An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Toyota Motor unit Hino Motors has agreed a $1.6 billion settlement with U.S. agencies and will plead guilty over excess diesel engine emissions in more than 105,000 U.S. vehicles, the company and U.S. government said on Wednesday. The Japanese truck and engine manufacturer was charged with fraud in U.S. District Court in Detroit for unlawfully selling 105,000 heavy-duty diesel engines in the United States from 2010 through 2022 that did not meet emissions standards. The settlement, which still must be approved by a U.S. judge, includes a criminal penalty of $521.76 million, $442.5 million in civil penalties to U.S. authorities and $236.5 million to California.

A company-commissioned panel said in a report in 2022 Hino had falsified emissions data on some engines going back to at least 2003. Hino agreed to plead guilty to engaging in a multi-year criminal conspiracy and serve a five-year term of probation, during which it will be barred from importing any diesel engines it has manufactured into the U.S., and carry out a comprehensive compliance and ethics program, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency said. [...] The settlement includes a mitigation program, valued at $155 million, to offset excess air emissions from the violations by replacing marine and locomotive engines, and a recall program, valued at $144.2 million, to fix engines in 2017-2019 heavy-duty trucks

The EPA said Hino admitted that between 2010 and 2019, it submitted false applications for engine certification approvals and altered emission test data, conducted tests improperly and fabricated data without conducting any underlying tests. Hino President Satoshi Ogiso said the company had improved its internal culture, oversight and compliance practices. "This resolution is a significant milestone toward resolving legacy issues that we have worked hard to ensure are no longer a part of Hino's operations or culture," he said in a statement. Toyota's Hino Motors isn't the only automaker to admit to selling vehicles with excess diesel emissions. Volkswagen had to pay billions in fines after it admitted in 2015 to cheating emissions tests by installing "defeat devices" and sophisticated software in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide. Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), BMW, Opel/Vauxhall (General Motors), and Fiat Chrysler have been implicated in similar practices.

U.S. President Joe Biden has issued a comprehensive cybersecurity executive order, four days before leaving office, mandating improvements to government network monitoring, software procurement, AI usage, and foreign hacker penalties.

The 40-page directive aims to leverage AI's security benefits, implement digital identities for citizens, and address vulnerabilities that have allowed Chinese and Russian intrusions into U.S. government systems. It requires software vendors to prove secure development practices and gives the Commerce Department eight months to establish mandatory cybersecurity standards for government contractors.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council held a meeting to discuss the dangers of commercial spyware, which marks the first time this type of software -- also known as government or mercenary spyware -- has been discussed at the Security Council. The goal of the meeting, according to the U.S. Mission to the UN, was to "address the implications of the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware for the maintenance of international peace and security." The United States and 15 other countries called for the meeting. While the meeting was mostly informal and didn't end with any concrete proposals, most of the countries involved, including France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, agreed that governments should take action to control the proliferation and abuse of commercial spyware. Russia and China, on the other hand, dismissed the concerns.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, gave testimony in which he sounded the alarm on the proliferation of spyware made by "a secretive global ecosystem of developers, brokers, middlemen, and boutique firms," which "is threatening international peace and security as well as human rights." Scott-Railton called Europe "an epicenter of spyware abuses" and a fertile ground for spyware companies, referencing a recent TechCrunch investigation that showed Barcelona has become a hub for spyware companies in the last few years.

Representatives of Poland and Greece, countries that had their own spyware scandals involving software made by NSO Group and Intellexa, respectively, also intervened. Poland's representative pointed at local legislative efforts to put "more control, including by the judiciary, on the relevant operational activities of the security and intelligence services," while also recognizing that spyware can be used in a legal way. "We are not saying that the use of spyware is never justified or even required," said Poland's representative. And the Greek representative pointed to the country's 2022 bill to ban the sale of spyware.

Roseltorg, Russia's main electronic trading platform for government and corporate procurement, confirmed it was targeted by a cyberattack claimed by the pro-Ukraine hacker group Yellow Drift. The group allegedly deleted 550 terabytes of data, causing significant operational delays and client concerns. The Record reports: The company initially confirmed last Thursday that its services had been temporarily suspended, without providing further details. In a recent Telegram statement, Roseltorg disclosed that it had been targeted by "an external attempt to destroy data and the entire infrastructure of electronic trading." Roseltorg stated that all data and infrastructure affected by the recent attack had been fully restored, and trading systems are expected to resume operations shortly. However, as of the time of writing, the company's website remains offline.

Last week, the previously unknown pro-Ukraine hacker group Yellow Drift claimed responsibility for the attack on Roseltorg, stating they had deleted 550 terabytes of data, including emails and backups. As proof, the hackers published screenshots from the platform's allegedly compromised infrastructure on their Telegram channel. "If you support tyranny and sponsor wars, be prepared to return to the Stone Age," the hackers said.

The cyberattack on Roseltorg is already impacting clients who rely on the platform's operations, including government agencies, state-owned companies and suppliers. Following the company's announcement, many clients expressed concerns in the comments section, complaining about potential financial losses and delays in the procurement process. Roseltorg said in a statement that once access to the trading systems is reinstated, all deadlines for procedures, including contract signings, will be automatically extended without requiring any requests from users.

Chinese drone maker DJI has removed software restrictions that previously prevented its drones from flying over sensitive areas in the United States, including airports, wildfires, and government buildings like the White House, replacing them with dismissible warnings.

The policy shift comes amid rising U.S. distrust of Chinese drones and follows a recent incident where a DJI drone disrupted firefighting efforts in Los Angeles. The company defended the change, saying drone regulations have matured with the FAA's new Remote ID tracking requirement, which functions like a digital license plate.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil's government. "Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries," Meta told Brazil's Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.

Meta's letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil's AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply. [...] Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10. "Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity." Last Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram -- a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. He likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it "something out of 1984" and let to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."

U.K. public sector and critical infrastructure organizations could be banned from making ransom payments under new proposals from the U.K. government. From a report: The U.K.'s Home Office launched a consultation on Tuesday that proposes a "targeted ban" on ransomware payments. Under the proposal, public sector bodies -- including local councils, schools, and NHS trusts -- would be banned from making payments to ransomware hackers, which the government says would "strike at the heart of the cybercriminal business model."

This government proposal comes after a wave of cyberattacks targeting the U.K. public sector. The NHS last year declared a "critical" incident following a cyberattack on pathology lab provider Synnovis, which led to a massive data breach of sensitive patient data and months of disruption, including canceled operations and the diversion of emergency patients. According to new data seen by Bloomberg, the cyberattack on Synnovis resulted in harm to dozens of patients, leading to long-term or permanent damage to their health in at least two cases.

UK ministers are considering allowing private companies to profit from anonymized NHS data as part of a push to leverage AI for medical advancements, despite concerns over privacy and ethical risks. The Guardian reports: Keir Starmer on Monday announced a push to open up the government to AI innovation, including allowing companies to use anonymized patient data to develop new treatments, drugs and diagnostic tools. With the prime minister and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, under pressure over Britain's economic outlook, Starmer said AI could bolster the country's anaemic growth, as he put concerns over privacy, disinformation and discrimination to one side.

"We are in a unique position in this country, because we've got the National Health Service, and the use of that data has already driven forward advances in medicine, and will continue to do so," he told an audience in east London. "We have to see this as a huge opportunity that will impact on the lives of millions of people really profoundly." Starmer added: "It is important that we keep control of that data. I completely accept that challenge, and we will also do so, but I don't think that we should have a defensive stance here that will inhibit the sort of breakthroughs that we need."

The move to embrace the potential of AI rather than its risks comes at a difficult moment for the prime minister, with financial markets having driven UK borrowing costs to a 30-year high and the pound hitting new lows against the dollar. Starmer said on Monday that AI could help give the UK the economic boost it needed, adding that the technology had the potential "to increase productivity hugely, to do things differently, to provide a better economy that works in a different way in the future." Part of that, as detailed in a report by the technology investor Matt Clifford, will be to create new datasets for startups and researchers to train their AI models.

Data from various sources will be included, such as content from the National Archives and the BBC, as well as anonymized NHS records. Officials are working out the details on how those records will be shared, but said on Monday that they would take into account national security and ethical concerns. Starmer's aides say the public sector will keep "control" of the data, but added that could still allow it to be used for commercial purposes.

Nvidia has hit back at the outgoing Biden administration's AI chip tech export restrictions designed to tighten America's stranglehold on supply chains and maintain market dominance. From a report: The White House today unveiled what it calls the Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion from the Biden-Harris government, placing limits on the number of AI-focused chips that can be exported to most countries, but allowing exemptions for key allies and partners.

The intent is to work with AI companies and foreign governments to initiate critical security and trust standards as they build out their AI infrastructure, but the regulation also makes it clear that the focus of this policy is "to enhance US national security and economic strength," and "it is essential that ... the world's AI runs on American rails." Measures are intended to restrict the transfer to non-trusted countries of the weights for advanced "closed-weight" AI models, and set out security standards to protect the weights of such models. However GPU supremo Nvidia claims the proposed rules are so harmful that it has published a document strongly criticizing the decision.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, in his final interview before stepping down, warned that China poses the greatest long-term threat to U.S. national security, calling it "the defining threat of our generation." China's cyber program has stolen more American personal and corporate data than all other nations combined, Wray told CBS News. He said Chinese government hackers have infiltrated U.S. civilian infrastructure, including water treatment facilities, transportation systems and telecommunications networks, positioning themselves to potentially cause widespread disruption.

"To lie in wait on those networks to be in a position to wreak havoc and can inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing," Wray said. The FBI director, who is leaving his post nearly three years early after President-elect Donald Trump indicated he would make leadership changes, said China has likely accessed communications of some U.S. government personnel. He added that Beijing's pre-positioning on American civilian critical infrastructure has not received sufficient attention.

"The U.K is looking to build a homegrown challenger to OpenAI and drastically increase national computing infrastructure," reports CNBC, "as Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government sets its sights on becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence." The government is primarily seeking to expand data center capacity across the U.K. to boost developers of powerful AI models which rely on high-performance computing equipment hosted in remote locations to train and run their systems. A target of increasing "sovereign," or public sector, compute capacity in the U.K. by twentyfold by 2030 has been set... To further bolster Britain's computing infrastructure, the government also committed to setting up several AI "growth zones," where rules on planning permission will be relaxed in certain places to allow for the creation of new data centers. Meanwhile, an "AI Energy Council" formed of industry leaders from both energy and AI will be set up to explore the role of renewable and low-carbon sources of energy, like nuclear...

Britain plans to use the AI growth zones and a newly established National Data Library to connect public institutions — such as universities — to enhance the country's ability to create "sovereign" AI models which aren't reliant on Silicon Valley... Last month, the government announced a consultation on measures to regulate the use of copyrighted content to train AI models.

As an ecological disaster devastated two coastal California cities, more than 7,500 firefighters pushed back against the wildfires. 900 of them are inmates, reports NPR. That's about 12%: California is one of more than a dozen states that operates conservation camps, commonly known as fire camps, for incarcerated people to train to fight fires and respond to other disasters... There are now 35 such camps in California, all of which are minimum-security facilities... When they are not fighting fires, they also respond to floods and other disasters and emergencies. Otherwise, the crews do community service work in areas close to their camp, according to the state corrections department...

A 2018 Time investigation found that incarcerated firefighters are at a higher risk for serious injuries. They also are more than four times as likely to get cuts, bruises or broken bones compared to professional firefighters working the same fires, the report found. They were also more than eight times as likely to face injuries after inhaling smoke, ash and other debris compared with other firefighters, the report said.
"Two of the camps are for incarcerated women," reports the BBC. One of them — since released — remembers that "It felt like you were doing something that mattered instead of rotting away in a cell," according to the nonprofit new site CalMatters. They can also earn credits that help reduce their prison sentences, the BBC learned from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Friday one local California news report shared the perspective of formerly incarcerated Californian, Matthew Hahn (from a 2021 Washington Post column). "Yes, the decision to take part is largely made under duress, given the alternative. Yes, incarcerated firefighters are paid pennies for an invaluable task. And yes, it is difficult though not impossible for participants to become firefighters after leaving prison," Hahn said. "Despite this, fire camps remain the most humane places to do time in the California prison system."
From that 2021 Washington Post column: California prisons have, on average, three times the murder rate of the country overall and twice the rate of all American prisons. These figures don't take into account the sheer number of physical assaults that occur behind prison walls. Prison feels like a dangerous place because it is. Whether it's individual assaults or large-scale riots, the potential for violence is ever-present. Fire camp represents a reprieve from that risk. Sure, people can die in fire camp as well — at least three convict-firefighters have died working to contain fires in California since 2017 — but the threat doesn't weigh on the mind like the prospect of being murdered by a fellow prisoner. I will never forget the relief I felt the day I set foot in a fire camp in Los Angeles County, like an enormous burden had been lifted...

[When his 12-man crew was called to fight the Jesusita Fire], the fire had ignited one home's deck and was slowly burning its way to the structure. We cut the deck off the house, saving the home. I often fantasize about the owners returning to see it still standing, unaware and probably unconcerned that an incarcerated fire crew had saved it. There was satisfaction in knowing that our work was as valuable as that of any other firefighter working the blaze and that the gratitude expressed toward first responders included us.

There are other reasons for prisoners to choose fire camp if given the opportunity. They are often located in secluded natural settings, giving inmates the chance to live in an environment that doesn't remotely resemble a prison. There are no walls, and sometimes there aren't even fences. Gun towers are conspicuously absent, and the guards aren't even armed.... [C]onsider the guy pushing a broom in his cell block making the equivalent of one Top Ramen noodle packet per day, just so he can have the privilege of making a collect call to his mother. Or think of the man scrubbing the streaks out of the guards' toilets, making seven cents an hour, half of which goes to pay court fees and restitution, just so he can have those couple of hours outside his cage for the day...

So, while we may have faced the heat of a wildfire for a few bucks a day, and we may have saved a few homes and been happy doing so, understand that we were rational actors. We wanted to be there, where some of our dignity was returned to us.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: Russia fined TikTok for not removing prohibited content. The results of a presidential election in Romania were thrown out over concerns the app had been used to spread foreign influence. Albania banned TikTok for a year following the stabbing death of a teenager by another one after the two quarreled online... That was all in just the last month...

TikTok has confronted legal and political scrutiny around the world in recent years, facing outright or partial bans in at least 20 countries, as governments have grown alarmed by its ties to China and its wide influence, especially among young people... [A]s TikTok's algorithm captured attention spans around the world, it alarmed lawmakers, who say TikTok has quickly turned from a domain of cat videos and dance trends into a potentially disruptive social, political and economic force. Officials from Montana to New Zealand have warned that TikTok could be used to incite violence, spread false information and worsen mental health. Lawmakers also worry TikTok could share user data like location and browsing history with the Chinese government. Young people need to be protected from "the frightening pitfalls of the algorithm," [Albania prime minister Edi] Rama said.
TikTok lost its largest audience (India) "after India's simmering geopolitical conflict with China boiled over into hand-to-hand combat along their shared border" — resulting in a total ban in the world's single most-populous country. And the article notes TikTok is also blocked on government devices in Taiwan, Britain, Australia, France, and Canada, "as well as the executive arm of the European Union and New Zealand's Parliament..."

But "Despite the mounting scrutiny, TikTok remains incredibly popular worldwide. More than a billion people use the app every month."

Friday America's consumer watchdog agency "proposed a rule to give virtual video game currencies protections similar to those of real-world bank accounts..." reports the Washington Post, "so players can receive refunds or compensation for unauthorized transactions, similar to how banks are required to respond to claims of fraudulent activity." The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking public input on a rule interpretation to clarify which rights are protected and available to video game consumers under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. It would hold video game companies subject to violations of federal consumer financial law if they fail to address financial issues reported by customers. The public comment period lasts from Friday through March 31. In particular, the independent federal agency wants to hear from gamers about the types of transactions they make, any issues with in-game currencies, and stories about how companies helped or denied help.

The effort is in response to complaints to the bureau and the Federal Trade Commission about unauthorized transactions, scams, hacking attempts and account theft, outlined in an April bureau report that covered banking in video games and virtual worlds. The complaints said consumers "received limited recourse from gaming companies." Companies may ban or lock accounts or shut down a service, according to the report, but they don't generally guarantee refunds to people who lost property... The April report says the bureau and FTC received numerous complaints from players who contacted their banks regarding unauthorized charges on Roblox. "These complaints note that while they received refunds through their financial institutions, Roblox then terminated or locked their account," the report says.

While CES wraps up this week, "Not all innovation is good innovation," warns Elizabeth Chamberlain, iFixit's Director of Sustainability (heading their Right to Repair advocacy team). So this year the group held its fourth annual "anti-awards ceremony" to call out CES's "least repairable, least private, and least sustainable products..." (iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens mocked a $2,200 "smart ring" with a battery that only lasts for 500 charges. "Wanna open it up and change the battery? Well you can't! Trying to open it will completely destroy this device...") There's also a category for the worst in security — plus a special award titled "Who asked for this?" — and then a final inglorious prize declaring "the Overall Worst in Show..."

Thursday their "panel of dystopia experts" livestreamed to iFixit's feed of over 1 million subscribers on YouTube, with the video's description warning about manufacturers "hoping to convince us that they have invented the future. But will their vision make our lives better, or lead humanity down a dark and twisted path?" The video "is a fun and rollicking romp that tries to forestall a future clogged with power-hungry AI and data-collecting sensors," writes The New Stack — though noting one final irony.

"While the ceremony criticized these products, YouTube was displaying ads for them..."

UPDATE: Slashdot reached out to iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens, who says this teaches us all a lesson. "The gadget industry is insidious and has their tentacles everywhere."

"Of course they injected ads into our video. The beast can't stop feeding, and will keep growing until we knife it in the heart."

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland summarizes the article: "We're seeing more and more of these things that have basically surveillance technology built into them," iFixit's Chamberlain told The Associated Press... Proving this point was EFF executive director Cindy Cohn, who gave a truly impassioned takedown for "smart" infant products that "end up traumatizing new parents with false reports that their baby has stopped breathing." But worst for privacy was the $1,200 "Revol" baby bassinet — equipped with a camera, a microphone, and a radar sensor. The video also mocks Samsung's "AI Home" initiative which let you answer phone calls with your washing machine, oven, or refrigerator. (And LG's overpowered "smart" refrigerator won the "Overall Worst in Show" award.)

One of the scariest presentations came from Paul Roberts, founder of SecuRepairs, a group advocating both cybersecurity and the right to repair. Roberts notes that about 65% of the routers sold in the U.S. are from a Chinese company named TP-Link — both wifi routers and the wifi/ethernet routers sold for homes and small offices.Roberts reminded viewers that in October, Microsoft reported "thousands" of compromised routers — most of them manufactured by TP-Link — were found working together in a malicious network trying to crack passwords and penetrate "think tanks, government organizations, non-governmental organizations, law firms, defense industrial base, and others" in North America and in Europe. The U.S. Justice Department soon launched an investigation (as did the U.S. Commerce Department) into TP-Link's ties to China's government and military, according to a SecuRepairs blog post.

The reason? "As a China-based company, TP-Link is required by law to disclose flaws it discovers in its software to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology before making them public." Inevitably, this creates a window "to exploit the publicly undisclosed flaw... That fact, and the coincidence of TP-Link devices playing a role in state-sponsored hacking campaigns, raises the prospects of the U.S. government declaring a ban on the sale of TP-Link technology at some point in the next year."

TP-Link won the award for the worst in security.

An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN: New intelligence has led two US intelligence agencies to conclude that it's possible a small number of mysterious health ailments colloquially termed as Havana Syndrome impacting spies, soldiers and diplomats around the world may have been caused by a "novel weapon" wielded by a foreign actor, according to intelligence officials and a new unclassified summary report released on Friday. However, the two agencies are in the minority and the broader intelligence community assessment remains that it is very unlikely that the symptoms were caused by a foreign actor, according to the unclassified report summary issued Friday — even as an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [ODNI] emphasized that analysts cannot "rule out" the possibility in some small number of cases.

The subtle, technocratic shift in the assessment over the cause of Havana Syndrome has reignited a bitter debate that has split US officials, Capitol Hill and victims over the likelihood that the bizarre injuries were caused by a weapon or a host of disparate, natural causes. Sometime in the last two years, the US received new intelligence that indicated a foreign nation's directed energy research programs had been "making progress," according to the official. That led one unnamed intelligence agency to assess that there was a "roughly even chance" that a foreign country has used some kind of novel weapon against a small group of victims, causing the symptoms that the government officially calls "anomalous health incidents" — headaches, vertigo and even, in some cases, signs of traumatic brain injury. A second intelligence agency assessed a "roughly even" chance that a foreign actor possessed such a weapon but is unlikely to have deployed it against US personnel...

But both judgments were made with low confidence, according to the ODNI official. And critically, possessing a capability is not the same as proof that it has been used.
The article notes that U.S. intelligence and administration officials "do not doubt that the injuries are real and deserving of government compensation." But one official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told CNN "The intelligence does not link a foreign actor to these events. Indeed, it points away from their involvement." And they added that all U.S. Intelligence Community components "agree that years of Intelligence Community collection, targeting and analytic efforts have not surfaced compelling intelligence reporting that ties a foreign actor to any specific event reported" as a possible anomalous health incident.

CNN adds that "the official said some evidence directly contradicts the notion that a foreign government was involved." The White House emphasized that research to determine the causes of the incidents is ongoing... On Friday, officials emphasized that the intelligence community is now supporting lab work on whether radio frequencies can cause "bioeffects" in line with what victims have reported. The latest findings from limited studies have shown mixed results, while previously most results had shown no effects, officials said. A panel of experts assembled by the intelligence community that studied a smaller set of incidents previously found that the symptoms might be explained by "pulsed electromagnetic or acoustic energy," as opposed to environmental or medical conditions. "There was unanimous judgment by the panel that the most plausible explanation for a subset of cases was exposure to directed energy," a second senior administration official said.

But complicating matters for victims and analysts is the fact that not all of those reporting Anomalous Health Incidents have the same set of symptoms — and the vast majority of cases have been explained by other causes, officials have previously said...

"What if they ban TikTok and people keep using it anyway?" asks the New York Times, saying a pending ban in America "is vague on how it would be enforced" Some experts say that even if TikTok is actually banned this month or soon, there may be so many legal and technical loopholes that millions of Americans could find ways to keep TikTok'ing. The law is "Swiss cheese with lots of holes in it," said Glenn Gerstell, a former top lawyer at the National Security Agency and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy research organization. "There are obviously ways around it...." When other countries ban apps, the government typically orders internet providers and mobile carriers to block web traffic to and from the blocked website or app. That's probably not how a ban on TikTok in the United States would work. Two lawyers who reviewed the law said the text as written doesn't appear to order internet and mobile carriers to stop people from using TikTok.

There may not be unanimity on this point. Some lawyers who spoke to Bloomberg News said internet providers would be in legal hot water if they let their customers continue to use a banned TikTok. Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota associate law professor, said he suspected internet providers aren't obligated to stop TikTok use "because Congress wanted to allow the most dedicated TikTok users to be able to access the app, so as to limit the First Amendment infringement." The law also doesn't order Americans to stop using TikTok if it's banned or to delete the app from our phones....

Odds are that if the Supreme Court declares the TikTok law constitutional and if a ban goes into effect, blacklisting the app from the Apple and Google app stores will be enough to stop most people from using TikTok... If a ban goes into effect and Apple and Google block TikTok from pushing updates to the app on your phone, it may become buggy or broken over time. But no one is quite sure how long it would take for the TikTok app to become unusable or compromised in this situation.
Users could just sideload the app after downloading it outside a phone's official app store, the article points out. (More than 10 million people sideloaded Fortnite within six weeks of its removal from Apple and Google's app stores.) And there's also the option of just using a VPN — or watching TikTok's web site.

(I've never understood why all apps haven't already been replaced with phone-optimized web sites...)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, in an appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, criticized the Biden administration for pushing for censorship around COVID-19 vaccines, the media for hounding Facebook to clamp down on misinformation after the 2016 election, and his own company for complying. Zuckerberg's three-hour interview with Rogan gives a clear window into his thinking during a remarkable week in which Meta loosened its content moderation policies and shut down its DEI programs.

The Meta CEO said a turning point for his approach to censorship came after Biden publicly said social media companies were "killing people" by allowing COVID misinformation to spread, and politicians started coming after the company from all angles. Zuckerberg told Rogan, who was a prominent skeptic of the COVID-19 vaccine, that the Biden administration would "call up the guys on our team and yell at them and cursing and threatening repercussions if we don't take down things that are true."

Zuckerberg said that Biden officials wanted Meta to take down a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV, with a joke at the expense of people who were vaccinated. Zuckerberg said his company drew the line at removing "humor and satire." But he also said his company had gone too far in complying with such requests, and acknowledged that he and others at the company wrongly bought into the idea -- which he said the traditional media had been pushing -- that misinformation spreading on social media swung the 2016 election to Donald Trump. Zuckerberg likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it was "something out of 1984" and led to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."

"It really is a slippery slope, and it just got to a point where it's just, OK, this is destroying so much trust, especially in the United States, to have this program." He said he was "worried" from the beginning about "becoming this sort of decider of what is true in the world."

Later in the interview, Zuckerberg praised X's "community notes" program and suggested that social media creators were replacing the government and traditional media as arbiters of truth, becoming "a new kind of cultural elite that people look up to."

Further reading: Meta Is Ushering In a 'World Without Facts,' Says Nobel Peace Prize Winner

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Crypto Briefing: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has been authorized to sell approximately 69,370 Bitcoin seized in connection with the Silk Road darknet marketplace, a haul currently valued at around $6.5 billion, DB News reported Wednesday. The decision is set to end a years-long legal dispute over the BTC stash's ownership. On December 30, a federal judge ruled in favor of the DOJ's request to liquidate the crypto assets, the report said. Battle Born Investments, which had asserted a claim to the Bitcoin stash through a bankruptcy estate, ultimately failed in its bid to delay the sale.

As noted, the group had pursued a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the identity of "Individual X," who initially surrendered Bitcoin, but the effort also proved unsuccessful. Battle Born's legal counsel criticized the DOJ's handling of the case, alleging the department employed "procedural trickery" in its use of civil asset forfeiture to avoid scrutiny. The DOJ, in its arguments before the court, cited Bitcoin's price volatility as motivation for seeking a quick sale of the seized assets. A DOJ spokesperson, when contacted, stated, "The Government will proceed further consistent with the judgment in this case."

The update comes after the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal challenging the seizure of the Bitcoin stash, which was brought by Battle Born last October. The decision likely paved the way for the US government to sell Bitcoin, which was valued at $4.4 billion at the time. The US Marshals Service is expected to manage the liquidation process, which, if confirmed, will be one of the largest sales of seized crypto in history. Further reading: Judge Rejects Man From Retrieving $750 Million of Bitcoin From Landfill

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Some of the world's most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement. The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games likeCandy Crushand dating apps like Tinder to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. Because much of the collection is occurring through the advertising ecosystem -- not code developed by the app creators themselves -- this data collection is likely happening without users' or even app developers' knowledge.

"For the first time publicly, we seem to have proof that one of the largest data brokers selling to both commercial and government clients appears to be acquiring their data from the online advertising 'bid stream,'" rather than code embedded into the apps themselves, Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Silent Push and who has followed the location data industry closely, tells 404 Media after reviewing some of the data. The data provides a rare glimpse inside the world of real-time bidding (RTB). Historically, location data firms paid app developers to include bundles of code that collected the location data of their users. Many companies have turned instead to sourcing location information through the advertising ecosystem, where companies bid to place ads inside apps. But a side effect is that data brokers can listen in on that process and harvest the location of peoples' mobile phones.

"This is a nightmare scenario for privacy, because not only does this data breach contain data scraped from the RTB systems, but there's some company out there acting like a global honey badger, doing whatever it pleases with every piece of data that comes its way," Edwards says. Included in the hacked Gravy data are tens of millions of mobile phone coordinates of devices inside the US, Russia, and Europe. Some of those files also reference an app next to each piece of location data. 404 Media extracted the app names and built a list of mentioned apps. The list includes dating sites Tinder and Grindr; massive games such asCandy Crush,Temple Run,Subway Surfers, andHarry Potter: Puzzles & Spells; transit app Moovit; My Period Calendar & Tracker, a period-tracking app with more than 10 million downloads; popular fitness app MyFitnessPal; social network Tumblr; Yahoo's email client; Microsoft's 365 office app; and flight tracker Flightradar24. The list also mentions multiple religious-focused apps such as Muslim prayer and Christian Bible apps, various pregnancy trackers, and many VPN apps, which some users may download, ironically, in an attempt to protect their privacy. 404 Media's full list of apps included in the data can be found here. There are also other lists available from other security researchers.