NSO Employee Abused Phone Hacking Tech to Target a Love Interest

An employee of controversial surveillance vendor NSO Group abused access to the company’s powerful hacking technology to target a love interest, Motherboard has learned. The previously unreported news is a serious abuse of NSO’s products, which are typically used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The episode also highlights that potent surveillance technology such as Read more about NSO Employee Abused Phone Hacking Tech to Target a Love Interest[…]

PSA: New Character Bug in Messages Causing iOS Devices to Crash [Updated]

There appears to be a new character-linked bug in Messages, Mail, and other apps that can cause the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch to crash when receiving a specific string of characters. Image from Twitter In this particular case, the character string involves the Italian flag emoji along with characters in the Sindhi language, Read more about PSA: New Character Bug in Messages Causing iOS Devices to Crash [Updated][…]

Security lapse exposed creepy Clearview AI source code

Since it exploded onto the scene in January after a newspaper exposé, Clearview AI quickly became one of the most elusive, secretive and reviled companies in the tech startup scene. The controversial facial recognition startup allows its law enforcement users to take a picture of a person, upload it and match it against its alleged Read more about Security lapse exposed creepy Clearview AI source code[…]

Medical Device ‘Jailbreak’ Could Help Solve the Dangerous Shortage of Ventilators

Security researcher Trammell Hudson analyzed the AirSense 10 — the world’s most widely used CPAP — and made a startling discovery. Although its manufacturer says the AirSense 10 would require “significant rework to function as a ventilator,” many ventilator functions were already built into the device firmware. Its manufacturer, ResMed, says the $700 device solely Read more about Medical Device ‘Jailbreak’ Could Help Solve the Dangerous Shortage of Ventilators[…]

Amazon hiring 75,000 more workers as demand rises due to coronavirus, after hiring 100k more last month

Amazon is hiring an additional 75,000 workers at its facilities, on top of the 100,000 new positions it created last month, the company said Monday. In March, the company said it would hire additional warehouse and delivery workers across the country amid a surge in online shopping during the coronavirus outbreak. Since then, Amazon said Read more about Amazon hiring 75,000 more workers as demand rises due to coronavirus, after hiring 100k more last month[…]

Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate

For decades, the use of fingerprints to authenticate users to computers, networks, and restricted areas was (with a few notable exceptions) mostly limited to large and well-resourced organizations that used specialized and expensive equipment. That all changed in 2013 when Apple introduced TouchID. Within a few years, fingerprint-based validation became available to the masses as Read more about Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate[…]

NSO Group: Facebook tried to license our spyware to snoop on its own addicts – the same spyware it’s suing us over

NSO Group – sued by Facebook for developing Pegasus spyware that targeted WhatsApp users – this week claimed Facebook tried to license the very same surveillance software to snoop on its own social-media addicts. The Israeli spyware maker’s CEO Shalev Hulio alleged in a statement [PDF] to a US federal district court that in 2017 Read more about NSO Group: Facebook tried to license our spyware to snoop on its own addicts – the same spyware it’s suing us over[…]

Two Senators Dumped Stock After Being Briefed About COVID-19; While Telling The World Things Were Going To Be Fine

Senator Richard Burr is a real piece of work. In 2012 he was one of only three Senators to vote against the STOCK Act. This was a law put in place following a 60 Minutes expose about how Congress was getting filthy stinkin’ rich off of insider trading, since Congress was exempt from insider trading Read more about Two Senators Dumped Stock After Being Briefed About COVID-19; While Telling The World Things Were Going To Be Fine[…]

Theranos vampire lives on: Owner of failed blood-testing biz’s patents sues maker of actual COVID-19-testing kit

Remember Theranos? The blood-testing company worth billions whose CEO Elizabeth Holmes became a celebrity right up until the point when it became clear its revolutionary testing machines didn’t actually work as described? Well, Theranos is dead, and Holmes is still dealing with the legal repercussions, but her vampire company has come alive again – and Read more about Theranos vampire lives on: Owner of failed blood-testing biz’s patents sues maker of actual COVID-19-testing kit[…]

Why are workers getting smaller pieces of the pie?

It’s one of the biggest economic changes in recent decades: Workers get a smaller slice of company revenue, while a larger share is paid to capital owners and distributed as profits. Or, as economists like to say, there has been a fall in labor’s share of gross domestic product, or GDP. A new study co-authored Read more about Why are workers getting smaller pieces of the pie?[…]

DuckDuckGo Made a List of Jerks Tracking You Online

DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused tech company, today launched something called Tracker Radar—an open-source, automatically generated and continually updated list that currently contains more than 5,000 domains that more than 1,700 companies use to track people online. The idea behind Tracker Radar, first reported by CNET, is to share the data DuckDuckGo has collected to create a Read more about DuckDuckGo Made a List of Jerks Tracking You Online[…]

Unfixable vulnerability in Intel CSME allows crypto key stealing and local access to files

An error in chipset read-only memory (ROM) could allow attackers to compromise platform encryption keys and steal sensitive information. Intel has thanked Positive Technologies experts for their discovery of a vulnerability in Intel CSME. Most Intel chipsets released in the last five years contain the vulnerability in question. By exploiting vulnerability CVE-2019-0090, a local attacker Read more about Unfixable vulnerability in Intel CSME allows crypto key stealing and local access to files[…]

EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications. The instruction appeared on internal messaging boards in early February, notifying employees that “Signal has been selected as the recommended application for public instant messaging.” The app is favored by privacy Read more about EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app[…]

FTC finally wakes up: American watchdog to probe decade of Big Tech takeovers

An American biz watchdog has stepped up its probe into possible market abuse by Big Tech – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft – by demanding information on all acquisitions not reported to antitrust authorities in the past decade. The FTC issued “special orders” to the big five on Tuesday requesting “the terms, scope, structure, Read more about FTC finally wakes up: American watchdog to probe decade of Big Tech takeovers[…]

Facial recognition fails in China as people wear masks to avoid coronavirus – Face ID fails users as the China coronavirus outbreak sparks widespread adoption of surgical masks

Residents donning surgical face masks while venturing outside their homes or meeting strangers have found themselves in an unfamiliar conundrum. With their faces half-covered, some are unable to unlock their phones or use mobile payments with their faces. People wearing protective masks to help stop the spread of a deadly virus, which began in Wuhan, Read more about Facial recognition fails in China as people wear masks to avoid coronavirus – Face ID fails users as the China coronavirus outbreak sparks widespread adoption of surgical masks[…]

Wacom tablet drivers phone home with names, times of every app opened on your computer

Wacom’s official tablet drivers leak to the manufacturer the names of every application opened, and when, on the computers they are connected to. Software engineer Robert Heaton made this discovery after noticing his drawing board’s fine-print included a privacy policy that gave Wacom permission to, effectively, snoop on him. Looking deeper, he found that the Read more about Wacom tablet drivers phone home with names, times of every app opened on your computer[…]

Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it. Only FF and Brave will give you some.

At the USENIX Enigma conference on Tuesday, representatives of four browser makers, Brave, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, gathered to banter about their respective approaches to online privacy, while urging people not to ask for too much of it. Apple, which has advanced browser privacy standards but was recently informed that its tracking defenses can be Read more about Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it. Only FF and Brave will give you some.[…]

An Open Source eReader That’s Free of Corporate Restrictions Is Exactly What I Want Right Now

The Open Book Project was born from a contest held by Hackaday and that encouraged hardware hackers to find innovative and practical uses for the Arduino-based Adafruit Feather development board ecosystem. The winner of that contest was the Open Book Project which has been designed and engineered from the ground up to be everything devices Read more about An Open Source eReader That’s Free of Corporate Restrictions Is Exactly What I Want Right Now[…]

These VIPs May Want to Make Sure Mohammed bin Salman Didn’t Hack Them

In early 2018, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took a sweeping tour of the U.S. as part of a strategy to rebrand Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy as a modernizing force and pull off his “Vision 2030” plan—hobnobbing with a list of corporate execs and politicians that reads like a who’s who list of the Read more about These VIPs May Want to Make Sure Mohammed bin Salman Didn’t Hack Them[…]

PopSockets CEO calls out Amazon’s ‘bullying with a smile’ tactics, shows how monopolies are bad for competition

Amazon has a “bullying” problem. So insisted PopSockets CEO and inventor David Barnett today while describing his company’s relationship with the e-commerce and logistics giant. Barnett was addressing members of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law and, over the course of the hearing, laid out how the Jeff Bezos-helmed corporate behemoth had Read more about PopSockets CEO calls out Amazon’s ‘bullying with a smile’ tactics, shows how monopolies are bad for competition[…]