Wired Security Spoken Edition

It’s true: Facebook has experienced a number of security-related issues lately, including a breach disclosed in September that compromised at least 30 million accounts. But that incident doesn’t explain why tens of thousands of private Facebook messages reportedly ended up for sale on an internet forum the same month, according to the BBC Russian Service. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As websites and web apps have grown in complexity, so have their demands: They want access to your webcam to make video calls, they want to know where in the world you are to serve up local information, and so on. In fact, websites now ask for almost as many permissions as the apps on your phone do, though you might not be as familiar with how to manage them. We'll show you how. We'll also explain how to restrict the cookies and other data websites can save locally on your laptop. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The midterm elections are just a few days away. Though historically the president’s party takes a beating in the House and Senate, that’s far from assured this year. Will the midterms be a rebuke or an endorsement of the Trump administration? On November 6, you will decide. As 2016 emphatically demonstrated, elections are also a major battleground for information warfare. Coordinated misinformation campaigns focus not just on individual candidates but also the electoral system itself. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Over two days during the summer of 2009, experts from inside and outside Google met to forge a roadmap for how the company would approach user privacy. At the time, Google was under fire for its data collection practices and user tracking. The summit was designed to codify ways that users could feel more in control. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Beware of Chinese spies offering laptops, women, or educational stipends—and especially watch out for odd LinkedIn requests. On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed new charges against 10 Chinese intelligence officers and hackers who it says perpetrated a years-long scheme to steal trade secrets from aerospace companies. The case continues an impressive tempo from the Justice Department, as it continues to try curb China's massive, wide-ranging, and long-running espionage campaign. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

11 people were killed and six others—including four police officers—injured Saturday when a gunman opened fire during a baby-naming ceremony at the Tree of Life Congregation, a Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The shooter, Robert Bowers, 46, surrendered to the police and was taken to the hospital, a local councilwoman told the The New York Times. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Friday, Facebook shut down another network of 82 accounts, pages, and groups that have been posing as US and UK citizens since 2016. The network, which Facebook said it discovered a week ago and originated in Iran, spread memes, articles, and other posts about political topics in the US and UK, including race relations, the upcoming midterm election in the US, and the recent confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. They also hosted seven events. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mac malware is more common than Apple generally likes to admit. But a new protection in the company's specialized T2 security chip hints at a sophisticated type of attack that the company may be trying to preempt. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A key part of what makes Signal the leading encrypted messaging app is its effort to minimize the amount of data or metadata each message leaves behind. The messages themselves are fully encrypted as they move across Signal's infrastructure, and the service doesn't store logs of information like who sends messages to each other, or when. On Monday, the nonprofit that develops Signal announced a new initiative to take those protections even further. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Police have arrested 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc in connection with 13 explosive devices sent to prominent Democrats and CNN this week. Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed the arrest during a press conference on Friday, while FBI director Christopher Wray detailed how law enforcement officers tracked him down so quickly. Sayoc was arrested Friday outside an AutoZone in Plantation, Florida. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The most popular video game in the world is Fortnite—which makes Fortnite scams a potentially very profitable endeavor. And while that point may seem obvious, the extent of Fortnite fakes on the web, along with how convincingly they mimic their inspirations, may still surprise you. Fortnite opportunists have plagued the internet since the game’s launch; WIRED has previously looked at the scourge of fake app downloads connected to the game’s controversial Android launch. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In December, researchers spotted a new family of industrial control malware that had been used in an attack on a Middle Eastern energy plant. Known as Triton, or Trisis, the suite of hacking tools is one of only a handful of known cyberweapons developed specifically to undermine or destroy industrial equipment. Now, new research from security firm FireEye suggests that at least one element of the Triton campaign originated from Russia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Three days after last Christmas, a 25-year-old Los Angeles man named Tyler Barriss allegedly called police in Wichita, Kansas, and pretended that he’d murdered his father and was holding hostages in a house near the city’s downtown. Barriss thought the house belonged to an avid Call of Duty gamer he wanted to harass, but he was mistaken about the address. (WIRED has published a detailed account of the case. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It's no secret that President Donald Trump tweets at all hours, and calls friends and advisors late into the night. But a New York Times report indicates that, thanks in part to Trump's use of a personal iPhone, Chinese and Russian spies are listening in on his calls. That other countries would want to spy on Trump should come as no surprise. The US certainly does its share of surveillance on world leaders. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, apparent explosive devices have targeted the mailboxes of former President Barack Obama, former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, philanthropist George Soros, and cable news network CNN. Additional reports of suspicious packages have continued to emerge Wednesday, and the situation is still developing. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A cascade of explosive devices and suspicious packages targeting the homes of prominent Democrats and the New York offices of CNN were intercepted Wednesday morning, sending the internet's misinformation machine into a tailspin. Two packages were intercepted en route to the homes of President Barack Obama and former President and First Lady Bill and Hillary Clinton. Another, containing a pipe bomb and an envelope of white powder, was discovered in the CNN building mailroom. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Call it the era of misinformation. Call it a crisis of trust. If you must, call it fake news. The truth is that in 2018, hot-button news events are immediately weaponized online by interested parties, whether that’s foreign actors trying to undermine democracy, local politicians trying to rally their base, spammers trying to make a quick buck, even trolls in it for the old-fashioned lulz—or all of the above. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

I understand that it’s easy to dismiss Tyler Barriss as a monster who should never be granted a platform to tell his own story. He took pleasure in terrorizing strangers with his hoaxes, and his alleged actions—calling authorities in Wichita, Kansas, and pretending that he was holding a family hostage—led to an innocent man being shot dead by police last December. Barriss' reaction to Andrew Finch’s death has betrayed a chilling lack of empathy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In September 2017, barely two months before Virginians went to the polls to pick a new governor, the state’s board of elections convened an emergency session. The crisis at hand? Touchscreen voting machines. They’d been bought back in the early aughts, when districts across the country, desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2000 “hanging chads” fiasco, decided to go digital. But the new machines were a nightmare, prone to crashes and—worse—hacking. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department announced that Russia and the world’s most interesting catering company continue to attack the United States online—and that Russian Twitter trolls had even defended the efforts of special counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year. Prosecutors unsealed a September criminal complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, a 44-year-old Russian woman from St. Petersburg. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices