Vox has a new article on Curtis Yarvin, a software engineer and far-right blogger who’s made friends with powerful supporters of former president Donald Trump, and it’s filled with horrifying ideas on how Trump should wield power if he ever takes back the White House. But there’s one idea that seems like it’s stolen…
Stewart Rhodes and four others are accused of plotting to stop the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Ford has introduced the 2023 Escape SUV, including a PHEV option, promising a “thorough makeover” alongside a variety of features to meet different needs.
The White House has said that Elon Musk’s recent deals, including his takeover of Twitter and operations of Starlink internet in Ukraine, are not under national security review. And while that would seem like a denial of the original reports from last week by Bloomberg News about the deals, there’s seemingly still…
“My God, Trump is conning not just me but his son,” the Watergate journalist recalled thinking.
Last June, NASA announced that it would convene a panel to study “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP), aka UFOs — while saying it doesn’t believe they’re “extraterrestrial in origin.” Now, the space agency has unveiled the 16-member panel that will focus on “unclassified sightings and other data collected from civilian government and commercial sectors.”
Chairing the panel is David Spergel, former head of astrophysics at Prince University. Other members include Anamaria Berea, a research affiliate at the SETI (Search for Intelligence Life) Institute in Mountainview, California; retired NASA astronaut and test pilot Scott Kelly; and others ranging from oceanographers to astrophysicists to science journalists.
The panel is separate from a Pentagon group investigating UAPs reported by military pilots and investigated by US defense and intelligence officials. Now, the US government is effectively running two tracks of UFO probes after keeping such work behind closed doors for years.
Conspicuously absent are special effects experts like Corridor Crew skilled at spotting fake and altered clips. In a recent video, the group debunked a number of famous videos UFO clips, even from the Pentagon, ascribing them to ordinary occurrences like a camera’s iris, a bird and an infrared lens flare.
NASA itself doesn’t seem to believe there’s much going on with these videos and sightings, either. However, it said the panel can still serve an important role in determining how to classify them — even if there are no aliens involved.
“Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what’s happening in our skies,” said NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen. “Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable explainable.”
“The Late Late Show” host backtracked on his downplaying of his “rude” comment.
If you’ve been trying to send messages via WhatsApp and they’re not going through, you’re not alone. The messaging app has been down for many users around the world for at least 30 minutes. Based on information from Downdetector — and from Engadget editors’ reports — the service isn’t working in several regions, including the US, Canada, parts of Europe like the UK and Italy, and Asian countries that include India, Malaysia, Japan and the Philippines. WhatsApp users either can’t connect to the service at all or their messages get stuck with the loading wheel and aren’t being delivered. Instagram and Facebook appear to be working just fine.
The issue affects not just WhatsApp on mobile, but also on the web. It’s not sending sending messages either, and if you try to set it up now, the QR code that you need to scan with a phone to link your account would be stuck in loading mode.
Developing…
The protesters, some of them armed, threw rocks and smoke bombs outside the event in Eugene — prompting authorities to shut down the street.
The Federal Trade Commission wants to limit the amount of personal information Drizly can collect as part of the enforcement actions it’s proposing against the marketplace and its CEO. According to the FTC, the alcohol delivery service that Uber had purchased in 2021 and its chief executive, James Cory Rellas, were alerted to security issues way back in 2018. The commission has found that they had failed to adequately protect their users’ information, which enabled a data breach in 2020 that exposed the data of 2.5 million users.
Based on the FTC’s original complaint, a Drizly employee posted the company’s logins for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud account on GitHub in 2018. Drizly stores users’ details, such as their emails, postal addresses, phone numbers, and even their unique device identifies, geolocation info and any other data purchased from third parties that can be linked back to them on AWS. Hackers were able to use those logins to infiltrate Drizly’s servers and use them to mine cryptocurrency.
While Drizly took back control by changing its login information, the FTC says it failed to implement “reasonable safeguards” to protect its users and to address its security issues despite publicly claiming that it had done so. In 2020, a hacker was able to get into an employee’s account and access the company’s GitHub. They then hacked into Drizly’s database and stole the personal information of 2.5 million customers, which had since been offered for sale on at least two different websites on the dark web.
The FTC says those events were made possible by Drizly’s poor security practices, such as not requiring employees to use two-factor for GitHub, where it stored login information. Drizly also didn’t limit workers’ access to users’ personal data, the FTC adds, and had no senior executive overseeing its security practices.
Under the FTC’s proposed orders, Drizly will have to destroy any personal data it previously collected that’s not necessary to be able to provide its services. It will also have to refrain from collecting unnecessary data in the future and will have to publicly divulge the information it requires from users on its website. In addition, it will have to implement a comprehensive security program and appoint an executive to oversee its operations.
The commission has also issued orders that personally apply to Rellas due to the role he played in presiding over Drizly’s lax security practices. If Rellas decides to leave the alcohol deliver service, he will still be required to implement an information security program at future companies where he takes on the role of a CEO, majority owner or senior executive involved in security. As The Washington Post notes, the FTC rarely singled out executives in similar security breach cases in the past, and this indicates a new approach at handling companies with inadequate security measures.
Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement:
“Our proposed order against Drizly not only restricts what the company can retain and collect going forward but also ensures the CEO faces consequences for the company’s carelessness. CEOs who take shortcuts on security should take note.”
The FTC will publish these proposed orders soon, and they will be open for public comment for 30 days before the commission decides if will make them official.
1. @FTC has taken action against @Drizly (a subsidiary of @Uber) and its CEO James Cory Rellas for security failures that led to a data breach exposing the personal information of around 2.5 million consumers. https://t.co/jQCtn9DU4C
— Lina Khan (@linakhanFTC) October 24, 2022
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