Amazon has an idea to stop its delivery drones being hijacked

Part of Amazon’s work on its proposed drone delivery service includes pumping out patents that explore an array of ideas for the technology.

While it’s hard to know if any of them will ever form part of the service, the filings at least give us some insight into how Amazon wants to build out the platform as it explores the various issues it believes it needs to overcome to make such a service viable.

Its most recent patent, granted last week by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, tackles the potential problem of drone hijackings.

With package-carrying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying out of Amazon warehouses to customer homes, there could be occasional attempts by ne’er-do-wells to bring down the flying machines in order to steal the goods.

While Amazon’s patent makes no mention of thieves running around with giant butterfly nets as they try to catch the drones, it does talk of attempts to interfere with their communication systems, allowing the perpetrator to bring the machine down so they can nab whatever goodies it happens to be carrying.

Amazon says in the patent: “As the use of UAVs continues to increase, so does the likelihood of hostility towards UAVs. Such hostility may come in the form of attacks brought for any number of purposes (e.g., steal the UAVs and their payloads, crash the UAVs, and otherwise cause disruption to the operation of the UAVs).”

It continues: “Using these attacks, nefarious individuals and/or systems may be able to obtain control of the UAVs by hacking the communication signals being sent to the UAVs from a controller and/or being sent by the UAV to the controller.” Amazon says such attacks “could cause the UAVs to operate unsafely and could also result in considerable financial loss for their operators.”

The patent explores the idea of sending a “heartbeat” signal from the controller to the drone every few seconds. If the heartbeat detects interference from a third party, the drone will automatically switch from mission mode to safety mode, prompting it to make efforts to either reestablish communication with the controller, regain control over the drone in the event of a hostile takeover, or possibly land the machine at a safe location where it can be rebooted or collected.

Amazon’s drone-related patents so far include everything from beehive-like drone towers and parachute drops to church steeple charging stations and self-destructing systems for malfunctioning machines. It even has one for a “flying warehouse” that would hover above urban areas and act as a base for the delivery drones. Now that we’d like to see.

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Did a drone help this notorious French gangster escape from prison?

It was a prison escape that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Hollywood action movie.

Last Sunday, at least three armed associates of notorious French gangster Rédoine Faïd flew a hijacked helicopter into the grounds of Réau prison, south of Paris.

Witnesses watched in shock as the helicopter flew in and the operation to help 46-year-old Faïd escape got underway. Three men leapt from the helicopter before letting off gas canisters to disorientate those nearby. They then used a grinding machine to destroy a door that led to the visitor room where Faïd was located.

According to France’s justice ministry, the drama was over in just “a few minutes.”

The helicopter was flown to a spot 37 miles away, where a car was waiting for them. The pilot was unharmed.

It later emerged that the helicopter had landed in a part of the prison that did not have anti-flight netting over it as it was ordinarily used by visitors only.

Hobby drone assistance?

Nicole Belloubet, France’s justice minister, revealed on Monday that investigators suspect camera-equipped hobby drones may have been used by Faïd’s gang for reconnaissance missions in the lead up to the audacious jailbreak.

Drones have been spotted flying over the prison multiple times in recent months, leading the authorities to suggest a possible link to the jailbreak.

“Someone spotted this possible way out, and it could have been done using drones,” Belloubet said.

Faïd was serving 25 years for the murder of a cop during a robbery in 2010. Before that, he’d served jail time for armed robberies of banks and vans transporting cash. And it’s not the first time he’s launched a spectacular breakout. In 2013, he escaped from a different prison by using explosives to blast his way out. He was caught six weeks later.

A nationwide hunt for Faïd and his gang is now underway.

Drones and prisons

While we’ve heard plenty of stories about hobby drones being used to fly contraband into prisons, it’s the first time we’ve happened upon a case where they may have been used to survey a jail ahead of act like this.

Quadcopters and the like are a growing problem for prisons, with the small machines able to fly right into the grounds with little difficulty. In 2017, a drone gang was jailed in the U.K. for flying contraband — including drugs, weapons, and phones — worth a total of $1.3 million into five different prisons on nearly 50 occasions over two years. A number of high-tech solutions have been tested, but wide-scale rollout of a particular system is yet to take place.

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Prime Day 2018 kicks off July 16 with over a million deals spanning 36 hours

Things are about to get crazy.

Amazon has announced that Prime Day 2018 will be taking place on July 16 and will feature 36 hours packed with over a million deals you won’t want to miss. In 2017, the company held a 30-hour event, so this year will have an extra 6 hours of fun, and the deals are actually starting right now with $100 off the Echo Show and more.

Additionally, Amazon will be offering discounts to those using its desktop Assistant app and the camera feature in its mobile app.

The company states that there will be over a million deals that come and go through the event, and we know there is no way you’ll be able to keep up with all of that. Our friends at Thrifter will be covering every waking second of the event, so be sure to follow them on Twitter to see all the best deals as they happen.

We already have a bunch of great content available to help you ensure that you’re ready to maximize your savings on the big day, so check all of that out now. You’ll also want to make sure you’re signed up for our Prime Day newsletter to have all the latest news, leaked deals, and more delivered right to your inbox.

Looking for a little extra money to spend on Prime Day? We have giveaways running in the U.S., UK and Canada. Each region is giving away three Amazon gift cards to help you treat yourself to something nice on the big day.

Amazon begins its Prime Day celebration early with $100 off the Echo Show

The savings start today!

Prime Day may not officially start until July 16, but Amazon has started the deals early by taking $100 off its own Echo Show. The Alexa-enabled speaker-with-screen is available for just $129.99 for Prime Members — the lowest price we’ve seen for the Echo Show.

Most will already be familiar with Amazon Echo line of products, adding smart assistant functionality to rooms in your home. The hands-free, voice-controlled Show offers the ability to play music, control smart home devices, make calls, send and receive messages, answer queries, read the news, set alarms or timers, among other things. Housing a 7-inch touchscreen, the Show also allows for video flash briefings, Amazon Video content, music lyrics, security camera feeds, photos, weather forecasts, and more.

Our friends at Android Central have an in-depth review of the Echo Show, telling you everything you need to know.

If you’re not a Prime Member yet, there’s no better time than Prime Day to sign up for your 30-day free trial and make the most of all that Amazon Prime has to offer.

See at Amazon

App developers are going through your email – here is how to put a stop to it

Never trust anyone when it comes to managing your privacy.

The Wall Street Journal reports that application developers, both mobile and desktop, are busy rummaging through the email of thousands and thousands of users with free accounts from Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The Journal rightfully chastises the companies involved for allowing this to happen then proceeds to tell us why it’s happening: because we said they could.

Of course developers (and worse, think of that last crummy app you installed that just spammed trash at you until you deleted it) are going to access your account when they asked you if they could and you said yes. It’s also not something new and not something isolated to any particular service provider. But it is predatory behavior and one of those things that should cause heads to roll.

It’s easy to blame the user. It’s also lazy and lets the real culprit get away with it.

Here’s what’s going on: You see an app or browser extension or something you can install and give it access to your email account so it can do wonderful things like price match airline tickets or help you build out a marketing mail list or something else that sounds like a good idea. You understand that this service will need to see the email that comes to your inbox, because how else will it know you’re reserving two tickets to Jamacia for a nice vacation? Everything sounds nice and tidy, but most people never stop to think that giving an app’s developers access to your inbox means they can see what’s inside your inbox.

The companies called out by the Journal, like Return Path are telling you in advance what they need to do then getting explicit permission for it by adding a line into the terms and agreements we need to understand before we install the service. The companies that give you free email service are only letting companies you have authorized sift through your mail. It sounds like a blameless situation that’s entirely our fault and we should have known better. But it’s still sad that it is allowed to happen.

I can’t undo it. I can make sure you know what the WSJ is talking about and angrily type words late on a Monday night, but I can’t make it go away. But you can.

• Visit the account settings page where you can see what apps have access to your account.
  • Click here for Gmail.
  • Click here Microsoft Mail.
  • Click here for Yahoo!
• Find the section of the page labeled “Apps with access to your account” or something very similar. For Gmail, it is the very top item.
• Go through the list and revoke permissions for any app you do not want accessing your mail.
• Go through it a second time and make sure you want the apps that are left to have access to the parts of your account that are listed.

And remember, always read what the thing you are installing or signing up for can do, and never trust anyone when it comes to decisions about your privacy.

To promote ‘Border Break,’ Sega is building the world’s largest mecha

Guinness is about to get a new world record and it’s not one that you see every day. Video game company Sega has teamed up with the plastic model creators Kotobukiya in order to construct what will be the world’s largest plastic mecha model in the history of mecha models (which is to say, the world). The enormous one-to-one scale plastic model is to be inspired by the upcoming PlayStation 4 edition of Border Break, and will feature parts made of Styrol resin that are intended to dock into one another, Hypebeast reports.

The individual parts have apparently yet to be assembled but are presently sitting on runners in Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. However, over the course of the coming days and weeks, they will gradually make their way out of the station and actually be combined in order to create this life-size model.

The game that serves as the inspiration for the mecha model, Border Break, is a 10 versus 10 robot team battle that is slated to make its debut on PlayStation next month on August 2. The original version of the game first came out in 2009 as an arcade game, but it has apparently become popular enough (at least in Japan), to not only spawn another edition, but an enormous plastic model, too.

For now, if you find yourself on vacation in Tokyo, you can check out the parts of what will ultimately be the world record-setting model at the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line Shinjuku Station Metro Promenade, where they will remain until July 8. It is not entirely clear when the entire structure will be assembled, though the team will likely want to get a move on if it is aiming to be finished by early next month.

The Border Break team has revved up quite a bit of attention around this new project, and has even offered its fans some pretty neat video footage of how the mecha is being manufactured. In the approximately 90-second video, you can check out everything from the design process to sneak peeks of the game, with the promise of a finished product coming very soon.

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Chrome OS keeps improving, but it still doesn’t work for me

Chrome OS, one of the newest and most talked-about operating systems around, has been making steady progress over the past several months. Android app support, enhanced tablet functionality, and more improvements are making the secure, easy to use, and easy to maintain OS an increasingly attractive option. That’s true even for someone like myself, who’s been a dedicated Windows users since version 1.0 hit the streets.

But its advantages come at a price: Chrome OS remains significantly limited compared to Windows 10 in some important ways. Do those limitations matter to you? That’s the question, and let’s take a look at a few of these limitations to see if they apply to you.

It’s fine for writers

Consider my role as a technology writer. My core task to put words down on paper, literally or figuratively.  For the most part, the simple act of writing and editing requires very little in the way of computing power, advanced applications, or much complexity of any kind.

If someone asks me if I could do my job as a writer using Chrome OS, my answer would be an unequivocally, “Yes.” 

I use OneNote for creating many of my own drafts, and then I mostly copy and paste into WordPress when it’s time to publish. Regardless, this step requires nothing more than a browser, and just about any browser will do. Even my limited photo editing can be done in a browser, using any one of the free, online photo editing tools out there.

Even Chrome OS’s reputation as online-only solution no longer holds much water. Thanks to a local file manager, Chrome OS apps that can work offline, and the contribution of Android apps, the main limitation to using Chrome OS when you can’t access the internet is how little local storage many Chromebooks equip. But that’s changing as well, and in many cases you can overcome that limitation with the use of external storage.

Therefore, if someone asks me if I could do my job as a writer using Chrome OS, my answer would be an unequivocally, “Yes.” But there are plenty of roles, even in my own life, where things are very different.

Most people aren’t just writers

I was a sales and marketing professional just a few short years ago — and spent half a decade as a sales engineer. In each of these roles, my professional computing requirements were very different than they are today. I needed to access all sorts of enterprise systems, plug in all kinds of peripherals, and run a number of desktop applications.

But again, the world has changed since then. Many enterprise systems are available to Chrome OS users today through increasingly capable web apps, and many of the peripherals I used back then — such as scanners — aren’t as important as they once were.

That’s not to say the Chrome OS’s peripheral support is equal to Windows 10 — you’re not likely to find the same software support for all of the features of that new wireless mouse, for example, nor will you be able to seamlessly connect the hardware necessary for eye control of the user interface. There’s just not the same breadth and depth of hardware support for Chrome OS and likely won’t be for some time.

At the same time, desktop applications also remain a problem, and if you rely on one or a couple of them, you’ll want to be careful making the switch to Chrome OS.

Thousands of robust desktop applications are stripped-down in the Chrome OS versions. 

For me, the clearest examples are the various Microsoft Office apps, particularly Excel. While Microsoft makes versions of its popular productivity suite available to Chrome OS, via both the web and Android apps, these versions are severely limited. In fact, they could more accurately be called Office “Lite.”

For example, I regularly used the desktop Excel application’s PivotTable function, which let me slice and dice data in complex ways. And then there were the various powerful tools for getting data into and out of the application. The mobile and web versions of Excel don’t have these capabilities, not to mention the various advanced formatting, charting, and printing options. Any serious sales or marketing professional would be poorly served by these cheap imitations.

The same is true for the other web and mobile Office apps, to one extent or another. The same could be said about Adobe’s applications, as well as the many thousands of robust desktop applications that simply don’t exist for Chrome OS.

The problem of Google’s ecosystem

Let’s face it: If you use Google’s properties exclusively, then a Chromebook is much more likely to work for you. In fact, that really the only way to get the most out of a Chrome OS device.

For example, the Google Keep notetaking app likely works better on Chrome OS than Evernote or Microsoft’s OneNote. Google Docs works better on Chrome OS than does Microsoft Office. Gmail is a better Chrome OS email client than any other option. And of course, there’s the Chrome browser itself. You can run Firefox, Edge, Opera, and other browsers as Android apps, but the experience isn’t the same.

You get the theme here, right? All of Google’s properties are integrated directly into Chrome OS — or perhaps it’s more precise to say that Chrome OS is literally built around Google’s various tools. Everything is backed up, synced, and readily accessible on Chrome OS, as long as it’s made and supported by Google itself.

That’s fantastic if that’s how you already operate. However, that’s not me.

On a Chromebook, I’m primarily stuck with what Google offers, regardless of how I feel about any individual app or service.

I rely heavily on Microsoft Office products, as well as Firefox for my browsing experience. In Windows (or even MacOS), I’m more free to move between platforms, try out new apps, and adjust my workflow accordingly. On a Chromebook, I’m primarily stuck with what Google offers, regardless of how I feel about any individual app or service.

While Chrome OS is simple and relatively easy to use, I’m the kind of computer user that would have have plethora of features and customization options (even if I don’t use them all), then be in a spot where I needed something and didn’t have access to it. It’s really that simple, and while there are some complex and fidgety options to consider, such as streaming and virtual machines, none of them quite do the trick.

So, while Chromebooks might be a good option for a certain demographic out there, it’s just not me. At least — not yet.

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Tinder is making it safer than ever for you to keep swiping

In case you were concerned, Tinder has now finally encrypted the photos you send on the popular dating app. In a letter to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, Tinder’s parent company Match Group announced that it had implemented changes to ensure that photos sent between Tinder’s servers and the mobile app are now encrypted. This actually become effective back in February, following a report from security firm Checkmarx that showed that Tinder did not have basic HTTPS encryption for its photos.

So, um, this is pretty weird. Apparently Senator Wyden just got Tinder to properly encrypt your swipe data, so you can all get it on in private. pic.twitter.com/BniAVUi77Q

— Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) June 29, 2018

What did that mean, exactly? Basically, if you were on the same Wi-Fi network as a Tinder user, you (assuming you were a trained security researcher or hacker) would be able to see any photo the user did, or insert your own images into his or her photo stream. Curiously enough, it was only the photos that were not HTTPS-encrypted — other data maintained this basic security protocol. However, the app as a whole was still unsecured enough that a hacker sharing a Wi-Fi network would be able to see all swipes and matches.

But now, all that has changed. Photos were encrypted beginning June 4, and more recently, the app introduced another security feature that makes all swipe data the same size. This makes it more difficult to differentiate among actions taken on the app (swiping, messaging, etc). That change was implemented more recently on June 19.

“I want to assure you that protecting the private data of our users is a top priority,” the Match Group wrote in its letter to Wyden. “We take the security and privacy of our users seriously and employ a network of tools and systems to protect the integrity of our platform, including encryption.”

We should point out, of course, that none of the above will really affect you in any capacity. Your Tinder profile won’t look any different, nor will your experience feel dissimilar from what you are accustomed to. That said, you can rest assured that nefarious actors should not be able to see your profile pictures. But please note — if there are nefarious actors using the dating app as fellow users, they are still fair game.

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A slimmer Spotify? Music streamer tests a ‘lite’ version for Android

Having a slower network or less data on your plan will no longer stop you from accessing the most popular apps and services on the market. The latest company to introduce a slimmed- down version of its mobile app is Spotify, who has recently debuted the predictably named Spotify Lite. As its name suggests, it’s a lightweight version of its original music streaming offering, though it seems as though it’s not exactly the most useful or successful of the “lite” apps we’ve seen thus far.

Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and YouTube have all previously created smaller, more data-efficient versions of their apps. And while most of these maintain the major features of their bulkier older siblings, Spotify seems to have missed the mark a bit. As originally reported by Android Police, it would appear that several of the features that make Spotify, well, Spotify, aren’t appearing in Spotify Lite.

Sure, the app is only 15MB (the main app is about 100 MB), and there is also a customized launch screen and Facebook integration. But by cutting down so much on the app, it seems that Spotify has also cut down on a lot of key functionality, too. For example, you can’t access offline playback, which seems counterintuitive seeing as this feature is one of the primary data savers that Spotify currently offers.

Also missing is any extreme quality playback, though this is more forgivable seeing as you’re likely not as concerned with how clear your tunes are — just that you’re able to get them. However, Spotify Connect is also nowhere to be found, which means that you can’t stream audio from wireless speakers and other similar devices. And even if you’re a paid Spotify Premium subscriber, you won’t be able to select a specific song to play, even if you’re working from within a playlist. You’re effectively stuck on an endless shuffle loop, which means that basically none of the Premium features you pay for are present in this version of the app.

But all these shortcomings aside, you could still, of course, take Spotify Lite on a test run. Android Police has the Spotify Lite APK at APK Mirror, and you can also check it out on the Play Store, where it’s being listed as a test. It’s actually only available for download on Android in Brazil.

A Spotify spokesperson told The Verge that the team “routinely conduct[s] a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those tests end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We aren’t going to comment on specific tests at this time.”

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Game stream service found adware plaguing over 78,000 ‘Fortnite’ players

Game streaming service Rainway recently discovered adware plaguing over 78,000 Fortnite players. Rainway is a game streaming client installed on your PC that will stream your games to other devices using an internet connection. The platform itself includes a tracker that records error reports for the engineering team. To their surprise, hundreds of thousands of these reports began appearing on June 26, raising a red flag.

“Not feeling very excited to see such an influx of events on a Tuesday the engineering team was a bit flustered, after all, we hadn’t released any updates to that particular piece of our solution,” says Rainway CEO Andrew Sampson. “It became pretty clear soon after that this new flood of errors was not caused by something we did, but by something someone was trying to do.”

After examining the reports, the team noticed calls to various advertisement platforms. Given Rainway doesn’t include ads, they dug deeper and discovered that JavaScript was attempting to grab advertisements but couldn’t because only specific web addresses are whitelisted by the platform. The resulting JavaScript errors are what flagged the Rainway team.

A further examination confirmed that the problem had nothing to do with the Rainway platform itself. That pushed the team to seek out a common factor. Since customers have different hardware configurations and internet service providers, the only common factor in the error reports was Fortnite. More specifically, a Fortnite hack.

The beauty of PC games is that many can be modified. The dark side of this benefit is that hackers will take advantage of gamers wanting cheats, cool weapons, and armor. The team jumped on YouTube, discovered who and what hacks you can download for Fortnite, and installed “hundreds.” Most were malicious, but the team sought after one specific hack.

Ultimately, they struck gold. The offensive hack promised free V-Bucks (the in-game currency) and an auto-aim component. The team created a virtual machine and installed the hack to see adware route all internet traffic through itself. The result was a man-in-the-middle attack that generated web page requests containing tags for Adtelligent.

Sampson says Fortnite players downloaded the fake mod more than 78,000 times before it was pulled by the file host due to Rainway’s report. The team also contacted video ad serving platform SpringServe to identify the “abusive creatives” and Adtelligent to report the ad-based keys linked to the internet addresses.

“We’ve also put out an alert to all infected users and increased our security by enabling certificate pinning, helping mitigate any future MiTM attacks,” Sampson says. “In the future, we will alert users when we detect any foreign activity that we think could be a sign of an infection.”

Ultimately, Rainway received 381,000 reports stemming from the malicious Fortnite mod.

As Sampson points out, if something you download seems too good to be true, you may end up reformatting your PC. Mods are great for PC gaming, but only through controlled platforms that examine the legitimacy and safety of these user-created modifications. Not everyone has good intentions.

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