Florida city pays $600,000 ransom to save computer records – AP
https://apnews.com/0762caec21874fc09741abbdec0f78ab
The Riviera Beach City Council voted unanimously this week to pay the hackers’ demands, believing the Palm Beach suburb had no choice if it wanted to retrieve its records, which the hackers encrypted.
Spotify now allows advertisers to specifically target podcast listeners - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/17/18681978/spotify-podcast-ad-targeting-launch
unlike before, where advertisers could mainly target Spotify’s free-tier listeners by the music they enjoy — by genre/playlist — they can now target based on the category of podcast they consume
With the infrastructure for ubiquitous surveillance being deployed at scale, we have lost “ambient privacy”: everyday interactions that should stay unremembered (Maciej Ceglowski / Idle Words)
Samsung TVs should be regularly virus-checked, the company says - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48664251
Samsung previously raised eyebrows about the security of its smart TVs[…] when it warned customers not to discuss personal information in front of the displays as they could transmit it to third parties.
Huawei’s lock screen ads were a mistake, but may be a sign of things to come - Digital Trends
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/huawei-and-honor-phones-ads-on-lock-screen-explained/
A widely used infusion pump can be remotely hijacked, say researchers - TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/13/alaris-infusion-pump-security-flaws/
These devices control the dispensing of intravenous fluids and medications, like painkillers or insulin.
Google confirms that advanced backdoor came preinstalled on Android devices - Ars Technica
Criminals in 2017 managed to get an advanced backdoor preinstalled on Android devices before they left the factories of manufacturers, Google researchers confirmed on Thursday.
Spotify pursues emotional surveillance for global profit
https://thebaffler.com/downstream/big-mood-machine-pelly
Spotify’s enormous access to mood-based data is a pillar of its value to brands and advertisers, allowing them to target ads on Spotify by moods and emotions.
Når statens sikkerhetstiltak truer oss – NRKBeta
https://nrkbeta.no/2019/06/11/nar-statens-sikkerhetstiltak-truer-oss/
Et ondsinnet cyberangrep har ført til at en database fra den amerikanske Tolletaten kom på avveie. Hendelsen får meg til å lure: Hva skjer når informasjon myndighetene lagrer om oss kommer i hendene på ukjente?
Does the news reflect what we die from? - Our World in Data
https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die-from
The Making of a YouTube Radical - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html
At WWDC, Apple Furthers Its Privacy Lead — Pixel Envy
Can tracking people through phone-call data improve lives? – Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01679-5
with just four data points per person, 95% of 1.5 million callers in an anonymized mobile-phone data set can be identified
Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions Into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html
After Boeing removed one of the sensors from an automated flight system on its 737 Max, the jet’s designers and regulators still proceeded as if there would be two.
As the Tiananmen anniversary nears, censorship by Chinese internet companies has ramped up and is largely automated with AI and voice and image recognition tech - Reuters
Neal Stephenson Explains His Vision of the Digital Afterlife - PCMag.com
https://www.pcmag.com/news/368417/neal-stephenson-explains-his-vision-of-the-digital-afterlife
Neal Stephenson’s new book, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, is out June 4, and we spoke to him about this sprawling sci-fi epic, the digital afterlife, and why social media is a doomsday machine.
Can “Indie” Social Media Save Us? - The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/can-indie-social-media-save-us
Google stored some passwords in plain text for fourteen years - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/21/18634842/google-passwords-plain-text-g-suite-fourteen-years
Only affects some G Suite customers
it can’t find any evidence that anybody’s password was improperly accessed. It’s resetting any passwords that might be affected
Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/