America's Justice Department and FBI teamed joined Finland's National Bureau of Investigation to arrest a teenager they say is part of one of the world's biggest cybercrime syndicates, reports Tom's Hardware. The "Scattered Spider" syndicate has extorted over $100 million in ransom payments, according to Department of Justice figures:


19-year-old Peter Stokes is a dual U.S.-Estonian citizen who was trying to board a flight to Japan from Helsinki, when law enforcement caught up with him. [T]he main criminal complaint against Stokes stems from a May 2025 attack on a luxury jewelry dealer based in the United States. The attackers apparently called the company's IT helpdesk using Google Voice, posing as employees. They were able to convince the help desk into resetting their credentials, which allowed them to infiltrate three accounts, two of which had admin privileges. From there, the group, allegedly including Stokes, stole important data and held the jeweler at ransom, demanding an $8 million payment in crypto. The company ultimately regained access to their infrastructure and avoided paying the ransom, but the operational disruption still caused a purported $2 million in losses. This served as the spark that led to Stokes' eventual arrest in Helsinki, as the prosecutors slowly followed the paper and digital trail laid by the attackers.


Microsoft played a key role in the process by providing GDID [Global Device Identifier] data to the FBI to help them apprehend the alleged criminal... [I]t's a unique identifier assigned to every Windows install that tracks device-specific telemetry. It's the reason why sometimes changing a major component in your PC can revoke your Windows license... [T]he court documents from the case reveal that Stokes used Windows, from which investigators were able to link his physical hardware to specific internet activity and locations... Stokes' web activity, videogame history, IP addresses, tool usage (including Ngrok), Azure status, and more were logged with timestamps, and were provided to the investigators by Microsoft...

Stokes was carrying two hard drives full of incriminating evidence with him when boarding his flight to Japan... His real identity has actually been known since 2024, but since he was a minor living across Estonia and the UAE at the time, he could only be monitored until the time was right.

The official criminal complaint even includes a selfie photo that Stokes posted on Snapchat (hiding his face behind dozens of hundred dollar bills). It then notes that behind Stokes the wallpaper, carpet, and furniture match New York's Empire Hotel — and that Stokes had visited the hotel's web site in Germany before then flying to New York...

"Following the arrest, Stokes was extradited to the U.S., where he appeared in front of a federal court in Chicago for the first time on June 30, 2026, and he remains in custody," adds Tom's Hardware.

"The accused is now awaiting trial, having been charged with conspiracy, cyber intrusion, and fraud..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"A story widely accused on social media of being written using AI has gone on to win the overall Commonwealth short story prize," reports the Guardian.

In mid-May the story had been selected as a regional winner, but with critics on X and Bluesky "claiming it showed 'obvious markers' of AI use."

In the wake of the controversy, the Commonwealth Foundation conducted a review of the regional winners, which it said involved looking at drafts, time-stamped documents and notes. "We are satisfied with the testimonies of our writers and their confirmation that AI was not used in their writing," said foundation director-general Razmi Farook... Judging chair Louise Doughty described Nazir's piece as "an original, poetic and deeply moving story...." In a film released by the Commonwealth Foundation on Tuesday, Nazir... adds that he wrote six or seven drafts of his prize-winning story, and also speaks about his use of speech-to-text software, explaining that he could only see three or four lines of text on his phone screen at any one time, so he would perfect each line before moving on, which is how his story ended up being "highly polished"...

Initial social media reactions to the Commonwealth Foundation's announcement of Nazir's win were negative, with one X user writing: "immensely disappointing and disheartening. it feels like they wanted to stick to their guns after the entire GenAI uproar. I might think twice now before submitting my stories here". After Nazir was announced as the regional winner in May, some social media users reported running his story through AI-detection software. "Pangram flags at 100% but also, come on, if you know you know", said Wharton professor Ethan Mollick. However, the reliability of AI-detection software has been called into question.

In a statement to the Guardian, Farook said that "rather than surrender our judgment to AI-detection software, we asked our winners to show their working drafts, outlines, the evidence of an artistic journey. That software, it must be said, is not infallible: it returns inconsistent verdicts and, in doing so, corrodes the very trust on which a prize depends."
"When the machine's default voice is the metropolitan one, the writer who does not fit the expected mould is the first to fall under suspicion," she added. "The more startling her gift, the more her unfamiliar brilliance unsettles, the more readily she is accused of being a machine. A young writer in Kingston or Kolkata, in Kuala Lumpur or Kigali, must now prove not only her talent but her very humanity."

Nazir's story beat 7,806 other stories, the video points out (adding that their prize "demonstrates that in a world increasingly driven by algorithms, the human voice still matters.")

The Guardian notes that the winning story "includes multiple 'not x, but y' constructions and lists of three, which some consider to be signs of AI use," and that critics also drew attention to particular lines like "Sun on galvanise is a cruel instrument" and "Marsha lived two bends down."


In a new interview with the Times of India Nazir says "Now I'm frightened about publishing new work because the attacks haven't stopped."


Q: Which passages attracted the most criticism, and why do you think they were misunderstood?

Nazir: People criticised a line where I wrote: 'She had the kind of walking that made benches become men.' That's magical realism. Think Salman Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's a literary technique. In my story, the character 'Zoongie' believes she is so beautiful that even when no men are around, she imagines the benches becoming men who admire her. It exists only in her imagination. People interpreted it literally. There was another line about light reflecting from a sink. That came directly from my childhood. Our kitchen faced east, and my mother liked to keep everything spotless. We used to polish the sink, and when the morning sun hit it, it glittered brightly. People claimed that the image must have been AI-generated. But it's from my lived experience...

I've lived with diabetes for 62 years, which has damaged the nerves in my fingers and feet, and I'm currently undergoing chemotherapy. That's why I began using speech-to-text on my Android phone... I hope this episode leads to a better understanding of the difference between assistive technology and AI-generated writing...

Q: Many acclaimed writers like Ursula K Le Guin, Mary Shelley, and JRR Tolkien have also been falsely flagged by AI detectors. Where does this leave writers?

Nazir: What these AI detectors are saying is that if a piece of writing is too polished, it must have been written by AI. I refuse to accept that. AI was trained on human writing. Large language models, to me, are tools, much like a word processor. They don't replace the human spirit behind creative writing. Ask an AI to write a prize-winning story on its own and see what it produces. You still need human imagination and judgment to create literature.



Nazir added, "What I don't understand is why people continue to question the judges' decision."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"The internet is filled with fakes," writes Gizmodo. "A court in India is setting out to address the problem by requiring more transparency from domain registrars to make it easier to crack down on fraud. And while the intentions might be good, Reuters is reporting that major American domain registrar GoDaddy is sounding the warning bells that the court's decision could fundamentally reshape the internet well beyond India's borders."


GoDaddy argues the move would even make the internet less safe, reports Reuters :

[Online fraud] is a key challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which last year received 2.4 million complaints of alleged cyber fraud amounting to $2.4 billion. Starting in 2019, lawsuits were brought by dozens of Indian and global firms — Amazon against fake shopping sites trading on its name and McDonald's complaining against bogus sites offering franchises. [More than 20 companies filed a complaint, the article notes, including Microsoft.] In December, an Indian court blocked more than 1,100 such websites. The New Delhi judge however went further, ordering sweeping new measures that tech experts say have rewritten rules of internet governance: Domain sellers should not offer buyers free privacy protection by default, the buyer's details should be released to anyone with a "legitimate interest" within 72 hours, and website addresses that are variations of protected brand names must be prohibited.


U.S.-based GoDaddy has challenged the directives before a larger bench of judges at the Delhi High Court, according to a Reuters review of non-public filings. It says the ruling will affect legitimate businesses that have names similar to big brands. Stopping privacy-by-default features, GoDaddy said, will result in public disclosure of name, address, telephone and email of legitimate website owners, exposing them to "foreseeable privacy and security risks" such as stalking and harassment.

As domain names operate globally, not locally, the order could force GoDaddy to regulate website addresses across the world, it said. On the court's order imposing a 72-hour deadline on companies to provide registration details to anyone with "legitimate interest", GoDaddy argues it has no wherewithal to assess who has legitimate interest or not. The "commercially destabilising" directives may force domain name companies to "exit India", said one of GoDaddy's appeal documents that ran into 5,121 pages... GoDaddy rivals, Arizona-based Namecheap and Netherlands-based Hosting Concepts, have also challenged the New Delhi ruling, court records show, although Reuters could not ascertain details of their appeals...

GoDaddy argues that diluting the privacy feature will run contrary to India's data protection law and the European Union GDPR law which mandates a "privacy by default" approach. Farzaneh Badii, a New York-based researcher on internet governance, criticised the New Delhi ruling, noting that Europe redacted such details because publishing them had been abused by harassment and targeted phishing. "The people exposed will be journalists, activists, small business owners, and private individuals. The brand impersonators will not," she said...

While the sweeping December directives were issued by a court, they followed government's submissions, documents showed... The judges will hear the appeals on July 16.



GoDaddy manages 80 million domains and serves over 20 million users, the article points out, with
annual revenue over $5 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

George Russell admits "I'm not going to fight for a championship if the performances continue like that", despite claiming his first podium in the British Grand Prix.

ART Grand Prix rookie Maciej Gladysz finished fourth on the road but inherited victory after multiple penalties elsewhere.

Following his podium at the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton faced the stewards post-race after being investigated for a yellow flag infringement.

After being overshadowed by his British team mate for much of the season, Charles Leclerc chose the British Grand Prix to rediscover his form for Ferrari - and you obviously enjoyed his performance.

Charles Leclerc believes "the feeling was back where it needs to be" after taking victory in the British Grand Prix, which was the Ferrari driver's first win since 2024.

Nikola Tsolov made it two from two at Silverstone, as the Red Bull Junior followed his Sprint Race victory with a dominant win in Sunday’s Feature.

Charles Leclerc emerged as the victor in a hugely eventful British Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver taking the win while Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli fell backwards following an issue on his car.

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Tijdje niks van gehoord maar juist dan zijn ze het gevaarlijkst (of zo): DRONES. Afgelopen donderdag publiceerde het Britse International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) een uitgebreid rapport over de 'Russische dronecampagne boven Europa'. Een rapport dat DPG-titels als het AD en HLN, bekend van dronepaniek, maar wat graag aangrijpen om de dronepaniek nog wat verder op te poken met stukjes die de verstrekkende conclusies klakkeloos overnemen met verwijzing naar verschillende dronemomenten. Terwijl er best wat voorbeelden zijn waarbij de dronepaniek niet alleen dronepaniek, maar zelfs TOTALE HYSTERIE bleek te zijn. 

Een kritische noot is derhalve gewenst, en die kwam gelukkig ook. Bijvoorbeeld van Defensiedeskundige Patrick Bolder, en die verkoopt bij Omroep Brabant geen kolder: "De drones zijn niet gefilmd en konden ook niet worden neergeschoten. Maar IISS acht de kans groot dat ze vanaf Russische schepen zijn gelanceerd, omdat er op dat moment schepen op de Noordzee waren en omdat het past binnen het beeld van Russische hybride oorlogsvoering. Zij vinden dat voldoende bewijs, maar ik niet. Als je niet eens met zekerheid kunt vaststellen dat het drones waren, omdat ze niet zijn gefilmd, of om wat voor type drones het ging, dan kun je ook niet zeggen wie erachter zat."

Ook vriend van de show, dronewatcher en dronograaf (?) Wiebe de Jager zag dat de conclusie, dat de drones waarschijnlijk vanaf Russische schepen zijn gelanceerd, al te makkelijk getrokken wordt (lees zijn hele beschouwing HIERRR): "De kern van het IISS-rapport is gebaseerd op een terugkerend patroon: op momenten dat ergens in Europa drones werden gemeld, bevonden zich Russische of aan Rusland gelieerde koopvaardijschepen in de buurt van de kust. Op basis daarvan concluderen de auteurs dat het “zeer waarschijnlijk” is dat deze schepen als lanceer- of bergingsplatform voor drones hebben gediend. Maar nabijheid alleen bewijst geen oorzakelijk verband." 

De Jager jaagt voort: "Het rapport presenteert geen fysiek bewijs dat een specifieke drone koppelt aan een specifiek schip. Er zijn geen waargenomen lanceringen, geen onderschepte besturingssignalen, geen wrakstukken, geen overtuigende videobeelden en geen telemetrie- of forensische gegevens waaruit blijkt dat een drone daadwerkelijk vanaf een Russisch schip opereerde. Sterker nog: in verschillende gevallen worden meerdere schepen als mogelijke lanceerlocatie genoemd, terwijl sommige zich op meer dan honderd kilometer van de gemelde dronewaarnemingen bevonden. Het gaat daarmee om hypotheses, niet om vastgestelde feiten." 

Ofschoon het niet uit te sluiten is en zelfs heel goed mogelijk kan zijn dat (sommige van) de drones vanaf Russische schepen zijn gelanceerd, is het bewijs daarvoor dus zéér mager. Het rapport rammelt daardoor op essentiële punten, wat de DPG-titels er uiteraard niet van weerhield de paniek te zaaien waar die kan worden geoogst. Enfin, die kritische noot kunt u nu toch lezen met in het achterhoofd het aloude adagium: de meeste dronen zijn bedrog!

Meer over dronepaniek

Goed kijken!

Het de nieuwe pensioenwet is het nabestaandenpensioen op papier eenvoudiger en eerlijker geregeld, maar wie van baan wisselt of gaat zzp’en kan ongemerkt duizenden euro’s aan dekking verliezen. De belofte van meer duidelijkheid verschuift zo stilletjes het risico naar de keukentafel.

Wie denkt dat het nieuwe pensioenstelsel vooral iets is voor later, komt bedrogen uit: voor nabestaanden kan een baanwissel nu al het verschil betekenen tussen een betaalbare hypotheek en een inkomensgat van duizenden euro’s per jaar. De Wet toekomst pensioenen zorgt ervoor dat het partnerpensioen bij overlijden vóór de pensioendatum voortaan werkt als een risicoverzekering: de dekking loopt zolang iemand in dienst is en vervalt zodra hij of zij uit dienst gaat, tenzij er actief wordt gekozen voor vrijwillige voortzetting.

Formeel is er veel verbeterd. Onduidelijkheid over wie nu precies als partner geldt, wordt beperkt doordat samenwoners sneller als partner meetellen, wat toegang tot nabestaandenpensioen vergemakkelijkt. Ook wordt het partnerpensioen bij overlijden niet meer bepaald door het aantal dienstjaren, maar door het laatstverdiende salaris, met een maximum van ongeveer 50 procent, wat vooral jongere overledenen beter beschermt. Tegelijk waarschuwen pensioenjuristen en -hoogleraren dat de keerzijde van dit “modernere” stelsel zit in de nieuwe afhankelijkheid van een lopend dienstverband.

Een voorbeeld dat pensioenexperts schetsen: een 42-jarige werknemer met een jaarsalaris van 65.000 euro, getrouwd en met hoge woonlasten, stapt over naar het zzp-bestaan en zegt zijn baan op zonder vrijwillige voortzetting van het partnerpensioen te regelen. Onder het oude stelsel bleef er vaak een opgebouwd recht op partnerpensioen bestaan, ook na uitdiensttreding; in het nieuwe stelsel valt de risicodekking op het moment van vertrek simpelweg weg. Volgens onderzoekers kan het verschil in dekking over tientallen jaren oplopen tot tienduizenden euro’s, zeker als er geen alternatieve verzekering wordt afgesloten.

Daarmee verschuift het zwaartepunt van bescherming naar “eigen verantwoordelijkheid”: wie wordt ontslagen, scheidt of een nieuwe carrièrestap zet, moet binnen een jaar bewust kiezen of hij de nabestaandenverzekering voortzet en premie betaalt, vaak ten koste van de eigen pensioenpot. Pensioenexperts pleiten daarom voor automatische voortzetting, waarbij mensen actief moeten afzeggen in plaats van stilzwijgend bescherming te verliezen. Tot die tijd is één waarschuwing leidend: wie zijn loopbaan verandert zonder de kleine lettertjes te lezen, kan zijn partner zonder het te merken financieel onbeschermd achterlaten.

Als toegift op de twee Closing Times waarin “heftige” klassieke muziek werd aangestipt (hier en daar), vandaag nog een pianostuk van Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 – 2007).

Het gaat om Klavierstück IX, een redelijk toegankelijk stukje muziek, want het is vrij goed te volgen wat er gebeurt.

Een viertonig akkoord dat een verschillend aantal keren wordt aangeslagen en ondertussen steeds zachter wordt (van heel hard naar heel zacht. In muziektermen: van ff (fortissimo) naar pppp (pianississimo). Dat wordt afgewisseld met een langzaam stijgende reeks van twaalf tonen, waarbij elk afzonderlijke noot een andere lengte (duur) heeft.

Die twee elementen worden worden in tempo, dynamiek en toonhoogte in telkens andere variaties gespeeld.  Het stuk eindigt tenslotte in de hoge registers van de piano.

Klavierstück IX is een van de negentien pianostukken die Stockhausen tussen 1962 en 1961 componeerde.

Wie geïnteresseerd is in de partituur: zie hier of kijk mee tijdens het beluisteren.

In de parlementaire enquête Corona staat deze week het coronatoegangsbewijs centraal. De in 2021 ingevoerde maatregel was vanaf het begin controversieel. „Mensen voelden zich echt uit de maatschappij gedrukt.”

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo: