The latest scheme by Lizard Squad makes the Xbox Live and PSN service disruption look like child’s play. CNN reports that the hacker group launched the Lizard Stresser website this week, allowing anyone who pays the low price of $5.99 to launch a potentially devastating DDoS attack on a website of their choosing. More →
Each of the 50 United States of America has a unique personality. Estately, a real estate search site, recently put together a revealing graphic that attempts to prove this using Google searches. What did the denizens of each state Google more than those of any other state in the country throughout 2014? You’re about to find out.
One of the amazing things about Comcast’s infamously terrible customer service is that you will get told two completely different and contradictory things by different customer representatives. We have absolutely no idea why Comcast has difficulty implementing consistent policies and practices for how to handle customers but it generates some truly Kafkaesque scenarios in which customers are shuffled through six different representatives who all tell customers things that are wildly at odds with one another. More →
The Pirate Bay’s online downloads service has not yet been restored, although that didn’t stop the infamous group from posting an animated image at ThePirateBay.se earlier this week alongside a secret key, whose mystery Myce believes to have solved. More →
Police raided The Pirate Bay’s servers in Sweden almost two weeks ago, and while fans believed the massive online downloads resource would quickly be brought back online, the group behind it didn’t appear to be ready to resurrect the service as fast as some might have expected. However, Torrent Freak reports that the first signs The Pirate Bay is coming back up are here, as ThePirateBay.se domain name is back online, waving a pirate flag. More →
You just knew that someone, whether it was the United States government or an independent hacker collective such as Anonymous, would try to make North Korea pay for its role in getting Sony to cancel the theatrical release of The Interview. And now it appears that some sort of reprisal is underway — Re/code reports that analysts at DYN Research have determined that North Korea’s networks are under attack from an unknown source and are showing “signs of distress.” More →
Amazon has recently increased the cost of its Amazon Prime subscription plan from $79 to $99 a year, but the service is certainly valuable to many Amazon customers, especially those people who purchase plenty of goods from the retailer. Looking to determine exactly when Amazon Prime is worthwhile to the buyer, Business Insider has put together a quick video that should help customers who aren’t really sure whether paying the Amazon Prime subscription is really worth it. More →
Verizon earlier this week told the FCC in a filing that it’ll still charge Netflix interconnection fees, Ars Technica reports, no matter what the Commission decides in the future when it comes to net neutrality. More →
Trolls are a staple of Internet culture but recently some Internet users have taken to exposing some of the very worst offenders who do things that go beyond run-of-the-mill online cruelty, such as sending out rape threats. Technology Review has written a lengthy profile of Swedish journalist Robert Aschberg, who tracks down some of the most vile trolls on the web and then publicly shames them by reading back things they wrote online. More →
Apple earlier this week released an inspirational holiday TV ad focusing more on the holiday spirit than on product placement, although the spot is obviously intended mainly to sell Apple devices. Similarly, Samsung has created a heartfelt holiday ad of its own with a similar focus, though Samsung’s product placement is a bit more obvious because of the way this “Holiday Dream” ad is put together. More →
Hundreds of millions of people rely on Google for everything from web searches and email to finding directions and scheduling our lives. Call Google “evil” all you want, but the Internet is one of the most important tools of the modern era, and it’s thanks in large part to Google.
But as often as you use the company’s many great services, how well do you really know Google? More →
