The nation is no longer secure. I’m sorry I’m being so blunt here. But there’s no way the union can survive, not with the omnipresent threat of airborne terrorism that justifies the existence of the absolutely horrendous TSA. The “no fly” list is one of America’s many post-9/11 travesties. It’s the place we put people […]
In a move that seems unlikely to surprise anyone who has followed any bit of the life and career of former President Donald Trump, it appears that he is getting ready to come back to Twitter, in a process that will fuck over the social media site that he lent his name and brand to, […]
Unleash the power of PlayStation and explore hundreds of incredible games with a new choice of membership plan. With PlayStation Plus Essential, you’ll get to enjoy all the core PlayStation Plus benefits: join your friends in online multiplayer, add new games to your collection every month, get incredible deals from PlayStation Store, and more. Relive some […]
Once again, the federal court that had the misfortune of dealing with Donald Trump’s pile of conspiracy theory he and his lawyers generously called a “lawsuit” is handing out sanctions to Trump’s legal team. The lawsuit — which claimed Hillary Clinton (and a couple dozen others) conspired to rig the election Trump actually won — […]
T-Mobile hasn’t been what you’d call competent when it comes to protecting its customers’ data. The company has now been hacked numerous times just since 2018, with hackers at one point going so far as to publicly ridicule the company’s lousy security practices. Case in point: T-Mobile just revealed in an SEC filing (spotted by TechCrunch) that the company was […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy on our post about the FEC tossing out the GOP’s complaint about Google spam filters, where he called extra attention to the fact that no Republicans used Google’s special spam-filter evading program: That really needs to be hammered home any time […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, Rep. Marsha Blackburn was pushing a fake net neutrality law, while the Senate push to save net neutrality was one vote short, and lawsuits were lining up against the FCC over the repeal: first from 22 state Attorneys General, and then from Mozilla and consumer groups like Public […]
Maybe it’s time for the Israeli government to put a moratorium on Mossad-based startups. Israeli intelligence services have been the petri dishes for a particular strain of techbro — ones who have the smarts to create zero-click exploits but none of the common sense needed to cull baddies from their customer lists. The Israeli government […]
For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. Musk […]
As you’ll recall, Elon Musk’s first “big idea” for “saving Twitter” was to get rid of the existing verification program, oddly and uncomfortably merge it with Twitter’s subscription program, Twitter Blue, and… um… profit? Lots and lots of people (including Twitter’s existing trust and safety team) explained why this was a stupid idea, but Musk […]
The good news: New York State recently passed landmark right to repair legislation that should improve consumer access to independent repair options. The bad news: despite passing the state assembly 147–2 and the senate 59–4, lobbyists managed to convince NY Governor Kathy Hochul to dramatically water down the legislation before it was passed, rendering it […]
For a political leader who’s so transparently self-serving and incredibly thin-skinned, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan sure seems to have a knack for bending other parts of the world to his will. Having criminalized pretty much any criticism of him, President Erdogan has managed to silence a lot of homegrown dissent. But it’s apparently not […]
An alarm on wheels. Clocky, the runaway alarm clock, is the rolling, jumping, moving alarm. He’s the durable bedside alarm that will run away, hide, move, roll, wheel, beep, and jump (from up to a 3-foot nightstand). He moves on carpet or wood, and changes directions over and over until you get up to turn […]
Last week, Twitter (with no notice or explanation) seemed to cut off API access to the most popular 3rd party Twitter clients. It was unclear if this was done on purpose or not. Earlier this week, it became pretty damn clear that it was done on purpose, after one of those providers, Tweetbot, dug up […]
Recently, New York State passed a new law (pdf) demanding that regional broadband providers (Verizon, Charter Spectrum, and Altice) provide low-income consumers $15, 25 Mbps broadband tiers to help them survive COVID. The goal: to try and help struggling Americans afford the high cost of broadband during an historic health crisis. Under the proposal ISPs are also […]
This is one of those interesting times when multiple topics we regularly cover here at Techdirt converge. Readers here will recall all the posts we did on the rollout and eventual demise of Google’s Stadia product. Stadia was primarily to be a game streaming service for existing games. That being said, the service also signed […]
Every amicus brief the Copia Institute has filed has been important. But the brief filed today is one where all the marbles are at stake. Up before the Supreme Court is Gonzalez v. Google, a case that puts Section 230 squarely in the sights of the Court, including its justices who have previously expressed serious […]
While some states work on how best to phase out traditional gas cars to help mitigate the climate’s steady collapse, Wyoming is busy showcasing how far its head is lodged up the ass of the oil and gas industry. Last week Wyoming’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 4, which calls for a phaseout […]
Over the last year, we’ve been covering a whiny, victim-playing, bit of nonsense, inspired and pushed by a firm whose main business seems to be running spam email campaigns for Republican politicians, that Google is “unfairly” putting their campaign emails into the spam folder. This was all kicked off when some of these Republican spammer […]
Data brokers like Experian and Equifax pose tempting targets for malicious hackers looking to find another source for personal info they can hawk online to other malicious people. The sad thing is, no one really needs to hack their databases. They’re more than willing to just leave them exposed. In 2017, Equifax leaked personal info […]
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