Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse
The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.
Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.
Continue reading...Customers can collect their parcels and try on items in one trip during trial at La Poste branches
It is an increasingly common irritant of modern life. You order an item of clothing online; you wait with anticipation for it to arrive, and five minutes after it has arrived you’re packaging it up because it doesn’t fit.
For shoppers in France, however, the national post office may have the answer – or at least a way of making the process less logistically challenging. It is experimenting with in-store changing rooms to cater to people who want to quickly return purchases they do not want.
Continue reading...Criminal group charged $20-$30 a month to about 5,000 people as gangs diversify into sectors other than the drug trade
A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacán set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors.
Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.
Continue reading...Paper ballots may act as barrier to cyber attacks, but introduction of voter ID could lead to a host of complications
While the date of the next UK general election itself remains in the hands of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, one thing is certain: when the campaign begins it has the potential to be one of the most perilous and chaotic in the country’s history, for a variety of reasons.
One point is worth noting immediately: although the UK is often lumped in with the long list of countries holding elections in 2024, Sunak could theoretically hold it as late as January 2025, maximising the Conservatives’ full five-year term.
Continue reading...Exchange student Kai Zhuang, 17, discovered in tent by police days after being reported missing
A Chinese exchange student who fell victim to a “cyber-kidnapping” scam, in which his parents were extorted for $80,000, was found alive but “cold and scared” in a tent in the Utah wilderness, police said.
Kai Zhuang, 17, was reported missing on Thursday after his parents in China told officials at his host high school in Riverdale, Utah, that he appeared to have been kidnapped and a ransom had been demanded.
Continue reading...Rightwing conspiracy theorist was banned from platform in 2018, but could be back after 2m votes cast
The social media platform X will reinstate the account of the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after a poll of the site’s users backed his return, its owner, Elon Musk, has said.
“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk posted in reply to a poll on Saturday on whether to reinstate the Jones account. Close to 2m votes were cast by the time the poll closed, with about 70% voting in favour of Jones’s return.
Continue reading...Pair speak about Gaza conflict but not online antisemitism nor controversial post made by X owner this month
Elon Musk has joined the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in visiting a kibbutz that was attacked by Hamas on 7 October, after criticism of his endorsement of an antisemitic post on X.
The owner of X, the site formerly known as Twitter, has been criticised for supporting a post on his platform that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people. High-profile advertisers have also suspended spending on the site after a report that ads were appearing next to pro-Nazi content.
Continue reading...London venue’s online collection of performances dating back to 1956 will be free to use for writers, directors and the public
The Royal Court has launched a free digital archive of every play performed at the London theatre since 1956 as a resource for writers, directors and members of the public.
Almost 2,000 plays by more than 1,000 writers are accessible on the theatre’s Living Archive, along with lists of their casts and directors.
Continue reading...New cyber security strategy cites business concerns at having to store large amounts of data for excessive periods of time, increasing breach risk
Following several high-profile data breaches in the past year, the federal government will review laws requiring companies to retain data as part of its new cyber security strategy.
Released on Wednesday, the 2023-30 strategy notes that data is increasingly used for ransom attacks and as a tool for coersion.
Continue reading...Michael Lacey, Scott Spear and John Brunst, all men in their 70s, created complicated system to try to outwit US government
Three former owners of the website Backpage, a site mainly known as a place where sex workers advertise their services, have been convicted for federal crimes including promoting prostitution and money laundering, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
The recently convicted trio, Michael Lacey, 75, Scott Spear, 72, and John “Jed” Brunst, 71, came to own Backpage in 2010. Since then, the government says, they encouraged sex work ads by creating a system for “johns”, or customers, to leave reviews about the sex workers they had engaged with. Website workers and an automated system filtered out words that made it obvious that sex was being offered in exchange for money.
Continue reading...Signals Directorate says infrastructure of interest to malicious actors because of its broad attack surface and connected systems
Just days after a major ports company was forced to shut down operations due to a cyber-attack, the Australian Signals Directorate has issued a strong warning that Australia’s critical infrastructure is under regular targeted and opportunistic cyber attack.
DP World Australia, the country’s biggest ports operator, closed its Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle port operations after detecting unauthorised access on its network on Friday.
Continue reading...Claims on X and Telegram include downplaying 7 October Hamas attack and allegations Palestinians are faking scenes of suffering
Disinformation has flourished across a range of online platforms in the month since Hamas launched its bloody attack on Israel, fuelled by weak content regulation on X, formerly Twitter, and Telegram and at times propelled by state actors.
Widely shared faked news and false claims include efforts to downplay the horror of Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October through to distasteful allegations that Palestinians, already under heavy bombardment, are faking scenes of violence.
Continue reading...Travel website apologises to partners left out of pocket, but those told they do not qualify for compensation say it adds insult to injury
Travel website Booking.com has apologised and offered some hotel operators cash compensation for leaving hotels and partners out of pocket for months, but those who have been left out of the payment say it adds insult to injury.
In an email sent out to hotel operators this week, the Booking.com chief executive, Glenn Fogel, apologised for “the impact that our finance and payment systems maintenance and the resulting delay in payments may have had on you and your business”.
Continue reading...American arm of ICBC is latest victim of hackers and is investigating
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s US arm was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted trades in the US Treasury market on Thursday, the latest in a string of victims ransom-demanding hackers have claimed this year.
ICBC Financial Services, the US unit of China’s largest commercial lender by assets, said it was investigating the attack that disrupted some of its systems, and making progress towards recovering from it.
Continue reading...Optus will provide eligible customers with 200GB of extra data as compensation, now blaming ‘network event’ for catastrophic outage
Optus is scrambling to regain public support after Wednesday’s 14-hour outage by offering “eligible” customers a free data pack, as it faces a senate inquiry and separate government review.
The telco giant’s network dropped out from about 4am on Wednesday, leaving millions of customers including hospitals, schools, financial institutions and government departments unable to make or receive calls for at least nine hours.
Continue reading...10 million people are cut off, train systems fall down and businesses cannot make sales in outage lasting hours
Nearly half the Australian population were left without internet or phone service on Wednesday, when the country’s second largest telecommunications provider crashed and cut off 10 million people from Sydney to Perth and all points in between.
Those affected woke up on Wednesday morning to find they could not log on or make a call, train systems fell down, and businesses could not complete sales because their tap and pay machines were offline.
Continue reading...Optus hit with another disaster barely a year after it copped the worst cyber breach in Australian history
As Optus customers raged amid a damaging outage on Wednesday, shares in rival telco Telstra climbed higher, fast outpacing the broader market.
The differing fortunes of the telcos speaks to the huge challenge facing Optus barely a year after it was hit by the worst cyber breach in Australian history.
Continue reading...Hospitals, homes, businesses and transport services hit by Australia-wide internet, mobile and landline network blackout; CEO says there is a ‘path to restoration’
Here’s what we know about the Optus outage so far:
Millions of Australian customers and businesses have been hit by a widespread outage on the Optus network. Affected services include mobile and fixed-line networks, along with internet connections.
According to Downdetector, reports of an outage began at 4am AEDT. A spike of reports flooded through at 5.45am, when 8,180 reports of an outage were received.
Optus provided a statement online about 6.45am, saying it was “aware of an issue impacting Optus mobile and nbn services” and was working to restore services “as quickly as possible”.
At 10.30am AEDT the telco’s chief executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, told ABC Radio Sydney the company had tested a number of “hypotheses” about what might have caused the problem but none fixed the issue.
The federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said a protocol was in place to allow Optus customers to “camp” on other mobile networks when needing to call 000. There was a marked increase in camping calls on Wednesday.
However, Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, urged people not to use Optus-linked phones to call triple zero. She said some Optus users had reported they are unable to get through.
At 12.55pm, Optus wrote on X that some services across fixed and mobile were gradually being restored. “This may take a few hours for all services to recover, and different services may restore at different sites over that time.”
Optus also reiterated its “apology to customers for the nationwide service outage”, and said it was aware of some mobile phones having issues connecting to 000. “If Optus customers need to call emergency services, we suggest finding a family member or neighbour with an alternative device.”
Shortly after 1pm Rosmarin announced that there was now a “path to restoration” and that some users had had services restored.
The outage caused major service disruptions and delays across the Melbourne train network. It was also affecting phone lines at hospitals across the country.
Rowland and the Coalition’s communications spokesperson, David Coleman, have urged Optus to keep its customers updated.
The Communication Workers Union has labelled today’s Optus outage as an “absolute disgrace” that has left vulnerable people “relying on landlines without emergency help”.
The telecommunications industry ombudsman has released a statement advising Optus customers: “We can help you with refunds for the time you have been unable to use your service, compensation claims and disputes about your contract.”
Rowland earlier said information about the cause of the outage was limited but suggested a “deep network problem”. She said there was no information suggesting a cyber-attack as of Wednesday morning.
Rowland advised small businesses to keep receipts as an “evidentiary base” for recourse and redress.
The Greens will move for an urgent inquiry into the outage in the Senate later today.
The South Australian premier said his government was already talking to Telstra about switching some of its “critical services” away from Optus. Peter Malinauskus also said the state government was “disappointed with Optus”.
Continue reading...Official at Finnish intelligence service says espionage attempts have increased since Ukraine invasion
Finland has had increased online espionage attempts from Russia since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, security services have said.
Supo, the Finnish security and intelligence service, said the country faced various threats from Russia, including cyberattacks and disinformation.
Continue reading...Platform owned by Elon Musk says subscription trial is aimed at combating bots on the service
X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has begun rolling out a US$1 annual charge to new users in New Zealand and the Philippines in a move the service owned by Elon Musk says is aimed at combating bots.
Fortune first reported the subscription plan, which costs US$1 a year for access to key functions including tweeting, replying, retweeting and liking. After Fortune’s report, X revealed the details.
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