SolarWinds’ Former CEO Blames Intern for ‘solarwinds123’ Password Leak

“Current and former top executives at SolarWinds are blaming a company intern for a critical lapse in password security that apparently went undiagnosed for years,” reports CNN. The password in question, “solarwinds123,” was discovered in 2019 on the public internet by an independent security researcher who warned the company that the leak had exposed a SolarWinds file server… It is still…

Apple Will Proxy Safe Browsing Traffic on iOS 14.5 To Hide User IPs from Google

Apple’s upcoming iOS 14.5 release will ship with a feature that will re-route all Safari’s Safe Browsing traffic through Apple-controlled proxy servers as a workaround to preserve user privacy and prevent Google from learning the IP addresses of iOS users. From a report: The new feature will work only when users activate the “Fraudulent Website Warning” option in the iOS Safari…

Internet Blackouts Skyrocket Amid Global Political Unrest

Where there’s a coup, there will probably be an internet outage. From a report: Internet disruptions in Myanmar early Monday morning coincided with reports that top politicians, including the country’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, were being rounded up by the military. That’s no surprise: internet blackouts are now common around the world when power hangs in the balance. At…

Will Mark Zuckerberg Retire From Facebook in 2022?

Among tech pundit Robert Cringley’s predictions for 2021? “This year is going to be a tough one for Mark Zuckerberg.”
[W]hile I don’t expect Zuckerberg to abandon his CEO job this year, he eventually will, simply because it isn’t as much fun as it used to be and there will come a point (maybe in 2022) when leaving the top job will…

Huntsman spiders stitch leaves together to trap tree frogs

In Madagascar, huntsman spiders have been seen making traps out of overlapping leaves where tree frogs tend to hide, and then eating the frogs Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2264277-huntsman-spiders-stitch-leaves-together-to-trap-tree-frogs/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Spotify’s Podcasting Problem: Loophole Allows Remixes and Unreleased Songs To Hide in Plain Sight

Spotify has joined the ranks of streaming services like SoundCloud and YouTube as a hub for bootlegs of popular songs. From a report: With obscured titles like “Jocelyn Flores but you’re in the bathroom at a party” by eraylandin, a new take on XXXTentacion’s popular “Jocelyn Flores,” and “Dead To Me — Kali Uchis (slowed + bass boosted)” by user Unreal…

YouTube Class Action: Same IP Address Used To Upload ‘Pirate’ Movies and File DMCA Notices

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: YouTube says it has found a “smoking gun” to prove that a class-action lawsuit filed by Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider and Pirate Monitor Ltd was filed in bad faith. According to the Google-owned platform, the same IP address used to upload ‘pirate’ movies to the platform also sent DMCA notices targeting the…

FireEye, a Top Cybersecurity Firm, Says It Was Hacked By a Nation-State

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times : For years, the cybersecurity firm FireEye has been the first call for government agencies and companies around the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or fear they might be. Now it looks like the hackers — in this case, evidence points to Russia’s intelligence agencies…

Did the universe’s creator hide a message in the cosmos?

Did the creator of the universe leave a hidden message in the cosmos for intelligent life? If so, scientists have yet to find it. But at least one is still trying. Source: https://www.livescience.com/cosmic-microwave-sign-from-creator.html

Microsoft Engineer Gets Nine Years For Stealing $10 Million From Microsoft

A former Microsoft software engineer from Ukraine has been sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing more than $10 million in store credit from Microsoft’s online store. Ars Technica reports: From 2016 to 2018, Volodymyr Kvashuk worked for Microsoft as a tester, placing mock online orders to make sure everything was working smoothly. The software automatically prevented shipment of physical…