May 4
Instagram Hacked by 10-Year-Old, Qatar National Bank Data Dump Names Names, Muslim Prom Queen Crowned 15 Miles from San Bernardino, and More Picks
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
German Nuclear Plant Riddled with Computer Viruses (Gerry)
A German nuclear power plant 75 miles northwest of Munich is infected with computer viruses, according to its operator. Among the viruses is W32.Ramnit, which is designed to steal files from infected systems. The plant’s operator said that the viruses ”appear not to have posed a threat to the facility’s operations because it is isolated from the Internet.”
Qatar National Bank Data Dump Names Spies, Qatari Royal Family, al-Jazeera Reporters
Unlike the Panama Papers carefully orchestrated propaganda driven release, the QNB data dump names names, account numbers, and passwords.
The Verdict: 97% of Scientists Say Climate Change is Caused by Humans (Milicent)
Deniers of human-caused climate change say there is no consensus among scientists as to whether the phenomenon is caused by humans. They create this false impression by conflating the opinions of non-experts with those of true experts. But a consensus of multiple studies based on over 11,000 scientific abstracts found that “the more expertise in climate science the scientists have, the more they agree on human-caused climate change.” And 97% agreed.
School Crowns Muslim Prom Queen 15 Miles from San Bernardino Shooting (Trevin)
Zarifeh Shalabi, an 18 year old devout Muslim who wears a hijab, is Summit High School’s newest prom queen. Her friends campaigned for her in hijabs in reaction to negative response to last year’s shooting. “We don’t discriminate against anybody, any religion, we accept each other for who we are,” said one of Zarifeh’s friends.
10-Year-Old Finnish Boy Hacks Instagram (Milicent)
All by himself, a boy named Jani, discovered a bug that allowed him to delete comments made by other users. Facebook, the owners of Instagram, have since fixed the problem.
A Look Inside of Facebook’s ‘Trending News’ Project (Klaus)
It appears certain that Internet giants like Google and Facebook will further transform the news business. But how? This story on Facebook’s “Trending News” project provides some clues…and it’s bad news for traditional journalism.
