stolen

If your password is stolen, you change it. If they steal your face, you have no other choice

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Google launched yesterday a new way to regain access to your account when you lose your phone or computer. All you have to do is record a selfie video by turning your head in several directions, and then send it to Google servers and use it as biometric verification if you want to recover that lost access. What’s really interesting is not this launch, because Google is just the latest big technology company to join the trend. And that trend, although interesting on the one hand, is very, very disturbing on the other. Google and your face as a method to recover your account. In Google’s announcement, those responsible explain the system for scanning and sending that selfie video to its servers, and how this system will allow users to recover their account if they lose access to it. Privacy and security by flag. Google promises that they will keep that information encrypted and use it for other purposes unless you actively allow it. The option can also be used to log in to your account (as Microsoft has been doing for years with its Windows Hello technology), but it cannot be used in Workspace accounts, nor in child accounts or in accounts that are part of the Advanced Protection Program from Google, aimed at journalists, activists or businessmen with especially sensitive information. Meta already tried it and had to abandon it…. Facebook had a facial recognition system —the one that suggested tags of people in photos— and closed it in 2021 erasing more than a billion faces after pressure from regulators and privacy organizations. …to get it back again. In October 2024 They resurrected technologythis time to recover Facebook and Instagram accounts that had been hacked. In December 2025 they had already made it the standard recovery method, and Meta assures that has improved by more than 30% the recovery rate of hacked accounts in the US and Canada. A Trojan horse called “age verification”. If account recovery is a gateway to giving up our “face”, the other, much more widespread, is to protect minors. That excuse has served to promote facial recognition as a verification measure. In July 2025, Roblox He started asking for a selfie video. to teenagers ages 13 to 17 who would like to unlock unfiltered chat with their circle of “trusted friends.” The system, managed by the company Personestimate the age based on facial features, and if you are not sure ask for official identification. Discord and its troubled system. In February 2026, the company advertisement that its more than 200 million monthly users would have to verify their age with a facial scan or an official document. The announcement came a few months after uploading a hack which exposed some 70,000 user IDs, which generated a lot of skepticism and notable criticism to the initiative. Discord had to delay the rollout of the measure until the second half of 2026, and shortly after a user shared a way to cheat the system with a 3D avatar controlled with an Xbox or PlayStation controller. TikTok, in the spotlight. The platform combine the estimate with a behavior and activity system (videos watched, usage patterns) and another for verification by selfie or official document when the system suspects that a self-declared adult user is actually not one. From 2021 has several lawsuits like the one that recently occurred in Florida because according to the accusation, TikTok deliberately modified your age rating to bypass parental controls. The vetoes that, for example Australia imposed on minors to enter social networks have also driven these efforts, which TikTok rushed to implement. Risky intermediaries. On French porn sites like Xvideos, verification provider AgeGO (a Spanish company based in Barcelona) offers to verify age with a live selfie. An AI Forensics investigation discovered that this data was sent directly to Amazon Rekognition, AWS’s facial recognition service, along with the user’s IP and the information that they were accessing an adult website. It is a clear example how biometric data that theoretically serves to verify your age ends up being used to create user profiles that can violate your privacy. What changes with a leaked password. If your password is stolen, you can change it. But if your facial scan, generated from the selfie video with various angles, expressions or lighting, is filtered, you cannot change your face. That’s the fundamental difference between “something you know” and “something you are,” and it explains why regulators and privacy activists are very clear that biometric data represents a category of data with a very different sensitivity than any other personal data. Interesting and above all very disturbing. Each of these companies insists that the video selfies they allow users to take are used only for the proper purpose—recovering an account, verifying age—but the truth is that the option, while interesting, is disturbing. Although it presents a valid and even very attractive alternative to recover an account, the risks that this biometric identification imposes are enormous. The privacy scandals proposed by this type of system are already beginning to appear —Let them tell Meta and his smart glasses—. Added to all this the threat of deepfakes which the EU will try to mitigate with your AI Law. Image | Taan Huyn In Xataka | Instagram tried to generate images with AI from its users’ photos: now Meta has had to retract it

Someone has stolen the statue of George Orwell in Huesca

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In the winter of 1937, George Orwell fought on the front of the Alcubierre mountain range (Huesca). Years passed and he promised: “If I ever return to Spain, I firmly promise to have a coffee in Huesca.” The same Orwell who fought in the trenches and bled on the Aragonese front, the writer of ‘Homage to Catalonia’, never drank that damn coffee because he died before. Eighty years later, Huesca served him the cup with a tribute: a bronze bas-relief raised in the Miguel Servet park. It didn’t last long. Early Thursday morning, a week ago, the bronze disappeared. They tore it from its pedestal and only the sandstone remains. It’s been a week and it still doesn’t show up. One of the most beautiful tributes has been desecrated to the father of the great dystopias, from ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) and ‘1984’ (1949). Because this is a robbery of collective memory. The historian Víctor Pardo defines it harshly, as “an absolutely despicable and condemnable act.” Together with the Orwell Society, they mobilized the social bases, got the money and raised 15,000 euros, with bonuses and shares of 10 euros. More than 500 people contributed and made the proposal a reality. This was just two years ago. The sculpture only cost about 8,000 euros but, in total, about 25,000 were raised. So the surplus was used to build commemorative plaques and other efforts. They commissioned it at the end of 2023. On May 19, 2024, it was inaugurated and now no one knows where it is. Who has it been? When writing against tyrannies and authoritarianisms, anyone might think that this is a political robbery. The Orwell Society, as a literary society and charity registered in the United Kingdom since 2011, claims to have no political affiliation. The latest local reading It was organized in the Castle of Montearagónnear the place where George Orwell was wounded. However, there is no claim from extremist groups. After all, we are talking about an anarchist. That’s why Pardo has nipped speculation in the bud: the motive for the crime smells like pure junk, a theft that seeks to be sold by weight: bronze is paid for at 6 euros per kg and 120 kg is more than 700 euros for free. A handful of dirty bills at some junkyard sale in some suburban junkyard. A warm relationship in a cold winter. Orwell set foot in Huesca in 1937, with an Aragonese winter that froze the bones of the militiamen. Fascist bullets whistled from the enemy trenches and the rebellious side controlled the city. POUM volunteers surrounded the perimeter and Orwell watched the domes from afar. He dreamed of final victory and having hot coffee, a very simple wish. The Francoist bullet pierced his neck weeks later and he almost bled to death. He survived by pure miracle. He left Spain months late, narrowly fleeing his own supposed Soviet comrades. So the monument represented an enormous civil triumph. The work of Javier Sauras was nestled in the green lung of the Aragonese city with great affection. “It is stealing a bronze sculpture that represents a historical figure from the universal literature of the 20th century (…). It is robbing the citizens of Huesca of an artistic and heritage work,” bellows Víctor Pardo, who complains of a certain institutional apathy. Scrap and silence. The work, which belongs to the municipal heritage – that is, the citizens gave it to the City Council after paying for it out of their own pockets – has not been pursued either. No one has issued announcements and the City Council filed a simple routine complaint at the police station. The Citizen Collective found out by chance and no one issued an apology to Sauras or Orwell’s family. The son, Richard Blair, who applauded excitedly at the inauguration alongside Quentin Kopp, president of the association, has not received news from the “Ministry of Truth.” Like the almost two-ton sculpture of Eduardo Chillida – stolen in Getafe, They ended up selling it for just 30 euros in a scrapyard in San Martín de la Vega to be melted, the fate of Orwell’s plate does not seem to aspire to a good ending. And it would be a real shame if Orwell’s melancholy face died definitively under a miserable scrap metal blowtorch, honestly. Images | DiscoverHuesca In Xataka | A Millennium Falcon next to a 17th century staff: an occupied house uncovers the stolen treasure in La Rioja

An occupied house uncovers a treasure stolen from a hermitage in La Rioja. The best is still missing

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They have found it: the painting of the Virgin of the Cortijo and the staff of the Virgin, an old missal. Table linens and ecclesiastical clothing and even a Lego Millennium Falcon. We are talking about one of those meaningless fortuitous discoveries. On October 31, 2025, a robbery occurred in La Ermita de Our Lady of the Farmhousein Murillo de Río Leza. At dawn, in a rural temple without cameras or surveillance, they took a silver chalice and an 18th century painting, valued between 10,000 and 12,000 euros. And many other things. Eight months later, almost everything has reappeared 90 kilometers away, in an occupied home in Navarra’s Valdorba, mixed up among belongings. A Belgian glove thief. For more than eight months, the Civil Guard has been carrying out an open investigation with hardly any clues. But a common pattern: rural sacred art in isolated hermitages with hardly any security systems. An easy goal, perhaps too prosaic. And La Rioja is no stranger to this type of theft: the Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logroño has been claiming for years pieces attributed to the legendary Belgian thief Erik the Belgian, whose trail reaches the Netherlands and the United States. The difference with the Murillo case is the unusual speed of the recovery and the domestic origin of the discovery. Besides, the real ErikRené Alphonse van den Berghe, died in El Palo (Málaga) on June 19, 2020, after help recover the size of the Virgin of Nalda. After more than 600 thefts in 52 museums and places of worship, he changed sides to recover historical heritage. Taking care of other people’s business. The Prevention and Citizen Attention Brigade and the Judicial Police Group carried out the eviction of the people occupying the property, together with the officers from the Tafalla police station. And they saw that the Valdorba house even hid a huge wall clock. Part of the abandoned objects was given and they could not identify the owner. The Foral Police of Navarre contacted the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and, by cross-referencing the complaint with local news, they confirmed the coincidence. After the eviction of its occupants, the Foral Police of Navarra has stumbled upon the stash of the Riojan robbery by chance. He confirmed the coincidence with the Diocesan Heritage Delegation and now the big question arises: where is the rest? Among the pieces recovered and already returned to the parish of San Esteban are the painting of the Virgen del Cortijo, the missal, the staff, ecclesiastical clothing and musical instruments (a tuba!). But the silver chalice, another missal and the image of the Child Jesus carried by the Virgin remain unlocated. The most expensive thing is missing. A diverse loot. There are hypotheses, but no proven facts. It is suspected of a black market for sacred artfueled by antique dealers, second-hand buyers and organized gangs that attack rural hermitages at their own risk and expense. The Civil Guard has dismantled entire plots dedicated to this trafficking. Already in the summer of 2020 they recovered almost one hundred objects of enormous valuein addition to 165,000 euros in cash. Objects from the 17th and 18th centuries that did not reach resale. Moving a tuba or a wall clock is not easy. But the stash is so heterogeneous that another hypothesis speaks of mere accumulation, that compulsive behavior of accumulation and a pattern that psychiatry links to Diogenes syndrome, characterized by collecting heterogeneous objects without awareness of illness. This is what happened after the theft of the Codex Calixtinus. Unshielded heritage. Murillo’s case joins a long list of thefts in Rioja and neighboring temples: the Écija chalice sold in a gold buy from Logroño 22 years after its abduction; the door of the San Torcuato tabernacle recovered 45 years after its theft at a Madrid auction; or the reliefs of Briones that the Civil Guard continues to track in Holland and the United States. They all share the same diagnosis: the lack of systematic inventory of ecclesiastical heritage leaves these pieces off the radar until they appear by chance, complaint or illegal sale. The Diocese of Calahorrana insists that thefts against heritage do not prescribe and that each recovery, rather than a preventive strategy, depends on collaboration mechanisms between security forces, antique dealers and diocesan heritage delegations. As long as the chalice and the image of the Child Jesus remain missing, the case of Murillo de Río Leza will continue to be an open file. Robberies with tradition. The looting of sacred art in Spain seems to identify a problem: there is a lack of professionals to inventory it and provide an appropriate historical framework. Impossible to forget the two young people who sneaked into a church in Sevillethey tried on the priest’s liturgical clothing, lit candles and took mocking photos in front of the altar before going out in costume on the street, mocking the parishioners who saw them passing by. In Murcia, in León, some thieves climbed the bell tower of a church with barely 300 residents with ropes and harnesses to steal a bust of Marcus Aurelius from the 4th century. The Civil Guard recovered it weeks later in the trunk of a carat a gas station in Córdoba. In Granada, some Poor Clare nuns did not even notice the disappearance of a sculpture of Saint Marina de la Cortona until the National Police located it in a gallery in New York, ready for auctioned for 350,000 euros. In Barcelona, ​​a couple posed as needy people to sneak into a parish in Nou Barris and steal the money intended to pay for children’s school trips. They even took the priest’s cell phone. In Murcia and Alicante, a gang of teenagers looted up to 20 temples to finance online betting and club nights. And in Valladolid they took even the hosts consecrated in the middle of Christmas. In addition to those of God, it is clear that temples of worship need extra eyes. Images | XX In Xataka |

“Accommodations are uploaded with stolen or AI photographs and an eye-catching price”

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You are looking for a hotel for your vacation and you come across the perfect ad: well located, with everything you are looking for and at an incredible price. However, shortly after the bubble burst: The accommodation does not exist and you have been scammed. It’s not fiction, it’s what many travelers find on their vacations. It’s called a ‘ghost vacation rental’ and In summer the risk of suffering from it increases. Scammers know well what people are looking for on platforms like Booking or Airbnb and create ads to attract our attention: “their accommodations usually meet exactly what you are looking for, but at a much better price,” says Jordi Nebot, CEO of Paynopaina Spanish fintech specialized in payment solutions. Additionally, they often use “stolen or AI photos” that make the ads look more credible. Anatomy of the vacation rental thymus Once they get our interest, what follows is the psychological pressure. Scammers “always try to introduce that sense of urgency to put the victim in a dilemma”, such as “a message from the owner telling you ‘I only have one room left, make the reservation now or you will be left with nothing’”. They play with the card of high demand, because yes, “the scams change depending on the season. In summer they get very busy with the vacation theme,” says Jordi. “A message from the owner telling you ‘I only have one room left, make the reservation now or you’ll be left with nothing’” The next step is the one that should set off all the alarms: “They will usually tell you to leave the platform.” The excuse they usually give is that They can give us a much better pricebut this is where we can have real problems because “they look for ways to make you pay by some means by which you lose the dispute protection that the most common payment methods have (…) a transfer, PayPal or Bizum, are payment methods in which once you have sent the money, the only way you have to recover it is to take the person you have spoken to to court.” chow to spot a fake ad The first clue is the price. An offer well below the area average is not definitive proof, but it is the first warning sign. The second, much more reliable, is the lack of history: “scams have very short legs. Normally the platforms eliminate the ad within a few days.” That is, if someone reports it, Booking or Airbnb will take it down quickly. That’s why heFraudulent ads almost never accumulate reviews or age. “Look for that accommodation and see if it has networks, if it has opinions on Trustpilot or on any specialized blog” A real accommodation leaves more traces outside the platforms, like “a website, a telephone, a location that you can find on Google Maps.” If you have doubts about the legitimacy of an ad, it is best to “look for that accommodation and see if it has networks, if it has opinions on Trustpilot or on any specialized blog.” If you are still hesitating, Jordi’s advice is blunt: “choose another one, don’t risk it.” What to do if you have already fallen in a scam If you have paid within the platform, you are in luck because “you already have coverage with the platform itself.” Just report it to Booking or Airbnb to make the refund. If you have paid outside the platform, the steps to follow will depend on the payment method you used. If you paid by card, your bank also offers you protection. In this case you will have to file a report with the police and take it to the bank to file a dispute. It is normally resolved in a few days, although it can take up to 45, but it is a standardized process that is usually resolved without further setbacks: “It has to be very bad for you to have been a victim of a scam and not get your money back,” says Jordi. “You’re going to have to go to the police to report it and the only way to recover it is going to be through the courts.” The scenario changes completely if you paid by transfer or another means such as Bizum or PayPal: “You will have to go to the police to report it and the only way to recover it will be through judicial means.” In your experience, it is usually a lost battle: “everything ends up in court and today that is a big problem, because for certain amounts it doesn’t even pay to fight.” Image | Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com in Unsplash In Xataka | Booking active reservation scam: how it works and how to prevent them from stealing your money thinking that they will cancel a reservation

In 2023, an exclusive Rolex was stolen from Keanu Reeves’ house in LA. A year later they found him in the most unexpected place: Chile

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In September, Rolex, the luxury when it comes to watches, filed a patent application that gave an idea of ​​the house’s problems with thefts and counterfeits of its most legendary models: they sought use NFT chips and certificates of authenticity based on blockchain to identify the models. The story (with a happy ending) of Keanu Reeve’s watches has surely only reinforced that idea. John Wick’s watch. The story begins several years ago, during the filming of the film ‘John Wick 4’ that the actor played. At the end of filming, Reeves pays tribute to himself with an exclusive Rolex Submariner valued at $9,000one with the engraved words “2021, JW4, thank you, The John Wick Five” next to the actor’s name. In December 2023, someone entered the artist’s house in Hollywood Hills (Los Angeles) taking several high-value jewelry, including the exclusive model from the Swiss luxury house. Enter Keanu’s house. Curiously, It wasn’t the first time it happened.. In fact, in 2014 the home was broken into. up to two times in three days. The first time, Reeves confronted an intruder in his library, the second, the cleaning staff found an intruder in his pool. But there is more. Early last year, Reeves requested a temporary restraining order against a man who allegedly trespassed on the actor’s property at least six times between November 2022 and January 2023. In one case, the alleged stalker left a backpack containing a DNA testing kit, one he intended to use on Reeves to prove they were related in some way, according to the order request. An unexpected find in Santiago. The news broke in December 2024 in the city of Santiago, where Chilean police recovered three watches belonging to the actorincluding the Rolex Submariner from the action movie and two other models described by authorities as “valuable.” Apparently, during a series of raids on four homes, Chilean authorities seized high-value jewelry and watches, including those three models that belonged to Reeves. According to CNN reportslocal authorities collaborated with US officials to establish the link between the watches and the robbery at the actor’s residence. As a result, a 21-year-old man is under arrest. Cinematic irony. The media has not stopped repeating a curiosity these days: the parallelism with the plot of the saga itself ‘John Wick‘, where Reeves’ character begins his story of revenge after a robbery (and the death of his dog) at his home. Outside of this trivial detail, the famous actor does not seem clear about returning to the role in future installments of the saga. The reason? Mainly age. Although his heart says he wants to do it, Keanu Reeves he joked shortly after in an interview that his knees might not be ready for another film due to the physical demands of the character. The symbolism of John Wick’s Rolex. As for the recovered watch and beyond its economic value, the Submariner represents Reeves’ appreciation for his team, known in the industry for giving away personalized watches as gestures of gratitude after finishing filming. In this case, the actor had kept one model and had given the rest to the doubles who played him in the film. Submariner, luxury on the wrist. The Rolex model is an icon of watchmaking and the first diving watch reference Truly functional. Launched in 1953 and designed specifically for divers, it became a symbol of innovation for its water resistance up to 100 meters (later extended to 300 meters) and its durability in extreme conditions. Its timeless design, with a unidirectional rotating bezel to measure immersion time and its legibility underwater, has established it as a standard in both the professional and fashion fields. In fact, before Keanu Reeves, the model He has been associated with many other historical and cultural figuresfrom ‘James Bond’ to marine explorers and other celebrities, a symbol of technical excellence and style that maintain it as one of the most recognized and desired watches in the world. In some cases and as we see, excessively. Image | Dr.K. In Xataka | He forgot some AirPods in his Ferrari: the unexpected trick that helped recover a stolen supercar In Xataka | New York has a problem with car theft. The police’s solution: give away some AirTags A version of this article was published in December 2024

Cocoa is so expensive that some suspect that a shipment with 12 tons of Kitkat has been stolen

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There was a time when big robberies had their own Hollywood epic: the Bank of England goldthe diamonds of the Great Antwerp Raidthe tickets from the Federal Reserve or the assault on the Mint and Stamp House of The Money Heist. Well, in 2026, European organized crime has decided that the most valuable thing you can take with you in a truck is 413,793 chocolate bars. No, it’s not a joke. In a statement to the AFP agencyNestlé has reported the theft of a shipment of more than 12 tons of KitKat chocolates, an incident that the multinational warns could cause supply problems right in the middle of the Easter campaign. A blow to Easter. According to the company, one of its logistics trucks carrying 413,793 a batch of chocolates KitKat has disappeared while transferring between the production center and the distribution center. According to pointed Reutersthe vehicle had left a factory in central Italy bound for Poland, but its trace was lost somewhere along the way. Since then, neither the truck nor the merchandise have been located and the investigation remains open. Nestlé warns that the disappearance of more than 400,000 units could be noticed in stores in the coming weeks, just at one of the times of greatest chocolate consumption of the year with the arrival of Easter and coinciding with the preparation of traditional sweets and cakes during these days. Pay attention to the black market. The company assures that it is collaborating with local authorities and its logistics network to try to locate the sweet shipment, although for now there are no details about the exact point of the journey at which the truck disappeared. The brand also warned that the stolen bars could enter unofficial sales channels in European markets. To combat this, KitKat noted that it is possible to trace the origin of products by scanning the unique lot codes listed on each bar. If the traceability system detects a coincidence, an action manual has been put in place to alert the company. Make a KitKat. Despite the seriousness of having lost almost half a million chocolate bars, the company has found humor in the face of such an unusual situation. A spokesperson for the brand made fun of KitKat’s famous slogan about taking a break or, as they call it, “making a kitkat.” “We’ve always encouraged people to take a break from KitKat, but it seems thieves have taken it too seriously and made off with more than 12 tonnes of our chocolate.” The truth is that, joking aside, the thieves have taken a button so voluminous that it will hardly go unnoticed if they try to “place” it on the market. “While we appreciate the exceptional taste of criminals, the truth is that merchandise theft is a growing problem for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat stated in its statement. brown gold. The theft comes at a time when the cocoa market is experiencing its biggest correction in decades. After reaching all-time highs above $12,000 per ton in 2024, the price of cocoa at origin has fallen more than 60%, reaching around $3,165 per ton at the end of March 2026. However, that moderation has barely reached the consumer and the cocoa prices They rose by 18% in the EU during 2025. Despite the price of the raw material having moderated, European supermarkets keep prices rising because manufacturers passed on the increases when the market was skyrocketing, but they took it more calmly when it fell. In Xataka | Coffee and cocoa have become so expensive that they are drowning themselves: buyers do not have the money to send them Image | Unsplash (justin, Gabriel Santos)

That Napoleon’s jewels were stolen from the Louvre in seven minutes is not a miracle. It is something much worse for France

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You have hardly been able to escape to the news of the weekend. It happened when the morning of Paris had not yet acquired the pulse of tourism. Then, a four-man gang climbed the facade of the Louvre as if the very principle of deterrence did not exist. Everything was surprising: there was no night, no disguise of technological ingenuity, no escape into an interior labyrinth. Thus, in the seven minutes it took us humans to have a coffee, the group removed from the heart of the museum the most sensitive remains of the French imperial lineage. The most guarded museum in the world could be crossed like if it were a decoration. The material blow. He told in a detailed report this morning Le Monde that the command arrived on the side of the Seine taking advantage a context of works and the functional anonymity of an urban furniture-mountain. They forced a porte-fenêtre towards the Galerie d’Apollon (the room that condenses the mythology of state sovereignty: joyaux de la CouronneNapoleonic inheritances, diadems and colliers that condense continuity of power) and broke two high security display cases in seconds, collecting eight pieces of heritage value not translatable to the market. The operation lasted around seven minutes. The withdrawal was done along the same vertical axis with the support of two large displacement scooters. In the rush of escape, the criminals dropped the Eugenie’s crownlater recovered damaged. What they took and what they didn’t. The theft affected pieces of the corpus Marie-Amélie/Hortense (including sapphire colliers, earrings and tiaras) and jewelry linked to Marie-Louise. They were unable to extract the diamant-régent (one of the three canonical diamonds of the French canon) nor, as we said, preserve Eugénie’s crown in the flight. What is stolen is, strictly speaking, unmarketable as an entire heritage object, but its dismantling (gold, diamonds, sapphires separately) suppresses cultural and biographical traceability, which is where the irreparable lies. Structural failure. They count national media that the gap was not the cunning of others but the internal predictability: five agents for a room thermodynamically saturated with risk, a relay that reduces to four personnel in the exact strip in which the coup is carried out, a security architecture whose modernization was postponed, and a prioritization curve that armored the Joconde but it decompensated the surrounding heritage periphery. In fact, the runion and staff action (boos to management, demand for an independent audit, denunciation of years of unattended alerts) indicates that the failure was not only big, it was known and was never corrected. Political responses. The assault detonated a immediate response of Macron, of the Interior and of the judiciary, with the affirmation that the authors were going to be captured and the pieces recovered. For its part, the opposition transferred the episode to a frame of state decay: If the Louvre (symbol of the nation’s continuous narrative) is permeable during opening hours, the crack is more than museum-like. In other words, from that prism, public humiliation then operates in two planes: exterior (Country-image) and interior (delegitimization of the chain of command over heritage). The crown of Empress Eugenia de Montijo Criminal logic. We said it at the beginning. The pieces, en bloc, do not circulate. Its economic power lies rather in its deconstruction. The likely incentive is not conventional private collecting (impossible to display) but the supply on demand (unknown contractor, including state or quasi-state) or the cannibalized high margin industrial bulk. According to Le Mondehe recent pattern (Cognacq-Jay, Museum of Nature History, Limoges) shows a vector of criminal professionalization with a logistical window close to civil works, rapid emergence, cold extraction, brief departure and, sometimes, exogenous assignment. The discarding of an item in the flight suggests, perhaps, operational friction, but not global improvisation. Precedents. There is no doubt, France knows famous robberies (1911 the Joconde1976 sword of Charles, 1998 the Corot) but the qualitative leap lies in the practical deactivation of the Louvre taboo during visiting hours. The museum was closed to preserve vestiges and the criminal investigation is open with focus on escape routeabandoned equipment, construction perimeters and cameras. In fact, the hypothesis of a foreign commission is not ruled out, nor is the performance of a cell trained in high-density urban theater patterns. Hunting status. From what is known, the investigation focuses in four authorsscooters and routes already mapped, with cameras analyzed and forensic material in progress. One damaged piece was recovered, but eight remain missing. Plus: the probability of intact recovery decreases with time because the thief’s rational incentive is, a priori, to disassemble, volatilize and recombine. The cultural loss is absolute if the components are assembled in another vector or if the metal is melted and sold through other channels. What the robbery reveals. The reputational implosion now forces us to accelerate what years of internal warnings They did not move: comprehensive shielding, redistribution of personnel due to real risk and not due to tradition, closing of logistical windows associated with civil works, and a redefinition of the security perimeter by layers, not only by a single idol (the Joconde-Gioconda). The only “advantage” of an open-hour robbery with global symbolic production is that it makes it politically unaffordable to return to the previous status quo. If you also want, the episode, rather than pointing out an unusual criminal genius, points to the country itself. The escape in seven minutes did not measure the capacity of the thieves, but rather the exact time in which the State left open the possibility that the largest museum in the world could be treated like the entrance to a bathroom in full public service. Image | Tore Sætre, Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier In Xataka | Everyone wants to see the Mona Lisa, a problem that the Louvre is going to solve drastically: by hiding it In Xataka | A Saudi prince paid $450 million for a Da Vinci painting. The problem is that it may not be by Da Vinci

Italian producers are fed up with the Parmesano stolen. So they are putting microchips

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Gouda, ManchegoCheddar, Roquefort and Parmesano, of course. All have in common that they are Cheese typesbut also that, together with many others, they represent something more important: culture, tradition and even a country. Such is the importance of certain foods that the European Union created the DOP seal, A quality system To protect them. But outside the EU, products are still confused under the DOP that have a lower quality. In Italy they have tired have decided to take action on the matter armoring the Parmesan cheese. As? Inserting microchips. Parmesan. Parmesan is one of the most ‘copied’ cheeses in the world. And it is not due to its flavor, but to something that interests the industry much more: its prestige and the high value of it. Parmesan is used in recipes as dear as Pizzas Or a certain type of pasta, and if you have ever bought a Parmesan, you will know that the price is very different from other wedges. Out of Europe is the jungle. It is one of those cheeses with the seal of Denomination of Protected Origin And, although the European Union prohibits the use of the name “Parmesan” for products that are not ‘Parmigiano Reggiano Dop’, the problem is that there are markets, such as the American, in which a cheese ‘parmesan’ is sold that nothing has to do with Parmesan. Apart from the United States or Latin America, there are versions of ‘ParmesanReggianito‘Argentine after World War Ithat it was consolidated so much that it caused the creation of the Reggiano Parmigian consortium. It is estimated that this imitations market moves around 2,000 million dollars annually. To put it in context, the authentic Parmesan moved 3.2 million in 2024. The bark is like a huge barcode And the detail of the QR where the microchip goes A Burrada. Estimates point to 90% of products labeled as “Parmesan” that are not really Parmesan. These are cheese made based on cheaper cheese mixtures, with extreme cases of some stuffed with wood fibers. And, as you can imagine, it is something that entails several inconveniences for the DOP, such as direct damage to the consumer being a lower quality product, but with a high price. And also affects Parmesan’s own industry, eroding its cultural value. The Italian consortium He has managed to block some attempts to parmesan cheesebut it has not been enough and manufacturers have gone to action. Microchips in food. For a few years, the Parmesan cortex (which is a part that is not usually consumed, although it is very good to make a cream or to some popcorn) incorporates QR codes. They allow a traceability of the product and are “printed” based on dairy proteins. If you want to eat the bark that carries that QR, there would be no problem. The wheel also has a system of points that act as a kind of identity document. However, the volume of fraud forced the sector to look for new solutions. There the microchips come into play. Developed By the American company P-chipthis microchip is somewhat larger than a salt grain and is inserted into the casein label. Each has A unique code that stores all cheese information: Origin. Production date. Place of production. Origin of milk. Protecting the denomination of protected origin. It is something that allows producers and distributors to verify the authenticity of that piece and, of course, gives a guarantee to the consumer, who knows that he is paying a high price for the product he wants to buy. According to security tests, and how we can read in The Guardianalthough the chip is in contact with the food, it does not leave toxic waste and can be easily removed at home because yes or yes it is in the QR code. This began to be implemented in 120,000 of the four million wheels annually in Parmesano, but the Reggian Parmigian consortium wants this technological solution to become a standard in its industry. Beyond Parmesan. In the end, it is a measure for Protect the economic value of the product And, if the DOP seal does not say – not protect – nothing outside the European Union (a seal that shares cheeses such as Manchego or Roquefort), which at least between QR and microchips There is a traceability and a fight against “falsifications”. The objective, according to account The president of the PRC, “is to transmit the value of our product globally and distinguish it from products with similar names in the market that do not meet our strict production and area of origin.” And, precisely, the Reggian Parmigian can teach the way to other products with denominations of origin such as the Padano Grana or the aforementioned Spanish and French protected cheeses. Images | Parmigianoreggiano, Udo Schröter, Morgan Cheeses In Xataka | Bodegas have been labeling their bottles with all kinds of animals for years. It turns out that they are key to choosing wine

Ukraine has stolen the confidential information of the last nuclear submarine of Russia. And then he has published all his failures

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Two news in just a few days offered a summary of the importance of Nuclear deterrence of Russia and its need to update it. On the one hand, Moscow advertisement which will cease to respect the limitations of the treaty of nuclear forces of intermediate scope. On the other, The New York Times confirmed through satellite images that its nuclear submarine base had is damaged After an earthquake. Now Ukraine has just added another asterisk. The end to the treaty. The first news occurred two days ago. Moscow advertisement which will set aside the limitations of the treaty of nuclear forces of intermediate scope (Inf), signed in 1987 to eliminate land missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers and considered a milestone of the cold war. Although the pact was already broken after the United States withdrawal In 2019, Moscow maintained a unilateral moratorium that is now terminated, claiming that Washington plans to display missiles of this type in Europe and Asia. The decision also coincides with the entry into service of the Missile Orshnikcapable of carrying nuclear eyes and unfold in Belaruswhich increases fear in the West to a new arms race in which European capitals would be minutes from a Russian attack. While Medvedev launches direct warningsKremlin seeks to clarify the tone, although the definitive breakdown of the INF confirms the setback of nuclear control mechanisms and raises strategic tensions in Europe and Asia. The “touched” nuclear base. We count the fear And finally it has been confirmed. The earthquake that made the Russian nation tremble caused damage to the strategic base of Nuclear Submarines of Rybachiy, in the Kamchatka Peninsula, according to planet labs satellite images cited By The New York Times. The photos show that a section of a floating dock He got rid of of its anchor, although there are no major damage to the facilities. The Rybachiy base, vital for the Russian nuclear fleet in the Pacific, thus maintains its operation despite the damage located in its infrastructure. Before and after earthquakes in nuclear infrastructure Filtration. A few hours ago, Ukrainian military intelligence (Hur) has announced obtaining internal documents classified from the K-55 Knyaz Pozharskythe most more modern Russian nuclear nuclear submarine in the Borei-A classessential piece of the Kremlin nuclear triad. This ship, officially incorporated to the northern fleet On July 24, 2025 at a ceremony chaired by Putin, he is armed with 16 intercontinental missiles R-30 Bulava-30each capable of carrying up to ten nuclear eyelets. According to kyivthe material obtained includes complete lists of the crew with details of functions, physical preparation and qualifications, combat manuals, schemes of survival systems, organizational structure, internal regulations for life on board, protocols for evacuation and transfer of injuries, as well as Technical documents on failed communication equipment and engineering records. It would even have secured an excerpt from the daily service book, which regulates routine tasks and submarine combat operations. Part of the classified documents filtered The failures. The most surprising thing about the case is that Filtration now published represents a significant coup for the operational security Russian, as it offers Ukraine and its allies critical information on technical vulnerabilities not only of Knyaz Pozharskybut of the entire series of borei-a submarines, considered the more modern nucleus of Moscow nuclear deterrence. These data, according to The intelligence of Ukrainethey will allow identify From design limitations to safety protocols and resistance capabilities, eroding, in addition, the perception of invulnerability that Russia tries to project with its strategic fleet. Hur itself He stressed That this intelligence dismantles the “imperial myth” on the strength of the Russian nuclear arsenal, by exposing the fragilities of systems that Kremlin presents as unwavering. Part of the classified documents filtered The naval context in the war. Plus: the revelation arrives at a time when the Russian navy has suffered a palpable deterioration of its prestige and effectiveness, especially In the Black Seawhere the fleet has lost several key ships at the hands of Ukrainian naval drones and Western missiles. He sinking of the landing ship Caesar Kunikov, of the Patrol Sergei Kotov and of the Ivanovets Corvetteamong others, has weakened an instrument that until 2022 was perceived as dominant in the region. The NATO careMeanwhile, it moves towards the Arctic and North Atlanticwhere Russian underwater activities are closely monitored and have motivated the display of new forces Maritime Allied. In this context, know the specifications and vulnerabilities of the Borei-A class, which constitutes the strategic arm of the northern fleet in Gadzhievo, results from An incalculable value to calibrate nuclear balance and reinforce allied deterrence. The information in the modern war. If you want also, the Hur operation It is more than a espionage success: it symbolizes how, in the war of the 21st century, information can have both power as a precision missile. Ukraine, confronted with an adversary with palpable material, converts intelligence into An asymmetric weapon able to undress the vulnerability of the jewel of the Russian strategic fleet. On the other sidewalk, the lesson for Moscow seems clear: not even its nuclear submarines, designed to guarantee the survival of the State in case of total war, are immune, not only Natural disastersbut to Information War. Image | Ukrainian intelligencePlanet Labs In Xataka | It is not that Russia does not find the F-16 of Ukraine, is that kyiv has discovered the perfect hiding place for the future of wars In Xataka | A new challenge has arrived to Ukraine: it measures 4 meters, it has 75 kilos of explosives and uses AI to hit Russia

Tiktok and Instagram have become an immense compilation of stolen videos. And they have no idea how to solve it

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Open Tiktok (or your trusted short videos platform) and the following appears: a clip extracted from a podcast uploaded by random account @user97567, a video to a split screen with a talk up and Parkour in Minecraft below and a compilation of cat videos that upload @funnycatslolhaha. What do all these clips have in common? That none is proper. All that content It has been stolen to its original creators And the problem is that no platform seems to know how to solve it. Context. When you go up to the Internet, controlling its distribution is extremely complicated. In the same way that no one can prevent you from copying and hitting this text on a blog, preventing someone from downloading A YouTube video, A Tiktok, A reela content in general, it is not an easy thing. On many occasions the platform itself allows and, if not, it is possible to resort to third -party tools that sometimes can even remove the water brand. 21 Instagram tricks – Tutorial with all secrets! So that. Profiles that rectify content of other users do not do so for love of art. They do it with two possible objectives: monetize the account using dedicated platform funds or inflate the figures to sell them. Surely names Babronazi o PostureoEspañol make the bell sound. It is also possible that it is a fans account, in which case the reason may be more innocent. Be that as it may, these accounts are promoted based on stealing content from other users and republicing it after a slight modification (if any). The typical “for you”: Memes accounts, cat videos and accounts with zero units of own content | Captures: Xataka In fact, there are profiles and courses specialized in what is normally known as “network automation”. Roughlythis system consists of combining AI tools, videos of other creators and fast editing templates to generate a huge volume of videos and monetize the account. It is one of those practices to “generate passive income“, among quotes, how strong they usually hit in a certain segment of the population. The reality, however, is much more complex. Solutions. Few, unfortunately. Some users have found to embed a water mark within the video itself a way that, if any discharge tool can eliminate what generates the platform, that remains. However, the reality is that social platforms have failed to stop the distribution of original content by third parties. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok are full of that content. The algorithm mixes it with the original content and serves it to users, which consume it. To all purposes, the platform is gaining because its objective (increase retention) is achieved. The creator, although it can be relatively benefited in terms of exposure, loses the gain that, potentially, could have had his profile of having published said content. Image | Xataka What are platforms doing. Given this situation, some platforms have tried to take measures with greater or lesser success. YouTube has it well tied. Although it is possible to continue up and monetizing “reused content”, that is, the typical video reacting to the new song of X or the video of another creator, the platform does not allow monetizing what it considers “non -authentic content” (mass made videos) or clips extracted from a podcast that is not yours. This applies to both long videos and shorts. Instagram allows Upstate third parties and does not hit. Now, if you detect that someone has uploaded a video of another person, you will automatically add an “original content of” content and link it to your profile. Politics, however, is … complex. The material edited materially, see “a person appears in a superimposed video and adds new information, such as comments”, is allowed and distributed as normally. Facebook has been more permissive (to the point of allowing direct monetization of videos with non -original content), so far. THE META PLATFORM has announced which will adopt in its reels a policy similar to that of Instagram. However, there are no mechanisms to prevent a reused content page. Tiktok It has some guides That, on paper, they exclude from ‘for you’ the “reproduced or non -original content that does not incorporate new or creative changes.” The reality, however, is that it is enough to add subtitles or make some edition for the video to be distributed as normally. Another issue is intellectual property. This is a swampy terrain and the platforms usually cover their backs in their policies prohibiting it, directly. When we upload a video to Tiktok or Instagram we grant a global license so that this video is exploited, but the rights of said video remain ours. We could, in theory, put a copy of Copyright to all the accounts that we see to use our content, but that is an intense job and, speaking in silver, putting doors to the field. We can find the same in other sectors. For example, models uploaded to 3D printing repositories are, unless it is marked, for personal use. That a Makerworld model is downloaded has no commercial license to exploit it in your Etsy store. However, this a practice known and persecuted by the community, but against which it is difficult to fight. In summary. The accounts that use third parties will not disappear and combat this practice does not seem easy. That is a full -fledged paradox, since the platforms encourage users to raise original content, but at the same time they do not protect it completely. And not only that, but the user does not care in excess because, after all, they go to these platforms to entertain themselves. It is indifferent if that entertainment comes from the most worked video in the world, a compilation of funny babies, the Senimous Iteration of Tung Tung Tung Sahur or a video of a boy dancing on a kayak. Cover image | Xataka

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