5 Ways to Make Your Instant Messaging More Secure

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5 Ways to Make Your Instant Messaging More Secure     The actual number of chat messages sent each day is hard to come by, but with WhatsApp alone accounting for billions of users, you can imagine the sheer volume of ongoing conversations.Not all of those messages involve anything particularly sensitive or private, but a lot of them do—and you don’t want those chats to be seen by anyone other than the intended recipients. Continued here

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What the Wagner Group revolt in Russia could mean for the war in Ukraine     Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, staged a revolt against Russia after claiming the Russian army deliberately attacked his forces. Prigozhin demanded justice — and that took the form of an armed insurrection. Before Prigozhin reportedly backed down after negotiations with the leader of Belarus, the Wagner Group controlled key military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of Russia’s southern military district. Now Prighozin is reportedly fleeing to Belarus and he and his fighters will avoid repercussions. Continued here

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Finding Common Cultural Ground With Your Kids     This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Good morning. Before we turn to the Sunday culture edition of this newsletter, here are some of our writers’ most recent stories to help you make sense of the situation in Russia. Continued here

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Want to Raise Successful Kids? Teach Them This 21-Word Simple 'Secret to Life'     "You need to find something that you can do fast, that makes you happy, and that people will pay you for." Continued here

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Putin Is Caught in His Own Trap     After spending years cultivating public apathy, the Russian president found his people indifferent to his fate.The Wagner Group mercenaries marched 800 kilometers across Russia, shot down planes and helicopters, took over a regional military command, provoked a panic in Moscow—troops dug trenches, the mayor told everyone to stay home—and then stood down. Yet in a way, the strangest aspect of Saturday’s aborted coup was the reaction of the people of Rostov-on-Don, including the city’s military leaders, to the soldiers who arrived and declared themselves to be their new rulers. Continued here

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This Cheap Breast Pump Is Simple and Surprisingly Great     If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDWearable breast pumps are fantastically convenient for any pumping parent, but my biggest problem with them is how expensive they are. The price point can prevent them from getting into the hands (and shirts) of parents who could benefit from them. So I started digging into cheaper wearable pumps and came across the Imani i2. Continued here

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The Loss of Spring Is Disastrous     Around the middle of April, spring in the still chilly and wet Pacific Northwest seemed a long way off. Just two weeks later, though, Spokane hit a daily record of 84 degrees Fahrenheit; a month of historic heat ensued. During a heat wave that started around May 12, Portland’s metro area beat records for consecutive May days over 80 degrees (nine) and 90 degrees (four). Coastal communities set records in the 90s too. Later in the month, Washington and eastern Oregon toppled even more records. Smoke drifted down from Canadian wildfires. Vegetable gardens wilted. It hardly rained.Spring is notoriously fickle, but this year, the season’s transition “happened faster than it almost always does,” says Nick Bond, Washington’s state climatologist. “It was a little bit of a whipsaw around here.” Such instability—particularly during the shoulder seasons—is expected to rise because of climate change. Spring temperatures in the Northwest haven’t been warming as quickly as those in other seasons, but according to Bond, they’re catching up. Continued here

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The Best Pizza Ovens to Make the Perfect Slice     If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDThere’s a reason why pizza is the menu choice of picky preschoolers, hungry teenagers, and discerning foodies alike. With enough cheese, tomato sauce, and arugula, homemade pizzas are a complete meal. They’re irresistible, easy to make, and customizable for a wide range of dietary preferences. Continued here

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Meet the AI Protest Group Campaigning Against Human Extinction     The first time we speak, Joep Meindertsma is not in a good place. He tears up as he describes a conversation in which he warned his niece about the risk of artificial intelligence causing societal collapse. Afterward, she had a panic attack. “I cry every other day,” he says, speaking over Zoom from his home in the Dutch city of Utrecht. “Every time I say goodbye to my parents or friends, it feels like it could be the last time.”Meindertsma, who is 31 and co-owns a database company, has been interested in AI for a couple of years. But he really started worrying about the threat the technology could pose to humanity when Open AI released its latest language model, GPT-4, in March. Since then, he has watched the runaway success of ChatGPT chatbot—based first on GPT-3 then GPT-4—demonstrate to the world how far AI has progressed and Big Tech companies race to catch up. And he has seen pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, warn of the dangers associated with the systems they helped create. “AI capabilities are advancing far more rapidly than virtually anyone has predicted,” says Meindertsma. “We are risking social collapse. We're risking human extinction.” Continued here

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Victoria has rediscovered a dragon - how do we secure its future?     The Victorian grassland earless dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla), not seen since 1969, has been found in grasslands west of Melbourne. No need to fear this dragon, though; these lizards are just 15cm long fully grown. The dragon is Australia’s most imperilled scaled reptile. This is an extraordinary second chance. The rediscovery of a species thought to be extinct inspires hope of finding other lost treasures like the Tassie tiger. Continued here

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The Monk Who Thinks the World Is Ending     Soryu Forall, ordained in the Zen Buddhist tradition, is speaking to the two dozen residents of the monastery he founded a decade ago in Vermont’s far north. Bald, slight, and incandescent with intensity, he provides a sweep of human history. Seventy thousand years ago, a cognitive revolution allowed Homo sapiens to communicate in story—to construct narratives, to make art, to conceive of god. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha lived, and some humans began to touch enlightenment, he says—to move beyond narrative, to break free from ignorance. Three hundred years ago, the scientific and industrial revolutions ushered in the beginning of the “utter decimation of life on this planet.”Humanity has “exponentially destroyed life on the same curve as we have exponentially increased intelligence,” he tells his congregants. Now the “crazy suicide wizards” of Silicon Valley have ushered in another revolution. They have created artificial intelligence. Continued here

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The Best Cheap Phones for Almost Every Budget     Wireless carriers in the US go out of their way to make expensive smartphones seem affordable. You may wonder why you shouldn’t buy a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra if it costs nothing down and is only $33 a month. The answer is that over 36 monthly installments, you’re still spending more than a thousand dollars on a phone. Your pricey device may also keep you locked into the network, unable to switch wireless carriers until the phone is paid off.Forget the spendy option and get a seriously great affordable smartphone instead. I’ve tested dozens to find the best cheap phones that perform where it counts and aren’t annoyingly slow. Our top pick, the Google Pixel 7A, is as good as almost any device, and our other choices strike a great balance between price and luxury. Continued here

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It's Abortion, Stupid     Buoyed by the midterms, Democrats believe reproductive rights remain one of the most powerful campaign weapons in their arsenal.Last month, during a meeting of Democrats in rural southwestern Iowa, a man raised his hand. “What are three noncontroversial issues that Democrats should be talking about right now?” he asked the evening’s speaker, Rob Sand, Iowa’s state auditor and a minor state celebrity. Continued here

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Meta-Analysis Study Shows That Loneliness is Literally Killing People. CEOs Should Pay Attention     Loneliness and social isolation are on the rise, and it's proving to be lethal. Continued here

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The human-chimp bond captured in an iconic photo     On 14 July 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall arrived by boat to the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania. Here, in what is now Gombe Stream National Park, her ground-breaking scientific research into chimpanzee behaviour began.Previously a secretarial student without an undergraduate degree in science, Goodall says she observed her wild subjects with an open mind and without preconceptions. Controversially at the time, she defied convention by giving these chimps names instead of numbers. Continued here

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An essential introduction to Buddhism in 8 profound quotes     Buddhism is the world’s fifth largest religion. It dates back to the 5th century BC. Based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, known as “The Buddha,” Buddhism teaches a path away from suffering, based on meditation, virtuous behavior, and spiritual development. Here, we explore the foundational ideas of Buddhism by looking at cornerstone quotes from the Buddha himself. While he is not the only notable guide to the religion, his teachings remain at the core of one the most influential sets of ideas in human history. Beyond that, they represent useful tools to navigate suffering, regardless of creed or belief. Continued here

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I Shouldn't Have to Accept Being in Deepfake Porn     Recently, a Google Alert informed me that I am the subject of deepfake pornography. I wasn’t shocked. For more than a year, I have been the target of a widespread online harassment campaign, and deepfake porn—whose creators, using artificial intelligence, generate explicit video clips that seem to show real people in sexual situations that never actually occurred—has become a prized weapon in the arsenal misogynists use to try to drive women out of public life. The only emotion I felt as I informed my lawyers about the latest violation of my privacy was a profound disappointment in the technology—and in the lawmakers and regulators who have offered no justice to people who appear in porn clips without their consent. Many commentators have been tying themselves in knots over the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence—deepfake videos that tip elections or start wars, job-destroying deployments of ChatGPT and other generative technologies. Yet policy makers have all but ignored an urgent AI problem that is already affecting many lives, including mine.Last year, I resigned as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, a policy-coordination body that the Biden administration let founder amid criticism mostly from the right. In subsequent months, at least three artificially generated videos that appear to show me engaging in sex acts were uploaded to websites specializing in deepfake porn. The images don’t look much like me; the generative-AI models that spat them out seem to have been trained on my official U.S. government portrait, taken when I was six months pregnant. Whoever created the videos likely used a free “face swap” tool, essentially pasting my photo onto an existing porn video. In some moments, the original performer’s mouth is visible while the deepfake Frankenstein moves and my face flickers. But these videos aren’t meant to be convincing—all of the websites and the individual videos they host are clearly labeled as fakes. Although they may provide cheap thrills for the viewer, their deeper purpose is to humiliate, shame, and objectify women, especially women who have the temerity to speak out. I am somewhat inured to this abuse, after researching and writing about it for years. But for other women, especially those in more conservative or patriarchal environments, appearing in a deepfake-porn video could be profoundly stigmatizing, even career- or life-threatening. Continued here

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Emotionally Intelligent People Use a Simple 2-Word Phrase to Get Moving, Take Action, and Live With Fewer Regrets     Once you know the science, these two words take on entirely new meaning. Continued here

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920 million people could face conflict over the world's rivers by 2050: what our study found in Africa     The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project on the Nile River started operating in February 2022. It reinforced tensions between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. The three countries rely most heavily on the Nile’s water. Sudan and Egypt consider the US$4.6 billion dam a threat to vital water supplies. Ethiopia sees it as essential for its development.This is just one example of how conflicts can arise between states that share river basins. And there’s a real risk that such conflicts will become more common as global temperatures rise. Continued here

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Fractured foundations: how Antarctica's 'landfast' ice is dwindling and why that's bad news     There’s more to Antarctic ice than meets the eye. Sea ice is not a uniform crust overlying the salty Southern Ocean. Satellites can easily estimate the horizontal extent of sea ice, but determining the type of ice is far more difficult. Our deeper analysis of satellite images reveals landfast sea ice extent declined to a record low of just 123,200 square km in March 2022. That’s well below the normal March range of 168,600-295,200 square km. Continued here

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How to Use the 43:57 Rule to Have Better Conversations and Accelerate Your Success     When you encourage someone to speak, you are giving them a gift. Continued here

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'That could've been us,' say father and son who pulled out of doomed Titan trip out of safety concerns | CNN     A father and son gave up their seats on the ultimately doomed Titan submersible out of safety concerns just weeks before its catastrophic implosion, they have told CNN. Investor Jay Bloom and his son Sean said they were both worried about the submersible and its ability to travel deep into the ocean ahead of the planned voyage. Continued here

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3 Steps That Create a Bigger Future for You and Your Business     As a leader, your most crucial job is to articulate what your company will become, where it's going, and enact a framework to get there. Continued here

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Wagner group mercenaries in Africa: why there hasn't been any effective opposition to drive them out     It is easy to understand what African rulers see in the mercenary group Wagner. Its fighters can be deployed quickly. It brings sophisticated arms with it and can apply force speedily and ruthlessly.Alternative sources of military muscle have flaws: United Nations missions lack robust mandates; African Union (AU) forces lack the arms and motivation; European Union interveners bear the legacy of colonial repression. The US has little interest in Africa beyond supporting fights against Salafi terrorists. Continued here

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Apple Has Been Quiet on AI. 3 Words On the Company Website Show the Reason Why     Apple prioritizing UX over AI reminds us why it is still the greatest. Continued here

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Wagner's rebellion may have been thwarted, but Putin has never looked weaker and more vulnerable     It is increasingly clear that a rattled Vladimir Putin’s political end is approaching. All that really matters now is whether it comes sooner or later. Having appeared on national television to warn of a coup attempt by traitors – and an impending civil war – Putin abruptly reversed his position only a couple of hours later. The Kremlin announced that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief protagonist, would go into exile in Belarus and all charges against him had been dropped. Continued here

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A very short biography of the Devil     You cannot tell the history of Western thought without also telling the history of Christianity. The culture, values, and political institutions of Europe were all forged under the watchful eye of the Church. And according to the theologian Philip Almond, “The Christian story cannot be told without the Devil.” Which means, by extension, that you cannot tell the history of Western thought without talking about the Devil.Whether you call him Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, or the Lord of Flies, the Devil is a central figure in intellectual history. He pops up in classical literature and popular culture and has more than a few songs in his name. But the Devil has a complicated and meandering biography. Continued here

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Why Putin Let Prigozhin Go     In announcing that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the short-lived rebellion against Russia’s military leadership, would be permitted to “retire” to Belarus in exchange for stopping his “March of Justice” to Moscow, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov explained that the deal, purportedly brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, “was for the sake of a higher goal—to avoid bloodshed, to avoid internal confrontation, to avoid clashes with unpredictable results.”That sounds very noble, except that only a few hours earlier, Peskov’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, had given a televised address describing Prigozhin’s mutiny as treason and “a betrayal” that struck at the very heart of Russian statehood. He seemed to be preparing the Russian people for a civil war. So for Prigozhin to literally fly off into the evening sunset (at least for now) is odd, to put it mildly. It is especially bizarre given that in Putin’s Russia, even teenagers can be jailed for posting anything faintly critical of the “special military operation” (it is illegal to call it a war) that the Russian defense forces have been pursuing in Ukraine since February 2022. The liberal opposition figures Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza received prison sentences of eight and a half and 25 years, respectively, for their social-media criticisms of the war last year. While their weapons were words, Prigozhin’s were tanks and guns. One would think leading an armed rebellion is significantly more problematic for the regime than some tweets and interviews. So what is the true “higher goal” for which Prigozhin was let off the hook? Continued here

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Five questions for African countries that want to build climate-resilient health systems     Every day seems to bring a new headline about a devastating climate event. African countries aren’t spared. A “rain bomb” in South Africa. Flooding in Nigeria. Cyclones battering Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. Drought in Kenya.These events have enormous health and social effects, among them death, injuries, malnutrition and diseases (infectious and non-communicable). This all puts tremendous pressure on countries’ health systems, both in terms of caring for those affected and because facilities like hospitals and clinics are vulnerable to damage and destruction. Continued here

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Astronomers See the Same Supernova Four Times Thanks to a Gravitational Lens     Measuring cosmic distances is challenging, and astronomers rely on multiple methods and tools to do it – collectively referred to as the Cosmic Distance Ladder.Measuring cosmic distances is challenging, and astronomers rely on multiple methods and tools to do it — collectively referred to as the Cosmic Distance Ladder. One particularly crucial tool is Type Ia supernovae, which occur in binary systems where one star (a white dwarf) consumes matter from a companion (often a red giant) until it reaches the Chandrasekhar Limit and collapses under its own mass. As these stars blow off their outer layers in a massive explosion, they temporarily outshine everything in the background. Continued here