Category Archives: Internet

Number of Britons facing significant internet outages doubles in a year

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Two-fifths of UK adults disconnected for three hours or more with one in four left without service for nearly a week

The number of Britons who have experienced their internet connection failing for at least three hours has almost doubled in the last year, with irate consumers now ranking broadband outages as a bigger frustration than roadworks or public transport delays.

In the past year, two-fifths (41%) of all UK adults – 22 million consumers – have had their internet disconnected for three or more hours, a significant increase on the 12 million who reported disruption the previous year, according to a report by the price comparison website Uswitch.

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Gangs forcing hundreds of thousands of people into cybercrime in south-east Asia, says UN

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Organised criminals use threats, torture and sexual violence to coerce victims to work in international scamming operations

Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked and forced to work for online scamming operations in south-east Asia run by criminal gangs, according to a UN report.

Billions of dollars are being generated each year by gangs who coerce victims into cybercrime, where they are subject to threats, torture and sometimes sexual violence, said the report, published by the UN human rights office on Tuesday.

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Meta closes nearly 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ foreign influence campaign

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Company says users targeted in Australia, UK, US and elsewhere by political spam network across more than 50 platforms

Meta shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with a Chinese political spam network that had targeted users in Australia and other parts of the world, the company has revealed.

Meta began investigating in 2019 and its research aligned with several research groups, including the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Aspi), who coined the term Spamouflage.

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Meta launches web version of flagging Threads app

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‘Twitter killer’ social media platform experienced initial boom in sign-ups when it launched in July

Meta has launched a web version of its “Twitter killer” social media platform Threads that can be used without an app, as it attempts to revive itself after a recent drop in usage.

The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp launched the microblogging site in July, widely understood as an alternative for users disillusioned with Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has since rebranded as X.

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Hawaii fires: spread of conspiracy theories reveals tech firms’ failings

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From secret ‘energy weapon’ starting fires to a global cabal razing the town for an experiment – false theories are fast gaining ground

In the aftermath of the devastating wildfires in Maui, misinformation and conspiracy theories have spread online, underscoring the shortcomings of social media firms’ enforcement policies following disasters.

Conspiracy theories including that the fire was started intentionally by a secret “energy weapon” and that a shadowy cabal of global elites set the blazes purposefully to clear the land for their own nefarious uses have gained popularity.

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Thursday briefing: Vice took millions from Saudi Arabia – but has its deal backfired?

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In today’s newsletter: As the upstart media company faces bankruptcy, it has developed strong ties with the country, leaving some to question what compromises companies are willing to make to do business

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It’s hard to put into words the transformation that Saudi Arabia has undergone in the past six years.

Mohammed bin Salman, commonly referred to as MBS, was appointed the crown prince in 2017 and is now the de facto ruler of the kingdom. There have been notable reforms under his new regime. Women are allowed to drive; the guardian system – under which men have legal powers over women – has been relaxed; and cinemas reopened after 35 years.

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Thousands of adopted children names revealed on Scottish website

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Genealogy site Scotland’s People made available records of adoptions dating back 100 years, raising fears for breaches of privacy

A genealogy website operated by the Scottish government has disclosed the names of thousands of people adopted as children.

The Scotland’s People site made available the records of adoptions dating back more than 100 years, records that included the adopted child’s first name and new surname. While the Information Commissioner’s Office has not received a formal breach report, its officials were contacted by National Records of Scotland (NRS), an official arm of the Scottish government that runs the website.

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Cyberattack disrupts hospital computer systems across US, hindering services

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‘Data security incident’ began Thursday at facilities operated by California’s Prospect Medical Holdings

A cyberattack has disrupted hospital computer systems across the United States, forcing emergency rooms in several states to close on Thursday and ambulances to be diverted.

Many primary care services remained closed on Friday as security experts worked to determine the extent of the problem and resolve it.

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Elon Musk reveals new Twitter logo X

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Experts warn that rebranding of 15-year-old app may be a risky move at a time when competitors are upping their game

Elon Musk has revealed a new logo for Twitter, choosing a “minimalist art deco” X as part of a rebrand of the platform.

The Twitter owner indicated that the design would be altered, tweeting that it “probably changes later, certainly will be refined”. Twitter’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, confirmed the choice on Monday by tweeting the design and writing: “X is here! Let’s do this.”

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Brittany Higgins, her fiance and dog under ‘serious threat’ from online harassment, police allege

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David Wonnocott charged with using carriage service to menace and threaten to kill

A man accused of menacing Brittany Higgins, her fiance and their dog online posed a “serious threat” to their wellbeing, court documents allege.

David William Wonnocott, 49, is charged with using a carriage service to menace and threaten to kill in separate incidents relating to Higgins and the New South Wales politician Alex Greenwich.

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Twitter investor writes down stake by 47% as analyst claims Threads user fall

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Elon Musk has said advertising has plunged on his social media platform and it is cashflow negative

An investor in Elon Musk’s Twitter has written down their stake in the business by 47% as advertisers rein in their spending on the social media platform.

The move by ARK Investment Management came as an analysis firm claimed that usage of the “Twitter killer” Threads app has fallen by half since its launch by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.

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‘An ideal tool for a repressive regime’: Snapchat’s Saudi ties questioned

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Critics say social media app – partly owned by a Saudi investor – pushes pro-crown prince hype while critical voices are punished

Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting the US messaging app Snapchat to promote the image of its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, while also imposing draconian sentences on influencers who use the platform to post even mild criticism of the future king.

The California-based company, which last year agreed to a “collaboration” with the Saudi culture ministry, has more than 20 million users in the kingdom – including an estimated 90% of 13-to-34-year-olds – and the crown prince has met personally with some of the platform’s biggest “Snapchatters” for informal talks about current events, according to people familiar with the encounters.

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HWL Ebsworth hack: Queensland says its files were taken after criminals release Victorian documents

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State’s chief information security officer says information from Victorian departments and agencies was accessed

Highly sensitive legal documents from the Victorian government have been published on the dark web by cybercriminals, with Queensland also confirming files from at least one of its departments are included in the breach.

The breach is connected to data that was stolen from the law firm HWL Ebsworth in April by a Russian-linked ransomware gang, known as ALPHV/Blackcat, and posted online.

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Elon Musk goes low against Zuckerberg as Twitter-Threads spat intensifies

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Twitter owner calls Facebook founder a ‘cuck’ as rancour grows over launch of Threads, a competitor to Musk’s network

Twitter owner Elon Musk has suggested he and Mark Zuckerberg should have “a literal dick-measuring contest” in the latest broadside aimed at his rival billionaire.

In a message inspired by the Meta chief executive’s launch last week of Threads, a Twitter competitor, Musk added a ruler emoji.

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Meta delays EU launch of Twitter rival Threads amid uncertainty over personal data use

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New app developed by Facebook and WhatsApp owner is due to launch in the UK and US on Thursday

Mark Zuckerberg’s rival to Twitter will not launch in the EU on Thursday amid regulatory uncertainty about the service’s use of personal data.

Sources at Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said regulations were behind the postponement of an EU launch, amid a series of clashes between the social media group and the bloc.

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Abuse has led Sathnam Sanghera to ‘more or less stop’ doing book events in UK

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Writer of Empireland, which examined Britain’s imperial past, says culture war-fuelled online trolling and heckling ‘gets to you’

The writer Sathnam Sanghera has said he barely ever does public events in the UK because of a fear of being attacked amid a culture war-fuelled backlash over his views on Britain’s imperial past, saying he feared a Florida-style push towards the banning of books.

Sanghera, a journalist and author whose bestselling book Empireland assessed how the UK’s colonial territories still infect contemporary politics and discourse, said he had begun to dread holding book events here.

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BA, Boots and BBC staff details targeted in Russia-linked cyber-attack

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Hack attributed to criminal gang hit MOVEit software used by third-party payroll provider Zellis

British Airways, Boots and the BBC are investigating the potential theft of personal details of staff after the companies were hit by a cyber-attack attributed to a Russia-linked criminal gang.

BA confirmed it was one of the companies affected by the hack, which targeted software called MOVEit used by Zellis, a payroll provider.

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Chinese censors remove protest site Sitong Bridge from online maps

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Amid usual scrubbing for Tiananmen Square anniversary, searches for bridge where protest was held in 2022 return no results

Chinese censors scrubbing the internet of any words or symbols that could be used to reference the Tiananmen Square massacre in the run-up to Sunday’s anniversary have a new target in their sights: a bridge in Beijing where a rare protest was staged last year.

As the 34th anniversary of the 1989 massacre approaches, anyone searching in Chinese for Sitong Bridge on Baidu maps will draw a blank.

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Twitter and Tesla’s interests at odds in Elon Musk’s quiet China visit

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The world’s richest person lapsed into an unusual silence on social media during his trip to the electric carmaker’s second largest market

Followers of Elon Musk didn’t know what to expect from his trip to China. Would he speak about Tesla, a company with a large market and manufacturing footprint there? Or SpaceX, with its symbiotic relationship with the American state? Or even Twitter, the social network he bought because “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”?

The one thing no one expected: silence.

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GCHQ warns of fresh threat from Chinese state-sponsored hackers

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National Cyber Security Centre urges operators of critical national infrastructure to prevent hacks

The UK’s cybersecurity agency has urged operators of critical national infrastructure, including energy and telecommunications networks, to prevent Chinese state-sponsored hackers from hiding on their systems.

The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, issued the warning after it emerged that a Chinese hacking group known as Volt Typhoon had targeted a US military outpost in the Pacific Ocean.

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