America’s lawmakers are scrutinizing the blanket protections in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which lets online companies moderate their own sites without incurring legal liability for everything they host. schwit1 shared this article from the New York Times: Last month, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said in a hearing about Google and censorship that the law was “a…
Tag: communications
Judges Begin Ruling Against Some Porn Purveyors’ Use of Copyright Lawsuits
Slashdot reader pgmrdlm quotes Bloomberg: Pornography producers and sellers account for the lion’s share of copyright-infringement lawsuits in the U.S. — and judges may have seen enough. The courts are cracking down on porn vendors that file thousands of lawsuits against people for downloading and trading racy films on home computers, using tactics a judge called a “high tech shakedown.” [Alternate…
White House Proposal Would Have FCC and FTC Police Alleged Social Media Censorship
A draft executive order from the White House could put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of shaping how Facebook, Twitter and other large tech companies curate what appears on their websites, CNN reported Friday, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. From the report: The draft order, a summary of which was obtained by CNN, calls for the FCC to…
Skype, Slack, Other Electron-Based Apps Can Be Easily Backdoored
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Electron development platform is a key part of many applications, thanks to its cross-platform capabilities. Based on JavaScript and Node.js, Electron has been used to create client applications for Internet communications tools (including Skype, WhatsApp, and Slack) and even Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code development tool. But Electron can also pose a…
SpaceX Successfully Launches Twice-Flown Falcon 9, Catches Fairing At Sea
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 first-stage that had previously served two missions in July and November of 2018, today carrying its final payload, the AMOS-17 satellite for Spacecomm. “SpaceX had configured the Falcon 9 in its ‘expendable mode’ for this mission, which means it made use of all available fuel on board to carry the 14,000+ lb satellite to orbit,…
Did WhatsApp Backdoor Rumor Come From ‘Unanswered Questions ‘ and ‘Leap of Faith’ For Closed-Source Encryption Products?
On Friday technologist Bruce Schneier wrote that after reviewing responses from WhatsApp, he’s concluded that reports of a pre-encryption backdoor are a false alarm. He also says he got an equally strong confirmation from WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy Manager Nate Cardozo, who Facebook hired last December from the EFF. “He basically leveraged his historical reputation to assure me that WhatsApp, and Facebook…
GNOME and KDE Join Forces To Co-Host Linux App Summit
GNOME and KDE are co-hosting this year’s Linux App Summit (LAS) in Barcelona from November 12th to 15th. An anonymous reader shared the big announcement: LAS is the first collaborative event co-hosted by the two organizations since the Desktop Summit in 2009. Both organizations are eager to bring their communities together in building an application ecosystem that transcends individual distros and…
Sony and LG Continue To Struggle To Sell Smartphones
In news that will shock absolutely nobody, LG and Sony continue to struggle when it comes to selling smartphones. An anonymous reader shares a report: Despite posting record second-quarter and first-half revenues and operating profit totaling $559.4 million — largely due to strong home appliance sales — LG’s Mobile Communications division continues to underperform. Sales of $1.38 billion equate to a…
Apple’s AWDL Protocol Plagued By Flaws That Enable Tracking and MitM Attacks
Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL), a protocol installed on over 1.2 billion Apple devices, contains vulnerabilities that enable attackers to track users, crash devices, or intercept files transferred between devices via man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. From a report: These are the findings of a research project that started last year at the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany, and has recently concluded,…
Scientists film rotating carbonyl sulphide molecules
Scientists have used precisely tuned pulses of laser light to film the ultrafast rotation of a molecule. The resulting “molecular movie” tracks one and a half revolutions of carbonyl sulphide (OCS)—a rod-shaped molecule consisting of one oxygen, one carbon and one sulphur atom—taking place within 125 trillionths of a second, at a high temporal and spatial resolution. The team headed by…