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Dutch police accidentally mass-texted fire witnesses a link to an ‘adult video’

Aug08
by on August 8, 2019 at 12:52 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider


In an unfortunate mishap, Dutch police accidentally texted a link to an adult video to 1,900 witnesses of a house fire, which took place last month in the town of Nieuwleusen. In the text, police encouraged witnesses to come forward with information that could help them figure out what caused the fire, as a result of which a 22-year-old man lost his life. Instead of a link the official police website, though, the text took recipients to an explicit video. “The police today sent an SMS blast [Dutch: SMS-bom] to people with a link that is incorrect,” the police wrote in a…

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Carbon offset your death with this $200K ‘Frankensteined’ Tesla hearse

Aug08
by on August 8, 2019 at 12:43 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Cars, Plugged


Are you worried about the carbon dioxide that’ll be released if you get cremated? Well, worry no more, because this ‘Frankensteined’ Tesla Model S hearse could be yours for $200,000. The eco-friendly car was created in 2016 after a funeral transport firm, Vander der Lans & Busscher BV based in the Netherlands, commissioned a Tesla Model S to be turned into a hearse so that it could offer zero emmision funeral transport, obviously. Well now, just three years later, it’s up for sale on Norwegian used car site Finn for Kr 1,999,000 ($207,000), Eletrek reports. According to the listing, the…

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We’re underestimating the role of social media in mass shootings, and it’s time to change

Aug08
by on August 8, 2019 at 12:23 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Podium


Over the course of a single weekend, at least 31 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. These are unspeakable tragedies, and while we must take the time to grieve, we also need to learn from these incidents. How could someone be driven to commit such an atrocity, and what can we do to prevent this in the future? I’d like to turn our attention to social media, a powerful technology that, when used inappropriately, can facilitate acts of terrorism like this, and when used appropriately, can prevent (or…

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5 charged in connection with $2.7M Australian cryptocurrency scam

Aug08
by on August 8, 2019 at 11:21 am
Posted In: Around the Web, cryptocurrency, Hard Fork


Australian police have charged five people in connection with a protracted cold call cryptocurrency investment scam that tricked more than 100 victims into losing $2.7 million. The scam, which operated from Australia‘s Gold Coast, was busted as part of ‘Operation Quebec Walnut.’ According to a statement issued by Queensland Police, detectives investigated an alleged criminal operation which ran a number of businesses selling cryptocurrency investments between 2017 and May 2019. The police, which charged three men and two women, say victims were offered the chance to invest in Exmount Holdings Group, a seemingly legitimate business with a website, call centre…

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WhatsApp’s chat manipulation exploit remains unresolved even after a year

Aug08
by on August 8, 2019 at 11:01 am
Posted In: Around the Web


Vulnerabilities uncovered in WhatsApp — the messaging app used by about 1.5 billion users across the world — can allow bad actors to exploit the platform to manipulate or spoof chat messages. The flaws would make it possible to “intercept and manipulate messages sent in both private and group conversations, giving attackers the power to create and spread misinformation from what appear to be trusted sources,” the researchers noted. Details of the vulnerabilities were disclosed by Israeli cybersecurity firm Checkpoint Research at Black Hat 2019 security conference in Las Vegas on August 7. Checkpoint, in particular, notes three kinds of social engineering…

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