Just another news site
Doch auch gegen den Verteidigungshaushalt hat er nun ein Veto eingelegt, womit mehr als 1,6 Billionen US-Dollar zunächst blockiert sind
Auch Serien-Helden feiern Weihnachten – oder erleben zumindest ihre Abenteuer in der stillen Zeit (die dann freilich nicht mehr gar so still ist). Es folgen zehn Highlights phantastischer Serien mit weihnachtlichem Bezug. Von Peter Osteried (Fernsehen,…
“Corona” spaltet die Gesellschaft? Nein, dafür kann das Virus nun wirklich nichts
Eine Adaption aus “Die menschliche Komödie”
Nikola has been on the defensive since fraud allegations surfaced in September.
Enlarge / The garbage truck was supposed to be based on the same platform as the forthcoming Nikola Tre battery electric semi truck. (credit: Nikola)
Another established company has backed away from struggling electric truck maker Nikola, sending the latter's stock price down by 18 percent over two days of trading. Nikola's stock value is down more than 80 percent from its all-time peak in June.
Back in August, trash company Republic Services placed an order with Nikola for 2,500 electric garbage trucks with an option to take 5,000 more. At the time, Nikola was flying high, having just entered public markets in June. According to the Arizona Republic, the trucks were slated to have a range of 150 miles and capacity for 1,200 cans of garbage.
The garbage trucks were supposed to be variants of the Nikola Tre, a battery electric truck that Nikola is building with help from Italian truckmaker Iveco. Testing of the garbage trucks was supposed to begin in 2022, with the first trucks delivered a year later.
Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
In a rather unprecedented enforcement action, the FBI and Europol have shut down a ‘bulletproof’ VPN provider that helped cybercriminals to conceal their operations. The service didn’t keep logs and routed traffic through a series of VPN connections. While many VPNs strive to keep customers private and secure, this company clearly crossed a line.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.
Millions of Internet users around the world use a VPN to protect their privacy online.
Another key benefit is that VPNs hide users’ true IP-addresses, making them more anonymous. This prevents third-party monitoring outfits from carrying out unwanted snooping.
While there are good reasons to remain ‘relatively’ anonymous these services can also be abused by criminals. That can present problems, as most good VPN providers keep no identifiable logs, which makes the job of law enforcement agencies harder.
This week, the FBI and Europol shut down “Safe-Inet,” a VPN service that went to extreme lengths to keep its customers hidden. The enforcement effort, dubbed “Operation Nova,” was coordinated by the German Reutlingen Police Headquarters with help from many international partners.
According to Europol, Safe-Inet was used by some of the biggest cybercriminals including ransomware operators that held hundreds of companies hostage. With help from the VPN service, the criminals were able to avoid detection.
“This VPN service was sold at a high price to the criminal underworld as one of the best tools available to avoid law enforcement interception, offering up to 5 layers of anonymous VPN connections,” Europol notes.
“Law enforcement were able to identify some 250 companies worldwide which were being spied on by the criminals using this VPN. These companies were subsequently warned of an imminent ransomware attack against their systems, allowing them to take measures to protect themselves against such an attack.”
The operation targeted several servers and domains of the VPN service, which also offered bulletproof hosting. U.S. authorities also seized several servers and have assumed control over three associated domain names: INSORG.ORG, SAFE-INET.COM and SAFE-INET.NET.
The domain names all show a seizure banner now complete with the badges of the various enforcement agencies that contributed to the operation. A screenshot copy (via) of the working INSORG site shows that it offered various VPN, proxy and anonymizer options.
At first sight, it’s quite an unprecedented move to take down a company that does what every good VPN is supposed to. That is, protecting the privacy of its users. However, it appears that Safe-Inet went further than that.
Commenting on the matter, the US Department of Justice notes that so-called “bulletproof” services are “intentionally designed” to provide hosting or VPN services to criminals.
“These services are designed to facilitate uninterrupted online criminal activities and to allow customers to operate while evading detections by law enforcement. Many of these services are advertised on online forums dedicated to discussing criminal activity.
“A bulletproof hoster’s activities may include ignoring or fabricating excuses in response to abuse complaints made by their customer’s victims; moving their customer accounts and/or data from one IP address, server, or country to another to help them evade detection; and not maintaining logs.”
The Justice Department says that by acting in this manner, these companies knowingly aid and support the criminal activities of their customers, which makes them liable as well.
Needless to say, this enforcement action and the comments that come with it will create a lot of uncertainty among VPN providers. There are dozens if not hundreds of VPN companies that don’t keep logs, and some of these are undoubtedly used by criminals as well.
While further details about the investigation have not been revealed, we expect that Safe-Inet was not just any regular VPN provider. The Justice Department claims that it was actively helping and advertising to criminals. That changes things.
When we searched through a few forums where stolen credit cards are traded, Safe-Inet and associated names indeed showed up to market its services.
“We are happy to announce you about our elite level of service for high anonymity in the Internet network from insorg.org company, on advert reads, with another one mentioning that they don’t record logs and never show the real IP-address.
Needless to say, Operation Nova comes as a shock to the VPN industry, but regular VPNs don’t advertise in these places.
The i2Coalition, which includes several prominent VPN services among its members, says it supports the law enforcement action. While many of its members don’t keep any logs, they do what they can to deter criminal abuse.
“Any technology can be misused, and the overwhelming majority of VPN usage is for legal and legitimate purposes, and millions of consumers and businesses rely on VPNs for essential online protection,” i2Coalition notes.
VPN services won’t be rendered illegal anytime soon, but those who advertise their services on criminal platforms or knowingly help dodgy customers could be in trouble. The problem is, however, that it’s not entirely clear where the line is drawn.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.
George Clooney directed and stars in adaptation of the Lily Brooks-Dalton novel
Director George Clooney and assembled cast members answered questions via Zoom about the new Netflix feature film, The Midnight Sky. (credit: Netflix)
"I hate being cold more than anything in the world," actor/director George Clooney confesses in a featurette (embedded below) on the making of his new post-apocalyptic science fiction film, The Midnight Sky. But in order to play a terminally ill astronomer in the Arctic after a cataclysmic event kills most of the people on Earth, Clooney had to endure weeks of shooting in frigid conditions in Iceland. The film is adapted from the critically acclaimed 2016 debut novel, Good Morning, Midnight, by Lily Brooks-Dalton, which has been compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven.
(Some mild spoilers below, but no major reveals.)
In the novel, a brilliant astronomer named Augustine is posted to the Arctic, scanning the night sky for clues about the birth of the universe. Then a mysterious global apocalypse occurs, prompting all his fellow scientists to evacuate. But Augustine remains behind, dedicated to continuing his research, even as the airwaves go silent. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts aboard the spaceship Aether is set to return to Earth after a mission to Jupiter. On board is Sully, who sacrificed her marriage and left her daughter behind in order to become one of the first humans to travel so far in our Solar System. The astronauts are unaware of the catastrophe that has befallen Earth, and it falls to Augustine to warn them not to return.
Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Apple may make the highest performance smartphone chips, but they’re only used in Apple’s phones, tablets, and PCs which means they have a limited market share. Meanwhile rivals including Qualcomm and MediaTek (and to some degree Samsung) …
Apple may make the highest performance smartphone chips, but they’re only used in Apple’s phones, tablets, and PCs which means they have a limited market share. Meanwhile rivals including Qualcomm and MediaTek (and to some degree Samsung) sell their chips to multiple phone makers, which has helped them ship a lot of processors. With a product […]
The post Lilbits: MediaTek’s rise, an E Ink monitor, and marrying Arduino and Raspberry Pi appeared first on Liliputing.
Corona-Krise: Kommunen an Belastungsgrenze. Soziologen sprechen von Korrelation zwischen hohen Infektionszahlen und hohem Anteil an AfD-Wählern
BDI-Präsident Kempf wünscht sich Verbesserungen der digitalen Verwaltung und mehr KI, aber auch “eine andere Einstellung zu Datenschutz”. (Datenschutz, KI)
BDI-Präsident Kempf wünscht sich Verbesserungen der digitalen Verwaltung und mehr KI, aber auch "eine andere Einstellung zu Datenschutz". (Datenschutz, KI) 
Auch Serien-Helden feiern Weihnachten - oder erleben zumindest ihre Abenteuer in der stillen Zeit (die dann freilich nicht mehr gar so still ist). Es folgen zehn Highlights phantastischer Serien mit weihnachtlichem Bezug. Von Peter Osteried (
You must be logged in to post a comment.