Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Hackers used a dedicated mobile gateway to compromise a second facility during the destructive cyberattacks that hit Poland’s energy sector last year. The second target was a small combined heat-and-power (CHP) plant that supplies heat to around 50,000 residents, resulting in the steam turbine and the water treatment system being shut down. The Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) disclosed this second incident in a follow-up report over the weekend, saying that the attacker used a private Access Point Name (APN) to access the operational technology network. “The attack was made possible, among other factors, by a misconfiguration that allowed arbitrary…

Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream has announced a new feature allowing users to make trustless swaps.  Dubbed Blockstream Swaps, the idea is that Bitcoiners will be able to quickly move between the main chain and Lightning network.  It comes after non-custodial Bitcoin swap provider Boltz suspended its service after it said attackers were finding vulnerabilities faster than its team could fix using AI.  “In support of the broader Bitcoin and Liquid ecosystem, Blockstream is launching Blockstream Swaps,” Blockstream said.  “This initiative was already under development to ensure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it complements the providers already…

Republican Mike Rogers has provided no evidence that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed “believes that America deserved 9/11,” as Rogers falsely claimed in a statement this month. Instead Rogers’ Senate campaign has pointed to past comments made by a liberal political commentator. El-Sayed said in April that the 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S. was not justified. Rogers speaks at a campaign rally in Portage, Michigan, in October 2024, during his previous run for Senate. Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images. Rogers released the statement attacking El-Sayed, who is Muslim, after El-Sayed won the Aug. 4 Democratic primary in…

Doctors, lawmakers condemn Trump order calling for sweeping changes to childhood vaccinesMedical experts and lawmakers are blasting Donald Trump’s executive order calling for sweeping changes to childhood vaccine recommendations.The order calls for fewer childhood vaccines and would require that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine be broken into three separate shots. It would also recommend that all shots be given at separate medical visits, promoting the president’s long-held but baseless theory that the shots should be spaced out.Jan Carney, president of the American College of Physicians, called the changes “problematic and deeply concerning.”“This executive order is part of a troubling…

I was recently digging through my Instagram settings, trying to disable Meta’s now-defunct feature that allowed anyone to create AI deepfakes of me without consent. Anger bubbled up inside as I tapped through the Kafkaesque opt-out process.Rather than throwing my phone across the room, I blurted to my partner that we should leave San Francisco behind and be off-grid sheep farmers. Something analog. In that moment, anything sounded better than this ongoing, generative-AI-induced hell.Many Americans are having similar reactions to the growing prevalence of generative AI in daily life. “The AI revolution has happened, and everybody hates it,” says Meredith…

Grayscale has formalized a mandatory minimum cadence for converting staking rewards from three crypto exchange-traded products into cash and paying the net proceeds to shareholders.Trust amendments executed Aug. 6 for the Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF (ETHE), Grayscale Solana Staking ETF (GSOL) and Grayscale Avalanche Staking ETF (GAVA) require each product to reduce “Staking Consideration” to cash no less often than quarterly. Net proceeds must then be distributed promptly after applicable fees and trust expenses.The three trusts currently intend to make distributions monthly, according to Form 8-K filings submitted Aug. 7, but the binding floor is quarterly.As the trusts receive staking…

Researchers have discovered for the first time that the same silver (Ag) nanocatalyst can operate at different reaction sites depending on whether a solid oxide cell is producing electricity or generating hydrogen. The finding points to a new way of designing these next-generation energy devices for better performance. The work was led by Professors WooChul Jung and Jeong Woo Han of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), together with Professor Sang Ouk Kim’s team at KAIST and Dr. Beomgyun Jeong’s team at the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI). Their results clarify how silver nanocatalysts…

It is not yet clear to what extent Meta’s new smart glasses will live up to the nickname of “pervert glasses” – bestowed in recognition of the obvious appeal of wearable cameras to voyeurs. The past week has seen rising criticism of the devices, which in the UK have been banned by the pub chain Wetherspoons and the theatre group ATG, as well as restaurants, schools and members’ clubs. These organisations deserve praise for standing up for privacy. By contrast, regulators appear once again to be on the back foot.There have, inevitably, already been reports of women being mistreated. Earlier this…

The day so far At least 111 have died and 87 people injured after dozens of buildings collapsed following a 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday morning – the largest to hit the country so far this century. After declaring a state of national disaster, Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, said in an address to the nation that his government had deployed all of its capabilities “to protect lives, assist affected ‌communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed”. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble,” he said after around 1,600…

Top White House and administration officials engaged in an elaborate ruse to spirit President Trump out of Turkey during the NATO summit there last month, transporting him in a catering cart to a military jet because of a credible threat against him and Air Force One from Iran, a senior U.S. official said Monday.Mr. Trump had traveled to Turkey aboard a 747-8 donated by Qatar, which is far more luxurious than the older Boeing jets used for Air Force One, and which the U.S. government worked quickly to retrofit for presidential travel. Mr. Trump announced he would not take that…