Tag Archives: Technology

Who Is Building the Private, Peer-to-Peer Marketplace?

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“Online commerce today is mostly centralized; companies own websites where users visit to buy and sell things. Those companies charge fees, monitor their users’ data, and censor their transactions based on their own rules and on behalf of the government.  OpenBazaar is different. Instead of relying on a centralized third party, trades occur directly between buyers and sellers. Users install peer-to-peer software on their computers, similar to bitcoin or BitTorrent, and this connects them to other users running the same software. They transact in bitcoin. Since there’s no middleman, there are no fees, no collection of data, and no censorship of trade.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/who-is-building-the-private-peer-to-peer-marketplace

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The War on the Gig Economy Has Begun: Homejoy Is the First Casualty

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“As of July 31, Homejoy is gone. The ‘Uber-for-home-cleaning’ is closing its virtual doors after three years of service, millions of VC dollars, and the endorsement of all kinds of Silicon Valley darlings.  Homejoy was being hit with the same employee/contractor lawsuits that Uber and Lyft are currently fighting in California. In a moment of clarity, the Homejoy CEO blamed their shutdown on these lawsuits.  This is a dangerous moment for the so-called ‘gig economy’ and clearly the Homejoy owners and investors thought it wasn’t worth the fight. Better to cash out now and fight/create another day.”

http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/detail/the-war-on-the-gig-economy-has-begun-homejoy-is-the-first-casualty

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Investors in Hot IPOs Are Overlooking Some Serious Risks

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“Would you buy stock in a company that doesn’t regularly record its debits and credits? Or one that admits it lacks accounting skills? How about one that couldn’t account for some of its expenses?  Apparently you would.  About 30% of companies that went public last year acknowledged they were at serious risk of incorrectly reporting their financial information, according to a study by Proskauer Rose LLP. That’s up from 17% of issuers in 2013, the study shows.  Yet investors weren’t bothered. The 32 companies — from GrubHub Inc. to GoPro Inc. — that reported material weaknesses in their accounting systems last year have surged an average of 42% since their stock debuts.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-01/who-cares-that-ipos-lack-accounting-standards-nobody-really

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The Spy in Your Pocket

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“Because they merely obtained business records from a third party, the court says that the police didn’t invade Davis’s privacy.  Because there wasn’t a ‘search,’ the Fourth Amendment didn’t even apply.  Despite the court’s logic, something about this case still makes many observers feel uneasy. Even AT&T filed a brief in the case, arguing that the government’s actions were illegal. We all turn over huge amounts of information to third parties every day, and almost all of our activities can be tracked through our ‘smart’ devices. And as the amount of data that businesses collect on us grows, so do concerns over the government’s ability to access that data.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/the-spy-in-your-pocket

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Hackers Can Use Your Car to Kill You

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“The FBI denied investigating Hastings. Maybe the journalist who took down one top general and elevated another just happened to fall asleep at the wheel. We can’t know for sure what happened to Hastings. We do know for sure that it is now technically possible to take control of a vehicle and make it do undesirable things, like crash into palm trees at high speed. The hackers profiled in the Wired report are surely not the only ones with this ability. It’s no stretch to imagine that CIA and Pentagon experts have the same skill. Would they use it to silence a critic? Maybe they already did.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36441/Hackers-Can-Use-Your-Car-to-Kill-You/

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950 million Android phones can be hijacked by malicious text messages

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“Almost all Android mobile devices available today are susceptible to hacks that can execute malicious code when they are sent a malformed text message or the user is lured to a malicious website.  The vulnerability resides in an Android code library that processes several widely used media formats. The most serious exploit scenario is the use of a specially modified text message using the multimedia message (MMS) format. All an attacker needs is the phone number of the vulnerable Android phone. From there, the malicious message will surreptitiously execute malicious code on the vulnerable device with no action required by the end user and no indication that anything is amiss.”

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/950-million-android-phones-can-be-hijacked-by-malicious-text-messages/

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Stop CISA, Broad “Cybersecurity” Surveillance Legislation

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“How do you kill a zombie bill like CISA? Grassroots action. That’s why EFF and over a dozen other groups are asking you to join us in a Week of Action to Stop CISA.  The Senate is likely to vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) in the coming weeks, and only you can help us stop it.  CISA is fundamentally flawed because of its broad immunity clauses for companies, vague definitions, and aggressive spying powers. Combined, they make the bill a surveillance bill in disguise. The bill may even make things worse for Internet users in several ways. That’s why we’re launching a week of action to make sure Congress is getting the message loud and clear:  CISA must not pass.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/stop-cisa-join-eff-week-action-opposing-cyber-spying-0

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Butt dialers beware: If you don’t lock your phone, it’s OK to eavesdrop

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“The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that if you accidentally call someone and don’t take reasonable steps to prevent it, you don’t have an expectation of privacy if that person listens in.  Kentucky executive James Huff accidentally called his assistant for over 90 minutes—and she listened in on an in-person conversation he was having. In this case, the court specifically found that Huff could not sue the assistant for violating a federal wiretap law. This was largely because Huff was aware of steps that he could have taken to prevent a pocket dial, such as locking the phone.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/butt-dialers-beware-if-you-dont-lock-your-phone-its-ok-to-eavesdrop/

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Movie studios keep mistakenly reporting their own servers for piracy

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“Scanning through the takedown notices posted to ChillingEffects.org, reporters at The Next Web noticed something strange and frankly sort of embarrassing. In a piracy takedown notice sent to Google last week, Universal Pictures France listed a local address (127.0.0.1:4001) as the illegal source for a copy of Jurassic World — ratting out their own computer for piracy and demanding Google delist it from public search rankings. Basically, they found their own movie on their own system and ran screaming to Google about film piracy.  It turns out, this happens all the time. TNW dug up more than a hundred other cases dating back years, using a simple ‘localhost’ search.”

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/23/9025841/studio-piracy-scan-chililng-effects

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Jeep owners urged to update their cars after hackers take remote control

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“Security experts are urging owners of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles vehicles to update their onboard software after hackers took control of a Jeep over the internet and disabled the engine and brakes and crashed it into a ditch.  A security hole in FCA’s Uconnect internet-enabled software allows hackers to remotely access the car’s systems and take control. The Uconnect hack affects driving systems from the GPS and windscreen wipers to the steering, brakes and engine control.  The security researchers notified Fiat Chrysler nine months ago.  The update requires users to manually update their cars by visiting the manufacturer’s site, downloading a programme on to a flash drive and inserting it.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/21/jeep-owners-urged-update-car-software-hackers-remote-control

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