General Gaming Article |
- Newegg Daily Deals: Asus RT-AC87U Router, Intel Core i5-4460, and More!
- AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 Driver Now Available to Download
- Opera Injects Ad-Blocking into PC Browser Engine, Promises Faster Loads
- Oculus Adds Social Features to Samsung Gear VR Headset
- Last Week's RSA Keynotes Were a Big Deal
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus RT-AC87U Router, Intel Core i5-4460, and More! Posted: 10 Mar 2016 12:11 PM PST Top Deal: Not all wireless routers are created the same. Some are more feature rich than others, and just as important, some models beam a stronger signal, allowing you to more fully take advantage of the Internet service you're paying for, especially at longer distances with obstructions along the way. If you're looking for a higher end model, then check out today's top deal for an Asus RT-AC87U Wireless-AC2400 Dual-band Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11ac, IPv4, IPv6 AiProtection with Trend Micro for Complete Network Security for $180 with free shipping (normally $205 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFE52]). This router sports a 4x4 MU-MIMO antenna configuration, wireless transfer rate of up to 1,734Mbps on the 5GHz band and up to 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, beamforming support, and more. Other Deals: Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Quad-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1150 BX80646I54460 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600 for $180 with free shipping (normally $190 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFE23]) HGST Deskstar NAS H3IKNAS600012872SN (0S03839) 6TB 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5-inch High-Performance Hard Drive Retail Kit for $230 with free shipping (normally $259 - use coupon code: [ESCEHFE22]) CM Storm Stryker - White Full Tower Gaming Computer Case with Handle and External 2.5-inch Drive Dock for $160 with free shipping (normally $165 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFE27]; additional $25 Mail-in rebate) Corsair RM Series RM1000 1000W ATX12V v2.4 and EPS 2.92 80 Plus Gold Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply for $130 with $5 shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code: [EMCEHFE28]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate) |
| AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 Driver Now Available to Download Posted: 10 Mar 2016 10:47 AM PST New driver package AMD has a new version of its Radeon Software Crimson Edition driver package available, and it contains quite a bit of goodies. First up is official support for the Vulkan 1.0 API. Vulkan, which is the successor to OpenGL and based in large part on AMD's Mantle API, provides developers with low-level access to CPU and GPU resources. The benefit for end users is that developers should (eventually) be able to squeeze more performance out of their hardware. AMD added some new features to Crimson's menu system. One of those is Per-Game Display Scaling, a feature that can help when a display doesn't properly scale a game to the fill the screen when not running at the display's native resolution. Other features AMD added include a new language menu that allows uses to select their preferred language from a drop-down menu under the Preferences > Language tab, a two-display Eyefinity option, and an AMD Crossfire status indicator that allows users to toggle the status indicator on their screen when running in Crossfire mode. AMD also added initial support for what it's calling XConnect technology. This allows for connecting external GPU enclosures configured with Radeon R9 300 series GPUs using a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable. It includes GPU plug'n'play, though it's worth noting that the base system needs to have BIOS support for external GPUs. An example of a system that does is Razer's Blade Stealth. As always, there are some performance gains to be had from installing the new driver package. There are three specific scenarios that AMD notes:
Finally, the driver update brings with it a handful of bug fixes, such as resolving an issue in Gears of War Ultimate Edition that was causing random freezes during gameplay. You can check out the full release notes and download the new driver package here. |
| Opera Injects Ad-Blocking into PC Browser Engine, Promises Faster Loads Posted: 10 Mar 2016 10:10 AM PST Bold speed claims Opera Software believes the key to making its browser run faster is by building ad-blocking software directly into the browser's engine. That's the case with Opera's newest developer version, available today, which the company claims is nearly twice as fast at loading webpages. "Once enabled, the ad-blocking feature speeds up webpage load times by as much as 90 percent, compared to browsing with the option disabled," Opera Software says. The integrated ad-blocking technology also gives on average a 40 percent faster browsing experience compared to third-party ad-blocking extensions." Opera attributes the speed gain compared to third-party solutions to filtering ads at the web-engine level, where the browser has full control over the loading process. As such, there's no add-on or extension to download, though it is opt-in by way of a pop-up in the upper right corner of the browser. Users can turn the ad-blocking feature off for specific sites. Those sites get added to an exceptions list, which you can access and manage from Opera's settings. In addition, uses can see how many ads they've blocked and how page loading times are affected, as well as run a built-in benchmark. Ad-blocking is a hot topic lately. A large portion of the content on the web is free because it's funded by ads, but with more and more users choosing to block ads for various reasons, publishers and content creators have to figure out other ways to monetize their operations or cease to exist. Opera Software is sympathetic to the plight of publishers and content creators, but believes ad-blockers are ultimately necessary. "Advertising fuels the internet, allowing for many services to be free for users. But, as our new research shows, most webpages today are significantly slowed down by bloated ads and heavy tracking. We don't accept it - we want the web to be a better place for us all, as users," says Krystian Kolondra, SVP of Engineering and Head of Opera for computers. Ideally, Opera sees its ad-blocking tool being used for sites that are too aggressive with ads, ones that significantly slow down page loads. It also envisions advertisers using its benchmark tool to fine too their ads so that Opera users will be more encouraged to whitelist a particular site. |
| Oculus Adds Social Features to Samsung Gear VR Headset Posted: 10 Mar 2016 09:45 AM PST Turn real friends into virtual ones When Facebook announced that it had acquired Oculus, there was a moment of panic that resonated across the Internet. The fear was that a promising VR technology had fallen into the wrong hands and that the best we could look forward to were virtual versions of Farmville. That hasn't been the case, as we now anxiously away the arrival of Rift, but that doesn't mean Facebook is turning its back on the social side of things. Just the opposite, Oculus has opened up a new social platform called Oculus Social. This new social play doesn't have anything to do with Rift. Instead, it's a social playground of sorts for owners of Samsung's Gear VR headset, which as you might recall is powered by Oculus. Starting today, Gear VR owners can create a profile and search for others on the platform by their real name or Oculus username. The pitch from Oculus is that "the immersive sense of virtual reality is even more compelling with friends," hence the creation of Oculus Social. Don't think of Oculus Social as a VR version of Facebook—it's not. One of the biggest parts of Oculus Social is being able to team up with friends or compete against others in games designed specifically for Gear VR. One of those games is Social Trivia, a new title that lets you and up to four friends see who's the smartest of the bunch. Another title is Herobound: Gladiators, a multiplayer adventure game in which you and up to four others work together to defeat goblins and demons in arena style battlefields. It supports voice chat so you can bark out commands or strategize in real time, or yell out a battle cry as you go all Leeroy Jenkins on your team. In addition to playing games, you can create rooms in Oculus Social to hang out with friends and watch Twitch or Vimeo streams. And in the coming weeks, you'll be able to like and share Facebook 360 videos from within VR. It's a neat concept in theory, though it's dependent on having friends who own a Gear VR headset. That means your iOS and non-Galaxy toting buddies won't be able to join in the fun. |
| Last Week's RSA Keynotes Were a Big Deal Posted: 10 Mar 2016 12:00 AM PST Setting the stageDigital security is everyone's business. There, I said it. Even if you've never encrypted a single file on your own, if you've never created a PGP keypair, if you've never created your own simple substitution cypher as a kid, there's a near 100 percent chance that if you're reading this online, you use encryption every day. And most people take encryption for granted because it's nearly invisible to them. As I plopped my butt into my chair last Tuesday morning, waiting for the day's keynote addresses to start at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, I wondered to myself how I could explain the subject of security and privacy. I knew I was going to have my ass in that chair for about four hours, listening to important people say things that would fly way over the heads of most Americans. That's one of the problems of digital security in the 21 st century. The systems we rely on every single day have become incredibly complex. The moment you log into your Facebook or Gmail account, your browser does an elaborate dance of questioning and verifying, encrypting and decrypting, transferring, all within a couple of seconds. The public key cryptography that secures the data transfers between your PC and a website is the basis of the transport layer security that allows us to trust that our Amazon order won't broadcast our credit card numbers to anyone that listens. Talking about, developing, and implementing the technologies that keep secrets secret is at the heart of what RSA is all about. The first speaker during last Tuesday's keynote was RSA president Amit Yoran. He came out on stage and set a strong tone, making clear the importance of what the digital security profession does. He listed off big security breaches from the past, and moved to more recent ones. Target's holiday breach, as well as Sony's were mentioned. He then mentioned the "most damaging breach in history," half-jokingly saying it was the adultery website Ashley Madison breach, instead of the recent Office of Personnel Management breach everyone was expecting. When Yoran brought up the backdoors that were discovered in Juniper Networks's networking products that Juniper discovered last year. Code had been injected into Juniper's source that slipped by developers. The code modification opened a backdoor that hackers could exploit by changing a single constant in the code: a hard-coded password. Computer scientists have said that the exploit looks to be the work of a state actor, possibly the handiwork of the NSA. "Did this surprise us?" Yoran asked the audience. "If so, then we haven't been paying attention." The elephant in the room It would be impossible to write about the 25 th RSA Conference without noting the backdrop of the fight between FBI and Apple. There has been a great many articles written about the specifics of the case, but let me go over the basics: On December 2, 2015, two individuals went on a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif. that killed 14 people. One of the shooters was an employee of San Bernardino County, and had a work-issued iPhone 5c. The FBI recovered the phone, which is encrypted with a PIN. If an incorrect PIN is entered too many times, the iPhone's OS will destroy the data in its user storage. The FBI hasn't been able to find the correct PIN, and has asked Apple to create a custom OS that will bypass this feature of the phone. Apple cooperated with the FBI by disclosing the user's iCloud data, but is refusing to create a workaround for its own security scheme on the FBI's behalf. Much debate ensued, and the FBI's suit against Apple seems poised to go all the way to the US Supreme Court. Unlike previous requests from the government to provide backdoors or weaknesses in the core of encryption mechanisms, the FBI's request is equivalent to a legal backdoor. While the FBI is saying that they are only asking for Apple to unlock this one phone, the action would set in place the requirement that it be done in the future. A key term to understand here is precedent:
Apple argues that if it can be compelled to open up this one iPhone, there is nothing to stop other law enforcement agencies or foreign governments from requesting the same action in the future. Precedent is one of the underlying methods that courts and federal judges lean on to determine how a case should be ruled. Once a court sets a precedent in a single case, it cascades through the court system unless it is challenged in a higher court. Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade set legal precedents that lay the rules for integration of schools and abortion, set the rules for integration of schools and abortion rights, respectively. While flaws or backdoors in code can be exploited by governments or hackers, the current Apple case represents a legal system backdoor to many privacy advocates. Apple drew another ally in its resistance to the FBI from Microsoft on Tuesday. Brad Smith, Microsoft's President and chief legal officer, parted ways with Bill Gates's opinion that Apple should do what the FBI says during his keynote. "Microsoft will stand up with Apple in this new important case," Smith said to the audience, garnering applause. "Law, and especially technology law, does not improve with age," Smith said referring to the 19 th century law called the All Writs Act the FBI is using to order Apple comply. Smith then held up an old adding machine. "We do not need our courts to define the laws that govern 21st century technology with laws that come from the era of the adding machine." In an onstage interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch weighed in on the Apple case. In the interview, Lynch acknowledged that more and more of our lives are contained in the devices we carry in our pockets. "I think encryption does make us safer," Lynch said. Lynch refused to budge in the view that Tim Cook and Apple should comply with a court order to develop software to break open the iPhone for the FBI. "For me, the middle ground is to devolve to what the law requires," she said. "What we're asking them to do is to help with this one phone. [Apple] could keep the technology and destroy it." Lynch pushed further by pointing out that the phone belonged to the county of San Bernardino. "The customer [San Bernardino] has asked for [Apple's] help," Lynch said, rejecting Apple's suggestion that the court order violates the fifth amendment's guaranteed right against self-incrimination. When asked if code represented free speech, Lynch replied, "That's a very important topic for discussion." Chang asked Lynch if she bought the idea that there is no technical way Apple could help the FBI, seeing as the company designed the iPhone's encryption scheme to be resilient against attacks, even from Apple itself. "They can do what has been asked of them," Lynch said. "[Tim Cook's] views will be heard in court, and they will be decided in court." The balance of freedom and security Privacy advocates on the web and at RSA staunchly oppose the weakening of encryption or the privacy rights of users and citizens. At RSA, many of the speakers felt obligated to weigh in on the issue, and many didn't budge on the issue that encryption is one of the things that allows the Internet to function the way it does today. Yoran made it very clear on what the position of RSA was on the issue of encryption technology near the end of his keynote. While he defended encryption technology, he also called on the government and lawmakers to help make it stronger for everyone. "The private sector can't do this alone. We need government policies that help rather than hinder security," Yoran said. "Some policy proposals like weakening encryption are so misguided it boggles the mind." Smith also touched upon the topic of weakening encryption schemes in his keynote. "People will not use technology they do not trust. Trust is the foundation for our entire industry, and it needs to stay that way," Smith said. For a long time, RSA has faced off with the US government as an advocate for user privacy and the use of encryption. The interesting fact is that the government has a dual interest in encryption. While the US government needs crypto for its day-to-day operations (most military SINCGARS radios encrypt their traffic, for example), it also has an interest in being able to see what potential adversaries are doing. Lynch referred to adversaries and terrorists using encryption technology as "going dark," making it near impossible for the US government to peer into what a potential threat is doing. "The Department of Justice will never sacrifice the safety of the American people," Lynch said during an address to RSA attendees, before her interview with Chang. "Our ability to go into into devices has to be limited [and] targeted," Lynch said. "We have to set up safeguards so we don't go farther than that." Indeed, the need for the government to defend the United States and its citizens against attack are real, and don't just stop at domestic terror attacks or identity theft. The problem is, security is an imperfect game. When I served with a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, I quickly learned that there is always a potential hole in security, but that being able to respond swiftly and decisively to breaches is the key. It's part of the reason that if anyone tries to tell you that something is completely safe or secure, they're lying to you or ignorant of any weaknesses. An easy analogy is the Star Wars Death Star. "The path to hell starts at the back door. We need to ensure encryption technology remains strong." –Brad Smith, Microsoft In Star Wars, the Death Star was built to be practically impervious to attacks by large capital ships that could be fielded by the Rebel Alliance or other forces. Overconfidence in the Death Star's security ultimately led to the exploit of a thermal exhaust port. If you have never seen Star Wars, spoiler alert: the protagonist fires a pair of torpedoes into this port to devastating effect, resulting in a big, just-in-time boom, and the immediate death of thousands of imperial troops. During his keynote at RSA, NSA director and commander of US Cyber Command Admiral Michael S. Rogers reaffirmed the idea that security is imperfect, and that reactions to security breaches is the key to defeating threats. "It's not about if you're penetrated, but when you're penetrated," he said, as my inner 16-year-old snickered. Rogers said that defending critical infrastructure (like water and power) in the United States is a top priority. Doing so, he implied that the critical nature of the end justifies the NSA's means of aggressive surveillance. "The systems we're tying to defend were built in a very different time and place," he said. To help paint that picture, Rogers pointed out that a cyberattack on Ukraine's infrastructure brought down the country's power grid seven weeks ago. Yoran showed a clear contrast with the view that security should overrule privacy technology like encryption during his keynote. "We live in a golden age of surveillance," he said, clearly referring to government agencies like the NSA and FBI. "Weakening encryption is solely for the ease and convenience of law enforcement when pursuing petty criminals," he continued. "If we weaken encryption, you can surely bet the bad guys will exploit it and use it against us." "When it comes to security, there is no technology more important than encryption," Microsoft's Smith said in his keynote. "The path to hell starts at the back door. We need to ensure encryption technology remains strong."  The smartest guys in the roomIf there was one event that was worth listening to, it was the cryptographers' panel on the keynote stage. The panel preceded the NSA director's keynote, which shows that whoever schedules the RSA keynotes has a sense of humor. The panelists all had pedigrees that made me feel incredibly stupid in comparison. The five wise men basically represented some of (if not the) leading minds in modern cryptography: Ron Rivest, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Whitfiled Diffie, a pioneer of public-key cryptography and co-creator of the Diffie-Hellmnn key exchange method; Israeli cryptographer Adi Shamir, co-creator of the RSA encryption algorithm; cryptographer and Stanford professor Martin Hellman, co-creator of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange; and Moxie Marlinspike (pseudonym), a cryptographer, software engineer, and sailor. The panel was moderated by Paul Kocher from Rambus's cryptology research division. As if the credentials of each of the panelists weren't reason enough to listen to them, the panel delayed its start for an award. Kocher played a video in which the A. M. Turing Award was awarded to both Diffie and Hellman for their work on the Diffie-Hellman key exchange method, which is the basis for modern public-key encryption like that used in TLS. Basically, if you buy stuff online, these two guys helped create some of the tech that ensures your credit card information isn't stolen. For this, they received the computer science equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the A. M. Turing Award. It's also worth noting that Whitman Diffie has an amazing white beard and long, flowing white hair. He looks like a wizard. Yet another reason to listen to what he says. Marlinspike also has interesting hair, with dreadlocks pulled back. As someone who used to have dreads, it's great to see a dread-head being taken seriously and not just dismissed as a pot-smoking hippie commie-pinko. The panel led off quickly, with a discussion of current events (Apple's case). Shamir didn't pull any punches aimed at Apple. "Apple goofed by having a loophole that makes it possible for them to help the FBI," Shamir said. "They should close it as soon as possible." Marlinspike directed his criticism toward government and the assumption that encryption should be weakened or circumvented in the interest of public safety. "I believe law enforcement should be difficult," Marlinspike said." It should be possible to break the law." "The precedent that would be set would be breathtaking in scope. What the FBI is asking is inappropriate." –Ron Rivest, MIT Diffie reinforced the idea that breaking the law is sometimes necessary to advance the rights of individuals, citing the fact that homosexuality was outlawed in the '60s. Shamir said that Apple had a legal obligation to comply with the FBI. Just as a safe manufacturer might be asked by law enforcement to help crack its own safe, Shamir said, Apple should help the FBI defeat its iPhone security. Hellman and Rivest disagreed with that notion, citing that compliance would set a dangerous legal precedent. "The precedent that would be set would be breathtaking in scope. What the FBI is asking is inappropriate," Rivest said, noting that the bureau was using the terrorist attack to "tug at the heartstrings." Later in the talk, Marlinspike brought up part of why privacy advocates should be wary of governments, citing that the dual elliptic curve Juniper hack was due to an NSA backdoor. One of the big concerns of quantum computers is their theoretical capability to make brute-force attacks on encryption much easier. In a Monday session called "Crypto 101," host Benjamin Jun said quantum computing could have the capability to cut the effective bit-depth of an algorithm by half. That means 256-bit encryption could be effectively reduced to 128-bit, merely as a function of the inner workings of the processor. Near the close of the Tuesday panel, Hellman tried to dismiss such immediate concerns, drawing upon a secret $80 million NSA budget to develop a quantum computer that was revealed by Edward Snowden. That budget from 2013, Hellman implied, hasn't resulted in a quantum computer yet. "The NSA is far, far away from developing anything resembling a quantum computer," Hellman said. With that in mind, Hellman did offer a couple warnings to the RSA crowd. "The NSA is warning everyone away from elliptic curve encryption, but isn't telling anyone why," he said. While RSA considers 3,084-bit RSA encryption "safe" from cracking now, Hellman did imply there is a time limit on its safety, and advised the government not to rely on it. "If they're trying to keep information top-secret for 30 years, RSA-3084 won't hold up," he said. Luckily, some products (like the YubiKey 4) support 4,096-bit RSA keys, though 4,096-bit keys have been eschewed in favor of 2,048-bit keys for efficiency. The current default encryption method for GNU Privacy Guard keys is 2,048-bit RSA, but creating a 4,096-bit keypair is trivial. If needed, a 2,048-bit subkey can always be created from the 4,096-bit private key. Hellman also warned attendees about collisions that have been detected in the SHA-1 hash algorithm, which many SSL certificates still use, despite warnings from RSA. Marlinspike shared a similar concern, saying that the biggest threat to the Internet today is SSL signatures. Overcoming differences There's a lot of rhetoric and vitriol online and in the media about if and how the government should have access to user data. Some believe the government should have none at all, while others firmly believe that security trumps privacy. There was recurring theme at RSA's keynotes, and that theme was collaboration and communication. Both Admiral Rogers and Attorney General Lynch said that they want to collaborate with security vendors and firms in Silicon Valley, and that they need tech companies' help to keep the United States safe. "I believe our future is in partnerships and integration," Rogers said. Lynch mirrored that sentiment in another statement. "We are committed to working closely with the private sector," the Attorney General said. "In a lot of ways, we aren't talking to each other, we're talking past each other. We need to have a dialogue." –Michael S. Rogers, NSA director, commander US Cyber Command While government agencies were pleading for cooperation from tech companies and security firms, both privacy advocates and the government agree that the solution was to somehow find common ground. "In a lot of ways, we aren't talking to each other, we're talking past each other," Rogers said. "We need to have a dialogue." Lynch too, favored the idea of striking a balance. "We do have to be engaged in open dialogue," Lynch said. "I am convinced that's how we are going to continue to strengthen our defense systems and bring wrongdoers to justice." "These people aren't trying to protect terrorists," Lynch said about companies like Apple and other privacy advocates. Arthur J. Coviello, former RSA president and RSA lifetime Achievement Award recipient, reinforced this sentiment in his acceptance speech. "This is time to stop partisan bickering that only empowers our adversaries," he said. "The issue of privacy and security is the defining issue of our time." |
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