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Twitter Whistleblower Accuses Company of Covering Up Security Problems
Twitter Whistleblower Accuses Company of Covering Up Security Problems
A whistleblower complaint against Twitter accuses the social network of deceiving the public, federal regulators and the company's board of directors about serious security vulnerabilities, according to reports Tuesday from The Washington Post and CNN.
The "explosive" whistleblower complaint reportedly comes from Twitter's former head of security Peiter "Mudge" Zatko. It alleges that the vulnerabilities pose a threat to national security and to democracy, in addition to putting the company's nearly 230 million daily users at risk, according to the reports.
The complaint was filed last month with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, according to the Post, which obtained a redacted version that was also given to some congressional committees.
Nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid, which is representing Zatko, confirmed to CNET that the complaint is authentic. The firm also represented former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen. Twitter hired Zatko to lead the company's security efforts in late 2020, but Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal reportedly fired him in January.
The complaint comes at a chaotic time for Twitter, a social media company that is in a high-profile legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk, who is trying to back out of purchasing the company for $44 billion. Musk, who leads Tesla and SpaceX, accused Twitter of misleading him about the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform. On Tuesday, Musk tweeted a meme that said "Give a little whistle."
Among the accusations in the complaint, Zatko reportedly alleges that the company's servers were using "out-of-date and vulnerable software" and that "thousands of employees still had wide-ranging and poorly tracked internal access to core company software," according to the Post. In addition to security vulnerabilities, the complaint also alleges that Twitter "prioritized user growth over reducing spam," the Post reported.
A Twitter spokesperson pushed back on the reports, calling the whistleblower complaint inaccurate and opportunistic.
"What we've seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "Mr. Zatko's allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders."
The spokesperson added that "security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be."
Agrawal reportedly sent an email to employees Tuesday morning addressing the complaint. "Given the spotlight on Twitter at the moment, we can assume that we will continue to see more headlines in the coming days -- this will only make our work harder," he told staff.
The complaint is already sparking scrutiny from US lawmakers. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, urged FTC Chair Lina Khan to investigate Twitter.
"These troubling disclosures paint the picture of a company that has consistently and repeatedly prioritized profits over the safety of its users and its responsibility to the public, as Twitter executives appeared to ignore or hinder efforts to address threats to user security and privacy," Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Khan.
The SEC and FTC declined to comment. The DOJ didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter could cut back on hate speech with suspension warnings, study says
Twitter could cut back on hate speech with suspension warnings, study says
Since Twitter launched in 2006, it's become a giant networking event, bar hangout, meme-generator and casual conversation hub stuffed into one. But for every 280-word-long timely news update and witty remark, you'll find a violent, hateful post.
Among the crew of experts strategizing to disarm the dark side of Twitter, a team from New York University ran an experiment to test whether warning accounts that hate speech will result in suspension is a functional technique. Turns out, it could be pretty effective.
After studying over 4,300 Twitter users and 600,000 tweets, the scientists found warning accounts of such consequences "can significantly reduce their hateful language for one week." That dip was even more apparent when warnings were phrased politely.
Hopefully the team's paper, published Monday in the journal Perspectives on Politics, will help address the racist, vicious and abusive content that pollutes social media.
"Debates over the effectiveness of social media account suspensions and bans on abusive users abound, but we know little about the impact of either warning a user of suspending an account or of outright suspensions in order to reduce hate speech," Mustafa Mikdat Yildirim, an NYU doctoral candidate and the lead author of the paper, said in a statement.
"Even though the impact of warnings is temporary, the research nonetheless provides a potential path forward for platforms seeking to reduce the use of hateful language by users."
These warnings, Mikdat Yildirim observed, don't even have to come from Twitter itself. The ratio of tweets containing hateful speech per user lowered by between 10% and 20% even when the warning originated from a standard Twitter account with just 100 followers -- an "account" made by the team for experimental purposes.
"We suspect, as well, that these are conservative estimates, in the sense that increasing the number of followers that our account had could lead to even higher effects...to say nothing of what an official warning from Twitter would do," they write in the paper.
At this point you might be wondering: Why bother "warning" hate speech endorsers when we can just rid Twitter of them? Intuitively, an immediate suspension should achieve the same, if not stronger, effect.
Why not just ban hate speech ASAP?
While online hate speech has existed for decades, it's ramped up in recent years, particularly toward minorities. Physical violence as a result of such negativity has seen a spike as well. That includes tragedies like mass shootings and lynchings.
But there's evidence to show unannounced account removal may not be the way to combat the matter.
As an example, the paper points out former President Donald Trump's notorious and erroneous tweets following the 2020 United States presidential election. They consisted of election misinformation like calling the results fraudulent and praise for rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. His account was promptly suspended.
Twitter said the suspension was "due to the risk of further incitement of violence," but the problem was Trump later attempted to access other ways of posting online, such as tweeting through the official @Potus account. "Even when bans reduce unwanted deviant behavior within one platform, they might fail in reducing the overall deviant behavior within the online sphere," the paper says.
Twitter suspended President Donald Trump's Twitter account on Jan. 8, 2021.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
In contrast to quick bans or suspensions, Mikdat Yildirim and fellow researchers say warnings of account suspension could curb the issue long term because users will try to protect their account instead of moving somewhere else as a last resort.
Experimental evidence for warning signals
There were a few steps to the team's experiment. First, they created six Twitter accounts with names like @basic_person_12, @hate_suspension and @warner_on_hate.
Then, they downloaded 600,000 tweets on July 21, 2020 that were posted the week prior to identify accounts likely to be suspended during the course of the study. This period saw an uptick in hate speech against Asian and Black communities, the researchers say, due to COVID-19 backlash and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sifting through those tweets, the team picked out any that used hate language as per a dictionary outlined by a researcher in 2017 and isolated those created after January 1, 2020. They reasoned that newer accounts are more likely to be suspended -- over 50 of those accounts did, in fact, get suspended.
Anticipating those suspensions, the researchers gathered 27 of those accounts' follower lists beforehand. After a bit more filtering, the researchers ended up with 4,327 Twitterers to study. "We limited our participant population to people who had previously used hateful language on Twitter and followed someone who actually had just been suspended," they clarify in the paper.
Next, the team sent warnings of different politeness levels -- the politest of which they believe created an air of "legitimacy" -- from each account to the candidates divided into six groups. One control group didn't receive a message.
Legitimacy, they believe, was important because "to effectively convey a warning message to its target, the message needs to make the target aware of the consequences of their behavior and also make them believe that these consequences will be administered," they write.
Ultimately, the method led to a reduction in the ratio of hateful posts by 10% for blunt warnings, such as "If you continue to use hate speech, you might lose your posts, friends and followers, and not get your account back" and by 15% to 20% with more respectful warnings, which included sentiments like "I understand that you have every right to express yourself but please keep in mind that using hate speech can get you suspended."
But it's not that simple
Even so, the research team notes that "we stop short, however, of unambiguously recommending that Twitter simply implement the system we tested without further study because of two important caveats."
Foremost, they say a message from a large corporation like Twitter could create backlash in a way the study's smaller accounts did not. Secondly, Twitter wouldn't have the benefit of ambiguity in suspension messages. They can't really say "you might" lose your account. Thus, they'd need a blanket rule.
And with any blanket rule, there could be wrongfully accused users.
"It would be important to weigh the incremental harm that such a warning program could bring to an incorrectly suspended user," the team writes.
Although the main impact of the team's warnings dematerialized about a month later and there are a couple of avenues yet to be explored, they still urge this technique could be a tenable option to mitigate violent, racist and abusive speech that continues to imperil the Twitter community.
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Twitter Shareholders to Vote in September on Musk Deal: What You Need to Know
Twitter Shareholders to Vote in September on Musk Deal: What You Need to Know
Twitter shareholders are expected to vote in September on billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion proposal to buy the influential social network after he tried to back out of the deal.
Twitter scheduled a meeting for shareholders to vote on the proposal on Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. PT, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday. The company's board of directors is urging shareholders to approve the deal.
"We are committed to closing the merger on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk. Your vote at the special meeting is critical to our ability to complete the merger," the filing stated. Under the deal, shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for every share of Twitter's stock they own.
Twitter and Musk are currently embroiled in a legal battle because the billionaire said in July he no longer wanted to buy Twitter and take the company private. Musk's attempt to back out of acquiring the social media site has raised concerns about Twitter's future.
Musk has said the deal can't move forward until he gets proof that fewer than 5% of Twitter's 229 million daily users in the first quarter were fake or spam-focused, an important metric for understanding Twitter's ads business. But Twitter alleges in a lawsuit against Musk that the billionaire is trying to pull out of the deal because his personal wealth has fallen so the acquisition has become more expensive for him.
Here's what you need to know about the ongoing saga between Musk and Twitter:
Why is Musk trying to end the deal?
Musk, who leads Tesla and Space X, appears to have concerns about the future of Twitter's business, even though he said at a TED2022 conference that he didn't care about the "economics" of buying Twitter.
A letter sent by Musk's lawyer claims Twitter violated parts of its agreement with Musk, and it outlines information the company allegedly failed to provide the billionaire, including about the social network's calculations of daily users. Twitter makes most of its money from ad sales, so the number of people who can see ads is an important metric for the company.
"This information is fundamental to Twitter's business and financial performance and is necessary to consummate the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is needed to ensure Twitter's satisfaction of the conditions to closing, to facilitate Mr. Musk's financing and financial planning for the transaction, and to engage in transition planning for the business," the letter said.
Since Musk reached an agreement with Twitter, the company's stock price has fallen and there are fears about a potential recession. Twitter has fired key executives, frozen hiring and laid off about 30% of its talent acquisition team.
Twitter isn't buying Musk's explanation and alleges in the lawsuit his information requests were designed to "designed to try to tank the deal."
Why did Musk want to buy Twitter in the first place?
Musk is an avid user of the service but also one of its loudest critics.
Musk tweeted a poll to his followers in March that asked whether users believed Twitter was protecting free speech. He said the poll results, in which roughly 70% of 2 million respondents answered "no," would be "very important."
"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?" Musk said in a follow-up tweet. Then he made an offer to buy Twitter, noting that he believed Twitter needed to be private to accomplish his goal.
The guarantee of free speech in the US Constitution's First Amendment applies to the government censoring speech but not to companies such as Twitter, which have their own rules about what isn't allowed on their sites.
Musk referenced free speech again when Twitter announced the deal in April. He also said he wanted to enhance Twitter with new features and promised he would make the service's algorithms open source, defeat spam bots and authenticate all humans.
"Twitter has tremendous potential," Musk wrote. "I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."
Progressives have criticized social media companies for failing to crack down on harmful content such as hate speech and harassment. Conservatives claim their speech is being censored. (Twitter has long denied allegations it censors conservatives.)
On April 19, Musk tweeted that he thinks social media policies "are good if the most extreme 10% on left and right are equally unhappy." He's also said he would reverse the ban on former US President Donald Trump who was booted from the platform after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots because of concerns about inciting violence. Trump has said he doesn't plan to return to Twitter even if the company lifts the ban.
What has Twitter's response been?
Twitter says closing the deal is in the best interest of shareholders.
Initially, it seemed like Twitter was going to turn down the offer but the board started to take it more seriously when Musk offered details about how he would finance the deal. The company had adopted a defensive strategy known as the "poison pill" that would make it tougher for Musk to add to his stake in the company. The tactic allowed Twitter to accept a competing offer, if one emerged.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted on April 15 that "as a public company, twitter has always been 'for sale.' that's the real issue." Twitter has dealt with leadership changes, layoffs and activist investors as a public company. After Twitter announced the deal, Dorsey said he didn't believe that anyone should own or run Twitter but taking it back from Wall Street is the "correct first step."
The idea and service is all that matters to me, and I will do whatever it takes to protect both. Twitter as a company has always been my sole issue and my biggest regret. It has been owned by Wall Street and the ad model. Taking it back from Wall Street is the correct first step.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 26, 2022
"Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust," Dorsey tweeted. "I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness."
A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission also shed more light on how the deal came together. Musk spoke to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in March about the future of social media and decentralizing social media so users get more control over their data and what content they see.
Musk's effort to acquire Twitter has been a bumpy one. Musk rejected a seat on Twitter's board before offering to take the company private. Musk also had a conversation with Dorsey in early April in which Dorsey said he thought Twitter, a publicly traded company, would be better off as a private company, the filing shows.
How did Musk plan to pay for Twitter?
Even for Musk, who's worth about $220 billion, buying Twitter requires some financial juggling.
In an initial SEC filing on April 20, Musk said he had personally committed about $21 billion in equity financing. He also secured about $25.5 billion in debt financing through Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions.
Since then, Musk has raised capital by selling $8.5 billion in Tesla shares, presumably for the deal, and lined up $7.1 billion from outside investors. According to a May 4 filing, those investors include Sequoia Capital and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. (Ellison sits on Tesla's board of directors.) Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud also agreed to pledge his stake of roughly 35 million shares to the deal.
On May 24, Musk pledged more equity to the deal. He's now willing to put $33.5 billion toward the acquisition.
What happens next?
Twitter shareholders are scheduled vote on the deal at a special meeting in September. Meanwhile, Twitter is asking the Delaware Court of Chancery to enforce its agreement with Musk. A trial is expected to happen over five days in October. Killing the deal could cost Musk $1 billion because of a termination fee that's part of the agreement, according to an SEC filing on April 25.
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram coming back online after widespread outage
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram coming back online after widespread outage
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are starting to come back online after a widespread outage lasted more than six hours on Monday, disrupting communications for the company's roughly 3 billion users.
"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We've been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us," Facebook said in a tweet.
The three social networks -- all owned by Facebook -- started having issues around 11:40 a.m. ET, according to Down Detector, a crowdsourced website that tracks online outages.
The company acknowledged that it was having issues shortly after noon ET, saying in a tweet from its WhatsApp account that it's "working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible." Similar messages were shared on the Twitter accounts for Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
Hours later, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said in a tweet that the company was "experiencing networking issues" and working as fast as possible "debug and restore" its services.
Facebook later said in a company blog that it believed a "faulty configuration" change was the cause of the outage
The outage -- and the resulting reaction on Twitter -- underscores both our dependency on the social networks and the love-hate relationship they inspire. Being unable to post on Facebook or Instagram elicited equal parts frustration and relief, with some relishing the break from being constantly connected to our digital lives. Ironically, it's those very social media platforms that allow us to express our collectively mixed feelings about the situation.
Outages are nothing new in the online world, and services often go offline or experience slowdowns. Facebook's outage on Monday, however, was unusual in that it struck a suite of the company's products, including its central site and WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service used widely around the world. Facebook is deeply enmeshed in global infrastructure and the outage disrupted communications for the company's billions of users. The website and its services are used for everything from casual chatting to business transactions.
It isn't immediately clear what caused the issue for the three properties. Security expert Brian Krebs said it appears to be a DNS related-issue, adding that something "caused the company to revoke key digital records that tell computers and other Internet-enabled devices how to find these destinations online."
Cloudflare, a content delivery network that hosts customers data for fast access around the world, had its own explanation of what might have happened.
"Facebook and its sites had effectively disconnected themselves from the Internet," Cloudflare concluded. "It was as if someone had 'pulled the cables' from their data centers all at once and disconnected them from the internet.
Facebook's problem involved a combination of two fundamental internet technologies, BGP and DNS, both instrumental to helping computing devices to connect across the network. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) helps establish the best way to send data hopping from one device to another until it reaches its final destination. The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human comprehensible network names like facebook.com into the numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that actually are used to address and route data across the internet.
Just before 9 a.m. PT, Cloudflare detected a flurry of unusual updates from Facebook describing changes to how BGP should handle Facebook's part of the network. Specifically, the updates cut off network routes to Facebook's DNS servers. With those servers offline, typing "facebook.com" in a browser or using the app to try to reach Facebook failed.
In addition to Facebook's services and apps being down, some of the company's internal tools were also reportedly impacted by the outage. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in a tweet that it felt like a "snow day."
The Facebook outage appears to have caused a headache for Twitter, as well, with more people heading there after finding Facebook down.
"Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter," Twitter tweeted Monday afternoon. "We prepare for these moments, but today things didn't go exactly as planned."
The outage cost Facebook an estimated $60 million in forgone revenue as of 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET, according to Fortune and Snopes. The two publications calculated the lost revenue by using the roughly $29 billion the company reported in its second-quarter earnings. Facebook makes roughly $319.6 million per day in revenue, $13.3 million per hour, $220,000 per minute, and $3,700 per second. The outlets then used those numbers to calculate revenue loss based on how long the outage has lasted.
Shares in the social network dropped nearly 5% to $326.23 per share amid a broad selloff in social media stocks. (Shares of Twitter and Snap were both off more than 5%.)
The slide in Facebook stock weighed on CEO Mark Zuckerberg's net worth, which dropped to $121.6 billion. His net worth is now less than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and is the fifth wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.
The outage creates another headache for Facebook, which is battling a massive public relations nightmare in the wake of a whistleblower's allegations that the social network is aware of harm that content on its services causes. The allegations were detailed in a series of stories published by The Wall Street Journal based on research leaked by the whistleblower that said the company ignored research about how Instagram can harm teen girls and that an algorithm change made users angrier.
The whistleblower, a former Facebook product engineer named Frances Haugen, is scheduled to testify to Congress on Tuesday. She detailed some of her allegations in a televised interview on Sunday.
"Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money," she told 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley.
As is often the case with outages, users flocked to other social networks to complain and also revel in the Facebook outage. Instagram and Facebook quickly became the top trending topic on Twitter in the US, and dominated other locations around the world as well. Twitter even got in on the joke, with the company's official account tweeting, "Hello literally everyone," and CEO Jack Dorsey asking "how much?" in response to tweets suggesting Facebook's domain was for sale.
This isn't the first time Facebook has suffered from a lengthy outage. In 2019, Facebook's services suffered from a daylong outage that the company blamed on a "server configuration issue." In previous outages, the social network has also cited a DNS issue or a central software problem as causes.,
Read more: Funniest memes and jokes about Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram outage
CNET has contacted Facebook for additional comment and we'll update when we hear back.
CNET's Carrie Mihalcik and Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
James Corden upset the BTS Army and is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons
James Corden upset the BTS Army and is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons
If the internet has taught us anything in the last five years it is this: You don't mess with BTS and you definitely don't mess with the BTS army.
The latest person to learn this universal truth: James Corden.
For context, BTS, the South Korean super group with one of the most hardcore fanbases in history, took centre stage at the UN recently as a special envoy for South Korean President Moon Jae-in. They made a speech highlighting issues of climate change and vaccine hesitancy. They also performed. Why BTS? Well the numbers speak for themselves: Six million people watched the YouTube video of the speech and song in just five hours.
And that's where James Corden comes in.
James Corden has long been a friend of BTS, inviting them on his show constantly to the point where BTS fans call him "Papa Mochi" because of his relationship with Jimin (who is nicknamed Mochi).
But now there's trouble in paradise. The problem? A series of jokes made by Corden about BTS' recent trip to the UN.
On The Late Late Show, Corden very gently mocked the UN for inviting BTS to the UN headquarters in New York, but perhaps his biggest faux pax: Referring to the BTS fanbase as "15 year old girls." It was a brief series of very banal (and boring) jokes, but that was enough to raise the ire of BTS fans.
Next minute: James Corden is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
You literally cannot underestimate the power of the BTS. When the BTS army mobilizes around a topic, they tend to have a huge impact. K-Pop fans managed to sabotage a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma back in July 2020 and they are unforgiving of any perceived slights toward BTS or the BTS fanbase.
In this case, the anger is more directed toward how Corden is referring to the fanbase. Teasing a group for having a fanbase of teenage girls seems pretty long in the tooth. Harry Styles put it best in 2017: "Who's to say that young girls who like pop music -- short for popular, right? -- have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy," he said, in an interview with Rolling Stone. "That's not up to you to say. Music is something that's always changing. There's no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they're not serious?"
James Corden has been trending for all the wrong reasons in the past month. Just weeks ago he set the internet on fire for dressing up as a mouse and thrusting in the general direction of cars in traffic.
Yep, that happened.
Representatives from the Late Late Show didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Crypto Security: Protect Your Coins and NFTs From Being Stolen
Crypto Security: Protect Your Coins and NFTs From Being Stolen
With crypto prices in free fall, crypto firms laying off thousands of workers and coins that are considered "stable" losing all their value, it's more important than ever to secure your remaining portfolio.
The current crypto crash isn't the only way people are losing their money. There have been an increasing number of scams that give thieves access to your accounts and crypto assets. Just recently in May, Seth Green had several NFTs worth over $300,000 stolen, after the actor connected his crypto wallet to a scam website pretending to be a credible NFT project.
Protecting your crypto means taking some of the same steps you'd use to safeguard your other digital accounts, such as creating and using strong passwords. However, crypto accounts have unique characteristics like seed phrases that require additional security. Also, the crypto industry still lacks the regulatory framework necessary for the retrieval of your crypto assets if they're stolen.
In this story, we'll cover several ways you can protect your cryptocurrency and NFTs from being purloined and explain why it's worth taking the time to properly secure your digital assets from being stolen. For more on crypto, learn five questions every investor should ask about cryptocurrency and the latest details on bitcoin's wild price swings.
Always follow these two basic password security rules
One of the easiest ways to protect your digital assets is with strong passwords. Ideally, you want your passwords to be at least eight characters long and include random capital letters, numbers and other special characters. If you can make your password longer, however, you should, because the longer the password, the harder it is to crack, in theory.
If you're worried about remembering all of your long, complicated and unique passwords, consider using a password manager, which makes it simple and secure to store and use your passwords from one place. We recommended choosing a password manager with encrypted storage and two-factor authentication for extra security.
Also, when creating an account, never repeat your passwords. If one of your accounts is compromised, your others will also be at risk.
A strong password is vital to keeping your digital assets secure.
James Martin/CNET
Use a hardware crypto wallet for your most treasured assets
Your crypto wallet serves as the gateway to your crypto assets. "Hot" wallets such as software or mobile apps operate online, while "cold" wallets are hardware devices that work offline. Crypto wallets don't hold the actual coins or tokens -- they store the private keys that prove you own your crypto assets and let you buy, sell or trade on blockchains.
Anytime you purchase cryptocurrency or NFTs, they must be stored somewhere. Most people keep their assets in a digital wallet or marketplace, such as Coinbase or MetaMask, because they're free and easy to use, but for your most valuable holdings, you may want to consider a physical wallet.
A hardware, or cold, wallet allows you to store cryptocurrency and NFTs on a physical drive, which you can connect to a computer to access. Hardware wallets are generally more difficult to hack into, so they're a preferred option when storing digital assets that are especially high in value.
The Trezor One hardware wallet ($48.49) works with bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and a variety of other cryptocurrencies.
Trezor
Here's more on the different types of crypto wallets.
Keep the seed phrase for your crypto wallet secure and offline
In addition to a password, most crypto wallets use a seed phrase for additional security. This seed phrase acts like a master password and is created whenever you set up a new wallet. A seed phrase is made up of 12 or 24 words that you can use to sign in to your account on other devices, or recover your account if you forget your password.
While this seed phrase provides additional security, it also comes with risk -- anyone who learns your seed phrase could potentially steal all the crypto assets recorded in your wallet. While you might be tempted to store your seed phrase somewhere online, it's crucial to write it down -- offline -- to prevent anyone from accessing it.
Once you write down your seed phrase, store it in a safe or lockbox, so that it's not easy for anyone else to access. Specialized seed phrase hardware tools, like Cryptosteel and Crypt Keeper, can securely store your 12 or 24 words in a portable system that's protected from fire and flooding.
If your seed phrase is either lost or stolen, but you still know your password, immediately log in to your wallet and generate a brand new seed phrase.
This is an example of a randomly created 24-word seed phrase.
Nelson Aguilar/CNET
Be wary of frauds in direct messages on Discord
Discord is one of the unofficial homes of crypto and NFT communities. It's where many crypto enthusiasts go to discuss upcoming NFT projects, cryptocurrency prices, real-life events and even personal lives. Fans of NFT projects use Discord to form communities -- but it's also where hackers and thieves go to compromise accounts.
Here's how it works: A hacker may directly message you, pretending to be part of a project that you're following and interested in. The DM looks official and usually claims that you can mint an NFT that's difficult to get, at a relatively cheap price, and includes a link to follow. But when you click the link, connect your wallet and attempt to purchase the NFT, your wallet is drained of all your NFTs and crypto. And there's really no way to get it all back.
The most important research you can do to avoid falling for a fake NFT website is to use verified channels to find the correct website when attempting to mint or purchase a newly created NFT. Even if you receive a link from what seems like a credible source, use multiple online sources like Google, Twitter and Opensea to verify that you have the correct URL for the project.
An even simpler method to avoid falling into a scam is to disable DMs on Discord. On your mobile device, launch the Discord app, tap your profile picture on the bottom right, go into Privacy & Safety, and toggle off Allow Direct Messages From Server Members. You'll no longer receive direct messages on Discord.
Discord is where people go to discuss cryptocurrency and NFTs, as well as prey on potential victims.
Discord
Don't fall for support scams on Twitter
Like Discord, Twitter is a hunting ground for hackers looking to swindle unsuspecting victims into giving away their assets.
On Twitter, anytime someone mentions "stolen account," "lost password" or even "MetaMask," an army of hackers may respond, offering to help recover stolen assets or restore access into accounts. Hackers may then ask for your seed phrase via DM and use it to steal your crypto or NFTs.
If you need support, go straight to the official customer service site on Twitter. Never give anyone your seed phrase, ever, even if an account is verified -- sometimes hackers have access to verified accounts. And never share your screen.
Not even Elon Musk can stop these Twitter scammers.
James Martin/CNET
For more about cryptocurrency security, learn whether it's possible to insure bitcoin and how the Securities and Exchange Commission is taking on crypto fraud.
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Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Complete $44B Purchase
Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Complete $44B Purchase
What's happening
Twitter sued billionaire Elon Musk after he told the company he no longer planned to buy the social network for $44 billion.
Why it matters
The lawsuit sets the stage for a legal battle between Twitter and the world's richest man. Musk's attempt to back out of the deal has raised concerns about the social network's future.
What's next
Musk's lawyers are expected to respond to Twitter's lawsuit.
The legal showdown between billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter has officially begun.
On Tuesday, Twitter sued Musk to complete his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform, a move that sets up what will likely be a messy and lengthy court battle. The stakes are high for Twitter as the company deals with fallout from what has been a chaotic relationship with the world's richest man.
In a 62-page lawsuit filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery, Twitter pushed back against several arguments Musk's legal team made when the billionaire told Twitter he no longer planned to buy the company. Twitter accused Musk of breaching the agreement and called his exit strategy a "model of hypocrisy."
The lawsuit notes that Musk's stake in his company Tesla declined by more than $100 billion from its peak in November 2021 and that's the reason why the billionaire wants to back out of the deal.
"Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away," the complaint stated.
Last week, Musk informed Twitter in a letter that he was ending the agreement to buy the social media company. At the time, Twitter said it planned to take legal action to enforce the agreement. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, argued that Twitter breached the agreement by not disclosing details about how it estimates the number of spam accounts on the platform. Twitter estimated in the first quarter that fewer than 5% of Twitter's 229 million daily users were fake or spam-focused but Musk thinks the number is much higher. The billionaire said getting that information was an important part of understanding Twitter's business, which makes most of its money from ads.
Twitter said in the lawsuit that Musk was well aware that there were caveats to the data and the agreement said that the information he requested must be for a "reasonable business purpose" related to completing the deal. Musk made "unreasonable" requests but Twitter still tried to work with him to get him more information. His requests for more data, Twitter alleges in the lawsuit, were "designed to try to tank the deal." The company also had concerns about how Musk, who has suggested building a competitor to Twitter, would use their data if he was able to successfully end the deal. Twitter notes that Musk's ability to end the agreement is very limited but he "wanted an escape."
The New York Times, which reported the lawsuit earlier, said that Twitter told employees in a memo the company is seeking a four-day trial in September. In a motion filed on Tuesday, Twitter asks the Delaware court to speed up the process to protect its shareholders and the company from the potential harm that comes from Musk's efforts to "bully his way" out of the deal. Twitter's stock dropped 11% on Monday to $32.65 per share days after Musk announced he didn't want to purchase the company.
Under the merger agreement, Twitter and Musk have until Oct. 24 to complete the deal. Shareholders would still need to approve the deal in a special meeting.
In its lawsuit, Twitter also alleges that Musk violated the agreement by making public comments Twitter didn't consent to and posting disparaging tweets. In May, Musk tweeted a "misrepresentation" of how many accounts Twitter samples to estimate the number of spam accounts on its platform, according to the lawsuit. Musk also tweeted that Twitter's legal team complained to him about violating a nondisclosure agreement. When Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted more details about how the company battles spam accounts, Musk replied with a poop emoji.
The lawsuit cites other tweets Musk shared over the weekend after telling Twitter he wanted to back out of the deal. One tweet included a meme with actor Chuck Norris in front of a chess board.
"For Musk, it would seem, Twitter, the interests of its stockholders, the transaction Musk agreed to, and the court process to enforce it all constitute an elaborate joke," the lawsuit said.
Twitter rebutted other arguments Musk is trying to make to end the deal. Musk alleges Twitter violated a part of the agreement that said the company had to seek and obtain consent before straying from "its obligation to conduct its business in the ordinary course," after the social network fired key executives, laid off staff and froze hiring. But Twitter said in the lawsuit that the company did negotiate a right to hire and fire employees at all levels without having to seek Musk's consent. The company, though, did try to be cautious and sought Musk's consent for several key decisions, including about two employee retention programs but he was "non-committal."
The lawsuit also reveals that Twitter was suspicious that Musk was abandoning efforts to finance the deal. When the social network tried to get more information about how Musk was going to pay for the company, the billionaire sent a text to Agrawal and Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal.
"Your lawyers are using these conversations to cause trouble," Musk said in a text that Twitter cited in the lawsuit. "That needs to stop."
The lawsuit was widely expected. Over the weekend, Twitter called Musk's termination of the deal both "invalid and wrongful."
Bret Taylor, the chair of the social network's board, announced the filing in a tweet, saying the company aimed to hold Musk "accountable to his contractual obligations."
Twitter has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery to hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 12, 2022
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said the wrangling between Musk and Twitter had produced "no winners."
"This has been a black eye for Musk and horror movie for Twitter (and its employees) with no winners since the soap opera began in April," he said in a note. Potential outcomes include a settlement, a breakup fee and the deal being enforced. The agreement between Musk and Twitter included a $1 billion termination fee.
Musk's lawyer Mike Ringler didn't respond to a request for comment.
After Twitter filed the lawsuit, Musk tweeted, "Oh the irony lol."
NFTs explained: Why people spend millions of dollars on JPEGs
NFTs explained: Why people spend millions of dollars on JPEGs
Take a quick look at the image to the right. What, if anything, could convince you that image is worth $9 million?
Richerd/OpenSea
What you're looking at is an NFT, one of the first ever created. It's part of the CryptoPunks collection, a set of 10,000 NFTs released in 2017, a time when much of the world was still finding out what bitcoin is.
Most likely you've already rolled your eyes, either at the $9 million figure or at the very idea of NFTs themselves. The response to nonfungible tokens hasn't changed much since March when they first started exploding. The public at large has reflexively dismissed them as environmentally harmful scams. The bigger the sale, the more brazen the injustice.
Which brings us back to the above pixelated chap. Its owner is Richerd, an affable Canadian software developer. He started building cryptocurrency software around 2013, but eventually tired of it. After discovering NFTs earlier this year, Richerd bought CryptoPunk #6046 on March 31 for $86,000 in what he said was the biggest purchase he'd ever made in his life.
Richerd, who has over 80,000 followers on Twitter, last month claimed that his CryptoPunk was priceless to him and wasn't for sale no matter the price. The very next day his determination was tested when an offer came through for 2,500 ether, or $9.5 million. It was made not because Richerd's CryptoPunk is worth that amount -- similar NFTs now go for about $400,000 -- but rather because his bluff was very publicly being called. It was a challenge, but it was still a legitimate offer. If Richerd clicked "accept", 2,500 ether would have flowed into his wallet.
Richerd rejected the offer.
"Well, obviously, the day before I said 'I'm not selling it for any price,' so if I sell it for that price, I'd be going against my integrity," Richerd told me over a Zoom call. "On top of that, I've used this CryptoPunk as my profile pic, as my brand. Everyone knows that's me."
Not too long ago, Richerd's explanation would have sounded insane to me. How divorced from reality would someone need to be to offer eight figures on a picture that looks like a Fiverr job? How scandalously misguided would a person need to be to rebuff that offer? After I spent a few months researching and following NFTs, however, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. In fact, it makes a whole lot of sense.
There are 10,000 NFTs in the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. Here are three examples. The middle one is owned by Jimmy Fallon.
Yuga Labs
Bitcoin millionaires
Here is one quick fact that explains why NFTs are bought for the equivalent of a CEO's salary: Bitcoin is estimated to have made over 100,000 millionaires. It's no surprise that NFTs became a phenomenon in March. That's when bitcoin hit $60,000, up over 500% from just six months prior.
When you see a headline or a tweet about some preposterous sum being spent on an NFT, it's easy to become bewildered over how absurd that purchase would be for you. What's easy to forget is that very expensive things are almost exclusively bought by very rich people -- and very rich people spend a lot on status symbols.
Take Bored Ape Yacht Club, for example. It's a collection of 10,000 ape NFTs, all with different traits that make some rarer than others. Rare ones have sold over for over a million bucks, but common variants go for around $200,000. (At the time of launch back in April, BAYC developers sold the NFTs for $190 each.) BAYC, owned by the likes of Steph Curry and Jimmy Fallon, is what you'd call a "profile pic collection." The main purpose of the images is to be used as your display photo on Discord, where most NFT business goes down, or on Twitter, Instagram or wherever else.
To recap: $200,000 minimum for a profile picture.
In isolation, that's insane. But place it on a spectrum of how wealthy people spend money, and it becomes less staggering. You can right click and save a JPEG, so why spend money on it? Well, you can buy a nice house in a safe neighborhood almost anywhere in the world for $1 million, yet celebrities regularly snap up $20 million mansions. You can find a fashionable dress for under $500, yet brands like Chanel build their business on selling ones for 20 times that amount.
Up to 100,000 people became millionaires when that green line shot skyward.
coinmarketcap.com
We accept that rich folks buy extravagant items offline. Is it so inconceivable they would buy extravagant things online, too?
"In the real world, how do people flex their wealth?" said Alex Gedevani, an analyst at cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. "It can be buying cars or watches. How scalable is that versus if I buy a CryptoPunk and use it as my profile picture?"
Obviously, status symbols aren't specific to the rich. All of us indulge in some way or another, be it buying a $20,000 new car when a $7,000 used vehicle will do, or buying a $30 T-shirt when Walmart sells basics for under $5. What most status symbols have in common is that they have a specific audience in mind. The banker sporting his Rolex and the chief executive stepping into her Bentley don't care that I think either of those purchases is excessive. They have a small but powerful group of people they're trying to influence. So, too, with NFTs.
In the case of Richerd, he runs his own business, Manifold, where he helps show digital artists like Beeple how they can use blockchain technology to make art that could only exist as NFTs. Being a part of the most sought-after NFT collection helps in those circles. And when he says his brand is built on his Punk, he's not exaggerating -- a group of investors even named their organization after him.
"Anybody who owns a CryptoPunk believes certain things," Richerd explained. "Either you've been in the community for a long time so you believe in what these are, or you've paid a lot of money to get in, which shows conviction.
"I want to show my conviction. This is one of those projects that makes you put your money where your mouth is."
A bit of trouble
NFTs are polarizing. There's a small group of people who believe in the underlying technology (tokens that prove ownership of a digital good), but there are many more who regard it as a hoax. Just as the second group struggles to see any value in NFTs, the first group can sometimes be defensive about the technology's imperfections.
And make no doubt about it, there are a lot of issues with NFTs.
First is the confounding inaccessibility. There's a reason software developers tend to do well in crypto and NFT trading: Setting up blockchain wallets and other required digital apparatus is difficult. Even just buying and selling can be perilous. Send money to the wrong wallet address by accident, and it's gone forever.
Then there are the fees. Imagine you're interested in dipping your toes into nonfungible waters and you have $1,000 you're willing to lose. If you're minting a new NFT during a public sale you'll usually spend between $120 and $400. Not too bad -- until you factor in the transaction fees. Most NFTs are built on the ethereum blockchain, which is notoriously inefficient. The more people using ethereum, be it through trading altcoins or buying NFTs, the higher the fees. At a good time you'll spend about $100 per transaction, though double or triple that amount is common. Suddenly that $1,000 doesn't go very far.
This is especially troublesome for NFTs, which are infamous for causing "gas wars." It's possible for 100,000 people to buy shiba inu coins at once, since there are a quadrillion in circulation. But when 10,000 people try to buy an NFT, it results in a massive spike in transaction costs as some users outbid each other to speed up their purchase. It may only last a minute or two, but a lot of damage can be done in that time. People spending over $10,000 on a transaction fee isn't rare. People losing $1,000 on a failed transaction isn't, either.
This is what it looks like when someone spends $4,000 on a failed transaction. It's rare, but not rare enough.
Etherscan screenshot by Daniel Van Boom
Ethereum's inefficiency also contributes to the other major criticism of NFTs, the massive amount of energy they consume. Note that this is something of a semantic issue: NFTs aren't bad for the environment as much as ethereum is. Other networks, like Solana, use a fraction of the power. Ethereum developers are expected to implement an upgrade next year that will make mining it consume 1% the energy it currently does. At this moment though, while no one can say precisely how much energy ethereum consumes, we know it's a lot. (Bitcoin, despite getting all the headlines, is even less efficient than ethereum, which is why almost nothing is built on its blockchain.)
And finally, there's the fact that most people trading NFTs are doing so to make a profit. Scams are everywhere, and prices are volatile. Most of the people who create, buy and sell NFTs are ignorant or uninterested in the technology. If there is a technological leap taking place, it's likely to be obscured by the dizzying price movements.
"I'd call it a bubble," Gedvani said, "because the amount of speculators that are entering the market is outpacing genuine creators."
But a bubble can pop and leave something better in its wake. Think of Pets.com. It had a peak valuation of $290 million in February 2000 but by November of that year, as the infamous dot-com bubble began to burst, it had already closed shop. It's used as a cautionary tale for speculative trading in bubbles. But the impulse to invest in Pets.com evidently ended up being justifiable. That particular venture was misguided, but the e-commerce trend it was flicking at was legitimate. Seven-figure pixel art may not be forever, but proof of digital ownership, which is what NFTs are really about, may be.
A big 2022
Where NFTs will end up is anyone's guess -- and anyone who claims to know is probably trying to sell you something. What we do know is that the amount of people buying NFTs is almost definitely about to grow.
It's estimated that around 250,000 people trade NFTs each month on OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace. In the short term, CoinBase will soon open its own NFT marketplace, for which 2 million users are on the waiting list. Robinhood has similar plans.
More importantly, giant companies that already make money outside of the crypto space want in. Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, has just announced a game in which players can earn bitcoin. Twitter and the company formerly known as Facebook plan to integrate NFTs into their platforms, and Epic Games says it's open to doing so too. Envision a world where instead of buying skins in Fortnite, you buy an NFT for those skins that you own -- meaning you can trade it for outfits and weapons in other games, or sell it once you're done with it. (Epic said it won't integrate such a mechanic into Fortnite, but that may not stop competitors.)
Richerd reckons the flood of people soon to enter the NFT marketplace will create a broader diversity of digital products sold for different audiences. Your neighbor might not want to spend $200 -- much less $200,000 -- on a profile picture, but maybe they'll be willing to spend $10 on a one-of-a-kind skin, or on a product in Facebook's Metaverse. But though the space may change, he remains confident that CryptoPunk #6046 is safe for a while yet.
"Even if every NFT falls," he said, "CryptoPunks will be the last one."
Twitter lets iOS users share tweets as stickers on Snapchat
Twitter lets iOS users share tweets as stickers on Snapchat
Cross-posting between social media platforms is nothing new, but now, Twitter has a new twist on cross-posting to Snapchat. Starting today, iOS users can share tweets within their Snapchat stories by stamping those tweets right into the frame.
To do so, iOS users can open the Twitter app and pick out a tweet, then tap the share button followed by the Snapchat icon. From there, you'll arrive in the Snapchat app with a newly made sticker version of the tweet that links back to the full conversation on Twitter. Just stamp it into your story and voila.
Share Tweets as stickers in your Snapchat Stories!
▪️ On iOS, tap the share icon on a Tweet ▪️ Select the Snapchat icon at the bottom of the share menu to create the sticker ▪️ Once shared, the Snap will link back to the Tweet on Twitter where you can see the whole conversation https://t.co/G5AnV8pbcf
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 10, 2020
The feature arrives weeks after the debut of fleets, which are Instagram- and Snapchat Story-like Twitter posts that sit above the timeline and vanish after 24 hours. Between that and this, Twitter seems focused on making sure that it stays relevant to users who might be less interested in lists and timelines than in personalized, ephemeral content.
"We're working on rolling this out for Twitter for Android soon," a Twitter spokesperson tells CNET. "In the coming days we'll be testing a similar integration with Instagram for a small group of people on iOS devices. We hope that these will be the first of many integrations of its kind."
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23 great iPhone games you can download right now
23 great iPhone games you can download right now
PlayStation and Xbox consoles are harder to buy than ever right now, but who needs 'em? After all, you carry a gaming machine in your pocket with you everywhere you go. The iOS ecosystem is home to a dizzying array of fantastic games you can play, many of which are optimized for your iPhone. In fact, there are so many games out there that cutting through them all can be overwhelming. What should you skip and what should you play?
This is a list of 23 titles that are worth your time. There's a hugely diverse range of games to play on your iPhone or iPad (check out a list of games that work particularly well on iPad here), which means there's something for everyone. There are games that give you deep roleplaying experiences and there are games to pick up and play for two minutes at a time -- plus everything in between.
Florence
Price: $3
Annapurna Interactive
Florence is a game so nice that it's been ported to other platforms -- namely Windows, MacOS and the Switch. That's something you can say about few other games that were designed for iOS. It's a game that follows 25-year-old Florence Yeoh as she falls in love with a cellist named Krish. The gameplay takes the form as minigames that progress the story and all up it'll take about 40 minutes to finish. But it's a 40 minutes you won't soon forget.
Call of Duty Mobile
Price: Free
Activision Blizzard
The latest Call of Duty to hit consoles is the World War 2-era Vanguard, but you don't need to shell out $60 to play Call of Duty. The free-to-play mobile title is obviously not as technically breathtaking as its console brethren, but it gets a lot out of your mobile's hardware. More importantly, it plays surprisingly well. It features popular maps from previous Call of Duty games, and has a control scheme that makes playing on your phone much less awkward than you'd expect.
Tetris Beat
Price: Apple Arcade subscription ($5 a month)
Apple
You already know if you'll like Tetris Beat or not because it is, among other things, Tetris. As you can tell by the name, this take on the classic puzzle game integrates music, with three modes all designed around playing Tetris in tune with a beat. Tetris Beat is a fantastic addition to any home screen because it's easy to pick up and play -- and doesn't require you to return each and every day if you don't feel like it.
Slayaway Camp
Price: $3
Blue Wizard Digital LP
In Slayaway Camp, you play the villain in a series of slasher movies and you need to hit all the teen counselors at a summer camp. The graphics are voxel-based, which keeps the gore-fest entertainingly cartoony and every detail has been lovingly thought about -- from the "rewind" option when you fall to the scattered bones you leave in your wake. Some levels have limits or special features (such as fires) to help you dispatch your victims (and provide hazards that you need to avoid yourself) and you can even earn coins to unlock special kills. For such a bloodthirsty premise, it's an utter joy.
PUBG
Price: Free
PUBG Mobile
You can't go very far in gaming without finding a battle royale right now and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, better known as PUBG, was the game that kicked off the trend. It's since been eclipsed in popularity by Fortnite -- which is notoriously unavailable on iOS and Android -- but remains a reliably good time. One hundred people are dropped into an area, the last one standing is the winner. Enjoy your chicken dinner!
Fantasian
Price: Apple Arcade subscription ($5 a month)
After three long years, Fantasian is finally on the way.
Apple
Fantasian hit Apple Arcade with a huge amount of hype, thanks in large part to it being written by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Released over two parts -- the first in April, the second in August -- this is a fully featured JRPG. It'll take you over 40 hours to finish, during which time you'll slay many a beast and see several beautifully crafted environments. Really, the art style is something special: The team created over 100 dioramas and scanned them to create pre-rendered backgrounds. It's worth downloading just to look at, if nothing else.
Clusterduck
Price: Free
PikPok
Between this, Untitled Goose Game and The Falconeer, our avian friends are really enjoying some time in the sun. Clusterduck is a weird game: It's all about hatching duck eggs. The more eggs are hatched, the more mutations occur, the more chaos ensues. It's quirky, silly fun.
Hyper Light Drifter
Price: $5
Heart Machine
There's one thing you'll ask yourself as you play through Hyper Light Drifter: What the hell is going on? It's a game that seems to take pleasure in giving you almost nothing to work with, in forcing you to figure everything out on your own. That means story and gameplay too. But those who manage to hang in there will be rewarded with a beautifully atmospheric adventure, one animated by pixelated '80s anime art style.
Rolling Sky 2
Price: Free
Cheetah Technology
Published in 2019, Rolling Sky 2 is a throwback to mobile games developed a decade ago. It's a runner game, meaning the character on screen is forever running forward and it's your job to guide them past dangerous obstacles and traps. The mechanics are simply -- simply move your finger from side to side -- but the onscreen flourishes are not. Rolling Sky 2 integrates music and a beautiful art style to make this simple experience a satisfying one too.
Out There
Price: $1
Mi-Cos Studio
Out There is a game about survival and strategy, carefully managing your resources as you travel the stars. It's also a tale of ultimate, lonely isolation. It tells the tale of an astronaut who wakes from cryosleep to find that he's no longer in orbit around Jovian moon Ganymede -- in fact, he's not even in the solar system. He has no idea where he is and has only unreliable alien technology as a guide home. You have to carefully manoeuvre through dangerous situations and manage resources as you navigate the stars -- because when your astronaut dies, it's game over. And all the while, you have no way of knowing if what you seek is truly the way home.
Mini Motorways
Price: Apple Arcade subscription ($5 a month)
Dinosaur Polo Club Twitter
Finally, a game for all the kids who dreamed of growing up to be a traffic engineer. Mini Motorways is a strategy puzzle game that's all about building the best road layout for growing cities. If building houses that connect houses to buildings doesn't sound like your idea of fun, Mini Motorways' charming visuals and score will absolutely win you over.
Her Story
Price: $4
Sam Barlow
Her Story is a game about a video search engine. Well, that and a murder. A woman's husband was killed and she's a suspect. Your job is to sift through video footage of police interviewing said woman. You do this by typing words into a search engine and watching the videos that pop up -- which will give you more clues and in turn lead to more searches. Basic gameplay, but incredibly creative storytelling: Her Story was won many accolades, including being named GameSpot's Game of the Month in June of 2015.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
Price: Free
Nintendo
Animal Crossing was always big, but last year's New Horizons boosted the franchise into a new stratosphere of popularity. If you've wanted to play Animal Crossing but don't have a Switch, note that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is still very much viable, despite being released in 2017. It's a smaller scale experience than New Horizons, as you'll be building a campsite rather than an entire island, but it's full of the same charm that's made Animal Crossing a titan.
Alto's Odyssey
Price: $5
Snowman
Alto's Odyssey is a followup game to Alto's Adventure. Both are very similar: They're endless runners, except instead of running it's downhill boarding. Odyssey takes place in the desert, so you're sandboarding, while Adventure has Alto snowboarding. Most importantly, both have a striking, mesmorizing visual style. This is a great game to download for easy pick-up-and-play sessions.
Helix Jump
Price: Free
Voodoo
Helix Jump by Voodoo is a tactile puzzle game that's incredibly deceptive in its simplicity. The goal is to bounce a ball down a labyrinth by falling strategically through the cracks on each level without falling on a red zone. Sounds easy, right? Not so fast. With the fun frustration that came with tap and drag games like Flappy Bird and many others since, Helix Jump will have you screaming at the screen, then coming back for "just one more." The haptic response when the ball bounces is also a nice touch.
Oxenfree
Price: Free
Night School Studio
A group of friends hanging out on a beach take a turn for the worse when the teens accidentally open a ghostly rift. Soon the group is fighting for survival, struggling through time loops and doubting if everyone is truly who they say they are. Oxenfree calls itself a "supernatural teen thriller," but deftly avoids tropes and cliches, providing characters with depth and a fascinating, eerie plot. It's a quick game you could play in one sitting, but there's multiple endings so you can always go back.
A Normally Lost Phone
Plug In Digital
Price: $2
Like many games on this list, A Normally Lost Phone is all about narrative. Moreso than other entries here though, this really is a case of "the less you know the better". There are two things you need to know: first, that it's a game about discovering a phone and piecing together information about its owner. Second, it's absolutely worth a download.
What Remains of Edith Finch
Price: $5
Gamespot
What Remains of Edith Finch rules. Through a series of minigames, it recounts the history of the Finch family and the alleged curse that led to its downfall. It'll take you about two hours to beat What Remains of Edith Finch and the game takes you on a remarkable emotional journey during that time. Sadness, laughter, horror and hope; you'll feel it all.
Framed
Loveshack
Price: $4
Words can't do Framed justice: It really is one of the more unusual concepts we have seen in some time. The entire game takes place without words, as it's laid out as a completely wordless noir comic, with our protagonists avoiding being spotted by law while double-crossing each other. Gameplay is not action-based, but context-based. You have to examine each page, shifting the panels around to make sure that events occur in the order that sees our hero escape clean, getting the jump on police or sneaking past. Although it may sound good, that's nothing compared to how satisfying it is to experience.
And if you dig it, a sequel, Framed 2, was released in 2017.
League of Legends: Wild Rift
Riot Games
Price: Free
There's not much to say about League of Legends: Wild Rift outside of the fact that it's a modified version of the insanely popular League of Legends PC game. Do you like League of Legends? Have you ever wanted to try it? If the answer to either question is a yes, Wild Rift is for you.
Hearthstone
Price: Free
Activision Blizzard
Hearthstone is a spinoff of the Warcraft franchise, a card game building on the lore of Blizzard's wildly popular MMO series. It's unusual for a mobile game in that it's become an esports staple, with the player count reaching 100 million in 2018. Yes, it's a bit overwhelming to start Hearthstone in 2021, but Blizzard has updates planned up through 2023, so it's worth the time investment.
Monument Valley 2
Price: $5
ustwo games
Monument Valley was a smash hit when it came out in 2014, combining clever puzzles with simple-but-striking visuals. Its sequel, 2017's Monument Valley 2, adds to it with even more visual flair and, perhaps more significantly, a more pronounced story. Monument Valley is about solving puzzles and it's also a game about mothers and daughters, and the ties between on generation and the next.
Pokemon Go
Price: Free
Niantic
OK, I know what you're thinking. You already know about Pokemon Go -- like approximately everyone on planet Earth, you probably gave it a go in 2016. But Pokemon Go was far more than a temporary phenom, and in fact had its most profitable year in 2020. Developer Niantic has drastically improved the game over the years, adding new Pokemon, integrated Pokemon battles with human and AI trainers, community events, raids and more. Give Go another chance.
