Month: August 2024
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, Arrested in France
Reuters:
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the
Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside
Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and
placed in custody, three sources told Reuters.
The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on
Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded
his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free
speech in Europe was under attack.
Such a warning is particularly rich coming from Russia so soon after the negotiated release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship,
was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into
allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of
moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a
third French police source said.
I don’t yet have enough information to form an opinion on this arrest, but I will emphasize one point. There’s a reaction going around that this is ridiculous because Telegram is “encrypted” and thus can’t be moderated so arresting Durov for failing to moderate Telegram is a backdoor way of arresting him for providing encrypted communication. This is the result of a yearslong propaganda campaign by Telegram to describe itself using adjectives like “encrypted” and “secure”. It’s not. But the propaganda campaign has been extraordinarily successful.
Here’s Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike back in February 2022, who, say what you will about Signal and the Signal Foundation, knows his shit about actual end-to-end encryption:
Telegram is the most popular messenger in urban Ukraine. After a
decade of misleading marketing and press, most ppl there believe
it’s an “encrypted app”
The reality is the opposite-TG is by default a cloud database w/ a
plaintext copy of every msg everyone has ever sent/recvd.
One-on-one chats in Telegram are not encrypted by default and group chats never are. Telegram employees have access to every single message ever sent to every group.
So, given how widely used Telegram is — perhaps especially in Ukraine — you can see why Russia is upset that Durov was arrested.
★
Reuters:
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the
Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside
Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and
placed in custody, three sources told Reuters.
The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on
Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded
his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free
speech in Europe was under attack.
Such a warning is particularly rich coming from Russia so soon after the negotiated release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship,
was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into
allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of
moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a
third French police source said.
I don’t yet have enough information to form an opinion on this arrest, but I will emphasize one point. There’s a reaction going around that this is ridiculous because Telegram is “encrypted” and thus can’t be moderated so arresting Durov for failing to moderate Telegram is a backdoor way of arresting him for providing encrypted communication. This is the result of a yearslong propaganda campaign by Telegram to describe itself using adjectives like “encrypted” and “secure”. It’s not. But the propaganda campaign has been extraordinarily successful.
Here’s Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike back in February 2022, who, say what you will about Signal and the Signal Foundation, knows his shit about actual end-to-end encryption:
Telegram is the most popular messenger in urban Ukraine. After a
decade of misleading marketing and press, most ppl there believe
it’s an “encrypted app”
The reality is the opposite-TG is by default a cloud database w/ a
plaintext copy of every msg everyone has ever sent/recvd.
One-on-one chats in Telegram are not encrypted by default and group chats never are. Telegram employees have access to every single message ever sent to every group.
So, given how widely used Telegram is — perhaps especially in Ukraine — you can see why Russia is upset that Durov was arrested.
‘Aim To Send Astronauts To Moon By 2040’: ISRO Chief S Somanath On Lunar Missions, Robot Vyomitra, Gaganyaan And More
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NYT Connections today: See hints and answers for August 26
Connections is a New York Times word game that’s all about finding the “common threads between words.” How to solve the puzzle.
Connections is the latest New York Times word game that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for August 26’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Agreement
Green: Geometrically oval shapes
Blue: Bad swing
Purple: Sounds like a shoe
Featured Video For You
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Official Sanctioning
Green: Torus-shaped Things
Blue: Bad Golf Shots
Purple: Footwear Minus “ER” Sound
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #442 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
Official Sanctioning: APPROVAL, BLESSING, CONSENT, SUPPORT
Torus-shaped Things: BAGEL, LIFESAVER, TIRE, WREATH
Bad Golf Shots: HOOK, SHANK, SLICE, WHIFF
Footwear Minus “ER” Sound: LOAF, SLIP, SNEAK, WADE
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
You’re watching ‘Industry’ wrong
Praise for HBO show “Industry”s hilarious background dialogue that you need subtitles to fully appreciate.
There’s a lot of great dialogue in Industry. But if you aren’t watching with subtitles on, you’re missing out on the best of it.
The financial HBO show is on its third season of mess and drama perpetrated by employees at the fictional investment bank Pierpoint & Co., and it finally got bumped up to the prime Sunday night spot. Mashable’s Belen Edwards praised Season 3’s experimentation, writing, “that atmosphere of high-risk, high-reward decision-making, complemented by high-risk, high-reward television-making, makes watching Industry a high of its own. It’s brutal, it’s intoxicating, and it’s never been better,” in her Season 3 review.
Among the zingers featured in Sunday’s episode’s audible dialogue:
“I’ll just let other people call you a posh cunt behind your back,” Rob (Harry Lawtey) lobs at manchild and Lumi founder Henry (Kit Harington) moments before they tussle in Lumi’s ball pit.
“Do we have a jacket in the office?” a nervy Henry asks his assistant. “No, you implemented a no-jacket policy,” she replies.
“You are the godmother to fucking Boadicea,” a livid Anna (Elena Saurel) snaps at Petra (Sarah Goldberg), her partner at FutureDawn, her ESG start-up.
If you love this stuff you can hear upon first watch, you’re going to have a feast with your eyes when you turn closed captions on.
In an interview with The Watch podcast in 2020, Industry co-creator Konrad Kay explained that the show’s sound design encourages the use of closed captions. “[When we were designing it, we said] it has to be loud, it has to be oppressive. HBO was like, people are not going to be able to hear your dialogue…you cannot start an HBO drama with a disclaimer, ‘Please turn on the closed captioning otherwise you won’t enjoy it,'” said Kay. Despite HBO’s concerns, Kay and his co-creator Mickey Down went full speed ahead with their atypical approach.
The financial drama makes the case for closed captions with its breakneck-speed conversations in a variety of accents, some more legible than others. (Rob has a particular mumble-grunt delivery that has me rewinding and reaching for closed captions.) And the talk often features more financial jargon than is healthy for the average person’s consumption. But closed captions also reveal hidden gems. The tool picks up what human ears might not: the hilarious background dialogue.
Rishi (Sagar Radia) talking some shit out of the side of his mouth on the desk? Closed captions have you covered. A group of people seemingly out of earshot murmuring about the inevitable chaos? It’s all written there on the bottom of your screen. The reactions after Gus (David Jonsson) says something peculiar and the camera follows him out of the room? I think you know the answer.
As one X user wrote, “hey @TheEmmys you need to create a category for background dialogue so the #IndustryHBO writers room can get their flowers.” The post captioned a series of screenshots from last week’s episode, including some truly wild remarks about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce — as always, Industry is endlessly relevant. Author Daniel José Older also tweeted, “you must watch #Industry with the captions on. Even if you’re fluent in Assorted British, do it for the murmured background convos which are consistently amazing.”
In the The Watch interview, Down explained that they wrote an entire script of automated dialogue replacement (ADR) — the industry term for background noise — per episode. While the co-creators worried that they included too much ADR, Down emphasized its role in creating Pierpoint’s realistic open-concept office and undercutting the tense scenes of the show with humor.
As Season 3 gains viewership thanks to its primetime HBO Sunday night spot, the fandom for the show’s gimmick also grows. On X, despite streaming services blocking screenshots due to copyright concerns, fans manage to screenshot and swap stills of their favorite ADR moments. The show’s subreddit features threads of appreciation for the entertaining background noise. Over on YouTube, a compilation of Rishi’s best moments, consisting of almost entirely off-camera one-liners (with subtitles already added) racked up nearly 200,000 views.
All-timers include this off-camera exchange between Greg (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) and Rishi:
“I just think, you know, if I had biceps like that…with the vein running down through it, that, that bulge, you know…”
“Like Zac Efron?”
“Yeah, the Zac Efron.”
“The Zefron.”
“Yeah, I know I should be thinking about other things, like the suicide rate among men my age or whatever…”
And there are dozens of such cases you too could be privy to.
The outrageous background dialogue not only adds humor to the show, but it postitions the viewer right in the middle of the overwhelming world of Pierpoint. No wonder our favorite guys in finance can’t think straight. If I was hearing Rishi’s constant chatter, I, too, might make my fair share of awful decisions.
Be sure to turn those closed captions on for the full Pierpoint experience. And if you haven’t been doing this the whole time, it might be worth a rewatch to pick up on all the background goodness.
Industry Season 3 releases new episodes weekly at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays on HBO and Max.