The Russo-Ukrainian war has now formally extended to the digital realm. Over the last week, there have been multiple reports that the Russian military has started targeting Ukraine's data centers. Although the Western world didn't feel much of an impact, the situation is now changing, as popular pirate websites that host torrent trackers 1337x (aka Leet X) and NordicQuality experienced periods of explosion-induced downtime.

1337x has been fighting standard-issue DDoS attacks for months on end, and now it's experienced a Direct Destruction of Server attack, as several machines in its network were brought offline by kinetic blasts. Likewise, Norse tracker NordicQuality was also temporarily down for the same reason. Both sites are online again, though don't be surprised if the seas are unsteady for the pirates.

The servers for this type of site are rarely directly visible to the internet, relying instead on content delivery networks like Cloudflare. As such, it's hard to tell which Ukrainian data center firm is hosting them.

Virtual Systems reported strikes on the 23rd of September, which took down both its facilities, at least temporarily. MiroHost Ukraine got completely destroyed; strikes on CosmoNova took down TV channels; DataGroup and CityHost also got hit; telco KyivStar saw its Kyiv headquarters hit, while Russian authorities claim Vodafone Ukraine was also struck. Most of the strikes were clustered around Kyiv, prompting several of these companies to move operations to other regions or countries.

The 1337x tracker has been online for 19 years now, and has survived several shutdown and redirection attempts, including a blacklisting by Google and blacklisting across multiple countries' ISPs. Despite that, it remains the second most-visited pirating tracker, at around 40-50 million monthly visits, clearly displaying how neither laws nor guided missiles seem to be effective in curbing piracy.

Ukraine, Russia, and other countries in Eastern Europe have proven a popular choice for hosting torrent- and piracy-related websites, thanks to the region's general lax approach to copyright law, legal liability (or lack thereof), and difficulty in identifying website operators. Having said that, Ukraine is shifting its legal stance on the matter to more closely align with the European Union, likely as part of its bid for membership in the bloc.

A “routine” update for a Samsung smart fridge model in South Korea has broken the refrigerators for thousands of users, with the incident happening ahead of a major holiday. According to Seoul Shinmun [machine translated], the company pushed an erroneous update to some customers during testing, which resulted in the refrigerators getting stuck while updating.

Unfortunately, several customers only found out about the issue hours after the process had started (and, subsequently, gotten stuck). One customer said in a Samsung Members forum that when she arrived at 7 pm, she noticed that the fridge’s auto-open feature refused to work, the light inside it didn’t turn on, and the temperature inside the unit was starting to warm up. She even tried resetting the power to the fridge, to no avail. Another user lamented the same problem, noting that they'd owned the unit for less than a year, while others complained about food spoiling.

Even worse, this happened just a couple of days before a major South Korean holiday. Chuseok, also known as "Korean Thanksgiving," is a three-day mid-autumn harvest festival set from Sept. 24 - 26. The holiday, which lands partially on a weekend, meant that service was going to be delayed. There were multiple reports that technicians couldn’t visit the affected customers until Oct. 1, with another user saying that they wouldn’t get serviced until Oct. 7.

This is a big problem as many families have stocked up on food for the celebration. One consumer said that this has ruined the holiday for customers who used these fridges, while others said, “All my Chuseok food is going to spoil,” “What am I supposed to do with the eel and premium beef?” and “I stocked up on food for the holiday, but it’s all melting.” One user claimed, “I threw away 20kg of spoiled food today — how am I supposed to spend the holiday now?”

Samsung soon recognized the gravity of the situation and promised that all affected customers would have their refrigerators restored by Sept. 24. The company also said that it would deploy emergency on-site services to attend to urgent issues such as refrigerator and freezer malfunctions. As for the spoiled food, Samsung said it is reviewing whether it will offer compensation.

Samsung said in 2023 that it plans to put AI chips in all its home appliances, which will supposedly make them smarter and run more efficiently. However, this incident raises the question of whether we really need these features. While it may offer marginal quality of life improvements for some users, the fact that a software update could break your AI fridge (or any other home appliance, for that matter) raises red flags for users. Faulty updates aside, there have also been privacy and security concerns — which we’ve previously seen on robot vacuums after one user accidentally gained control of over 6,700 units, and was also noticed on an LG washing machine that was allegedly sending almost 3.7GB of data daily.

There was good news for the U.S. recorded music industry this week, as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced revenues outpaced inflation in H1 2026. “U.S. recorded music revenue reached $6B in the first half of 2026, up 6.9%,” noted the association. Probably more interesting, though, is that consumers have been seriously splashing cash on retro or legacy physical audio formats. A strong resurgence in CD and vinyl music sales saw both up double figures in the latest figures. “Physical revenues jumped 25.9%, powered by 17.7% vinyl growth and a 58.6% increase in CDs,” reported the RIAA.

With the extremely strong headline growth in ‘retro’ formats, one could be excused for thinking consumers are pulling back from digital music distributors like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and so on. However, the RIAA underlines that “every major revenue category grew, reflecting a healthy and increasingly diversified marketplace.” While we focus on streaming, this digital segment generated $4.9B in H1 2026, up 4.7% and remaining the largest source of recorded music industry revenue. Other digital stats worth highlighting are the 6.4% growth in paid subscriptions, reaching $3.4B, and the 3.7% growth in free streaming, reaching $900M.

Returning to physical music media, the RIAA characterizes this resurgence as “continued fan excitement with different ways to experience music across an increasingly varied marketplace.” Indeed, I have seen more and more tempting special edition re-releases and remasters on CD and vinyl, for bands I enjoy listening to.

Overall, the numbers do seem to suggest that the boom in physical music distribution isn’t conclusive evidence that consumers are rejecting how the music streaming industry is changing its offerings (pricing, catalogs, etc). However, there may indeed be some backlash here, as we have seen in the TV/movie streaming business. Some consumers are increasingly frustrated with video streaming offerings and are building up home media catalogs by purchasing DVDs, Blu-rays, etc. We’ve started to see a bit of this in video gaming, too, as the high-profile case regarding Sony PlayStation digital game ownership has stirred some gamers into action.

Amid growing community backlash, SpaceXAI offered a 50% discount to anyone living near its two data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, and claimed that thousands have already taken advantage of the promotion. Aside from the discounts offered to residents of the city and neighboring Southaven, Mississippi, SpaceXAI Memphis said in its X post that it’s also waiving the upfront hardware cost for the recently launched Starlink V5 rental kit across all plans, saving users up to $349 in one-time costs.

Critics say that Elon Musk is simply making this move to buy goodwill with his neighbors, especially as his data centers have been in hot water over the deployment of unpermitted turbines to deliver much-needed power. "Communities in Memphis and North Mississippi aren’t asking for discounted internet service,” SELC Senior Attorney Amanda Garcia told PCMag. “They're asking xAI to shut down its illegal, unpermitted power plant that continues to pump out staggering amounts of harmful (sic) pollution, including smog-forming nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter, and hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde.” While SpaceXAI has since promised to remove all 69 of its unpermitted generators, it says it will do so only over a span of one year as its 1.2 GW power plant comes online to replace them.

Starlink residential plans are available in three tiers: 100 Mbps for $55 a month, 200 Mbps for $85 a month, and Max for $130 a month. Residents who subscribe to any of these plans could get them for just $27.50, $42.50, or $65, respectively, resulting in massive savings. This makes the cheapest Starlink plan more affordable than other internet service providers like AT&T and Xfinity, whose plans often start at $35 to $40 per month.

However, those competitors offer fiber-based connections with speeds up to 300 Mbps, meaning users would be getting a downgrade if they switch over. However, some users in the r/memphis subreddit commented that this is a great option for areas of Memphis and Southaven that still lack fiber access, and it could also be a useful backup for those who need reliable internet service. There were also several complaints about outrageous fees from other options, which drive their internet costs well above $40, making the $27.50 monthly fee for the 100 Mbps Starlink plan a tempting option. Interestingly, the company is also offering the same discount in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, where SpaceX plans to build its new spaceport.

While the company’s social media post makes it seem like 2,000 is an achievement, it’s still a small number relative to the city's total population. The latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Memphis alone has a population of over 600,000 people and more than 250,000 households. That means the new subscribers account for less than 1% of the total homes in the city. Aside from that, SpaceXAI’s latest earnings report says that it has more than 12 million subscribers, so the 2,000 new subscribers from the city are just a drop in the company’s massive bucket of Starlink users.