John Lister

Samsung is to remotely disable televisions stolen from its warehouses. It appears to be the first time it's activated the security measure. "TV Block" hasn't attracted much attention before but Samsung says it is installed on all its televisions. It ... hasn't confirmed if this is only in South Africa, where the feature has now been triggered, or on all sets worldwide. The activation follows looting during unrest in South Africa last month. A Samsung warehouse was among the locations ransacked. Internet Connection Used For Block The TV Block feature works because Samsung's Smart TV sets have an ... (view more)

The most viewed link for Americans on Facebook in the first three months of 2021 was to a news story about a doctor who died after getting a COVID vaccine. The story turned out to be questionable and may have given a misleading impression. The ... statistic comes in a Facebook report that was mysteriously delayed. That's raised questions about whether Facebook held it back to avoid controversy. Facebook publishes a quarterly report titled "Widely Viewed Content" that details posts, links and other content that are seen by the biggest number of users in the United States. It's designed to show ... (view more)

A new website lets users try out the new Windows 11 user interface. The unofficial site doesn't require any software installation or special hardware. The demo is available at win11.blueedge.me and is an open source project involving several ... contributors. (Source: techspot.com ) Unlike Microsoft's various test editions (and the less official leaked copies), the demo doesn't actually run any standalone software. Instead it's a web page that simulates the look and feel of the Windows 11 desktop, along with some of the key features and functions. This includes working copies of apps including ... (view more)

A recent Windows 10 update appears to have broken the Alt-Tab feature. Thankfully there's a simple fix that doesn't involve compromising security or performance. Holding down the Alt button and then hitting Tab is one of the more long-standing and ... useful Windows keyboard shortcuts. For those who've somehow missed out, it lets users quickly switch between open windows, including those not currently visible at the foreground. In later editions of Windows, including Windows 10, the shortcut displays a small image of every open windows showing its current content. That's useful when running two ... (view more)

Internet Explorer 11 users will start losing access to Microsoft 365 this week. It's the latest step towards the browser being phased out altogether. Microsoft 365 is the subscription version of Microsoft Office. Rather than buy a one-off edition, ... users pay an annual fee and will always have access to the latest versions of tools such as Word and Excel. That's because Microsoft 365 works online rather than the bulk of the software being installed and running on the user's hard drive. Internet Explorer 11 was released in 2013 and became the default browser for Windows 8.1 and earlier. It was ... (view more)

T-Mobile is investigating claims a hacker stole sensitive data about more than 100 million customers. It hasn't confirmed or denied claims. The haul included social security numbers and driver license information. The alleged breach was first ... reported by Motherboard, which spotted a hacker forum post from somebody attempting to steal the data. The would-be seller says it comes from multiple T-Mobile servers and contains "full customer info" on US customers. The seller claims the haul includes names, phone numbers and physical addresses, along with IMEI numbers that identify individual ... (view more)

Firefox has added a new feature letting users remove all traces of visiting a website, including cookies. It builds on the browser's existing technology that makes it harder for a single site to track users across the web. Both features aim to ... tackle the problem that tracking and other records of online activity come from a variety of sources. Visiting a particular site creates several pieces of data on a computer, while cookies are made more complicated because the site that places them on a computer isn't always the same as the site that access and uses the cookie. Total Cookie Protection ... (view more)

Apple has admitted it scans iPhone images for pictures of children being abused. It says it will refuse any government request to use the facility for other purposes. The scans cover any photos uploaded to the iCloud Photos backup service rather ... than scanning the entire phone. This feature is switched off by default. Once it's switched on, any photo added to the device is automatically uploaded to iCloud and will therefore be covered by the new scans. When Apple scans the image, it doesn't try to figure out the content. Instead it compares it to a database of known child abuse images. If it ... (view more)

A government agency says three "random" words make for a better password than many other approaches. It says other strategies such as adding symbols and numbers can be counterproductive. The advice comes from the National Cyber Security Center ... (NCSC). That's a body in the United Kingdom that deals with major security breaches and gives advice to businesses and other government organizations. According to the NCSC, the advice is aimed at people who try to remember passwords. It says password manager tools are a good solution but remain widely unused. (Source: gov.uk ) Predictable Appr0@ch! The ... (view more)

A Senate committee has slammed cyber security in eight federal government agencies. The committee said most were failing basic security standards and had shown minimal improvements since a previous report. The report comes from the Committee on ... Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It followed up on a similar report from another committee in 2019. Both reports looked at issues including: Whether the agencies adequately protected personal information. Whether they kept track of the various IT equipment and systems they used. Whether they installed security patches quickly enough. Whether ... (view more)