Latest news

Yesterday, we reported that the Deepnet's 'premier' drug marketplace, Silk Road 2.0, was taken down by a joint FBI, Europol, DHS task force under the umbrella of "Operation Onymous."

Today it has been revealed that the Silk Road was just part of a massive operation in which a total of 17 people were arrested, over 400 hundred .onion domains were seized, and most of the major marketplaces were taken offline. Drug markets Cloud 9 and Hydra were taken offline as were contraband marketplaces Pandora, Blue Sky, Topix, Flugsvamp, Cannabis Road, and Black Market. In addition, money laundering sites Cash Machine, Cash Flow, Golden Nugget and Fast Cash were also taken down.

From the 17 arrested, $1 million in Bitcoins were seized, as well as $250,000 in cash, computers, servers, drugs, precious metals and weapons.

Troels Oerting, head of the European Cybercrime Centerm said that the authorities had not yet even cataloged all the contraband nor listed all 414 .onion domains that were seized. "One of the primary targets was the Silk Road guy [Blake Benthall]," added Oerting, "But we also decided to see if we could identify more of the administrators of these sites and remove their infrastructure as well...Some moved before we could act, but we've taken most of our targets down."

The OnePlus One smartphone, notable for its high specs and extremely cheap price, has reached 500,000 units sold.

Besides its cheap, unlocked price, the device is also notable as it has only been available via an invite system until very recently when the company began doing "flash sales" for orders.

Carl Pei co-founder of the company, confirmed the sales data and says now that the stretch goal is 1 million units before the end of 2014. "It's going to be hard but I think it's possible," noted Pei. Most impressive about the sales figures is the fact that Pei says the company has used just $300 on its entire advertising budget. "All that money was spent experimenting on different types of Facebook ads. We found that we've now reached a critical mass of users, and they are helping us spread the word organically. Normally when you launch a [smartphone] product it gets really hot in the first month, and in the second or third month, sales start to drop really fast. For OnePlus, when you look at our internal metrics, our sales just keep growing."

Pei did also admit that margins are razor thin, and that there are future monetization plans for OnePlus. "We're making a single-figure dollar amount on each phone. That's not the way we're going to make money in the future, it's just to keep the operation going. Accessories will be a big part of it. We've made a really social brand, that people are fans of. If we make lifestyle products or specialized accessories, I think those will do really well."

The Xbox One-exclusive 'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' finally has its first official launch trailer.

343 Industries' hotly anticipated collection includes a remastered Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: Nightfall (a new digital series), and exclusive access to the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta.

The remastered Halo 2 is the big draw here, as it is updated with new cinematics at 60fps for the Xbox One, and with 100 multiplayer maps.

343 is making the collection available on November 11th in North America with a global launch to follow.

Here is the trailer (which is epic):

Nintendo has announced that its hit N64 game 'The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask' is excitedly being remade for the 3DS handheld.

The original game was released in 2000 and the main storyline is Link trying to stop Skull Kid (who has stolen the Ocarina of Time) from destroying the planet by bringing the moon crashing down in. The game was unique in that it introduced a three day time system that even gamers were affected by and also added transformation masks.

Over time, the game sold 3.36 million copies, a huge hit, and it was praised for its story and being inventive.

"As we worked on the remake version, we set out to maintain the original level of challenge, while keeping the game accessible for anyone," Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, said in the announcement. "So we also focused on making sure the gameplay experience was as smooth as possible."

The game will be available in the Spring 2015.

The FBI has announced the arrest of Blake Benthall, a man who is accused of running the deepnet marketplace Silk Road 2.0.

Benthall, who was a former employee at Elon Musk's rocket ship company SpaceX, was arrested in San Francisco and the marketplace was raided and shut down. Benthall could face life in prison for the crimes.

As part of Operation Onymous, the new Silk Road was taken down exactly one year to the day from when it went live in 2013. Benthall has been charged with one count of conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, one count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, one count of conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and one count of money-laundering conspiracy.

After raiding his home, the FBI says Benthall's PC (which was not encrypted in any way) had full "address lists for customers all over the world that will be of significant interest to many global law enforcement agencies." Prior to the raid, the U.S. DEA made purchases from the Silk Road 2.0, including heroin, cocaine, LSD and Oxycodone. Each was then tested and all tested positive for illegal drugs.

Undercover FBI officers had conversations with Benthall, who claimed that as of last month the Silk Road 2.0 had 150,000 monthly active users and over $8 million in monthly sales. Although Benthall claims hackers stole all of them in September, there was allegedly $1.4 million in Bitcoins in the marketplace.

Facebook has announced a few new initiatives this week that will allow its 1 billion+ users to help donate towards fighting the deadly virus.

Reads the post of the three ways Facebook is making it easier:

An easy way to donate – a Donate feature to raise awareness and funds for International Medical Corps, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Save the Children

Health education – collaborating with UNICEF to show information on Ebola symptoms and treatment to people in targeted regions on Facebook

Emergency voice and data services – working with NetHope to provide vital communications capacity to medical and aid workers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

There will be a donate feature added to your news feed, allowing you to quickly donate to the three aforementioned company and of course to share that you are donating and how easily others can to.

Ebola has been dominating the headlines for months now, as it became an epidemic in Western Africa with over 4000 people dying. One person has died in the U.S. from exposure after coming back from Africa, and two others have been sick and treated.

Founded in 2010, Chinese smartphone OEM Xiaomi has seen a meteoric rise to become the world's 4th largest smartphone maker by volume and with it, has come exponential growth in revenue and profits.

Thanks to new documents, it appears that Xiaomi's net profit almost doubled from 2012 to 2013 and is likely to see similar gains in 2014. The documents show an 84 percent rise in profit to 3.46 billion yuan ($566 million) in 2013, with a 75 percent rise expected for 2014.

Xiaomi sells cheap smartphones with high-end specs, including the incredibly popular Mi4 flagship which starts at 1,999 yuan ($330 USD). Currently, the company only sells devices in China, but has promised expansion in the future.

The company has built up a loyal following thanks to its social media and forum strategy in which the company almost always responds to all requests. Even the company's operating system has been tweaked based on fan feedback. By having loyal fans, marketing has been cheap and has kept costs down. According to the documents, sales and marketing expensives were a measly 876 million yuan, or just 3.2 percent of its overall revenue.

Google's smarthome hardware maker Nest has announced the first step in its new sales strategy to get free smart thermostats to everyone.

Irish citizens can now get a free Nest when they sign up for a two-year utility contract with Electric Ireland. The Nest normally costs $250, so the deal is pretty decent especially if you were going to sign a utilities contract, anyways.

Most utilities customers pay month to month so the deal also works out for the utilities companies.

While Ireland and its 1.6 million households is a small start, but Nest is looking to "bring it out to hopefully many more countries. This is a seminal event in Ireland [that] we think is going to change the world."

The smart thermostat learns user's heating and cooling preferences over time and also allows you to control the heat via Web-connected devices.

Dell has introduced their new Venue 11 Pro 7000 tablet, the first major consumer tablet to feature Intel's new powerful but low-power Core M CPU.

The processor is part of the Broadwell line from Intel, which is said to offer great power efficiency with mainstream performance without the need for internal fans.

Besides the updated internals, the Venue 11 Pro has a similar design to its predecessor and it remains aimed at enterprises.

For those interested, the Venue 11 Pro offers multiple models. 64GB, 128GB or 256GB of SSD internal storage, Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro, and 4GB or 8GB of DDR3 RAM. The tablet also has a model with a TPM chip, necessary for many companies so they can authenticate the hardware. Standard connectivity includes a USB 3.0 port, a micro HDMI port, and Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC.

The updated Venue 11 Pro goes on sale next week, November 11th, for $699.

Source:
Dell

As usual, South Park was hilarious this week and relevant, as the show's creators took on the growing trend of addictive freemium mobile titles.

In the show, Jimmy pushes the new Canadian freemium title with titular characters Terrence and Phillip in which you basically collect coins to help T&P rebuild Canada. Coins (the virtual currency of choice) can of course be purchased for real cash, just like in many popular titles like Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, and many, many more.

The game is built by the Canadian Department of Mobile Gaming and the Prince of Canada goes into "the science behind freemium gaming" which are accurately as follows:

1. Simplicity: A player must be enticed with a simple game loop.
2. Compliments: Make sure you're making the gamer feel special and good about themselves.
3. Fake Currency: Train the players to spend your fake currency.
4. Switcheroo: Offer the customers a way to spend their real money for fake, virtual dollars, so they'll forget they're spending money.
5. Waiting Game: "Make the game about waiting, but make the player pay not to wait."

To not spoil the rest of the show, it is worth watching (if you like South Park already, what are you doing still reading?), and even if you don't it is a fun way to think about the freemium game addiction you might be worried about.

Former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker had some interesting thoughts on current U.S. technology companies, specifically their choices to encrypt.

"The state department has funded some of these tools, such as Tor, which has been used in Arab Spring revolutions or to get past the Chinese firewall, but these crypto wars are mainly being fought between the American government and American companies," said Baker.

Both Apple (with iOS 8) and Android (with Android Lollipop) have begun encrypting their operating systems, making it supposedly nearly impossible for users to be spied on or for police authorities to take data from the devices.

Baker says that encryption was the downfall for BlackBerry (although, I would disagree), as encrypting user data limited its business in countries that require government oversight such as India, Arab Emirates, China and Russia. "Blackberry pioneered the same business model that Google and Apple are doing now - that has not ended well for Blackberry," added Baker. "They restricted their own ability to sell. We have a tendency to think that once the cyberwar is won in the US that that is the end of it - but that is the easiest war to swim."

The team behind Popcorn Time have unveiled beta 5.0 for desktop users, the next step in their "Popcorn Time Revolution."

Recently, EURid took down the team's original domain, effectively wiping official traces of the software off the Web. The software and a new domain was quickly reinstated, and the team says downloads and installs are back up to 25,000 per day.

Says the email we received: "It is impressive, but it's not even close to the numbers we had before EURid removed our domain and basically crashed us... for a moment. EURid tried to take us down but instead of doing so, they just opened our eyes and made us better and wiser.
We built beta 5.0 so that no one will be able to take it down. Popcorn Time from now on will keep on working as usual even if our domain gets removed, and in the future even the necessary data for Popcorn Time will be transferred purely via Peer2Peer (the infrastructure for this is already in the beta 5.0)."

More importantly for users, 5.0 comes with some new features, most notably touch screen support for Windows devices. In addition, there is a "brand new UX/UI with a smooth, slick feeling that just makes you want to watch a movie," and new anime and cartoon sections.

Speaking today at a Web summit in Ireland, music publisher Kobalt shocked by stating that its European artists actually collected more from Spotify than they did from iTunes for the first time ever.

Royalties from the streaming service for the Q1 2014 were actually 13 percent higher than those received from iTunes purchases. In the Q3 2013, that figure was 32 percent higher from iTunes showing how quickly the tides have turned.

"Spotify overtaking iTunes in Europe is an important new milestone in streaming," added Willard Ahdritz, founder and chief executive of Kobalt.

While Kobalt's data may be unique (other larger publishers have not confirmed), the publisher does have 6000 songwriters and artists, including half of the UK's top 10 Billboard songs for this week, giving it some say in the industry as a whole.

Thanks to a new report, we have some details about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6 flagship, codenamed Project Zero.

It is unclear what size display the new phone will feature, but it is expected to have a QHD (2560x1440) resolution that is quickly becoming standard in the high-end industry.

The camera's sensor has been updated to the IMX240, which is equal to the one seen in the Galaxy Note 4. Samsung has not yet decided on a 16MP or 20MP camera, although the 16MP OIS camera is expected given the only slight upgrades from this year's S5 model.

On the front side, the "selfie" camera is upgraded to a 5MP unit, and under the hood are 32GB, 64GB and 128GB variants, which is also quickly becoming standard. Samsung will use their own Exynos 7420 processor, which is a 64-bit chip with four Cortex-A53 and four Cortex-A57 cores. In addition, the company will use its own LTE modem (Exynos Modem 333), as the company moves to build the entire device in-house.

Another interesting feature is the detail that the Galaxy S6 will use the Broadcom BCM4773 chip, a new SoC that combines GPS and most other sensors (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc) onto a single chip leading to a significant reduction in battery drainage.

Google has announced that its Google Maps service and apps have been updated with new "material design" to fit the style of Android 5.0 Lollipop, bringing some exciting new features with it, as well. The update extends to iOS, as well.

Says Google: "Over the next few days, when you open up Google Maps on your Android or iPhone, you'll be greeted by bright colors and a fresh new design. This new look is all about creating surfaces and shadows that echo the real world; with Google Maps' new material feel, layers and buttons come to life so you know just where to touch to get directions, recommendations and imagery."

One of the best new features is the addition of restaurant reservations directly from Maps. You can reserve using OpenTable (U.S.-only for now) right from apps after searching for the restaurant (or any nearby restaurant).

In addition, you can now get pricing and wait time estimates for Uber (if you have Uber installed) right from within Maps.

For the full changelog, see here.