Linking ideas with the world
This week, during the presentation of the 2023 annual review ( pdf ) , the European privacy supervisor EDPS again warned about European plans to monitor chat messages from European citizens. According to the watchdog, this leads to ‘irreversible surveillance’. At the beginning of 2022, the European Commission came up with a proposal to inspect Read more about EDPS warns of EU plans to spy on personal chat messages[…]
[…] The email your manager received and forwarded to you was something completely innocent, such as a potential customer asking a few questions. All that email was supposed to achieve was being forwarded to you. However, the moment the email appeared in your inbox, it changed. The innocent pretext disappeared and the real phishing email Read more about CSS allows HTML emails to change their content after they have been forwarded[…]
HP “sought to take advantage of customers’ sunk costs,” printer owners claimed this week in a class action lawsuit against the hardware giant. Lawyers representing the aggrieved were responding [PDF] in an Illinois court to an earlier HP Inc motion to dismiss a January lawsuit. Among other things, the plaintiffs’ filing stated that the printer Read more about We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners[…]
What better way to learn to use Git than a gamified interface that visualizes every change? That’s the idea behind Oh My Git! which aims to teach players all about the popular version control system that underpins so many modern software projects. Git good, with a gameified git interface. Sometimes the downside to a tool Read more about Git Good, By Playing A Gamified Version Of Git[…]
Ubisoft’s online-only racing game The Crew stopped being operable on April 1. Some users are reporting, however, that things have gone a bit further. They say that the company actually reached into Ubisoft Connect accounts and revoked the license to access the game, according to reports by Game Rant and others. Some of these users Read more about Ubisoft is deleting The Crew from players’ libraries, reminding us we own nothing[…]
In this cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative sample of 100 nonfederal acute care hospitals, 96.0% of hospital websites transmitted user information to third parties, whereas 71.0% of websites included a publicly accessible privacy policy. Of 71 privacy policies, 40 (56.3%) disclosed specific third-party companies receiving user information. […] Of 100 hospital websites, 96 […] Read more about US Hospital Websites Almost All Give your Data to 3rd parties, but Many just don’t tell you about it[…]
Walled Culture has been warning about the financialisation and securitisation of music for two years now. Those obscure but important developments mean that the owners of copyrights are increasingly detached from the creative production process. They regard music as just another asset, like gold, petroleum or property, to be exploited to the maximum. A Guest Read more about How private equity has used copyright to cannibalise the past at the expense of the future[…]
[…] We’re told mitigations put in place at the software and silicon level by the x86 giant to thwart Spectre-style exploitation of its processors’ speculative execution can be bypassed, allowing malware or rogue users on a vulnerable machine to steal sensitive information – such as passwords and keys – out of kernel memory and other Read more about Intel CPUs still vulnerable to Spectre attack[…]
A handful of bugs in LG smart TVs running WebOS could allow an attacker to bypass authorization and gain root access on the device. Once they have gained root, your TV essentially belongs to the intruder who can use that access to do all sorts of nefarious things including moving laterally through your home network, Read more about Critical bugs in LG TVs could allow complete device takeover[…]
The Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation today announced that it has initiated a class action lawsuit against Google over its Android operating system. The reason is a new study that shows how Dutch Android smartphones systematically transfer large amounts of information about device use to Google. Even with the most privacy-friendly options enabled, user data Read more about Dutch investigation into Android smartphones leads to new lawsuit against Google Play Services Constant Surveillance[…]
People who develop long covid after being hospitalised with severe covid-19 have raised levels of many inflammatory immune molecules compared with those who recovered fully after such a hospitalisation, according to a study of nearly 700 people. The findings show that long covid has a real biological basis, says team member Peter Openshaw at Imperial Read more about Long covid linked to signs of ongoing inflammatory responses in blood[…]
In early 2023 an awesome colleague (Andreas) spoke about an incident response case featuring thugs plugging a media keyboard into an ATM, and breaking out of its ATM kiosk software to install malware causing it to dispense $$$. This prompted me to spend some time during spring and summer of 2023 looking into Consumer Control, Read more about Breaking out of kiosk environments using keyboard media buttons via a BadUSB type attack[…]
[…] Ukrainian troops told the Daily Telegraph that they have been subjected to regular attacks from small drones dropping teargas and other chemicals. The use of such substances, which is known as CS, is banned during wartime under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Moscow was accused of using chemical weapons in a drone assault on the Read more about Russia accused of using chemical gas attacks against Ukrainian soldiers[…]
OpenAI and Google trained their AI models on text transcribed from YouTube videos, potentially violating creators’ copyrights, according to The New York Times. Note – the New York Times is embroiled in copyright lawsuits over AI, where they clearly show they don’t understand that an AI reading content is the same as a person reading Read more about OpenAI and Google train AIs on transcriptions of YouTube videos – YouTube and NYTimes desperately try to profit somehow without doing anything except lawsuit[…]
A study has concluded that Apple’s privacy practices aren’t particularly effective, because default apps on the iPhone and Mac have limited privacy settings and confusing configuration options. The research was conducted by Amel Bourdoucen and Janne Lindqvist of Aalto University in Finland. The pair noted that while many studies had examined privacy issues with third-party Read more about Academics Try to Figure Out Apple’s default apps Privacy Settings and Fail[…]
[…] Roku describes its idea in a patent application, which largely flew under the radar when it was filed in November, and was recently spotted by the streaming newsletter Lowpass. In the application, Roku describes a system that’s able to detect when users pause third-party hardware and software and show them ads during that time. Read more about Roku’s New Idea to Show You Ads When You Pause Your Video Game and spy on the content on your hdmi cable Is Horrifying[…]
[…] As reported by Android Authority, more and more users are complaining about their Pixel phones not working as, well, phones. Users will miss phone calls entirely, and only notice after they see the call went directly to voicemail, while text messages don’t appear as they’re received, but rather pop in all at once in Read more about It’s Not Just You, Google Pixels Are Glitching Right Now[…]
In an increasingly digital age, owning media outright has become less and less possible. Whether it’s movies, music, books, or video games, the pivot to digital has made it harder for consumers to own permanent, physical copies of their favorite pieces of media. In video games, myriad titles that players have spent time and money Read more about Ubisoft At The Center Of A Fight To Stop Online Game Shutdowns – help out yourself[…]
Windows welcome light into interior spaces, but they also bring in unwanted heat. A new window coating blocks heat-generating ultraviolet and infrared light and lets through visible light, regardless of the sun’s angle. The coating can be incorporated onto existing windows or automobiles and can reduce air-conditioning cooling costs by more than one-third in hot Read more about Window coating blocks sun heat from any angle but not view[…]
Strictly following a diet – either healthy low-carb or healthy low-fat – was what mattered for short-term weight loss during the first six months. But people who maintained long-term weight loss for a year ate the same number of calories as those who regained weight or who did not lose weight during the second six Read more about Stanford: Biomarkers predict weight loss on either low carb or low fat diet (one of these will work best for you) – suggest personalized diets[…]
In hopes of settling a lawsuit challenging its data collection practices, Google has agreed to destroy web browsing data it collected from users browsing in Chrome’s private modes – which weren’t as private as you might have thought. The lawsuit [PDF], filed in June, 2020, on behalf of plaintiffs Chasom Brown, Maria Nguyen, and William Read more about Google will delete data collected from private browsing[…]
It will become mandatory for payment service providers, such as banks, that offer standard credit transfers in euros to offer the sending and receipt of instant payments in euros. The regulation relating to this has now been published. Thanks to the regulation, people will be able to transfer money within 10 seconds at any time Read more about 10 second Euro Instant payments now mandatory in NL[…]
On the 28th February, The European Parliament gave its final approval to the Digital Identity Regulation, with 335 votes to 190, with 31 abstentions. It was adopted by the EU Council of Ministers on 26th of March. The next step will be its publication in the Official Journal and its entry into force 20 days Read more about The Digital Identity Wallet approved by parliament and council[…]
To decide how to best implement their cars’ touchscreens, Aston designers went out and sampled a range of vehicles, using their controls and noting the steps necessary to activate certain functions. Any feature expected to be immediately available that wasn’t triggered the “piss-off factor.” The new Vantage is a good example of Aston’s design philosophy. Read more about Aston Martin Show the way forward: Don’t trigger the piss off factor with your touchscreens[…]
[…] Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Europe has experienced an uptick in the number of large-scale disruptions of GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). The disruption has been felt near the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and near the Baltic Sea and Arctic. Since December 2023, for instance, the Baltic region has Read more about 63 hour GPS jamming attack over Baltics affects 1600 aircraft over Europe[…]