Teens Hacked Boston Subway’s CharlieCard to Get Infinite Free Rides—and This Time Nobody Got Sued

In working with Rauch, the MBTA had created a vulnerability disclosure program to cooperate with friendly hackers who agreed to share cybersecurity vulnerabilities they found. The teens say they were invited to a meeting at the MBTA that included no fewer than 12 of the agency’s executives, all of whom seemed grateful for their willingness… Continue reading Teens Hacked Boston Subway’s CharlieCard to Get Infinite Free Rides—and This Time Nobody Got Sued

Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data

Zoom, the company that normalized attending business meetings in your pajama pants, was forced to unmute itself this week to reassure users that it would not use personal data to train artificial intelligence without their consent. A keen-eyed Hacker News user last week noticed that an update to Zoom’s terms and conditions in March appeared… Continue reading Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data

The Scary Science of Maui’s Wildfires

In an eerie echo of 2018’s Camp Fire, which sped through the town of Paradise, California, destroying 19,000 buildings and killing 85 people, ferocious wildfires are tearing through Maui, forcing some people to flee into the ocean. Much of the town of Lahaina is now ash, and the death toll stands at 36 so far. … Continue reading The Scary Science of Maui’s Wildfires

Zoom Became a Part of Daily Life. It Needs to Tell Users Exactly How It’s Using Their Data

Recently, Zoom amended its terms of service to grant itself the right to use any assets—such as video recordings, audio transcripts, or shared files—either uploaded or generated by “users” or “customers.” These assets could be used for lots of things, including training Zoom’s “machine learning” and “artificial intelligence” applications. This policy change raises a slew… Continue reading Zoom Became a Part of Daily Life. It Needs to Tell Users Exactly How It’s Using Their Data

Panasonic Warns That IoT Malware Attack Cycles Are Accelerating

Internet-of-things devices have been plagued by security issues and unfixed vulnerabilities for more than a decade, fueling botnets, facilitating government surveillance, and exposing institutional networks and individual users around the world. But many manufacturers have been slow to improve their practices and invest in raising the bar. At the Black Hat security conference in Las… Continue reading Panasonic Warns That IoT Malware Attack Cycles Are Accelerating

A Clever Honeypot Tricked Hackers Into Revealing Their Secrets

Plenty of people tried to access the system. Over the past three years, it has captured 21 million login attempts, with more than 2,600 successful logins by attackers brute-forcing the weak password they purposefully used on the system. They recorded 2,300 of these successful logins, gathered 470 files that were uploaded, and analyzed 339 of… Continue reading A Clever Honeypot Tricked Hackers Into Revealing Their Secrets

The Twitch-Fueled Catastrophe of Kai Cenat’s New York City Giveaway

In aerial footage, a crowd throngs a bus, hurling chairs and water bottles. On the ground, a young man dances on a car while onlookers kick out its windows; from another angle, police officers smash a kid against a taxi while others tackle a second young person to the ground. All of this was caused,… Continue reading The Twitch-Fueled Catastrophe of Kai Cenat’s New York City Giveaway

10 Best Deals: Patagonia Sale, Cycling Accessories, and Camp Gear

August is that time of year when folks start appraising how they spent their summers. Was it time well spent, or did most of it go by with you looking out the window? If you’re more of the latter—or if you just can’t get enough of warm evenings outside and backcountry excursions—don’t despair at the… Continue reading 10 Best Deals: Patagonia Sale, Cycling Accessories, and Camp Gear

The Weird Way That Human Waste Is Killing Corals

“Even with a severe heat wave in 2015, 20 percent of those reefs that were in cleaner water with the herbivore fish not only went got through the heat, but some improved,” says Arizona State University ecologist Greg Asner, coauthor of the study, who leads the Allen Coral Atlas reef mapping project. “There are vast… Continue reading The Weird Way That Human Waste Is Killing Corals

The Mystery Genes That Are Keeping You Alive

When it came to the substantial number that were unknown, the team conducted one more study, using the best understood (at the genetic level) organism of all: Drosophila melanogaster. These fruit flies have been the subject of research for more than a century because they are easy and inexpensive to breed, have a short life… Continue reading The Mystery Genes That Are Keeping You Alive