Intel working with rivals to fix flaw


Chip-maker Intel has said it is working with other major tech firms to fix flaws that could allow hackers to steal personal data from computer systems.
The issue was originally linked to a flaw in Intel's chips, but the firm said this was "incorrect".
"Many types of computing devices - with many different vendors' processors and operating systems - are susceptible to these exploits," Intel said.
Google researchers first discovered the flaw last year.
Google said the problem affected the basic electronic systems behind many devices such as computers and mobile phones.
Microsoft and Apple - which both use Intel chips - are expected to roll out security updates soon.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said there was no evidence that the vulnerability had been exploited.
Intel said on Wednesday it had been working with other firms on an industry response for months.
On a conference call for investors, the firm said the researchers showed that hackers could exploit vulnerabilities, gaining the ability to read memory and potentially access information such as passwords or encryption keys.
Some fixes, in the form of things like software updates, have been introduced or will be available in the next few days; others will take longer.
The companies had planned to release a report on the issue later this month.
Presentational grey line

Analysis by Chris Foxx, technology reporter

Often when researchers discover a security problem, they share the information with the affected company so the issue can be fixed.
Typically, both parties agree not to publicise the problem until a fix has been implemented, so that criminals cannot take advantage of the issue.
This time it looks like somebody jumped the gun and information was leaked before a software fix was ready for distribution.
Intel said it had planned to share information next week, and several security researchers have tweeted that they have made a secrecy pact with the chip-maker.
That leaves the company in an uncomfortable situation, with a widely-publicised problem before the fix is ready to go.
Presentational grey line
The NCSC said it was aware of the reports of the potential flaw.
"The NCSC advises that all organisations and home users continue to protect their systems from threats by installing patches as soon as they become available."
Experts advised caution on the issue.
"It is significant but whether it will be exploited widely is another matter," said Prof Alan Woodward, from the University of Surrey.


10 explosive revelations from new Trump book


Donald Trump was "befuddled" by his election win, did not enjoy his inauguration and was scared of the White House, according to a new book.
Journalist Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House also purports to lift the lid on Ivanka Trump's secret presidential ambitions.
The book details Mr Trump's regard for media titan Rupert Murdoch, though the admiration was apparently not mutual.
Michael Wolff's book was reportedly based on more than 200 interviews.
But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the book was filled with "false and misleading accounts".
The author says he was able to take up "something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing" following the president's inauguration for a close-up insight into the administration.
Here are 10 of the book's revelations, with commentary from the BBC's Anthony Zurcher.

1. Bannon thought Don Jr meeting 'treasonous'

According to the book, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon thought a meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a group of Russians was "treasonous".
The Russians had offered Donald Trump Jr damaging information on Hillary Clinton at the June 2016 meeting.
Wolff writes that Bannon told him of the meeting:
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor - with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."
Bannon reportedly said the Justice Department investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow would focus on money laundering, adding: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
Anthony Zurcher: In just a few sentences, Bannon manages to detonate a bomb under the White House's efforts to downplay the significance of that fateful June meeting in Trump Tower and their attempt to dismiss Robert Mueller's inquiry as a partisan witchhunt. It's bad, Bannon is saying, and even more unforgivably it was stupid. Taking aim at Mr Trump's own family in the most personal terms makes it all the more biting.

2. Trump 'befuddled' by his victory

In an article for NYMag adapted from his book, Wolff describes the amazement - and dismay - in the Trump camp at his November 2016 election win.
"Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend - Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears - and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."
AZ: This is decidedly different from what has been recited by the Trump circle since election night. While campaign hands - at least the less-than-dedicated ones - may have been positioning themselves for a soft landing after a defeat, Mr Trump and his close allies believed in their success. A "horrified Trump" was never part of the script.

3. Trump 'angry' at inauguration

Wolff writes:
"Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He was angry that A-level stars had snubbed the event, disgruntled with the accommodations at Blair House, and visibly fighting with his wife, who seemed on the verge of tears. Throughout the day, he wore what some around him had taken to calling his golf face: angry and pissed off, shoulders hunched, arms swinging, brow furled, lips pursed."
But the first lady's office rejected the claims.
Communications director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement: "Mrs Trump supported her husband's decision to run for President and in fact, encouraged him to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he did."
AZ: These words tell the same story as the viral video clip of a stone-faced Melania forcing a smile when the president looks her way. It also explains why Mr Trump was so insistent about the success of his inauguration and the size of his crowds. He felt slighted and aggrieved and was acting accordingly.

4. Trump found White House 'scary'

Wolff writes:
"Trump, in fact, found the White House to be vexing and even a little scary. He retreated to his own bedroom - the first time since the Kennedy White House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms. In the first days, he ordered two television screens in addition to the one already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room."
AZ: For much of his adult life, Mr Trump has lived according to his own rules, as a real-estate tycoon whose wealth allowed his every whim or idiosyncrasy to be accommodated. Adjusting to the White House - which Bill Clinton once referred to as the "crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system" and Harry Truman called "the great white jail" - must have been quite a shock.

5. Ivanka hopes to be president

Mr Trump's daughter and her husband Jared Kushner allegedly struck a deal that she might run for president in future, according to Wolff:

"Balancing risk against reward, both Jared and Ivanka decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job. Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she'd be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump. Bannon, who had coined the term 'Jarvanka' that was now in ever greater use in the White House, was horrified when the couple's deal was reported to him."
AZ: The feud between Bannon and "Jarvanka" was no secret, and it certainly wasn't surprising. In a way, the couple represented to Bannon everything he's fighting against - East Coast elitism and entitlement. Yet, thanks to familial ties, they had the president's ear and apparently harboured dynastic hopes.

6. Ivanka mocks dad's 'comb-over'

The US first daughter poked fun at her father's alleged "scalp-reduction surgery", according to the book.
"She treated her father with a degree of detachment, even irony, going so far as to make fun of his comb-over to others. She often described the mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate - a contained island after scalp-reduction -surgery - surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray. The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a product called Just for Men - the longer it was left on, the darker it got. Impatience resulted in Trump's orange-blond hair color."
AZ: It wouldn't be particularly surprising if this is one of the anecdotes that Mr Trump finds most irksome. The president is proud of his hair, and once notably let late-night host Jimmy Fallon ruffle it to establish its authenticity. On windy days, Mr Trump usually wears a hat - the origin of the Make America Great Again ball cap - to ensure there are no coiffing malfunctions. The hair is as much a part of the Trump brand as big hotels and gold-plated escalators.

7. White House unsure of priorities

Katie Walsh, the White House deputy chief of staff, asked Mr Kushner, the president's senior adviser, what the administration wanted to achieve.
But according to the book, Mr Kushner did not have an answer.
"'Just give me the three things the president wants to focus on,' she [Katie Walsh] demanded. 'What are the three priorities of this White House?' It was the most basic question imaginable - one that any qualified presidential candidate would have answered long before he took up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Six weeks into Trump's presidency, Kushner was wholly without an answer. 'Yes,' he said to Walsh. 'We should probably have that conversation.'"
AZ: It often takes a new administration a bit of time to find its footing. In Mr Trump's case, the situation was particularly acute. Having campaigned on some clear policy items - strengthened borders, renegotiated trade deals, a sweeping tax cut and Obamacare repeal - prioritising was clearly a challenge. Once in the White House, he allowed Congress to kick off with healthcare reform, and the difficulties achieving that goal haunted the Trump presidency for nearly a year.

8. Trump's admiration for Murdoch

Wolff, who previously wrote a biography of Rupert Murdoch, describes Mr Trump's high regard for the News Corp media titan.
"Rupert Murdoch, who had promised to pay a call on the president-elect, was running late. When some of the guests made a move to leave, an increasingly agitated Trump assured them that Rupert was on his way. 'He's one of the greats, the last of the greats,' Trump said. 'You have to stay to see him.' Not grasping that he was now the most powerful man in the world, Trump was still trying mightily to curry favor with a media mogul who had long disdained him as a charlatan and fool."
AZ: During the campaign, Mr Trump had at times feuded with Murdoch's Fox News - fighting with presenter Megyn Kelly, boycotting the network and skipping a Fox-broadcast primary debate. The president, however, is Fox News' biggest fan - and the network has become his greatest advocate since his inauguration.

9. Murdoch calls Trump 'idiot'

But the admiration was not mutual, according to Wolff's account of a call between Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump about the president's meeting with Silicon Valley executives.
Mr Trump is said to have told Mr Murdoch:
"'These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.' 'Donald,' said Murdoch, 'for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don't need your help.'
'Take this H-1B visa issue. They really need these H-1B visas.'Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B visas, which open America's doors to select immigrants, might be hard to square with his promises to build a wall and close the borders. But Trump seemed unconcerned, assuring Murdoch, 'We'll figure it out.' 'What a f****** idiot,' said Murdoch, shrugging, as he got off the phone."
AZ: There's sometimes been a disconnect between Mr Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric and his action as a businessman, where his companies often relied on immigrant labour. Perhaps the president-elect was reflecting his business sensibilities. Or maybe, in this case, he was simply echoing the opinion of the last group of people who had met with him - a criticism that has been lobbed his way on more than one occasion.

10. Flynn knew Russia ties 'a problem'

Former US National Security Adviser Mike Flynn knew that accepting money from Moscow for a speech could come back to haunt him, according to the book.
Wolff writes that before the election Mr Flynn "had been told by friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. 'Well it would only be a problem if we won,' he assured them."
Mr Flynn has been indicted in the Justice Department special counsel's inquiry.
AZ: Like Paul Manafort, Flynn was one of the members of the Trump campaign's inner circle whose prior affairs were not ordered in a way that would, shall we say, stand up to close legal scrutiny. If Mr Trump had been defeated, that probably wouldn't have mattered. Like the protaganists in the film The Producers, however, their success was their undoing.


Ex-aide Bannon has lost his mind - Trump


Former White House aide Steve Bannon "lost his mind" after he lost his job at the White House, US President Donald Trump has said.
The president disavowed Mr Bannon after he was quoted in a new book describing a meeting between Mr Trump's son and a group of Russians as "treasonous".
The Russians had offered Donald Trump Jr damaging information on Hillary Clinton at the June 2016 meeting.
Mr Bannon's quote appears in a new book by journalist Michael Wolff.
"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Mr Trump said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party," he continued.
"Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country."
Mr Bannon, the president's former chief strategist, was considered a key player in the Trump White House and helped shape Mr Trump's "America First" campaign message before he left his post in August.
He returned to his role as the head of the right-wing Breitbart News website, where he said he planned to help Mr Trump's administration as a "wingman outside".
Mr Trump reportedly spoke to Mr Bannon as recently as 13 December, the day of the special US Senate election in Alabama that saw the defeat of Republican Roy Moore, whom Mr Bannon supported.
The president reportedly spoke to his former chief strategist for 15 minutes, according to the New York Times.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said she believed Mr Trump's last conversation with Mr Bannon took place "in the early part of December".
The president's comments came hours after the explosive new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, revealed that Mr Bannon called Mr Trump Jr's meeting "treasonous" and "unpatriotic".
Speaking to the author, Mr Bannon said of the investigation into whether there was any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
Mr Wolff's book also alleges that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told Mr Trump during a meeting last February that the British intelligence services may have been spying on him and his campaign, according to a report in The Times newspaper.
In March the then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer told journalists UK intelligence services could have been involved in an alleged spying operation on Trump Tower in New York. GCHQ said the allegation was "nonsense".
The Times says Mr Blair was hoping to get a job advising Mr Trump on the Middle East. A spokeswoman for Mr Blair told The Times that the allegations were a "total fabrication" and said Mr Blair had not suggested himself as Mr Trump's Middle East envoy.

An inevitable break-up

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington
Donald Trump swept to the presidency in part on the back of Steve Bannon and his Breitbart conservative media empire. Now we will see how he fares when he's at war with them.
The president's blistering reply to Mr Bannon's comments appears to indicate that the bridge between the politician and his ideological spirit guide has been reduced to cinders. But how will Mr Trump's legion of supporters react? It is never wise to underestimate their dedication to the man himself, above all else.
No matter the outcome of this coming battle, this has to be viewed as a devastating failure for Mr Bannon personally. After spending years advocating for an anti-establishment conservative populism, he finally had a seat in the halls of power. He said in early 2017 that his goal was nothing short of the "deconstruction of the administrative state".
Now he is on the outside again, besieged by long-time antagonists and former allies. His president recently signed a tax bill embraced by corporate interests. His first post-2016 foray into elective politics, the Alabama Senate race, ended in humiliating defeat.
Perhaps, given all this, the Bannon-Trump feud was as inevitable as it is certain to be vicious.

Emails show Mr Trump Jr agreed to meet Russian associates in June 2016 on the premise that they had damaging information against his father's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. The meeting was also attended by Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and aide, and then campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Mr Bannon reportedly told Mr Wolff that the three senior campaign officials "should have called the FBI immediately" after the meeting, according to US media reports.
The Senate, House of Representatives and a special counsel are all investigating alleged Russian interference in the presidential election and alleged attempts to undermine Mrs Clinton - a claim denied by the Kremlin. Mr Trump has also vehemently denied any collusion.
Mrs Sanders described the book as "filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House".
"Participating in a book that can only be described as a trashy tabloid fiction exposes their sad desperate attempts at relevancy".


Trump blasts Pakistan 'deceit' in first tweet of the year


President Donald Trump has accused Pakistan of lying and deceiving the United States while receiving billions of dollars in foreign aid.
In his first tweet of the year, he also alleged Pakistan harboured terrorists.
Pakistan reacted angrily to the tweet, saying all the funding was accounted for and that Mr Trump was bitter due to the "US defeat in Afghanistan".
The US is considering withholding more than $250m (£185m) in aid that it delayed sending to Islamabad in August.
The move is being considered due to Pakistan's perceived failure to crack down more effectively on terror groups, The New York Times reports.
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools," Mr Trump wrote.
He added: "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif told Pakistan's Geo TV: "We have already told the US that we will not do more, so Trump's 'no more' does not hold any importance,"Pakistan is ready to publicly provide every detail of the US aid that it has received."‏
US Ambassador to Pakistan David Hale was summoned to the foreign officeon Monday to hear a protest over Mr Trump's tweet.
Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan tweeted that the US had given Pakistan "nothing but invective & mistrust".
Mr Trump has criticised Pakistan for offering a "safe haven" to terrorists in the past.
In a speech in August, he said: "We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting."
"It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilisation, order, and to peace", he added.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also put pressure on Pakistan over its perceived backing for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The US is a key ally to the country, which enjoys a special status as a non-Nato alliance partner.
But Mr Tillerson has said aid funding "could be on the table for discussion if in fact they are unwilling to change their posture or change their approach to how they are dealing with the numerous terrorist organisations that find safe haven in Pakistan".
Pakistan has already had millions of dollars of US aid withheld for allegedly not taking enough action against the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.
The New York Times said US officials had been denied access to a member of the organisation who they believed could help with information on an American hostage.
The Afghan Ambassador to the US Hamdullah Mohib and former Afghan President Hamid Karzai both welcomed Mr Trump's latest tweet.
Mr Karzai said the tweet "on Pakistan's duplicitous position over the past 15 years is vindication that the war on terror is not in bombing Afghan villages and homes but in the sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan".

Apple to scan iPhones for child sex abuse images

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