Month: April 2021

A young man who once trained as an assassin for a Chinese criminal organization discovers just how hard it can be to escape one's past in the first teaser for Marvel Studios' upcoming film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings, part of the MCU's Phase Four. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, it is the first Marvel film to feature an Asian lead—Simu Liu, best known for his role as Jung Kim on the sitcom Kim's Convenience—as well as a predominantly Asian/Asian diaspora cast and crew.

The title character first appeared in a Marvel comic in 1973, after the company had tried and failed to acquire the comic book rights for the popular 1970s TV show Kung Fu (starring David Carradine). Modeled in part on Bruce Lee, Shang-Chi was originally the son of Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu, trained in martial arts since childhood to become an assassin. After Marvel lost the rights to the Fu Manchu character, Shang-Chi's paternity became murkier, but the international crime lord theme was common—although his father was revealed to be an ancient immortal sorcerer in the Secret Avengers storyline.

Shang-Chi has not traditionally had special superpowers, but his training in multiple styles of martial arts and assorted weaponry makes him a formidable opponent and a useful ally. Plus, he is a master of chi, making him even stronger and faster—fast enough to dodge bullets. When he eventually joins forces with the Avengers in the comics, Tony Stark gives him a pair of bracelets to further focus his chi (as well as some snazzy high-tech nunchaku).

Enlarge / The Emergent BioSolutions plant, a manufacturing partner for Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine, in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 9, 2021. (credit: Getty | Saul Loeb)

The US Food and Drug Administration last week asked Emergent BioSolutions to stop making Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine at its troubled facility in Baltimore, according to a regulatory filing Emergent released Monday.

The FDA had begun an inspection of the contract manufacturer’s facility on April 12 but requested on April 16 that production be halted “pending completion of the inspection and remediation of any resulting findings,” the filing reads. Any vaccine materials already made at the plant will be held in quarantine.

The production halt follows news last month that a mishap at the plant led to the ruin of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine. The ruined doses had reportedly been contaminated with ingredients from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, which was also being manufactured at the plant at the time.

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Parler is about to be re-platformed.

The app for the “free speech” social media company will be available once again on Apple’s App Store. Apple reinstated Parler on April 14, according to a letter from Apple to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), which was made public today. Once Parler releases an updated app, iOS users will be able to download it once more.

In the letter to Lee and Buck, Apple said that its App Store review team had spoken with Parler at length about how to bring the app into compliance with company guidelines. “As a result of those conversations, Parler has proposed updates to its app and the app’s content moderation practices,” wrote Timothy Powderly, Apple’s senior director of government affairs.

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Hackers have compromised more than 120 ad servers over the past year in an ongoing campaign that displays malicious advertisements on tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of devices as they visit sites that, by all outward appearances, are benign.

Malvertising is the practice of delivering ads to people as they visit trusted websites. The ads embed JavaScript that surreptitiously exploits software flaws or tries to trick visitors into installing an unsafe app, paying fraudulent computer support fees, or taking other harmful actions. Typically, the scammers behind this Internet scourge pose as buyers and pay ad-delivery networks to display the malicious ads on individual sites.

Going for the jugular

Infiltrating the ad ecosystem by posing as a legitimate buyer requires resources. For one, scammers must invest time learning how the market works and then creating an entity that has a trustworthy reputation. The approach also requires paying money to buy space for the malicious ads to run. That’s not the technique used by a malvertising group that security firm Confiant calls Tag Barnakle.