World’s Biggest Data Breaches & Hacks — Information is Beautiful
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/
The record for high-temperature superconductivity has been smashed again - MIT Technology Review
Eremets and his colleagues say they have observed lanthanum hydride (LaH10) superconducting at the sweltering temperature of 250 K, or –23 °C.
Border Agents Fail to Delete Personal Data of Travelers After Electronic Searches, Watchdog Says
https://gizmodo.com/u-s-customs-fails-to-delete-personal-data-after-electr-1831006534
regularly leaving the personal data of travelers on USB drives.
A bug in Microsoft’s login system made it easy to hijack anyone’s Office account - TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/microsoft-login-bug-hijack-office-accounts/
A string of bugs when chained together created the perfect attack to gain access to someone’s Microsoft account — simply by tricking a user into clicking a link.
Yuval Noah Harari on Why Technology Favors Tyranny - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/
Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don’t take steps to stop it.
Kaspersky: networks of 8 Eastern European banks were hacked by people entering the premises and planting physical hardware like Raspberry Pi and USB devices – Securelist
Google will shut down Google+ four months early after second data leak - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/10/18134541/google-plus-privacy-api-data-leak-developers
the new vulnerability impacted 52.5 million users, who could have had profile information like their name, email address, occupation, and age exposed […] even if their account was set to private.
Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html
Dozens of companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but the data shows how personal it is.
How to Stop Apps From Tracking Your Location - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/technology/prevent-location-data-sharing.html
Unlike iPhones, Android phones don’t allow you to restrict an app’s access to your location to just the moments when you’re using it.
Why does 5G have everyone worried about Huawei? - Fifth generation, fifth column
https://www.economist.com/business/2018/12/07/why-does-5g-have-everyone-worried-about-huawei
Western spooks have mused publicly about the risk that Huawei’s kit might be siphoning valuable data back to Beijing, or that it comes with “back doors”
Europe should be wary of Huawei, EU tech official says - Reuters
Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on “mandatory back doors” to allow access to encrypted data.
Wing, Alphabet’s drone delivery business, to begin a pilot in Finland in Spring 2019 – TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/wing-takes-flight-in-finland/
delivering goods and packages of up to 1.5 kilograms (about 3.3 pounds) within a distance of up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
Threat to journalists at highest level in 10 years
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/05/threat-journalists-highest-level-10-years-report
hostility towards the media is becoming normalised around the world, amid a proliferation of “strongman” populist leaders who have echoed the language of the US president and vilified journalists for simply doing their jobs.
Microsoft Adds Live Captions And Subtitles In Skype Calls • WeRSM
https://wersm.com/microsoft-adds-live-captions-and-subtitles-in-skype-calls/
AI-powered live captions and subtitles in Skype calls, to help more people who are deaf or hard of hearing, use the service.
How Facebook is Fueling The French Populist Rage – Monday Note
https://mondaynote.com/how-facebook-is-fueling-the-french-populist-rage-27a86acb9d85
The social network is playing a critical role in one of the worse civil unrest ever seen in France, with no end in sight for now.
Australia passes sweeping anti-encryption bill giving police power to implant malware and insert backdoors, despite opposition from experts, tech companies - TechCrunch
Arrest Shakes Huawei as Global Skepticism of Its Business Grows - NYTimes
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/technology/huawei-arrest-meng-wanzhou.html
China sees the company as a pivotal driver of its ambitions for global technological leadership. Increasingly, much of the rest of the world sees it as a potential conduit for espionage and sabotage.
Alibaba already has a voice assistant way better than Google’s - MIT Technology Review
It navigates interruptions and other tricky features of human conversation to field millions of requests a day.
WHO-rapport: Helseeffektene gjør tiltak mot klimaendringer lønnsomme – NRK
Den grunnleggende funnet i rapporten er at for hver krone verden bruker for å oppfylle klimatiltak, vil man spare inn to kroner i bedre helse
Facebook knew Android call-scraping would be ‘high-risk’ - The Verge
Internal emails show Facebook weighing the privacy risks of collecting call records — then going ahead anyway