News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Hillary Clinton trolls Donald Trump after his indictment
by hawking 'BUT HER EMAILS' merchandise on Twitter

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appeared to gloat following the news that former President Donald Trump was indicted on seven federal charges related to mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.

In September 2022, Clinton claimed investigators found "zero" classified emails on her private email server, despite a 2018 government report saying 193 emails that were classified when they were drafted were sent to or from her server.

Clinton was investigated by the FBI in 2015 for holding classified information on her private email server at home.

Then-FBI Director James Comey had said publicly that Clinton mishandled classified information, but he declined to recommend prosecution and the Justice Department declined to move forward.

On Friday morning, Clinton took to Twitter to promote merchandise branded with the tagline "BUT HER EMAILS."

"Bringing this back in light of recent news: Get a limited-edition But Her Emails hat and support @onwardtogether, groups working to strengthen our democracy," she wrote.

Zuckerberg says 'establishment' asked Facebook
to censor COVID misinfo that ended up true: 'Undermines trust'

Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed recently that the scientific "establishment" asked his platform to "censor" posts about COVID-19 that ended up being "debatable or true."

In his comments during Thursday's episode of the "Lex Fridman Podcast," Zuckerberg discussed the "issues and challenges" of executing his platform's policies on removing "misinformation."

He said it can be "really tricky" when some content is false, "but may not be harmful, so it's like, alright, are you going to censor someone for just being wrong, if there’s no kind of harm implication of what they’re doing?’"

As an example, Zuckerberg said, "Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier on in the pandemic, where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions, and, unfortunately, I think a lot of the establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts."

Zuckerberg noted the "establishment" encouraged him to enforce these shaky facts, saying they "asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true."

US charges two Russians in hack of Mt. Gox crypto exchange

The United States has charged two Russian nationals in the hack of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, one of the world's earliest, biggest and most widely publicized alleged bitcoin heists.

The department in a statement said Alexey Bilyuchenko, 43, and Aleksandr Verner, 29, were charged with conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins from their hack of Mt. Gox, which collapsed in 2014 after losing what was then worth about half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency.
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Bilyuchenko was a key associate of Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cybercrime kingpin who was arrested in Greece in 2017, convicted of money laundering in France three years later and is now awaiting trial in California on charges of running BTC-e, a now-defunct Russian exchange the Department of Justice accused of catering to "cyber criminals around the world."

When Vinnik was arrested, Bilyuchenko - who was staying elsewhere in Greece - narrowly avoided arrest by destroying his computer, tossing it into the sea and immediately flying back to Moscow, the BBC previously reported.

The Department of Justice said Bilyuchenko is also charged with conspiring with Vinnik to operate BTC-e from 2011 to 2017.

ACT Government Hit by Cyber Security Breach

Federal authorities have been brought in to investigate a cyber security breach of ACT government IT systems.

The security breach was detected in an email gateway system called Barracuda, which supports some IT systems for the territory government.

ACT Special Minister of State Chris Steel said investigations were underway to determine what data may have been accessed during the breach.
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The Australian Cyber Security Centre has been brought by the ACT Cyber Security Centre to investigate the incident, along with Barracuda Networks.

Security concerns were first detected in late May by Barracuda after the company identified vulnerabilities in its email security gateway.

Mr Steel said following the notification, the ACT Cyber Security Centre detected that the breach had taken place, leading to a rebuild of the affected system.

ACT residents can continue using government services online safely.

 Seriously? Just like that?

Microsoft to Pay $20 Million Fine for Violating Children’s Privacy

Tech giant Microsoft has agreed to pay a multi-million dollar settlement to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for illegally collecting children’s personal information without parental consent.

The $20 million settlement came after the FTC charged Microsoft for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). According to COPPA rules, websites and online services open to children below the age of 13 must notify parents regarding the personal information collected. The service should also obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting and using such information, according to a June 5 FTC press release.

The FTC charged Microsoft for collecting private info from children who signed up for its Xbox gaming system without following COPPA rules while also illegally retaining such data.
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“This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids’ avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA.”

In addition to the $20 million monetary penalty, Microsoft is also required to take several steps to boost privacy protections for child users of its Xbox systems.

As part of this, Microsoft has to obtain parental consent for accounts created before May 2021 in case the account holder is still a child.

The company must also notify game publishers while disclosing personal information from children that the user is still a child so that the publishers can apply COPPA protections to such accounts.

NZ Government Agency Bans Staff From Using AI Platforms

The New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) issued the ban on tools like ChatGPT after concerns sensitive information inputted into such platforms could be later retrieved, reported RNZ.

AI-powered chatbots trawl through information online, which they will then process to “generate” a response based on whatever prompts it is given by a user. AI programs can now generate answers to questions, poetry, coding, and even musical composition.

However, due to data concerns, companies like Apple, Samsung, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman Sachs have banned staff from using the tech.

The move by the New Zealand government agency comes after governments around the world move to establish controls over how to use AI.
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In New Zealand, the government’s chief digital officer at the Department of Internal Affairs was also working on guidance for agencies.

While in Canada, the country’s privacy watchdog has launched its own investigation into ChatGPT.

“AI technology and its effects on privacy is a priority for my office,” Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said in a media release in April.