Just six days after being launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, one of SpaceX's six Starlink satellites was used to send text messages for the first time. Space.com reports: That update didn't reveal what the first Starlink direct-to-cell text said. In a post on X on Wednesday, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said the message was "LFGMF2024," but the chances are fairly high that he was joking. [...] Beaming connectivity service from satellites directly to smartphones -- which SpaceX is doing via a partnership with T-Mobile -- is a difficult proposition, as SpaceX noted in Wednesday's update.

"For example, in terrestrial networks cell towers are stationary, but in a satellite network they move at tens of thousands of miles per hour relative to users on Earth," SpaceX wrote. "This requires seamless handoffs between satellites and accommodations for factors like Doppler shift and timing delays that challenge phone-to-space communications. Cell phones are also incredibly difficult to connect to satellites hundreds of kilometers away, given a mobile phone's low antenna gain and transmit power."

The direct-to-cell Starlink satellites overcome these challenges thanks to "innovative new custom silicon, phased-array antennas and advanced software algorithms," SpaceX added. Overcoming tough challenges can lead to great rewards, and that's the case here, according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. "Satellite connectivity direct to cell phones will have a tremendous impact around the world, helping people communicate wherever and whenever they want or need to," Shotwell said via X on Wednesday.

Stephen Harrison, an Englishman living in Thailand who posed as chief executive Steven Reece Lewis for the launch of the HyperVerse crypto scheme, told the Guardian Australia that he was paid to play the role of chief executive but denies having 'pocketed' any of the money lost. He says he received 180,000 Thai baht (about $7,500) over nine months and a free suit, adding that he was "shocked" to learn the company had presented him as having fake credentials to promote the scheme. From the report: He said he felt sorry for those who had lost money in relation to the scheme -- which he said he had no role in -- an amount Chainalysis estimates at US$1.3 billion in 2022 alone. "I am sorry for these people," he said. "Because they believed some idea with me at the forefront and believed in what I said, and God knows what these people have lost. And I do feel bad about this. "I do feel deeply sorry for these people, I really do. You know, it's horrible for them. I just hope that there is some resolution. I know it's hard to get the money back off these people or whatever, but I just hope there can be some justice served in all of this where they can get to the bottom of this." He said he wanted to make clear he had "certainly not pocketed" any of the money lost by investors.

Harrison, who at the time was a freelance television presenter engaged in unpaid football commentary, said he had been approached and offered the HyperVerse work by a friend of a friend. He said he was new to the industry and had been open to picking up more work and experience as a corporate "presenter." "I was told I was acting out a role to represent the business and many people do this," Harrison said. He said he trusted his agent and accepted that. After reading through the scripts he said he was initially suspicious about the company he was hired to represent because he was unfamiliar with the crypto industry, but said he had been reassured by his agent that the company was legitimate. He said he had also done some of his own online research into the organization and found articles about the Australian blockchain entrepreneur and HyperTech chairman Sam Lee. "I went away and I actually looked at the company because I was concerned that it could be a scam," Harrison said. "So I looked online a bit and everything seemed OK, so I rolled with it." The HyperVerse crypto scheme was promoted by Lee and his business partner Ryan Xu, both of which were founders of the collapsed Australian bitcoin company Blockchain Global. "Blockchain Global owes creditors $58 million and its liquidator has referred Xu and Lee to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for alleged possible breaches of the Corporations Act," reports The Guardian. "Asic has said it does not intend to take action at this time."

Rodney Burton, known as "Bitcoin Rodney," was arrested and charged in the U.S on Monday for his alleged role in promoting the HyperVerse crypto scheme. The IRS alleges Burton was "part of a network that made 'fraudulent' presentations claiming high returns for investors based on crypto-mining operations that did not exist," reports The Guardian.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: When Microsoft opened an advanced research lab in Beijing in 1998, it was a time of optimism about technology and China. The company hired hundreds of researchers for the lab, which pioneered Microsoft's work in speech, image and facial recognition and the kind of artificial intelligence that later gave rise to online chatbots likeChatGPT. The Beijing operation eventually became one of the most important A.I. labs in the world. Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, called it an opportunity to tap China's "deep pool of intellectual talent." But as tensions between the United States and China have mounted over which nation will lead the world's technological future, Microsoft's top leaders -- including Satya Nadella, its chief executive, and Brad Smith, its president -- have debated what to do with the prized lab for at least the past year, four current and former Microsoft employees said.

The company has faced questions from U.S. officials over whether maintaining a 200-person advanced technologies lab in China is tenable, the people said. Microsoft said it had instituted guardrails at the lab, restricting researchers from politically sensitive work. The company, which is based in Redmond, Wash., said it had also opened an outpost of the lab in Vancouver, British Columbia, and would move some researchers from China to the location. The outpost is a backup if more researchers need to relocate, two people said. The idea of shutting down or moving the lab has come up, but Microsoft's leaders support continuing it in China, four people said. "We are as committed as ever to the lab and the world-class research of this team," Peter Lee, who leads Microsoft Research, a network of eight labs across the world, said in a statement. Using the lab's formal name, he added, "There has been no discussion or advocacy to close Microsoft Research Asia, and we look forward to continuing our research agenda."

Previously unknown self-replicating malware has been infecting Linux devices worldwide, installing cryptomining malware using unusual concealment methods. The worm is a customized version of Mirai botnet malware, which takes control of Linux-based internet-connected devices to infect others. Mirai first emerged in 2016, delivering record-setting distributed denial-of-service attacks by compromising vulnerable devices. Once compromised, the worm self-replicates by scanning for and guessing credentials of additional vulnerable devices. While traditionally used for DDoS attacks, this latest variant focuses on covert cryptomining. ArsTechnica adds: On Wednesday, researchers from network security and reliability firm Akamai revealed that a previously unknown Mirai-based network they dubbed NoaBot has been targeting Linux devices since at least last January. Instead of targeting weak telnet passwords, the NoaBot targets weak passwords connecting SSH connections. Another twist: Rather than performing DDoSes, the new botnet installs cryptocurrency mining software, which allows the attackers to generate digital coins using victims' computing resources, electricity, and bandwidth. The cryptominer is a modified version of XMRig, another piece of open source malware. More recently, NoaBot has been used to also deliver P2PInfect, a separate worm researchers from Palo Alto Networks revealed last July.

Akamai has been monitoring NoaBot for the past 12 months in a honeypot that mimics real Linux devices to track various attacks circulating in the wild. To date, attacks have originated from 849 distinct IP addresses, almost all of which are likely hosting a device that's already infected. The following figure tracks the number of attacks delivered to the honeypot over the past year.

25 years ago, Slashdot's CmdrTaco posted an announcement from Slashdot reader #257. "Jabber is a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other Instant Messaging systems (ICQ, AIM, etc).

"Most of the initial design and protocol work is done, as well as a working server and a few test clients."

You can find the rest of the story on Wikipedia. "Its major outcome proved to be the development of the XMPP protocol." ("Based on XML, it enables the near-real-time exchange of structured data between two or more network entities.") Originally developed by the open-source community, the protocols were formalized as an approved instant messaging standard in 2004 and have been continuously developed with new extensions and features... In addition to these core protocols standardized at the IETF, the XMPP Standards Foundation (formerly the Jabber Software Foundation) is active in developing open XMPP extensions...

XMPP features such as federation across domains, publish/subscribe, authentication and its security even for mobile endpoints are being used to implement the Internet of Things.
"Designed to be extensible, the protocol offers a multitude of applications beyond traditional IM in the broader realm of message-oriented middleware, including signalling for VoIP, video, file transfer, gaming and other uses..."

Slashdot reader #257 turned out to be Jeremie Miller (who at the time was just 23 years old). And according to his own page on Wikipedia, "Currently, Miller sits on the board of directors for Bluesky Social, a social media platform."

CNN reports that some Verizon customers "might have found an unexpected surprise in the mail this week: An opportunity to receive a refund as part of a proposed $100 million settlement from a class-action lawsuit." Eligible customers are receiving postcards or emails alerting them to file a claim by April 15 to receive up to $100, which is the result of the lawsuit accusing Verizon of charging fees that were "unfair and not adequately disclosed."

At issue is Verizon's "administrative charge," which the plaintiffs said were "misleading" because that fee wasn't disclosed in their plan's advertised monthly price and were charged in a "deceptive and unfair manner." Verizon has denied the claims and said in a statement that it "clearly identifies and describes its wireless consumer admin charge multiple times during the sales transaction, as well as in its marketing, contracts and billing." A company spokesperson said that the charge "helps our company recover certain regulatory compliance and network related costs."
"The payout is at least $15," adds CNN, "and might be more depending on how long the customer used Verizon and the number of customers who file a claim."

More than 4 million electric vehicles are now on America's roads. And Friday the U.S. Energy announced that more than a third of them (1.4 million) were sold within the last year.

That's 50% more than were sold in the previous year — and about the same number sold in the entire five years between 2016 and 2021. But the energy secretary's statement also touts the current administrations efforts at "building out a reliable and interoperable nationwide EV charging network — an undertaking never before seen in the United States." Today, the U.S. has close to 170,000 public EV chargers — a 75% increase since the president took office with nearly 900 new chargers coming online per week.

These developments are part of an inevitable shift toward a thriving electric transportation sector — a shift that American automakers and battery manufacturers are already carrying forward.

Business Insider's Kelli Maria Korducki reports on a growing trend happening on LinkedIn: some people are using the professional network for personal connections, fielding romantic offers amid job postings. But that leaves the question: Is it a good idea to mix work and love? From the report: Dustin Kidd, a professor of sociology at Temple University who researches social media and pop culture, said that dating via LinkedIn belonged to a long tradition of "dating hacks" -- using online tools designed for other purposes to snag a date. "In the aughts, this happened with Friendster and then Myspace," Kidd said, but has since spread to myriad platforms that are ostensibly romance-free. Even fitness-tracking sites such as Strava are fair game. The common thread for love-hijacked social-media sites is a single feature, Kidd said: DMs. "The design of LinkedIn helps to maintain its focus on the professional, but any platform with a direct-messaging option is likely to also be used to pursue sex and dating," he told me. The ease and relative privacy of direct messaging help explain how some people are using LinkedIn for romance, but it doesn't explain why. In an age with so many dedicated dating platforms -- from giants such as Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge to niche apps including Feeld (for the unconventional), Pure (for the noncommittal), and NUiT (for the astrologically inclined) -- why mix Cupid's arrow with corporate updates?

Any type of social media where you can see people's pictures can turn into a dating app. And LinkedIn is even better because it's not just showing people's fake lives. One answer may be the growing number of Americans who have gotten tired of the roulette-like experience that comes with modern dating apps. In a 2023 Pew survey of US adults, nearly one-third of respondents said they had used an online dating site or app at least once. More than half of women who had used the apps reported feeling overwhelmed by the number of messages they had received in the past year, while 64% of men said they felt insecure from the lack of messages they had gotten. Though an overwhelming majority of men and women said they'd felt excited about people they connected with, an even-larger proportion of respondents said they were sometimes or often disappointed by their matches. [...]

LinkedIn's appeal as a dating site, according to people who use it that way, is the platform's ability to give back some of that control and boost the caliber of their prospects. Because the professional-networking site asks users to link to their current and former employers' profile pages, it offers an additional layer of credibility that other social-media platforms lack. Many profiles also include first-person references from former colleagues and managers -- real people with real profile pages. [...] Even for those who shy away from using LinkedIn to angle for dates, the site has become a go-to tool for vetting romantic candidates found through conventional dating apps or in-person encounters. "Social media is just one big dating app," [said Samuela John, a 24-year-old personal organizer in New York City who developed chemistry with an oil-industry man on the platform]. "Any type of social media where you can see people's pictures can turn into a dating app. And LinkedIn is even better because it's not just showing people's fake lives." [...] "I don't think you should go into it like, 'All right, I'm going to find my husband on LinkedIn,'" John said. "I think you should go about it as if you were just networking, like in a casual sense. And then if you end up meeting the person, see the vibes and then go from there."

Dan Goodin reports via Ars Technica: Software maker Ivanti is urging users of its end-point security product to patch a critical vulnerability that makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute malicious code inside affected networks. The vulnerability, in a class known as a SQL injection, resides in all supported versions of the Ivanti Endpoint Manager. Also known as the Ivanti EPM, the software runs on a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, and Internet of Things devices such as routers. SQL injection vulnerabilities stem from faulty code that interprets user input as database commands or, in more technical terms, from concatenating data with SQL code without quoting the data in accordance with the SQL syntax. CVE-2023-39336, as the Ivanti vulnerability is tracked, carries a severity rating of 9.6 out of a possible 10.

"If exploited, an attacker with access to the internal network can leverage an unspecified SQL injection to execute arbitrary SQL queries and retrieve output without the need for authentication," Ivanti officials wrote Friday in a post announcing the patch availability. "This can then allow the attacker control over machines running the EPM agent. When the core server is configured to use SQL express, this might lead to RCE on the core server." RCE is short for remote code execution, or the ability for off-premises attackers to run code of their choice. Currently, there's no known evidence the vulnerability is under active exploitation. Ivanti has also published a disclosure that is restricted only to registered users. A copy obtained by Ars said Ivanti learned of the vulnerability in October. [...]

Putting devices running Ivanti EDM behind a firewall is a best practice and will go a long way to mitigating the severity of CVE-2023-39336, but it would likely do nothing to prevent an attacker who has gained limited access to an employee workstation from exploiting the critical vulnerability. It's unclear if the vulnerability will come under active exploitation, but the best course of action is for all Ivanti EDM users to install the patch as soon as possible.

Orange Espana, Spain's second-biggest mobile operator, suffered a major outage on Wednesday after an unknown party obtained a "ridiculously weak" password and used it to access an account for managing the global routing table that controls which networks deliver the company's Internet traffic, researchers said. From a report: The hijacking began around 9:28 Coordinated Universal Time (about 2:28 Pacific time) when the party logged into Orange's RIPE NCC account using the password "ripeadmin" (minus the quotation marks). The RIPE Network Coordination Center is one of five Regional Internet Registries, which are responsible for managing and allocating IP addresses to Internet service providers, telecommunication organizations, and companies that manage their own network infrastructure. RIPE serves 75 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

The password came to light after the party, using the moniker Snow, posted an image to social media that showed the orange.es email address associated with the RIPE account. RIPE said it's working on ways to beef up account security. Security firm Hudson Rock plugged the email address into a database it maintains to track credentials for sale in online bazaars. In a post, the security firm said the username and "ridiculously weak" password were harvested by information-stealing malware that had been installed on an Orange computer since September. The password was then made available for sale on an infostealer marketplace.

According to MoffettNathanson, the U.S. pay-TV industry had its worst-ever third quarter after losing about 900,000 subscribers. "That poor result, the research firm added, left the total pay-TV industry shrinking at a record pace of -7.3%, widened from a year-ago decline of -5.9%," reports Light Reading. "It also left pay-TV penetration of occupied households (including vMVPDs) at just 54.8% -- a level last seen in 1989, five years before the debut of DirecTV." From the report: Drilling down on Q3 results, traditional pay-TV providers (cable, telco and satellite) shed 1.97 million subscribers, widened from a loss of 1.94 million in the year-ago quarter. Within that category, US cable lost 1.10 million video subs in Q3, versus a loss of -1.09 million in the year-ago period. Satellite operators (Dish Network and DirecTV) lost 667,000 subs in Q3, versus -567,000 in the year-ago quarter. Telco TV providers lost 198,000 video subs in the period, an improvement when compared to a year-ago loss of -250,000 subs.

vMVPDs, meanwhile, added 1.08 million in Q3, down from a year-ago gain of about 1.34 million. Despite those gains, vMVPDs recaptured only 21.7% of traditional pay-TV's subscriber losses in the period, according to MoffettNathanson. Meanwhile, YouTube TV continues to dominate the vMVPD category. MoffettNathanson estimates that YouTube TV added about 350,000 subs in Q3, extending its total to 7 million -- representing 40% of the vMVPD sector's 18 million subscriber total. "Based on our Q3 estimate, YouTube TV has now surpassed Dish Network [6.72 million satellite TV subs at the end of Q3] to become the country's fourth largest MVPD of any kind," Moffett noted. "At the current trajectory, YouTube TV should pass DirecTV for third place in less than a year."

An international law firm that works with companies affected by security incidents has experienced its own cyberattack that exposed the sensitive health information of hundreds of thousands of data breach victims. From a report: San Francisco-based Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe said last week that hackers stole the personal information and sensitive health data of more than 637,000 data breach victims from a file share on its network during an intrusion in March 2023. Orrick works with companies that are hit by security incidents, including data breaches, to handle regulatory requirements, such as obtaining victims' information in order to notify state authorities and the individuals affected. In a series of data breach notification letters sent to affected individuals, Orrick said the hackers stole reams of data from its systems that pertain to security incidents at other companies, during which Orrick served as legal counsel.

Germany's emissions hit a 70-year low last year as Europe's largest economy reduced its reliance on coal. From a report: A study by the thinktank Agora Energiewende found that Germany emitted 673m tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2023, 73m tonnes fewer than in 2022. The drop was "largely attributable to a strong decrease in coal power generation," Agora said, accounting for a reduction of 46m tonnes in CO2 emissions. Emissions from industry fell significantly, largely due to a decline in production by energy-intensive companies.

Electricity generation from renewable sources was more than 50% of the total in 2023 for the first time, while coal's share dropped to 26% from 34%, according to the federal network agency. Germany had resorted to coal following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Moscow cut off gas supplies. But since then Germany has significantly reduced its use of the fossil fuels.

SpaceX launched a total of 21 satellites on Tuesday night, including "the first six Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities that enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters without changing hardware or firmware. The enhanced Starlink satellites have an advanced modem that acts as a cellphone tower in space, eliminating dead zones with network integration similar to a standard roaming partner," the company said. Ars Technica reports: Besides T-Mobile in the US, several carriers in other countries have signed up to use the direct-to-cell satellites. SpaceX said the other carriers are Rogers in Canada, KDDI in Japan, Optus in Australia, One NZ in New Zealand, Salt in Switzerland, and Entel in Chile and Peru. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote that the satellites will "allow for mobile phone connectivity anywhere on Earth," he also described a significant bandwidth limit. "Note, this only supports ~7Mb per beam and the beams are very big, so while this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks," Musk wrote.

Starlink's direct-to-cell website says the service will provide text messaging only when it becomes available in 2024, with voice and data service beginning sometime in 2025. Starlink's low Earth orbit satellites will work with standard LTE phones, unlike earlier services that required phones specifically built for satellite use. SpaceX's direct-to-cell satellites will also connect with Internet of Things (IoT) devices in 2025, the company says.

Amazon-owned Wickr is dead, more than a year after reports showed it had become the app of choice for drug traffickers. 404 Media: If you open the encrypted messaging app Wickr Me today, you'll be greeted with a line of red text: "Reconnecting..." Below that, in white text over a black background, the app says "We're having issues connecting to the Wickr Me network. If the problem persists, try restarting your app or contacting support." Closing and reopening the app will not work. There is no point in contacting support either. That's because on December 31, 2023, Wickr Me, the free version of Wickr, was shut down entirely.

Wickr Me is no longer available to download on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. The app stopped accepting new users more than a year ago. And now, even current users cannot speak to one another. So ends the story of an app that while never reaching the popularity of other encrypted messaging apps like Signal, nor those that later turned on end-to-end encryption for the masses like WhatsApp, nonetheless played an important role in the adoption of and debate around secure communications.

They create a dedicated desktop icon for your favorite web-based application — a simplified browser that opens to that single URL. Yet while Linux usually offers the same functionality as other operating systems, "Peppermint OS's Ice and its successor Kumo are the only free software versions of Site-Specific Browsers available on Linux," according to Linux magazine.

"Fortunately for those who want this functionality, Peppermint OS is a Debian derivative, and both can be installed on Debian and most other derivatives." Since SSBs first appeared in 2005, they have been available on both Windows and macOS. On Linux, however, the availability has come and gone. On Linux, Firefox once had an SSB mode, but it was discontinued in 2020 on the grounds that it had multiple bugs that were time-consuming to fix and there was "little to no perceived user benefit to the feature." Similarly, Chromium once had a basic SSB menu item, Create Application Shortcut, which no longer appears in recent versions. As for GNOME Web's (Epiphany's) Install Site as Web Application, while it still appears in the menu, it is no longer functional. Today, Linux users who want to try SSBs have no choices except Ice or Kumo.

Neither Ice or Kumo appears in any repository except Peppermint OS's. But because Peppermint OS installs packages from Debian 12 ("bookworm"), either can be installed to Debian or a derivative... To install successfully, at least one of Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, or Vivaldi also must be installed... Because both Ice and Kumo are written in Python, they can be run on any desktop.
The article concludes that Site-Specific Browsers might make more sense "on a network or in a business where their isolation provides another layer of security. Or perhaps the time for SSBs is past and there's a reason browsers have tried to implement them, and then discarded them."

NBC News reports that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. in February "used an American internet service provider to communicate, according to two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the assessment."

it used the American ISP connection "to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation." Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.

The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed. Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communications sent via the American internet service provider...

The previously unreported U.S. effort to monitor the balloon's communications could be one reason Biden administration officials have insisted that they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S. Senior administration officials have said the U.S. was able to protect sensitive sites on the ground because they closely tracked the balloon's projected flight path. The U.S. military moved or obscured sensitive equipment so the balloon could not collect images or video while it was overhead.
NBC News is not naming the internet service provider, but says it denied that the Chinese balloon had used its network, "a determination it said was based on its own investigation and discussions it had with U.S. officials." The balloon contained "multiple antennas, including an array most likely able to collect and geolocate communications," according to reports from a U.S. State Depratment official cited by NBC News in February. "It was also powered by enormous solar panels that generated enough power to operate intelligence collection sensors, the official said.

Reached for comment this week, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told NBC News that the balloon was just a weather balloon that had accidentally drifted into American airspace.

Mint Mobile has disclosed a new data breach that exposed the personal information of its customers, including data that can be used to perform SIM swap attacks. From a report: Mint is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) offering budget, pre-paid mobile plans. T-Mobile has proposed paying $1.3 billion to purchase the company. The company began notifying customers on December 22nd via emails titled "Important information regarding your account," stating that they suffered a security incident and a hacker obtained customer information.

"We are writing to inform you about a security incident we recently identified in which an unauthorized actor obtained some limited types of customer information," warns the Mint Mobile data breach notification. "Our investigation indicates that certain information associated with your account was impacted."

"10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings," writes PC Magazine. But "Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023..."

Some of the highlights? 'Clubhouse' Clones
In the early days of the pandemic, when Zoom happy hours and sourdough starters proliferated, Clubhouse burst onto the scene with an app that facilitated audio-only chats between groups large and small. Tech giants quickly churned out their own Clubhouse clones, but these party-line throwbacks were not long for this world. Facebook was the first to go, ditching its Live Audio Rooms in December 2022, but 2023 also saw the end of Reddit Talk, Spotify Live, and Amazon's live radio DJ Amp app. [X Spaces is still around]

Amazon Smile
Launched in 2013, AmazonSmile saw Amazon donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases made through smile.amazon.com to charity, with consumers able to choose from over a million charitable organizations to support. On Feb. 20, however, the program shut down because it "has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped," Amazon said at the time.

NFTs on Facebook and Instagram
Remember non-fungible tokens (NFTs)? Somehow, crypto bros convinced people to spend big bucks on what are essentially JPEGs. (Don't try to convince me otherwise.) Meta got in on the action in 2022, allowing Instagram users to create NFTs and Facebook users to share them. It didn't exactly set either social network on fire and Meta said in March it would be "winding down digital collectibles."

Cortana on Windows
In June, AI claimed its latest victim by coming after Microsoft's Cortana. The voice assistant never really made a splash compared to Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, and with the launch of Bing Chat (now Copilot), Microsoft removed Cortana as a built-in app on Windows.
Also on the list are Blizzard's Overwatch League, third-party Reddit clients, and Venmo as a payment option on Amazon (effective this January 10).

Looking further into the future, Gmail's Basic HTML View disappears in 2024, while Wordpad will eventually be removed in an unspecified future release of Windows.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: In February, a Canadian cybersecurity firm delivered an ominous forecast to the U.S. Department of Defense. America's secrets — actually, everybody's secrets — are now at risk of exposure, warned the team from Quantum Defen5e (QD5). QD5's executive vice president, Tilo Kunz, told officials from the Defense Information Systems Agency that possibly as soon as 2025, the world would arrive at what has been dubbed "Q-day," the day when quantum computers make current encryption methods useless. Machines vastly more powerful than today's fastest supercomputers would be capable of cracking the codes that protect virtually all modern communication, he told the agency, which is tasked with safeguarding the U.S. military's communications.

In the meantime, Kunz told the panel, a global effort to plunder data is underway so that intercepted messages can be decoded after Q-day in what he described as "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, according to a recording of the session the agency later made public. Militaries would see their long-term plans and intelligence gathering exposed to enemies. Businesses could have their intellectual property swiped. People's health records would be laid bare... One challenge for the keepers of digital secrets is that whenever Q-day comes, quantum codebreakers are unlikely to announce their breakthrough. Instead, they're likely to keep quiet, so they can exploit the advantage as long as possible.
The article adds that "a scramble is on to protect critical data. Washington and its allies are working on new encryption standards known as post-quantum cryptography... Beijing is trying to pioneer quantum communications networks, a technology theoretically impossible to hack, according to researchers...

"In a quantum communications network, users exchange a secret key or code on subatomic particles called photons, allowing them to encrypt and decrypt data. This is called quantum key distribution, or QKD."