French gendarmes have been busy policing crypto crimes, but these aren't the usual financial schemes, cons, and HODL! shenanigans one usually reads about. No, these crimes involve abductions, (multiple) severed fingers, and (multiple) people rescued from the trunks of cars—once after being doused with gasoline.

This previous weekend was particularly nuts, with an older gentleman snatched from the streets of Paris' 14th arrondissement on May 1 by men in ski masks. The 14th is a pleasant place—I highly recommend a visit to the catacombs in Place Denfert-Rochereau—and not usually the site of snatch-and-grab operations. The abducted man was apparently the father of someone who had made a packet in crypto. The kidnappers demanded a multimillion-euro ransom from the man's son.

According to Le Monde , the abducted father was taken to a house in a Parisian suburb, where one of the father's fingers was cut off in the course of ransom negotiations. Police feared "other mutilations" if they were unable to find the man, but they did locate and raid the house this weekend, arresting five people in their 20s. (According to the BBC , French police used "phone signals" to locate the house.)

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French gendarmes have been busy policing crypto crimes, but these aren't the usual financial schemes, cons, and HODL! shenanigans one usually reads about. No, these crimes involve abductions, (multiple) severed fingers, and (multiple) people rescued from the trunks of cars—once after being doused with gasoline.

This previous weekend was particularly nuts, with an older gentleman snatched from the streets of Paris' 14th arrondissement on May 1 by men in ski masks. The 14th is a pleasant place—I highly recommend a visit to the catacombs in Place Denfert-Rochereau—and not usually the site of snatch-and-grab operations. The abducted man was apparently the father of someone who had made a packet in crypto. The kidnappers demanded a multimillion-euro ransom from the man's son.

According to Le Monde , the abducted father was taken to a house in a Parisian suburb, where one of the father's fingers was cut off in the course of ransom negotiations. Police feared "other mutilations" if they were unable to find the man, but they did locate and raid the house this weekend, arresting five people in their 20s. (According to the BBC , French police used "phone signals" to locate the house.)

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French gendarmes have been busy policing crypto crimes, but these aren't the usual financial schemes, cons, and HODL! shenanigans one usually reads about. No, these crimes involve abductions, (multiple) severed fingers, and (multiple) people rescued from the trunks of cars—once after being doused with gasoline.

This previous weekend was particularly nuts, with an older gentleman snatched from the streets of Paris' 14th arrondissement on May 1 by men in ski masks. The 14th is a pleasant place—I highly recommend a visit to the catacombs in Place Denfert-Rochereau—and not usually the site of snatch-and-grab operations. The abducted man was apparently the father of someone who had made a packet in crypto. The kidnappers demanded a multimillion-euro ransom from the man's son.

According to Le Monde , the abducted father was taken to a house in a Parisian suburb, where one of the father's fingers was cut off in the course of ransom negotiations. Police feared "other mutilations" if they were unable to find the man, but they did locate and raid the house this weekend, arresting five people in their 20s. (According to the BBC , French police used "phone signals" to locate the house.)

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Apple executive Eddie Cue said that Apple is "actively looking at" shifting the focus of mobile Safari's search experience to AI search engines, potentially challenging Google's longstanding search dominance and the two companies' lucrative default search engine deal. The statements were made while Cue testified for the US Department of Justice in the Alphabet/Google antitrust trial, as first reported in Bloomberg .

Cue noted that searches in Safari fell for the first time ever last year, and attributed the shift to users increasingly using large language model-based solutions to perform their searches.

"Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices," Cue said of the deal Apple had with Google, which is a key component in the DOJ's case against Alphabet. He added: "I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way."

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Apple executive Eddie Cue said that Apple is "actively looking at" shifting the focus of mobile Safari's search experience to AI search engines, potentially challenging Google's longstanding search dominance and the two companies' lucrative default search engine deal. The statements were made while Cue testified for the US Department of Justice in the Alphabet/Google antitrust trial, as first reported in Bloomberg .

Cue noted that searches in Safari fell for the first time ever last year, and attributed the shift to users increasingly using large language model-based solutions to perform their searches.

"Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices," Cue said of the deal Apple had with Google, which is a key component in the DOJ's case against Alphabet. He added: "I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way."

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Apple executive Eddie Cue said that Apple is "actively looking at" shifting the focus of mobile Safari's search experience to AI search engines, potentially challenging Google's longstanding search dominance and the two companies' lucrative default search engine deal. The statements were made while Cue testified for the US Department of Justice in the Alphabet/Google antitrust trial, as first reported in Bloomberg .

Cue noted that searches in Safari fell for the first time ever last year, and attributed the shift to users increasingly using large language model-based solutions to perform their searches.

"Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices," Cue said of the deal Apple had with Google, which is a key component in the DOJ's case against Alphabet. He added: "I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way."

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Starlink last week announced a new deal for its standard hardware kit, giving the satellite dish and Wi-Fi router for free to customers who sign up for a 12-month commitment.

The deal is reminiscent of the hardware rental agreements long used by cable companies, but Starlink's offer has generated a bit of excitement. Some analysts suggested that the free kits are a reason for the federal government's $42 billion broadband deployment fund to send grants to Starlink instead of to fiber-to-the-home providers, or that the government should buy Starlink kits at the regular price of $349 each so that Elon Musk's company doesn't have to eat the cost.

You may not be surprised to learn that the free hardware kit isn't really free. But much of the discussion around the offer has ignored the fine details that could make a reasonable Starlink buyer decide to reject the deal. Similarly, policymakers deciding which ISPs should get government money might be wise to remember that fiber provides superior and more future-proof Internet service and that Starlink's offers to customers could change at any time.

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Starlink last week announced a new deal for its standard hardware kit, giving the satellite dish and Wi-Fi router for free to customers who sign up for a 12-month commitment.

The deal is reminiscent of the hardware rental agreements long used by cable companies, but Starlink's offer has generated a bit of excitement. Some analysts suggested that the free kits are a reason for the federal government's $42 billion broadband deployment fund to send grants to Starlink instead of to fiber-to-the-home providers, or that the government should buy Starlink kits at the regular price of $349 each so that Elon Musk's company doesn't have to eat the cost.

You may not be surprised to learn that the free hardware kit isn't really free. But much of the discussion around the offer has ignored the fine details that could make a reasonable Starlink buyer decide to reject the deal. Similarly, policymakers deciding which ISPs should get government money might be wise to remember that fiber provides superior and more future-proof Internet service and that Starlink's offers to customers could change at any time.

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Starlink last week announced a new deal for its standard hardware kit, giving the satellite dish and Wi-Fi router for free to customers who sign up for a 12-month commitment.

The deal is reminiscent of the hardware rental agreements long used by cable companies, but Starlink's offer has generated a bit of excitement. Some analysts suggested that the free kits are a reason for the federal government's $42 billion broadband deployment fund to send grants to Starlink instead of to fiber-to-the-home providers, or that the government should buy Starlink kits at the regular price of $349 each so that Elon Musk's company doesn't have to eat the cost.

You may not be surprised to learn that the free hardware kit isn't really free. But much of the discussion around the offer has ignored the fine details that could make a reasonable Starlink buyer decide to reject the deal. Similarly, policymakers deciding which ISPs should get government money might be wise to remember that fiber provides superior and more future-proof Internet service and that Starlink's offers to customers could change at any time.

Read full article

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