Office 365 outage: Users struggle to sign in

Productivity suite goes offline for European and Australian Microsoft customers
Microsoft said it has fixed an Office 365 outage across Europe that angered thousands of users last Friday.

The outage hit the UK around 9am BST, creating login and server connection failures that stopped users from signing into the 365 portal and accessing services.

Nearly half of those reporting problems with 365 said they were unable to log in, according to DownDetector, which allows people to log technical issues with various services. The issue particularly affected the UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Customers on Twitter said they were unable to send or receive emails and could only log in to certain interfaces - or none at all.

Redmond's Office 365 Status page on Twitter told followers they should check the preliminary Post Incident Report (PIR) under MO133518, but tweeters quickly pointed out that they could not log in to the admin centre to find out why they couldn't log in in the first place.

Microsoft said it had "completed all recovery actions related to MO133518 and this issue is fully resolved as of Friday, April 6, 2018, at 11:30 AM UTC [12.30pm BST]. Thanks to everyone who confirmed service restoration."

However, this stirred up outrage among users on Twitter, who bombarded Microsoft about persisting outages in London, Singapore, Australia, and many other locations.

One commenter said: "Microsoft, please don't try to sweep this under the carpet and treat the issue as resolved."

Another complained: "After so many hours no update!!! Please do what you promised to your client next time."

As Office 365 returned to some businesses, Microsoft added later that day that it was not aware of any other issues with the service. It plans to publish a full report into the issue within five days of the incident.

Pete Banham, cyber resilience expert at Mimecast, claimed the incident demonstrates that businesses shouldn't rely on any one cloud.

"Microsoft Office 365 was hit with major downtime on Friday, with customers around the world unable to access their services or admin portals," he said. "An operational dependency on the Microsoft environment creates business risks that need be addressed. Anyone outsourcing a critical service like email needs to consider who will suffer most from reputational damage, internal operational issues and financial loss. Mimecast is urging organisations to consider a cyber resilience strategy that assures the ability to recover and continue with business as usual."

Lindsay Lohan loses GTA V privacy case appeal

The actress Lindsay Lohan has failed in her latest attempt to sue the maker of the video game Grand Theft Auto V.

Six judges at New York state's Court of Appeals unanimously rejected her privacy case after dismissing a claim that one of the title's characters was based on her.

Instead, the judges said, the in-game "actress slash singer" merely resembled a generic young woman.

The case dates back to 2014 when Ms Lohan first sued Rockstar Games.

She claimed at the time that the character of Lacey Jones not only looked like her, but also had a similar sounding voice and wore clothes that resembled her own clothing line.

Neither Ms Lohan nor Rockstar's owner, Take-Two Interactive, has commented following the latest ruling.

'Invasion of privacy'
More than 275 million copies of the Grand Theft Auto video game have been sold since its launch in September 2013.

Despite being more than four years old, the title topped the UK games sales charts for the 15th time earlier this month, thanks to its enduring appeal and the continued release of new content.


Lindsay Lohan recently appeared in a Sky TV comedy series
By contrast, over the same period, Ms Lohan's own career has waned. A recurring role in the British TV series Sick Note was one of her highest profile recent jobs, and earlier this month she announced she had become a spokeswoman for a law website.

The appeal judges had accepted her claim that a computer game character could constitute a "portrait", which supported her invasion of privacy claim.

However, they decided that in this case the likeness was not strong enough.

"[The] artistic renderings are indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognisable as plaintiff," Judge Eugene Fahey wrote in his ruling.

The court also rejected a claim that another GTA V character was based on the reality TV star Karen Gravano on similar grounds.

courtsey:BBC

iPhone update adds privacy 'transparency'

Apple has updated its iOS, MacOS and tvOS operating systems to give people more information about how their personal data is collected and used.

After updating, customers will see new information screens when they use Apple-made apps that collect personal data, such as App Store.

The change comes ahead of new EU data protection rules, which take effect on 23 May.

Apple also plans to let people download the data it has stored about them.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) toughens the requirements on how organisations handle the public's data, and imposes harsher penalties for breaches.

Apple has previously promoted its services and smartphones as being privacy-focused.

The latest software update does not change how much data is collected, but new privacy information screens will appear when people use certain Apple-made apps for the first time.

Image caption
iPhone users will see a new screen when apps collect data for the first time
Tapping the notice will display detailed information about what data is being collected and how it is used.

However, customers will not be able to switch off some types of data collection. For example, they will not be able to download free apps from the App Store without first setting up an Apple ID account.

Apple also plans to release new tools in May that will let customers:

download a copy of all the data Apple stores about them, including photos, videos and iCloud back-ups
temporarily deactivate their Apple ID, which will stop Apple processing the data
permanently delete their Apple ID, which will erase all the data Apple stores within 30 days.
The privacy-focused Open Rights Group welcomed the changes.

"Making privacy settings more transparent and giving people more control is better. This is happening because companies are checking what they are doing before new data protection rules kick in," said Jim Killock.

"The new rules have forced everyone to make changes, including some of the big US-based companies. That's a victory for privacy and it shows that we can win improvements if governments listen to people's well-founded concerns about privacy."

Personal data for more than 130,000 sailors hacked: US Navy

Hackers gained access to sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, for 134,386 current and former US sailors, the US Navy said on Wednesday.

It said a laptop used by a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services employee working on a US Navy contract was hacked. Hewlett Packard informed the Navy of the breach on Oct. 27 and the affected sailors will be notified in the coming weeks, the Navy said.

“The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously – this is a matter of trust for our sailors,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke said in a statement.

Burke said the investigation of the breach was in its early stages.

“At this stage of the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest misuse of the information that was compromised,” the Navy said.

Facebook 'made China censorship tool'

Facebook worked on special software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in China, according to a report in the New York Times.

The social network refused to confirm or deny the software's existence, but said in a statement it was "spending time understanding and learning more" about China.

No decisions about the company's approach in the country had yet been made, a spokeswoman said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group which campaigns for better privacy online, told the BBC the project sounded "extremely disturbing".

"Kudos to the Facebook employees who bought this to the attention of the New York Times," said the EFF's global policy analyst Eva Galperin.

"It's very nice to know there are some principled people still working there."

The sources quoted by the New York Times - both current and former employees - stressed that like many pieces of software worked on internally, it may never be implemented.

Censorship concessions

Since 2009, the only way to access Facebook in China has been via a virtual private network - software designed to “spoof” your real location and avoid local internet restrictions.

Facebook, which has 1.8 billion active users, is aggressively looking to expand in parts of the world beyond its existing markets.

In the developing world, that means experimenting with new technology to connect rural areas.

And in China, it appears the site is at the very least considering making concessions to China’s notoriously tightly-monitored internet.

According to employees quoted anonymously by the New York Times’ reporter Mike Isaac, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about the plans in an all-staff meeting earlier this summer.

"It’s better for Facebook to be a part of enabling conversation, even if it’s not yet the full conversation,” he is reported to have said while stressing it was early days.

Facebook’s spokeswoman would not confirm or deny the quote was accurate.

Mr Zuckerberg recently spent time with China's leader, Xi Jinping, as well as taking time to learn Mandarin.

Third-party company

Facebook regularly removes content from the network at the request of governments.

It makes this process relatively public with a yearly report detailing the quantity and nature of take-down requests.

Where this software would differ is in that it would enable a third-party, likely a Chinese company working with Facebook, to prevent messages from appearing in the first place.

The range of topics censored in mainland China is vast. Most famously, searches related to the Tiananmen Square yield no results relating to the 1989 massacre.

Facebook isn’t the first first Silicon Valley giant to grapple with the moral maze of doing business in China.

Google famously pulled out of mainland China after a backlash surrounding the censorship of search results. It now routes all traffic to Google Hong Kong.

LinkedIn, the network for professionals, does censor some content - although as the firm isn't typically seen as a host of public debate, the move is not seen as being nearly as contentious.

If Facebook follows LinkedIn’s lead, the EFF’s Ms Galperin said "Facebook would be trading in their principles in exchange for access to the market. It would have tremendous implications for human rights."

Via BBC

Apple to swap 'faulty' iPhone 6S batteries

Apple is offering to replace the batteries of a "small number" of iPhone 6S phones with a fault that makes them unexpectedly shut down.

The phones with this fault were manufactured between September and October 2015, it said in a statement.

Affected devices will suddenly stop working even though the handset's battery has plenty of charge.

Anyone with an eligible phone who takes up the offer will get a free replacement battery for their handset.

No response

In its announcement, Apple urged customers who believe they have a faulty phone to contact an Apple store, an authorised repair shop or the firm's support line to start the process of getting a new battery. A "limited serial number range" was affected, it said.

Phone owners should back up data and then wipe it all off the handset before surrendering it for the replacement, it added. Phones with cracked screens might have to be repaired before Apple would go ahead with swapping the battery, it said.

Apple added that mobile operators would not be taking part in the replacement effort.

The AppleInsider website suggested that the fault with the iPhone 6S could be traced to people charging their handset with generic chargers rather than Apple's own-brand ones.

Using one of these third-party chargers damaged circuitry which meant the amount of charge in the battery was not being reported correctly to the phone's operating system. Apple has not confirmed if this is the cause.

The battery swap programme comes only a few days after Apple announced a separate offer intended to fix a fault on the iPhone 6 Plus.

That problem meant that the touchscreens on some handsets steadily became less and less responsive if they had been accidentally dropped on to a hard surface a few times.

Gadget sites traced the cause to chips used to drive the touchscreen that came loose after an impact.

Via bbc

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