Verizon set to Buy Yahoo. .! for $5 Billion

Finally, Someone has come forward to buy Yahoo! Guess Who?

The telecommunication giant Verizon.

Yes, Verizon Communications Inc. is reportedly closing in on a deal to acquire Yahoo’s core business for about $5 Billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Since the agreement between the companies has not been finalized, it is unclear at this moment that which Yahoo's assets the deal would include.

"In order to preserve the integrity of the process, we're not going to comment on the issue until we've finalized an agreement," a Yahoo spokeswoman said in a statement provided to CNNMoney.

You might be wondering Why Verizon is buying Yahoo! Well, I’ll come to it in the second half of my article, because before discussing this point, let’s first focus on why Yahoo! wants to get acquired.

Why Yahoo Was Up For Sale?

Founded in 1995, Yahoo! was once the brightest star of the Web. But when its rivals including Google, Facebook and even few-years-old companies like Snapchat and WhatsApp have won over users, Yahoo! has not been able to maintain that glory.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer - formerly a Google executive - has spent billions on acquisitions so far to improve Yahoo's mobile products, expanding its audience by acquiring Tumblr and doubling down on premium media content.

But Mayer struggled to slow the overall ad sales decline of Yahoo! and failed.

Last Monday, the company accepted that its revenue fell 15% in the second quarter, after excluding accounting adjustments, and its operating profit fell 64%.

So, after keeping investors at bay for years, Mayer said Yahoo! would explore strategic alternatives, including selling its core assets.

Verizon has long been considered a suitable buyer for Yahoo’s Internet assets, which the telecom giant wants to combine with AOL - the American global mass media corporation bought by Verizon last year for $4.4 Billion.

Now, the two companies are in one-on-one discussions, and Verizon will reportedly acquire Yahoo! for about $5 Billion.

Here's Why Verizon Wants to Buy Yahoo!

So, why does a mobile telecom provider want to acquire the core editorial business of a failed Internet portal?

The sure short answer is:

Advertising!

With the success in the wireless industry, Verizon has been buying up Internet and ad technology companies, like AOL, to compete in a mobile advertising market dominated by two big players, Google and Facebook.

And for this same reason, it is now buying Yahoo!’s ad and content businesses.

Yahoo! has millions of users, and a collection of websites like Flickr, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Sports, including some digital-ad technology like Flurry and BrightRoll.

Since the growth of Verizon’s traditional telecom business has been decreased, companies like Yahoo! and AOL would necessarily help Verizon make money from digital advertising on mobile devices.

The deal would not only give Verizon a powerful collection of content and revenue from ad related to that content but also give the telecom company a considerable amount of user data to provide target advertisements to users by the telecom as well as others.

So, this is the kind of deal Verizon was interested in when it acquired Yahoo!

Hacker Downloaded VINE entire Source Code

Vine is a short-form video sharing service where people can share 6-second-long looping video clips. Twitter acquired the service in October 2012.

Indian Bug bounty hunter Avinash discovered a loophole in Vine that allowed him to download a Docker image containing complete source code of Vine without any hassle

Launched in June 2014, Docker is a new open-source container technology that makes it possible to get more apps running on the same old servers and also very easy to package and ship programs. Nowadays, companies are adopting Docker at a remarkable rate.

However, the Docker images used by the Vine, which was supposed to be private, but actually was available publically online.

While searching for the vulnerabilities in Vine, Avinash used Censys.io – an all new Hacker’s Search Engine similar to Shodan – that daily scans the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices.

Using Censys, Avinash found over 80 docker images, but he specifically downloaded 'vinewww', due to the fact that the naming convention of this image resembles www folder, which is generally used for the website on a web server.

After the download was complete, he ran the docker image vinewww, and Bingo!

The bug hunter was able to see the entire source code of Vine, its API keys as well as third-party keys and secrets. "Even running the image without any parameter, was letting me host a replica of VINE locally," He wrote.

The 23-year-old reported this blunder and demonstrated full exploitation to Twitter on 31 March and the company rewarded him with $10,080 Bounty award and fixed the issue within 5 minutes.

Avinash has been an active bug bounty hunter since 2015 and until now has reported 19 vulnerabilities to Twitter.

Google Imposed Strictly Enforced verified Boot in Android 7.0 Nougat

As far as security is concerned, Google is going very strict with the newest version of its mobile operating system.

Until now, Google has not done more than just alerting you of the potential threats when your Android device runs the check as part of the boot process.

Android Marshmallow 6.0 does nothing more than just warning you that your device has been compromised, though it continues to let your device boot up.

1. Android Nougat 7.0 Getting Strictly Enforced 'Verified Boot'

In Android Nougat, Google has taken the security of its Android operating system to the next level by strictly enforcing verified boot on devices.

Among multiple layers of security protection, Android uses verified boot - since Android version 4.4 KitKat - that improves its device's security by using cryptographic integrity checking to detect if your device has been tampered with.

Now, Android Nougat will strictly enforce the boot check, giving you far more than just a warning.

2. Android 7.0 Verified Boot Protects Device from Rootkits and Malware

Enforcing verified boot on a device is a good idea.

If any Android malware or rootkit made its way onto your Android device and made deep system changes to critical kernel files, your device will either start in a limited-use mode (presumably similar to safe mode) or refuse to start at all, protecting your data.

In addition to strict verified boot, Android Nougat also features forward error correction that is capable of repairing some errors on devices without any user input.

And, of course, Nexus devices will be the first to get these features.

This will prevent your Android device from becoming a playground for malware and viruses, at least after you restart it.

That sounds really great. Right?

3. If Modified, Corrupt or Tampered, It won't let your phone Boot

For most users the strict verified boot would be helpful, however, for some, it's bad news.

According to Google, some non-malicious corruption of data could cause Android devices to fail to boot up because verified boot process runs into issues that it can not correct.

This data corruption could be the result of some software flaws or hardware issues.

Here's what the Android Developer blog explains: "This means that a device with a corrupt boot image or verified partition will not boot or will boot in a limited capacity with user consent. Such strict checking, though, means that non-malicious data corruption, which previously would be less visible, could now start affecting process functionality more."

Since corrupted data may not always be malicious, even a single-byte error could prevent the device from booting.

However, Android Nougat brings additional code designed to protect against data corruption.

"In the changes we made to dm-verity for Android 7.0, we used a technique called interleaving to allow us to recover not only from a loss of an entire 4 KiB source block, reads the blog, "but several consecutive blocks, while significantly reducing the space overhead required to achieve usable error correction capabilities compared to the naive implementation."

4. Verified Boot Has Made It Harder to Root Android 7.0 Nougat

Like I said, data corruption could not always be due to malicious reasons.

Strictly enforcing verified boot could also make it tougher for you to tweak your Android Operating System (especially with locked bootloader) using custom ROMs, mods, and kernels.

Since this involves circumventing the locked bootloader, verified boot process will detect any changes, making it harder for users to play with their devices when Nougat rolls around.

The bottom line:

Enforcing strict verified boot in Android Nougat is a good idea, because most users root their devices with custom firmware but forget to take important security measures, which leaves their devices open to malicious software and rootkits.

What do you think of the additional security Google provides to the boot process in Android Nougat?

Let us know your views in the comments below!

Softbank buys ARM for $32 billion in cash

Japanese telecommunication giant SoftBank has confirmed that the company intends to acquire UK chip designer ARM Holdings for almost $32 Billion (£24.3 Billion) in an all-cash deal.

ARM has also agreed to this offer from SoftBank and said that its board would recommend the all-cash deal to shareholders.

SoftBank will pay nearly $22.5 per ARM share, which is 43 percent more than ARM's closing share price on Friday and 41 percent more than ARM's all-time high closing share price.

The deal is the largest-ever acquisition of a European technology business, first reported by The Financial Times.

Wondering Why is ARM really Worth $32 Billion?

Founded in 1990, Cambridge-based ARM Holdings designs microchips for a variety of smartphones and powers more than 95 percent of the smartphones in the market.

Whether it is Apple's iPhones or iPads, Samsung's Galaxy smartphones, Amazon's Kindle e-readers, the cheapest Nokia phones or Internet-connected devices like Nest's smart thermostats, Fitbit's fitness trackers, Canon's EOS cameras, Ford's cars, and DJI's drones, all are powered by ARM-based chips.

Here’s what ARM chairman Stuart Chambers said about the acquisition:

"This is a compelling offer for ARM shareholders, which secures the delivery of future value today and in cash. The board of ARM is reassured that ARM will remain a very significant UK business and will continue to play a key role in the development of new technology."

ARM does not actually manufacture chips, but rather it licenses its semiconductor technologies to a huge variety of device makers. ARM not only dominates the market for smartphones but also used in other consumer gadgets, industrial-like devices and "Internet of things."

So, SoftBank’s acquisition of ARM Holdings means the Japanese company is buying the most valuable company in the world of mobile processors.

SoftBank said that ARM Holdings, which currently has 4,064 employees worldwide, will remain headquartered in Cambridge, and that the company would retain ARM's senior management team, brand, as well as a lucrative partnership-based business model.

The Japanese firm has also promised to double the staff headcount in the United Kingdom over the next five years.

Here’s what SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said about the acquisition:

"We have long admired ARM as a world renowned and highly respected technology company that is by some distance the market-leader in its field. ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the Internet of Things."

Son described the ARM acquisition as "one of the most important" acquisitions in the history of its Japan-based business.

This is the latest major tech acquisition in last few months. At the beginning of this month, Antivirus firm Avast acquired AVG Technologies for $1.3 Billion in cash and last month; Microsoft made its biggest acquisition by buying LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion in cash.

Skype For Linux: Microsoft Launches Alpha Client To Replace Aging App

Microsoft Corp. launched an alpha version of a new Linux client for its Skype chat and calling service, very tellingly named Skype for Linux Alpha. In a blog post Wednesday that announced the launch, the company said the client “is not a fully functioning Skype client yet” but had been launched anyway because it wants “to get it [the client] in your hands as soon as possible.”

Pointing out some of the differences between the new app and the version it replaces, the blog says users will “be using the latest, fast and responsive Skype UI, you can share files, photos and videos and send a whole new range of new emoticons.” The company is also asking for users to test the app and provide feedback so it can prioritize which features it should work on adding, improving or fixing.

Skype also seems keen on phasing out its older Linux client. Using the new alpha version, “you will be able to call your friends and family on the latest versions of Skype on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, but you won’t be able to make or receive calls to and from the previous versions of Skype for Linux (4.3.0.37).”

Linux users can download Skype for Linux Alpha from here.

Another feature announced Wednesday was the alpha version of Skype based on WebRTC (an interface that supports browser-to-browser communication without additional plugins). Using the same features as the new Linux client, it is targeted at users of Chromebook and Chrome on Linux. The offering for the Chrome browser will expand over the next few months to include landlines and cellphones as well, the company said.

If you have an existing Skype account, the WebRTC version can be accessed using this link.

Skype was first released in 2003 and Microsoft bought the company in 2011 for $8.5 billion.