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In an attempt to catch two cybercriminals, the FBI set up a fake FedEx website and created rigged Word documents, "both of which were designed to reveal the IP address of the fraudsters," reports Motherboard. From the report: The first case centers around Gorbel, a cranes and ergonomic lifting manufacturing company headquartered in Fishers, New York, according to court records. Here, the cybercriminals used a long, potentially confusing and official looking email address to pose as the company's CEO Brian Reh, and emailed the accounts team asking for payment for a new vendor. The fraudsters provided a W9 form of a particular company, and the finance department mailed a check for over $82,000. Gorbel noticed the fraudulent transaction, and brought in the FBI in July. Shortly after, Gorbel received other emails pretending to be Reh, asking for another transfer. This time, the finance department and FBI were ready. The FBI created a fake FedEx website and sent that to the target, in the hope it would capture the hacker's IP address, according to court records. The FBI even concocted a fake "Access Denied, This website does not allow proxy connections" page in order to entice the cybercriminal to connect from an identifiable address.

That FedEx unmasking attempt was not successful, it seems -- the cybercriminal checked the link from six different IP addresses, some including proxies -- and the FBI moved on to use a network investigative technique, or NIT, instead. NIT is an umbrella term the FBI uses for a variety of hacking approaches. The FBI attempted to locate the cybercriminals with a Word document containing an image that would connect to the FBI server and reveal the target's IP address, according to court records. The image was a screenshot of a FedEx tracking portal for a sent payment, the court records add. Motherboard also details the second case that occurred in August 2017, where a business in the Western District of New York received an email claiming to be from Invermar, a Chilean seafood vendor and one of the company's suppliers, according to court records: This email, posing as a known employee of Invermar, asked the victim to send funds to a new bank account. Whereas the legitimate Invermar domain ends with a .cl suffix, the hackers used one ending in .us. The business the hackers targeted apparently didn't notice the different suffix, and over the course of September and October wire transferred around $1.2 million to the cybercriminals, with the victim eventually able to recover $300,000 (the court documents don't specify how exactly, although a charge back seems likely). To determine where this criminal was located, the FBI also decided to deploy a NIT.

"The FBI will provide an email attachment to the victim which will be used to pose as a form to be filled out by the TARGET USER for future payment from the VICTIM," one court record reads. The NIT required the target to exit "protected mode," a setting in Microsoft Word that stops documents from connecting to the internet. The warrant application says the government does not believe it needs a warrant to send a target an embedded image, but out of an abundance of caution, added to the fact that the target will need to deliberately exit protected mode, the FBI applied for one anyway. Both NITs were designed to only obtain a target's IP address and User Agent String, according to the warrant applications. A User Agent String can reveal what operating system a target is using. Although signed by two different FBI Special Agents, both of the NIT warrant applications come out of the Cyber Squad, Buffalo Division, in Rochester, New York.

Mark Wilson writes: Ads in your inbox. Sounds like something you'd expect from the likes of Google or Yahoo, but Microsoft appears to be about to get in on the act as well. And we're not talking about online ads in your Outlook.com account -- we're talking about ads in the Mail app that's included with Windows 10. A new report says that Microsoft is currently testing ads with Windows Insiders, so it could be just a matter of time before they spread wider. In a support page, spotted first by news outlet Thurrott, Microsoft says, "Consistent with consumer email apps and services like Outlook.com, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail, advertising allows us to provide, support, and improve some of our products. We're always experimenting with new features and experiences. Currently, we have a pilot running in Brazil, Canada, Australia, and India to get user feedback on ads in Mail."

Update: ZDNet reports that Calendar app for Windows 10 is getting the same treatment.

New submitter jishak writes: I am a long time Slashdot reader who has been serving on an homeowner association (HOA) board for 7 years. Much of the job requires managing projects that happen around the community. For example, landscaping, plumbing, building maintenance, etc. Pretty much all the vendors work with paper or a management company scans the paper, giving us a digital version. I am looking for suggestions on tools to visualize and manage projects using maps/geolocation software to see where jobs are happening and track work, if that makes sense. I did a rudimentary search but didn't really find anything other than a couple of companies who make map software which is good for placing static items like a building on a map but not for ongoing work. There are tools like Visio or Autodesk, which are expensive and good for a single building, but they don't seem so practical for an entire community of 80 units with very little funds (I am a volunteer board member). The other software packages I have seen are more like general project management or CRM tools but they are of no use to track where trees are planted, which units have had termite inspections, etc.

I am looking for tools where I could see a map and add custom layers for different projects that can be enabled/disabled or show historical changes. If it is web based and can be shared for use among other board members, property managers, and vendors, or viewable on a phone or tablet, that would be a plus. I am not sure how to proceed and a quick search on Slashdot didn't really turn anything up. I can't be the first person to encounter this type of problem. Readers of Slashdot what do you recommend? If I go down the road of having to roll my own solution, can you offer ideas on how to implement it? I am open to suggestions.

Microsoft and LinkedIn have launched their Resume Assistant, a Word-integrated tool that aims to help you write your resume by suggesting work experience descriptions pulled from similar LinkedIn profiles and requirements from real job postings. "The feature is available to Microsoft Office 365 subscribers, but one does not need a LinkedIn account to use it," reports Quartz. From the report: What's more, when you're done, Resume Assistant promises to "surface relevant job opportunities for you directly within Microsoft Word." The tool is the newest product to come out of Microsoft's takeover of LinkedIn, the high price of which raised more questions than it answered. Industry analysts speculated that Microsoft might have more up its sleeve than just trying to snag more users -- offering companies an entire hiring, learning, and training package, perhaps.

Paul Thurrott, writing for Thurrott.com: A support document describing new premium Outlook.com features for Office 365 subscribers hides the real story today: Microsoft just killed Outlook.com Premium. I wrote earlier about how Microsoft was bringing some Outlook.com Premium features, like an ad-free inbox, to Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers. That's great news, of course. But a related support document buries the lede. "The Outlook.com Premium standalone offering is now closed to new subscribers," the support document notes. "Current subscribers can renew their subscriptions to continue receiving subscription benefits." Yikes. There's also a link to another support document that continues this conversation. But there really isn't much more to say. If you're already using Outlook.com Premium, you can continue to do so. And for now, at least, you can even renew the subscription and keep using its unique features, like custom domain support.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is still encouraging businesses to rent their Office software, according to TechRadar. "In a bid to further persuade users of the standalone versions of Office to shift over to a cloud subscription (Office 365), Microsoft has announced that those who made a one-off purchase of an Office product will no longer get access to the business flavours of OneDrive and Skype come the end of the decade." PC World explains that in reality this affects very few users. "If you've been saving all of your Excel spreadsheets into your OneDrive for Business cloud, you'll need to download and move them over to a personal subscription -- or pony up for Office 365, as Microsoft really wants you to do."

Microsoft is claiming that when customers connect to Office 365 services using a legacy version of Office, "they're not enjoying all that the service has to offer. The IT security and reliability benefits and end user experiences in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time. To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements." And in another blog post, they're almost daring people to switch to Linux. "Providing over three years advance notice for this change to Office 365 system requirements for client connectivity gives you time to review your long-term desktop strategy, budget and plan for any change to your environment."
In a follow-up comment, Microsoft's Alistair Speirs explained that "There is still an option to get monthly desktop updates, but we are changing the 3x a year update channel to be 2x a year to align closer to Windows 10 update model. We are trying to strike the right balance between agile, ship-when-ready updates and enterprise needs of predictability, reliability and advanced notice to validate and prepare."

New submitter Miche67 writes: As part of the July 2016 update to Office 365, Microsoft is adding several features across the board to Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. Word, however, is getting the biggest new features -- Researcher and Editor -- to improve your writing. "As its name implies, Researcher is designed to help the user find reliable sources of information by using the Bing Knowledge Graph to search for sources, and it will properly cite them in the Word document," reports Network World. "[Editor] builds on the already-existing spellchecker and thesaurus to offer suggestions on how to improve your overall writing. In addition to the wavy red line under a misspelled word and the wavy blue line under bad grammar, there will be a gold line for writing style." The new features are expected to be available later this year. In addition to the two new features added to PowerPoint last year -- Designer and Morph, Microsoft is offering Zoom, a feature that lets you easily create "interactive, non-linear presentations." "Instead of the 1-2-3-4 linear method of presenting slides, forcing you to place them all in the order you wish to display, presenters will be able to show their slides in any order they want at any time," reports Network World. "This way you can change your presentation order as needed without having to stop PowerPoint or interrupt the display." As for Outlook, Focused Inbox is coming to Office 365. Focused Inbox separates your inbox into two tabs. The "Focused" tab is where all of your high-priority emails will be found, while everything else will be in the "Other" tab. Outlook will learn from your behavior over time and sort your mail accordingly. In addition, @mentions are coming to Outlook 365 and Outlook for PC and Mac, "making it easy to identify emails that need your attention, as well as flag actions for others."

An anonymous reader writes: "Windows Live Mail 2012 users are on notice: Switch to a modern email client or lose access to any Microsoft email accounts they have," reports InfoWorld. In a Thursday blog post, Microsoft informed users of their Windows Live Mail software that "the time has come for you to upgrade to a new email application." Outlook.com is moving to a new Office 365 infrastructure which uses protocols not supported by Windows Live Mail, meaning its users "will not be able to send or receive Outlook.com email from Windows Live Mail 2012 after your account is upgraded." InfoWorld points out this affects users with email addresses ending with @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com.

The Outlook team's corporate vice president posted on the Office.com blog that "We recognize that changes like this can be difficult and apologize for any inconvenience this causes you..." adding that "we are confident that you will love the benefits and performance of the new Outlook.com," and recommending users switch to the Mail app on Windows. The Inquirer reports that Microsoft also emailed the software's users, suggesting that "If you are using Windows 7, you can upgrade to a newer version of Windows to enjoy the Mail app and the other benefits."

jones_supa writes: Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next release of the company's leading office suite, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. At Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has now been released as well. Office 2016 comes with a range of new features that build upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. So called Smart Applications extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning. Anyone can start testing the free Office 2016 Preview right now. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving open feedback on the product.

theodp writes: "At edX," explains the upscale MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard, "we believe in offering the highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share our commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom." You know, like Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure (course trailer). On Tuesday, edX welcomed Microsoft as its first corporate member to offer MOOCs on edX.org. "Through this program," said edX, "Microsoft will offer the edX global learning community courses to acquire the core development skills needed to be successful in the cloud-first, mobile-first world." The new initiative, explained Microsoft, expands upon an existing Microsoft partnership with edX to create interactive online courses using Office Mix and PowerPoint 2013. Classes start March 31st.

theodp writes: "At edX," explains the upscale MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard, "we believe in offering the highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share our commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom." You know, like Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure (course trailer). On Tuesday, edX welcomed Microsoft as its first corporate member to offer MOOCs on edX.org. "Through this program," said edX, "Microsoft will offer the edX global learning community courses to acquire the core development skills needed to be successful in the cloud-first, mobile-first world." The new initiative, explained Microsoft, expands upon an existing Microsoft partnership with edX to create interactive online courses using Office Mix and PowerPoint 2013. Classes start March 31st.

An anonymous reader writes At its Windows 10 event yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the touch-optimized version of Office. Today, the company offered more details about that version, and then snuck in another announcement: the next desktop version is under development, it is called Office 2016, and it will be generally available "in the second half of 2015." Office for Windows 10 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook), meanwhile, is also slated to arrive later this year, though Microsoft has shared more about it and plans to offer a preview in the coming weeks. These new Office apps will be pre-installed (they will be free) on smartphones and small tablets running Windows 10. They will also be available to download from the Windows Store for other devices.

theodp (442580) writes "While they aim to democratize learning, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) movement has, for the most part, oddly left K-12 teachers out of the online content creation business. ZDNet's Simon Bisson reports on Office Mix, Microsoft's new PowerPoint plug-in and associated cloud service, which Bisson says makes it easy to create and distribute compelling educational content (screenshots). GeekWire's Frank Catalano also makes an interesting case for why Office Mix's choice of PowerPoint, "the poster child for delivering boring presentations in non-interactive settings," could still be a disrupter in the online content creation space. By the way, MOOC.org, the collaboration of edX and Google which also aims to help "teachers easily build and host courses for the world to take," is slated to go live in the first half of 2014. It'll be interesting to see how MOOC.org's authoring tools differ from Google Research's Course Builder effort."

SmartAboutThings (1951032) writes "While we are still waiting for the official Windows 8.1 touch-enabled apps to get launched on the Windows Store, Microsoft went and decided that it's time to finally bring the Office online apps to the Chrome Web Store, instead. Thus, Microsoft is making the Web versions of its Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote apps available to users through the Chrome Web Store and also improving all of them with new features, along with several bug fixes and performance improvements." More on the Microsoft front: an anonymous reader wrote in with a link to Ars Technica's review of the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 release: "It is a major platform update even if it is just a .1 release. Updates include the debut of Cortana, using the same kernel as Windows 8.1 and the Xbox One, a notebook reminder app, inner circle friend management, IE 11, Nokia's camera app by default, lock screen and background customizations, a much improved email client with calendar support, more general Windows 8.1 API inclusion for better portability, and a notification center. Ars rated it more of a Windows Phone 9 release than .1 update."

jones_supa writes "While service packs are out of style for the Windows operating system, Microsoft has pushed out another service pack (SP2) for both Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 products. According to the company, they provide key updates and fixes across servers, services and applications including security, stability, and performance enhancements and better compatibility with Windows 8, Internet Explorer 10, Office 2013, and SharePoint 2013. The updates are available through Windows Update and as separate downloads."

New submitter gewalker writes "Bowing to significant unfriendly customer feedback regarding its new 'no transfer' license for Office 2013, Microsoft has reconsidered and will now allow Office 2013 licenses to be transferred between computers. Actual license language will not be reflected for a few months for shipped products, but Microsoft will allow transfer of license effective immediately. Calls to customer support will be necessary, as the activation servers won't be updated for a few months."

An anonymous reader writes "Ars reports that Microsoft has announced pricing plans for Office 2013 that include a subscription-based model for home users. There will be a $100/year Home version that can be shared by up to 5 users and a $150/year Small Business version. 'Subscription software of one form or another has proven popular in the enterprise (whether it be cloud services, like Office 365, or subscriptions to desktop software, such as Microsoft's Software Assurance scheme). But so far it's a rarity in the consumer space. Anti-virus software has tried to bully and cajole users into getting aboard the subscription train, but the large number of users with out-of-date anti-viral protection suggests users are resisting. ... As another incentive to subscribe, and one that might leave a bad taste in the mouth, the company says that subscribers will be given unspecified "updates" to add new features and capabilities over the life of their subscription. Perpetual licensees will only get bug fixes and security updates.'"

Andy Updegrove writes "Between 2005 and 2008, an unparalleled standards war was waged between Microsoft, on the one hand, and IBM, Google, Oracle and additional companies on the other. At the heart of the battle were two document formats, one called ODF, developed by OASIS, a standards development consortium, and Open XML, a specification developed by Microsoft. Both were submitted to, and adopted by, global standards groups ISO/IEC. But then Microsoft never fully adopted its own standard. Instead, it implemented what it called 'Transitional Open XML,' which was better adapted for use in connection with documents created using older versions of Office. Yesterday, Microsoft announced in a blog entry that it will finally make it possible for Office users to open, edit and save documents in the format that ISO/IEC approved."

New submitter faraway writes "Microsoft has just unveiled Outlook.com, the planned successor to Hotmail.com. It includes a lot of what you'd expect from email today, including storage (images, data), a calendar, integration with other Microsoft tools, and of course a clean UI. According to ZDNet, 'Outlook.com is integrated with Windows and Office, and can pull in Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and LinkedIn contacts. The new mail client has the Metro look and feel. And it is providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them.'"

Nerval's Lobster writes "In a bid to expand the reach of its cloud services, Microsoft has introduced Office 365 for Government, which features the same cloud-based productivity tools as Office 365 but stores data in a segregated community cloud. Google and Microsoft have been locked in vicious battle over the past few years to score cloud contracts for government agencies. Microsoft hopes its support of standards such as ISO 27001, SAS70 Type II, HIPAA, FERPA, and FISMA will help to give it an edge in winning those contracts."