Security News This Week: The Latest Netflix Release Is a Personal Security Check-Up

GETTY IMAGES

IT WOULDN’T BE 2017 without regular internet-shaking security bugs fueling our nightmares. The crisis >du jour? a flaw in the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare that caused random data leakage from some of the company’s six million customer sites. Brush your teeth and change your passwords, folks. Meanwhile, researchers have figured out how to steal data by watching a hard drive’s blinking LED indicator. And it’s finally possible to attack an old cryptographic hash function that’s still used for encryption more than it should be.

There was good news this week, too, though. Google offshoot Jigsaw and Google’s Counter Abuse Technology Team publicly released code for anti-harassment toolsthey’ve been honing for more than a year so they can hopefully be implemented around the web. Military bases could use smart city technology to improve their safety and security. And former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter gave WIRED a glimpse of the future of warfare.

Then again, an arms dealer who sells military tech like tanks, missiles, and weapons told WIRED that doing business in the age of President Trump is a “win-win.” So, there’s that.

If you’re sick of all of this and want to crawl under a digital rock, prominent hacker Kevin Mitnick details how to be invisible online.

But wait, there’s plenty more. Each Saturday we round up the news stories that we didn’t break or cover in depth but that still deserve your attention. As always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted. And stay safe out there.

LUKE CAGE STARS IN NEW SOLO COMIC SERIES FROM MARVEL

Following the debut of Marvel's Netflix-exclusive Luke Cage TV series last year, a new solo comic starring the bulletproof hero has been announced.

Power Man & Iron Fist writer David Walker is penning the ongoing series, which will feature illustrations by Nelson Blake II.

In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Walker discussed how this new comic will differ from prior portrayals of Luke Cage, noting his new series will offer "a little more mature" take on the hero.

Luke Cage #1, written by David Walker and illustrated by Nelson Blake II

NETFLIX IS KILLING IT—BIG TIME—AFTER POURING CASH INTO ORIGINAL SHOWS

NETFLIX

ORIGINAL CONTENT IS paying off for Netflix in a big, big way.

The company just recorded the biggest quarter in its 19-year history, handily beating Wall Street’s expectations while adding a record 7.05 million subscribers. That’s almost two million more new viewers than even Netflix expected, with a fair number of them overseas. The earnings results capped a banner year that saw Netflix launch its streaming service in 190 countries one year ago. Already, 47 percent of its subscribers live somewhere other than the US.

Sales, too, rose—36 percent over the same period last year, to $2.48 billion. Shareholders loved all this good news and boosted Netflix stock 8 percent to an intraday high of $143.46 on Thursday, one day after Netflix’s report dropped. The company’s now worth about $60 billion.

All of which is to say, Netflix is killing it—thanks to its enormous investments in original content. And Netflix is finally getting to reap the rewards from those investments.

“There seemed to be an attitude around the industry that after House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, there was no way Netflix could catch lightning in a bottle again,” says Glenn Hower, a senior digital media analyst with research firm Parks Associates. “Well, after cranking out more hits like Luke Cage, Stranger Things and The OA, it looks like the streaming giant really knows what they are doing in the content creation space.”

That’s for sure. In 2016, Netflix spent $5 billion on original programming. Five of the 10 shows people searched for most often last year are Netflix originals, company officials said, citing Google data during an earnings call. Eager to build on that, Netflix plans to spend $6 billion creating 1000 hours of new content this year, more than doubling its 2016 lineup. At this point, it’s clear Netflix isn’t just a streaming service anymore. “For many millions of consumers around the world, Netflix has already become television,” says Tony Gunnarsson, a television analyst with Ovum.

NPR just offered a shocking and disgusting example of ‘balanced reporting’

Carl Paladino (Wikimedia Commons)

Trump campaign official Carl Paladino recently made headlines for being a disgustingly racist pig of a human being. The former GOP gubernatorial candidate, who managed to get himself elected to the Buffalo, New York, school board, responded to a survey about his New Year’s wishes by attacking the Obamas in the most baldly ugly and racist way imaginable, including wishing for Michelle Obama to be “let loose” in Africa so she could live with apes. He also repeated the racist alt-right meme of her being a man, and said he hoped President Obama “catches mad cow disease” and then “dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.”

Firefox 50.1.0 Lands in Ubuntu's Repos, Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Fixed

On December 13, 2016, Canonical published a new USN (Ubuntu Security Notice) advisory to inform users of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system about the availability of Mozilla Firefox 50.1.0 in the software repositories.

Mozilla released the Firefox 50.1.0 web browser a couple of days ago, and it looks like they patched a total of 13 security vulnerabilities, which could have been used by an attacker to crash the application or run programs as your login if the users were to open a malicious website.

"Multiple security vulnerabilities were discovered in Firefox. If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted website, an attacker could potentially exploit these to conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, obtain sensitive information, cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code," reads USN-3155-1.

Boycotting Jews to prevent the boycott of Israel - Boycott

This week a German bank announced that it is closing the account of a Jewish human rights organisation because it supports BDS. What's next?

The German organisation Jewish Voice for Just Peace (JVJP) is a sister organisation of the US Jewish Voice for Peace and part of the coalition European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP). It was founded in 2003.

Three weeks ago, the organisation - of which I am a board member - was shocked when it received a letter from its bank, the Bank for Social Economy based in Cologne, that it had decided to close JVJP’s account. No reason was given for the decision. 

This is the first time since World War Two that a German bank has closed the account of a Jewish organisation

But on Tuesday, the bank finally announced, in a second letter sent out by a spokesperson, the reason: JVJP supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The Origin of Just About Everything, Visualized

SLIDE:1 / OF14. Caption:Caption:The Origin of (Almost) Everything is a visualized science book that explains the origin of (almost) everything, like dark matter.JENNIFER DANIEL/NICHOLAS BREALEY

THE WORLD IS full of simple questions that have complicated answers. For example: What is the universe made of? Why do we have wax in our ears? And where exactly does belly button lint come from? “There are so many great scientific origin stories out there,” says Graham Lawton, features editor at New Scientist.

In his new book, The Origin of (Almost) Everything, Lawton worked with designer Jennifer Daniel to unravel dozens of life’s biggest mysteries. Lawton crafts the narration while Daniel handles the infographics. Together they’re able to answer nagging questions that have inspired centuries of scientific inquiry.

The Origin of (Almost) Everything doesn’t look like a typical science book. It’s friendly and colorful. Its blocks of text and ample images, makes it read more like a magazine than textbook. “We wanted to almost invent a new genre of science book,” Lawton says. Origins is divided into six sections—the universe, the planet, life, civilization, knowledge, and inventions—with each page dedicated to a different topic.

The Best Albums of 2016

Clockwise from top left: Beyoncé; David Bowie; Anohni; Mary Halvorson; Andrew Cyrille; Chance the Rapper. Credit Clockwise from top left: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press; Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images; Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times; Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times; Laurel Golio for The New York Times; Michael Zorn/Invision, via Associated Press

The music critics of The New York Times share their picks for the best pop and jazz albums of the year.

Jon Pareles

1. BEYONCÉ “Lemonade” (Parkwood/Columbia) As a set of songs, “Lemonade” plunges into one troubled marriage: a cycle of distrust, betrayal, fury, loyalty and wary reconciliation. It moves sure-footedly through styles from the rooted to the futuristic; it touches down in gospel, blues, soul and country with all the programming expertise of the 21st century. And it presents Beyoncé the singer in guises from ethereal grace to raw ferocity and pain. Then, as a multimedia work, “Lemonade” goes even further: Its video album, directed by Beyoncé and Kahlil Joseph with crucial interludes of poetry by Warsan Shire, magnifies the personal to the archetypal, situating Beyoncé among generations of African-American women in a long, unselfish, unfinished struggle. (Read the review | Listen to the Popcast)

THE BEST IN CULTURE 2016

Highlights from the year in Movies,Television, Theater, Pop Albums,Pop Songs, Performances,Classical Music, Dance, Art and Podcasts as chosen by the critics of The New York Times.

2. DAVID BOWIE “Blackstar” (ISO/Columbia) Bowie made his final album not a summation but a final metamorphosis. He assembled a studio band of forward-looking jazz musicians to play songs full of tense ambiguities: harmonic, structural, verbal. The album confronts mortality with a last burst of probing, passionate invention. (Read the review | Listen to the Popcast)

Man Who Hacked Celebrities' Email Accounts Gets 5 Years in Prison

A Bahamian man who hacked into the email accounts of celebrities and athletes and later wrote in a jailhouse email that after his release he would “shake up hollywood for real!” was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday.

The sentence was roughly double the number of years suggested under federal sentencing guidelines.

The man, Alonzo Knowles, 24, had used his illicit access to the celebrity accounts to obtain unreleased movie and television scripts and personal information, which he then tried to sell for thousands of dollars, prosecutors said. Mr. Knowles had also stolen unreleased music, financial documents, and nude and intimate images and videos, the government said.

Kristy J. Greenberg, a prosecutor, said in Federal District Court in Manhattan that Mr. Knowles’s motivation had been greed. “He had a singular focus on becoming rich and famous,” she said, “by disseminating personal information of celebrities and exploiting them.”

Several victims had submitted statements to the judge. Naturi Naughton, an actress in the Starz drama “Power,” said in a video statement that Mr. Knowles had hacked her personal emails and stolen six scripts of the show, and then “tried to extort me, the producer, 50 Cent and my showrunner.”

Leah Remini claims Tom Cruise tried to use her to stop CBS report on Scientology

Leah Remini claims that Tom Cruise asked her to use her influence at CBS to bully the network out of airing a negative story about the Church of Scientology.

“I got pressure to call Les Moonves at CBS to try and get a ‘60 Minutes’ report squashed,” Remini, a former Scientologist, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I got a call from the church and Tom to call Les Moonves and use my influence to squash the story.”