In a blog post promoting the capabilities of its commercial security platform -- the Microsoft Defender ATP -- Microsoft said that on a daily basis the company's security team detects and tracks on average around 77,000 active web shells, spread across 46,000 infected servers. From a report: But while the Microsoft blog post goes on to promote Defender ATP's industry-recognized detection capabilities, the nugget in Microsoft's recent marketing material is the 77,000 and 46,000 daily statistics. These two numbers are staggering in terms of size, and especially the 77,000 figure, which is far far larger than any previous reports about web shell prevalence. For example, earlier this month GoDaddy's Sucuri reported on cleaning around 3,600 web shells from hacked websites during all last year, in 2019, a number dwarfed by Microsoft's daily detection count. Microsoft's numbers highlight the prevalence of these tools in the today's hackers' arsenals -- where web shells are considered a must for every threat actor, from lowly hacktivist groups defacing websites to state-sponsored cyber-espionage groups.

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With the new coronavirus coronavirus spreading from person to person (possibly including from people without symptoms), reaching four continents, and traveling faster than SARS, driving it out of existence is looking increasingly unlikely. From a report: It's still possible that quarantines and travel bans will first halt the outbreak and then eradicate the microbe, and the world will never see 2019-nCoV again, as epidemiologist Dr. Mike Ryan, head of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, told STAT on Saturday. That's what happened with SARS in 2003. Many experts, however, view that happy outcome as increasingly unlikely. "Independent self-sustaining outbreaks [of 2019-nCoV] in major cities globally could become inevitable because of substantial exportation of pre-symptomatic cases," scientists at the University of Hong Kong concluded in a paper published in The Lancet last week. Researchers are therefore asking what seems like a defeatist question but whose answer has huge implications for public policy: What will a world with endemic 2019-nCoV -- circulating permanently in the human population -- be like?

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Major change ahead for LinkedIn, the social network for the working world, now with 675 million members. From a report: Jeff Weiner, who has been leading the company as CEO for the past 11 years, is stepping down on June 1, 2020. His new role will be executive chairman. Ryan Roslansky, who is currently head of product, will be stepping up to the new role of CEO, while Tomer Cohen, who had been under Roslansky, is stepping up to lead the team. The changes are the company's biggest -- and actually, only -- big executive shakeup since LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. It's notable that both of the new appointments are of long-time LinkedIn executives: don't rock the boat too much, don't fix what isn't broken, and all that. As for what Weiner will be doing next, in a blog post announcing his departure, he notes that LinkedIn was his "dream job" and that he's moving on to the next "dream job" as exec. chairman.

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Scientists said 99% of understanding of cancer was missing until today.

An anonymous reader shares a report: One of the most interesting details from the yesterday's Joshua Schulte trial involved how the FBI obtained the Vault 7 and Vault 8 materials they entered into evidence yesterday. Because the FBI did not want to download the files onto an existing FBI computer (in part, out of malware concerns) and because they didn't want to use an FBI IP address, they got a new computer and downloaded all the files at Starbucks.

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Nasa astronaut Christina Koch is set to complete the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.

In search of affordable housing, tech employees move all the way into the Central Valley. Private tech shuttles follow. From a report: It's 2:30 a.m. in the Central California farm town of Salida, and the only sound is the tech bus pulling into an unmarked lot surrounded by barbed wire. Men and women in work boots board in the moonlight. Next stop is 11 miles away in Manteca, and then it's another 55 miles to Fremont on the San Francisco Bay, where -- an hour and a half hour later -- the 4 a.m. shift at the Tesla factory starts. Welcome to life on Silicon Valley's new frontier. When tech companies first introduced private shuttles for their employees more than a decade ago, they served the affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco and the Peninsula. Now the buses reach as far as the almond orchards of Salida and the garlic fields of Gilroy. Tech companies have grown tight-lipped about the specifics of their shuttle programs in the wake of high-profile protests in San Francisco. But Protocol was able to locate enough stops for company shuttles to confirm that some tech shuttles now drive all the way out to the Central Valley, an agricultural hub once a world away from the tech boom on the coast. "That just tells you the story of the Bay Area," said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of regional think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. "We're going to be in these farther-flung places, and that's our reality because we're not going to be able to create affordable housing." Tech shuttle sprawl speaks to the unique pressures that the industry has put on the region. High tech salaries have driven up housing prices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the East Bay, forcing white- and blue-collar workers alike to move farther away from their jobs. The crisis is compounded by anti-development politics that make it hard to build new housing and patchwork public transit systems that make it difficult for commuters to get to work without driving.

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Scientists use the remains of wasps’ nests to date Australia’s ancient aboriginal rock art.

An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced that Chrome's ad blocker is expanding to video on August 5, 2020. As with previous ad blocker rollouts, the date is likely not tied to a specific Chrome version -- Google will be expanding the scope of its browser's ad blocker server-side. YouTube and other websites with video content will have to review their ads to make sure they are compliant. The Coalition for Better Ads today announced a new set of standards for ads that show during video content, based on research from 45,000 consumers worldwide. There are many different types of ads that can run before, during, or after a video, but the Coalition is banning just three for videos less than 8 minutes long: mid-roll ads, pre-roll ads, and large display ads.

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I saw a tweet by Joe Biden just now where he asks if the government he was part of was a failure. When you ask the question like that, the answer is somewhat startling. Yes. The Obama government was a failure. In the same way the French government of 1940 was a failure. Sure, they passed some good laws, and the people of France were happy, but when the Germans marched into Paris in 1940, you would have to say that the existing government of France failed.

We were attacked in 2016, and we lost. How do I know we lost? We're not mounting a defense. We didn't counter-attack. If we had, and we had won, Putin would be gone, and Russia would be establishing an American style government. Instead, Putin is fine, and we're installing, gradually, a Russian-style government. That's the only explanation for what's happening in the Senate this afternoon at 4PM Eastern.

Biden, if he has any honor, will withdraw from the race. We lost. He was VP when we lost. We cannot under any circumstances go back to that approach. That would be certainly a loser. If there's any hope for us, we need a very radical departure from the previous path, and I do not mean Bernie Sanders. People who think that are as much in denial as Joe Biden was before he asked the question. Now that he has, if he has guts like he says he does, it's time to step aside.

PS: Is there a reason Nancy Pelosi can't be the next president? If there is I don't know what it is. In fact, she is our leader. And a very good one at that.

Apple this week has been granted a patent for a foldable device with a unique hinge mechanism that utilizes movable flaps to help prevent the display from being creased or damaged when folded. From a report: Published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today, the patent explains that the hinge mechanism would ensure adequate separation between the first and second portions of the display. When the device is unfolded, movable flaps would extend to cover the gap, and then retract when the device is folded. Early foldable smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X have noticeable creases along the bending portion of the display. Motorola's new foldable Razr avoids this issue with a unique hinge design, but early reviews indicate the device makes creaking sounds when opened or closed.

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NASA's Parker Solar Probe is healthy and operating as designed following its fourth close approach to the Sun, called perihelion, on Jan. 29. From a report: Mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, received a "status A" beacon from the spacecraft at 5:20 a.m. EST on Feb. 1. Status A is the best of four possible status signals, and indicates that the spacecraft is operating nominally and the instrument suites are collecting science data. This status also indicates that any minor issues that may have occurred were identified and resolved by Parker Solar Probe's onboard autonomy and fault management systems. During this perihelion, Parker Solar Probe broke its own records for speed and proximity to the Sun for a human-made object. The spacecraft reached a speed of 244,255 miles per hour (about 393,044 kilometers per hour) as it whipped around the Sun at a distance of 11.6 million miles (about 18.6 million kilometers). Parker Solar Probe's heat shield, called the Thermal Protection System, or TPS, reached new record temperatures as well. At this distance from the Sun, computer modeling estimates show that the Sun-facing side of the TPS experienced a blazing 1,134 degrees Fahrenheit (612 degrees C), about 300 degrees hotter than encountered on the spacecraft's previous three perihelia. The spacecraft and instruments behind this protective heat shield remained at a temperature of about 85 F (30 C). During the spacecraft's closest three perihelia in 2024-25, the TPS will see temperatures around 2,500 F (1,370 C).

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Tim the elephant had tusks so long, they reached the ground. He died of natural causes.

By exploiting randomness, three mathematicians have proved an elegant law that underlies the chaotic motion of turbulent systems. From a report: Picture a calm river. Now picture a torrent of white water. What is the difference between the two? To mathematicians and physicists it's this: The smooth river flows in one direction, while the torrent flows in many different directions at once. Physical systems with this kind of haphazard motion are called turbulent. The fact that their motion unfolds in so many different ways at once makes them difficult to study mathematically. Generations of mathematicians will likely come and go before researchers are able to describe a roaring river in exact mathematical statements. But a new proof finds that while certain turbulent systems appear unruly, they actually conform to a simple universal law. The work is one of the most rigorous descriptions of turbulence ever to emerge from mathematics. And it arises from a novel set of methods that are themselves changing how researchers study this heretofore untamable phenomenon. "It may well be the most promising approach to turbulence," said Vladimir Sverak, a mathematician at the University of Minnesota and an expert in the study of turbulence. The new work provides a way of describing patterns in moving liquids. These patterns are evident in the rapid temperature variations between nearby points in the ocean and the frenetic, stylized way that white and black paint mix together. In 1959, an Australian mathematician named George Batchelor predicted that these patterns follow an exact, regimented order. The new proof validates the truth of "Batchelor's law," as the prediction came to be known. "We see Batchelor's law all over the place," said Jacob Bedrossian, a mathematician at the University of Maryland, College Park and co-author of the proof with Alex Blumenthal and Samuel Punshon-Smith. "By proving this law, we get a better understanding of just how universal it is."

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This is going to be controversial. Yesterday I signed up for the Bloomberg campaign. I take him at his word, if he isn't the nominee, he will back the actual candidate with his money and organization. I hope he starts a political social network, the one I thought Obama was building, not to make money (eg FB, Twitter), but to fight back against the power of the trolls, who are completely winning. Someone has to do this, and I don't see any choice but Bloomberg.