All posts tagged: exposed

Orbán’s exit leaves Israel exposed in Europe – POLITICO

Orbán’s exit leaves Israel exposed in Europe – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

The push to ramp up pressure on Israel is in focus this week as the EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas presides over a meeting of the Global Alliance for a Two-State Solution as well as at a gathering of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg. Ministers are expected to raise the subject of West Bank sanctions and the Association Agreement — although one EU diplomat from a mid-sized EU country and the EU official quoted above said that countries might avoid moving ahead in deference to peace talks between Israel and Lebanon. Tensions ramp up The push to revisit sanctions comes as EU leaders intensify their criticism of Israel over its actions in Lebanon and over a controversial law, backed by Netanyahu, that authorizes the death penalty for terrorists from the Palestinian territories. Kallas blasted the bill — which comes ahead of Israeli elections due later this year — as a “grave regression,” in a statement issued on behalf of the bloc on March 31. Germany, France and the United Kingdom also warned that the law …

The Dumbest Hack of the Year Exposed a Very Real Problem

The Dumbest Hack of the Year Exposed a Very Real Problem

Published by skeptic

In the wee hours of the night last April, someone stopped at roughly 20 street intersections across Silicon Valley and launched an unprecedented cyberattack that would eventually spread to multiple states, embarrassing local officials and prompting them to question their security practices. Authorities suspect the unknown culprit took advantage of weak and publicly available default passwords to wirelessly upload custom recordings that played whenever a pedestrian pressed a crosswalk button. Instead of the normal recordings telling people to either wait or cross the street, pedestrians heard the spoofed voices of billionaire tech CEOs. A fake Mark Zuckerberg said at one Menlo Park intersection that people would not be able to stop AI from “forcefully” being inserted “into every facet of your conscious experience.” At another, he celebrated “undermining democracy.” At a different intersection, an altered Elon Musk described President Donald Trump as “actually really sweet and tender and loving,” while on a nearby street his faked voice whined about being “so alone.” Government emails and text messages obtained by WIRED through public records requests show …

Telenor faces lawsuit over claims it exposed Myanmar customers to junta repression

Telenor faces lawsuit over claims it exposed Myanmar customers to junta repression

Published by Sam Flores

BANGKOK, April 8 : A Swedish non-profit filed a class action lawsuit against Telenor on Tuesday on behalf of over 1,200 people whose phone data it says the Norwegian telecom’s Myanmar subsidiary shared with the country’s military junta following a 2021 coup. Telenor, which has since exited Myanmar, said it believed there was nothing in the lawsuit that the company had not already addressed and “in our view it is unlikely that such a claim will succeed”. The lawsuit, filed in Norway by the Justice and Accountability Initiative, alleges Telenor Myanmar shared the call logs and location data of suspected political opponents of the junta, exposing them to repression and leading to the execution of at least one prominent activist and the prosecution of another. The lawsuit claims Telenor is liable for 9,000 euros ($10,524) per customer whose data was shared. “If successful, this case would be the first ever to hold a telecoms company to account for not sufficiently protecting user data from access by an authoritarian regime,” said Beini Ye, legal counsel at the Open …

The Hack That Exposed Syria’s Sweeping Security Failures

The Hack That Exposed Syria’s Sweeping Security Failures

Published by skeptic

When a wave of unusual activity swept through Syrian government accounts on X in March, it first looked like pure chaos—trolling, parody names, and even explicit content. But beneath the noise lay something far more telling: a state still struggling with the most basic layer of its cybersecurity. In early March, several official Syrian government accounts on X—including those linked to the presidency’s General Secretariat, the Central Bank, and multiple ministries—were hacked. The compromised profiles posted “Glory to Israel,” retweeted explicit material, and briefly renamed themselves after Israeli leaders. Authorities moved to restore control within days, with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology announcing “urgent steps” to recover the accounts and prevent further breaches. Yet what remained unsettled was the deeper question: How secure is the state’s digital front door? In a government now dependent on commercial platforms for communication, losing a verified account doesn’t just disrupt messaging—it silences the state’s voice. When the State Stops Speaking for Itself At first glance, the breach appeared politically charged. Pro‑Israel messages circulating on verified government accounts …

Princess Anne’s bombshell five-word remark about Meghan Markle ‘exposed’ | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

Princess Anne’s bombshell five-word remark about Meghan Markle ‘exposed’ | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

Published by Sam Flores

TV’s royal expert Kinsey Schofield addressed Princess Anne’s remark about the Duchess of Sussex after a key meeting. The commentator spoke to biographer, Tom Bower, during her show, Crown and Conflict on Friday (March 27). The pair discussed the Princess Royal’s close ties with Prince Harry, and is suggested to have admitted to a friend in London, how she really felt about her nephew’s fiancée, Meghan Markle. Kinsey detailed her bombshell reaction, saying: “I had never heard this before.” She went on: “While in London, Princess Anne predicted to a friend exactly what would follow.” The US commentator continued: “Meghan, [Anne] said, ‘was gripped by red carpet fever. Nothing it seemed would deter her search for the spotlight.’” She added, “Wow… what a prediction from our favourite royal.” Her comments come after Bower previously shared that before the royal wedding in 2018 took place, Meghan was given a proper briefing by a senior Palace official. After the meeting, the official reported to Queen Elizabeth II and told her that Meghan would be “trouble” and she …

Seaside town called ‘heaven’ exposed at heart of worldwide drug plot | UK | News

Seaside town called ‘heaven’ exposed at heart of worldwide drug plot | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

This beautiful little town was exposed as being at the centre of a drug-smuggling ring (Image: John Myers) It’s known by people who live there as “the town of heaven” which offers “everything you could possibly want”. Not only is there scenic beauty with mountains, beaches and the sea all around but within the town itself there’s a thriving high street and people move here for the lifestyle as much as the chance to make a living. But Newport, on the coast of Pembrokeshire, was once at the heart of a drug-smuggling ring that is remarkable even by today’s standards — involving hidden underground chambers, Rolls Royce cars, speedboats, suitcases of cash in off-shore banks and “the man with the rubber face”. The plot, which sounds more at home in a James Bond film than one of the most rural settings in Britain, started in 1983 when some villagers noticed strangers in the area paying for drinks in the local pubs with £50 notes. It turned into an investigation into a worldwide drug-trafficking operation. Even …

Sears Exposed AI Chatbot Phone Calls and Text Chats to Anyone on the Web

Sears Exposed AI Chatbot Phone Calls and Text Chats to Anyone on the Web

Published by skeptic

Sears department stores have largely disappeared across the United States, but the brand and its appliance repair service are still in business, complete with a modern twist: an AI chatbot and phone assistant named Samantha. As the historic retailer steps into the future, though, new research shows that conversations people had with the chatbot were publicly exposed online. Since Sears is still a trusted name but largely out of the public eye, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler was surprised and alarmed last month when he found three publicly exposed databases containing massive troves of chat logs, audio files, and text transcriptions of audio that contained personal details about Sears Home Services customers. The Home Services division claims to be the US’s “largest appliance repair service provider” and reports that it performs more than seven million repairs each year. The exposed Sears databases uncovered by Fowler, which have since been secured, contained 3.7 million chat logs, plus 1.4 million audio files and plain text transcripts from 2024 to this year. Fowler found that one CSV file about …

Anthropic and OpenAI just exposed SAST’s structural blind spot with free tools

Anthropic and OpenAI just exposed SAST’s structural blind spot with free tools

Published by skeptic

OpenAI launched Codex Security on March 6, entering the application security market that Anthropic had disrupted 14 days earlier with Claude Code Security. Both scanners use LLM reasoning instead of pattern matching. Both proved that traditional static application security testing (SAST) tools are structurally blind to entire vulnerability classes. The enterprise security stack is caught in the middle. Anthropic and OpenAI independently released reasoning-based vulnerability scanners, and both found bug classes that pattern-matching SAST was never designed to detect. The competitive pressure between two labs with a combined private-market valuation exceeding $1.1 trillion means detection quality will improve faster than any single vendor can deliver alone. Neither Claude Code Security nor Codex Security replaces your existing stack. Both tools change procurement math permanently. Right now, both are free to enterprise customers. The head-to-head comparison and seven actions below are what you need before the board of directors asks which scanner you are piloting and why. How Anthropic and OpenAI reached the same conclusion from different architectures Anthropic published its zero-day research on February 5 alongside …

Viral anti-masturbation app Quittr exposed sensitive user data

Viral anti-masturbation app Quittr exposed sensitive user data

Published by skeptic

A viral app to help men stop masturbating exposed thousands of users’ data, 404 Media reports. The app, Quittr, claims to be the “#1 Porn Addiction App to Quit Porn Forever” on its website. It apparently blocks porn websites on one’s device, as well as tracks one’s “abstinence” from porn. Quittr also has community features like groups, a “panic button” for “emergency nofap help” and even an AI therapist. (“Nofap” began as a Reddit community to stop masturbating, and experts warn against using AI for therapy.) SEE ALSO: How to unblock Pornhub for free “Porn addiction,” like “sex addiction,” isn’t recognized by the DSM-5, which classifies mental disorders. While porn-viewing can be compulsive, like other behaviors, research suggests that perceived porn addiction predicted distress over actual porn use itself. Yet, the idea of “porn addiction” persists in the U.S., which lacks comprehensive sex education requirements in many states; only 37 percent of states require sex education to be medically accurate, according to Boston University. Hookup apps for everyone AdultFriendFinder — readers’ pick for casual connections …

JWST peers inside a dying star’s “exposed cranium”

JWST peers inside a dying star’s “exposed cranium”

Published by Jenni Sidey

Whenever stars are born, their masses determines their fates. The (modern) Morgan–Keenan spectral classification system, with the surface temperature range of each star class shown above it, in kelvin. The overwhelming majority of stars today are M-class stars, with only 1 known O- or B-class star within 25 parsecs. Our Sun is a G-class star, along with about 5-10% of total stars. However, in the early Universe, almost all of the stars were O- or B-class stars, with an average mass 25 times greater than average stars today. In general, more massive stars live shorter lives, and die in more explosive fates. Credit: LucasVB/Wikimedia Commons; Annotations: E. Siegel Sun-like stars evolve into giants, blow off their outer layers, and contract: forming white dwarfs. From their earliest beginnings to their final extent before fading away, Sun-like stars will grow from their present size to the size of a red giant (~the Earth’s orbit) to up to ~5 light-years in diameter, typically. The largest known planetary nebulae can reach approximately double that size, up to ~10 light-years …