An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The U.S. has issued an emergency warning after Microsoft said it caught China hacking into its mail and calendar server program, called Exchange. The perpetrator, Microsoft said in a blog post, is a hacker group that the company has “high confidence” is working for the Chinese government and primarily spies on American…
Tag: Spies
Clubhouse Chats Are Breached, Raising Concerns Over Security
A week after popular audio chatroom app Clubhouse said it was taking steps to ensure user data couldn’t be stolen by malicious hackers or spies, at least one attacker has proven the platform’s live audio can be siphoned. From a report: An unidentified user was able to stream Clubhouse audio feeds this weekend from “multiple rooms” into their own third-party website,…
SDO spies its 1st lunar transit of 2021
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has been observing continuously the sun since its launch in 2010. From its vantage point above Earth, it sees the moon pass in front of the sun 2 to 5 times a year. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/sdo-spies-its-1st-lunar-transit-of-2021-jan13…
Are Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft ‘Digital Warlords’?
EFF special consultant/blogger/science fiction writer Cory Doctorow warns in Locus magazine about the dangers of what Bruce Schneier calls “feudal security”: Here in the 21st century, we are beset by all manner of digital bandits, from identity thieves, to stalkers, to corporate and government spies, to harassers… To be safe, then, you have to ally yourself with a warlord. Apple, Google,…
Hubble telescope spots a ‘Greater Pumpkin’ in space for Halloween
As families tuck into their couches to watch Charlie Brown’s quest for the great pumpkin this Halloween, they may be surprised to hear that NASA has already discovered a “greater pumpkin.” Source: https://www.livescience.com/hubble-telescope-spies-greater-pumpkin-galaxy-crash-photo.html
EU Lawmakers Ask Jeff Bezos Whether Amazon Spies on Politicians
A cross-party group of MEPs has written to Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, demanding information on the online retailer’s monitoring of trade union activists and politicians in response to deleted job postings that described unions as “threats.” From a report: The letter, from 37 members of the European parliament, said they were concerned Amazon deliberately targeted workers seeking to organise, and…
Some Coronavirus Vaccine Trials Resort To Pen and Paper After Ransomware Hits Software
A software company supporting hundreds of clinical trials — including coronavirus vaccine trials — has been hit by a ransomware attack that “has slowed some of those trials over the past two weeks,” reports the New York Times. Employees “discovered that they were locked out of their data by ransomware…” eResearchTechnology (ERT) said clinical trial patients were never at risk, but…
What’s the birthstone for October?
If you were born in October, your birth month has 2 birthstones: opal and tourmaline. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/october-birthstone-opal-tourmaline…
Where are stars made? NASA’s Spitzer spies a hot spot
The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image from NASA’s recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-stars-nasa-spitzer-spies-hot.html…
Spies in Silicon Valley: Twitter Breach Tied To Saudi Dissident Arrests
An internal breach at Twitter a half decade ago yielded data that was later used by Saudi Arabia to harass or arrest people critical of the government, according to lawsuits, human rights groups and the relative of a person apprehended in 2018. From a report: In 2015, two Twitter employees allegedly accessed more than 6,000 accounts while acting as spies for…