Techdirt: The Most Important Privacy Case You’ve Never Heard Of. “One of the most important privacy cases you’ve never heard of is being litigated right now in a federal district court in Maine. ACA v. Frey is a challenge by the nation’s largest broadband Internet access providers to a Maine law that protects the privacy of the state’s broadband Internet users. If the broadband providers prevail, this case could eliminate sector-specific privacy laws across the nation, foreclose national privacy legislation, and have broad implications for broadband regulation generally.”
Security & Legal Issues
Security & Legal issues and news. May be about patches, hacks, or court decisions.
EFF to Court: Social Media Users Have Privacy and Free Speech Interests in Their Public Information (EFF)
EFF: EFF to Court: Social Media Users Have Privacy and Free Speech Interests in Their Public Information. “Visa applicants to the United States are required to disclose personal information including their work, travel, and family histories. And as of May 2019, they are required to register their social media accounts with the U.S. government. According to the State Department, approximately 14.7 million people will be affected by this new policy each year. EFF recently filed an amicus brief in Doc Society v. Pompeo, a case challenging this ‘Registration Requirement’ under the First Amendment.”
You wait ages for a mid-air collision spoofing attack and along come two at once: More boffins take a crack at hoodwinking TCAS (The Register)
The Register: You wait ages for a mid-air collision spoofing attack and along come two at once: More boffins take a crack at hoodwinking TCAS. “Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) are used in aircraft to avoid hitting other aircraft in flight. And like many electronic systems, they weren’t designed for security. Five researchers in the US – Paul M. Berges, Timothy Graziano, and Ryan Gerdes from Virginia Tech, with Basavesh Ammanaghatta Shivakumar and Z. Berkay Celik from Purdue University – recently put TCAS to the test and found it wanting.”
Silicon Republic: Courtsdesk receives £70,000 to build legal database for UK journalists
Silicon Republic: Courtsdesk receives £70,000 to build legal database for UK journalists. “Dublin-based Courtsdesk has received £70,000 in funding to build a service supplying listings and outcomes of criminal court cases to journalists in the UK.”
National Accord Newspaper: Ethiopia experiences Internet blackout after musician Haacaaluu shot dead
National Accord Newspaper: Ethiopia experiences Internet blackout after musician Haacaaluu shot dead. “A blanket shutdown of the Internet in Ethiopia is being reported by Access Now, an organisation defending the digital rights of users at risk around the world. This came hours after prominent and outspoken Oromo musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was shot dead in Addis Abeba, the country’s capital. There have also been reports – via social media – of people taking to the streets demanding justice.”
TorrentFreak: Court Excoriates ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer and Adds $100,000 in Sanctions
TorrentFreak: Court Excoriates ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer and Adds $100,000 in Sanctions. “Copyright lawyer Richard Liebowitz has, once again, been sanctioned by a New York federal court. In a scathing order, the court sums up the attorney’s ‘deplorable record’ which includes violating court orders and lying under oath. For his most recent wrongdoings, Liebowitz must pay over $100,000 in sanctions and also risks his right to practice in the district.”
InfoSecurity: Online Learning Platform Exposes Data on One Million Students
InfoSecurity: Online Learning Platform Exposes Data on One Million Students. “Researchers from the firm claimed that the Elasticsearch database belonging to provider OneClass was left completely unsecured. The trove contained over 27GB of data, amounting to 8.9 million records, including many students’ full names, email addresses, schools/universities, phone numbers, account details and school enrollment details.”
Navy to sailors: Please stop buying LSD online (Task & Purpose)
Task & Purpose: Navy to sailors: Please stop buying LSD online . “The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has a message for America’s sailors: Please, for the love of Poseidon and the Seven Seas, stop buying hallucinogens in the dark corners of the Internet. NCIS last week issued a warning to sailors to the risks of acquiring LSD on the so-called ‘dark web,’ the network of often-illicit sites accessible through specialized browsers that offer users ‘perceived anonymity.'”
BBC: India bans TikTok, WeChat and dozens more Chinese apps
BBC: India bans TikTok, WeChat and dozens more Chinese apps. “India’s government has banned TikTok and dozens more Chinese-made apps it says are a danger to the country. In a statement, it said the apps were ‘prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order’. In total, 59 apps were banned – among them popular messaging app WeChat. It follows escalating tensions along the disputed border between the two powers.”
Technical .ly: Volunteer data scrapers helped Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity preserve client court records
Technical .ly: Volunteer data scrapers helped Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity preserve client court records. “As the first state to implement the Clean Slate Law in 2018, Pennsylvania committed to sealing millions of criminal records. The law was enacted to remove educational and vocational disadvantages for people with eligible records, including those associated with certain misdemeanors and people found not guilty in court. While the law cleared barriers to housing, education and employment for individuals across the state, it indirectly created new technological barriers for Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity (PLSE).”
BuzzFeed News: Almost 17,000 Protesters Had No Idea A Tech Company Was Tracing Their Location
BuzzFeed News: Almost 17,000 Protesters Had No Idea A Tech Company Was Tracing Their Location. “On the weekend of May 29, thousands of people marched, sang, grieved, and chanted, demanding an end to police brutality and the defunding of police departments in the aftermath of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. They marched en masse in cities like Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, empowered by their number and the assumed anonymity of the crowd. And they did so completely unaware that a tech company was using location data harvested from their cellphones to predict their race, age, and gender and where they lived.”
Ubergizmo: Hackers Are Now Hiding Credit Card Skimmers In Image Metadata On The Web
Ubergizmo: Hackers Are Now Hiding Credit Card Skimmers In Image Metadata On The Web. “Physical credit card skimmers aren’t new and while they can be disguised, it is relatively easy to spot it if you know what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, it seems that credit card skimmers have gone virtual where according to a report from Malwarebytes, it appears that hackers are now hiding these virtual skimmers inside the metadata of images on compromised online storefronts.”
Vice: Discord Just Shut Down the Biggest ‘Boogaloo’ Server for Inciting Violence
Vice: Discord Just Shut Down the Biggest ‘Boogaloo’ Server for Inciting Violence. “Discord, a platform popular with gamers, has shut down one of the largest servers used by followers of the anti-government ‘boogaloo’ movement after it was exposed in a VICE News article.”
Ubergizmo: US Senators Propose A Bill To End ‘Warrant-Proof’ Encryption
Ubergizmo: US Senators Propose A Bill To End ‘Warrant-Proof’ Encryption. “In the past, companies would have to fight requests from law enforcement agencies whenever they are asked to hand over information about their customers. These days, it has gotten a lot easier in the sense that tech companies are handing the encryption keys over to their customers.”
NBC News: Spyware hidden in Chinese tax software was probably planted by a nation-state, say experts
NBC News: Spyware hidden in Chinese tax software was probably planted by a nation-state, say experts. “Earlier this year, a multinational technology vendor doing business in China was instructed by its Chinese bank to install software to pay local taxes. The tax software was legitimate, but embedded inside it was a nasty surprise, according to a new report by a private security firm: A sophisticated piece of malware that gave attackers complete access to the company’s network.”
