When last we checked in with One America News (OAN), it was trying (with the help of numerous Republican AGs) to pretend that DirecTV’s decision to boot the barely watched conspiracy network from its cable lineup was part of a vast, diabolical cabal to censor conservatives (it wasn’t). OAN more recently attacked Verizon, the last […]
Someone emailed to call my attention to some new survey results out of the University of South Florida’s Center for Cybersecurity, which contained public opinion polls about internet regulation (and gas prices, but that’s a bit outside our wheelhouse). The key part that was highlighted to me was: More than half of Floridians (52%) say […]
In 2010, the town of Fort Myers Beach, Florida passed an ordinance that banned portable signs. According to the town government, this was done to “prevent visual blight and confusion” while simultaneously “protecting the free speech rights” of sign owners/holders. It failed to achieve the second half of the noble goals, the Eleventh Circuit Court […]
The Z2 headphones earned their name because they feature twice the sound, twice the battery life, and twice the convenience of competing headphones. This updated version of the original Z2s comes with a new all-black design and Bluetooth 5.0. Packed with TREBLAB’s most advanced Sound2.0 technology with aptX and T-Quiet active noise-cancellation, these headphones deliver goose bump-inducing […]
Not every crime is linked to a cell phone, no matter what cops may think. True, cell phones are omnibuses of information, containing overflowing email inboxes, social media posts, personal contacts, photographs, text messages, vast amounts of location history, etc., but not every crime generates evidence on a phone, not even one carried by a […]
Telecom lobbyists are exploiting the creation of a new federal privacy bill, using the opportunity to further lobotomize the FCC and ensure the broken, uncompetitive U.S. telecom sector sees even less oversight than ever before. For years telecom giants, the entire GOP, and some key Democrats have worked tirelessly to gut oversight of a very […]
It’s hardly a secret that upload filters don’t work well. Back in 2017, Felix Reda, then Shadow Rapporteur on the EU Copyright Directive in the European Parliament, put together a representative sample of the many different ways in which filters fail. A recent series of tweets by Markus Pössel, Senior Outreach Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, […]
There’s surely some utility buried somewhere underneath the monumental piles of bullshit, hype, and outright scams. But with cryptocurrency values tanking and the public losing interest, the NFT craze appears to be retreating just as quickly as it arrived. That’s bad news for the numerous companies that — after bumbling through the bureaucratic process of […]
Antonio García Martínez recently invited me on his podcast, The Pull Request. I was thrilled. Antonio is witty, charming, and intimidatingly brilliant (he was a PhD student in physics at Berkeley, and it shows). We did the episode, and we had a great time. But we never got to an important topic—Antonio’s take on free […]
It’s seems to have become accepted wisdom by many — including policymakers — that social media is dangerous for kids. But every time we look at the details, the data is lacking. This is not for a lack of trying, of course. There have been tons of studies that try to make the link, but […]
Canada’s Bill C-11, which will hand the country’s broadcast regulator new powers to set rules for all kinds of online video and audio content, was rushed through an undemocratic sham of a “review” and then passed in the House of Commons by the reigning Liberal government. Now, it’s sitting in the Senate where the last […]
If capturing a bird’s eye view of your favorite places is a fun way for you to unwind when you have some time, then the Vivitar VTI Phoenix Foldable Camera Drone (certified refurbished) is a great choice for updating your hobby’s capabilities. All the pieces come secured in the sided carrying case, which helps protect them from […]
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 […]
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