US Government Traces Pentagon Leak To Member Of Air Force National Guard

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has traced the source that leaked highly classified documents from the Pentagon back to an Air National Guardsman. 21-year-old Jack Douglas Teixeira, who is a member of the US Air Force National Guard, was arrested in the state of Massachusetts earlier today.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed the arrest and said that Teixeira was currently being held “in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorised removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information”. During the investigation, it was surmised by the Washington Post that whoever leaked the documents was, in all possibility, someone of the suspect’s age, an American that grew up with gaming and guns in their life, and most importantly, would be a soldier within a military branch.

The investigation is still ongoing but US officials found that Teixeira also controlled a Discord server, through which he leaked the classified documents, all just so that he could get the one thing a person his age would do: he wanted to impress his friends. His channel wasn’t as big, with only 25 members in total, but the problem was that it included individuals that hailed from Europe, Asia, and South America. Unsurprisingly, once the authenticity of said documents were verified by other sources, they began spreading like wildfire, leading to the current predicament the US government is in right now.

As we reported yesterday, Teixeira’s leaking of US Pentagon documents is also the most potentially devastating, and could even be more impactful than those leaked by Edward Snowden back in 2013. Alleged content from the highly classified documents reportedly included references to Russian and Chinese activities, and about how the current war in Ukraine has drawn the latter country into helping the former. Not only that, but the leaked documents also seemingly point to the US spying on allied countries, including South Korea and Israel. Among other things.

Another matter that the US government will most certainly be asking, in light of Teixeira’s arrest, is how exactly a low-ranking Air Force National Guardsman even managed to get his hands on documents, some likely modified down the line, that was clearly not for his eyes.

Breaking: Soyuz MS-22 leak

Breaking: Soyuz MS-22 leak

 

Alleged Intel ARC Alchemist Graphics Card Renders Leak; Launching In Q2 2022

Alleged renders of Intel’s soon-to-be released ARC Alchemist graphics cards have seemingly made their way online. Well, artistic impressions of the cards, to say the least.

Potential renders of the ARC Alchemist’s was first posted by prominent speculator, leakster, and YouTuber, Moore’s Law Is Dead, who says that they had made a request to their friends. Asking if they could do a simple animation of the Intel graphics card’s cooler shroud, based on the accummulated information around it.

Now, this isn’t the first time the YouTuber has leaked details of the Intel’s unreleased consumer-ready GPU. Back in April and when the card was still referred to by the Xe-HPG moniker, the channel had managed to procured images of what was supposedly engineering samples of the GPU’s cooler shroud.

In this case, the renders show the card’s cooler shroud in silver, rather than black. In addition, the 8+6 Pin PCIe connectors can be seen situated at the end of the card’s PCB, although the cooler extends a little further past it; a design trait that both NVIDIA and AMD have adopted for some time now.

In addition to the renders, Moore’s Law Is Dead also speculated that Intel could be gearing up to launch its first-ever ARC Alchemist lineup sometime during the second quarter of 2022, which is also the expected launch window for the chipmaker’s 12th generation Alder Lake mobile CPUs and next-generation gaming laptops.

As always, this is alway merely speculation and as such, take this news with a large grain of salt.

PDRM Begins To Investigate JPN Database Leak As LHDN Refutes Seller’s Claim

The Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) has begun to investigate the database leak that is said to involve the National Registration Department (JPN) and Inland Revenue Board (LHDN). As per our report earlier, a database that apparently contained four million data that belonged to Malaysians was put on sale at a well-known marketplace forum.

The seller claimed that the data was from JPN but acquired through LHDN’s website using myIDENTITY’s API. It was listed on the marketplace for 0.2 BTC which was around RM 35,495 at the time we published the report this morning.

According to the Director of PDRM’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department, CP Mohd Kamarudin Md Din, a police report regarding the incident has been filed at Putrajaya by the Deputy Director of JPN and the case is currently being investigated under Section 4(1) of Computer Crimes Act 1997 [pdf].

CP Kamarudin added that a thorough investigation will be carried out in collaboration with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, CyberSecurity Malaysia, and National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA). Interesting enough, the police are not ruling out the involvement of insiders in this incident.

PDRM reportedly has also made the first move by attempting to block the sale of the database although our quick visit to the marketplace forum showed that the listing is still there in the marketplace forum as of 9:30 PM today.

In a separate statement, LHDN has refuted the claim that its website was the source of the database leak and insisted that it is just a user of myIDENTITY but does not own the platform. The board has also revealed that its own internal investigation showed that there was no leak of data and information at its end.

LHDN insists that all of the data and information under its custody is safe and protected by “recognised data security technology”. That being said, it is currently working together with JPN, NACSA, and National Security Council to go through all the possibilities in regards to the said database.

Microsoft Surface Pro 8 Leak Suggests 120Hz Display, Thunderbolt Ports

Microsoft has an announcement event coming up this week, which likely has to do with its Surface line of products. One of the products to get a reveal may be a Surface Pro 8, which has recently been leaked. And there’s more than just a pinch of detail here.

Twitter user @Shadow_Leak shared an image of the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 that looks to be from a Chinese retailer. And there’s a fair amount of info to gleam from it. Chief among which are the 13-inch display with 120Hz refresh rate, and the fact that it will have Thunderbolt ports. The tweet itself goes on to say that there will be two of these.

Other details include the inclusion of Windows 11, which is to be expected, an 11th gen Intel Core processor, and replaceable SSDs. This is a feature we saw with the Surface Laptop 4 which was made available on our shores in May. It’s an impressive feature to have, judging from the thinness of the Microsoft Surface Pro 8.

Naturally, none of this are confirmed just yet. But it won’t be long before we know for sure, since the scheduled announcement event by Microsoft is due in just a couple of days.

New Leak Suggests Nikon Might Launch A US$1000 Retro-Inspired Camera Soon

A recent leak first reported by Nikon Rumors is suggesting that Nikon may be planning to launch a new retro-inspired mirrorless camera soon. Believed to be called the “ZFC”, the new camera is shown to feature a design that is reminiscent of the Nikon FM series that were released during the 1970s and 80s.

But before we move forward, we would like to clarify that the full overhead view of the alleged camera shown above is a visualisation created by Nikon Rumors, using parts from different mockups to fill in the blanks. The actual leaked photos provided to the publication (shown below) only revealed portions of the device – mainly showcasing its viewfinder, upper dials, as well as its shutter and record buttons. So keep in mind that there is a chance the visualisation may end up as inaccurate.

As for its hardware, the site claims that the new ZFC camera will be a Z-mount APS-C camera and would feature similar specifications as the Nikon Z50 from 2019. To recap, the latter is equipped with a 20.9MP sensor, an ISO range of up to 51,200, high autofocus at -4 EV, 11fps of high-speed continuous shooting, and up to 4K UHD video recording with no crop.

Besides that, Nikon is also expected to launch two APS-C prime lenses alongside the ZFC, under a new “SE” line: a 28mm f/2.8 and a 35mm f/1.8. The latter is expected to be shipped together with the camera as a kit lens. Unlike the ZFC, Nikon Rumors noted that the new lenses will retain the familiar Nikkor Z-mount design and would not feature a retro-inspired look.

Nikon is said to announce the camera later this month on 28 June, while its release is expected to happen at the end of July this year. The new Nikon ZFC will reportedly retail at US$999 (~RM4,112), while the pricing for the two lenses remains unknown for the time being.

If this leak is accurate, this would make the unannounced ZFC to be the second retro-inspired digital camera from Nikon. The first being the Nikon Df in 2013, which also featured a “timeless design” based on the brand’s classic FM series. But unlike its alleged mirrorless successor, the camera was much bulkier due to being a DSLR.

Alleged MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM Details Leak

Slides with details pertaining to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards have supposedly made their way online. To be precise, the details seem to have come from a set of slides that were clearly made for an official MSI product briefing, with the cards themselves being part of the brand’s SUPRIM series.

As per earlier reports, the slides seem to confirm that the RTX 3080 Ti’s 12GB GDDR6X memory, while the RTX 3070 Ti (possibly) has 8GB GDDR6X. Because these cards are a part of MSI’s premium, high-end SUPRIM series, both SKUs are kitted out with the brand’s Tri Frozr 2S cooling technology, along with its TORX 4.0 fan design. In addition, the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti are also fitted with metal backplates, the latter utilising a flow-through design.

This isn’t the first time MSI’s RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM has made an appearance. More than a week ago, we reported that the card was being sold openly in Dubai. Way ahead of its supposed end of May announcement date.

Sadly, however, the list doesn’t provide any specifications detail about both cards meaning that we’re still pretty much in the dark about the number of CUDA cores, ROPs and TMUs, as well as what sort of boost clocks each card can achieve. Guess we’ll have to wait until the end of this month to find out more.

Facebook Data Leak: How To Check If You Were Affected

Last weekend, a set of databases that contain personal data from 533 million Facebook users was listed on a well-known data marketplace. First reported by Alon Gal, the Co-Founder and CTO of a cybersecurity company called Hudson Rock, around 11.6 million of those users were from Malaysia.

If you are wondering whether your details are included in the leak or otherwise, you can now use the popular online tool Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) to verify it. In case you are not familiar with HIBP, it was launched in December 2013 and is the brainchild of Australian cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt.

For Malaysians, they may remember that Troy had added the Jobstreet database into HIBP after the massive national-scale data breach of 2017. In the case of Facebook though, you can verify the involvement of your personal data by providing your phone number to HIBP’s search engine as each of the records within the leaked database contained a phone number.

Do note that you need to include the country code in your phone number to perform the search. As an example, if your phone number is 012-3456789, the search term that you should use would be 6012345789.

If your phone number is part of the leak, the result would be shown as per the image above. Else, it would look like this:

Meanwhile, Facebook stated that last weekend’s leaked database was not an actual “leak”. Instead, it was the result of data scraping performed by an undisclosed malicious party in 2019 which was made possible due to a security issue that has since been patched by the platform.

Regardless of that, users are facing the risk of being phished or scammed since their Facebook’s personal data is now out there in the open. Hence, we would like to once again remind you to take the necessary action to protect yourself against such attempts.

Alleged Nokia G10, X10, And X20 Details Leak Ahead Of 8 April Launch Event

HMD Global is expected to host an event on 8 April, with reports suggesting that there will be a total of three new Nokia entry-level smartphones – the G10, X10, and X20, to be specific – for the masses. While the phone’s parent company is keeping mum, details regarding the three phones have already made their way online.

Starting with the Nokia G10, the phone is expected to ship out 6.38-inch LCD HD+ display, a 4000mAh, and an octa-core chipset of unknown make and architecture. The phone is also expected to have either 3GB or 4GB RAM, along with 32GB or 64GB of expandable storage. Additionally, the phone main camera is expected to have four sensors comprising a 48MP main, 5MP ultra-wide, 2MP depth, and a 2MP macro. While the front is a 16MP sensor.

As for the Nokia X10 and X20, details for the two phones are still scarce, but it appears both models will house Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 480 SoC, which supports 5G and should give you an idea over what to expect. Again, besides that, there is no further information about the phone, not even about their main camera setup.

Last but not least, the same sources also hint at the possible pricing of all three phones; the G10 is estimated to cost around 139 Euros (~RM493), while the X10 and X20 will be retailed at 300 Euros (~RM1471) and 350 Euros (~RM1716), respectively.

Leak Suggests Lite Variants Of Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 And Tab A7 Launching In June

Samsung has been offering consumers with more affordable variants of its flagship smartphones and tablets with the introduction of the Lite series, including those from the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Tab S6. It appears that the company is continuing to follow that approach again this year, as suggested by a recent leak of alleged promotional materials featuring the Lite variants of last year’s Galaxy Tab S7 and Tab A7.

Images of the materials are provided by leakster WalkingCat (@_h0x0d) via Twitter, which reveals only minor tidbits regarding the supposedly upcoming tablets. If what’s shown is to be believed, Samsung may debut both devices later in June – although no specific date was provided.

The Galaxy Tab S7 Lite is shown to feature a similar design and screen size as last year’s Plus variant. Specifically, the tablet is suggested to feature a 12.4-inch display with a front facing camera situated on its side. Unfortunately, no images of its rear design have been provided, so it’s uncertain what the Lite’s back panel may look like or whether it also features a dual camera setup as the original.Additionally, the alleged promotional materials reveal that the Galaxy Tab S7 Lite will support 5G connectivity and comes with Samsung’s Galaxy Continuity feature, which allows users to receive calls and messages from a connected and compatible Galaxy-branded smartphone. Given that this is intended to be a more affordable variant, it is expected that Samsung will downplay certain hardware such as cameras and other internal components. Using the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite as reference, it is possible that this upcoming tablet will feature an Exynos chipset instead of the Snapdragon 865.

Next up is the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite, which is shown to feature a “slim metal design” along with a screen size of 8.7-inches. The image suggests that it would also come with one-handed operation functionalities and provide “immersive entertainment” capability. It is not clear what the latter is trying to imply, but it is likely something related to the device’s display and onboard speaker system. Much like the Galaxy Tab S7 Lite, not much regarding the specifications of this model was provided in this leak.

Whether these promotional materials are authentic or not remains to be seen at this time, but WalkingCat does have a good track record of leaks. That being said, it will still definitely take a while until we find out since the suggested June launch window for the alleged Lite variants of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Tab A7 is still a couple of months away.

Samsung Galaxy A52 Press Renders And Specs Leak Ahead Of Launch

The press renders and specifications of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy A52 have been leaked online, courtesy of Winfuture. This comes just days after the leak of its larger cousin, the Galaxy A72, which was also provided by the same source.

Design-wise, there’s basically no difference between the Galaxy A52 and its predecessor when viewed from the front. This changes drastically when the phone is flipped over, revealing a new quad camera array that is housed in a “hump” that blends almost seamlessly with the rear case – much like the one observed on the Galaxy A72. If the consistency serves as an indication, it is quite likely that Samsung may also implement this design to its other upcoming mid-range releases and ditch the typical glass housing approach altogether.

All variants of the Galaxy A52 feature a 6.5-inch SuperAMOLED display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, as well as including an in-display fingerprint sensor. WinFuture mentions that the display would have a high refresh as well, but did not mention specific rates. Earlier rumours have suggested that the 4G-only may feature a 90Hz refresh rate, while the 5G version could sport up to 120Hz.

Both variants are said to be equipped with different chipsets. Specifically, the 4G version is believed to come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G, while the 5G version is equipped with a Snapdragon 750G. However, it is also possible the models that will be sold in certain regions including Malaysia could feature Samsung’s own Exynos SoC instead. The company has recently been making a push for its in-house developed chip after all. 

Continuing on. Winfuture says that the Galaxy A52 will feature up to 8GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage all across, but noted that the configurations may differ from one region to the next. Powering the phone is a 4,500mAh battery with 25W fast charging support via USB-C, which is somewhat a significant bump from its predecessor.

The new mid-ranger apparently comes with improved cameras as well, namely the 64MP main sensor on its back – which replaces the 48MP that was featured in last year’s model. Accompanying it is believed to be an 8MP ultra-wide, and two unspecified auxiliary shooters at 5MP and 2MP respectively. Situated in the punch-hole cutout on the phone’s display is said to be a 32MP selfie camera.

Other than that, the leak added that the Galaxy A52 will feature a Dual SIM support, a microSD slot, NFC, a headphone jack, and will feature the current or latest version of the Android 11-based One UI 3 system. Another interesting tidbit pointed out by WinFuture is that the upcoming smartphone is certified IP67 in dust and water resistance – a much welcomed trait that is absent from its predecessors.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy A52 is said to be available in black, white, blue and lavender colour options. It is expected to be sold in Europe at EUR349 (~RM1,702) for the 4G version, and EUR429 (~RM2,092) for the 5G variant. Unfortunately, it is not known when Samsung is planning to launch the smartphone globally just yet, although it is very likely to debut alongside the Galaxy A72.

OPPO Reportedly Launching Three Find X3 Models Next Month; Promo Images Leak

OPPO is reportedly planning to launch its new Find X3 flagship series in March. News of this was brought forward by leakster Evan Blass (aka OnLeaks), who also provided leaked promotional images of the new phone.

The recent photos corroborated with the leaked renders which he had showcased previously, seemingly confirming the new rear camera design featured on the new handset. Blass added that the upcoming series will consist of three models: the Find X3 Pro, Neo, and Lite – the latter is believed to be a rebranded OPPO Reno5 5G, according to several sources.

An earlier leak from Blass suggests that the Pro variant will feature a 6.7-inch curved display with 1440p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, as well as dual-cell 4,500mAh battery with 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 fast charging support. Chipset-wise, OPPO had confirmed that Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 888 flagship will be powering the new device.

Unfortunately, not much is known regarding the other models, especially the interestingly named OPPO Find X3 Neo. Hopefully we’ll find out more details about the upcoming flagship series soon enough, provided that its rumoured March launch window is accurate.

More AMD Radeon RX 6700XT Details Leak; Reportedly Has 12GB GDDR6 Of Graphics Memory

A new leak surrounding AMD’s alleged mid-range Radeon RX 6700XT recently made its way on to the internet, almost a week after information about the GPU first surfaced. The latest information comes by way of hardwareLUXX’s Andrew Schilling, who also seemingly managed to come across the card’s “official” logo.

In addition to the logo, Schilling also says that the 6700XT will reportedly ship out with 12GB GDDR6 and will be targeted at gamers looking for an all-out graphics experience at 1440p resolution, max. Unfortunately, Schilling’s tweet fails to mention a possible price tag, but does assume a potential launch date, either in the first quarter or first half of 2021.

Schiling’s forecast of the 6700XT seems nearly identical to our earlier report; then, as now, the rumour suggested that the card would have the same amount of memory, but also that it could presumably be running at 16Gbps and a 192-bit memory bus. Further, the card may have 40 Compute Units (CUs), a 96MB Infinity Cache – the 6900XT, 6800XT, and 6800 all ship out with a 128MB Infinity Cache – and a game clock of between 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz.

Given its internal specifications and its supposed target market, the 6700XT could end up trading blows, either with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or RTX 3070. Sadly, without a market price, official or estimated, we can’t say for certain which one would be the competitor.

Seeing how this is merely a rumour, the standard rules of sodium consumption apply.

Alleged NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Benchmarks Leak; Performance Slightly Behind RTX 3090

While NVIDIA preps its GeForce RTX 3060 for its expected end of February launch, the rumour mill has been continuously churning out whispers and allegation about the GPU maker’s second most powerful card, the RTX 3080 Ti. Case in point, performance metrics supposedly belonging to the card were leaked recently.

In addition to the alleged performance metrics, a screenshot of the RTX 3080 Ti via GPU-Z was also leaked alongside. That said, it should be noted that the Colorful, the Chinese graphics card brand, hinted at the image having been doctored, which isn’t far fetched. Given the propensity of some GPU leaks in the past.

Looking at the image for what it is, however, the specifications seem to more or less match previously reported details of the RTX 3080 Ti; much like the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, it is based on NVIDIA’s GA102 Ampere architecture, will supposedly have 20GB GDDR6X memory, 328 TMUs, 112 ROPs, and a base and boost clock of 1395MHz and 1695MHz, respectively.

As for its supposed performance, the benchmarks numbers were all obtained from UL’s 3DMark benchmark and thanks to Twitter user 포시포시’s (@harukaze5719) neatly made graph, we can surmise that the RTX 3080 Ti’s performance is just ever so slightly behind the RTX 3090.

As these things usually go, there is still no information as to when NVIDIA plans on announcing or launching the RTX 3080 Ti, neither is there an official price tag for it. Given the power and specifications of the card, however, it would not be wrong to presume that we could be looking at a GeForce card with a price tag similar to the RTX 3090. In any case, take this news with a grain of salt.

Alleged Apple iPad mini 6 Leak Suggests Dual In-Display Punch-Holes

Earlier rumours regarding upcoming Apple products such as the 2021 iPhone and MacBook Pro suggests major changes may be happening to their designs. A new leak had recently surfaced online, claiming that a drastic design change is also expected on this year’s model of the iPad mini.

Uploaded by leakster @xleaks7, in collaboration with Italian website CoverPigtou, is a series of renders depicting what is said to be the 2021 iPad mini 6 – claimed to be based on leaked CAD files from Apple. What is surprising about this leak is that the images reveal that the new tablet features an all-screen design that is reminiscent of the iPad Pro series, but with noticeable differences. It is shown to have thinner bezels than the Pro and most interestingly, two in-display punch-hole cutouts: a smaller hole on top for the front-facing camera and a larger one below for the home button (believed to also feature Touch ID).

This leak will certainly raise eyebrows of both fans and skeptics alike, as it would be highly unlikely that Apple would want to debut a new design language on an iPad mini instead of a flagship device or even the iPad Air. But it does make sense in a way since the company has never included its Face ID feature on the minis, which usually require a larger bezel or notch.

Moving on. While the front design of the iPad mini 6 is shown to exhibit a major design change, the same cannot be said for its rear case, however. The renders reveal that not much has changed for this part of the device, sans some minute difference when compared to its predecessors.

Coverpigtou says that the new iPad mini’s dimensions are the same as before, coming in at 203.2 x 134.8 x 6.25mm. It added that with the thinner bezels and dual punch-holes would enable the device’s display to expand up to 9.15-inches, which is a significant boost from the 7.9-inch screen featured on the previous model.

As always with such leaks and hearsays, we highly advise our readers to take information such as these with a pinch of salt. Should this leak prove to be accurate in the not so distant future, Apple would be the first company to ever introduce a dual in-display punch-holes approach to a smart device.

At this time, there’s no word on when the company plans to unveil its next generation iPad mini, let alone other models of its tablet line-up. But for reference, Apple launched the current versions of its iPad mini and iPad Air in March 2019, so an announcement could be expected in the coming weeks – again, provided that this leak is to be believed.