A mystery hacker allegedly stole $25m in crypto-currencies – and then returned the funds two days later. Records show that funds in a variety of crypto-currencies were withdrawn from the DForce platform based in China. A sum of $10m was taken in Ethereum, for example, while a further $10m was taken in digital coins tied to the US dollar and $4m in other coins. Roughly the same amount has now been returned – although in a different mix of crypto-currencies. DForce is an online service that allows users to make crypto-currency transactions with one another. "The hackers have attempted to contact us and we intend to enter into discussions with them," wrote DForce founder Mindao Yang in a blog shortly after the attack happened. This attack not only harmed our users, our partners, and my co-founders, but also me personally. My assets were stolen in this attack, too," he added.

Apple and France have a stand-off over app

France is pressing Apple to let its forthcoming coronavirus contact-tracing app work in the background on iPhones without building in the privacy measures the US company wants. The country's digital minister confirmed the request in an interview given to Bloomberg. France's system would let it glean more information about participating smartphone owners than Apple and its partner Google want to allow. Privacy experts view it as a test case.

"Apple has no reason to agree to this demand and it would open the door to many other requests from other countries and entities," Prof Olivier Blazy from the country's University of Limoges, told BBC News. "As a Frenchman, I think it would be useful to avoid being dependent on the Google-Apple solution but I think it's strange that the government strategy relies on trying to convince Apple to do something that is against its interest, with no incentive to do so."

Apple and Google announced on 10 April they were working together to provide a software building-block – known as an application programming interface (API) – that will let authorised Covid-19 contact-tracing apps work more efficiently. Contact-tracing apps work by logging every time two or more users are close to each other for a substantial period of time.

Netflix crosses Disney in net worth

If it wasn’t already obvious what people have been doing while staying home during this pandemic, it certainly is now. Netflix just announced its biggest quarter ever. The most shocking number from Netflix’s Q1 2020 results: The video streaming service brought in 15.77 million new global paid subscribers. This huge number blew all prior expectations out of the water. Netflix had previously projected seven million new subscribers before the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts had estimated 8.22 million new subscribers on average. Netflix’s prior quarterly record for new subscribers was 9.6 million additional global subscriptions in Q1 2019. The company’s previous quarter, Q4 2019, brought in 8.76 million new subscribers.