This week Marriotts Starwood reservation server was hacked. the first gene edited baby was born, USPS was hscked, NASA successfully lands InSight, lots of Google news, more on the Boring Company and, more in the other news section.
The Hacks
Marriott
On Friday, Marriott announced that their Starwood reservation system had been hacked. In the breach they lost names, email addresses, passwords, social security numbers, passport information, credit card information and, possibly actual reservation information. The situation is interesting because the Starwood system was actually merged into Marriott system in August.
USPS
On Monday, the USPS admitted that they had been hacked. The breach included data of 60 million users. The hsck took advantage of the USPS’s InformedDelivery program. The hacker gain access to other users mail through that progtam.\
How To Check if You Were Affected By The Breach And What To Do If So
If you are worried that you were affected by either of these hacks you most likely would of recieved an email. If you didn’t you can also use haveibeenpwned.com or http://monitor.firefox.com to check if your email address is in a large database of data from breaches going years back. If you were you should first change your password (make it long and strong) and use two-factor authentication (when available). To keep track of your passwords I recommend the password manager LastPass.
First Gene Edited Baby
On Monday, a Chinese doctor announced that one of his patients gave birth to the first gene edited baby. The Chinese government has said that it never approved the gene editing. A couple of days later they also said that they’d revoked the doctor’s medical license.
InSight
On Monday at about 3pm EST, NASA landed InSight on mars. InSight’s mission is to “see inside mars”, meaning that it will use a siesmomoter to track marsquakes.
EU
A few consumer watchdog organizations within EU countries complained about Google’s “deceptive tracking” practices. The claims are based on the fact that it is hard to control location and search history.
Another Walkout
On Tuesday, Google employees staged a walkout to protest Project Dragonfly (a censored version of Google for China), The employees penned an open letter about their stance on the situation.
Boring Company
On Wensday, The Boring Company said in a statement that they are ending their project in LA. This is because they lost a lawsuit requiring them to end it. Their Chicago project is still going.
Other News
In other news, Elon Musk said that there is a 70% chance that he’ll move to mars, YouTube may start offering their original content for free (with ads) in 2020, NASA is working on a supersonic plane, ADT and Smart Things are working on a smart home security system, Nintendo shut down Creators Program, Valve’s new game Artifact is out and, the FTC is investigating lootboxes.
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