Based on (admittedly scattershot) case law, the best protection for your phone (and constitutional rights) seems to depend on whatever device owners feel is the most persistent (or dangerous) threat. If you, a regular phone owner, feel the worst thing that could happen to you is the theft of your phone, then using biometric features […]
The US has always had a fairly pathetic definition of “broadband.” Originally defined as anything over 200 kbps in either direction, the definition was updated in 2010 to a pathetic 4 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up. It was updated again in 2015 by the FCC to a better, but still arguably pathetic 25 Mbps downstream, […]
For a few years now, uninformed police officials have been making America stupider by pushing the narrative that fentanyl is so dangerous, simply being near it is possibly fatal. Ignoring the fact that drugs must be ingested in some form to do what they’re supposed to do, law enforcement agencies have repeatedly made absurd, completely […]
The Chinese government often seems like an unstoppable force of evil. Perhaps the word “seems” needs to be removed from the previous sentence. The government seems all too capable of keeping a few billion people in line, strongly suggesting it has obtained the oppression cheat codes. But there are still signs of life. Residents of […]
We’ve highlighted for years the problems with the data protection regime in the EU, mainly the GDPR, but other aspects as well. The underlying idea — that people have a right to have their data protected — may seem sound and logical, but in practice it’s generally been a total mess*, that has likely caused […]
Given the seemingly endless privacy scandals that now engulf the tech and telecom sectors on a near-daily basis, many consumers have flocked to virtual private networks (VPN) to protect and encrypt their data. One study found that VPN use quadrupled between 2016 and 2018 as consumers rushed to protect data in the wake of scandals, breaches, and […]
The 2022 Premium IT Asset and Risk Management Certification Prep Bundle has 11 courses on IT asset management, server backup, network security, ethical hacking and more. You’ll learn how to protect the integrity of the databases, how to better prevent malicious exploitation, how to build simple LANs, and more. It’s on sale for $59. Note: […]
Judicial immunity is one of a handful of absolute immunities. Like the name suggests, absolute immunity is a pretty tough shield to pierce. Every so often, someone will do something terrible enough to be stripped of immunity they assumed was absolute. But those cases are extremely rare. Rarer still is hearing of a judge being […]
After years of saying password sharing wasn’t really a big deal and was akin to free advertising, Netflix recently announced it would be cracking down on password sharing. It started with a new trial in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, where users were forced to pay an additional fee if they shared their password with […]
There are a great many things that tend to annoy me about the sorts of trademark disputes we cover here at Techdirt. Overly aggressive parties policing trademarks in ways that extend far beyond the reasonable. A USPTO that seems all too happy to grant trademarks for things that it simply shouldn’t have, causing all kinds […]
About a week ago, a Florida judge decided a local law superseded the First Amendment. The judge granted an injunction to law enforcement officers, barring a Florida newspaper from publishing their names. The names were of public interest. The officers, deputies for the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, had arrived at an apartment to serve an […]
Yesterday, we released a new report from the Copia Institute, written by Karl Bode, about the state of broadband competition and the great potential of an open access fiber model: Just A Click Away: Broadband Competition In America. On today’s episode, Karl joins the podcast to dig into the details of the report and explain […]
Things move fast in the Delaware Chancery Court and if you blink, you just might miss it. A week and a half ago, you’ll recall, Musk sought to terminate the deal using the exact pretextual excuses most of us assumed he would be using, and which he telegraphed in his letter to Twitter. Days later, […]
California has officially joined the growing list of states attempting to regulate how social media companies run their platforms. The state’s proposed legislation, however, faces a major legal obstacle: the Constitution. California lawmakers are marching ahead with AB 2408, the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act. On June 28, the Judiciary Committee unanimously passed […]
Whether you’re checking emails or watching a great movie, the Lenovo N22 Chromebook delivers enhanced browsing and streaming. Powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron dual-core processor and 4GB of RAM, the N22 can handle multitasking and everyday computing needs. If you need more processing power, the CPU can achieve a burst speed of 2.16 GHz. […]
The FBI’s shift from law enforcement to counter-terrorism began shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, but really took off about a decade later, when it got into the business of radicalizing internet randos to turn them into “terrorists” worth hitting with material support charges. While the FBI continued to pretend it was making the […]
As we’ve long noted, the Trump era attack on net neutrality was one of the more grotesque examples of regulatory capture and corruption in Internet policy history. The rules, which imposed some very modest restrictions on giant telecom monopolies to prevent them from abusing market power, were very popular among consumers of all political stripes. […]
Beyond the overproduced marketing videos and janky product prototypes closely associated today with “the metaverse” lies a bright and boundless future. In a pandemic-stricken world that imposes more and stronger barriers at every turn—whether they be medical, social, legal, economic, or geopolitical—there is magic in transposing the spirit of a global free and open internet […]
A lawsuit filed by four protesters against three Boston police officers can move forward, following a federal judge’s determination that the cops’ counterarguments were too ridiculous to be granted credence. The plaintiffs were participating in one of thousands of protests that erupted following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white […]
I guess it’s only natural that the UK’s Online Safety Bill — brilliantly dubbed the bill to Brexit the internet by Heather Burns — is getting delayed, just like the regular Brexit. And, no surprise, Boris Johnson is part of the issue again. As you’ll have likely heard, if you haven’t been under a rock, […]
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