The USA's DoJ has released what it wants to see happen after its win in court against Google being a search engine monopoly. The changes include stuff like "potentially requiring Google to share search data with rivals, restricting distribution agreements with browsers like Firefox and device makers like Apple, and breaking off Chrome or Android" and even "spinning off the Chrome browser or restricting Google from preinstalling its search engine as the default in Chrome or on Android devices". Google is against all these ideas and what the judge agrees to is still a while away, but whatever happens its going to be pretty radical for Google unless their appeal comes through.
The Internet Archive got popped. A few hours ago a message appeared when visiting archive.org saying "Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!". The hacker gave HIBP a database containing "authentication information for registered members, including their email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, Bcrypt-hashed passwords, and other internal data". The Internet Archive also suffered a large DDoS attack around the same time. Leave the Internet Archive alone you fucks!
The Cyber Security Bill 2024 got up in Parliament yesterday. According to the press release, the law will "mandate minimum cyber security standards for smart devices, introduce mandatory ransomware reporting for certain businesses to report ransom payments, introduce a 'limited use' obligation for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and establish a Cyber Incident Review Board". Anyone smarter than me had a look at what the "minimum cyber security standards for smart devices" are and what "smart devices" they apply to?
The Australian Child Rights Taskforce has published an open-letter "signed by over 100 Australian academics, 20 world-leading international experts, and 20 Australian civil society organisations regarding the proposals for a social media ban for under 16-year-olds". The opinion of this group of experts is concerned that "Bans affect rights to access and participation, parental consent does not fix unsafe products, parents and carers often are not experts but will still be asked to make informed decisions, implementing a ban effectively remains a challenge, creates even more risks for children who may still use platforms and fails to drive up safety standards on platforms children will be allowed to use". Something to remember when the politicians start making noise about this topic again soon as we head into a federal election.
Apple Marketing ToolKit November 1996 (Sketch the Cow / Internet Archive)
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