Archive for February 7, 2018

Telus Tops In LTE Speed Says OpenSignal

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 7, 2018 by itnerd

The 2018 OpenSignal Report was released this morning and Telus was recognized as ranking highest for fastest overall download speeds for a second year in a row in addition to placing first, either alone or tied, in every category reported by Open Signal including: 4G download speed, 3G download speed, download speed overall, 4G latency, 3G latency and 4G availability. Here’s what OpenSignal had to say:

In our 4G speed tests, Telus not only established a commanding lead over its competitors, it demonstrated some truly remarkable results. Our average 4G download for Telus  was 44.5 Mbps, which is among the fastest individual operator results we’ve measured on a nationwide level. But when we drilled down into our speed results for Toronto and Montreal, Telus’s speeds only increased. In Montreal, Telus’s average tested download topped 62 Mbps, while in Toronto we measured its speed at an exceptional 70.4 Mbps.

Keep in mind that this is the latest in a string of good news for Telus. In 2017, TELUS won every major mobile network award including J.D. Power, Ookla and PCMag. Thus, it clearly establishes Telus a leading player in the cell phone space in Canada

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Lenovo Really Screwed Up This Time By Shipping Laptops With Loose Screws

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 7, 2018 by itnerd

You can’t make this stuff up.

Lenovo is recalling their top of the line Thinkpad Carbon X1 laptops. The reason? If they were manufactured between December 2016 and October 2017, they may have a screw that wasn’t properly tightened during the assembly process. That loose screw could potentially damage the battery pack’s lithium-ion polymer layer and cause a short. Which in turn can cause a fire, which of course is bad.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has details on the recall here:

The recall only currently covers the US and Canada as far as I can tell. So if you own one of these laptops, click on the links in the Tweet above and get the details on how to get this sorted.

Needless to say, this is one hell of a screw up.

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Remember That Flash Exploit That Popped Up Last Week… Well, There’s Actually TWO Of Them

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 7, 2018 by itnerd

Last week I told you about an Adobe Flash exploit that had been around since November and was actively being used by North Korean hackers. Adobe promised to fixed it this week and they did. But in the process of fixing that exploit, they disclosed that there was a second exploit that was floating around unfixed. It’s documented in the CVE database as CVE-2018-4877 and in short, it’s an exploit that allows for remote code execution. In other words, doing something as simple as opening a webpage or other document with a malicious Flash file embedded in it will pretty much result in pwnage if you have the wrong version of Flash installed. Thus, you should update your version of Flash right now to avoid pwnage.

Or the better route is to dump Flash completely because it’s a security nightmare that Adobe cannot remedy. Thus since Adobe can’t save you from the nasties that are out there, you have to save yourself.

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