[ad_1]
In yet another week that looked like a month, the world continues to feel the reverberations of seditious assault on the US Capitol building January 6th. After platforms like Twitter and Facebook started Donald Trump last week, Amazon withdrew support for the far-right platform “Free speech” Talk, taking it offline for the foreseeable future. Before disappearing, however, pirates could archive all public messages, images and videos on Speak, thanks to an incredibly basic bug.
We spoke to Chris Krebs, former CISA director, on Trump’s disinformation blitzand how the United States can get out of this mess – starting with impeachment. We explained how law enforcement bypass the encryption of your smartphone. And we’ve looked at the first public technical evidence that the SolarWinds hackers are really Russian state actorsbecause some of the code they use shares distinct characteristics with a notorious Kremlin-led group known as Turla.
It’s ambitious and potentially practical, but think twice before using Amazon Sidewalk if you value privacy. Google researchers found a campaign using several zero-day vulnerabilities to infect Android and Windows devices. And in a timely feature film, Rachel Monroe immersed herself in the American tactical training culture– some of which were disgracefully exposed in Washington, DC last week.
And there’s more! Every week, we collect all the news that we haven’t covered in depth. Click on the titles to read the full stories. And stay safe there.
Investigations into the Capitol Building riots – including how officials were caught off guard by an incident that had been planned openly online – will last for at least months. But thanks in part to more than 140,000 tips and a remarkable number of alleged attendees filming and photographing themselves and others during the events of January 6, and then posting those videos and photos on social media, the ministry of Justice has already made more than 100 arrests. FBI Director Christopher Wray said this week the agency has more than 200 open cases, so expect this work to continue for some time.
DarkMarket has had a brief run as the dark web’s biggest illegal marketplace, after predecessors like AlphaBay, Hansa, and Wall Street Market were all demolished. This week, however, authorities caught up with DarkMarket, seizing more than 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine in the process. Before its demise, DarkMarket had 500,000 users, over 2,400 vendors, and hosted around $ 170 million in cryptocurrency transactions. Taking over the servers could make it easier for officials to find DarkMarket attendees – or track them to where they sit next.
Period and period tracking app Flo this week reached a settlement proposal with the FTC over its deceptive data handling practices. While Flo told users he would keep sensitive health data private, he actually passed it on to Facebook and Google Analytics, among others. Flo did not admit any wrongdoing, but privacy advocates hope the case indicates the FTC wants to crack down on similar data use issues elsewhere in the healthcare software industry .
Deaths, taxes and people using Elon Musk’s name to bitcoin scam people on Twitter; at least life has its certainties. This time around, hackers have broken into verified accounts to promote an age-old scam that claims billionaire Tesla is distributing cryptocurrency. The trap? You must send some first. The crooks had raised nearly $ 600,000 on Thursday. When in doubt, remember that nothing is free, especially when it comes to bitcoin on Twitter.
More WIRED stories
[ad_2]
