Month: August 2024
Microsoft to host security summit after CrowdStrike disaster
Redmond wants to improve the resilience of Windows to buggy software.
Microsoft is stepping up its plans to make Windows more resilient to buggy software after a botched CrowdStrike update took down millions of PCs and servers in a global IT outage.
The tech giant has in the past month intensified talks with partners about adapting the security procedures around its operating system to better withstand the kind of software error that crashed 8.5 million Windows devices on July 19.
Critics say that any changes by Microsoft would amount to a concession of shortcomings in Windows’ handling of third-party security software that could have been addressed sooner.
Crayola Trademarks the Smell of Its Crayons
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Post: You may find yourself smelling crayons in the aisles of stores soon — if Crayola’s chief executive Pete Ruggiero has his way. In July, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a trademark to the arts and crafts giant for the smell of its crayons — that waxy scent of a childhood spent trying to color within the lines. While it’s too soon for this back-to-school season, Ruggiero imagines one day pumping it through the aisles of retailers, triggering nostalgia while shoppers are browsing and hopefully buying more crayons.
Crayola, a unit of Hallmark, first applied for the trademark in 2018 and was initially turned down less than a year later, but won its bid on appeal. During the process, the company shared examples of its own crayons as well as competitors to verify the distinctiveness. It’s a “slightly earthy soap with pungent, leather-like clay undertones,” according to the trademark documents. “We’ve been talking about doing it for years,” Ruggiero said about the trademark. “That Crayola smell, there’s a connection between the smell and childhood memories that is very powerful.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Post: You may find yourself smelling crayons in the aisles of stores soon — if Crayola’s chief executive Pete Ruggiero has his way. In July, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a trademark to the arts and crafts giant for the smell of its crayons — that waxy scent of a childhood spent trying to color within the lines. While it’s too soon for this back-to-school season, Ruggiero imagines one day pumping it through the aisles of retailers, triggering nostalgia while shoppers are browsing and hopefully buying more crayons.
Crayola, a unit of Hallmark, first applied for the trademark in 2018 and was initially turned down less than a year later, but won its bid on appeal. During the process, the company shared examples of its own crayons as well as competitors to verify the distinctiveness. It’s a “slightly earthy soap with pungent, leather-like clay undertones,” according to the trademark documents. “We’ve been talking about doing it for years,” Ruggiero said about the trademark. “That Crayola smell, there’s a connection between the smell and childhood memories that is very powerful.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
After cybersecurity lab wouldn’t use AV software, US accuses Georgia Tech of fraud
Researchers allegedly found security protocols “burdensome.”
Enlarge (credit: Georgia Tech)
Dr. Emmanouil “Manos” Antonakakis runs a Georgia Tech cybersecurity lab and has attracted millions of dollars in the last few years from the US government for Department of Defense research projects like “Rhamnousia: Attributing Cyber Actors Through Tensor Decomposition and Novel Data Acquisition.”
The government yesterday sued Georgia Tech in federal court, singling out Antonakakis and claiming that neither he nor Georgia Tech followed basic (and required) security protocols for years, knew they were not in compliance with such protocols, and then submitted invoices for their DoD projects anyway. (Read the complaint.) The government claims this is fraud:
At bottom, DoD paid for military technology that Defendants stored in an environment that was not secure from unauthorized disclosure, and Defendants failed to even monitor for breaches so that they and DoD could be alerted if information was compromised. What DoD received for its funds was of diminished or no value, not the benefit of its bargain.
AV hate
Given the nature of his work for DoD, Antonakakis and his lab are required to abide by many sets of security rules, including those outlined in NIST Special Publication 800–171, “Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Information Systems and Organizations.”
Should you have to pay for online privacy?
Some websites have started introducing paywalls which can be lifted with data rather than cash.
Some websites have started introducing paywalls which can be lifted with data rather than cash.
Zoë Kravitz, Channing Tatum and the ‘Blink Twice’ cast debate whether it’s a ‘good date movie’
Channing Tatum, Zoë Kravitz, Naomi Ackie, Christian Slater, Alia Shawkat and Simon Rex break down the film and whether or not it would be a good date movie.
Channing Tatum, Zoë Kravitz, Naomi Ackie, Christian Slater, Alia Shawkat and Simon Rex break down the film and whether or not it would be a good date movie.