Alexa could eventually start sliding in advertisements for bleach or toothpaste when you go to shop. Amazon is in talks with companies like Proctor & Gamble and Clorox to advertise on Echo devices, potentially suggesting their products when you ask your Echo to buy something, according to CNBC. Amazon however said in a statement: “There are no plans to add advertising to Alexa.”

Some smartphone games are listening to what your mic picks up — but not to hear what you say. Instead, they’re trying to hear what you’re watching.

This is something smartphone apps have been doing for a little while now: using microphone access to tell what shows you watch, which ads you hear, and even what movies you see. But a report in The New York Times last week shows the practice may be more prevalent — and more secretive — than consumers might like.

Swatting is the practice of tricking police SWAT teams into storming your victim's home by phoning in fake hostage situations; it's especially prominent among cybercriminals, gamers and was a favored tactic of Gamergater trolls.

In an attempt to cut down on fraud, China’s central bank has announced plans to begin regulating payments by QR codes, barcodes, and other scannable codes. The regulations will initially cap payments by traditional QR codes to 500 yuan, or about $76 USD. When additional security measures are applied, the cap can raise to 5,000 yuan, or around $765 USD. At an even higher security level, banks and payment processors are given discretion over the cap

One by one, the New York Times warns of the dangers of every hot smart toy your kids are begging for this Xmas: Furbies, Cayla, kids' smart watches, the ubiquitous Vtech toys (they omit the catastrophic Cloudpets, presumably because that company is out of business now).

Our algorithms have the same race and gender prejudices as us.

The basic deal offered by social media companies to their users runs like this: “We give you tools to publish whatever you want, and then we take the revenues that result from that. You get the personal satisfaction and the warm glow that comes from seeing your holiday pictures, your home movies or your cute cats online, and we bank the cash we earn from selling your data-trails and profiles to advertisers.”

AtHome Camera is “a remote video surveillance app which turns your personal computer, smart TV/set-top box, smart phone, and tablet into a professional video monitoring system in a minute.”

The vulnerabilities found are:

Hard-coded username and password – telnet
Hard-coded username and password – Web server
Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution

Die Moral der Geschichte besteht natürlich darin, dass man sich – ganz besonders als politischer Entscheidungsträger – keinesfalls von der 99,5%igen Trefferquote blenden lassen darf, sondern sich vielmehr bewusst machen sollte, dass es bei jeder Form anlassloser Massenüberwachung allein aufgrund des extremen Missverhältnisses zwischen gesetzestreuen Bürgern und Straftätern unausweichlich ist, dass viele, viele Unbescholtene ins Visier von Behörden geraten. Selbst dann, wenn das System nahezu fehlerfrei (99,5%!) funktioniert.

Digital. Einfach. Sicher: So soll das besondere elektronische Anwaltspostfach funktionieren. Die Sicherheit des Systems wurde durch einen schweren Fehler ausgehebelt.

Brüssel sagt dem digitalen Proletariat den Kampf an: Arbeiter, die über Online-Plattformen wie Uber, "Mechanical Turk" oder Deliveroo "auf Abruf" beschäftigt sind, sollen mehr Rechte erhalten

Ein Bündnis aus 15 Bürgerrechtsorganisationen, Datenschutzinitiativen, Parteien und Demokratieprojekten fordert in einer gemeinsamen Erklärung die Grünen und den gesamten Hessischen Landtag auf, der Reform des Verfassungsschutzgesetzes in der derzeitigen Form nicht zuzustimmen.

Das geplante Verfassungsschutzgesetz für Hessen sei die freiheitsfeindlichste Regelung zur Arbeit eines Geheimdiensts in Deutschland, heißt es in einer gemeinsamen Erklärung. Mit Befremden habe das Bündnis zur Kenntnis genommen, dass die Grünen-Fraktion das Gesetz im Landtag vorantreibe, obwohl die Landesmitgliederversammlung der Partei noch im November das Gesetz abgelehnt habe.

Ein Zertifikat, dass vom Localhost signiert wird: Blizzard installiert ein Zertifikat mit Root-Rechten auf den Rechern seiner Nutzer - ohne Begründung oder Information. Auf Reddit erhitzten sich die Gemüter, sodass Blizzard sich doch noch erklären musste. 

Der Chinese verkaufte die Tunnelverbindungen an Tausende Kunden. Die harsche Strafe ist der Höhepunkt einer Kampagne der chinesischen Regierung, das Internet völlig zu kontrollieren.

That being said if even humans can’t necessarily always agree with what makes a good photo, can AI do a better job? That’s something that Google wants to try and figure out, by using convolution neural networks to help AI identify photos that we humans rate as good or attractive.

According to Google, “Our proposed network can be used to not only score images reliably and with high correlation to human perception, but also it is useful for a variety of labor intensive and subjective tasks such as intelligent photo editing, optimizing visual quality for increased user engagement, or minimizing perceived visual errors in an imaging pipeline

Nissan Canada's vehicle-financing wing has been hacked, putting personal information on as many as 1.13 million customers in the hands of miscreants

Two of the five unnamed individuals cuffed this monthin Romania on suspicion of spreading ransomware face US computer crime charges – for their alleged role in taking over 123 out of 187 networked computers that control Washington DC's CCTV cameras earlier this year.…

The report, from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, criticizes the scope and execution of Homeland Security’s biometric exit pilot program. The program, currently running at nine airports around the country, uses facial recognition technology to identify passengers leaving on international flights. Homeland Security says the program, which it plans to expand, can catch travelers fraudulently using another person’s personal documents.

The Australian government's open data initiative is in the laudable business of publishing publicly accessible data about the government's actions and spending, in order to help scholars, businesses and officials understand and improve its processes. 

Facebook has announced it will no longer use Disputed Flags to identify false news. Starting from today, the company will use its Related Articles tool instead to combat misinformation in the News Feed, which it says gives people more context about the story, with the added benefit of reducing the frequency a hoax article is shared.