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The Download: unraveling a death threat mystery, and AI voice recreation for musicians

MIT Technology Review

Hackers made death threats against this security researcher. In April 2024, a mysterious someone using the online handles "Waifu" and "Judische" began posting death threats on Telegram and Discord channels aimed at a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon. These anonymous personas targeted Nixon because she had become a formidable threat: As chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes's apartment, she had built a career tracking cybercriminals and helping get them arrested. Though she'd done this work for more than a decade, Nixon couldn't understand why the person behind the accounts was suddenly threatening her. And although she had taken an interest in the Waifu persona in years past for crimes he boasted about committing, he hadn't been on her radar for a while when the threats began, because she was tracking other targets. Now Nixon resolved to unmask Waifu/Judische and others responsible for the death threats--and take them down for crimes they admitted to committing.


The Download: down the Mandela effect rabbit hole, and the promise of a vaccine for colds

MIT Technology Review

Plus: the US is poised to ban TP-Link devices over the company's alleged links to Russia Why do so many people think the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia? Quick question: Does the Fruit of the Loom logo feature a cornucopia? Many of us have been wearing the company's T-shirts for decades, and yet the question of whether there is a woven brown horn of plenty on the logo is surprisingly contentious. According to a 2022 poll, 55% of Americans believe the logo does include a cornucopia, 25% are unsure, and only 21% are confident that it doesn't, even though this last group is correct. There's a name for what's happening here: the "Mandela effect," or collective false memory, so called because a number of people misremember that Nelson Mandela died in prison. Yet while many find it easy to let their unconfirmable beliefs go, some spend years seeking answers--and vindication.


Why do so many people think the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia?

MIT Technology Review

Why do so many people think the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia? And while some people may laugh and move on, others spend years searching for an explanation. There is a shirt currently listed on eBay for $2,128.79. It was not designed by Versace or Dior, nor spun from the world's finest silk. In fact, a tag proudly declares, "100% cotton made in Myanmar"--but it's a second tag, just below that one, that makes this blue button-down so expensive. "I looked at it and I was like,," says Brooke Hermann, the 30-year-old Kentucky-based reseller who bought the top for $1 at a secondhand sale in 2024. "This doesn't look like any other Fruit of the Loom tag I've ever seen." Quick question: Does the Fruit of the Loom logo feature a cornucopia? Many of us have been wearing the casualwear company's T-shirts and underpants for decades, and yet the question of whether there is a woven brown horn of plenty on the logo is surprisingly contentious. According to a 2022 poll by the research company YouGov, 55% of Americans believe the logo does include a cornucopia, 25% are unsure, and only 21% are confident that it doesn't, even though this last group is correct.