Новости за 13.12.2016

A couple of years ago, two victims of Iowa's Snatch and Grab drug interdiction team saw $100,000 in cash disappear into the pockets of state police following a dubious traffic stop. The state ultimately returned 90% of the seized cash to the California natives, but not before calling in a tip to California law enforcement to cause additional problems for them once they returned home.

For years now, we've noted that some companies apparently think it's a good idea to punish security researchers that expose vulnerabilities in their products, even when the researchers use the proper channels to report their findings. This kind of absurdity runs hand-in-hand with international attempts to criminalize security research -- or the tools researchers use -- to do their jobs. Obviously, this kind of behavior has one tangible end result: it makes all of us less secure.

The latest... Читать дальше...

You've got too many files in your life to effectively manage on just one device, which is where pCloud Premium Cloud Storage comes in handy. It's now available for $60 from the Techdirt Deals Store. A web storage space for all of your photos, videos, music, documents, and more, pCloud gives you an easily accessible place to store your valuables without taking up any precious data on your devices. With unrivaled transfer speed and security, pCloud makes saving and sharing memories extremely easy.

Note... Читать дальше...

One of the frequent rumors during the election season was that Donald Trump, if he lost, was going to quickly start up a new TV news network, which everyone (obviously) dubbed Trump TV. Of course, then Trump won the Presidency... and it appears he may be getting Trump TV anyway, just that it will be financed by American taxpayers. For years, the well known broadcasting operations of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have actually been kept separate from the political pressure from the White House... Читать дальше...

Over the last few weeks, we've noted that Senator Dianne Feinstein has pushed for the CIA Torture Report that she originally commissioned be declassified (beyond the 500 page, heavily redacted, executive summary that was declassified). And then we wrote about two former Senators asking for President Obama to make sure that he preserve the report as a federal record. This is important. The full report, approaching 7,000 pages and costing $40 million to prepare, apparently details all sorts of wrongdoing... Читать дальше...

As we've been discussing, there's absolutely every indication that the incoming Trump administration intends to not only gut net neutrality, but defang and defund the FCC entirely. All three of Trump's telecom advisors have made it abundantly clear they see no role for the FCC as a broadband consumer watchdog. None of them have been able to admit the broadband space suffers from a lack of broadband competition; in fact, one of his top advisors is a Sprint lobbyist who doesn't think telecom monopolies are real. Читать дальше...

Another ruling [PDF] has been handed down in the FBI's multitudinous Playpen cases, this one consolidating four defendants in a Washington federal court. While the court does find aspects of the FBI's child pornography distribution unpleasant, it's not enough to result in anything more than some stern words. All evidence remains unsuppressed and all motions to compel discovery are denied. (h/t Brad Heath)

As we've noted, TPP is unlikely to come back from the dead, despite what some seem to think or hope. For example, the Japanese government has decided to go ahead and ratify TPP anyway. That seems foolish, since it has just thrown away most of its bargaining counters for other trade negotiations, in what amounts to an act of political seppuku. As Sean Flynn points out, Japan has form here, since it also ratified the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), just as pointlessly.

Without citing the Supreme Court's Rodriguez decision, the Superior Court of Delaware has returned a ruling [PDF] that should serve as a deterrent to law enforcement fishing expeditions. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)

So far, very little has been done with the Senate Intelligence Committee's 6,700-page "Torture Report." Some agencies haven't even read it (and have blocked others from doing so). Others have been completely careless in the handling of their copies. Most of the federal government -- especially the White House -- just seems to want it to go away.