Category Archives: Internet

French security experts identify Moscow-based disinformation network

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Network operating in western Europe is ‘paving way for new wave of online manipulation’ in crucial election year, French agency says

French military and cybersecurity experts say they have identified a Moscow-based network spreading propaganda and disinformation in western Europe.

France’s Viginum agency, which was set up in 2021 to detect digital interference from foreign entities aimed at influencing public opinion, says Russia is paving the way for a new wave of online manipulation in the run-up to the European elections and other crucial votes this year.

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Brianna Ghey’s mother warns tech bosses more children will die without action

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Exclusive: Esther Ghey says she believes social media use left her daughter vulnerable, while killers were able to access violent content online

The mother of Brianna Ghey has called for her murder to be a “tipping point” in how society views “the mess” of the internet, warning that a generation of anxious young people will grow up lacking resilience.

Esther Ghey said technology companies had a “moral responsibility” to restrict access to harmful online content. She supports a total ban on social media access for under-16s – a move currently under debate in certain legislatures, including Florida in the US.

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Houthis may sabotage western internet cables in Red Sea, Yemen telecoms firms warn

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UN-recognised government and telecoms firms speak of threat to digital infrastructure, with some submarine cables lying just 100 metres below the surface

Telecom firms linked to the UN-recognised Yemen government said on Sunday they fear Houthi rebels are planning to sabotage a network of submarine cables in the Red Sea critical to the functioning of the western internet, and to the transmission of financial data.

The warning came after a Houthi-linked Telegram channel published a map of the cables running along the bed of the Red Sea. The image was accompanied by a message: “There are maps of international cables connecting all regions of the world through the sea. It seems that Yemen is in a strategic location, as internet lines that connect entire continents – not only countries – pass near it.”

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Virgin Media is most complained about UK broadband provider

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Ofcom figures show Virgin attracted about 32 complaints per 100,000 customers compared with 18 for Now Broadband

Virgin Media is the UK’s most complained about broadband provider according to the latest figures, compounding woes for the firm, which is already under investigation by the communications regulator.

Figures released by Ofcom on Thursday showed that the number of complaints made about Virgin’s internet services between July and September were nearly double that of the next-most complained about provider, with Virgin attracting about 32 complaints per 100,000 customers compared with 18 for Now Broadband.

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Leading tech journalist quits Substack over platform’s Nazi newsletters

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Reporter Casey Newton takes more than 170,000 subscribers elsewhere over company’s failure to police extremist content

Platformer, a prominent tech newsletter founded by the veteran reporter Casey Newton, is leaving Substack over the company’s failure to police extremist content.

In a post explaining the decision, Newton said his team had identified seven Substack publications “that conveyed explicit support for 1930s German Nazis and called for violence against Jews, among other groups”. He said after weeks of back-and-forth discussions with company leaders about their “laissez-faire approach to content moderation”, he decided to part ways with the platform.

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Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

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Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

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French post office opens changing room for online shoppers

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Customers can collect their parcels and try on items in one trip during trial at La Poste branches

It is an increasingly common irritant of modern life. You order an item of clothing online; you wait with anticipation for it to arrive, and five minutes after it has arrived you’re packaging it up because it doesn’t fit.

For shoppers in France, however, the national post office may have the answer – or at least a way of making the process less logistically challenging. It is experimenting with in-store changing rooms to cater to people who want to quickly return purchases they do not want.

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Mexican cartel provided wifi to locals – with threat of death if they didn’t use it

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Criminal group charged $20-$30 a month to about 5,000 people as gangs diversify into sectors other than the drug trade

A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacán set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors.

Dubbed “narco-antennas” by local media, the cartel’s system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment.

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‘Perilous and chaotic’: why officials are nervy before a likely UK election in 2024

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Paper ballots may act as barrier to cyber attacks, but introduction of voter ID could lead to a host of complications

While the date of the next UK general election itself remains in the hands of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, one thing is certain: when the campaign begins it has the potential to be one of the most perilous and chaotic in the country’s history, for a variety of reasons.

One point is worth noting immediately: although the UK is often lumped in with the long list of countries holding elections in 2024, Sunak could theoretically hold it as late as January 2025, maximising the Conservatives’ full five-year term.

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Chinese teenager found alive in Utah woods after ‘cyber-kidnapping scam’

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Exchange student Kai Zhuang, 17, discovered in tent by police days after being reported missing

A Chinese exchange student who fell victim to a “cyber-kidnapping” scam, in which his parents were extorted for $80,000, was found alive but “cold and scared” in a tent in the Utah wilderness, police said.

Kai Zhuang, 17, was reported missing on Thursday after his parents in China told officials at his host high school in Riverdale, Utah, that he appeared to have been kidnapped and a ransom had been demanded.

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Elon Musk says X will reinstate Alex Jones’s account after poll of users

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Rightwing conspiracy theorist was banned from platform in 2018, but could be back after 2m votes cast

The social media platform X will reinstate the account of the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after a poll of the site’s users backed his return, its owner, Elon Musk, has said.

“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk posted in reply to a poll on Saturday on whether to reinstate the Jones account. Close to 2m votes were cast by the time the poll closed, with about 70% voting in favour of Jones’s return.

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Elon Musk visits scene of kibbutz massacre with Benjamin Netanyahu

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Pair speak about Gaza conflict but not online antisemitism nor controversial post made by X owner this month

Elon Musk has joined the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in visiting a kibbutz that was attacked by Hamas on 7 October, after criticism of his endorsement of an antisemitic post on X.

The owner of X, the site formerly known as Twitter, has been criticised for supporting a post on his platform that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people. High-profile advertisers have also suspended spending on the site after a report that ads were appearing next to pro-Nazi content.

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Royal Court theatre launches digital archive of every play performed there

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London venue’s online collection of performances dating back to 1956 will be free to use for writers, directors and the public

The Royal Court has launched a free digital archive of every play performed at the London theatre since 1956 as a resource for writers, directors and members of the public.

Almost 2,000 plays by more than 1,000 writers are accessible on the theatre’s Living Archive, along with lists of their casts and directors.

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Labor to reconsider mandatory data retention laws for companies in light of major hacks

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New cyber security strategy cites business concerns at having to store large amounts of data for excessive periods of time, increasing breach risk

Following several high-profile data breaches in the past year, the federal government will review laws requiring companies to retain data as part of its new cyber security strategy.

Released on Wednesday, the 2023-30 strategy notes that data is increasingly used for ransom attacks and as a tool for coersion.

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Ex-owners of sex work site Backpage convicted of prostitution scheme

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Michael Lacey, Scott Spear and John Brunst, all men in their 70s, created complicated system to try to outwit US government

Three former owners of the website Backpage, a site mainly known as a place where sex workers advertise their services, have been convicted for federal crimes including promoting prostitution and money laundering, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.

The recently convicted trio, Michael Lacey, 75, Scott Spear, 72, and John “Jed” Brunst, 71, came to own Backpage in 2010. Since then, the government says, they encouraged sex work ads by creating a system for “johns”, or customers, to leave reviews about the sex workers they had engaged with. Website workers and an automated system filtered out words that made it obvious that sex was being offered in exchange for money.

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Australia’s critical infrastructure under regular and rising attack from hackers, ASD warns

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Signals Directorate says infrastructure of interest to malicious actors because of its broad attack surface and connected systems

Just days after a major ports company was forced to shut down operations due to a cyber-attack, the Australian Signals Directorate has issued a strong warning that Australia’s critical infrastructure is under regular targeted and opportunistic cyber attack.

DP World Australia, the country’s biggest ports operator, closed its Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle port operations after detecting unauthorised access on its network on Friday.

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Israel-Hamas fake news thrives on poorly regulated online platforms

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Claims on X and Telegram include downplaying 7 October Hamas attack and allegations Palestinians are faking scenes of suffering

Disinformation has flourished across a range of online platforms in the month since Hamas launched its bloody attack on Israel, fuelled by weak content regulation on X, formerly Twitter, and Telegram and at times propelled by state actors.

Widely shared faked news and false claims include efforts to downplay the horror of Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October through to distasteful allegations that Palestinians, already under heavy bombardment, are faking scenes of violence.

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Booking.com to compensate some hotels over delayed payments but others miss out

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Travel website apologises to partners left out of pocket, but those told they do not qualify for compensation say it adds insult to injury

Travel website Booking.com has apologised and offered some hotel operators cash compensation for leaving hotels and partners out of pocket for months, but those who have been left out of the payment say it adds insult to injury.

In an email sent out to hotel operators this week, the Booking.com chief executive, Glenn Fogel, apologised for “the impact that our finance and payment systems maintenance and the resulting delay in payments may have had on you and your business”.

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Ransomware attack on China’s biggest bank disrupts US Treasury market

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American arm of ICBC is latest victim of hackers and is investigating

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s US arm was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted trades in the US Treasury market on Thursday, the latest in a string of victims ransom-demanding hackers have claimed this year.

ICBC Financial Services, the US unit of China’s largest commercial lender by assets, said it was investigating the attack that disrupted some of its systems, and making progress towards recovering from it.

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Optus outage update: network facing Senate inquiry and government review after Australia-wide loss of service

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Optus will provide eligible customers with 200GB of extra data as compensation, now blaming ‘network event’ for catastrophic outage

Optus is scrambling to regain public support after Wednesday’s 14-hour outage by offering “eligible” customers a free data pack, as it faces a senate inquiry and separate government review.

The telco giant’s network dropped out from about 4am on Wednesday, leaving millions of customers including hospitals, schools, financial institutions and government departments unable to make or receive calls for at least nine hours.

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