You might have recently gotten a spam mail that claimed to have hacked your account. Like most other spam emails, it features questionable english. Unlike most other spam mails, it also contains an actual password that you might have used in the past, and claims to have taken over your computer. So do you have to be afraid that the hacker will spill your secrets on the internet, unless you pay up?

No.

It’s the same old scam, the only new twist is that the spammers now use passwords from data breaches to “prove” their claims. It gives the spam an air of authority, if you recognize the password as being one of yours. In reality, the spammer hasn’t hacked your computer, they just downloaded a file containing usernames and passwords, and then slightly modify their email scripts. And there are a lot of breaches to choose from. Companies have gotten into the habit of storing user data indefinitely, which, coupled with questionable data security, means a lot of your stuff is available in the Internet black market whether you like it or not.

There’s not much you can do about the spam. And there’s not much you can do about companies’ data security. Even the EU’s GDPR has not (yet?) had the impact many wish it should have had. You can only make sure that you use strong and unique passwords everywhere (see issues #17 and #19 for tips on that), and to sign up for the service ’;–have i been pwned?, which not only allows you to see if any of your emails has turned up in a past data breach, but also allows you to be notified whenever a new breach surfaces with your email in it, so you can at least change that password.

Tetris

When Alexey Pajitnov released the first version of Tetris, he probably had no idea of the wild success the game would enjoy. Over 30 years later, it has been released on countless platforms and versions (YouTube) (I can highly recommend one of the recently released versions, Tetris Effect, if you own a PlayStation 4). But after all that time, you’d expect that players had discovered all the secrets and tricks to play Tetris as best and fast as they can. So why are humans suddenly getting better at Tetris? (YouTube)

The Who’s Who of Emojis

Apple was certainly not the first vendor to support small graphics to be used instead of text emojis. But when iOS 2.2 introduced the first emoji font, it not only set off a wave of various hacks to unlock them outside Japan, but also a huge influence on Emoji design for years to come. But who created the original Apple Emoji set?

Secure Emojis

Along with Emojis, mobile instant messaging apps also rose to prominence. Most of those messengers claim to employ end-to-end encryption. Only one of these, Signal, is actually somewhat trusted by cryptographers. So how does it work? The Computerphile channel dives into Instant Messaging and the Signal Protocol (YouTube)

Floppy Disks — IN SPACE

As the International Space Station turned 20 years old, one of the current astronauts-in-residence, Germany’s Alexander Gerst, decided to do some spring cleaning — and discovered that the International Space Station is full of floppy disks.

📖 Weekly Longread 📚

If you’re not a motorsports fan, you probably regard it as a waste of resources. And you probably also regard the claim that racing technology ends up in everyday cars. Nobody can ever go that fast on real roads anyway, right? But you’d be surprised how much influence racing has on road car design: From efficiency to airflow, it’s a golden age for racing tech in our driveways.

🦄 Unicorn Chaser 🦄

An Incredible Video of What It’s Like to Orbit the Earth for 90 Minutes