"Facebook has apologized after a Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli police for a post saying 'good morning' that its automatic-translation service erroneously translated as 'attack them' in Hebrew and 'hurt them' in English."
"Google received 48,941 requests for data from 83,345 accounts and produced user information for 65 percent of requests. About half the requests come from the US government. Other major sources of requests include Germany, France, and the UK."
"The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it had approved the application of Alphabet Inc—the company that runs Google—to provide the service in emergency circumstances."
"Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted a screenshot of Paul’s 'Liberty Report' page showing that his videos had been labeled 'not suitable' for all advertisers by YouTube's content arbiters. Assange claims that Paul was being punished for speaking out about President Donald Trump’s decision to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, after Paul published a video on the subject earlier this week."
"Tens of thousands of kids are abducted in China every year and are either sold to foster parents or to more sinister individuals who'd use them for prostitution or child slavery. Baobeihuijia was created to reunite families torn apart by those abductions. For years, its volunteers would painstakingly compare images uploaded by parents against those uploaded by people looking for their families or by concerned citizens one by one. This March, though, Baidu offered the group its cross-age facial recognition technology, which it's been testing since November last year." Continue reading →
"Last month, the Department of Justice charged a Lithuanian man for fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering after documents revealed he scammed two major tech companies for over $100 million by masquerading as a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer. A Fortune report this week identified those two affected companies as Facebook and Google." Continue reading →
"Facebook is not allowed to tell their users that law enforcement is taking their data. And Facebook is not allowed to challenge these orders on behalf of their users. So in true kangaroo court fashion, the only people able to challenge the government are those forbidden from being told that the government is investigating them. Well isn’t that convenient for prosecutors. How are gag orders even Constitutional? You would think things like free speech and the right to know your accuser might cover that. But again, the government plays by no rules." Continue reading →
"West Coast venture capitalists see Visa as an oligopolistic dinosaur and are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into rivals that use bitcoin. Meanwhile, banks, which collect the bulk of the fees from merchants, are warily eyeing Visa’s efforts to bypass them and forge direct relationships with retailers by offering one-click internet transactions and providing data on consumer behaviour that only Visa possesses. None of which seems to faze Visa’s chief executive, Charlie Scharf. In time, he says, would-be Visa disruptors all discover—just as internet upstarts PayPal, Square and Uber did—that it is simply easier and more economical to work with his leviathan than fight it." Continue reading →
"Pay instantly and get paid instantly. It’s just how payments in the modern world should work. No more loading your account, no more typing in your card information. Simple and quick checkouts are just one benefit to building a new network, working with great developers and great retailers is another. On Dwolla’s network, there are no plastic cards, no terminals, no complicated reseller agreements, and no card data that could be left behind. Just the internet…simple. Credit, is now a feature. Dwolla Credit, provided by our friends at Comenity Capital bank, owned by Alliance Data (NYSE: ADS), is making this all possible. I’m exceptionally proud of the work both of our teams have done." Continue reading →
"An identity theft service that sells Social Security numbers, birth records, credit and background reports on millions of Americans has infiltrated computers at some of America’s largest consumer and business data aggregators, according to a seven-month investigation by KrebsOnSecurity. All three victim companies said they are working with federal authorities and third-party forensics firms in the early stages of determining how far the breaches extend, and whether indeed any sensitive information was accessed and exfiltrated from their networks. The intrusions raise major questions about how these compromises may have aided identity thieves." Continue reading →