EU Defense Ministers Simulate Cyber Attack on Military Missions Abroad

European Union defense ministers tested their ability to respond to a potential attack by computer hackers in their first cyber war game, based on a simulated attack on one of the bloc’s military missions abroad. In the simulation, hackers sabotaged the EU’s naval mission in the Mediterranean and launched a campaign on social media to discredit the EU operations and provoke protests.

Facebook Says It Sold Ads to Russian Company During Election

Representatives of Facebook told congressional investigators that it has discovered it sold ads during the U.S. presidential election to a shadowy Russian company seeking to target voters, according to several people familiar with the company’s findings. Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000, to a Russian “troll farm” with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda, these people said.

EU's Top Court Wants Lower Court to Revisit Intel's $1.3B Antitrust Fine

The highest court in the European Union ruled that Intel’s $1.3 billion antitrust fine get a second look, a decision that bodes well for Google and other American technology giants facing challenges to their dominance in the region. The move to send the case back to a lower court for re-examination is a blow to Europe’s competition authorities, who have aggressively been cracking down on an array of household names in the tech industry, from Apple and Amazon to Google and Facebook.

'Dragonfly' Hackers Reportedly Targeting Energy, Power Sectors

Symantec reports that a group it calls Dragonfly is targeting energy and power sectors in the U.S. and Europe, with the intention of both learning how these facilities operate as well as eventually gaining control over the systems. Back in 2014, Symantec and other researchers identified the group as responsible for a series of attacks on U.S. and European energy systems that stretched from 2010 to 2014.

Facebook Offers to Pay Record Labels for Songs in Users' Videos

Facebook Inc. is offering major record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so the users of its social network can legally include songs in videos they upload, according to people familiar with the matter.The posting and viewing of video on Facebook has exploded in recent years, and many of the videos feature music to which Facebook doesn’t have the rights.

Tech Companies Urge Congress to Act After Trump Dumps DACA

Technology companies are pressuring lawmakers to take swift action on a legislative fix after the Trump administration said it would jettison an immigration program that allows young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children to remain here. Apple and Microsoft, two of the companies to come out swinging against the president's decision to dump Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, pledged to shield employees who could face legal troubles or deportation. 

European Court Says Companies Must Tell Employees About Email Monitoring

Companies must tell employees in advance if their work email accounts are being monitored without unduly infringing their privacy, the European Court of Human Rights said in a ruling defining the scope of corporate email snooping. In a judgment in the case of a man fired 10 years ago for using a work messaging account to communicate with his family, the judges found that Romanian courts failed to protect Bogdan Barbulescu’s private correspondence because his employer had not given him prior notice it was monitoring his communications.

YouTube-Ripping Site, Record Labels Agree on Settlement

According to TorrentFreak, a proposed final judgment has been reached between audio-ripping site YouTube-MP3.org and a collection of record labels including UMG, Sony Music, and Warner Bros. Although the document has not yet been signed by a judge, it indicates a decision in favor of the labels, with an undisclosed settlement fee and an order to transfer the domain to a party representing the labels.

South Korean Court Refuses to Suspend Patent Order Against Qualcomm

A South Korean court rejected Qualcomm Inc.’s request to suspend an order by the country’s antitrust agency to take corrective action on the way it licenses patents. In December, the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined Qualcomm 1.03 trillion won ($912.34 million) for what it called unfair business practices in patent licensing and modem chip sales.

EU Working on Rules to Protect Against High-Tech Takeovers

European Union regulators are drafting rules to protect European firms with “key technologies” from foreign takeovers, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “We’ve heard concerns about foreign -- often state-owned -- investors taking over European companies that control key technologies," she said in a speech at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy. 

President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Inactive

A White House council that’s supposed to study everything from nanotechnology to biological warfare has sat dormant for more than seven months under President Donald Trump — but the administration says it’ll staff up and resume its work soon. Chartered in its modern form in 2000, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology long has operated as the White House’s main interface with academics, industry experts and others who can help shape the government’s approach on a wide array of complex, cutting-edge issues.

Data on 4 Million Time Warner Cable Customers Left Unprotected

Roughly four million records containing the personal details of Time Warner Cable (TWC) customers were discovered stored on an Amazon server without a password late last month. The files, more than 600GB in size, were discovered on August 24 by the Kromtech Security Center while its researchers were investigating an unrelated data breach at World Wrestling Entertainment.

Nintendo Ordered to Pay $10 Million in Wii Remote Patent Case

A jury in Dallas, Texas awarded $10 million to iLife after finding that Nintendo of America infringed on iLife's motion-sensing accelerometer technology which the company used in the its Wii Remote controllers. "On Aug. 31, 2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down," Nintendo said in a statement provided to Glixel.

Microsoft Wants Trump to Keep Program Protecting Children from Deportation

Microsoft is urging President Trump not to end a program that protects hundreds of thousands of people brought to the country illegally as children from deportation. “We are deeply concerned by news reports about changes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that are under consideration,” Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith wrote in a blog post.

Apple Asks FCC to Maintain Rules on Net Neutrality

Apple is breaking its silence on net neutrality, urging the Trump administration to preserve strong rules that prevent the likes of AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon from blocking or interfering with web traffic. In its new comments to the Federal Communications Commission, the iPhone maker specifically urged Chairman Ajit Pai not to roll back an existing ban against so-called “fast lanes,” which might allow broadband providers someday to charge for faster delivery of tech companies’ movies, music or other content.

Yahoo Users Win Class-Action Ruling in Yahoo Data Breach Suit

A U.S. judge said Yahoo must face nationwide litigation brought on behalf of well over 1 billion users who said their personal information was compromised in three massive data breaches. Wednesday night’s decision from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, was a setback for efforts by Verizon Communications Inc, which paid $4.76 billion for Yahoo’s Internet business in June, to limit potential liability.