Technology

This pilot fish is paying his monthly bills online when he discovers one of his utilities has changed the payment part of its website -- a lot.

"I clicked on the 'Payment' button, and saw that I now had the option of paying with or without logging in," says fish.

"OK, the no-login option could be handy, but I've been paying this bill online for years, so I clicked on the login option. It asked me for my user name and eight-digit PIN. What PIN I have a long, secure password. I tried that. It didn't work."

And after several unsuccessful attempts, fish tries the no-login version -- which just takes him to the same screen asking his PIN.

Apple Watch is no longer a rich boytoy or an accessory for Kool Aid-drinking hipsters — ita device you&ll want to give to people you love because you want to protect them. This new status means it has reached a significant inflection point, becoming an essential tool for better healthcare.

What has Apple done here

Among a raft of improvements to the product (many of which had been predicted), Apple introduced critical heart- and health-related features for Apple Watch Series 4:

Fake social media profiles are useful for more than just sowing political discord among foreign adversaries, as it turns out. A group linked to the North Korean government has been able to duck existing sanctions on the country by concealing its true identity and developing software for clients abroad.

This week, the US Treasury issued sanctions against two tech companies accused of running cash-generating front operations for North Korea: Yanbian Silverstar Network Technology or &China Silver Star,& based near Shenyang, China, and a Russian sister company called Volasys Silver Star. The Treasury also sanctioned China Silver StarNorth Korean CEO Jong Song Hwa.

&These actions are intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas information technology workers disguising their true identities and hiding behind front companies, aliases, and third-party nationals,& Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said of the sanctions.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in a follow-up story, North Korean operatives advertised with Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, solicited business with Freelance.com and Upwork, crafted software using Github, communicated over Slack and accepted compensation with Paypal. The country appears to be encountering little resistance putting tech platforms built by US companies to work building software including &mobile games, apps, [and] bots& for unwitting clients abroad.

The US Treasury issued its first warnings of secret North Korean software development scheme in July, though did not provide many details at the time. The Wall Street Journal was able to identify &tens of thousands& of dollars stemming from the Chinese front company, though thatonly a representative sample. The company worked as a middleman, contracting its work out to software developers around the globe and then denying payment for their services.

Facebook suspended many suspicious accounts linked to the scheme after they were identified by the Wall Street Journal, including one for &Everyday-Dude.com&:

&A Facebook page for Everyday-Dude.com, showing packages with hundreds of programs, was taken down minutes later as a reporter was viewing it. Pages of some of the accountmore than 1,000 Facebook friends also subsequently disappeared…

&[Facebook] suspended numerous North Korea-linked accounts identified by the Journal, including one that Facebook said appeared not to belong to a real person. After it closed that account, another profile, with identical friends and photos, soon popped up.&

Linkedin and Upwork similarly removed accounts linked to the North Korean operations.

Beyond the consequences for international relations, software surreptitiously sold by the North Korean government poses considerable security risks. According to the Treasury, the North Korean government makes money off of a &range of IT services and products abroad& including &website and app development, security software, and biometric identification software that have military and law enforcement applications.& For companies unwittingly buying North Korea-made software, the potential for malware that could give the isolated nation eyes and ears beyond its borders is high,particularly given that the country has already demonstrated its offensive cyber capabilities.

Between that and sanctions against doing business with the country, Mnuchin urges the information technology industry and other businesses to exercise awareness of the ongoing scheme to avoid accidentally contracting with North Korea on tech-related projects.