Five Years Ago This week in 2017, people were still discovering that their dead loved ones had been used for fake comments supporting the death of net neutrality, while New York State was considering its own net neutrality law, and we wondered if Verizon would give back the taxpayer subsidies it got under Title II. […]
Long term readers of Techdirt know that, since 2008, I’ve written a final post of the year on reasons to remain optimistic. It started when some people kept telling me that when they read what I wrote I sounded angry and frustrated, but when they’d meet me in person, I always seemed optimistic about the […]
New York State has finally passed a landmark “right to repair” bill proving American consumers some additional protection from repair monopolies. After some annoying delays created by lobbyists, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed the legislation on December 29. The legislation gives New York consumers the right to fix their electronic devices themselves or […]
Pretending that you’re actually fixing the world’s privacy and national security issues by banning TikTok is just so very hot right now. Numerous states have passed new rules banning TikTok on government employee devices. And Marco Rubio has proposed a federal law that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance is willing to sell the popular app […]
NSO Group isn’t the only phone malware firm to draw international attention. Sure, NSO’s decision to sell to human rights abusers and aid/abet surveillance of journalists, lawyers, government critics, and political leaders drew the most attention, but there were others. And all of these malware purveyors seem to have sprung from the same source: spies […]
It’s been interesting to watch over the last few months as tons of people have migrated from Twitter to Mastodon (or similar compatible ActivityPub-based social media platforms). I’ve noticed, however, that some people keep running into the same issues and challenges as they discover that Mastodon is different than what they’re used to with Twitter. […]
Sam’s Club is a membership warehouse club, a limited-item business model that offers members quality products at an exceptional value unmatched by traditional retail. From groceries and kitchen supplies to electronics and furniture, Sam’s Club has great deals on the items you want! By redeeming and signing up as a member, you’ll be paying just […]
Telecom and media giants are running a sleazy year-long smear campaign against Biden FCC nominee Gigi Sohn aimed at miring the agency in perpetual consumer protection gridlock. The attacks have been carefully seeded across the US press through various think tanks and nonprofits, and falsely accuse Sohn of everything from hating police to being an enemy of rural […]
I know, I know. Some of the more angry commenters around here keep insisting that I should stop talking about Elon Musk and Twitter, and I want to do exactly that. I planned to do exactly that and not write another post about it all until next week. And then… Twitter crashed hard last night. […]
Rikers Island doesn’t just house the convicted. It also houses those merely accused of crimes who are awaiting trial. The difference between the two doesn’t matter much to those staffing Rikers. If you’re there, you’re no longer a human being. For years, the jail has been mismanaged, which is a really kind word for a […]
Amazon’s home security tech acquisition, Ring, has become a dominant player in this industry sector. Some of that is due to Amazon’s backing. A lot of this is due to extremely inappropriate relationships with law enforcement, which convert cops to Ring proselytizers whose public statements are subject to review by the company’s PR wing. Ubiquity […]
A few months ago, I attended a wonderful conference put on by the “Global Freedom of Expression” program at Columbia University discussing decentralized social media and regulations around social media. One of the speakers, Alison McCauley from Unfinished Labs, gave a very interesting presentation on the first day of the conference, October 3rd, (which kindly […]
Meet Bittle, the palm-sized open-source bionic robot dog. Have fun watching it play tricks like a real animal, moving with 4 legs rather than wheels. Legged motion gives it more freedom to navigate unstructured terrains. Bittle is an open platform to fuse multiple makers’ gadgets into one organic system. With a customized Arduino board coordinating […]
Careful, kids. The FBI is recommending something useful. The same entity that thinks encryption is the enemy has delivered a message suggesting it may still care about the safety and security of internet users… at least those it doesn’t consider to be persons of interest. Here’s Daniel Sims of Techspot with more details. The FBI issued a […]
Back in August, password storage app LastPass vaguely admitted that hackers had accessed the company’s systems. In the company’s original August reveal, the company generally tap danced around the subject, claiming that while they had identified some “unusual activity,” consumer data had not been accessed. By November, LastPass had begun shifting its story a bit, […]
It’s not often a cop gets criminally charged for killing someone. In most cases, cops are cleared of wrongdoing. Even when they aren’t, their employers and overseers aren’t interested in establishing deterrents to bad police behavior or holding bad cops accountable for their wrongdoing. There are notable exceptions, of course. The most recent notable case […]
It’s been many, many years since we were regularly covering what we referred to as the ITC loophole in patent enforcement. The issue was that patent holders could get two totally separate at bats to try to force a company that was actually innovating to pay up over dubious patents. They could go to court, […]
As a publicly traded company, it’s simply not good enough to provide an affordable service that people genuinely like. The pressure to deliver quarter over quarter growth often takes on a tendency toward auto-cannibalism; price hikes, customer support cuts, dumb ideas justified through greed, all designed to goose short-term growth, but often at the cost […]
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to take you from beginner to expert in Python, and learn how to apply that knowledge to AI. You’ll learn about data visualization, deep learning, artificial neural networks, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by […]
Colleen Huber M.D. thinks she can cure cancer by altering patients’ sugar intake. She also believes baking soda is better than chemotherapy when it comes to fighting this disease. Rational people think she’s endangering people’s lives and have said as much. Repeatedly. In response, Colleen Huber has filed lawsuits. Repeatedly. She feels she speaks from […]
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