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The world is a very busy place, and it’s hard to stay on top of everything. Infoplease has got you covered. Here are the Science & Technology news events you need to know so far for July 2023.
- Meta Launches A New Social Media App To Rival Twitter
- China-Based Hackers Accused Of Illicit Access To American Corporations’ Emails
- New United Kingdom Law May Prompt Apple To Remove iMessage And Facetime Services
- Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter Into X — The Everything App
Meta Launches A New Social Media App To Rival Twitter
Photo Source: AP Photo/Richard Drew
Thursday, July 6, 2023 – The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, reported the impressive adoption of the company’s new app — Threads. With a close link and verification through the existing Instagram app, the app boasted 30 million users signing up on the first day.
Threads allows users to publish up to 500 characters and is similar to Twitter in many ways, however, Zuckerberg maintains that Threads was created to be a “friendly” place to connect 1 billion people seamlessly. Posts on Threads can be shared on Instagram and vice versa, and they can include links, photographs, and videos up to five minutes long. They have control over who can “mention” them and filter out replies to postings containing specified words. Profiles can be unfollowed, blocked, restricted, or reported, and any accounts users block on Instagram are instantly blocked on Threads.
Competitors are challenging the app’s data usage, such as health, financial, and browsing data tied to consumers’ identities. Some users are concerned that you cannot delete your Threads profile without deleting your Instagram profile.
Source: BBC
China-Based Hackers Accused Of Illicit Access To American Corporations’ Emails
Photo Source: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
Thursday, July 13, 2023 – According to Microsoft, Chinese hackers accessed the email accounts of approximately 25 companies, including government entities. The software behemoth has yet to reveal the locations of the government institutions. However, the US Department of Commerce acknowledged that Microsoft warned them of the attack. According to sources, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo was among those affected by the incident.
Chinese hackers deployed “stealthy” malware to assault crucial infrastructure on American military bases in Guam, according to Microsoft and Western espionage agencies in May. And experts say it was one of the largest known cyber espionage campaigns against the United States.
Microsoft stated that the China-based hacker group Storm-0558 gained access to email accounts by forging digital authentication tokens commonly required by the system to validate a person’s identity.
The Microsoft allegations were deemed “highly unprofessional” and “disinformation” by Beijing. Regardless of the available evidence or context, China constantly denies involvement in hacking operations.
Sources: BBC
New United Kingdom Law May Prompt Apple To Remove iMessage And Facetime Services
Photo Source: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Thursday, July 20, 2023 – Apple has stated that anticipated changes to British monitoring legislation may impact iPhone customers’ privacy by compelling the company to withdraw security measures, potentially leading to the termination of services such as FaceTime and iMessage in the U.K.
According to Apple, the improvements will provide the U.K. government supervision of security changes to its devices, including regular iOS software updates; a move that threatens the End-to-end encryption feature assures that only the sender and recipient of a message can view its content. It is a critical computer privacy feature that governments and tech companies have fought over.
The law also empowers the Home Office to gain access to encrypted content via a technology capability notice (TCN), and Apple is concerned that this will allow the government to immediately prevent the installation of a security feature while a TCN is being reviewed rather than allowing the feature to be deployed while an appeal is in process.
Sources: The Guardian
Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter Into X — The Everything App
Photo Source: AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez
Tuesday, July 25, 2023 – Twitter’s name and logo have been changed from its renowned blue bird to “X” as Elon Musk, the billionaire owner, wants to establish a “super app” called X — his idea for a new type of social media network that he has been talking about for months.
The new white X on a black background has replaced the bluebird on the social network’s desktop edition, but it has yet to appear on the mobile app.
Experts believe that the grand idea of making X an everything app presents the risk of the company lagging because there are so many alternatives that offer the services that could be possible such as payment, shopping, and gaming.
In addition, Twitter’s fast rebranding has also raised some security worries. According to Jake Moore, global cyber consultant at security firm ESET, the change in corporate name could facilitate phishing, in which thieves mimic persons or organizations to steal customers’ data.
Source: BBC
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