Albener Pessoa

Submitted by: (via katoninetales)

Submitted by: (via grains_of_paradise)

Although Microsoft has officially stopped providing free security patches for Windows XP, millions of people haven't got the message and are still running the ancient operating system. As a result of this, there's widespread interest in figuring out ways to get patches, and last week, a registry change started circulating that appeared to reinstate Windows XP's security updates.

In spite of the end of public support, Microsoft is still developing security updates for Windows XP. There are two main demographics that benefit from these fixes. The first are the governments and large corporations that are paying Microsoft large sums of money to gain continued access to hotfixes.

The second are users of Microsoft's various embedded versions of Windows XP. These versions of the operating system are designed for things like ATMs and industrial machinery. The core parts of these operating systems are identical to those from regular, non-embedded Windows XP, and as such, patches that apply to these operating systems will tend to also work on regular Windows.

Shutterstock

Google has revealed its solution for removing URLs from its index that any European demands be forgotten from the public conscience: a form.

Google already has forms for takedown requests that relate to copyright issues, and its response to the Court of Justice of the EU's 13 May decision that the public has the digital "right to be forgotten" appears to be along similar lines.

The form is simplistic, but it comes with a few caveats for the user, the most important being that a copy of a valid photo ID must be attached. The public can make takedown requests on behalf of others, but the photo ID of the target individual must always be attached. Complainants have to provide their name and e-mail address, the country whose law applies to the request, the name of the individual featured in the relevant search results, and a list of every URL they want taken down. The key part of the form is the complainant's explanation for the takedown since, as Google notes, the EU ruling only relates to information in its index that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed."

ZEISS Microscopy

TrueCrypt, the whole-disk encryption tool endorsed by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and used by millions of privacy and security enthusiasts around the world, will receive a second round of safety audits despite being declared unsafe and abruptly abandoned by its anonymous developers two days ago.

Phase II of the security audit was already scheduled to commence when Wednesday's bombshell advisory dropped on the TrueCrypt SourceForge page. After 24 hours to reflect on the unexpected move, an organizer with the Open Crypto Audit Project said he saw no reason to scrub those plans. Online fundraisers to bankroll the project have raised about $70,000, well past the $25,000 organizers had initially aimed for.

"We have conferred and we are firmly going forward on schedule with the audit regardless of yesterday's circumstances," Kenn White, a North Carolina-based computer scientist and audit organizer told Ars Thursday. "We don't want there to remain all sorts of questions or scenarios or what ifs in people's minds. TrueCrypt has been around for 10 years and it's never received a proper formal security analysis. People are going to continue to use it for better or worse, and we feel like we owe the community the proper analysis."

Since the trial, Sunde has hit the public speaking circuit. As shown here, he spoke at Campus Party Mexico in 2010.

Campus Party Mexico

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde was arrested in Southern Sweden on Saturday, Reuters reported. Sunde was convicted of aiding copyright infringement in 2009 and was sentenced to a year in prison, plus a fine. That year of jail time was reduced to eight months, but in 2012 Sunde failed to appear at the Swedish prison where he was to be incarcerated, and he has been wanted by Interpol ever since.

Sunde, who was arrested in the Swedish county of Skåne, had been living in Berlin when Ars caught up with him a month ago. He had recently launched a campaign to represent Finland as a member of the European Parliament, and he seemed fairly confident that he would not be taken into custody. As Ars reported in May:

”In a Skype text chat with Ars, Sunde said that his standing conviction in Sweden isn’t a barrier to his running for office, nor has it been a barrier for his ability to live and travel throughout Europe.

“Well, I have multiple appeals in and few people looking for me,” he said. “As in, there's no need for me to be in Sweden, and basically no one wants me to go to prison. So no one looks for me outside of Sweden.

“It's quite easy to cross borders in Europe without any controls. And the Nordic Union, don't forget—the Nordic countries has been passport-free since ages before Schengen,” Sunde added. He was referring to the Schengen Agreement, which has effectively eliminated internal passport control within Europe.

Sunde said that he wasn’t sure if there was a warrant out for his arrest in Sweden.

“No idea,” he said. “Probably? Well, besides not being a hard criminal, nor being in Sweden, I also have no €10 million ($13.8 million) to give anyone.”

It is unclear why Sunde was in Sweden at the time of his arrest, and Swedish officials have not provided further details.