🔓 Cracking the $235M Bitcoin Vault

🔓 They Cracked the Code to a Locked USB Drive Worth $235 Million in Bitcoin

Hacker Tom Smith and startup Unciphered cracked an encrypted USB drive, designed to erase its contents after ten incorrect password attempts.

This technique could potentially unlock a similar USB drive in a Swiss bank vault, believed to hold the keys to 7,002 bitcoins ($235 million) owned by Swiss crypto entrepreneur Stefan Thomas, who has lost the password.

Unciphered offered to help Thomas unlock the IronKey but he had already engaged two other teams.

Unciphered now holds a valuable tool but no opportunity to use it. The company spent eight months developing this capability through reverse engineering and meticulous work with outdated hardware.

The company is preparing to publish an open letter to persuade Thomas to collaborate.

💰 WordPress.com Owner Buys All-in-One Messaging App Texts.com for $50M

Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, has acquired Texts.com for $50 million.

Texts.com The app brings all your messaging apps together in a single dashboard, including iMessage, Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Messenger, LinkedIn, Signal, Discord and X, with plans for more in the future.

Texts.com offers end-to-end encryption of your chats and other features like the ability to schedule messages at a time that’s convenient for the recipient, not just for you.

In addition, you can mark messages as unread even on services that don’t offer that feature, as well as get summaries of long group chats you’ve missed.

This move allows Automattic to enter the messaging market, complementing its existing services like WordPress and Tumblr.

Texts.com offers its service at $15 per month for most users and $30 per month for businesses. Texts.com founder, Kishan Bagaria, will join Automattic as the head of messaging.

🛠️ Apple Announces New Nationwide Right to Repair Commitment

Apple, known for its sleek devices and tight-lipped repair policies, has made a surprising U-turn.

They’re now championing the right-to-repair movement, promising to provide all the tools, parts, and manuals you need to repair your Apple devices. This move comes after California passed its Right to Repair Act, but Apple is taking it a step further by going nationwide.

Brian Naumann, Apple’s VP and repair business GM, believes this balance between repairability and product integrity will benefit consumers and businesses alike.

It’s a big shift for Apple, who previously seemed to enjoy playing keep-away with their repair guides and parts.

This change of heart aligns with the Biden administration’s push for economic competition. They’re urging companies to stop making consumers jump through hoops to fix their own devices.

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