Endgame for Assange

Julian Assange looks very pale. "Pale" isn't quite accurate; his skin looks like parchment, almost translucent. He hasn't seen the sun for almost seven years. He sits opposite to me in the so-called Meeting Room of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the snow-white hair, his trademark, is shoulder-length and he wears a long beard. We joke about him looking like Santa. He wears a thick down jacket and eats a piece of the sushi I brought for lunch. It is cold in the room and I regret that I left my winter coat at the reception.

It is just before Christmas, and Julian Assange has probably just had the worst time of his stay at the embassy. Since March 2018 he was de facto in isolation, no telephone, no internet and no visits. The internet ban must be particularly difficult for him; it was not only his field of work, but his only access to the world.

The mood in the embassy is tense; the new ambassador is due to arrive. They have turned off the heating and taken the bed, he sleeps on a yoga mat. I cannot help the impression that everything possible is being done to make his stay so difficult that he finally gives in and leaves the embassy voluntarily. But what will await him then?

Huawei P30 shows up in renders

That'd be a welcome first

After Huawei’s P20 and Mate 20 lines were met with near-universal praise last year, Huawei is getting ready to return with the P30 this year. Today we got our best glimpse of what the device may look like yet, thanks to a render created by OnLeaks and 91 Mobiles.

Keep in mind this render is of the P30, not the P30 Pro. The biggest change is the vastly shrunken notch. Gone is the iPhone X-style wide cutout, replaced by a small waterdrop version as on the OnePlus 6T.

Hackers Leak Personal Data from Hundreds of German Politicians On Twitter

Germany has been hit with the biggest hack in its history.

A group of unknown hackers has leaked highly-sensitive personal data from more than 100 German politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brandenburg’s prime minister Dietmar Woidke, along with some German artists, journalists, and YouTube celebrities.
The leaked data that was published on a Twitter account (@_0rbit) and dated back to before October 2018 includes phone numbers, email addresses, private chats, bills, credit card information and photos of victims' IDs.

Although it is yet unclear who perpetrated this mass hack and how they managed to perform it, the leaked data appears to be collected unauthorizedly by hacking into their smartphones.
The hack targeted all of Germany's political parties currently represented in the federal parliament, including the CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Left party (Die Linke) and Greens, except for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Tesla’s competition for the Model Y is growing quickly in China

Startups NIO and Xpeng announced slick, affordable electric SUVs this week — and they’re just the tip of the iceberg

Tesla is set to unveil the Model Y, its fifth car, in March of 2019. It’s expected to be a crossover SUV that’s smaller than the Model X, and will share lots of the Model 3’s underlying tech. With SUV sales through the roof in the United States, it’s likely to be a hit. And with a sticker price that will likely resemble the Model 3’s, the Model Y will launch in the US with very little direct competition when you consider the premium attached to the electric SUVs from Jaguar, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche.

That’s not the case in China, however, a point underscored this week by two new vehicle announcements.

On Saturday, Chinese EV startup NIO launched the ES6 — the company’s second all-electric SUV. It’s a smaller five-seater successor to NIO’s first car, the larger ES8. In broad strokes, the ES6 is simply a more affordable, more approachable version of the ES8. It will start at 358,000 RMB, or about $51,000, and that’s before government subsidies.

US Indicts Two Chinese Government Hackers Over Global Hacking Campaign

The US Department of Justice on Thursday charged two Chinese hackers associated with the Chinese government for hacking numerous companies and government agencies in a dozen countries.

The Chinese nationals, Zhu Hua (known online as Afwar, CVNX, Alayos and Godkiller) and Zhang Shilong (known online as Baobeilong, Zhang Jianguo and Atreexp), are believed to be members of a state-sponsored hacking group known as Advanced Persistent Threat 10 (APT 10) or Cloudhopper that has been working from over a decade to steal business and technology secrets from companies and government agencies around the world.

According to the indictment, the alleged hackers targeted more than 45 companies and government agencies from 2006 to 2018 and stole "hundreds of gigabytes" of sensitive data and personal information from its targets.

My GPD Pocket Computer - ArchLinux KDE Plasma 5

New Shamoon Malware Variant Targets Italian Oil and Gas Company

Shamoon is back… one of the most destructive malware families that caused damage to Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer in 2012 and this time it has targeted energy sector organizations primarily operating in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Italian oil drilling company Saipem was attacked and sensitive files on about 10 percent of its servers were destroyed, mainly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, but also in India and Scotland.