The mysterious thief who stole $600m-plus in cryptocurrencies from Poly Network has been offered the role of Chief Security Advisor at the Chinese blockchain biz. It’s been a rollercoaster ride lately for Poly Network. The outfit builds software that handles the exchange of crypto-currencies and other assests between various blockchains. Last week, it confirmed a Read more about OK, so you stole $600m-plus from us, how about you be our Chief Security Advisor, Poly Network asks thief[…]

A cryptocurrency platform that was hacked and had hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from it has now offered the thief a “reward” of $500,000 after the criminal returned almost all of the money. A few days ago a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the blockchain technology of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network, pilfering Read more about Poly Network Offers $500k Reward to Hacker Who Stole $611 Million and then returned it[…]

After first announcing Gmail’s Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) pilot last year, today we’re announcing that over the coming weeks we’re rolling out Gmail’s general support of BIMI, an industry standard that aims to drive adoption of strong sender authentication for the entire email ecosystem […] BIMI enables organizations that authenticate their emails using Read more about Gmail to show your company logo in inbox if DMARC and BIMI authenticated[…]

Most data on microplastic concentrations comes from commercial and research ships that tow plankton nets—long, cone-shaped nets with very fine mesh designed for collecting marine microorganisms. But net trawling can sample only small areas and may be underestimating true plastic concentrations. Except in the North Atlantic and North Pacific gyres—large zones where ocean currents rotate, Read more about Using satellites to track tiny plastic particles and their concentration in the ocean[…]

After a recent investigation by Anandtech pointed out that a number of popular apps were experiencing sluggish performance on the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro, OnePlus has now admitted to throttling hundreds of popular apps to help “reduce power consumption.” Anandtech’s Andrei Frumusanu noticed that a number of popular browsers, including Google Chrome, performed Read more about OnePlus Admits to Throttling OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro for battery life[…]

Plastic producers have tried to make us think that individuals can solve pollution by improving our recycling and shopping habits. A new study makes it clear why that’s their tactic. Just 20 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s trashed single-use plastic. The Plastic Waste Makers Index, published Tuesday by the Australian Read more about Just 100 Companies Create 90% of Plastic Waste[…]

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) on Monday apologized for mishandling the announcement last month that founder Richard Stallman, or RMS, had been reelected to its board of directors – and published a statement from RMS both justifying his behavior and apologizing for it. “FSF staff should have been informed and consulted first,” the FSF said. Read more about FSF doubles down on Richard Stallman’s return: Sure, he is ‘troubling for some’ but we need him, says org – doesn’t kneel for self entitled cancel culture idiots who can’t read Stallman’s actual quotes.[…]

One of the world’s most important international shipping arteries remains blocked this evening after the MV Ever Given, a 1,300-foot, 220,000-ton container ship, ran aground and got stuck almost completely sideways in the Suez Canal—cutting off a vital shipping lane between Europe and Asia and leading to a massive backup of over a hundred giant Read more about Suez Canal Totally Blocked After One Of the World’s Largest Container Ships Runs Aground[…]

An otherwise meaningless game during Monday’s preliminary stage of the $200,000 Magnus Carlsen Invitational left a pair of grandmasters in stitches while thrusting one of chess’s most bizarre and least effective openings into the mainstream. Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States had already qualified for the knockout stage of the competition Read more about Double bongcloud: why grandmasters are playing the worst move in chess[…]

It was inevitable, really. In the early days of the internet, Tucows was known as a reliable place to find and download new software. Today, however, most people are happy to use a modern App Store — Microsoft and Apple both run their own — or navigate to developer websites directly. And if you’re looking Read more about Tucows closes its once-popular software download site[…]

There are many times where someone shares data as an image, whether intentionally due to software constraints (ie Twitter) or as a result of not understanding the implications (image inside a PDF or in a Word Doc). xkcd.com jokingly refers to this as .norm or as the Normal File Format. While it’s far from ideal Read more about Reading tables from images with magick[…]

Yesterday, the BBC ran a story with the factually untrue headline, “Cellebrite claimed to have cracked chat app’s encryption.” This is false. Not only can Cellebrite not break Signal encryption, but Cellebrite never even claimed to be able to. Since we weren’t actually given the opportunity to comment in that story, we’re posting this to Read more about No, Cellebrite cannot ‘break Signal encryption.’[…]

On Friday, a federal judge decided that he’s had enough of reading the tea leaves when it comes to exactly what the fuck Trump is talking about. The president’s tweets have become more central to his tenure in office than ever before as he’s been recovering from covid-19 infection and lashing out in every direction Read more about Judge Rules Trump Must Say Himself If His Tweets Are True or Bullshit. It can be one or the other.[…]

Today’s the day YouTube is killing its “Community Contributions” feature for videos, which let content creators crowdsource captions and subtitles for their videos. YouTube announced the move back in July, which triggered a community outcry from the deaf, hard of hearing, and fans of foreign media, but it does not sound like the company is Read more about YouTube celebrates Deaf Awareness Week by killing crowd-sourced captions[…]

Just last week, Facebook launched an initiative to uplift climate science. It was wildly misguided, yes, but the company was trying to show it’s down for the cause or something. Now, the company is proving just how devoted to climate activism it is by, um, booting environmental justice organizers from the platform. Tight! Hundreds of Read more about Facebook Fights Climate Change by Mass Banning of Climate Groups[…]

Users of UK web hosting firm 123-Reg’s email service told The Reg this morning that 96 hours after clocking the issue, they are still having trouble sending emails to users with Microsoft’s Live, Outlook or Hotmail accounts. For its part, 123-Reg has confirmed “delays in delivering emails to Hotmail/Outlook/Live email addresses,” but provided no ETA Read more about Angry 123-Reg customers in the UK wake up to another day where hosted mail doesn’t get through to users on Microsoft email accounts[…]

In an extraordinary and somewhat devastating discovery, it turns out virtually the entire Scots version of Wikipedia, comprising more than 57,000 articles, was written, edited or overseen by a netizen who clearly had nae the slightest idea about the language. The user is not only a prolific contributor, they are an administrator of sco.wikipedia.org, having Read more about Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles[…]

A ringing bell vibrates simultaneously at a low-pitched fundamental tone and at many higher-pitched overtones, producing a pleasant musical sound. A recent study, just published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, shows that the Earth’s entire atmosphere vibrates in an analogous manner, in a Read more about New study detects global atmosphere rings like a bell[…]

This Dec. 30, 2019, image from security camera video shows Michael L. Taylor, center, and George-Antoine Zayek at passport control at Istanbul Airport in Turkey. Taylor, a former Green Beret, and his son, Peter Taylor, 27, were arrested Wednesday in Massachusetts on charges they smuggled Nissan ex-Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan in a box Read more about Ex-Green Beret arrested in Carlos Ghosn case has no stranger to danger[…]

Billionaire Elon Musk, America’s dumbest smart guy, spent the night tweeting about how America needs to “reopen” its economy, despite Musk’s failed predictions about the trajectory of the coronavirus crisis. A month ago, Musk insisted that new coronavirus cases in the U.S. would be “close to zero” by the end of April. Well, it’s the Read more about Elon Musk Tweets ‘FREE AMERICA NOW’ As His Coronavirus Predictions Prove Very Wrong[…]

Zoom has admitted it doesn’t have 300 million daily active users. The admission came after The Verge noticed the company had quietly edited a blog post making the claim earlier this month. Zoom originally stated it had “more than 300 million daily users” and that “more than 300 million people around the world are using Read more about Zoom admits it doesn’t have 300 million users, corrects misleading claims[…]

Taking a cue from anyone under 10 years old who can come up with endless imaginative uses for an empty cardboard box, Samsung is now making it easy for anyone to recycle or upcycle its TV packaging into other useful household items like magazine racks and fancy cat houses. As competition between flat screen TV Read more about Samsung ‘s TV Boxes Can Now Be Easily Upcycled Into Cat Houses[…]

Only a few months have passed since we reported that the New York-to-Los Angeles Cannonball record was broken. It’s allegedly been broken again. The 26 hour, 38 minute time—which beats the record set in November by more than 45 minutes—appears to be legitimate, according to Ed Bolian, a Cannonball insider and driver who set his Read more about Cannonball Record Broken During Coronavirus – 26 Hours 38 Minutes[…]

Four global drinks giants are responsible for more than half a million tonnes of plastic pollution in six developing countries each year, enough to cover 83 football pitches every day, according to a report. The NGO Tearfund has calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from the open burning of plastic bottles, sachets and cartons produced by Read more about Report reveals ‘massive plastic pollution footprint’ of drinks firms[…]