President Donald Trump waded into the growing debate over the role of social media companies in policing public discourse, accusing them of “totally discriminating” against Republicans and conservative commentators. In a series of morning tweets from his private resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, the president suggested the companies, which he did not name specifically, were engaging in censorship.
The U.S. government is trying to force Facebook Inc. to break the encryption in its popular Messenger app so law enforcement may listen to a suspect’s voice conversations in a criminal probe, three people briefed on the case said, resurrecting the issue of whether companies can be compelled to alter their products to enable surveillance. The previously unreported case in a federal court in California is proceeding under seal, so no filings are publicly available, but the three people told Reuters that Facebook is contesting the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand.
President Trump has reversed an Obama-era memorandum dictating how and when the U.S. government can deploy cyberweapons against its adversaries, in an effort to loosen restrictions on such operations, according to people familiar with the action. Mr. Trump signed an order on Wednesday reversing the classified rules, known as Presidential Policy Directive 20, that had mapped out an elaborate interagency process that must be followed before U.S. use of cyberattacks, particularly those geared at foreign adversaries.
A Melbourne private schoolboy who repeatedly broke into Apple’s secure computer systems is facing criminal charges after the technology giant called in the FBI. The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke into Apple’s mainframe from his suburban home on multiple occasions over a year because he was such a fan of the company, according to his lawyer.
WordPress has taken down a handful alt-right blogs, according to several complaints from affected blog owners and readers who claim the sites were removed from WordPress.com, despite not being in violation of the company’s Terms of Service. The removals are in part due to a new policy WordPress has rolled out that now prohibits blogs from the “malicious publication of unauthorized, identifying images of minors.”
A majority of U.S. states has adopted technology that allows the federal government to see inside state computer systems managing voter data or voting devices in order to root out hackers. Two years after Russian hackers breached voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona, most states have begun using the government-approved equipment, according to three sources with knowledge of the deployment.
Hackers operating from an elite Chinese university probed American companies and government departments for espionage opportunities following a U.S. trade delegation visit to China earlier this year, security researchers told Reuters. Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future said the group used computers at China’s Tsinghua University to target U.S. energy and communications companies, as well as the Alaskan state government, in the weeks before and after Alaska’s trade mission to China.
FBI agents in California and Washington, D.C., have investigated a series of cyberattacks over the past year that targeted a Democratic opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Rohrabacher is a 15-term incumbent who is widely seen as the most pro-Russia and pro-Putin member of Congress and is a staunch supporter of President Trump.
Japanese regulators are investigating Apple Inc. over allegations it unfairly pressured Yahoo Japan Corp to slow the expansion of its online games platform, which competes with Apple’s App Store, Japanese media reported. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is looking at whether Apple interfered in Yahoo Japan’s operations by pressuring it to cut back on developing its Game Plus web-based service which enables users to stream games without downloading apps, the Nikkei newspaper reported.
Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said he is rethinking core parts of the social media platform so it doesn’t enable the spread of hate speech, harassment and false news, including conspiracy theories shared by prominent users like Alex Jones and Infowars. In an interview with The Washington Post, Dorsey said he was experimenting with features that would promote alternative viewpoints in Twitter’s timeline to address misinformation and reduce “echo chambers.”
U.S. entrepreneur and cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin filed a $224 million lawsuit against telecommunications company AT&T, accusing it of fraud and gross negligence in connection with the theft of digital currency tokens from his personal account. In a 69-page complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Terpin alleged that on January 7, 2018, the tokens were stolen from him through what he alleged was a “digital identity theft” of his cellphone account. In the complaint, he said AT&T was his service provider.
Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists have been able to remain on WordPress.com thanks, in part, to policies put in place to resist previous campaigns to get content removed from its service, particularly through the strategic use of copyright claims. “Posting conspiracy theories or untrue content is not banned from WordPress.com, and unfortunately this is one of those situations,” Automattic said in a statement.
A handful of Democratic lawmakers have some questions for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai regarding claims of a DDoS attack that the Inspector General recently concluded were false. Specifically, they want to know when Pai became aware that disruption to the agency's net neutrality comment system may not have been due to a DDoS attack and why the agency didn't correct its public statements alleging a DDoS attack before now.
Twitter has blocked right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from tweeting on his personal account for one week after one of his posts violated the platform’s policies. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that Jones's account will have limited functions but won't be suspended.
Hundreds of Instagram users who have reported similar attacks since the beginning of the month, where users are logged out of their Instagram accounts. their user names and profile images changed, as well as their passwords, email addresses, and Facebook account linked to Instagram. It's not clear how hackers are gaining access to these accounts, or if it's the result of a coordinated attack.
At the same time that Russian military intelligence operatives allegedly penetrated Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, suspected Russian hackers were also targeting at least nine Swedish news sites in an apparent attempt to dissuade Sweden from cooperating with NATO, a partially released State Department cable reveals. The cable, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by BuzzFeed News and Ryan Shapiro, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the cofounder of the transparency project Property of the People, was intended for internal use only.
The fax machine is widely considered to be a dinosaur of interoffice communications, but it may also present a vulnerable point where hackers can infiltrate an organization’s network, according to a new report from Israel-based software company Check Point. The company said that the vulnerability was identified as a result of research intended to discover potential security risks, and not as the result of any attack.
A $25 monthly subsidy that’s meant to help low-income households on tribal lands get phone or Internet service will remain in place for the time being, after a court found that the Federal Communication Commission’s plan to largely remove the subsidies seems to have been made without properly considering the harms to customers and businesses. A federal court said that petitioners -- including tribes, nonprofits, and wireless carriers -- were likely to prove that the commission’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious,” meaning that it failed to fully consider the changes it was making.
About 30 percent of House candidates running for office this year have significant cybersecurity issues with their campaign websites, according to a new study. Four independent researchers at a security conference unveiled a report that indicates three out of every 10 House candidates are currently vulnerable to hacking and cyberattacks, according to Reuters.
An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used privacy settings that say they will prevent it from doing so. Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request.
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