Aggregator

eBay and several former executives have agreed to pay $56 million to Ina and David Steiner, the newsletter writers targeted in a 2019 corporate harassment campaign that involved threats, surveillance attempts, and deliveries of live insects and other disturbing items. The settlement closes the couple's civil case after seven former employees pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the scheme. TechCrunch reports: Ina and David Steiner, a married couple and the co-authors of EcommerceBytes, inspired the ire of high-level eBay executives after occasionally criticizing the company in their newsletter. In 2019, a plot was concocted to intimidate the couple into halting their negative coverage. Executives used sock puppet social media accounts to harass the couple, while also sending them anonymous threatening letters and bizarre items in the mail -- including live spiders and cockroaches, pornographic magazines, a bloody pig mask, a funereal wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. According to previously released court documents, a plan that was attempted but never successfully carried out involved affixing a GPS tracking device to the couple's car. Yet another internally broached plan involved sending a "Samoan gang" to the Steiners' home. The settlement this week resolves a 2021 civil case brought by the couple against eBay. The law office representing the Steiners writes that the settlement includes $46.15 million paid to the couple by eBay itself, as well as $2 million from former eBay executive CEO Devin Wenig. Additionally, $500,000 will be paid out to the couple from former eBay executive Wendy Jones, as well as $50,000 from former eBay executive Steve Wymer. Additional funds are being paid to various non-profits. In 2022, seven former eBay employees were criminally charged and pled guilty in relation to the plot, including the company's former security chief, James Baugh -- who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Others indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice include David Harville, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Stephanie Stockwell, Philip Cooke, and former eBay contractor Veronica Zea.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kate Cassidy revealed she is having her Liam Payne 'angel' tattoo tribute removed from her hand as she shared a new video on Instagram on Tuesday. 

An unusual 'experimental explosion' entry appeared on the government's earthquake tracking website, sparking questions about the mysterious event.

Many women spend thousands of dollars a year in an effort to keep their faces looking younger than ever... but this one body part could be giving their true age away. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a charm offensive in Washington on Tuesday.

Olivia Attwood teased that she was going to share exposing screenshots on Tuesday - after branding her ex Bradley Dack's new love interest Emily Moloney his 'bit on the side'.

The teacher was booked into the Lyon County Jail on charges of interference with law enforcement and disorderly conduct, according to police.

'He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart,' Trump said of Graham, his former presidential primary opponent-turned-friend.

The actress, 52, has had a lengthy hiatus from screens after her dramatic exit from Strictly Come Dancing in 2023.

The actor brought his son Otis, 12, and his nine-year-old daughter Daisy, both of whom he shares with his ex Olivia Wilde , to the Los Angeles premiere at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Robert Bush, 48, is being sentenced for 67 offences related to preventing the lawful and decent burial of 30 bodies and defrauding grieving families who had paid for funeral services.

The supposed evidence related to a document about conditions in Morocco, which officials said was safe for a woman and her children to be returned.

Both Douk Deng, 21, was carrying a hatchet, a hammer and a seven-inch kitchen knife when he was stopped by police.

Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview has "found flaws in a weakened version of a digital encryption standard that is in pervasive use throughout the internet," reports The New York Times. Researchers said the model discovered novel attacks against weakened versions of AES and the experimental post-quantum HAWK system, including one that was 200 to 1,000 times faster than previous human-developed methods. From the report: The flaws identified do not concern a cryptographic standard currently in use today, which means that modern banking and communication systems are not subject to immediate potential intrusions from A.I. Instead, Anthropic's technology cracked a watered-down version of an algorithm for Advanced Encryption Standard, or A.E.S., a ubiquitous protocol that safeguards web traffic, wireless networks, data storage and more. It is common to perform tests on weaker versions of encryption algorithms to understand whether more powerful computers could someday crack the actual standards, akin to solving a simpler math problem to identify whether patterns may exist for a more complicated one. In the testing, Mythos was able to break the weaker version of Advanced Encryption Standard in a way that Anthropic said made an assault 200 to 1,000 times faster than what previous human research had managed to do. While the immediate ramifications are minimal, the long-term implications could be significant. In previous tests, large-language models seemingly could not match or best what humans can do in the mathematically dense field of cryptographic research, but their rapid advances could suggest a future in which top models can surmount traditional internet security protections that are foundational to just about everything that takes place on the internet. [...] In addition to the attack on the encryption standard, Mythos also orchestrated another improved attack against a different digital cryptographic system known as HAWK that is designed to be bulletproof against both traditional and quantum computers. HAWK is not currently in use, but under consideration by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to become a new standard. The HAWK attack was validated by its authors, and independent cryptographers reviewed the Advanced Encryption Standard attack, Anthropic said, adding that it had shared its findings with the U.S. government and industry partners ahead of publication. Mythos devised the cryptographic attack on A.E.S. almost entirely autonomously, Anthropic said, but only after first refusing to contemplate the problem because it believed it was impossible to improve on existing methods of analysis. But after some coaxing, the chatbot sat with the puzzle for about a week before engineering its novel attack. Two human researchers then worked for nearly a month to verify that the method appeared correct. "Given that we are constantly underestimating the power and time of availability of future models, are we really comfortable that two years from now strong encryption won't be threatened?" said Glenn S. Gerstell, the former general counsel at the National Security Agency. "Mathematicians would tell you that it shouldn't be possible given current computing powers to break strong encryption in any meaningful time," added Mr. Gerstell, who helped write a report on cryptology in 2022. "But I don't think the capabilities of future models in the medium term -- before quantum computing or quantum-proof cryptography -- should be dismissed as trivial in this context."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tania Williams, 49, was found by neighbours in a pool of blood outside her home. Her husband Raymond, 61, denies murdering her.

Trump, 80, made the claim during a marathon phone call with Fox News Tuesday morning.

She swapped her character's iconic mustard yellow fur jacket for something much more comfortable as she took in the ocean breeze with her spouse, 38.

Tour of the AI kill chain maps the risks of ubiquitous surveillance and flawed algorithms

Dozens of migrants scrambled through the surf on Tuesday to board a traffickers' dinghy at Hardelot-Plage, south of Boulogne, despite Andy Burnham insisting 'the plan is working' on small boats.

A NASA image of Mars has sparked fresh claims of life on the Red Planet after Curiosity captured a mysterious object that some believe is evidence of an alien civilization.