Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

The European Commission on Wednesday charged that Google breached EU antitrust rules by seeking to maintain and expand the dominance of its Android operating system "A competitive mobile Internet sector is increasingly important for consumers and businesses in Europe," said the EC's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager....

MIT researchers have developed a fast, accurate system for identifying security flaws in Web apps written in Ruby on Rails, according to news reports published last week In tests the researchers -- MIT Professor Daniel Jackson and Joseph Near, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley -- performed on 50 popular RoR apps,...

Facebook on Wednesday demonstrated at its F8 developer conference how socializing could take place in a virtual world Two employees some 30 miles apart -- Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer in San Francisco and Product Manager Michael Booth in Menlo Park, California -- showed how they could share the same virtual space....

Facebook's WhatsApp last week announced it would roll out end-to-end encryption for its users to better protect their privacy, but the move could make the service more attractive to spammers, too While encryption can safeguard information from data thieves, it also can block data protectors from detecting malicious activity on their networks....

Facebook on Tuesday unveiled a high-quality 360-degree 3D camera suitable for creating virtual reality content The Facebook Surround 360 system, which made its debut at the F8 developers conference, includes a production-ready camera -- which costs about US$30,000 to build and looks like a flying saucer from a science fiction movie -- and software ...

Most of the changes in the next version of the Apple Watch will be on the inside and not the outside of the case, according to an investors note issued Monday by Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities While he was short on details about what the internal changes for the watch might be, the analyst's comments are consistent with rumors circulating last summ...

It appears that the Obama administration will refrain from giving its outspoken support to any legislation that aims to compel high-tech companies to help law enforcement agencies crack mobile phone encryption On the other hand, it won't level any outspoken opposition either....

The battle between the FBI and Apple over access to the iPhone of San Bernardino, California, killer Syed Farook came to an abrupt end last week when the agency announced it no longer needed the company's assistance to crack the device Since the U.S. Department of Justice delayed a hearing on an order to force Apple to assist the FBI in brute-forci...

WhatsApp on Tuesday told its 1 billion users that their communications would be better protected from prying eyes with end-to-end encryption The company always has made data and communication security a priority, according to Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the founders of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought for US$19 billion in 2014....

Apple appears to have experienced a lost weekend with the 4-inch iPhone SE failing to rack up significant sales When the period ended, the SE claimed only 0.1 percent of the iPhone market, Localytics reported Monday....

Despite its computer systems being infected with malware since Monday, MedStar Health, which operates 10 hospitals and more than 250 outpatient facilities in and around Washington, D.C., has continued to provide patient care at near normal levels, according to several updates released this week Since the malware attack occurred, MedStar Health has ...

Hackers in recent weeks have stepped up their efforts to steal employee tax information from companies in all kinds of industries Typically, the information contained on IRS form W-2 is used to file false tax returns or steal someone's identity....

Instagram on Monday moved to calm concerns among some users about a proposed change in the way content appears in their feeds Celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Cindy Crawford fueled the anxiety by urging their followers to enable a feature on their mobile devices that would notify them whenever those celebrities post to Instagram....

Apple has been deluged with complaints from users who say the latest version of its mobile operating system is breaking links and crashing apps "Following iOS 9.3 on iPhone 6splus update links in safari no longer open, then safari crashes -- any ideas how to fix? Same problem in Chrome," user John MacDonald posted Monday on Apple's support page on ...

A Chinese aviation and aerospace businessman last week pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to steal sensitive military and export-controlled data from major U.S. defense contractors and send the information to China, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Su Bin, also known as Stephen Su and Stephen Subin, a resident of the People'...

Downtime caused by a ransomware attack can cost a company more than paying a ransom to recover data encrypted by the malware, according to a report released last week byIntermedia Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of companies infected with ransomware could not access their data for at least two days because of the incident, and 32 percent couldn'...

On the eve of a court showdown with Apple over unlocking the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, the FBI put its case on pause Monday to pursue an attack method that could allow it to crack the phone without Apple's assistance After reviewing the FBI's request for postponement of oral arguments in the case, a U.S. District Court in Califo...

A team of researchers atJohns Hopkins University has found a way to crack open files sent as encrypted instant messages in Apple's iMessage app, according to news reports published Monday Although it took months to do, the researchers, led by Professor Matthew Green, were able to brute force a 64-bit encryption key, allowing them to unscramble an i...

Security researchers atPalo Alto Networks Unit 42 on Wednesday announced they had discovered in the wild a method of infecting nonjailbroken iPhones with malware by exploiting design flaws in Apple's digital rights management technology The flaw has been exploited since 2013 largely as a means to pirate iOS software, but this is the first time it's...

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 d...