Phone maker Apple has updated its developer guidelines to explicitly ban “mining” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The new rules restrict apps that drain battery, generate excessive heat, or put unnecessary strain on device resources — all of which take place in bitcoin mining. “Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed within them, may not run unrelated …
Facebook took moderation action against almost 1.5bn accounts and posts which violated its community standards in the first three months of 2018, the company has revealed. In its first quarterly Community Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook said the overwhelming majority of moderation action was against spam posts and fake accounts: it took action on 837m pieces …
The Guardian reports that United Kingdom and US lawyers have launched a joint class action against Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and two other companies SCL Group Limited and Global Science Research Limited (GSR). for allegedly misusing the personal data of more than 71 million people. The lawsuit claims the firms obtained users’ private information from the …
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered multiple android based malicious cryptocurrency-mining applications being distributed via the Google Play store, with the miners posing as games, sports streaming apps, and VPNs. Some of these have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. While the applications appear to provide legitimate functions, their real purpose is to secretly use …
The Firefox broswer maker has suspended all advertising activities on Facebook following the the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has embroiled the popular social networking site. In a blog post announcing the move, Denelle Dixon, Mozilla’s chief business and legal officer, said: We understand that Facebook took steps to limit developer access to friends’ data beginning …
Facebook’s stock price sunk by more than 7% March 19, following a weekend of Cambridge Analytica backlash against the company, after it was revealed that Trump campaign consultant illicitly harvested the data of up to 50 million Facebook users without their permission. The company has lost $42 billion in value since its close on Friday …
IT security researchers have discovered an android malware which aims at stealing personal data from Android devices, recording live calls and surrounding noises in order to blackmail the victim – Dubbed RedDrop by Wandera researchers, the malware was discovered in 53 applications on third-party app stores including calculators, image editors, languages teaching and space exploration apps. All …
Multiple reports indicate that the encrypted messaging systems Signal and Telegram are suffering downtime in a number of countries. Users of the popular encrypted communications services are reporting outages worldwide, including in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, US, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Reports have flooded across social media, and as there is no downtime or …
The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee has warned that YouTube’s powerful recommendation algorithm may be “optimising for outrageous, salacious and often fraudulent content” or susceptible to “manipulation by bad actors, including foreign intelligence entities”. Senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, made the stark warning after an investigation by the Guardian found that the Google-owned …
Twitter has pushed back after the release of undercover videos in which Twitter employees – primarily senior network security engineer Clay Haynes – are depicted as saying that they “view everything” users post on their servers, including private messages and sexual photos, and that employees are more than happy to participate in a Department of …