Random News not worthy of own thread

[jlehtone]

Old electronics can apparently baffle modern engineers.
It took 18 months to figure out that starting a TV can choke broadband in a village.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54239180

[Vertigo 7]

Old electronics can apparently baffle modern engineers.
It took 18 months to figure out that starting a TV can choke broadband in a village.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54239180

hmmmmmmmmm.... I wonder how portable of an EMP like device that could be made into.

[BigBANGtheory]

should be getting a 3080 later today, keen to see X4's 4K performance gonna be quite a step up for me from a 980Ti hopefully Zen3 will nudge the CPU bottleneck up a bit too

[jlehtone]

should be getting a 3080 later today

Two weeks from order? That is quite good, considering all the "Xenon (bots) bought them all!" and the "el cheapo caps!" stories that surround the 30-series launch. X4 warns me about my 970, but I don't see a problem.

[BigBANGtheory]

holy Moses its fast, 4K everything maxed and it wants to push 110fps

[burger1]

It looks like Amazon is launching Amazon Luna streaming game service. Might be the same as Geforce Now or maybe something like Stadia since there's a controller available?

https://www.amazon.com/luna/landing-page

[felter]

It looks like Amazon is launching Amazon Luna streaming game service. Might be the same as Geforce Now or maybe something like Stadia since there's a controller available?

https://www.amazon.com/luna/landing-page

Did you notice that there are actually two streaming services there, as there is also the Ubisoft one, no price for Ubisoft but it will probably be around the same as Amazons price. Eventually everyone will have their own streaming service, where it will be the only place you can only play their games, and it will be 6 bucks for each one. So you will have Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Blizzard, Take Two, Microsoft and all the rest all wanting at least 6 bucks a month.

[pjknibbs]

Why would the likes of EA go to the time and effort of setting up a streaming service, with all the associated costs, if they're only going to get a measly $6 per month from it? That's a bit more than *one* game per year bought through the normal methods, even ignoring DLC and microtransactions.

[Vertigo 7]

It looks like Amazon is launching Amazon Luna streaming game service. Might be the same as Geforce Now or maybe something like Stadia since there's a controller available?

https://www.amazon.com/luna/landing-page

Did you notice that there are actually two streaming services there, as there is also the Ubisoft one, no price for Ubisoft but it will probably be around the same as Amazons price. Eventually everyone will have their own streaming service, where it will be the only place you can only play their games, and it will be 6 bucks for each one. So you will have Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Blizzard, Take Two, Microsoft and all the rest all wanting at least 6 bucks a month.

I've noticed this trend but Microsoft just announced that EA's subscription service is being included in MS's Xbox Game Pass. Don't know off hand if that applies to PC as well. Game pass covers both console and PC but not sure about the EA part of it.

[Lenah90]

I really don't like game passes... It is probably great for people who play regularly. But I hardly use my xbox during busy work weeks. Still curious to see what EA will do.

[felter]

Why would the likes of EA go to the time and effort of setting up a streaming service, with all the associated costs, if they're only going to get a measly $6 per month from it? That's a bit more than *one* game per year bought through the normal methods, even ignoring DLC and microtransactions.

You are assuming that the monthly cost pays for the game, what if you have to buy the game first that's how stadia works (or not). Anyway it's all about the money, a lot of countries are looking at banning a lot of the microtransactions and things like loot boxes, so companies like EA are having to find other ways to crap on their customers and right now, it looks like streaming services is the way to go. Also if they let the likes of Stadia, Google and Microsoft handle it for them, then they would be paying those companies for doing so, it's the same as the reason they sell their games now in their own online stores, so they don't have to pay the likes of Steam a 30% cut. Also the $6 is a guess as that's how much Google is for charging, the actual cost could easily be 2, 3, 4 or more times that amount, who knows. They are looking into doing this, but it might never happen only time will tell, so don't be surprised if it does happen.

[felter]

At the bottom of my back garden there is a river and in between the river and my garden is a footpath, they call it a nature walk as it follows the river going through parks and wooded areas. It doesn't go into a built up area and is mainly gravel with no lights, so at night it is pretty darn dark. I use it quite a bit, if you time it right it's great for watching bats.

So anyway, this morning I had the police at my door wanting to talk to me, turns out there has been a sexual assault on the path just along from my house, me being male and my house looking onto the path they have to talk to me, wasn't me I have an alibi, I was at home with someone else at the time. I have to say tonight though has been the quietest night I have had in months, normally there are kids shouting and screaming all over the place or they are normally playing in a play area just along from me, but not tonight, nope its been very quiet very quiet indeed. So either the parents have been keeping the kids in away from the nasty man, keeping them in because they are the nasty man, or the place is hoaching with cops and they have been chasing everyone away, of course it could be all of the above.

Have to say I have had quite a few interactions with the police over the years, mainly for events concerning violence, this is the first time it has been about sex, hopefully it will be the last time.

[Alan Phipps]

@ felter: Just a thought, but if you were to install an IR activated light at the bottom of your garden (on your property but such that it also comes on if somebody passes your house on the path at night), it might deter further incidents around your home. When you want to watch bats etc, you could turn it off.

[Alan Phipps]

Different UK topic. On Friday I renewed a mandatory annual car vehicle tax online on the UK's DVLA website. All went well.

On the next day I had an e-mail with all the official titles, notes and look of the DVLA site which said it was 'secure' and with a form asking me to update all my personal details due to 'inconsistencies' otherwise the vehicle licence would be cancelled. I knew that DVLA and HMRC *never* ask for personal details by e-mail and would not anyway address such an enquiry to just my e-mail address. All I did was forward it the HMRC phishing site; they confirmed it as being a scam.

Now my question is how the scammers knew that my e-mail address had just renewed a licence. Is DVLA e-mail somehow being monitored, or is someone there selling on recent renewal contact addresses?

[red assassin]

Is there anything that indicates the email was actually prompted by renewing your tax in particular? That sort of email is very common, and it seems to me like this was probably just a coincidence. A hypothetical attacker which had access to an information feed enabling them to determine when an email address is used to renew vehicle tax would almost certainly also be able to access other personal information which could be used to better target the email, e.g. addressing you by actual name.

[Alan Phipps]

I know they had no actual personal data as all they used in the scam was my e-mail address and nothing personal or related to the vehicle. Hence why I am only concerned about DVLC internet traffic records security (ie who mails them) rather than content or account security.

It is bit of a stretch just to be a coincidence (one day later), especially as HMRC/DVLA regularly change their layouts and formats for this very security and phishing reason; this one was smack on with the actual renewal site format and logos that I had seen used the day before (I checked).

[red assassin]

There are very few plausible scenarios in which an attacker would have access to who DVLA are emailing but not the content of said emails or other personal information and no way of escalating that access to something more useful.

There's about one car in the UK for every two people and each one needs its tax renewed at least yearly, which means roughly speaking the chances of a random British recipient of this scam email having renewed their car tax in the last couple of days when they get the email are (2 * 1/365 * 1/2 = 1/365). Send that email to tens of thousands of people, and dozens will have just renewed their car tax.

"The email is up to date with the current version of the layout" is not at all surprising - all it means is that the scammers checked what the current layout looks like before sending their latest batch of emails.

[Mightysword]

Now my question is how the scammers knew that my e-mail address had just renewed a licence. Is DVLA e-mail somehow being monitored, or is someone there selling on recent renewal contact addresses?

I don't know how they do it, but it doesn't surprise me. I run into a somewhat similar situation.

I got into a car accident last year, and had to be hospitalized for one night. I have insurance and gave the hospital that. A month or two after the incident I suddenly received a plethora of bill from various hospitals, some in my name, some in the name I assume maybe the name of the other party in the accident under some liability claim. It's the first time I had an accident in my life so it did get me panic a bit, so I picked up the phone and talked with my insurance agent and he told me those are just scam, because I'm not supposed to receive any bill.

So the question here is: how did the fact I was hospitalized gotten out? The scammer was just happened to be there when the accidents happen? Someone hacked the police database? Someone hacked the insurance company database? Someone hacked the hospital database? I would say the answer is most likely a no to all of those.

- The police didn't know I checked into the hospital (I had them dropped me back to my house and have a family drive me there the next day because it wasn't that serious).
- The bills I received have the listed injuries all over the places, both with the injuries I had and had not, but they are all related to what you expect from a traffic accident. That wouldn't be case if they managed to hack the hospital.

But somehow the scammer was able to piece the 2 facts that I was in an accident, and was hospitalized for it. And the template (bills) they used are very professional, not the low quality effort you usually get in email. I had a few other medical bills and when I compare, the detail are impeccable. The only thing I learn from this is scamming is a very advanced now. I does change my perception that scam is very obvious that only the most gullible would fall victim to. Not quite the same thing but it reminds me the old saying "the internet know more about you than you do yourself". Just have to remind myself to be even more cautious and paranoid (than I already am)


What I did learn though, is the process is not straight forward. It's not a closed loop: client (me) -> hospital -> insurance -> back to me. There is a plethora of "middle" men in this process. It seems every main actors of the process contracted out related part to third parties to have it sort out for them (i.e divide of liability, claim assessment). These middle men don't have access to the entire cases so they don't have all the detail, but the more of these links are inserted in the process, the chance a leak from a weakest link will come out increase. Who know, one contractor could be just 3 guys with a front office, and while they do perform the job they're contracted for, they may be running a side gig of selling snippet of data to scammer. And this is also true for government agency as well (the contract out part).

[pjknibbs]

There are very few plausible scenarios in which an attacker would have access to who DVLA are emailing but not the content of said emails or other personal information and no way of escalating that access to something more useful.

Yeah, I'm with red assassin oni this one--it's more likely this is a simple coincidence than that there's some grand conspiracy at the DVLA or someone is intercepting e-mails.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

"Realistic" scam by email is pretty easy, actually, because you can use the same stylesheet the agency you're trying to impersonate uses for its actual communications (stylesheets are often referenced by their public url inside the html-format email).

Postal scams, on the other hand, require a malicious (sometimes bona-fide) leak of data. For example, when you sign up for your insurance and put your signature under all those documents, your data can be "sold" or "just given" to other companies, advisors, etc. One of them can be malicious and use your name, he knows you had an accident (because of your signature -> data to insurance -> data shared with a third party), to try and scam you.