Ars Technica Archives - The Silicon Underground

The State Department is just one of many examples of IT gone rogue

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 11:00:43 +0000

Much has been made of Hillary Clinton’s use of her own mail server, running out of her home. It didn’t change my opinion of her, and I don’t think it changed anyone else’s either–it just reinforces what everyone has thought

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Initial upgrade reports on the HP Stream and Pavilion Mini

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 11:00:05 +0000

Earlier this year at CES, HP introduced its HP Stream Mini ($180) and Pavilion Mini ($320 and $450) mini-desktops. They’re small, inexpensive, and in the case of the Stream, silent. They turn out to be surprisingly upgradeable as well. Ars

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How to write reviews without getting sued

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 19 May 2014 11:00:24 +0000

In a well publicized incident that happened earlier this month, someone who wrote a bad review on Amazon about a cheap router got threatened with a lawsuit by the router’s distributor, Mediabridge. Amazon retaliated by banning the distributor from selling

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Linksys routers are under attack, and here’s what you can do about it

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 02:44:35 +0000

A couple of my college buddies posted a link to an Ars Technica article about Linksys routers getting hacked. Sorry I didn’t find it myself, I’m prepping for a job interview. Excuses, excuses, I know. Researchers have been doing this

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Time to update Flash again. This is a big one.

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 02:47:36 +0000

There’s an exploit in Flash, on all platforms, being actively exploited in the wild. Adobe rushed out an update. It allows remote code execution, so this one is as bad as it gets. Installing EMET is a potential mitigation against

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Why you may not want a Nest

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:00:48 +0000

Ars Technica (link removed in retaliation for Conde Nast’s 11/3/2025 layoffs–sorry not sorry) has some harrowing speculation about the Nest, and why Google is interested in it. I wanted a Nest, but haven’t bought one because I have a Carrier

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More details on the Target hack come to light

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 11:00:32 +0000

Yesterday I read that the Target malware resided on cash registers (which I’d heard elsewhere before), and that the first step to getting there was via a compromised web server. And that led to a question in the comments, that

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This curmudgeon knows who wants a 12-inch tablet

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 11:00:24 +0000

Ars Technica wrote last week about Samsung developing a 12-inch tablet, and asking who wants it? I actually think a larger format tablet makes sense. Think of people in their 30s and 40s. They buy tablets. They like to read

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Another day, another router backdoor

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 11:00:47 +0000

Bad news everyone: There’s a backdoor in Linksys and Netgear (and possibly other) routers. The exploit works on a weird port, so it’s not remotely exploitable, nor is someone going to drop it with some crafty Javascript like the recent

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Beware the Black Friday electronics

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 00:40:41 +0000

Ars Technica ran an aptly timed article today called How to talk your family out of bad consumer electronics purchases. (link removed in retaliation for Conde Nast’s 11/3/2025 layoffs–sorry not sorry) It’s definitely worth a read, to steer you away

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