Volume 17, Issue 35 Atari Online News, Etc. September 18, 2015 Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2015 All Rights Reserved Atari Online News, Etc. A-ONE Online Magazine Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor Atari Online News, Etc. Staff Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking" Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile" Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips" Rob Mahlert -- Web site Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame" With Contributions by: Fred Horvat To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe, log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org and click on "Subscriptions". OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org and your address will be added to the distribution list. To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to subscribe from. To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the following sites: http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm Now available: http://www.atarinews.org Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi! http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/ =~=~=~= A-ONE #1735 09/18/15 ~ Stingrays Need Warrant ~ People Are Talking! ~ Firebee Update! ~ Destiny Improvements! ~ Xbox One Getting Edge! ~ Twitter.com Back Up! ~ Microsoft Has Own Linux ~ Hatari 1.0.9 Released ~ Win 10: Stealth OS! -* Pentagon's Cyber 'Scorecard' *- -* Unnoticed Firefox Attacker for Year *- -* Facebook Is Creating A New Dislike Button! *- =~=~=~= ->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""""""" Another week passes, and another week closer to the demise of another summer. I know, every year I whine about every season change. Can't help it, time flies by too quickly! Just as I'm getting used to one season, it's gone! Go figure! Speaking of "another one,", let's get to this week's issue! Until next time... =~=~=~= Hatari 1.9.0 Has Been Released Hello A new Hatari version 1.9.0 has just been released. You can get it from http://hatari.tuxfamily.org/ or directly in http://download.tuxfamily.org/hatari/ Sources are available, as well as prebuilt binaries for Windows (in 32 bit and 64 bit mode) and OSX. Thanks to all the people who contributed to this version with code, ideas, bug reports. Brief changelog : - Major update of the CPU for Falcon emulation, based on the latest version of WinUAE CPU : 68060, MMU, data/instruction cache, better prefetch pipeline, cycle accuracy, stack frame, ... - Memory : extra TT-RAM support for TT & Falcon emulation - MFP : better emulation of GPIP, AER and DDR - Gemdos HD emulation : better support for mapping of filenames with international encoding - MIDI : many accuracy improvements - Some fixes for video, blitter, dsp - More options for using ACSI and IDE disk images - Various changes in the UI - Various changes in the debugger See release-notes.txt for the full changelog. Fixed demos : - Graphix Sound 2 in Relapse by Cybernetics (blitter+cpu, bus arbitration) - RGBeast by Aggression (video, writing to video counter during active display) - My Socks Are Weapons by Legacy (video, reading video counter in high res) Fixed games: - Superior 65 - Blood Money (cpu, exception stack and bus error) (note that this version is bugged and will crash with TOS 1.04 or 1.62) - Obitus (STX version) (fdc, seek+verify on a track with no sector) - The Teller (STX/CTR version) (cpu, exception stack and address error) - War Heli (cpu, exception stack for address error and prefetch) Fixed programs: - Realtime and M by Eric Ameres (midi + mfp, toggle bit 0 of AER) - Notator (midi, more precise TDRE bit in status register) Special Bonus : this release comes with a small STE intro included in the archives :D See it here http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=66364 or here http://download.tuxfamily.org/hatari/demos/hatari_1.9/ Nicolas FireBee News Update Fred Horvat This week I just want to give a plug to a program I started using on the FireBee and under Aranym also to tell you something I just discovered that has always been in XaAES that I never knew was there. Lastly tell of my upcoming plan with the FireBee. In XaAES (the graphical user interface used in FreeMiNT on the FireBee) I just happened to notice this week of something rather useful. A Task Manager similar to what is in most operating systems that shows you all the running programs, their ID, percentage of CPU used, state, RAM Used and more. To access this in FreeMiNT in the upper left most option on the desktop menu bar select Clients > XaXAES, from there the menu will be for XaXAES, select Process > Task Manager. Now you will see the Task Manager window with what I described above and more. For more information about XaXAES you can go to the unofficial site: http://xaaes.atariforge.org/ Now this brings me to another program I just started using on the FireBee and under Aranym and that is Taskbar. It can be found here: http://atari.nvg.org/download/Taskbar-4.12.zip Best way to describe this application it is similar to the Windows 95 or higher Taskbar. It has a Start Button, Control Panel Button to your CPXs, Documents Button to your last used documents, shows currently running applications, and programs that you can launch that is user defined. When I was using MagiC on my TT I used an application called Appline that was similar though I don’t recall as customizable. Besides showing what programs were loaded it showed all the way to the right how much free RAM was available. I had a 8MB RAM TT (4ST/4TT) and 20 years ago that was a lot of RAM for what I was doing, I still kept an eye on my RAM usage. I mainly us Taskbar today to see what programs are currently running and to see individually how much RAM each program is using. What I discovered is on some Web Sites how heavy RAM usage is and that some programs don’t always quit when you close them. Occasionally Netsurf will not always end. So from Taskbar I right mouse click on Netsurf and then select Quit or Kill to end the program. Also from Taskbar I will right mouse click on a running program to see the RAM usage. Most programs show what I expect but occasionally I am surprised in the amount of RAM required to load a Web Page. http://weather.com takes 124MB in Netsurf just to load the main page. Thankfully on the FireBee RAM is plentiful and this is not an issue but still surprising and good to know. Currently I am not using the Program Launcher function in Taskbar. Not that I dislike it but I still don’t have my list of applications tested or settled on yet. I may use this functionality in the future but for right now I choose not to. After having the FireBee for a couple of months now I decided that I will do my best to set the FireBee up to be a day to day or a main use machine. Categories that I feel I need to address are : Web Browsing Email Document Handling Networking Printing Media Handling Gaming Backup Some of these categories will be easier to deal with than others. In the coming weeks I will start addressing each of these. =~=~=~= ->In This Week's Gaming Section - Improvements Abound in 'Destiny: The Taken King' """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" Xbox One Getting Windows 10's "Edge" Browser! =~=~=~= ->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Improvements Abound in 'Destiny: The Taken King' A year into a committed relationship is roughly the time when the romance starts to lose a bit of its spark. You’ve heard most of your partner’s stories, you’ve seen their embarrassing junior high photos, and you’ve become accustomed to their quirks. There just aren’t many surprises left. That’s a little how I feel about Destiny, the epic sci-fi shooter birthed from the same loins that gave us the original Halo trilogy. As a guy who’s sunk roughly 500 hours into the game since its release last year, I’ve pretty much seen it all. I’ve vanquished alien armies with my arsenal of futuristic weaponry. I’ve massacred thousands of rival Guardians, the protectors of Destiny’s besieged solar system, in online play. I’ve explored every inch of Venus, Mars, the moon, and the rusted ruins of post-apocalyptic Earth. No raids remain unraided, no strikes are left unstruck. To be honest, this relationship is getting a bit stale. Which makes Destiny: The Taken King kind of like having your partner greet you at the door with two tickets to Paris and a bottle of champagne. Releasing just days after the one-year anniversary of Destiny’s initial launch, The Taken King is a $40 downloadable add-on (it's also part of a $60 Legendary Edition that includes the original game plus the two earlier expansions). And while this isn’t a full-fledged sequel, The Taken King provides a ton of stuff to see, do, collect, and, of course, shoot in the face. The Taken King’s story-driven campaign revolves around Oryx, an alien demigod who looks distressingly like the demon from Fantasia that gave me bed-wetting nightmares as a kid. Oryx is very, very angry that we killed his son, Crota — the big baddie from The Dark Below — and he’s plotting his revenge on the solar system from a monstrous spaceship parked in the rings of Saturn. To that end, Oryx has abducted countless numbers of Destiny’s aliens — the Fallen, Vex, Cabal and Hive — and twisted them into weird, shimmery shadow creatures with new weapons and abilities. Fallen Captains can lob giant spheres of toxic darkness, Cabal Phalanxes’ shields have repulsors that can knock you flying, and Vex Hobgoblins, who were pretty big pains to begin with, now have freakin’ energy mortars. Cynics might cry, “They’re just the old enemies with new skins and new guns!” — and that wouldn’t be entirely incorrect — but the Taken are still unfamiliar enough to feel novel. In preparation for The Taken King’s release, developer Bungie recently tweaked and tuned several core aspects of Destiny. They simplified the character advancement system, raised the maximum experience level from 34 to 40, and streamlined objectives into something very much like an RPG quest log. They’ve also expunged Game of Throne’s star Peter Dinklage’s lackluster voiceover for Ghost, your wee robotic sidekick. (Your A.I. pal is now voiced by Nolan North, star of approximately 829 other video games. He does a fine job, though I still kind of miss Dinklebot.) But what makes The Taken King so refreshing is that it actually feels like a cohesive story now. Characters who were little more than window dressing in the Guardians’ home base are now featured in cinematic cutscenes and plentiful radio chatter, particularly Cayde-6 (voiced by Firefly and Castle star Nathan Fillion), the droll mentor to Destiny’s Hunter class. As we learn more about Oryx’s agenda through an interconnected series of missions and quests (including an awesome mini-arc that unlocks a new subclass and superpower for your character), we see Cayde-6 and pals banter, bicker and take pot shots at each other. It’s a small thing, sure, but in Destiny’s visually lush yet emotionally barren universe, it feels like a big deal. The Taken King’s campaign includes stops at familiar Destiny locales that now open up into brand new areas with new objectives, enemies, plot chunks, and gameplay mechanics. Guardians will crash Crota’s funeral on the moon, fight a giant Shank in the bowels of Rasputin’s bunker, steal a cloaking device for Eris Morn’s ship, and very likely get lost in Oryx’s creepy floating castle. If these names and places are gibberish to you, fear not: The Taken King aims to make Destiny playable for first-timers, and the expansion will give newbies the option of immediately elevating a single character to level 25, the minimum recommended starting point for The Taken King’s content. If you have the time, though, try to play through the whole thing from the beginning. Destiny’s intertwined game mechanics can be a bit confusing if you’re simply plopped into the deep end. What’s also impressive about The Taken King is how much more there is to do once the story bits are finished. You might journey to Oryx's Dreadnaught to fight the Shield Brothers, a pair of Cabal giants who feel like oversized Super Mario enemies. Or enter the Court of Oryx, an arena that allows players to trigger ultra-challenging public events. Or try the two new online Crucible variants — including Destiny’s take on capture the flag, dubbed Rift — across a fresh set of multiplayer maps. Or take on a Hive warrior in the Dreadnaught's prison, which is cloaked in paranoia-inducing near-darkness. Or venture deep into the Vault of Glass, home of the original Destiny’s co-op raid, for a mission that reveals the fate of the legendary time-trapped Guardian named Praedyth. (Speaking of raids, The Taken King’s new end-game uber-mission, called King’s Fall, goes live on September 18. It’s the one thing I've yet to play, but I’m betting it will involve killing Oryx once and for all. And that it will be ridiculously, wondrously hard.) Bungie and publisher Activision envision Destiny as a 10-year series of expansions and sequels, and it will always be something of a work in progress. The Taken King smooths out many of the original game’s rough edges, beefs up its lore, introduces a staggering amount of new content, and even makes a lot of the older stuff feel sort of fresh again. That said, for every element of Destiny that Bungie has improved as the game enters its second year, there’s another that could still use work. Newcomers jumping into The Taken King might be perplexed by the number of moving parts in the game that aren't particularly well explained, something that’s always been one of Destiny’s core weaknesses (and isn’t helped by the encyclopedia-like Grimoire card system, which remains in desperate need of a complete overhaul.) And once players hit level 40 —which shouldn’t take more than a solid afternoon of play — the familiar loop of repeating missions in the hopes of securing better weapons and armor begins to set in, especially since this gear feeds directly into your character’s Light level, a secondary benchmark for determining the activities you can tackle. With The Taken King, there’s now a lot more variety in the places you can go, the loot you can hunt for, and the aliens you can perforate in the hopes of getting that sweet new fusion rifle or rocket launcher, but that lingering sense of deja vu never quite goes away. But while The Taken King isn’t perfect, it’s a step in the right direction for Destiny. And it might be enough to make you fall in love all over again. For another year, at least. What’s Hot: Cool story missions; Memorable character interactions; Lots of new places to visit and new guns to play with; Improves some core gameplay systems; What’s Not: Still more work to be done; Could be overwhelming to newcomers; Pricey for players who already own the game; R.I.P. Dinklebot Xbox One Getting Windows 10's "Edge" Browser A version of Microsoft Edge, the new browser included with Windows 10, is coming to Xbox One. Microsoft confirmed the news this week on Twitter by bluntly responding to a user, "Yes, Edge will be coming to Xbox One." The company did not say if Edge on Xbox One will have the same features as the PC edition, but you can probably expect some fine-tuning for its console release. Edge will presumably replace (or live alongside) the existing Internet Explorer Xbox One app. Edge became the default browser with the release of Windows 10 on PC, but it did not entirely replace Internet Explorer. The new browser, on PC at least, supports Microsoft's virtual assistant technology, Cortana, and functionality that lets you draw directly on-screen via Web Note to annotate pages and then share them. The browser also comes with a new page layout for tabs, including links and thumbnails for websites you visit most frequently. For more on Edge, check out the video preview above from GameSpot sister site CNET. During a recent podcast, Microsoft's Mike Ybarra talked about Windows 10's forthcoming integration with Xbox One, which is scheduled to land sometime "post-summer." Bringing the OS to Xbox One is not as simple as you might think, he said, noting that it involved the team creating a highly customized version of Windows 10 built specifically for Xbox One. This is called OneCore. "Windows 10 for desktop PCs has incredible momentum right now," Ybarra said. "We're going to bring all of that efficiency to Xbox One." As of the end of August 10, Windows 10 had reached 75 million installs. Overall, Microsoft is aiming to hit 1 billion Windows 10 devices by 2018. In other recent Xbox/Windows news, a top Microsoft executive said the Xbox One is "literally a Windows device." =~=~=~= A-ONE's Headline News The Latest in Computer Technology News Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Pentagon Designing Cyber 'Scorecard' To Stay Ahead of Hackers The U.S. Defense Department is building a massive, electronic system to provide an overview of the vulnerabilities of the military's computer networks, weapons systems, and installations, and help officials prioritize how to fix them, the deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command said on Thursday. Air Force Lieutenant General Kevin McLaughlin told Reuters officials should reach agreement on a framework within months, with a goal of turning the system into an automated "scorecard" in coming years. The effort, being led by the Pentagon's chief information officer, grew out of a critical report about cyber threats released earlier this year by the Pentagon's chief weapons tester, and escalating cyber attacks by China and Russia. The report by Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of testing and evaluation, warned that nearly every major U.S. weapons system was vulnerable to cyber attacks. Initial data entry would be done by hand, but the goal was to create a fully automated system that would help defense officials instantaneously detect and respond to cyber attacks, McLaughlin said after a speech at the annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit. McLaughlin told the conference that Cyber Command had already set up about half of 133 planned cyber response teams with about 6,200 people, and all of them would achieve an initial operational capability by the end of 2016. He said the initial focus of the new scorecard would be on the greatest threats, including weapons systems fielded 30 years ago before the cyber threat was fully understand, as well as newer systems that were not secure enough. "There’s probably not enough money in the world to fix all those things, but the question is what’s most important, where should we put our resources as we eat the elephant one bite at a time," he said. McLaughlin said the scorecard was initially intended to look at weapons and networks, but the Pentagon was now looking at a broader and more sophisticated approach that also accounted for how data was moved among agencies within the military. U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force officials, who also spoke at the event, mapped out their own cybersecurity efforts, citing new levels of communication and collaboration among the services around these issues. McLaughlin said U.S. military commanders were far more attuned to cyber threats than in earlier years. He said Cyber Command spot checks and inspections were now being flagged to the command's top leader, Admiral Mike Rogers, which had spurred greater accountability than in earlier years. US Law Enforcement Now Needs A Warrant To Use Stingrays The US Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday released a new and enhanced policy to cover the use of "stingrays" - tracking devices that mimic cell phone towers, tricking phones into connecting with them to reveal their precise location. The new policy, designed to "establish a higher and more consistent legal standard and increase privacy protections", states that all federal agencies must now obtain a search warrant - based on probable cause - before using cell-site simulators. There are, of course, a few exceptions to the warranted procedure - agencies can forego a chat with a local judge if they believe the swift use of a cell-site simulator would be key in protecting human life, avoiding serious injuries or in the pursuit of a suspected fugitive attempting to flee justice. A warrant can also be dispensed with when a federal agent believes criminal evidence is about to be destroyed. While a cynic may suggest such exceptions could become the norm, the DOJ believes otherwise, noting that all such instances must be recorded. Another issue addressed by the new policy concerns the use of collected data as part of criminal investigations. While agencies have often claimed that cell-site simulators are incapable of collecting the contents of emails, text messages, images and call data - doubts have remained. Now, it has been made clear that devices must not be configured to intercept any such data whatsoever. The new policy explicitly prevents agents from collecting data on the actual phone - such as emails, texts, contact lists and images - as part of an investigation. And even the data that the agents are permitted to collect - such as location of the phone - must be erased, either when it is finished with or once per day (whichever comes soonest). If the target's phone number is not known, data must be erased within 30 days. Such an addition to the policy is important given the fact that one of the biggest concerns over stingrays surrounds the collection of data from all mobiles within range, not just the one that is being tracked by law enforcement officers. So far then, the new policy sounds like a victory for privacy advocates but there is one snag - it only applies to federal agencies, and not regular law enforcement types who have been known to use stingrays and equivalent devices to solve petty crime. It's perhaps then, unsurprising to learn that the American Civil Liberties Union is hardly jumping for joy over the new guidance. Staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler said the move was a "positive first step" but noted that further progress was required in regard to the use of stingrays by regular police forces to whom the policy does not relate. Further progress was required, he said, adding that: The Justice Department must close these loopholes, and Congress should act to pass more comprehensive legislation to ensure that Americans' privacy is protected from these devices and other location tracking technologies. The Department of Justice, however, said federal agencies had always obtained the appropriate legal authority to use cell-site simulators anyway, which appears to suggest future warrants may not be too hard to come by - new policy or not. Despite the secrecy surrounding stingrays and other similar tools up until now, Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said their use "has been instrumental in aiding law enforcement in a broad array of investigations", saying the technology had helped in a variety of cases including fugitive investigations, complicated drugs cases and kidnappings. The new policy, she said, would allow future use of stingrays and other cell-site simulators to be undertaken in a consistent and well-managed way that would be "respectful of individuals’ privacy and civil liberties". Twitter.com Back Up After Suffering Outage Twitter.com suffered an outage Monday, leaving some users frustrated. USA Today reported that users began receiving an error message that “something is technically wrong” at 2:45 p.m. ET. VentureBeat reported that the outage only seemed to affect Twitter’s Web client, with its mobile app and the TweetDeck app continuing to work. The micro-blogging site was down for approximately 35 minutes, it reported. Twitter has not yet revealed the cause of the outage, but confirmed that Twitter.com experienced some problems. “Earlier today, some users may have experienced issues accessing twitter.com. This issue is now resolved,” Twitter Support tweeted at 3:37 p.m. ET. Users took to other social media to vent their frustration about the outage, according to USA Today. "During the Twitter outage, I checked and found Facebook still exists," tweeted @jamestaranto. “Glad @twitter is online again so I can #twitter the outage!,” tweeted @HaraldMuehlhoff. Unnoticed Firefox Attacker Had Access To Severe Vulnerabilities for Over A Year An attacker with access to security-sensitive information about the Firefox web browser went unnoticed for up to two years, putting hundreds of millions of users at risk. The attacker was able to spy on highly sensitive information by gaining access to a privileged account on Bugzilla@Mozilla, the bug tracking software the Mozilla corporation uses to store information about flaws in its software. The company behind the popular web browser has revealed details of the breach in an FAQ document. It explains that the attacker gained access to information about 185 non-public bugs, of which 53 were classed as severe vulnerabilities. Ten of those severe vulnerabilities were not fixed when the attacker became aware of them, meaning that they could have been used to attack Firefox, and at least one of them was used in-the-wild. The window of opportunity to successfully exploit that bug was less than 36 days, but three of the bugs were known to the attacker and un-patched for far longer; two for more than 130 days and one for almost a year. In the face of such an open window of opportunity, Mozilla's boilerplate assurance that "there is no indication that any of the other bugs the attacker accessed have been exploited" isn't very reassuring - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence after all. Mozilla's bug tracking system appears to have been infiltrated because of password reuse by one of its privileged users. The attacker acquired the password of a privileged Bugzilla user, who had access to security sensitive information. Information uncovered in our investigation suggests that the user reused their Bugzilla password with another website, and the password was revealed through a data breach at that site... There are some indications that the attacker may have had access since September 2013. When a website is compromised and users' passwords are exposed, the attackers behind the breach will often try those same passwords on a range of other sites, making it imperative to never use the same password twice. We don't know which site the user's password was originally stolen from but the timing fits with a very high profile hack indeed. In September 2013 Adobe suffered a giant data breach, losing about 150 million records, including a vast trove of passwords that hadn't been stored properly. As you might expect, Mozilla has responded to the exposure of this highly sensitive data by beefing up its security: Passwords have been reset for all privileged users, and going forward, all privileged users will be required to use two factor authentication to log in to Bugzilla. Second, we are reducing the access that each Bugzilla user is granted in order to limit the amount of information that could potentially be exposed in the event of unauthorized access. Third, we are increasing the amount of auditing we do on the actions of privileged users so that we can detect suspicious activity more quickly and accurately. With so much malware being distributed via compromised websites, web browsers have been at the security sharp end for years and, by and large, they enjoy a solid reputation for seeking out and dealing with security issues. Which makes it all the more surprising, and more than a little disappointing, that this attack might have been prevented with some fairly basic password best practice. If the user in question hadn't reused their password then the attacker would not have had an opportunity to access Bugzilla. And if Bugzilla had been equipped with two-factor authentication (2FA), an attacker with the right password could still have been thwarted. If you are a Firefox user and you are using the latest version of the software then you are not at risk from any of the vulnerabilities the attacker had access to. If you are not using the latest version, update now! Facebook Is Creating A Dislike Button, Mark Zuckerberg Confirms Thumbs-down... or up? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed during the company's Q&A session on Tuesday, Sept. 15, that the social media network is in the process of rolling out a "Dislike" button after countless requests from users. "I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years," Zuckerberg, 31, said at the company's headquarters. "Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it." However, Zuckerberg noted that the network didn't want to model itself after Reddit, which allows users to vote stories up or down based on content. "That isn’t what we’re here to build in the world," the CEO told reporters. He said the use of a "dislike" button would be for sad posts - deaths, crises, and other negative everyday life situations faced by its users. The expectant dad surprised many fans after he opened up recently about his wife Priscilla Chan's fertility struggles in their pregnancy announcement. "What they really want is the ability to express empathy," Zuckerberg said Tuesday of creating the functionality. "Not every moment is a good moment." He also shared that it's been in the development stages for some time. The company previously decided against building the button - despite complaints from users -- because it didn't want to evoke negative reactions. "It’s surprisingly complicated to make an interaction that will be simple," he revealed of the process. Facebook Users Express Concerns Over Possible 'Dislike' Button Facebook users took to the social media site on Wednesday to react to the company's decision to test what Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called a "dislike button" - and not everyone liked the idea. In a town hall-style question and answer session Tuesday, Zuckerberg took questions from users about topics ranging from virtual reality to his wife's pregnancy. Yet most Facebook users fixated on his announcement that the 1.5-billion user social network was working on adding a button other than "like." Users flooded Zuckerberg's official Facebook page with nearly 3,000 comments largely about the dislike option. While some said they would use Facebook more if the button were introduced, others said it would lead to cyberbullying and more negativity on the site. "Please don't put a dislike button, as much as there is times I would love it, would much rather express my thoughts in words to be completely direct on my opinion," said user Andrea Robichaud. Users have been asking for a dislike button for several years, Zuckerberg said, though it may not necessarily be named dislike or be represented with a thumbs down. He added that the company was preparing to test a version of the button. "Not every moment is a good moment," Zuckerberg said. The button's aim, he said, would be to express empathy on posts that may reference topics where "like" is not the appropriate response, such as the refugee crisis or the death of a loved one. Some users offered alternative suggestions that they thought would minimize harassment on the site, such as adding a "sympathy" button instead or allowing users to opt out of the "dislike" button on their posts. Others took a more humorous approach. Vince Vogel suggested Facebook offer "public smile, private smile, private frown and public frown" instead of like and dislike. Analysts are not expecting a huge financial payoff if the company goes forward, and Facebook shares rose slightly Wednesday on the first full trading session after the announcement, up 0.5 percent to around $93.40. "If it takes off it will help engagement," said Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, although noting the revenue impact would not be great. "This is probably more in response to what Facebook sees as a feature requested by users." Microsoft Has Built Its Own Linux Operating System Sit Tight on your seats, because you're gonna get a Shock. Microsoft has developed an Operating System powered by LINUX. Close your mouth first. It’s True! Microsoft has built its own Linux-based operating system called Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) and believe me, under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has become more open than ever. According to the announcement made through an official blog post on Microsoft website, Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) describes as "cross-platform modular operating system for data center networking built on Linux." or Simply, "Commodity switch software stack for data center networks". The Purpose of developing Linux-based Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) operating system at Microsoft is to make it simpler to control the hardware from multiple vendors (such as Switches) that powers their cloud-based services. And here's the Kicker: "Running on Linux, ACS [Azure Cloud Switch] is able to make use of its vibrant ecosystem. ACS allows to use and extend Open Source, Microsoft, and Third Party applications." However, Microsoft's Linux distribution is not going to appear on Desktops or Servers anytime soon, because this isn't a typical consumer-grade Operating System. For Now, Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) Linux OS is just an internal tool that Microsoft uses to "debug, fix as well as test software bugs much faster", scale down software and develop features for enterprise and cloud computing services. Microsoft Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) was demonstrated at the SIGCOMM conference in August 2015 at Imperial College London. This move by Satya Nadella's Microsoft is really significant. If you’re interested in the technical deep dive into Azure Cloud Switch (ACS), you will find it on the Microsoft Azure blog. It is not the first time that Microsoft is partnering with rival technologies. Earlier this year, Microsoft had announced its partnership with Cyanogen, the most popular third-party ROM for Android phones and tablets. And Cyanogen is reportedly working on deeper integration of Microsoft’s Digital personal virtual assistant, Cortana, into its latest version of Operating System. Windows 10, The Stealth OS To think that a couple of months ago we were worried that the Internet might not be able to hold up against the pent-up demand for Windows 10. The Internet did just fine, as it turns out — even better than we knew. Because we have recently discovered that all along, Microsoft has been sending Windows 10 bits to those of us who have Windows 7 or 8.x on our PCs, whether we asked for them or not. Did I say “sending”? That’s a bit mild. What Microsoft has been doing is force-feeding us Windows 10, sneaking it past our perimeter, planting it on our hard drives with no notice, shoving it through our Internet connections, no matter how narrow our broadband. Yes, I’m a bit incensed. It all started when an Inquirer reader found, hiding in the hidden directory $Windows.~BT on his PC, all of the Windows 10 installation files, even though he had not “reserved” a copy. Up to 6GB worth of them. Some people were a mite upset about this. Especially people with small solid-state drives and slow Internet speeds. I have seen Microsoft do a lot of sketchy things over the years, but when I first heard this story, I thought, “Microsoft wouldn’t do this.” Pitch Windows 10 right on my Windows desktop? Sure, I could believe that. But to actually sneak the bytes onto my computer? Surely not! Some things just aren’t done. It’s as if a colleague started living in your basement without ever telling you. You feel as if your space has been violated, but in a way you never even imagined might happen. The thing is, big tech companies should have a clue that this kind of thing is not welcome. I mean, just look at what happened to Apple when it gave the U2 album Songs of Innocence away to everyone with an iCloud account. It was a PR disaster unmitigated by whatever good will lay behind the gesture. After the news about the stealth Windows 10 downloads broke, I checked my Windows machines, and sure enough, Microsoft had sent me unwanted freebies. My first thought: Well, that’s not so bad. I have a 120Mbps Internet connection, and the smallest Windows hard drive in the house comes in at 500GB. I can handle it OK. Also, unlike people who have been having serious stability problems with Windows 10, Windows 10 has worked well for me. Well, it runs remarkably well for what’s really a beta. Talk to me after the October/November update before asking me if I’d recommend it for real use. And, of course, I don’t use Windows 10’s built-in apps. The Mail app, in particular, tends to blow up with messy results for Outlook.com or Office 365 users. And let’s not even talk about Windows Store, which seems to spend more time frozen than working. Oh, and come to think of it, Windows 10 still seems remarkably snoopy to me. You know what? On second thought, I really, really don’t want Microsoft shoving Windows 10 down to my computers until I’m good and ready. I also really don’t like Microsoft telling me that automatically downloading a new, radically different operating system “is an industry practice that reduces time for installation and ensures device readiness.” Because it’s not. I’ve been working in IT for closing in on 30 years now, and writing about it for almost as long, and never once has any company pushed a new operating system on me in the normal course of business. Yes, programs do that sometimes. Chrome and Firefox spring to mind, but operating systems are a lot bigger deal than Web browsers. Microsoft has since retracted that “industry practice” line, but it still rankles, and I’m still annoyed at having Windows 10 forced into my machines. Say I was a system administrator. Would I want my users having Windows 10 appearing on their PCs? No, I wouldn’t. I’d have enough trouble keeping porn and games off their boxes without contending with a brand-new Windows OS. Even at home, though, when I enable Windows Update automatic updates, I just want the top security patches for the operating system I already have, not a whole freaking operating system. Let me make this simple for you, Microsoft. The next time you want to promote your next-generation operating system, in 2020 or so, do not shove it down my throat. Ahem. Thank you. =~=~=~= Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire Atari community. 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