Several domain names tied to Genesis Market, a bustling cybercrime store that sold access to passwords and other data stolen from millions of computers infected with malicious software, were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) today. KrebsOnSecurity reports: Sources tell KrebsOnsecurity the domain seizures coincided with "dozens" of arrests in the United States and abroad targeting those who allegedly operated the service, as well as suppliers who continuously fed Genesis Market with freshly-stolen data. Active since 2018, Genesis Market's slogan has long been, "Our store sells bots with logs, cookies, and their real fingerprints." Customers could search for infected systems with a variety of options, including by Internet address or by specific domain names associated with stolen credentials.

But earlier today, multiple domains associated with Genesis had their homepages replaced with a seizure notice from the FBI, which said the domains were seized pursuant to a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. But sources close to the investigation tell KrebsOnSecurity that law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada and across Europe are currently serving arrest warrants on dozens of individuals thought to support Genesis, either by maintaining the site or selling the service bot logs from infected systems. The seizure notice includes the seals of law enforcement entities from several countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. [...]

One feature of Genesis that sets it apart from other bot shops is that customers can retain access to infected systems in real-time, so that if the rightful owner of an infected system creates a new account online, those new credentials will get stolen and displayed in the web-based panel of the Genesis customer who purchased that bot. "While some infostealers are designed to remove themselves after execution, others create persistent access," reads a March 2023 report from cybersecurity firm SpyCloud. "That means bad actors have access to the current data for as long as the device remains infected, even if the user changes passwords. SpyCloud says Genesis even advertises its commitment to keep the stolen data and the compromised systems' fingerprints up to date. "According to our research, Genesis Market had more than 430,000 stolen identities for sale as of early last year -- and there are many other marketplaces like this one," the SpyCloud report concludes.

A German court has ordered hosting provider Uberspace to take the website of the open-source youtube-dl software offline. The ruling is the result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by Sony, Warner and Universal last year. Uberspace will appeal the verdict and, meanwhile, youtube-dl's code remains available on GitHub. TorrentFreak reports: After hearing both sides, the district court of Hamburg ruled on the matter last week, handing a clear win to the music companies. The verdict wasn't immediately made available to the public but the music companies were quick to claim the win in a press release, stating that Uberspace must take youtube-dl's website offline. According to Frances Moore, CEO of the global music industry group IFPI, the court's decision once again confirms that stream-ripping software is illegal.

"YouTube-DL's services have enabled users to stream rip and download copyrighted music without paying. The Hamburg Regional Court's decision builds on a precedent already set in Germany and underscores once again that hosting stream-ripping software of this type is illegal. "We continue to work globally to address the problem of stream ripping, which is draining revenue from those who invest in and create music," Moore adds. Interestingly, the open source youtube-dl code remains available on the Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub. Whether the music companies have any plans to target the problem at this source is unknown.

Uberspace's legal representative German Society for Civil Rights (GFF) informs TorrentFreak that the decision doesn't come as a total surprise since the court already declared YouTube's "rolling cipher" to be an effective technical protection measure in an earlier case. That said, the defense believes that the order, which effectively amounts to a blanket ban on youtube-dl, failed to take the software's potentially legitimate uses into account. In addition, GFF believes that the court's decision severely restricts the hosting provider's freedom to operate. "If web hosts have to delete an entire website on demand of the rightsholders even in complex situations with no legal precedent, this poses a threat to the business model of web hosts and ultimately to the free flow of information on the Internet." Uberspace says it will appeal the judgement and GFF is confident the hosting provider will ultimately prevail.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Amazon has branded itself as a climate crusader, touting its commitment to renewable energy and sustainable practices. But in Oregon, it helped quietly quash a climate bill that would have regulated its data centers. The bill would have set a 100 percent carbon emissions reduction deadline of 2040 for high energy users. Its goal was to rein in industries with outsize carbon footprints, like cryptocurrency mines and data centers, of which Amazon is planning three more in the state that would be powered by fossil fuels. Though the bill would have matched the timeline of Amazon's own "Climate Pledge," which promises net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, the company helped kill it, said Oregon state Rep. Pam Marsh.

"Amazon's representatives were in the Capitol lobbying against the bill from the very first moment of discussion," said Marsh, chair of the Oregon House climate committee and sponsor of the bill, HB2816. Though Amazon did not testify publicly, Marsh said the company's lobbyists helped organize the opposition and "successfully nurtured fear that our energy requirements would drive away the development of data centers." "No one wants that," Marsh continued, "but we do want them to use energy in a responsible, sustainable manner."

In addition to the Climate Pledge, Amazon has set a goal of moving entirely to renewable energy by 2025; the company has spent millions on solar and wind energy projects and is the largest private purchaser of clean energy. From its $2 billion climate fund to the Climate Pledge, Amazon has invested heavily in creating the perception that it's an environmental leader. But its dealings in Oregon show that, behind the scenes, it wants to call the shots on how that transition happens. Amazon spokesperson David Ward said in a statement that "a number of organizations, including Amazon, oppose HB2816 because the bill does not address the build-out of electric infrastructure that is needed to bring more clean energy to the grid."

"Building new renewable projects requires infrastructure investments in the grid and today there are hurdles in key areas like permitting and interconnection," he continued. "Accelerating energy infrastructure permitting and interconnections for renewables like solar and wind would have a greater impact on reducing emissions, bringing more clean energy to the grid, and helping achieve our goal of accessing more clean energy in Oregon."

Oregon's biggest business organizations are all opposed to the bill, reports Government Technology. "That includes Oregon Business & Industry and the Technology Association of Oregon, and the national trade group TechNet." Aside from Amazon and its lobbying behind the scenes, no other major tech company has taken a position on the bill.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The federal government is considering a "roadmap" on how to restrict access to online pornography to those who can prove they are 18 or older, but there are warnings that any system could come at the cost of Australians' privacy online. On Friday, the eSafety commissioner provided a long-awaited roadmap to the government for how to verify users' ages online, which was commissioned by the former Morrison government nearly two years ago. The commissioner's office said the roadmap "explores if and how age verification and other measures could be used to prevent and mitigate harm to children from online pornography" but that any action taken will be a decision of government.

There were a variety of options to verify people's ages considered during the consultation for the roadmap, such as the use of third-party companies, individual sites verifying ages using ID documents or credit card checks, and internet service providers or mobile phone operators being used to check users' ages. Digital rights groups have raised concerns about the potential for any verification system to create a honeypot of people's personal information. But the office said any technology-based solution would need to strike the right balance between safety, privacy and security, and must be coupled with education campaigns for children, parents and educators. [...]

It comes as new industry codes aimed at tackling restricted-access content online, developed by groups representing digital platforms, and software, gaming and telecommunications companies were submitted to the eSafety commissioner for approval. The content covered includes child sexual abuse material, terrorism, extreme crime and violence, and drug-related content. The commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, will now decide whether the voluntary codes meet her expectations or whether she needs to enforce mandatory codes. [...] The second phase of the codes will set out how the platforms restrict access to pornography on their sites -- separate from the use of age verification systems.

The Tor Project, the organization behind the anonymous network and browser, is helping launch a privacy-focused browser that's made to connect to a VPN instead of a decentralized onion network. From a report: It's called the Mullvad browser, named after the Mullvad VPN company it's partnered with on the project, and it's available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. The Mullvad browser's main goal is to make it harder for advertisers and other companies to track you across the internet. It does this by working to reduce your browser's "fingerprint," a term that describes all the metadata that sites can collect to uniquely identify your device.

"Connecticut police have charged two people with cutting more than 2,000 fiber optic cables" on March 24, reports the Associated Press — leaving more than 15,000 people without internet access. Norwalk police said they arrested Asheville, North Carolina, residents Jillian Persons and Austin Geddings on Saturday during a surveillance operation. Both were charged with larceny and criminal mischief crimes, as well as interfering with police. Persons also was accused of giving a false statement to police. Both were detained on $200,000 bail....The outages caused by the cable cutting have since been restored, according to Optimum's website.
The Stamford Advocate investigated how many people were affected: Norwalk Deputy Police Chief Terry Blake said Sunday more than 40,000 customers in the area were left without internet service as a result of the vandalism. However, an Optimum spokesperson claimed at the time the outages only affected roughly 16,000 customers and the inflated numbers were inaccurate because of an issue with the company's online outage map.

U.S. states are now "doling out more cash than ever to lure multibillion-dollar microchip, electric vehicle and battery factories," reports the Associated Press, "inspiring ever-more competition as they dig deeper into their pockets to attract big employers and capitalize on a wave of huge new projects." Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have made billion-dollar pledges for a microchip or EV plant, with more state-subsidized plant announcements by profitable automakers and semiconductor giants surely to come. States have long competed for big employers. But now they are floating more billion-dollar offers and offering record-high subsidies, lavishing companies with grants and low-interest loans, municipal road improvements, and breaks on taxes, real estate, power and water....

The projects come at a transformative time for the industries, with automakers investing heavily in electrification and chipmakers expanding production in the U.S. following pandemic-related supply chain disruptions that raised economic and national security concerns. One of the driving forces behind them are federal subsidies signed into law last summer that are meant to encourage companies to produce electric vehicles, EV batteries, and computer chips domestically. Another is that states are flush with cash thanks to inflation-juiced tax collections and federal pandemic relief subsidies. The number of big projects and the size of state subsidy packages are extraordinary, said Nathan Jensen, a University of Texas professor who researches government economic development strategies.

"It is kind of a Wild West moment," Jensen said. "It's wild money and every state seems to be in on it."

Many of the companies drawing the biggest subsidy offers — such as Intel, Hyundai, Panasonic, Micron, Toyota, Ford and General Motors — are profitable and operate around the globe. Some lesser-known names in the nascent EV field are getting big offers too, such as Rivian, Volkswagen-backed Scout Motors and Vietnamese automaker VinFast. The subsidy offers are generally embraced by politicians from both major parties and the business elite, who point to promises of hundreds or thousands of jobs, massive investments in construction and equipment, and what they contend are immeasurable trickle-down benefits.

Still, academics who study such subsidies find them to be a waste of money and rarely decisive in a company's choice of location.

"A Texas truck theft ended in gun fire after the suspected thief was tracked down by thevehicle's owner's AirTag," reports AppleInsider: San Antonio police received a stolen vehicle report at around 1 pm from a Braesview home. However, before police could recover the stolen truck, the owners of the vehicle decided to perform their own investigation, using an AirTag left in the truck to do so. The unnamed owners tracked the truck to a shopping center in Southeast Military Drive, reports KSAT. However, rather than wait for police to arrive, the truck owners decided to approach the vehicle and confront the suspect.

While it is unknown exactly what happened, Police say it seems the suspected thief may have pulled out their own firearm. The vehicle owner responded by shooting and killing the suspect while they were inside the truck. It is unclear whether the vehicle owner will face charges over the matter, and an investigation is ongoing into whether the suspect actually had a weapon in the first place.
The San Antonio police department's public information officer offered these remarks (in a video from KSAT):

"Most importantly is, to the public, SAPD is urging you if you are to get your vehicle stolen: I know that it's frustrating, but please do not take matters into your own hands like this. Our police department has plenty of resources that could go into finding your vehicle, i.e. our drone system, trackers ourselves, very good patrolmen that look for these kind of things. It's never safe to take matters into your own hands, as you can see today by this incident.... That's why I urge the public, wait for police in this matter. Let us go with you. We have the training. We know exactly how to determine what's going to happen, these kind of factors and situations, and we know how to handle them."

Today a warning was published from the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a 'doom loop' that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral...." Despite our housing crisis, it was years into the COVID pandemic before our leaders meaningfully questioned the logic of reserving some of the most prized real estate on Earth for fickle suburbanites and their cars. Downtown, after all, was San Francisco's golden goose. Companies in downtown offices accounted for 70% of San Francisco's pre-pandemic jobs and generated nearly 80% of its economic output, according to city economist Ted Egan. And so we wasted generous federal COVID emergency funds trying to bludgeon, cajole and pray for office workers to return downtown instead of planning for change. We're now staring down the consequences for that lack of vision.

The San Francisco metropolitan area's economic recovery from the pandemic ranked 24th out of the 25 largest regions in the U.S., besting only Baltimore, according to a report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. In the first quarter of 2023, San Francisco's office vacancy rate shot up to a record-high 29.4% — the biggest three-year increase of any U.S. city. The trend isn't likely to end anytime soon: In January, nearly 30% of San Francisco job openings were for hybrid or fully remote work, the highest share of the nation's 50 largest cities. Amid lower property, business and real estate transfer taxes, the city is projecting a $728 million deficit over the next two fiscal years. Transit ridership remains far below pre-pandemic levels. In January, downtown San Francisco BART stations had just 30% of the rider exits they did in 2019, according to a report from Egan's office. Many Bay Area transit agencies, including Muni, are rapidly approaching a fiscal cliff.

San Francisco isn't dead; as of March, it was home to an estimated 173 of the country's 655 companies valued at more than $1 billion. Tourism is beginning to rebound. And new census data shows that San Francisco's population loss is slowing, a sign its pandemic exodus may be coming to an end. But the city can't afford to wait idly for things to reach equilibrium again. It needs to evolve — quickly. Especially downtown. That means rebuilding the neighborhood's fabric, which won't be cheap or easy. Office-to-housing conversions are notoriously tricky and expensive. Demolishing non-historic commercial buildings that no longer serve a purpose in the post-pandemic world is all but banned. And, unlike New York after 9/11, San Francisco is a city that can't seem to stop getting in its own way.
So what's the solution? The CEO of the Bay Area Council suggests public-private partnerships that "could help shift downtown San Francisco's focus from tech — with employees now accustomed to working from home — to research and development, biotech, medical research and manufacturing, which all require in-person workers."

And last week San Francisco's mayor proposed more than 100 changes to streamline the permitting process for small businesses, and on Monday helped introduce legislation making it easier to convert office buildings to housing, expand pop-up business opportunities, and fill some empty storefronts. This follows a February executive order to speed housing construction. The editorial points out that "About 40% of office buildings in downtown San Francisco evaluated in a study would be good candidates for housing due to their physical characteristics and location and could be converted into approximately 11,200 units, according to research from SPUR and the Urban Land Institute San Francisco."

But without some action, the editorial's headline argues that "Downtown San Francisco is at risk of collapsing — and taking much of the Bay Area with it."

ProPublica looks at "a booming underground community of Instagram scammers and hackers who shut down profiles on the social network and then demand payment to reactivate them." While they also target TikTok and other platforms, takedown-for-hire scammers like OBN are proliferating on Instagram, exploiting the app's slow and often ineffective customer support services and its easily manipulated account reporting systems. These Instascammers often target people whose accounts are vulnerable because their content verges on nudity and pornography, which Instagram and its parent company, Meta, prohibit.... In an article he wrote for factz.com last year, OBN dubbed himself the "log-out king" because "I have deleted multiple celebrities + influencers on Meta & Instagram... I made about $300k just off banning and unbanning pages," he wrote.

OBN exploits weaknesses in Meta's customer service. By allowing anyone to report an account for violating the company's standards, Meta gives enormous leverage to people who are able to trick it into banning someone who relies on Instagram for income. Meta uses a mix of automated systems and human review to evaluate reports. Banners like OBN test and trade tips on how to trigger the system to falsely suspend accounts. In some cases OBN hacks into accounts to post offensive content. In others, he creates duplicate accounts in his targets' names, then reports the original accounts as imposters so they'll be barred for violating Meta's ban on account impersonation. In addition, OBN has posed as a Meta employee to persuade at least one target to pay him to restore her account.

Models, businesspeople, marketers and adult performers across the United States told ProPublica that OBN had ruined their businesses and lives with spurious complaints, even causing one woman to consider suicide. More than half a dozen people with over 45 million total followers on Instagram told ProPublica they lost their accounts temporarily or permanently shortly after OBN threatened to report them. They say Meta failed to help them and to take OBN and other account manipulators seriously. One person who said she was victimized by OBN has an ongoing civil suit against Meta for lost income, while others sent the company legal letters demanding payment....

A Meta spokesperson acknowledged that OBN has had short-term success in getting accounts removed by abusing systems intended to help enforce community standards. But the company has addressed those situations and taken down dozens of accounts linked to OBN, the spokesperson said. Most often, the spokesperson said, OBN scammed people by falsely claiming to be able to ban and restore accounts.... After banning an account, OBN frequently offers to reactivate it for a fee as high as $5,000, kicking off a cycle of bans and reactivations that continues until the victim runs out of money or stops paying.
A Meta spokesperson told the site they're currently "updating our support systems," including a tool to help affected users and letting more speak to a live support agent rather than an automated one. But the Meta spokesperson added that "This remains a highly adversarial space, with scammers constantly trying to evade detection by social media platforms."

ProPublica ultimately traced the money to a 20-year-old who lives with his mother (who claimed he was only "funnelling" the money for someone else). After that conversation OBN "announced he would no longer offer account banning as a service" — but would still sell his services in getting your account verified.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Authorities in Germany this week seized Internet servers that powered FlyHosting, a dark web offering that catered to cybercriminals operating DDoS-for-hire services, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. FlyHosting first advertised on cybercrime forums in November 2022, saying it was a Germany-based hosting firm that was open for business to anyone looking for a reliable place to host malware, botnet controllers, or DDoS-for-hire infrastructure. A statement released today by the German Federal Criminal Police Office says they served eight search warrants on March 30, and identified five individuals aged 16-24 suspected of operating "an internet service" since mid-2021. The German authorities did not name the suspects or the Internet service in question.

"Previously unknown perpetrators used the Internet service provided by the suspects in particular for so-called 'DDoS attacks', i.e. the simultaneous sending of a large number of data packets via the Internet for the purpose of disrupting other data processing systems," the statement reads. The German authorities said that as a result of the DDoS attacks facilitated by the defendants, the websites of various companies as well as those of the Hesse police have been overloaded in several cases since mid-2021, "so that they could only be operated to a limited extent or no longer at times." The statement says police seized mobile phones, laptops, tablets, storage media and handwritten notes from the unnamed defendants, and confiscated servers operated by the suspects in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In a new report published Thursday, the New York Office of the Inspector General for the New York Police Department (OIG-NYPD) said the New York Police Department violated the 2020 ââPublic Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, which required the NYPD to publicly disclose surveillance technology. The POST Act was signed into law by then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and required the NYPD to disclose information about its current and future surveillance technologies and how it wants to use them.

In the report, the OIG-NYPD said that NYPD was not in compliance with the POST Act orders to publish Impact and Use Policies (IUPs) for existing surveillance tech 180 days after the Act was signed and new IUPs at least 90 days before the use of any new surveillance tech. The IUPs were supposed to "describe the capabilities of surveillance technology, and include any rules, processes, and guidelines that regulate access to or use of the technology, and any prohibitions or restrictions on its use, and any potential disparate impacts," according to the report. But, the OIG-NYPD said that the 36 IUPs NYPD published after the Act was signed were general and not detailed, leaving the OIG-NYPD unable to conduct an audit and assess whether NYPD's use of surveillance devices complies with its IUPs and report any suspected violations.

India is hunting for new spyware with a lower profile than the controversial Pegasus system blacklisted by the US government, with rival surveillance software makers preparing bids on lucrative deals being offered by Narendra Modi's government. Financial Times: Defence and intelligence officials from the South Asian country have decided to acquire spyware from less exposed competitors to the NSO Group, the Israeli makers of Pegasus, according to people familiar with the move, seeking to spend up to $120mn through new spyware contracts. About a dozen competitors are expected to join the bidding process, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, stepping into the void created by the pressure on NSO from human rights groups and the administration of US President Joe Biden.

India's move shows how demand for this sophisticated -- and largely unregulated -- technology remains strong despite growing evidence that governments worldwide have abused spyware by targeting dissidents and critics. India has never publicly acknowledged being a customer of NSO. However, the company's malware has been found on the phones of journalists, left-leaning academics and opposition leaders around India, sparking a political crisis. Pegasus can turn phones into surveillance devices and can hoover up encrypted WhatsApp and Signal messages surreptitiously. Modi government officials have grown concerned about the "PR problem" caused by the ability of human rights groups to forensically trace Pegasus, as well as warnings from Apple and WhatsApp to those who have been targeted, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Biden administration's $80 billion overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service is facing a new line of attack, this time from lobbyists representing tax preparers who fear that the agency's growing power will cripple their businesses and infringe upon taxpayer privacy. The fight is over a potential plan for the I.R.S. to create its own tax-filing system that would allow taxpayers to submit their returns directly to the federal government at no cost. That type of free service could diminish the need for those provided by tax preparation companies like H&R Block and TurboTax. The idea, which is still being studied, is stoking backlash from Republicans and business groups who argue that President Biden's plans to bolster the I.R.S. will give it even more power over ordinary taxpayers.

The I.R.S. received a giant infusion of money as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate and energy bill that Congress passed last year. That legislation set aside $15 million for the I.R.S. to conduct a study to determine how it could develop a program that would let Americans file their tax returns directly with the agency. The I.R.S. is expected in the coming days to release its plan for how it intends to spend the $80 billion that it was allocated as part of that legislation. Republican lawmakers have maintained firm opposition to the funding, which will help the agency hire 87,000 employees, and have been taking steps to claw it back. [...] Democrats have long pushed to make filing free for everyone, seeing that as a way to make the process easier and less costly. But that ambition could upend the business models of the multibillion-dollar tax preparation industry, which earns hefty fees for helping people navigate the tax code.

Several companies already provide free tax-filing services through the I.R.S. website to those who earn less than $73,000, and the agency provides forms that taxpayers who do not need any guidance can use to file their returns for free. Some other software platforms offer limited free services for simple tax returns that also do not offer guidance through the process. Initially, a tax-filing system developed by the I.R.S. would be similar to the existing free options. But proponents of the idea believe that over time it could evolve to become a more comprehensive system that would provide taxpayers with returns that are already filled out based on wage data that the I.R.S. tracks. At that point, taxpayers could just sign off on their returns as easily as responding "yes" to a text message.

Meta announced that starting next Wednesday, some Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union will for the first time be able to opt out of sharing first-party data used to serve highly personalized ads, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move marks a big change from Meta's current business model, where every video and piece of content clicked on its platforms provides a data point for its online advertisers. Ars Technica reports: People "familiar with the matter" told the Journal that Facebook and Instagram users will soon be able to access a form that can be submitted to Meta to object to sweeping data collection. If those requests are approved, those users will only allow Meta to target ads based on broader categories of data collection, like age range or general location. This is different from efforts by other major tech companies like Apple and Google, which prompt users to opt in or out of highly personalized ads with the click of a button. Instead, Meta will review objection forms to evaluate reasons provided by individual users to end such data collection before it will approve any opt-outs. It's unclear what cause Meta may have to deny requests.

A Meta spokesperson told Ars that Meta is not sharing the objection form publicly at this time but that it will be available to EU users in its Help Center starting on April 5. That's the deadline Meta was given to comply with an Irish regulator's rulings that it was illegal in the EU for Meta to force Facebook and Instagram users to give consent to data collection when they signed contracts to use the platforms. Meta still plans to appeal those Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) rulings, believing that its prior contract's legal basis complies with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the meantime, though, the company must change the legal basis for data collection. Meta announced in a blog post today that it will now argue that it does not need to directly obtain user consent because it has a "legitimate interest" to collect data to operate its social platforms. "We believe that our previous approach was compliant under GDPR, and our appeal on both the substance of the rulings and the fines continues," Meta's blog said. "However, this change ensures that we comply with the DPC's decision."

Anti-piracy group CODA is reporting the shutdown of B9Good, a pirate manga site that targeted Japan but was operated from China. In response to a criminal complaint filed by CODA on behalf of six Japanese companies, which were backed by 21 others during the investigation, Chinese authorities arrested four people and seized one house worth $580,000. TorrentFreak reports: Manga piracy site B9Good initially appeared in 2008 and established itself under B9DM branding. SimilarWeb stats show that the site was enjoying around 15 million visits each month, with CODA noting that in the two-year period leading to February 2023, the site was accessed more than 300 million times Around 95% of the site's visitors came from Japan. B9Good had been featured in an MPA submission to the USTR's notorious markets report in 2019. Traffic was reported as almost 16 million visits per month back then, meaning that site visitor numbers remained stable for the next three years. The MPA said the site was possibly hosted in Canada, but domain records since then show a wider spread, including Hong Kong, China, United States, Bulgaria, and Japan.

Wherever the site ended up, the location of its operator was more important. In 2021, CODA launched its International Enforcement Project (CBEP), which aimed to personally identify the operators of pirate sites, including those behind B9Good who were eventually traced to China. Pursuing copyright cases from outside China is reportedly difficult, but CODA had a plan. In January 2022, CODA's Beijing office was recognized as an NGO with legitimate standing to protect the rights of its member companies. Working on behalf of Aniplex, TV Tokyo, Toei Animation, Toho, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), and Bandai Namco Film Works, CODA filed a criminal complaint in China, and starting February 14, 2023, local authorities began rounding up the B9Good team.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Late Tuesday night, the Missouri House of Representatives voted for a state operating budget with a $0 line for public libraries. While the budget still needs to work its way through the Senate and the governor's office, state funding for public libraries is very much on the chopping block in Missouri. This comes after Republican House Budget Chairman Cody Smith proposed a $4.5 million cut to public libraries' state aid last week in the initial House Budget Committee hearing, where Smith cited a lawsuit filed against Missouri by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU-MO) as the reason for the cut.

ACLU-MO filed the suit on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association (MLA) in an effort to overturn a state law passed in 2022 that bans sexually explicit material from schools. Since it was first enacted in August, librarians and other educators have faced misdemeanor charges punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for giving students access to books the state has deemed sexually explicit. The Missouri law defined (PDF) explicit sexual material as images "showing human masturbation, deviate sexual intercourse," "sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse," or showing human genitals. The lawsuit claims that school districts have been pulling books from their shelves.

"The house budget committee's choice to retaliate against two private, volunteer-led organizations by punishing the patrons of Missouri's public libraries is abhorrent," Tom Bastian, deputy director for communications for ACLU-MO said in a statement to Motherboard. Like in all ACLU cases, the organization is not charging the two Missouri library groups for services. Both library organizations are also run by volunteers -- every state has an equivalent of these two organizations that serve public and school libraries. In other words, a politician either lied or didn't have his facts straight, and now 160 library districts risk losing state aid in June. "State Aid helps libraries provide relevant collections, literacy based programming, and technology resources to their communities," Otter Bowman, president of the MLA told Motherboard in a statement. "Our rural libraries rely the most heavily on this funding to serve their communities, and they will be crippled by this drastic budget cut."

Alphabet's Google LLC intentionally destroyed employee "chat" evidence in antitrust litigation in California and must pay sanctions and face a possible penalty at trial, a U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday. Reuters reports: U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco said in his order (PDF) that Google "fell strikingly short" in its duties to preserve records. The ruling is part of a multidistrict litigation that includes a consumer class action with as many as 21 million residents; 38 states and the District of Columbia; and companies including Epic Games Inc and Match Group LLC. The consumers and other plaintiffs are challenging Google's alleged monopoly for distributing Android mobile applications, allegations that Google has denied. Plaintiffs have claimed aggregate damages of $4.7 billion.

The judge asked the plaintiffs' lawyers by April 21 to provide an amount in legal fees they are seeking as a sanction. Separately, the plaintiffs will have a chance to urge Donato to tell jurors that Google destroyed information that was unfavorable to it. He said he wants to see "the state of play" at a later stage in the case. "Google has tried to downplay the problem and displayed a dismissive attitude ill tuned to the gravity of its conduct," the judge said.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with directing $40 million in bribes to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze assets relating to his cryptocurrency business in a rewritten indictment unsealed Tuesday. CBS News reports: The charge of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act means Bankman-Fried faces now faces a total of 13 charges after being arrested in the Bahamas last December and brought to the United States soon thereafter. [...] The indictment said Chinese law enforcement authorities in early 2021 froze certain Alameda crypto-trading accounts on two of China's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The accounts, it said, contained about $1 billion worth of crypto.

Bankman-Fried understood that the accounts had been frozen by Chinese authoritIes as part of an ongoing probe of a particular Alameda trading counterparty, the indictment said. After Bankman-Fried failed several attempts to unfreeze the accounts through the use of lawyers and lobbying, the 31-year-old ultimately agreed to direct a multimillion dollar bribe to try to unfreeze the accounts, the indictment said.

"Bankman-Fried and others sought to regain access to the assets to fund additional Alameda trading activity, in order to assist Bankman-Fried and Alameda in obtaining and retaining business," court documents state. The bribe payment of cryptocurrency -- then worth about $40 million -- was moved from Alameda's main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet in November 2021 and the frozen accounts were unfrozen at about the same time, the indictment said.

Lebanon's government has reversed a decision to delay the shift to daylight savings time by a month, which had sparked both anger and confusion. The BBC reports: Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced that clocks would now go forward on Wednesday night. He had agreed to a delay last week so Muslims could break their fasts earlier during the holy month of Ramadan. But Christian authorities defied the order and changed their clocks as usual on Sunday, which was the last in March. Many businesses, media outlets and educational institutions followed suit, leaving people living in one of the smallest countries in the Middle East struggling to deal with two different time zones.

Mr Mikati, who is a Sunni Muslim, insisted on Monday that his initial decision to delay the time change until 20 April to "relieve" those fasting during Ramadan had not been for "sectarian reasons", adding: "A decision like this should not have triggered such sectarian responses." He blamed the deep political and religious divisions that have resulted in parliament being unable to agree on a new president since October and a caretaker cabinet with limited powers being left to run the country. "The problem is not summer time or winter time... The problem is the presidential vacuum."