Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.
In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.
"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.
For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.
This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.
"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.
The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.
"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.
In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.
"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".
The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.
The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".
New Delhi, May 28: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to shutter social media over Twitter's actions on his posts.
Mr Dorsey appealed to "leave our employees out of this" as the face-off with Mr Trump is likely to escalate.
"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make," Mr Dorsey tweeted.
"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," said the Twitter CEO.
Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.
— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
"Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We're updating the link on
@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," Mr Dorsey tweeted.
Twitter had tagged two of Mr Trump's tweets in which he claimed that more mail-in voting would lead to what he called a "rigged election" this November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the election, and under the tweets Twitter posted a link which read: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."
Five states in the US already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.
For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the US President's violation of platform rules with his daily, often hourly barrages of personal insults and inaccurate information sent to more than 80 million followers, news agency AFP reported.
But Twitter's slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr Trump into a tirade - on Twitter - in which "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.
He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.
"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.
he claimed that the political right in the US is being censored.
"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.
He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.
"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.
Seoul, Jun 6: South Korea on Saturday reported 51 new cases of COVID-19, mostly in the densely populated capital region, as authorities scramble to stem transmissions among low-income workers who can't afford to stay home.
The figures announced by South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought national totals to 11,719 workers and 273 deaths.
At least 34 of the new coronavirus cases were linked to door-to-door sellers hired by Richway, a Seoul-based health product provider.
Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said the spread of the virus among Richway sellers was particularly alarming as most of them are in their 60s and 70s. He called for officials to strengthen their efforts to find and examine workplaces vulnerable to infections.
More than 120 infections have also been linked to a massive warehouse operated by Coupang, a local e-commerce giant, which has been accused of failing to properly implement preventive measures and having employees work even when sick.
South Korea was reporting around 500 new cases per day in early March due to a massive outbreak surrounding the southern city of Daegu, before officials managed to stabilize the situation with aggressive tracking and testing.
But the recent resurgence of COVID-19 in the greater capital area, where about half of South Korea's 51 million people live, is now threatening to erase some of the country's hard-won gains. It has also led to second-guessing whether officials were too quick to ease social distancing and reopen schools.
Health authorities and hospital officials on Friday participated in a table-top exercise for sharing hospital capacities between Seoul and nearby cities and ensure swift transports of patients so that a spike of cases in one area doesn't overwhelm its hospital system.
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