The Indian Express: War histories in 5 years, declassification. “Setting a clear timeline for compilation, publication, archiving and declassification of the histories of India’s wars and operations, the Ministry of Defence has come out with a new policy which stipulates that events must be officially recorded within five years.”
AP: Wray: FBI frowns on ransomware payments despite recent trend. “The FBI’s director told lawmakers Thursday that the bureau discourages ransomware payments to hacking groups even as major companies in the past month have participated in multimillion-dollar transactions aimed at getting their systems back online.”
CNET: Apple AirTags can be used to track you. Here’s how to make that stop. “AirTags use a combination of sensors, wireless signals and Apple’s extensive Find My network to help people locate lost items. Apple built in several safeguards to prevent the devices from being used to track people — an industry first. However, many have noted that those protections may not be enough to protect victims.”
Business Insider: How Apple, Google, and Microsoft reacted to Trump-era DOJ subpoenas and requests for data on political rivals and journalists. “Some of the world’s biggest tech companies – including Google, Apple, and Microsoft – received subpoenas or other record requests for information held by accounts belonging to the press, members of Congress, their staff members, or their families. This is how each company reacted to those legal requests.”
World Trademark Review: Innovation at the German Patent and Trademark Office: spotlight on cutting-edge tools and services . “In exclusive insights, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) reveals the innovative non-core tools and services that it offers trademark users, including developments of its digital tools and collaboration with other national IP offices.”
News@Northeastern: Supreme Court Ruling Clears Path For Researchers, Journalists Who Test Facebook And Other Platforms For Discrimination. “The case, Van Buren v. United States, deals with a former police officer who agreed to search digital license plate records outside his official duties as an officer, in exchange for cash. It’s not the broad strokes of the incident, but the implication of the court ruling, that clears the way for researchers to continue the important work of probing websites and online platforms for evidence of bias and discrimination.”
Roll Call: Pentagon renews effort to withhold more unclassified records. “Pentagon leaders are asking Congress to expand the kinds of unclassified information about military operations that the department can withhold from the public, continuing what has been an annual tradition for seven years and spanning three administrations. Officials with the Pentagon general counsel’s office are requesting that the Armed Services committees, in writing the fiscal 2022 defense authorization bill, prescribe changes to the Freedom of Information Act that would limit public access to certain data.”
Engadget: NLRB expands its Google complaint for alleged retaliatory dismissals. “The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is expanding its complaint against Google to include three additional former employees of the company, according to Recode. When the agency first accused the search giant of illegally firing some of its workers for organizing, it took up the cases of two individuals.”
World Trademark Review: Concern voiced as low-cost filer Trademark Terminal launches new platforms. “Recently-launched low-cost trademark filing offerings ‘Trademark Kingdom’ and ‘Trademark Nations’ appear to be linked to controversial platform Trademark Terminal, WTR can reveal. In response, an industry expert continues to call on the USPTO to do more to monitor low-cost filers.”
New York Times: Lawmakers, Taking Aim at Big Tech, Push Sweeping Overhaul of Antitrust. “House lawmakers on Friday introduced sweeping antitrust legislation aimed at restraining the power of Big Tech and staving off corporate consolidation across the economy, in what would be the most ambitious update to monopoly laws in decades.”
Mashable: Twitch warns creators about a wave of DMCA takedown requests . “Big changes are coming to Twitch. And the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform doesn’t have a choice. According to Twitch, the company recently received a massive batch of DMCA takedown requests ‘with about 1,000 individual claims from music publishers.’”
BBC: EA: Gaming giant hacked and source code stolen. “The attackers claimed to have downloaded source code for games such as FIFA 21 and for the proprietary Frostbite game engine used as the base for many other high-profile games. News of the hack was first reported by news site Vice, which said some 780GB of data was stolen.”
TechSpot: Malware-packed pirated games infected millions of PCs, stealing data and hijacking webcams to photograph users. “If you’re ever tempted to download a pirated game or app, remember that in addition to being illegal, there’s the risk of it containing some nasty malware. Millions of PCs were infected with a trojan virus using this method, leading to the theft of over 1TB of data, including email addresses, login credentials, and documents. It was even able to hijack a webcam and photograph users.”
New York Times: China’s Censorship Widens to Hong Kong’s Vaunted Film Industry, With Global Implications. “The city’s government on Friday said it would begin blocking the distribution of films that are deemed to undermine national security, marking the official arrival of mainland Chinese-style censorship in one of Asia’s most celebrated filmmaking hubs.”
