The personal details of more than 538 million users of Chinese social network Weibo are currently available for sale online, according to ads seen by ZDNet and corroborating reports from Chinese media. From the report: In ads posted on the dark web and other places, a hacker claims to have breached Weibo in mid-2019 and obtained a dump of the company's user database. The database allegedly contains the details for 538 million Weibo users. Personal details include the likes of real names, site usernames, gender, location, and -- for 172 million users -- phone numbers. Passwords were not included, which explains why the hacker is selling the Weibo data for only $250.

India is turning to WhatsApp, the most popular app in the country, to create awareness about the coronavirus pandemic and has urged social media services to tackle the spread of misinformation on their platforms. From a report: Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister, said on Saturday that citizens in the country can text a WhatsApp bot -- called MyGov Corona Helpdesk -- to get instant authoritative answers to their coronavirus queries such as the symptoms of the viral disease and how they could seek help. An individual is required to text +919013151515 to connect to the bot. The bot was built by Mumbai-based firm Haptik Technologies, which local telecom giant Reliance Jio acquired last year, and the information is being provided by the nation's Ministry of Health.

Microsoft has announced that it is pausing the rollout of Edge v81, citing the ongoing "global circumstances" surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. From a report: New Edge releases (or any other kind of software updates) usually entail security reviews and compatibility testing to ensure operating systems and internal web applications don't break. Due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, most system administrators are most likely busy handling the security of employees working from home and taking care of their families in these tough times. Microsoft said it does not want to put an extra strain on system administrators and other IT staff personnel by releasing a new Edge version at this particular time. Redmond's decision comes days after Google announced a similar measure for Chrome v81, postponing the v81 release indefinitely.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: Facebook plans to donate 720,000 masks — a combination of the coveted N95 respirators and more basic surgical masks — and 1.5 million pairs of gloves to health care workers around the world. Facebook officials said they bought the masks for their offices' emergency disaster kits following wildfires in California. Facebook has already donated 375,000 masks and 867,000 pairs of gloves to county officials in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, who are expected to distribute them to hospitals...

Facebook also said it has donated $650,000 worth of food to more than a dozen Bay Area senior centers, schools and other organizations, including Food Runners SF, Peninsula Volunteers Meals on Wheels and the East Palo Alto Senior Center. Meanwhile, the company sent $250,000 to the Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County to pay for 2,000 Wi-Fi hotspots and a year of Wi-Fi for low-income students who need to complete their work online during shelter in place but don't have a reliable connection.

The company, which is the dominant employer in its headquarters city but also has large offices in San Francisco, Mountain View and other Bay Area cities, also pledged to give $500,000 to multiple homelessness prevention organizations in the Bay Area — and promised more local support.
The article notes America's scarcity of masks and other gear "became so dire in Washington state that medical workers made 500 masks out of vinyl, tape, foam and elastic purchased at Home Depot."

And it also has an update on how other companies are pitching in around America. "[F]actories that crank out cars and trucks were looking into making much-needed ventilators. Distilleries intended for beer, whiskey and rum transformed to instead turn out hand sanitizers and disinfectants. And an electronics maker that builds display screens was repurposed for surgical masks."

"Thousands of full-time rideshare drivers are still out on the streets trying to carve out a living," notes The Hustle, interviewing more than 50 full-time rideshare drivers facing a difficult choice: "Stay home and sacrifice a livelihood, or keep driving in a depressed market and risk contracting the virus." As independent contractors, rideshare drivers don't receive sick leave, unemployment insurance, or the many other benefits enjoyed by W-2 employees. During a pandemic, this has proven to be especially problematic... [Uber and Lyft are now offering 14 days of paid sick leave, but only to drivers who have contracted COVID-19 or are quarantined by a public health authority] Deemed "essential" workers, Uber and Lyft drivers have been encouraged to continue business as usual. But the current state of affairs has polarized drivers: In a survey of nearly 400 full-time Uber and Lyft drivers The Hustle conducted last week, 57% said they will continue to work at the peril of their health, while 43% have decided to stay home and sacrifice their sole source of income.

Many drivers told us that, while aware of the inherent exposure risks in carting strangers around in an enclosed metal box all day, they have no choice but to work... "I have a 6-month-old daughter, a family, and apartment rent on my head. I have bills to pay. I've been making about $40 a day since last Monday..." "They are vectors for this disease," Veena Dubal, a professor of law at U.C. Hastings, says of the drivers. "And they have no training in health and safety."

In early March, Uber and Lyft pledged to do their best to provide drivers with basic sanitation products like hand sanitizer and wipes. But the companies have struggled to find supplies during a global shortage and have since closed down the driver hubs where they were meant to be dispensed. (Uber and Lyft told us they are actively working to change this.) Many drivers we spoke with have turned to fellow drivers for help, using WhatsApp groups to swap Lysol cans, gloves, and masks.
With more potential passengers staying home, the drivers' real earnings are now averaging around $5.50 an hour. (One Uber driver, who rents his car, tells the site that "I'm not even breaking even.") Yet they're still braving the risks.

One New York City driver admits "I've literally been driving people to the hospital. I had one guy get into my car who was hacking for 10 minutes straight. I pulled over and cleaned my car for 20 minutes after."

An anonymous reader quotes 9to5Google: A new warning message is appearing on medical-related searches and search listings on Google Maps. This message is brief, but encourages users who are searching for any sort of medical help to call their doctor before visiting the office if they suspect they are infected with COVID-19.

Clicking on that warning message brings users to the official CDC direction on the matter...

Notably, Google Maps is showing this COVID-19 warning on all platforms.

Twitter announced it's working with global public health authorities to identify experts on the new coronavirus, and its prioritizing those accounts for official verification, reports Gizmodo: It's the latest step in Twitter's larger initiative to crack down on the kinds of viral hoaxes and potentially dangerous misinformation that have circulated on several social media platforms as the novel coronavirus outbreak's intensified. Earlier this week, the company announced that it had broadened its definition of harmful content to cover anything "that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information."
Twitter also promised they'd be "Increasing our use of machine learning and automation to take a wide range of actions on potentially abusive and manipulative content..." [T]his may result in us making mistakes. As a result, we will not permanently suspend any accounts based solely on our automated enforcement systems. Instead, we will continue to look for opportunities to build in human review checks where they will be most impactful. We appreciate your patience as we work to get it right -- this is a necessary step to scale our work to protect the conversation on Twitter.
"[W]e want to be open about the challenges we are facing and the contingency measures we're putting in place to serve the public conversation at this critical time."

"[W]e're missing out on the everyday exchanges that make us human..." argues a press release from Tinder. "And while we all know we need to stay home, the Tinder community has shown us that this doesn't mean we have to be alone with our thoughts and a tower of Top Ramen..."

"Many of our current subscribers are even reaching out across the world, using the Passport feature, to find solidarity with matches 1000s of miles away. And that's why starting next week we will make our Passport feature, which allows you to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, available for free to all members through April 30th."

Newsweek reports: While traditionally the feature is reserved Tinder Plus and Gold members, the app acknowledges that having someone to chat with can make self-quarantining all the more bareable [sic]... In another press release, the app divulged that as areas become more isolated, new conversations spring up and tend to last longer. Tinder users are also swapping empathy for coolness, updating their bios to check ins like "how is everyone" instead of a silly catchphrase or their height.
"Our hope is that our members can use the Passport feature to transport themselves out of self-quarantine to anywhere in the world," Tinder writes in its press release.

In other news, Tinder has also cancelled the release of its apocalyptic-themed, in-app video series, "Swipe Night."

AmiMoJo quotes Reuters: Russian media have deployed a "significant disinformation campaign" against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic and sow distrust, according to a European Union document seen by Reuters... The EU document said the Russian campaign, pushing fake news online in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, uses contradictory, confusing and malicious reports to make it harder for the EU to communicate its response to the pandemic.

"A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing," said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus. "The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries...in line with the Kremlin's broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies," the document produced by the EU's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.
The article notes that while Russia calls the accusations "unfounded," the EU has recorded nearly 80 cases of coronavirus disinformation since January 22nd. Responding to the report, America's Secretary of State also criticized disinformation efforts coming from China and Iran, according to U.S. News and World Report. He adds that the U.S. government has since contacted all three of the disinformation-spreading countries.

"They need to knock it off. We don't approve of it. The idea of transparency and accuracy in information is very important."

"Red faces in Red Square, again," writes a Forbes cybersecurity correspondent: Last July, I reported on the hacking of SyTech, an FSB contractor working on internet surveillance tech. Now, reports have emerged from Russia of another shocking security breach within the FSB ecosystem. This one has exposed "a new weapon ordered by the security service," one that can be used to execute cyber attacks on IoT devices. The goal of the so-called "Fronton Program" is to exploit IoT security vulnerabilities en masse — remember, these technologies are fundamentally less secure than other connected devices in homes and offices...

The security contractors highlight retained default "factory" passwords as the obvious weakness, one that is easy to exploit... The intent of the program is not to access the owners of those devices, but rather to herd them together into a botnet that can be used to attack much larger targets — think major U.S. and European internet platforms, or the infrastructure within entire countries, such as those bordering Russia.
But the article also notes that targetted devices for the exploits include cameras, adding that compromising such devices in foreign countries by a nation-state agency "carries other surveillance risks as well." It also points out that the FSB "is the successor to the KGB and reports directly to Russia's President Vladimir Putin," and its responsibilities include electronic intelligence gathering overseas.

"The fact that these kind of tools are being contracted out for development given the current geopolitical climate should give us all serious pause for thought."

GameSpot calls it "like an AOL chat room" combined with Netflix. The Guardian reports: You log in, share a viewing link with friends, choose one person to be in charge of picking what you watch and, as your chosen show plays out in the bulk of the screen, a chatroom pops up on the right-hand side. You can discuss the show with the people in your room, or argue, or flirt, or veer wildly off-tangent because you've realised that you've picked an absolute dud to watch.

Right now, Netflix Party feels absolutely necessary. Self-quarantine has atomised us, and if this is the closest we can get to watching films and TV shows with our friends, then we'll grab it with both hands. But then again, even if this wasn't a time of enormous struggle, Netflix Party would be a terrific idea. Because the biggest downside to this vast glut of non-linear content is that nobody watches the same thing at the same time any more. There are no more water cooler series, because everyone at the water cooler has to tiptoe around the fact that they might be a few episodes ahead of everyone else, and one stray spoiler slip might ruin it for everyone else.

Television has always been a social pursuit, but this element has been lost in recent years.
"Twenty servers were added today to help more people spend time together without leaving home," notes Forbes.

"Just had a long engineering discussion with Medtronic about state-of-the-art ventilators," Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday. Medtronic tweeted that the talks also involved Tesla.

And TechCrunch notes that Musk tweeted on Friday that both Tesla and SpaceX employees are "working on ventilators...": His confirmation on Twitter that both of the companies he leads are working on ventilators comes a day after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a direct plea to Musk to help alleviate a shortage at hospitals gearing up to combat COVID-19. It's unclear how many employees are working on the ventilators and which Tesla factory -- it could be Buffalo, N.Y., Fremont, Calif., Sparks, Nev. or even Shanghai -- has dedicated space to the project...

Whatever Musk decides, his project still faces specific obstacles. Certified medical personnel will need to be involved in such an operation and ventilator hardware used in clinical settings still must be approved by the FDA, which could delay production...

GM, Volkswagen and Ford have all reportedly either talked to the White House or committed to looking at the problem. Volkswagen said Friday it has created a task force to look into using 3D printing to make hospital ventilators.

"The dramatic expansion of teleworking by U.S. schools, businesses and government agencies in response to the coronavirus is raising fresh questions about the capacity and security of the tools many Americans use to connect to vital workplace systems and data," reports CNN: As of last week the Air Force's virtual private networking software could only support 72,000 people at once, according to a federal contractor who was also not authorized to speak on the record, and telework briefing materials viewed by CNN. The Air Force employs over 145,000 in-house civilian workers, and over 130,000 full-time contractors.

As they increasingly log on from home, Americans are having to meld their personal technology with professional tools at unprecedented scale. For employers, the concern isn't just about capacity, but also about workers introducing new potential vulnerabilities into their routine — whether that's weak passwords on personal computers, poorly secured home WiFi routers, or a family member's device passing along a computer virus.
Long-time Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein also worries about a world where "doctors switch to heavy use of video office visits, and in general more critical information than ever is suddenly being thrust onto the Internet..." For example, the U.S. federal government is suspending key aspects of medical privacy laws to permit use of "telemedicine" via commercial services that have never been certified to be in compliance with the strict security and privacy rules associated with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

The rush to provide more remote access to medical professionals is understandable, but we must also understand the risks of data breaches that once having occurred can never be reversed.

An anonymous reader quotes the Dev newsletter from Inside.com: The U.S. Supreme Court has postponed hearing oral arguments in the Google vs. Oracle copyright case and all other cases because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the Supreme Court has done so since the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918. ["The Court also shortened its argument calendars in August 1793 and August 1798 in response to yellow fever outbreaks," the announcement points out.]

"The court will examine the options for rescheduling those cases in due course in light of the developing circumstances," the announcement added.

Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court were scheduled to hear oral arguments in the Google vs. Oracle case on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, before making a decision a few months later.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: As law firms urge attorneys to work from home during the global pandemic, their employees' confidential phone calls with clients run the risk of being heard by Amazon and Google. Mishcon de Reya LLP, the U.K. law firm that famously advised Princess Diana on her divorce and also does corporate law, issued advice to staff to mute or shut off listening devices like Amazon's Alexa or Google's voice assistant when they talk about client matters at home, according to a partner at the firm. It suggested not to have any of the devices near their work space at all. Mishcon's warning covers any kind of visual or voice enabled device, like Amazon and Google's speakers. But video products such as Ring, which is also owned by Amazon, and even baby monitors and closed-circuit TVs, are also a concern, said Mishcon de Reya partner Joe Hancock, who also heads the firm's cybersecurity efforts. The firm worries about the devices being compromised, less so with name-brand products like Alexa, but more so for a cheap knock-off devices, he added.

A quantum sensor could give Soldiers a way to detect communication signals over the entire radio frequency spectrum, from 0 to 100 GHz, said researchers from the Army. Such wide spectral coverage by a single antenna is impossible with a traditional receiver system, and would require multiple systems of individual antennas, amplifiers and other components. Phys.Org reports: In 2018, Army scientists were the first in the world to create a quantum receiver that uses highly excited, super-sensitive atoms -- known as Rydberg atoms -- to detect communications signals, said David Meyer, a scientist at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. The researchers calculated the receiver's channel capacity, or rate of data transmission, based on fundamental principles, and then achieved that performance experimentally in their lab -- improving on other groups' results by orders of magnitude, Meyer said.

"These new sensors can be very small and virtually undetectable, giving Soldiers a disruptive advantage," Meyer said. "Rydberg-atom based sensors have only recently been considered for general electric field sensing applications, including as a communications receiver. While Rydberg atoms are known to be broadly sensitive, a quantitative description of the sensitivity over the entire operational range has never been done." To assess potential applications, Army scientists conducted an analysis of the Rydberg sensor's sensitivity to oscillating electric fields over an enormous range of frequencies -- from 0 to 1012 Hertz. The results show that the Rydberg sensor can reliably detect signals over the entire spectrum and compare favorably with other established electric field sensor technologies, such as electro-optic crystals and dipole antenna-coupled passive electronics. The findings have been published in the Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics.

In celebration of Windows 10 hitting 1 billion users, Microsoft's chief product officer Panos Panay teased Windows 10's next UI refresh. Gizmodo reports: In the video posted to Instagram, Microsoft starts by showing the evolution of its OS throughout the years going as far back as Windows 1.01 all the way to Windows 10. However, where things start to get interesting is around 12 seconds in when Microsoft shows off a new set of updated icons followed by a redesigned look for Windows 10's Start Menu and Live Tiles. Instead of a bunch of brightly color rectangles, Microsoft is implementing a more unified color scheme that can adjust automatically to match your desktop background and potentially other UI elements.

Additionally, Microsoft also showed off a wide variety of accessibility options including a range of pointers in various sizes and colors, what looks like improved support for the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a tease for a new built-in snipping tool, and more. Then Microsoft capped everything off by showing light and dark themes for Windows 10 along with a bunch of windows resizing and snapping options, all designed to making multi-tasking just a bit faster and easier. Microsoft also made a point to mention support for both x86-based systems powered by chips from Intel and AMD and ARM-based systems like the Surface Pro X.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: An emergency medicine physician says she and a colleague invented a way to connect four patients to a single ventilator, a hack that could significantly increase the capacity of overburdened hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. Doctors Greg Neyman and Charelene Irvin Babcock published a pilot study of the technique in Academic Emergency Medicine in 2006. Babock is now an emergency medicine physician at a hospital in Detroit, Michigan and posted a YouTube video on March 14 describing the technique.

The technique is remarkably simple. "Four sets of standard ventilator tubing were connected to a single ventilator via two flow splitters," the study said. "Each flow splitter was constructed of three Briggs T-Tubes which included connection adapters with the valves removed." In Babock's video, she said the adapters were 22mm in size. Basically, any kind of T-shaped tube can be adapted to extend the ventilator to more than one patient. Babock's video has gone viral, and she told Motherboard in a phone interview that she put together the four way adapter set in her YouTube video in 15 minutes using supplies her hospital already had. In an interview with Motherboard, Babcock said that actually using it on coronavirus patients is a tough call, but a potentially life-saving one in a last-resort situation. "It's only been done in test lungs," she said over the phone. "But it's probably better than nothing in dire circumstances. We don't know how bad it's gonna get. [Italy] is so overwhelmed with people that will die without ventilators and they don't have enough ventilators. Sometimes trying something almost MacGyverish is better than doing nothing."

U.K. based road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has released a study showing how in-vehicle infotainment systems can substantially impair driver's reaction times even more than alcohol and cannabis. AppleInsider reports: The test involved two experimental trials focusing on Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Twenty Android and twenty Apple users would be subjected to the same simulated test route. Each driver drove three times: A control drive, where they did not interact with the system, a voice-enabled drive where they used the voice system only, and a touch-enabled drive, where they used the touch screen of the system only. As part of the test, users would be required to follow another car, navigate an erratic motorway, and perform a figure-eight loop. During these tests, users would be told to perform a task, such as accessing music on Spotify, input data into a navigation app, or read texts and take phone calls. Additionally, participants would be asked to flash their headlights whenever a red bar appeared on the screen, which measured their reaction time to external events.

Regardless of the infotainment system, all users showed significantly slowed reaction time. Undistracted drivers typically showed a one-second reaction time. Those who used the voice-controlled Apple CarPlay saw a 36% increase in their reaction time, which rose to 57% when they used the touch interface. Android Auto users faired only slightly better -- a 30% increase in reaction time when using voice control, and 53% when using touch controls. For comparison, those who drive under the influence at the drink-drive limit showed a 12% increase in reaction time, and those who used cannabis saw a 21% increase. Those who used Android Auto saw a 1.73-foot (0.53-meter) deviation on their lane positioning when performing navigation tasks with Android Auto. Those who used Apple CarPlay saw a deviation of 1.64 feet (0.50 meters.)

HMD Global today unveiled its latest Nokia-branded mobile phones. "The Nokia 8.3 5G is the world's first global 5G phone, which means it supports bands in every country in which 5G is currently deployed," reports Android Police. "At the same time, the Nokia 5.3, 1.3, and a new roaming data plan from HMD also made their debut." From the report: Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G mobile platform, the Nokia 8.3 5G promised a future-proofed experience as it supports more 5G bands across the entire range (NSA/SA/DSS) than any handset currently on the market. It features a 6.8-inch FHD+ (2400x1080p) display with a hole-punch cutout for the 24MP selfie camera, but it's a shame to see the Nokia logo plastered on the chin. On the rear, there are four cameras including a 64MP main sensor with Zeiss optics complemented by a 12MP ultra-wide lens, plus 2MP depth and macro sensors. The fingerprint scanner lies within the power button on the side, while a USB-C port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and dedicated Google Assistant button are all onboard. Battery capacity is rated at 4,500mAh, and NFC is also included for mobile payments. The Nokia 8.3 5G starts at just 599 euros ($640) for the 6/64GB model, with an 8/128GB variant also available for 649 euros ($649) -- it'll go on sale in the summer. [The U.S. launch hasn't been announced yet, but the 8.3 is coming to Europe in summer 2020.]