Team of American Hackers and Emirati Spies Discussed Attacking The Intercept

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 21, 2019 | Lästips

OPERATIVES AT A controversial cybersecurity firm working for the United Arab Emirates government discussed targeting The Intercept and breaching the computers of its employees, according to two sources, including a member of the hacking team who said they were present at a meeting to plan for such an attack.

The firm, DarkMatter, brought ex-National Security Agency hackers and other U.S. intelligence and military veterans together with Emirati analysts to compromise the computers of political dissidents at home and abroad, including American citizens, Reuters revealed in January. The news agency also reported that the FBI is investigating DarkMatter’s use of American hacking expertise and the possibility that it was wielded against Americans.

Källa: Team of American Hackers and Emirati Spies Discussed Attacking The Intercept

Flera medier samtidigt kan förbättra uppmärksamheten

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 21, 2019 | Lästips

Att kolla mobilen, ha på tv och samtidigt spela datorspel blir allt vanligare bland unga i dag. Men att använda många tekniska kanaler samtidigt kan förbättra uppmärksamheten enligt en ny studie från Umeå universitet.

I studien har 51 personer mellan 17-35 år deltagit. Först fick personerna uppskatta hur mycket de använde flera mediekanaler samtidigt och sedan fick de göra datoriserade uppgifter som mätte hur duktiga de var på att växla uppmärksamhet mellan olika uppgifter. Resultatet visade att ju fler mediekanaler deltagarna använde desto bättre var de på uppmärksamhetstesten.

– Att multitaska kan uppfattas som negativt, men det finns vinster att hämta. Det fungerar som ett träningspass för uppmärksamhetsförmågan, säger Jessica K Ljungberg, som är en av forskarna bakom studien.

Källa: Flera medier samtidigt kan förbättra uppmärksamheten

Guardian told it was target of Saudi hacking unit after Khashoggi killing

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 21, 2019 | Lästips

The report from Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur, sets out in forensic detail concerns about the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, both before and after the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It also details the potential threats posed to journalists and academics by the kingdom’s use of intrusive spyware.

This is a threat the Guardian has had to assess with some seriousness in recent months.

Earlier this year, the Guardian was warned it was being targeted by a cybersecurity unit in Saudi Arabia that had been ordered to “hack” into the email accounts of journalists investigating the various crises engulfing the royal court.

Källa: Guardian told it was target of Saudi hacking unit after Khashoggi killing

Lästipset: Apple is Listening

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 11, 2019 | Lästips

Something big changed at Apple around the beginning of 2017.

They had encountered significant turbulence in the product line over the preceding years, especially Macs. It was a rough time to be a pro Mac user.

The “trash can” 2013 Mac Pro addressed only a fraction of the needs solved by the previous “cheese grater” towers, aged quickly without critical upgrade paths, and suffered from high GPU-failure rates from its cooling solution — all because its design prioritized size and appearance over performance and versatility in the one Mac model that should never make that tradeoff.

Over the next few years, it became clear that the Mac Pro was an embarrassing, outdated flop that Apple seemed to have little intention of ever updating, leaving its customers feeling unheard and abandoned. I think Apple learned a small lesson from it, but they learned a much bigger one a few years later.

Apple is Listening

Lästipset: Så skapas en YouTube-extremist

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 9, 2019 | Lästips

The Making of a YouTube Radical

Caleb Cain pulled a Glock pistol from his waistband, took out the magazine and casually tossed both onto the kitchen counter.

“I bought it the day after I got death threats,” he said.

The threats, Mr. Cain explained, came from right-wing trolls in response to a video he had posted on YouTube a few days earlier. In the video, he told the story of how, as a liberal college dropout struggling to find his place in the world, he had gotten sucked into a vortex of far-right politics on YouTube.

“I fell down the alt-right rabbit hole,” he said in the video.

Källa: The Making of a YouTube Radical

Alex Jones Read a Satirical Article Written Under Pseudonym on His Show

av Mikael Winterkvist | jun 8, 2019 | Lästips

Tuesday’s episode of the Alex Jones Show on InfoWars featured the conspiracy theorist reading a satirical article about abortion written by the persona of Nick Mullen, a New York comedian known for his uber-successful podcast, Cum Town.

Cum Town is hosted by comedians Nick Mullen, Stavros Halkias, and Adam Friedland. Prior to his success on the show, Mullen worked as a comedian in Austin where he was a finalist in the city’s annual “Funniest Person in Austin” competition in 2011. Mullen padded his stand-up comedy career with a variety of other creative ventures.

Källa: Alex Jones Read a Satirical Article Written Under Pseudonym on His Show