"A hardware wallet is supposed to be the safest place to keep Bitcoin," writes The Street, since it never connects to the internet, its keys never leave the device, and "the whole point is that an attacker would need to physically hold it to steal anything."

The problem is that anyone who can reproduce the recovery seed doesn't need to possess the COLDCAR, Nerds.xyz points out. More from The Street:

[The recovery seed] is supposed to come from a hardware random number generator producing 128 bits of entropy, a number so large that guessing it is computationally impossible. It wasn't. According to Block's engineering team a single code change on March 1, 2021 caused the firmware to silently fall back to a software-based generator instead of the hardware one. On Mk3 devices the effective search space collapsed to roughly 40 bits. Coinkite has confirmed that figure and called it preliminary. The gap between 128 bits and 40 bits is not a matter of degree. It is the difference between a lock that cannot be picked and one that can be brute-forced by anyone with rented cloud computing....

Chainalysis found the attacker went after the largest balances first, pulling more than $30 million in the opening ten minutes. Within about 25 minutes, roughly 594 BTC had moved out of some 500 single-signature wallets. One victim lost around $1.8 million... Coinkite has shipped fixed firmware, but with a warning that matters more than the patch itself. Updating does not repair an existing seed. A seed created with weak entropy stays weak forever. Affected users have to generate an entirely new wallet on updated hardware and move their coins to it.
By Saturday morning Galaxy research was tracking 1,158.66 BTC, worth roughly $75.1 million, taken from 2,673 addresses, according to the article. And "The Coldcard exploit is ONGOING," Galaxy Research posted an hour ago on X.com. "Move Coldcard single-sig funds to safe locations immediately!"


We have reported ~600 addresses we believe to be hackers holding funds stolen from Coldcard-generated weak entropy addresses to federal investigators, industry compliance firms, and cross-industry cyber investigators.


Thanks to Slashdot reader BrianFagioli for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Washington Post looks at giant tech companies "feeding every available dollar into the cash-incinerating maw of AI machines." They warn "Tech superstars that once had oodles of cash left over at the end of each year are now flipping into the red..."




[While optimists expect] huge corporate profits and a society-wide boost to wealth and well-being...
questions about that AI vision are now growing more urgent: When, if ever, will this payoff arrive? And what will the fallout be for Americans if the titanic investment doesn't quickly deliver? "This AI thing better work out because if it doesn't ... we're going to have a problem," said Torsten Slok, chief economist at investment firm Apollo Global Management. AI costs and doubts are spreading. The U.S. stock market has swooned this summer over fear of the AI bubble going bust...


The AI gamble sweeping up American fortunes is led by tech companies splurging on hulking data centers packed with computer chips and equipment needed to develop sophisticated AI models and deliver them to customers. In investor calls in the past week, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon pointed to soaring AI-related sales and business deals. Advertisers are using the technology to tailor marketing pitches and corporations and start-ups are buying access to chatbots and other AI software to boost productivity... But this spending can only continue if AI generates an even larger avalanche of new revenue to pay for it all. Financial results released over the past week show that the AI titans' mammoth costs are largely swamping the sales boost from the technology. At Google, for every dollar of cash its business generated in the past three months, $1.15 went out the door to pay for AI computer chips and equipment, land for AI data centers and other big-ticket purchases. The company is covering the difference partly by borrowing money and selling more of its stock. Next year, five leading AI companies — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle — are projected to have negative free cash flow, which measures the cash left over after paying expenses and AI infrastructure costs. The figures, based on investment analyst projections compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, show a stunning reversal for what have been some of the world's most cash-generating corporations...

The companies remain profitable by standard financial accounting measures that spread out the costs of their AI infrastructure spending over many years... Pessimists see a bet so gargantuan that it cannot possibly pay off. The pessimists are growing louder. The Bank for International Settlements, a typically measured institution in Switzerland that advises government bankers around the world, recently warned there was risk of "economy-wide recessions" if the AI boom falters. That could mean pain for workers and communities across the United States. "I'm not saying AI is going to go away, it's just not clear to me these guys are going to make money on it," said Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at investment bank Jefferies who has correctly predictedpast financial bubbles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"An itch.io game bundle put together by Necrosoft Games and The United Videogame Workers-CWA union is a new way gamers can show their support for developers who have been let go amidst the ongoing video game industry labor crisis," writes Kotaku.

Launched Thursday, it's already raised $57,859 from 3,984 contributors. (Average contribution size: $14.52)

The bundle is pay-what-you-want with a minimum purchase price of $10, offering DRM-free PC versions of games including A Short Hike, SkateBIRD, and my favorite game in the pack, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure ... The bundle will be available through August 13.

The gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun shares more details, starting with this quote from the bundle's page on itch.io:

"Reports say 33% of the industry lost their jobs in the last two years, and the jobs they could fill are disappearing as CEOs try to replace them with AI. It's hard for companies to adjust to the new shape of the game industry, but even harder for the people they should be employing... To address this in some small way, we have created a bundle with almost 150 games. The proceeds of this bundle will go toward a hardship fund for those experiencing layoffs."

Games industry workers currently out of work or under-employed can apply to this fund, which is distributed by the United Videogame Workers, to help out with basic necessities like food and rent. As a note, this is only available to US and Canada-based devs, but there's an FAQ explaining who can apply for the fund.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Elon Musk is the world's biggest loser ever, having lost $800 billion in 7 weeks.

Apartheid Emerald Mine Space Karen supposedly became a "trillionaire" on June 12 and lost that status 12 days later as nearly half of that money [sic] evaporated. Yesterday SpaceX and Tesla stock had a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" and he was down to a paltry $600 billion, his 2024 level, meaning that in 49 days, he lost 25% more money than he had ever had prior to that. 49 days is the same timespan by which a head of lettuce famously outlasted Liz Truss in office.

This is almost enough to make you think that money isn't real and the stock market runs entirely on vibes. But that can't be right.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

GAZA-STAD (ANP/AFP) - Bij Israëlische aanvallen op de Gazastrook zijn zaterdag volgens de autoriteiten in Gaza zeker zeven mensen om het leven gekomen. De aanvallen vonden plaats twee dagen nadat Hamas had aangekondigd te hebben ingestemd met een voorstel dat onder meer voorziet in de ontwapening van de beweging en een geleidelijke terugtrekking van Israëlische militairen uit de Gazastrook.

Ondanks de aangekondigde deal waren volgens de burgerbescherming in Gaza op verschillende plaatsen in de Gazastrook dodelijke aanvallen, onder meer door drones. Het Israëlische leger verklaarde meerdere wapenopslagplaatsen van Hamas te hebben aangevallen. Volgens het leger bevond een van die opslagplaatsen zich naast een ziekenhuis en gebruikte Hamas die als schuilplaats.

Israël heeft nog niet officieel gereageerd op het voorstel, aangekondigd door de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump.

De Palestijnse burgerbescherming meldde zaterdag ook dat een zoekactie in een woonwijk van Gaza-Stad is afgerond. Daarbij werden na bijna twee weken graven 112 lichamen onder het puin geborgen. Volgens de hulpdienst waren onder de slachtoffers 40 kinderen en 38 vrouwen.

More than 20 people injured in explosion near Italian restaurant on Saturday night, authorities say

A homemade bomb carried by a woman killed three people and injured at least 21 in ⁠an explosion near a restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening, authorities said.

The explosion occurred just before 8pm close to an Italian restaurant located in one of Moscow’s seven Stalin-era skyscrapers at Kudrinskaya ​Square, the police said.

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De toeristen maakten een rondvlucht over de beroemde Nazcalijnen in het zuiden van Peru. De slachtoffers zijn de piloot, de copiloot, zeven Italiaanse toeristen, twee Duitse en twee Spaanse.