Cybercrime is moving from the dark web to Telegram more and more, study finds

It’s been touted as a WhatsApp alternative. The company that operates it has faced sharp criticism for not doing enough to curtail revenge porn or counterfeit vaccination cards. Now, a new study has found that Telegram is, surprise surprise, an appealing home for cybercriminals.

The revelation comes from a study conducted by Cyberint for a Financial Times story. The cybersecurity firm found that hackers are selling and sharing data leaks on Telegram because it’s easy to use and not heavily moderated.

In the past, such data dumps were largely the domain of the so-called “dark web,” a sort of West West version of the internet that can only be accessed using special browsers and logins. Hackers find the dark web appealing because it lives in a corner of the deep web — which is to say, the part of the internet that doesn’t appear in search engines — which is even more locked down against outside observers and intrusion.

All those barriers come with a price, of course: Not just anyone can access the dark web. That’s where Telegram enters the picture. It’s easy to download the app and set up an account. The service’s “secret” chats use end-to-end encryption, for added privacy. And while group chats don’t have the same protection, you still need a link or invite to get in. Telegram also allows for massive group chats of up to 200,000 users.

These features have prompted what Cyberint threat analyst Tal Samra called a more than “100 percent rise” in Telegram usage among cybercriminals. “Its encrypted messaging service is increasingly popular among threat actors conducting fraudulent activity and selling stolen data… as it is more convenient to use than the dark web.”

The burst of movement toward Telegram was prompted, according to the study, by recent changes at one of the apps competitors, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp. While Telegram and WhatsApp both are popular destinations for those seeking more privacy in their digital communications — the two platforms offer some form of end-to-end encryption — the latter’s new, if beleaguered, privacy policy has made the platform less appealing for users with unsavory goals.

Cyberint found that mentions of certain terms hackers use when they’re hawking stolen emails and passwords “rose fourfold” between 2020 and 2021. The FT story also mentions a (since-removed) public channel called “combolist” — the name of which is itself a reference to hacker terminology — where data dumps were sold or simply shared.

SEE ALSO:

What you need to know about Telegram, the WhatsApp alternative

There were around 47,000 users in the channel when Telegram shut it down, a move that only happened after FT inquired about its existence. The Cyberint study also found that there’s a marketplace on Telegram for financial data, personal documents, malware, and hacking guides, in addition to online account credentials.

The dark web itself is feeding Telegram’s growth, Cyberint found. The company’s researchers noticed a massive spikes in links to Telegram destinations being shared on dark web forums between 2020 and 2021, rising from just over 172,000 last year to more than one million this year.

Telegram hasn’t yet responded to a Mashable request for comment, but the company maintained to FT that its policy is to remove personal data when it’s “shared without consent.” Though with growing signs that the company is looking to bring in new money and eventually go public, one wonders how much longer its reportedly lax moderation will stand.

Apple vows to pay for Texas employees to travel after abortion ban

Apple CEO Tim Cook promised to help protect Texas employees after the state passed an abortion ban.

Apple is taking more of a stand for its employees.

On Friday, CEO Tim Cook spoke about the iPhone maker’s plans to support Texas employees affected by the state’s new abortion law, known as the “heartbeat” bill.

During an all-staff meeting broadcast to 160,000 Apple employees worldwide, Cook noted that Apple’s medical insurance would kick in to help cover the costs incurred by workers who need to travel because of Texas’ abortion access restrictions. The New York Times obtained a recording of the employee-only meeting.

The state law went into effect earlier in September and it prohibits most abortions after a heartbeat is detected in the fetus, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The law also pays out legal fees of at least $10,000 to anyone who sues someone, like a medical practitioner or insurance professional, who “aids or abets” an abortion once a heartbeat is detected.

Cook also said Apple was looking into helping with the legal battle against the abortion law. The Biden administration sued Texas over the ban. A federal hearing is scheduled for Oct. 1 to consider a temporary block to the ban.

Apple is one of the bigger tech companies taking a position in Texas politics concerning reproductive rights. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Match Group (Tinder’s parent company), dating app Bumble, and some smaller companies like online survey software company QuestionPro, have also committed to helping Texas-based employees who need to travel for abortion access.

SEE ALSO:

Horrified reactions on Twitter after Supreme Court decision on Texas abortion law

Software giant Salesforce went a step further, offering to pay workers and their families to relocate out of the state altogether.

Ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber have vowed to pay any legal fees for drivers sued for helping someone access an abortion. Other tech companies have interfered with the law in other ways, like domain hosting service GoDaddy cutting off Texas’ abortion whistleblower website.

LeVar Burton teased his exciting post-‘Jeopardy!’ plans on ‘The Daily Show’

It’s definitely weird that Sony Pictures seems to think the only people capable of hosting Jeopardy! are ones with a spotty history on social media and podcasts, or who just embrace a regressive view of feminism. But LeVar Burton, the Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: The Next Generation star who didn’t end up getting the job people would’ve loved to see him take on, has already started looking at what’s next.

Burton bared some of his thoughts on Jeopardy! opportunity during his recent chat Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. “I made it public that I wanted it for myself, that it made sense to me, and [my fans] were all about it. It made as much sense to them as it did to me,” he said.

It wasn’t to be, though. And for Burton, the process, and more importantly what came after it, led him to realize that it wasn’t the Jeopardy! job he really wanted, it was the chance “to compete.” He admits he would’ve taken the job had it been offered, but he’s more excited by the doors that tryout opened. “The opportunities that have come my way as a result of not getting that gig, I couldn’t have dreamt it up.”

He doesn’t delve into any of the specifics beyond that, though at Noah’s urging he does tease the possibility that he’s open to hosting some kind of game show. “We’re trying to figure out what the right game show for LeVar Burton would be.” It sounds like books would be involved.

Speaking of books, the Jeopardy! portion of this interview is only half the picture. Burton and Noah start out with a discussion of books and reading, and it surfaces a bit of trivia for the Reading Rainbow host: He’s only ever stopped reading one book part of the way through. You’ll have to watch this chat to find out what it is.

SpaceX civilian crew has an update from space featuring a stuffed dog and a ukulele

Look at the four space geeks reveling in the thrill of spending time in outer space.

The all-civilian crew of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission, who have been circling the Earth from orbit since Wednesday evening, stepped in front of a camera to deliver an update on Friday night. If you’re looking for big news and dense discussions of science, look elsewhere. This is just four people having an absolute blast.

After a less-than-impressive attempt to show off their view from space — they already sent back better looks — civilian astronauts Hayley Arceneaux, Jared Isaacman, Dr. Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski spend the rest of their video time showing off what they’ve been doing since Wednesday.

Dr. Proctor shows off some of the fantasy-meets-SpaceX art she’s created using metallic markers (specifically for science). Sembroski talks about bringing more of our “humanities” to space before he strums a brief tune on his ukulele. The video caps off with Arceneaux showing off the stuffed dog that was used to confirm that the Resilience had reached a zero-gravity environment — actually a common practice! — and explain its connection to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which the mission is raising funds to support.

How to optimize your Instagram profile for search

Trying to get your Instagram profile out there a little more? One thing you might want to think about doing is making it more search-friendly.

In other words, you want to edit your profile in ways that make it more likely to appear as a suggestion under the search bar.

There are a number of things you can do to make yourself more discoverable on Instagram. Whether you have a brand profile you’re trying to promote or you just want to snag a few more followers, here are some tips on how to optimize your profile for search.

Put keywords in your display name and handle

One of the first things you should do, as the marketing platform Hubspot suggests, is to think about the keywords you want your profile to market. Ask yourself, “What are people going to type into the search bar to find the things I’m marketing?” For example, if your profile is for a tattoo shop (or if you’re an individual tattoo artist), you would want to have “tattoo” somewhere in both your display name and your “handle” (your username beginning with @).

When I type “tattoo shop” into the Instagram search bar, all of the top account results have “tattoo” in their display name, and most of them have “tattoo” (or some variation of it) somewhere in their handle. @livebytheswordtattoo appears as a high-ranking result partly because their account is optimized, but also, to be clear, because someone I follow also follows them, which may play a hand in which accounts appear in searches by networks of people.

The account results when I search "tattoo shop" on Instagram

The account results when I search “tattoo shop” on Instagram
Credit: screenshot: instagram

Having keywords in the most important places on your Insta page is a useful first step in optimizing it for search.

Hashtag your posts

If you have any hope of somebody stumbling across your profile, you gotta (gotta gotta gotta) hashtag your posts. Hashtags are one of the primary ways Instagram gears its search results and allows people to follow and discover the things they’re interested in.

Continuing with our tattoo example, if you’re a shop or an artist trying to get your work out there, you’d want to hashtag your posts with #tattoo. Keep in mind, the broader the hashtag, the broader the audience searching for it will be — and therefore, the more search results you’ll be competing with.

Broad hashtags are still good! You’ll reach a huge audience that way. The problem is, you might get buried in other posts with the same hashtag, which is why we recommend using multiple hashtags of varying levels of specificity.

Let’s say you have a tattoo of a flower you want to show off. Consider hashtagging your post with #tattoo (to reach a wide audience) and #flowertattoo (to reach a more specific audience).

The top results when I search "flower tattoo" on Instagram

The top results when I search “flower tattoo” on Instagram
Credit: screenshot: instagram

When I search “flower tattoo” on Instagram, the first nine out of the 12 top results have #flowertattoo in their posts. The other three have flower emoji in their captions, which may hint at the role emoji play in driving up post interactions. We’ll get to that in the next tip.

Captions

Your post captions are another key area where you can optimize your profile. In a 2019 study from the social analytics platform Quintly reported on by Social Media Today, researchers looked at how things like caption length, hashtag usage, and even emoji usage affected post interactions among Instagram users big and small.

Length

The study found that for bigger profiles, with more than a million followers, posts with no captions received the highest engagement. For smaller profiles (between 1,000 and 10,000 followers), caption lengths between one and 50 characters saw the highest amount of interactions. So if you’re a smaller profile, caption your posts, but keep it short and sweet. For even smaller accounts, with 1,000 followers or less, interactions were about even between small captions (between one and 50 characters) and large captions (300 or more characters).

Emoji usage

Now, let’s talk emoji. The Quintly study found that whether your profile has over 10 million followers or less than 1,000 followers, captions with zero emoji tended to receive the least amount of interactions.

For small accounts, with less than 1,000 followers, captions using 10 emoji or more resulted in the highest number of interactions on average, although captions containing anywhere between one and 10 emoji were not far behind.

For larger accounts, with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, captions with four to 10 emoji saw the highest average interactions, though emoji usage outside that range also saw a high level of interactions — except captions with zero emoji.

The takeaway? Whether you’re a big or small profile, use emoji in your captions, dammit. And if you’re a small account with less than a 1,000 followers, maybe go crazy and use 10 or more emoji?

Hashtag usage

When looking at hashtag usage, the study found that larger profiles tended to get their highest engagement when their posts included zero hashtags. Why? We don’t know for sure. But we imagine that if you’re Ariana Grande, you probably don’t need to use hashtags to get high levels of engagement with your posts. If you’re Ariana Grande and you have the specific goal of getting the highest Insta engagement you can, it’s probably best to not use any hashtags.

We can also probably safely assume that most of you reading this are, in fact, not Ariana Grande. In that case, if you have less than 1,000 followers, use hashtags and use a lot of ’em. The study found that these smaller accounts saw their highest level of engagement when they used 10 or more hashtags in their posts.

The data does get a little peculiar in the mid-range-sized accounts. Accounts with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers also saw their highest level of engagement when using 10+ hashtags. However, small (but not the smallest) accounts, with between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, saw their highest engagement when they used a modest one to three hashtags. Accounts with 100,000 followers or more saw their highest engagement when using zero hashtags.

The best advice we can offer is to consider the size of your account and determine your hashtag usage based on that.

If you want to look at the full study in more detail, you can check it out here!

Use your bio

Don’t leave it blank! Hubspot also suggests using “secondary keywords” in your bio. Think about what else people will be searching for that goes along with what you’re trying to market.

What else would people be searching that relates to tattoos? “Piercings,” perhaps? “Shops” to schedule appointments at? Maybe including your city/region will help capture the audience closest to you! Let’s look at @livebytheswordtattoo again.

@livebytheswordtattoo Instagram bio

@livebytheswordtattoo Instagram bio
Credit: @livebytheswordtattoo via instagram

Looking at their bio, we can see that they include “tattoo,” “piercing,” and “shop,” utilizing both primary and secondary keywords to help drive their search optimization.

They also include NYC in their display name, and they put both Williamsburg and Brooklyn in their bio. This, of course, tells users where they do their business, but it also outlines a broad area as well as a specific neighborhood where they’re most likely to capture the audience they’re after.

Post content! Then check your “likes” and “views”

The best way we learn is by practicing, right? So if you’re unsure about what’s working and what’s not, how about some trial and error?

Post your content using different techniques. Play around with the length of your captions. Try adding another keyword to your profile. Use more emoji. Use less emoji. Use more hashtags. Use less hashtags. And then see what happens!

Which pictures get more likes and comments? Which videos get more views? What do your posts with the highest number of likes have in common?

We can learn a lot about what works by just giving it the ol’ college try and seeing what happens next. It’s kind of like running your own personal “study” to help you learn which things are optimizing your Instagram.

And, if you have a “creator” or “business” Instagram account, you can access “insights” to see more detailed info about your post interactions and metrics.

You have a good set of tools to help you optimize your account and track the results. So get out there and build those profiles and get those interactions! We’ll be here rooting for you.

A speeding object collided with Jupiter and blew up, cool space footage shows

An image of Jupiter captured by the Juno space probe.

Flash!

An asteroid or icy object collided with the gas giant Jupiter on Sept. 13, where it eventually blew up in the planet’s thick clouds. A Brazilian space photographer, José Luis Pereira, captured the rarely-seen solar system event, which is shown in the intriguing footage below.

The object was around dozens of meters across (possibly some 120 to 160 feet wide, maybe more, maybe less). Traveling at a high speed, it journeyed deeper and deeper into Jupiter’s heavy atmosphere, where it experienced strong friction and heated up as it fell through the planet’s clouds.

“At some point it exploded,” said Peter Vereš, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, a collaborative research group between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory.

The resulting one or two-second flash is similar to the bright flash sometimes seen on Earth when a decently-sized asteroid blows up in the atmosphere, a phenomenon known as an “airburst.” In 2013, for example, a powerful airburst occurred when a rock some 56-feet wide exploded over Russia, releasing “30 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb,” the European Space Agency said.

Now days after the event, astronomers don’t think the object could have been too large (say, more than some 330 feet across, or 100 meters) because the impact would have left lasting holes in Jupiter’s clouds. In 1994, for example, massive chunks (some half-a-mile wide) of the broken-apart comet Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 left giant gashes in the Jovian atmosphere that lasted for months.

“It blew these giant Earth-sized holes in the clouds,” explained Paul Byrne, an associate professor of earth and planetary science at Washington University in St. Louis. But Jupiter, which is 11 times wider than our planet, wasn’t significantly disrupted by this much smaller, most recent collision. “Jupiter is so big that it can shrug this off,” Byrne said.

Yet the impact, and resulting explosion, certainly produced a bright flash. Astronomers and other researchers use this brightness to gauge the size of an impacting object, explained Cathy Plesko, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who researches asteroid and comet impacts. A larger object creates a more energetic explosion, and flash.

(Even tiny objects produce vivid flashes. The common shooting star is a rice-sized meteor burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. “That’s pretty bright for a grain of rice,” Plesko said.)

SEE ALSO:

If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here’s how you’ll know

Objects often hit Jupiter. It’s a big target with a strong gravitational pull. But it’s less common for someone to record it, like the photographer Pereira (amateur astronomers, vigilantly watching the skies, have captured some impacts on Jupiter before). What’s more, Pereira accomplished this with an amateur telescope, not via a powerful space observatory. “It’s really an incredible achievement,” noted Byrne.

The impact footage shows that our solar system, now at some 4.5 billion years old, is still a bustling, dynamic place. Sure, there aren’t nearly as many giant rocks regularly crashing into one another, like early on in the solar system’s chaotic development a few billion years ago. But collisions (sometimes large) still happen.

“It’s calmed down a lot, but it’s not quiet,” said Byrne.

This reality is a poignant reminder that threats to Earth, particularly from asteroids, loom in the solar system. This is cause for concern, but not alarm, emphasized Byrne. NASA, federal agencies, and global organizations are currently surveying the solar system for potentially threatening objects. The biggest rocks — half a mile wide or larger that can trigger major extinctions on Earth — are well accounted for. So far, NASA has located about 90 percent of these big boys. “We think we know where the big ones are,” said Plesko. None that we know of, fortunately, pose an imminent threat to Earth anytime soon.

“It’s extremely unlikely something giant will come out of nowhere and hit us,” said Byrne.

But many smaller rocks remain a threat. As Mashable previously reported, scientists estimate that thousands of Near Earth Objects (objects in Earth’s neighborhood) wider than 460 feet have yet to be found. These rocks can devastate urban areas. An asteroid believed to be some 100 to 170 feet across left a 600-foot-deep crater in Arizona 50,000 years ago. “A similar-size impact event today could destroy a city the size of Kansas City,” David Kring, an impact expert at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, told NASA this year.

That’s why NASA is planning a historic test of our ability to redirect a “small” asteroid (525 feet across) in 2022, an experiment called the DART mission. The DART spacecraft is designed to slam into the asteroid, slightly altering its course.

Indeed, rocks abound in our solar system. A relatively small rock burning up in Jupiter’s atmosphere is a run-of-the-mill happening in our space neighborhood. But it’s fascinating to see. And it helps astronomers gauge exactly what’s out there, hurtling through our solar system.

Gabby Petito’s disappearance shouldn’t be an internet true crime thriller

Before her fiancé drove home without her, Gabby Petito posted a vlog of their cross-country road trip on their shared YouTube channel Nomadic Statik.

The internet adores a juicy true crime story, but the voyeuristic online frenzy to find Gabby Petito is in poor taste.

Petito, a 22-year-old New Yorker who loved “art, yoga, and veggies,” per her Instagram bio, is the subject of a missing person case gripping the country. Between her public social media posts, which were consistent until her disappearance a few weeks ago, and the true crime-obsessed zeitgeist, her story is unfolding as a thriller in real time. Petito deserves better than to be turned into a spectacle.

As of Friday, the tag #gabbypetito has 77 million views on TikTok, and #findgabbypetito has 16.6 million. The tag #gabbypetitoupdate has 7.3 million. The subreddit r/GabbyPetito was created on Sept. 13, and already has 33,200 members. She’s the subject of multiple threads in r/True Crime, which has 611,000 members, and in r/TrueCrimeDiscussion, which has 284,000 members. And people are creating aesthetic Instagram accounts dedicated to posting updates about her case, like the account @gabby.petito, which gained 10,100 followers in just 24 hours.

Although most engaged in the online discussion say they’re so involved out of concern for Petito, some of the posts verge on distastefully opportunistic.

On Jul. 2, she and her 23-year-old fiancé Brian Laundrie embarked on cross-country adventure in a converted Ford Transit van. The couple documented their journey on Instagram, TikTok, and the YouTube channel Nomadic Statik. Their content mirrored that of popular travel vloggers known as “van lifers,” who embody a bohemian lifestyle rejecting the glitz of more conventional influencers in favor of living in crunchy converted camper vans. Rather than post about glamorous outfits and elaborate brunches, van life is portrayed a minimalist way of life that allows people to unplug from their desk jobs and explore the great outdoors. On social media, Petito and Laundrie seemed like a happy young couple who couldn’t be bothered by inconveniences like bad weather.

SEE ALSO:

Untangling true crime: Inside the ethics of Hollywood’s greatest guilty pleasure

View this post on Instagram

“Rain sounds like a negative thing when camping, but after coming back from a strenuous hike in the sun with no shade for miles, it’s nice to lay listening to the cold rain hit your tent and fight @bizarre_design_ for the blanket,” Petito captioned a Jul. 22 Instagram photo, posted from Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

In another photo, taken at Canyonlands National Park, also in Utah, Petito mused about the joys of hiking barefoot, a habit of Laundrie’s.

“Surprisingly enough, the rocks here were cold!” she wrote. “So not only did it feel good because it was 100 degrees with no shade, but it was tranquil. We always love surpassing people on our hikes, hearing them say things like, ‘Woah, he’s barefoot.’ @bizarre_design_ inspires me everyday on living a more natural lifestyle!”

Petito was last seen on Aug. 24 leaving a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. She FaceTimed her family on Aug. 25, from Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming, and posted her last Instagram photo in front of a wall painted with monarch butterflies. On Aug. 30, her mother received a text from her that said “No service in Yellowstone,” but she isn’t sure if the text was actually from her daughter. On Sept. 1, Laundrie and the van arrived at his home in Florida. Petito, however, did not. Her family reported her missing on Sept. 11.

Laundrie, who won’t speak to investigators, still hasn’t made a public statement regarding his fiancée’s disappearance. His reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement, and his refusal to communicate with Petito’s family, is further fueling discussions on true crime enthusiast circles online.

“This is understandably an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family,” Laundrie’s attorneys said in a statement Tuesday. “On behalf of the Laundrie family it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family.”

View this post on Instagram

The person who runs the Instagram @gabby.petito said they’re a 20-year-old student who wished to remain anonymous, and although the account is easily confused with Petito’s, they said they didn’t intend to mislead. They said the visually appealing, whimsical style of the text posts they share weren’t meant to be insensitive or disrespectful, but to be eye-catching and easily shared in an effort to raise awareness of Petito’s disappearance. There’s a stark dissonance between the pastel colors and alarming text detailing the case. One post includes a witness statement from a domestic incident between Laundrie and Petito before her disappearance — in sweet cream colored font superimposed on a baby blue background, the post reads, “Petito was ‘crying uncontrollably’ in the passenger seat.”

“In just a little over 48 hours, our page has reached nearly two million impressions,” the creator behind @gabby.petito said in an Instagram DM. “Truth be told, the style of the posts are not what really matters. What matters is if we people are learning, understanding, and spreading awareness on Gabby.”

Even if online efforts to share information about this case are done with good intentions, the sheer amount of content made about Petito smacks of opportunism.

With so many questions about Petito’s whereabouts before her disappearance, her relationship with Laundrie, and Laundrie’s refusal to speak publicy, the case is ripe for a stirring documentary. The excitement surrounding Petito’s disappearance may be out of genuine concern for the young woman, but it can be insensitive. Twitter user @afroelven posted, “I already know producers and streaming services are salivating at the prospect of making + distributing the documentary first.”

As idyllic as their life appeared online, bodycam footage released by Utah police — recorded during a physical altercation just weeks before Gabby went missing — indicates otherwise. Petito slapped Laundrie during an argument, according to the police report, but neither wanted to press charges when they were questioned. Officers described the altercation as an emotional and mental “break” and noted in the report that Petito suffers from “serious anxiety.”

The bodycam footage, part of which is embedded below and some readers may find disturbing, was fodder for distasteful online speculation about the nature of the couple’s relationship. The feminist subreddit r/TwoXChromosomes discussed how Petito told police that Laundrie locked her out of the van, and had hit him in an effort to take back her phone and keys. On TikTok and Instagram, discussion participants speculated about Laundrie’s involvement, Petito’s mental health, and spread unconfirmed reports of spotting a “mentally unstable” young woman who might be her at a truck stop.

Todd Shipley, president of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA) and retired senior detective sergeant in the Reno Police Department, co-authored the book Investigating Internet Crimes: An Introduction to Solving Crimes in Cyberspace. He’s wary of true crime enthusiasts and told Mashable that amateur sleuths can inundate small law enforcement agencies with irrelevant information. Local agencies usually have only a few detectives on staff and, while tips about social media posts might be helpful for officers looking into certain cases, receiving hundreds of tips about the same post can drown out helpful leads.


“Sometimes people can point [law enforcement] to where the evidence is…The problem is that when they get 1,000 people doing that.”

“Sometimes people can point them to where the evidence is, because law enforcement may not find that immediately,” Shipley said, noting how Petito’s last Instagram post helped establish a timeline leading up to her disappearance. “The problem is that when they get 1,000 people doing that, then a lot of stuff gets lost in the pools…It’s the noise that causes law enforcement to use resources ineffectively.”

The true-crime-obsessed are re-cappers, not investigators. Their podcasts, extensive YouTube videos, and wildly popular TikToks have followings because these creators are great storytellers. Their work involves a significant amount of labor, from researching, fact-checking, recording content, and editing, but they themselves rarely have the resources or necessary skills for investigating a missing person case. The proliferation of true crime content blurs the lines between law enforcement detectives, investigative reporters, and online storytellers. Certain creators built dedicated audiences by posting theories about true crime cold cases — YouTube is rife with videos positing explanations for unsolved mysteries.

The cases featured in those videos happened years ago. The families involved had time to grieve and process their pain, and detectives may have concluded their investigations. Petito’s case is still unraveling.

Art Bowker, an investigator at an independent police accountability agency in the Cleveland Department of Public Safety, co-wrote the book with Shipley. As a cybersecurity expert and former HTCIA president, Bowker is especially fed up with true crime creators who make wild speculations without evidence.


“I don’t think they should be discussing it…when they don’t have access to the evidence themselves.”

“I don’t think they should be discussing it, to be frank, when they don’t have access to the evidence themselves,” Bowker told Mashable, adding that these creators don’t interview witnesses or inspect evidence like actual detectives do. “Professional media is supposed to have standards about what they’ll do and what they won’t, and these YouTubers don’t have those. They haven’t developed those ethics, and that’s a shame.”

A few true crime enthusiasts are trying to distance themselves from the more speculative creators. Sondra Holbrook, who has 127,400 followers on her TikTok account crimewithsondra, has been posting updates about Petito’s case since Thursday. Her viewers keep pressing her to share theories instead of already public information, but Holbrook says she is careful to only share what authorities have publicly discussed.

@crimewithsondra

Statement from Gabby Petito’s mother ##pressconference ##whereisgabbypetito ##gabbypetito ##missing ##utah ##brianlaundrie ##unsolved ##update ##fyp

♬ original sound – Sondra

“Some forget this is someone’s reality and spreading wild claims does nothing but hurt the investigation. It’s not just entertainment,” Holbrook said in an Instagram DM. “As hard as it is, I think we need to keep speculations to ourselves and if you think you truly know something, report it to the correct authorities before posting on social media.”

She added that although Petito’s family may appreciate the support, “speculations truly are just speculations,” and unreliable rumors “cloud the real information.”

Whether creators post content more responsibly like Holbrook, or post wild speculations and unconfirmed rumors like many other creators do, the willingness to jump on “covering” Petito’s case can be opportunistic in its own right.

Though the case is captivating — especially since van life is portrayed as such an escapist fantasy for young people — Petito and her loved ones deserve better than for their story to be consumed like a grisly thriller. She’s a real person who is more than her aspirational social media presence, not the subject of a podcast or docu-series. The fascination with mysteries like this one is understandable, but when the obsession involves an evolving case, it hinders investigations and deprives families of compassion. Gabby Petito, and her unfiltered life offline, are more than just a true crime hook. Even the most concerned viewers should be mindful of that before posting about her.

Here’s where all the best Black Friday 2021 deals will be

Did it hurt? When you realized we’re about to enter our second pandemic holiday shopping season?

Ready or not, Black Friday is coming

It won’t be much longer until retailers start cramming your inbox full of ad scans and deal previews. It may seem a bit pre-emptive, like those neighbors who insist on putting up their Christmas decorations before the leaves fall, but trust us when we say that this year’s Black Friday sales will be even weirder than last year’s.

Three words: Supply chain chaos

Under circumstances absolutely no one had on their bingo card, pickles and paper bags have gotten as elusive as Playstation 5s. Blame the Delta variant, which continues to inflame pandemic-related material shortages and delivery delays across industries of all kinds. Unsurprisingly, this ordeal has left manufacturers and retailers scrambling; Walmart, Home Depot, and Ikea have actually gone so far as to charter private cargo ships to make sure their shelves are stocked for the holidays.

As such, finding the best deals this Black Friday will likely be a question of availability more so than price.

“I half-jokingly tell people ‘Order your Christmas presents now because otherwise on Christmas day, there may just be a picture of something that’s not coming until February or March,'” UPS International President Scott Price told Agence France-Presse in mid-September. And you thought finding toilet paper last spring was bad.

Since planning ahead will be your best defense against backorders and “out of stock” notices, we’re rolling out our Black Friday coverage way earlier than usual this year. (The early bird gets the Nintendo Switch, so to speak.) We’ll be updating this post with the best deals as sales start to pop up — in the meantime, here are all the must-know details you’ll need ahead of time.

Illustration of a woman browsing for deals in the wee hours of the morning, which is exactly what our Shopping staff will be doing in the lead up to Black Friday.

Illustration of a woman browsing for deals in the wee hours of the morning, which is exactly what our Shopping staff will be doing in the lead up to Black Friday.
Credit: Vicky Leta / Mashable

What is Black Friday?

Black Friday is a shopping holiday that takes place every year on the day right after Thanksgiving. It used to be synonymous with viral fistfights and stampedes and lines that stretched around city blocks before 3 a.m., but COVID-19 has turned it into a mostly online event.

When is Black Friday?

While Black Friday proper falls on Nov. 26 this year, retailers will start trickling out their holiday doorbusters much sooner — we’re thinking as early as October.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday — what’s the difference?

Scoring a great deal on Black Friday once meant camping out at a retailer in the middle of the night right as the store opened. But once online shopping became mainstream, online retailers wanted a piece of the Black Friday pie. Cyber Monday was born thanks to people of the early 2000s wanting the best possible internet connection to do their shopping. At the time, office computers had better broadband than home setups, causing people to wait until work on Monday to do all their online shopping. In 2005, the NRF debuted the term Cyber Monday and we’ve been online shopping after Thanksgiving ever since.

Big-name retailers will also have good online sales on Black Friday, many of which are live weeks in advance. Best Buy and Walmart will offer good prices on Black Friday, while Amazon is better on Cyber Monday if you’re a Prime member. (Though Amazon does run Black Friday savings for the whole week leading up to the holiday.)

What stores will be open for in-person shopping this Black Friday?

Most major retailers’ Black Friday hours are still TBD, but we already know that Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Kohl’s, and Bed Bath & Beyond will close their doors on Thanksgiving Day. (That’s a big change from pre-pandemic years, when many stayed open on the federal holiday so that eager shoppers could get a jump on their best deals.) If you feel the urgent need to do some post-pie shopping that day, you’ll have to crack open your laptop instead.

Don't forget to order a little something nice for yourself this year. You earned it.

Don’t forget to order a little something nice for yourself this year. You earned it.
Credit: Mashable Illustration

Here are the best deals at each retailer

Amazon: Check back later for deals!

Bed Bath & Beyond: Check back later for deals!

Best Buy: Check back later for deals!

Kohl’s: Check back later for deals!

Macy’s: Check back later for deals!

Target: Check back later for deals!

Walmart: Check back later for deals!

Best kitchen deals

Check back later for deals!

Best robot vacuums deals

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Best tech deals

Check back later for deals!

11 of the best workout apps for people looking to build healthier routines

Whether you work at home, don’t like the idea of working out in front of other people, or don’t have the time and money to hire a personal trainer, you don’t have to abandon the idea of working out altogether. There are lots of roads to personal fitness, and some can be found right from your phone. Even better: you don’t need expensive equipment to use fitness apps either.

Whether you want to go for daily runs, do strength training, try easy yoga poses, or engage in HIIT (high intensity interval training), there is undoubtedly an app to help you do it — and some will even help you eat more nutritiously and meal plan along the way too.

That said, all fitness apps are not created equal and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the myriad of options out there (Just type in fitness in your app store and see just how many options pop up.) Plus, since many involve subscriptions, the last thing you want to do is try out a bunch (and spend a lot of money) before giving up because you can’t find what’s right for you.

So what should you look for in a workout app? Here are some factors to consider. (There’s a lot more guidance on how much you should pay and other factors to consider after our picks as well.)

What’s motivating you?

It can take a while to reach your fitness goals, so you need something that makes you decide to hang in there and stick with your new routine. So before you jump in, consider what keeps you motivated and ask yourself these questions:

  • Do you want an app that sends you daily reminders?

  • Do you need an app that has a social element, like the ability to share info with friends (or even compete with them)?

  • Do you need a community to encourage you and ask questions?

  • Do you want a fitness coach to check in with?

  • Do you want something that allows you to unlock achievements?

  • Do you want something that tracks your progress towards a bigger goal?

  • Do you need a subscription to make you feel invested?

  • Or does the idea of giving back (with an app that donates to charity for every mile you run, walk, or cycle) feel more motivating to you?

Whatever it is that makes you stick with your workouts, that’s the feature you need to prioritize in your search for the ideal workout app for you.

Tech

Of course, it goes without saying that you need an app that works with your phone. But that’s not the only tech requirement. Some apps will also take advantage of everything your phone has to offer, like its GPS or accelerometer to track your progress. Other apps will also use your camera to help you make sure that you’re using the correct form for an exercise.

In addition, some apps integrate or pair with other devices or apps, such as Apple watches, Fitbits, or footstep trackers. If you have one of those devices, make sure you find one that works with it. If you’ve paid for exercise equipment, look for apps that will offer ideas for how to use those machines. Or, conversely, if you don’t have any exercise equipment, look for apps that make recommendations for how to use the furniture in your home or just your body weight instead.

Remember, the best app is ultimately about personal preferences

There are good apps and there are bad ones. But ultimately, when you’re picking from a collection of fitness apps, the “best” one will depend on your personal preferences, goals, and lifestyle.

So, to make your search a little easier, here are some of our favorites based on goal, experience level, and exercise type:

How much should I pay for a workout app?

Some apps can offer fairly expensive subscriptions, but just because they cost money doesn’t mean they’re worth it. Money doesn’t always equal quality. (And at a certain point, if the cost gets too high, you might want to just consider a gym membership.)

You can get some very good workout apps that cost under $10 a month and they’ll come with all the tracking capabilities, personalized routines, and workout videos you need — especially if you’re just starting out or don’t have a lot of room in the budget. In fact, some are even free.

That said, while free sounds amazing, it’s worth remembering that most great apps do require a subscription of some kind. Free apps (or free versions of apps that offer subscriptions) are often limited in what they offer, have lots of bugs, or are weighed down by ads that get in the way of the user’s experience.

Consider your current fitness level

Not all apps are geared at novices, and the last thing you want is to pay money for an app that will ultimately overwhelm you or make you give up because the workouts are simply too difficult for you.

Instead, you’ll want to be honest with yourself and examine where you’re at, right now, with your fitness. Then, look for an app that meets you where you’re at. An app that teaches you the basics and shows you how to do the exercise correctly is worth its weight in gold because it will show you how to do the exercises with good form, not overwhelm you, and it will keep you motivated because you’ll feel your progress.

If you are a beginner with a strong desire to grow, consider getting an app that isn’t just aimed at beginners. Instead, get one that grows with you, offering a range of exercises and routines that get progressively more difficult as you advance. This will give you something to aim for in your fitness journey and will keep you invested for the long term.

Think about your fitness goals

People decide to work out for a myriad of different reasons: Maybe you want some easy stretching exercises that will help you relax, maybe you want to build muscle, or maybe you want to just get healthier.

Whatever your reason is, it will affect what app you choose and the fitness app that works best for you. Some are family-friendly, allowing you to work out with the whole family, while others are very clearly aimed at people who want to lose weight with cardio or HIIT. Others are all about building muscle. So before you begin your search, think about what you want the fitness app to help you do.

For example, do you want to track your weight loss? If so, consider an app that doesn’t just give you workouts, but one that also offers nutritional advice, meal tracking, or meal planning tips so you can use a multi-pronged approach to reach your weight loss goals. You might also want to consider an app that gives you access to a trainer, coach or nutritionist who can help customize your workouts and weight loss goals. (Access to trainers and coaches can also be helpful for beginners when you’re learning correct form.)

Meanwhile, if you’re just looking for workouts that help you feel better in your own body, perhaps you want to consider a lower-intensity workout app or a yoga app that will focus more on stretching and relaxation instead of more intense cardio or weight routines.

Similarly, if you’re training for a marathon, you’ll likely be more interested in a distance tracking app to record your runs, your timing, and your progress. But if you’re looking to build muscle, you’ll want an app that focuses mostly on strength training exercises.

Your lifestyle matters, too

Lots of people start an exercise routine, but then end up giving it up because they just can’t find the time to work out. Obviously, apps that help you work out at home (vs. the gym) can help with that a little, since you no longer have to drive somewhere. Plus, a lot of apps require little to no specialized equipment to do a workout routine.

However, that’s not the end of the story. If you find it difficult to carve out an hour in your busy workday, you’re never going to try that new 60-minute workout routine recommended by your fitness app. Similarly, if you have a family to take care of, you’re not going to do a routine that you can’t do with your children in the same room.

That’s why it’s important to pick an app that matches your lifestyle. For example, if you’re super busy from morning to night, opt for an app that has a whole library of short workouts, like those that can be done in seven minutes or less. Or, if you have kids at home with you all day, look for a family-friendly app with exercises for kids too so you can all work out together.

Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’ trailer hints at dark carnival secrets

The first trailer for Nightmare Alley has arrived, giving us a sneak peek at Guillermo Del Toro’s next carnival of oddities. The teaser may not give much away in terms of plot, but its darkly fantastical visual style definitely affirms that this is a Del Toro film.

Based on the book of the same name, Nightmare Alley follows manipulative carnival worker Stan (Bradley Cooper) who connects with dangerous psychiatrist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett). The psychological thriller’s star-studded cast also includes Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, and Ron Perlman.

Nightmare Alley is scheduled for release Dec. 17.