Edition 5: Our 2020 resolution is dedicated to you

(This newsletter was sent to email subscribers on January 3, 2020.)

Happy New Year, muggles. Our 2019 resolution was to help surface important stories not making headlines. We’re just getting started and would love your help going into 2020:

• Forward this email to a friend so they can sign up at https://www.acciyo.com/below-the-fold to enjoy our weekly newsletter
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Special thanks to New Year’s workers

Wed Jan 1

Behind the magic of the fireworks are the employees who make it happen. In New York City, roughly 200 sanitation workers swooped in to clean up the “colorful aftermath” after the iconic ball drop and worked tirelessly until the morning. The same pattern was seen in major cities across the United States, including San Francisco. Unfortunately in Boston, one worker died before the new decade began from an on-site injury as he worked to set up the festivities.

Microsoft sues North Korean hackers for stealing sensitive data

Mon Dec 30

Last month, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against a “cybertheft operation” that allegedly stole sensitive data from U.S computers — although it’s unclear how many were successfully hacked. The lawsuit states that hackers targeted government agencies, universities, and groups that worked on human rights issues and nuclear proliferation.

The hackers used a technique called “spearphishing,” which involves fabricating fake but convincing emails to trick people into sharing passwords. How can you protect yourself against “phishing” attempts? Here’s more information on how it works, and why people fall for it.

Is revenge porn protected by the First Amendment? Let’s ask the Supreme Court

Thurs Dec 26

Three years ago, Bethany Austin’s fiancé told their mutual friends she was “crazy” for leaving him. In response, she shared copies of texts and explicit photos that exposed his infidelity … but proving her point came with a price. By sharing the other woman’s nude photos, Bethany had violated Illinois’s revenge porn laws.

Bethany argues that Illinois’s revenge porn laws are unconstitutional because they restrict her freedom of speech. However, this argument doesn’t work, because the law was created to protect privacy — similar to how we have laws against revealing people’s social security numbers or medical records. Still, Bethany’s lawyers plan on taking her case to the Supreme Court, which would be the first of its kind.

Five million miles of desert, yet sand has become a scarce resource

Thurs Dec 19

Whether we realize it or not, sand can be found in our everyday products, including sunscreen, cement, and even glass for electronics. To keep up with production for these industries, 50 billion tons of sand is extracted each year. Problem is, desert sand, which is abundant, is too smooth for such production.

Instead, it’s being extracted from rarer places, like the Mekong River in Southeast Asia, at the rate of hundreds of thousands of tons per day — and this massive depletion is already taking its toll:

• The river’s banks are collapsing, putting half a million people at risk of losing their homes
• 800 types of fish and the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin call the Mekong’s diverse ecosystem home — and the sand maintains this balance

Although researchers are looking for alternative materials, sand-extraction continues to skyrocket.

#AskingForAFriend

What happened to Uber’s former CEO?

Two years after resigning as CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick recently announced that he was officially stepping down from the company’s board of directors. How did we get to this point? Our updated blog post explains why Kalanick resigned back in 2017 and catches you up to his complete separation from the company today.

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