Feds: Iranian hackers compromised more than 8,000 academic email accounts

March 23, 2018, 4:19 am

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The Justice Department released an indictment Friday accusing nine Iranians of taking part in a massive hacking campaign targeting hundreds of universities around the world, as well as 30 U.S. companies, the United Nations, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The suspects, who also face financial sanctions from the Treasury Department, allegedly worked with a …

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The Justice Department released an indictment Friday accusing nine Iranians of taking part in a massive hacking campaign targeting hundreds of universities around the world, as well as 30 U.S. companies, the United Nations, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

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Here’s how to see if Facebook knows who you’ve called and texted

March 26, 2018, 1:20 am

≫ Next: Did police use an anti-drone gun at the Commonwealth Games? Not exactly

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If you’re using Facebook’s Messenger app today, it may have asked you for permission to track “your call and text history” to help “friends find each other on Facebook.” But Ars Technica reports that on earlier editions of Android, prior to version 4.1, Facebook’s apps were able to gather that data without explicitly asking for …

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If you’re using Facebook’s Messenger app today, it may have asked you for permission to track “your call and text history” to help “friends find each other on Facebook.”

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Did police use an anti-drone gun at the Commonwealth Games? Not exactly

March 27, 2018, 6:25 am

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Australian police officers detected a drone flying near the Commonwealth Games Athletes Village in Gold Coast, Queensland, on Sunday. And, according to a number of reports, they used a device called a DroneGun, made by Sydney-based DroneShield, to disrupt the radio signals between the drone and its operator, forcing the device to land. But police have …

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Australian police officers detected a drone flying near the Commonwealth Games Athletes Village in Gold Coast, Queensland, on Sunday. And, according to a number of reports, they used a device called a DroneGun, made by Sydney-based DroneShield, to disrupt the radio signals between the drone and its operator, forcing the device to land.

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Exclusive: Facebook’s leadership sinks over 20 points in corporate reputation poll

March 27, 2018, 11:01 am

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Facebook’s reputation has fallen dramatically over the past few months, as the company grapples with scandals involving unauthorized data use by Cambridge Analytica, according to new data from The Harris Poll. In an annual survey called the Reputation Quotient administered most recently in December and January, 45% of participants said Facebook had a positive reputation. …

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Facebook’s reputation has fallen dramatically over the past few months, as the company grapples with scandals involving unauthorized data use by Cambridge Analytica, according to new data from The Harris Poll.

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Why You Could Soon Be Voting In A Blockchain-Powered Election

March 28, 2018, 4:30 am

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Representatives served as international observers in the country’s election, but some felt they exaggerated their role for their own benefit.

Could blockchain technology be the key to ensuring the integrity of the democratic process? A recent blockchain project aiming to replace cumbersome voting technology around the world got its first test in this month’s presidential election in Sierra Leone. Though the experiment had a shaky debut, amid accusations that the role of the technology was exaggerated, its potential benefits are impressive and it seems clear that we can expect to see plenty of future elections using blockchain.

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Before Social Media, Hate Speech And Propaganda Spread By Phone

April 2, 2018, 2:20 am

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“Dial-a-hate” lines drew condemnation and stirred debate in the 1960s and 1970s, decades before social media.

Attracting fans from the far right and simply the curious, their messages condemned prominent politicians and federal programs, warned of gun control conspiracies, and even propagated racial hatred. Some messages warned that the Peace Corps is “an anti-American brainwashing operation” and condemned new curriculum standards as “a tragic plan to destroy the American intellect.” And even as they were denounced by Congress and editorial pages around the country, regulators and telecom companies said there was little they could do to silence the messages, since they were neither obscene nor defamatory to any particular person.

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Can New Forensic Tech Win War On AI-Generated Fake Images?

April 3, 2018, 11:00 pm

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As AI makes video manipulation easier, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency scientists race to develop tools to detect what’s real and what’s not.

For gun lovers, the image was red meat: A Parkland school shooting survivor tearing the U.S. Constitution in two. It fed the NRA-fueled hysteria that, somehow, calling for tighter restrictions on assault weapons used in mass murders is a threat to the Second Amendment. The GIF went viral last week and conservatives went bonkers.

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Twitter bots are getting busy making sure your tweet goes viral

April 9, 2018, 4:35 am

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About two-thirds of tweeted links to popular websites are posted by bots, not actual humans, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. For adult sites, that number rises to 90%, and for sharing sports content, about 76% of links are posted to Twitter by automated services, according to the study. News and …

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About two-thirds of tweeted links to popular websites are posted by bots, not actual humans, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

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It’s surprisingly easy to make government records public on Google Books

April 12, 2018, 7:45 am

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While working on a recent story about hate speech spread by telephone in the ’60s and ’70s, I came across an interesting book that had been digitized by Google Books. Unfortunately, while it was a transcript of a Congressional hearing, and therefore should be in the public domain and not subject to copyright, it wasn’t …

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While working on a recent story about hate speech spread by telephone in the ’60s and ’70s, I came across an interesting book that had been digitized by Google Books. Unfortunately, while it was a transcript of a Congressional hearing, and therefore should be in the public domain and not subject to copyright, it wasn’t fully accessible through Google’s archive.

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As rivals seek to fend off Amazon, the Pentagon tweaks its cloud deal

April 16, 2018, 10:15 am

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The Defense Department has revised a request for proposals for a potential $10 billion cloud-computing deal to modernize Pentagon IT systems. The move comes as rivals like Oracle and IBM hope to get at least a piece of the contract away from cloud giant Amazon, Reuters reports. The multi-year deal to connect millions of Pentagon users …

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The Defense Department has revised a request for proposals for a potential $10 billion cloud-computing deal to modernize Pentagon IT systems. The move comes as rivals like Oracle and IBM hope to get at least a piece of the contract away from cloud giant Amazon, Reuters reports.

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Facebook login is letting hidden online trackers slurp up your data

April 19, 2018, 8:20 am

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Third-party tracking code, used across the internet to track user behaviors on websites, optimize ads and other purposes, has been grabbing Facebook user information on websites that support logging in through the social media platform, Princeton researchers report. When users log in to websites using Facebook’s Login feature, trackers can grab Facebook user IDs and …

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Third-party tracking code, used across the internet to track user behaviors on websites, optimize ads and other purposes, has been grabbing Facebook user information on websites that support logging in through the social media platform, Princeton researchers report.

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Court: Gun classified ad site can be sued over mass shooting

April 19, 2018, 11:05 am

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A Wisconsin appellate court ruled Thursday that Armslist, an online classified ad site specializing in firearms, can be sued in connection with a 2012 mass shooting at a Brookfield, Wisconsin, beauty salon. The court rejected arguments that the federal Communications Decency Act limitation on liability for sites hosting third-party content prevented the suit. The lawsuit …

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A Wisconsin appellate court ruled Thursday that Armslist, an online classified ad site specializing in firearms, can be sued in connection with a 2012 mass shooting at a Brookfield, Wisconsin, beauty salon.

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Hacker Group Is Targeting Healthcare For Corporate Espionage, Symantec Warns

April 23, 2018, 9:00 am

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The group, which Symantec has dubbed Orangeworm, has deployed custom malware on networks of healthcare providers and related organizations.

A new group of hackers is targeting systems tied to the healthcare industry in the U.S. and around the world, security firm Symantec reports.

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Trump dials up cell use as mystery phone spy devices spotted around D.C.

April 24, 2018, 4:20 am

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President Trump is using his personal cellphone more heavily lately to contact friends and informal advisors outside the White House, according to CNN, raising fresh doubts about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s ability to control access to the president, and new security questions too. “He may be keeping things from his chief of staff, but …

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President Trump is using his personal cellphone more heavily lately to contact friends and informal advisors outside the White House, according to CNN, raising fresh doubts about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s ability to control access to the president, and new security questions too.

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How the ethereum blockchain saved this China #MeToo letter from censorship

April 24, 2018, 10:22 am

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An open letter from a Chinese student activist that had been censored after going viral on social media in China has been published in a harder-to-erase spot: the ethereum blockchain. “Now her message is engraved into the Ethereum blockchain and will live as long as Ethereum itself,” wrote Leo Zhang, research lead at Iterative Capital …

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An open letter from a Chinese student activist that had been censored after going viral on social media in China has been published in a harder-to-erase spot: the ethereum blockchain.

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Researchers say they tricked Alexa into spying on them

April 25, 2018, 9:16 am

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Researchers at security firm Checkmarx say they built a proof-of-concept skill for Amazon’s Echo devices that in theory could have voice assistant Alexa listen to, transcribe, and report what users said after they thought they had finished using a legitimate service. They took advantage of a feature that allows a skill to extend the time …

Continue reading “Researchers say they tricked Alexa into spying on them”

Researchers at security firm Checkmarx say they built a proof-of-concept skill for Amazon’s Echo devices that in theory could have voice assistant Alexa listen to, transcribe, and report what users said after they thought they had finished using a legitimate service.

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The unusual way police caught the Golden State Killer suspect

April 27, 2018, 4:04 am

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Police reportedly used data from GEDMatch, a genealogy research site where users upload genealogical and genetic information, to help identify the man suspected of being the notorious Golden State Killer. That site, which provides tools for people to conduct their own searches against uploaded data, said in a statement that it wasn’t aware of the …

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Police reportedly used data from GEDMatch, a genealogy research site where users upload genealogical and genetic information, to help identify the man suspected of being the notorious Golden State Killer.

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The Tracker Tax: How Pervasive Web Code Steals Your Privacy And Time

May 1, 2018, 12:30 am

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Web pages are on average twice as slow to load when their tracking software isn’t blocked, says a new study by Ghostery.

Online tracking code, sometimes recording web users’ every move, is present on the vast majority of the most popular websites in the United States, and it can make them take substantially longer to load, according to a new study from Ghostery, developer of tools for blocking such tracking code.

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Here’s How Instagram Will Use AI To Take On Its Bullying Problem

May 1, 2018, 11:00 am

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With new machine-learning tools, the social network says it will automatically detect and filter out insulting, racist, and other bullying comments at scale.

Instagram is rolling out a comment-filtering technology today that will automatically hide bullying comments on the social network.

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Wire Wants To Be Your Emergency Messaging Tool If You Get Hacked

May 1, 2018, 10:00 pm

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When hackers or malware take down corporate networks and cloud services, Wire wants to offer a secure communications alternative to keep things running.

We’ve seen this scenario before and, no doubt, will see it again: a company, organization, or even an entire city is struck by a cybersecurity crisis and finds itself dead in the water. Everything is breached—including propietary messaging systems and email.

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