Can we stop pretending Trump is fit to be president? Admitting that, and incorporating it into public discourse, is on the road to moving beyond Trump.

Thousands of enterprise systems are believed to have been infected with a cryptocurrency-mining malware operated by a group tracked under the codename of Blue Mockingbird. From a report: Discovered earlier this month by malware analysts from cloud security firm Red Canary, the Blue Mockingbird group is believed to have been active since December 2019. Researchers say Blue Mockingbird attacks public-facing servers running ASP.NET apps that use the Telerik framework for their user interface (UI) component. Hackers exploit the CVE-2019-18935 vulnerability to plant a web shell on the attacked server. They then use a version of the Juicy Potato technique to gain admin-level access and modify server settings to obtain (re)boot persistence. Once they gain full access to a system, they download and install a version of XMRRig, a popular cryptocurrency mining app for the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency.

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Roughly 70% of all serious security bugs in the Chrome codebase are memory management and safety bugs, Google engineers said. From a report: Half of the 70% are use-after-free vulnerabilities, a type of security issue that arises from incorrect management of memory pointers (addresses), leaving doors open for attackers to attack Chrome's inner components. The percentage was compiled after Google engineers analyzed 912 security bugs fixed in the Chrome stable branch since 2015, bugs that had a "high" or "critical" severity rating. The number is identical to stats shared by Microsoft. Speaking at a security conference in February 2019, Microsoft engineers said that for the past 12 years, around 70% of all security updates for Microsoft products addressed memory safety vulnerabilities.

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A California company owned by UK businessman Sir Richard Branson fails to launch a rocket to orbit.

Spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, federal policy makers are pushing to spend billions of dollars to close gaps in America's high-speed internet network. From a report: There is one big obstacle: Government officials say they don't have a clear picture of where service gaps exist, meaning parts of the country will be left out when it is time to distribute the funds. While the Federal Communications Commission estimates more than 94% of Americans -- or about 309 million people -- have access to high-speed internet services, it acknowledges that number is based on flawed data from internet-service providers. The FCC requires these companies to report that they serve a census block if they can reach even a single home or business there. That means if one of your neighbors has a broadband connection, the FCC might count your house as having broadband, too -- even if the local internet-service provider can't reach you.

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Prime minister Shinzo Abe has declared victory for the "Japan model" of fighting coronavirus as he lifted a nationwide state of emergency after seven weeks [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: Speaking at a press conference on Monday evening in Tokyo, Mr Abe said that Japan had avoided an explosive increase in cases without the compulsory lockdowns used in Europe or the US. The ending of the state of emergency in the last five prefectures it covered -- Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba and Hokkaido -- will mean that the worldâ(TM)s fourth-largest economy can start to reopen for business. "In a characteristically Japanese way, we have all but brought this epidemic under control in the last month and a half," said Mr Abe. "Surely, it shows the power of the Japan model." Japan's constitution prohibits a compulsory lockdown but, under the state of emergency that began on April 7, the government requested voluntary social distancing and business closures. Under that regime, the number of new Covid-19 cases fell from 600-700 a day in mid-April to about 20-30 a day last week. The country has diagnosed 16,581 cases of coronavirus with 830 deaths -- many fewer than similar-sized populations in Europe or the US.

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Google last week removed three apps related to the QAnon conspiracy theory from its Play Store digital marketplace. From a report: The apps -- called QMAP, Q Alerts! and Q Alerts LITE -- were taken down for violating Google's policies against "harmful information," the company said. The removal was earlier reported by Media Matters for America, a progressive not-for-profit. The QAnon conspiracy theory has become popular among a group of supporters of President Donald Trump. One claim is that celebrities are involved in child sex trafficking and pedophilia. Another tenet is that Trump is working to take down the so-called "Deep State," a secret network that manipulates and controls government policy. The theory revolves around "Q," an anonymous user who began writing about the conspiracies on imageboard site 4chan.

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The World Health Organization is temporarily pausing tests of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment in order to review safety concerns, the agency's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu said Monday. From a report: The decision comes after a retrospective review published in The Lancet found that coronavirus patients who took hydroxychloroquine or its related drug chloroquine were more likely to die or develop an irregular heart rhythm that can lead to sudden cardiac death, compared to those who did nothing. The medical journal's review consisted of 96,000 hospitalized patients diagnosed with the coronavirus in six continents, the largest analysis of medical records on the drug, between Dec. 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020. Tedros said that an independent executive panel "agreed to review a comprehensive analysis and critical appraisal of all evidence available globally" regarding hydroxychloroquine in order to determine whether it should continue to be used in WHO's Solidarity Trial, a global effort to test experimental coronavirus treatments.

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Thailand's largest cell network AIS has pulled a database offline that was spilling billions of real-time internet records on millions of Thai internet users. From a report: Security researcher Justin Paine said in a blog post that he found the database, containing DNS queries and Netflow data, on the internet without a password. With access to this database, Paine said that anyone could "quickly paint a picture" about what an internet user (or their household) does in real-time. Paine alerted AIS to the open database on May 13. But after not hearing back for a week, Paine reported the apparent security lapse to Thailand's national computer emergency response team, known as ThaiCERT, which contacted AIS about the open database. The database was inaccessible a short time later. AIS spokesperson Sudaporn Watcharanisakorn confirmed AIS owned the data, and apologized for the security lapse.

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AmiMoJo shares a report: When visiting the eBay.com site, a script will run that performs a local port scan of your computer to detect remote support and remote access applications. Many of these ports are related to remote access/remote support tools such as the Windows Remote Desktop, VNC, TeamViewer, Ammy Admin, and more. After learning about this, BleepingComputer conducted a test and can confirm that eBay.com is indeed performing a local port scan of 14 different ports when visiting the site.

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Automated technology that Twitter began using this month to label tweets containing coronavirus misinformation is making mistakes, raising concerns about the company's reliance on artificial intelligence to review content. From a report: On May 11, Twitter started labeling tweets that spread a conspiracy theory about 5G causing the coronavirus. Authorities believe the false theory prompted some people to set fires to cell towers. Twitter will remove misleading tweets that encourage people to engage in behavior such as damaging cell towers. Other tweets that don't incite the same level of harm but include false or disputed claims should get a label that directs users to trusted information. The label reads "Get the facts about COVID-19" and takes users to a page with curated tweets that debunk the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory. Twitter's technology, though, has made scores of mistakes, applying labels to tweets that refute the conspiracy theory and provide accurate information. Tweets that include links to news stories from Reuters, BBC, Wired and Voice of America about the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory have been labeled. In one case, Twitter applied the label to tweets that shared a page the company itself had published titled "No, 5G isn't causing coronavirus." Tweets with words such as 5G, coronavirus, COVID-19 or hashtags #5Gcoronavirus have also been mistakenly labeled.

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Requiring federal agents to have "probable cause" to eavesdrop on the internet activities of American citizens poses a direct threat to national security and would force the FBI to stand by while terrorist plots unfold on U.S. soil, according to a leaked copy of talking points distributed to Senate lawmakers this month. From a report: The talking points, which were distributed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, seek to provide a communications guide for promoting an amendment floated by McConnell this year that would have expanded the U.S. Justice Department's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The document was circulated on Capitol Hill ahead of a Senate vote this month to reinstate three key FBI surveillance authorities under the USA FREEDOM Authorization Act, including Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which expired March 15. A draft being circulated in the Senate reportedly contained an "alarming expansion of Attorney General Bill Barr's powers under FISA" and "explicitly permits" the warrantless collection of Americans' internet search and browser data by the FBI.

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In The Atlantic Tom Nichols writes that Trump is not a manly president. I don't particularly care for that approach, I think honor and modesty are traits that should apply regardless of gender. We have the president we deserve. We're the country that went to war without a draft, whose citizens got tax cuts while at war, whose citizens expect more of that, to us it's never enough. We expect to be able to inflict chaos around the world and somehow never to be touched by it ourselves. That's why people are out partying with abandon this weekend. They can't imagine they can pay a price. There's a reason Vietnam is responding to the virus so incredibly well and we're responding so poorly. They remember fighting for their independence. To us, independence is a birth right. A distant memory that's become perverted. We have to fight for it again. The virus is giving us that chance. We can't get out of the pandemic until we grow up as individuals and collectively. Trump is the right president for who we are. We won't get a better one until we deserve a better one.

Parents share a roof but see little of teenagers who have adopted vampire schedules; "Sometimes, my dad just wants me to wake up for no reason." From a report: Paul Cancellieri wakes up most mornings around 6 a.m. He makes himself breakfast. Then he says good night to his 16-year-old son, Cole. Cole, a high-school junior in Wake Forest, N.C., is one of the American teens who have gone nocturnal in the Covid-19 pandemic. While some schools require students to log on to live classes, many others are instead assigning work for students to complete on their own. With no daytime commitments, some teens prefer to stay up all night and sleep days. Some watch movies or chat with friends on similar schedules. Others do homework without their folks hovering. "I feel more relaxed, honestly," said Zach Zimmerman, a high-school senior in Mansfield, Texas. That was in April, when he was in the habit of going to bed around 10 a.m. and waking up in the late afternoon. This month, Zach started taking an online college class that starts at 1 p.m., forcing him back to daylight hours. "When my college classes are over," he said, "I'll probably go back." Some parents welcome the daytime peace and quiet. They say it isn't worth arguing over bedtimes when teens are stuck at home and have no compelling reason to rise early. Gabrielle Powell, a 17-year-old in Escondido, Calif., spends her nights on Snapchat and video calls with friends. She plows through TV shows like "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" and "All American," she said, and makes macaroni and cheese. Her post-dawn bedtime varies. She recently broke her routine for the Advanced Placement calculus exam, at the ungodly late 11 a.m. Gabrielle stayed awake the rest of the day before going to sleep, but she soon returned to the night shift.

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An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: Texas Instruments' graphing calculators have a reputation as hobbyist devices given their program support, but they just lost some of their appeal. Cemetech has learned (via Linus Tech Tips) that Texas Instruments is pulling support for assembly- and C-based programs on the TI-84 Plus CE and its French counterpart, the TI-83 Premium CE. Install the latest firmware for both (OS 5.6 and OS 5.5 respectively) and you'll not only lose access to those apps, but won't have a way to roll back. The company explained the move as an effort to "prioritize learning and minimize any security risks." It's to reduce cheating, to put it another way... While this could please teachers worried that students will use apps to cheat during exams, enthusiasts are unsurprisingly mad. This reduces the amount of control programmers have over their calculator apps.

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