Over the years we’ve covered a lot of attempts by relatively clueless governments and politicians to enact think-of-the-children internet censorship or surveillance legislation, but there’s a law from France in the works which we think has the potential to be one of the most sinister we’ve seen yet. It flew under our radar so we’re Read more about Liberté, égalité, Fraternité: France Loses Its Marbles On Internet Censorship – wants to control content you see by owning your browser[…]

Disgraced Theranos co-founder Elizabeth Holmes’ prison sentence has been reduced by two years, according to the Bureau of Prisons records. Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for defrauding investors by claiming her blood-testing company provided quick and reliable results but she was found to have lied about the reliability of Read more about Elizabeth Holmes’ Prison Sentence Quietly Reduced by Two Years, as is Theranos CEO’s[…]

A couple of weeks back, we discussed how Google had delisted the app Downloader from the Play Store after a DMCA notice was issued by a firm representing several Israeli TV networks. The problem with all of this is simple: Downloader doesn’t have anything to do with copyright infringement or piracy. All it does is Read more about Google Restores ‘Downloader’ App To Store 20 days after DMCA takedown based on 0 evidence, says it’s normal to be able to take down apps for no reason[…]

A Finnish newspaper is circumventing Russian media restrictions by hiding news reports about the war in Ukraine in an online game popular among Russian gamers. “While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media are blocked in Russia, online games have not been banned so far,” said Antero Mukka, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat. The newspaper Read more about Finnish newspaper hides Ukraine news reports for Russians in online game[…]

Chronic pain patients were implanted with “dummy” pieces of plastic and told it would ease their pain, according to an indictment charging the  former CEO of the firm that made the fake devices with fraud. Laura Perryman, the former CEO of Stimwave LLC, was arrested in Florida on Thursday. According to an FBI press release, Read more about People Were Unwittingly Implanted With bits of plastic by Stimwave in Medical Scam[…]

“A group of Stanford University professors is pushing to end a system that allows students to anonymously report classmates for exhibiting discrimination or bias, saying it threatens free speech on campus (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source),” reports the Wall Street Journal. The Daily Beast reports: Last month, a screenshot of a student reading Hitler’s manifesto Read more about Stanford Faculty Say Anonymous Student Bias Reports Threaten Free Speech – who’d have thought that anonymous tipping off leads to abuse?![…]

People against vaccine and mask mandates have argued that they impose on a person’s bodily autonomy. That rallying cry of “my body, my choice” was rooted in the abortion-rights battles of Roe v. Wade. Yet those people against vaccine and mask mandates are now encouraging the potential demise of abortion rights. The leak of the Read more about Vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers who invoked ‘my body, my choice’ in the pandemic are now lining up to support the end of Roe v. Wade[…]

For the past decade, unidentified miscreants have been planting incriminating evidence on the devices of human-rights advocates, lawyers, and academics in India seemingly to get them arrested. That’s according to SentinelOne, which has named the crew ModifiedElephant and described the group’s techniques and targets since 2012 in a report published on Wednesday. “The objective of Read more about Indian govt aligned gang plants incriminating evidence on PCs in a very unsophisticated way[…]

Blizzard’s work on cleaning up World of Warcraft in the wake of historical allegations of harassment at the company continues, with the latest round targeting a series of suggestive jokes and flirts that are being removed as part of update 9.1.5. As detailed by Wowhead, there are a lot of changes, some of them leaving Read more about World Of Warcraft Update Removes Suggestive Flirts & Jokes – cancel culture wins against humor[…]

After Take-Two Interactive sent a legal letter to Github referencing a copyright infringement lawsuit against the people behind the popular re3 and reVC Grand Theft Auto fan projects, Github has now removed the repositories for a second time. Take-Two has also demanded the removal of many project forks and wants Github to take action under Read more about GitHub Removes GTA Fan Projects re3 and reVC Following New Take-Two DMCA Notice[…]

A stalkerware company that’s designed to let customers spy on their spouses’s, children’s, or employees’ devices is exposing victims’ data, allowing anyone on the internet to see screenshots of phones simply by visiting a specific URL. The news highlights the continuing lax security practices that many stalkerware companies use; not only do these companies sometimes Read more about A Stalkerware Firm Is Leaking Real-Time Screenshots of People’s Phones Online[…]

Facebook said Tuesday that it has removed hundreds of accounts linked to a mysterious advertising agency operating out of Russia that sought to pay social media influencers to smear Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. A network of 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts was traced back to Fazze, an advertising and marketing Read more about Facebook says Russia-linked ad agency tried to smear Covid vaccines[…]

Debian Project Secretary Kurt Roeckx has announced the results of a closely-watched vote on what statement would be made about Richard Stallman’s readmission to the Free Software Foundation’s board. Seven options were considered, with the Debian project’s 420 voting developers also asked to rank their preferred outcomes: Option 1: “Call for the FSF board removal, Read more about Debian Votes to Issue No Statement on Stallman’s Return to the FSF Board[…]

After a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Anti-Vax Watch found that a huge percentage of misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines can be traced back to just a dozen people, the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter told Congress they weren’t sure they would ban them. The CCDH/Anti-Vax Watch report Read more about Big Tech CEOs Waffle on Banning the 12 Major Anti-Vaxxers that cause 73% of misinformation[…]

What do you do if Google disables your cloud life? Andrew Spinks, co-author of the Terraria game and president of Re-Logic Games, does not know either, but has declared Google “a liability” and cancelled the port of Terraria to its Stadia platform.Terraria, co-designed by Spinks, was first released for Windows in 2011 and has sold Read more about Terraria dev cancels Stadia port after Google disabled his email account for three weeks – Kafka has nothing on this[…]

In two reports, the researchers contended that an app on Google’s Android operating system that powers drones made by China-based Da Jiang Innovations, or DJI, collects large amounts of personal information that could be exploited by the Beijing government. Hundreds of thousands of customers across the world use the app to pilot their rotor-powered, camera-mounted Read more about US accuses Chinese-Made Drones with Security Weakness: the possiblity to update their software[…]

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[…]