ForgottenFlux

Discord isn’t exactly known for generous file-sharing limits, still, the messaging app offered a 25MB limit to free users. The company has now updated its support page to reflect the upload limit for free users has been lowered to 10MB.

A judge in Ohio has issued a temporary restraining order against a security researcher who presented evidence that a recent ransomware attack on the city of Columbus scooped up reams of sensitive personal information, contradicting claims made by city officials.

The order, issued by a judge in Ohio's Franklin County, came after the city of Columbus fell victim to a ransomware attack on July 18 that siphoned 6.5 terabytes of the city’s data. A ransomware group known as Rhysida took credit for the attack and offered to auction off the data with a starting bid of about $1.7 million in bitcoin. On August 8, after the auction failed to find a bidder, Rhysida released what it said was about 45 percent of the stolen data on the group’s dark web site, which is accessible to anyone with a TOR browser.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said on August 13 that a “breakthrough” in the city’s forensic investigation of the breach found that the sensitive files Rhysida obtained were either encrypted or corrupted, making them “unusable” to the thieves. Ginther went on to say the data’s lack of integrity was likely the reason the ransomware group had been unable to auction off the data.

Shortly after Ginther made his remarks, security researcher David Leroy Ross contacted local news outlets and presented evidence that showed the data Rhysida published was fully intact and contained highly sensitive information regarding city employees and residents. Ross, who uses the alias Connor Goodwolf, presented screenshots and other data that showed the files Rhysida had posted included names from domestic violence cases and Social Security numbers for police officers and crime victims. Some of the data spanned years.

On Thursday, the city of Columbus sued Ross for alleged damages for criminal acts, invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conversion. The lawsuit claimed that downloading documents from a dark web site run by ransomware attackers amounted to him “interacting” with them and required special expertise and tools.

For Android users seeking a privacy-focused browser, Privacy Guides recommends Mull:

Mull is a privacy oriented and deblobbed Android browser based on Firefox. Compared to Firefox, it offers much greater fingerprinting protection out of the box, and disables JavaScript Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation for enhanced security. It also removes all proprietary elements from Firefox, such as replacing Google Play Services references.

Mull enables many features upstreamed by the Tor uplift project using preferences from Arkenfox. Proprietary blobs are removed from Mozilla's code using the scripts developed for Fennec F-Droid.

For Android users seeking a privacy-focused browser, Privacy Guides recommends Mull:

Mull is a privacy oriented and deblobbed Android browser based on Firefox. Compared to Firefox, it offers much greater fingerprinting protection out of the box, and disables JavaScript Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation for enhanced security. It also removes all proprietary elements from Firefox, such as replacing Google Play Services references.

Mull enables many features upstreamed by the Tor uplift project using preferences from Arkenfox. Proprietary blobs are removed from Mozilla's code using the scripts developed for Fennec F-Droid.

For Android users seeking a privacy-focused browser, Privacy Guides recommends Mull:

Mull is a privacy oriented and deblobbed Android browser based on Firefox. Compared to Firefox, it offers much greater fingerprinting protection out of the box, and disables JavaScript Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation for enhanced security. It also removes all proprietary elements from Firefox, such as replacing Google Play Services references.

Mull enables many features upstreamed by the Tor uplift project using preferences from Arkenfox. Proprietary blobs are removed from Mozilla's code using the scripts developed for Fennec F-Droid.

X briefly discouraged users from viewing a link to an NPR story about Donald Trump's recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, raising questions about whether the Elon Musk-owned platform is putting its thumb on the scale for the former president.

On Thursday, NPR reporter Stephen Fowler posted a link to a story in which he quoted an Army official who said that an employee at Arlington National Cemetery was “abruptly pushed aside” during an event attended by Trump and members of his campaign earlier this week. The outlet had previously reported that there was a “physical altercation” at the event with campaign staff over federal laws barring campaign activities at the cemetery.

Some users on X who attempted to click a link to the story were greeted with a warning message saying that X deemed that “this link may be unsafe.” It stated that it could be malicious, violent, spammy or otherwise violate the platform’s rules, but didn't explain why the link was flagged. Fowler posted a thread on X, each tweet of which contained a link to his story — the warning appeared to affect the first two instances of the link but not others, for reasons unknown. It’s highly unusual for such a warning to appear before a link to a mainstream website. Other links to NPR, as well as other coverage of Trump’s visit to Arlington, don’t appear to have such a label.

In a statement to an NPR reporter, an X spokesperson claimed the warning appeared due to a "false positive" and that it had been corrected. The company didn't explain further.

Notably, Musk has been a vocal supporter of Trump this election, and recently held a lengthy live streamed conversation with him on X. Musk has also publicly feuded with NPR in the past, adding a “state affiliated media” label to its account for several months last year. NPR hasn’t posted from its main account on X since the label was added last April.