Daily Tech News 8 June 2024

• Just in time for the weekend, there's a new critical security vulnerability in PHP. (Ars Technica)
  
  Sysadmins worldwide panic.
  
  On Windows.
  
  Sysadmins worldwide go back to sleep.
  
  If you have Chinese or Japanese language packs installed and run PHP on Windows, Windows itself will helpfully slip unsafe characters past the normal security mechanisms and into database queries where they will wreak havoc.
  
  There are several fatal design flaws working together to make this a problem, and none of them are unique to PHP.
  
  Though PHP is still awful and nobody should use it for anything, ever.

• The twelve core Zen 5 Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (yes, unfortunately that is its name) is only a little slower than the sixteen core Zen 4 Ryzen 7945HX3D. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And that's with the Zen 5 chip running in the lowest power "silent mode". In previous generations there were high and low power versions of laptop chips; with Zen 5 you can run the chip at anything from 15W to 54W - and even at the lowest setting it is very capable.
  
  This was tested in an Asus laptop; my own Asus also has silent mode and it really works.
  
  
  
• Civilization 7 is due out next year. (WCCFTech)
  
  I clocked up a fair bit of time back in the day with Civilization II. I got so good at it that even at higher difficulty settings I'd have nuclear weapons in the Middle Ages and launch my rocket to Alpha Centauri while my rivals were still messing about with sailing ships.
  
  
  
• Hackers breached a Disney Confluence server and stole confidential documents relating to the design and implementation of... Club Penguin. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Keep being weird, guys.
  
  
  
• Adobe isn't stealing your content, says Adobe. (Adobe)
  
  Adobe did change its license terms to grant itself permission to steal your content, but Adobe says Adobe would never do that except in certain very specific circumstances, such as if it really wanted to.

  To be clear, Adobe requires a limited license to access content solely for the purpose of operating or improving the services and software and to enforce our terms and comply with law, such as to protect against abusive content.

  Which terms are so broad you could launch a Boeing 737-800 from them without any risk of running out of runway.
  
  
  
• The Affinity suite (design, photo editing, and publishing) is half price right now. (Affinity)
  
  Under $100 for the three applications on Windows, Mac, and iOS. No subscription fees, free upgrades.
  
  
  
• Microsoft is planning to encrypt the Recall database. (The Verge)
  
  Problem: Microsoft claimed in the product announcement that the data was encrypted. They lied.
  
  They also plan to make it opt-in, just like Windows 11 upgrades, or ads on your desktop.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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