Politics
'Scientific American' editor resigns after comments about Trump supporters went viral
Disney removes cartoon episode about transgender character: ‘It breaks my heart’
CDC Employees Are Resigning In Droves As They Refuse To Work For RFK Jr.
What to Do Before the Trump Administration Takes Office in January--Teen Vogue
Document your gender if you are trans or nonbinary
Get birth control, preferably an IUD which can last years
Talk to your doctor now; medical procedures and insurance are going down
Build community
Brush up on your media literacy
Florida city votes to remove fluoride from drinking water, citing RFK Jr.’s comments as one of the reasons
Eliminating the Department of Education
Rand Paul has plans to kneecap the nation’s cyber agency
He wants to eliminate, or severely curtail the powers of, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, because of its efforts to counter disinformation, particularly around the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The agency came under fire from conservatives in 2020 after it countered narratives about the election being “stolen.” Trump ultimately fired the agency’s leader after it put out a statement that said the 2020 election was secure.CISA Director Jen Easterly to depart on Inauguration Day
It’s common for top officials to depart their posts upon a presidential transition.13 things everyone should know about Pete Hegseth
Hegseth published a column in college that claimed having sex with an unconscious woman is not rape. He praised “waterboarding," blasted the Geneva Conventions, dismissed moral concerns about the use of nuclear weapons, and pushed Trump to pardon service members convicted of war crimes.Information Security
NSO Group admits cutting off 10 customers because they abused its Pegasus spyware
NSO developed a suite of hacking tools to be used against targets using WhatsApp, capable of accessing private data on the target’s phone. Thanks to these hacking tools, NSO installed Pegasus on “between hundreds and tens of thousands” of target devices, including journalists, dissidents, and human rights advocates.Will passkeys ever replace passwords? Can they?
Passkeys and the WebAuthn specification were intended to make public key cryptography accessible to average users, rather than just the domain of the tech-savvy. If done right, they could seriously improve security on the Web. But unless things get a lot more consistent and smooth for the end user, I fear this will end up just like PGP or client certificates in TLS: A technically valid solution that has minimal impact on the majority of users.Don’t Hold Down The Ctrl Key—New Warning As Cyber Attacks Confirmed
In a phshing email, “to access the embedded URL, victims are instructed to hold down the Ctrl key and click, a subtle yet highly effective action designed to evade email security scanners and automated detection tools.”Security plugin flaw in millions of WordPress sites gives admin access
A critical authentication bypass vulnerability has been discovered impacting the WordPress plugin 'Really Simple Security'. Specifically, the problem lies in the 'check_login_and_get_user()' function that verifies user identities by checking the 'user_id' and 'login_nonce' parameters. When 'login_nonce' is invalid, the request isn't rejected, as it should, but instead invokes 'authenticate_and_redirect(),' which authenticates the user based on the 'user_id' alone, effectively allowing authentication bypass.Microsoft 365 Admin portal abused to send sextortion emails
The problem was made worse due to Microsoft relying on client-side controls to limit the length of messages.NIST trains AI to hear the 'oh crap' moment before batteries explode
When the safety valve breaks in a hard battery case to release the pressure caused by a chemical reaction within the unit, it makes "a distinctive click-hiss, a little like the sound of cracking open a bottle of soda." NIST reckoned the alarm, once fully developed, could find its way into homes, office buildings, and electric vehicle parking garages. The NIST team noted that the safety valve gave two minutes' notice.
Other Topics
This scientist treated her own cancer with viruses she grew in the lab
She self-administered a treatment that uses viruses to both attack cancerous cells and provoke the immune system into fighting them. It worked, and she has now been cancer-free for four years.Google decides Europe's political ad rules are too hard to implement at scale
The regs therefore require ad platforms to identify political spots, identify the sponsor, the election or referendum to which they pertain, the amounts paid, and any use of targeting techniques.Russia Says Potentially "Catastrophic" Leak in Space Station Isn't a Big Deal
The leaks have been around for years, forcing astronauts to keep the module's hatch closed most of the time. "The Russians believe that continued operations are safe but they can’t prove to our satisfaction that they are."Tesla Has a High Fatal Accident Rate
The average fatal crash rate for all cars in the United States is 2.8 per billion vehicle miles driven. The Tesla Model S has a rate more than double than average, at 5.8 per billion vehicle miles driven; meanwhile, the Tesla Model Y -- the best-selling vehicle in the world -- has a fatal crash rate of 10.6, nearly four times the average. It ranked as the sixth worst vehicle overall. (The Hyundai Venue took the top spot overall, with a fatal crash rate of 13.9.)Russia restricts enriched uranium exports to the United States
Russia has imposed restrictions, creating supply risks for U.S. nuclear power plants which last year imported a quarter of their enriched uranium from the country.