Miscellaneous Tech News
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Chrome OS’ Instant Tethering now works with more than 30 Android smartphones
15 additional Chromebooks now support the feature, too.
The handy feature that lets Chromebook users connect to a smartphone's cellular hotspot is now coming to more devices. Google announced that Chrome OS' Instant Tethering feature will now be available on more than 15 Chromebooks and more than 30 smartphone models, including handsets from HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung.
Previously, Instant Tethering was only available on a handful of Chromebooks, including the Pixelbook and the new Pixel Slate. The list of supported smartphones was similarly short, initially confined to Google-made handsets like the Pixel and Nexus. The expansion is part of Google's effort to make the experience of using a Chromebook easier and more seamless for those with Android smartphones, regardless of the handset's manufacturer.
Instant Tethering, which first came to Chromebooks in 2017, requires an initial setup process that users can complete upon setting up the Chromebook or at any time from the Settings menu. Users must be signed in to the same Google account on the Chromebook and the Android smartphone in order to use Instant Tethering features.
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Google releases Chrome extension that alerts users of breached passwords
Using hashed and encrypted store, add-on securely checks logins against breach database.
With lists of billions of compromised credentials floating around on underground forums and in text-paste pages across the Internet, it's difficult for anyone to keep up with the potential threat from breached passwords. That's why, as part of its security efforts during Safer Internet Day, Google has released a new add-on for the Chrome browser that automatically and securely checks website credentials against known password breaches.
The Chrome browser extension, called Password Checkup, is available today. It securely checks credentials used to log in to websites—whether they're manually entered or stored in Chrome's password manager—against hashed credentials stored in an encrypted database of billions of compromised accounts maintained by Google. Elie Bursztein, head of Google's anti-abuse research, told Ars that the protocol behind the service is being presented as a standard for securely checking account security and that the interface may be offered as an open application interface in the future.
Checking for password breaches is a sensitive operation. Google's security team has been offering password checks for G Suite users for some time, but doing the same thing for the rest of users' credentials is a much more delicate privacy dance. Users don't want to just hand over their passwords and accounts to Google openly, and "Google has a data set we don't want to publicly share," said Kurt Thomas, staff research scientist at Google. So Password Checkup uses a combination of anonymization and cryptography to protect the exchange, using a technique called "blinding" to create a secret search index. Credentials are anonymized with an Argon2 hash function to create a search key for Google's database and encrypted with Elliptic Curve cryptography.
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Google releases Chrome extension that alerts users of breached passwords
Using hashed and encrypted store, add-on securely checks logins against breach database.
With lists of billions of compromised credentials floating around on underground forums and in text-paste pages across the Internet, it's difficult for anyone to keep up with the potential threat from breached passwords. That's why, as part of its security efforts during Safer Internet Day, Google has released a new add-on for the Chrome browser that automatically and securely checks website credentials against known password breaches.
The Chrome browser extension, called Password Checkup, is available today. It securely checks credentials used to log in to websites—whether they're manually entered or stored in Chrome's password manager—against hashed credentials stored in an encrypted database of billions of compromised accounts maintained by Google. Elie Bursztein, head of Google's anti-abuse research, told Ars that the protocol behind the service is being presented as a standard for securely checking account security and that the interface may be offered as an open application interface in the future.
Checking for password breaches is a sensitive operation. Google's security team has been offering password checks for G Suite users for some time, but doing the same thing for the rest of users' credentials is a much more delicate privacy dance. Users don't want to just hand over their passwords and accounts to Google openly, and "Google has a data set we don't want to publicly share," said Kurt Thomas, staff research scientist at Google. So Password Checkup uses a combination of anonymization and cryptography to protect the exchange, using a technique called "blinding" to create a secret search index. Credentials are anonymized with an Argon2 hash function to create a search key for Google's database and encrypted with Elliptic Curve cryptography.
I haven't read this yet - supposedly they have a way of figuring this out without sending the actual password outside your system.
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@Dashrender supposedly. Local hashed copies.
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Unifi Controller 5.10.12 release
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Motorola’s 2019 cheap smartphone lineup includes a 5000mAh battery option
Motorola shows off the Moto G7, G7 Power, and G7 Play.
Today, Motorola is announcing the new Moto G series for 2019: the Moto G7 family. There are three devices to take a look at: the Moto G7, the Moto G7 Power, and the Moto G7 Play. Along with the phones from Nokia, members of the G series are among those rare smartphones that can be had for under $400, and that makes them pretty interesting.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Motorola’s 2019 cheap smartphone lineup includes a 5000mAh battery option
Motorola shows off the Moto G7, G7 Power, and G7 Play.
Today, Motorola is announcing the new Moto G series for 2019: the Moto G7 family. There are three devices to take a look at: the Moto G7, the Moto G7 Power, and the Moto G7 Play. Along with the phones from Nokia, members of the G series are among those rare smartphones that can be had for under $400, and that makes them pretty interesting.
Bah, humbug. They keep making reasonably priced, good spec phones, but Lenovo
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@travisdh1 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Motorola’s 2019 cheap smartphone lineup includes a 5000mAh battery option
Motorola shows off the Moto G7, G7 Power, and G7 Play.
Today, Motorola is announcing the new Moto G series for 2019: the Moto G7 family. There are three devices to take a look at: the Moto G7, the Moto G7 Power, and the Moto G7 Play. Along with the phones from Nokia, members of the G series are among those rare smartphones that can be had for under $400, and that makes them pretty interesting.
Bah, humbug. They keep making reasonably priced, good spec phones, but Lenovo
Glad you reminded me. -
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/security-breach-strikes-parliaments-it-network-519035
Parliamentarians and their staff have been forced to reset passwords after an apparent malicious attack against the parliamentary computing network overnight.
In a statement, Parliament's presiding officers said it was one of a number of measures taken by the Department of Parliamentary Services to protected the network and its more than 4000 users. -
Messy office owners, rejoice: Skype now blurs the background to your video
No need to frantically tidy things up before making a call.
The background-blurring feature has already been rolled out to Microsoft's corporate communication client, Teams, and now it's in the consumer-oriented app. While bulletproof detection of the background requires a depth-sensing camera, the approach used in Skype (and Teams) uses machine learning-derived algorithms in order to work with any camera. The algorithms have been trained to detect human outlines, including the voluminous hair that some lucky people are blessed with as well as arms and hands. Presumably this means that it will properly detect even those arms and hands that appear dismembered, appearing from off the edge of the screen. Using blur is optional, and it can be enabled on a call-by-call basis.
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@mlnews chances are it's just an excuse to blur everything, because Skype almost never works anyway.
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@Danp That is interesting. I wonder if it will make them better or worse.
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Most recent update to Virtual Machine Manager on my Fedora computer comes with some UI changes and settings. The latest is 2.1.0
I noticed the changes while installing CentOS 7
Creating a new virtual machine
Instead of a drop-down, you will search for the operating system template.
The following changes to CentOS 7 template settings. I can only assume other templates settings has changed too.
The default chipset is now Q35
For CDROM, SATA is used instead of IDE
Virtual Network Interface device model options are e1000e and VirtioShowing the IP address and an option enable or disable link state is new.
You will need to haveqemu-guest-agentinstalled for the IP address to show up.
For video devices, your only have three options: QXL, Virtio, and VGA
USB controller model defaults to USB 3.
Sound Device model is now HDA (ICH9) instead of ICH6
Looks like there are more performance options for Virtual Disk.
I recall that cache mode and IO mode was only options available.
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So many vulnerabilities.
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@wrx7m said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
So many vulnerabilities.
This is why if it is online, I assume anybody can read it, lol.
