Technologies

Have You Ever Seen a Black Moon? Neither Have We, but One Is Coming This Weekend

You’ve no doubt heard of supermoons, blue moons, mini moons and blood moons, but have you ever heard of a black moon?

Late last year, we were treated to four consecutive supermoons, where the moon is the biggest and brightest that it can possibly be in the night sky. Have you ever wondered what it’s called when the opposite happens? There is a name for it, and it’s happening this weekend — the emergence of the black moon.

The term black moon isn’t an official term, but rather a nickname for when a new moon fulfills certain conditions. Typically, each season has three new moons just like it has three full moons. However, when the stars align — pun intended — there is an extra cycle squeezed in. When this happens to full moons, it’s referred to as a «seasonal blue moon,» and this happens to a new moon, it’s called a black moon.

The weekend of Aug. 22 is such an occurrence. The first new moon of the summer came relatively early, on June 25, followed by the next one on July 24. The final new moon of the season comes on Sept. 21, which is the day before summer officially ends. Since there’s an extra new moon, the third new moon in the set of four is referred to as the black moon, which means August’s moon gets the distinction.

Two types of black moons

According to Dr. Shannon Schmoll, manager of Michigan State University’s Abrams Planetarium, a black moon is essentially the same as a blue moon, but for new moons instead of full moons. Thus, the same rules apply to both.

«A black moon tends to have two common definitions,» Schmoll tells CNET. «The less cumbersome one is the second full moon in a month. Because thelunar cycle is a bit shorter than most months, every once in a while, there will be a full moon at the very beginning and very end of amonth.»

Since the solar cycle is 29.5 days, as Schmoll notes, this can happen, and it does soabout once every 29 months.

The next occurrence of that type of blackmoon is slated for August 2027, when new moons will appear on Aug. 2 and Aug. 31. The last time this happened was in the spring of 2023.

«The other definition is the third full moon in a season with four,» says Schmoll. «So, a season here is the time between an equinox and a solstice. Becausethat is three months, we typically get three moons in that time. Every once in a while, we get four, and the third one is the ‘extra’ one. «

This occurs once every 33 months and is the rarer of the two types of black moons, making August’s new moon a little extra special. The next time this type of black moon is slated to happen is in summer 2028, when June and September’s new moons will take place during the summer once again, like they did this year.

For reference, blue moons are also fairly rare. The next blue moon is coming in May 2026 on the 1st and 31st of the month.

In the grand scheme, though, Schmoll says that these instances are quirks of our calendar system and «there isn’t anything astronomically significant about it» aside from it being a fun little coincidence.

You can’t see it, and that’s OK

We see the moon because it reflects light from the sun. During a new moon, our closest celestial neighbor is hidden behind the Earth, so sunlight can’t reach it. That means you won’t be able to see this rare celestial phenomenon even if you try, so for once, we recommend not bothering to look for it.

Per Schmoll, the only way to see a new moon is if there’s a solar eclipse when it slips in front of the sun.

However, there are other ways to enjoy a new moon: the moon is often cited as one of the most common and unavoidable sources of light pollution, making it harder to find things in the night sky. The Perseids meteor shower had its peak during August’s full moon, which made the more dimly lit meteors more difficult to see, even if you left the city and suburbs to get a darker sky.

With this year’s black moon, stargazers will get one additional night this summer of serene, moonless darkness in the night sky. This will give enthusiasts another great chance to spot six planets in the sky for the last six-planet parade we’ll see for a few years, and for photographers in the northern hemisphere to get some outstanding shots of the Milky Way galaxy. Since Perseids ends on Aug. 23, there’s also a chance you may see one of the final shooting stars from that meteor shower.

So, if you’ve been waiting for the darkest possible night to see some stars, this weekend is a great opportunity thanks to this year’s black moon.

Technologies

A New Bill Aims to Ban Both Adult Content Online and VPN Use. Could It Work?

Michigan representatives just proposed a bill to ban many types of internet content, as well as VPNs that could be used to circumvent it. Here’s what we know.

On Sept. 11, Michigan representatives proposed an internet content ban bill unlike any of the others we’ve seen: This particularly far-reaching legislation would ban not only many types of online content, but also the ability to legally use any VPN.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

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VPNs (virtual private networks) are suites of software often used as workarounds to avoid similar bans that have passed in states like Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as the UK. They can be purchased with subscriptions or downloaded, and are built into some browsers and Wi-Fi routers as well.

But Michigan’s bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state. Associated fines would be up to $500,000.

What the ban could mean for VPNs

Unlike some laws banning access to adult content, this Michigan bill is comprehensive. It applies to all residents of Michigan, adults or children, targets an extensive range of content and includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.

That could spell trouble for VPN owners and other internet users who leverage these tools to improve their privacy, protect their identities online, prevent ISPs from gathering data about them or increase their device safety when browsing on public Wi-Fi.

Read more: CNET Survey: 47% of Americans Use VPNs for Privacy. That Number Could Rise. Here’s Why

Bills like these could have unintended side effects. John Perrino, senior policy and advocacy expert at the nonprofit Internet Society, mentioned to CNET that adult content laws like this could interfere with what kind of music people can stream, the sexual health forums and articles they can access and even important news involving sexual topics that they may want to read. «Additionally, state age verification laws are difficult for smaller services to comply with, hurting competition and an open internet,» John added.

The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it’s not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it. As we’ve seen with state legislation in the past, sometimes bills like these can serve as templates for other representatives who may want to propose similar laws in their own states.

Could VPNs still get around bans like these?

That’s a complex question that this bill doesn’t really address. When I asked NordVPN how easy it would be track VPN use, privacy advocate Laura Tyrylyte explained, «From a technical standpoint, ISPs can attempt to distinguish VPN traffic using deep packet inspection, or they can block known VPN IP addresses. However, deploying them effectively requires big investments and ongoing maintenance, making large-scale VPN blocking both costly and complex.»

Also, VPNs have ways around deep packet inspection and other methods. CNET senior editor Moe Long mentioned obfuscation like NordWhisper, a counter to DPI that attempts to make VPN traffic look like normal web traffic so it’s harder to detect.

There are also no-log features offered by many VPNs to guarantee they don’t keep a record of your activity, and no-log audits from third parties like Deloitte that, well, try to guarantee the guarantee. There are even server tricks VPNs can use like RAM-only servers that automatically erase data each time they’re rebooted or shut down.

If you’re seriously concerned about your data privacy, you can look for features like these in a VPN and see if they are right for you. Changes like these, even on the state level, are one reason we pay close attention to how specific VPNs work during our testing, and make sure to recommend the right VPNs for the job, from speedy browsing to privacy while traveling.

Correction, Oct. 9: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated how RAM-only servers work. RAM-only servers run on volatile memory and are wiped of data when they are rebooted or shut down.

Technologies

AWS Outage Explained: Why Half the Internet Went Down While You Were Sleeping

Reddit, Roblox and Ring are just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of sites and services that were impacted when Amazon Web Services went down.

The internet kicked off the week the way that many of us often feel like doing: by refusing to go to work. An outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) rendered huge portions of the internet unavailable on Monday morning, with sites and services including Snapchat, Fortnite, Venmo, the PlayStation Network and, predictably, Amazon, unavailable for a short period of time.

AWS is a cloud services provider owned by Amazon that props up huge portions of the internet. As with the Fastly and Crowdstrike outages over the past few years, the AWS outage shows just how much of the internet relies on the same infrastructure — and how quickly our access to the sites and services we rely on can be revoked when something goes wrong.

Just after midnight PT on October 20, AWS first registered an issue on its service status page, saying it was «investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.» Around 2 a.m. PT, it said it had identified a potential root cause of the issue, and within half an hour, it had started applying mitigations that were resulting in significant signs of recovery.

«The underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated, and most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now,» AWS said at 3.35 a.m. PT. The company didn’t respond to request for further comment beyond pointing us back to the AWS health dashboard.

Around the time that AWS says it first began noticing error rates, Downdetector saw reports begin to spike across many online services, including banks, airlines and phone carriers. As AWS resolved the issue, some of these reports saw a drop off, whereas others have yet to return to normal. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Around 4 a.m. PT, Reddit was still down, while services including Verizon and YouTube were still seeing a significant number of reported issues.

Technologies

Verum Messenger: How to Protect Your Personal Data and Why Choosing a Secure Messenger Matters

A major data leak has been reported involving users of the Russian messenger MAX. Hackers claimed to have obtained the platform’s entire database, which includes 46,203,590 records. To prove their claims, they published part of the stolen data publicly.

According to preliminary information, the attackers gained access to users’ personal details, including contact numbers, chats, IP addresses, and other sensitive data. Cybersecurity experts warn that such incidents can lead to serious consequences — from account takeovers and extortion to large-scale phishing attacks.

Why these leaks happen

The main cause of such breaches is the storage of personal user data on servers without adequate protection or encryption. If attackers gain access to these servers, users’ information becomes fully exposed.

Additionally, many popular messaging apps require users to register with a phone number and provide extra personal information, increasing the amount of data that can be stolen.

How to reduce the risks

The only reliable way to protect your personal messages and data is to use messaging platforms that do not store personal information on their servers and rely on true end-to-end encryption.

One such solution is Verum Messenger — a next-generation app built on the principle of maximum privacy. The platform:

does not store users’ personal data;
uses unique encryption keys generated locally on the user’s device;
does not require a phone number or other personal information to register;
has no access to messages, calls, or files;
provides effective anti-spam and anti-scam protection;
offers private chats and group channels with flexible security settings.

Even in the event of a server breach, attackers would not be able to access message content — because encryption keys simply do not exist on the company’s side.

Freedom of communication without the risk of leaks

In addition to its strong security foundation, Verum Messenger offers a built-in ecosystem of tools — from encrypted email Verum Mail and an integrated VPN for anonymous connections to free crypto mining with Verum Coin and eSIM connectivity in over 150 countries worldwide.

As data breaches become increasingly common, choosing a secure messenger is no longer just about convenience — it’s about personal safety.