For years, the U.S. military has pushed to meet prospective Generation Z recruits on Discord, the online group-chat tool where many spend their time. It even runs a 17,000-member chatroom there for service members to talk about first-person shooter games, meet with career counselors and participate in what one sergeant in 2019 called the “Army of tomorrow.” But Defense Department officials have also struggled to confront the risks of how Discord’s closed channels operate — and the ease with which they can be used to expose military intelligence. Last month, in a detailed guide aimed...…For years, the U.S. military has pushed to meet prospective Generation Z recruits on Discord, the online group-chat tool where many spend their time. It even runs a 17,000-member chatroom there for service members to talk about first-person shooter games, meet with career counselors and participate in what one sergeant in 2019 called the “Army of tomorrow.” But Defense Department officials have also struggled to confront the risks of how Discord’s closed channels operate — and the ease with which they can be used to expose military intelligence. Last month, in a detailed guide aimed...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareAs they scrambled last month to find a way to pinpoint infections from the novel coronavirus, officials in Georgia’s Gwinnett County sought help from an unusual source: an Illinois-based seller of red-light traffic cameras. had begun advertising a “fever detector” that it described as fast and accurate, using “ground-breaking technology [to] identify symptoms of illness.” The county of nearly a million people in the Atlanta suburbs, where more than 2,400 have and 87 have died, quickly approved an emergency purchase of...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareAs they scrambled last month to find a way to pinpoint infections from the novel coronavirus, officials in Georgia’s Gwinnett County sought help from an unusual source: an Illinois-based seller of red-light traffic cameras. had begun advertising a “fever detector” that it described as fast and accurate, using “ground-breaking technology [to] identify symptoms of illness.” The county of nearly a million people in the Atlanta suburbs, where more than 2,400 have and 87 have died, quickly approved an emergency purchase of...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareApple and Google unveiled an ambitious effort Friday to help combat the novel coronavirus, introducing new tools that could soon allow owners of smartphones to know if they have crossed paths with someone infected with the disease.The changes the two companies announced targeting iPhone and Android devices could inject valuable new technological support into contact tracing, a strategy public health officials say is essential to allowing people to return to work and normal life while containing the spread of the...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareApple and Google unveiled an ambitious effort Friday to help combat the novel coronavirus, introducing new tools that could soon allow owners of smartphones to know if they have crossed paths with someone infected with the disease.The changes the two companies announced targeting iPhone and Android devices could inject valuable new technological support into contact tracing, a strategy public health officials say is essential to allowing people to return to work and normal life while containing the spread of the...WW…

Gift ShareHOUSTON — President Biden signed a major disaster declaration that will allow much of Texas to tap vast reserves of federal aid, the White House said Saturday, offering a new lifeline to a state struggling to recover from a brutal winter storm that left more than 50 dead and millions without power across the South.Here are some significant developments:As Texas thawed from days of frigid darkness, an epic blame game emerged over who is responsible from what some expected would become the Texas’s deregulated electrical grid had triggered mass outages that left residents in the...…Gift ShareHOUSTON — President Biden signed a major disaster declaration that will allow much of Texas to tap vast reserves of federal aid, the White House said Saturday, offering a new lifeline to a state struggling to recover from a brutal winter storm that left more than 50 dead and millions without power across the South.Here are some significant developments:As Texas thawed from days of frigid darkness, an epic blame game emerged over who is responsible from what some expected would become the Texas’s deregulated electrical grid had triggered mass outages that left residents in the...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareA security executive with the video-tech giant Zoom worked with the Chinese government to terminate Americans’ accounts and disrupt video calls about the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square, Justice Department prosecutors said Friday.The case is a stunning blow for Zoom, one of the most popular new titans of American tech, which during the pandemic became one of the main ways people work, socialize and share ideas around the world. The California-based company is now worth more than $100...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareA security executive with the video-tech giant Zoom worked with the Chinese government to terminate Americans’ accounts and disrupt video calls about the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square, Justice Department prosecutors said Friday.The case is a stunning blow for Zoom, one of the most popular new titans of American tech, which during the pandemic became one of the main ways people work, socialize and share ideas around the world. The California-based company is now worth more than $100...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareTop investors in SolarWinds, the Texas-based company whose software was breached in a major Russian cyberattack, sold millions of dollars in stock in the days before the intrusion was revealed.The timing of the trades raises questions about whether the investors used inside information to avoid major losses related to the attack. SolarWinds’s share price has plunged roughly 22 percent since the company disclosed its role in the breach Sunday night.On Dec. 8, the cybersecurity firm FireEye that hackers had broken into its...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareTop investors in SolarWinds, the Texas-based company whose software was breached in a major Russian cyberattack, sold millions of dollars in stock in the days before the intrusion was revealed.The timing of the trades raises questions about whether the investors used inside information to avoid major losses related to the attack. SolarWinds’s share price has plunged roughly 22 percent since the company disclosed its role in the breach Sunday night.On Dec. 8, the cybersecurity firm FireEye that hackers had broken into its...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareA prominent artificial-intelligence computer scientist who helped pioneer research into facial recognition software’s bias against people of color said she was abruptly fired from Google for sending an email criticizing the company’s treatment of minority employees and saying she felt “constantly dehumanized.”Timnit Gebru said in a series of tweets Wednesday night that she was fired from her post as the co-leader of Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, where she had spearheaded research that helped elevate the...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareA prominent artificial-intelligence computer scientist who helped pioneer research into facial recognition software’s bias against people of color said she was abruptly fired from Google for sending an email criticizing the company’s treatment of minority employees and saying she felt “constantly dehumanized.”Timnit Gebru said in a series of tweets Wednesday night that she was fired from her post as the co-leader of Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, where she had spearheaded research that helped elevate the...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift SharePresident Trump throughout Wednesday repeated , even as numerous swing states were still counting ballots, causing widespread confusion online and sparking bellicose talk on far-right forums and on mainstream platforms such as Twitter.As most news organizations urged caution and patience, with agitation, conflict and, in some cases, fury in response to the president’s assertions — a scenario that law enforcement officials and digital-threat analysts had warned about for months.The furious talk would prove to be little...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift SharePresident Trump throughout Wednesday repeated , even as numerous swing states were still counting ballots, causing widespread confusion online and sparking bellicose talk on far-right forums and on mainstream platforms such as Twitter.As most news organizations urged caution and patience, with agitation, conflict and, in some cases, fury in response to the president’s assertions — a scenario that law enforcement officials and digital-threat analysts had warned about for months.The furious talk would prove to be little...WW…

This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift Share, the secret-sharing app that called itself the “safest place on the Internet,” left years of users’ most intimate confessions exposed on the Web tied to their age, location and other details, raising alarm among cybersecurity researchers that users could have been unmasked or blackmailed.The data exposure, discovered by independent researchers and shown to The Washington Post, allowed anyone to access all of the location data and other information tied to anonymous “whispers” posted to the popular social app, which has...…This article was published more than 3 years agoCommentGift Share, the secret-sharing app that called itself the “safest place on the Internet,” left years of users’ most intimate confessions exposed on the Web tied to their age, location and other details, raising alarm among cybersecurity researchers that users could have been unmasked or blackmailed.The data exposure, discovered by independent researchers and shown to The Washington Post, allowed anyone to access all of the location data and other information tied to anonymous “whispers” posted to the popular social app, which has...WW…

This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have tapped a private database containing hundreds of millions of phone, water, electricity and other utility records while pursuing immigration violations, according to public documents uncovered by Georgetown Law researchers and shared with The Washington Post.ICE’s use of the private database is another example of how government agencies have exploited commercial sources to access information they are not authorized to compile on their own. It also highlights how...…This article was published more than 2 years agoCommentGift ShareU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have tapped a private database containing hundreds of millions of phone, water, electricity and other utility records while pursuing immigration violations, according to public documents uncovered by Georgetown Law researchers and shared with The Washington Post.ICE’s use of the private database is another example of how government agencies have exploited commercial sources to access information they are not authorized to compile on their own. It also highlights how...WW…