More than a dozen tech groups extended an olive branch to Donald Trump, penning a joint letter to the president-elect congratulating him on his win and offering recommendations for working with the tech sector. “We stand ready to help your Administration tap into 21st century innovation to achieve prosperity for the nation,” read the letter from a coalition of 17 tech trade groups.
A last-ditch effort in the Senate to block or delay rule changes that would expand the U.S. government's hacking powers failed, despite concerns the changes would jeopardize the privacy rights of innocent Americans and risk possible abuse by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to delay the changes, which will allow U.S. judges to be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas.
Malicious software disguised as legitimate apps for Android smartphones and tablets has seized control of more than one million Google accounts since August, according to research from security firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. The apps had innocent-sounding names, such as StopWatch, Perfect Cleaner and Wi-Fi Enhancer, but they exploited known flaws in older versions of the Android operating system to take control of devices and install other apps and ad-spewing software without permission.
The Internet address system gatekeeper, independent after a split from the U.S. government, is now in a phase where "the grassroots are in charge," its top executive said. Goran Marby, president and chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said in an interview that nothing has changed for people using the internet after the expiration of its contract with the U.S. Commerce Department.
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit that saves copies of old web pages, is creating a backup of its database in Canada, in response to the election of Donald Trump. During his campaign, Trump sparked fear among free speech advocates with threats to close up “certain areas” of the internet in an effort to prevent terrorists from communicating or recruiting online.
Germany's spy chief has warned that Russian hackers are pelting his country with disinformation that could undermine the democratic process, echoing concerns already voiced by his domestic intelligence counterpart. Bruno Kahl, the new head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence service, compared the campaign in an interview to misleading reports on social media before Donald Trump's election as United States president.
Uber asserted that it was helping to bolster Europe’s digital economy as part of its defense in a long-awaited hearing to decide how the popular ride-hailing service should be able to operate across the region. The case at the European Court of Justice comes as the American company continues to push aggressively into overseas markets, often butting heads with local lawmakers and taxi associations that say the company flouts transportation and competition rules.
The “snooper’s charter” bill extending the reach of state surveillance in Britain was given royal assent and became law as signatures on a petition calling for it to be repealed passed the 130,000 mark. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, hailed the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 as “world-leading legislation” that provided “unprecedented transparency and substantial privacy protection.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated tweet that millions of people voted illegally for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is fueling renewed calls that Twitter delete his account. Trump alleged in a tweet that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” even though there isn’t any evidence that widespread voter fraud occurred during the election.
Germany has become an important test case globally for how Facebook polices what may be published online, and how it should respond to inappropriate and illegal content. Such steps in Germany are part of a growing push around the world to regulate what users are allowed to post online.
Dozens of California cities looking to shore up revenues are flirting with a new idea -- taxing video streaming services like Netflix, a step that could make up for lost tax revenue from growing numbers of cord-cutters. The move in Pasadena, with a population of about 140,000, has drawn consternation from technology companies and consumers who worry that it could be copied across the state.
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.
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.
Federal auto safety regulators want makers of these devices to add a driver mode to modify or block certain apps and features to keep a driver’s attention on the road. The initiative comes in the form of voluntary guidelines that will be issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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 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.
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 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.
Hackers gained access to sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, for 134,386 current and former U.S. sailors, the U.S. Navy said. It said a laptop used by a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services employee working on a U.S. Navy contract was hacked.
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.
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