Get in-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, and society.
Just three short months ago, security researcher Marcus Hutchins entered the pantheon of hacker heroes for stopping the WannaCry ransomware attack that ripped through the internet and paralyzed hundreds of thousands of computers. Now he's been arrested and charged with involvement in another mass hacking scheme—this time on the wrong side. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apple recently removed some of the virtual private networks from the App Store in China, making it harder for users there to get around internet censorship. Amazon has capitulated to China's censors as well; The New York Times reported this week that the company's China cloud service instructed local customers to stop using software to circumvent that country's censorship apparatus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Most consumer tech manufacturers figure that once a hacker can physically access a device, there's not much left that can be done to defend it. But a group of researchers known as the Exploitee.rs say that giving up too soon leaves devices susceptible to hardware attacks that can lead to bigger problems. Hardware hack techniques, like a flash memory attack they developed, can facilitate the discovery of software bugs that not only expose the one hacked device, but every other unit of that model....
This weekend, the same email landed in the inboxes of an untold number of entertainment journalists. “1.5 TB of HBO data just leaked!!!” screamed the subject header, while the email itself, addressed "to all mankind," promised “the greatest leak of space era,” and a link to a site that hosts unreleased an Game of Thrones script, not-yet-aired episodes of Ballers and Insecure, Room 104, and Barry. According the hackers, there’s plenty more where that came from. Learn about your ad choices: doveta...
The near-daily barrage of news and revelations, big and small, about the Trump campaign and its metastasizing ties to Russia can be hard to keep track of, even for people following the scandal closely. Story lines and players appear and disappear, sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
One out of every seven people on the planet uses the messaging app WhatsApp every day, according a recent blog post from the company. A billion people a day send messages to their friends and family on a service that's end-to-end encrypted by default, up from a billion per month last year. That surge in growth stands in sharp contrast to Twitter, which added approximately no new monthly uses last quarter, and had in fact lost two million in the US. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/a...
Last week, representative Blake Farenthold of Texas lamented on the radio that some "female senators from the Northeast" stood in the way of repealing the Affordable Care Act. "If it was a guy from south Texas," he said, "I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style," suggesting he'd love to duel, say, Susan Collins of Maine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Before my visit earlier this year, I’d never been to Cuba, though Cuba had certainly been to me. The Miami of my ’80s childhood was a suburban reboot of prerevolutionary Cuba, filled with people who still toasted El año próximo en La Habana (“next year in Havana”) at important occasions. Everything from family letters to fresh-off-the-raft waiters kept us apprised of the increasingly desperate conditions. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
When AlphaBay, the world’s largest dark web bazaar, went offline two weeks ago, it threw the darknet into chaos as its buyers and sellers scrambled to find new venues. What those dark web users didn't—and couldn't—know: That chaos was planned. Dutch authorities had already seized Hansa, another another major dark web market, the previous month. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
It was the week that sent dark web markets scrambling. On Thursday, the feds confirmed earlier reports that they had taken down Alphabay, a dark web bazaar substantially larger than Silk Road ever was. They tacked on a surprising revelation though: Dutch police had a month earlier quietly seized control of the third-largest dark web market, Hansa, setting a trap for displaced Alphabay buyers and sellers. What a world! While darknet drama dominated the headlines, plenty more transpired. Learn abo...
The ever-changing Russian hacking scandal—which doesn’t yet have a catchy name like Treasongate but clearly needs one—took a sharp U-Turn back to email territory, when Donald Trump Jr. revealed the email chain in which he set up a meeting with a Russian government lawyer. We profiled the British publicist who organized the get-together, a guy who has had a long and colorful relationship with the Trump family, much of which helpfully lives on social media. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.pr...
Not since the days of the now-legendary Silk Road has a single site dominated the dark web's black market as completely, and for as long, as the online bazaar known as AlphaBay. And with the news that the site has been torn down by a law enforcement raid---and one of its leaders found dead in a Thai prison---the dark web drug trade has fallen into a temporary state of chaos. About a week ago AlphaBay, the dark web's largest contraband marketplace, went mysteriously offline. Learn about your ad c...
Minnesota representative and Deputy Chair of the DNC Keith Ellison recently called on Twitter to ban Donald Trump once and for all, joining countless publications who have made the same demand. And currently, nearly 72,000 people have signed an online petition asking for the same. Unfortunately for all those dreaming of a Trump-free Twitter, it is almost certainly never going to happen. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Remember when Myspace suffered one of the largest user data breaches ever? Around 360 million accounts were compromised in June 2013, but Myspace said in 2016 when it disclosed the incident that it was taking action to shore up its security. Which would be great, except that it turns out anyone could have taken over any Myspace account if they had the account owner’s listed name, username, and birthday. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Despite what you may have heard, an Amazon Echo did not call the police earlier this week, when it heard a husband threatening his wife with a gun in New Mexico. On Monday, news reports took Bernalillo County authorities' version of those events credulously, heralding the home assistant as a hero. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
On Thursday, President Donald Trump stressed the importance of a particular feature of his proposed border wall: transparency. His reason? Without it, a 60-pound bag of heroin might fly over, and hit an unassuming passerby on the head, striking them dead. The vivid image invites flashbacks to Chuck Jones cartoons, and more than a few questions. But to take it on its merits: Yes, drugs do fly over the wall. But … not like that. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a lengthy email chain from June, 2016. The tweet was an effort to get out ahead of a New York Times investigation into the meeting the emails discussed. They show Trump Jr. eagerly arranging to meet with a Russian lawyer, explicitly described as being government-affiliated, for the stated purpose of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton to help elect Donald Trump. Immediately, conservative leaders leapt to the first son’s defense. Learn about your ad choices: d...
Rob Goldstone, a British-born former tabloid reporter and current publicist, has found himself in the middle of one of the biggest scandals of Trump's presidency thus far. When Donald Trump Jr. sat down with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with reported ties to the Kremlin (ties which Veselnitskaya denies), it was Goldstone who had brokered the encounter. After The New York Times first reported that the meeting took place, Trump Jr. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choice...
On the list of computer security advice standbys, "update your software" ranks just below with "don't use the password 'password.'" But as the cybersecurity research community gets to the bottom of the malware outbreak that exploded out of Ukraine to paralyze thousands of networks around the world last week—shutting down banks, companies, transportation and electric utilities—it's become clear that software updates themselves were the carrier of that pathogen. Learn about your ad choices: doveta...
After last month's Petya/NotPetya ransomware outbreak you may be feeling like the next global attack could come at any moment. It hasn't struck yet, but if the ransomware fear doesn't get you, the phishing paranoia might. And don't forget angst about power grid hacks. Reports this week revealed that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are scrambling to defend multiple US energy companies and manufacturing plants from hackers—including a nuclear power plant in Kansas. Learn about your ad ...
As the world watched highly skilled hackers take down power grids in Ukraine twice in two years, cybersecurity analysts reached the growing consensus that Russian hackers may be using the country as a testing ground for attacks they'll someday try on the United States. On Thursday, when news emerged that hackers have indeed been targeting American power plants—including a Kansas nuclear facility—it seemed possible that day had arrived. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
North Korea's successful test of its first intercontinental ballistic missile carries grave geopolitical implications for a vast swath of the world. Although such an achievement seemed improbable not long ago, it was all but inevitable. The Hermit Kingdom tested its first nuclear bomb in 2006 and has spent the past decade steadily improving the rockets needed to lob one at its enemies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” said an exasperated James Comey in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey’s desire reflects a familiar one for individuals accused of lying when the stakes are high. The former FBI director wished for tapes because, in our society, audio and video recordings serve as a final arbiter of truth. He said, she said always loses to what the tape shows. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
When a piece of unprecedented malicious software rampages through thousands of critical networks around the world, it tends to get our full attention. And this week's digital plague, known as Petya (or NotPetya or Nyetya) proved especially vicious. It paralyzed thousands of computers, including those of Ukrainian government agencies, transportation infrastructure, and companies, as well as international targets including Danish shipping firm Maersk and US pharmaceutical giant Merck. Learn about ...
The private ballot is tradition in the United States. Now, President Trump’s voter fraud commission wants to collect every American’s voting history and make it available to the public—all in the name of “election integrity. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
When a ransomware outbreak exploded from Ukraine across Europe yesterday, disrupting companies, government agencies, and critical infrastructure, it at first appeared to be just another profit-focused cybercriminal scheme---albeit a particularly vicious and damaging one. But its origins in Ukraine raised deeper questions: After all, shadowy hackers have waged a cyberwar there for years, likely at Russia's bidding. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
When law enforcement argues it needs a “backdoor” into encryption services, the counterargument has typically been that it would be impossible to limit such access to one person or organization. If you leave a key under the doormat, a seminal 2015 paper argues, a burglar eventually find its. And now recent events suggest an even simpler rebuttal: Why entrust a key to someone who gets robbed frequently? This aptly describe US intelligence services of late. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.pr...
How many people specifically know where you are right now? Some friends and family? Your coworkers, maybe? If you're using a Windows laptop or PC you could add another group to the list: the CIA. New documents released on Wednesday as part of WikiLeaks' series of CIA hacking revelations detail a method the agency uses to geolocate computers, and the people using them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
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