πΈ The Celsius chapter gets its closing line
Celsius was one of crypto's biggest lenders until it froze withdrawals in 2022 and collapsed into bankruptcy. CEO Alex Mashinsky had told hundreds of thousands of investors the platform was safer than a bank β while quietly running their deposits into risky bets and hiding the losses.
New York AG Letitia James has now settled the civil case: up to $35M from Mashinsky and a lifetime ban from crypto, securities and commodities. His third permanent ban, technically β a 12-year federal fraud sentence and a CFTC ban came first.
Celsius creditors have recovered more than
CoinDesk
Celsius was one of crypto's biggest lenders until it froze withdrawals in 2022 and collapsed into bankruptcy. CEO Alex Mashinsky had told hundreds of thousands of investors the platform was safer than a bank β while quietly running their deposits into risky bets and hiding the losses.
New York AG Letitia James has now settled the civil case: up to $35M from Mashinsky and a lifetime ban from crypto, securities and commodities. His third permanent ban, technically β a 12-year federal fraud sentence and a CFTC ban came first.
Celsius creditors have recovered more than
$3.4B through bankruptcy as of August.CoinDesk
β€1
πΈ Iran's Crypto Funds Keep Shrinking
The US has spent years cutting Iran off from global finance β and crypto is no longer a safe detour. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington was "probably gonna seize a billion dollars of crypto this week" targeting the Iranian regime, without specifying whether exchanges or stablecoin issuers were in the crosshairs.
The tally is growing fast: April brought $500M in seizures; Tether reported freezing
Crypto was sold as freedom from state control. States, it turns out, read the manual β per Newsmax.
Cointelegraph
The US has spent years cutting Iran off from global finance β and crypto is no longer a safe detour. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington was "probably gonna seize a billion dollars of crypto this week" targeting the Iranian regime, without specifying whether exchanges or stablecoin issuers were in the crosshairs.
The tally is growing fast: April brought $500M in seizures; Tether reported freezing
$550M in USDT throughout 2026 under US sanctions. OFAC has been targeting exchanges serving Iran's Revolutionary Guard since August."We know where it is, and we are isolating them."
Crypto was sold as freedom from state control. States, it turns out, read the manual β per Newsmax.
Cointelegraph
π1
π΅ Britney dropped a Justin Timberlake duet β and barely told anyone
Around 2000, Britney and Justin were dating and recorded a song that never came out. Now, 25 years later, "She'll Never Be Me" is finally here β no press release, no announcement, just a Facebook reel.
It's a preview of the *Britney* (2001) anniversary edition, out November 6, with five unreleased tracks, including a full version of a 2002 Pepsi jingle, which is a sentence that could only exist in pop history.
Worth noting: Spears said in 2024 she'd never return to music. This feels less like a comeback, more like an archive quietly unlocking.
Variety
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ynVkvzuG8
Around 2000, Britney and Justin were dating and recorded a song that never came out. Now, 25 years later, "She'll Never Be Me" is finally here β no press release, no announcement, just a Facebook reel.
It's a preview of the *Britney* (2001) anniversary edition, out November 6, with five unreleased tracks, including a full version of a 2002 Pepsi jingle, which is a sentence that could only exist in pop history.
Worth noting: Spears said in 2024 she'd never return to music. This feels less like a comeback, more like an archive quietly unlocking.
Variety
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ynVkvzuG8
YouTube
She'll Never Be Me
Provided to YouTube by Jive/Legacy
She'll Never Be Me Β· Britney Spears
She'll Never Be Me
β 2026 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment
Released on: 2026-10-09
Lyricist, Associated Performer, Composer: Britney Spears
Lyricist, Composer:β¦
She'll Never Be Me Β· Britney Spears
She'll Never Be Me
β 2026 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment
Released on: 2026-10-09
Lyricist, Associated Performer, Composer: Britney Spears
Lyricist, Composer:β¦
β€2π1
π The cameras that wouldn't leave
Flock Safety sells license-plate-reader cameras to colleges and police departments across the US. Elgin Community College in Illinois installed six in April 2025 β then learned Flock was sharing footage data with Border Patrol and that access was barely secured.
The college asked for removal. Flock refused. The school offered to pay out the remaining five months of the contract. Silence. So staff covered the cameras with trash bags and zip ties β and an unmarked vehicle kept coming to pull them off.
This ran until April 2026, when the contract expired and Flock finally retrieved its cameras.
For your safety, of course. Via Chicago Sun-Times.
The Verge
Flock Safety sells license-plate-reader cameras to colleges and police departments across the US. Elgin Community College in Illinois installed six in April 2025 β then learned Flock was sharing footage data with Border Patrol and that access was barely secured.
The college asked for removal. Flock refused. The school offered to pay out the remaining five months of the contract. Silence. So staff covered the cameras with trash bags and zip ties β and an unmarked vehicle kept coming to pull them off.
"We'd cover, and then they'd remove. Then we'd cover and then they'd remove," said president Peggy Heinrich.
This ran until April 2026, when the contract expired and Flock finally retrieved its cameras.
For your safety, of course. Via Chicago Sun-Times.
The Verge
β€3
π€ The barrier keeping software closed just collapsed
REA β Reverse Engineer Anything β connects AI agents to Ghidra and similar tools, letting them read any program down to raw binary. It went from 10,000 to 100,000 GitHub stars between October 6 and 12.
People have already used it to run GTA V natively on iPhone, boot Fable 2 on PC for the first time ever, and send Spider-Man swinging through Arkham City.
Developer Brandon Thomas took the same idea further: he used
The oldest copy protection in software was always the sheer pain of reading machine code. That pain is gone.
Decrypt
REA β Reverse Engineer Anything β connects AI agents to Ghidra and similar tools, letting them read any program down to raw binary. It went from 10,000 to 100,000 GitHub stars between October 6 and 12.
People have already used it to run GTA V natively on iPhone, boot Fable 2 on PC for the first time ever, and send Spider-Man swinging through Arkham City.
Developer Brandon Thomas took the same idea further: he used
Claude Opus 5.5 to build ArtCraft, a free open-source alternative to Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere β written from scratch, no original code touched. His motivation was personal: Adobe had just settled with the DOJ for $150 million over hidden cancellation fees.The oldest copy protection in software was always the sheer pain of reading machine code. That pain is gone.
Decrypt
β€5
π Daily Recap Β· Oct 14
πΈ Mashinsky lied to customers while tanking their deposits
πΊπΈ US set to seize a billion in Iranian crypto
π΅ Britney and Justin's 25-year-old duet just quietly dropped
π College cameras were secretly feeding data to Border Patrol
π€ AI tool that reverse-engineers anything exploded on GitHub
Somebody near you was heads-down all day β this is their catch-up
CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News
πΈ Mashinsky lied to customers while tanking their deposits
πΊπΈ US set to seize a billion in Iranian crypto
π΅ Britney and Justin's 25-year-old duet just quietly dropped
π College cameras were secretly feeding data to Border Patrol
π€ AI tool that reverse-engineers anything exploded on GitHub
Somebody near you was heads-down all day β this is their catch-up
CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News
β€4
π Your car knows more about you than Pinterest needs to
Northeastern University researchers tested 21 vehicles and 30 automaker apps β and found Pinterest, Snap and Meta receiving VINs straight from General Motors' apps. Why does Pinterest need your VIN? Nobody's saying.
GM's four apps were sending VINs to 10 companies including Microsoft and Adobe. The catch: a VIN isn't like a phone ad ID β you can't reset it. Pair it with an email once, and ad networks have you forever.
28 of 30 apps contacted advertising or analytics companies. GM is already under a 20-year FTC privacy order over its driver-data scandal, though the testing predates that order. Of everyone studied, only Honda actually changed anything.
The rest shrugged: it's all in the vendor contracts, they said. Seven added that users should read the terms of every pre-installed service themselves. Convenient.
Engadget
Northeastern University researchers tested 21 vehicles and 30 automaker apps β and found Pinterest, Snap and Meta receiving VINs straight from General Motors' apps. Why does Pinterest need your VIN? Nobody's saying.
GM's four apps were sending VINs to 10 companies including Microsoft and Adobe. The catch: a VIN isn't like a phone ad ID β you can't reset it. Pair it with an email once, and ad networks have you forever.
28 of 30 apps contacted advertising or analytics companies. GM is already under a 20-year FTC privacy order over its driver-data scandal, though the testing predates that order. Of everyone studied, only Honda actually changed anything.
The rest shrugged: it's all in the vendor contracts, they said. Seven added that users should read the terms of every pre-installed service themselves. Convenient.
Engadget
β€1
π‘ A spy inside the hardware wallet
The whole point of a hardware wallet is keeping your keys off the internet. Someone found that amusing.
Ledger's security team confirmed that devices sold by CryptoBilis β an authorized reseller in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines β contained hidden implants with an embedded SIM and LTE radio. During setup, each implant read the 24-word recovery phrase off the screen and transmitted it over cellular. The security chip was never touched.
Estimated losses: $86β103M. CryptoBilis halted sales; Trezor and OneKey both cut ties with the reseller. Ledger is now looking beyond CryptoBilis β a user named Johannes found similar implants in two devices bought at MediaMarkt stores in Europe, CoinDesk reports.
Ledger has sold over 8 million wallets. How many passed through the wrong hands is the question that now matters most.
Cointelegraph
The whole point of a hardware wallet is keeping your keys off the internet. Someone found that amusing.
Ledger's security team confirmed that devices sold by CryptoBilis β an authorized reseller in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines β contained hidden implants with an embedded SIM and LTE radio. During setup, each implant read the 24-word recovery phrase off the screen and transmitted it over cellular. The security chip was never touched.
Estimated losses: $86β103M. CryptoBilis halted sales; Trezor and OneKey both cut ties with the reseller. Ledger is now looking beyond CryptoBilis β a user named Johannes found similar implants in two devices bought at MediaMarkt stores in Europe, CoinDesk reports.
Ledger has sold over 8 million wallets. How many passed through the wrong hands is the question that now matters most.
Cointelegraph
π±1
π Goodbye, Walter White Jr.
RJ Mitte, who played Walter White's son across all five seasons of *Breaking Bad*, has died at 34. His death has been confirmed as suicide.
Cranston's tribute landed quietly and hard:
Like his character, Mitte genuinely had the condition. After the show he became president of the Mitte Foundation and an advocate for disabled performers in Hollywood. He and Cranston had been texting just weeks ago, making plans for lunch.
If you or someone you know is struggling: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline β call or text 988.
Variety
RJ Mitte, who played Walter White's son across all five seasons of *Breaking Bad*, has died at 34. His death has been confirmed as suicide.
Cranston's tribute landed quietly and hard:
"He never β ever β allowed cerebral palsy to be an excuse for anything. I'll miss you, son."
Like his character, Mitte genuinely had the condition. After the show he became president of the Mitte Foundation and an advocate for disabled performers in Hollywood. He and Cranston had been texting just weeks ago, making plans for lunch.
If you or someone you know is struggling: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline β call or text 988.
Variety
β€1π1
π€ Epic's new rule: the AI writes, humans supervise
Epic Games and Disney announced a $1.5 billion partnership in early 2024 β a Marvel-and-Star-Wars-themed shooter due in March 2027. That release now has no date at all.
The reason: a hard pivot to "AI first" development. Bloomberg obtained internal messages describing it without much poetry: "no more hand-written code," art assets "generated with full AI workflows." Models like Anthropic's
CEO Tim Sweeney moved quickly to frame it as ambition, not cuts β the goal, he wrote, is to build more and better, not the same things with fewer people. Which is exactly what every announcement like this has said for the past three years.
The Disney shooter waits. Nobody knows for how long.
Ars Technica
Epic Games and Disney announced a $1.5 billion partnership in early 2024 β a Marvel-and-Star-Wars-themed shooter due in March 2027. That release now has no date at all.
The reason: a hard pivot to "AI first" development. Bloomberg obtained internal messages describing it without much poetry: "no more hand-written code," art assets "generated with full AI workflows." Models like Anthropic's
Claude do the coding and the visuals; human developers steer and review.CEO Tim Sweeney moved quickly to frame it as ambition, not cuts β the goal, he wrote, is to build more and better, not the same things with fewer people. Which is exactly what every announcement like this has said for the past three years.
The Disney shooter waits. Nobody knows for how long.
Ars Technica
β€2
π Apple's smart home era, take two
The original HomePod underwhelmed, Siri lagged, plans kept slipping. On Tuesday Apple announced HomeView β a
πΈ A cuboid HomePod with a screen, counter or wall mount.
πΈ 7-inch display, FaceTime camera, mics and speakers in the base.
πΈ Updated Siri recognises family members by face and shifts the interface automatically.
Amazon and Google have owned this space for years. Apple arrives late but with the deepest ecosystem β and Bloomberg says a robotic-arm version is already in the works. The humble cube has ambitions.
Pre-orders open today; ships November 13 in four colors.
TechCrunch
The original HomePod underwhelmed, Siri lagged, plans kept slipping. On Tuesday Apple announced HomeView β a
$299 smart display that feels like a genuine second attempt.πΈ A cuboid HomePod with a screen, counter or wall mount.
πΈ 7-inch display, FaceTime camera, mics and speakers in the base.
πΈ Updated Siri recognises family members by face and shifts the interface automatically.
Amazon and Google have owned this space for years. Apple arrives late but with the deepest ecosystem β and Bloomberg says a robotic-arm version is already in the works. The humble cube has ambitions.
Pre-orders open today; ships November 13 in four colors.
TechCrunch
β€1
π Daily Recap Β· Oct 15
π Your car is quietly feeding Pinterest your VIN
π‘ Authorized Ledger reseller shipped wallets with hidden implants
π RJ Mitte, Breaking Bad's Walter Jr., dies at 34
π€ Epic goes AI-first and loses its own release date
π Apple's HomeView is the HomePod redemption arc nobody expected
Send this to whoever had back-to-back meetings all day β they missed a lot
CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News
π Your car is quietly feeding Pinterest your VIN
π‘ Authorized Ledger reseller shipped wallets with hidden implants
π RJ Mitte, Breaking Bad's Walter Jr., dies at 34
π€ Epic goes AI-first and loses its own release date
π Apple's HomeView is the HomePod redemption arc nobody expected
Send this to whoever had back-to-back meetings all day β they missed a lot
CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News
β€1