LinkedIn Data Leak of 500 Million People Sold Online

Just days after a Facebook data leak was discovered, security researchers found another one, this time involving LinkedIn. It affects a similar amount of users, 500 million, with data being sold on a “popular hacker forum.”

The leaked files appear to only contain LinkedIn profile information – we did not find any deeply sensitive data like credit card details or legal documents in the sample posted by the threat actor. With that said, even an email address can be enough for a competent cybercriminal to cause real damage.

Three Annoying Apple Problems on the Way to Being Fixed

We all have particular bugbears with certain Apple products or services – the things that don’t work quite how we want. Over at MacWorld, Dan Moren lists three that are on their way to being fixed – the Apple TV remote, upgrades to Siri, and a battery health reporting in iPhone 11s.

One thing that surprised but didn’t delight owners of iPhone 11 series handsets was an issue reporting the health of their batteries. In some cases that meant the battery draining too fast or performance being degraded—but the bug, as it turned out, issued from software, not the batteries themselves. Apple says iOS 14.5 will attempt to rectify this issue by re-calibrating the battery health reporting system on the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

LG to Exit Smartphone Market

LG is to stop making smartphones. However, according to an analyst who spoke to Reuters, Samsung, not Apple, may be best placed to pick up the gap in the market vacated by the South Korean firm.

“In the United States, LG has targeted mid-priced – if not ultra-low – models and that means Samsung, which has more mid-priced product lines than Apple, will be better able to attract LG users,” said Ko Eui-young, an analyst at Hi Investment & Securities. LG’s smartphone division has logged nearly six years of losses totalling some $4.5 billion. Dropping out of the fiercely competitive sector would allow LG to focus on growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices and smart homes, it said in a statement. In better times, LG was early to market with a number of cell phone innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras and at its peak in 2013, it was the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung and Apple.

Facebook Leaks Data of 553 Million People Like Phone Numbers

The personal data of 553 million Facebook users was posted in a hacking forum over the weekend. Data includes phone numbers, full names, locations, email addresses, and other information.

While it’s a couple of years old, the leaked data could prove valuable to cybercriminals who use people’s personal information to impersonate them or scam them into handing over login credentials, according to Alon Gal, the chief technology officer of the cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, who discovered the trough of leaked data on Saturday.

Facebook PR has been downplaying the leak, saying it’s “only” two years old. But for most people, their phone number, email addresses, and full names probably haven’t changed in that time.

Supreme Court Sides With Google in Legal Battle Over APIs

Google and Oracle have been fighting for a decade over the copyright status of APIs, or application programming interfaces. But Google just won [PDF].

The high court punted on whether APIs can be copyrighted in the first place. But the court’s fair use reasoning was broad enough that it should provide a strong defense for most API copying, making the question of API copyrights much less important.

The Singularity: Can Computers Make Themselves Smarter?

Writing for The New Yorker, Ted Chiang believes that the concept of a technological singularity, in which computers / AI would be able to make themselves ever smarter, is similar to an ontological argument. In other words, it probably won’t happen.

How much can you optimize for generality? To what extent can you simultaneously optimize a system for every possible situation, including situations never encountered before? Presumably, some improvement is possible, but the idea of an intelligence explosion implies that there is essentially no limit to the extent of optimization that can be achieved.

GoFish Cam Wireless Underwater Fishing Camera: $199.99

Our friends at Stack Commerce have a fun deal for us today on the GoFish Cam Wireless Underwater Fishing Camera, a wireless underwater fishing camera that sits on your fishing line and works with a mobile app so you can see your footage right from your phone. The camera attaches in-line between your main line and leader line, and it allows you to both view and share your underwater fishing footage. It’s $199.99 through our deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUJI2R_vlo

M1 Mac Troubleshooting, Quick Tips, and More — Mac Geek Gab 864

M1 Macs have only been available for a few months, but y’all are buying them up like crazy. Of course, troubleshooting them is a bit different than familiar Intel models, and Dave and John talk through some of that while answering your questions. Quick Tips help to make this episode accessible for all, in addition to some non-platform-specific questions about troubleshooting in general. Listen in as your two favorite geeks help share the knowledge, and perhaps you’ll learn five new things, too!

NSA Wants to Spy on Americans Because Reasons

U.S. government servers have been getting hacked left and right. In response, the NSA wants us to think that approval of domestic spying will solve the problem, despite suffering an egregious hack in 2016 where its zero-day exploits were stolen.

“We truly need to look at the ability for us to see ourselves and right now it’s difficult for us to see ourselves,” Nakasone testified on Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Adversaries like China and Russia “are operating with increased sophistication, scope [and] scale, including operations that can end “before a warrant can be issued,” he warned.

Google Bravely Blocks Apps From Scanning Your Other Apps

Google announced that it will stop Android apps from scanning the list of your other apps in Android 11. Why this behavior was accepted before is beyond me.

Google has another page that lists allowable use cases for Play Store apps querying your app list, including “device search, antivirus apps, file managers, and browsers.” The page adds that “apps that must discover any and all installed apps on the device, for awareness or interoperability purposes may have eligibility for the permission.”

Time to make a fake antivirus app which queries your list of apps to sell to other companies.

Babbel Language Learning Lifetime Subscription (All 14 Languages): $199

We have a deal on Babbel language learning software, and it’s a lifetime subscription at that. Babbel lets you practice with 10-15 minute bite-sized lessons, and Babbel uses speech recognition technology to keep your pronunciation on point. And, it comes with 10,000 hours of online language education. That lifetime subscription is $199 through our deal, and it covers all 14 languages.