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'ShadowDragon' Helps Michigan State Police Surveil its Citizens

Andrew Orr ·

An investigation on Thursday shows how Michigan State Police use software called ShadowDragon to collect online data. This helps them identify “persons of interest.”

By providing powerful searches of more than 120 different online platforms and a decade’s worth of archives, the company claims to speed up profiling work from months to minutes. ShadowDragon even claims its software can automatically adjust its monitoring and help predict violence and unrest. Michigan police acquired the software through a contract with another obscure online policing company named Kaseware for an “MSP Enterprise Criminal Intelligence System.”

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Once a Upon a Time, Phones Were Phones. Then the iPhone Came Along

Andrew Orr ·

Vox has launched the newest season of its podcast Land of the Giants. In the first episode they talked to Apple executives about how the iPhone changed everything.

True story. Once upon a time, mobile phones were … phones. You used them to make phone calls. Maybe you’d send some texts, if you were kind of advanced. The iPhone changed all that. And it changed more than the way we used phones: It changed Apple, and it changed culture, and it overturned industries and created new ones. And all of that happened really, really fast: Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone just 14 years ago. But it’s already almost impossible to imagine what life was like before that.

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Mozilla Adds Facebook Messenger, Houseparty, and WeChat to 'Privacy Not Included' Guide

Andrew Orr ·

In a review of the privacy features of 21 popular video call apps, Mozilla said Apple’s FaceTime is safe, while WeChat, Houseparty, and Facebook Messenger are not.

Says Jen Caltrider, *Privacy Not Included Lead at Mozilla: Video call apps are now a routine part of millions of people’s lives. And even when the pandemic recedes, that won’t change. In this new world, people deserve to know if the apps they’re using everyday respect their privacy — or if they’re snooping on them. While video call apps may feel more intimate than social media platforms, there’s still a ton of data being collected, stored, and shared. For that reason, users should assume that anything they say on a video call app could be made public.

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macOS Finder Bug Lets Certain Files Run Arbitrary Commands

Andrew Orr ·

Researcher Park Minchan reported a bug within macOS Finder that lets certain files execute commands. It affects all versions of macOS up to Big Sur.

A vulnerability in the way macOS processes inetloc files causes it to run commands embedded inside, the commands it runs can be local to the macOS allowing the execution of arbitrary commands by the user without any warning / prompts.

Originally, inetloc files are shortcuts to an Internet location, such as an RSS feed or a telnet location; and contain the server address and possibly a username and password for SSH and telnet connections; can be created by typing a URL in a text editor and dragging the text to the Desktop.

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Jon Stewart Explains Why New Apple TV+ Series is Not ‘The Daily Show’

Charlotte Henry ·

Jon Stewart is the cover star in the latest edition of The Hollywood Reporter [available with an Apple News+ subscription]. In an extensive interview, he explains why his new biweekly series coming to Apple TV+ Is very much not The Daily Show.

I like that this is more of a conversation. It’s probably a terrible pitch for the show — “it’s The Daily Show, but less entertaining” — but also maybe more complete. And people will ask, “How are you going to live up to expectations?” Well, I’m not, and I never have. That’s not why we do it. We make things, and sometimes those things disappoint people and sometimes they really like them.

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How Many Times Was The 'Ted Lasso' Intro Music Heard at The Emmys?

Charlotte Henry ·

If you were watching the Emmys on Sunday you probably noticed the Ted Lasso intro music was played a lot. Luckily, Vulture kept score and shared exactly how many times viewers heard that now-famous “yeaaaah.”

Apple TV+’s lovable transatlantic football comedy Ted Lasso went into this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony as a record-breaker, with an unprecedented 20 nominations across various categories. But what the Emmys maybe failed to realize when they heaped those noms upon Ted Lasso was that every time one was announced during the ceremony, some anonymous wielder-of-the-aux (Reggie Watts, perhaps?) played the same few seconds of the show’s music — namely, the most famous yeeeeeeaahh to start off a theme song this side of CSI. So how many times did we hear that ripper of a note by *checks notes* Marcus Mumford? Really???

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Claris Brings 'ECF Records Manager' to K-12 Schools

Andrew Orr ·

On Tuesday, Claris International announced the general availability of ECF Records Manager. It’s an app created to help K-12 schools and libraries meet the requirements of a new US$7 billion federal program to support remote learning.

The FCC’s ECF Program provides more than $7 billion in funding to help K-12 schools and libraries address the homework gap by purchasing tools and services that support remote learning. This program also requires schools and libraries to keep specific device or equipment data as well as user, usage and service information and “any and all” records related to applications for funding and reimbursement payments. Required data and documents must be kept for at least 10 years.