Social network Twitter has bigger ambitions with crypto. According to Jane Manchun Wong, a Hong Kong-based app researcher and reverse engineer with a great track record of finding evidence of upcoming products and services, the company is working on a "wallet prototype" that supports crypto deposit and withdrawal. The move will make Twitter the latest mainstream tech giant to make further inroads with web 3.

Freeway, a UK-based crypto platform that promised annual returns up to a mind-boggling 43%, halted withdrawals on Sunday, according to a notice published to the company's website. Freeway's native cryptocurrency, which goes by the ticker FWT, plummeted 74% following the announcement and, to top it all off, the Freeway website appears to be scrubbing the names and photos of some executives. From a report: Upset users have taken to the community Telegram channel for Freeway, expressing frustration that they can't access their accounts. People who told friends and family members to invest in the platform seemed the most angry, based on comments viewed by Gizmodo early Monday. The news, first reported by the crypto-watcher Twitter account FatManTerra, comes in the wake of other high-profile collapses in the crypto space this year, including Celsius, which has filed for bankruptcy. FatManTerra tweeted on Saturday that they believed Freeway was a Ponzi scheme which would likely collapse by this time next year. Well, apparently we didn't have to wait a whole year for things to collapse. It seems to have happened in just a day, as Freeway's website includes a varied assortment of confusing terms to explain that users can no longer access their money. And it sounds a lot like what Celsius said after it announced it was halting withdrawals back in June.

"Google is giving Apple a taste of its own medicine," reports Business Insider, arguing that the latest update to Android's messaging app "is going to make texting between iPhone and Androids even more annoying than it already is." [Alternate URL] The updates are great if you're an Android user. Google Messages' new features include the ability to reply to individual messages, star them, and set reminders on texts. But these features and some other updates to Messages are RCS-enabled, meaning they're not going to be very compatible with SMS, which is the texting standard that iMessage switches to when messaging someone without an iPhone. iPhones exchange messages using iMessage, Apple's proprietary messaging system, but revert to SMS when texting an Android.

One feature that's part of Google's payback to Apple is that now, when Messages users react to an SMS text with an emoji, iPhone users will get a text saying the other person reacted to their text with a description of whatever emoji the person used. It's similar to when iMessage users react to an SMS text, with the recipient getting a "so and so loved" message instead of seeing the heart emoji reaction.... In August, Android launched a page on its website calling Apple out for refusing "to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other." The page has buttons that take users to Twitter to tweet at Apple to "stop breaking my texting experience. #GetTheMessage" with a link to Android's page urging Apple to "fix texting."

"We would much prefer that everybody adopts RCS which has the capability to support proper reactions," Jan Jedrzejowicz, Google Messages product manager, said in a briefing before the Messages updates were announced. "But in the event that's not possible or hasn't happened yet, this feels like the next best thing." Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he doesn't get a lot of feedback from iPhone users that Apple needs to fix messaging between iPhones and Androids. Apple doesn't have much incentive to do so, either. In legal documents from a 2021 lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple, an Apple executive said "Moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us."

Disinformation has "metastasized" since experts began raising alarms about the threat, reports the New York Times.

"Despite years of efforts by the media, by academics and even by social media companies themselves to address the problem, it is arguably more pervasive and widespread today." Not long ago, the fight against disinformation focused on the major social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. When pressed, they often removed troubling content, including misinformation and intentional disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, however, there are dozens of new platforms, including some that pride themselves on not moderating — censoring, as they put it — untrue statements in the name of free speech....

The purveyors of disinformation have also become increasingly sophisticated at sidestepping the major platforms' rules, while the use of video to spread false claims on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram has made them harder for automated systems to track than text.... A report last month by NewsGuard, an organization that tracks the problem online, showed that nearly 20 percent of videos presented as search results on TikTok contained false or misleading information on topics such as school shootings and Russia's war in Ukraine. "People who do this know how to exploit the loopholes," said Katie Harbath, a former director of public policy at Facebook who now leads Anchor Change, a strategic consultancy.

With the [U.S.] midterm elections only weeks away, the major platforms have all pledged to block, label or marginalize anything that violates company policies, including disinformation, hate speech or calls to violence. Still, the cottage industry of experts dedicated to countering disinformation — think tanks, universities and nongovernment organizations — say the industry is not doing enough. The Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University warned last month, for example, that the major platforms continued to amplify "election denialism" in ways that undermined trust in the democratic system.

Thursday a Forbes senior writer reported: A China-based team at TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.

The team behind the monitoring project — ByteDance's Internal Audit and Risk Control department — is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang. The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. But in at least two cases, the Internal Audit team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company, the materials show.

It is unclear from the materials whether data about these Americans was actually collected; however, the plan was for a Beijing-based ByteDance team to obtain location data from U.S. users' devices.
Challenging the article, TikTok responded on Twitter that their service "does not collect precise GPS location information from U.S. users, meaning TikTok could not monitor U.S. users in the way the article suggested." But Forbes' senior writer thinks that's a misleading denial, writing on Twitter that "We never mentioned GPS in the story. In fact, we quoted their spokesperson saying they collect approximate location via IP address. Not using GPS does not mean they could not use that approximate location to monitor certain individuals."

TikTok also acknowledged on Twitter that they do have a team that will "acquire information they need to conduct internal investigations of violations of the company codes of conduct," but says the team follows a specific set of policies and processes "as is standard in companies across our industry." In Forbes' article, TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects approximate location information (based on IP addresses) to "among other things, help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behavior."

But Forbes' senior writer said in their article that "the material reviewed by Forbes indicates that ByteDance's Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information to surveil individual American citizens, not to target ads or any of these other purposes." The Internal Audit and Risk Control team runs regular audits and investigations of TikTok and ByteDance employees, for infractions like conflicts of interest and misuse of company resources, and also for leaks of confidential information. Internal materials reviewed by Forbes show that senior executives, including TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, have ordered the team to investigate individual employees, and that it has investigated employees even after they left the company.
TikTok's response on Twitter? Behavior like that would be a firing ofference. "Any use of internal audit resources as alleged by Forbes would be grounds for immediate dismissal of company personnel."

TikTok also said on Twitter that their service "has never been used to 'target' any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists, nor do we serve them a different content experience than other users." The response of Forbes' senior writer? "I'm glad they say TikTok hasn't been used to 'target' some specific groups. I am nonetheless concerned that they planned to use it to monitor specific Americans, which is what we reported.

"Also, for what it's worth, they didn't answer this question when we asked it to them on Wednesday.... Neither TikTok nor ByteDance denied anything we reported, either in the pre-publication process, when we told them what we planned to report and asked for comment, or since then. They have also not requested a story update."

Thanks to Slashdot reader koavf for submitting the story

A leaker has claimed that Apple is working on a version of macOS exclusive for the M2 iPad Pro, with it expected at some point in 2023. Apple Insider reports: Leaker Majin Bu's sources have shared that Apple is working on a "smaller" version of macOS exclusively for the M2 iPad Pro. It is said to be codenamed Mendocino and will be released as macOS 14 in 2023. Testing is being done with a 25% larger macOS UI so it is suitable for touch. However, apps run on the product would still be iPad-optimized versions, not macOS ones.

It isn't clear why Apple would move the iPad to a macOS interface in a half-step like this. Those clamoring for macOS on iPad do so for the software more than the interface. [...] The other possible explanation is this wasn't macOS at all. Apple could be working to bring iPadOS even closer to macOS by adding a Menu Bar and other Mac-like interactions. It already introduced a Mac windowing feature in iPadOS 16 called Stage Manager, this could be the next iteration. Majin Bu also suggests that the exclusivity to M2 iPad Pro could be a marketing push. If the feature is only available on that iPad, more people would buy it.

French police said Friday they're investigating multiple cuts to fiber-optic cables in France's second-largest city. Operators said the cables link Marseille to other cities in France and Europe and that internet and phone services were severely disrupted. From a report: The disruptions in Marseille were a taste of what analysts warn could be far larger problems in other cases if cables are systematically attacked. The vulnerability of fiber-optic cables, especially those underwater, and other key infrastructure was highlighted by the sabotage last month in the Baltic Sea of natural gas pipelines from Russia. The damage in the city in southern France also appeared to resemble suspected acts of sabotage to other cables in the country earlier this year. French cable operator and internet service provider Free said its repair teams were mobilized before dawn Wednesday to deal with "an act of vandalism on our fiber infrastructure." It said the attacks were simultaneous and on multiple spots of its fiber network near Marseille. Photos that Free published on Twitter showed multiple cables completely severed in their concrete housings buried in the ground. It said the cuts led to major disruptions to its network and phone services in the Marseille area.

Microsoft has decided the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) -- its offering that runs Android VMs which behave just like another application in Windows -- is sufficiently stable that it can be designated version 1.0 and made available to all. From a report: While it's lovely that Windows can now run Android VMs, Hendrixson's tweet needs a little parsing. The "50,000 apps" he mentions are only available from the Amazon.com app store -- not the larger Google Play digital tat bazaar. Google's apps aren't in the Amazonian store, nor are Microsoft's. I couldn't find Twitter, WhatsApp, Slack, any of the banks I use, or the Australian government apps I need to access services. In fact it's tough work to find apps other than games in the store -- and when a search term does bear fruit it delivers what look like knockoff apps that scream "here be dragons."

Would you pay for a username on social media? Telegram is hoping yes. From a report: The messaging app is soon to launch a username auction platform on The Open Network (TON) blockchain, the company said in an official channel on Thursday. Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed the project in August, citing inspiration from the success of a recent TON auction for their wallet usernames. Some, including "casino.ton," sold for over $200,000.

"If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction," he said. But Durov isn't stopping there. "Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace," he added. Paying for usernames isn't new. Over half a million people have paid for usernames on Ethereum through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), according to Non Fungible's market tracker. It's not just a web3 phenomenon either. It's becoming harder and harder to get the desired username on platforms like Twitter and Instagram and some people are going to great lengths to obtain them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann filed a $100 million lawsuit against world champion Magnus Carlsen and others for alleged defamatory statements claiming that Niemann cheated in competition. The suit claims that the defendants, including Chess.com, inflicted "devastating damages" against Niemann by "egregiously defaming him" and "unlawfully colluding" to bar him from the professional chess world. "My lawsuit speaks for itself," Niemann said Thursday in a Twitter post.

Niemann, 19, has admitted to cheating on two occasions, once when he was 12 years old and a second time when he was 16. But he denied claims that he cheated in an over-the-board match against Magnus Carlsen this year. Carlsen withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup in September after losing to Niemann, and eventually came forward with concerns that Niemann had cheated in the match in which he defeated Carlsen. The suit claims that Carlsen's comments were a retaliatory attempt to keep Niemann from damaging his reputation. Chess.com subsequently banned Niemann after reporting that an internal investigation revealed evidence of more cheating than Niemann's public statements had expressed.

The report from Chess.com did not find evidence of cheating in Niemann's over-the-board matches, including the match against Carlsen, though the website notes that its cheating detection is primarily used for online matches. The report does, however, allege that Niemann likely cheated in over 100 online chess games, including several prize money events. It also shows that Niemann's Chess.com "Strength Score" sits in the range of over a dozen anonymous grandmasters who have admitted to cheating. The report also notes that Niemann is by far the fastest-rising player by yearly gain in classical over-the-board chess. The lawsuit is available in full here (PDF).

Parler was so excited to tell its users that the artist formerly known as Kanye West had decided to buy the social media network, it accidentally doxed all its members. Fortune reports: The platform has been embraced by conservatives who departed Twitter over allegations of political censorship, and West, a known lover of controversy, agreed to buy it earlier this week so those users could "freely express" themselves. But in an email announcing the rapper's involvement, the company publicly copied in 300-plus email addresses of its verified VIP members instead of blind copying, allowing their personal contact details to be visible to everyone else in the email chain.

The incident was revealed by newsletter writer Adam Ryan who shared screenshots of the original message from Parler about the "monumental new chapter," explaining that they expected the acquisition to be complete by the end of the year and describing their VIP members as "an invaluable part of the Parler family and experience." Ryan's screenshot also showed the blurred-out addresses of "gold-badged" members in the email chain who consist of "influencers, celebrities, journalists, media organizations, public officials, government entities, businesses, organizations, and nonprofits." Some of the well-known names in the email chain include Sen. Ted Cruz, former President Donald Trump, and Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Further reading: Ye's 'Buyout' Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy (Techdirt)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, tech archivist Jason Scott announced a new website called Discmaster that lets anyone search through 91.7 million vintage computer files pulled from CD-ROM releases and floppy disks. The files include images, text documents, music, games, shareware, videos, and much more. The files on Discmaster come from the Internet Archive, uploaded by thousands of people over the years. The new site pulls them together behind a search engine with the ability to perform detailed searches by file type, format, source, file size, file date, and many other options.

Discmaster is the work of a group of anonymous history-loving programmers who approached Scott to host it for them. Scott says that Discmaster is "99.999 percent" the work of that anonymous group, right down to the vintage gray theme that is compatible with web browsers for older machines. Scott says he slapped a name on it and volunteered to host it on his site. And while Scott is an employee of the Internet Archive, he says that Discmaster is "100 percent unaffiliated" with that organization.

One of the highlights of Discmaster is that it has already done a lot of file format conversion on the back end, making the vintage files more accessible. For example, you can search for vintage music files -- such as MIDI or even digitized Amiga sounds -- and listen to them directly in your browser without any extra tools necessary. The same thing goes for early-90s low-resolution video files, images in obscure formats, and various types of documents. "It's got all the conversion to enable you to preview things immediately," says Scott. "So there's no additional external installation. That, to me, is the fundamental power of what we're dealing with here." "The value proposition is the value proposition of any freely accessible research database," Scott told Ars Technica. "People are enabled to do deep dives into more history, reference their findings, and encourage others to look in the same place."

"[Discmaster] is probably, to me, one of the most important computer history research project opportunities that we've had in 10 years," says Scott. "It's not done. They've analyzed 7,000 and some-odd CD-ROMs. And they're about to do another 8,000."

Joey Sneddon, reporting at OMG! Ubuntu: In September I tweeted a screenshot of something unexpected that has started to show up in the terminal when I ran system updates. It didn't enrage me at the time (and it kinda still doesn't) but I did find it a little ... Off. Now, if you're suitably tuned-in to the Linux newswire and/or an avid attendee of social media you'll probably heard about the drama in question. If you haven't, then allow me to... Yes, the furore is over an "ad" for Ubuntu Pro, Canonical's revamped support offering that replaces/augments Ubuntu Advantage (which has been around for many years) that appears in the terminal when managing system updates.

Other people are calling it an "ad" (hence quote marks). I prefer the term plug (which, it turns out, some people aren't familiar with; it means to mention something in order to promote it). For although this sentence is technically advertising something, in this case Ubuntu Pro, the offering itself is free for regular users (on up-to five devices). Thus, it's not like this is an "ad" that generates Canonical revenue. It's more akin to a public service announcement to raise awareness.

Microsoft announced layoffs across multiple divisions on Monday. From a report: Microsoft declined to say how many jobs had been cut, but a source said the layoffs numbered under 1000. The cuts occurred across a variety of levels, teams and parts of the world. Multiple laid-off workers turned to Twitter and Blind, among other online forums, to share that their job had been cut.

It took more than an hour to mine a block of bitcoin (BTC) on Monday, leaving thousands of transactions stuck in an unconfirmed state. CoinDesk reports: According to on-chain data from several block explorers, the interval between the two latest blocks mined by Foundry USA and Luxor was 85 minutes. According to Mempool, over 13,000 transactions were pending before the latest block was mined.

Last week Bitcoin underwent a difficulty adjustment to ensure block confirmations kept taking place every 10 minutes. With mining difficulty surging to 35.6 trillion it becomes more expensive to mine bitcoin, which heaps pressure on a mining industry that is dealing with soaring energy prices and a crypto bear market. Tadge Dryja, founder of the Lightning Network, tweeted that an 85-minute interval between blocks can be expected to happen once every 34 days, not taking into account difficulty changes.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Bernard Arnault, the CEO of luxury brand LVMH -- known for expensive labels like Louis Vuitton -- is the world's second-richest man according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. He currently clocks in at a net worth of $133 billion, beating out Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' paltry $130 billion. He's also been harangued on Twitter for his consistent use of private jets. French accounts that use planes' transponder signals and publicly accessible information have tracked Arnault's and other rich folks' use of private jets to reveal just how much wasteful flying time is used by the world's wealthiest.

In September, the Twitter account laviodebernard (Bernard's Plane) wrote that Arnault's plane had been de-registered in France. The account wrote "The LVMH private jet has not been registered in France since September 1, 2022. Still no word from Bernard Arnault or LVMH on the subject of private jets. So Bernard, are we hiding?" Apparently, that's just what Arnault has been doing. On the LVMH-owned podcast released Monday, Arnault admitted that the LVMH group "had a plane, and we sold it." He added: "The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes."

Antoine Arnault, the second scion of the world's second richest man, a LVMH board member and director of communications for Louis Vuitton, also said during the podcast that other people knowing where their company jet is could give competitors an edge. He also told French news channel 5's a Vous last week "This plane is a work tool." As translated by Bloomberg, the younger Arnault added that the company sold the plane over the summer.

Kanye West, the rapper who also also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy "uncancelable free speech platform" Parler, the two said in a statement Monday, in a move they said will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely. From a report: As part of the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Parler has agreed to sell fully to West but the social network will continue to receive technical support from Parlement Technologies, including access to its private cloud services and its data center infrastructure. The deal is expected to close in the ongoing quarter. West, who has accused Meta and Twitter of censoring him in recent weeks, said in a statement: "In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves."

"Food service employees at the autonomous driving company Waymo are forming a union," reports NBC News, calling it "the latest push by support workers to organize at Silicon Valley's most prominent companies." The cafeteria workers at the Mountain View-based company cite the high cost of living in the Bay Area and the lack of strong benefits while working for one of the world's most valuable companies. Waymo is owned by Google parent company, Alphabet.

The workers are employed by Sodexo, which contracts service work for Google and other companies. Organizers say they have a majority of union cards signed from the roughly two dozen-person bargaining unit....

Workers say the $24 an hour they make from the company is not enough to live adequately in the Bay Area. They also cite the prohibitive cost of the company's health plan, which has a $5,000 deductible. The living wage in the San Jose-Sunnyvale area is $27.74 for a single adult, and $52.74 for a single adult with a child, according to MIT's living wage calculator.... The workers are part of Silicon Valley's ranks of contractors who support and supplement the work at tech companies. Union campaigns have coursed through the industry as tech company profits — and the cost of living in the Bay Area — have escalated steeply in recent years.

At Google, more than 4,000 of these workers have joined unions since 2018, including 2,300 cafeteria workers at its headquarters and satellite offices in the Bay Area in 2019, according to Unite Here.... "[Workers] see all the money around tech," said D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here. "And that's great. But they want to have a piece of the American dream."
Ironically, one of the workers said they were inspired by Hasan Piker, who NBC News describes as "a leftist Twitch streamer and political commentator" with large followings on Twitter — and on Google-owned YouTube.

CNN reports: Elon Musk's latest internet jest has taken the form of a perfume with an unsavory scent: "Burnt Hair.

" The tech mogul, entrepreneur and sometimes internet troll announced the launch of the product on Twitter on Tuesday, calling it "the finest fragrance on Earth." The perfume is apparently being sold on The Boring Company's website for $100 and will ship in the first quarter of 2023....

The product is the successor to other Musk memes, like the $500 flamethrowers he sold in 2018 or the Tesla-branded satin shorts he debuted as investors "shorted" the company in 2020....

Musk appears to be enjoying the media attention on his newest lark. He switched his Twitter bio to "Perfume Salesman" and claimed to have sold 20,000 bottles....

"Please buy my perfume, so I can buy Twitter," he wrote on Wednesday.

"Hackers are on a roll in 2022, stealing over $3 billion in cryptocurrency," writes Slashdot reader quonset (citing figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis). "And the year isn't over yet.

"For comparison, in 2021, only $2.1 billion in crypto currency was stolen during the entire year."

CBS News reports: A big chunk of that $3 billion, around $718 million, was taken this month in 11 different hacks, Chainalysis said in a series of tweets posted Wednesday. ctober is now the biggest month in the biggest year ever for hacking activity, with more than half the month still to go," the company tweeted.

In past years, hackers focused their efforts on attacking crypto exchanges, but those companies have since strengthened their security, Chainalysis said. These days, cybercriminals are targeting "cross-chain bridges," which allow investors to transfer digital assets and data among different blockchains.... Cross-chain bridges remain a major target for hackers, with three bridges breached this month and nearly $600 million stolen, accounting for 82% of losses this month and 64% of losses all year," Chainalysis said....

All told, Chainalysis said there have been 125 hacks so far this year.
"Cryptocurrency is not federally regulated or FDIC insured like a bank account," the article concludes, "which means if an account gets hacked, the government will not work to restore a customer's funds."