He used a laptop to connect to the router and as he came to the user ID and password for my connection he opened a spreadsheet and looked my phone number up in it. There was my user ID and password, in plain text, along with everyone else's. He tried to shield it from me when he realised I was looking at the list.I asked him if he had my password with him, he said 'yes - it makes our job much easier', then changed the subject. I said that I wasn't happy that our passwords are not encrypted and that I realised it wasn't his fault.Hill said the same username and password combos were used to access the Karoo email service and there was no advice to change the password handed out by KC. The company told The Reg:The security of our customers’ information is of primary importance to us and we are aware of and take very seriously our obligations under the Data Protection Act. We investigate any alleged data security incidents promptly and thoroughly, and we act quickly to make any improvements such investigations identify.
I can assure you that all of our laptops are encrypted, password-protected and fitted with tracking technology and the facility to remotely wipe data.Yorkshire's Plusnet, owned by BT, was in a similar situation when an anonymous tipster told The Reg that the company was transmitting personal details over an unencrypted web page. The company was asking potential subscribers to fill in a form online that could be seen by other people while in transit once submitted. The source, who reported the problem to Plusnet, said:I was just shocked by the way the sales rep brushed off my reporting of this during the contract setup (after discovering the vulnerability I used the phone instead).She assured me that the security team would deal with it right away. In my opinion, over two weeks is more than enough time to sort this out.
Also, factor in the point that (as many new customers ordering an initial broadband setup are likely to do) I was using an open Wi-Fi hotspot to visit their site!Plusnet ... store user passwords in unencrypted form, as I learnt when considering opening an account with them last summer [yes, six months ago]. When I told the 'tech' person I was talking to that many of the credentials could be used to access users' accounts with third party services, he replied that that was impossible. Though he didn't say why. I got broadband from someone else in the end.All Plusnet customer passwords are stored with full encryption. Our customer sign up page is currently unencrypted, and we are in the process of fixing this urgently.In more tales of the mad, mad world of intellectual property, it appears that King, makers of insanely popular game Candy Crush Saga have trademarked the word CANDY in Europe and are on 30-day approval to do the same in the US. The company said:
We have trademarked the word 'CANDY' in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion.We don't enforce against all uses of CANDY - some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.But it turned out that the company had already found some use that it considered illegitimate, by a game whose full title was All Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land, but which appeared on the App store as Candy Slots. King said:Its icon in the App store just says 'Candy Slots', focussing heavily on our trademark. We believe this App name was a calculated attempt to use other companies’ IP to enhance its own games through means such as search rankings.But Candy Slots developer Benny Hsu insisted that he never intended to infringe on anyone's IP and said King had gone "too far" with its trademark by enforcing on an app that had only been out for a week. He told The Reg:
Candy is something we have all loved since we were children. I just wanted to create a game with a fun theme.If anyone saw my icon or played my game, they would know that there was nothing in it that tried to copy Candy Crush. Also there are so many games in the App Store that have a candy theme. Candy Crush was not the first candy-themed game to be created and it won't be the last. So I don't understand why they feel like they own the word CANDY.Despite the fact that Hsu thinks he could have fought off a takedown notice from the App Store, he's decided to change the name of the app to All Sweet Casino Slots and avoid the lawyer's fees. Hands on Las Vegas is about 5,200 miles (c. 8,400km) from Blighty’s capital, which makes CES a bit of schlep for all but the terminally keen. Knowing this, Sony UK showcased its finest for 2014 to the UK press this week, from 4K camcorders to er, 4K tellies... with some laptop goodness in between.If there's no Ultra HD content on your eye-wateringly expensive 4K telly, why not make your own?
As 3D failed to excite in recent years, naturally we’re all going to buy 4K tellies instead. It's an optimistic notion at the current prices but creating content for the inevitable resolution hike has certainly got a whole lot cheaper.
Sony’s FDR-AX100E camcorder isn’t some in-the-distance concept that will be available in a couple of years’ time: you’ll be able to pick one up in April for £1,829 – a month earlier than previously stated.At less than half the price and a good deal smaller than last September’s semi-pro 4K/£4K offering, the FDR-AX1, this is just the sort of product to help popularise the 4K format. Budding film makers and enthusiasts are the obvious targets, with the forward-thinking family user latching on over time as the prices inevitably fall.Well, that appears to be the plan and it’s much easier to envisage than folk buying into stereoscopic kit that was being touted as must-have in recent years, although at 915g with battery, this is still quite a chunky beast and reminded me of grappling with my Dad’s old Sony CCD-F500 Video8 Handycam from the mid-1980s. If your memory stretches back that far, only a monochrome EVF was available, rather than the additional pleasure of the 921K touch panel display featured on the FDR-AX100E, which has neatly configured metering for its 5.1 surround audio recording.
Sony relies on Carl Zeiss glass to deliver a 12x optical zoom with a 35mm equivalent range of 29-348mm captured on its own 20.9Mp Exmor R CMOS sensor that notches up a 14.2MP (effective) resolution for 16:9 video. As seems to be the norm with TV standards, there's more than one meaning to 4K and in this instance we're talking about 3840 x 2160 rather than 4096 x 2160. Confused? You wouldn't be the first, and we covered this 4K-ing palaver very recently here on El Reg.The recording format is XAVC S MPEG4-AVC/H.264 [PDF] and it seems the frame rates are either 30p/24p or 25p/24p depending on the localisation with 50/60p speeds available for HD video capture. With the 4K 60Mbps data rate, a 32GB card would manage just over an hour and you’d need at least a Class 10 SDXC card or a suitable Sony Memory stick variant to store these Ultra HD video recordings.Increasing its appeal is the broad range of card support enabling slower formats to be used for HD or lower resolution recording. There’s even a dual shooting mode that captures both 4K and HD footage, the latter in the AVCHD format, which could save you time transcoding or enable edit decisions on lower-spec video-editing platforms, especially if you’re not equipped to handle XAVC S.
Indeed, it may be the format that trips things up for early adopters, with the Windows-only Sony’s Vegas Pro 12 offering the desired codec compatibility, but there are mumblings on forums regarding how XAVC S – a long GOP interframe codec – is going to play out on alternative editors such as Apple Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere. Currently, relying on third-party utilities appears to be the only way forward. An Ohio man is crying foul after he was detained and interrogated by the feds – because he wore a Google Glass headset in a movie theater.The bloke, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was pulled from a screening of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit at the AMC Easton Town Center in Columbus by men who he claims identified themselves as US government agents.
After being told to step outside the theater, he was accused of using the Google Glass headset to record and pirate the film.The chap, who uses the camera-fitted wearable computer with prescription lenses, told the agents that he was not recording the flick and did not have any footage from the theater stored on the head-mounted gadget. It was only after the g-men connected the headset to a laptop and searched its stored media – of his wife and dog, apparently - that the man was allowed to go on his way.Though the fella said he wasn't sure at the time who exactly detained him in the mall office, he later identified the agents as employees of US Department of Homeland Security and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) which represents the top six Hollywood studios.It's understood an MPAA representative was at the AMC, spotted the Google Glass wearer, and tipped off the feds."They wanted to know who I am, where I live, where I work, how much I’m making, how many computers I have at home, why am I recording the movie, who am I going to give the recording to, why don’t I just give up the guy up the chain, ’cause they are not interested in me. Over and over and over again," the headset owner claimed to tech blog The Gadgeteer.