BATTERYFORPC BLOG
US offers $10m bounty for Colonial Pipeline hackers
The United States government has offered a bounty of up to $10million (£7.4m) for information about the hacking group known as DarkSide. In May, a DarkSide ransomware attack shut down a vital 5,500-mile-long fuel pipeline on the east coast of the US. The pipeline carries 45% of the fuel used on the east coast. The bounty is offered for information which can lead to the "identification or l ... Read more
2021-11-05 19:30:56
Labour Party members' data hit by cyber incident
The Labour Party has been affected by a "cyber incident" involving its members' data. Labour said it was told on 29 October that it had been affected by the event by a third party firm that handled membership data on its behalf. As a result, "a significant quantity" of party data was "rendered inaccessible on their systems". The Information Commissioner's Office an ... Read more
2021-11-03 19:25:11
NSO Group: Israeli spyware company added to US trade blacklist
The Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware has been added to a US trade blacklist. Pegasus has reportedly been used by nation states to target the phones of rights activists and journalists. The US has now put its maker, NSO Group, on its "entity list", banning business dealings with them. NSO Group said it was "dismayed" by the decision, adding that its te ... Read more
2021-11-03 19:24:44
Facebook to end use of facial recognition software
Facebook has announced it will no longer use facial recognition software to identify faces in photographs and videos. There have been growing concerns about the ethics of facial recognition technology, with questions raised over privacy, racial bias, and accuracy. Regulators had not yet provided a clear set of rules over how it should be used, the company said. It has faced a barrage of critici ... Read more
2021-11-02 19:44:24
COP26: Leaders agree global plan to boost green technology
More than 40 world leaders say they will work together to turbo-charge the uptake of clean technologies by imposing worldwide standards and policies. The announcement will be made at the climate summit COP26 in Glasgow on Tuesday. Five high-carbon sectors will be targeted at first, including agriculture and electricity. It aims to encourage global private investment in low-carbon technologies. ... Read more
2021-11-02 19:43:17
Squid Game crypto token collapses in apparent scam
A digital token inspired by the popular South Korean Netflix series Squid Game has lost almost all of its value as it was revealed to be an apparent scam. Squid, which marketed itself as a "play-to-earn cryptocurrency", had seen its price soar in recent days - surging by thousands of per cent. However, as the BBC reported, it was criticised for not allowing people to resell their token ... Read more
2021-11-02 00:49:04
Chinese version of Fortnite to close in November
Fortress Night, the Chinese version of the popular game Fortnite, is to close later this month. Epic Games, which owns Fortnite, has so far provided no reason for the decision to close the online shooter game. An announcement said the game, which has been available in China as a "test" for two years, would come to an end on 15 November. China sets strict limits on the time children ca ... Read more
2021-11-02 00:48:37
Wikipedia in Chinese editing war of words
Wikipedia's ability to retain balance on Chinese issues has been called into question following the global platform's ban preventing several mainland Chinese "editors" writing and updating pages. Against the backdrop of tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China, the quelled demonstrations of 2019 and 2020 have turned into a war of words between Wikipedia editors who are pro-democrac ... Read more
2021-10-31 20:01:08
Facebook's metamorphosis - will it work?
The corporation formerly known as Facebook has a new name Meta. There will still be a Facebook, and an Instagram and all the familiar platforms, as this is simply a renaming of the parent company alone. The new name also invites people to participate on its "next chapter" - a 3D journey into the metaverse, which it sees as the future of the internet. But some analysts wonder if the pu ... Read more
2021-10-31 20:00:17
Tech Tent: Looking both back and forward
This week's Tech Tent has a nostalgic feel. It was recorded in the dim, distant past when Meta was called Facebook and was facing huge reputational problems. We hear from Damian Collins, a long-term critic of Facebook who chaired the UK parliamentary committee which heard from whistleblower Frances Haugen this week. And we talk to Saurabh Shukla, founder and editor-in-chief of NewsMobile, a thir ... Read more
2021-10-29 19:19:05