Security, Spoken

At the beginning of the year, revelations about a new type of processor vulnerability had far-reaching implications for devices all over the world, and this week researchers disclosed yet another of these so-called "speculative execution" flaws in Intel, AMD, and ARM chips. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Michael Caputo’s favorite novel is Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, the story of the Devil’s visit to Moscow in the 1930s and all the oddball characters who surround him. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If you've been in a large crowded place with a fair amount of security, you've probably seen bomb-sniffing dogs at work. (You may have even petted the puppers.) Dogs have long been used for detecting contraband and explosives, but attackers have made advances in body-worn explosive technology, forcing law enforcement to evolve too. This means enlisting a new type of canine defense: Vapor Wake dogs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Back in 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, WIRED was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs. We turned on the Roku-looking machine in our San Francisco offices and allowed it to do its job. A small fortune was soon amassed, now worth around $100,000. Then, we lost the money. Forever. Here's what happened to WIRED's 13 Bitcoins—and to the millions of others that have faced the same fate. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Thursday, Seattle news station KIRO 7 published a disconcerting story. A Portland family discovered that a snippet of private conversation had been recorded by an Amazon Echo and sent to a random person in their contact list. The report instantly sparked concern and outrage that Amazon's Echo smart speaker is listening to and recording much more than the company claims. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Home routers have become the rats to hackers' bubonic plague: An easily infected, untreated and ubiquitous population in which dangerous digital attacks can spread. Now security researchers are warning that one group of sophisticated hackers has amassed a collection of malware-infected routers that could be used as a powerful tool to spread havoc across the internet, or simply triggered to implode networks across the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Law enforcement agencies including the FBI have long criticized data encryption as a threat to their ability to fight crime. They argue that encryption allows bad actors to "go dark," impeding agents’ ability to access the data of suspects, even with court orders or warrants. After years of raising the alarm about the going dark problem, though, officials have yet to convince privacy advocates that undermining encryption protections would do more good than harm. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Good news for those looking to secure their Facebook accounts: The social network says users can now sign up for two-factor authentication using apps like Duo and Google Authenticator, which will strengthen people's security on the site. Previously, you could only sign up for the feature with a phone number, though you could also enable tools like physical security keys and Facebook's own code generator that lives within the app itself. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As is often the case, it was a week of mixed messages in security, with the White House eliminating its top cybersecurity policy roles at a crucial moment in geopolitics and the evolution of cyberwar. WIRED took a deep look at Robert Mueller's military service in Vietnam and his first year as special counsel, examining the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

There are plenty of guides available on how to protect your data, how to secure yourself online, and how to stop digital snoops from tracking you across the web and then profiting from that intrusion. (Sorry, “monetization”.) You should do these things. But if a cascading series of revelations this past week has taught us anything, it's that all of those steps amount to triage. The things you can control add up to very little next to the things you can’t. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices