Author: angel

Facebook has removed a group of China-based hackers it says targeted members of the Uighur community living abroad.

It said hackers used malicious websites and apps to infect devices and allow for remote surveillance, with journalists and activists targeted.

A majority of the cyber attacks didn’t happen directly on Facebook but used the social media platform to share links to infected sites.

This is not the first time hackers have been accused of such activity.

The Uighurs are originally from the north-western region of Xinjiang in China and those targeted are currently living in places including Turkey, the United States, Australia and Canada.

“This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation, while obfuscating who’s behind it,” Facebook’s Mike Dvilyanski, head of cyber espionage investigations, and Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy, said in a blog post.

Facebook said it removed accounts – which totalled fewer than 100 – it found to have been created by the hackers, a group known as Earth Empusa or Evil Eye.

It believes fewer than 500 accounts were targeted.

Facebook says some of the ways the group infected devices included:

creating fake Uighur-themed apps for the Android app store, including a prayer app and a dictionary app
posing on Facebook as journalists, students, human rights advocates or members of the Uighur community, building trust and tricking them into clicking on malicious links
creating look-alike websites for popular Uighur and Turkish news websites
The Chinese Embassy in Washington has yet to comment.

China is facing mounting criticism from around the world over its treatment of the mostly Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang.

Rights groups believe China has detained more than a million Uighurs over the past few years.

China denies allegations of abuse, saying camps in the region are “re-education” facilities used to combat terrorism.

A new Royal Navy surveillance ship is to be built to protect “critical” undersea cables.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned “the lights could go out” if national infrastructure was lost, and the cables were “incredibly important”.

He also told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that Russia had “taken a deep interest” in the cables and the UK would be “deeply exposed” without further measures.

It comes ahead of Monday’s publication of the defence command paper.

The document will give more detail for the armed forces on the conclusions of the integrated review of the UK’s foreign and defence policies.

But some parts were already announced this week, including the lifting of the cap on the number of nuclear warheads the UK holds in its stockpile.

The government had previously committed to reducing the level to a maximum of 180 by the middle of the 2020s, but the move would allow the number to reach 260.

Mr Wallace said it would ensure the country’s nuclear deterrent was “credible”, and would still be lower than other nations – pointing to France, which has 300.

But Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said the proposal had “baffled” opposition parties and they would not support it until the measure had been justified by the government.

‘Risk of sabotage’
Hundreds of thousands of miles of undersea cables circle the globe, providing internet and communications links between nations and continents.

The Ministry of Defence said they are “vital to the global economy and communications between governments” and are at “risk of sabotage” due to “submarine warfare”.

The new Multi Role Ocean Surveillance ship will be fitted “with advanced sensors and will carry a number of remotely operated and autonomous undersea drones which will collect data”.

The vessel, staffed by 15 people and due to come into service in 2024, will carry out operations in both UK and international waters.

The MoD added it will also “be able to support with other defence tasks, including exercises and operations in the Arctic which will become an increasingly contested area”.

Undersea cables carry more than 90% of the world’s communications – including trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions every day.

There’s growing concern these underwater arteries could be vulnerable to attack.

British and US military and intelligence officers have recently warned of Russian submarines “aggressively operating” near Atlantic undersea cables.

The Ministry of Defence says there’s a risk of sabotage – which presents an existential threat to the UK.

As part of a wider defence review – the MoD will order a new Royal Navy surveillance ship to monitor this critical infrastructure.

2px presentational grey line
Mr Wallace told the BBC: “The lights could go out if we lose our critical national infrastructure across the board. Cables are one part of that critical national infrastructure and incredibly important.

“Russia has certainly taken a deep interest in those cables, not only to the United Kingdom but obviously to the continent of Europe.

“[The vessel’s] job is going to be to protect not only critical national infrastructure, but other things. It will be able to do other surveillance functions around the sea and everything else and I think it is really important that we invest in t hat because otherwise we are deeply exposed.”

Defence reforms ‘will help make UK match-fit’
UK to lift cap on nuclear stockpile after review
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised his plan for modernising the armed forces and foreign policy will help make the UK “match-fit”.

The Integrated Review, first announced in 2019, will set out the UK’s defence and foreign affairs priorities for the next decade or so, during which cyber warfare in particular is expected to become a greater threat.

Broader foreign policy from the review was announced this week, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab pledging to boost alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, describing it as “increasingly the geopolitical centre of the world”.

But more on how the Armed Forces could be overhauled will be announced on Monday, following a boost in funding late last year.

The defence secretary was pushed by Andrew Marr on what the new command paper would mean for the size of the forces, but Mr Wallace said that was a decision for Parliament.

He added: “What I can give you is the assurance that we have had a record settlement, so I am making decisions, not in an environment of falling tide like in previous cuts, but in an environment where I am going to make the decision to have the right Armed Forces to match our ambition and meet the threat.”

Peloton has warned parents to keep children away from its treadmills after the death of a child.

Boss John Foley called it “tragic accident” – one of a “small handful” of incidents in which children have been hurt on the firm’s exercise equipment.

He did not disclose further details about what happened.

In a separate incident, a 3-year-old suffered head injuries after getting trapped under a Peloton treadmill, but will make a full recovery.

The latest incident report into that accident, disclosed on Wednesday, said the child “was found to have tread marks on his back matching the slats of the treadmill”.

Mr Foley, Peloton’s founder, said children should stay away from the firm’s machines, which have surged in popularity during the pandemic.

“We design and build all of our products with safety in mind. But in order to help ensure that you and your family members stay safe with Peloton products in your home, we need your help,” he wrote in the letter to customers.

“Keep children and pets away from Peloton exercise equipment at all times. Before you begin a workout, double check to make sure that the space around your Peloton exercise equipment is clear.”

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it was investigating the incident.

Peloton sells cycling machines and treadmills that can be connected online to virtual fitness classes. Its business has boomed as people look for alternative ways to exercise during lockdowns and gym closures.

The firm has said the skyrocketing demand has created supply chain pressures, leading to backlogs in orders for the machines.

‘Devastating’
Its treadmills, which sell for more than $2,400 (£1,722), were designed for use by those aged 16 and older, who weigh at least 105 pounds, it said.

Mr Foley said the company did not intend to release more information about the accidents, in order to respect privacy of those involved.

“While we are aware of only a small handful of incidents involving the Tread+ where children have been hurt, each one is devastating to all of us at Peloton, and our hearts go out to the families involved,” he wrote.

The company is “currently assessing ways to reinforce our warnings about these critical safety precautions to hopefully prevent future accidents,” he added.

Last year, Peloton recalled about 27,000 bikes in the US, citing problems after clip-on pedals broke unexpectedly during use.

There were an estimated 22,500 treadmill-related injuries treated at US emergency departments among all ages, including around 2,000 involving children under the age of eight, according to the consumer product safety commission.

Between 2018 and 2020, it received reports of 17 deaths related to the use of a treadmill, including one involving a 5-year-old.

A theme park dedicated to Nintendo’s famous Super Mario World has opened in Japan, nearly a year after it was originally due to welcome guests.

Super Nintendo World – which cost about $0.5bn ($0.36bn) to build – was meant to open last summer but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Initially only Japanese visitors can go amid international travel bans.

For Nintendo, it represents part of a move from games firm to entertainment company.

At first the park will take half of the visitors it can accommodate to comply with social-distancing measures. Visitors will need to wear masks in most areas.

The park is modelled on levels in Nintendo’s Mario games, the first of which was released in 1985 and followed the adventures of a plumber and his brother

The franchise went on to sell more than 370 million games globally.

BBC Archive: Inside Nintendo, 1990
One of the most popular rides in the new theme park will feature a Mario Kart race, which visitors will ride sporting an augmented reality headset attached to a red cap.

And the park itself is a gaming experience, with visitors encouraged to buy wristbands to collect keys, redeem coins, play mini-games around the land and even team up with other visitors via a smartphone app.

Three more Super Nintendo World parks are being built at Universal Studios in LA, Orlando and in Singapore.

A US teenager has pleaded guilty to hacking several high-profile Twitter accounts in a large-scale Bitcoin scam.

Graham Ivan Clark was 17 when he co-ordinated the scam – which hijacked the profiles of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Barack Obama.

He would spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal, a Florida court filing said.

But Clark has already served 229 days of this three-year sentence.

Now 18, but sentenced as a “youthful offender”, he may also be able to serve some of the sentence at a boot camp, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

But Clark will also be banned from using computers without permission and supervision from law enforcement.

The scam
The hack, on 15 July last year, promoted a scam in which hijacked celebrity accounts encouraged followers to donate bitcoin to coronavirus-relief projects.

“Everyone is asking me to give back,” a tweet purportedly sent from Mr Gates’s account said. “You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”

More than $117,000 (£84,200) of the cryptocurrency was collected through the scam.

The money had been handed to the authorities to be returned to the victims, Clark’s lawyer said.

It was alleged Clark had imitated a member of Twitter staff to gain access to the company’s networks and worked with two other hackers to complete the heist.

Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, and Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, have been charged with federal crimes.

The family of Mr Sheppard have declined to comment and the Home Office said it “does not comment on extradition requests”.

Intel has launched its latest desktop PC chips having had to retrofit some of its recent semiconductor designs to work on older transistor tech to deliver the processing power required.

The stopgap effort has consequences for both the speeds and heat they produce.

The US firm claims the Rocket Lake chips deliver a 19% headline-rate gain over the last generation, and introduce features that will help PCs keep pace with the latest gaming consoles.

Intel continues to dominate the sector.

But rivals have benefited from outsourcing production, leading to suggestions that Intel’s position as the leading CPU (central processing unit) provider is not as secure as it might appear.

Tiny switches
Transistors are basically tiny on-off switches, and billions of them are arranged in different patterns to carry out calculations on a chip.

The benefit of making them smaller is that more can be packed into the same space – allowing computers to run more quickly while potentially using less power.

Intel’s new Rocket Lake chips rely on 14 nanometre transistors, and are made within its own fabrication plants.

By contrast, its chief competitor AMD uses a contract manufacturer – Taiwan’s TSMC – to build its latest Ryzen desktop PC chips, which benefit from smaller 7nm transistors.

And Apple is in the process of weaning itself off Intel to use its own designs, also produced by TSMC but using its even more advanced 5nm tech.

Fab-less pressure
There is no set way to measure transistor sizes, and Intel claims its 14nm tech equates to TSMC’s 10nm. Even so, the US firm acknowledges it is running behind.

It had originally intended to make the transition to 10nm desktop chips between 2017 and 2019. As it is, this will not happen to a future generation launched in late 2021-2022.

And Intel is also experiencing delays in making the next leap forward to 7nm.

However, there are advantages to keeping production in-house.

It helps keep costs down.

And it also means it avoids feeding into wider concerns that the US has become over-reliant on overseas chip-producers.

Intel recently appointed a new chief executive – Pat Gelsinger – who has made it clear he intends to resist pressure from some investors to become a “fab-less” firm, a term used to refer to chip designers who do not operate fabrication plants of their own.

“The factory is the power and soul of an enterprise, and we must become even better in the future,” said Mr Gelsinger in January.

Faster frame rates
The new “11th generation” desktop chips take the microarchitecture for their CPU cores from one set of 10nm laptop chips – 2019’s Ice Lake series – and their graphics architecture from another – 2020’s Tiger Lake family.

Intel has described the process of reworking these designs for 14nm transistors as “backporting”.

“We’ve been making 14nm CPUs for a long time, and part of the benefit of that is it is a very established manufacturing process to the point where we know it inside and out,” spokesman Mark Walton explained.

“So we really know how to ramp up the clock speeds – and for a gaming product, that’s really, really important.”

The firm’s own benchmarks indicate its new i9-11900K chip will deliver a boost of 14% more frames-per-second when playing Microsoft Flight Simulator over the last-generation i9-10900K, when set at high quality graphics, for example.

And Intel is also playing up other benefits, including support for PCie 4.0, which increases the bandwidth available to third-party components such as add-on graphics cards and solid state drives, effectively allowing them to shunt data about more quickly.

“You will have much faster loading times, textures will load more quickly in games, and you get a much more seamless experience,” said Mr Walton, suggesting this would counter one of the key advantages the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 enjoyed.

Testing hot
Intel will be marketing the new chips as offering a 19% improvement in “instructions per cycle” over their predecessors.

But the site Anandtech said it had only noticed modest gains when testing some of the chips with games of its own choice, and in some cases said the differences were imperceptible.

“It trails behind its competitor AMD at times by a significant margin,” the site’s Dr Ian Cutress told the BBC.

Moreover, the review also highlighted that the chips could run very hot.

Intel has removed a very thin layer of material between the block of semiconducting material on which the CPU’s circuits are fabricated and the “heat spreader” on top to help keep the components cool.

But Anandtech recorded peak temperatures of 104C (219F) in one of its tests, which is only just in the safety zone.

“Intel’s laptop chips were designed specifically for the characteristics of 10nm, and that includes thermal performance and frequency, and voltage,” explained Dr Cutress.

“Because they’ve done a retrofit, compromises have had to be made – they still get the performance gains, but it’s at the expense of needing lots of power and potential heat issues.”

In real-world terms, that means if users give the chip taxing tasks and do not have proper cooling, the chip may throttle its own performance to avoid damage.

One added consequence is that Intel is only offering Rocket Lake chips with a maximum of eight cores – the more cores you have the faster a program can run if optimised to share the load between them.

By contrast, AMD’s Ryzen chips go up to 16.

However, AMD’s newest processors remain in short supply.

And one advantage Intel has as its own manufacturer, is that it can relatively easily adjust production to match demand.

By contrast, AMD must vie with Apple, Nvidia and others for TSMC’s capacity.

An online campaign inviting users to post anonymous testimonies of sexual assault and harassment has been growing in popularity.

The collection of more than 4,100 testimonies include accounts from girls aged as young as nine.

The youngsters have written personal accounts of “rape culture”, identifying the school or university the alleged perpetrators attended.

Eton, St Paul’s and Latymer Upper School are among those referenced.

But while these and other private schools commonly appear, there are also examples given of unnamed males from state schools and universities.

The testimonies have been published on Everyone’s Invited website and its Instagram account.

Experiences recounted range from being drugged and raped at parties to explicit images being shared over messaging platforms.

‘It exists everywhere’
“The testimonies expose rape culture and the scale of sexual violence amongst young people in the UK,” Soma Sara, founder of Everyone’s Invited, told the BBC.

“If we start pointing fingers at certain demographics or singling out individuals or institutions, we risk making these cases seem like anomalies… when really this problem is pervasive, it exists everywhere.”

Everyone had a responsibility to take action to expose and eradicate this culture, she added.

“It is so important that teachers and parents are able to learn how to communicate with their children and talk about these issues,” she said.

At least 35 people claim to have been raped in their testimony. In the accounts where a university or school is named, it is unclear when the incidents took place.

The high master of St Paul’s said she had informed children’s services of the Instagram account.

“The school completely condemns the actions described, and takes this matter extremely seriously,” Sally-Anne Huang said in a letter to alumni. “[We] would always investigate fully matters of this nature brought to our attention.”

No names or details had been provided so the cases had not been reported to the police, she added.

The issue of reporting is raised in some of the testimonies.

“I blamed myself and think a lot of people – especially men, would blame me for getting into the situation in the first place,” one user wrote of not reporting her rape at the age of 17.

“I didn’t feel that there was space to, or I was ashamed and I just felt so alone,” another account said.

“I never said anything to someone of authority because I had no faith in an outcome,” one account which cites Goldsmiths, University of London, said.

A spokesman for the university said it has a dedicated anonymous reporting and support website for victims of sexual violence, harassment or misconduct.

Goldsmiths Students’ Union also runs anti-sexual violence training for students, and is currently running remote Consent Matters training to help educate students on consent and healthy relationships.

‘Long way to go’
“Every case of sexual violence is one too many, and universities are committed to becoming safer places to live, work and study,” said a spokesman for Universities UK, which represents UK universities.

“Universities are taking innovative actions to address some of the issues, but there is a long way to go in ending sexual misconduct for good in higher education.”

A spokeswoman for Eton College said it took any specific allegations “extremely seriously” and would report to the relevant authorities “when necessary.”

Eton College is speaking to the founder of the website and looking for ways to work with them in future.

Latymer Upper School, which is one of the most-mentioned schools, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the accounts on the website.

“We have a zero-tolerance approach to behaviours that foster the prevalence of misogyny, sexism, harassment, abuse and assault,” a spokeswoman said, adding all reports of this kind were escalated to police when necessary.

“We take all such issues very seriously and have encouraged anyone affected to come and talk to us directly. We will be listening carefully to them and reflecting on what further steps we should take.”

Cryptocurrency Bitcoin has risen for the first time above $60,000 (£43,100), continuing its record-breaking run.

Bitcoin – which has more than tripled in value since the end of last year – has been powered on by well-known companies adopting it as a method of payment.

But some analysts said this latest surge came in part due to the huge US stimulus package approved this week.

Bitcoin’s total market value last month exceeded $1tn.

However, Bitcoin has a track record of wild price swings and has fallen sharply a number of times since it was created in 2009.

Bitcoin hits new record of $50,000
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Bitcoin consumes ‘more electricity than Argentina’
The recent spikes have been fuelled by big companies.

In February, Elon Musk revealed that his electric carmaker Tesla had bought $1.5bn worth of Bitcoin and would be accepting it as payment for its cars in future.

Mastercard also plans to accept certain cryptocurrencies as a form of payment while BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is exploring ways it can use the digital currency.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also played its part in Bitcoin’s price rise, as more people go online for shopping, moving further away from physical coins and notes.

Critics argue Bitcoin is less of a currency and more of a speculative trading tool that is open to market manipulation.

There is also concern over its environmental impact, with huge amounts of energy needed to conduct transactions.

GameStop’s shares slumped by 40% in 25 minutes on Wednesday, after a few days of frenetic growth.

Earlier that day the share price had soared to nearly $350 (£250) – 100 times more than this time last year.

What does this tell us?
One of the wildest stories of the year is still very much alive
Many amateur traders are still both making money – and getting hurt
Our understanding of what happened in late January, when GameStop’s share price was making headlines around the world, remains incomplete
Why is it shocking?
In February, the prevailing attitude on Wall Street was the share price was slowly finding its natural position.

It had fallen to about a 10th of its late January market high.

And that spike was widely thought to have been a one-off – hedge funds would never again allow themselves to be blindsided.

How were hedge funds used to drive up the price?
Believing GameStop overpriced, hedge funds had “shorted” the company, betting the share price would fall.

Many people on the WallStreetBets Reddit forum realised if together they drove up the price, the hedge funds would have to try to buy back shares, to cut their losses, raising the price still further.

This is known as a short squeeze.

In the past month, I have been told multiple times hedge funds were too clever to allow this again.

But on Wednesday, the share price was approaching its January high.

So what is going on now?
The most obvious explanation is hedge funds did not learn their lesson.

But there is far more to this than hedge funds.

Many amateur investors believe GameStop is a great long-term investment.

And far from being a failing, bricks-and-mortar gaming company, it is well placed to move into the digital space, where even a small part of the market would make it hugely valuable.

Any news suggesting progress in this direction is therefore met by much fanfare on WallStreetBets.

On Monday, it was announced successful pet company Chewy co-founder and GameStop investor Ryan Cohen was to join a strategic-planning committee to “identify initiatives that can further accelerate the company’s transformation”.

And that pretty meagre announcement generated a load of buzz on WallStreetBets – which in turn, foot pumped the share price.

To put that into perspective, Amazon’s share price barely moved when Jeff Bezos announced he was stepping aside as chief executive

What has Reddit got to do with it?
Some say Reddit – and WallStreetBets in particular – is the perfect place to generate hysteria around a stock.

“Reddit is like the definition of confirmation bias,” Matt Kimbro, from PR company NowADays Media, told me.

“The way the platform works is the content gets served to you based on how many upvotes it has.

“So that means you are only going to hear from the people who are saying what people want to hear.”

Could there be another explanation?
Attempts to give America’s economy a shot in the arm during the past year have included sending stimulus cheques to many Americans earning less than $75,000 a year.

And, the theory goes, many retail investors used their cheques to invest in the stock market.

With Joe Biden signing off a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) economic relief bill on Thursday, a load of new cheques are likely to arrive on people’s doorsteps in the coming weeks.

Mr Biden hopes it will stimulate the economy.

But it may have already stimulated GameStop’s share price.

Last month, a Deutsche Bank survey of 430 retail investors found they planned to put 37%, on average, of any stimulus cheques directly into equities.

And many of these retail investors are looking at “meme” stocks such as GameStop.

If you believe this theory, you should buy GameStop shares before the cash is sent out – and then ride the wave up.

And that, in turn, is having a real-world effect on the share price right now.

Are there any other theories?
Another theory is that although amateur investors on WallStreetBets are the trigger, bigger institutional investors do the real moving.

They are watching forums such as WallStreetBets very closely.

They know GameStop’s is a bubbly stock, prone to highs and lows.

And they know a lot of the money going in is from amateur investors.

Wall Street sometimes refers to these kinds of investors as “dumb money”.

“Everybody is looking at WallStreetBets now,” Americans for Financial Reform analyst and former trader Alexis Goldstein told me.

“My sense is [hedge funds] are like, ‘Oh, they’re going to get excited again, maybe we can ride the thing up’.

“I just think there are too many eyes on this now.”

Jordan Belfort, whose financial crimes are portrayed in the film The Wolf of Wall Street, is a supporter of amateurs taking on the pros.

But he told me he was now worried for some novice investors.

“What makes this dangerous is that sophisticated investors are smart enough to know when to get out of the situation,” he said.

“While the little guy is typically the one that ends up holding the bag.

“And that’s very dangerous – and sad.”

What happens next?
GameStop’s wild ride is set to continue, as people continue to hype the stock.

But legislators are looking on closely.

GameStop may look like an opportunity.

But it also comes with inherent risk.

WallStreetBets is a great description of the group – investing in GameStop has become one collective gamble.

With the stock price high, many people will feel like that gamble has paid off.

But that is certainly not the end of the story.

“Nobody goes to WallStreetBets thinking that this is a safe place to spend money,” Reddit boss Steve Huffman recently told me.

A smartphone with an expanding display that can grow and shrink on demand has been demonstrated by Chinese phone-maker Oppo.

The device has a flexible display that rolls up inside the device, letting the screen expand from 6.7in (17cm) to 7.4in (18.8cm).

BBC Click’s Chris Fox went hands-on with the concept phone to see what it was like.