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A.G. William Barr Wants Tech Companies to Fight Child Sexual Abuse

Andrew Orr ·

Attorney General William Barr wants tech companies like Apple to fight online child sexual abuse even more with “voluntary standards.”

These voluntary principles are built on existing industry efforts to combat these crimes.  Some leading companies have dedicated significant resources to develop and deploy tools in the fight to protect children online and to detect, disrupt and identify offenders.  Although significant progress has been made, there is much more to be done to strengthen existing efforts and enhance collective action.

First, as I discovered last year Apple started to scan online iCloud content for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Many other companies do the same. Second, although encryption wasn’t explicitly mentioned, this is undoubtedly (in my opinion) a new development in the war on encryption. Child predators are one of the scary boogeymen used by the government to erode our privacy even further. I of course do support Apple scanning for this content, but it’s not a black and white issue.

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More Details of How Uyghur Muslims Are Exploited in Tech Supply Chains Emerge

Charlotte Henry ·

Earlier this week, I reported on research by an Australian think tank that highlighted how Uyghur Muslims in China were being exploited, maltreated, and used in the manufacturing of products. Apple is one of the companies whose supply chain was cited in the report. Now, the Associated Press has published further on-the-ground reporting about the exploitation of this minority during the making of tech products. Apple is again one of the firms mentioned, along with the likes of Lenovo and Huawei.

OFILM’s website indicates the Xinjiang workers make screens, camera cover lenses and fingerprint scanners. It touts customers including Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, LG and Huawei, although there was no way for the AP to track specific products to specific companies. Apple’s most recent list of suppliers, published January last year, includes three OFILM factories in Nanchang. It’s unclear whether the specific OFILM factory the AP visited twice in Nanchang supplies Apple, but it has the same address as one listed. Another OFILM factory is located about half a mile away on a different street. Apple did not answer repeated requests for clarification on which factory it uses. In an email, Apple said its code of conduct requires suppliers to “provide channels that encourage employees to voice concerns.” It said it interviews the employees of suppliers during annual assessments in their local language without their managers present, and had done 44,000 interviews in 2018.

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Twitter Tests Tweets That Disappear After 24 Hours

Andrew Orr ·

Twitter is testing a new feature called “fleets” which are tweets that disappear after 24 hours.

According to Twitter, an initial survey of users showed they would be more comfortable “sharing everyday thoughts” if they disappear after 24 hours.

Like tweets, Twitter fleets are based primarily on text, but you also can include videos, GIFs or photos in them. Users’ fleets will appear at the top of their home page and visible to their followers. Other users can reply to a fleet via private direct message or with an emoji.

It sounds like a good idea on the surface, but given that Twitter is a dumpster fire, you can imagine hateful tweets, political lies, etc. all disappearing from the public record. Of course, people can just screenshot them.

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Someone Hacked J.Crew Last Spring and we Only Find Out Today

Andrew Orr ·

According to a notice [PDF] from J.Crew, someone hacked the company last year. For some reason we’re only finding out about it today, a year later.

“The information that would have been accessible in your jcrew.com account includes the last four digits of credit card numbers you have stored in your account, the expiration dates, card types, and billing addresses connected to those cards, and order numbers, shipping confirmation numbers, and shipment status of those orders,” J.Crew’s data breach notification explains.

You know, sometimes when I write about this stuff, like Facebook doing every bad thing under the sun with our data, I stop and think: “Am I just a cynical a**hole?” Then, when yet another idiot company has a data breach, I realize, no I’m just reporting reality. These companies deserve to be named and shamed.

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U.S. Lawmakers Urge UK to Rethink Huawei 5G Involvement

Charlotte Henry ·

Senior U.S Senators have once again urged the British government to not give Huawei any role in the development of the country’s 5G network, Sky News reported. In total, 20 lawmakers from both parties signed the open letter.

In a letter to MPs, the group of US politicians – including both Democrats and Republicans – expressed their “significant concern” with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to hand the Chinese company an infrastructure role. Critics allege Huawei has close links to the Chinese government and its equipment could be used for espionage purposes – something the company has always denied. US President Donald Trump has put trade restrictions on Huawei and previously suggested future intelligence-sharing cooperation with America’s “Five Eyes” allies – the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – could be put at risk if the UK worked with the firm.

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Police Chased Criminals Using 'Find My' App

Charlotte Henry ·

We’ve heard a number of stories about how the Apple Watch has alerted people suffering from a heart condition, potentially saving their lives. Now it seems, Apple products are helping fight crime. The Sydney Morning Herald told the story of how the ‘Find My’ app helped police pursue two men, in what ultimately became a fatal police chase.

The victim opened his tracking app, which pinged the iPad, and he began following his stolen Triton. Police called him off before officers tracked the ute and iPad to the Glengala Hotel in Sunshine. The police air wing was called in, but when officers arrived at the scene the ute had been dumped. The iPad, though, began pinging inside the Toyota Kluger. Over the following two hours the men were traced heading to the Sunshine Motor Inn and across the suburb before a brief police pursuit on the Western Ring Road. Police then tracked the Kluger to Tullamarine, Epping, Mernda and Thomastown.

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Twitter Urges Employees to Work From Home

Charlotte Henry ·

In an updated blog post, Twitter encouraged its staff to work from home in a bid to protect them from COVID-19. It became one of the first major U.S. firms to take such a step.

We are working to make sure internal meetings, all hands, and other important tasks are optimized for remote participation. We recognize that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. For those employees who prefer or need to come into the offices, they will remain open for business. Our Real Estate & Workplace team is increasing deep cleaning and sanitizing in all spaces, as well as more visual reminders for personal hygiene best practices and pre-packaged, pre-composed, and pre-plated food options. Working from home will be mandatory for employees based in our Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea offices due in part to government restrictions. Our criteria will evolve over time as we get more information, and we will communicate to affected Tweeps as appropriate.

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Book Publishers Artificially Limit eBook Lending in Libraries

Andrew Orr ·

Major book publishers impose limits on how libraries handle ebooks, with short-term licenses and contracts.

Because only one reader can check out an ebook at a time, and because the cost of licensing an ebook is prohibitively high for libraries to invest in hundreds of copies for every new title, library-goers have become accustomed to long waits to check out ebooks, particularly bestsellers. For publishers, that’s the point. If you have to wait weeks to check out a new ebook, you might just cruise on over to Amazon and pay $14.99 to have it delivered immediately to your Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone.

Expensive college textbooks and dumb eBook rules are two good examples of how ripe for disruption this space is. It’s also shortsighted. The point of digital media is to make it so easy to access that people don’t feel the need to pirate anymore. But practices like this is partly what drives people to pirate.