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Black Friday is just a few weeks away, but you may not have to wait to get Black Friday pricing on some devices. This week Amazon is running deep discounts on Fire TV media streamers as well as some Fire tablets. And Best Buy is selling an HP Chromebo…
Black Friday is just a few weeks away, but you may not have to wait to get Black Friday pricing on some devices. This week Amazon is running deep discounts on Fire TV media streamers as well as some Fire tablets. And Best Buy is selling an HP Chromebook Plus 14 inch convertible for $379 […]
The post Daily Deals (10-31-2023) appeared first on Liliputing.
Nature has its own horrors to rival the classic legendary ghouls and monsters of fiction.
Enlarge / A purple parasitic fungus, discovered in March in a Brazilian rainforest, pokes out of a trapdoor spider’s burrow after wrapping itself around the unfortunate spider. (credit: João Araújo)
It's Halloween, that time of year when we seek out scary things like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mummies, and all kinds of similar fictional monsters. But Mother Nature has her own horrors—like the strange species of parasitic purple fungus discovered earlier this year in a Brazilian rainforest that infects trapdoor spiders and gradually "mummifies" its hosts.
There are lots of horrifying parasitic examples in nature, such as the lancet liver fluke, whose complicated life cycle relies on successfully invading successive hosts—snails, ants, and grazing mammals—and altering their hosts' behavior via a temperature-dependent "on/off" switch. Then there is a parasitic worm (trematode) that targets a particular species of marsh-dwelling brown shrimp (amphipod), turning the shrimp an orange hue and altering the host shrimp's behavior. Or consider the species of small-headed flies (Acroceridae) that lay batches of eggs near spiders (or in the webs) and when the larvae hatch, they pierce through the spiders' leg joints. There's also a kleptoparasitic fly species (Milichiidae) that steals food from spider webs and will sometimes snatch prey right out of a spider's mouth. (Rude!)
But fungi are arguably the champions for viscerally gruesome parasitic behavior. According to João Araújo, assistant curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, the newly discovered fungus belongs to the Cordyceps family of "zombifying" parasitic fungi. There are more than 400 different species, each targeting a particular type of insect, whether it be ants, dragonflies, cockroaches, aphids, or beetles. In fact, Cordyceps famously inspired the premise of The Last of Us game and subsequent TV series.
In a series of new public service announcements, several state attorneys general are warning the public that some very bad actors are exploiting pirate sites to distribute ransomware and steal credit card information. The Digital Citizens Alliance is a driving force behind the campaign, which aims to keep the public away from pirate sites and services.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Over the years we have seen dozens of anti-piracy campaigns. Initially, many of these tried to appeal to people’s morals.
You wouldn’t steal a car, right?
This type of messaging doesn’t work for everyone, so more direct tactics have also been explored. These often focus on the risks associated with piracy, running into legal trouble, for example. However, due to the perception that exposure to these types of issues is relatively unlikely, the overall deterrent effect can be quite limited.
A more ‘common’ threat that people face is malware and other types of scams. This may help to explain why many recent studies and reports have linked malware to pirate sites. These findings are backed by rightsholders and anti-piracy groups, who seem very concerned about the digital safety of pirates.
The Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA), which has close ties to the content industries, has highlighted these types of piracy threats for years. The group has released a variety of reports pointing out that pirate sites are a hotbed for malware, credit card theft, ransomware and other evils.
Earlier this year, a DCA mystery shopper experiment revealed that handing over credit card details to sellers of shady IPTV subscriptions isn’t a good idea. Several unknown charges popped up on some accounts, suggesting that cards had been compromised.
In addition, an accompanying study among American consumers found that 72 percent of those who used a credit card to pay for an IPTV subscription experienced a credit card breach. Of those who never visited pirate sites, ‘only’ 18 percent reported similar issues.
DCA says that these findings should send a warning to the public that pirate sites are unsafe so, to add some extra weight, today DCA launched a new series of public service announcements. They feature attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia warning the public about these threats.
Participating law enforcers include California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark, and Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr. All read from exactly the same script in their PSAs.
“Some very bad actors have found a way into our homes through the entertainment we watch, so-called piracy operators lure us with the offer of free or cheap access to our favorite programs and then spread viruses such as ransomware,” they warn
“They also offer low-cost piracy subscription services to watch pirated programs and live sports then steal your credit card information.
“Don’t let hackers or credit card thieves into your house. Be careful with the websites you visit and warn your children and other family members about how to stay safe online,” the message concludes.
DCA funded the campaign which will be promoted through social media. In addition, the messages have been submitted for airing on local TV stations, hoping to dissuade people from using pirate sites and services.
According to DCA’s executive director Tom Galvin, pirated content is often used as bait to exploit naive Internet users seeking cheap access to online entertainment.
“Piracy operators dangle free content. But what they don’t tell you is that the content is bait designed to infect users’ devices and enable criminals to abuse their credit cards,” Galvin says.
TorrentFreak asked DCA whether any other attorneys general were asked to participate, but we didn’t receive a direct answer. The Alliance did inform us that a standard script was used to ease video production. The same was done a few years ago, when a similar campaign was launched.
Attorneys general are tasked with keeping their citizens safe, so the campaign fits that goal. That said, the malware problem can be more nuanced than it’s portrayed in this campaign, but that would likely take away from the deterrent effect.
Finally, it’s worth highlighting that the PSAs make no mention of the fact that online piracy is linked to copyright infringement, which also has consequences. That doesn’t have priority, at least not in this campaign.
—
The attorneys general participating in the campaign are listed below. At the time of writing, not all videos are available online.
Attorney General Rob Bonta (California)
Attorney General William Tong (Connecticut)
Attorney General Brian Schwalb (District of Columbia)
Attorney General Chris Carr (Georgia)
Attorney General Brenna Byrd (Iowa)
Attorney General Kris Kobach (Kansas)
Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (Maryland)
Attorney General Dana Nessel (Michigan)
Attorney General Keith Ellison (Minnesota)
Attorney General Lynn Fitch (Mississippi)
Attorney General Aaron D. Ford (Nevada)
Attorney General Letitia A. James (New York)
Attorney General Josh Stein (North Carolina)
Attorney General Dave Yost (Ohio)
Attorney General Michelle Henry (Pennsylvania)
Attorney General Alan Wilson (South Carolina)
Attorney General Marty Jackley (South Dakota)
Attorney General Sean Reyes (Utah)
Attorney General Charity R. Clark (Vermont)
Attorney General Jason Miyares (Virginia)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Fünf Filme, drei Lisbeth Salanders, und die Geschichte ist noch nicht zu Ende. Eine Serie ist geplant, aber wer die Hauptrolle spielen wird, ist noch unklar. (Filme & Serien, Amazon)
Fünf Filme, drei Lisbeth Salanders, und die Geschichte ist noch nicht zu Ende. Eine Serie ist geplant, aber wer die Hauptrolle spielen wird, ist noch unklar. (Filme & Serien, Amazon) O2 Telefónica und Samsung Electronics wollen Open RAN zum Laufen bringen. Bisher kam man zusammen nicht zu einem Produkt. (Telefónica, Server)
O2 Telefónica und Samsung Electronics wollen Open RAN zum Laufen bringen. Bisher kam man zusammen nicht zu einem Produkt. (Telefónica, Server) Die chinesische Chang’e-4-Mission hat eine kleine Farm auf den Mond gebracht. Eine neue Studie zu den Ergebnissen wurde nun veröffentlicht. Ein Bericht von Patrick Klapetz (Mondlandung, Raumfahrt)
Die chinesische Chang'e-4-Mission hat eine kleine Farm auf den Mond gebracht. Eine neue Studie zu den Ergebnissen wurde nun veröffentlicht. Ein Bericht von Patrick Klapetz (Mondlandung, Raumfahrt) On Wednesday, the spacecraft will come close to the small asteroid Dinkinesh.
Enlarge / An artist’s conception of the Lucy spacecraft flying by a Trojan asteroid. (credit: NASA)
A little more than two years have passed since the Lucy mission launched on an Atlas V rocket, ultimately bound for asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter. After a gravity assist from Earth in 2022, the spacecraft has been making a beeline for an intermediate target, and now it is nearly there.
On Wednesday, the $1 billion mission is due to make its first asteroid flyby, coming to within 265 miles (425 km) of the small main belt asteroid Dinkinesh. In a blog post, NASA says the encounter will take place at 12:54 pm ET (16:54 UTC).
About an hour before the encounter, the spacecraft will begin attempting to lock on to the small asteroid so that its instruments are oriented toward it. This will allow for the best possible position to take data from Dinkinesh as Lucy speeds by at 10,000 mph (4,470 meters per second).
SBF reportedly said he couldn’t remember over 100 times in cross-examination.
Enlarge / Sam Bankman-Fried leaves federal court in New York on Thursday, February 16, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)
Facing cross-examination at his criminal fraud trial yesterday, Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly testified that he doesn't remember details about what he did and said while running cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried responded "I'm not sure" or "I can't recall" to many questions from US prosecutor Danielle Sassoon, according to news reports from the trial.
Sassoon "grilled Mr. Bankman-Fried about the inconsistencies between his public statements and how he ran his crypto empire before it collapsed spectacularly in November," a New York Times article said. Bankman-Fried "insisted that he couldn't remember much of what he had said publicly" and "added that he wasn't significantly involved in the hedge fund he founded, Alameda Research."
The New York Post wrote that Bankman-Fried answered with some variation of "I can't recall" over 100 times on Monday. But Sassoon "presented jurors with a mountain of tweets, emails, and podcast clips revealing that the MIT grad did in fact say dozens of things he claimed not to have recalled," the article said.
Es wird immer kälter und nach der Zeitumstellung besonders früh dunkel. Die LED-Mütze bei Amazon schützt vor Kälte und leuchtet den Weg aus. (Unterhaltung & Hobby)
Es wird immer kälter und nach der Zeitumstellung besonders früh dunkel. Die LED-Mütze bei Amazon schützt vor Kälte und leuchtet den Weg aus. (Unterhaltung & Hobby) Microsoft has ended support for Windows CE, an operating system you probably thought was already dead, if you knew it had ever existed in the first place. Initially developed to bring a simple operating system with a Windows-like start menu, taskbar, …
Microsoft has ended support for Windows CE, an operating system you probably thought was already dead, if you knew it had ever existed in the first place. Initially developed to bring a simple operating system with a Windows-like start menu, taskbar, and desktop to small computers including handheld systems in the late 90s and early […]
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