Cyberlaw

A report published by the highly respected journal Science has estimated that fake news is 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news. The study found that false information which was rapidly shared online through social media reached more people than the truth did. The research also pointed out that fake news travels much faster than real news.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a stern statement in regard to potentially unlawful online trading platforms. The statement includes a warning to investors that they should use “SEC-registered and regulated marketplaces” for virtual currency (VC) trading. The value of Bitcoin, and other VCs, dipped dramatically after the statement’s publication.

BlackBerry Ltd has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook and its companies WhatsApp and Instagram for improperly implementing BBM IP in the social network's messaging apps. While BlackBerry is seeking to protect the interests of its shareholders, Facebook is not in a mood to give up and is ready to challenge the suit in court.

A seemingly coordinated series of burglaries has taken place in Iceland leading to the loss of around US$2 million worth of computing equipment used to mine Bitcoin. The thefts actually occurred back in December and January, but they have only just been reported as Iceland’s police did not want to reveal details until their investigation had been completed. An estimated 600 devices were taken.

According to a report, technology company Broadcom Limited could be redomiciling to the US in the near future, possibly by May. The company is currently based in Singapore and has a co-headquarters in San Jose, California. Broadcom was bought out by Avago Technologies in 2015 for a deal worth US$37 billion and the newly combined company was then renamed Broadcom Limited.

Could central regulation for cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, be coming sooner rather than later? Canadian economist and current Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, brought up a number of issues about cryptocurrency during a speech at the Scottish Economics Conference held at Edinburgh University. These concerns included the current volatility of cryptocurrency values, the relation crypto-assets have with illicit activities, and the need for some form of regulation.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey expressed concern that the social network has a problem with trolls and bots infesting the platform often fueling hate and abuse. The CEO is inviting proposals from users on how to improve the platform and encourage civil behavior.

VeganCoin and Sovereign have become two of the latest additions to the ever growing cryptocurrency world. VeganCoin was founded by the people behind VeganNation, who claim the currency will be “cruelty free”. The Sovereign is a virtual currency that will be launched by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a country in the Pacific Ocean. The Sovereign will be accepted as legal tender in the island nation.

Sikur is a smartphone maker that likes to put an emphasis on security. In 2015, the company released the GranitePhone, which offered users multiple layers of data privacy protection. In the meantime, Sikur has been working on a new device, which was announced at the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The SikurPhone includes an app called SikurWallet, which according to the makers is designed to be the “digital marketplace’s safest wallet.”

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session held today, Bill Gates made a comment about cryptocurrencies that suggests he is not currently a huge advocate of the decentralized and unregulated digital payment systems. In contrast, Steve Wozniak has offered a more favorable view of virtual currency, even though he has actually been subject to Bitcoin-trading fraud himself.

French electronics company Archos has unveiled plans to release a hardware wallet that will provide cryptocurrency owners with a physical layer of security for their virtual currency transactions. The Archos Safe-T mini hardware device can be connected to a computer or smartphone via microUSB cable. The wallet will be released in June, 2018 and will cost €49.99 (~US$61).

Apparently the 911 emergency services communication center in Elk Grove, California has been receiving hundreds of calls coming from an Apple repair and refurbishing site in the vicinity. Since October, 2017 the total of 911 calls traced to the facility has reached over 1,600. The calls are believed to be accidental and possibly being caused by the SOS mode that the iPhone and Apple Watch feature.

The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has claimed that the country’s cryptocurrency has enjoyed booming business on the first day of its pre-sale. Apparently, investors have snatched up US$735 million worth of Petro digital currency. Meanwhile, Bitcoiin2Gen (B2G), which has the masterful Steven Seagal as its celebrity ambassador, is currently lagging behind with a still impressive US$27.97 million in its pre-ICO fundraising round.

Instead of using malicious apps or website exploits, hackers just hijacked Tesla's cloud servers and made sure their illicit cryptomining endeavors would not seem suspicious.

The cryptocurrency craze continues as a sovereign state and a controversial celebrity become involved in the virtual currency (VC) industry. Venezuela's government has made its "petro" currency available in a presale launch, while Steven Seagal has been promoting a digital currency called Bitcoiin 2Gen.

The United States Air Force has made bounty payouts totaling US$103,883 to hackers invited to test the force's systems and software. The event ran from December 9, 2017 to January 1, 2018.

White House spokesman, Rob Joyce, doesn't believe the US government is ready to attempt regulating Bitcoin until the good and bad aspects of the cryptocurrency are fully understood. The US official was discussing the topic at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

The US Department of Defense has stated that the United States Air Force (USAF) must ensure its computers are operating Windows 10 by March 31, 2018. The Microsoft OS is considered to be a crucial component in the overall readiness of the armed service branch.

The imminent release of the LitePay service lead to a sudden appreciation for Litecoin over the past few days. Litecoin is thus expected to become more useful and appreciate even further as LitePay is compatible with Visa-enabled online/offline sale outlets.

Although Facebook already filed an appeal, it is worth mentioning that the Berlin regional court ruled against its data-collection practices, saying that the default settings break the law, while some terms and conditions do not meet the legal standards needed to get the users' effective consent.

Financial regulators have issued warnings that a massive price crash involving Bitcoin and other popular virtual currencies (VC) would lead to financial ruin for many investors. The lucrative VC market is currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars but is notorious for its series of soaring peaks and troughs.

Microsoft has announced support for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a Windows 10 only feature, to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1. This is to help organizations protect themselves during the transition to Windows 10 from the aforementioned OSs.

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities exposed inherent flaws in hardware and software design, which we've been using for many years. Chip vendors and developers alike are scrambling to quickly release fixes to prevent any damage to customer data. Intel, AMD along with motherboard partners and Microsoft have released security patches over the past month to cover the necessary mitigation. This tutorial will help you in determining whether your PC has received the required mitigation so as to thwart any potential abuse of these vulnerabilities.

Friday's Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang came under cyber attack from malware known as "Olympic Destroyer." The virus affected Internet and television services used by media representatives but did not cause any major long-term disruption.

After CoinCheck and NiceHash, the BitGrail hack is the third major incident in less then 4 months. Of course, the Italian exchange kept most of the funds in a hot wallet, and many other exchanges are probably still doing this, practically inviting hackers to rob them blind.

With ransomware on the prowl every other day, it has become all the more important to ensure that critical files are protected from being encrypted or altered. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update includes a new functionality called Controlled Folder Access that can help prevent modification of critical files and folders by unauthorized software. This tutorial will show you how to enable this functionality to protect both personal and corporate data.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained a group of scientists who attempted to use a supercomputer at a top secret nuclear facility to mine Bitcoin. Security was alerted when the would-be miners tried to connect the computer to the Internet.

Microsoft has listed out a few servicing changes to Windows and Office keeping in view the deployment requirements of the enterprise. The company also detailed availability and support cadences of Office 2019 and Windows 10 LTSC.

Apple confirmed that the US Government has asked questions regarding intentional throttling of old iPhones and reaffirmed that it would not degrade the customer experience to force upgrades.

Hackers are trying to spread the stolen NEM coins to as much as 20 accounts, but Coincheck and the NEM Foundation have already tagged all the affected coins, making the affected cryptocurrency easily trackable on exchanges.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel had informed select customers about the Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities. What's news, however, is that somehow the Chinese Government could have gotten to know about the vulnerabilities much before the US Government did.

Intel has identified the root cause of the recent reboot issues plaguing the company's 'Broadwell' and 'Haswell' chips that received a microcode update for the Meltdown and Spectre exploits. The company has issued an updated guidance for customers and partners in this regard.

In a step up towards addressing the spate of privacy concerns surrounding Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing new privacy tools that will enable users to see the exact data being sent as telemetry information.

The darling of the mobile phone enthusiast community is in hot water once again. Less than a week after it was discovered that OnePlus was sending user data to servers in China without permission, the Chinese OEM's merchant platform was compromised. OnePlus has just revealed the full scope of the attack: up to 40,000 users may have had their credit card information stolen.

F-Secure's security researchers discovered another flaw in Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) that a hacker can potentially misuse to gain remote access to a system.

Users of older generation 'Haswell' and 'Broadwell' Intel CPUs are reporting of constant reboots after applying patches to address the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Intel is looking at issuing a revised firmware to address specific issues related to these CPUs.

With the massive vulnerabilities recently discovered in Intel CPUs, the main question on everyone's minds are when affected devices will be updated to guard against possible exploits. Apple is ahead of the game; apparently, the latest versions of their various operating systems protect against Meltdown, and a fix for Spectre is coming to Safari in the next few days. The best part? These mitigations have no perceptible effect on performance.

Recent changes to NVIDIA's EULA prohibits datacenter deployment of their consumer grade GeForce GPUs apart from those used for blockchain processing. This being seen as a move to curb deployment of cost-effective GeForce GPUs for half-precision Deep Neural Network processing.

Armstrong Zoom Internet has sent notices to its users that copyright infringement can lead to speed throttling that not only affects file transfer but also the ability to remotely control connected devices such as smart thermostats and video monitoring services.

Many Android games have been found to track the user's TV viewing habits for displaying ads. The games use software from Alphonso that collects data from the phone's microphone, identifies the audio stream, and displays targeted advertising.

Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato have emerged victorious in the legal battle against Apple in naming their brand after Steve Jobs. Their company currently produces clothing and plans to enter into electronics very soon.

In emails to The Verge, HTC and Motorola have clarified that they do not slow down phones as the batteries start wearing out. This comes in the wake of Apple's now controversial policy of slowing down phones with ageing batteries.

A Google security researcher has discovered that the included third-party password manager in Windows 10, Keeper, comes with a security vulnerability that injects privileged UI into web apages that exposes a user's passwords.

Some Firefox users recently found an unwarranted add-on installed in their browsers. The add-on, which is a page tool tied to the popular online show "Mr. Robot," was installed for some users that are a part of Mozilla's Studies program. While not malicious, the add-on was installed without the users' knowledge and raised some alarm from fervent Mozilla fans.

The Indian Intelligence Bureau has directed its border troops to format their smartphones and delete a number of specified apps, citing the reason as a discovered data trail leading from these apps to China.

HP stealthily replaced the "Touchpoint Manager" app with a new version called "Touchpoint Analytics Service", causing full CPU usage on its clients' systems and syphoning user data.

The US Federal Communications Commission is set to cast a vote that will repeal the Net Neutrality laws that keep the Internet fun for everyone. American or not, it's time you had a say in this matter. Let your voice be heard today.

Children's smartwatches have been found to have glaring security holes, some of which can present a serious threat to the safety of the children that wear them. These security issues, along with privacy concerns, have led German officials to ban the sale of children's smartwatches.

OnePlus has dropped the ball yet again, with a user discovering a data siphon that sends his private phone information and logs to a remote OnePlus server.