Lawmaker Proposing ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Ban Says Video Game Contributes To Carjackings

Koreantoast writes: With the number of carjackings more than doubling in the city of Chicago during 2020, one lawmaker knows who to blame: the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” According to Chicago ABC 7, Democratic State Representative Marcus Williams believes the video game is causing the rise in carjackings, stating that “Grand Theft Auto’ and other violent video games are getting…

Repotting Plants Without Killing Them

Repotting plants can seem like an intimidating or messy task, but with the right information, and a little practice, it is a rather fun activity for you and your plants. In this article: What Does Repotting Plants Mean? Why Is It Important to Repot Plants? What Are the Signs That Plants Need Repotting? When Is…Continue Reading
The post Repotting Plants Without Killing…

Who’s Actually To Blame For the Texas Power Disaster?

With millions of Texans still without power in the wake of a winter storm and frigid temperatures, everyone is looking for someone to blame. From a report, shared by a reader: Many Democrats are blaming Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for failing to adequately prepare for the storm. Many conservatives are blaming the environmental movement — insisting that frozen wind turbines show…

Jeff Bezos To Step Down as Amazon CEO

Amazon announced on Tuesday that AWS CEO Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as CEO during the third quarter of this year. Bezos will transition to executive chair of Amazon’s board. In a statement, Bezos said: I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec…

After SolarWinds Breach, Lawmakers Ask NSA for Help in Cracking Juniper Cold Case

As the U.S. investigation into the SolarWinds hacking campaign grinds on, lawmakers are demanding answers from the National Security Agency about another troubling supply chain breach that was disclosed five years ago. From a report: A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are asking the NSA what steps it took to secure defense networks following a years-old breach…

Uber Wasted $100 Million On Useless Digital Ad Campaigns

Uber apparently squandered an estimated $100 million on third-party digital advertising campaigns. Input Mag reports: Former Sleeping Giants alum and co-founder of Check My Ads, Nandini Jammi, caught most of us up on the whole situation yesterday in a lengthy Twitter thread detailing just how Uber, the poster child of startup capitalism’s unethical robber baron mentality, managed to recently waste a…

Backdoor Account Discovered in More Than 100,000 Zyxel Firewalls, VPN Gateways

More than 100,000 Zyxel firewalls, VPN gateways, and access point controllers contain a hardcoded admin-level backdoor account that can grant attackers root access to devices via either the SSH interface or the web administration panel. From a report: The backdoor account, discovered by a team of Dutch security researchers from Eye Control, is considered as bad as it gets in terms…

VP and Head Scientist of Alexa at Amazon: ‘The Turing Test is Obsolete. It’s Time To Build a New Barometer For AI’

Rohit Prasad, Vice President and Head Scientist of Alexa at Amazon, writes: While Turing’s original vision continues to be inspiring, interpreting his test as the ultimate mark of AI’s progress is limited by the era when it was introduced. For one, the Turing Test all but discounts AI’s machine-like attributes of fast computation and information lookup, features that are some of…

XRP Cryptocurrency Crashes Following Announcement of SEC Suit Against Ripple

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The value of one of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies is crashing and a recently filed SEC complaint is at the root of the free fall. According to CoinMarketCap, the XRP token’s value has declined more than 42% in the past 24 hours and is down more than 63% from its 30-day high…

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla Ban Kazakhstan’s MitM HTTPS Certificate

Browser makers Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, have banned a root certificate that was being used by the Kazakhstan government to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic for residents in the country’s capital, the city of Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). From a report: The certificate had been in use since December 6, 2020, when Kazakh officials forced local internet service providers to block…