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Apple Park opens in April – new HQ comes complete with sweet Steve Jobs homage

Apple’s futuristic ‘Campus’ HQ will finally open its doors to employees this April, under its new name, ‘Apple Park’.

While there’s no word yet on whether or not it has a T-Rex, it will have a heartfelt homage to former Apple boss Steve Jobs. Jobs, who helped in the early stages of the site’s development, will have the 175-acre campus’s 1,000 seater theater named after him.

The Park, replacing Apple’s current One Infinite Loop base of operations, is fully powered by renewable energy, with its spaceship-like design measuring up at 2.8 million square feet of space.

‘The home of innovation’

“Steve’s vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We’ve achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy.”

“Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments,” added Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer.

“We have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products.”

If a job at Apple didn’t already seem like a dream, the Apple Park has some great perks or its employees, with a 100,000 square-foot fitness center, apple orchards (obviously) and running paths to explore.

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AMD Ryzen makes octo-core processors affordable

After months of rumors, leaks and teasing from AMD itself, Ryzen has finally risen and it’s the company’s most impressive processor lineup yet.

AMD is on a mission to bring high performance CPUs to the market and challenge Intel, so it has introduced a trio Ryzen 7 chips, its highest-end lineup of CPUs. Starting with the flagship, the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X features 8-cores and 16-threads, as well as a 3.6GHz base speed and top speeds of up to 4GHz.

Based on AMD’s first ultra-small 14nm (nanometer) FinFET architecture, the flagship CPU achieves 52% more instructions per clock than AMD’s previous chips – so it’s both smaller and quicker. Performance-wise, AMD claims the Ryzen 7 1800X scored 1,601 points in the Cinebench R15 NT benchmark, beating the Intel Core i7-6900K’s 1,474 score.

The AMD Ryzen 7 1800X will be available for pre-orders for $499 (about £400, AU$650) – or about half as much as the $1,049 (about £999, AU$1,499) you would spend on the 6900K – starting today, and will arrive to shelves on March 2nd.

Triple threat

Just below the Ryzen 7 1800X, AMD also announced the 1700X at an introductory $399 (about £320, AU$520). This 95-Watt TDP processor comes with the same cores and threads as its bigger brother, while clocking in at 3.4GHz for its base speed and a boosted frequency of 3.8GHz.

With a Cinebench R15 nT score of 1,537 points it competes with the Core i7-6900K and Intel’s lower-end processors.

Last but not least, the Ryzen 7 1700 comes at an astounding value for $329 (about £260, AU$430). Not only do you get 8-cores and 16-threads as with all other Ryzen 7 chips, it runs pretty quick at a 3.0GHz base clock (3.7GHz boost clock), helping it to puts up a decent Cinebench R15 nT score of 1,410.

Comparatively, Intel’s competing Core i7-7700K processor posted 967 points in the same test and goes for $349 (£339, AU$479).

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Facebook confusion over fake cancer babies U-turn

Facebook has restored an account that posted stolen photos of children falsely claiming they had cancer.

It is the second time the social network has disabled the account following complaints, only to re-enable it hours later.

A spokeswoman for the social network was unable to explain the move and said it was being investigated.

One internet expert said the move was “bonkers” and called into question Facebook’s complaints procedures.

The BBC reported on Tuesday the case of a child from Cambridgeshire whose photos had been used alongside a fake plea for help.

“This little baby has cancer and he need money for surgery,” the accompanying post stated.

It added that Facebook would donate money for every “like”, comment or share of the message.

And more than one million people responded.

The picture was posted at the start of February.

Security experts said such tactics were often used by “like farming” scammers.

Perpetrators attempt to engage as many users as possible so that they can later target them with follow-up messages and/or sell on the profile page and its associated contacts to unscrupulous marketers.

The mother of the child – Sarah Allen from St Neots, Cambridgeshire – said she had been upset by the discovery.

“We had people messaging saying they had heard Jasper has cancer,” she told the BBC.

“He doesn’t. These were pictures from when he had chickenpox.”

Facebook has removed the post featuring Jasper Allen’s pictures, but other similar fake cancer posts featuring other children remain live.

The BBC has determined they include an image of a three-year-old girl from England, who was injured in a road accident in 2015.

“I need the photo to be removed,” the mother of the girl – who asked not to be named – said when the BBC informed her of the photo’s misuse.

“I am extremely upset about it.”

Other images show:

a teenage boy from Texas in a coma with viral meningitis. His family had run a separate crowdfunding campaign to help pay for his treatment
a young girl from Texas who has progeria, a genetic disorder that causes premature ageing. Her mother had blogged about her life
a baby girl from Pennsylvania, who needed an operation for omphalocele, a birth defect of her abdomen. Her parents had shared photos online of her surgery
a baby from Florida, who died after being born with a defect of the diaphragm. The image had been featured in the local press

In addition, the account features several photos of dead young children in coffins, claiming users will have “76 year of bad luck” if they scroll past without liking or sharing the posts.

Facebook’s community standards say it does not allow posts featuring images that infringe other people’s copyright.

The company does not require each rights holder to make a claim before acting.

‘Bare minimum’

Facebook first disabled the account on 10 January after Mrs Allen had sent several messages to its complaints team, only for it to be made live again the next day.

The social network took the account offline again on Tuesday afternoon, but it was active again about five hours later.

Cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward said Facebook did not appear to have scrutinised the case closely enough despite the publicity it had generated.

“Clearly anybody should have the right to appeal their account being taken down, but if it’s returned up that quickly it doesn’t show much due process has been taken in checking it out,” said the University of Surrey lecturer.

“It’s difficult not to conclude Facebook is doing the bare minimum here.”

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What’s the best Linux firewall distro of 2017?

Introduction

This article was provided to TechRadar by Linux Format, the number one magazine to boost your knowledge on Linux, open source developments, distro releases and much more. Subscribe to the print or digital version of Linux Format here.

You don’t have to manage a large corporate network to use a dedicated firewall. While your Linux distro will have an impressive firewall – and an equally impressive arsenal of tools to manage it – the advantages don’t extend to the other devices on your network. A typical network has more devices connected to the internet than the total number of computers and laptops in your SOHO. With the onslaught of IoT, it won’t be long before your router doles out IP addresses to your washing machine and microwave as well.

The one thing you wouldn’t want in this Jetsonian future is having to rely on your router’s limited firewall capabilities to shield your house – and everyone in it – from the malicious bits and bytes floating about on the internet.

A dedicated firewall stands between the internet and internal network, sanitising the traffic flowing into the latter. Setting one up is an involved process both in terms of assembling the hardware and configuring the software. However, there are quite a few distros that help you set up a dedicated firewall with ease, and we’re going to look at the ones that have the best protective open source software and roll them into a convenient and easy to use package.

Specifically, in this roundup, we’re going to dissect and compare five different distros: IPFire, OPNsense, pfSense, Sophos UTM and Untangle NG Firewall.

How we tested

While you can test these firewall distros on a spare physical PC, it’s rather convenient to take them for a spin inside a virtual machine. We created a virtual network by firing up VirtualBox and heading to File > Preferences > Network. Then switched to the host-only networks tab and added a new network – using the screwdriver icon to give it the address 192.168.56.1.

Next, we created a VM for the firewall distro and made sure it had two network adaptors – the first one in bridged mode, the second one as a host-only network. After installing the distro, we assigned 192.168.56.2 as the IP address of the second adaptor and configured it as a DHCP server that assigns IPs between 192.168.56.20 – 192.168.56.50. From here on out, any other VM connected to the host-only adaptor will be routed through the firewall VM. Phew.

Security prowess

The IPfire kernel is hardened with the grsecurity patchset to thwart zero-day exploits and comes with strict access controls. The distro can also divide networks based on their respective security levels and enables you to create custom policies to manage each network. For more elaborate control, you can also manage outbound access to the Internet from any segment.

IPfire uses a Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall that’s built on top of the utility netfilter that facilities Network Address Translation (NAT), packet filtering and packet mangling. You can set up the firewall for everything from forwarding ports to creating a DMZ. The project’s wiki also hosts a best practices guide to create firewall rules for common scenarios.

The pfSense distro also uses a stateful firewall and can filter traffic by source and destination IP, IP protocol, and source and destination port for TCP and UDP traffic. It offers various options for handling the different states including the keep state which is used by default for all rules and works with all protocols as well as the sloppy state which works only for TCP traffic. It also allows you to limit simultaneous connections for every rule.

The pfSense distro uses the p0f OS fingerprinting utility to allow you to filter traffic based on the operating system initiating the connection. You can also decide to log (or not) traffic matching each rule. The OPNsense distro was forked from pfSense and offers pretty much the same features for the firewall and other aspects of the system.

Sophos UTM, unlike the other distros, cuts off all traffic and then enables you to allow specific type of traffic, such as web and email, during initial setup. The server also includes an innovative category-based web filter that blocks sites based on the type of content and includes categories, such as Drugs, Medicine, Nudity, Ordering, Weapons. It also offers to scan websites and emails sent over POP3 for viruses.

Untangle’s hosted firewall can be set up through an easy to use interface that makes it very straightforward and simple to define rules for firewalling traffic. You can also gain granular control over the traffic by defining complex rules that combine multiple parameters. This might seem like quite an involved process, but it’s made more accessible by abundant use of relevant pull-down menus.

Verdict

IPFire: 4/5
OPNsense: 4/5
pfSense: 4/5
Sophos UTM: 5/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 4/5

Other functions

All the distros in this roundup bundle a lot of other functionality besides the firewall. Some distros offer these features as free add-ons while others charge for this additional functionality. While we’ll list all the functionality provided by each distro, in order to be fair to the FOSS distros, we’ll rate all of them based on the modules that are available without any charge.

IPFire can be used as: a VPN gateway; an infrastructure server; a content filter; a proxy server; a caching name server; and an update accelerator etc. When used as an internet gateway the distro can connect to the internet through various technologies, including all popular types of broadband access, as well as mobile access, including VDSL, ADSL, Ethernet and 3G/4G.

Some of the interesting uses for both pfSense and OPNsense are as a traffic shaper, load balancer and VPN. They both offer three options for VPN connectivity including IPsec, OpenVPN and PPTP. Similarly, you can use the Sophos UTM server as a site-to-site VPN solution and configure it to handle VoIP connections and balance load.

Untangle doesn’t ship with any components pre-installed but its recommended package installs over a dozen applications and services including: web filter; virus blocker; spam blocker; bandwidth control; application control; captive portal; WAN balancer; and a firewall among others. Some of the applications that Untangle doesn’t install are the ad blocker, intrusion prevention and web cache. Also unlike the other distros, some of the Untangle applications are paid-for options that only install a 14-day trial version.

Verdict

IPFire: 5/5
OPNsense: 5/5
pfSense: 5/5
Sophos UTM: 5/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 3/5

Ease of deployment

While servers require more involvement and active maintenance, some aspects of the installation process are, in fact, streamlined, i.e. a server distro is designed to take over an entire hard disk which eradicates the need to define partitions. The firewall distros in this roundup go to great lengths to help you mould the installation as per your network configuration. All of them use browser-based interfaces that can be used to monitor and modify the various components of the firewall.

Having a graphical interface is crucial as a technologically sound base isn’t enough by itself, since a convoluted or illogically arranged management interface will have a direct bearing on a distro’s usability and prevent users from getting the most out of it.

We’ll break this slide down into mini-reviews of the deployment experience, starting with…

IPFire

IPFire is written from scratch and has a straightforward installation process. The installer will detect the number of NICs attached to the computer and ask you to assign them to one of the four colour-coded zones. Each of these zones caters to a group of machines that share a common security level. Later on you’ll be asked to assign an IP address to the NIC that’s connected to your internal network and will dole out IP address via DHCP.

Once you’ve installed the distro, fire up its browser-based admin interface which is available on the IP address you assigned to the NIC connected to the local network. Head to the Firewall section in the admin interface to define the rules for the firewall. While the interface is simple to use, it requires some expertise for effective deployment and some time spent with IPFire’s documentation.

Score: 3/5

OPNsense

This distro was forked from pfSense and follows the same straightforward installation procedure. After installation, the distro boots to the command-line dashboard which also includes the address of the browser-based admin console. The admin interface is the one major visible difference between the distro and its progenitor. The interface takes you through a brief set up wizard prompting you for information about your network.

Once it’s rebooted with the right settings, head to the Rules section under Firewall. The rules definition interface is presented logically and includes a switch to display relevant help information to explain the various settings. Similarly, configuring the other components of the firewall distro is also a relatively intuitive process. Since the distro has a vast number of settings, you can enter keywords in the search box at the top of the interface to locate the relevant setting.

Score: 4/5

pfSense

The FreeBSD-based distros, pfSense and OPNsense, use the same fairly automated installers, though the original pfSense version offers more advanced options, including the ability to install a custom kernel. Again, just like OPNsense, pfSense boots to a console-based interface that gives you the option to configure the network interfaces on the installed machine.

Once they are all set up and configured, a browser-based console takes the user through a set up wizard. The interface isn’t the most pleasing to look at, i.e. the page for adding a new firewall rule is verbose and only contains links for relevant documentation, which are designed to help new users. The distro requires you to put some time into learning it, especially if you’re going to use the add-on packages, but the documentation is worth its weight in gold (if printed out).

Score: 3/5

Sophos UTM

Originally known as the Astaro Security Gateway, you have to download the ISO for Sophos UTM, register on the project’s website and get a user licence which you’ll have to upload to the server when configuring it. During installation, Sophos asks you to select the NIC connected to the internal network and assign it an IP address, which you can use to access the distro’s browser-based admin interface. Users are also asked to permit installation of some proprietary components which has to be agreed to in order to use the distro.

Once installed, users are expected to bring up a browser-based management interface and run through the brief setup during which they will be asked to upload their licence. Sophos then locks down all traffic and enables you to poke holes for the type of traffic you wish to allow during the initial setup.

Score: 5/5

Untangle NG Firewall

The Debian-based distro is very easy to set up and is the only distro in this roundup which restarts after install into a web-based setup wizard. You’re asked to set the password for the admin user, then point to and configure the two networks cards – one that connects to the internet and the other the local network.

When setup is complete, Untangle prompts you to create a free account in order to configure the server. You’ll then have to install applications, such as the firewall, to infuse that functionality into the server. Almost all the applications are preconfigured and run automatically after install. You can also configure each application by clicking the ‘Settings’ button under it. Untangle’s dashboard also enables you to analyse the traffic passing through the server, and each application will show statistics for its own traffic as well.

Score: 4/5

Paid services

Virtually all the distros in this roundup offer a host of paid services. IPFire offers paid support through Lightening Wire Labs which provides custom solutions to enterprises that use IPFire. The company also offers customised hardware appliances that integrate well with your infrastructure.

OPNsense has multiple commercial support options. The annual subscription to the business support package costs €299 (£255). There are also professional services designed for larger deployments, integrations and custom changes to the distro.

You can also purchase support packages for your pfSense deployment which includes technical support, configuration assistance and a configuration review. The pfSense project also conducts training with the cheapest course starting at £699.

Besides retailing a version of the Sophos UTM for larger organisations, Sophos offers support packages via its resellers. The firm also offers over 40 online and offline training courses on different aspects of the distro. The fee for the courses vary but an introductory two-hour webinar costs $249 (£200).

Untangle retails several components to extend the functionality of the firewall distro. If you purchase the complete package it costs $55 (£44) a month. Untangle also sells several hardware appliances with the firewall server pre-installed that range from $399 (£320) to $7,599 (£6,080).

Verdict

IPFire: 5/5
OPNsense: 5/5
pfSense: 5/5
Sophos UTM: 5/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 5/5

Support and documentation

Just like paid services, all projects behind the firewall distros in this roundup offer a hefty amount of documentation and support in the form of guides, wikis and forums to handhold you through common deployment.

The IPFire project hosts detailed documentation in wikis, as well as its English and German forum boards in addition to the IRC channel and dedicated mailing lists. OPNsense also has forums, a wiki, IRC and very detailed documentation covering every aspect of deployment. Furthermore, the project has over a dozen how-to’s on popular configurations/setups, such as configuring traffic shaping, web filtering and setting up a guest network etc.

The best source of documentation for the pfSense distro is its handbook which comes with a Gold Membership subscription. Besides this there’s a wiki, forums, mailing lists and IRC. The wiki hosts a large collection of how-tos, most of which are clear and to the point. The project developers are also very active on social networks, such as Reddit, where users can seek help.

The Sophos website hosts PDFs of the quick-start guide and a 600-page administrator’s guide, in addition to community supported bulletin boards. There’s also the Sophos Knowledge Base, which hosts articles on different aspects of the distro. Finally, the Untangle project also hosts forums, a FAQ, and its wiki pages have screenshots where applicable, and some short tutorials.

Verdict

IPFire: 5/5
OPNsense: 5/5
pfSense: 5/5
Sophos UTM: 5/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 5/5

Extensibility and maintenance

A firewall server – just like any other server – needs constant upkeep, whether it’s to install updates or new add-ons. IPFire ships with Pakfire, an extensive package management utility that makes it fairly simple to flesh out the basic installation. The package manager also enables updates to address security issues.

Similarly, pfSense also includes a package manager which can be used to install and update packages. The packages are grouped under categories, such as Services and Utility, Security and so forth, and include a wide range of applications, such as Asterisk, Dansguardian, FreeRadius2, Snort, Squid and a lot more. The distro is configured to automatically install new versions of firmware and includes a host of diagnostic tools and utilities to troubleshoot the installation.

OPNsense also contains a package manager but doesn’t offer as many packages as you get with pfSense. However, like pfSense, it too can fetch and install updates for all the installed components.

There’s no package management option in Sophos UTM as all features are shipped in the distro and you can enable them as required. The distro includes the Up2Date utility for installing updates to the firewall’s firmware as well as for fetching newer patterns for components, such as the antivirus and the IPS.

With Untangle you have to use the interface to fetch any of the required components. There’s the Reports application which monitors and prepares detailed and visually appealing reports about the server as well as its different components. The distro also includes the ability to update the installation and its components. You can configure it to install updates automatically while setting up the distro and use the web interface to customise the schedule for the automatic updates.

Verdict

IPFire: 5/5
OPNsense: 4/5
pfSense: 5/5
Sophos UTM: 4/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 5/5

Management interface

While IPFire is based on Linux From Scratch, it has borrowed the browser-based interface from the IPCop distro. The interface has a simple and easy to navigate layout with the different aspects of the firewall server grouped under tabs listed at the top of the page. The System tab houses options that influence the entire install. This is where you’ll find the option to enable SSH access and create a backup ISO image of the installation with or without the log files. The Status tab gives an overview of the various components while the Services tab enables you to enable and configure individual services besides the firewall.

The dashboard in pfSense is more verbose than IPFire’s but has pretty much the same layout. The Firewall drop-down menu houses options to define the filtering rules as well as configure the traffic shaper. Settings for other services, such as the load balancer and captive portal, are housed under the Services menu. VPN gets its own menu and enables you to configure the various supported VPN protocols. The CLI console on the firewall server displays a dashboard of a sorts as well. In addition to the addresses assigned to the different NICs, it allows you to reset the configuration of the install to the default state and even upgrade the install.

Sophos UTM also has a loaded dashboard interface. Among other things, it displays information about the threats that firewall components have blocked in the last 24 hours. You can also use the Search box to narrow down the list of options.

OPNsense has a more refined interface than pfSense. Certain sections, such as when adding firewall rules, include a toggle labelled full help. When enabled, this option appends relevant information to all fields to help users make the right selection.

Untangle also has a polished interface. Once you’ve installed an application, it’s enabled automatically and listed in the app rack. Each app has a ‘Settings’ button for tweaking parameters and the rack also supplies a snapshot of traffic it has processed.

Verdict

IPFire: 3/5
OPNsense: 4/5
pfSense: 2/5
Sophos UTM: 4/5
Untangle NG Firewall: 4/5

The final verdict

Deploying a server is as much about personal preference as it is about a product’s technical dexterity. Despite our objective testing, the results and our recommendation are influenced by our own preferences. Also, all firewall servers offer much the same functionality, but since this is delivered by different applications, one product might do a certain task better than the others.

The one distro we definitely won’t be recommending is Untangle. But that isn’t a reflection of its technical inferiority, rather the availability of similar functions from its competitors at no cost. A majority of Untangle’s apps in the free version are 14-day trials. Moreover, even with the paid components the distro doesn’t offer anything compelling over the others.

We’ve docked pfSense a few points for similar reasons. The distro is a tweaker’s paradise. You can flesh out this distro into any kind of server. However, unless you’re used to its tools and FreeBSD underpinnings, it’ll only end up confusing you with a myriad of options. A better approach to pfSense, comes from its fork OPNsense, which has a nicer user interface and rewritten components, such as the captive portal.

The runner-up spot goes to IPFire which has an impressive list of features. Of note is its Pakfire package management system that helps update and flesh out the install. The distro’s UI also makes it easier to configure several components, such as OpenVPN, when compared with the other distros.

The top honour goes to Sophos UTM which is free for managing a network of up to 50 IP addresses, and bundles the Sophos Endpoint Protection for up to 10 computers. The distro bundles an impressive list of tools many of which are the same as the distro’s paid enterprise edition. We also like that the distro enables the firewall as soon as it’s installed, and allows you to poke holes in the firewall to enable the flow of required traffic. Not only is this the proper way to deploy a firewall, the Sophos wizard makes it easier for inexperienced users to reap the benefits from the get-go.

So, our final rankings are as follows:

1st Place: Sophos UTM – bundles all the essential features with an intuitive UI.

Overall score: 4/5

Web: https://www.sophos.com

2nd Place: IPFire – a secure and expandable distro with a functional management interface.

Overall score: 4/5

Web: http://www.ipfire.org

3rd Place: OPNsense – all the benefits of pfSense with a reimagined UI.

Overall score: 4/5

Web: https://opnsense.org

4th Place: pfSense – feature rich and fully functional distro but with an archaic interface.

Overall score: 3/5

Web: https://www.pfsense.org

5th Place: Untangle NG Firewall – the free version is little more than a demo for the paid version.

Overall score: 2/5

Web: https://www.untangle.com

Also consider…

Two popular firewall distros we didn’t include in this roundup are Smoothwall Express and IPCop. Both haven’t had a stable release in quite a while, but IPCop is being actively worked on and will be putting out a new release soon. Then there’s also the feature-restricted community edition of the Endian Firewall as well as the Zeroshell firewall router distro for embedded devices. You can also add firewall functionality to your existing gateway server. ClearOS and Zentyal are two gateway servers that are used as firewalls as well.

On the other hand, if you are the DIY type, you can build your own firewall appliance as well with little effort. One approach would be to use an ARM-based plug computer or a Raspberry Pi and install a minimal Linux distro, such as Arch Linux, and then use the built-in iptables firewall. To assist you with creating and managing rules, you could also use a graphical tool such as Shorewall. The other approach is to either install and use Ubuntu’s UFW tool for managing iptables or use its graphical cousin, GUFW.

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Samsung’s phones could provide a new way to unlock Windows 10

Do you own a fingerprint scanner-toting Samsung Galaxy phone and a Windows 10 computer? If so, you might soon be able to unlock that PC with your handset’s digit reader.

This will allegedly happen via Samsung’s Flow app (for W10), which already allows Galaxy TabPro S users to unlock their tablet in this manner, but Samsung has decided to expand it to cover all Windows 10 PCs, according to a report on Sammobile.

Apparently there’s been some considerable cajoling to see this feature rolled out more widely, and Samsung support confirmed to a customer that the Flow app will be rejigged for fingerprint reader support across the board after the Creators Update arrives for Windows 10 (which should be in April).

Biometric boom

Biometric authentication is becoming increasingly prevalent thanks to Windows Hello, which is part of Windows 10’s all-round tighter security – it lets you log in securely with a fingerprint sensor or webcam (facial recognition).

Of course, if you haven’t got a fingerprint reader built into your laptop, then using a partner mobile device which has a sensor, such as a Samsung phone, is a pretty handy solution.

It’s not surprising that in this climate of security fears – driven by the likes of botnets, hackers and data breaches aplenty – that stronger biometric authentication is on the rise.

Indeed, as we reported last fall, Google is looking to introduce fingerprint scanners to its Chromebooks, and the notebook rumor mill recently asserted that this functionality has now been baked into preview versions of Chrome OS.

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Facebook deletes fake child-cancer posts accounts

Facebook has deleted two accounts that used stolen photographs of a sick child to falsely claim he had cancer.

It follows complaints by the three-year-old’s mother that the images had been used as part of a scam. They dated from last year when the boy had a bad case of chickenpox.

The posts claimed Facebook would donate money for surgery if users “liked” them or left comments.

One security expert warned that users who did so had put themselves at risk.

More than a million people had engaged with one of the messages since it was posted at the start of the month.

Googled photos

Sarah Allen, from St Neots, Cambridgeshire, believes the Facebook accounts had sourced the photos from online news stories published about her son’s chickenpox in August 2016.

Jasper Allen’s illness drew attention because of its severity and the fact that his mother had called on the government to make the chickenpox vaccine free for all.

“We were warned people might take his pictures… because if you Google chickenpox his pictures are there,” Mrs Allen told the BBC.

“So, we were well aware that might happen, but not in this respect, to say he had cancer.”

She added that some friends had contacted her after seeing the posts to ask if her son indeed had cancer.

Mrs Allen said she repeatedly messaged Facebook to complain about copyright infringement and was told on 10 February that one of the accounts had been removed for breaching the site’s rules.

However, she said, it was back online within 24 hours, without explanation.

It was only after the media, including the BBC, covered the affair that Facebook instructed its complaints team to revisit the case.

The US-based company initially only removed the posts featuring Jasper before it decided to close the associated accounts completely.

The accounts had also featured posts with identical text that showed images of other children. One example featured a bearded youth – despite the words referring to a “little baby [that] has cancer”.

Other posts from the accounts showed images of children in hospital claiming that viewers would experience years of bad luck if they scrolled down without liking and sharing.

One security blogger said it appeared to be have been a case of “link farming”, in which scammers seek to make people interact with a Facebook post so they can either direct further messages to them or sell on the profile and all its contacts.

“There are a lot of scams that use these kind of emotional images – oftentimes it’s done to make money,” Graham Cluley explained.

“They may later post something that claims you’ve won a prize and try and get you to enter your mobile phone number and then sign you up for a premium rate service, or ask for other personal information.

“The problem is that people just believe things that are posted online, and they need to be a lot more careful about what they like and share.”

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Intel vs AMD: which chipmaker does processors better?

Introduction

Update: We’ve incorporated the latest news, leaks and rumors stemming from AMD’s forthcoming Ryzen processors. Read on to find out how the red team could soon pose a serious threat to its main competitor!

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to PC upkeep. It’s by no means an effortless task, and it only gets more onerous as you consider upgrading the various components. On the bright side, maintaining a PC comes down to little more than a basic understanding of how one works.

Among the most important parts of a computer is the CPU, otherwise known as the processor. If the motherboard is the PC’s skeleton, the CPU is the brains of the operation.

Finding the best processor for your needs is a straightforward process once you determine which brand suits you best: are you an AMD or an Intel junkie? The answer isn’t quiter as simple as whether your prefer the color red or blue.

Like the war waging in the graphics cards space between Nvidia and AMD, the CPU market oversees the rivalry of AMD vs Intel.

Despite biased hearsay, both company’s chips have their own advantages and shortcomings. For example, while AMD’s chips typically boast more cores, the cores that Intel’s CPUs do have are made faster by Hyper-threading.

With AMD due for an imminent upgrade, let’s look at how its Ryzen processors are bound to stack up against Intel’s Kaby Lake chips, which power everything from Microsoft’s Surface range to classically designed gaming PCs such as the Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900.

Gary Marshall originally contributed to this article

Price

For bargain shoppers on the prowl for the next hottest deal, the most common misconception is that AMD chips are more affordable than those powered by Intel. Truth be told, this is likely because AMD does its best CPU work at the entry-level, offering very few options that can compete with Intel’s more premium lineups.

An Athlon X4 860K, for instance, boasts a 3.7GHz frequency (4.0GHz with Turbo Boost) for only $70 (about £56, AU$94; as of this writing) on Amazon. For a quad-core processor, that’s not a bad deal as long as you aren’t expecting much in terms of integrated graphics performance.

If you want, though, you can get something like the AMD A6-5400K for only about $40 (about £27, AU$55; as of this writing) on Amazon. However, you could say the same about Intel’s comparable Celeron series.

The truth is that both Intel and AMD processors typically retail at about the same price; AMD is only known for being cheaper because its chips aren’t nearly as commonplace once you hit that exorbitant $200 mark.

This could all change once Ryzen strikes down as the forthcoming AMD lineup will range from quad- to octo-core offerings, according to leaks published by Wccftech, with the latter creeping up on the $389 (around £310, AU$510) mark.

The Ryzen 7 1700X, as it’s called, is purportedly targeting Intel’s Broadwell-E i7 6900K chip, outpacing it in terms of performance for roughly a third of the cost.

With that in mind, CPU pricing fluctuates constantly. Wait a few months after launch, and you’ll quickly discover that the Intel Core i7-6800K you were eyeing has dropped well below market value. Still, patience is a virtue easier said than followed – especially when you’re distracted by the prospect of shiny, next-gen processors touching down within a couple months.

Performance

If you want the best of the best performance with little regard for price, then turn your head towards Intel. Not only does the Santa Clara chipmaker rank consistently better in CPU benchmarks, but Intel’s processors draw less heat as well, blessing them with lower TDP (thermal design point) ratings across the board.

Much of this is owed to Intel’s implementation of hyperthreading, which has been incorporated in its CPUs since 2002. Hyper-threading keeps existing cores active rather than letting any of them remain unproductive.

AMD, on the other hand, historically takes pride in its focus on increasing the number of cores in its chips. On paper, this would make AMD’s chips faster than Intel’s, if it weren’t for the hugely negative impact on heat dissipation. This could all change as we near the release of AMD’s Ryzen architecture (previously just Zen), some examples of which bench significantly better than Intel’s finest.

While cooling an Intel processor is a rather straightforward process, because AMD likes to shove as many cores as possible into a single processing unit, its chips tend to run hotter much to the discomfort of affordable cooling solutions. (As a result, you could say this makes AMD chips equally as or more expensive than their Intel counterparts.)

Take AMD’s $229 (about £187, AU$317; as of this writing) FX 9590 for example. It clocks in at 4.7GHz, or 5.0GHz with AMD Overdrive installed. Oh, and did we mention it has eight cores?

That’s twice the number of cores bolstered by the Core i7-6700K. But, according to PCMark tests conducted over at CPUBoss, Intel’s rigid beast still comes out on top in terms of overall performance.

It’s only a matter of time, though, before Intel and AMD reach some level of parity, especially as certain Ryzen models bearing the XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) moniker will offer improved performance as an incentive for keeping temperatures low. Ergo, the better your cooler, the faster your PC will fly.

Graphics

If you’re building a gaming PC, truthfully you should be using a discrete graphics card rather than relying on a CPU’s integrated graphics to run games as demanding as The Witcher 3. Even though we’re finally reaching a point where Intel graphics are powerful enough to run Overwatch without a graphics card, there’s no denying the wide-open space for improvement.

Be that as it may, if all you’re looking to do is play League of Legends at modest settings or relive your childhood with a hard drive full of emulators (it’s okay, we won’t tell), the latest Intel Skylake, imminent Kaby Lake or AMD A-Series APU processors will likely fare just as well as any top-end graphics card.

At one time, for low to mid-tier gaming, AMD’s Radeon chips were far superior to anything offered by Intel. With the arrival of Intel’s Iris Pro graphics, however, that sentiment is becoming more and more refutable. This position is only legitimized by the comparatively lower gaming performance produced by AMD’s leaked Ryzen chips.

On the high end, such as in cases where you’ll be pairing your CPU with a powerful AMD or Nvidia GPU, an Intel processor is the better option. In this case, using an Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU rather than an AMD equivalent can make the difference between 15 and 30 frames per second.

While there is no clear winner in the graphics department, survey says AMD is the better option for integrated graphics (for now), while Intel works best when coupled with a GPU.

Overclocking

When you buy a new computer or even just a CPU, it’s typically locked at a specific clock speed as indicated on the box. Some processors ship unlocked, allowing for higher clock speeds than recommended by the manufacturer, giving users more control over how they use their components (though, it does require some precautionary expertise).

AMD is normally more generous than Intel in this regard. With an AMD system, you can get more juice out of a mid-range, A-series APU for a modest price. Save for the $67 (around £53, $90) Pentium G3258, Intel’s easily overclockable, unlocked configurations don’t start until at least the $200 (£200, AU$300) range, beginning with the Core i5-6600K.

The unlocked chips Intel does offer, however, are delightfully faster than their AMD counterparts. If you’re shopping on a budget, AMD offers the most bang for your buck in terms of overclocking, assuming you know what you’re doing.

In the case of Intel’s forthcoming Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake processor, that means up to 7GHz, according to HotHardware. Again, if you know what you’re doing. Where money is no object, Intel’s exhibits the best clock speeds around with its unlocked CPUs.

Availability and support

In the end, the biggest problem with AMD processors is the lack of compatibility with other components. Specifically, motherboard (mobo) options are limited as a result of the differing sockets between AMD and Intel chips.

Although the latest news from Videocardz would have us believe that a massive wave of Ryzen-compatible motherboards is about to hit, the fact of the matter is, Intel motherboards are frankly more commonplace than AMD.

Even so, AMD’s chips make a little more sense from a hardware design perspective. With an AMD motherboard, rather than having metal connector pins on the CPU socket, you’ll notice those pins are instead on the underside of the CPU itself.

Not only is your PC less likely to malfunction due to faulty motherboard pins, but the processors themselves may even take up less space within said mobo. If a report from EE Times is to be believed, quad-core Ryzen CPUs are looking to be 10% smaller than their Skylake counterparts.

Nevertheless, deciding on a CPU is ultimately up to personal preference. Where an Intel processor shines most when married to one of the best graphics cards, AMD’s chips are surprisingly capable without a discrete GPU. In some cases that’s all you need; in others, not so much.

Which brand of processor works better for you: Intel or AMD? Let us know in the comments below.

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