Apple Is Going To Make It Harder to Hack iPhones With Zero-Click Attacks

Apple is going to make one of the most powerful types of attacks on iPhones much harder to pull off in an upcoming update of iOS. From a report: The company quietly made a new change in the way it secures the code running in its mobile operating system. The change is in the beta version of the next iOS version,…

Google Launches the First Developer Preview of Android 12

Almost exactly a year after Google announced the first developer preview of Android 11, the company today released the first developer preview of Android 12. From a report: Google delayed the roll-out of Android 11 a bit as the teams and the company’s partners adjusted to working during a pandemic, but it looks like that didn’t stop it from keeping Android…

Microsoft Starts Removing Flash From Windows Devices

Microsoft has begun deploying this week KB4577586, a Windows update that permanently removes the Adobe Flash Player software from Windows devices. From a report: The update was formally announced last year at the end of October when Microsoft and other browser makers were preparing for the impending Flash end-of-life, scheduled for the end of 2020. According to a support document published…

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter gets an upgrade to capture new perspectives of the moon

Eleven years into its mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is starting to show its age, but a recent software update promises to give the spacecraft a new lease on life. As NASA’s eye in the sky over the moon, the LRO has been responsible for some of the best Lunar observations since the days of Apollo. This new upgrade will…

Should You Block Connections to Your Network From Foreign Countries?

Slashdot reader b-dayyy quotes the Linux Security blog: What if you could block connections to your network in real-time from countries around the world such as Russia, China and Brazil where the majority of cyberattacks originate? What if you could redirect connections to a single network based on their origin? As you can imagine, being able to control these things would…

Facebook Blames ‘Technical Issues” for Its Broken Promise to the US Congress

Facebook is blaming “technical issues” for its broken promise to the U.S. Congress to stop recommending political groups to its users, reports The Markup: Facebook made the pledge once in October, in the run-up to the presidential election, and then falsely reiterated it had taken the step after rioters overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a deadly event partially coordinated…

The game-changing covid-19 treatments that helped slash the death rate

Faced with an unknown disease, doctors had to update best practices faster than ever before. Here’s what we now know about gold standard coronavirus treatments Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933210-800-the-game-changing-covid-19-treatments-that-helped-slash-the-death-rate/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Facebook Says It Plans To Remove Posts With False Vaccine Claims.

Facebook said on Monday that it plans to remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines from across its platform, including taking down assertions that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract Covid-19 than to receive the vaccinations. From a report: The social network has increasingly changed its content policies over the past year as the coronavirus…

‘Nature’ Urges More Masks, Air Purifiers, and Ventilation Instead of Disinfecting Surfaces

“Catching the coronavirus from surfaces is rare. The World Health Organization and national public-health agencies need to clarify their advice,” urges an editorial in Nature (shared by long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo): A year into the pandemic, the evidence is now clear. The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted predominantly through the air — by people talking and breathing out large droplets and small…

Raspberry Pi OS Accused of ‘Phoning Home’ To Microsoft

Slashdot reader rushtobugment quotes a story from Hot Hardware: One of the software options for running a Raspberry Pi module is Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian), the officially supported Debian-based operating system put out by The Raspberry Pi Foundation. It has been around since 2015 without too much complaint. However, a recent update has some Raspberry Pi OS users up in…