Facebook representatives approached controversial surveillance vendor NSO Group to try and buy a tool that could help Facebook better monitor a subset of its users, according to an extraordinary court filing from NSO in an ongoing lawsuit. From a report: Facebook is currently suing NSO for how the hacking firm leveraged a vulnerability in WhatsApp to help governments hack users. NSO…
Tag: web
Google Data Centers’ Secret Cost: Billions of Gallons of Water
To meet surging demand for online information, internet giant taps public water supplies that are already straining from overuse. From a report: In August 2019, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association built a 16-foot pyramid of jugs in its main entrance in Phoenix. The goal was to show residents of this desert region how much water they each use a day…
Trump Won the Internet. Democrats Are Scrambling to Take It Back.
In the era of big data, memes and disinformation, the Democrats are trying to regain their digital edge as the president and his loyalists dictate the terms of debate. From a report: The deceptively edited video that purported to show Joseph R. Biden Jr. endorsing President Trump’s re-election bounced relentlessly around the internet, falsely painting the former vice president as too…
Dark Web Hosting Site Suffers Cyberattack, 7,600 Sites Down
It’s the largest free web hosting provider for dark web services. But remember back in 2018 when its 6,500 sites all went down after attackers accessed its database and deleted all its accounts? It happened again — for the second time in 16 months. And this time, ZDNet reports, Daniel’s Host won’t be coming back online for several months: Almost 7,600…
To Conserve Bandwidth, Should Opting In Be Required Before Autoplaying Videos?
An anonymous reader writes:
We keep seeing stories about how providers are slowing down their streaming speed to reduce bandwidth usage during this period when many are being asked to stay at home… But it seems that many are totally ignoring a very obvious way to reduce usage significantly, and that is by disabling autoplay on their web sites and in their…
Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Is Making Its Software Open Source
gavron writes: While most politicians are pro copyright maximalism and patent exclusivity, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign just open-sourced a bunch of software and are proud of having used open source to save money, and build upon the shoulders of other giants. Way to go! “Our tech team worked hard to make getting involved with @ewarren’s campaign as easy as possible,” reads a…
Microsoft Throttles Some Office 365 Services To Continue To Meet Demand
In response to high demand as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Microsoft has started taking action to preserve overall performance by throttling some services. ZDNet reports: On March 16, Microsoft posted to Microsoft 365/Office 365 admin dashboardds a warning about “temporary feature adjustments” that it might take. That warning told customers that Microsoft was “making temporary adjustments to select…
Mozilla Launches New Initiative With Scroll To Fund Publishers
Firefox, the global web browser from Mozilla, is launching a new subscription product Tuesday called the “Firefox Better Web initiative,” and it will feature former Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile’s new product Scroll as a launch partner. From a report: It’s uncommon for a web browser to launch a product that’s explicitly tied to paying out publishers. Scroll’s business is all about…
Elite Hackers Target WHO As Coronavirus Cyberattacks Spike
According to Reuters, elite hackers tried to break into the World Health Organization earlier this month. While the effort was unsuccessful, the agency said there’s been a more than two-fold increase in cyberattacks as they battle to contain the coronavirus. From the report: The attempted break-in at the WHO was first flagged to Reuters by Alexander Urbelis, a cybersecurity expert and…