Massive blackouts and smog have hit cities across Iran. It’s a toxic mix as the country, already under economic duress and suffocating U.S. sanctions, simultaneously battles the region’s worst coronavirus outbreak. Blackouts are not new in Iran, where an aging and subsidized electricity sector is plagued by alleged mismanagement. But this time, government officials say that bitcoin mining at cryptocurrency farms…
Tag: Washington Post
Amazon Begins Removing QAnon Goods For Sale
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Washington Post: Amazon said it will remove merchandise related to QAnon, a discredited conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a potential domestic terrorist threat, just a day after the e-commerce giant suspended the pro-Trump social media site Parler from using its cloud computing technology. Amazon is beginning to remove QAnon products from its…
Online Misinformation Dropped Dramatically After Twitter Banned Trump
The Washington Post reports: Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively. The new research by the San Francisco-based analytics firm reported that conversations about…
How Will America’s Investigators Identify Capitol Hill Protesters?
“Both local police and the FBI are seeking information about individuals who were ‘actively instigating violence’ in Washington, DC, on January 6,” writes Ars Technica. Then they speculate on which tools will be used to find them:
While media organizations took thousands of photos police can use, they also have more advanced technologies at their disposal to identify participants, following what several…
Apple’s Longtime Supplier Accused of Using Forced Labor in China
One of the oldest and most well-known iPhone suppliers has been accused of using forced Muslim labor in its factories, according to documents uncovered by a human rights group, adding new scrutiny to Apple’s human rights record in China. From a report: The documents, discovered by the Tech Transparency Project and shared exclusively with The Washington Post, detail how thousands of…
After Canceling Exam, College Board Touts Record Number of AP CSP Exam Takers
theodp writes: Q. How many AP Computer Science Principles ‘exam takers’ would you have if you cancelled the AP CSP exam due to the coronavirus? A. More than 116,000! That’s according to the math behind a new College Board press release, which boasts, “In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam — more than double the number of…
Russia Breached Update Server Used by 300,000 Organizations, Including the NSA
Sunday Reuters reported that “a sophisticated hacking group” backed by “a foreign government” has stolen information from America’s Treasury Department, and also from “a U.S. agency responsible for deciding policy around the internet and telecommunications.” The Washington Post has since attributed the breach to “Russian government hackers,” and discovered it’s “part of a global espionage campaign that stretches back months, according…
Florida Governor Defends Police Raid On COVID Data Whistleblower
Earlier this week, Florida state police raided the home of Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who ran the state’s coronavirus dashboard until she was fired in June. “Jones has alleged in a whistleblower lawsuit that her firing was in retaliation for her refusal to manipulate data to make the state’s COVID-19 outbreak last spring appear less severe,” reports Yahoo News. Florida…
Celebrating the Path-Breaking Research That Lead to Coronavirus Vaccines
The Washington Post tells the remarkable story of how both Moderna’s vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine relied on a specially designed spike protein partially created by America’s Vaccine Research Center — along with messenger RNA, “a technology never before harnessed in an approved vaccine.” And also decades of path-breaking research: If, as expected in the next few weeks, regulators give those…
Are America’s Hospitals Becoming Overwhelmed?
New Mexico’s governor announced plans to allow hospitals “to ration care depending on a patient’s likelihood of surviving,” according to the Washington Post. But in fact, many of America’s hospitals are now “overwhelmed,” reports CBS News, adding “A record-breaking 227,00 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Friday alone — the first time the daily case count has topped 220,000,…