The North Dakota state senate voted 36-11 on Tuesday not to pass a bill that would have required app stores to enable software developers to use their own payment processing software and avoid fees charged by Apple and Google. From a report: The vote is a victory for Apple, which says that the App Store is a core part of its…
Tag: North dakota
Apple Privacy Chief: North Dakota Bill ‘Threatens To Destroy the iPhone As You Know It’
The North Dakota Senate recently introduced a new bill that would prevent Apple and Google from requiring developers to use their respective app stores and payment methods, paving the way for alternative app store options. In response, Apple Chief Privacy Engineer Erik Neuenschwander said that it “threatens to destroy the iPhone as you know it” by requiring changes that would “undermine…
The myths behind the southern and northern lights
For millennia, humans have viewed the northern and southern lights – aurora borealis and aurora australis – and created myths and folklore to explain the dancing lights they saw in the sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/legends-folklore-myths-northern-southern-lights-auroras…
Texas Plans To Sue Google for Alleged Anticompetitive Behavior
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that he will soon file a multistate antitrust lawsuit against Google and its advertising business, alleging that the company has stifled competition and enjoys “monopolistic power.” From a report: In a tweet, Paxton said the lawsuit will be filed on Wednesday. “This goliath of a company is using its power to manipulate the market,…
Ask Slashdot: Why Haven’t We Implemented Public Key Infrastructure Voting?
Long-time Slashdot reader t0qer has a question: why haven’t we gone to an open source, Public Key Infrastructure-based voting system? “I’m fairly well versed in PKI technology, and quoting this site, it would take traditional computers 300 trillion years to break RSA-2048 for a single vote.”
SSL.com has a pretty interesting piece on using Public Key Infrastructure in voting. There’s also a…
A Utah Company Claims It Invented Contact Tracing Tech
In the fight against Covid-19, contact tracing apps have so far largely been disappointments — in the United States, at least. Proposed in the spring as a way to help quickly stifle viral outbreaks by tracking down potential exposures using smartphones, they were stunted by technical glitches, concerns over privacy, and the US’s fragmented, haphazard pandemic response. Now, they may become…
America Is Reopening. Coronavirus Tracing Apps Aren’t Ready.
Smartphone apps meant to track where people have traveled or whom they have been near are mostly buggy, little-used or not ready for major rollouts, raising concerns as restrictions lift and infections rise. From a report: Local officials in Teton County, Wyo., home to Yellowstone National Park and resort town Jackson Hole, want to prevent a new wave of coronavirus cases…
In America, Only Three States Use Google-Apple Contact Tracing App
NBC News reports that in various parts of America, “States that had committed to using contact tracing apps or expressed interest are now backing away from those claims.”
The few states that have rolled them out have seen only tepid responses. And there are no indications of any momentum for the apps at a national level… A survey of state health officials…
North Dakota’s COVID-19 App Has Been Sending Data To Foursquare and Google
The official COVID-19 contact-tracing app for the state of North Dakota, designed to detect whether people have potentially been exposed to the coronavirus, sends location data and a unique user identifier to Foursquare — and other data to Google and a bug-tracking company — according to a new report from smartphone privacy company Jumbo Privacy. From a report: The app, called…
Should GPS Also Be Used For Contact Tracing?
Reuters reports:
Google and Apple have sought to build public trust by emphasizing that the changes they are making to Bluetooth to allow the tracing apps to work will not tap phones’ GPS sensors, which privacy activists see as too intrusive. But the states pioneering the apps — North and South Dakota, and Utah — say allowing public health authorities to use…