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Nov 27

Criminals Are Using Airbnb To Launder Their Money

The concept behind Airbnb is wonderful, where people can rent out their homes on a short-term basis for travellers who might not have the budget for a hotel. Unfortunately it seems that Airbnb’s system has been abused by criminals as a channel for their money laundering efforts, according to a report from The Daily Beast.

Basically how it works is that through the use of stolen credit cards, these scammers will seek out willing Airbnb hosts on forums. From there these scammers will making bookings through the host and make payments without actually living them, with the host then sending back a percentage of their profits in the process.

As The Daily Beast points out, this is similar to how stolen credit cards are used to purchase high value items such as iPhones, before reselling them and turning the stolen credit card funds into legitimate forms of money. The report goes on to add that some of these scammers do it more than once, with some posts on the forums seeking for long-term arrangements where they could launder as much as $1,000 to $3,000 at a time.

In a statement provided to The Daily Beast, Nick Shapiro, Airbnb’s global head of trust and risk management said, “We have a real-time detection system that scores each and every Airbnb reservation ahead of time for risk. Using machine learning and predictive analytics, models instantly evaluate hundreds of signals to flag and then stop any suspicious activity.”

He also adds, “When we are made aware of suspicious credit-card activity, we employ micro authorization friction and 3D-Secure to verify if a credit card is being used by its owner and assess the level of risk associated with a transaction.”

Criminals Are Using Airbnb To Launder Their Money , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Nov 27

14-Year Old Sued By Game Developer For Cheating

Posted in: Today's Chili

Nobody likes cheaters, which is why pretty much all games come with anti-cheating measures put into place, or have strict rules where cheaters are banned from playing the game. However could cheating be so bad to the point where developers see the need to sue their gamers because of it? Turns out for Epic Games, the answer is yes.

The developer behind Fortnite has recently sued two gamers for cheating, one of them being a 14-year old teen which has since raised a fair amount of eyebrows as it does seem a bit harsh. The gamers who are being sued are being accused of using an aimbot, but apparently they did more than just cheat and Epic is claiming that they also offered their support for the service and also helped to stream snipe popular Twitch broadcasters.

For those unfamiliar with stream sniping, it’s basically where gamers watch the live stream of another game on a platform like Twitch, and based on that they can deduce the player’s location and track them down and kill them, which obviously is frustrating when you’re playing FPS games and having the element of surprise is one of the keys to victory.

However the 14-year old’s mother is contesting the lawsuit and is claiming that Epic is using them as scapegoats. In a statement provided by Epic to Kotaku, “Epic is not okay with ongoing cheating or copyright infringement from anyone at any age. As stated previously, we take cheating seriously, and we’ll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players.”

This is not the first time we’re seeing lawsuits filed for cheating, although usually the lawsuits are aimed more towards the creators of those cheats, like when Riot sued the developers behind a League of Legends cheat, or when Blizzard sued the creators behind botting software used in its games.

14-Year Old Sued By Game Developer For Cheating , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Nov 27

Switch Could Command 40% Market Share If Pokemon Releases In 2018

Posted in: Today's Chili

Earlier this year during E3 2017, it was confirmed that a new Pokemon RPG was being developed for the Nintendo Switch. No doubt this is pretty exciting news for gamers and Pokemon fans who probably relish the idea of playing the game on the Switch at home and on the go.

However fans and gamers aren’t the only ones excited about the prospect. NPD analyst Mat Piscatella also seems to be pretty excited at the idea, where in a series of posts made on the ResetEra forums (via DualShockers), he claims that if Pokemon for the Switch were to be released next year, it could easily see Nintendo claim as much as 40% of the console hardware market.

Piscatella was quoted as saying, “If Pokemon comes next year I can easily see Switch outpacing Wii and taking 40+ share of the hardware market next year.” Note that as it stands there is still no release date for Pokemon on the Switch. Last we heard, 2018 is probably the earliest we might be able to expect it, and that it could actually be launched later than that.

Whether or not it will actually allow Nintendo to gain a 40% market share remains to be seen, but given the frenzy we’ve seen with the release of Pokemon GO, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Pokemon RPG release on the Switch had a significant and positive effect on the Switch console.

Switch Could Command 40% Market Share If Pokemon Releases In 2018 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Nov 27

Unlocked HTC U11 To Receive Android 8.0 Oreo Update Today

Posted in: Today's Chili

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that the HTC U11 in Taiwan had begun to receive its Android 8.0 Oreo update. Presumably this meant that the update is ready for the phone, and that the HTC U11 in other markets would eventually receive their update as well, and the good news is that you won’t have to wait much longer.

In a tweet by HTC’s VP of Product Management Mo Verse, he has confirmed that the Oreo update for the unlocked HTC U11 handsets will be available starting Monday, the 27th of November, which is today. This means that if you own the unlocked version of the phone then you should be able to start updating your phone today.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. The Oreo OS update will be available for download on the HTC u11 unlocked version starting on Monday! Enjoy!
— Mo Versi (@moversi) November 25, 2017

Versi’s tweet reads, “Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. The Oreo OS update will be available for download on the HTC u11 unlocked version starting on Monday! Enjoy!” Note that this is for the unlocked version of the HTC U11. This means that those of you who own the carrier-locked version of the phone will have to wait as the update will need to be approved (and maybe modified a little) by carriers before being released.

There’s no word on when that will be, but as was with the case in Taiwan, presumably the update for carrier-locked HTC U11’s shouldn’t be too far behind given that the update has already begun rolling out.

Unlocked HTC U11 To Receive Android 8.0 Oreo Update Today , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.