Tech News
Russia blocks encrypted email provider ProtonMail – TechCrunch

Russia has told internet providers to enforce a block against encrypted email provider ProtonMail, the company’s chief has confirmed.
The block was ordered by the state Federal Security Service, formerly the KGB, according to a Russian-language blog, which obtained and published the order after the agency accused the company and several other email providers of facilitating bomb threats.
Several anonymous bomb threats were sent by email to police in late January, forcing several schools and government buildings to evacuate.
In all, 26 internet addresses were blocked by the order, including several servers used to scramble the final connection for users of Tor, an anonymity network popular for circumventing censorship. Internet providers were told to implement the block “immediately,” using a technique known as BGP blackholing, a way that tells internet routers to simply throw away internet traffic rather than routing it to its destination.
But the company says while the site still loads, users cannot send or receive email.
ProtonMail chief executive Andy Yen called the block “particularly sneaky,” in an email to TechCrunch.
“ProtonMail is not blocked in the normal way, it’s actually a bit more subtle,” said Yen. “They are blocking access to ProtonMail mail servers. So Mail.ru — and most other Russian mail servers — for example, is no longer able to deliver email to ProtonMail, but a Russian user has no problem getting to their inbox,” he said.
That’s because the two ProtonMail servers listed by the order are its back-end mail delivery servers, rather than the front-end website that runs on a different system.
The letter, translated, says that the listed internet addresses caused “the mass distribution of obviously false reports of a terrorist act” in January, resulting in “mass evacuations of schools, administrative buildings and shopping centers.” (Image: supplied)
“The wholesale blocking of ProtonMail in a way that hurts all Russian citizens who want greater online security seems like a poor approach,” said Yen. He said his service offers superior security and encryption to other mail providing rivals in the country.
“We have also implemented technical measures to ensure continued service for our users in Russia and we have been making good progress in this regard,” he explained. “If there is indeed a legitimate legal complaint, we encourage the Russian government to reconsider their position and solve problems by following established international law and legal procedures.”
Russia’s internet regulator Roskomnadzor did not return a request for comment.
Yen says the block coincided with protests against government efforts to restrict the internet, which critics have dubbed an internet “kill switch.” The Kremlin, known for its protracted efforts to crack down and stifle freedom of speech, claimed it was to protect the country’s infrastructure in the event of a cyberattack.
Some 15,000 residents protested in Moscow on Sunday, during which users started noticing problems with ProtonMail.
It’s the latest in ongoing tensions with tech companies in the wake of the Russian-backed disinformation efforts. Russia’s crackdown on the internet intensified in 2014 when it ratified a law ordering tech companies operating in the country to store Russian data within its borders. LinkedIn was one of the fist casualties of the law, leading to the site’s nationwide ban in 2016.
Last month, Facebook was told to comply with the law or face its own ban. Twitter, too, also faces a possible blackout.
Tech News
The 5 Greatest McLaren Racing Liveries, Ranked

2018 saw McLaren F1 cars return to an orange livery after many years of alternative color schemes. Many of these additional liveries were attractive offerings and deserve a note of praise. However, there’s just something about the blazing orange McLaren livery that’s special.
In 2018, McLaren went all out to bring this pattern back in style. Unlike the previous year, in which orange highlights made a noticeable impact across an otherwise black car, the 2018 MCL33 was completely orange. To complement the style, sponsorship hues from Chandon (a California sparkling wine producer) blanket the tail and nose wings in deep blues that pair perfectly with the bright and aggressive orange of the bodywork.
In 2018, McLaren not only revamped the exterior style of the car, but the team also introduced a Renault engine to the vessel, doing away with the Honda powerplant that hadn’t yielded the results McLaren was hoping for three years in a row (from the introduction in the black and gray 2015 iteration). The team earned 40 points in the first five Grands Prix alone, and ultimately finished sixth in the 2018 season standings. Even so, the return to an orange livery has largely remained a central fixture in McLaren’s yearly product destined for the track.
[Featured image by Alberto-g-rovi via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 3.0]
Tech News
Is ChatGPT Plus Worth The Price?

That brings us to our titular question: should you commit $20 monthly for ChatGPT Plus? If you have taken the time to learn the ins and outs of ChatGPT and are actively applying it to your professional or academic life, then we’d say it’s worth at least trying.
If you frequent the tool, you’ll want to ensure you can access it no matter how many people are using it. Plus, the few seconds you’ll shave off from the quicker response times will pay dividends in the long run, allowing you to get your work done faster and return to your uniquely human life. Lastly, you’ll benefit from its updated dataset and the increased complexity with which it can handle your queries, improving the depth and accuracy of the results you get.
If you’re someone who’s just looking to create the odd scratch of creative content or needs to ask basic questions that don’t rely on technical or ever-changing information, then you should get by just fine with the free version. Just note: ChatGPT is imperfect no matter which version you use, and it’s unlikely to ever reach true perfection, so continue plugging away at your due diligence of fact-checking and polishing its results whenever you turn to it for help.
Tech News
How To Unsend An Email In Microsoft Outlook

It’s easy, during the course of a long work day, to mistakenly add a name to an email or forget to add somebody who needs to recieve the contents of your message. What Microsoft Outlook offers, then, is the capacity not only to unsend an email entirely, but also to make quick edits to the existing text and send it straight back out.
The next time you make such a slip, here’s how to correct it.
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Firstly, double-click the offending email from the Sent tab so it pops out on its own.
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Select the File menu, then click Info.
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Select Message Resend or Recall.
Clicking those options box will present you with two choices you may not have known you had. The first option allows you to re-send an email if it didn’t reach somebody it was intended for. It’s also possible to amend it, should deadlines, plans or anything else previously communicated change. The previously-sent email, however, remains with any recipients the first time around.
It’s Recall This Message that allows an email to be un-sent. By selecting this, you can either opt for Delete Unread Copies Of This Message or Delete Unread Copies And Replace With A New Message. As demonstrated in the Microsoft Support tutorial, both remove the initial message from the system of any recipients, the latter allowing for customization.
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