A new world record was erased after it was found the course was measured wrong!

I can't imagine something more tragic for the participants.

The Pan American Games were last weekend in Santiago, Chile, and something went wrong at the half-way point in the women's 20 km race walk event. In the words of the winner, Peru's Kimberly García: "We realized it since the first kilometer. The time did not coincide with the distance. It was more about us focusing on our feelings not to lose control," García was quoted saying after the race. "It didn't affect myself alone, I wanted the Pan American record. Other girls wanted a spot in the Olympic Games. It is a shame that will not happen because the weather, everything was fit for good timings."

The course was 3 kilometers short! The game organizers left the course creation to the Pan American Athletics Corporation, who chose the person who created the course - unnamed - who messed up.

Now, these games are usually Olympic qualifiers. What happens to these women now? The records were cancelled, as should be. The NPR article doesn't say whether or not the race results were entirely scrubbed. There's a lot of information lacking, perhaps it's just too soon to know what the final fallout will be.

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/31/1209709900/race-walk-world-record-pan-american-games

If you receive any emails or texts with links ending in .US, BEWARE!

Nominally, the .US top level domain is owned by the U.S. government. However, they contracted out the management of it. And it was then subcontracted out, etc. And now it's being controlled by a bunch of crooks who are doing domain shortening for a bunch of low-lifes who are using it for pfishing, credential theft, etc.

Domain shortening is when you see something like goo.gl/xyzabc. Google takes xyzabc and expands it to a much longer domain, the problem is that you can't see if it's a safe domain in the shortened version! Can you say security risk? I knew you could! The .US is pretty much not at all in use by the U.S. government, and anything critical sent to you by the government, such as an IRS notice, is going to come by the U.S. mail anyway.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/10/us-harbors-prolific-malicious-link-shortening-service/

Sacramento, California sheriff is sharing license plate data with states that ban abortion

Sacramento is probably not the only one doing this, but it's one that we know about. Several law enforcement agencies sell ALPR information (automatic license plate readers) to most anyone who wants it, and in some cases, it goes to states who claim it's illegal to travel out of state for an abortion!

Of course, if you fly, you won't be driving your car. Or if you do drive, spend the night at a hotel and take a cab. Don't drive your own car to the clinic.

I hate ALPRs. I first saw one in Texas at a mall. A police car was doing a very slow crawl through the parking lot, and when he passed, I saw the cameras mounted on his car. Makes me want to install some infrared LEDs in my license plate frame that will bloom-out the ALPR cameras. It's one thing when they're "looking for stolen vehicles", but when that information is being kept pretty much indefinitely - as it usually is - stitching a car's whereabouts by time stamp can reveal a HUGE amount of information about a person.

https://news.yahoo.com/sacramento-sheriff-sharing-license-plate-133000119.html

22 y/o gamer gets 3 years community service for SWATing game developer's office

The guy had been banned from Rainbow Six Siege multiple times, the article doesn't say why, and called in a hostage situation at Ubisoft's office, the game maker, resulting in a SWAT response and several streets in the area being closed. Now, here's the best bit of the article: "After being charged, La Presse reported (via Polygon) that Ouahioune pleaded for Ubisoft to unban his account. "Can you say that I am kindly asking the Ubisoft team to 'unban' my account please," Ouahioune said. "I have put over $1,500 in cosmetic enhancements in my profile."

Yeah. I just scared the ever-loving shit out of your employees, pretty-please unban my account! Oh, he also made threats against Minecraft developers and apparently participated in a DDoS attack against the French government.

At least his conviction includes a psych eval and treatment. And no one was hurt - this happened in Canada where the police aren't quite as eager to shoot as in the USA.

https://www.engadget.com/miffed-rainbow-six-seige-player-sentenced-for-swatting-ubisoft-montreals-offices-201200746.html