Pavel Jelic The weekend flew by and we're now at the start of week 32 of 2020. If you've been keeping an eye on the world over the weekend, you've surely missed some of the hot news we'll look at in this IT roundup from today and last weekend close up In the first piece of news, we will look at very important information - Donald Trump, the current president of the USA, has decided with the government to ban TikTok in the United States. In addition, SpaceX's private Crew Dragon has landed, and today we learned more about the arrest of the first hackers behind the recent attack on the Twitter accounts of the world's largest companies. Let's get straight to the point.
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Donald Trump has banned TikTok in the US
It has been a few weeks back that the government of India has completely banned the TikTok app in their country. This application is currently among the most downloaded applications in the world and is used by several billion users. TikTok has its roots in China, which is one of the main reasons why some people, including the most powerful, simply hate it. Some of them believe that sensitive personal information of its users is stored on TikTok's servers, which was the main reason behind the banning of TikTok in India, in some cases, it is most likely a matter of politics and trade war between China and the rest of the world. If we are to believe TikTok, which defends itself by the fact that all its servers are located in the United States, then it can somehow be deduced that this is a purely political matter.
Anyway, India is no longer the only country where TikTok is banned. After the ban in India, the government of the United States of America started considering a similar step a few days ago. For several days, there was silence on this topic, but on Saturday, Donald Trump announced the unexpected - TikTok is really ending in the US, and American users have been banned from this application. Donald Trump and other American politicians see TikTok as a security risk for the United States and its citizens. The aforementioned espionage and the collection of sensitive personal data are allegedly taking place. This move is indeed very radical and is a huge blow to TikTok as such. However, true advocates and passionate users will always find a way to continue using this most popular app in the world. How do you feel about the TikTok ban in the US? Do you think this decision and especially the given reason are adequate? Let us know in the comments.
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Crew Dragon has successfully returned to Earth
A few months ago, specifically on May 31, we witnessed how the Crew Dragon, which belongs to the private company SpaceX, carried two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The entire mission went more or less according to plan and was a huge success as Crew Dragon became the first ever commercial manned spacecraft to reach the ISS. On Sunday, August 2, 2020, specifically at 1:34 a.m. Central European Time (CET), the cosmonauts set off on their return journey to planet Earth. Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley successfully landed the Crew Dragon in the Gulf of Mexico, exactly as expected. Crew Dragon's return to Earth was scheduled for 20:42 CET - this estimate was very accurate, as the astronauts touched down only six minutes later, at 20:48 (CET). Just a few years ago, the reuse of spaceships was unthinkable, but SpaceX has done it, and it looks like the Crew Dragon that landed yesterday will soon be back in space - probably sometime next year. By reusing a large part of the ship, SpaceX will save a lot of money and, above all, time, so the next mission can be that much closer.
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The first hackers behind the attacks on Twitter accounts were arrested
Last week, the internet was literally rocked by the news that the Twitter accounts of the world's largest companies, along with the accounts of famous people, had been hacked. For example, an account from Apple, or from Elon Musk or Bill Gates did not resist hacking. After gaining access to these accounts, the hackers posted a tweet inviting all followers to a "perfect" earning opportunity. The message stated that any money that users send to a certain account will be paid back double. So if the person in question sends $10 to the account, he will be paid back $20. On top of that, the report revealed that this "promotion" was only available for a few short minutes, so users simply didn't think and sent money without thinking. Of course, there was no double return, and the hackers thus earned several tens of thousands of dollars. In order to maintain anonymity, all funds were directed to a Bitcoin wallet.
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Even though the hackers tried to remain anonymous, they didn't quite succeed. They were discovered within a few days and are now being summoned to court. Only 17-year-old Graham Clark from Florida was supposed to lead this entire attack. He is currently facing 30 charges, including organized crime, 17 counts of fraud, 10 counts of misuse of personal information, as well as illegal hacking of servers. However, it should be noted that Twitter is more or less to blame for this whole incident. Indeed, Clark and his team impersonated Twitter employees and called other employees to share certain access information. Badly trained internal employees of Twitter often shared this data, so the whole breach was very simple, without the need for programming knowledge, etc. In addition to Clark, 19-year-old Mason Sheppard, who participated in money laundering, and 22-year-old Nima Fazeli are also serving their sentences. Clark and Sheppard are said to be serving up to 45 years behind bars, Fazeli only 5 years. In one of its most recent tweets, Twitter thanked everyone involved in the arrest of these individuals.
We appreciate the swift actions of law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses. For our part, we are focused on being transparent and providing regular updates.
For the latest, see here? https://t.co/kHty8TXaly
- Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) July 31, 2020
Like me, I'm not a TikToker and I have absolutely no interest in the network there, just like Instagram and the like. But this is just stupid. People will use it anyway. Everyone can install it on the droid themselves, and it can also be bypassed on the iPhone, of course.