“Apple, which often positions itself as a champion of privacy and human rights, is sending some IP addresses from users of its Safari browser on iOS to Chinese conglomerate Tencent — a company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” reports the Reclaim the Net blog: Apple admits that it sends some user IP addresses to Tencent in the “About…
Tag: Websites
Was Flash Responsible For ‘The Internet’s Most Creative Era’?
A new article this week on Motherboard argues that Flash “is responsible for the internet’s most creative era,” citing a new 640-page book by Rob Ford on the evolution of web design. [O]ne could argue that the web has actually gotten less creative over time, not more. This interpretation of events is a key underpinning of Web Design: The Evolution of…
Wired Remembers the Glory Days of Flash
Wired recently remembered Flash as “the annoying plugin” that transformed the web “into a cacophony of noise, colour, and controversy, presaging the modern web.” They write that its early popularity in the mid-1990s came in part because “Microsoft needed software capable of showing video on their website, MSN.com, then the default homepage of every Internet Explorer user.” But Flash allowed anyone…
China’s Global Reach: Surveillance and Censorship Beyond the Great Firewall
An anonymous reader shares a report: Those outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are accustomed to thinking of the Internet censorship practices of the Chinese state as primarily domestic, enacted through the so-called “Great Firewall” — a system of surveillance and blocking technology that prevents Chinese citizens from viewing websites outside the country. The Chinese government’s justification for that firewall…
Supreme Court Allows Blind People To Sue Retailers If Their Websites Are Not Accessible
The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way Monday for blind people to sue retailers if their websites are not accessible to these people. “In a potentially far-reaching move, the justices turned down an appeal from Domino’s and let stand a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling holding that the Americans With Disabilities Act protects access not just to restaurants and…
Big ISPs Worry DNS-Over-HTTPS Could Stop Monitoring and Modifying of DNS Queries
“Big Cable and other telecom industry groups warned that Google’s support for DNS over HTTPS (DoH) ‘could interfere on a mass scale with critical Internet functions, as well as raise data-competition issues,'” reports Ars Technica. But are they really just worried DNS over HTTPS will end useful ISP practices that involve monitoring or modifying DNS queries? For example, queries to malware-associated…
Chrome Promises ‘No More Mixed Messages About HTTPS ‘
“Today we’re announcing that Chrome will gradually start ensuring that https:// pages can only load secure https:// subresources,” promises an announcement on the Chromium blog. It notes that Chrome users already make HTTPS connections for more than 90% of their browsing time, and “we’re now turning our attention to making sure that HTTPS configurations across the web are secure and up-to-date.”…
Facebook Removes Hundreds of Propaganda Accounts Targeting Iran and Qatar
According to BuzzFeed News, a network of websites and accounts have been using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social platforms to sow propaganda targeting Iran and Qatar. “The accounts, which have now been taken down, appear to have been professionally run by PR firms based in the Middle East and Africa,” the report says. From the report: In August, Facebook announced…
Hackers Looking Into Injecting Card Stealing Code on Routers, Rather Then Websites
Security researchers at IBM have found evidence that hackers have been working on creating malicious scripts they can deploy on commercial-grade “Layer 7” routers to steal payment card details. From a report: This discovery is a game-changer in what researchers call Magecart attacks, also known as web skimming. These are attacks where hackers plant malicious code on an online store that…
Ask Slashdot: Why Doesn’t the Internet In 2019 Use More Interactive 3D?
dryriver writes: For the benefit of those who are not much into 3D technologies, as far back as the year 2000 and even earlier, there was excitement about “Web3D” — interactive 3D content embedded in HTML webpages, using technologies like VRML and ShockWave 3D. 2D vector-based Flash and Flash animation was a big deal back then. Very popular with internet users….