What 'shocking' chapters of real royal history influenced Game of Thrones' Red Wedding and Cersei Lannister's walk of shame?
This episode is part of a new podcast miniseries which explores how history's most wicked royals rival any fictional villain.
Brutal moment long-serving New York Mets pitcher fights back tears after being traded midgame
As the Mets took on the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, news broke that the franchise had finalized a trade with the Giants for three of their players.
Bin crews' safety put at risk far too often by dangerous drivers, council says
Bin crews have asked motorists to be patient after experiencing dangerous driving far too often.
'It was life-changing' - Woman ran 100 miles in 21 hours for youth mental health
A woman ran 100 miles in 21 hours to support a youth mental health charity.
Dartford Crossing charge to increase to £3.50 per journey
Those in cars will be paying an extra £1 per journey
Arab nations turn on Hamas as they call on terror group to disband and surrender control of Gaza
The Arab world has called on Hamas to disband and surrender control of Gaza, in a dramatic shift that could pave the way for peace in the region.
Sicknote Britain drives number of jobless families over THREE MILLION
Almost 40 per cent of people living in a house where not a single adult family member is employed is now out of work because they are sick or disabled.
UK church reaches two milestones at once after appointing its first-ever female archbishop... who is also its first-ever lesbian archbishop
Cherry Vann, originally from Leicester, has served as the Bishop of Monmouth for the past five years. She replaces Andrew John, who retired last month after three-and-a-half years in the role.
Google Tool Misused To Scrub Tech CEO's Shady Past From Search
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is fond of saying its mission is to "organize the world's information," but who gets to decide what information is worthy of organization? A San Francisco tech CEO has spent the past several years attempting to remove unflattering information about himself from Google's search index, and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation says he's still at it. Most recently, an unknown bad actor used a bug in one of Google's search tools to scrub the offending articles.
The saga began in 2023 when independent journalist Jack Poulson reported on Maury Blackman's 2021 domestic violence arrest. Blackman, who was then the CEO of surveillance tech firm Premise Data Corp., took offense at the publication of his legal issues. The case did not lead to charges after Blackman's 25-year-old girlfriend recanted her claims against the 53-year-old CEO, but Poulson reported on some troubling details of the public arrest report. Blackman has previously used tools like DMCA takedowns and lawsuits to stifle reporting on his indiscretion, but that campaign now appears to have co-opted part of Google's search apparatus. The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) reported on Poulson's work and Blackman's attempts to combat it late last year. In June, Poulson contacted the Freedom of the Press Foundation to report that the article had mysteriously vanished from Google search results.
The foundation began an investigation immediately, which led them to a little-known Google search feature known as Refresh Outdated Content. Google created this tool for users to report links with content that is no longer accurate or that lead to error pages. When it works correctly, Refresh Outdated Content can help make Google's search results more useful. However, Freedom of the Press Foundation now says that a bug allowed an unknown bad actor to scrub mentions of Blackman's arrest from the Internet. Upon investigating, FPF found that its article on Blackman was completely absent from Google results, even through a search with the exact title. Poulson later realized that two of his own Substack articles were similarly affected. The Foundation was led to the Refresh Outdated Content tool upon checking its search console. The bug in the tool allowed malicious actors to de-index valid URLs from search results by altering the capitalization in the URL slug. Although URLs are typically case-sensitive, Google's tool treated them as case-insensitive. As a result, when someone submitted a slightly altered version of a working URL (for example, changing "anatomy" to "AnAtomy"), Google's crawler would see it as a broken link (404 error) and mistakenly remove the actual page from search results.
Ironically, Blackman is now CEO of the online reputation management firm The Transparency Company.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Neo-Nazi teen, 18, who plotted Columbine-style high school shooting is jailed for six years
Felix Winter, 18, has been jailed for six years for terrorism offences after plotting a 'Doomsday' mass shooting at his own secondary school in Edinburgh.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: No scheming, no scenery, no risk... Brydon's travel game has no point
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: The Beatles didn't invent the mystery tour. A century ago, holidaymakers were paying their pound for a ride to some surprise seaside town.
Lethal Cambodia-Thailand border clash linked to cyber-scam slave camps
Infosec issues spill into the real world and regional politics
Analysis Thai and Cambodian tensions relating to issues including cybersecurity concerns boiled over into a kinetic skirmish at the border last week.…
Alesha Dixon reveals surprise career change as she makes major move away from music
Alesha, 46, is best-known as a singer and TV host, rising to fame in Mis-Teeq before securing presenting gigs on shows including Britain's Got Talent .
Canada becomes latest nation to plan on recognizing Palestinian state amid 'human suffering' in Gaza
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Wednesday that Canada will formally recognize the state of Palestine in September as part of a global shift against Israel 's policies in Gaza.
Park Lane security ramps up to stop return of migrant tent city: Guards with dogs patrol homeless hotspot near Hyde Park Corner after encampment was finally torn down
A patch of grassland running alongside the road, where the average property price is around £12million, has been used by homeless people to pitch tents for more than a decade.
Keir Starmer under pressure over 'flawed' peace plan for Gaza as Labour MPs turn on PM over plans to recognise a Palestinian state
Sir Keir Starmer was warned by all sides that his intention to recognise the state of Palestine unless Israel meets his conditions represented gesture politics and risked rewarding Hamas.
Grandfather, 75, who died after becoming trapped in a scalding hot hotel room bath may have lived if old taps had been replaced, inquiry finds
Wallace Hunter, 75, was staying at the Pitlochry Hydro in Perthshire, Scotland when he became stuck in the tub. He died from third degree burns to 83 per cent of his body.
There is no jeopardy in Chelsea's confetti spending when Saudi friends will happily fork out for their misfits, writes IAN HERBERT
IAN HERBERT: There's nothing quite like some vast Saudi generosity to send you skipping around a potential breach of spending rules and into the transfer market.
Pedestrians rushed to hospital after being hit by falling rubble when van ploughed through wall and was left dangling from car park building
Five people were rushed to hospital, including two people in a van which smashed through a car park wall in Leeds city centre.
Primark's 'horrendous' new home collection shoppers say is 'not OK'
Some Primark shoppers aren't happy with the seasonal change - in July