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Don’t Be Caught by Email Scams: How to Avoid Phishing

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Don’t Be Caught by Email Scams: How to Avoid Phishing

To make cash, a enterprise must rake in additional than it spends, and that’s true even when the enterprise is prison. It takes quite a lot of analysis and coding effort to create a brand new pressure of ransomware or a brand new data-stealing Trojan. Making a faux model of PayPal or a financial institution web site, then again, is sort of easy by comparability. Phishing fraudsters maximize revenue by minimizing expenditures. All they should do is dupe sufficient individuals into making a gift of their credentials on the faux website. With stolen credentials in hand, they will drain financial institution accounts, steal private info, or simply promote these credentials wholesale to different malefactors. You don’t wish to be a phishing rip-off sufferer. Listed here are some ideas that can assist you keep away from that unhappy destiny.


How Has COVID Affected On-line Scams?

With huge numbers of individuals caught working at residence on the peak of the pandemic, in search of leisure on the web, phishing scammers had been in hog heaven. For starters, they simply gained a bigger viewers for atypical credential-stealing frauds. However the concern, uncertainty, and doubt introduced on by this unprecedented pandemic made excellent fodder for brand spanking new kinds of scams. 

Even again in April of 2020, Google reported blocking 18 million virus-related scams on daily basis. Google does a superb job; estimates counsel it blocks 99.9 % of spam and phishing emails. Which means, although, that 18,000 undesirable messages bought via, to an unknown variety of victims, on daily basis.

Virus scammers aren’t simply going on your passwords; they need your cash. Scams and cons have been round so long as humanity, and so they work on-line simply in addition to in particular person. Be cautious of any e-mail bearing any connection to the pandemic, particularly if it exhorts you to right away click on a hyperlink or obtain a file. If the faux e-mail’s sense of urgency worries you, go on to the supply slightly than utilizing a offered hyperlink.

For particular recommendations on defending your self from one of these risk, please learn Learn how to Spot and Keep away from COVID-19 Scams.

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How Do Phishing Scams Work?

The important thing to operating a credential-stealing phishing rip-off is creating a reproduction of a safe web site that is ok to idiot most individuals, and even just a few individuals. With the classiest fakes, each hyperlink goes to the actual website. Effectively, each hyperlink besides the one which submits your username and password to the perpetrators. As icing on the cake, the fraudsters might attempt to create a URL that appears at the very least a bit of bit reliable. As a substitute of paypal.com, maybe pyapal.com, or paypal.safety.reset.com.

Nonetheless, not each phishing web page is nicely carried out. Some use the mistaken colours or in any other case fail to match the web page they imitate. Others have completely unconvincing URLs, issues like seblakenakkalikalaudimakan.crabdance.com, or X8el87.journal.com. Even these lame fakes can decide up just a few suckers, apparently, or the fraudsters would quit.

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Once you enter your username and password on a phishing website, the location house owners achieve full entry to your account. To maintain you from realizing you have been scammed, they could move the credentials alongside to the actual website, so it seems such as you logged in usually. Your solely clue might come while you discover that your checking account is empty, or you can’t log into your e-mail, and your pals say they’re getting spam from you. So how do you armor your self towards this sort of assault?


Get rid of the Apparent

Some faux web sites are simply too poorly carried out to persuade anybody who’s paying consideration. In case you hyperlink to a website and it simply seems like rubbish, press Ctrl+F5 to completely reload the web page, in case the unhealthy look was a fluke. But when it nonetheless does not look proper, keep away.

Phishing Page Off-Center


(Credit score: PCMag)

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Try the web page above. Why are all of the entry fields off to at least one aspect? Most trendy web sites regulate to suit the scale of your browser window. Now that your suspicions have been raised, you’re extra more likely to see that the web site title within the Tackle Bar lacks the all-important lock icon.

Phishing Page Unconvincing Domain


(Credit score: PCMag)

Once you create a phishing web page, verisimilitude is important. Utilizing a free webhosting service that leaves its banner in your web page or its area in your URL is type of a giveaway. Even so, each time I run a phishing safety check, I encounter a handful of not-even-trying fakes like this. Who’d imagine Yahoo runs on Weebly?


What Can You Study From the Tackle Bar?

Fashionable internet browsers are shifting away from an enormous give attention to the handle bar. It is now the search-plus-address bar, on the very least. However that handle bar is an especially vital useful resource while you’re eyeballing a web page to substantiate that it is reliable. The very best phish-sniffers can spot an off-kilter URL out of the nook of 1 eye, with out even occupied with it.

Phishing Page Not Facebook


(Credit score: PCMag)

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Typically it’s easy. Not many individuals would see “Placeboook” and suppose oh, sure, that’s Fb. However different fraudsters use trickier fakes, likes Arnazon for Amazon.

Be careful for makes an attempt to obscure the precise area portion of the URL. That is the portion instantly previous the ultimate .com, .web, .org, and so forth. Something that comes earlier than the area is only a subdomain. If the URL fakery.paypal.com existed, it could be a subdomain of paypal.com. If as a substitute you see paypal.fakery.com, nicely, that is pure fakery!

Phishing Page Idiot Friend


(Credit score: PCMag)

Phishing assaults on Dropbox accounts, or different on-line storage accounts, do not have the assured worth that thieves get from capturing financial institution logins. Conversely, individuals do not essentially apply the identical degree of vigilance to those accounts. Something would possibly flip up in on-line storage, from a listing of Lady Scout cookie orders to secret plans for a mission to Mars. Likewise, there’s not a lot apparent earnings potential in capturing logins for streaming media, however entry to that account would possibly result in compromising some extra vital account with the identical credentials. Take a look on the handle bar within the picture above. Even when you log into Netflix by scamming credentials from an fool pal, you certainly received’t see “idiotfriend” within the URL!

Phishing Page Security Revoked


(Credit score: PCMag)

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Right here’s one other oddity. Clearly the URL doesn’t signify Xfinity, or Comcast, or any associated model. However past that, the browser is waving an enormous pink flag, stating that the location’s safety certificates has been revoked. Sure, site owners for legitimate websites do sometimes screw up and let their certificates lapse, however this web page is clearly a fraud.


Is the HTTPS Lock Necessary?

The HyperText Switch Protocol (HTTP) communications system used for primary web communication is a holdover from the early days of the world large internet. It is not safe, as a result of no one imagined others doing unhealthy issues on the nascent web. Effectively, the unhealthy people are right here, and the one wise solution to join is utilizing the safe HTTPS protocol. Net browsers present a lock icon for HTTPS pages. Chrome takes a step past, actively marking HTTP websites “Not safe.” It’s best to by no means log into any website that does not use HTTPS.

Phishing Page Wells Fargo No Lock


(Credit score: PCMag)

In case you don’t discover the unusual area, this web page would possibly appear to be a reliable Wells Fargo login web page. Word, although, that there’s no lock, and that the handle begins HTTP:, not HTTPS:. Don’t contact this web page; it’s evil!

“However wait,” it’s possible you’ll argue, “what a couple of reliable website that simply hasn’t gotten round to going safe?” Sorry, I do not purchase it. On this age of HTTPS In every single place(Opens in a brand new window) there is no excuse. A website that desires you to log in with out utilizing HTTPS, even when it is no fraud, is simply not reliable.

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Phishing Page Check Whois


(Credit score: PCMag)

Typically, you simply cannot inform by trying. The Commonwealth Financial institution web site does name its on-line banking system Netbank. The safe web page at netbank.com proven above seems reliable. In case you’re unsure, a fast take a look at the whois information for the area might assist your choice. I feel we will agree, it is most unlikely that the precise Commonwealth Financial institution’s website would park its internet hosting with CrazyDomains.com.

Really useful by Our Editors


The place Do E-mail Scams Come From?

You’ve got heard it one million instances. Do not click on hyperlinks in e-mail messages from individuals you do not know. Do not click on hyperlinks in messages from individuals you do know, as they could have been hacked. That is good recommendation! Clicking a random hyperlink might take you to a malware-hosting website, or a fraud. When the hyperlink takes you to a login web page, it is particularly vital to think about the supply.

It is conceivable you would possibly get an e-mail message out of your financial institution, although many banks eschew that type of communication. In case you clicked a hyperlink on an unrelated website and wound up on the login for the Financial institution of Armorica, likelihood is excellent it is a faux.

PCMag Logo It is Surprisingly Straightforward to Be Extra Safe On-line

However what in case your financial institution, or the IRS, or PayPal actually is making an attempt to pay money for you about an issue along with your account? The answer is straightforward—skip the hyperlink and log in to the service straight, the best way you usually would.

Phishing Page Facebook Scare Tactics


(Credit score: PCMag)

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Beware, too, of pages or emails that appear to require pressing motion in your half. The web page proven above means that your Fb account will likely be disabled until you log in to forestall it. However take a look at the Tackle Bar; that’s actually not Fb. As soon as once more, simply log into Fb as you often would, and see when you encounter any bother.


Get Assist Preventing Phishing

Outsmarting the fraudsters, recognizing their wiliest wiles, provides you a superb feeling, for certain. However you will not be as sharp tomorrow, so it pays to enlist some assist in the struggle towards phishing scams. Fashionable browsers have safety towards fraudulent websites in-built, and so they do an honest job. Most antivirus and safety suite merchandise add their very own safety towards phishing; the perfect of those earn scores as excessive as 100% safety in our assessments.

Utilizing a password supervisor additionally helps hold you away from frauds. With most such merchandise, you possibly can go to a safe website and log in with a single click on. And when you by some means handle to achieve a fraudulent website, the truth that your password supervisor will not fill within the saved login credentials is an enormous pink flag.

The savviest netizens use a digital personal community, or VPN for his or her on-line actions. Utilizing a VPN protects your information in transit, as a result of the info travels in encrypted kind to the VPN server. It additionally presents some safety towards cyber-stalking, as a result of your site visitors seems to return from the VPN server, not out of your native IP handle. However routing internet site visitors via a VPN does not assist in any respect towards phishing. Once you give your credentials to the house owners of a phishing website, it does not matter how they bought there. Phishing assaults goal you, not your gadgets or communication methods.

Phishing is extra prevalent than it’s possible you’ll notice. To get the pictures for this text, I simply grabbed the newest 5 – 6 dozen verified frauds from a preferred phish monitoring website and labored via them, searching for good examples. Sure, fraudulent pages get blacklisted rapidly, however the scammers simply shut down and pop up with a brand new rip-off web page.

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Shield Your self From Phishing

To keep away from the ache of getting scammed out of your much-needed money, or the embarrassment of making a gift of your delicate information to a fraud, make use of obtainable assets akin to password managers and the phishing-detection system in your antivirus. However hold your personal eyes open, to identify any frauds that get via. If a web page comes from a suspicious hyperlink, if there is no HTTPS lock within the handle bar, if it seems mistaken in any means, do not contact it! Your vigilance will repay.

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Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division

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Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division

Microsoft has hired Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. In a post on X, Suleyman announced that he’s joining Microsoft as the CEO of a new team that handles the company’s consumer-facing AI products, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.

Suleyman will also serve as executive vice president of Microsoft AI and join the company’s senior leadership team that reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Suleyman co-founded the AI lab DeepMind in 2010, which was later acquired by Google in 2014.

DeepMind has remained a pioneering AI force within Google. However, Suleyman hasn’t been part of the division in many years. He was placed on leave in 2019 over controversy surrounding some of the projects he led, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Wall Street Journal later reported Google and DeepMind opened an investigation into Suleyman over complaints he bullied staff.

After getting placed on leave at DeepMind, Google announced it had hired Suleyman as vice president of AI product management and AI policy. Suleyman left Google in 2022 to co-found the startup Inflection AI.

In addition to hiring Suleyman, Microsoft is also bringing on some of Inflection AI’s employees, including co-founder Karén Simonyan, who will serve as the chief scientist of the consumer AI group. Kevin Scott will remain as Microsoft’s chief technology officer and executive vice president of AI.

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“I’ve known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions,” Nadella says in a memo to employees published by Microsoft. “We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly.”

Microsoft has poured billions into its partnership with OpenAI and recently struck a deal with AI startup Mistral. The formation of a new AI team doesn’t mean Microsoft has forgotten about these partnerships. Microsoft says it “will continue to build AI infrastructure inclusive of custom systems and silicon work in support of OpenAI’s foundation model roadmap,” as well as “build products on top of their foundation models.”

Update March 19th, 1:38PM ET: Added context about Suleyman’s time at DeepMind.

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England's first convicted 'cyber-flasher' sentenced to 5 years

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England's first convicted 'cyber-flasher' sentenced to 5 years

England’s first convicted cyber-flasher was sentenced Tuesday to 5 1/2 years in prison.

Nicholas Hawkes, 39, a convicted sex offender who sent unsolicited photos of his genitals to a girl and a woman, was the first person in England and Wales convicted of violating the Online Safety Act.

Hawkes admitted at an earlier hearing that in February he sent a photograph or film of genitals with intent to cause alarm, distress, or humiliation.

SCAMMERS ARE USING FAKE NEWS, MALICIOUS LINKS TO TARGET YOU IN AN EMOTIONAL FACEBOOK PHISHING TRAP

The woman who received the photos in February took screenshots and reported him to police.

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Convicted sex offender Nicholas Hawkes was the first person in England and Wales convicted of violating the Online Safety Act. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Hawkes was on the sex offenders register after being convicted last year of exposure and sexual activity with a child under 16. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to breaching both a community order and suspended sentence he had received for the earlier offense.

The cyber-flashing law that went into effect Jan. 31 makes it an offense to send unsolicited sexual images by social media, dating apps, or technologies such as Bluetooth or Airdrop.

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Nuclear weapons in space are bad news for the entire planet

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Nuclear weapons in space are bad news for the entire planet

Last month, several news outlets reported that Russia could be planning to deploy a space-based nuclear weapon, alarming, well, pretty much everyone.

US policy hawks, space environmentalists, and anyone with a lingering memory of Cold War-era fears over nuclear annihilation were all sounding the alarm about the threat posed by a Russian nuke in space. 

As scary as the prospects sound, the US government has assured people that the weapon doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to people on the ground. Instead, it would target other objects in space, like the satellites used by the US military for communications and other operations.

But that struck some as cold comfort, especially given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unpredictability. And Putin has indicated that putting a nuclear power unit in space is a priority for the country.

In the long term, defense experts warn that having a nuclear weapon positioned in space could pose a threat to life on Earth by eroding international relations and space law. From clouds of space debris that could cut off access to space to the development of weapons that could launch from space to hit targets on the ground, space-based nukes have the potential to impact everything — and everyone. 

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Anti-satellite weapons already exist — but not nuclear ones

No country has ever used an anti-satellite weapon against another country, but several countries have destroyed their own satellites in demonstrations of their military capabilities — including the US, Russia, China, and India. 

These tests are not without controversy: a 2021 Russian test of an anti-satellite weapon, for example, drew condemnation from NASA for creating debris that threatened astronauts on the International Space Station (including Russian cosmonauts). Since then, a UN panel has called for a ban on the testing of such weapons and several European Union nations and the US have pledged not to perform destructive tests. 

A nuclear weapon in space would cause much more destruction than previous anti-satellite weapons tests, explained Andrew Reddie of the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab, as existing space-based weapons typically destroy just one satellite at a time. In the age of huge satellite constellations such as Starlink, knocking out a single satellite is more of an annoyance than a major threat.

To destroy satellites at scale, you need a different weapon, such as a directed energy weapon based on the ground. Or, you could use a nuclear weapon in space, which creates not only shock effects but also heat, radiation, and an electromagnetic pulse — giving it the ability to take out or impair entire networks. 

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A nuclear weapon in space would cause much more destruction than previous anti-satellite weapons tests

International laws protecting space

The best response the international community has had to date in restricting the stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons is international law. When it comes to space, the key piece of legislation is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, of which Article IV prohibits placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

Detonating a weapon in space would be unprecedented and could run afoul of international rules barring the use of indiscriminate weapons on civilians or civilian objects.

“It seems to be that any kind of destruction of something in space is an indiscriminate weapon, and indiscriminate weapons are prohibited, and the use of indiscriminate weapons are a war crime,” said Christopher Johnson, professor of law at Georgetown University.

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However, this assumes that satellites are being destroyed by a kinetic impact. It might be possible to disable or jam satellites in another way, such as using an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. Some reports have suggested that Russia is developing an EMP anti-satellite weapon rather than a nuclear one. If that could be done in a way that doesn’t create a debris field, that may not contravene the international law because it would no longer be a weapon of mass destruction or indiscriminate in its effects.

With the current situation, “We don’t know what is being threatened,” Johnson said and pointed out that the details matter a lot here and that Russia is capable of a very close reading of the relevant laws to stay within them. 

Detonating a weapon in space would be unprecedented and could run afoul of international rules

The cascading debris problem

The reason that the use of weapons in space could be considered indiscriminate is because of the debris field they create. Destruction of objects in space creates large pieces of debris, which are hazardous but relatively easy to track. Where it gets dangerous is the increasing number of medium and small pieces of debris, which are too small to be trackable but are still traveling at high enough speeds to do tremendous damage to other objects or even people in space.

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“A fleck of paint the size of your thumbnail can go through most spacecraft. Traveling at a very high velocity — 18,000 mph — it’ll go right through it,” said space debris expert Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona. 

A serious collision in orbit could create a field of small debris pieces that would quickly collide with other satellites, creating a cascade. At a critical mass, each collision creates more debris, which creates more collisions, which creates more debris, until an entire orbit becomes difficult or impossible to access. 

This scenario, known as the Kessler syndrome, could cut off access to space for generations: from making rocket launches more difficult, dangerous, and expensive to, at worst, making any kind of space travel completely impossible for decades and shutting humanity off from the stars.

This concept of the syndrome was first proposed in the late 1970s, when there were optimistic predictions that the Space Shuttle might fly as often as once per week. That never came to fruition, so in the intervening decades, there was less concern about the possibility of a cascading debris event.

But now, with the pace of both government and private launches ramping up to the highest levels ever, space debris is once again on everyone’s radar, Reddy said: “The old fear has come back.”

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“A fleck of paint the size of your thumbnail can go through most spacecraft.”

Vulnerable orbits

The most useful orbits around the planet are getting increasingly crowded, and even if humanity stopped launching things into space tomorrow, the debris already in orbit would continue to collide and make the problem worse. 

Over the long term, if this problem isn’t addressed, it could spiral into a Kessler syndrome, as the situation can go from bad to catastrophic quickly. “The timeline for the cascading collisional scenario is very short,” Reddy said. “We’re talking anywhere from hours to days to weeks, not months to years to decades.”

The use of a nuclear weapon in orbit, depending on its size and in which orbit it is detonated, could kick off such a cascading scenario. But this isn’t exclusive to nuclear weapons. It’s possible that a bad actor destroying a single, carefully chosen satellite could create a cascade, Reddy said, if they picked a vulnerable target. 

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In geostationary orbit, for example, there are only so many slots available for satellites in the ring around the Earth’s equator. That makes the slots in high demand, as they are a limited resource. And this scarcity is compounded by the fact that it’s very difficult to remove debris from an orbit so distant, at over 20,000 miles from the Earth’s surface. If these slots are blocked by debris, it could cut off functionality for systems like communications satellites, weather satellites, and navigation satellites. 

“That would be really, really bad,” Reddy said. “One satellite explosion big enough would be enough to destroy a lot of assets in geostationary orbit.”

Fears for the future

Although it’s unlikely that any actor would launch a nuclear weapon in space with the specific intention of kicking off a cascading debris effect, it might happen as a consequence of trying to destroy a particular military system. But the debris isn’t the only thing that has experts worried.

Security risk expert Andrew Reddie questioned what it would take to convert the technology for a nuclear anti-satellite weapon into a platform that could deploy nuclear weapons from space to targets on the ground. This would require a reentry vehicle, for example, which doesn’t exist yet but could theoretically be constructed based on existing technology. Nukes launched from space would give less warning time than those launched from the surface, threatening thousands or even millions of people.

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It’s not that the deployment of nukes in space is necessarily likely, with no current indication that Russia is developing such a weapon. But it does show how nuclear weapons in space could shift the geopolitical landscape dramatically and why reports of potential space-based nuclear weapons have drawn such condemnation.

“The old fear has come back.”

A matter of global governance

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any plans to develop a nuclear anti-satellite weapon and has said that Russia is against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. And experts agree that Russia takes pride both in its space program and in its role in international governance as a permanent member of the United Nations, though the invasion of Ukraine has shaken the country’s international status and resulted in the suspension of joint space missions with other space agencies. 

For the Russians to develop or deploy such an anti-satellite weapon “would undermine their diplomatic efforts,” Johnson said. Russia has a global leadership role in space governance and was a key negotiator in the Outer Space Treaty, and going against that would be self-undermining. “They take their role seriously,” Johnson said.

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There is also international pressure from beyond the US and Europe. Even China, which has a space program that is notably separate from other nation’s space programs and does not participate in international projects like the International Space Station, has emphasized that it is against the proliferation of weapons in space. US government representatives are trying to recruit China and India in discouraging Russia from pursuing nuclear anti-satellite technology. 

Deploying a weapon in space would be against Russia’s own self-interest, experts argue. Spreading a debris field across an entire orbit limits the ability of everyone to access space, including those who fired the weapon.

However, those effects are not necessarily symmetrical. “The Americans rely on space far more than both Russia and China, so in most domains, if you were to degrade it for everybody, that would be a problem,” Reddie said. “But if you’re degrading space, it’s going to asymmetrically affect the Americans. And the Russians know that.”

This raises the question of what the global consequences might be if — or when — any nation chooses to use a space-based weapon and whether the existing international legal structure could respond to that.

Space debris expert Reddy compared firing such a weapon to flipping a chess board when you’re losing a game: “It’s no longer about winning. It’s ‘I’m losing, so nobody wins.’”

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