Swedish decision to drop rape probe due to no strong evidence comes too late to help Assange

The Swedish prosecutors’ decision to end the investigation of Julian Assange—for the third time—confirms that the sexual-misconduct accusations were always a cynical ploy to trap the publisher in a Kafkaesque legal proceeding.

Swedish prosecutors today announced they were closing their nearly 10-year-old sexual-misconduct investigation of Julian Assange. The reason? The “evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.” However, the prosecutor tendentiously added, “the complaint was credible” but that corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue the case.

Let’s focus on the verbiage. Note first the use of the word “investigation.” This is very important, because contrary to what innumerable media outlets have reported during the past decade, the Swedes never charged Assange with anything, least of all “rape.” Following Assange’s arrest on April 11 of this year, there was a plethora of media stories informing us that there are outstanding rape charges pending against Assange in Sweden. Human Rights Watch chimed in, saying that Assange was facing a “rape charge” in Sweden. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party feminists urged the UK government to extradite Assange to Sweden to face “rape charges.”

How Ford Created the Mach-E, Its Fully Electric Mustang SUV

The Mach-E, Ford's first serious attempt at a zero emissions car, came to life in a two-year sprint to catch up with an electrifying industry.

The Ford Mustang Mach-E—a fully electric SUV “inspired by” the famed two-seat coupe—debuted in Los Angeles Sunday night, kicking off what’s sure to be years of enthusiast debate about whether the high-riding four-door merits the name “Mustang,” in form or function.

The character and performance won’t come to light until the car arrives next year. But the Mach-E’s journey from non-existence to Sunday’s stage (with “brand ambassador” Idris Elba in tow), in just over two years, is an impressive start.

Hackers Can Silently Control Your Google Home, Alexa, Siri With Laser Light

A team of cybersecurity researchers has discovered a clever technique to remotely inject inaudible and invisible commands into voice-controlled devices — all just by shining a laser at the targeted device instead of using spoken words.

Dubbed 'Light Commands,' the hack relies on a vulnerability in MEMS microphones embedded in widely-used popular voice-controllable systems that unintentionally respond to light as if it were sound.

According to experiments done by a team of researchers from Japanese and Michigan Universities, a remote attacker standing at a distance of several meters away from a device can covertly trigger the attack by simply modulating the amplitude of laser light to produce an acoustic pressure wave.

"By modulating an electrical signal in the intensity of a light beam, attackers can trick microphones into producing electrical signals as if they are receiving genuine audio," the researchers said in their paper [PDF].

Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency dealt blow by PayPal’s departure

Has PayPal just dealt a body blow to Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency?

In emails sent to journalists last week, the company abruptly announced that it was leaving the Libra Association, the 28-strong organisation of global companies and non-profits, including Facebook, set up to oversee its roll out.

Given that Libra was only announced in June, with a proposed launch in 2020, to the untrained eye this will look like an unexpected change of heart.

Unboxing the GPD P2 Max. World's smallest ultrabook

It is the world's smallest Ultrabook. With only about the size of an iPad mini 4, 8.9-inch screen 2560 1600 (WQXGA) resolution, 340ppi,  Intel the 8th generation core processor, 8~16GB memory, 256GB~512B M.2 NVMe SSD, fingerprint-unlock supported, QWERTY keyboard, integrated touch tablet Liquid cooling tube + fan, and PC level cooling solution.

Ransomware Hits Dental Data Backup Service Offering Ransomware Protection

THIS WEEK IN THE IRONIC NEWS:
DDS Safe, an online cloud-based data backup system that hundreds of dental practice offices across the United States are using to safeguard medical records and other information of their patients from ransomware attacks has been hit with ransomware.

Provided by two Wisconsin-based companies, Digital Dental Record and PerCSoft, the backend system of affected medical records retention and backup solutions has probably been hit by Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as Sodin or REvil malware.

Though it's not yet clear how attackers managed to compromise the company's infrastructure, the latest ransomware attack is yet another example of successful supply chain attack, crippling computer systems in 400 dental practice offices around the United States this week.

Hacker Ordered to Pay Back Nearly £1 Million to Phishing Victims

A prolific hacker who carried out phishing scams against hundreds of companies worldwide has been ordered to pay back more than $1.1 million (over £922,000) worth of cryptocurrencies to his victims.

Grant West, a 27-year-old resident of Kent, England, targeted several well-known companies around the world since 2015 to obtain the financial data of tens of thousands of customers and then sold that data on underground forums in exchange for Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies.