Dash, evade, and smash your way to the truth as the corporate spy, Asaru; or the reckless CIA agent, Amelia! Uncover the dark secrets of the Negabot mega corporation as you save the company from a hostile takeover. Assault Spy is a stylish, fast paced, pure-action game with a dash of comedy.
A closer look at the malware that masquerades as Fortnite cheats
Malware that lures unsuspecting people into giving away personal information by promising cheats or free currency for big online games is not a brand new concept, and the age-old scams are currently running amok with Epic’s free-to-play battle royale game Fortnite.
The company behind the anti-malware software Malwarebytes, for example, has tracked down one particular scam that’s been making the rounds while disguised as a Fortnite cheat. The scam itself is similar to one unearthed earlier this year by the streaming platform Rainway, as well as several others that can be found online at any given moment.
But what makes Malwarebytes’ report particularly interesting is its dive into how the malware itself actually operates. The specific malicious program the company tracks has grabbed a little over 1,200 downloads to date and attempts to steal information from infected systems about everything from cookies and Steam sessions to Bitcoin wallet info.
This particular “cheat” originates from a YouTube video that grabbed over 2,000 views in its first day live and promises an undetectable Fortnite aimbot, Fortnite hacks, loot detecting tools, along with other cheats. A link in the description sends would-be cheaters to a page that promises to deliver a link to the cheat download in exchange for a YouTube channel subscribe, something that Malwarebytes notes is slightly different from the more survey-focused route most malicious programs take. From there, the site directs people to a second site that offers Fortnite cheats, and then a file hosting site to download the “cheat” itself, which Malwarebytes’ software IDs as a ‘trojen.malpack’ that aims to take info on browser sessions, cookies, Bitcoin wallets, and Steam sessions to an IP based out of the Russian Federation.
The site’s blog post has a full breakdown that’s worth checking out about how this specific bit of malware targets the systems and personal information of Fortnite players looking for an illegitimate leg up on their competition.
Amnesia: Collection – In the Mind of a Horror Game Developer
Under what circumstances could you think of torture and execution as entertainment? Now imagine watching this is the highlight of your week. That sounds crazy, right?
In Amnesia, these questions were at the core of production, helping us as developers to set the right mood for the players. Similar questions are common in horror, and I would even go so far as to say that they make for the best horror. “What if a serial killer kidnapped you and held you captive in their basement?” “What if your house was haunted?” Good horror thrives on these scenarios and forces us to consider disturbing scenarios. It puts us in the shoes of the protagonist and makes us think: “What would I do if that were me?”
Games as a medium allow us to take these scenarios even further. A player can’t stop at just imagining the horrid things – they have to actively participate in them. What is a theoretical possibility in movies and books turns into something substantial?
When making Amnesia: The Dark Descent, we wanted to take this as far as we could. Our goal was to make one’s survival a double-edged sword, where every step forward is a step closer to your own darkness. We wanted every encounter, every creepy environment to raise the core questions of the game: “How far would you go to save your own skin?” “What horrible things would you do, or allow to happen?”
It’s the exploration of these questions that contributed to Amnesia’s success, and it’s what we took even further in SOMA. And it’s questions like these we hope you will want to explore with us as well.
What darkness lurks in the depth of your mind? Pick up the Amnesia: Collection today on Xbox One to find out.
Skybound Games Will Finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season
Since mass layoffs at Telltale Games, the company has been trying to work out a way to finish The Walking Dead. Not long ago, it was revealed Telltale had potentially been thrown a lifeline when multiple partners stepped forward and expressed interest in helping see The Final Season through to completion.
It’s now been confirmed Skybound Games will take over the publishing and development of the final episodes of The Walking Dead. Creator of The Walking Dead and also the founder of Skybound Entertainment Robert Kirkman made it official at New York’s Comic-Con:
We’ll be taking over Telltale’s ‘The Walking Dead’ to finish Clem’s story…We can’t lose Clementine and Rick in the same year.
The news was also confirmed over on the Skybound Twitter account, with the company revealing it would be responsible for completing Clem’s journey. The aim is to keep the original development team intact as Skybound works with former Telltale leaders to come to an agreement. According to Variety, Skybound has never used in-house developers on its games before.
Multiplatform entertainment company Skybound was founded in 2010 to develop properties across multiple forms of media including film, television and video games. Skybound Games was only established earlier this year to assist development.
Add Orwell to your account and play for FREE starting now until October 5th at 10AM Pacific Time! Once you add the game it will remain in your account after the free period, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to play this thrilling, detective simulation!
If you’re the type of person who uses the word “vuln” as a shorthand for code vulnerabilities, you should check out the presentation from the recent Linux Security Summit called “Security in Zephyr and Fuchsia.” In the talk, two researchers from the National Security Agency discuss their contributions to the nascent security stacks of two open source OS projects: Zephyr and Fuchsia.
Microsoft’s Ryan Fairfax explained how to fit an entire Linux stack into 4 MiB of RAM in this presentation. Yet, the hard part, according to Fairfax, was not so much the kernel modification, as it was the development of the rest of the stack. This includes the custom Linux Security Module, which coordinates with the Cortex-M4’s proprietary Pluton security code using a mailbox-based protocol.
In this article, Swapnil Bhartiya interviewed Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman about how the kernel community is hardening Linux against vulnerabilities. You can see excerpts from their talk in the accompanying video.
The next Linux Security Summit Europe, coming up October 25 – 26 in Edinburgh, offers more essential security information, with refereed presentations, discussion sessions, subsystem updates, and more. There’s still time to register and attend! Check out the full scheduleand stay tuned for more coverage.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-08-2018, 03:56 PM - Forum: Windows
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Project xCloud: Gaming with you at the center
YouTube Video
The future of gaming is a world where you are empowered to play the games you want, with the people you want, whenever you want, wherever you are, and on any device of your choosing. Our vision for the evolution of gaming is similar to music and movies — entertainment should be available on demand and accessible from any screen. Today, I’m excited to share with you one of our key projects that will take us on an accelerated journey to that future world: Project xCloud.
Today, the games you play are very much dictated by the device you are using. Project xCloud’s state-of-the-art global game-streaming technology will offer you the freedom to play on the device you want without being locked to a particular device, empowering YOU, the gamers, to be at the center of your gaming experience.
Content and community
Ultimately, Project xCloud is about providing gamers — whether they prefer console or PC — new choices in when and where they play, while giving mobile-only players access to worlds, characters and immersive stories they haven’t been able to experience before.
To realize this vision, we know we must make it easy for developers to bring their content to Project xCloud. Developers of the more than 3,000 games available on Xbox One today, and those building the thousands that are coming in the future, will be able to deploy and dramatically scale access to their games across all devices on Project xCloud with no additional work.
About Project xCloud
Scaling and building out Project xCloud is a multi-year journey for us. We’ll begin public trials in 2019 so we can learn and scale with different volumes and locations. Our focus is on delivering an amazing added experience to existing Xbox players and on empowering developers to scale to hundreds of millions of new players across devices. Our goal with Project xCloud is to deliver a quality experience for all gamers on all devices that’s consistent with the speed and high-fidelity gamers experience and expect on their PCs and consoles.
We’ve enabled compatibility with existing and future Xbox games by building out custom hardware for our datacenters that leverages our years of console and platform experience. We’ve architected a new customizable blade that can host the component parts of multiple Xbox One consoles, as well as the associated infrastructure supporting it. We will scale those custom blades in datacenters across Azure regions over time.
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We are testing Project xCloud today. The test runs on devices (mobile phones, tablets) paired with an Xbox Wireless Controller through Bluetooth, and it is also playable using touch input. The immersive nature of console and PC games often requires controls that are mapped to multiple keys, buttons, sticks and triggers. We are developing a new, game-specific touch input overlay that provides maximum response in a minimal footprint for players who choose to play without a controller.
A game runs via Project xCloud with a prototype touch overlay.
Cloud game-streaming is a multi-faceted, complex challenge. Unlike other forms of digital entertainment, games are interactive experiences that dynamically change based on player input. Delivering a high-quality experience across a variety of devices must account for different obstacles, such as low-latency video streamed remotely, and support a large, multi-user network. In addition to solving latency, other important considerations are supporting the graphical fidelity and framerates that preserve the artist’s original intentions, and the type of input a player has available.
Microsoft — with our nearly 40 years of gaming experience starting with PC, as well as our breadth and depth of capabilities from software to hardware and deep experience of being a platform company — is well equipped to address the complex challenge of cloud game-streaming. With datacenters in 54 Azure regions and services available in 140 countries, Azure has the scale to deliver a great gaming experience for players worldwide, regardless of their location.
Developers and researchers at Microsoft Research are creating ways to combat latency through advances in networking topology, and video encoding and decoding. Project xCloud will have the capability to make game streaming possible on 4G networks and will dynamically scale to push against the outer limits of what’s possible on 5G networks as they roll out globally. Currently, the test experience is running at 10 megabits per second. Our goal is to deliver high-quality experiences at the lowest possible bitrate that work across the widest possible networks, taking into consideration the uniqueness of every device and network.
We are looking forward to learning with you during our public trials next year and sharing more details as we continue on this journey to the future of gaming with you at the center. Stay tuned!
Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Review, Length, And Everything You Need To Know
You may have read a lot about Assassin's Creed Odyssey leading up to its release on October 5 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But here, we have all the bases covered on the series' latest entry in one place. We'll run down many of Odyssey's broader features and go through the basics of what you should know before jumping in. Everything from story to combat tips are outlined below, along with links to more detailed guides if you wish to dig deeper. Note that there are no major story spoilers in this article.
You're probably aware that Assassin's Creed Odyssey takes place in Ancient Greece, but it specifically covers the Peloponnesian War fought between Athens and Sparta. The game opens with a 300-esque battle scene where you take control of King Leonidas of Sparta during the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, then transitions to the start of the main protagonist's story almost 50 years later in 431 BCE.
Greece makes for some breathtaking views.
If you've followed Odyssey since it was first revealed at E3 2018, then you'll know that you can choose between taking on the role of a female or male lead; Kassandra and Alexios are two sides of the same coin and play exactly the same--the main differences are, of course, the voice acting and character model. Your choice also affects the narrative slightly; whoever you choose to play as is made to be the older sibling of the two. You come from Spartan lineage, but the game doesn't force you into aligning with either side of the war since you're a mercenary trying uncover the truth of your family's disappearance.
Prominent Greek figures like Socrates and Hippocrates make appearances throughout Odyssey, and you can interact with them as they offer side quests of their own. While historical fiction has always been the foundation of Assassin's Creed lore, it's never been afraid to incorporate the supernatural. Odyssey takes it a step further by pitting you against mythology itself; one example is a fight against Medusa where you try to avoid getting turned into stone.
Catch Up On Assassin's Creed Lore
This is a long-running franchise, but Odyssey can be a good point to jump into the series. Knowledge of previous events isn't necessarily required to enjoy the new game. However, if you need a refresher on the everything that have taken place up to this point, be sure to read our Assassin's Creed story summary.
How Long Is Odyssey?
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Assassin's Creed Odyssey is huge--its open world is about twice as big as Origins. That may not seem as daunting when you consider the fact that the Mediterranean Sea makes up a large portion of the map and that you'll spend plenty of time sailing the high seas. Regardless, there's still a great deal of ground to cover throughout Greece's mainland and several islands.
As for game length, it's difficult to get an accurate range since every player will engage in a varying number of optional quests and activities along the way. Estimates have been around 50 hours to complete the main story and a decent chunk of side activities. GameSpot editor Alessandro Fillari spent 60 hours with the game for the purposes of his review, and there remain more optional content for him to take part in.
New to the franchise is Exploration Mode. Instead of having waypoints and objective markers littered on screen in the traditional Guided Mode, Exploration Mode puts the onus on you to figure out where to go to complete quests. This means you'll have to pay closer attention to NPC dialogue and investigate the environment more closely.
This is especially true if you take on the optional quest to hunt down a cultist organization. They're a web of mysterious figures with hidden identities scattered throughout Greece and you'll need to do investigative work to locate and assassinate them. Sometimes, you'll happen to take them down in the midst of a side mission that they're involved in, but you'll often have to dig for clues on their whereabouts whether or not you've activated Exploration mode.
Fighting With Style
Odyssey builds off of Origins' combat system, but it introduces some key changes. Shields are no longer an option, which naturally pushes fights towards a faster pace. The skill tree remains divided in three categories attributed to specific playstyles (Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin), but it features some neat new abilities. You may think the Spartan Kick is in the game just for kicks and giggles until you realize that it's super effective for booting enemies off cliffs or creating space in fights. Another setting-appropriate ability is the Rush Assassination that lets you put the Spear of Leonidas to use during long-distance stealth kills.
The skill tree includes several abilities that allow you to tinker with different character builds.
In addition to multiple types of melee weapons (like polearms, swords, and maces), you have a bow that's both useful for attacking long-range and inflicting status effects on enemies. The Arrow Master skill unlocks arrows that can poison, paralyze, or explode on impact, opening up numerous possibilities in combat; combine that with Devastating Shot and your projectiles will be even stronger. The skill tree can be overwhelming at first, but we have a few tips on some good abilities to pick up early and how to use them in clever ways.
Don't worry about min-maxing in the skill tree; you can respec at any time for small cost. This affords you the opportunity to experiment with different combat approaches and character builds.
Setting Sail In The Mediterranean
With multiple islands scattered across Greece, great emphasis is placed on sailing and ship combat in Odyssey, essentially taking a page out of Black Flag's book. Engaging with hostile ships will have you firing arrow barrages, tossing waves of javelins, or using the naval ram to inflict damage. Once an enemy ship's health is depleted, you can either sink it for a small reward or board it with your crew to get better loot. If you board the ship, you'll have to get your hands dirty and fight the opposing crew.
Enemy ships vary in size, health, and strength, so be sure to know what you're up against before engaging. Throughout Odyssey, you'll upgrade your ship and recruit shipmates from quests or smooth dialogue interactions. Different crew members offer specific bonuses and attributes for your ship.
Play Your Part
Odyssey doubles down on RPG elements. There's leveling up, skill trees, gear scores, and numerous optional quests, which was implemented in Origins, but the series dips its toes into branching story threads for the first time. Dialogue trees permeate character interactions and you'll face consequences for your actions whether they be good or bad. The way you decide to complete some quests will affect the resulting narrative and can also spill into the details of other quest-lines; don't be surprised if there are unforeseen consequences and collateral damage.
With branching dialogue comes romance options. You're free to romance as many of the available characters as you want, and the circumstances for which you can romance them may change based on other decisions. Most often, these partners will become part of your ship's crew, which may be a bit of an unceremonious conclusion for love interests. However, these scenarios can play out strangely, and you can see for yourself how romance can feel awkward or forced.
By nature of being an RPG that deals with choice and consequence, there are multiple endings in Assassin's Creed Odyssey; nine to be specific. Unfortunately, you'll be hard-pressed to see them all in one playthrough since key decisions early in the game will affect the possible endings open to you.
You now have more agency in how the story plays out thanks to branching dialogue and quest decisions.
Different Versions, Special Editions, And DLC
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is out soon, but you can still snag the pre-order bonuses offered. Pre-ordering from the Ubisoft Store grants you access to the Blind King mission, Best Buy gifts you a $10 rewards certificate, and GameStop includes the Blind King mission and a Spartan helmet keychain. Aside from the standard edition of the game, there's a Deluxe edition ($80) that includes an XP and drachmae (in-game money) boost, the Kronos and Herald of Dusk gear pack, and the Capricornus naval pack. The Gold edition ($110) packs the DLC season pass, Secrets of Greece and Blind King bonus missions, and lets you start playing now. The Ultimate edition ($120) includes all the aforementioned content from both the Deluxe and Gold editions. There are few other special editions with collector's statues that you check out in our pre-order guide.
PC Minimum And Recommended Specs
For the PC players out there, make sure your system is powerful enough to run the game properly. If you're aiming for 4K resolution with High settings, Ubisoft recommends a system with at least an AMD Ryzen 1700X or Intel Core i7-7700 CPU, AMD Vega 64 or Nvidia GTX 1080 video card, and 16GB of RAM. For those not doing 4K, be sure to read up on the minimum and recommended PC specs to run AC Odyssey smoothly.
Review
You can read or watch our review of Assassin's Creed Odyssey right now; editor Alessandro Fillari concluded: "Assassin's Creed Odyssey's ambition is admirable, which is reflected in its rich attention to detail for the era and its approach to handling the multi-faceted narrative with strong protagonists at the lead. While its large-scale campaign--clocking in at over 50 hours--can occasionally be tiresome, and some features don't quite make the impact they should, Odyssey makes great strides in its massive and dynamic world, and it's a joy to venture out and leave your mark on its ever-changing setting." For perspectives from other critics on the game, you can read through our review roundup.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-08-2018, 07:30 AM - Forum: Lounge
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WWE Super Show-Down 2018 PPV: Match Card, Start Time, And How To Watch
WWE's next PPV is almost here, and it's headed down under for one that will be very early for North American fans. The wrestling company is based out of the US but is a global brand, so from time to time it will travel overseas for live events. Of late, these international shows have been positioned as major PPVs, starting with The Greatest Royal Rumble back in April. Tomorrow, on Saturday, October 6, WWE is headed to Australia for the Super Show-Down, and it is one packed card. But if you're in North America, prepare to set your alarm earlier than you'd probably care for.
Taking place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, Super Show-Down will air on the WWE Network at 10 AM BST / 5 AM ET / 2 AM PT. For once, WWE fans in the UK will have a PPV not airing extremely late in the evening.
If you don't have the WWE Network but are interested in watching the show, you can sign up for one month free. This promotion is only available to new subscribers, but you're under no obligation to continue using the service. You can cancel anytime, so technically, you can watch Super Show-Down for free. If you choose to continue using the WWE Network, it costs $10 a month, but you get to livestream all WWE PPVs throughout the year, as well as classic PPVs, TV replays, and original series.
So what can you look forward to at Super Show-Down? Well, for the first time in forever, Roman Reigns isn't the main event. However, Undertaker vs. Triple H is, so that's something different. The match is billed as "last time ever," most likely because Undertaker is getting up there in age and isn't as great in the ring as he used to be.
In addition to that, there are nine more matches on the card, four of which are title matches. However, Ronda Rousey and the Raw Women's Championship are nowhere to be found on the card. But there's still time for another match to be added. Check out everything booked, so far, below.
The Shield vs. Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler, & Drew McIntyre
The Undertaker vs. Triple H
Super Show-Down Start Times
7 PM AET
10 AM BST
5 AM ET
4AM C
2 AM PT
Make sure to come back to GameSpot on the morning of Saturday, October 6 for coverage of the PPV. And next week, we'll have predictions as well as interviews with WWE superstars about the event.
No evidence of spy chips, Apple insists in letter to US Congress
By Roger Fingas Sunday, October 07, 2018, 06:54 pm PT (09:54 pm ET)
Apple hasn’t detected unusual transmissions or other evidence servers were infiltrated with Chinese spy chips, the company’s VP of Information Security insisted in a letter to Congress on Sunday.
“Apple’s proprietary security tools are continuously scanning for precisely this kind of outbound traffic, as it indicates the existence of malware or other malicious activity. Nothing was ever found,” wrote George Stathakopoulos. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters.
The executive also echoed previous Apple statements that the company hasn’t discovered the chips themselves, or been contacted by the FBI about the matter. He did, however, promise to make himself available this week for briefing Congressional staff.
Last Thursday, a Bloomberg report claimed that Chinese operatives had managed to sneak a microchip the size of a grain of rice onto 7,000 motherboards produced by Super Micro, which supplied those compromised parts for use in Apple’s iCloud data centers. The chip, supposedly designed by the Chinese military, is said to have passed server data on to Chinese interests, and created a backdoor into public-facing networks.
Bloomberg has stuck by its story, claiming that 30 companies were affected in all, another example being Amazon. The report took over a year to produce, and 17 sources, including people inside Apple.
Two government agencies — the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.K.’s GCHQ — have cast doubt on the allegations. The Chinese government is known to regularly probe U.S. government and corporate networks, though.
