An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Facebook and Twitter on Friday were blocked in Russia, amid President Vladimir Putin's ongoing military invasion of Ukraine. In a statement issued on Friday, Roskomnadzor, the country's communications regulator, explained the decision was made to "block access to the Facebook network" after at least 26 cases of "discrimination against Russian media and information resources" since October 2020. The agency highlighted Facebook's recent restriction of Kremlin-tied media sources RT News and Sputnik News across the EU. Hours later, Russian news agency Interfax reported that Roskomnadzor had also begun blocking Twitter. "Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out," Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Facebook parent Meta, wrote on Twitter in response. "We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action."

Yesterday, Russian state-controlled news network RT announced it would be "ceasing production" and laying off most of its staff after YouTube blocked its channels.

HTC's slow-motion fall from smartphone grace is reportedly set to continue in 2022, with the company said to be working on a new "metaverse"-focused phone in April as the remnants of the once-flagship smartphone company continues to desperately cling to whatever zeitgeist term it can to stay afloat, according to DigiTimes. The Verge: The news comes from Charles Huang, HTC's general manager for the Asia-Pacific region, who reportedly commented at MWC 2022 that the company would be introducing a new high-end smartphone next month with unspecified "metaverse" features. Details are slim, including any specs, markets it'll be released in, or even what kind of AR or VR features the new device will offer. The news sounds a lot like HTC's last major pivot towards relevancy: its Exodus line of blockchain phones that its offered for the past few years. Promising decentralized apps ("Dapps") and a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, the phones could run blockchain nodes and even mine paltry amounts of cryptocurrency, but -- like many instances of blockchain technology -- it was a solution largely in search of a problem that never really took off.

shanen shares a report: Data extortionists who stole up to 1 terabyte of data from Nvidia have delivered one of the most unusual ultimatums ever in the annals of cybercrime: allow Nvidia's graphics cards to mine cryptocurrencies faster or face the imminent release of the company's crown-jewel source code. A ransomware group calling itself Lapsus$ first claimed last week that it had hacked into Nvidia's corporate network and stolen more than 1TB of data. Included in the theft, the group claims, are schematics and source code for drivers and firmware. A relative newcomer to the ransomware scene, Lapsus$ has already published one tranche of leaked files, which among other things included the usernames and cryptographic hashes for 71,335 of the chipmaker's employees.

Russia's biggest search engine could collapse as financial fallout from the invasion of Ukraine spreads. From a report: Yandex, which handles about 60% of internet search traffic in Russia and operates a big ride-hailing business, says it may be unable to pay its debts as a consequence of the financial market meltdown triggered by the West's unprecedented sanctions. The company is based in the Netherlands, but its shares are listed on the Nasdaq and the Russian stock exchange.

Dealing in the stock has been suspended this week as the value of Russian assets collapsed in Moscow and around the world in the wake of the invasion. The imposition of sanctions by the United States, European Union and other big Western economies last weekend piled on the pressure. Yandex hasn't been sanctioned but it could still default. Investors who hold $1.25 billion in Yandex convertible notes have a right to demand repayment in full, plus interest, if trading in its shares are suspended on the Nasdaq for more than five days. The Moscow stock market will remain shut at least until Tuesday, Russian state news agencies reported on Friday.

The BBC is resorting to broadcasting news bulletins over shortwave radio in Russia after the country blocked access to BBC websites, The Guardian reports. The Verge: The BBC announced it was bringing back the WWII-era broadcasting technology in the region just hours before its sites were banned. News of the ban was also reported by Russian state news agency RIA. Shortwave radio uses frequencies that carry over long-distances and are accessible on portable sets. The BBC says its shortwave broadcasts will be available on frequencies of 15735 kHz from 6pm to 8pm and 5875 kHz from midnight to 2am, Ukraine time. News will be read in English, which the BBC says will be available in Kyiv as well as "parts of Russia." Shortwave radio has a long history of wartime broadcasts. The Guardian reports that its usage peaked during the Cold War, but that it was also used throughout WWII to broadcast propaganda. The BBC World Service ended its use of the technology in Europe in 2008 after 76 years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the US Air Force Research Laboratory released a video on YouTube that didn't get much attention. But it made an announcement that is fairly significant -- the US military plans to extend its space awareness capabilities beyond geostationary orbit, all the way to the Moon. "Until now, the United States space mission extended 22,000 miles above Earth," a narrator says in the video. "That was then, this is now. The Air Force Research Laboratory is extending that range by 10 times and the operations area of the United States by 1,000 times, taking our reach to the far side of the Moon into cislunar space."

The US military had previously talked about extending its operational domain, but now it is taking action. It plans to launch a satellite, likely equipped with a powerful telescope, into cislunar space. According to the video, the satellite will be called the Cislunar Highway Patrol System or, you guessed it, CHPS. The research laboratory plans to issue a "request for prototype proposals" for the CHPS satellite on March 21 and announce the contract award in July. The CHPS program will be managed by Michael Lopez, from the lab's Space Vehicles Directorate. (Alas, we were rooting for Erik Estrada).

This effort will include the participation of several military organizations, and it can be a little confusing to keep track of. Essentially, though, the Air Force lab will oversee the development of the satellite. The US Space Force will then procure this capability for use by the US Space Command, which is responsible for military operations in outer space. Effectively, this satellite is the beginning of an extension of operations by US Space Command from geostationary space to beyond the Moon. [...] So why is US Space Command interested in expanding its theater of operations to include the Moon? The primary reason cited in the video is managing increasing space traffic in the lunar environment, including several NASA-sponsored commercial missions, the space agency's Artemis program, and those of other nations. Another strategic element includes the ability to detect space objects, such as those placed into cislunar space by other governments, that could swing around the Moon and potentially come back to attack a U.S. military satellite in geostationary space.

"I think that's far fetched, but it is feasible from a physics perspective and would definitely exploit a gap in their current space domain awareness," said Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the Secure World Foundation. "I think they are far more concerned about that than any actual threats in cislunar space because the US doesn't have any military assets in cislunar space right now."

Banana Pi has revealed a new board resembling the Raspberry Pi Computer Module 3. According to Tom's Hardware, it features a powerful eight-core processor, up to 8GB of RAM and 32GB eMMC. Additional features like ports will require you to connect it to a carrier board. From the report: At the core of the Banana Pi board is a Rockchip RK3588 SoC. This brings together four Arm Cortex-A76 cores at up to 2.6 GHz with four Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz in Arm's new DynamIQ configuration - essentially big.LITTLE in a single fully integrated cluster. It uses an 8nm process. The board is accompanied by an Arm Mali-G610 MP4 Odin GPU with support for OpenGLES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL up to 2.2, and Vulkan1.2. There's a 2D graphics engine supporting resolutions up to 8K too, with four separate displays catered for (one of which can be 8K 30FPS), and up to 8GB of RAM, though the SoC supports up to 32GB. Built-in storage is catered for by up to 128GB of eMMC flash. It offers 8K 30fps video encoding in the H.265, VP9, AVS2 and (at 30fps) H.264 codecs.

That carrier board is a monster, with ports along every edge. It looks to be about four times the area of the compute board, though no official measurements have been given. You get three HDMIs (the GPU supports version 2.1), two gigabit Ethernet, two SATA, three USB Type-A (two 2.0 and one 3) one USB Type-C, micro SD, 3.5mm headphones, ribbon connectors, and what looks very like a PCIe 3.0 x4 micro slot. The PCIe slot seems to breakout horizontally, an awkward angle if you are intending to house the board in a case. Software options include Android and Linux.

SpaceX launched 47 satellites and landed the returning rocket on Thursday morning (March 3). Space.com reports: A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carrying 47 Starlink internet satellites launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday at 9:35 a.m. EST (1435 GMT). About nine minutes later, the Falcon 9's upper stage came back to Earth for a vertical landing on the SpaceX droneship Just Read the Instructions, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles off the Florida coast. The successful landing was the 11th for the booster, tying a SpaceX rocket reuse record. [...] Thursday's launch was the sixth Starlink mission of the year already for SpaceX. You can watch the Falcon 9 launch via NASASpaceflight on YouTube.

BleepingComputer was recently contacted by an alleged "venture capitalist" firm that wanted to invest or purchase our site. However, as we later discovered, this was a malicious campaign designed to install malware that provides remote access to our devices. Lawrence Abrams from BleepingComputer writes: Last week, BleepingComputer received an email to our contact form from an IP address belonging to a United Kingdom virtual server company. Writing about cybersecurity for so long, I am paranoid regarding email, messaging, and visiting unknown websites. So, I immediately grew suspicious of the email, fired up a virtual machine and VPN, and did a search for Vuxner. Google showed only a few results for 'Vuxner,' with one being for a well-designed and legitimate-looking vuxner[.]com, a site promoting "Vuxner Chat -- Next level of privacy with free instant messaging." As this appeared to be the "Vuxner chat" the threat actors referenced in their email, BleepingComputer attempted to download it and run it on a virtual machine.

BleepingComputer found that the VuxnerChat.exe download [VirusTotal] actually installs the "Trillian" messaging app and then downloads further malware onto the computer after Trillian finishes installing. As this type of campaign looked similar to other campaigns that have pushed remote access and password-stealing trojans in the past, BleepingComputer reached out to cybersecurity firm Cluster25 who has previously helped BleepingComputer diagnose similar malware attacks in the past. Cluster25 researchers explain in a report coordinated with BleepingComputer that the Vuxner[.]com is hosted behind Cloudflare, however they could still determine hosting server's actual address at 86.104.15[.]123.

The researchers state that the Vuxner Chat program is being used as a decoy for installing a remote desktop software known as RuRAT, which is used as a remote access trojan. Once a user installs the Vuxner Trillian client and exits the installer, it will download and execute a Setup.exe executable [VirusTotal] from https://vuxner[.]com/setup.exe. When done, the victim will be left with a C:\swrbldin folder filled with a variety of batch files, VBS scripts, and other files used to install RuRAT on the device. Cluster25 told BleepingComputer that the threat actors are using this attack to gain initial access to a device and then take control over the host. Once they control the host, they can search for credentials and sensitive data or use the device as a launchpad to spread laterally in a network.

cartechboy writes: Rivian's CEO, RJ Scaringe, admitted the company messed up. In a lengthy apology, the executive said the company broke people's trust. Rivian's walking back the large, in some cases 20%, price increases introduced earlier in the week for any preorder holder prior to March 1. [However, the price increases stay in effect for anyone who ordered after March 1.] "We wrongly decided to make these changes apply to all future deliveries, including pre-existing configured preorders," Scaringe said, noting that the company "failed to to appreciate" how customers viewed their configurations and pricing.

Scaringe also acknowledged the company "wrongly assumed" the newly announced dual-motor models and standard battery pack would provide satisfactory price points similar to the original configurations.

Russian forces shelled Europe's largest nuclear plant early Friday in the battle for control of a crucial energy-producing city, and the power station was on fire. The Associated Press reports: Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells were falling directly on the Zaporizhzhia plant and had set fire to one of the facility's six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said. Firefighters cannot get near the fire because they are being shot at, Tuz said. A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the site of the plant, which provides about 25% of Ukraine's power generation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released. Tuz said it is urgent to stop the fighting to put out the flames.

Mayor Dmytro Orlov and the Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday. [...] Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on the West to close the skies over the country's nuclear plants as fighting intensified. "It is a question of the security of the whole world!" he said in a statement. The U.S. and NATO allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would pit Russian and Western military forces against each other.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan says that following a legal process, the Federal Bureau of Investigations has gained access to data in her Google account. Google itself informed her of the data release this week noting that due to a court order, the company wasn't allowed to inform her sooner. In January 2021, Twitter suspended the official Sci-Hub account so when site updates are published, they now tend to appear on Elbakyan's personal account. A new tweet this week reveals that Google was also required to hand over her account data.

In an email to Elbakyan dated March 2, 2022, Google advises that following a legal process issued by the FBI, Google was required to hand over data associated with Elbakyan's account. Exactly what data was targeted isn't made clear but according to Google, a court order required the company to keep the request a secret. [...] Google notes that since it is "not in a position" to provide Elbakyan with legal advice or to discuss the substance of the legal process, the Sci-Hub founder may wish to contact an attorney. The big question remains -- what exactly is the investigation about?

Given the scale of Sci-Hub and its notoriety around the world, it's certainly possible that a criminal copyright infringement investigation is underway in the United States that could feasibly lead to an indictment for Elbakyan and any cohorts involved in the operation. However, more serious allegations have been made in the past. Back in December 2019, The Washington Post reported that Elbakyan was being investigated by the US Justice Department on suspicion that she "may" be working with Russian intelligence to "steal U.S. military secrets from defense contractors." No solid evidence was published to back up those allegations but the publication did note that Elbakyan may have collected log-in credentials from journal subscribers in order to access academic literature, presumably so that it can be offered on Sci-Hub. "I know there are some reasons to suspect me: after all, I have education in computer security and was a hobby hacker in teenage years," said Elbakyan in a statement. "But hacking is not my occupation, and I do not have any job within any intelligence, either Russian or some another."

She added: "I think that whether I can be a Russian spy is being investigated by U.S. government since they learned about Sci-Hub, because that is very logical: a Russian project, that uses university accounts to access some information, of course that is suspicious. But in fact Sci-Hub has always been my personal enterprise."

Meta, formerly Facebook, has said that its grand ambition of building the ultimate "metaverse" won't be possible if there aren't drastic improvements in today's telecoms networks. CNBC reports: Dan Rabinovitsj, VP of connectivity at Meta, told CNBC at the Mobile World Congress tech event Monday that home networks and cellular networks aren't yet ready for the metaverse. "We're working closely with our colleagues to think about what's the next step in terms of innovation," he said, adding that Meta is also working with cellular partners. "If you really look at the pace of innovation in the telecom world, compared to other markets, it's been harder to go faster in this space," Rabinovitsj said. "One of the things that we've tried to change is that trajectory of innovation."

"We need to develop a common language around the performance of networks," Rabinovitsj said. "We're actually big believers in measurement as foundational in this next phase of work." Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's founder and CEO, said in a statement Sunday that "creating a true sense of presence in virtual worlds delivered to smart glasses and VR headsets will require massive advances in connectivity." Zuckerberg said this will need to be "bigger than any of the step changes we've seen before," adding that things like wide-scale immersive video streaming will take entirely new types of networks.

In response, Marc Allera, CEO of the consumer division of U.K. mobile network BT, told CNBC Wednesday that he expects the metaverse to place a strain on today's networks. However, he said the telecoms industry is spending billions on new technology. "When you stop and think about what you're able to do on a smartphone today, compared to 10 years ago, that's as a result of this industry and network operators investing huge amounts of money with no contribution made by content companies on these networks," Allera said ahead of a meeting with representatives from Meta. "I'll try and understand what their role in supporting this ecosystem is other than just asking what we're doing about it," he added.

The international non-profit that coordinates management of the internet told Ukraine it will not intervene in the country's war with Russia, rebuffing a request to cut Russia off from the global internet. From a report: Ukraine's proposal is neither technically feasible nor within the mission of ICANN, said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, according to a letter ICANN sent to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday.

s you know, the Internet is a decentralized system. No one actor has the ability to control it or shut it down," ICANN CEO Goran Marby wrote in the the letter. Marby expressed his personal concern about Ukrainians' well-being as well as the "terrible toll being exacted on your country." But, he wrote, "our mission does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the Internet -- regardless of the provocations."

Alphabet's Google Maps and the travel search platform Tripadvisor temporarily blocked users from posting new reviews to some listings in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the companies said. From a report: The suspensions were made in response to an influx of political statements posted as reviews to businesses and tourist destinations in the region, boosted by a campaign that saw pro-Ukraine activists using the travel platforms to try to communicate with Russians partially cut off from other media platforms. A social-media campaign promoted by the global hacker collective Anonymous encouraged followers to visit Google Maps, find a restaurant or other business in Russia and write a review explaining "what is happening in Ukraine." The group on Monday suggested users leverage the review sites to tell Russian readers to "Stand up to your dictator," among other directions. Other social-media accounts encouraged the posting of similar messages on Russian Tripadvisor pages.

Ukraine's "IT army" of volunteer hackers announced a new set of targets on Thursday - including the Belarusian railway network and Russia's homegrown satellite-based navigation system, GLONASS. From a report: "We need to mobilise and intensify our efforts as much as possible," a post on the "IT army" Telegram channel said. The post listed the top priorities targeted by the group, including Belarus' railway, Russian telecom companies, and GLONASS, which is Russia's alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation network. Ukraine has called on its hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops, Reuters previously reported. Kyiv announced the formation of its "IT army" on Saturday. A hacking team focused on Belarus, which has been used as a key staging post for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans told Reuters on Tuesday they had disabled railway traffic systems there and attacked the network because it had been used to transport Russian soldiers.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 test build is another substantial one, adding two important features: payment information, and a new security feature called Smart App Control that will watch over new apps and games that you add to your PC. PCWorld reports: Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22567 for the Dev Channel on Wednesday with other changes, tooâ"including a tweak to Windows Update, so that now you can configure your PC to turn on an update when renewable energy is at its most plentiful. (Remember, code that Microsoft tests within the Dev Channel may make its way to your PC eventually -- or not.)

Asking for credit-card information within Windows isn't that startling, as you've probably already entered payment information into the Microsoft ecosystem either for buying apps or movies on the Microsoft Store app or for making similar purchases via your Xbox. Still, those transactions are normally performed via your Microsoft Account web page, which manages all of that online and behind the scenes. (You can reach them via the Windows 11 Settings > Accounts > Your Microsoft account.) Microsoft considers the additional credit-card info as part of the subscription option it added last month. Now, if your subscription risks falling through because of an expired credit card, Microsoft will alert you. Conceptually, however, it implies that your PC is as much a tool to make purchases as it is to simply work and game.

Another interesting addition is what Microsoft calls Smart App Control, or SAC. Microsoft describes it as a "new security feature for Windows 11 that blocks untrusted or potentially dangerous applications." What those applications are, apparently, is up to Microsoft. And yes, there's always a concern that SAC would flag otherwise innocuous applications that it simply hasn't seen before. But Microsoft is gently easing SAC onto your PC. For one thing, you'll need to perform a clean install to enable it. For another, SAC won't immediately insert itself. Other tweaks and changes include the ability to have Windows update your PC when clean energy is more commonly available (via Microsoft's partners electricityMap or WattTime) and better integration between your Android phone and PC via Windows 11 OOBE (Out of the Box Experience).

Additionally, "Microsoft now offers wider availability of speech packs to improve transcription, the ability to choose a mic for dictation/ transcription, and the ability to mute your speakers by simply clicking the volume icon in the hardware indicator for volume," reports PCWorld.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Google from April 4 will require employees back about three days a week in some of its U.S., U.K. and Asia Pacific offices, its first step to end policies that allowed remote work because of COVID-19 concerns. An internal email on Wednesday seen by Reuters told employees in the San Francisco Bay Area that "advances in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in cases we continue to see and the improved safety measures we have implemented ... now mean we can officially begin the transition to the hybrid work week."

Google expects most employees will be in offices about three days a week, with some variance by team and role. Everyone coming to the office must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have an approved exemption, according to the email from John Casey, Google's vice president of global benefits. Unvaccinated workers without an exemption will be given an option to seek one or apply for permanent remote work. Fully vaccinated workers will not have to wear masks in Bay Area offices, Casey said. Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said. Google largely has restored office perks such as free meals, massages and transit. But while business visitors and meetings are permitted, employees cannot yet bring back families or children to dine or visit with them.

BrendaEM shares a report from The Register: Ukrainian news website Ukrainska Pravda says the nation's Centre for Defense Strategies think tank has obtained the personal details of 120,000 Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine. The publication has now shared this data freely on its website. The Register and others have been unable to fully verify the accuracy of the data from the leak. The records include what appears to be names, addresses, passport numbers, unit names, and phone numbers. Some open source intelligence researchers on Twitter said they found positive matches, as did sources who spoke confidentially to El Reg; others said they couldn't verify dip-sampled data. Rumors swirled on the internet that activists were behind the disclosure. The Ukrainian news agency said the personnel records were obtained from "reliable sources." Whether or not the database's contents is real, the impact on Russian military morale -- knowing that your country's enemies have your personal details and can contact your family if you're captured, killed, or even still alive -- won't be insignificant.

A number of industry stalwarts including Intel, AMD, Arm, TSMC, and Samsung on Wednesday introduced a new Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) consortium. AnandTech: Taking significant inspiration from the very successful PCI-Express playbook, with UCIe the involved firms are creating a standard for connecting chiplets, with the goal of having a single set of standards that not only simplify the process for all involved, but lead the way towards full interoperability between chiplets from different manufacturers, allowing chips to mix-and-match chiplets as chip makers see fit. In other words, to make a complete and compatible ecosystem out of chiplets, much like today's ecosystem for PCIe-based expansion cards.

The comparisons to PCIe are apt on multiple levels, and this is perhaps the best way to quickly understand the UCIe group's goals. Not only is the new standard being made available in an open fashion, but the companies involved will be establishing a formal consortium group later this year to administer UCIe and further develop it. Meanwhile from a general technology perspective, the use of chiplets is the latest step in the continual consolidation of integrated circuits, as smaller and smaller transistors have allowed more and more functionality to be brought on-chip. In essence, features that have been on an expansion card or separate chip up until now are starting to make their way on to the chip/SoC itself. So like PCIe moderates how these parts work together as expansion cards, a new standard has become needed to moderate how these parts should work together as chiplets.