There’s a security advice that you hear a lot — “Use a good password”. And it is, in fact, a good advice, even though few people can tell you what a good password actually is

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And here’s a paradoxical statement that’s just as true: Your password doesn’t matter. Alex Weinert works at Microsoft’s Security and Protection team, and he wrote about the kind of attacks that Microsoft Azure experiences every day. He outlines why in most kind of attacks, the password doesn’t really matter anyway.

As it turns out, “Use a good password” is correct, but incomplete, advice. You should use a good password, but you should also use multi-factor authentication to secure your online accounts. Just don’t use SMS to get those codes, always prefer using an authenticator app (as for why, that’s a story for another time).

Sleeper Agents

Industrial espionage has always been a problem for companies. But todays connected world has lifted that problem onto a whole new level, allowing successful attacks to become very widespread. And detecting them isn’t easy, as German public broadcasters BR and NDR are reporting: Winnti: Attacking the Heart of the German Industry.

Social Media Kills People

“It takes a lot of effort, research, and efficiency to manipulate people online and influence their behavior in the real world. Silicon Valley has it down to a science”: Shoot-‘Em-Up Videogames Don’t Warp Minds—Big Tech Does

Galactic Burp

Most galaxies are believed to have a super-massive black hole at their center. We know that our galaxy has one — and at 4 million times the Sun’s mass, it deserves the “super-massive” moniker. And recently, the supermassive black hole in our galaxy recently erupted… and we don’t know why.

Seeing is Believing

Explaining why some things are incredibly easy for computers, while others are incredibly hard for them, yet easy for us humans, can be difficult. But some of those “incredibly hard” areas are starting to fall: How computers got shockingly good at recognizing images.

Net of Hate

Hate groups are much more prominent today that they used to be — and that rise is thanks to social media. Most sites don’t really know what to do about them (or even want to). And a recent study examines why it is so hard to excise them: Tracking online hate groups reveals why they’re resilient to bans.

📖 Weekly Longreads 📚

“From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again”: The Great American Bubble Machine

🦄 Unicorn Chaser 🦄

Earth’s Rotation Visualized in a Timelapse of the Milky Way Galaxy (YouTube)