The Washington Post’s Tony Romm reported on Monday night that Twitter has decided it will allow certain right-wing accounts to spread disinformation about the Iowa Democratic Caucuses, including tweets that suggest the results are being “rigged.” Trump campaign manager Brad Pascal tweeted on Monday, “Quality control = rigged?,” citing a second Trump campaign official who Read more about Twitter Helps Spread Disinformation During Iowa Caucuses[…]

Verizon, which bought Yahoo In 2017, has suspended email addresses of archivists who are trying to preserve 20 years of content that will be deleted permanently in a few weeks. As Verizon announced in October, the company intends to wipe all content from Yahoo Groups. As of December 14, all previously posted content on the Read more about Verizon kills email accounts of archivists trying to save Yahoo Groups history[…]

Fears of Russian interference ahead of a heated U.K. election were all but confirmed this week with a Reddit post. In a post Friday, Reddit announced that its internal investigation found evidence that an account purportedly linked to Russian disinformation campaign was behind last month’s leak of contentious US-UK trade documents on the platform. “We Read more about Reddit Uncovers Russian Interference Campaign Ahead of Pivotal UK Election[…]

ProPublica has determined that dozens of state and local agencies have purchased “SCAN” training from a company called LSI for reviewing a suspect’s written statements — even though there’s no scientific evidence that it works. Local, state and federal agencies from the Louisville Metro Police Department to the Michigan State Police to the U.S. State Read more about Why Are Cops Around the World Using This Outlandish Mind-Reading Tool That Doesn’t Work?[…]

After two weeks of no uploads, a notable Borderlands personality on YouTube returned to the platform yesterday with a video explaining his absence. He said that the game’s publisher Take-Two Interactive hit his channel with several copyright strikes and sent investigators to his home in response to months of Borderlands coverage on his channel, which Read more about Take-Two Sends Investigators To YouTuber’s House To Crack Down On Borderlands 3 Leaks – wait you can send your own police force to muscle on people in the USA? Kafka-esque experience follows with service shutdowns[…]

Charges announced by the Justice Department on Thursday against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange provide fresh insight into why federal prosecutors sought to question whistleblower Chelsea Manning last month before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Manning, convicted in 2013 of leaking classified U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks, was jailed in early Read more about Assange Charges Finally Reveal Why Chelsea Manning Is Sitting in Jail[…]

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who served years in prison for leaking one of the largest troves of classified documents in U.S. history, has been sent to jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail for contempt of court Friday after a Read more about Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify on Wikileaks[…]

An explosive new report by Reuters released Friday may upturn the narrative surrounding the potential cancer risks of talcum powder. According to the report, Johnson & Johnson—the makers of the most popular consumer talc product, Baby Powder—knew for decades that its products at times contained carcinogenic asbestos, but did everything possible to keep its findings Read more about Report: Johnson & Johnson Knew About Asbestos in Its Baby Powder Products for Decades[…]

Thousands of machine-learning wizards have signed an open statement boycotting a new AI-focused academic journal, disapproving of the paper’s policy of closed-access.Nature Machine Intelligence is a specialized journal concentrating on intelligent systems and robotics research. It’s expected to launch in January next year, and is part of Nature Publishing Group, one of the world’s top Read more about AI boffins rebel against closed-access academic journal Nature[…]

GitHub user Zeffy has created a patch that removes a limitation that Microsoft imposed on users of 7th generation processors, a limit that prevents users from receiving Windows updates if they still use Windows 7 and 8.1. Source: User-Made Patch Lets Owners of Next-Gen CPUs Install Updates on Windows 7 & 8.1 MS wants to Read more about MS now blocking updates for Win7 & 8 on PCs with modern CPUs. User makes patch to be able to install updates after all.[…]

A recent study from researchers at University of Twente (UT) and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) has found that three-phase static (electronic) energy meters, which are replacing traditional electromechanical meters, can exaggerate energy consumption by as much as 582 per cent. Estimates of the number of households in the Netherlands with smart meters range Read more about “smart” meters caught simply making up readings[…]

Welcome to the Central Intelligence Agency’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Do UFOs fascinate you? Are you a history buff who wants to learn more about the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam or the A-12 Oxcart? Have stories about spies always fascinated you? You can find information about all of these topics and more Read more about CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room releases 12m new documents[…]

An 18-year-old broke France’s anti-terror laws by naming his home Wi-Fi network “Daesh 21” – after the medieval murder bastards ISIS. The unnamed teen was given a three-month jail sentence, suspended for now, after he was found guilty of essentially publicly condoning a terrorist act or group. Source: Teen in the dock on terror apologist Read more about Teen in the dock on terror apologist charge for naming Wi-Fi network ‘Daesh 21’[…]

Somewhere a Lenovo engineer is crying over how your OS is accessing the SSD Source: Lenovo downward dogs with Yoga BIOS update supporting Linux installs Finally – wtf is with Lenovo!?

You find a fault in a Tesla. You ask for repairs. Tesla comes back offering 50% of the repair price, but only if you promise to not tell anyone about the problem you found! This offer, to repair a defective part in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement, is unheard of in the auto industry. More Read more about Tesla Suspension Breakage: It’s Not The Crime, It’s The Coverup – Slashdot[…]

Recently, Microsoft’s policy had been to throw up a dialogue box asking you whether you wanted to install Windows 10. If you clicked the red “X” to close the box – the tried-and-tested way to make dialogue boxes vanish without agreeing to do anything – Microsoft began taking that as permission for the upgrade to Read more about Microsoft removes the X to close the Windows 10 update after they decided the closing X meant yes, do it now[…]

Linksys has been collaborating with chipmaker Marvell and the makers of OpenWrt to make sure its latest WRT routers can comply with the new rules without blocking open source firmware, company officials told Ars. Linksys’s effort stands in contrast with TP-Link, which said it would entirely prevent loading of open source firmware on its routers Read more about Linksys WRT routers won’t block open source firmware despite FCC rules[…]

Nearly two-and-a-half months ago, I started a daily examination of the Trans Pacific Partnership focused on the intellectual property and digital policy issues raised by the agreement. My initial plan for the Trouble with the TPP series was to write for one month leading up to the planned signing in New Zealand on February 4th. Read more about The Trouble With the TPP, Day 50: The Case Against Ratifying the Trans Pacific Partnership – Michael Geist[…]

Dr Grimes initially created an equation to express the probability of a conspiracy being either deliberately uncovered by a whistle-blower or inadvertently revealed by a bungler. This factors in the number of conspirators, the length of time, and even the effects of conspirators dying, whether of old age or more nefarious means, for those conspiracies Read more about Oxford Prof calulates how long it would take for large-scale conspiracies to reveal themselves[…]

Following up Lenovo’s blunders regarding the Superfish malware and altered BIOS, Michael Horowitz at ComputerWorld reports that a refurbished ThinkPad he bought includes Lenovo spyware under the guise of “Customer Feedback”. After some digging around, he found the following in a support document: “Lenovo says here that all ThinkPad, ThinkCentre and ThinkStation PCs, running Windows Read more about Lenovo, still spying on all PCs[…]

Wikipedia is no stranger to scandals, but a quiet update on its administrators’ announcement board reveals a big problem. The site’s CheckUser team recently banned 381 editors’ accounts for “undisclosed paid advocacy.” In other words, these Wikipedians were secretly shilling for brands and even resorting to extortion. The scam is relatively straightforward. Using sockpuppet accounts, Read more about 381 Wikipedia editors ban hammered for extorting article subjects to pay “protection money”[…]

Pinterest promoters zonder werk na 'spamklem' – Emerce. wow – killing your most active userbase is an awesome plan!

Don’t be evil? via Google Public Policy Blog: Continued progress on fighting piracy.