Apple told to pay €13bn in back taxes to Ireland Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza Ireland offered Apple huge tax breaks, but didn’t give other companies the same deal. The European Commission concluded this was illegal and the companymust pay up the €13bn it would otherwise have owed in taxes. Deputy PM invites Apple to move int’l … Read more
Update: the Best 37 Torrent Sites Pirate Bay is The King of Torrents Once Again TorrentFreak Hollywood hoped that it would never happen, but this week The Pirate Bay quietly turned thirteen years old. Torrentz Remains Down, But The Clone Wars Are On TorrentFreak by Ernesto Mere hours after Torrentz.eu announced its farewell last week, various clones and … Read more
Here’s how over 400 journalists at dozens of news orgs reported out the massive Panama Papers story Nieman Journalism Lab by Ricardo Bilton Sunday’s report of the Panama Papers detailed a global, decades-long story of bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, and financial fraud that implicates over 100 politicians and public officials. Equally impressive, however, is project … Read more
NSA and GCHQ’s crappy Big Data techniques may be killing thousands of innocents Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Researchers have taken a second look at the NSA SKYNET leaks, as well as theGCHQ data-mining problem book first published on Boing Boing, and concluded that the spy agencies have made elementary errors in their machine-learning techniques, which … Read more
Wikipedia is using artificial intelligence to get more actual humans writing articles The Next Web by Napier Lopez Better artificial intelligence is often associated with the detriment of a human workforce, but judging by some new practices by the team at Wikipedia HQ, it doesn’t have to be that way. Racist algorithms: how Big Data makes bias seem objective Boing … Read more
Signs Point to Unencrypted Communications Between Terror Suspects The Intercept by Dan Froomkin In the wake of the Paris attack, intelligence officials and sympathizers upset by the Edward Snowden leaks and the spread of encrypted communications havetried to blame Snowden for the terrorists’ ability to keep their plans secret from law enforcement. Yet news emerging from … Read more
Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating the Achievements of Women in Technology EFF.org Updates by Annelyse Gelman Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Please join us in commemorating the life of Ada Lovelace by celebrating the achievements – past and present – of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Snowden for drones: The Intercept’s expose on US drone attacks, … Read more
EU top court: NSA spying means US servers are not a fit home for Europeans’ data Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow Historically, US companies have been able to get around the (relatively stringent) European data-protection rules thanks to a “Safe Harbor” agreement between the US and the EU — but Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, … Read more
The US’s Campaign Against Encryption Is Based on Blind Faith in Silicon Valley Stanford Center for Internet and Society by Center for Internet and Society Date published: September 22, 2015 “”The unanimous conclusion—the scientific consensus—in industry, in academia, and even among government experts is that there is a significant security risk associated with facilitating government access … Read more
Mapping How Tor’s Anonymity Network Spread Around the World Wired Top Stories by Andy Greenberg Germany has overtaken the US in total nodes, with France, the Netherlands, and Russia coming close behind. First Detailed Public Map of U.S. Internet Backbone Could Make It Stronger MIT Technology Review Researchers dug through public records to uncover the true shape … Read more
EDRi identifies key challenges to freedom of expression online Yeni Medya On 13 November 2014, EDRi met with the European External Action Service (EEAS) for a civil society consultation on the EU Human Rights Guidelines on Freedom of Expression Online and Offline. The EEAS aims at improving the Guidelines in the future and was seeking input … Read more
The future of wearables: report The Next Web by Andrew Levy There have been a lot of changes to the mobile platform landscape in recent months. Innovative reimaginings of the way we connect with the world, new products and undeniably out-of-the-box features have made it an exciting time for consumers and the industry alike. Library Suspends Tor … Read more
MAIN FOCUS: Dozens of refugees suffocate in lorry | 28/08/2015 euro|topics The Austrian police on Thursday discovered the bodies of more than 70 refugees in a truck abandoned on the hard shoulder of a motorway. Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner has said asylum seekers with a chance of being allowed to stay should be permitted … Read more
EFF Announces 2015 Pioneer Award Winners: Caspar Bowden, Citizen Lab, Anriette Esterhuysen and the Association for Progressive Communications, and Kathy Sierra EFF.org Updates by Rebecca Jeschke Ceremony for Honorees on September 24 in San Francisco San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the distinguished winners of the 2015 Pioneer Awards: the … Read more
Ashley Madison leak 2.0: new dump is twice as large, and includes CEO’s emails Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin Self-proclaimed Ashley Madison hackers the Impact Team today released what looks like another 20 gigabytes of ill-gotten data. The just-dropped “other shoe” includes emails from the cheater-dating website’s CEO. Swarm 3.0, over-gamified, missed its chance with me The … Read more