Sunday, March 30, 2014

Windows XP is dying. On April 8, Microsoft will stop supporting the ancient operating system that was released in 2001 — and at one point was used by 400 million people.

Bill Gates introducing Windows XP in October, 2001. Photo: Getty Images.

You might think that an operating system that was actually engineered in the late 90s would be fully obsolete and unused by now. After all, since XP came out, Microsoft has released several major replacement versions: Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (recently upgraded to Windows 8.1).

But there’s something about Windows XP. It’s basic, stable, fast enough, and good enough for a lot of people. It’s still running on more than 10 percent of the world’s computers, and it’s huge in China.

Still, it’s time. It’s hard to keep an operating system this old up to snuff in today’s online environment. XP works, but it’s not built to the same security level as modern operating systems.

Microsoft doesn’t want to keep writing new security upgrades for it, so on April 8, it’s stopping. No more security updates. No more support. Your XP computer will still work, but Microsoft won’t help you anymore. Microsoft is pretty harsh about it: “XP cannot be considered safe to use after support ends.”

Microsoft urges you to upgrade. There’s even a site that tells you when your XP world will end: AmIRunningXP.com. Microsoft also has more info on what "end of support" means. To be fair, moving off XP would be a smart thing to do. Newer operating systems are easier to use (at least most of them), they run the cool new apps, and they’re definitely safer. But how do you move from an old computer that’s running XP into the modern era? I’ve heard a lot of advice on how to make the transition. Not all of it good. Here are your options. Bad ideas first:

The Windows XP desktop you may know and love.

Bad idea #1: Just don’t worry about it

It’s not like Windows XP computers will magically stop working on April 9. So don’t worry about it; just keep on using it.

Why is this a bad idea? The problem with an old operating system is that it’s not up to speed with modern attacks. Operating systems need to be patched (updated) frequently to keep them safe from data thieves, scammers, viruses, and the like. After April 8, there will be no more updates coming.

But if you plan to keep going with XP for a while, at least make sure you’re on the last, ultimate version of it, called Service Pack 3. After April 8, you won’t be able to upgrade. Windows’ own update utility should manage this for you. Make sure it’s done so.

Microsoft says it will continue to provide updates to its “anti-malware signatures and engine for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015,” so you can continue to use the company’s antivirus app, Microsoft Security Essentials. That is, assuming you already have MSE. After April 8, it won’t be available for download at all. You could also get a possibly better antivirus tool from another vendor. PC Pro recommends Avast 2014. It’s free, and they say it’s better than Microsoft’s own Security Essentials.

But don’t get comfortable. According to Microsoft, even up-to-date security software can’t save you if the operating system itself isn’t secure. And Windows XP just isn’t. Microsoft says, “Our research shows that the effectiveness of anti-malware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited. Running a well-protected solution starts with using modern software and hardware designed to help protect against today’s threat landscape.”

So you can keep using XP, but not without risk. You probably don’t want it connected to the Internet, and even plugging a USB drive into it could be unsafe.

Bad idea #2: Upgrade to Windows 8, like Microsoft wants you to

Why not get the latest version of Windows? It’s so shiny!

Windows 8.1’s default interface. Get ready to re-learn Windows.

There are two big reasons why this is a bad idea. The first: It probably won’t work. Your old Win XP machine likely does not have the horsepower, the hard disk space, or the hardware to run Windows 8.

Second: You’ll hate it. Windows 8 (including 8.1) has two separate interfaces. There’s a Windows desktop-like one in there, which you’ll probably find comfortable, but you have to go through the touchscreen-centric primary interface to get to it. That’s fine if you have a tablet. But your XP machine is no tablet.

You can mostly avoid that tile-based, touchscreen interface, but not completely. It pops up from time to time, usually when you’re in a hurry and stressed out, and it’s frustrating when it happens.

You can also bite the bullet and get a new Windows 8 computer. They’re not expensive at all. They’re just alien.

If you do start over on a Windows 8 machine, Microsoft has tools to make moving your data from XP to Windows 8 fairly straightforward.

Bad idea #3: Move to Linux

The geek operating system (sorry, geeks) called Linux is stable, fast, cheap, and free, and will run on your old XP machine better than Windows 8 will. The nerds will tell you it’ll do everything that XP will do. They’re right.

The Ubuntu version of Linux. It’ll do everything you want, but you might have to learn a few new concepts.

But here’s why it’s a bad idea: It really is a platform for nerds. Few people you know — unless you know a lot of programmers — will be able to help you out. And your Windows software won’t work. If you have apps you like, you’ll have to find Linux equivalents for them. You’re better off moving to a consumer-friendly operating system.

Bad idea #4: Get a Chromebook

We love the oddball new Chromebooks, Google’s web-centric laptops. They’re cheap, they work great with online apps, and they’re easy to share.

Why is this a bad idea, then? Because Chromebooks rely on a connection to the Internet. Some functions and apps work when disconnected, but most don’t. And Chromebooks don’t run regular Windows programs (Photoshop, Quicken, iTunes, and so on). Chromebooks are great for specific purposes and people (they are great for kids at home or school, for example), but they’re not quite ready to replace Macs or Windows PCs for everybody.

The HP Chromebook 11. A solid laptop.

Read: Why Your Kid’s Next Laptop — But Not Yours — Should Be a Chromebook

Don’t like these bad ideas? Then try one of these other directions:

Better idea #1: Upgrade to Windows 7

The version of Windows that predates Windows 8 is really good. It’s stable and conceptually similar enough to Windows XP that a transition will not be difficult.

It’s not a perfect solution, though. Your machine may not have the juice to run Windows 7, either, as it actually takes a slightly more powerful computer to run Windows 7 well than Windows 8. But you can, for the time being still buy Windows 7 (even though it’s not clear if Microsoft is still manufacturing Win 7 disks), and some hardware vendors still sell computers with Windows 7 installed on them.

Windows 7. Comfy.

Microsoft really wants you on Windows 8, obviously. A Microsoft spokesperson took pains to remind me that Windows 8 is more secure, faster, and uses less energy than Windows 7.

But the easiest new version of Windows to learn after Windows XP is Windows 7, so if you’re just using Windows to run a particular app, it’s a very good option.

Better idea #2: Get a Mac

Bizarrely, it’s easier to move from Windows XP to the Macintosh operating system, OS X, than to Windows 8.1. There are maddening small differences, but conceptually OS X is similar enough to Windows XP (and every other version of Windows other than Windows 8). It doesn’t take people very long to adapt. Most (though not all) good apps are available in Mac versions, too, and your data files should transfer over just fine.

The MacBook Air

It’s an expensive move, though. The cheapest new Mac costs $600 (the entry-level Mac Mini; you can use the screen, mouse, and keyboard from your old Windows computer). Laptops start at $1000 and desktops at $1,300. Complete Windows machines today start in the $300 range, or very nicely equipped at about $600. If you can afford it, though, and you’re not married to specific Windows XP software, Macs are a treat to use.

You’re not alone

Why are people still using Windows XP? I asked my Facebook followers and got good answers from people who are. Some people keep old machines for specific purposes, like running XP-only software and the like. Some just take the enlightened opinion that if they have a computer that works for what they want, there’s no reason to spend money and time on an upgrade.

Just because a manufacturer deems one of its products obsolete, it doesn’t mean everyone who uses such a product has to stop using it immediately. However, over time, an old product in the modern world will develop problems: It will be less safe, or there won’t be people to fix it, or some other product it relies on will fail, and replacements won’t be available any longer. Yes, I’m talking about Windows XP, but the same is true if you’re still driving a 1976 AMC Pacer

When you get into this part of the cycle, you might be forced to move on. But you have a lot of options when you decide to do so — and they might not be the options that the manufacturer recommends.

Correction: This story originally omitted the Mac Mini in the section describing Mac options.

Rafe Needleman can be reached at rafeneedleman@yahoo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @rafe.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Authorities hunt for couple living lavish lifestyle while collecting food stamps

AP Photo: Richard Sennott, The Star Tribune

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman held a press conference on a couple that alleged took $160,000 in welfare benefits while the husband claimed to be a Scottish aristocrat and broadcast executive.

By Brittany Shammas of Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Andrea and Colin Chisholm III fancied themselves Scottish aristocrats, insisting on being called Lord and Lady and leading a lavish lifestyle fitting of royals.

They owned a $1.2 million, 83-foot yacht that was docked in South Florida. They lived in waterfront homes in Minnesota and in Lighthouse Point, Fla., and had $3 million tucked away in various bank accounts.
He was the successful, wealthy executive of a Miami-based broadcasting business; she, the owner of a company that bred pedigree Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, including one that won an award at the Westminster dog show.

And all the while, for about a decade, the Chisholms collected food stamps, Medicaid and welfare. First they got it from the state of Minnesota, then Florida, then — for about a year — both, simultaneously.

When Andrea gave birth to a son in Palm Beach in 2007, Minnesota picked up the $22,000 tab. When the couple moved north after a little more than two years in the Sunshine State, Florida kept paying out their benefits.

"These rich folks ripped off the system," said Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman, who announced fraud charges against the couple on Friday. "And I will assure you that this office is going to do every darn thing we can do to make sure these people do hard time."

If they can find them. Officials in Minnesota say they believe Andrea Lynne Chisholm, 54, and Colin A.J. Chisholm, III, 62, have left the country and headed "someplace warm."
The Lord and Lady have been on the run for about six weeks.

In Florida, the Department of Children and Families is still reviewing the case.

If evidence of fraud is turned up here, another investigation could be launched, according to Ashley Carr, a spokeswoman for Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater.

In all, the Chisholms fraudulently took $167,420 in benefits from Minnesota, according to a criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County. About $60,000 of it went toward massages at a spa.
The story the duo told benefit workers to reel in that money is more than a little different than the life they were actually leading.

In public assistance paperwork filled out between 2004 and 2012, they claimed they had to live with Andrea Chisholm's mom in Minneapolis. They said they had no jobs, no cars and, at one point, just $80 cash to their names, the criminal complaint said.

Meanwhile, Colin Chisholm was telling potential investors in TCN Networks, a satellite television company he owned, that he had assets totaling $97 million.

"He's a con artist," said Virginia Mance Chisholm of North Carolina, who was married to him for more than 20 years and helped investigators in Minnesota build their case. "This is what he did for a living."
In 2004, at same time the Chisholms were beginning to apply for benefits in Minnesota, the couple were also negotiating the purchase of $1.2 million, Fort Lauderdale-based 1963 yacht called the "Wishing Star."

Colin Chisholm told the yacht's owner, Richard Ross of Stuart, that he controlled about $30 million in network television advertising on CNBC. Ross and the Chisholms agreed to a down payment of $220,000, monthly payments of $7,500 and a lump sum payment of $157,000, due in March 2005.

The Chisholms took over the yacht in January 2005. They renamed it the "Andrea Aras" and docked it at the luxury marina at Turnberry Isle in Aventura.

"It's outrageous," Freeman said. "You hear of people getting public assistance when they're having a hard time in their lives and getting it back together. And then you see this."

For a few months, the couple made their monthly payments. Then they stopped and the Coast Guard seized the yacht — or, as Andrea Chisholm later claimed to a lawyer, "stole" it.

By that time, the royal couple were renting a waterfront home in Lighthouse Point.

They staged a mighty battle to get the boat back, but after a trial in federal court, the judge sided with Ross. He wrote that Colin Chisholm's testimony was "almost entirely lacking in credibility...at best, evasive, and at worst, perjurious."

Ross wasn't surprised by news that the Chisholms are now wanted for fraud. He said the couple were sneaky and sophisticated, and had him fooled in the beginning.

They had butlers and chauffeurs who drove guests to the yacht in limousines, Ross said. The "Lord and Lady" thing, he said, was "hysterical."

"I mean, they're criminals," Ross said. "They would make believe that they had all this money. They were selling some scam."

The Chisholms left Florida for Minnesota in 2008. They moved into a luxury, $1.6 million house on Lake Minnetonka with Andrea Chisholm's elderly grandmother, Eloise Heidecker, who she gained power of attorney over.

The pair funneled money from their businesses through her bank accounts, hiding it from authorities, according to the Minnesota complaint. The Chisholms used cash to pay their $2,750 monthly rent.

The several hundred thousand dollars in Heidecker's bank account "included transactions that would not be expected for an elderly woman with an Alzheimer's diagnosis," the criminal complaint said.

That includes $23,000 in charges for airfare, hotels in New York City, California and Florida, cell phone payments and fine dining — all in just in one month.

Mance Chisholm said her ex-husband was a convincing salesman, had "delusions of grandeur" and always wanted to live large.

If he had worked as hard at selling something legitimate, he "really would be a millionaire now," she said.

"He could sell ice cream to a snowman," Mance Chisholm said. "He could have been the best used car salesman in the world. He could sell you anything."

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

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Friday, March 21, 2014

Amazing caves

Netflix Decides The Free Market Isn't So Good After All, Wants Government To Step In

Contributor

Mark Rogowsky

I write about technology, trends and companies on the leading edge.

What a difference a month makes. On February 23, Netflix and Comcast announced a deal under which the video streaming service and the cable company would “team up to provide customers (an) excellent user experience.” Netflix said it worked “collaboratively” with Comcast and that the deal was “mutually beneficial.” So it was a little surprising that today, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings more or less blasted arrangements like that in a blog post on his company’s web site. Hastings wants the government — specifically the FCC, which will receive his remarks officially today as part of an open request — to widely expand the doctrine of net neutrality to cover not only end customers like you and me, but also the internal workings of the internet. And he specifically wants ISPs to apparently be responsible for bearing all the costs of carrying internet traffic. That this would be likely be beyond the legal authority of the FCC is almost beside the point. What Netflix is asking for is government interference in longstanding business practices on the internet. To get it, he’s apparently willing to engage in a lot of half-truth telling and vague accusations. And he wants to throw his own business deal under the bus.

The new neutrality

To date, net neutrality has been about protecting consumers from losing equal access to parts of the internet. You should be able to get to any web site or service without an additional “toll” and without that service being degraded in any way by your ISP. Because a federal court threw out the existing neutrality FCC rules in January, however, there is only one company currently obligated to abide by them. That company, ironically, is Comcast, which agreed to follow them as a condition of buying NBC Universal.

The deal Netflix and Comcast cut technically had nothing to do with the rules as I discussed when it was announced (“Comcast-Netflix Didn’t Violate Net Neutrality But It Wasn’t Benevolent, It Was Business“). But it did something important: By placing Netflix’s servers inside of Comcast’s network, it would give viewers the best possible performance when watching House of Cards or whatever else they were streaming. The three critical takeaways from the deal to remember are this (1) Netflix paid Comcast money (2) It was comparable to what Netflix would have paid a third-party to get you that content had the deal not been struck — likely it was less (3) In bypassing as many internet roadblocks as possible, the end result is likely better streaming performance for most people and only someone with deep pockets could make this kind of deal.

Netflix now wants some unspecified rules that basically make this kind of arrangement unnecessary because they believe Comcast, Verizon and other ISPs should simply cover all the costs of getting your their content without charging Netflix anything. Under Netflix’s terminology, this is called “strong net neutrality.” In actuality, what the company wants amounts to a regulation forbidding ISPs from recovering the cost of connecting to large content providers. Because Netflix is responsible for up to 30% of peak internet bandwidth, it has long relied on content delivery networks (CDNs) to stream its video. Those companies, like Akamai, have being paying ISPs to deliver traffic for more than a decade.

Separate and unequal

The reason why they pay is that as delivery mechanisms for Netflix — and many other large content providers — CDNs aren’t like other ISPs, which carry traffic both in and out regularly. Netflix is similar: You stream video from it, but you don’t send much to it. So Netflix eventually built its own CDN, an expensive proposition and the only reason it could even sit down at the table directly with Comcast. While ISPs don’t exactly make big profits from carrying CDN traffic, they do incur costs: network ports, power, system administrators. None of that comes for free. But most important, as Dan Rayburn of Streamingmedia pointed out to me, when a CDN pays an ISP to carry its traffic (through the “transit” providers that move those bits and bytes around), it gets a guarantee that the traffic will be delivered with a certain level of service. This means that you won’t suffer buffering while trying to binge-watch Orange is the New Black.

Comcast, Rayburn says, made a total of $30-60 million from agreements to carry traffic last year, a figure that’s extrapolated from public statements and company financials. If that sounds like a number the company really cares about or thinks is an important source of future revenues — a place where it intends to stick it to content providers like Netflix — keep in mind Comcast’s top line was close to $65 billion in 2013. So while the company may be marking up its direct costs of carrying traffic a bit, the total it earned is less than 0.1% of its revenues.

Hastings claims that ISPs are holding the company hostage, letting Netflix streaming quality go bad and then — once the ransom is paid — restoring quality. But that’s simply not what’s happening. Instead, Netflix today is trying to get you video through multiple CDNs and multiple transit providers (it has arrangements with several throughout the country to reach various ISPs and devices). Some of them, like Cogent, seem perpetually in battles with ISPs over upgrading connection points. Those upgrades, as described above, require actual monetary investments in equipment and man-hours as more and more data is pushed through saturated connections. Cogent has become a special kind of bottleneck because it has effectively oversold its capacity to deliver traffic to certain ISPs and then complains when those ISPs won’t spend money to help it keep its promises to others.

It’s too crowded in here

To understand the problem, imagine a gated community. More and more people are ordering things that are delivered by a shipping company called Netflix Deliveries. While the community has a half dozen gates, Deliveries keeps sending its trucks through one of the gates. Each time it tries to enter, there’s some delay to be let in by a homeowner, get through the gate, navigate to the home, etc.. Netflix could help by either (1) using multiple gates to create shorter and more diverse path or (2) agreeing to foot some of the bill for upgrading the intercom or gate system to make things faster. What it did with Comcast was actually a bit of both, but mostly the latter. When Netflix complains about slowdowns with certain ISPs, it’s mostly because it has a tendency — like the fictional Deliveries company — to push content through the same overloaded gates, Rayburn said. That’s true even though it could send some trucks through the other, less-crowded ones.

Now, what it wants is a government mandate that all “gate upgrades” be the full financial responsibility of the community or, in this case, the ISP. There’s no rationale for this, nor any specifics. Should Comcast, Verizon, et al. be required to spend whatever amount that Netflix demands on ports to carry however much traffic Netflix ends up sending? If Netflix customers adopt high-resolution 4K TVs en masse, quadrupling their bandwidth demands, presumably Comcast should just pay four times as much for network infrastructure to accommodate that, too?

The problem with this kind of doctrine is that it isn’t “strong net neutrality” at all. It’s “net neutrality for the strong.” While it’s true that this kind of rule won’t explicitly harm smaller content providers, the current system of requiring large ones to pay doesn’t either. When Comcast and Netflix announced their deal, we heard a lot about how the little guy was going to be shut out in the future. But in reality, the little guy is either going to escape the notice of ISPs until he’s big (and thus be safe by obscurity) or do business with a CDN, as Rayburn notes, to appear big and have nothing to worry about. In Netflix’s proposed rule, the very largest providers who bypass CDNs altogether could demand ever increasing amounts of resources from ISPs. And if they get rules written by the government that, for example, favor those with the biggest traffic commitments, that could end up hurting the little guy.

Of course, the whole thing could also backfire on Netflix. Once you start asking for regulations, you might not like what you end up with. That’s why for years, internet firms told the government to just stay out of the way and the net neutrality rules didn’t go into place until 2010 when the pendulum shifted from free-market ideals to fear.

The FCC, for its part, would be wise to stay out of the part of the internet Netflix is asking for help with. The back end has done just fine for nearly 20 years without interference and the Comcast-Netflix deal is actually proof of how the market solves problems the market is having. Besides, Rayburn says: “You’ve got Netflix, Level 3 and Cogent all complaining in the media and the public’s eye that they want changes. Not a single one of them is saying what they want.” That’s a troublesome starting point for a government agency to start making rules. It ought to stop before it begins.

(For more on this topic, if you’re technically inclined, Rayburn’s excellent blog can be found here: Netflix & Level 3 Only Telling Half The Story, Won’t Detail What Changes They Want To Net Neutrality)

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Thursday, March 20, 2014

TW Cable execs set to get $135M 'golden parachute': Associated Press

Sunday, March 16, 2014

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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Mom sues after failed drug test over poppy seeds

Getty Images: Kevin Lorenzi, Bloomberg News

A sign points to various hospitals on the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center campus in Pittsburgh, Penn.

By JOE MANDAK of Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A first-time mother who says she failed a drug test while in labor because she ate poppy seeds has sued a Pittsburgh hospital, saying officials defamed her and violated her doctor-patient confidentiality by sharing the results with a child welfare agency.

Rachael Devore, 31, who gave birth at Magee-Women's Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on June 24, contends in her lawsuit that the hospital staff tested her urine while she was in labor and then turned over the "positive" drug test to county caseworkers.

"I just delivered and it's supposed to be this beautiful, wonderful, happy time and I'm being accused of something that's completely ridiculous," Devore told The Associated Press. "To be accused of physically and purposely harming your child is a very tough accusation to swallow."

A UPMC spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Opiates like heroin are made from poppies, which is why the seeds can result in false positives on drug tests. But Devore said she didn't realize what prompted the failed drug test until weeks later — when she bought the same kind of bread she had eaten ate the day before she went into labor and saw poppy seeds when she sliced into it.

Last year, another Pennsylvania woman settled a lawsuit with Jameson Hospital in New Castle for $143,500, after a county child welfare worker seized the woman's newborn in 2010 after that mother also tested positive for drugs after eating a poppy seed bagel.

Devore's attorney, Margaret Coleman, said there were no medical reasons to test Devore for drugs, saying she was a "model" patient. And when the urine sample came back as an "unconfirmed positive" the results even included the disclaimer "These results are to be used only for medical purposes. Unconfirmed screening results must not be used for non-medical purposes (e.g. employment testing, legal testing)," the lawsuit stated.

Except that's exactly what UPMC did, Devore claims, when they referred her case to Allegheny County's Office of Children, Youth and Families.

Within hours of her daughter's birth, a nurse took a urine sample from the child who was monitored for withdrawal symptoms. The next day, a hospital social worker interrupted Devore while breastfeeding "and demanded information about her alleged drug use."

Devore told the social worker she didn't use drugs and, although their daughter's tests were also negative, the hospital social worker still referred the case to CYF as Devore and the baby were being discharged June 26.

A CYF caseworker visited the Devores later that day, and scheduled a July 5 inspection of their home. A CYF investigator referred the case to a drug addiction counselor and required Devore to sign a "safety plan" acknowledging she'd surrender her parental rights to her husband if she did drugs again.

CYF workers inspected the home repeatedly in the coming weeks, and the drug counselor told Devore she planned to recommend future random drug tests, even after Devore passed another urine test. Eventually, the CYF investigator opted not to require the drug tests, though the agency has yet to send Devore a letter confirming her case has been closed. The agency doesn't comment publicly on child welfare cases.

"The Devores are very, very fortunate that CYF didn't take their baby away and UPMC knows that risk exists whenever they make one of these reports," Coleman said.

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Monday, March 10, 2014

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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Four New Ozone-Killing Gases Detected: Scientists Look for Source

OSLO, Norway — Scientists have detected four new industrial gases that damage Earth's protective ozone layer, despite bans on almost all production of similar gases under a 1987 treaty.

Tiny traces of the gases were found in Greenland ice cores and in air samples from Tasmania, researchers reported Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Experts are working to identify the sources of the chemicals, which may have been used to make pesticides or refrigerants.

The ozone layer shields the planet from damaging ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer and eye cataracts, and has been recovering after a phase-out of damaging chemicals under the United Nations' 1987 Montreal Protocol.

Image: Ozone hole — This graphic from NASA's Ozone Hole Watch website shows the southern ozone hole at its maximum extent in September 2013.

Three new types of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were reported, plus one type of hydrochlorofluorocarbon, or HCFC.

"The concentrations are not yet a threat to the ozone layer," lead author Johannes Laube of the University of East Anglia in England told Reuters. In total, the scientists estimated more than 74,000 metric tons of the four had been released to the atmosphere. That is only a small fraction of the million metric tons of CFCs produced every year at a 1980s peak, according to the team of scientists in Britain, Germany, Australia, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The Greenland ice cores indicate that none of the gases was present before the 1960s.

Laube said it was unknown if the emissions of the new gases were illegal, since the Montreal Protocol has some exemptions. "We hope to tighten the loopholes," he said.

One of the newly discovered CFCs was worrying since concentrations were rising fast, Laube said. The gases were detected earlier in Greenland than Tasmania, indicating they were produced in the northern hemisphere and then blown south. Research planes, taking air samples around the world, may be able to find the sources, Laube said.

— Alister Doyle, Reuters

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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Safeway, Albertsons announce merger

In a $9 billion deal, Safeway and Albertsons will merge under Albertsons’ parent. The companies said no stores are expected to close as a result of the merger.

By Audrey Dutton

The Idaho Statesman

Cashier Amy Yoseph, right, checks out Midori Tanaka at the Safeway in Pinehurst. Bob Miller, Albertsons’ CEO, said, “Working together will enable us to create cost savings that translate into price reductions for our customers.”

Albertsons and Safeway, the nation’s second-largest grocery chain, said Thursday that they will merge under the control of the company that owns Albertsons.

Safeway’s CEO, Robert Edwards, will become the CEO of the new combined chain. Bob Miller, Albertsons’ CEO, will become executive chairman.

Albertsons’ parent, AB Acquisition, a unit of an investor group led by New York private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, will acquire all outstanding shares of Safeway, the companies said in a joint news release after stock markets closed for the day.

The $9 billion deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014. If the merger fails, the Albertsons parent company will have to pay Safeway $400 million.

“Working together will enable us to create cost savings that translate into price reductions for our customers,” Miller said. “Together, we will be able to respond to local needs more quickly and deliver outstanding products at the lowest possible price, more efficiently than ever before.”

“We have a large corporate office in Idaho. We’ll continue to have a strong presence there,” Miller said during a conference call Thursday. It is “too early to say which positions will be where.”

The deal will create a chain with more than 2,400 stores, 27 distribution centers and 20 manufacturing plants. The combined workforce will exceed 250,000.

The companies said no stores are expected to close as a result of the merger.

Safeway shareholders will receive $40 per share in the deal, slightly above the stock’s recent trading price, though Edwards noted that the price is 56 percent higher than Safeway’s share price six months ago. Shares closed at $39.47 on Thursday, valuing Safeway at about $9 billion.

With traditional grocers continuing to struggle nationwide, Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif., put itself up for sale last month. Analysts and industry watchers said a Safeway sale would reshape the industry, leading to the closure of stores across California and the Southwest and transforming Safeway into a neighborhood grocer that more closely resembles Trader Joe’s.

Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons got its start almost 75 years ago in North Boise, where Joe Albertson opened a grocery store he called “Idaho’s largest and finest.” By 2006, Albertsons Inc. stretched from coast to coast, with about 2,500 stores and 240,000 employees under several banners, including Albertsons, Acme Markets, Bristol Farms, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s and Star Markets. It was the second-largest grocery chain in the U.S.

That year, Albertsons Inc. did what Safeway did eight years later: Gave in to pressures from discount retailers and put itself up for sale.

The company was sold in three pieces for $17.4 billion. Stand-alone pharmacies were sold to CVS. Some of the grocery stores, including all the Albertsons supermarkets in Idaho and the non-Albertsons chains, went to Minnesota-based SuperValu, a grocery wholesaler with a retail arm it sought to expand.

The Albertsons stores SuperValu didn’t want — more than 600 of them, mostly in weak Albertsons Inc. divisions in the South and Southwest — were bought by the same Cerberus consortium buying Safeway. They hired some Albertsons Inc. executives to run it from Boise.

Cerberus pared the store roster to 190, earning millions for itself and its partners by selling failed properties for their real-estate value. When SuperValu finally gave up and put itself up for sale, Cerberus bought the remaining former Albertsons Inc. stores and reunited the two Albertsons chains in Boise. Albertsons quickly hired about 900 new employees in Idaho.

Safeway has been panned for neglected stores and ranked by industry publications as having among the worst customer service in retail.

Cerberus’ investment partners are Kimco Realty, Klaff Realty, Lubert-Adler Partners and Schottenstein Stores.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Target Executive Resigns After Credit Card Data Breach

A senior executive at Target has resigned following the massive credit card data breach at the retail giant.

Chief Information Officer Beth Jacob, who had been in the post since 2008, stepped down effective Wednesday, the company said.

A Target retail store in Watertown, Mass. Target's chief information officer has resigned following the massive credit card security breach at the retailer.

In a statement, Target's Chairman, President, and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said the retailer is overhauling its information security and compliance structure. The company originally said a data breach compromised 40 million credit and debit card accounts between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. Then on Jan. 10, it said hackers also stole personal information - including names, phone numbers as well as email and mailing addresses - from as many as 70 million customers.

"As a first step in this effort, Target will be conducting an external search for an interim CIO who can help guide Target through this transformation," Steinhafel said.

As part of this transition, the company said it is working with an external adviser to help evaluate its technology.

Target is still grappling with the fallout of the theft. The company said last week that its profit for the fourth quarter fell 46 percent on a revenue decline of 5.3 percent as the breach scared off customers.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Facebook to Buy Drone Company Titan Aerospace for $60 Million

By Julianne Pepitone

The next step on Facebook's path to Internet-connecting the entire globe is a high-tech one: buying up drones.

Facebook is slated to buy New Mexico-based drone maker Titan Aerospace for about $60 million, a source confirmed to CNBC on Tuesday. The blog TechCrunch first reported the news of a possible Facebook-Titan deal.

Facebook is supposedly interested in Titan because its solar-powered drones — which can reportedly stay airborne for five years — can help Facebook achieve its goal of providing Internet access around the world.

Last year Facebook announced it would lead an initiative called Internet.org, which aims to bring Internet connectivity to the two-thirds of the world's population that currently lacks access. Facebook could potentially launch Titan's drones in those unconnected regions.

A $60 million price tag would likely be welcome to the privately held Titan, but it's a small fraction of the $16 billion that Facebook shelled out for messaging app WhatsApp last month.

Drones have recently emerged as a burgeoning area of technology, with even major U.S. companies like FedEx and Amazon hoping to employ the unmanned devices. (The commercial use of drones is not currently permitted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, but the group is slated to unveil new guidelines by the end of 2015.)

Facebook also wouldn't be the first to use floating devices for global Internet connectivity. Last summer Google launched Project Loon, a pilot program testing Internet access via solar-powered helium balloons.

6 Reasons the Galaxy S5 Beats the iPhone 5s

By Avram Piltch, LAPTOP Online Editorial Director

6 Reasons the Galaxy S5 Beats the iPhone 5s

Comparing Samsung's Galaxy S5 to Apple's iPhone 5s is like pitting the Tesla Model S against the Ford Model T. From its more capable camera to its cutting-edge fitness features, Samsung's new flagship phone has a slew of amenities that Apple, famous for being the last to embrace new technologies (NFC anyone?), will probably add to the iPhone 7s.

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I could spill a vat of digital ink, detailing every way in which the Galaxy S5 is the best 2014 has to offer and the iPhone 5s feels like an average Android device from 2012. However, iPhone users would have to scroll a lot to read them on their low-res displays. Here are the six biggest reasons why the Galaxy S5 beats the iPhone 5s.

1. Larger, Better Display

In an age when most flagship phones have full-HD displays 5 inches or larger, the iPhone 5s' 4-inch, 1136 x 640-pixel display is such a relic that it should come with a cassette adapter. Sure, the iPhone's screen has good color fidelity and a sharp 326 pixels per inch, but it can't hold a candela to Samsung's 5.1-inch, 1920 x 1080p super AMOLED panel.

A larger screen means a better movie-viewing experience, more-legible Web pages and books, and larger keys on the virtual keyboard for accurate typing. With a full-HD resolution, the Galaxy S5 shows the best online videos at an eye-popping 431.9 PPI, with no downscaling required. Better still, the Galaxy S5 has a new technology that adjusts not only the brightness, but also the contrast ratio and color gamut, to provide a superior experience in direct sunlight and other challenging conditions.

More: Samsung Galaxy S5: Top 5 Features

2. Much More Powerful Camera

The iPhone 5s' 8-MP camera takes photos with great color accuracy and sharpness, but it only captures half the detail of the Galaxy S5's 16-MP shooter. But it's not all about megapixels. The Galaxy S5 has real-time HDR (high-dynamic range), which uses different exposure levels for different parts of an image, while the iPhone can only provide this functionality on individual shots, not on videos or in preview mode.

The Galaxy S5 allows you to refocus your images after capturing them so you can focus on that face in the background rather than on the person in front. Add in previous Samsung features like Eraser Mode, which removes photobombers, and Best Face, which helps you pick the best smile for each person in a group photo, and you have a photography experience that's generations ahead of Apple's.

3. Longer Battery Life

If you want a built-in excuse for not answering that 5 p.m. email from your boss, get an iPhone 5s. With its puny 1,560-mAh battery, Apple's phone lasted a miserable 5 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which consists of continuous Web surfing over 4G LTE. If you don't pick up your phone much or buy a battery case, you can make it through the day with the iPhone 5s. But why worry about it?

In contrast, Samsung equips the Galaxy S5 with a 2,800-mAh battery and a new Ultra Power Saving Mode that turns the settings down when you're running low on juice. Samsung also provides a removable back panel that lets you replace its battery, either with a spare of the same size or a third-party extended battery.

4. Water Resistance

Drop your iPhone 5s in the toilet, and you might as well flush it, because it's never coming back. However, if your Galaxy S5 should take a potty pitfall, you can hold your nose for 29 minutes before fishing it out and rinsing it off. Samsung's IP67-certified phone can survive up to 30 minutes submerged in 1 meter (about 3 feet) of water. If it's like the Sony Xperia Z, which boasts the same water resistance, the Galaxy S5 will continue streaming music to your Bluetooth speaker while submerged.

More: 12 Surprising Things Your Android Phone Can Do

5. Better Security, Manageability

Apple earned kudos for embedding a fingerprint sensor into the iPhone 5s' home button, but Samsung has taken biometric security to the next level on the Galaxy S5. In addition to using the Galaxy S5's fingerprint reader (which is also built into the home button) to unlock the phone, you can enter a "private mode" that provides added security for your most sensitive documents and emails. The sensor also integrates with PayPal for secure online purchases.

Samsung also bundles the Galaxy S5 with its unique KNOX environment, which places business data and apps into a separate environment. Your corporate IT manager can feel secure knowing that your apps, business contacts and emails all live in a secure area of your phone, while you can feel comfortable knowing the IT department is not looking at your personal data.

6. Heart-Rate Monitor and Health Features

Whether you're trying to lose weight or just want to know how bad a shape you're in, Samsung has a built-in heart rate monitor that will capture your beats per minute when you stick a finger on the sensor. The Galaxy S5 also comes with a new version of S Health, the company's very detailed fitness software. The app includes a pedometer, diet advice and many ways of tracking your exercise and weight loss goals. With the iPhone 5S, you'll need to buy a fitness band and find your own fitness app.

Rob Pegoraro

Feb 10, 2014

Your email just got broken into? Sorry, it’s not personal. It’s business.

That may not console you much when you realize that your email account was “pwned” through malware or deceit. But, really, the hackers who went after it probably had nothing against you personally. They were instead focused on potentially profitable uses of your email.

This is a point that can easily get lost in the coverage of nightmare hacking scenarios like the 2012 instance in which Wired writer Mat Honan had his Gmail and iCloud accounts hijacked, then saw his iPhone, iPad and MacBook remotely wiped, all so a teenage guy could have fun broadcasting inanities from his three-character Twitter handle @mat.

But, most of the time, crooks going after your email have nothing more ambitious in mind than using it to spam people about fraudulent offers or malicious downloads.

“For the most part, compromised webmail accounts are used to send spam (some of which may contain links to malware),” writes Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute.

In a subsequent conversation, he said that not only has the use of hacked email addresses for spam stayed pretty much constant, but in some ways such addresses have become more valuable. How so? Stronger authentication systems deployed by major mail services have made it harder to send a spoofed message — one that looks like it’s from a legitimate address when it isn’t. So, since email impersonation is harder, the bad guys need to take over accounts to send messages that look real.

The value of a hack
What else can a hacker do with a hijacked account? McAfee public-sector chief technical officer Scott Montgomery sketched out one easy possibility: “Let’s say I compromise your Yahoo mail, your Google mail, whatever — what is the likelihood that you have reused that same password at multiple locations?”

That’s right. Stealing one password can open up access to a multitude of a user’s accounts. So take this opportunity to redo yours; for the most security, use a service like LastPass, 1Password or Dashlane to generate and store random passwords for you.

But even if a victim was smart enough to use different passwords for anything of serious value, it won’t matter if an attacker can reset them online — with the only needed confirmation being a click on an email sent to an inbox that the attacker already controls.

Or, as Brian Krebs reported last March, the attacker can skip even that minimal step by asking the bank nicely via email for help completing a wire transfer.

Ullrich said SANS hasn’t seen too many instances of this, thanks mainly to the fact that it’s more profitable to confine that particular scam to cases “where they know that this person deals with large amounts of money.”
In one particularly ambitious attack SANS is investigating, the scammer steps into existing business correspondence to try to fool a customer into sending money to the wrong place. “It appears to happen quite a bit with real estate,” Ullrich observed.

The worst attack Montgomery suggested one last, still uglier use for a hijacked email: Instead of just spamming friends with some bogus offer, they try to get them to click and install “ransomware” that then locks them out of their own files unless they pay off the scammer.

A site password plus an email address that itself is secured with only a password shouldn’t open the door to moving money around. But while most Web-mail services now offer two-step verification — yes, you should turn it on — only a handful of name-brand banks and other financial institutions also do.

I don’t think you can legislate a requirement for two-step verification, but having to reimburse enough customers for losses ought to have an educational effect on banks that haven’t let customers lock their accounts with more than a username and password.

Online security laws need to change That doesn’t mean the folks in Washington have nothing at all to do on this front. Beyond the absence of a national law requiring companies to notify you if they lose your data, the primary law aimed at networked crime — the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — needs a rewrite of its own.

That’s not because it’s too tolerant of hacking attempts; it’s because it now defines them so broadly that it can be used to target legitimate security research. In an upcoming column, I’ll explain why the CFAA has become many techies’ least favorite law.

Yahoo Tech is a brand new tech site from David Pogue and an all-star team of writers. Follow us on Facebook for all the latest.

Jill Scharr, Tom's Guide

Mar 3, 2014

This malware is sick: The experimental “Chameleon” malware spreads rapidly among WiFi networks in densely populated areas, much as a disease spreads through crowded urban areas.

Developed in a laboratory at the University of Liverpool in England, Chameleon is the first malware known to propagate by hopping from one WiFi network to another.

MORE: Best Antivirus Software 2014“It was assumed … that it wasn’t possible to develop a virus that could attack WiFi networks; but we demonstrated that this is possible and that it can spread quickly,” Alan Marshall, one of the paper’s co-authors, said in a statement.

Chameleon is technically a worm, not a virus, because it replicates without human assistance by trying to crack the password of each new WiFi router it encounters. Chameleon nevertheless behaves like a biological infectious organism, jumping among overlapping WiFi networks much as an airborne disease spreads among humans.

The researchers simulated Chameleon infections in London and Belfast and found that just a few infections can spread the worm to “thousands of infected devices within 24 hours.”

Furthermore, because Chameleon doesn’t migrate beyond WiFi routers, it is undetectable to current antivirus software, which scans for threats on computers and the Internet.

In its current state, Chameleon doesn’t do much more than replicate itself and identify poorly protected WiFi networks, but the researchers say in their paper that such malware could be used to eavesdrop on Internet traffic, alter or destroy data packets, or destroy an infected WiFi router.

Chameleon doesn’t exist in the wild, so there’s no real risk of infection. The good news is that a strong WiFi password will keep your router safe from this kind of malware; if it can’t break into your router, it will simply move on to the next available one.

The bad news is that many commercial and private WiFi networks have weak passwords or simply aren’t password-protected at all.

In that sense, a WiFi password is like a vaccine; having it will protect not only you, but the people — or WiFi routers — around you as well.

See also:
13 Security and Privacy Tips for the Truly Paranoid ‘War Biking’ San Francisco Reveals Lousy WiFi Security

Email jscharr@techmedianetwork.com or follow her on Twitter (@JillScharr) and Google+. Follow Tom’s Guide on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Progress! Soon You May Actually Be Able to Unlock Your Mobile Phone

You know that when you “buy” a mobile phone, you don’t actually have full access to it. Most phones are locked to the carrier you bought them from. But buying a phone may soon look more like actually owning a phone, thanks to a bill to legalize phone unlocking that passed the House last week and faces decent odds in the Senate.

Requiring an act of Congress to use things you’ve paid for as if they are actually your property is maddening. It’s also tech policy as usual. What’s less usual is seeing forward momentum in this area.

While the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is a flawed solution, it still represents one of the few times when Congress has not just refrained from passing an awful law but moved to fix an older bad law.

The bad law in question is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which when it passed in 1998 made it a crime to circumvent “a technological measure that effectively controls access” to a copyrighted work. Bizarrely, our mobile phones were caught up in that sweep.

Stretching the lawSo do wireless carriers lock the SIM card slots of phones to protect software copyrights? Not really. They do it to make it harder for you to switch to another carrier (even though they already have early-termination fees to thwart your defection). But the wonderfully elastic DMCA was easily stretched to cover this situation.

The 105th Congress wasn’t completely oblivious about the blank check it gave to Big Copyright with that law, and so the DMCA included a provision that lets the librarian of Congress, on the advice of the register of copyrights, grant temporary exemptions to the anti-circumvention clause. That’s exactly what Librarian James H. Billington did in 2006 when he allowed phone unlocking.

Alas, in subsequent exemption rulings he narrowed that right before extinguishing it almost completely in 2012, on the grounds that “consumers now have access to a variety of unlocked phones.” As in, why whine about not being able to unlock your paid-for iPhone when you can buy a new, unlocked iPhone for $450 and up?

At that point, unlocking-service entrepreneur Sina Khanifar and Republican policy wonk Derek Khanna got righteously mad and filed a petition at the White House’s site.

Theirs easily crossed the required 100,000-signature threshold and drew a more serious response than, say, an earlier request that the U.S. build a Death Star. Wrote senior adviser R. David Edelman: “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties.”

That got a few policy wheels turning a little faster. By the end of last year, some public nagging by new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler led to the major carriers pledging to unlock the phone of any out-of-contract subscriber on request — and even to notify them when they’d (ahem) unlocked that option.

That didn’t make the Unlocking Consumer Choice bill irrelevant — the industry promise covers only current and former subscribers, not recipients of their old phones. And it doesn’t let you ask somebody else to unlock the phone.

Making the illegal even more illegal Goodlatte’s bill, endorsed by the Obama administration in December, does both. And on Feb. 25, it passed the House 295-114 … with one tiny, last-minute change. That revision added a line ruling out “unlocking of wireless handsets or other wireless devices, for the purpose of bulk resale.”

That’s nowhere near the worst change slipped into a bill days before passage, but it was enough to draw denunciations from prior supporters like Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The change was supported by a committee report that explains that “ongoing criminal enterprises … profitably steal large numbers of smartphones for resale after they are unlocked. This legislation would not enable such enterprises to avoid prosecution under the law for the underlying theft or for the circumvention.”

That is silly. Who was ever going to legalize stealing phones? And it does not square with the carriers refusing Samsung’s offer to preload Absolute Software’s kill switch LoJack service on some phones, which I can confirm locks a phone from further use even after you try to reset it to factory condition.

Don’t get used to it
But the worst problem with Goodlatte’s bill is that it does nothing to stop this cycle from repeating at the next DMCA exemption proceeding in 2015. Our rights to use the things we buy should not be subject to editing by unelected officials every three years — not least when they can’t even be consistent in their decisions.

This bill also doesn’t address all the other ethically sound things that remain crimes under the DMCA — for instance, like when I rip DVDs to my computer so my toddler can keep watching them after she inevitably scratches or breaks them. There is a bill that would fix that — the Unlocking Technology Act, sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), would make it a crime to defeat a digital lock only if you’re actually trying to rip off somebody’s copyright.

That’s eminently sensible. And therefore likely to take a lot longer to get anywhere than last week’s more modest phone-unlocking bill.

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.

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Authorities hunt for couple living lavish lifestyle while collecting food stamps

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Mom sues after failed drug test over poppy seeds

Monday, March 10, 2014

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Four New Ozone-Killing Gases Detected: Scientists Look for Source

— Alister Doyle, Reuters

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Related

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Target Executive Resigns After Credit Card Data Breach

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Facebook to Buy Drone Company Titan Aerospace for $60 Million

6 Reasons the Galaxy S5 Beats the iPhone 5s

Progress! Soon You May Actually Be Able to Unlock Your Mobile Phone