Graphics Cards Are About To Get a Lot More Expensive, Asus Warns

Ever since Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards launched last fall, the overwhelming demand and tight supply, exacerbated by a cryptocurrency boom, has caused prices for all graphics cards to go nuts. Brace yourself: It looks like it’s about to get even worse. From a report: In the Asus DIY PC Facebook group, Asus technical marketing…

Italian Mobile Operator Offers To Replace SIM Cards After Massive Data Breach

Ho Mobile, an Italian mobile operator, owned by Vodafone, has confirmed a massive data breach on Monday and is now taking the rare step of offering to replace the SIM cards of all affected customers. From a report: The breach is believed to have impacted roughly 2.5 million customers. It first came to light last month on December 28 when a…

Among 2020’s Most Underreported Stories: Pharmaceutical Profiteering May Accelerate Superbugs

Since 1976 “Project Censored,” a U.S.-based nonprofit media watchdog organization, has been identifying “the news that didn’t make the news,” the most significant stories it believes are being systematically overlooked. Slashdot ran stories about its annual list of the year’s most censored news stories in 1999, 2003, 2004, and in 2007, when they’d presciently warned that the media was ignoring the…

VISA Continues Pornhub Ban, To Allow Card Use On Some of Its Parent’s Sites

Visa said on Wednesday it would allow usage of its cards on Pornhub-owner MindGeek’s platforms that host professionally produced adult studio content, but would continue to decline processing payments coming from Pornhub itself. Reuters reports: Visa said its ban remains in effect for those websites that host user-generated content, the most popular being Pornhub, until an ongoing investigation was completed. “Following…

Amazon To Face US Union Push In Year Ahead

In 2021, Amazon.com is poised to face a renewed challenge from groups it has long countered: unions. Reuters reports: Energized by protests at Amazon’s U.S. warehouses and a more labor-friendly administration assuming office, unions are campaigning at the world’s largest online retailer to see if its warehouse or grocery workers would like to join their ranks. A major test is expected…

Academics Turn RAM Into Wi-Fi Cards To Steal Data From Air-Gapped Systems

Academics from an Israeli university have published new research today detailing a technique to convert a RAM card into an impromptu wireless emitter and transmit sensitive data from inside a non-networked air-gapped computer that has no Wi-Fi card. From a report: Named AIR-FI, the technique is the work of Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D at the Ben-Gurion University of the…

Apple, Cloudflare, and Fastly Propose a New Privacy-Focused DNS Standard Called ‘Oblivious DoH’

“Cloudflare, Apple, and Fastly have co-designed and proposed a new DNS standard to tackle ongoing privacy issues associated with DNS,” reports ZDNet. Cloudflare calls it “a practical approach for improving privacy” that “aims to improve the overall adoption of encrypted DNS protocols without compromising performance and user experience…” Third-parties, such as ISPs, find it more difficult to trace website visits when…

MasterCard, VISA To Stop Processing Payments On Pornhub

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Mastercard Inc said on Thursday it was ending the use of its cards on Pornhub after its investigation confirmed the presence of unlawful content on the sex videos site. Pornhub said on Tuesday it had banned video downloads and was allowing only certain partner accounts to upload content after a New York Times…

Moon passes through Leo the Lion Dec 5-7

Let the waning gibbous moon show you Regulus, Leo’s brightest star, as the moon parades through the constellation Leo the Lion these next several days! Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-passes-through-leo-the-lion…

Trump Administration Claims Facebook Improperly Reserved Jobs for H-1B Workers

The Trump administration has sued Facebook, accusing the social-media company of illegally reserving high-paying jobs for immigrant workers it was sponsoring for permanent residence, rather than searching adequately for available U.S. workers who could fill the positions. From a report: In a 17-page complaint filed Thursday, the Justice Department’s civil-rights division said Facebook inadequately advertised at least 2,600 positions between 2018…