Your daily round-up of some of the other security stories in the news
Nevada leaks details of medical marijuana vendors
More than 11,000 Nevada people who have applied to sell medical marijuana have had the personal details from the extensive applications they have to complete leaked thanks to a vulnerability in the website, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed.
There’s a lot of information in those applications: they’re eight pages long and not only include details such as the applicant’s social security and driving licence information, but also their home address, height, weight, eye colour and race.
The online portal for vendors is down at the moment – but the personal information of some 11,700 people is out there now.
Amazon plans airship warehouses
Not content with pulling off the first delivery by drone recently, Amazon has filed a patent for an “airborne fulfillment center”, aerial warehouses attached to huge zeppelins that could float above the altitudes used by commercial aircraft.
The general idea is that when a customer makes an order, the item would be loaded on to an onboard drone that could then zoom down and drop off the order.
For all the futuristic vision of the concept, the airships detailed in the application look decidedly retro: they sport the design and styling of the stately airships of the early 20th century – and of course, it gives a whole new meaning to “cloud services”.
Firefox to wind down support for Vista and XP
Diehard users of Windows Vista or even XP who’ve been relying on the Firefox browser to get online reasonably safely have been warned that their days of regular security updates for the browser are numbered.
Mozilla, the developers of the open-source browser, said in a blog post that the version of Firefox that’s compatible with Vista and XP would be moved to Firefox Extended Support Release in March, and that Mozilla would assess the number of people using it and announce an end date in September.
Windows Vista is in its dying days of support from Microsoft, which said earlier this year that it would end support for the venerable OS in April 2017, while XP hasn’t been supported since April 2014 – though that hasn’t stopped some NHS trusts from continuing to use the OS.
Catch up with all of today’s stories on Naked Security
jimisen
I see the date on the Zeppelin patent is suspiciously close to April 1st
Bryan
If the zeppelins are real what security issues will emerge? Hack one to allow all merch to be rapidly delivered to one location–or even land the entire ship on a Swiss Bank.
Not to mention the old-fashioned ‘just shoot one down” 21st-century stagecoach robbery.
PS Kate: 1st paragraph typo: appliecations
Snark Attack (@Rifmaz)
I am waiting for someone to attach dynamite or a hand grenade to a drone to kill the hobby forever. I wonder if I could patent that?
Mahhn
I think governments would hire and or eliminate you, since you would be a competitor.
jimisen
But further research finds the patent really exists.
ejhonda
Sorry, XP and Vista users: it’s time to move to Windows 7.
;)
Anonymous
If your laptop had a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4 GB RAM. 160 GB SSD and a bright 17.3 display, and if your laptop was manufactured prior to the introduction of Win7 and could not run win7 and was a snappy performer on Vista, then it’s likely that you wouldn’t appreciate the “it’s time to move to Windows 7” dismissive attitude.
Andrew Ludgate
Of course, it might be time to move to Lubuntu or an even lighter-weight desktop Linux.
If the system is required for some key function that only works under XP, that function likely classes it as a server, which means it shouldn’t have Firefox installed anyway.
Eric
I have a machine with about that specification (smaller screen, standard HDD instead – it’s a Dell E6500, if you’re curious) and it ran just fine on 7 and now Windows 10. Performs just fine – in fact, you’d probably do better on 7 than Vista simply because 7 slimmed down the memory requirements for the graphics driver and window manager, leaving more for userspace applications.
EJ
If you never connect to the Internet, fine, have at it. Otherwise you’re just botnet fodder.
Al Rutter
Is appliecations a typo or a Freudian slip? (app – “lie” – cations) :)
Kate Bevan
Thanks, guys: typo fixed! Much appreciated.