The 20 most-read tales on Ars Technica in 2022

When 2022 dawned, there have been a couple of issues we knew we might be writing about: The international pandemic, no matter cool issues Apple and Google did, rocket launches, and cool synthetic intelligence stuff. But yearly gives surprises, and 2022 was no exception.

Yes, we figured there can be loads of articles about Elon Musk on Ars Technica this yr. After all, he runs SpaceX and Tesla, two firms we often cowl. But if somebody informed me Musk would grow to be “Chief Twit” and find yourself everywhere in the entrance web page of Ars resulting from his impulse buy of Twitter and the… fascinating selections he is made since taking management of the corporate, I’d’ve requested them to go the dutchie on the left-hand aspect.

2022 has been an extended, unusual journey. And it is virtually over.

So let’s look again at what you, our readers, discovered essentially the most fascinating on Ars this yr.

Google is arguably identified for 3 issues: completely dominating the Internet promoting market, completely dominating the Internet browser market, and completely dominating the killing-your-own-products market. At Google I/O 2022, the corporate determined to have interaction in a little bit of system necromancy. Case in level: Android tablets.

The pinnacle of Google’s Android pill growth was in 2011, after we noticed the discharge of Android 3.0 Honeycomb. I’ll let Ron Amadeo take it from right here:

“[E]very subsequent Android launch and Google app replace watered down the pill interface till it disappeared. App builders took Google’s neglect as an indication that they need to cease making Android tablets, too, and the ecosystem fell aside.

“After the 2015 Pixel C launch, Google stop the pill marketplace for three years, then launched the Pixel Slate Chrome-OS pill. It then stop the pill marketplace for one other three years. Now it is again. Will the corporate’s new plans produce one other one-year marvel just like the Pixel Slate?”

Ron went deep into Google’s 2022 product technique, and he’ll make sure you report on when the brand new and resurrected merchandise are killed sooner or later.

In February, Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, unleashing hell on its neighbor. In addition to slinging bullets, rockets, artillery shells, and different munitions at each other, Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in bouts of cyberwarfare towards each other.

Ukraine—or a bunch sympathetic to the nation—unleashed some never-before-seen malware on Russian courts and mayors’ workplaces throughout the nation. Dubbed CryWiper, the malware completely annihilates information on contaminated programs.

“After examining a sample of malware, we found out that this Trojan, although it masquerades as a ransomware and extorts money from the victim for ‘decrypting’ data, does not actually encrypt, but purposefully destroys data in the affected system,” in accordance with evaluation by safety firm Kaspersky. “Moreover, an analysis of the Trojan’s program code showed that this was not a developer’s mistake, but his original intention.”

As Dan Goodin put it, “Given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and different geopolitical conflicts raging across the globe, the tempo of wiper malware isn’t prone to sluggish within the coming months.”

Make positive you retain your whole networks and units locked down tight… simply because that is the sensible method to do it.

Speaking of locking down your stuff, one bit of excellent information in 2022 was the arrival of passwordless authentication. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and another tech corporations are all on board with it. Best of all, it is much less painful than recurrently altering your password or utilizing multifactor authentication. Users can retailer a single token that may authenticate them on any service from the Big Three, plus each different firm that helps it.

Here’s the way it works:

“The linchpin to this scheme is one thing known as ‘multi-device credentials’ or, extra colloquially, ‘passkeys,’ launched in updates to the present FIDO, WebAuthn, and CTAP requirements for authentication. As the title suggests, the credential works throughout all units, whether or not you are operating iOS, Android, or Windows, and throughout all Apple, Google, or Microsoft companies.

“To make passkey authentications proof against phishing and different widespread types of credential theft, the cellphone or different system storing the credential should be in proximity to the system the consumer is utilizing to log in. A Bluetooth connection permits the 2 units to alternate data that ensures the system logging in is close to the tip consumer relatively than a distant menace actor. It additionally permits the authenticating system to make sure that the machine logging in is related to the legit URL relatively than an imposter making an attempt to achieve unauthorized entry.”

For the total story on the way it all works, try Dan’s wonderful and in-depth write-up.

The world’s oldest pants belonged to a warrior now known as Turfan Man. He lived in China between 1200 and 1000 BCE, and he paired his pants with a poncho that belted across the waist, an adorned wool headband, and ankle-high boots. The different grave items discovered at his burial web site point out that he in all probability was a horseback-mounted warrior. But again to the pants—what’s so wonderful about them is not that they survived, however how they had been made:

“The Turfan trousers are a particularly practical design, however they’re additionally fairly rattling fancy. As the weaver was engaged on that stretchy, roomy crotch piece, they alternated totally different colours of weft threads to create pairs of brown stripes on an off-white background. Zigzag stripes adorn the ankles and calves of the pants, together with a design much like a step pyramid. That sample led Wagner and her colleagues to invest that Turfan Man’s tradition may need had some contact with individuals in Mesopotamia, main them to incorporate ziggurats in a woven motif.”