Bloomberg Quint: Biden Labor Board Counsel Revives Fired Googlers’ Claims. “Three more Google employees’ firings should be added to a complaint accusing the company of illegally retaliating against activists, the federal labor board’s top prosecutor said in a letter, reversing determinations made under the Trump administration.”
WUNC: North Carolina, DOJ Double Down On Secrecy Of Deaths In-Custody Data. “As communities across the nation continue to grapple with high-profile police killings, North Carolina officials have again refused to release information on the deaths of people who died in custody, citing guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice. The congressman who wrote the law requiring states to collect that information says both North Carolina and the U.S. DOJ are getting it wrong.”
Meduza: Russia’s censorship agency seeks new fines for Twitter, Google, and Facebook. “Twitter may face another 24 million rubles ($320,880) in fines for failing to remove content prohibited in Russia, while Google and Facebook may face an additional 20 million rubles ($267,400) in fines each for the same violation, the Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday, May 5.”
Neowin: Microsoft announces Counterfit, an automation tool for security testing of AI systems. “Counterfit is an open source tool created by Microsoft to automate the security testing of an organization’s AI systems. The ultimate goal is to give high confidence to companies that their artificial intelligence systems are robust and reliable, given how heavily they are used in various industries. Microsoft notes that out of the 28 organizations it surveyed, 25 felt that they didn’t have the right mechanisms in place to protect AI systems and their security professionals are not well-equipped to handle threats against them.”
South China Morning Post: Hong Kong protests: former RTHK journalist Bao Choy to appeal conviction over database search, fearing lifelong regret if she gives up ‘pursuit of justice’. “A former journalist at Hong Kong’s public broadcaster is appealing against her conviction for improperly accessing public records during the making of a documentary critical of how police handled a 2019 mob attack, saying letting the case go now would be a source of lifelong regret.”
ThreatPost: Deepfake Attacks Are About to Surge, Experts Warn. “A drastic uptick in deepfake technology and service offerings across the Dark Web is the first sign a new wave of fraud is just about to crash in, according to a new report from Recorded Future, which ominously predicted that deepfakes are on the rise among threat actors with an enormous range of goals and interests.”
Security Week: Tesla Car Hacked Remotely From Drone via Zero-Click Exploit. “The attack, dubbed TBONE, involves exploitation of two vulnerabilities affecting ConnMan, an internet connection manager for embedded devices. An attacker can exploit these flaws to take full control of the infotainment system of a Tesla without any user interaction.”
Techdirt: Canadian Government Wants To Regulate Social Media Like Broadcast. “Canada has a long history of requiring broadcasters to support and air Canadian content, setting percentages of airtime that must be dedicated to it. While this is controversial and of questionable efficacy, it is at least coherent with regards to television and radio broadcasting over public airwaves — but Bill C-10 would bring streaming services and many other websites under the same regulatory regime, which also includes even more concerning powers to regulate political speech.” Anybody remember the kerfuffle over Canada regulating zines back in the 1990s? Just me? Okay.
New York Times: How the A.T.F., Key to Biden’s Gun Plan, Became an N.R.A. ‘Whipping Boy’. “If there was one moment that summed up the current state of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it was when the floor at the agency’s gun-tracing center caved in a couple of years ago under the weight of paper. The accident was not entirely accidental. The gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, has for years systematically blocked plans to modernize the agency’s paper-based weapons-tracing system with a searchable database. As a result, records of gun sales going back decades are stored in boxes stacked seven high, waiting to be processed, against every wall.”
Miami Herald: Hackers post online thousands of Broward schools files, including student, teacher info . “Hackers who broke into Broward County Public Schools’ computer system last month made good on their threat this week to release thousands of files that they stole from the district. The group, known as Conti, published almost 26,000 files on its website, which threatens other businesses and organizations they target that unless they pay ransoms, their files, which may contain personal information, will be released as well.”
NBC News: In nod to Trump, Florida is set to ban ‘deplatforming’ by tech companies. “Florida is on track to be the first state in the nation to punish social media companies that ban politicians like former President Donald Trump under a bill approved Thursday by the state’s Republican-led Legislature.”
BBC: Apple charged over ‘anti-competitive’ app policies. “Apple has been charged with breaking EU competition rules over the way it runs its App Store. European Commission anti-trust regulator Margrethe Vestager tweeted that ‘consumers are losing out’. It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was stifling innovation in that industry.”
WUSA: MPD officer files obtained in server cyberattack, Chief Contee says. “Police files containing personal information on some MPD officers were compromised following a cyberattack on one of the DC Police Department’s internal servers, according to acting Chief Robert Contee. Hackers had previously claimed they’d posted confidential officer dossiers online. In an email sent to DC Police, Contee said files containing personal information had been obtained during a Babuk ransomware attack.”
NBC News: There are hundreds of posts about plans to attack the Capitol. Why hasn’t this evidence been used in court?. “…even after months of intensive investigation, Justice Department prosecutors have presented no evidence so far that any of the 420 individuals charged to date for their actions Jan. 6 planned in advance to attack the building in which Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. But a new report by a nonprofit research group, and a separate review by NBC News, uncovered hundreds of social media posts discussing plans to move on the Capitol, including a map of the building and talk of how to create a stampede that would overwhelm Capitol Police.”
CNN: A false facial recognition match sent this innocent Black man to jail. “While facial recognition technology has become increasingly accurate, research has shown it is drastically more prone to error when trying to match the faces of darker skinned people. And because no federal guidelines exist to limit or standardize the use of facial recognition by law enforcement, states — and, more often, municipalities — are left to decide for themselves what, if anything, to do to control its use.”
