Tampa Teen arrested over Twitter hack

A Florida minor was charged Friday with 30 felonies relating to last month's Twitter "hack" that got top Twitter accounts blurting out a crude bitcoin scam.

Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren filed 30 felony charges against the teen this week for “scamming people across America” in connection with the Twitter hack that happened on July 15. The charges he’s facing include one count of organized fraud, 17 counts of communications fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information with over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information and one count of access to computer or electronic device without authority.

Hillsborough County Jail records show Clark was booked into jail shortly after 6:30 a.m. Friday.

Warren’s office says the scheme to defraud “stole the identities of prominent people” and “posted messages in their names directing victims to send Bitcoin” to accounts that were associated with the Tampa teen. According to the state attorney, the scheme reaped more than $100,000 in Bitcoin in just one day.

President Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk were among the accounts taken over in the heist. Twitter reported that the intrusion was accomplished by social engineering and access to employee accounts with administrative credentials. Two accomplices were named as 22-year-old Nima “Rolex” Fazeli, of Orlando, Florida, and 19-year-old Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard of Bognor Regis, England, both also in custody but as yet uncharged.

Trump says he'll ban Tik Tok, to hoots of derision

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump last night declared that he would ban the social media site Tik Tok.

“As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump said, calling the action a “severance.”

Trump did not specify whether he will act through an executive order, or another method. such as a designation, according to NBC News.

“Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” Trump said.

Microsoft is negotiating to buy Chinese-owned Tik Tok, which would fill a social-media hole in the tech giant's lineup of consumer offerings. But commentators think Trump is mostly just upset that the platform is an explosively-growing social media platform that will not supplicate to him as Twitter and Facebook have.

does anyone really think this has to do with china and isn’t because of the stories about the “tik tok kids” supposedly sabotaging trump’s tulsa rally https://t.co/yEuPVfbrNC

— my pal andy (@andylevy) August 1, 2020

Vox recently gamed out how Trump might accomplish a "ban" on Tik Tok, but the experts consulted found it an unlikely scenario.

To really take TikTok off Americans’ phones, the government would have to do something like make Apple and Google sever their ties with ByteDance (along with any other Chinese app makers). Getting removed from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store would vastly reduce TikTok’s appeal, even if you could still access it through a sideloaded app or website. Apple, in particular, keeps tight control over iOS devices; its App Store policy is so restrictive that it’s spurred antitrust lawsuits. The government would essentially be ordering companies to deplatform TikTok — and deplatforming can be extremely powerful.

To do this, the Trump administration could repeat a tactic it used with Huawei: have the Commerce Department put TikTok on the “entity list” that limits its commercial ties to US companies. The administration doesn’t need congressional approval to do this, and it can cite any US company that does business with them (barring special exemptions) for violating sanctions. The entity list has stopped Google from working with Huawei on Android phones, and if TikTok were successfully added to the list, Apple and Google would have a hard time keeping them in the App Store.

James Lewis, director of technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says putting TikTok on the list would be extreme, unusual, and legally dubious.

Foreign Policy agreed.

Because the attempted “ban” by the United States is likely to rely on novel theories and will be imposed in haste, the companies are likely to have an opening to challenge the U.S. government action in court as lacking factual and legal support. A legal challenge might also put pressure on the U.S. government by forcing it to risk disclosure of sensitive intelligence on the Chinese companies if it chooses to fully defend court actions. Given the dearth of public evidence to date that TikTok provides any data to the Chinese government and the Trump administration’s less-than-stellar record against procedural challenges to its executive orders, it is possible that a well-structured challenge might be able to overturn, or at least delay, any “ban.”

The Polycade Home is the arcade cabinet 2.0 for your house that will leave you floored

If you ever dropped a quarter into a Space Invaders game, you’ve likely fantasized about having your own arcade cabinet in your house. Of course, you likely thought better of it for several reasons, including the idea that a giant cabinet dedicated to just one game isn’t very practical.  

Polycade understands the urge though very, very well. So what if they could make you a home arcade machine that played all of your favorite classics, plus the biggest hits of today? And what if it was packed with top-of-the-line equipment and controls? And it was less than half the size of a bulky old cabinet?

At a sticker price of $3,899, the Polycade Home Plug and Play Mounted Arcade is definitely pricey, but once you factor in the cost of modern gaming platforms and games as well as the Polycade’s versatility, the economics don’t feel quite so impossible anymore.

Professionally mounted in your home, it actually feels like having an ATM on the wall of your house -- except this super-slim gaming system can play literally thousands of your favorite arcade and home platform games right out of the box.

With a 27-inch screen running a gaming-grade PC using a customized, optimized version of Steam as its interface, you can download new games from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s with ease and start playing. From Pac Man to Street Fighter and thousands more, all your favorite games for the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx16, and more are all here.

The Sanwa joysticks supply maximum agility of movement, accuracy, smoothness, and comfort, while the buttons offer the feel of battling in a true arcade. 

The customization options are almost as endless as the game roster, including USB ports to attach peripherals and even a built-in camera and mic for your HD streaming to Twitch or just playing with friends.

The Polycade Home Plug and Play Mounted Arcade is the home gaming system you’ve waited your whole life for, so you at least owe it to yourself to check it out. It’s currently available in both black and white models now for $3,899.

Prices are subject to change.

Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.

 

Polycade Home: Plug & Play Mounted Arcade - $3899

Bring the arcade home for $3,899

A judge blocked release of NYPD's misconduct database. ProPublica published it anyway.

Transparency about police disciplinary investigations has been hard to achieve, often blocked by powerful unions. ProPublica has sped up the process in New York by circumventing a judge's order and publishing thousands of formerly secret discipline records.

A federal judge barred The City of New York and its Civilian Complaint Review Board from releasing the data, issue similar restrictions to the New York Civil Liberties Union. Since ProPublica was not named, they published what others could not. Via their announcement:

The database lists active-duty officers who’ve had at least one allegation against them substantiated by the CCRB: That’s about 4,000 officers out of the NYPD’s 36,000-member force.

Unions for city police officers, firefighters and corrections officers have sued New York City to stop the disclosure of most of these and other disciplinary records. The unions objected to the release of any cases other than “proven and final disciplinary matters.” That would exclude the vast majority of complaints against officers.

Photo by Jiarong Deng from Pexels