Yevgeny V. Prigozhin heads the Russia-backed paramilitary Wagner Group — and was also "a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until he launched an alleged coup," according to Wikipedia.

The New York Times notes Prigozhin's remarkable ability to bypass government censorship: Despite years of creeping Kremlin control over the internet, the mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin continued to comment live on Saturday through videos, audio recordings and statements posted on the messaging app Telegram.

His remarkable continued access to a public platform amid a crisis demonstrated both the limits of official restrictions and the rise of Telegram as a powerful mode of communication since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. The app, along with the proliferation of virtual private networks, has effectively loosened the information controls that the Russian authorities had tightened for years.

Russian internet service providers began blocking access to Google News shortly after the authorities accused Mr. Prigozhin of organizing an armed uprising on Friday. But while unconfirmed reports surfaced of Telegram outages in some Russian cities, people within Russia continued to post on the app.
CNN just reported that Prigozhin's paramilitary group "has claimed control of several military facilities and has dispatched some of his troops towards Moscow... Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons have taken up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia, according to photos published by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti Saturday."

UPDATE: CNN now reports Prigozhin "says he is turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow shortly after the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to halt the march."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: By pretending to be legitimate music rightsholders, two men managed to extract over $23 million in revenue from YouTube's content-ID system. Both were arrested, pleaded guilty (PDF), and now face multi-year prison terms. This week, the U.S. requested a 70-month sentence against the 'number two' of the operation, in part to deter future fraud. [...] Last year, one of the defendants confessed to his part in the copyright swindle by pleading guilty. Webster Batista admitted it was a simple scheme: find Latin American music that wasn't yet monetized on YouTube and claim the content as their own. In February of this year, the second defendant pleaded guilty. Jose Teran signed a plea agreement admitting that he was part of the conspiracy, engaging in wire fraud and money laundering.

The Content ID scam was straightforward, Teran's plea agreement revealed. The defendants simply identified unmonetized music and uploaded those songs to YouTube. [W]e discovered there were recorded songs of musicians and bands on the internet that were not being monetized. We began searching and downloading these songs. Once songs were downloaded, Batista would then upload them to Y.T. as mp3 files." "We falsely claimed legal ownership over these songs to receive royalty payments," Teran adds, noting that the scheme brought in millions. To collect these payments Batista launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YouTube Content ID member through a third-party company referred to by the initials A.R. As the scheme grew, more employees were hired and tasked with finding more unmonetized tracks.

Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison. Teran will be the first to be sentenced and this week, the defendant and the prosecution announced their respective positions. According to the defense, Teran wasn't the lead of the operation. As an aspiring musician he looked up to his co-defendant, who is portrayed as the brains behind the operation. [...] Teran and Batista at one point had between five and eight people working for them. These employees used special software to find unmonetized music which they would then add to their catalog, to exploit YouTube's Content ID system. "Defendant, Jose Teran, engaged in a concerted effort -- over nearly five years -- to steal royalty proceeds from approximately 50,000 song titles, causing a loss of more than $23,000,000.00," the prosecution writes (PDF). "A 70-month sentence is undoubtedly substantial but given Mr. Teran's conduct and the need to deter future fraud, it is entirely warranted," the Government's sentencing memorandum concludes.

Reuters reports: U.S. intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said.
America's Director of National Intelligence was responding to March legislation requiring declassification (within 90 days) of any information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (or "WIV") and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. One key finding in the just-released report?

"We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic." The information available to the U.S. Intelligence Community "indicates that the WIV first possessed SARS-CoV-2 in late December 2019, when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes."

And in addition, "All Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon."

Beyond that, the report also emphasizes that "Almost all Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered," adding "Most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination." The National Intelligence Council and four other Intelligence Community agencies assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2...

The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.
The only two outliers appear to be the Department of Energy, which gives "low confidence" support to the lab-leak theory, and the FBI (whose Trump-appointed director "said he couldn't share many details of the agency's assessment because they were classified.")

Addressing rumors online, the report notes that the lab has performed public health-related research with the army, such as work on vaccines and therapeutics. This included working "with several viruses, including coronaviruses, but no known viruses that could plausibly be a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2."

And while several researchers were ill in the fall of 2019, their symptoms "were consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19... [T]he researchers' symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19... [T]hey experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with COVID-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to COVID-19." And there's no indication any of them were ever hospitalized for COVID-19 symptoms.

TeleSign, a U.S.-based fraud prevention company, has allegedly collected data from millions of EU citizens and processed it in the United States using automated tools without their knowledge. The complaint "alleges that TeleSign is in violation of the GDPR's provisions that ban use of automated profiling tools, as well as rules that require affirmative consent be given to process EU citizen's data," reports The Register. From the report: The complaint was filed by Austrian privacy advocacy group noyb, helmed by lawyer Max Schrems, and it doesn't pull any punches in its claims that TeleSign, through its former Belgian parent company BICS, secretly collected data on cellphone users around the world. That data, noyb alleges, was fed into an automated system that generates "reputation scores" that TeleSign sells to its customers, which includes TikTok, Salesforce, Microsoft and AWS, among others, for verifying the identity of a person behind a phone number and preventing fraud.

BICS, which acquired TeleSign in 2017, describes itself as "a global provider of international wholesale connectivity and interoperability services," in essence operating as an interchange for various national cellular networks. Per noyb, BICS operates in more than 200 countries around the world and "gets detailed information (e.g. the regularity of completed calls, call duration, long-term inactivity, range activity, or successful incoming traffic) [on] about half of the worldwide mobile phone users." That data is regularly shared with TeleSign, noyb alleges, without any notification to the customers whose data is being collected and used. "Your phone provider likely forwards data to BICS who then forwards it to TeleSign. TeleSign generates a 'trust score' about you and sells phone data to third parties like Microsoft, Salesforce or TikTok -- without anyone being informed or giving consent," Schrems said. [...]

When BICS acquired TeleSign in 2017, it began to fall under the partial control of BICS' parent company, Belgian telecom giant Proximus. Proximus held a partial stake in BICS, which Proximus spun off from its own operations in 1997. In 2021, Proximus bought out BICS' other shareholders, making it the sole owner of both the telecom interchange and TeleSign. With that in mind, noyb is also leveling charges against Proximus and BICS. In its complaint, noyb said Proximus was asked by EU citizens from various countries to provide records of the data TeleSign processed, as is their right under Article 15 of the GDPR. [...] Noyb is seeking cessation of all data transfers from BICS to TeleSign, processing of said data, and is requesting deletion of all unlawfully transmitted data. It's also asking for Belgian data protection authorities to fine Proximus, which noyb said could reach as high as $257 million -- a mere 4 percent of Proximus's global turnover.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A US judge has fined two lawyers and a law firm $5,000 after fake citations generated by ChatGPT were submitted in a court filing. A district judge in Manhattan ordered Steven Schwartz, Peter LoDuca and their law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman to pay the fine after fictitious legal research was used in an aviation injury claim. Schwartz had admitted that ChatGPT, a chatbot that churns out plausible text responses to human prompts, invented six cases he referred to in a legal brief in a case against the Colombian airline Avianca.

The judge P Kevin Castel said in a written opinion there was nothing "inherently improper" about using artificial intelligence for assisting in legal work, but lawyers had to ensure their filings were accurate. "Technological advances are commonplace and there is nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance," Castel wrote. "But existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings." The judge said the lawyers and their firm "abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted nonexistent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question." Levidow, Levidow & Oberman said in a statement on Thursday that its lawyers "respectfully" disagreed with the court that they had acted in bad faith. "We made a good-faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth," it said.

The US Supreme Court sided with a Coinbase unit in a ruling that reinforces the ability of companies to channel customer and employee disputes into arbitration. From a report: The justices, voting 5-4, ruled that lawsuits filed in federal court must be put on hold while a defendant presses an appeal that would send the case to arbitration. Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said allowing district courts to move forward as the appeal is ongoing would reduce the benefits of arbitration. "If the district court could move forward with pre-trial and trial proceedings while the appeal on arbitrability was ongoing, then many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense, less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost," Kavanaugh wrote. Business groups rallied behind Coinbase in the case, saying that letting litigation go forward would impose unnecessary costs. Consumer advocates said judges should have the discretion to decide which claims should proceed during appeal, as courts do with other areas of the law. Coinbase is battling claims by Abraham Bielski, who said the crypto company should compensate him for $31,000 he lost after he gave a scammer remote access to his account. In a second suit that was before the high court, Coinbase is accused of holding a $1.2 million Dogecoin sweepstakes without adequately disclosing that entrants didn't have to buy or sell the cryptocurrency.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The United Parcel Service (UPS) says fraudsters have been harvesting phone numbers and other information from its online shipment tracking tool in Canada to send highly targeted SMS phishing (a.k.a. "smishing") messages that spoofed UPS and other top brands. The missives addressed recipients by name, included details about recent orders, and warned that those orders wouldn't be shipped unless the customer paid an added delivery fee. In a snail mail letter sent this month to Canadian customers, UPS Canada Ltd. said it is aware that some package recipients have received fraudulent text messages demanding payment before a package can be delivered, and that it has been working with partners in its delivery chain to try to understand how the fraud was occurring.

"During that review, UPS discovered a method by which a person who searched for a particular package or misused a package look-up tool could obtain more information about the delivery, potentially including a recipient's phone number," the letter reads. "Because this information could be misused by third parties, including potentially in a smishing scheme, UPS has taken steps to limit access to that information." The written notice goes on to say UPS believes the data exposure "affected packages for a small group of shippers and some of their customers from February 1, 2022 to April 24, 2023." [...]

In a statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity, Sandy Springs, Ga. based UPS [NYSE:UPS] said the company has been working with partners in the delivery chain to understand how that fraud was being perpetrated, as well as with law enforcement and third-party experts to identify the cause of this scheme and to put a stop to it. "Law enforcement has indicated that there has been an increase in smishing impacting a number of shippers and many different industries," reads an email from Brian Hughes, director of financial and strategy communications at UPS. "Out of an abundance of caution, UPS is sending privacy incident notification letters to individuals in Canada whose information may have been impacted," Hughes said. "We encourage our customers and general consumers to learn about the ways they can stay protected against attempts like this by visiting the UPS Fight Fraud website."

The US government is providing a conditional $9.2 billion loan to Ford for the construction of three battery factories, the largest government backing for a US automaker since the 2009 financial crisis. "The enormous loan [...] marks a watershed moment for President Joe Biden's aggressive industrial policy meant to help American manufacturers catch up to China in green technologies," reports Bloomberg. From the report: The new factories that will eventually supply Ford's expansion into electric vehicles are already under construction in Kentucky and Tennessee through a joint venture called BlueOval SK, owned by the Michigan automaker and South Korean battery giant SK On Co. Ford plans to make as many as 2 million EVs by 2026, a huge increase from the roughly 132,000 it produced last year. The three-factory buildout by BlueOval plus an adjacent Ford EV assembly unit have an estimated price tag of $11.4 billion. BlueOval was previously awarded subsidies by both state governments. That means taxpayers would be providing low-interest financing for almost all of the cost.

Ford's cars and SUVs made with domestic batteries will also be eligible for billions of dollars in incentives embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act's $370 billion in clean-energy funding, part of the historic climate measure narrowly passed into law about a year ago. The US government will subsidize manufacturing of batteries, and buyers could qualify for additional tax rebates of up to $7,500 per vehicle.

The rush of incentives, government lending and private-sector investment has led to a manufacturing boom in the wake of the IRA. More than 100 battery and electric-vehicle production projects are announced or already under construction in the US, representing about $200 billion in total investments. "Not since the advent of the auto industry 100 years ago have we seen an investment like that," says Gary Silberg, KPMG's global automotive sector leader.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: The legal research and public records data broker LexisNexis is providing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with tools to target people who may potentially commit a crime -- before any actual crime takes place, according to a contract document obtained by The Intercept. LexisNexis then allows ICE to track the purported pre-criminals' movements. The unredacted contract overview provides a rare look at the controversial $16.8 million agreement between LexisNexis and ICE, a federal law enforcement agency whose surveillance of and raids against migrant communities are widely criticized as brutal, unconstitutional, and inhumane.

"The purpose of this program is mass surveillance at its core," said Julie Mao, an attorney and co-founder of Just Futures Law, which is suing LexisNexis over allegations it illegally buys and sells personal data. Mao told The Intercept the ICE contract document, which she reviewed for The Intercept, is "an admission and indication that ICE aims to surveil individuals where no crime has been committed and no criminal warrant or evidence of probable cause." While the company has previously refused to answer any questions about precisely what data it's selling to ICE or to what end, the contract overview describes LexisNexis software as not simply a giant bucket of personal data, but also a sophisticated analytical machine that purports to detect suspicious activity and scrutinize migrants -- including their locations.

The document, a "performance of work statement" made by LexisNexis as part of its contract with ICE, was obtained by journalist Asher Stockler through a public records request and shared with The Intercept. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a subsidiary of LexisNexis's parent company, inked the contract with ICE, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, in 2021. The document reveals that over 11,000 ICE officials, including within the explicitly deportation-oriented Enforcement and Removal Operations branch, were using LexisNexis as of 2021. "This includes supporting all aspects of ICE screening and vetting, lead development, and criminal analysis activities," the document says. In practice, this means ICE is using software to "automate" the hunt for suspicious-looking blips in the data, or links between people, places, and property. It is unclear how such blips in the data can be linked to immigration infractions or criminal activity, but the contract's use of the term "automate" indicates that ICE is to some extent letting computers make consequential conclusions about human activity. The contract further notes that the LexisNexis analysis includes "identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize." (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.) "LexisNexis Risk Solutions prides itself on the responsible use of data, and the contract with the Department of Homeland Security encompasses only data allowed for such uses," said LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman. She says the company's work with ICE doesn't violate the law or federal policy.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed new rules to crack down on hidden fees charged by cable and satellite video providers. "My administration's top priority is lowering the cost of living for the middle class, and that includes cracking down on companies' use of junk fees to hide true costs from families, who end up paying more as a result," Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. Ars Technica reports: As Biden noted, the FCC "proposed a new rule that would require cable and satellite TV providers to give consumers the all-in price for the service they're offering up front." The proposed rule would force companies like Comcast, Charter Spectrum, and DirecTV to publish more accurate prices. Biden continued: "Too often, these companies hide additional junk fees on customer bills disguised as "broadcast TV" or "regional sports" fees that in reality pay for no additional services. These fees really add up: according to one report, they increase customer bills by nearly 25 percent of the price of base service."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel first floated pricing transparency rules for the TV services offered by cable and satellite companies in March. That effort took a step forward on Tuesday when the commission approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that seeks public comment on rules that would force video providers to offer accurate prices in advertising. "Consumers who choose a video service based on an advertised monthly price may be surprised by unexpected fees related to the cost of video programming that raise the amount of the bill significantly," the NPRM said. The cable and satellite TV companies' practice of listing "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees separately from the advertised price "can be potentially misleading and interpreted as a government-imposed tax or fee, instead of a company-imposed service fee increase," and make it hard for customers to compare prices across providers, the FCC said.

The docket is available here, and comments will be accepted for 60 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register. The FCC said its proposal "would require cable operators and DBS [direct broadcast satellite] providers to clearly and prominently display the total cost of video programming service." The FCC is also seeking comment on whether it has the authority to impose similar requirements on other types of video providers. But Rosenworcel reportedly said in a congressional hearing that the FCC's authority under US law doesn't extend to streaming services.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: With tens of millions of regular monthly visitors, South Korean piracy site Noonoo TV made powerful enemies. The stand-off reached the boiling point in March when broadcasters formed a new anti-piracy coalition and warned of punishing legal action. Noonoo TV responded by throwing in the towel but after clone site 'Noonoo TV Season 2' appeared online, the government says it will develop an AI anti-piracy system that will stop any 'Season 3' variants in their tracks.

Alongside a promise to work closely with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Korea Communications Commission, and the National Security Agency to protect 'K' content from unlawful distribution, the Ministry of Science says the time is right to enhance manual work carried out by humans with automated systems better suited to the job. "Since the detection and response to illegal sites is currently centered on manual work based on human resources, to overcome this limitation, we plan to develop technology that can automatically detect and verify new versions and substitute sites," the Ministry said. "Online video service (OTT) content is a precious asset created with the blood and sweat of many people. It's a growth engine that will be responsible for the future of our country, so it is very important for mature citizens to refrain from using these illegal sites."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon's warehouse working conditions, which have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, are now at the heart of a congressional probe being led by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a letter (PDF) to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Sanders, who chairs the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said the e-retailer's "quest for profits at all costs" has caused warehouse employees to experience unsafe working environments without access to adequate medical attention.

"Amazon is well aware of these dangerous conditions, the life-altering consequences for workers injured on the job, and the steps the company could take to reduce the significant risks of injury," wrote Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democratic party. "Yet the company has made a calculated decision not to implement adequate worker protections because Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, and you, his successor as Chief Executive Officer, have created a corporate culture that treats workers as disposable."

Sanders called on Jassy to turn over more information related to Amazon's injury and turnover rates, as well as data on its on-site medical clinic, called AMCARE, dating back to 2019. He also asked Jassy to say whether Amazon has, internally or through a third party, examined "the connection between the pace of work of its warehouse workers and the prevalence or cost of injuries at its warehouses." Sanders said Jassy has until July 5 to respond to the inquiry. The HELP committee posted a form on its website seeking testimonials from current and former Amazon employees about their experiences at the company. An Amazon spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with Sanders' claims in the letter. "There will always be ways for our critics to splice data to suit their narrative, but the fact is, we've made progress and our numbers clearly show it," said the spokesperson.

According to a recently discovered patent application, Mastercard plans to develop software optimized for bitcoin and blockchain transactions. The second-largest payment-processing corporation also aims to facilitate crypto-based transactions by reducing connections between virtual asset service providers. Crypto News reports: The trademark application is a fascinating window into Mastercard's plans for the future of digital currency. Details have been revealed about creating a downloadable application programming interface (API) designed to verify transactions inside blockchain networks and ease the handling or trading of cryptocurrency. By standardizing this API software, communication between VASPs may be streamlined and crypto transactions easier. Mastercard wants to set up a platform for financial institutions to exchange customer information to verify compliance. This new step is significant for Mastercard's fast-growing presence in the cryptocurrency sector. The corporation announced its intention to offer a limited number of cryptocurrencies on its network in February 2021.

Trial lawyer Kyle Roche has led an interesting life, according to the New York Times. He once earned $100 million selling bitcoin. He helped win a case against Craig Wright (who claims to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto) through his law firm Roche Freedman. And Roche also founded a startup that lets people bet on the outcome of (civil) lawsuits, "to make access to justice more affordable."

But something very bad for his career happened in January of 2022 when two businessmen flew Roche from Miami to the U.K. to discuss an investment. When he woke up the next morning, Roche said, he felt groggy... The brain fog was odd because he didn't think he'd had all that much to drink. As he flew back to Miami a few days later, Roche couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.

Months passed. Then, one day last summer, Roche's world detonated. A website called Crypto Leaks posted two dozen videos of him that had been secretly recorded during his meetings with Villavicencio and Ager-Hanssen. The videos portrayed Roche and his law firm, Roche Freedman, as being in the pocket of one of their crypto clients [Ava Labs]... In other clips, Roche made it sound like his sole concern, even when representing other clients, was to promote Ava Labs' interests...

One after another, companies that Roche Freedman had sued filed motions to disqualify the firm from their cases. In October, the first of those motions succeeded: A federal judge in New York tossed Roche Freedman from a case it had filed against Tether, the operator of the world's most used "stablecoin." Within days, Roche was forced to resign from the law firm he had founded. With his career in tatters, he said, he enrolled in ethics classes and began to see a therapist.
Roche calls the recorded remarks baseless bluster to impress a prospective investor (and alleges in court there are signs of deep fake alterations). While Roche "was felled by his own loose lips and his overly cozy relationship with a client," the Times reports "he also was the victim of an elaborate international setup." On April 3, 2020, Roche Freedman filed lawsuits seeking class-action status against seven issuers of digital coins, alleging they had pumped what amounted to unregistered securities with false statements and then dumped them, leaving retail investors holding the bag... Those suits were just an opening salvo: Sixteen months later, Roche filed his biggest securities fraud case yet. It alleged that a British entrepreneur, Dominic Williams, and entities he controlled had swindled investors out of billions of dollars by aggressively promoting, and then dumping, a digital coin tied to a grandiose plan to revolutionize computing. Williams had boldly proclaimed that his Internet Computer blockchain — a decentralized network of computers powered by a digital token called ICP — would supplant the big cloud services offered by Amazon and Microsoft and become humanity's primary computing platform. But after an initial surge that briefly made it one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies, ICP had plummeted 92% — a collapse that Roche's lawsuit attributed to "massive" selling by Williams and other insiders. (Williams denied the allegations.)
The Times reports that Roche's prospective investor Ager-Hanssen, "in addition to running his venture capital firm, has long had a sideline digging up dirt on behalf of wealthy clients entangled in business disputes in Britain and Scandinavia. On multiple occasions, he has secretly recorded his targets. For example, in a 2014 interview, he recounted how he had snared the adversary of a Swedish financier with a hidden microphone and boasted that he employed former intelligence officers from the CIA, MI6 and Mossad..." Roche believes them because he thinks he knows who hired Ager-Hanssen: Williams, the British entrepreneur who was the target of Roche Freedman's biggest pump-and-dump lawsuit... On May 12, 2022, Williams wrote on Twitter that he was "coming for" his critics. That was the same day the cryptoleaks.info domain name was registered. That was the same day the cryptoleaks.info domain name was registered. Then, on June 9, 2022, the Crypto Leaks website went live. Billing itself as the defender of "the honest crypto community," it posted two reports that aligned with Williams' interests...

The first espoused a complicated theory about the ICP token crash that Williams had previously floated on Twitter. The second attacked the Times for an article it had published about the crash. Williams tweeted a link to that Crypto Leaks report, calling it "Gobsmacking." The Dfinity Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit that Williams created to oversee his blockchain, has since sued the Times for defamation in New York. The Times is seeking to dismiss the suit. The videos of Roche were the crux of Crypto Leaks' third exposé. After they were published, Williams and Dfinity filed a motion to disqualify Roche Freedman as plaintiffs' counsel in the pump-and-dump lawsuit, saying Roche's comments demonstrated "a disregard for the integrity of the judicial system...."

Last month, the judge overseeing the pump-and-dump case granted Williams' motion and disqualified Freedman Normand Friedland as plaintiffs' counsel.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the nonprofit journalism site, the San Francisco Standard: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved legislation that aims to shore up the city's beleaguered Downtown by filling empty storefronts and expediting the conversion of underused office buildings into housing. The bill is a major component of Mayor London Breed's recovery agenda. Co-sponsored by Board President Aaron Peskin, it amends the city's planning code to expand residential uses and Downtown office conversions. It also streamlines the review of certain projects, among other changes...

Even with speedier project approvals, converting San Francisco office buildings to housing remains a costly endeavor; few developers have explored the option to date. At an April 3 hearing of the board's Land Use Committee, lawmakers outlined the need for multiple reforms to make conversions economically feasible; Supervisor Dean Preston voiced concerns that even those reforms would not accommodate low-income housing. Many say San Francisco's Downtown is currently caught in a "doom loop" driven by economic knock-on effects of the pandemic, including an office vacancy rate approaching 30% and trophy office towers changing hands at deep discounts...

The bill passed Tuesday is one of several legislative efforts to aid Downtown and the city's overall economy. Initiatives have included legislation to delay tax increases for retail, food service and other businesses hit hard by the pandemic, an "Office Attraction Tax Credit" for new companies opening in the city and a program called "Vacant to Vibrant," which provides grants to businesses which open "pop-up" shops and art spaces in Downtown's empty storefronts.

An anonymous reader shared this report from The Penny Hoarder: If you Googled anything between 2006 and 2013, then Google owes you money for violating your privacy. Those are the terms of a class-action lawsuit that Google has settled for $23 million.

How much money does Google owe you? Well, it depends on how many people come forward to claim their share of the settlement. The current estimated payout is about $7.70 per person.

Of course, that number could go up or down before it's all over. If fewer people than expected file claims, the payout amount will go up. But if more people than expected file claims, the payout amount will go down because more people are sharing the settlement money... The deadline to file a claim is July 31...

Basically, the class-action lawsuit alleges that Google Search "improperly shared your search queries with third-party websites and companies" during the time period in question. This has to do with how Google allegedly included your search query in the link that's created whenever you click on a website in a Google search. This involves something called a "referrer header."

Even though Google settled the case, it still denies any wrongdoing or liability. As part of the lawsuit settlement, Google is updating its FAQ page.
Some interesting history from SFGate: The lawsuit was filed in 2010 over allegations that Google shared its users' search terms with third-party websites based on its use of referrer headers, which essentially shows websites how a user found them. In 2015, the case reached an $8.5 million settlement in the Northern District of California, with a vast majority of the settlement going to a collection of internet privacy groups, because the amount allocated for each individual would have been mere pennies. But the case was brought all the way up to the Supreme Court after Ted Frank, a conservative activist and vocal class action suit critic, disputed the settlement being sent to those nonprofit groups instead of the users affected by the suit. In 2019, the case made its way back down to the district court, where the preliminary settlement was approved in 2022...

The final approval hearing for the settlement, which includes whether the class action representatives will receive $5,000 and the representing attorneys will receive 25% of the $23 million sum, is scheduled for Oct. 12.
From the Settlement agreement: If the Settlement becomes final, Settlement Class Members will be releasing Google (and certain others related to Google, such as Google directors, officers and employees) from all of the settled claims. This means that you will no longer be able to sue Google (or the other released parties) regarding any of the settled claims if you are a Settlement Class Member and do not timely and properly exclude yourself from the Settlement Class...


YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS AND OPTIONS IN THIS SETTLEMENT:

FILE A CLAIM BY JULY 31, 2023
This is the only way to get a payment under the Settlement.

DO NOTHING
Get no payment under the Settlement and give up your right to compensation for the claims and allegations in this case.

EXCLUDE YOURSELF BY JULY 31, 2023
Get no payment under the Settlement. This is the only option that allows you to be a part of any other lawsuit against Google about the claims and allegations in this case.

OBJECT BY JULY 31, 2023
Write to the Court about why you think the Settlement should not be approved. You may also ask to speak in Court about the fairness of the Settlement.

Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who leaked what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at the age of 92. The cause was pancreatic cancer. The New York Times reports: The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers -- 7,000 government pages of damning revelations about deceptions by successive presidents who exceeded their authority, bypassed Congress and misled the American people -- plunged a nation that was already wounded and divided by the war deeper into angry controversy. It led to illegal countermeasures by the White House to discredit Mr. Ellsberg, halt leaks of government information and attack perceived political enemies, forming a constellation of crimes known as the Watergate scandal that led to the disgrace and resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. And it set up a First Amendment confrontation between the Nixon administration and The New York Times, whose publication of the papers was denounced by the government as an act of espionage that jeopardized national security. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the freedom of the press.

Mr. Ellsberg was charged with espionage, conspiracy and other crimes and tried in federal court in Los Angeles. But on the eve of jury deliberations, the judge threw out the case, citing government misconduct, including illegal wiretapping, a break-in at the office of Mr. Ellsberg's former psychiatrist and an offer by President Nixon to appoint the judge himself as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "The demystification and de-sanctification of the president has begun," Mr. Ellsberg said after being released. "It's like the defrocking of the Wizard of Oz." The story of Daniel Ellsberg in many ways mirrored the American experience in Vietnam, which began in the 1950s as a struggle to contain communism in Indochina and ended in 1975 with humiliating defeat in a corrosive war that killed more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians. [...] Over the years, Ellsberg was mentioned on Slashdot several times. In late 2000, Ellsberg was mentioned in a story about Clinton's veto of what would have been a new law to prevent leaks of classified information.

Ellsberg also expressed his support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2010 and called Edward Snowden the "greatest patriot whistleblower of our time."

He was also featured in a Slashdot story for his view on the growing role of internet companies in the public sphere. In 2011, Ellsberg said companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter need to take a stand and push back on excessive requests for personal data.

Millions of people in Louisiana and Oregon have had their data compromised in the sprawling cyberattack that has also hit the US federal government, state agencies said late Thursday. From a report: The breach has affected 3.5 million Oregonians with driver's licenses or state ID cards, and anyone with that documentation in Louisiana, authorities said. The Louisiana governor's office did not put a number on the number of victims but over 3 million Louisianians hold driver's licenses, according to public data. The states did not blame anyone in particular for the hack, but federal officials have attributed a broader hacking campaign using the same software vulnerability to a Russian ransomware gang. The sweeping hack has likely exposed data at hundreds of organizations across the globe and also compromised multiple US federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, as well as data from major corporations in Britain like the BBC and British Airways. The Russian-speaking hackers that claimed credit are known to demand multimillion-dollar ransoms, though US and state governments say they have not received any demands.

Alphabet's Google on Friday sued a Los Angeles man and his companies in San Jose, California federal court, claiming he created hundreds of fake business listings on its platforms and sold them to real businesses to lure in unsuspecting customers. From a report: Fake reviews have been a recurring problem on internet commerce sites. Google said in a statement that it filed the lawsuit against Ethan QiQi Hu to "help put an end to these types of malicious schemes." Google's lawsuit said Hu creates sham businesses that appear in its search engine and Google Maps, using an "elaborate set of props" to verify them on video calls with the tech giant's agents. The lawsuit said Hu keeps a tool bench as a prop to verify fraudulent listings for garage repair, tree cutting and plumbing, and essential oils for verifying fake aromatherapy and reiki therapy businesses. Google said Hu buys thousands of fake positive reviews to make the businesses appear legitimate. He then allegedly sells the profiles as "leads" to real businesses in the same fields, which receive contacts from potential customers who reach out to the fake businesses.

European Union officials have voted in favor of stricter regulations on artificial intelligence, including a ban on AI use in biometric surveillance and a requirement for AI systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT to disclose when content is generated by AI. Ars Technica reports: On Wednesday, European Union officials voted to implement stricter proposed regulations concerning AI, according to Reuters. The updated draft of the "AI Act" law includes a ban on the use of AI in biometric surveillance and requires systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT to reveal when content has been generated by AI. While the draft is still non-binding, it gives a strong indication of how EU regulators are thinking about AI. The new changes to the European Commission's proposed law -- which have not yet been finalized -- intend to shield EU citizens from potential threats linked to machine learning technology.

The new draft of the AI Act includes a provision that would ban companies from scraping biometric data (such as user photos) from social media for facial recognition training purposes. News of firms like Clearview AI using this practice to create facial recognition systems drew severe criticism from privacy advocates in 2020. However, Reuters reports that this rule might be a source of contention with some EU countries who oppose a blanket ban on AI in biometric surveillance. The new EU draft also imposes disclosure and transparency measures on generative AI. Image synthesis services like Midjourney would be required to disclose AI-generated content to help people identify synthesized images. The bill would also require that generative AI companies provide summaries of copyrighted material scraped and utilized in the training of each system. While the publishing industry backs this proposal, according to The New York Times, tech developers argue against its technical feasibility.

Additionally, creators of generative AI systems would be required to implement safeguards to prevent the generation of illegal content, and companies working on "high-risk applications" must assess their potential impact on fundamental rights and the environment. The current draft of the EU law designates AI systems that could influence voters and elections as "high-risk." It also classifies systems used by social media platforms with over 45 million users under the same category, thus encompassing platforms like Meta and Twitter. [...] Experts say that after considerable debate over the new rules among EU member nations, a final version of the AI Act isn't expected until later this year.