~slashdot-your-right | Bookmarks (356)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Delta Air Lines on Friday sued cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in a Georgia state court after a global outage in July caused mass flight cancellations, disrupted travel plans of 1.3 million customers and cost the carrier more than $500 million. Delta's lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court called the faulty software update from CrowdStrike "catastrophic" and...

Apple was handed a victory today by a jury in Delware, which ruled that two of Masimo's smartwatches and chargers "willfully violated Apple's patent rights in smartwatch designs," according to Reuters. The reward? $250 in damages. 9to5Mac reports: Apple previously accused Masimo of using litigation to boost the launch of its own smartwatch product. In October 2022, Apple filed two patent infringement lawsuits against...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this year, we reported on the video game archivists asking for a legal DMCA exemption to share Internet-accessible emulated versions of their physical game collections with researchers. Today, the US Copyright Office announced once again that it was denying that request, forcing researchers to travel to far-flung collections for access to the often-rare physical...

The top U.S. consumer finance watchdog warned businesses about potential legal problems they could face from using new technology such as artificial intelligence or algorithmic scores to snoop on and evaluate their employees. From a report: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday said "invasive" new tools to monitor workers are governed by a law designed to ensure fairness in credit reporting, giving employees...

A government-controlled wallet that had been drained of $20 million on Thursday received most of its funds back Friday, adding another layer of mystery to transactions flagged by blockchain analysts as likely being connected to a high-profile theft. From a report: The pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZachXBT had said in a tweet Thursday that the transfers resembled the playbook of a bad actor. Engaging with...

UnitedHealth Group said a ransomware attack in February resulted in more than 100 million individuals having their private health information stolen. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first reported the figure on Thursday. TechCrunch reports: The ransomware attack and data breach at Change Healthcare stands as the largest known digital theft of U.S. medical records, and one of the biggest data breaches...

The EU Court of Justice ruled in favor of Intel, dismissing the European Commission's appeal and ending a nearly two-decade-long case over allegations that Intel's rebates to computer makers were anticompetitive. Reuters reports: The European Commission had fined Intel for giving rebates to computer makers Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo for buying most of their chips from Intel, which regulators said was an attempt to...

Norway plans to enforce a strict minimum social media age of 15 to protect children from harmful content and the influence of algorithms. The Guardian reports: The Scandinavian country already has a minimum age limit of 13 in place. Despite this, more than half of nine-year-olds, 58% of 10-year-olds and 72% of 11-year-olds are on social media, according to research by the Norwegian media...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek.com: White hat hackers taking part in the Pwn2Own Ireland 2024 contest organized by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) have earned half a million dollars on the first day of the event, for exploits targeting NAS devices, cameras, printers and smart speakers. The highest single reward, $100,000, was earned by Sina Kheirkhah of Summoning Team, who...

A judge has allowed Saudi dissident Yahya Assiri to sue the kingdom for allegedly targeting his devices with Pegasus spyware and other Israeli-made surveillance tools. Reuters reports: Yahya Assiri, a founder of the opposition National Assembly Party (NAAS) who lives in exile in Britain, alleges his electronic devices were targeted with surveillance software between 2018 and 2020. He is suing Saudi Arabia at London's...

A civil liberties group has filed a lawsuit in Virginia arguing that the widespread use of Flock's automated license plate readers violates the Fourth Amendment's protections against warrantless searches. 404 Media reports: "The City of Norfolk, Virginia, has installed a network of cameras that make it functionally impossible for people to drive anywhere without having their movements tracked, photographed, and stored in an AI-assisted...

Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal and Representative Katie Porter are demanding the Justice Department prosecute tax preparation companies for allegedly sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google through tracking pixels. The lawmakers' call follows a Treasury Inspector General audit confirming their earlier investigation into TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and Tax Act. The audit found multiple companies failed to properly obtain consent...

Session, a small but increasingly popular encrypted messaging app, is moving its operations outside of Australia after the country's federal law enforcement agency visited an employee's residence and asked them questions about the app and a particular user. 404 Media reports: Now Session will be maintained by an entity in Switzerland. The move signals the increasing pressure on maintainers of encrypted messaging apps, both...

WordPress sites are being compromised through malicious plugins that display fake software updates and error messages, leading to the installation of information-stealing malware. BleepingComputer reports: Since 2023, a malicious campaign called ClearFake has been used to display fake web browser update banners on compromised websites that distribute information-stealing malware. In 2024, a new campaign called ClickFix was introduced that shares many similarities with ClearFake...

According to an internal Border Patrol memo, nearly one-third of the surveillance cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border don't work. "The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations," reads the memo. NBC News reports: The large-scale outage affects roughly 150 of the 500 cameras perched on surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was due to "several technical problems," according to the...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: A production company for Blade Runner 2049 has sued (PDF) Tesla, which allegedly fed images from the movie into an artificial intelligence image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials. Alcon Entertainment, in a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court, accuses Elon Musk and his autonomous vehicle company of misappropriating the movie's brand to...

News Corp's Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post have sued Perplexity, a startup that calls itself an "AI-powered Swiss Army Knife for information discovery and curiosity," alleging copyright infringement. From a report: "Perplexity is a generative artificial intelligence company that claims to provide its users accurate and up-to-date news and information in a platform that,...

"Who asked for any of this in the first place?" wonders a New York Times consumer-tech writer. (Alternate URL here.) "Judging from the feedback I get from readers, lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in AI — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore." The companies rely on user activity to train and improve their AI...

It connects people, data, and money, Bill Gates wrote this week on his personal blog. But digital public infrastructure is also "revolutionizing the way entire nations serve their people, respond to crises, and grow their economies" — and the Gates Foundation sees it "as an important part of our efforts to help save lives and fight poverty in poor countries." Digital public infrastructure [or...

"Biden forgives more student loans," read Thursday's headline at CNBC. While this time it was $4.5 billion in student debt for over 60,000 public service workers, "The Biden-Harris Administration has approved $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly 5 million borrowers through various actions," according to an announcement from the White House on Thursday. (So the average amount received by each of the...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating farm equipment maker Deere over its repair policies, focusing on whether the company's restrictions on repairs violate customers' "right to repair." Reuters reports: The investigation, authorized on Sept. 2, 2021, focuses on repair restrictions manufacturers place on hardware or software, often referred to by regulators as impeding customers' "right to repair" the goods they purchase. The probe...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new ClickFix campaign is luring users to fraudulent Google Meet conference pages showing fake connectivity errors that deliver info-stealing malware for Windows and macOS operating systems. ClickFix is a social-engineering tactic that emerged in May, first reported by cybersecurity company Proofpoint, from a threat actor (TA571) that used messages impersonating errors for Google Chrome, Microsoft...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hackread: The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted two Sudanese nationals for their alleged role in operating the hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan. The group claimed fame for conducting "tens of thousands" of large-scale and crippling Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS attacks) targeting critical infrastructure, corporate networks, and government agencies globally. Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer,...

The parents of a Massachusetts student are suing his school after he was penalized for using AI in a Social Studies project, claiming it was for research purposes only. The student received a detention and a lower grade, which his parents argue could harm his college prospects. The school is defending its AI policy and fighting to dismiss the case. The Register reports: "The...