In their open-plan office overlooking a major thoroughfare in Brussels, an 11-person team known as East Stratcom, serves as Europe’s front line against this onslaught of fake news. Created by the European Union to address “Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns,” the team — composed of diplomats, bureaucrats and former journalists — tracks down reports to determine whether they are fake.
White House Chief Digital Officer Gerrit Lansing was among the six staffers who were dismissed from the White House last week after being unable to pass an FBI background check, according to sources. Lansing previously led the digital department for the Republican National Committee.
Technology advocacy groups and trade associations representing companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft criticized a suggestion from the head of the Department of Homeland Security that foreign nationals should provide social media passwords to enter the U.S. “This proposal would enable border officials to invade people’s privacy by examining years of private emails, texts, and messages,” the groups wrote in a letter.
It looks like Apple has finally picked up one of the last remaining pieces of internet property linked to one of its key service brands: the iPhone and Mac giant has quietly taken over ownership of iCloud.net, TechCrunch has learned. Subsequent to that, the small-time Asian social network that existed at the site has informed its users that it will be shutting down by the end of this month.
Faced with unknown costs related to two huge data breaches, Yahoo and Verizon Communications announced Tuesday that they had agreed to shave $350 million from the price that Verizon would pay to buy Yahoo’s core internet businesses. The two companies said they would also share liabilities related to the breaches, which occurred in 2013 and 2014 but were only disclosed last year after the deal was announced.
Apple has accused the European Commission of unfair treatment in a high-profile $13.7 billion tax case. The tech giant accused the European Union's competition watchdog of breaching its "right to good administration," according to the Financial Times, which obtained a copy of Apple's complaint.
European Union data protection watchdogs said they were still concerned about the privacy settings of Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system despite the U.S. company announcing changes to the installation process. The watchdogs, a group made up of the EU's 28 authorities responsible for enforcing data protection law, wrote to Microsoft last year expressing concerns about the default installation settings of Windows 10 and users' apparent lack of control over the company's processing of their data.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing website Megaupload, can be legally extradited to the US, according to New Zealand’s High Court. Importantly, however, the High Court held that copyright infringement via digitally communicating protected works to the public is not a criminal offence in New Zealand.
Google and Microsoft's Bing have agreed to crack down on piracy sites in the UK after years of wrangling with film and music rights holders. The tech giants have inked a voluntary code of practice with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Motion Picture Association following a series of talks overseen by the UK's copyright watchdog and steered by the department for culture, media, and sport.
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) sent a letter to the House Oversight Committee requesting an investigation into President Trump’s phone and general cybersecurity practices, co-signed by 14 other members of Congress. “The device President Trump insists on using — most likely the Samsung Galaxy S3 — has particularly well-documented vulnerabilities,” the letter reads.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission is promising Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) that he will work to preserve a “free and open” internet amid a possible reexamination of net neutrality rules. Franken had sent a letter to Ajit Pai last month shortly after the FCC commissioner, who voted against the regulations, was tapped by President Trump to lead the agency.
European lawmakers called for EU-wide legislation to regulate the rise of robots, including an ethical framework for their development and deployment and the establishment of liability for the actions of robots including self-driving cars. But they rejected a proposal to impose a so-called robot tax on owners to fund support for or retraining of workers put out of a job by robots.
A talking doll named Cayla has been banned by German authorities because the software inside her could be hacked, posing a security risk and allowing personal data to be revealed. Germany's Federal Network Agency, the country's telecommunications watchdog, advised parents who had bought Cayla to deactivate it because the doll's features might carry the potential for espionage.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is pursuing at least three separate probes relating to alleged Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential elections, according to five current and former government officials with direct knowledge of the situation. While the fact that the FBI is investigating had been reported previously by the New York Times and other media, these officials shed new light on both the precise number of inquires and their focus.
Twitter is temporarily decreasing the reach of tweets from users it believes are engaging in abusive behavior via a new protocol. The protocol temporarily prevents tweets from users Twitter deems abusive from being displayed to people who don’t follow them, effectively reducing their reach.
China is moving to rein in the freewheeling world of live online video, and one of its first initiatives is to impose more oversight on foreigners who live-stream on Chinese apps. Under recently adopted regulations, foreigners posting videos from their smartphones and webcams are required to first submit a formal application with the Ministry of Culture.
More than 40,000 attendees are expected to come through the doors of RSA, one of the nation's largest computer security conferences, now underway in San Francisco. But one group is markedly absent — officials from the Trump administration.
European Union data privacy watchdogs will seek assurances from U.S. authorities that a move by U.S. President Donald Trump to crack down on illegal immigration will not undermine a transatlantic pact protecting the privacy of Europeans' data. European concerns have been raised by an executive order signed by Trump on Jan. 25 aiming to toughen enforcement of U.S. immigration law.
A former Justice Department official who served in the Obama administration said European countries must be willing to respond forcefully to efforts by Russia or others to use cyber attacks to meddle in their elections, saying the U.S. response fell short. Former Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, who ran the national security division at the Justice Department and oversaw the pursuit of cyber criminals, said the United States did not do enough to deter the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) confirmed that he plans to introduce a resolution that would roll back the FCC’s broadband privacy rules via the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to eliminate agency rules with a simple majority vote. What’s not clear is whether Congress or the FCC will act first, but momentum to do away with the privacy provision is building.
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