John Lister

A California hospital has been unable to use its computer system for more than a week thanks to a ransomware attack. The hackers are said to be demanding more than $3 million in return for returning access. The Hollywood Presbytarian Medical Center ... has confirmed the attack but is keeping many of the details quiet. Local news outlets say it doesn't appear any personal data has been compromised and no patients have been put at medical risk. However, the attack has been highly disruptive. Staff are having to register new patients and update medical records on paper. Some patients and family ... (view more)

A new phone app is said to help detect earthquakes and provide quicker warnings than is currently possible. The 'MyShake app' has many limitations, but could theoretically still save lives. The app uses the accelerometer that's built into most ... modern phones. It's a small gadget that measures movement in the phone along three axes (left-right, up-down, back-forth) and powers all sorts of features, including fitness tools and the way that displays automatically rotate and resize if you turn the phone from landscape to portrait or vice versa. The idea of MyShake is to constantly monitor ... (view more)

The IRS has revealed that cyber attackers managed to trick its system in handing over more than 100,000 access codes for user accounts. Fortunately the breach was discovered before any sensitive data was compromised. The attack followed a data theft ... from a source outside of the IRS. The agency hasn't revealed what that was, but it appears to have involved a stolen list that included social security numbers. The attackers then set an automated program, or "bot" to work. Using stolen social security numbers (sourced from outside the IRS), the bot was used to generate E-file PINs ... (view more)

Windows 10 "phones home" thousands of times each day even with the most restrictive privacy settings, according to a newly published article. While the precise figures are in question, it highlights ongoing concerns about Microsoft monitoring. The ... experiment was carried out by a message board poster using the somewhat unlikely name of CheesesCrust. He decided to find out exactly what happens if Windows 10 is run with all tracking supposedly disabled. (Source: voat.co ) To do this, he used a virtual machine tool on a laptop to simulate installing Windows on a completely new machine. ... (view more)

The Indian government has banned Facebook from offering free Internet access in the country. Officials said the program breached net neutrality principles by favoring some sites over others. Since 2013, Facebook has offered a service called Free ... Basics in some nations where Internet access is unaffordable to large parts of the population. Most of these countries are in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The service, offered in partnership with cellphone operators, gives users free access to data usage on a smart phone, which for many users will be their primary or only way of getting online ... (view more)

Facebook is making yet another change to the way it shows content on a user's home page. The tweaks are designed to better reflect what people actually think of the content. The changes will affect the News Feed, which displays user posts in an ... order based on an 'importance', determined by Facebook's algorithm. Prior to the News Feed, posts were shown in chronological order. Facebook concluded that viewing posts in chronological order was simply unworkable, due to the sheer volume of content posted in a day. In some cases, users could potentially see 1,500 posts a day. (Source: techcrunch.com ... (view more)

Microsoft has reclassified Windows 10 as a "recommended update" for Windows 7 and 8.1. That means it will automatically download and attempt to install for many, and likely even most, users. It will be possible to stop the installation or to undo it ... without any major hassles (with some restrictions). That said, the download could be a problem for people on restrictive broadband plans. Late last year Microsoft classified Windows 10 as an optional update . That meant users could manually choose to download and install it through the Windows Update system that's normally used for ... (view more)

A Harvard University report challenged the government's argument that online encryption helps criminals go undetected. The report also suggests that the "Internet of Things" will give law enforcement officials more opportunity to surveil suspects. ... Politicians and government agencies (such as the FBI) repeatedly make the case that the law fails to keep up with technology, especially when it comes to being able to monitor communications between suspected offenders. For example, recently-updated wiretapping laws can still prove to be unworkable, especially if data is encrypted ... (view more)

Microsoft has refunded a man whose son used his credit card to spend more than $8,000 on a video game. It's a surprise move given the son is 17 years old. Lance Perkins's son had used a credit card provided by his father to make "micro transaction" ... purchases for the FIFA soccer game on the Xbox video game console. The game includes an "Ultimate Team" mode in which players can create a fictional super team using players from around the world, rather than sticking to real world team lineups. The son claims that although he knew Ultimate Team carried an extra cost, he ... (view more)

Windows virtual assistant Cortana will soon step up scanning of emails by default, in order to make Cortana more useful. Whether its an improvement or a sign of creepiness on Microsoft's part is up for debate. The announcement comes almost 3 years ... to the date, where Microsoft publicly launched a campaign named " Don't get scroogled by Gmail ." In that campaign, Microsoft complained that Google's email scanning practice was unjust. Email Scanning Takes Note of Schedule Cortana's new email scanning is being tested among Windows Insiders - the group of users who have signed up to get ... (view more)