It can be hard to keep all the Facebook security and privacy breaches straight — there was just one , in fact. There’s already another leak of personal Facebook data, but this one didn’t come directly from . Researchers from cybersecurity firm UpGuard report that . According to UpGuard, the larger of the two databases belongs to a Mexican media company called Cultura Colectiva. It contains 146GB of user data including comments, likes, reactions, names, Facebook user IDs, and more. The other database comes from a now-defunct Facebook app called “At the pool.” This one had 22,000 passwords stored in plain text associated with user accounts.
No Man’s Sky didn’t really launch so much as arrive half-dead and barely breathing. The game completely failed to deliver on its launch premise, quickly becoming a poster child for over-promising and under-delivering. Alternate titles like “One Man’s Lie” were coined, illustrating exactly what the game community thought of Hello Games’ CEO and leader Sean Murray. Given this inauspicious beginning, the smart money was on No Man’s Sky folding and failing, one more over-hyped title in a sea of them. Then, a funny thing happened. No Man’s Sky started improving. Bit by bit, Murray and Hello Games have rolled out refinements and quests and improved the crafting and exploration systems.
You would think that after all its recent privacy missteps, Facebook would exercise a little more caution when it implements new features. Alas, this is Facebook, so it’s still blundering from one crisis to the next. Its latest ill-conceived scheme involves asking users to hand over their email passwords. This is basically indistinguishable from a phishing attack. The email chicanery happens when new users sign up for Facebook in a way that looks “suspicious” to the site. The Daily Beast this scenario by signing up from a VPN routed through Romania, finding that Facebook does indeed ask users to input their email password to verify their account.
When Intel unveiled Optane in 2015, it declared it had created a fundamentally new type of memory that could revolutionize the industry. Four years later, signs of that revolution have been hard to come by. Optane DC Persistent Memory — Optane DIMMs loaded into memory slots with higher capacities but less speed — are supposed to change this. New reports, however, suggest Optane’s performance benefits are modest and the difficulty of improving that situation could be considerable. Inventing a new type of RAM and building an entire ecosystem around it is a heavy lift. Intel has acknowledged that encouraging companies to adapt software for its Optane DC PMs will take time.
Verizon tried to take an early lead in the 5G era with its non-standard 5G home internet service last year, but today is the big day for Verizon’s real 5G network. The mobile 5G service is , but there aren’t any phones just yet. However, the company is pushing the 5G Mod accessory for the previously launched Moto Z3. Verizon’s initial plan was to flip the switch on its 5G network on April 11, so this is a week ahead of schedule. While Verizon will eventually get 5G up and running in all its service areas, that’s probably years away.
After the Lion Air 610 disaster last year, we learned the Boeing 737 Max 8 was equipped with a new system designed to automatically prevent stalls under certain conditions. Pilots had never been trained on or told the system existed. After Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed, these points have all been revisited. Did the pilots respond properly? Were they aware that deactivating the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) would allow them to regain control of the aircraft? Were they familiar with the process for doing so? Understanding what happened in the cockpit is critical to determining which safety changes are required to prevent the future loss of any additional aircraft.
Need a new PC? Well, with coupon code “AFF300XPS” in play, you can get a six-core Dell XPS 8930 desktop PC with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive at a $300 discount. And if you’d like to turn this into a gaming rig, upgrading to a dedicated graphics card is a snap. • Intel Core i7-8700 6-core Tower Desktop with 16GB RAM for $699.99 at Dell Home (Coupon code: AFF300XPS – List price: $999.99). Xbox Game Pass gives you access to dozens and dozens of games on your Xbox One for the length of your membership.
All technologically advanced nations have at least a few space-based assets. In modern military conflict, those objects could become targets. Several countries have conducted tests with satellite-killing weapons, most recently India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced last week that the Mission Shakti test had successfully destroyed a satellite in low-Earth orbit. Now, NASA is that the test could have placed the International Space Station at risk. Space is big, but the space around Earth is feeling much more cramped lately. As the cost of reaching orbit drops, more countries and companies have launched spacecraft that will never come down of their own accord.
Image credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images Since the 2016 election, social media companies have faced the beginnings of a reckoning for their complete failure to protect the security or privacy of their users and to protect their platforms from being exploited by foreign actors, scam artists, and conspiracy theorists. Facebook has been hammered with scandal after scandal, but YouTube has scarcely come away unscathed. Investigations have found troubling links between the company’s algorithms for determining what shows up next in your video feed and the rise of extremist content online. The company has been particularly criticized for its failure to properly monitor children’s programming.
