Tuesday’s attack by Iran-backed Shiite militia supporters on the US Embassy in Baghdad, followed by Friday’s US killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, sparked fears of an intense escalation of hostilities in the region. Analysts say US embassies and consulates are prime targets in the wake of these events, and personnel could be in jeopardy. “Iran isn’t going to let this go unanswered,” notes security analyst Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx...
Jan 07, 2020•7 min
Facing growing scrutiny over censorship and security concerns, TikTok is borrowing a few pages from a playbook now standard at many American tech giants, in an effort to earn the trust of US users and lawmakers. The Chinese-owned video app said in October it would invite outside experts to review some of its content moderation policies, just as Facebook and YouTube have in the past. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jan 06, 2020•6 min
When this decade began, the ideal of the internet as a freewheeling intellectual playground remained largely intact: A medium that, after years of bubbly anticipation, had finally reached the mainstream and fulfilled its hype, bringing with it online marketplaces with infinite selection, viral videos, long-lost friends on Facebook, and even the hopes for new forms of protest and dissent against authoritarian regimes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jan 03, 2020•18 min
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Dec 31, 2019•7 min
For generations, millions of Star Wars fans have thought they were watching a good ol’ fashioned space opera. In fact, they’ve received a decades-long primer in geopolitics, warfare, and the tenets of leadership. This is on display again in the latest and final movie of the nine-film franchise, The Rise of Skywalker. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dec 27, 2019•10 min
Internet-connected gadgets like lightbulbs and fitness trackers are notorious for poor security. That's partly because they’re often made cheaply and with haste, which leads to careless mistakes and outsourcing of problematic parts. But it’s also partly due to the lack of computing power in the first place; it's not so easy to encrypt all that data with limited resources. Or at least that’s how the conventional wisdom goes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 25, 2019•6 min
In 1986, Cliff Stoll’s boss at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs tasked him with getting to the bottom of a 75-cent accounting discrepancy in the lab’s computer network, which was rented out to remote users by the minute. Stoll, 36, investigated the source of that minuscule anomaly, pulling on it like a loose thread until it led to a shocking culprit: a hacker in the system. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dec 23, 2019•14 min
One of the most popular features of Facebook-owned WhatsApp is group messaging, which turns the app's end-to-end encrypted chats into social groups that can include up to 256 participants. But recent stumbles in group chat security—including a bug that could have let a hacker crash the app entirely—have shown that WhatsApp may need to keep a closer eye on these communal hubs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dec 19, 2019•4 min
Google's password checking feature has slowly been spreading across the Google ecosystem this past year. It started as the "Password Checkup" extension for desktop versions of Chrome, which would audit individual passwords when you entered them, and several months later it was integrated into every Google account as an on-demand audit you can run on all your saved passwords. Now, instead of a Chrome extension, Password Checkup is being integrated into the desktop and mobile versions of Chrome 79...
Dec 18, 2019•4 min
There's been a lot of creepy and concerning news about how Amazon's Ring smart doorbells are bringing surveillance to suburbia and sparking data-sharing relationships between Amazon and law enforcement. News reports this week are raising a different issue: hackers are breaking into users' Ring accounts, which can also be connected to indoor Ring cameras, to take over the devices and get up to all sorts of invasive shenanigans. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 17, 2019•7 min
Maybe, just maybe, there’s no Deep State plot to get Donald Trump after all. For more than a year, Trump’s backers have held out hope that a long-running investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general would blow the lid off of a government-wide conspiracy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dec 16, 2019•8 min
After filing for bankruptcy and closing more than 800 stores last year, Toys "R" Us is back. The iconic retailer has opened two new mall outposts, one in Texas and another in New Jersey, in time for the holidays. The stores are packed with some of the most kid-coveted products of the year, but have been garnering attention for another reason: the surveillance technology they’re using. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 13, 2019•9 min
The trade war between China and the US has centered largely on escalating tariffs. But in many rural communities, the focus has shifted to the security of networks for which Chinese giants Huawei and ZTE have long provided equipment. As the 5G future approaches, the US is pushing small carriers to rip out and replace whatever parts of their infrastructure come from China, no matter the cost. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 12, 2019•9 min
Email has long been a major weak link for security; the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign were infamously both compromised by Russian hackers through email-related phishing attacks ahead of the 2016 US elections. And with the 2020 campaign in full swing, a patched flaw in Microsoft Outlook is still giving attackers an opening. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dec 11, 2019•6 min
If you call your hacking conglomerate Evil Corp and steal tens of millions of dollars from banks and individuals over the course of a decade, you can probably expect an indictment at some point. For alleged Evil Corp leader Maksim Yakubets, it came this week, as US and UK authorities charged him and an associate with hacking thefts that totaled over $100 million. A separate criminal complaint also ties Yakubets to the infamous Zeus trojan. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 10, 2019•6 min
The prominent hacker and Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith was arrested by the US government Friday after he spoke at an April conference on blockchain technologies in North Korea. The US government considers his presentation to be a transfer of technology—and therefore a violation of US sanctions. But Griffith's defenders, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, describe the arrest as a massive overreaction. Griffith worked for the Ethereum Foundation, and Buterin called him a friend. Lear...
Dec 09, 2019•4 min
Ewoks. Just saying the name evokes myriad emotions in Star Wars fans. For some, the bear-like creatures that first appeared in 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi are part of the franchise’s rich tapestry. Others consider the Ewoks a blight and would prefer they not exist at all. (Some fan edits of Return of the Jedi excise the Ewoks entirely, for crying out loud.) They’re the most controversial inhabitants of the Star Wars universe this side of Jar Jar Binks. Learn about your ad choices: dovet...
Dec 06, 2019•7 min
What was the last thing you searched for online? For me, it was "$120 in pounds." Before that, I wanted to know the capital of Albania (Tirana), the Twitter handle of Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey (he’s @EdwardJDavey), and dates of bank holidays in the UK for 2019 (it’s a late Easter next year, folks). Thrilling, I’m sure you’ll agree. But something makes these searches, in internet terms, a bit unusual. Shock, horror, I didn’t use Google. I used DuckDuckGo. Learn about your ad choices...
Dec 05, 2019•8 min
As we draw ever-closer to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the shopping days in between, you'll have no shortage of cheap, flashy, internet-connected gadgets to choose from for holiday gifts. But in the frenzy, don't forget that the widgets you buy will live at recipients' houses—or on their wrists—for months or years to come. With that in mind, it's worth considering security and privacy risks involved, so you know what you're getting people into before they unwrap the box. Learn about your ...
Dec 04, 2019•6 min
For almost three years starting in the fall of 2015, a 56-year-old Chinese-American tour guide named Xueha "Edward" Peng would periodically carry out a strange errand: Every few months, he'd book a room at a certain designated hotel—first in California and later in Georgia—and leave $10,000 or $20,000 in cash in the room, inside a dresser drawer or taped to the bottom of a desk or TV stand. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 03, 2019•7 min
Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that the impeachment inquiry had “poisoned the minds of fanatics,” and he was absolutely right—but not quite in the way that he meant. His comments, aimed at Democrats, instead came across in the hearing as projection, a sad summation of the intellectual rot that has spread through his own party during the Trump age. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 02, 2019•9 min
In the Harry Potter universe, there’s a handy spell for when you need to stop someone from spilling your secret plans or shit-talking during a duel. It’s called Mimblewimble, otherwise known as the tongue-tying curse. It’s also the name of a privacy technology designed for cryptocurrencies—because, well, somebody’s gotta keep crypto weird. The first coins to use Mimblewimble—distinct efforts called Grin and Beam—both launched in January. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Nov 29, 2019•8 min
Black Friday attracts crowds, and crowds attract scammers, and that means you need to take extra care when shopping online over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. There'll be people out there keen to relieve you of more money than you'll save on a TV set or a gaming console. The following precautions apply whatever the time of year, but it's worth reminding yourself of them every time a serious holiday season comes around. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Nov 28, 2019•6 min
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Nov 27, 2019•10 min
Users increasingly encounter moments when a website asks for permission to gather some personal data or access to their device hardware: "Can we access your GPS position? Your microphone or camera? Your Bluetooth? Can we send you push notifications about breaking news or premium chocolate subscription offers?" Permissions, as these asks are known, give the web exciting powers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Nov 26, 2019•7 min
Iranian hackers have carried out some of the most disruptive acts of digital sabotage of the last decade, wiping entire computer networks in waves of cyberattacks across the Middle East and occasionally even the US. But now one of Iran's most active hacker groups appears to have shifted focus. Rather than just standard IT networks, they're targeting the physical control systems used in electric utilities, manufacturing, and oil refineries. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Nov 25, 2019•7 min
The reports came just a few days after Disney+ launched: Thousands of the streaming service accounts were already up for sale on various hacking forums, at bargain basement prices. As of Wednesday, new victims were still taking to Twitter and other venues to express their frustration that their accounts had been taken over. What’s happening almost certainly isn’t a hack in the way you’d normally think of it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Nov 22, 2019•5 min
Back in 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that it's illegal for the police to attach a GPS tracking device to someone's car without a warrant. But what if you find a GPS tracking device on your car? Can you remove it? ARS TECHNICA This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Nov 21, 2019•4 min
It's increasingly common for the data that passes between your browser and a website's server to be encrypted with HTTPS, which makes it impossible for outside snoops to read. But you don't get that protection if the URL drops that crucial "S" after HTTP. And while some mechanisms do redirect you to an encrypted version of a site, they often do so only after exposing that initial request. The makers of the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo think there's a better way. Learn about your ad c...
Nov 20, 2019•5 min
Android users are groaning and websites are moaning, but first: a cartoon about what to do with a broken laptop. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News 146 new vulnerabilities all come preinstalled on Android phones Security firm Kryptowire discovered 146 vulnerabilities—across 29 Android smartphone makers—that exist before the phones are even taken out of the box. Learn about your ad...
Nov 20, 2019•2 min
