FBI Investigating Threatening Emails Sent to Democratic Voters

The FBI was investigating threatening emails sent to Democratic voters that claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network. First identified by local law enforcement and elections officials in Florida and Alaska, the emails were soon turned over to federal authorities, according to U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

TikTok Broadens Effort Against White Nationalism Content

TikTok is pushing back harder against hate content, specifically targeting white nationalism and white genocide theory, which it called "neighboring ideologies" to the neo-Nazism and white supremacy it's already been working to remove. "As part of our efforts to prevent hateful ideologies from taking root, we will stem the spread of coded language and symbols that can normalize hateful speech and behavior," TikTok said in a blog post.

  • Read the article: CNET

Former Google CEO Says Antitrust Suit 'Largely Driven by Republicans'

Former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt offered a full-throated defense of the search company, criticizing the government’s day-old antitrust suit as misguided, unduly influenced by politics and a distraction from more serious issues facing the technology industry and the country. Mr. Schmidt, a board member of Google parent Alphabet Inc. until last year and a longtime liberal political donor, described the suit as “largely driven by Republicans, at the end of a term of a president whose polling indicates that he’s unlikely to be re-elected.”

U.S. Law Enforcement Agencies Have Phone Decryption Tools, Report Says

At least 2,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states now have tools to get into locked, encrypted phones and extract their data, according to years of public records collected in a report by Upturn, a Washington nonprofit that investigates how the police use technology. At least 49 of the 50 largest U.S. police departments have the tools, according to the records, as do the police and sheriffs in small towns and counties across the country.

Fraudsters Posting on Facebook About Election to Build Audience, Clicks

Fraudsters from Albania to Vietnam are posting about U.S. politics and the upcoming presidential election to build fake audiences, maximize clicks and make money online, Facebook Inc said. In a new report about so-called “inauthentic behavior” on its platform, Facebook said the Nov. 3 election had become a common lure to trick users into visiting online stores or websites laden with pay-per-view advertisements.

Microsoft Says It Disabled 90% of Machines Used in Trickbot Network

Microsoft Corp said it had disabled more than 90% of the machines used by a gang of Russian-speaking cyber criminals to control a massive network of computers with a potential to disrupt the U.S. election. Aided by a series of U.S. court orders and relationships with technology providers in other countries, Microsoft said it its weeklong campaign against the gang running the Trickbot network was heading off a possible source of disruption to the Nov. 3 U.S. vote.

NSA Warns Chinese Government Hackers Targeting National Defense

The National Security Agency warned that Chinese government hackers were taking aim at U.S. computer networks involved in national defense, characterizing the threat posed by Beijing as a critical priority in need of urgent attention. The vulnerabilities described in NSA’s new alert were already publicly known, but the nation’s premier electronic spy agency for the first time linked them to Chinese state-sponsored hacking activity.

Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

The Justice Department accused Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising in a lawsuit, the government’s most significant legal challenge to a tech company’s market power in a generation. In its suit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., the agency accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally maintaining its monopoly over search through several exclusive business contracts and agreements that lock out competition.

U.S. Charges Six Russian Military Officers in Hacking Scheme

Six Russian military officers have been charged in what the Justice Department says was a hacking scheme to attack several major foreign powers, former Soviet republics and subvert investigations into nefarious activities by the Kremlin. The alleged cyberattackers hacked into software using destructive malware to black out thousands of computers and cause nearly $1 billion in losses, and were intended to support Russian government efforts to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize worldwide computer networks, the Justice Department said.

  • Read the article: CNN

Japan to Join US, EU in Antitrust Cases Against Large Tech Companies

Japan will join forces with the United States and Europe to take on any market abuses by the four Big Tech companies, the new head of its antitrust watchdog said, a sign Tokyo will join global efforts to regulate digital platform operators. Kazuyuki Furuya, chairman of Japan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC), also said Tokyo could open a probe into any merger or business tie-up involving fitness tracker maker Fitbit if the size of such deals are big enough.

Pakistan Reverses Decision to Ban TikTok After Getting Assurances

Just 10 days after introducing a ban on TikTok, the Pakistani authorities said that they were reversing the decision after receiving assurance from the Chinese-owned social media platform that it would moderate content according to local laws. “TikTok is being unlocked after assurance from management that they will block all accounts repeatedly involved in spreading obscenity and immorality,” the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the national regulator, said in a statement.

TikTok Broadens Its Ban Against QAnon Conspiracy Theory

TikTok is toughening its stance against the QAnon conspiracy theory, expanding its ban to all content or accounts that promote videos advancing baseless ideas from the far-right online movement. The action hardens the video-sharing app's previous enforcement against QAnon that targeted specific hashtags on the app that QAnon supporters have used to spread unfounded theories.

  • Read the article: NPR

Trickbot Botnet Still Operating Despite Microsoft's Court Order

Cyber security researchers questioned the effectiveness of Microsoft’s effort to disrupt a botnet it feared could snarl state and local computer systems to sow distrust of the upcoming presidential election. The software giant said that a court order it won from a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia to seize control of U.S.-based servers controlling the Trickbot botnet, a network of computers secretly infected by malware that can be controlled remotely.

FCC Effort on Section 230 Threatens Protections for Internet Companies

A new effort by the Federal Communications Commission to rethink the legal shield that applies to social media sites drew widespread rebukes, as critics faulted the agency for reversing its past positions in the face of mounting public pressure from the White House. The agency’s move threatens to strike at the heart of a critical federal law known as Section 230, which for decades has spared tech giants from being held accountable for the ways they police their platforms.

Google Says China-Backed Hackers Impersonating McAfee Antivirus

Google said in a new blog post that hackers linked to the Chinese government have been impersonating antivirus software McAfee to try to infect victims’ machines with malware. And, Google says, the hackers appear to be the same group that unsuccessfully targeted the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden with a phishing attack earlier this year.

Judge Questions Whether Public Can Rely on Trump's Tweets

A federal judge rebuked the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office for dismissing without explanation President Trump’s “emphatic and unambiguous” tweets ordering the declassification of all documents in the government’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax,” the president tweeted Oct. 6. “Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”

Digital Ad Auction Tactics Violate European Union Privacy Law, Memo Says

Tactics Google and other large online-ad players use in digital ad auctions violate European Union privacy law, investigators for Belgium’s privacy regulator wrote in an internal report, a preliminary finding with implications across the continent. European privacy regulators are homing in on the electronic auctions that happen in milliseconds to determine which ads show up when you load a webpage.

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