John Lister

Facebook has fired an engineer accused of misusing private data to 'stalk' women online. He is thought to be a security engineer who abused his 'privileged access' level to data. One of the engineer's alleged victims was the founder of a cyber ... security company. She's made public the conversation she had with the Facebook engineer, in which the man talks about being a security analyst. He wrote: "... I also try to figure out who hackers are in real life... [so, I'm a] professional stalker." It appears the pair were conversing after being connected through the dating app Tinder. To make ... (view more)

The Firefox browser will soon incorporate paid advertising on its new tab page. It will be personalized to a degree, though developers Mozilla say it won't compromise privacy. The ads will appear in the form of links to pages. These links will ... appear whenever a user opens a new tab in the browser, before they type in an address. They won't appear on the home page that shows up when users first open Firefox itself. The new tab page will contain a list of recommended links to pages the user might find interesting. Some of these will be "sponsored" results while others will be included without ... (view more)

Microsoft has released the latest major update to Windows 10 for 2018. The main changes are most useful for people who do a lot of work on their PC, particularly if they use multiple computers. The update is part of Microsoft's new approach to ... evolving Windows 10. It continues to issue monthly security fixes, but has dropped the old approach of issuing new features as and when they are ready, then rounding them up in a 'service pack' every year or so before eventually moving on to the next version of Windows. Instead, the idea is to never have a completely new version, but rather to add new ... (view more)

A man behind an scheme to sell Windows restore disks for 25 cents will pay a $50,000 fine and spend 15 months in prison. Eric Lundgren offered the disks as part of his e-waste recycling business. Lundgren originally operated a perfectly legitimate ... business; at the time, he lived in China and bought cheap computer components. He'd then ship the components to the US where they'd be used to repair computers. One major selling point of the business was that people could use their computers longer and even upgrade certain components, rather than sending them to a landfill. In 2012 Lundgren added a ... (view more)

Facebook has, for the first time, published the full details of what types of content and posts breach its rules. The list had previously been kept secret and seen only by moderators who vet requests to take down content. The full list of "community ... standards" is broken down into six categories: violence and criminal behavior; safety; objectionable content; integrity and authenticity; respecting intellectual property; and content-related requests. (Source: facebook.com ) In the first section, staff are to take into account the tone and context when dealing with threats of violence. The policy ... (view more)

A robot in Singapore can successfully assemble a piece of IKEA furniture. But there's still a long way before it can match human abilities, let alone be a superior alternative. The robot is the work of Nanyang Technological University students and ... is made up of two robotic arms and a 3D camera. The furniture in question is the "Stefan chair." It's a very basic chair frame that in theory is extremely simple to construct, however, the main reason it is challenging to build is due to a few screws that need to burrow quite deep in to wood. It therefore takes a surprising number of ... (view more)

A Southwest Airlines flight earlier this week had to perform an emergency landing due to an engine fire at approximately 32,500 feet. Passengers aboard the plane raced to sign up to in-flight WiFi so they could broadcast what they feared were their ... final minutes. The Southwest Airlines flight 1380 from La Guardian to Dallas made an emergency landing after an explosion in one engine caused shrapnel to puncture a window, causing rapid decompression. One woman died as a result of the incident. Several passengers used on-board wireless Internet to share photos while the plane was in the air, with ... (view more)

Apple has bought a company described as "the Netflix of news." It's sparked speculation Apple will launch its own 'unlimited magazine' subscription deal. The purchase is for a company named "Texture," which lets subscribers pay $9.99 a month for ... access to more than 200 monthly magazines in digital format. The package includes some major titles including Vanity Fair, National Geographic, GQ and Entertainment Weekly. The company was started by six leading magazine publishers as a one-stop shop for targeting people interested in reading digital magazines. The magazines are viewable ... (view more)

A drug dealer was convicted after his phone revealed his fingerprint. It wasn't from a log-in scanner, but rather an unfortunate side effect of a photo he took. Police in Wales seized a phone from a property they raided after receiving a tip-off ... that it was being used to sell drugs. The phone included the app called "WhatsApp," which is a very popular tool used to send private messages to friends. The app is prevalent among some users because the messages are encrypted in transit, meaning that the company behind WhatsApp is unable to hand over the contents to law enforcement ... (view more)

Amazon has patented a system for listening to devices in order to better target advertising to users. But it says it doesn't use the feature in its gadgets. The patent dates back to an initial application in 2011, but the most recent version was not ... approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office until last November and has only recently been made public. The basis of the patent is 'sniffer' technology, though that's used as an analogy to reflect the idea that the devices wouldn't permanently capture and store what people were saying. Instead they would use trigger words. Saying 'Like' Would ... (view more)