Interpol, an international police organization, has arrested nearly 3,500 people allegedly connected to cybercrime in a sweeping operation announced on Tuesday. $300 million worth of assets across 34 countries were reportedly seized. The operation, Haechi IV, blocked over 80,000 suspicious bank accounts and warned…
Source: Gizmodo – INTERPOL Arrests 3,500 Suspects in Sweeping Cybercrime Operation
Meta has fixed a bug that temporarily prevented some Threads users in Canada from reading and sharing news on the app, a company spokesperson told Engadget. Even though Meta pulled news content from Canadian users’ Facebook and Instagram feeds earlier this year, the block hasn’t carried over to Threads.
But a number of Threads users wondered if that had changed when they began to see alerts that suggested otherwise. “People in Canada can’t view this content,” a notice with Threads branding read. “Content from news publishers can’t be viewed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation.”
It’s unclear how widespread the bug was or how long it was happening. Reports of the issue seemed to crop up on Monday, with some users still unable to view links as of Tuesday morning. “Well… that sucks. @meta is escalating their news blocking in Canada, previously only on Facebook and Instagram, now on Threads,” Pedro Marques wrote in a post Monday.
A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the Online News Act’s framework doesn’t apply to Threads, at least for now. Still, the fact that the notice appeared at all has prompted speculation that the company could eventually block news content on Threads as well.
Over the last few years, the world’s largest tech companies have tussled with countries about paying for news. In 2021, for instance, Facebook stopped people in Australia from sharing news links, while Google threatened to stop showcasing content from Australian news publishers on Google News. Both companies, however, eventually reached agreements and agreed to start paying Australian news organizations.
In August, Meta started blocking news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in response to the country’s Online News Act that requires platforms to pay news organizations to make up for lost advertising revenue. Google, which had earlier pledged to block news links in the country, eventually reached a deal with the country’s government and agreed to pay Canadian publishers around $100 million a year, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Though Meta has downplayed the significance of news on Threads — Instagram head Adam Mosseri said earlier this year the company didn’t want to “amplify news” on the platform — blocking news on Threads could have a more dramatic impact on Threads than it has in Instagram and Facebook. The app has grown to about 100 million users as more people look for Twitter alternatives.
Blocking news, though, could make the app a lot less useful for users and publishers, who have started to see more engagement from the service. “How will Threads replace Twitter when I can’t even click on a news story in Canada without getting blocked by Meta,” a Threads user named dexter wrote after encountering the bug.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-a-bug-briefly-blocked-news-for-canadian-users-on-threads-220230063.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Meta says a bug briefly blocked news for Canadian users on Threads
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A bill that mandates tech giants pay news outlets for their content has come into effect in Canada amid an ongoing dispute with Facebook and Instagram owner Meta over the law. Some have hailed it as a game-changer that sets out a permanent framework that will see a steady drip of funds from wealthy tech companies to Canada’s struggling journalism industry. But it has also been met with resistance by Google and Meta — the only two companies big enough to be encompassed by the law. In response, over the summer, Meta blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram for Canadians. Google looked set to follow, but after months of talks, the federal government was able to negotiate a deal with the search giant as the company has agreed to pay Canadian news outlets $75 million annually.
No such agreement appears to be on the horizon with Meta, which has called the law “fundamentally flawed.” If Meta is refusing to budge, so is the government. “We will continue to push Meta, that makes billions of dollars in profits, even though it is refusing to invest in the journalistic rigor and stability of the media,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Friday. According to a study by the Media Ecosystem Observatory, the views of Canadian news on Facebook dropped 90% after the company blocked access to news on the platform. Local news outlets have been hit particularly hard.
“The loss of journalism on Meta platforms represents a significant decline in the resiliency of the Canadian media ecosystem,” said Taylor Owen, a researcher at McGill and the co-author of the study. He believes it also hurts Meta’s brand in the long run, pointing to the fact that the Canada’s federal government, as well as that of British Columbia, other municipalities and a handful of large Canadian corporations, have all pulled their advertising off Facebook and Instagram in retaliation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Meta’s News Ban In Canada Remains As Online News Act Goes Into Effect
Whipped ricotta is one of those divine menu items that high-end restaurants will charge you a hefty sum to enjoy with a piece of toast—and why shouldn’t they? It’s silky, creamy, and a decadent appetizer you’d never be able to make, right? Well, I don’t want to ruin your favorite restaurant for you, but I do have to destroy the mystique of whipped ricotta. Only because it’s the easiest cheese hack there is, and you should use it to make the best restaurant-quality appetizer for the holidays, even if you only have access to mediocre ricotta.
Whipped ricotta sounds like you’d be implementing the same method you’d use for whipped cream. While that’s kind of true, you’re not beholden to the same finicky results. Whipped cream has discernible peaks you have to look out for or you could ruin it. Whipped ricotta is not meant to blow up the same way; instead, it becomes silky and light.
Ricotta straight out of the container is smooth, but you can see in the picture that it has a graininess to it. That’s not a bad thing: in fact, those mini curds are part of what makes ricotta special. When you blend it, the curd texture is refined until it becomes velvety smooth. It gives the overall texture more bounce and even the flavor will become less watery.
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I use the All-Clad Wireless Immersion Blender
Make whipped ricotta in a food processor, or, for even less clean up, use an immersion blender. I love my immersion blender, so I use it any chance I get. Simply dump a container of regular ricotta cheese into a tall measuring cup and blend it for about 20 seconds. The cheese is thick, so I’ll stop and readjust the positioning every now and then to make sure I’ve blended it all. That’s it. Scoop or decoratively pipe the silken cheese on baguette slices, or add it to a serving bowl for guests to use as a dip. Sprinkle it with flaky salt, herbs, crisp pancetta, or drizzle it with olive oil before serving.
Some recipes will suggest adding herbs, seasonings, or oils to the ricotta before blending. This is absolutely up to you, but I think doing this can potentially interfere with the texture. I prefer to dress up the cheese after it’s whipped, which looks beautiful and allows the silky cheese to stand out.
One 15-ounce container of ricotta will make enough cheese to generously top 15 to 25 slices of toasted baguette. Be aware, if you make the following recipe, you will have to field questions on how you made it. It’s up to you whether you give up your restaurant secret or not.
Ingredients:
1 (15-ounce) tub of ricotta cheese
15 to 25 slices of baguette, toasted
¼ cup of pesto
2 slices of prosciutto
Flaky salt for sprinkling
1. Rip the prosciutto into small shreds, about the size of a quarter. Fry them in a pan until crisp, about two minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the ricotta to a tall glass or measuring cup. Use an immersion blender to blend it until smooth and glossy, about 20 seconds. Alternatively, use a food processor and blend the ricotta.
3. Arrange the slices of toast on a serving platter. Spoon or use a piping bag to generously apply the cheese to the toast.
4. Use a small spoon to dab a bit of pesto onto each serving. Add a couple pieces of crispy prosciutto to each toast, and sprinkle with flaky salt. Serve immediately.
Source: LifeHacker – Whipped Ricotta Is the Easiest Way to Upgrade Your Holiday Appetizer Spread
DLSS frame generation lets folks with GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards enjoy a boost to frame rate in supported games with very little downside. The interpolation is mostly performed by hardware on the GPU that isn’t doing anything else, so the only real penalty is a small hit to input latency. You do have to have an Ada-architecture GeForce
Source: Hot Hardware – This Mod Enables AMD’s FSR 3 Frame Generation On Any NVIDIA DLSS 3 Title
Last week, Epic won a years-long suit against Google for anti-competitive practices within the Play Store. We were all left wondering: what would happen to Android’s app store moving forward?
Today, Google laid out what’s happening in its Keyword blog, and it’s all in time for the holiday when we can finally slow down…
Source: Gizmodo – The Google Play Store Ruling Is Bad News for Longtime Android Phone Users
Enlarge / An officially released image for Insomniac Games’ upcoming game Wolverine. (credit: Insomniac Games)
Acclaimed Sony-owned game development studio Insomniac Games became the victim of a large-scale ransomware attack this week, as initially reported by Cyber Daily. Ransomware group Rhysida dumped 1.67TB of data, including assets and story spoilers from unreleased games, a road map of upcoming titles, internal company communications, employees’ personal data such as passport scans and compensation figures, and much more.
The gang said it chose Insomniac because, as a large and successful studio, it made an attractive target for a money grab. The ransom was $2 million, and Insomniac refused to pay it.
As a result, a trove of emails, Slack messages, slideshow presentations, and more hit the web. Notably, these included screenshots and assets from the studio’s upcoming Wolverine game, as well as confirmation that Wolverine is planned to be the first in a trilogy of games starring X-Men characters. The materials also revealed that the company is working on another Ratchet & Clank game and a new Spider-Man sequel.
Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Wolverine-developer Insomniac Games sees 1.67TB of secrets leaked in data breach
When you get your first office job, you learn a whole new language. Suddenly, you’re learning about your team’s “workflow,” being forced to declare if you have the “bandwidth” to take on a new responsibility, and forever “circling back” and “drilling down,” all in the name of achieving “learnings.” One piece of workplace jargon you may not have yet learned is the “single source of truth”—and it’s actually a helpful tool for staying organized. Here’s what a “single source of truth” is and why you should implement one in your (forgive me) workflow.
When your boss refers to a single source of truth, they’re actually talking about a repository for all the information and resources related to your work. That’s really it: It can include anything you need for a specific project or your job altogether, like contracts, instructions, timelines, contact sheets, templates, reviews… the list goes on.
It should be well-organized and accessible to everyone who has anything to do with a given project. Back in the day, it might have been a big old binder, but the modernized version likely involves cloud-based software. A Google Drive, for instance, is perfect for an SSOT.
Using an SSOT is similar to the “action method” of productivity, which asks you to sort your tasks into action steps, references, and back-burners using a spreadsheet. The column dedicated to references contains information related to accomplishing your task and can be considered a small-scale SSOT.
If you’re on a team, you can use software or a project-management tool like Google Drive, OneDrive, or SharePoint. The first document in there should be a list of everyone on the project or team, plus their contact details. Use this to make sure everyone on the list has access to the SSOT. It’s also helpful to have a naming scheme in place, so files are easy to identify as the folder fills up. Something like LastName_DocumentTitle_Date.extension works great.
If it makes sense, give everyone editing access, so they can mark off what they’ve done or add resources as they become available. If there are too many team members or you want some oversight, keep editing permissions limited to managers.
SSOTs eliminate confusion about who needs to do what and how they can go about it, plus they make it easier for team members to step up. For example, if someone is out sick, their duties and the tools they use to get their tasks taken care of are immediately available in the single source of truth.
You can also use the SSOT plan for personal use, whether to track your own progress on a work project or something else, like the management of your home. Have a folder for contacts related to your kids’ activities, maintenance and cleaning professionals and tasks, or whatever else you need. This is helpful if you ever need to share details for some reason, like if you need to go out of town and have a friend watch your place.
As lofty as a “single source of truth” sounds, this is one of those corporate ideas that has real-world benefits and will actually make your life easier, giving you (forgive me again) more bandwidth for other things.
Source: LifeHacker – Use a ‘Single Source of Truth’ to Be More Productive
The finest residents of New Yohrk Citaaaaaay are bowing out. Vulture reports that as What We Do in the Shadows prepares to begin production on its sixth season next month, it is doing so knowing that it will be the last.
Source: Gizmodo – What We Do in the Shadows Is Coming to an End
A quick guide to install LibreWolf on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 LTS with two options: Librewolf APT Repository or Flatpak with Flathub.
Source: LXer – Guide to install LibreWolf Browser on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04 LTS
In a notice on Monday, Xfinity notified customers of a “data security incident” that resulted in the theft of customer information, including usernames, passwords, contact information, and more. The Verge reports: Xfinity traces the breach to a security vulnerability disclosed by cloud computing company Citrix, which began alerting customers of a flaw in software Xfinity and other companies use on October 10th. While Xfinity says it patched the security hole, it later uncovered suspicious activity on its internal systems “that was concluded to be a result of this vulnerability.”
The hack resulted in the theft of customer usernames and hashed passwords, according to Xfinity’s notice. Meanwhile, “some customers” may have had their names, contact information, last four digits of their social security numbers, dates of birth, and / or secret questions and answers exposed. Xfinity has notified federal law enforcement about the incident and says “data analysis is continuing.”
We still don’t know how many users were affected by the breach. Xfinity will automatically ask customers to change their passwords the next time they log in to their accounts, and it’s also encouraging users to turn on two-factor authentication. You can find the full notice, including contact information for the company’s incident response team, on Xfinity’s website (PDF). UPDATE 12/19/23: According to TechCrunch, almost 36 million Xfinity customers had their sensitive information accessed by hackers via a vulnerability known as “CitrixBleed.” The vulnerability is “found in Citrix networking devices often used by big corporations and has been under mass-exploitation by hackers since late August,” the report says. “Citrix made patches available in early October, but many organizations did not patch in time. Hackers have used the CitrixBleed vulnerability to hack into big-name victims, including aerospace giant Boeing, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and international law firm Allen & Overy.”
“In a filing with Maine’s attorney general, Comcast confirmed that almost 35.8 million customers are affected by the breach. Comcast’s latest earnings report shows the company has more than 32 million broadband customers, suggesting this breach has impacted most, if not all Xfinity customers.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Comcast Discloses Data Breach of Close To 36 Million Xfinity Customers [UPDATE]
OpenSSH, the workhorse of secure remote access, has received a welcome update with version 9.6. This release doesn’t just patch security holes; it also throws in some handy new features to keep your remote connections running smoothly and securely.
The post OpenSSH 9.6 Arrives: Patching Up and Powering Up appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – OpenSSH 9.6 Arrives: Patching Up and Powering Up
Latin American Spanish on Rosetta Stone is on sale for $95.99 right now (reg. $299) with promo code SAVENOW through December 25. Rosetta Stone is the highly-trusted language learning platform used by top organizations like NASA, Calvin Klein, and TripAdvisor, and it helps you learn by engaging with interactive activities, hearing native speakers using real-world scenarios, and TruAccent speech-recognition technology that gives real-time feedback on your progress. It includes bite-sized lessons—as little as 10 minutes at a time— and the app works on most Macs, PCs, tablets, and phones (though, if you need, you should check that your operating system works with the program).
The sale comes with a lifetime subscription to learn Latin American Spanish with Rosetta Stone for $95.99 right now (reg. $299) with the promo code SAVENOW until December 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.
Source: LifeHacker – You Can Learn Spanish on Rosetta Stone for Less Than 0 Right Now
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that eBay has violated the rights of unionized workers at TCGPlayer, a trading card marketplace owned by the company. This comes in response to charges filed by the Communications Workers of America back in March of this year. eBay has allegedly refused to recognize TCGPlayer’s worker union and it delayed participating in any bargaining practices and it has also refused to divulge any information with the group that the union is legally entitled to.
As part of its examination of the issue, the NLRB said that because eBay and TCGPlayer broke the law, the company must face legal consequences for its union-busting practices. The union, which officially formed in March following numerous anti-union actions from eBay and TCGPlayer, was denied representation during disciplinary investigations. The NLRB also found that eBay was changing working conditions and benefits without engaging in bargaining with the group. On top of that, eBay is said to have even enforced rules that would punish any workers’ elections to unionize.
While the NLRB lays out evidence of eBay’s union-busting practices, it did not officially issue a decision on the matter. The agency is still waiting on the company’s response to the issue. “Now that the board has come to a decision on eBay’s illegal practices, we hope the company will see the light, obey labor law and engage in good faith bargaining practices so that workers can secure a strong union contract,” Dennis Trainor, Communications Workers of America District 1 Vice-President, said in a statement. eBay could not be reached for comment.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nlrb-finds-that-ebay-and-subsidiary-tcgplayer-engaged-in-union-busting-practices-205337429.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – NLRB finds that eBay and subsidiary TCGPlayer engaged in union-busting practices
Enlarge / If you have one of these, or another Mac handy, you should soon be able to access Beeper on Android and desktop platforms. You’ll just need to grab its “registration data” every so often. (credit: Samuel Axon)
Beeper’s Android app, which initially promised iMessage support with just a phone number, lost that connection once Apple started openly pushing back on it less than a week after it launched. Beeper has kept revising its approach, and its newest method—involving regular access to a physical Mac—suggests why the company has added a political component to its efforts.
Beeper started pushing back after its initial blockage, both through continued development and through media and political messaging. After a second, if smaller, Apple crackdown, co-founder Eric Migicovsky welcomed CBS Mornings into his garage, where he advanced his argument that Beeper was turning grossly insecure SMS messages between iPhone and Android users into secure, end-to-end encrypted chats. (CBS also interviewed James Gill, the 16-year-old whose work connecting to iMessage, using reverse-engineering methods, is the foundation of Beeper’s iMessage tech).
CBS Mornings‘ interview with Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky and James Gill, a teenage coder.
That interview lined up with another development: a bi-partisan foursome of US lawmakers, including Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), sending a letter to the Department of Justice regarding “Apple’s potential anti-competitive treatment of the Beeper Mini messaging application.” Apple’s actions toward Beeper, the letter suggests, could “eliminate choices for consumers,” “discourage future innovation and investment” in messaging, and make Apple a “digital gatekeeper,” suggesting a need for review by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. The move follows, and seems to echo, similar efforts by EU regulators to open up iMessage, which have been stalled so far.
Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Beeper’s esoteric fix for iMessage access suggests why it’s pushing politically
China’s Shenlong robotic spaceplane, on its third mission, has added a new layer of intrigue to its space activities by deploying six unidentified objects into Earth’s orbit.
Source: Gizmodo – China’s Spaceplane Just Released Six Mysterious Objects in Orbit
There’s a science and art to picking a starting word when you play Wordle. One computer analysis has suggested that CRANE is the best starter; another landed on SALET. But the New York Times has recently done its own analysis of what people actually choose for starter words, and the situation is dire: ADIEU is the most popular starter, yet the least efficient.
To be clear: it’s not the worst word you could play, just the worst out of the 30 most popular starters. The top five, in terms of popularity, are ADIEU, STARE, SLATE, AUDIO, and RAISE.
But if you take the top 30 and rank them by how well they work, the top five are SLATE, CRANE, LEAST, STARE, and RAISE. My personal favorite, ARISE, is seventh on the list.
I’m going to teach the controversy here. The argument in favor of ADIEU is that it contains four vowels, and you know the solution will have to contain some vowels. Thus, knocking out four of them in your first guess is pretty smart. (O and the sometimes-vowel Y are the only ones not included.)
But there’s an argument to be made that vowels don’t give you much information, in the data-science sense of narrowing down possibilities. So there’s an A in the solution word somewhere–how much does it help to know that?
Another strategy is to go with a consonant-heavy word at first, and worry about the vowels later. According to one Wordle expert, “there are only five [vowels], and it’s almost never going to be a U.”
My own approach splits the difference: I think about my starters as a pair. With ARISE and TOUCH, I get intel on all five vowels and five of the most common consonants. If you play ADIEU, I think you need to be prepared to follow it up with THORN.
Another thing the NYT learned from their analysis is that solution words that contain a Y tend to be harder to solve.
Y flies under the radar since it’s an end-of-the-alphabet letter. The tendency is to think it must be as rare as X and Z. But Y is fairly common, showing up in words like FUNNY and JAZZY (JAZZY being the hardest word that appeared this year). Words that end in Y also often have a double letter–like the N and Z in those examples–so make sure to consider those as you’re narrowing down the possibilities.
You may recall from grade school that the vowels are “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.” (You may even have learned “…and sometimes Y and W.”) That’s because Y really can stand on its own as a vowel: the ending Y in FUNNY is an example: U is the vowel for the first syllable, and Y is the vowel for the second. There are also words that contain a Y as their only vowel, like GLYPH, NYMPH, and TRYST.
So if you’re working on a Wordle and you don’t seem to have enough vowels to make a word, stick a Y in there somewhere–preferably at the end. LANKY or HORNY might be a good pick for when you’re stumped.
Source: LifeHacker – Why ‘ADIEU’ Is a Terrible Wordle Starter, According to the New York Times
A second season of Ahsoka hasn’t been officially announced yet, but showrunner Dave Filoni has begun to share some of its possibilities.
Source: Gizmodo – Dave Filoni Sees Hera Syndulla as Thrawn’s Ultimate Foe
Apple is scrambling to make software updates to Apple Watch algorithms that measure blood oxygen levels to avoid an impending ban on the smartwatch in the US over a patent dispute, Bloomberg reported. Changing how the Watch measures oxygen saturation, Apple believes, could help keep the Watch on shelves during the busy holiday shopping season.
The blood oxygen sensor, which was first introduced with the Apple Watch 6 in 2020, is at the heart of a patent dispute between Apple and Masimo, another California-based company that sued Apple in 2021. Masimo claimed that Apple’s sensor violated two patents related to light-based blood-oxygen monitoring that it owned. In October, the International Trade Commission (ITC) upheld a ruling, stating that Apple did, in fact, violate Masimo’s patents.
The case then went to the White House for a 60-day Presidential Review period, which ends next week. If President Biden doesn’t veto the ITC’s decision, Apple will be banned from selling the Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, which include blood oxygen sensing. Apple is complying preemptively with the ban and will stop selling both Apple Watch models on its website on December 21 and in retail stores on December 24 in case the veto doesn’t happen.
One way Apple could keep selling the watch is to settle with Masimo, but the company’s last-minute race to make software changes to the Watch suggests that it doesn’t plan to do so. The company told Bloomberg that it plans to submit its software workaround to the ITC for approval. Masimo’s CEO Joe Kiani, told Bloomberg that he would be open to settling with Apple, but the company hasn’t called him yet. “It takes two to tango,” he said.
He also doesn’t think that a software update to the Apple Watch would resolve the situation. “I don’t think that could work — it shouldn’t — because our patents are not about the software,” Kiani said. “They are about the hardware with the software.”
Overhauling Apple Watch hardware would, of course, be a lot more challenging for Apple than tweaking its software. Even if the ITC approves any potential hardware changes, manufacturing and shipping modified versions of the two Watch models could take upwards of three months, a person familiar with how Apple operates told the publication.
Apple and Masimo have a complicated history. Apple reportedly discussed acquiring the company in 2013 and hiring Kiani to work on the medical features on its smartwatch. That deal never went through. Instead, Kiani claimed that Apple hired more than 20 Masimo engineers, doubled some of their salaries, and made them develop the same kind of medical technology they were working on at Masimo at Apple. “This is not an accidental infringement — this is a deliberate taking of our intellectual property,” Kiani told Bloomberg.
Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment on Kiani’s statements. The company has previously called the ITC’s ruling “erroneous” and plans to appeal the decision to the Federal Circuit.
It’s not clear whether Apple will get immediate relief. The silver lining for the company is that the ban only applies to Apple Watch sales through the company’s own channels — its website and its retail stores — in the US. You should still be able to buy the Apple Watch through other retailers like Best Buy, Walmart and Target.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-reportedly-scrambling-to-update-apple-watch-software-to-avoid-a-potential-ban-202710009.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Apple is reportedly scrambling to update Apple Watch software to avoid a looming ban
For the last two decades, some of the weirdest and most creative things on the internet played out in images and GIFs. There have always been terrible memes, but for years, memes as a category were consistently funny, useful, inspiring, and even thought-provoking. They crossed over into all of the furthest reaches of…
Source: Gizmodo – 2023 Was the Weakest Year for Memes in History
