Oliver Stone’s unhealthy treatment of hacking in Hollywood

What’s so compelling about Oliver Stone’s recent four-part interview series with Vladimir Putin is probably not what the multi-Oscar-winning director intended. It’s the same thing that makes his Snowden biopic its own sort of cipher after the fact.

Both have inadvertently, and strangely by their own design, upset the already shaky foundations of toxic hero worship in the era of hackers, hacktivism, and cyber-espionage.

Stone’s four-part documentary The Putin Interviews premiered over the past week on Showtime. Prior to its airing, the tone was set by a tense appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in which Stone repeatedly refused to say anything bad about Putin.

When Stone went into a diatribe about how Putin refuses to bad-mouth anyone despite his having been “insulted and abused,” Colbert’s audience was outright laughing at the director. Colbert acidly joked as to whether Putin had Oliver Stone’s dog in a cage somewhere.

That fiasco took a backseat to this week’s development. In the documentary series, Putin shows Stone a phone video of the Russian Air Force kicking major ass against militants in Syria. The internet, being more into fact-checking than a Hollywood director, quickly debunked the video as 2009 footage of a US strike on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Kremlin maintains that the video is from the Russian defense ministry. When asked about the veracity of the footage at a press conference, Stone dismissed and devalued the question, characterizing the issue as “blogging bullshit.”

A similar fallout happened with Stone’s film Snowden. Setting aside all the ham-fisted dialogue and painfully dramatic shorthand for both narrative structure and character development, the film also had some not-insignificant fact-checking issues. For instance, the audience is shown that Snowden is the stereotypical hacker wunderkind with several examples that turned out not to tell the real story. We found out later that he was a sysadmin, not a genius developer, and one who only passed the NSA’s famously brutal hacker test because he got his hands on a copy of the answers.

None of this is to dismiss the power and epic explorations of films like Stone’s Platoon, Natural Born Killers, or Born on the Fourth of July. Nor is it to undermine the conversation started by Snowden’s stolen files. Though I think it’s time to argue that the kind of blind hero worship we’re seeing in Stone’s recent work typifies how conversations about hacking, surveillance, and human rights are being done a damaging disservice.

Both works are beyond sympathetic to their subjects; they pose as documentary, but instead are interpretations of reality. The main character in each is being portrayed faultlessly. Snowden is a hero who had no choice but to do the moral thing; Stone has been up front that his goal with the interview series it to exonerate Putin from what the director sees as misplaced anger about Trump. (Adamantly refusing to believe anything about Russian cyber-espionage and the election, Stone in January labeled it all hysteria writing, “I never thought I’d find myself praying for the level-headedness of a Donald Trump.”)

Until the end of May, Putin’s soundbite on Russian election hacking and interference was that it was all BS — until he made public statements suggesting a maybe-they-did scenario in which he told press that perhaps “patriotic” Russian hackers had done the dirty in supporting Trump with hacks and various manipulations last year.

For anyone who gives a shit, which ostensibly a documentary director does, this means that there’s no ground to take Putin at his word on the topic. But you wouldn’t know that by watching Stone’s documentary.

…The end result isn’t charming or heroic, or even very accurate. It’s not even a good story.

The thing about belief in Hollywood and blurred lines in pseudo-docu films is that it has a tendency to leave people thinking that what they’re watching is vetted, fact-checked, and a matter of record. That when Putin tells a very sympathetic Stone the same lines he’s been feeding access journalists like Megyn Kelley, there must be credibility established somewhere. That the Russian president cracking sexist and homophobic jokes is somehow not the same one whose country is right now rounding up gay people to torture and kill in concentration camps.

Or in Snowden’s flattering depiction, that state surveillance is little more than something that threatens to reveal our embarrassing sexual indiscretions — as if there wasn’t nearly two decades in place of people trying to call attention to domestic state surveillance abuses. Or maybe showing why the minimizing of “surveillance harms,” by those who stand to benefit from its power, from law enforcement to corporations, leads to very real set of harms that become virtual border walls and involuntary facial recognition registries

By no one questioning what a Hollywood director wanted to believe about Snowden or the context around his actual story, the end result isn’t charming or heroic, or even very accurate. It’s not even a good story.

To those of us in the know of infosec and hacking, who have quietly watched all this from the inside, there’s a far more interesting story to be told about Snowden. And it echoes Stone’s own Achilles’ heel — would anyone dare to criticize a hero like Snowden whose own problematic hero worship could explore the very questions Stone only pretends to ask of his subjects?

Hacking culture — especially its activist arms — is equally to blame for films like Snowden. Maybe Stone’s gullible and believes all the hype, or maybe he was just aping the more popular cyber-activist sycophants. Perhaps Oliver Stone simply channeled the black and white thinking of “all US government bad” and the poisonous hero worship that’s rampant in the limelight-chasing, class-conscious circles of pop culture infosec. Sound familiar? The same thread seems to run through Putin’s talking points, too. There’s no conspiracy, but for someone like Stone, it all lines up.

And as we’ve seen with almost everything coming out of Hollywood about hacking, hacktivism, and infosec in the past five years, it lacks the ability to criticize its subjects. Which is something the topic — and the people headlining on the infosec / hacktivism stages — need more than ever. Trust me: Uncritical hero worship is the very last thing anyone needs in this realm right now. Same goes for world leaders.

In the hacked Sony emails, George Clooney wisely remarked on learning of Oliver Stone winning the race to tell Snowden’s story that it would be a “hatchet job” but it would be the one everyone remembers.

The inadvertent cipher of Stone’s folly — or gullibility — becomes an undressing of how history is permanently disfigured.

Sadly it’s not an unusual narrative for Stone anymore, who has more recently tended to like conspiracy theories spun from megalomaniacal oracles over his prior affection, which was telling challenging stories about morally conflicting antiheroes.

Take for example the Stone film that forced pop culture into a sharp left turn in the early 1990s: Natural Born Killers. That film amplified our collective compulsion to be attracted to serial killers through charismatic psychopaths acid tripping hard on their own fame. It showed that Stone’s films can grab us by the ID, leave marks, and leave us asking Sir politely for more.

Except now, chasing his champions in cyber-espionage on the world stage likely won’t go down in history as the letters-of-record Stone seems to be gunning for.

Instead, it may go down in history as expensively produced propaganda.

Images: Photo by Gisela Schober/Getty Images (Snowden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt); Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images (Oliver Stone)

Instagram tests sharing posts with only your closest friends

Instagram’s algorithmic timeline is an abject failure if you actually want to see all of your friends’ posts. As a way of seemingly admitting that, the photo-and-video-minded social network is testing a new feature called “favorites,” according to The Verge. The idea is pretty simple: you make a list of the people you want to see your post as soon as possible, and then send it to them privately, either as a Story or the timeline. It sounds a lot like sending photos to your friends on Snapchat versus pushing them to that service’s Story. Hrm. Posts that go out to your friends list will appear in their timelines and will have a green check mark in them.

Instagram’s product lead says people are trying to “hack” the service to make smaller audiences and this is evidence that the developers are listening. The test is available for a minute set of users, with a possible broad roll-out in the next few months.

Source: Verge

Wallet-busting Galaxy Note 8 expected to launch in September

VentureBeat reported today that the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 will be Samsung’s most expensive model yet. The phone is expected to retail for €999 — which should put it somewhere around $900 — and will likely launch in late September. The information comes from someone briefed on Samsung’s plans.

As previous reports have noted, the Note 8 will have a dual camera setup on the back of the phone and come with 6BG of RAM. It will also, reportedly, come in black, blue and gold shades and have a 6.3-inch Infinity Display. Notably, the latest Note model will have a 3,300 mAh battery, which is a lower capacity than the Note 7’s 3,500 mAh version and probably a response to the Note 7’s disastrous penchant for exploding.

The issues surrounding the Note 7 didn’t seem to hurt Galaxy S8 sales earlier this year and if timed right, the Note 8’s release may come before the iPhone 8’s, giving it a slight sales advantage with impatient customers.

Source: VentureBeat

Google Will Stop Scanning Your Emails to Show Personalized Ads in Gmail

Google today announced that it will stop scanning the emails of its free Gmail users for the purpose of delivering personalized ads later this year.

If you’ve recently received a lot of emails about photography or cameras, for example, currently Google may show you a deal from a local camera store that it thinks might be interesting to you. On the other hand, if you’ve reported those emails as spam, then Google would take steps not to show those ads.

Google users may still see personalized ads while using Gmail and the company’s other services, depending on their account settings, but the contents of a user’s inbox will no longer factor into the ads that are shown.

Tags: Google, Gmail
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Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

Simple Zazen Timer

In a world of increasing complexity, simplicity is more beautiful than ever. With an elegant design and minimal user interface, this app captures just what meditation is about: calm, peace, mindfulness and self-awareness.

Available on:

iOS

InFocus Pro

InFocus Pro comes with indispensable tools for staying organized so you can get things done quicker and have more free time to do the things you love.

Available on:

iOS

Gif Me

Gif Me! is the best way to create and share short videos in animated GIF or MP4 formats. It’s easy: Just capture a small moment with your built-in camera, and share it on social networks. You can apply an image filter, too.

Available on:

iOS

Yoga

This app comes with HD videos of yoga poses that have been developed and demonstrated by qualified yoga instructors. Search poses based on type, focus, and ability.

Available on:

iOS

Remote Control Pro

Turn your iPhone or iPad into the ultimate remote control for your Mac. Take full control over your Mac — use your iOS device as a trackpad and keyboard or launch any app from anywhere within your home.

Available on:

iOS

TextGrabber

This app easily and quickly scans, translates, and saves your chosen text or QR codes from virtually any printed material.

Available on:

iOS

Twitter app Fenix 2 wants to edit your bad tweets with ‘undo send’ feature

Why it matters to you

Twitter may not be interested in giving users the ability to edit tweets, but a third-party developer is looking to answer the call.

If there is one feature the Twitter faithful have been clamoring for since the beginning of time, it is the ability to edit tweets. Twitter has been fielding requests for the feature as far back as anyone can remember and the refusal to give users what they want has only become more apparent by recent updates to the social media platform that have changed just about everything except what you can do immediately after firing off a tweet.

Fortunately, dilemmas such as these are why third-party Twitter clients exist. And one of the more well-known ones on Android, Fenix, is working on an update that could solve that problem — admittedly in a roundabout way.

pic.twitter.com/yOxtHQlPjl

— Matteo Villa (@mttvll) June 22, 2017

Matteo Villa, who is currently developing a significant upgrade to Fenix called Fenix 2, revealed on Twitter that he is testing a feature similar in practice to Gmail’s “undo send.” It would delay posting by a certain amount of time, providing a brief opportunity to take a tweet back after hitting the send button. In the example given, the editing window was five seconds, though Villa says it would be adjustable.

It’s not true editing, but if the favorable responses to the idea are any indication, most people do not seem to be very concerned. Many users compared the implementation to SMS app Textra, which provides a similar feature. Twitter actually released an update to its first-party app earlier this month intended to save users further embarrassment by issuing warnings for accidentally sending direct messages as public tweets.

In Fenix’s case, the tweet drops down from the top of the screen after being “sent.” A circular progress bar illustrates how much time is left to drop in and make any last-second changes. You can skip the delay with another send button, or hit cancel to bring up the compose window again. If you have a full-on change of heart and decide you made a mistake, you can delete the tweet just as you would a draft.

Fenix has been around for years, but Villa recently released a preview version of Fenix 2. You can take it for a spin for free, but Villa says the final release will be a paid upgrade. Be aware that the preview is still missing some more notable features, though you will still find an extensive suite of customization options for the interface and gestures to tailor the app to your usage.

WhatsApp will soon let users share any files up to 128MB in size

Why it matters to you

WhatsApp user can soon count the app as a way to quickly and easily share files with your friends.

WhatsApp has been an easy and quick way to send photos and videos to friends and family for quite some time now, but it looks like the chat service is looking to expand on that feature by allowing users to send any kind of file they want.

A new feature is being tested in beta with a small portion of users, according to a report from WABetaInfo, and it should roll out to all 1.2 billion WhatsApp users at some point in the near future. The report notes that you’ll be able to share any files with a contact or group of contacts, as long as that file falls under 128MB on Android, 100MB on iOS, and 64MB on the WhatsApp web app.

The feature certainly is a nice addition for WhatsApp users — and will help make the app even more popular than it already is. Of course, there are some concerns with the change. For example, allowing users to send any kind of file could help promote the spread of malicious files that could infect phones and ultimately damage the phones or the file quality on those devices. Not only that, but it will be helpful for people who want to pirate and share apps, as the feature does allow for the sharing of APK files.

Still, despite the concerns the pros far outweigh the cons, and it helps position WhatsApp to start becoming more a platform than just a messaging service, like Facebook Messenger has done.

WhatsApp has been getting increasingly useful over the past few months, and that’s only set to continue. Recently it was reported that the service would soon start allowing businesses to chat directly with customers, which is also something that Facebook Messenger has started doing in the past year or so.

It makes sense that WhatsApp would want to evolve into a platform — the Facebook-owned service is already in the hand of over a billion people, and Facebook Messenger’s evolution into a platform has been relatively successful. It will be interesting to see if WhatsApp can ultimately offer anything that Facebook can’t — or if they simply transition into platforms alongside each other.

Soon, you will be able to split payments for your Airbnb vacation rental

Why it matters to you

The most uncomfortable part of a group vacation can be splitting payments after the fact. Avoid some of that awkwardness with Airbnb’s new feature.

Traveling with friends is great and all, but when it comes to splitting the bill, even the closest of friends can become … ferocious. After all, we are told never to mix money with buddies, right? And now, Airbnb is hoping it can help you avoid those awkward conversations and save your friendships. It basically allows you to split payments, much like you would do with Uber or Lyft, and it is certainly been a long time coming.

Thanks to Airbnb’s acquisition of Tilt in February, it looks as though it is finally getting easier to share the cost of your vacation lodgings. This will likely prove particularly useful for those traveling in large groups and renting large (often expensive) properties. Rather than just having the most fiscally responsible member of a friend group deal with the entirety of the cost from the onset, you can now split the fun and the finances from day one.

According to The Next Web, Airbnb is starting to test the split payments feature with a “small group of homes starting today,” but the hope is that the tool will be more widely available later on this year. As Airbnb spokesperson, told the publication, “We’re currently testing a way to split the cost of a trip on the Airbnb platform. This is a small, initial pilot — our goal is to make it even easier to use Airbnb to travel with friends and family.”

While this is certainly a boon for travelers, it is also a strategic move on Airbnb’s part. After all, some properties may have previously been cost prohibitive if only one person was expected to put down a credit card. But now that multiple people can foot the bill at the same time, renting a $5,000-per-night villa may be more within reach.

That said, it could also encourage hosts to up their prices a bit, seeing as homes can now be seen as more of a per-person cost instead of an upfront money dump. Regardless, the feature still has not rolled out in full yet, so we will have to see what effects it ultimately has in the months to come.

‘Pokémon Go’ still engages fans more than most other Android games

Why it matters to you

Pokémon Go may have reduced down to more of a core audience since its original release, but it is still going strong, with a dedicated player base and decent earnings.

Although Pokémon Go isn’t quite the behemoth it was when it first launched, it still commands a massive amount of mobile gamers’ time in the U.S.. With regular updates and big gameplay overhauls, Niantic added enough to keep gamers coming back.

When released in mid-2016, Pokémon Go became a cultural phenomenon, seeing millions of people all over the world engaging in catching them all in the real world. Even though interest has since died down a little, Niantic still passed the billion-dollar mark in February thanks to in-game microtransactions and for those still paying and playing, they spend a lot of time doing so.

In the first quarter of 2017, Pokémon Go pulled $40 million in combined revenue from Android and iOS gamers in the U.S. alone, with a relatively constant revenue stream each month according to analytics firm, App Annie. That secured it the sixth spot in combined revenue from both mainstream mobile platforms.

However, it is the time people spend playing the game that is the most impressive. Thanks to its requirement for walking and the distances it requires to complete certain tasks, Pokémon Go enjoys some of the highest levels of user play time of all mobile games. Out of all the play time of the top 20 games on Android in the U.S., Pokémon Go accounts for as much as 20 percent of it.

While this is representative of a downtrend from the third quarter of 2016, where that number was a staggering 45 percent, it shows that Pokémon Go is still engaging its fans. Indeed, if you distil the statistics down to the top five games on Android devices, U.S. mobile gamers spent a third of their time catching pocket monsters and beating down their local gym in Pokémon Go.

Although we will have to wait and see if such numbers and earnings can be maintained, the Pokémon Company, which Niantic licensed the franchise from, will no doubt continue to support it. It made a record profit in the last fiscal year thanks to Pokémon Go, a staggering 26 times the net profit of the prior year.

Facebook fleshes out video tab in mobile app by testing out categories

Why it matters to you

If you’re watching increasingly more videos on the Facebook app these days, changes to the video tab going forward could improve your experience.

Facebook is really, really serious about video. We have been seeing the headlines for some time as the social media giant continues to trot out new features and make investments in original programming and server hardware to handle more visual content. So it shouldn’t come as a major surprise that Facebook is testing further enhancements to the video tab in its iOS and Android app.

The changes, spotted by The Next Web, are not visible to all users yet and may receive further alterations before widespread release. It is not a monumental update — there is now a categories menu above the main feed, filled with colorful icons that help you drill down to find the kind of content you are looking for. But it is a useful addition that should flesh out the section of the app. Formerly, the tab was just a never-ending stream of videos lacking any organization.

It’s important to note that in recent months, Facebook has distanced itself from exclusively serving live video. This was a change foretold by The Wall Street Journal in March and the current iteration of the tab provides the same kind of content you expect to see in YouTube suggestions.

With such a rapid expansion in the types of videos users will encounter, it makes sense that Facebook would add a category view to filter a much larger stream of media. There are videos from pages you follow, pages your friends follow, and videos based on your interests — without chronological order. Although there is a propensity to suggest new content, the app on one of our devices brought up videos from as far back as seven months ago.

Still, do not take that to mean Facebook is leaving behind live content entirely. Just a couple weeks ago, the company added closed captioning to its Live API, which translates audio into text on the fly. Meanwhile, Facebook has reported its users are watching four times the amount of live video as they did last summer. All these efforts will become even more critical as the social network doubles down on video ads, like mid-roll breaks.