Information on Monday.
This means that Google will ask users to input their age when signing up for an account and will also give parents the ability to monitor their childrens activity accross Google services.
Many children are already accessing Google’s services though fake accounts or those of their parents, so this seems to be a bid to help regulate this kind of useage for their underage population. Being a common topic amongst those with young children, internet privacy and monitoring is something that has been thrust into the limelight in todays age of techonology.
Mashable was able to get in contact with a Google spokesperson regarding this new feature and their answer was fairly simple “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation” and unfortuantely we don’t have any more information to report yet on this topic.
What do you think of this venture? Is this something that you’d want to utilize for your children, siblings or relatives?
Mozilla officials have warned about a possible leak of email addresses and cryptographically protected passwords belonging to Mozilla developers last Friday. It is said that a database glitch occurred, which could have been the work of some hackers, and lead to some private information leaking online.
An estimated number of 76,000 email addresses and 4,000 password hashes are said to have been on a public server for about 30 days, starting from the 23rd of June. There appears to be no indication of the data being accessed, according to the officials, but they cannot rule out the possibility of the data being compromised.
“We are known for our commitment to privacy and security, and we are deeply sorry for any inconvenience or concern this incident may cause you,” director of developer relations, Stormy Peters, and operations security manager, Joe Stevensen, said in an official statement.
Although hackers who might have cracked the hashes cannot access the Mozilla Developer Network accounts, they might still be able to access other user accounts that are secured with the same password. The incident is said to have been caused when a data “sanitization” process failed, resulting in having the addresses and passwords dumped onto a publicly accessible server.
Thank you Arstechnica for providing us with this information Image courtesy of Mozilla
Activist and law student, Max Schrems, has launched an international class action suit against Facebook Ireland for not being in accordance with European data protection law. Aside from the US and Canada, it is said that anyone can join his suit over at fbclaim.com since they have signed up to Facebook’s terms and conditions through the Dublin-based European HQ.
The actual number of Facebook users who have signed up for an account through the Dublin server is estimated to be at around 82%, having it already gathering 100 participants in just one hour. The suit is said to seek damages of €500 per user for the following breaches:
Failing to get “effective consent” for using data
Implementing a legally invalid data use policy
Tracking users online outside of Facebook via “Like” buttons
Using big data to monitor users
Failing to make Graph Search opt-in
The unauthorized passing of user data to external apps
Its involvement in NSA’s Prism program, designed to extract personal data from the public’s internet use. (Schrems is pursuing a separate case on this due to be heard by the European Court of Justice.)
Sherms is said to have started the dispute back in 2010, when he asked Facebook to send him all the user data it had on him. He then received 1,200 pages from the social media giant, but Irish regulators, the only people who have the power to fine the social network if it does not comply, have not pushed the rest of Schrem’s Claims through.
“The case was running for three years. So far there is no decision. They usually promise a decision ‘next month’ or ‘soon’, but there was no binding outcome from the complaints for three years now.” said Sherms. “Many people in Ireland say that there is intense political and economic pressure to not enforce the law against the US tech giants there.” he added.
In other ways, Sherms tells that the Irish regulators have run the whole thing like “you would expect from Russia, not from a EU member state”. He states that they are not processing complaints and not providing access to pertinent evidence as well. Everyone with a Facebook account is said to be able to sign up for the suit until the day when evidence is given in Vienna, having press releases announcing that if 10,000 users sign up for the suit, Facebook will have to pay a €5 million fee. It might sound a lot, but given its recent WhatsApp acquisition for $19 billion, it means little to nothing for the social network.
Thank you Arstechnica for providing us with this information Image courtesy of Arstechnica
Twitter has apparently blocked a well-known Russian hacker’s account following the government’s request. This apparently comes a week after the government stated it will not take any measures against so-called ‘extremists’ in the country.
The blocked account is said to be @b0ltai, a Russian Anonymous who apparently leaks government secrets and other sensitive state documents on a regular basis. The account is said not to be accessible to local users, however other people seem to be able to access it just fine.
There have been a few checks with Twitter and it is confirmed that the account is not accessible form Russia. Twitter’s location-specific censorship feature has been confirmed to be used on the account, an action which was performed after the request from the Russian government. The request letter is stated to have been logged at the Chilling Effects website, accessible here.
It is said that Twitter did not comment on the action at hand “for privacy and security reasons”, although the move is said to be a result of a lawsuit which is cited in the censorship request documents from the Russian government. They say that a court in St. Petersburg has granted the block due to a case involving “personal data”, though there is little information available o it in the public domain.
Also, @b0ltai‘s account appears not to be the only account the government wants to block. It is said that Twitter agreed to block 10 accounts in the country, though information gathered only points to this single request.
Thank you TheNextWeb for providing us with this information Image courtesy of TheNextWeb
The Tomorrowland Music Festival is a place where everybody wanting to party and have a good time comes, dances together, has fun and even makes some memories with some new best friends. Most of the friendships however disappear as easily as they are formed, but not at Belgium’s Tomorrowland Music Festival it seems.
The social media giant, Facebook, has apparently made its presence known this time around, having prepared a unique bracelet as an entry ticket as well as a way to keep track of your new friends at the event. The bracelet in question can be activated on the Tomorrowland website by filling in your details along with the unique serial number on the back of the bracelet. Once done, you can also link the bracelet to your Facebook account in order to get access to its second useful feature.
As soon as the bracelet is activated and linked to your Facebook account, it is said that you can start using it to get connected with new friends once arrived at the festival. In order to do that, two or multiple bracelets have to be close to one another and have the connect button pressed simultaneously on all of them. This will trigger a ‘daily special friendship email’, having to contain all the contact details of your newly made friends.
It is said that the bracelet would have been mailed in a special ‘Treasure Chest’ after receiving a Mail letter with additional information and the key to opening the chest. After receiving the latter and activating the bracelet, you can start the 10 day countdown before the festival starts and the fun begins.
Ubisoft apparently tends to take pre-release sales to a new level of marketing. The first sign was when pre-orders started for Watch Dogs, having the company releasing the title in numerous versions, all with their own bonus content. This time, Ubisoft is clearly taking interest in pre-order content “uniqueness”, having users who pre-order the Assassin’s Creed Unity title granted access to a weekly lottery in which they have the chance to win various prizes.
The company has stated that the lottery winners will be drawn and rewarded every Friday, having the prizes consisting of in-game DLC and all the way to paid holidays in France and Canada. It is said that every user will get a free try to spin the wheel, having them usually receiving in-game content and prompted to set up a Unity account in order to claim it. Customers who pre-ordered the game however are said to be granted 5 more spins every week, increasing their chances to receive more valuable prizes.
Taking up this bold move and already releasing pre-ordering for the game four months ahead of its launch date does tend to raise questions about the actual game itself. The video details only what can be won and the bonus content and prizes customers have a chance to win, and nothing about how good the title will be, having the company looking a bit desperate from a point of view.
Nevertheless, Ubisoft did retain its ‘tradition’ in its pre-order system, having customers who pre-order the game be rewarded with the Chemical Revolutions mission pack. In addition to the latter, retailers are also said to offer their own bonus material along with the pre-order and the included mission pack.
Thank you KitGuru for providing us with this information Image and video courtesy of KitGuru
Since OneDrive (formerly known as SkyDrive) has been launched, Microsoft offered a standard 7 GB free storage space with additional subscription fees for users who required more. However, this is about to chance with Microsoft’s latest announcement of upping the 7 GB free space to 15 GB.
The company is said to have planned the additional storage space delivered for free in order to compete with its rival, Google Drive, which also currently offers 15 GB free storage space. In addition to the OneDrive service, Office 365 users are also said to benefit from 1 TB of free storage space with a 20 TB limit for subscriptions.
The 1 TB free space for Office 365 users is quite generous, given the fact that it was previously offered only to business users. Nevertheless, while Google and Microsoft compete in offering free space, the same cannot be said for other similar services, such as Apple’s iCloud, which is said to have nothing planned in terms of free storage space addition in the future.
Microsoft has also tweaked its monthly subscription fees as well, having the 100 GB storage space subscription currently down to $1.99 from $7.99 and the 200 GB subscription down to $3.99 from $11.49. The price cuts are so substantial that the 50 GB subscription appears to have been cut due to the fact that a fee for the latter would be so insignificant that Microsoft would have been better off adding the storage option for free (which would have been great news for OneDrive users).
The company has also stated that existing as well as new users will be able to experience the change in their free storage space availability. Windows as well as Windows Phone users should be pleased with the additional space, having more space to sync their photos, videos and data to the cloud for safe keeping.
Bitcoin might take the lead in the crypto currency market, having many users and organisations mine it through pools or even personal computers. A hijacker however appears to have mined a small fortune in Dogecoin after allegedly taking control of some storage devices.
Dell Secureworks researchers Litke and David Shear have followed a security vulnerability in storage hardware manufactured by Synology. It is said that researcher Andrea Fabrizi has found the operating system used by the devices in question contained flaws and would allow a remote attacker to gain control of the machines and install malware.
While this was back in September, in February it was reported that Synology users began complaining about their devices running slow, having one uses posting on Facebook that a folder named ‘PWNED’ has been discovered on the machine.
After taking a look at the found folder, Litke and Shear then found a program known by digital miners as CPUminer. Further analysis showed that Dogecoin was being mined and sent to two addresses, having more than $200,000 at the current exchange rate. The researchers have also stated that the hijacker was moving the mined currency as quickly as it was produced. However, since this happened a few months ago, the exchange rate of the Dogecoin in question has been determined to be about $620,496.
Neither Litke nor Shear could determine how the massive amount was mined, given that the Synology boxes do not have a lot of processing power. Mining cryptocurrency with a CPU takes a lot of time and not to mention machines. This is why a GPU or ASIC chips are used in order to mine coins.
Though unable to determine how the full amount was mined, the researchers were successful in finding the username “Folio” leading to a GitHub and Bitbucket account. This is how they learned that he speaks German and focuses on security exploits. This information could also lead to the possibility of other devices having been hacked in order to produce the rest of the Dogecoin amount found in the accounts.
Though the Synology boxes are the latest ones, they are not the first. Mining malware has been out there for years, having infected numerous PCs in the past. Recently, smartphones and even security camera DVRs are being targeted by such malware. In addition to new malware targeting new devices along with the continuous complexity in mining bitcoin, it is predicted that illegal mining operations to switch to other bitcoin alternatives.
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It appears that Microsoft has made its Outlook Web App available to select Android devices, having it be a prerelease version and bearing same features as the iOS counterpart.
Microsoft has stated that the application is currently limited to users having an Office 365 business accounts. It is currently available for Android devices running on KitKat 4.4 or higher, having a small or normal-sized screen.
The supported devices have been said to include the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S5, Nexus 5, Moto X, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Sony Xperia Z1 and Sony Xperia ZL. Microsoft has also stated that it will expand the device support in the near future, having said that it will be adding more devices regularly. Also, users themselves can request new device support and features on the suggestion page over at Microsoft’s Outlook web App for Devices.
The company has made the pre-release version available in order to fix bugs and ensure the app will be ready for a full-scale release later on. Also, in addition to the features found on the iOS version, the Android counterpart will also automatically synch changes to the handset’s contacts as well as the Outlook 365 contact list. What this means is by changing a contact’s number for example, the changes will also be reflected in the Outlook 365 contact list.
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Facebook has been fiddling with its user interface it seems and is looking to introduce a new change regarding Pages. It appears that the company plans to revamp the Pages Timeline by adding a single-column design, making them more familiar to individual profile Timelines.
Although it appears as a simple UI tweak, the company is however pushing towards a more mainstream look and feel, taking down design variations and concentrating more on a general overall look and feel inside the whole social media website. This move might seem as confusing for user by not being able to tell between a user’s individual page and a Pages account, but in the end Facebook might prefer that users treat both features the same way, having users already publicly posting and sharing content on their Pages account the same way they do on their individual page. This way, Facebook is also emphasising that Pages is not so different to individual accounts.
In addition to the Pages revamp, Facebook is said to also provide administrators with more control over the look and feel of their layout. This is achievable by allowing administrators to move sections on their Pages account, giving them the ability to add a custom look to their Pages. This feature arrives with a bit of confusion though, having Facebook previously sworn not to give users more control on the UI in order to avoid cluttered and inconsistent colour schemes present on user profiles.
Either way, it seems that Facebook might be steadily considering loosing customization restrictions and at the same time simplifying its overall look and feel.
Thank you Mashable for providing us with this information Images courtesy of Mashable
