Amazon Increasing Efforts to Fight Counterfeit Merchandise

Amazon has made fighting phonies a major goal for 2017, building teams in the U.S. and Europe to work with major brands on a registry to prevent fakes, according to a person familiar with the initiative, who was not authorized to speak about the matter and requested anonymity. Discussions with Major League Baseball and the National Football League about selling merchandise on Amazon hit a standstill earlier this year due to concerns about Amazon's lack of control over fakes, the person said.

S.F. Transportation Agency Suffers Cyber Attack

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said it had contained a cyber attack, which local media reported had crippled its ticketing systems and forced it to offer free service to some customers during the Thanksgiving weekend. The agency, known widely as Muni, said it was the victim of a ransomware attack that disrupted some internal computer systems, including email, but had no impact on safe operation of its transit services.

Russian Propaganda Campaign Helped Spread Fake Clinton News

The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation. Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers.

Google Warns Journalists, Professors of State-Sponsored Hackers

Google is warning prominent journalists and professors that nation-sponsored hackers have recently targeted their accounts, according to reports delivered over social media. The people reportedly receiving the warnings include Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Stanford University professor and former U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul, and GQ correspondent Keith Olbermann.

U.S., Russia Want Hacker Arrested in Prague Extradited

The United States and Russia have both requested the extradition of a Russian arrested in Prague and indicted in the U.S. for hacking computers of social media companies, the Czech justice ministry said. The ministry will review the requests for the extradition of Yevgeniy Nikulin, who a U.S. federal grand jury said had hacked into the U.S.-based social media companies LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring.

Facebook Develops Filtering Software in Effort to Return to China

Facebook has quietly developed software to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas, according to three current and former Facebook employees, who asked for anonymity because the tool is confidential. The feature was created to help Facebook get into China, a market where the social network has been blocked, these people said. Mr. Zuckerberg has supported and defended the effort, the people added.

Government Malware Targeted 8,000 Users in 120 Countries

A newly released federal court hearing transcript reveals that one warrant issued as part of a massive child porn investigation in the U.S. was also used to authorize government malware that targeted more than 8,000 users across 120 countries, including a “satellite provider.” As Vice Motherboard first reported, the remarks came from the November 1 hearing in the case of United States v. Tippens and two other related cases, which are ongoing in Tacoma, Washington.

ACLU, Google Ask U.S. Delay Expansion of Hacking Authority

A coalition of 26 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Google, signed a letter asking lawmakers to delay a measure that would expand the government’s hacking authority. The letter asks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), plus House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to further review proposed changes to Rule 41 and delay its implementation until July 1, 2017.

Trump Appointees for FCC Transition Oppose Net Neutrality

President-elect Donald Trump appointed Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison, two vocal opponents of net neutrality, to run his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) transition team. Both Eisenach and Jamison will come to the roll as industry insiders: Eisenach is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and has been a paid consultant for Verizon Wireless, while Jamison runs the Public Utility Resource Center at the University of Florida and is a former lobbyist for Sprint.

Microsoft Offers Concessions to EU in LinkedIn Takeover

Microsoft will still allow LinkedIn's rivals access to its software and give hardware makers the option of installing other services to try to win EU approval for its takeover of the U.S. firm, people familiar with the matter said. The U.S. software company submitted its LinkedIn concessions to the European Commission last week after the EU competition enforcer expressed concerns about the $26 billion deal, Microsoft's biggest ever acquisition.

Police Departments Using Software Tools to Monitor Protesters

Hundreds of local police departments across the United States have collectively spent about $4.75 million on software tools that can monitor the locations of activists at protests or social media hashtags used by suspects, according to new research. The research, by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization focusing on criminal justice issues, aims to take a comprehensive look at the fast-growing phenomenon of social media-monitoring by law enforcement.

FBI Warns U.S. Banks About ATM Hackers

Cybercriminals who once earned millions by breaking into individual online bank accounts are now targeting the banks’ own computers, with often-dramatic results. In Taiwan and Thailand earlier this year, the criminals programmed bank ATMs to spew cash. Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned U.S. banks of the potential for similar attacks.

China Urges Tech Companies to Fight Crime, Censor Internet

Picture an internet where tech companies are deputized as crime-fighters, where censors keep radical views in check and where governments work together to achieve global order in cyberspace. That is China’s vision, and its third-annual World Internet Conference was aimed at proselytizing that view to tech executives and government leaders who assembled here from around the world.

Germany's Justice Minister Wants Facebook 'Treated as Media'

Germany's Justice Minister says he believes Facebook Inc. should be treated like a media company rather than a technology platform, suggesting he favors moves to make social media groups criminally liable for failing to remove hate speech. Under a program that runs until March, German authorities are monitoring how many racist posts reported by Facebook users are deleted within 24 hours. Justice Minister Heiko Maas has pledged to take legislative measures if the results are still unsatisfactory by then.

Prince's Estate Sues Jay Z Over Music Streaming Rights

Prince’s estate is suing rap mogul Jay Z over who has the rights to stream the late superstar’s music. The ongoing battle has festered for months in Carver County District Court, but now NPG Records Inc., and NPG Music Publishing — Prince’s music entities — escalated it by filing a federal lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against Roc Nation, a multifaceted business started by Shawn C. Carter — Jay Z — which includes Tidal, a music streaming service.

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