Increase for fourth consecutive month, with almost 143,000 new vehicles registered in November
Sales of new cars in the UK have risen for the fourth month running, with purely electric vehicles accounting for a fifth of the total.
In the best November for the industry since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, almost 143,000 new vehicles were registered.
Continue reading...EU-funded survey of people aged 16-19 finds one in four have trolled someone – while UK least ‘cyberdeviant’ of nine countries
Risky and criminal online behaviour is in danger of becoming normalised among a generation of young people across Europe, according to EU-funded research that found one in four 16- to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in three have engaged in digital piracy.
An EU-funded study found evidence of widespread criminal, risky and delinquent behaviour among the 16-19 age group in nine European countries including the UK.
Continue reading...Campaigners concerned that ‘same racist technology used to repress Uyghurs is being marketed in Britain’
A Chinese security camera company has been advertising ethnicity recognition features to British and other European customers, even while it faces a ban on UK operations over allegations of involvement in ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang.
In a brochure published on its website, Hikvision advertised a range of features that it said it could provide in collaboration with the UK startup FaiceTech.
Continue reading...Company says its security system prevented the hacker accessing customer data or encrypted passwords
Password manager LastPass has told customers that some of their information has been accessed in a cybersecurity breach, but says passwords remain safe.
LastPass is one of several password managers in the market that aims to reduce the reuse of passwords online, by storing themin a single app. It also makes it easier for users to generate strong passwords as required.
Continue reading...Disgraced CEO said he ‘didn’t knowingly comingle funds’ with FTX’s sister company Alameda Research
“Look, I screwed up,” fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried told a conference in New York on Wednesday, but he maintained he “didn’t ever try to commit fraud” and was “shocked” by the collapse of his businesses.
Bankman-Fried, with glassy eyes and visibly shaking at times, appeared via video conference from a nondescript room in the Bahamas. He told the New York Times’s DealBook Summit he was “deeply sorry about what happened” but consistently argued he did not have a full picture of what was going on within the various branches of FTX, his now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, and its offshoots.
Continue reading...The size of the data file suggests it may be the full trove of hundreds of thousands of customers’ private records that were stolen from the health insurer
The cybercriminals behind the Medibank cyber-attack have posted on the dark web what appears to be the remainder of what customer data they took from the health insurer, stating it is “case closed” for the hack.
On Thursday morning, the blog – which returned online after several days of being offline last week – posted “Happy Cyber Security Day!!! Added folder full. Case closed.” and included a file that has several compressed files amounting to over 5GB.
Continue reading...Decision comes after heated debate as police oversight groups warn over further militarization of law enforcement
Police in San Francisco will be allowed to deploy potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. The controversial policy was approved after weeks of scrutiny and a heated debate among the city’s board of supervisors during their meeting on Tuesday.
Police oversight groups, the ACLU and San Francisco’s public defender had urged the 11-member body to reject the police’s use of equipment proposal. Opponents of the policy said it would lead to further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with underserved communities. They said the parameters under which use would be allowed were too vague. Supporters argued that having these robots as an option in dangerous situations was necessary given what they see as an ever-increasing risk of a high-profile shooting hitting the city.
Continue reading...Revised online safety bill proposes fines of 10% of revenue but drops harmful communications offence
Social media platforms that breach pledges to block sexist and racist content face the threat of substantial fines under government changes to the online safety bill announced on Monday.
Under the new approach, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter must also give users the option of avoiding content that is harmful but does not constitute a criminal offence. This could include racism, misogyny or the glorification of eating disorders.
Continue reading...European parliament is investigating powerful surveillance tool used by governments around the world
Victims of spyware and a group of security experts have privately warned that a European parliament investigatory committee risks being thrown off course by an alleged “disinformation campaign”.
The warning, contained in a letter to MEPs signed by the victims, academics and some of the world’s most renowned surveillance experts, followed news last week that two individuals accused of trying to discredit widely accepted evidence in spyware cases in Spain had been invited to appear before the committee investigating abuse of hacking software.
Continue reading...Hikes set to hit warehouses and online retailers hardest in 2023 as UK government addresses ‘brick v clicks’ tax gap
Amazon’s UK tax bill jump could jump by £29m next year as a result of changes to business rates that are scheduled to hit warehouses and online retailers the hardest.
The online retailer is likely to be among firms facing big tax rises following the chancellor’s autumn statement, according to analysis from the real estate adviser Altus Group.
Continue reading...Critics say telecoms firms such as BT – which made £1.9bn profit last year – can afford to keep customers on benefits connected
BT has warned that the telecoms industry cannot afford an estimated potential loss of up to £2bn annually providing low-cost broadband to millions of the UK’s most financially pressured households, but critics have said they have an obligation to do so.
Marc Allera, the chief executive of BT’s consumer division, which includes the mobile company EE, said the industry needed government support to help cover the ongoing cost of providing cheap tariffs, the same way households have been helped with energy bills.
Continue reading...Online scams such as banking and credit card fraud are the most prevalent cyberthreat, say Interpol
Police and investigators fear organised gangs of fraudsters are expanding across sub-Saharan Africa, exploiting new opportunities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic crisis to make huge sums with little risk of being caught.
The growth will have a direct impact on the rest of the world, where many victims of “hugely lucrative” fraud live, senior police officials have said.
Continue reading...Bar on telecommunications products from firms including ZTE, Dahua and Hikvision are part of latest crackdown on Chinese tech giants amid spying fears
The Biden administration has banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE because they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Friday it had adopted the final rules, which also bar the sale or import of equipment made by Chinese surveillance equipment maker Dahua Technology, video surveillance firm Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and telecoms firm Hytera Communications Corp.
Continue reading...Nonconsensual explicit images to be tackled in bill returning to parliament next month
Nonconsensual “deepfake” pornography and “downblousing” will be made illegal when the online safety bill returns to parliament in December, the government has announced.
Explicit images taken without someone’s consent, through hidden cameras or surreptitious photography, will be criminalised, including so-called downblousing pictures. A previous law banning “upskirt” voyeurism left a loophole that failed to tackle images that weren’t taken with the intent of photographing the victim’s genitals or buttocks.
Continue reading...City’s board of supervisors to consider proposal involving remote-controlled devices
The San Francisco police department has proposed that it be allowed to use robots with “deadly force” while responding to incidents, according to a policy draft.
The document outlines how the department proposes to use its collection of robots, which number 17 in total although 12 are not operational.
Continue reading...Sam Bankman-Fried continues to say firm’s downfall can be solely explained by misplaced $8bn
The founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX has written to its former employees apologising for his role in its collapse and continuing to insist its downfall can be solely explained by a misplaced $8bn (£6.7bn).
In the letter, first published by the industry news site CoinDesk, Sam Bankman-Fried wrote: “I deeply regret my oversight failure. In retrospect, I wish that we had done many many things differently … I’m going to do what I can to make it up to you guys – and to the customers – even if that takes the rest of my life.”
Continue reading...Tech companies aim to pick up experienced engineering talent by appealing to dislike of Tesla chief executive’s methods
Put off by Elon Musk’s muscular management style? Move to us! That’s the pitch being used by talent-starved technology firms trying to lure thousands of former Twitter employees laid off by the social media company under its new owner.
Twitter has fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts with little warning following Musk’s tumultuous takeover of the social media platform. About half of the workforce – around 3,700 employees – has been laid off.
Continue reading...Twitter boss says he has ‘no mercy’ for those who capitalise on deaths of children, citing loss of son in 2002
Elon Musk has said he will not reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Twitter, saying he has “no mercy” for people who capitalize on the deaths of children for personal fame.
Twitter permanently suspended the accounts of Jones and his Infowars website in September 2018 for violating the platform’s abusive behavior policy.
Continue reading...‘The people have spoken,’ says site’s owner, having acknowledged during online poll that automated bots were voting too
Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after users on the social media platform voted by a slim majority to lift a ban on the former US president.
Trump’s account was suspended in 2021 after the January 6 Capitol riot, for violating Twitter guidelines and because of the risk of “further incitement of violence”.
Continue reading...Furor over platform’s verified profiles may have done some good, but challenges still plague the site after a mass worker exodus
Against warnings that Twitter is on the verge of collapse, the social media platform hadn’t died Saturday – at least not yet. But things aren’t necessarily going well for new owner Elon Musk’s goal to re-engineer the company to his tastes and with it the larger, potentially quixotic, goal of re-setting standards of social discourse online.
But while reports of chaos at the company multiply, not all interactions have necessarily proved negative. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly said last week that a tweet by an imposter account over insulin pricing in the US that caused the company’s stock to plunge “probably highlights” a need to bring down the cost of the drug.
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