Hackers planted malicious code in open source software packages with more than 2 billion weekly updates in what is likely to be the world’s biggest supply-chain attack ever. The attack, which compromised nearly two dozen packages hosted on the npm repository, came to public notice on Monday in social media posts. Around the same time, Josh Junon, a maintainer or co-maintainer of the affected packages, said he had been “pwned”…

Over the past year, Meta has blanketed TV screens around the world with commercials touting the privacy of Whatsapp, its encrypted messenger with a monthly user base of 3 billion people. “It’s private,” one ad campaign featuring the former cast of the Modern Family TV show says. “On Whatsapp, no one can see or hear your personal messages … not even us,” a different series of ads declares. “Serious risks…

Is the web thriving or faltering? Google has an unexpected take in a new legal filing. Google is heading back to court soon in hopes of convincing a judge that it should not have to split up its ad business. The company lost its adtech antitrust case earlier this year, and now it’s up to the court to decide on remedies for the illegal conduct. In its response to the…

In 2019, Record Store Day partnered with manufacturer Crosley to revive a 3-inch collectible vinyl format first launched in Japan in 2004. Five years later, a new 4-inch-sized format called Tiny Vinyl wants to take the miniature vinyl collectible crown, and launch partner Target is throwing its considerable weight behind it as an exclusive launch partner, with 44 titles expected in the coming weeks. It’s 2025, and the global vinyl…

Apple’s next product event is happening on September 9, and while the company hasn’t technically dropped any hints about what’s coming, anyone with a working memory and a sense of object permanence can tell you that an Apple event in the month of September means next-generation iPhones. Apple’s flagship phones have changed in mostly subtle ways since 2022’s iPhone 14 Pro added the Dynamic Island and 2023’s refreshes switched from Lightning…

Google may have escaped the most serious consequences in its most recent antitrust fight with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), but the European Union is still gunning for the search giant. After a brief delay, the European Commission has announced a substantial 2.95 billion euro ($3.45 billion) fine relating to Google’s anti-competitive advertising practices. This is not Google’s first big fine in the EU, and it probably won’t be…

On Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT users can now branch conversations into multiple parallel threads, serving as a useful reminder that AI chatbots aren’t people with fixed viewpoints but rather malleable tools you can rewind and redirect. The company released the feature for all logged-in web users following years of user requests for the capability. The feature works by letting users hover over any message in a ChatGPT conversation, click…

Wednesday’s discovery of three mis-issued TLS certificates for Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 encrypted DNS lookup service generated intense interest and concern among Internet security practitioners. The revelation raised the possibility that an unknown entity had obtained the cryptographic equivalent of a skeleton key that could be used to surreptitiously decrypt millions of users’ DNS queries that were encrypted through DNS over TLS or DNS over HTTPS. From there, the scammers could have…

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic is now five years in the rearview mirror, but its effects continue to reverberate. While those leading the US healthcare system have embraced conspiracy theories and junk science to justify a reduced focus on vaccines (particularly the COVID jab) many people are still seeking out immunization. Google Maps isn’t a good way to find it, though. In recent days, almost all search results for…

On Wednesday, a global antipiracy group, which included Apple TV+, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that it had assisted in a sting operation that took down Streameast, described as the “largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world.” Now, accessing websites from the thwarted Streameast brings up a link from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) that explains how to watch sports games…