Tag Archive for: Drops

Hailing election security, New York Times drops its “Russian meddling” narrative


On November 22, the New York Times published an editorial titled “A Great Election, Against All Odds.” The editorial hails the fact that, despite Trump’s wild claims of a rigged election, “The 2020 election was not simply free of fraud … it was from an administrative standpoint, a resounding success.”

New York Times headquarters, 2019 (Photo: Ajay Suresh/Wikipedia)

In the course of the editorial, the Times raises the issue of election-related “disinformation,” arguing that “America needs a far more aggressive and coordinated response to the massive disinformation campaigns polluting social media and people’s dialog with one another.” In other words, internet censorship must be dramatically expanded.

Singling out the Republican Party as the source of “most of the disinformation,” the newspaper writes, “Social media companies need to confront that reality head-on and stop worrying about being called biased.”

What is remarkable is that the Times ’ discussion of election “disinformation” omits any mention of Russia. For the past four-plus years, the Times has been relentlessly promoting the narrative that the greatest threat to American democracy and the “sanctity” of US elections emanates from Russia and Vladimir Putin.

The Times initiated this propaganda campaign during the 2016 election, claiming that Putin was the mastermind behind a campaign of hacking and disinformation aimed at undermining Hillary Clinton and electing Donald Trump. Times columnist Paul Krugman launched this absurd and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with his July 2016 op-ed piece titled “The Siberian Candidate,” contending that Trump was the witting or unwitting puppet of the diabolical Russian president.

Russia, went the story, was behind the hacking and leaking of Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails that exposed the party’s efforts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders and Clinton’s lavishly-paid speeches to Wall Street audiences, in which she pledged to do their bidding. Trump colluded with the Russians, utilizing the services of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, who were essentially Russian agents, according to the lurid tales spun out by…

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It’s not just you: It was nearly impossible to buy the PlayStation 5 at launch thanks in part to resellers using the same type of bots that snatch up Yeezy drops


  • The PlayStation 5 launched on Thursday, but it wasn’t sold in stores.
  • The only way to get a PlayStation 5 at launch was through a preorder, but some retailers sold PS5 consoles digitally on a first-come, first-served basis. Both Walmart and Target were walloped by customer demand.
  • The first drop of PlayStation 5 consoles on Walmart’s website came at 12 p.m. ET on Thursday, and it promptly took down the entire Walmart web store. Subsequent drops, three hours apart, presented a similarly difficult situation for many customers.
  • Resellers boasting dozens of PS5 consoles have popped up on eBay, StockX, and Instagram, and they appear to have used the same type of retail-busting software that sneaker resellers use to get the latest Yeezys.

After months of anticipation, Sony‘s PlayStation 5 finally launched on Thursday — but it seemed nearly impossible to buy the console through any online retailer.

Because of the pandemic, Sony decided not to go the traditional console-launch route and didn’t sell the new game console in retail stores at launch. Instead of massive launch lines and stories of excited fans camping out overnight in front of GameStop, the main way to get a PS5 on November 12 was to have preordered the console months ago through one of several retailers.

Beyond that, PlayStation 5 buyers had one recourse on launch day: the digital storefronts of major retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. And at 12 p.m. ET on November 12, people got a look at how well that system worked.
The flood of customers was so voluminous that it caused the entire Walmart web store to crash, and users were greeted with a message explaining that the store was overloaded by too many shoppers at one time.

“Last week, when we released the item for sale on Walmart.com, we did see massive traffic, which caused some customers to experience intermittent slowness for a few minutes,” a Walmart representative told Business Insider. “We quickly caught up with the volume and are currently restocking the item for additional release of inventory throughout the holidays.”

So how is it that one of America’s largest retailers was unable to handle a flood of digital customers?

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Hammer drops on hackers accused of targeting game and software makers

A large seal of a white, Classical Revival-style office building is flanked by flags.

Enlarge / The Department of Justice seal as seen during a press conference in December 2019. (credit: Samuel Corum | Getty Images)

For more than a decade, hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government have brazenly pursued advanced cyber intrusions on technology companies, with a particular focus on those that market software, such as CCleaner, role-playing games, and other types of games. On Wednesday, US authorities fired back, charging seven men allegedly backed by the Chinese government for carrying out a string of financially motivated hacks on more than 100 US and overseas organizations.

US prosecutors said the men targeted tech companies with the aim of stealing software-signing certificates, customer account data, and valuable business information, all with the tacit approval of the Chinese government. Working for front companies located in China, the defendants allegedly used the intrusions into game and software makers for money laundering, identity theft, wire and access device fraud, and to facilitate other criminal schemes, such as ransomware and cryptojacking schemes.

Legal protection

According to one of three indictments unsealed on Wednesday, defendant Jiang Lizhi boasted of his connections to China’s Ministry of State Security and claimed it provided him with legal protection “unless something very big happens.” Jiang’s business associate, Qian Chuan, allegedly spent the past 10 years supporting Chinese government projects, including development of a secure cleaning tool to wipe confidential data from digital media.

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Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Ex-NSA hacker drops new zero-day doom for Zoom

Zoom’s troubled year just got worse. Now that a large portion of the world is working from home to ride out the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom’s popularity has rocketed, but also has led to an increased …
mac hacker – read more