Episode 483 – Aussie Tech Heads Shownotes

posted in: Show Notes

 

Gareth Thomas 1945-2016

Thomas played Roj Blake, leader of a band of rebels, pitted against a corrupt federation in the series created by Doctor Who writer Terry Nation. The series ran on BBC One from 1978-1981, with Thomas taking the lead role for the first two series. When Thomas decided not to renew his contract for series 3, the character of Blake was killed off. The ghost of Blake was present throughout the remaining series and Thomas returned twice, once at the end of series 3 and once for the climatic final episode, Blake.


Border Force swoops on counterfeit resellers

NSW Fair Trading said it had seized more than 10,000 items at one location, including “unapproved and potentially dangerous” USB phone chargers.

Some of these chargers were counterfeits of Apple, LG, Samsung, Huawei and Motorola, while others were not branded but styled on a branded product.

Fair Trading said that other items were labeled with false approval numbers. (why not counterfeit those alos ?!)

Commissioner Rod Stowe said some of the chargers in the shipment intercepted by the Australian Border Force had inferior components and circuitry.

Battery Chargers Inside


LinkedIn opens data centre to serve Australia

LinkedIn has opened an Asia-Pacific data centre to handle the growing volume of traffic from this part of the world.

The new Singapore facility is the social network’s sixth data centre, but the first outside the USA.

LinkedIn has 414 million members, including seven million in Australia, which is part of the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region. Between 2013 and 2015, Asia-Pacific membership more than doubled to 85 million, while regional revenue more than tripled, according to the company. (But they were scraping facebook and putting up emprty profiles?)


11% of machines still using Windows XP

Exactly two years ago, Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system reached its end of life with no further updates, yet as of March 2016 nearly 11 percent of machines operating globally


Online scams ‘target Apple customers for richer pickings’

The text message scammers sent out alerts to victims’ smartphones, claiming their Apple ID accounts were going to expire. The message encouraged people to visit a fake website where they were asked to enter their account information.

Avoid clicking on links in emails because they might take you somewhere phishy. Instead go to the website directly and log in that way.”

a second scam disguised as an update to Adobe Flash, which encouraged victims to install a new version of the software.  

Blogger Graham Cluley The best advice for many users may be to ensure that you have configured Adobe Flash Player to automatically update itself.

Apple’s Mac OS X operating system does have a safeguard, enabled by default, that prevents people installing software written by unknown developers. However, it appears the attackers were able to circumvent this.

Spoof Apple website


Petya ransomware encryption system cracked

An unidentified programmer has produced a tool that exploits shortfalls in the way the malware encrypts a file that allows Windows to start up.

In notes put on code-sharing site Github, he said he had produced the key generator to help his father-in-law unlock his Petya-encrypted computer.

The malware, which started circulating in large numbers in March, demands a ransom of 0.9 bitcoins

It hid itself in documents attached to emails purporting to come from people looking for work.

Petya ransomware


 

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