Technology

For years, police have been warning about the dangers of crowdsourced detective work — but on Thursday morning, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of Washington, DC decided to do just that. In the wake of an unprecedented mob attack on the Capitol building, the MPD has released an open call for help identifying subjects. The department has circulated a digital booklet featuring 26 pages of faces from the attack, with a hotline number for anyone who can help identify them. The FBI has made a similar request, although neither agency has produced any arrests as a result of the photos. The alarming nature of the attack, combined with the failure of Capitol Police to detain or process the intruders, has led to a nationwide digital manhunt. The event was captured in hundreds of photos, vid...

The list of companies and agencies discovering that they’ve been affected by the SolarWinds hack is still growing, and they’re working with a big unknown: how far the hackers got into their systems. The federal judiciary system is likely now one of them (via The Wall Street Journal), and it isn’t taking any chances. It’s worried enough that court workers will now have to physically deliver sensitive documents, despite the ongoing pandemic. The judiciary’s new procedures sound rather intense: Under the new procedures announced today, highly sensitive court documents (HSDs) filed with federal courts will be accepted for filing in paper form or via a secure electronic device, such as a thumb drive, and stored in a secure stand-alone computer system. These sealed HSDs will not be uploaded to C...

TikTok will remove videos of President Trump’s speech inciting supporters to mob the US Capitol on Wednesday, saying they violate the company’s misinformation policy. TikTok will still let people post “counter speech” videos that dispute incorrect claims, however, and will let videos remain on the platform if they condemn violence or if they’re posted by news organizations. TechCrunch was the first to report the news. “Hateful behavior and violence have no place on TikTok,” the company said in a statement. “Content or accounts that seek to incite, glorify, or promote violence violate our Community Guidelines and will be removed.” TikTok is also blocking certain hashtags related to the riots, such as #stormthecapitol and #patriotparty, like it did with other hashtags that represented electi...

On October 15th, FCC chairman Ajit Pai promised that the FCC would “move forward with a rulemaking” to clarify the “meaning” of Section 230, the all-important internet law that protects free speech online. Apparently, Pai never got around to that — and less than three months later, he no longer plans to, either, explaining he’s short on time. “[T]here’s simply not sufficient time to complete the administrative steps necessary in order to resolve the rule-making. Given that reality, I do not believe it’s appropriate to move forward,” he tells Protocol. The reason he’s short on time is pretty simple: he’s stepping down on January 20th, when Joe Biden becomes President of the United States. But he might also be giving up because the idea that the FCC had the power to do such a thing was laugh...

Earlier this week, we reported that Google could be working on an updated Nest Hub that had Soli technology, and a report from 9to5Google now suggests that it could be for something unexpected: sleep tracking. If you aren’t familiar, Soli is Google’s radar technology used to detect gestures and human presence. It was first introduced in the Pixel 4 (which was discontinued in August), and while it isn’t in any of Google’s current Pixel devices, it’s now showing up in smart home devices, like the Nest Thermostat. So there is precedent for Google including the tech in its smart home devices. And the Nest Hub already looks a bit like an alarm clock, and because it doesn’t have a camera built-in, it may be more accepted into the bedroom for sleep tracking. But I still have a couple of questions...

Just about any account you own on the internet is prone to being hacked. After numerous widespread breaches through the past few years, tech companies have been working together to develop a standard that would make passwords a thing of the past, replacing them with more secure methods like biometric or PIN-based logins that do not require transferring data over the internet. But while those standards are still being adopted, the next best way to secure your accounts is two-factor authentication, or 2FA. This a process that gives web services secondary access to the account owner (you) in order to verify a login attempt. Typically, this involves a phone number and / or email address. This is how it works: when you log in to a service, you use your mobile phone to verify your identity by ei...

While Monster Hunter World was a huge success, becoming one of Capcom’s bestselling games in history and exposing far more people to a series that had only ever been truly popular in Japan, it came at a cost. The move to modern console hardware meant Monster Hunter looked and played better than ever before, but it also meant leaving the series’s portable roots behind. Even in Japan, Monster Hunter only really took off when it came to the PSP, with people gathering in person to take down monsters together. It may not look like it, given its long, drawn-out combat system, but Monster Hunter is a perfect portable game. You can do simple grinding on a quick commute while listening to podcasts, then tackle the major challenges when you’re with friends or have the ability to devote your attentio...

Intel launched RealSense ID yesterday, a facial recognition solution that relies on its RealSense depth-sensing technology (via Gizmodo). RealSense started as a Kinect-style camera for touch-free interaction, but RealSense ID seems like Intel’s attempt to reposition its camera business towards secure, on-device facial recognition first, while also potentially putting the company in the crossfire of controversy. RealSense ID builds on Intel’s depth-sensing technology with a neural network for identifying faces, a dedicated system-on-a-chip, and a secure element that encrypts and processes user data. The device should learn and adapt to a face over time, working around facial hair, a variety of different skin tones, and face masks, Gizmodo writes. The tech is available on a module that can b...

Twitter has lifted its ban on President Donald Trump, and his latest tweet is very different than the ones we’ve seen for many months. Though he does not say he lost, his latest video feels like a concession speech. “Now that Congress has certified the results, a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th,” he says. “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.” Trump had issued a similar statement about “an orderly transition” this morning through a surrogate account — that of White House social media director Dan Scavino. The president’s own account was locked on Wednesday after a mob of his supporters broke into the US Capitol, and Twitter said it would stay that way until he deleted several tweets and then waited 12 hours. A Twitter spo...

Encrypted messaging app Signal says it’s seeing a swell of new users signing up for the platform, so much so that the company is seeing delays in phone number verifications of new accounts across multiple cell providers. As for what or who is responsible for so many new users interested in trying the platform, which is operated by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, there are two likely culprits: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Signal competitor WhatsApp. Verification codes are currently delayed across several providers because so many new people are trying to join Signal right now (we can barely register our excitement). We are working with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible. Hang in there. — Signal (@signalapp) January 7, 2021 Musk, who is now the world’s richest person after surpassin...

Twitch has disabled President Donald Trump’s account indefinitely following his encouragement of a pro-Trump mob’s attack of the US Capitol on Wednesday. “In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President’s incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence.” The company says it will reassess Trump’s account after he leaves office. Trump’s account remains live, so archived videos and his profile are still available. But while the account is disabled, he won’t be able to stream. In June, Twitch temporarily banned Trump’s account for “ha...