SpaceX Falcon 9 Returns Without a Hitch After Dragon Launch

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday returned safely to Earth, touching down at Landing Zone 1 after launching the Dragon spacecraft into low-Earth orbit.

This is the second such landing at Cape Canaveral by a returning Falcon 9 rocket. The first was Falcon 9 Flight 20's return on Dec. 22. SpaceX also accomplished three successful drone-ship landings this spring.
"As with previous first stage land and drone-ship landings from SpaceX, this achievement is a testament to the leadership and innovation of America's commercial space industry," NASA spokesperson Cheryl Warner told TechNewsWorld.

The Dragon's 5,000-lb. payload included science and crew supplies, a space suit, and an international docking adapter that will enable commercial spacecraft to dock to the station when transporting astronauts as part of NASA's upcoming Commercial Crew Program.
The ISS crew will use the station's 58-foot robotic arm to reach out and capture the Dragon spacecraft, and attach it to the station at 7 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Reusable Rockets on the Way?

"This is an exciting time, as we will all soon find out whether reusability really is the key to unlocking lower launch costs and higher levels of space activity, but it will probably be at least another year before early results can be measured and properly analyzed," noted Micah Walter-Range, director of research and analysis at the Space Foundation.
"Before I say this is the age of reusable rockets, I would want to see them being reflown with paying customers or cargo aboard, and the companies making a higher profit as a result," he told TechNewsWorld.
"If it turns out that the cost of inspecting and refurbishing flown hardware eats up the cost savings from not having to build new hardware, there's no net gain," Walter-Range noted.
"In real terms, the cost to lift a pound into orbit has declined by about 90 percent since the beginning of the Space Age," noted Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.
"Launch costs will need to decline by nearly as much," he told TechNewsWorld. "Part of this will be the cost of launch hardware, but the real cost driver is the overhead associated with assembly, management and payload deployment."

Been There, Done That

There were two efforts to make reusable rockets in the 1980s, noted Jim McGregor, a principal analyst at Tirias Research.
One was a single stage to orbit -- a single-stage rocket that could launch and land in one piece. The other was the National Aerospace Plane, or NASP -- the Rockwell X-30.
The NASP was designed to "replace the space shuttle and be able to fly directly into space at Mach 25 (25 times the speed of sound)," McGregor told TechNewsWorld. "Unfortunately, the Clinton administration killed both efforts."
The return of the Falcon 9's first stage to land safely at Landing Zone 1 shows SpaceX "should reduce the number of future failures to recover the booster," he suggested. "It's a step in regaining lost momentum in our space technology, [and] will make delivering people and equipment to space less expensive."
What does SpaceX's success imply for NASA's future?
"NASA is really becoming irrelevant in terms of launch capability," Jude suggested. It's definitely the high-cost carrier."
NASA "is probably much more useful providing an incentive for commercial launch operations," he said. "If commercial carriers begin taking astronauts to the ISS, its costs will decline," and that might lead it to contract for most of its space initiatives.

The Next Challenge for SpaceX

SpaceX is planning an unmanned mission to Mars in 2018 or 2019, Jude said. NASA "is ponying up some money to help, but it will be a SpaceX operation."
The Mars mission will require a "fully functional Falcon 9 Heavy and a substantial number of improvements on the Dragon capsule," Jude noted. "If it can accomplish this, then it will be ahead of the competition."

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Google Chrome Has a Piracy Problem, Microsoft Updates Old Programs… [Tech News Digest]

Written by Dave ParrackJune 27, 2016

A Chrome bug lets you record streaming movies, your favorite Windows program is back as an app, YouTube is now live on mobile, Facebook tackles its political bias, and the man who married his smartphone.

Google Chrome Enables Movie Piracy

Two security researchers have discovered a way of recording video streams playing through Google Chrome, which has the potential to turn Google’s web browser into a pirate’s wet dream. Google has been made aware of the issue, but hasn’t yet issued a patch fixing the flaw.

According to Wired, David Livshits of the Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Alexandra Mikityuk of Telekom Innovatio Laboratories in Berlin, discovered the flaw, and posted the above video demonstrating it in action. It shows an encrypted HTML5 video stream (What is HTML5?) being captured as it plays.

The problem stems from Google’s use of Widevine, the digital rights management (DRM) system which has been implemented into Chrome. Widevine decrypts encrypted video for playback within Chrome, but this vulnerability lets users hijack the stream and save it for posterity.

Livshits and Mikityuk informed Google of the issue on May 24, giving the company 90 days to fix it before they release more details to the wider world. 90 days is how long Google’s Project Zero team gives other developers to patch flaws they discover.

However, Google seems to be suggesting that as any web browser based on Chromium will suffer the same flaw, it may not be worth fixing this one. Which could spell disaster for the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, both of which could have their catalogs ripped off overnight.

Classic Windows Programs Become Apps

lol, so MS will Centennial all the accessories ? WordPad https://t.co/Zj2nL5sVC1CharMap https://t.co/D6TAyMUnlE etc pic.twitter.com/9omoyUOAb9

— WalkingCat (@h0x0d) May 2, 2016

Microsoft has converted several of its own classic Win32 programs into apps and made them available through the Windows Store. The programs in question are WordPad, Windows Fax and Scan, XPS Viewer, and the Microsoft Character Map. These have been converted as part of Project Centennial.

For the uninitiated, WordPad is a simple word processor, Windows Fax and Scanlets you scan a document and fax it from your PC, XPS Viewer adds advanced options for viewing XPS documents, and the Microsoft Character Map displays all available characters in your favorite fonts.

These programs were rumored to be coming to the Windows Store last month, and were actually spotted in the wild (see tweet above). However, they’re now available for the first time, at least to Windows Insiders running the latest versions of both Windows 10 and the Windows Store.

It’s safe to assume this is only the beginning, and Microsoft must be planning to convert a host of other classic Win32 programs into apps. The company will also be hoping other developers do the same, bridging the gap between the old and the new iterations of Windows.

YouTube Goes Live on Mobile

YouTube is finally catching up with the likes of Periscope and Facebook Live by bringing live streaming to mobile devices. YouTube has been offering live streaming video since 2011, but it has taken a piecemeal approach, focusing on large events and browser-based streaming. But no longer.

Live streaming is coming to YouTube’s mobile app, as announced by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at VidCon 2016. Kurt Wilms, Product Lead, Immersive Experiences at YouTube, then added more details in a YouTube Creator Blog post, explaining:

“YouTube mobile live streaming will be baked right into the core YouTube mobile app. You won’t need to open anything else, just hit the big red capture button right there in the corner, take or select a photo to use as a thumbnail, and you can broadcast live to your fans and chat in near real time.”

This represents YouTube finally catching up with the rest of the Internet, treating live videos with as much respect as regular short-form content. Periscope andFacebook Live are huge right now, and YouTube cannot afford to slip behind in this increasingly popular and crowded market.

Facebook Tackles Political Bias

Facebook is taking steps to ensure its employees keep their own political biasesfrom invading the social networking platform. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated that politics is now included — alongside race, age, gender, and other topics many of us have unconscious biases about — in her “managing bias” classes.

According to The Daily Signal, Sandberg announced this move during an event at the American Enterprise Institute, saying:

“We have a managing bias class that all of our leaders and a lot of our employees have taken that I was part of helping to create. And we focused on racial bias, age bias, gender bias, national bias, and we’re going to add in a scenario now on political bias.”

“So as we think about helping people understand different points of view and being open to different points of view, we’re dealing with political bias as well going forward.”

Political bias is a hot topic at Facebook after a former contractor suggested the social network was heavily biased towards liberals and against conservatives. The contractor accused Facebook of suppressing conservative viewpoints from showing up in its Trending Topics section. Facebook denied any wrongdoing, and met with a host of prominent conservatives to allay their fears.

When a Man Loves a Smartphone

And finally, you probably spend more time with your smartphone than any friend or family member, so why not just go ahead and marry the damn thing. It might sound like a ridiculous proposition, but it has actually already happened, with Aaron Chervenak recently marrying his smartphone.

The “wedding” took place in The Little Vegas Chapel in Las Vegas, but isn’t legally recognized in Nevada. So, while Chervenak has made a commitment to his smartphone, he cannot refer to it as his wife. Still, at least that makes divorce easier when the new model launches next year. [H/T Kaspersky]

Your Views on Today’s Tech News

Should the security researchers reveal Chrome’s streaming video flaw? What classic Windows program do you want to see return as an app? Will you watch YouTube Live on your mobile? Do you think Facebook has a political bias? If so, for which side? Is the man who married his smartphone silly, stupid, or dumb?

Let us know your thoughts on the Tech News of the day by posting to the comments section below. Because a healthy discussion is always welcome.

Tech News Digest is a daily column paring the technology news of the day down into bite-sized chunks that are easy to read and perfect for sharing.

Image Credit: Cory Doctorow via Flickr

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Google, April's Fools.

photo credit: Oops. John T Takai/Shutterstock

April Fools’ jokes are normally a bit of harmless fun. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case for one of Google’s latest pranks.

The Internet giant is known for its numerous annual April Fools’ jokes, but one seems to have failed spectacularly this year. They decided to install a “drop mic” button on Gmail that would send recipients of the email an animated gif of a Minion character “dropping a mic,” ending the email thread and blocking any future emails in the chain.

Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse, though, as unaware users who clicked the button – next to the normal “send” button – found that what were supposed to be serious emails became mocking replies.

“Thanks to Mic Drop I just lost my job,” said one user on Google’s Gmail Help Forum. “I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her. I inadvertently sent the email using the 'Mic Drop' send button.

“I just woke up to a very angry voicemail from her which is how I found out about this ‘hilarious’ prank.”

The orange button appeared next to the regular blue "send" button. Google

Other users reported similarly awkward instances, where what should have been professional emails were anything but. Google, realizing their error, has now removed the “drop mic” button from Google.

“Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year,” they wrote in a blog post. “Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”

It just goes to show that, while April Fools’ is normally all fun and games, things can occasionally not go to plan. Let’s just hope no one has spent the last few decades trying in vain to grow spaghetti trees.

*drops mic*

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Apple Ransomware Reveals Cert Problem

Researchers last week discovered the first ransomware in the wild aimed at Apple's hardware platform. While the threat was subdued quickly, it exposed the weakness of digital certificates in authenticating software to devices.

The ransomware appeared as a legitimate application because it contained a digital certificate stolen from a bona fide Mac developer in Turkey.

The certificate was used to sign an application of another developer and post a malicious update at the developer's website.

"Apple doesn't control what Mac software can be signed with what certificate," noted Ryan Olson, threat intelligence director of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks, which discovered the ransomware.

"Apple just wants to confirm that the software has been signed with a certificate," he told TechNewsWorld. "That limitation is in place in the iOS App Store."

Kind of Useless

"Certificates are kind of useless," said Chet Wisniewski, a security adviser atSophos.

"It's a nice idea, but the problem with managing the back-end certificate database and making sure the bad guys don't get them is pretty much impossible," he told TechNewsWorld.

"We're seeing people stealing legitimate certificates from legitimate developers who are insecure," Wisniewski added.

Theft, though, may be the hard way to obtain a certificate for malicious purposes.

"If I want to start selling and developing Mac software tomorrow, it takes all of five minutes to ask Apple for a certificate," Wisniewski said. "How does Apple know if I'm a good guy or a bad guy?"

Big Deal

Stolen certificates have played a role in some high-profile cyberattacks.

"Some of the most important cases in malware history have dealt with stolen certificates," said Liviu Arsene, a senior threat analyst at Bitdefender.

"Stuxnet and most advanced persistent threats rely on some form of valid certificate to get installed on machines," he told TechNewsWorld.

Certificates tell the machine that an application that wants to run on it is legitimate and need not be scrutinized by any defenses running on the machine.

"That's a big deal," Arsene noted. "That's why developers are encouraged to make sure they don't lose them and make sure they keep them safe in containers."

Nevertheless, certificates remain a choice target for criminals and spies.

"The certificate thing is a very low barrier, and we've seen it defeated at every level," Wisniewski said.

"It's super easy for criminals to bypass," he added.

Multifactor Authentication

One of the largest contributors to data breaches is compromised credentials. There's no easier way for a hacker to crack a network than masquerading as a legitimate user of that network.

However, even if a person's credentials have been compromised, multifactor authentication can foil a bandit attempting to use those credentials to compromise a network.

That form of authentication combines something you know (a username and password, for example) with something you have (a token, magnetic card or phone) or something you are (a fingerprint, iris or voice).

As effective as multifactor authentication is, though, it can create friction for users, which has proved to be a challenge for enterprises.

Cloud Solution

"Implementing multifactor authentication in the enterprise has been an uphill battle," said Chris Webber, a senior product marketing manager at Centrify. Multifactor authentication can create a burden for IT. An organization needs back-end structure to support it. IT needs to issue tokens to users and create a system to replace tokens that have been lost or are unavailable for immediate use.

In addition, there's been user resistance. "Users are sometimes not ready for it," Webber told TechNewsWorld.

"They find it too cumbersome. The CISOs I've talked to say their users just staged a revolt when they tried to implement multifactor authentication for security," he said.

"There's always a trade-off between convenience and security, and it can be too inconvenient for rank-and-file users," Webber added.

One way to make multifactor authentication more palatable to both IT and users is to move it to the cloud. With a cloud setup, there's no back-end hassle for IT to deal with, and people can use their cellphones as a token.

"Cloud availability means you don't need any dedicated infrastructure or servers on your premises, but it also means it works for things that are in the cloud, behind the firewall, on servers and in Infrastructure as a Service," Webber noted. "It's an everywhere solution."

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