LulzSec hacks again, claims responsibility for leaking 10,000 Twitter accounts on Pastebin

Trace Hagan | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Jun 12, 2012 2:33 PM CDT

LulzSec, a hacking group responsible for many hacks last year, has been fairly quiet this year after their leader allegedly worked with law enforcement to bring charges against its members. Now, however, LulzSec Reborn has taken over and started hacking, mainly compromising user accounts and leaking the details.

LulzSec Reborn has had two major hacks this year and otherwise has been quiet. The first was a leaking of 170,000 MilitarySingles accounts on Pastebin and now they are taking responsibility for the leaking of 10,000 Twitter accounts on Pastebin. The latter, today's leak, features much more information than a traditional password hack.

The leak comes in the form of an SQL dump which features usernames, passwords, real names, bios, locations, avatars, security tokens used by the service for authentication with Twitter and the user's most recent Tweet. The hack comes from compromising a third-party site that required the login information to work.

Continue reading: LulzSec hacks again, claims responsibility for leaking 10,000 Twitter accounts on Pastebin (full post)

EU watchdog issues warning over smart meter privacy risk

Trace Hagan | Business, Financial & Legal | Jun 12, 2012 12:28 PM CDT

The world is becoming more and more connected and more and more devices are joining the internet. This fundamental idea is the driving force behind the need to change to IPv6. Now even smart meters are connected to some sort of network through which they transmit usage data back to the power company.

An EU watchdog is concerned about the privacy of the data that is being reported back. Due to the massive amounts of data being reported, it's easy to see when people are home or not by watching the power usage. Not only that, but the meter can even report back what medical devices are in use in the house.

It's of the utmost concern to Privacy International, a group claiming that proposed safeguards do not go far enough. The major fear appears to be regarding the ability to deduce if someone is home or not, but there are plenty more complaints about the sheer amount of data being collected.

Continue reading: EU watchdog issues warning over smart meter privacy risk (full post)

Intel changes its mind: Intel 520 Series SSD does not have AES 256-bit Encryption

Trace Hagan | Storage | Jun 11, 2012 5:43 PM CDT

Intel has decided that AES encryption feature of the 520 Series SSD (Cherryville) does not actually feature 256-bit encryption. It turns out that the SSD actually only supports 128-bit encryption, which should be plenty for most users. These details have come to light after Intel published an updated specification document for the series.

Intel is doing the right thing and offering a refund for users who feel 128-bit isn't enough:

Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality, and is working to bring AES 256-bit encryption to future products. If, however, our customers are not satisfied with the 128-bit encryption in an Intel 520 Series SSD purchased before July 1, 2012, they can contact Intel customer support prior to October 1, 2012 to return their product and Intel is offering to provide a full refund of the purchase price. For further information or questions about this specification change, consumers should contact Intel Customer Support.

Continue reading: Intel changes its mind: Intel 520 Series SSD does not have AES 256-bit Encryption (full post)

AMD beta drivers show 16 new device IDs, 3 new codenames, could it be the 8000 series?

Trace Hagan | Video Cards & GPUs | Jun 11, 2012 4:11 PM CDT

A surprise from AMDs beta drivers has arrived today. No, not some incredible performance jump that causes it to smash the 680...or is it? The new beta drivers make reference to 16 previously unseen device IDs and their codenames. These new device IDs could (read: likely) belong to the upcoming HD 8000 series GPUs.

The codenames, 4x "Venus", 3x "Oland" and finally 9x "Mars", should flesh out the HD 8000 series nicely. The Venus will most likely be the top end card due to the LE, Pro, XT and XTX suffixes. Oland will probably end up being the 8800 series and Mars will most likely flesh out the lower end and mainstream market.

The cards will likely launch near the end of 2012 or very early 2013, if previous AMD launches are anything to go by. There have been zero rumors about performance, although with this new finding, I'm sure they will start flowing. In case you're curious, the device IDs are listed below:

Continue reading: AMD beta drivers show 16 new device IDs, 3 new codenames, could it be the 8000 series? (full post)

iOS 6 officially announced

Trace Hagan | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | Jun 11, 2012 1:47 PM CDT

iOS brings with it a new version of Siri. She has been studying for the past 8 months and can now do so much more like understand sports. There are also new features for finding restaurants and making reservations.

Siri also understands movies better as she has integrated with Rotten Tomatoes. Siri can search for movies featuring specific actors or directors.

Siri can also launch apps:

Continue reading: iOS 6 officially announced (full post)

Crytek to change focus to big budget free-to-play games

Trace Hagan | Gaming | Jun 11, 2012 11:34 AM CDT

Sources around the web are indicating that Crytek, the studio behind the hit series Crysis, is moving towards producing free-to-play games with pay-to-play budgets. This means that Crysis 3 is likely the last retail title we will see from the Crytek team. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli let the cat out of the bag to Videogamer.com.

Right now we are in the transitional phase of our company, transitioning from packaged goods games into an entirely free-to-play experience.

What this entails is that our future, all the new games that we're working on, as well new projects, new platforms and technologies, are designed around free-to-play and online, with the highest quality development.

Continue reading: Crytek to change focus to big budget free-to-play games (full post)

Intel says Android not properly prepared for multiple cores

Trace Hagan | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | Jun 11, 2012 10:28 AM CDT

Intel recently released their Medfield Atom chip in smartphones and have had limited success. At first blush, it appears tests are proving the single core chip is the same as multicore ARM chips in both performance and power draw measurements. Usually, to increase performance, more cores are thrown at the problem.

However, this time Intel believes that won't help as they are saying that Android isn't properly prepared to utilize multiple cores efficiently. Moreover, Intel thinks that these optimizations for multiple cores could and should come from the System-on-a-chip providers such as Texas Instruments or Qualcomm.

Intel's Mobile and Communications Group General Manager, Mike Bell, had this to say:

Continue reading: Intel says Android not properly prepared for multiple cores (full post)

Upcoming animated film gets powered by Valve's Source engine

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Jun 11, 2012 1:28 AM CDT

Valve's Source engine arrived in 2004 and has powered some truly great games such as Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Counter Strike: Source, and more. Now the game engine is stepping over into movies where it will be used in the upcoming movie 'Deep'.

Deep is a small-budget animated movie, utilising the Source engine as its a low-cost solution for real-time rendering and editing. Thanks to the partnership between the developer and film producer, Deep could be the first movie released on Steam. Deep is an animated film set in the post-apocalyptic landscape of World War III, where the remaining few members of mankind huddle together in abandoned ship hulls, struggling to survive.

Deep has a budget of a shave under $19 million. This could be a step in a very interesting direction for Valve, and Steam.

Continue reading: Upcoming animated film gets powered by Valve's Source engine (full post)

Hawken to receive MEK-FU controller, requires three hands and a university degree to use

Anthony Garreffa | Peripherals | Jun 10, 2012 11:31 PM CDT

Remember the free-to-play mech game Hawken? Well, after seeing the MEK-FU controller you won't... the USB-based controller was unveiled at E3 last week and is designed by new accessory company RIPLEIGH. CEO of RIPLEIGH, Chen Yisheng has told Destructoid that his team did a lot of research in order to get to the MEK-FU, going as far as having a guy on the team that used to drive tanks in the military.

MEK-FU sports two joysticks, lots of buttons, flip switches, and is fully programmable. There's even a full keyboard on the thing! The MEK-FU is also capable of taking a mobile or tablet device that acts as a secondary display, or the main screen, that works with Hawken thanks to the Gaiki streaming partnership.

Hawken drops in December and the MEK-FU should hopefully arrive soon after. How much would you want to pay for this controller? I'm loving the idea of using a smart device such as a tablet as a secondary display, I've been waiting for a game developer to do this since the iPad was released.

Continue reading: Hawken to receive MEK-FU controller, requires three hands and a university degree to use (full post)

Google co-founders to face US antitrust regulators for questioning

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Jun 10, 2012 10:18 PM CDT

It looks like the lads that co-founded Google are in hot water once again, where they'll have to appear before US antitrust regulators for questioning. Larry Page and Sergey Brin have reportedly retained counsel, and are expected to give depositions before the Federal Trade Commission sometime over the coming months.

What is it all over? Well, the issue boils down to whether or not Google have been unfairly using its position as the world's dominant search engine in a manner biased in favor of its own products, as well as whether Google has increased advertising rates for its competitors.

Google of course maintains that users are free to visit Google's competition, which the search giant says is "only a click away" thanks to the nature of the web.

Continue reading: Google co-founders to face US antitrust regulators for questioning (full post)