Friday, June 1, 2018

Uganda imposes hefty social media tax to cut down on 'gossip'

Uganda's parliament has passed a new social media tax, which will charge a daily fee of 200 Ugandan shillings (about US$0.50, £0.40, AU$0.70) to anyone using social apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. That's a hefty sum for a country with a GDP per capita of about 2,511,500 shillings.

The country's president, Yoweri Museveni, pushed for the tax on the grounds that social media encourages "gossip". However, it's not clear how social media use will be monitored and how the money will be collected.

Access to social media in Uganda was shut down completely during elections in 2016, in what Museveni called "a security measure to avert lies".

Taxes and bans

The news comes shortly after Papua New Guinea's government announced an experiment to block Facebook for a month to identify fake users and gauge how the social network affects the country's citizens. 

"The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information," communications minister Sam Basil told the country's most popular newspaper, the Post-Courier.

Basil has also suggested that Papua New Guinea could set up its own alternative social network.

Via Engadget



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Steam had a decade-old security flaw that could allow someone to take over your PC

Sometimes, vulnerabilities can hang around for years and years without being discovered, and a remote code execution flaw found in Steam has reportedly been a gaping hole in the side of Valve’s gaming service for no less than a decade – although it has now been patched.

As Motherboard reports, Tom Court, a security expert at Context, believes that the exploit had been present in Steam for at least 10 years, and every user of the service could potentially have had this leveraged against them during that period.

However, as we mentioned, the good news is that the exploit has already been patched by Valve, and in fact this particular vulnerability was fixed back in March.

How serious was the problem? Court describes the bug as ‘simple’ and ‘straightforward to exploit’, worryingly, and the vulnerability could potentially have allowed a malicious party to execute code on the target PC running Steam, subsequently letting them take control of the machine.

So, yeah. It was pretty serious, then.

Speedy response

On the positive side for Valve, this vulnerability was made harder to exploit last July when the firm implemented a new security measure: ASLR (address space layout randomization).

But it was still a potential hole until Court reported the problem to Valve, with the company also being quick to respond – he praised the firm for the fact that within eight hours of receiving his email, it had applied a fixed to the beta version of the Steam client.

Court concludes that the code in which the vulnerability resided was likely very old, and the developers probably hadn’t been anywhere near it in a long time as a result.

The lesson? Software developers should take the time to review old chunks of code in the light of contemporary security standards, probing for issues such as this which may have been hanging around for ages.

Generally speaking, there are probably a host of these sort of flaws scattered about the world of PC software, when you consider the sheer amount of apps and services out there. The worry is that if developers or a friendly white hat security researcher don’t find them first, they could be actively exploited against an entire user base.



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Windows 10’s latest preview streamlines Sets and boasts wireless projection tricks

Preview builds for Windows 10 Redstone 5 (the update due to land later this year) are starting to come through more regularly now, and another one has just been released by Microsoft to ‘skip ahead’ testers and those on the fast ring.

Build 17682 features more work on Sets, which brings the concept of tabs from the web browser to the broader Windows 10 UI. Microsoft has made it so that when you click the ‘plus’ icon in a Sets window, apps are now more clearly highlighted, with applications included in your list of Frequent Destinations.

To back that up, the All Apps list has been integrated into the new tab page, meaning you can visually see and browse through all your applications (that support Sets functionality), rather than having to use the search box to find them.

Essentially, it’s now easier to see which apps you can launch within Sets, and Microsoft apparently implemented this following user feedback that suggested this was a necessary feature.

Windows 10 Sets

Wireless wonder

So what else is new for testers? A big change has been made to wireless projection, as folks have been complaining that it’s difficult to know when you’re actually engaged in this – and how to stop your session in some cases.

So, to make everything clearer, Microsoft has introduced a control banner at the top of the screen to let you know when you’re wirelessly projecting, in a similar manner to when operating a remote desktop session.

The banner shows the state of the connection, and offers options to swiftly disconnect or reconnect to a session, plus there are settings to fine-tune the wireless connection depending on exactly what you’re doing.

There’s a mode specifically for playing video, and a game mode which minimizes screen-to-screen latency in order to be able to facilitate a smooth gaming connection.

Productivity mode is a middle road, with a level of screen latency pitched between the two aforementioned modes, using a latency low enough so that typing doesn’t lag, but not so much that video playback glitches or stutters. This is the default setting.

These are some very useful adjustments indeed for those who partake of wireless projection with their Windows 10 PC, and more improvements on this front are promised.

The Edge browser is another area Microsoft is constantly working on, and it gets another fresh feature this time around, with the introduction of unprefixed support for the new Web Authentication API. This allows for the use of hardware authentication in the browser, rather than simple typed passwords, including Windows Hello logins via biometrics.

A load of other minor tweaks have been made, and as ever, you can see the full exhaustive list in Microsoft’s blog post outlining the content of the new build.

One last thing to know about is that you may see the Windows 10 post-upgrade setup screen after you’ve installed build 17682. Don’t worry: your PC hasn’t reset and lost all your stuff, or anything like that, Microsoft reassures.

This is simply an opportunity to check out the new setup questions which users may have missed if they set up and configured their device ages ago. If you’re not interested in seeing any of that, just click skip and forget about the whole shebang.



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Buy Windows 10: the cheapest deals in June 2018

The deadline to get a free upgrade to Windows 10 has sadly now passed. Not to worry though as you can rely on TechRadar to help you buy Windows 10 for the best price. Windows 10 is generally seen as an improvement over Windows 8 - yes, the Start button is back!

So, if you're building a brand new system or want to upgrade to Windows 10 on an older device, you're going to need to buy a copy. Don't worry though, because we check the prices of Windows 10 every day to make sure you get the best deals.

windows 10 home deals

Buy Windows 10 Home deals

The perfect version of Windows for home users

Windows 10 Home is the version that most people will need. It's for home use and includes game streaming from Xbox One and other consumer features like Cortana, as well as Windows Hello for logging into your PC via a fingerprint scanner or your face. If Windows 8 was the steepest learning curve imaginable, Windows 10 is like meeting a great friend you once knew again - it's just that they've bought some new clothes of which you really do approve.

windows 10 pro deals

Buy Windows 10 Pro deals

Go Pro if you think it's worth paying more for the Pro features

Windows 10 Pro comes with security and management improvements over the Home version above. It includes Hyper-V for virtualisation, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode IE, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Network admins can also schedule updates so they don't happen at important times.

windows 7 deals

Buy Windows 7 deals

Windows 7 - because we fear change

What's this? Windows 7 deals on a page that advertises Windows 10? We understand some of you really want to stick with Windows 7, maybe even on a new machine. Don't worry, we totally get it. Maybe it's because you have some hardware/software that works better on the old OS or it just feels better. Or maybe it's because you've no time for the ridiculousness of the tiles format. Windows 7, the classic choice of the PC connoisseur?



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Get 50% off Kaspersky antivirus: half price on its strongest premium security software

Safety in numbers is fine when you're out and about, but when it comes to computing you want to keep those numbers after that pound sign low. That's why computer security expert Kaspersky Labs has slashed the price of its internet security software with a new offer.

For a limited time, June 1 to August 28, you'll be able to save a whopping 50% off Kaspersky Lab UK antivirus products. This includes two of its strongest products - Kaspersky Total Security 2018 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2018.

Head over to the Kaspersky website and when you get to the check-out stage use this coupon code to slash the price by half: SUMMER50

Kaspersky antivirus discount

As we say, these are two of the company's premium virus protection products:

Kaspersky Internet Security 2018 protects against ransomware, attacks and boosts banking security and privacy with protection for up to five devices. The £34.99 RRP comes down to £17.49 with the promotional code.

Kaspersky Total Security 2018 guards passwords, files and photos while also defending against hackers and ransomware attacks with cover for the entire family of up to five devices registered at once. The starting price for one device for a year is £39.99, so the discount code brings it down to £19.99. Or protect up to five devices for only £29.99 after you apply the SUMMER50 coupon.



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