Feedly attacked and the criminals demanded money to stop

Tech News

Feedly published on their blog details of a denial of access attack on their service.

“6:25am PST – We’re making some changes to our infrastructure that will allow us to bring feedly back online. However, these things take some time to put into place and it may still be a few more hours before service is restored. Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with us. Remember, none of your data was compromised or lost in this attack.

2:04am PST – Criminals are attacking feedly with a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). The attacker is trying to extort us money to make it stop. We refused to give in and are working with our network providers to mitigate the attack as best as we can.

We are working in parallel with other victims of the same group and with law enforcement.

We want to apologize for the inconvenience. Please know that you data is safe and you will be able to re-access your feedly as soon as the attack is neutralized.

We will update this blog post as soon as we have more information.

Thank you.

/Edwin and Seb”

I think people who do this thing are utter b*****ds.

Battle of the Brands on the London Underground

Android, Apple, Tech News

So as you might have read I was up on business travelling on the London Underground.

Something I don’t miss living now I’m living on rural Dartmoor.

It’s been nearly two years since my last trip and back then iPhones ruled.

So what brands were people using now? Was the tube full of Nokia Lumia 1020’s? Or maybe a Sony or HTC? Let’s be optimistic. Maybe a Huawei. Or long shot a BlackBerry?

I’m afraid not. It was a 3 horse race only. Yes 3. So we can guess Apple and Samsung were fighting it out for top spot. And they really were. I think Apple just won with more Apple devices but only just. Samsung phones were everywhere. So what was the third brand? Amazon. Amazon Kindle readers and Kindle Fire’s.

So with Amazon starting it’s foray into smartphones very soon, just watch this space get invaded by them.

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom – review part 8 – stutter time

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

All had been going well with the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom apart from some day 1 teething problems.

Well I had the pleasure the other day of taking the train from Exeter to London Paddington and then commuting across the sauna of the London Underground. In fact the train to London was too hot as well.

Anyway, I decided to listen to a few podcasts, and then play a few songs. My music is stored on the memory card. I was using the default Samsung music player. After about 20 minutes the track started stuttering. I was surprised by this behaviour so forwarded to the next track and then the next. Same problem.

The stuttering was only cured by performing a soft reset.

The battery life for the duration of my day trip to London held up really well. How by 11.39 PM and down to 34%.

LG G Watch – Only 3 weeks away from release

Tech News, Wearables,

image

According to MoDaCo and Twitter account @upleaks the LG G Watch will launch in the UK on the 7th July.

It will run Google’s new wearable operating system, android wear and will be in sale less than Samsung’s Gear.

It will have 36 hours of battery life when in standby. The LG G Watch will have a 400mAh battery to keep it going during the day. This smartwatch will have 4GB of internal storage and pack every sensor you can expect from a wearable – ambient, touch, pedometer, and tilt sensors.

It will be controlled using voice commands too.

Like like the wearable tech is getting set to explode.

Don’t call Samsung support if you have the Galaxy K Zoom

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom really is a niche device.

How niche?

Well twice I’ve phoned Samsung support and on the first call not only did they not know or even have heard of the phone, it wasn’t even listed in their computer so they had to call me back.

And that was even after I gave them the model number as well.

The second call was the same affair.

Now if you ring Samsung and have a S5 there is a dedicated extension!

However, both times Samsung support did call me back once they worked out how to resolve the problem.

Now for those that pre ordered the K Zoom with the offer of the free case which has not arrived nearly two weeks after phone arrived, I should have the answer tomorrow from Samsung as to where these free cases are.

Your Smart TV is at risk from the RED button on the remote

Tech News

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the specification that defines how smart TVs work, that could allow attackers to hijack home broadband networks.

For decades, television sets have been used as purely passive terminals. However, TV manufacturers are increasingly using the internet to provide a more engaging, interactive, and personalised viewing experience.

As a result, most US and European households with broadband Internet access now have at least one television set which is also connected to the internet, either directly, (through what is commonly known as the ‘red button’), or through a set-top box or console.

However, researchers from the Network Security Lab at Columbia University have discovered a flaw in the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard, which defines how broadcast streams are combined with web technologies.

Exploiting this vulnerability, attackers could use the credentials stored in TV sets to access services such as social networks, webmail, or e-commerce sites, and perform fraud, insert spam, launch denial-of-service attacks, and compromise other devices within the home network.

More at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/10887137/Red-button-flaw-leaves-smart-TVs-open-to-cyber-attack.html

Just shows anything is hackable.

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom – review – update

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

Another day another discovery on the K Zoom.

Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S5, I kept the default Samsung keyboard as it worked really well, plus the numbers row doubled up as shortcut text when long pressed.

However, the K Zoom default Samsung keyboard is awful. I am waiting for Swiftkey to release their official version with emoji support, but it is not there yet. So I installed the official Google Keyboard. And oh my, it really works so well on the K Zoom. Swyping across the keyboard one handed is a breeze and it is so accurate. Make the user experience so much better.

That’s it for now.

More tomorrow.

iPhone 6 – alleged potential case shell photos leaked

Apple, Tech News

iphone_6_shell_front_rear-800x792

Macrumors has a post covering potential iPhone 6 shell photo leaks. This time it shows photos from all sides. The above is just one photo.

The issue here is do these leaks really matter. They are not the finished article, nor do the reveal and special hardware and software features. If these are correct, they also kill the suspense.

More at http://www.macrumors.com/2014/06/08/iphone-6-shell-multiple-angles/