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PayPal and GoFundMe have banned a far-right group, the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), that was recently reported to be posing as law enforcement to round up migrant families at gunpoint at the U.S. border with Mexico before handing them over to Border Patrol officials, BuzzFeed News reported on Friday. The UCP, which the ACLU characterized…
The Central Intelligence Agency has accused Chinese tech giant Huawei of accepting funding from the “People’s Liberation Army, China’s National Security Commission and a third branch of the Chinese state intelligence network,” the Times of London reported on Saturday, citing a “UK source.” According to the Times (non-paywalled version here), the CIA presented the evidence…
Many of us are by now familiar with the Browse Endlessly Plan, a system in which scrolling knows no end and absolutely nothing of interest populates no matter how many times you refresh or toggle between genres. Netflix may have something close to an answer for it. Android Police reported Thursday that the streaming platform’s…
Marcus Hutchins, the security researcher best known for helping to stop the widespread WannaCry ransomware attack, has pleaded guilty to charges related to malware unconnected to the 2017 attack. “As you may be aware, I’ve pleaded guilty to two charges related to writing malware in the years prior to my career in security,” Hutchins said…
Amazon’s internal delivery service, Amazon Flex, will require its drivers to take photos of themselves to be validated with facial recognition. The detail, first reported by Business Insider, sees Amazon further controlling the work of Flex drivers, which the company considers independent contractors and not employees. They drive their own vehicles, pay out of pocket…
The leaks are never-ending; but naturally, some are more sensitive than others. Some 145,000 patients have had their protected health information exposed in what is only the latest of many major leaks of sensitive medical records in recent years, according to security researcher Justin Paine, director of trust and safety at Cloudflare. In a post…
The peer review process for scientific publications is a tedious and trusted mechanism by which papers are determined credible sources of information or not. While “peer reviewed” isn’t synonymous with conclusive, it’s long been a stamp of approval for other scientists and the public to weed out low-quality research. But a new requirement from the…
It’s a tale of two cities. In San Francisco, the city government is on the verge of becoming the first American city to ban face recognition surveillance despite opposition from local cops. The movement to ban comes in reaction to years of mounting research that the technology disproportionately negatively impacts marginalized communities. In New York…
Scribd has become a popular place for people to upload PDF documents to share with the world. But the hosting site’s algorithms aren’t handling the release of the Mueller Report very well, according to a new report from Quartz. Scribd’s robots are flagging the document as a copyrighted work, despite the fact that, as a…
On Wednesday, the UK government announced that starting July 15, porn providers online would be required to roll out age verification systems on their websites, only allowing those 18 and older to access their content. But one should not underestimate the will of the horny—porn, uh, finds a way, and adult content providers have already…
Before he was approved to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray met privately with Senator Ron Wyden, easily the sharpest privacy hawk in Congress. The topic of their conversation, one of many Wray would hold with lawmakers during his confirmation process, was encryption. The FBI has long held controversial views on the subject; namely, it wants…
The people of Wisconsin are at their wit’s end, trying to figure out what to do about a Foxconn facility that has so far failed to create thousands of jobs. And the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, signaled this week that the deal signed by his predecessor, which provided $4 billion worth of subsidies and infrastructure…
Like everyone else in journalism or the journalism-adjacent world, or anyone who owns a television or internet-connected device, or pretty much anyone who lacked the foresight to drive into the desert yesterday, I found myself powerless but to stare into the semi-redacted collapsing star that is the Mueller Report. Still, as I read through the…
Let’s play a game called Good Idea Bad Idea. Good idea: flushing only biodegradable materials down the toilet. Bad idea: pouring a metric ton of concrete down a drain and into a Victorian-era sewer system. London is currently dealing with the consequences of someone’s very bad idea near the Islington district. Thames Water, the city’s…
We’re all fighting a battle against the daily deluge of incoming emails, and one of the ways you can turn the tide—and get your inbox a little more organized—is by creating an email alias. This feature is available on email services from Google, Apple, and Microsoft, and is also useful for protecting your identity and…
Two sources familiar with the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Facebook say that Mark Zuckerberg himself is now a target. According to The Washington Post, the agency wants to hold the company’s co-founder, chief executive, and board chairman—Zuck is all of those things—accountable for mishandling Facebook user data. And since Zuckerberg told Congress last year…
In a rare move by Facebook that doesn’t have the world shaking its head in disbelief, the company’s AI researchers have developed a way to easily turn real people into playable game characters by simply analyzing videos of them going through specific motions. My dreams of finally being an unlockable character in NBA Jam just…
The only good social network is evidently toying with the idea of purging the worst thing about social media—and I, for one, couldn’t be more on board. Spotted by Jane Manchun Wong and reported by TechCrunch on Thursday, an Instagram prototype gave us a glimpse at what I believe is a great solution to keeping…
When a promotional video for German camera maker Leica hit the web this week, it looked like a bold statement about the hard work done by photojournalists around the world. But the company is now distancing itself from the 5-minute video after Chinese social media users cried foul and the word “Leica” was banned on…
It wasn’t so long ago that Netflix’s focus was on developing a curated library of titles rather than its own original, largely episodic content—and the nostalgics among us still pine for those days. With Filmstruck now deceased, the recently-launched Criterion Channel is close to being the ideal streaming platform for cinephiles. Those familiar with the…
