Tag Archive for: Dies

As 3G dies, old phones aren’t the only victims


When millions of obsolete mobile phones stop working next year, they’ll have plenty of company.

In 2022, the nation’s wireless carriers will shut down their 3G data networks to make room for better 4G and 5G services. The transition will affect not only phones, but also countless other devices that rely on 3G data links — home security systems, medical alert devices for senior citizens, the driver assistance systems inside many cars, and even the ankle bracelets used by law enforcement agencies to keep track of parolees.

Ben Coleman, a school teacher in Fall River, has already paid a high price for the impending death of 3G service. About a year ago, Coleman received an e-mail from BMW about his 2014 i3 electric car. The message warned that “the 3G was going to stop working and that they were not going to replace the module,” Coleman said.

“The i3 had limited range, so the only way I could make it to work in the winter is if I pre-heated the battery,” Coleman said. “The only way to schedule that is via a 3G cellular connection.” Without an Internet connection, the car would be useless to him. So in May, Coleman sold his fully paid-for i3 and now makes monthly payments on a new Chevrolet Bolt.

At least Coleman knew he had a problem. But many consumers are unaware that their gadgets could stop working sometime next year — in some cases, as soon as February 22. That’s when AT&T, a major provider of network services for devices other than phones, plans to switch off its 3G system once and for all.

“There will be hundreds of thousands of seniors and millions of homes and businesses without security and fire protection, period, on February 23rd,” said Daniel Oppenheim, president of the Medical Alert Monitoring Association.

Oppenheim’s trade group, as well as a consortium of home security system makers and an organization of major automakers have all asked the Federal Communications Commission to delay AT&T’s 3G shutdown until December 31, 2022, the same date when Verizon will switch off its 3G service. They say this will give their industries enough time to complete the transition to 4G devices.

The nation’s third major wireless company, T-Mobile, has a much…

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John McAfee, Software Pioneer Turned American Fugitive, Dies In Spanish Prison



John McAfee in the main house of his property in Rodeo, N.M., on June 4, 2009. McAfee, the founder of the antivirus software maker bearing his name, died in a prison in Spain on Wednesday, June 23, 2021, the same day a Spanish court ruled that he could be extradited to the United States on tax-evasion charges. He was 75. Image: Chris Richards/The New York Times

John David McAfee, the founder of the antivirus software maker bearing his name, died in a prison in Spain on Wednesday, after a Spanish court said that he could be extradited to the United States on tax-evasion charges.
His death was confirmed by his lawyers. He was 75. 
After selling his pioneering virus-fighting firm in 1994 and losing most of his fortune during the 2008 financial crisis, McAfee led a peripatetic life that included a turn to paranoia and a string of arrests around the globe. That all culminated in his detention in Spain in 2020 after prosecutors in the United States accused him of not filing tax returns for several years. The indictment filed by the Justice Department said McAfee had earned millions from “promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary,” and had tried to avoid taxes by using cryptocurrency and channeling the money through bank accounts. He could have faced prison time if convicted. McAfee said he had been arrested despite paying “millions of dollars in taxes” and resisted extradition, claiming he faced political persecution for denouncing corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and opposing the fiat money system, in which central banks like the Federal Reserve control the money supply. But on Wednesday, the Spanish court released its decision to allow the Justice Department’s request to extradite him, saying there was “no supporting evidence that such a thing could be happening.” “The social, economic or any other relevance the defense claims the appellant possesses does not grant him any immunity,” the ruling stated. “When I heard of John’s impending extradition, my team was fully prepared to fight for his innocence…

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John McAfee, Software Pioneer Turned Fugitive, Dies in Spanish Prison


John David McAfee, the founder of the antivirus software maker bearing his name, died in a prison in Spain on Wednesday, the same day a Spanish court ruled that he could be extradited to the United States on tax-evasion charges.

His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Nishay K. Sanan. Mr. McAfee was 75.

Mr. McAfee was arrested in Spain in 2020 after prosecutors in the United States accused him of not filing tax returns from 2014 to 2018, even as he earned millions from “promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary,” according to an indictment filed by the Justice Department last year.

He had resisted extradition to the United States, claiming he faced political persecution by U.S. authorities in part because he opposed the fiat money system. But on Wednesday, the Spanish court said it would allow the Justice Department’s request to extradite him.

“The social, economic or any other relevance the defense claims the appellant possesses does not grant him any immunity,” the ruling stated. The court also said that, besides verbal allegations, there was “no revealing data or indication that Mr. McAfee could be subjected to any political persecution.”

Mr. McAfee was also at the center of a media frenzy in 2012 surrounding the death in Belize of a neighbor. He fled his home there after the police called him a “person of interest.”

McAfee, the software company that he founded, was once a household name in computer security. But it rose to prominence largely without Mr. McAfee, after he resigned from the company in 1994. Intel, the computer chip maker, bought the company in 2010 for $7.7 billion, then sold its majority stake to an investment firm six years later.

Before and after its purchase by Intel, the company tried to distance itself from Mr. McAfee. In 2014, Intel changed the company’s name to Intel Security, but it never completely shook its attachment to its founder and the brand he helped create.

In 2016, when Mr. McAfee tried to use the name with a new security company, Intel filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent him from doing so. Intel and Mr. McAfee settled the lawsuit, with Mr. McAfee…

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Dan Kaminsky, S.F. native and pioneer of internet security, dies at 42


Dan Kaminsky was an 11-year-old computer whiz working all night behind his bedroom door in St. Francis Wood when his mother, Trudy Maurer, got a phone call alerting her to what her son was up to.



Dan Kaminsky wearing a suit and tie standing in front of a building: Daniel Kaminsky at a computer convention in 2000.


© Angie Roberts

Daniel Kaminsky at a computer convention in 2000.


The call came from the internet administrator of the Western U.S., warning her that someone in the house was “looking around in places where he should not be looking,” specifically military sites, and that he should stop under threat of seeing the family connection shut down.

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Maurer responded with a threat of her own. She took out an ad in The Chronicle saying that “government security is so crappy, even an 11-year-old can break it.” They negotiated a three-day suspension of service, which drove Dan nuts. “He was infuriated that his rights were abrogated,” she said. “At 11 he knew the word abrogated.”

He also knew the word “cybersecurity,” and after that three-day suspension lifted, young Dan went on to prove that he could hack into any system, anywhere. He put that expertise to good use by becoming a preeminent expert in internet security. Kaminsky worked on contract for Microsoft, Google, Cisco and other big technology firms.

Kaminsky died April 23 at his home in San Francisco. The cause of death was diabetic ketoacidosis, said his aunt, Dr. Toby Maurer. He was 42.

“Most people in his profession are nerds,” his mother said, “but Dan was captain of his high school debate team and he could speak to people who knew nothing about cybersecurity in layman terms that they could understand.”

In a 2016 video on hacker history, Kaminsky said: “We made the internet less flammable. … The internet was never designed to be secure. The internet was designed to move pictures of cats. … We didn’t think you’d be moving trillions of dollars on this. What are we going to do? And here’s the answer: Some of us gotta go out and fix it.”

To do so, Kaminsky was perpetually on the road troubleshooting problems on computer networks all over the world. He’d return for a day or two and stay with his mother, then be gone again, sometimes with less than 24 hours’ notice….

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