Month: July 2020

A person is in custody in connection with the killing of a 33-year-old tech entrepreneur found dismembered inside his luxury Manhattan condo.
A law enforcement official said Friday the person in custody has been working as Fahim Saleh’s personal assistant.
Saleh was found at around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday inside his luxury seventh floor apartment on the Lower East Side.  
He was found dead in a gruesome scene Tuesday afternoon. Saleh was the CEO of a ride-hailing motorcycle startup called Gokada that began operating in Nigeria in 2018. Authorities say a relative called police after going to check on Saleh and making the gruesome discovery.
Investigators had recovered security video showing Saleh exiting an elevator that leads directly into the full-floor, two-bedroom apartment earlier Tuesday afternoon, closely followed by a masked person dressed entirely in black according to another law enforcement official who was briefed on the case.
 
It also shows a struggle between the two that ensued at the entrance to the apartment, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Police believe that the relative may have interrupted the intruder before that person fled out a back exit.
The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide after an autopsy found the cause of death was multiple stab wounds to the body.
Saleh’s LinkedIn biography described him as a self-taught businessman who founded Gokada, building on his experience of first “seeing an opportunity in his parent’s native country of Bangladesh” and starting that country’s largest ride-sharing company. It said he also invested in a similar venture in Colombia.  
Investigators had been exploring whether the killing could have been related to Saleh’s business dealings.  
Apartments in the 10-story building where Saleh’s remains were found sell for more than $2 million. The building was completed in 2017 as part of a wave of gentrification in the neighborhood.
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Google, the behemoth technology company that has become a verb for online search, is offering financial aid to students who take their certificate programs in data analysis, project management and user experience.Calling it “a digital jobs program to help America’s economic recovery,” the offering comes during record-high joblessness in the U.S. because of quarantines and shutdowns implemented to help stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.  “College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn’t need a college diploma to have economic security,” wrote Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google, in a blogpost.In addition to workplaces, many college and university campuses shut down in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. While 60% of campuses say they will hold classes in person this fall, 9% say they will be online only, and 24% say they will offer a hybrid of online and in-person classes.  “We need new, accessible job-training solutions – from enhanced vocational programs to online education – to help America recover and rebuild,” Walker wrote.Google considers the certificates equivalent to a four-year degree, but they take only six months to complete. No college degree is required.  The courses normally cost $49 a month, but the company stated that it will make available 100,000 need-based scholarships, funded by Google.The certificates teach proficiency in data analysis, project management and user experience design.  Data analysts “prepare, process, and analyze data for key insights,” Google stated. The certificate helps learners navigate “the data lifecycle using tools and platforms to process, analyze, visualize and gain insights from data.” The median average wage for data analysts is $66,000, it stated.  Project managers “are responsible for planning and overseeing projects to ensure they are completed efficiently with maximum quality and value added to the business.” Google’s certificate adds “insight into agile project management.” The median average wage is $93,000, according to Google.  User experience – or UX designers – “make technology easier and more enjoyable to use. They create or refine products and interfaces to make them useful, usable, and accessible to users,” the company’s announcement stated. Those certificates include lessons in design, wireframes and prototypes. The median annual wage for UX designers is about $75,000, Google said.The studies will be hosted on Coursera, an online learning platform founded by Daphne Koller, who studied at Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley, and Andrew Ng, who studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and UC-Berkeley. Koller and Ng are professors at Stanford University.Students worldwide, forced into online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, have lamented the quality of online classes. They point to inadequate internet connectivity and poor delivery of instruction. Educators, too, have complained about being unprepared to teach over the internet.Students Give Online Learning Low MarksMany call on universities to end the semester earlyGoogle did not respond to emails sent by VOA Student Union.
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Hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls on Wednesday in one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, highlighting a major flaw with the service millions of people have come to rely on as an essential communications tool.
The intent of the hack appeared to be to steal money from unsuspecting cryptocurrency enthusiasts — in particular, by using the compromised high-follower accounts to scam people out of Bitcoin. But it also raises questions about Twitter’s ability to secure its service against election interference and misinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential election.  
Here are some questions and answers about the breach:What Happened — And How?
On Wednesday afternoon, the Twitter accounts of famous figures began tweeting similar messages saying they were “feeling generous” and would double any Bitcoin payments sent to an address in the tweet. Among the individual accounts affected were former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, tech billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and celebrities such as Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West.
Companies like Apple and Uber, which respectively have 4.6 million and one million followers, were also affected.  
Twitter soon locked down many accounts, including those of its “verified” users with blue check marks next to their names — a group that include many U.S. politicians as well as businesses, celebrities, journalists and news organizations. Twitter called the hack a “coordinated social engineering attack” by unknown people who “targeted” Twitter employees with access to the platform’s internal systems and tools.
The hackers, Twitter said, used this access to take control of many high-profile accounts and masquerade as their owners.What is Social Engineering?
Essentially, social engineering means taking advantage of human nature. Examples include phishing attacks and other ways people can be tricked into giving out compromising information, malware attacks that get people to download malicious software, and compromising people by offering something in return for information. Twitter did not say how its employees were compromised.  Could The Attack Have Been Prevented?
Twitter said late Wednesday it has taken “significant steps” to limit employees’ access to internal systems and tools while its investigation is ongoing. But this is not the first time Twitter employees have wrecked havoc.  
In 2017, a disgruntled employee deactivated President Donald Trump’s account for a few minutes. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged two former Twitter employees with spying on user data for the government of Saudi Arabia. The incidents raise questions about Twitter’s internal security systems, and whether the company can trust employees with access to sensitive information.
 What Does The Hack Mean for The 2020 Election?
The hack might be a simple demonstration of Twitter’s weak security controls as the U.S. heads into the 2020 presidential election, a contest in which social media is already playing a hugely influential role.  
Among the political figures targeted, the hack mostly appeared to target Democrats or other figures on the left, drawing comparisons to the 2016 campaign. The White House said that President Donald Trump’s account was secure and wasn’t jeopardized.
U.S. intelligence agencies have established that Russia engaged in coordinated attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election through social media tampering and various hacks, including targeting the campaigns and major party organizations.
While Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies have since tightened their election security systems and policies, malicious actors trying to intervene have also improved their tactics. In other words, if a Bitcoin scam was so easy to pull off, what will prevent an attack on the U.S. election?
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The baseless conspiracy theory took off after an anonymous user posed a bizarre question in an internet chatroom: What if retail giant Wayfair is using pricey storage cabinets to traffic children? Self-proclaimed internet sleuths quickly responded by matching up the names of Wayfair products to those of missing children, producing social media posts that have since overrun Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The result: A national human trafficking hotline suddenly began taking a number of calls about the imagined Wayfair scheme, stretching its resources. A woman said she posted a video of herself on Facebook to counter false claims that she was missing. One mother’s pleas to Facebook and YouTube to remove a video of her young daughter that was being used to suggest she was a Wayfair victim went unanswered for days.  Wayfair was forced to respond to the accusations in a recent statement: “There is, of course, no truth to these claims.”  Yet internet users continue to weave a complex web around Wayfair’s furniture and decor, spun from falsehoods and conjecture. Social media influencers, fringe online communities and even political candidates have also now seized on the conspiracy theory as evidence of an even grander one, known as QAnon, that centers on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring. “Conspiracy theorists always managed to spread their theories in the past, but the internet has made this much easier,” said Kathryn Olmsted, a history professor who studies conspiracy theories at University of California, Davis. “If you believe in one, you believe in another. You start collecting them.”  Mentions of Wayfair and “trafficking” have exploded on Facebook and Instagram over the past week. And on TikTok, the hashtags #Wayfairconspiracy and #WayfairGate together amassed nearly 4.5 million views even as several strands of the conspiracy theory have been debunked. Some social media posts pointed to the high cost of the storage cabinets — which sell for about $13,000 each — as suspect. Wayfair, however, said the steel structures were priced correctly for industrial use. A pillow listed for $9,999 also fueled suspicion, but was an error, the company said. ‘Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing’Other posts shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter connected the name of one of Wayfair’s cabinets, Samiyah, to an outdated missing person report for an Ohio girl named Samiyah Mumin, claiming it was proof that the company is trafficking young girls. A woman who identified herself as Mumin filmed a Facebook video to set the record straight. “Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing,” she said. Mumin did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office confirmed Mumin was found after being reported missing for a four-day period in May 2019 and has not been reported missing since.  A Maryland boy who briefly went missing in April also was identified by internet conspiracy theorists as a possible Wayfair victim because his last name matched the name of a pillow. He was found in less than 24 hours, with no signs that he had been trafficked or kidnapped, according to the sheriff’s office in St. Mary’s County. The burst of attention for the Wayfair claims also renewed interest in the QAnon conspiracy theory. In recent days, three conservative congressional candidates in Florida, Georgia and California who have expressed support for QAnon have also pushed unfounded allegations about Wayfair on Twitter. Thousands of tweets promoted the QAnon hashtag with claims that Wayfair is trafficking. A network of popular QAnon Facebook groups shared a video with a mashup of claims about human trafficking, including the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  The term QAnon skyrocketed on Instagram and Facebook, receiving more interactions last week than any other week over the last year, according to data from CrowdTangle, which tracks more than 4 million public pages, profiles and accounts. Surge in hotline callsThe attention created by the Wayfair conspiracy theory has, in some cases, been damaging for the very people social media users say they’re trying to help.  An increase in calls prompted by the conspiracy theory is straining the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which provides emergency help to victims. The line was already seeing a surge in requests for emergency shelter assistance because of the coronavirus, said Robert Beiser, of Polaris, a nonprofit organization that runs the hotline. “There’s a very real possibility that if there’s a conspiracy theory that comes out on the internet and it generates thousands of signals into our hotline, that could get in the way for us providing timely service to survivors who are in crisis,” Beiser said.  YouTube video Meanwhile, a YouTube video of a young London girl sitting on a couch to audition for a Wayfair commercial was used by some pro-Trump YouTube accounts to claim that she was a victim in the alleged trafficking scheme.  The video was taken from the girl’s mother’s YouTube account and spread across the internet, said Carleen McCarthy, a senior agent for the talent agency Alphabet Agency, which represents the girl. The agency and the girl’s mother repeatedly flagged the videos to YouTube and Facebook, as they continued to rake in thousands of views online. YouTube removed the video after the AP inquired about it, although new versions remain on the site. Facebook said in a statement that it’s reduced circulation of false claims around the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  One YouTube influencer — who posted a video, viewed 155,000 times, that accused Wayfair of trafficking children through their products — walked back the comments a few days later. “I didn’t really have all the facts for that video, I just kind of made it on impulse because I was so scared,” said Jeremiah Willis in a later video. “I personally have no knowledge, no evidence, nothing.” 
 
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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating Wednesday’s major Twitter hack, in which scammers tapped into high-profile accounts to scam users out of over $100,000 in Bitcoin, the agency confirmed Thursday.  “The FBI is investigating the incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals that occurred on July 15, 2020. At this time, the accounts appear to have been compromised in order to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud,” said the FBI’s San Francisco division in a statement. “We advise the public not to fall victim to this scam by sending cryptocurrency or money in relation to this incident.”New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Thursday that the state’s Department of Financial Services would also conduct a “full investigation into this massive hack.” On Wednesday, hackers targeted accounts from celebrities and politicians, including Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian and Barack Obama, with tweets that promised to send users back double the money they paid to an anonymous Bitcoin address. The hackers received over $100,000 in cryptocurrency off the brazen attack, according to Bitcoin’s public blockchain records.  Twitter called the breach a “coordinated social engineering attack” in which scammers “successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”Our investigation is still ongoing but here’s what we know so far:
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020One notable exception to the hack was U.S. President Donald Trump, whose verified personal and presidential accounts were unaffected Wednesday, which White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed in a press briefing Thursday. She said Trump would stay on Twitter despite the attack.”The president will remain on @Twitter” per @PressSec, asked about yesterday’s Twitter hack targeting verified accounts
“His account was secure & not jeopardized” she says, adding White House has been in touch w/Twitter “to keep Twitter secure, the president’s twitter feed”
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) July 16, 2020In a thread, Twitter said it had taken “significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools” as its own investigation continues.Internally, we’ve taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020Twitter locked down all verified accounts after the news broke, preventing them from tweeting and resetting passwords. The company also removed the fake tweets from compromised accounts and said it would “restore access to the original account owner only when we are certain we can do so securely.”  Twitter’s blue check mark system, which indicates verified accounts, is supposed to show that a user is authentic.   
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