Israeli spyware firm NSO Group faces renewed US scrutiny

Department of Justice said to have asked WhatsApp for details of alleged targeting of clients in 2019

NSO Group appears to be facing renewed scrutiny by the US Department of Justice months after leading technology companies said the spyware maker was “powerful and dangerous” and should be held liable to the country’s anti-hacking laws.

DoJ lawyers recently approached the messaging app WhatsApp with technical questions about the alleged targeting of 1,400 of its users by NSO Group’s government clients in 2019, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

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macOS 11 Big Sur review: the Mac, iPad-ified for the future

Apple’s big update adds colour, iPhone-like icons, settings and apps, ready for new and old Macs alike

Apple has just released Big Sur as a free update, marking the biggest redesign for macOS in years. The core system of every Mac computer is now equal parts traditional desktop computer and features many will be used to seeing from the iPad and iPhone.

Big Sur marks the end of an era for the Mac’s software in more ways than one. For years Apple has been slowly blending the design and operation of its desktop and mobile software, bringing features from the iPhone or iPad to the Mac and vice versa. With Big Sur comes a significant step toward the goal of merging the two.

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Microsoft joins court battle between Apple and Fortnite maker Epic

Dispute over in-app purchases is seen as proxy war over future of App Store

Microsoft has joined the court battle between Apple and Epic Games, filing a legal brief supporting the Fortnite developer’s right to carry on developing software for Mac and iOS while the case continues.

The submission, signed by Kevin Gammill, the executive in charge of supporting developers on Microsoft’s Xbox console, is further evidence that the lawsuit over in-app purchases in Fortnite is set to become a proxy war over the future of the App Store.

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Microsoft president’s criticism of app stores puts pressure on Apple

Cut of up to 30% charged by app stores obstructs fair competition, claims Brad Smith

Microsoft has thrown its weight behind calls for an antitrust investigation into App Store monopolies, piling yet more pressure on Apple as the iPhone maker prepares for its annual developer conference on Monday.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers this month, and argued that the policy is a far higher burden on fair competition than the issues that led to Microsoft’s antitrust case in the early 2000s.

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WhatsApp: Israeli firm ‘deeply involved’ in hacking our users

NSO Group allegedly connected to hacks of 1,400 people including human rights activists

WhatsApp has alleged in new court filings that an Israeli spyware company used US-based servers and was “deeply involved” in carrying out mobile phone hacks of 1,400 WhatsApp users, including senior government officials, journalists, and human rights activists.

The new claims about NSO Group allege that the Israeli company bears responsibility in serious human rights violations, including the hacking of more than a dozen Indian journalists and Rwandan dissidents.

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Bug leaves iPhones vulnerable to hackers stealing email contents

Fault in built-in Mail app could allow attackers to read, modify or delete emails, say experts

A newly discovered bug in the built-in Mail app for iPhones could allow an attacker to read, modify and delete emails, researchers say.

Apple says it will patch the vulnerability in the next version of iOS, 13.4.5, and that users of the beta software are already protected. But until that update is made available to the general public, every other iPhone user is vulnerable to the attack, which can be used to steal the contents of emails.

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NSO Group points finger at state clients in WhatsApp spying case

In court filing, Israeli spyware company says it does not operate technology it provides

An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses, according to court documents.

NSO Group – whose technology is reported to have been used against dozens of targets including Pakistani intelligence officials, Indian journalists and exiled Rwandan political activists – also claimed in legal documents that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.

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Anti-extremism software to be used to tackle vaccine disinformation

Redirection tool that confronts anti-vax theories under development by UK’s Moonshot

Technology used to counter violent messages online from Islamic State and the far right is being adapted to counter the spread of “anti-vax” conspiracy theories.

Moonshot CVE, a company currently working in as many as 28 countries, uses techniques to identify and intervene in the cases of internet users at risk of being radicalised online. Its technology has already been deployed to counter the KKK in the US, Isis and the far right in Europe.

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WWDC 2019: Apple unveils new iOS, iPad OS, macOS and Mac Pro

The iTunes app is dead, your iPhone will be faster and the $5,999 Mac Pro becomes firm’s most expensive computer

Apple has announced that the iPhone is going to get faster with iOS 13, the iTunes app is dead on the Mac with the new macOS 10.15 Catalina, and the iPad is getting its own operating system.

On stage at the firm’s annual developer conference in San Jose McEnery Convention Center, California, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook unveiled the next versions of iOS, iPad OS, watchOS, macOS and the long-awaited Mac Pro, which becomes Apple’s most expensive computer yet.

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Apple expected to close iTunes

Tim Cook will announce separate apps for music, TV and podcasts, according to reports

It was once heralded as a possible saviour of the music industry in the digital age, famously annoyed fans by forcing a U2 album on them, and its 20,699-word terms and conditions have even inspired a graphic novel, but now Apple is to replace its iTunes download service.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the tech company will announce that three separate apps for music, TV and podcasts will supersede iTunes, as Apple seeks to reposition itself as an entertainment service rather than a hardware company powered by products such as the iPhone.

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Nothing sacred: Russian spies tried hacking Orthodox clergy

The Russian hackers indicted by the US special prosecutor last month have spent years trying to steal the private correspondence of some of the world's most senior Orthodox Christian figures, The Associated Press has found, illustrating the high stakes as Kiev and Moscow wrestle over the religious future of Ukraine. The targets included top aides to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who often is described as the first among equals of the world's Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders.

Iran hackers – target UK universities’

A hacking group linked to Iran may have targeted British universities as part of a campaign to steal student credentials, cyber security experts have said. Researchers from the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit said the group, called Colbalt Dickens, was "likely responsible" for an attack on 76 universities in 14 countries, including the UK.

Pentagon Needs to Stop Doing Business With Foreign Fraudsters

Its final results won't be known until later this year, but the first-ever agency-wide audit of the Department of Defense already has raised some eyebrows. It previously had revealed through reports from the Office of the Inspector General that the Army had posted $6.5 trillion in accounting discrepancies in 2015, and from the Defense Logistics Agency the procurement arm of the U.S. military that it can't account for $800 million in spending on construction projects.

Trump to discuss ‘violent video-game exposure’ with industry execs.

Trump, a Republican, cited the influence of video games after a 19-year-old gunman was accused of killing 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida and injuring more than a dozen others. "I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts," he said last month.

Russian hackers targeted more than 200 journalists globally

Russian television anchor Pavel Lobkov was in the studio getting ready for his show when jarring news flashed across his phone: Some of his most intimate messages had just been published to the web. Days earlier, the veteran journalist had come out live on air as HIV-positive, a taboo-breaking revelation that drew responses from hundreds of Russians fighting their own lonely struggles with the virus.

Net neutrality rules ditched in move that could recast internet

The US Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal sweeping 2015 net neutrality rules, in a move that gives internet service providers a free hand to slow or block websites and apps as they see fit, or charge more for faster speeds. The approval of FCC chairman Ajit Pai's proposal marked a victory for internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications and could recast the digital landscape.

Video Game Developer Prevails In Fight Over ‘Faceprints’ Digital News Daily a ” 31 minutes ago

An appellate court has largely sided with Take-Two Interactive Software in a battle over whether the company violated an Illinois privacy law by collecting faceprints of video game players. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld a trial judge's decision to dismiss a class-action complaint filed by siblings Vanessa and Ricardo Vigil over the game NBA2K15.

Russia’s hackers took only a week to pry into Clinton camp

Nineteen thousand lines of raw data associated with the theft of emails from Hillary Clinton campaign staffers show how the hackers managed the election-shaking operation. Minute-by-minute logs gathered by the cybersecurity company Secureworks and recently shared with The Associated Press suggest it took the hackers just over a week of work to zero in on and penetrate the personal Gmail account of campaign chairman John Podesta.