News Brief for June 2017

June 2017 News

Half way through the year and we saw more terrorist attacks in the UK while Brexit made an interesting turn with Theresa May's election gamble falling short. Donald Trump saw more opposition with plans for Trumpcare finally revealed and shock when he admitted he was being investigated. Bill Cosby's sex assault trial was declared a mistrial and in the world of technology it was discovered just how far the Russian's had hacked the US Election.

Technologies Tantalizing Tomorrow

We delve this week into the world of Technology with security threats from hackers looming large and space calling out to the brave.

Fighting on the Digital Front

We begin the week with security after numerous stories of hackers surfaced this week ranging in severity of threat. If you thought being untethered and high in the sky would keep you safe a new report claims that hackers could hack into the aircraft's system via the planes own Wi-Fi, and you thought all you had to worry about was a guy stuck in the cargo hold of the plane. While the odds of a plane being hacked are low the number is increasing as a new report claims a 23% spike in cyber crimes with another study showing data breaches have stolen nearly 29 million US health records in 4 years.

One of the most famous hack of recent memory is that of Sony Entertainment who's documents can now be found in a searchable trove on Wikileaks and more worryingly is the fact that the software used to attack Sony Entertainment can be bought on the dark web for just $30,000 in bitcoin. Speaking of business, Google faces a new antitrust lawsuit in Europe after claims that Google prioritized it's own services over that of others. In the US the new net neutrality freedom is already coming under attack by broadband companies who are taking the fight to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Future and Fun

Focusing instead on bettering mankind's future we saw the first ever donut launched into space giving us even more reason to reach space. However, attempts to get into space took another knock when SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket just failed to land on the drone barge during a test flight earlier in the week. For those already in the heavens we saw footage of a space walk carried out earlier in the year on ISS while even further out in space the Curiosity rover found evidence of small amounts of water on Mars. On the topic of robots, a few of them are being used closer to home mapping radiation at the Fukushima power plant too dangerous for humans to map.

Finally we end this week where artificial intelligence is no match, natural stupidity. The week saw two puzzles fool the internet with Cheryl's Birthday math problem and a picture of a cat either walking up or down a flight of stairs, basically the blue and gold dress all over again.

Terrorism's Reach Grows

The week saw the affects of terrorism on two fronts, from an up front and deadly confrontation to a anonymous virtual threat.

Sydney Siege

The people of Sydney Australia suffered an unprecedented attack when a gunman took hostages in a busy Sydney cafe claiming to have 2 bombs in his backpack and another 2 bombs planted elsewhere in Sydney.

The siege began with hostages being forced to hold up a black flag with an Islamic declaration of faith. The gunman then used the hostages to relay his demands via video which was sent to local news agencies.

After 17 hours police stormed the Martin Place cafe where a gun battle broke out leaving the gunman dead along with two hostages who had tried to shield a pregnant friend. The two hostage killed in the incident were Tori Johnson the manager of the store and Katrina Dawson a mother of 3.

Virtual Terrorism

With the new Sony Pictures movie "The Interview" taking a stab at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a group of hackers, believed to be from North Korea, broke into Sony Pictures computer network and proceeded to release a plethora of information about the inner workings of Sony, along with various emails about some now not so happy famous people.

The hackers demanded that Sony pull the offending movie or face more leaks of sensitive Sony data. The FBI warned theaters of potential cyber attacks as the launch date approached resulting in Sony pulling the movie due to be screened on Christmas Day leaving plenty of celebrities enraged for giving in to the terrorist threats.

Who's in the news? Hacked Celebrities

This week saw the release of hundreds of private photo's of various female celebrities supposedly hacked from iCloud accounts and posted online.

The event dubbed "The Fappening" began on Monday with images slowly released by an anonymous hacker who requested bitcoin as payment for their release.

Who Was Affected

Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence and Model Kate Upton took prime spot featuring in the initial images released. But soon Victoria Justice, Rhianna, Ariana Grande and more would join the list.

While Miss Lawrence and others admitted the images were real some celebrities denied the authenticity of the images. Later some of the celebrities who originally denied the authenticity (Victoria Justice), have since admitted that they are real.

Response And Investigation

The celebrities involved have taken the issue to the FBI who are investigating the hack while the hacker responsible for publishing the images is on the run. Apple set up a team on their side to investigate how the photo's were obtained. It has since been confirmed it was not a breach of Apple's iCloud but instead a targeted attack on specific accounts.

Besides the breach and theft of personal documents certain images were of a then underage McKayla Maroney classifying the images as child pornography. And if it wasn't bad enough trying to remove some of the images has been made more difficult for Miss Lawrence who has been in a legal battle with a porn site who claim she did not own the copyright of the images, as they were not taken by her, and is refusing to remove the images.

And lastly members of Reddit donated $6000 to a prostate cancer charity after viewing the leaked images which was returned as the charity did not condone the manner in which the funds were raised.

Business, Bitcoin and Bureaucracy

It's been an interesting week for business with one or two highlight's in a sea of gloom, from the US to Iraq, Argentina and China, it's been a global affair.

The week started on a positive note when Starbucks announced it would pay tuition for thousands of it's employee's to take courses through Arizona State University to complete their Bachelor's degree. It seemed like business as usual with Amazon announcing the it's latest product, the Fire Phone, to take on the smartphone market.

But it didn't last long heading downwards from there with the GM CEO set to face more Capital Hill questions after the recent spate of recalls and got worse when hackers stole customer data from Domino's pizza in Europe and demanded a ransom.

Things seemed to only get worse when the US Marshal's leaked the list of potential bidders for Bitcoins confiscated from Silk Road. Bitcoin continued the negative ride when the Bitcoin doomsday scenario arrived as it was revealed that 51% of Bitcoin's processing power was controlled by a single group. There was some light for Mt. Gox who got approval for US bankruptcy protection.

While the Obama Administration made strides determined to extend family leave for same-sex couples the Federal Reserve announced it would curtail it's bond buying activity but continue with mortgage bonds and potentially Treasury securities too. But it wouldn't last long with a Veterans Affairs official being arrested for accepting $40k in illegal gifts.

Internationally it got downright ugly with the Argentine government trying to side step a US Supreme Court order by offering a debt swap to it's creditors. China then rejected a shipping alliance despite support from the US and EU which would have saved the industry money. And if all that wasn't bad enough the escalating violence in Iraq shook the markets with oil prices surging.

Technology makes the world go round

It's been an interesting week in the tech world with big money taking center stage.

Money

Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion with $3billion in Facebook stock. WhatsApp is set to reach 1 billion users faster than Facebook.

King revealed it has made over $1.5 billion from the addictive Candy Crush Saga.

Bitcoin had another bumpy week with the value of Bitcoin plummeting to under $100 on the Mt. Gox exchange.

Staying with Bitcoin, rhe first Bitcoin ATM's in the USA will appear in Seattle and Austin

Security

The Kickstarter website was hacked exposing user data. An email was sent to users urging them change their details.

The NSA saga continued with new allegations that it spied on WikiLeaks and it's visitors.

 Gadgets

Google set out rules for it's Glasses wearers to crack down on the creepy factor. The rules are a list of "Do's and Dont's" such as Do: ask permission before recording someone and Don't: be creepy and rude.

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed he had been in talks with Apple but it was not for an acquisition but instead about battery technology and Tesla's new "Gigafactory".

Samsung is suing vacuum cleaner maker Dyson after it claimed Dyson infringed on one of it's patents. Well that sucks.