- Woman’s Viral First Date Reaction at the Cheesecake Factory Gets Backlash From Viewers The Messenger
- Woman refuses to get out car after seeing ’embarrassing’ restaurant she was taken to on first date LADbible
- ‘I Ain’t Getting Out This Car’: Viral Video of ‘Ungrateful’ Woman Refusing to Go on First Date at The Cheesecake Factory Causes Stir on Social Media Atlanta Black Star
- Woman Is Criticized By Date For ‘Eating Too Fast’ — ‘Are You Trying To Enjoy This Date Or Not?’ YourTango
- Woman faces backlash after refusing to leave car for Cheesecake Factory date Dexerto
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Messenger
Motorola’s Defy Satellite Link turns any phone into a two-way satellite messenger – Tom’s Guide
- Motorola’s Defy Satellite Link turns any phone into a two-way satellite messenger Tom’s Guide
- Motorola Defy Satellite Link confers cell network-independent messaging and check-ins on any smartphone Notebookcheck.net
- The Motorola Defy Satellite Link is now available for purchase Android Authority
- Motorola’s “Satellite Link” hotspot lets you send messages via outer space Ars Technica
- Motorola’s iPhone 14-beating comms tech turns any phone into a satellite phone, and you can buy it now TechRadar
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Messenger: The debate over Kim Gardner’s future should play out in a courtroom – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Messenger: The debate over Kim Gardner’s future should play out in a courtroom St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Missouri AG moves to fire Dem attorney Kim Gardner after she refuses to resign over public safety outcry Fox News
- St. Louis mayor says crash causing Smyrna teen to lose her legs could have been prevented News Channel 5 Nashville
- McClellan: Too many have lost faith for Kim Gardner to continue St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Editorial: Gardner’s prosecutorial incompetence yields tragedy for a visiting teenager St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Our Earliest Close-Ups of the Planets Versus Today’s Best Shots
For centuries, astronomers were limited to ground-based observations of the planets, but now we use spacecraft to capture close-up views of our neighboring worlds. Excitingly, our views of solar system planets have been getting progressively better over the decades, as these images attest.
The dawn of the Space Age finally made it possible for humankind to capture close-up views of astronomical objects. We haven’t wasted this opportunity, sending probes to every planet in our solar system and even to Pluto, a dwarf planet located over 5 billion miles (8 billion kilometers) away.
The first missions to the planets began in the 1960s, and it’s something we still get excited about. We’ve assembled a series of photos showing some of our earliest images of the planets compared to similar portraits captured during recent missions. Regardless of the era or the quality, each one has a story to tell, and each continues to stir the imagination.
Facebook will begin testing end-to-end encryption as default on Messenger app | Technology
Facebook announced on Thursday it will begin testing end-to-end encryption as the default option for some users of its Messenger app on Android and iOS.
The development comes as the company is facing backlash for handing over messages to a Nebraska police department that aided the department in filing charges against a teen and her mother for allegedly conducting an illegal abortion.
Facebook messenger users currently have to opt in to make their messages end-to-end encrypted (E2E), a mechanism that theoretically allows only the sender and recipient of a message to access its content.
But had all Facebook messages been encrypted by default back in June when Nebraska police issued a search warrant for Facebook user data of the mother investigated in the case, Facebook would not have messages to hand over to police in the first place.
Facebook spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said on Thursday that E2E encryption is a complex feature to implement and that the test is limited to a couple of hundred users for now so that the company can ensure the system is working properly.
Dziedzan also said the move was “not a response to any law enforcement requests”.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it had planned to roll out the test for months. The company had previously announced plans to make E2E encryption the default in 2022 but pushed the date back to 2023.
An affidavit in support of the search warrant in the Nebraska case shows that a Norfolk police department detective asked Facebook in June for the “profile contact information, wall postings, and friend listing, with Facebook IDs” of the mother. Authorities also requested all of her photos and private messages from April to the day the warrant was issued.
The extent of the user data Facebook ended up handing over is not clear, but private messages between the women discussing how to obtain abortion pills were given to police by Facebook, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
Experts previously told the Guardian that the main way for tech companies to avoid aiding in abortion-related prosecutions is to not store or collect the data at all.
“The only way for companies like Facebook to meaningfully protect people is for them to ensure that they do not have access to user data or communications when a law enforcement agency comes knocking,” Evan Greer, the director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, said. “Expanding end-to-end encryption by default is a part of that, but companies like Facebook also need to stop collecting and retaining so much intimate information about us in the first place.”
The Nebraska case illustrates that some tech companies’ focus on limiting or deleting abortion-specific user data in response to privacy concerns may not be an effective strategy.
Facebook this week said that the warrant it received did not mention that the investigation was abortion-related.
Unfortunately this is as many privacy experts projected, that legal data requests are not going to come through neatly labeled as being for abortion. They’ll be for stillbirths, murder, drug trafficking, and all the other wild nonsensical charges they throw at people. https://t.co/QJk2XwYVDH
— Don’t post about crimes. (@KateRoseBee) August 10, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/KateRoseBee/status/1557246315284905984?s=20&t=5IhKJaNHF_bzx11UKLQC2A”,”id”:”1557246315284905984″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”020f0e5f-e7a6-4905-9cd7-52c08fc90d53″}}”>
Unfortunately this is as many privacy experts projected, that legal data requests are not going to come through neatly labeled as being for abortion. They’ll be for stillbirths, murder, drug trafficking, and all the other wild nonsensical charges they throw at people. https://t.co/QJk2XwYVDH
— Don’t post about crimes. (@KateRoseBee) August 10, 2022
As Kate Rose, who works on privacy and abortion access at the Digital Defense Fund, tweeted, “legal data requests are not going to come through neatly labeled as being for abortion”.
Age and sex-specific risks of myocarditis and pericarditis following Covid-19 messenger RNA vaccines
Characteristics of the study population
Between May 12, 2021 and October 31, 2021, within a population of 32 million persons aged 12 to 50 years, 21.2 million first (19.3 million second) doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine and 2.86 million first (2.58 million second) doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine were received (Table S1). In the same period, 1612 cases of myocarditis (of which 87 [5.4%] had also a pericarditis as associated diagnosis) and 1613 cases of pericarditis (37 [2.3%] with myocarditis as associated diagnosis) were recorded in France. We matched those cases to 16,120 and 16,130 control subjects, respectively. The characteristics of the cases and their matched controls are shown in Table 1. For both myocarditis and pericarditis, key differences between cases and controls included a higher proportion among cases of a history of myocarditis or pericarditis, of history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and receipt of an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. The mean age and proportion of women were lower among patients with myocarditis than those with pericarditis.
Risk of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with vaccination
For both vaccines, the risk of myocarditis was increased in the seven days post vaccination (Table 2; in the rest of the text, we will refer to multivariable odds ratios). For the BNT162b2 vaccine, odds ratios were 1.8 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.3–2.5) for the first dose and 8.1 (95% CI, 6.7–9.9) for the second. The association was stronger for the mRNA-1273 vaccine with odds-ratios of 3.0 (95% CI, 1.4–6.2) for the first dose and 30 (95% CI, 21–43) for the second. The risk of pericarditis was increased in the seven days following the second dose of both vaccines, with odds ratios of 2.9 (95% CI, 2.3–3.8) for the BNT162b2 vaccine and 5.5 (95% CI, 3.3–9.0) for the mRNA-1273 vaccine. Vaccination in the previous 8 to 21 days, with either the BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccine was not associated with a risk of myocarditis or pericarditis. Independently of vaccination status, a history of myocarditis was strongly associated with a risk of contracting myocarditis during the study period, with an odds-ratios of 160 (95% CI, 83–330). The same was true for pericarditis, with an odds ratio of 250 (95% CI, 120–540). No interaction was found between history of myocarditis or pericarditis and vaccine exposure. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 in the preceding month was also associated with a risk of myocarditis (odds ratio, 9.0 [95% CI, 6.4–13]) or pericarditis (odds ratio, 4.0 [95% CI, 2.7–5.9]).
Subgroup estimates by sex and age classes
The risk of myocarditis was substantially increased within the first week post vaccination in both males and females (Fig. 1 and Table S2). Odds-ratios associated with the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine were consistently the highest, with values up to 44 (95% CI, 22–88) and 41 (95% CI, 12–140), respectively in males and females aged 18 to 24 years but remaining high in older age groups. Odds-ratios for the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine tended to decrease with age, from 18 (95% CI, 9–35) and 7.1 (95% CI, 1.5–33), respectively in males and females aged 12 to 17 years, down to 3.0 (95% CI, 1.5–5.9) and 1.9 (95% CI, 0.39–9.3), respectively in males and females aged 40 to 51 years.
Adjusted odds-ratio (aOR) from multivariable model are represented in base 10 logarithmic scale according to age groups (x-axis), by sex (columns) and vaccine dose ranking (rows). Colors denote the type of vaccine. Centre value are aOR point estimates and error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Number of cases (N) by age categories (12–17, 18–24, 25–29, 30–39, 40–50 and 12–50 years) are respectively as follows: N = 137, 480, 210, 273, 181 and 1281 for males, and N = 29, 106, 40, 88, 68 and 331 for females. aOR could not be calculated in categories where no case exposed to vaccine was recorded, for instance for males and females aged 12 to 17 years having received the mRNA-1273 vaccine.
An increased risk of pericarditis was also found in the first week after the second dose of either of the mRNA vaccines among both males and females (Fig. 2 and Table S3). Odds-ratios for the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine showed a downward trend across age groups with values up to 6.8 (95% CI, 2.3–20) and 10 (95% CI, 2.5–41), respectively in males and females aged 12 to 17 years. The second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine was associated with pericarditis among males and among females only within age 30 to 39 years (odds-ratio 20 [95% CI, 3.5–110]) and age 40 to 50 years (odds-ratio 13 [95% CI, 3.5–49]).
Adjusted odds-ratio (aOR) from multivariable model are represented in base 10 logarithmic scale according to age groups (x-axis), by sex (columns) and vaccine dose ranking (rows). Colors denote the type of vaccine. Centre value are aOR point estimates and error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Number of cases (N) by age categories (12–17, 18–24, 25–29, 30–39, 40–50 and 12–50 years) are respectively as follows: N = 65, 194, 106, 282, 342 and 989 for males, and N = 36, 118, 91, 183, 196 and 624 for females. aOR could not be calculated in categories where no case exposed to vaccine was recorded, for instance for males and females aged 12 to 17 years having received the mRNA-1273 vaccine.
Associations between vaccination within the seven preceding days and the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis were of the same magnitude when the analysis was restricted to the period prior to the warning against myocarditis and pericarditis as adverse events sent to prescribers on July 19, 2021 (Fig. S1 and Table S4). The results were unchanged in models excluding patients with a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the past month, those with a history of myocarditis or pericarditis within five years, those diagnosed with both myocarditis and pericarditis, or those with a hospitalization within a month prior to index date.
Excess events
We estimated the number of excess cases attributable to vaccines by sex and age group (Fig. 3). The number of excess cases of myocarditis per 100,000 doses administered to adolescent males 12 to 17 years was 1.9 (95% CI, 1.4–2.6) for the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine and for young adults 18 to 24 years of age reached 4.7 (95% CI, 3.8–5.8) for the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine, and 17 (95% CI, 13–23) for the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Fig. 3). This translates into one case of vaccine-associated myocarditis per 52,300 (95% CI, 38,200–74,100) second doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine among 12–17 years, and 21,100 (95% CI, 17,400–26,000) second doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine and 5900 (95% CI, 4400–8000) second doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine among 18–24 years (Table S5). Estimates of excess cases were lower for older age groups and generally for females. However, the number of excess cases of myocarditis attributable to the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine was consistently higher. Among females aged 18 to 24 years, the estimated number of excess cases of myocarditis per 100,000 doses reached 0.63 (95% CI, 0.34–1.1) for the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine (corresponding to 1 case per 159,000 [95% CI, 90,800–294,400] doses) and 5.3 (95% CI, 3.0–9.1) for the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine (corresponding to 1 case per 18,700 [95% CI, 11,000–33,400] doses). The number of excess cases of pericarditis is presented in Fig. 3. As for myocarditis, estimates for the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine were consistently higher.
Excess cases are based on the risk in the 7 days following vaccination. Colors denote the type of vaccine and the shape of point estimate denotes the ranking of dose vaccine. Centre value are excess cases point estimates and error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Number of cases (N) by age categories (12–17, 18–24, 25–29, 30–39, 40–50 and 12–50 years) are respectively as follows: for cases of myocarditis, N = 137, 480, 210, 273, 181 and 1281 in males, and N = 29, 106, 40, 88, 68 and 331 in females; for cases of pericarditis, N = 65, 194, 106, 282, 342 and 989 in males, and N = 36, 118, 91, 183, 196 and 624 in females. Excess cases was only calculated in categories with a significantly positive association between the vaccine exposure and the outcome (adjusted odds-ratio >1).
Characteristics of myocarditis and pericarditis cases occurring after vaccination
Among exposed cases, the delay between administration of the vaccine and hospitalization (Fig. S2) was shorter after the second dose than after the first dose, both for myocarditis (median of 4 days versus 10 days after the BNT162b2 vaccine and of 3.5 days versus 9 days after the mRNA-1273 vaccine) and for pericarditis (median of 6 days versus 10 days after the BNT162b2 vaccine and of 3 days versus 11 days after the mRNA-1273 vaccine).
Table 3 shows the characteristics of cases acquired within 7 days of vaccination (deemed post-vaccination cases) compared to those acquired within a larger delay or in the absence of vaccination. Post-vaccination cases were significantly younger (predominantly in 18 to 24 years), more frequently concerned males for myocarditis but not for pericarditis, and without a history of myocarditis or pericarditis, respectively, or of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The lengths of hospital stay were not significantly different in post-vaccination cases of myocarditis (median 4 days) and pericarditis (median 2 days) than in unexposed cases. The frequency of admission in intensive care unit, mechanical ventilation or death was lower for post-vaccination cases than for unexposed cases. After a follow-up of 30 days after discharge, 4 (0.24%) deaths among cases of myocarditis (none among exposed to vaccine) and 5 (0.31%) deaths among cases of pericarditis (including one patient having received a vaccine 8 to 21 days prior to the diagnosis) were reported. Of those, 3 and 2 died during their hospital stay for myocarditis and pericarditis, respectively.
Drugs treatments within 30 days after hospital discharge are presented in Figs. S3 and S4. Regardless of the vaccination status, the therapeutic classes most frequently used during the follow-up of myocarditis cases included beta blocking agents (63% of patients), analgesics (52%) and agents acting on the renin−angiotensin system (46%). The corresponding treatments of pericarditis cases were analgesics (83%), colchicine (69%) and beta blocking agents (14%) (Fig. S4).
Mark Zuckerberg warns against taking screenshots of Facebook Messenger chats
Mark Zuckerberg has issued a reminder – and an apparent warning – to users of Facebook Messenger who screenshot their chats.
The Facebook founder and CEO of parent company Meta said in a post on Friday that an update to Messenger would notify users if an image of their chat has been captured by another person.
“New update for end-to-end encrypted Messenger chats so you get a notification if someone screenshots a disappearing message,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote along with a screenshot of a conversation with his wife, Priscilla Chan.
“We’re also adding GIFs, stickers, and reactions to encrypted chats too,” he added.
The announcement follows an update to the widely used Facebook Messenger platform that allows people to set their messages to disappear.
The feature has so far been rolled out in the United States and is expected to be introduced for Facebook users in Europe in the coming weeks, according to USA Today.
Rival messaging platforms already offer options for user messages to disappear, as well as notifications when a conversation has been screen-shot.
That includes Snapchat, while messaging apps such as WhatsApp include end-to-end encryption – another new recent introduction to Facebook.
Reports suggested the move by Facebook was in response to concerns around security, and a wider controversy around online safety and rights to free speech.
“When are you guys adding the dislike button? We need answers…”, wrote one Facebook user in response to Mr Zuckerberg’s post.
“Maybe it can figure out how to feed the hungry or better, heal all the mental illness caused by these platforms, or maybe house the homeless,” an apparent sceptic added of the update to Facebook messenger. “Can it do any of these?”
The updates will also apply to Instagram, which is owned by Meta.
Facebook Messenger’s “Split Payments” Aims to Organize Expenses
Although Facebook Messenger’s entry into personal finance isn’t new, I’ve never quite managed to think about it as a payments platform. It’s more an inbox that aunts, uncles, and friends from high school blow up with messages when I haven’t posted on Facebook in a while. But it’s now becoming more and more clear that Messenger will gladly handle my money if I let it.
The Facebook Messenger team provided a sneak peek of its new “Split Payments” feature in a news announcement on Friday. It’s basically a way to organize and pay joint expenses you have with friends, roommates, coworkers, or anyone you’re splitting bills with. Similar to apps like Splitwise, Split Payments allows you to create a shared expense, split the bill evenly, or modify the contribution that corresponds to each person. You also have the option to include or exclude yourself from the expense.
Once all the information is in the app, you can send out a request to the people who need to pay you in Messenger, receive the payment through Facebook Pay (the company’s version of Venmo), and transfer it to your bank account.
“If you’ve struggled with dividing up (and getting paid back for) group dinners, shared household expenses or even the monthly rent, it’s about to get easier,” the Facebook Messenger team said in the news announcement.
The company did not provide many details on Split Payments. From the promotional image provided, it appears that it’s designed to be used in Messenger group chats. Person-to-person payments are already possible through Facebook Pay on Messenger, but it’s not clear if Split Payment features, such as splitting the bill equally, will be available in these instances.
Not going to lie, Facebook’s, or should I say, Meta’s, track record on privacy, data mining, and, well, everything else doesn’t exactly inspire me to give Messenger my credit card info. Plus, as I mentioned before, Messenger just isn’t positioned that way in my brain. Sure, it’s super obvious it wants me to trust it with my money, but I have other apps for that. Safer ones with multi-factor authentication and great customer service.
Messenger will begin to test Split Payments next week for users in the U.S. The feature will be offered free of charge. No information was provided on when the feature will roll out for everyone in the U.S. or whether it’ll roll out internationally.
Facebook is still down, along with Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus VR
Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company over a whistleblower’s accusations and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, its entire network of services suddenly went offline.
The outage started just before noon ET, and nearly four hours later, there’s no sign of restoration. No one from the company has offered an explanation of the issues or estimates for when the problem will be fixed. This is the worst outage for Facebook since a 2019 incident took its site offline for more than 24 hours, as the downtime hit hardest on the small businesses and creators who rely on these services for their income.
On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone says, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.” Mike Schroepfer, who will step down from his post as CTO next year, tweeted, “We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible.”
Inside Facebook, the outage has broken nearly all of the internal systems employees use to communicate and work. Several employees told The Verge they’ve resorted to talking through their work-provided Outlook email accounts, though employees can’t receive emails from external addresses. Employees who were logged into work tools such as Google Docs and Zoom before the outage can still use those, but any employee who needs to login with their work email is blocked.
Facebook engineers have been sent to the company’s U.S. data centers to try and fix the problem, according to two people familiar with the situation. That means the outage, already Facebook’s most severe in years, could be further prolonged.
*Sincere* apologies to everyone impacted by outages of Facebook powered services right now. We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible
— Mike Schroepfer (@schrep) October 4, 2021
A peek at Down Detector (or your Twitter feed) reveals the problems are widespread. While it’s unclear exactly why the platforms are unreachable for so many people, their DNS records show that, like last week’s Slack outage, the problem is apparently DNS (it’s always DNS).
Cloudflare senior vice president Dane Knecht notes that Facebook’s border gateway protocol routes — BGP helps networks pick the best path to deliver internet traffic — have been “withdrawn from the internet.” While some have speculated about hackers, or an internal protest over last night’s whistleblower report, there isn’t any information yet to suggest anything malicious is to blame.
Instagram.com is flashing a 5xx Server Error message, while the Facebook site merely tells us that something went wrong. The problem also appears to be affecting its virtual reality arm, Oculus. Users can load games they already have installed, and the browser works, but social features or installing new games does not. The outage is thorough enough that it’s affecting Workplace from Facebook customers and, according to Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook’s internal sites.
Update October 4th, 3:37PM ET: Added additional information about the outage.
Update October 4th, 4:15PM ET: Added statement from Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, along with internal Facebook updates.
Update October 4th, 5PM ET: Noted outage is still ongoing, added information about the 2019 outage.
Facebook Messenger Calls Can Now Be End-to-End Encrypted
Facebook wants you to know that Messenger is getting a little more secure and private (or as private as anything built by the company can be considered). In a nutshell, users now have the option to make voice and video calls end-to-end encrypted on Messenger.
But wait, weren’t those already end-to-end encrypted? Well, that’s what yours truly thought, but the company has only offered this security option for one-on-one text chats in recent years. In a news announcement, Facebook said it decided to add the new end-to-end encryption option to Messenger in light of the increase in audio and video calls in the recent year, which makes sense considering our pandemic restrictions.
The company pointed out that during this period, there were more than 150 million video calls a day on Messenger.
Other Facebook products, such as WhatsApp, already have end-to-end encryption built in. End-to-end encryption ensures that only you and the recipient have access to content in messages and calls. No one else, including Facebook, can read your messages or listen to your calls. Nonetheless, Facebook said users can always report an end-to-end encrypted message “if something’s wrong,” presumably referencing situations like harassment.
End-to-end encryption hasn’t reached all of Messenger yet, including group chats as well as group voice and video calls. Facebook said it would be testing these features with some users in the coming weeks.
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In addition, Facebook also unveiled an update to its disappearing messages feature in Messenger, which allows users to control how long someone can see their messages in a chat before they disappear. With the update, users have more options to specify how soon they want their messages to disappear, ranging from five seconds to 24 hours.
Finally, the company will also be testing end-to-end encryption on Instagram direct messages. This test will involve adults from certain countries and will allow them to opt-in to receive end-to-end encrypted messages and calls for one-on-one conversations.