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Daily Deal: HomeSpot Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker

1 year 2 months ago
The HomeSpot Rugged Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker was built to keep up with your adventures. It deflects dust, dirt, and water – and is coated with a rubberized surface that you’ll feel comfortable bringing camping, rafting, and beyond. Best of all, this speaker truly delivers powerful sound that will fill even outdoor spaces with impressive audio. […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Funniest/Most Insightful Questions Of The Week At Techdirt

1 year 2 months ago
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is a simple anonymous comment about “porn addiction”: Funny, porn is addictive is a line pushed by religious fascists who wish to tell everybody what is good or bad based on a book that has its fair share of porn. In second place, it’s Stephen […]
Leigh Beadon

This Week In Techdirt History: August 27th – September 2nd

1 year 2 months ago
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a security flaw at Charter Spectrum exposed the private data of millions of subscribers, while Big Telecom was trying out new tactics in its fight against net neutrality in California. An appeals court ruled that forcing someone to unlock their phone violates the fifth amendment, while another ruled […]
Leigh Beadon

FBI Joins Investigation Of LAPD Gang Unit Officers Who Did Their Own Selective Editing Of Body Cam Recordings

1 year 2 months ago
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, right? That’s what law enforcement and surveillance agencies tell us, coaxing us into letting our guard down so they can dig into our stuff without worrying about little things like probable cause. Cops like to do their work without creating narratives they can’t challenge. Hence […]
Tim Cushing

Tesla, Rivian Put On Fake Show Of Support For ‘Right To Repair’

1 year 2 months ago
You may have noticed that there’s a massive, bipartisan push afoot to pass “right to repair” laws in many states making it easier and cheaper to repair the things you buy. In a bid to undermine those laws, automakers and companies like John Deere have been using a fairly consistent playbook. One, they’ll lie about […]
Karl Bode

L. Ron Hubbard’s Estate Is Against Right To Repair For Scientology’s E-Meters

1 year 2 months ago
For years we’ve covered the silly triennial review process associated with Section 1201 of the DMCA. If you don’t know, Section 1201 is the part that makes circumvention of any “technological measures” a form of infringement, even if bypassing those technological measures is not for copyright infringing reasons. It’s actually even worse than that, because […]
Mike Masnick

Florida Prison Confiscates Newspapers After Deciding Puzzle Game Might Be A Way To Send ‘Coded Messages’

1 year 2 months ago
Censorship is a priority for prison systems. Despite publicly claiming to be instrumental in the act of “rehabilitation,” correctional facilities generally engage in the sort of non-productive paranoia that ensures the only resources prisoners have are… other prisoners. And we’re all supposed to act like it’s a surprise when people re-offend. Or worse, exit this […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The 2023 Technology Professional Bundle

1 year 2 months ago
The 2023 Technology Professional Bundle has 9 courses to teach you about becoming an information systems security professional. This bundle is designed for those interested in learning the basics of information systems security, including but not limited to security and risk management, asset management, security architecture and engineering, communication and network security, and more. It’s […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Court Tosses Arkansas Age Verification Law For Violating The 1st Amendment

1 year 2 months ago
Just after a judge granted an injunction against Texas’ adult content age verification law on 1st Amendment grounds, a judge in Arkansas did the same to that state’s social media age verification law. Trade organization NetChoice had challenged the law, and the court basically gave them a complete and total victory. Just like the ruling […]
Mike Masnick

MTA Website Doles Out Rider History Data With Just A Credit Card Number

1 year 2 months ago
We’ve noted for years how there’s no limit of companies and organizations that over-collect data on your daily movement patterns, then fail to adequately secure that data. Whether it’s your mobile phone carrier, your smartphone maker, your favorite app, or a rotating crop of dodgy data brokers, our corrupt failure to pass even a baseline […]
Karl Bode

Kansas State Police Tell Court It’s Too Much To Ask For Troopers To Respect The Constitution

1 year 2 months ago
Given enough time and attention, informal parlance just becomes… parlance. And so it is for the Kansas State Police. For years, troopers have evaded the Constitution and applicable Supreme Court decisions to make the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. There’s a term for this: “Kansas two step.” Enough drivers have encountered it that it is no longer […]
Tim Cushing

Texas Ruling Shows You Can’t Regulate Online Pornography Like A Public Health Crisis

1 year 2 months ago
A Texas federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of a controversial age verification law set to enter force September 1. The court determined that House Bill (HB) 1181 was overly broad, even in the narrowest interpretations, and violated the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. […]
Mike Masnick

Major Sports Leagues Want ‘Instantaneous’ Site Blocking, ISPs To Be Real Time Copyright Police

1 year 2 months ago
Back in May of this year, the USPTO put out a request for public comments from interested parties in how to modernize its policies and/or copyright law to combat counterfeiting and online piracy. The world’s easiest prediction would have been that the copyright industries would request more stringent copyright rules and heavier and faster policing […]
Dark Helmet

Australian Government, Of All Places, Says Age Verification Is A Privacy & Security Nightmare

1 year 2 months ago
In the past I’ve sometimes described Australia as the land where internet policy is completely upside down. Rather than having a system that protects intermediaries from liability for third party content, Australia went the opposite direction. Rather than recognizing that a search engine merely links to content and isn’t responsible for the content at those […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Apple Watch Portable USB Charger

1 year 2 months ago
This Apple Watch Portable USB Charger allows you to charge anytime, anywhere. With a built-in magnetic adsorption module, you can charge your watch immediately after contact. This charger has the ability to charge your watch within 2 to 3 hours fully. It’s lightweight and portable, so you can charge your watch while traveling, when working […]
Gretchen Heckmann

The Protecting Kids On Social Media Act Is A Terrible Alternative To KOSA

1 year 2 months ago
We have covered the Protecting Kids On Social Media Act a few times, when it was first introduced back in April, where we highlighted how it was both unconstitutional and the rationale behind it was not supported by any actual evidence, and then again just recently when Senator Chris Murphy (one of the bill’s co-sponsors) […]
Mike Masnick