John Lister

Two proposed laws to boost online privacy and security for children have received widespread backing in the Senate. Whether the measures will make it into law remains unclear. The laws are the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and ... Teen's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). They've now been combined into a single package for administrative and voting purposes. 86 Senators agreed the laws should be considered by the Senate while just one voted against. That means they will go to a final approval vote after further discussion. (Source: ctmirror.org ) Greater Parental Controls ... (view more)

Almost one in six Chrome extensions could stop working this summer thanks to a major Google update. They include one of the most prominent ad-blocking tools. An extension is a third party tool that integrates with Chrome to improve the user's ... experience when accessing websites. They can include tools as diverse as password managers, page translators and video downloaders, though ad blockers are perhaps the best known. Extensions are able to integrate with Chrome and access its data thanks for a platform called Manifest. Google has developed a Version 3 of Manifest and is phasing out support ... (view more)

Major tech companies say spyware victims should be able to sue attackers in the US even if the attack physically happens outside the country. They say its particularly important for highly targeted attacks. The companies have put out their position ... by filing an amicus brief in an ongoing case involving Israeli cyber intelligence firm NSO Group, makers of the infamous Pegasus spyware . An amicus brief is where people not directly involved in a case, usually subject matter experts, provide an opinion or information to help the court. The case was brought by a news organization based in El ... (view more)

Apple has launched a privacy-focused ad campaign for the iPhone. It's billed as a promotion of its Safari browser but is clearly an attack on Google's Chrome. The ad is loosely based on The Birds but with the creatures replaced by flying ... surveillance cameras that follow and attack phone users with an onscreen graphic reading "Your browsing is being watched." It then ends with users opening the Safari browser, at which point the flying cameras explode, with a new graphic reading "Safari. A browser that's actually private." Incognito Mode Dubiously Named Apple has previously highlighted ... (view more)

Google has ditched plans to block third-party cookies in the Chrome browser. It says it will instead let users "make an informed choice" - a change that's upset privacy campaigners. A cookie is a text file placed by a website on a user's computer. ... The site can then retrieve information from the file the next time the user visits, for example to log them into an account or to provide a personalized website experience such as a localized weather forecast. Many cookies are "first party," meaning they only collect and store data about a user's activity on the site which issued the cookies. ... (view more)

Quantum computers could be practical in just three years from now according to a manufacturer. The technology could transform the speed and capability of computers. Oxford Ionics says it has not only produced a quantum computer chip with twice the ... performance of any existing chip, but that it could mass-produce its new design without needing specialist facilities. The idea of quantum computing has been explored for many years and aims to overcome one of the biggest limitations of traditional computing. Ultimately existing computers simply store data as either a 0 or a 1 (a bit), usually ... (view more)

Google has significantly scaled back its use of AI-generated "answers" on its search results page. It's also sourcing less of the "facts" from discussion forums such as Reddit. The changes are to the "AI Overview" feature, which replaced a similar ... feature called "Search Generative Experience". In both cases, it meant Google creating text that appeared at the top of the search results page, ahead of the normal list of links to relevant websites. The feature is primarily designed to answer questions without the need for the user to visit a website. The "answers" are a summary of information on ... (view more)

Reports that hackers have got their hands on 10 billion passwords have been slightly overblown. The file includes passwords up to 20 years old and many may never have been used at all. The "leak" involves an online post of a text file dubbed ... "RockYou 2024" which is said to contain 9,948,575,739 unique passwords, all stored in plain text. It appears to be an update from a similar file published in 2021, with "only" 1.5 billion of the passwords added since that time. Cybernews estimates it contains passwords compiled from around 4,000 databases over the past 20 years. (Source: cybernews.com ) ... (view more)

Microsoft has competition in the market for extending Windows 10 after its scheduled end of life. An independent company is promising simple-to-use security updates - with a cost. Officially, Microsoft will stop issuing free security updates for ... Windows 10 after October 14, 2025, just over 10 years after the system was released. That's not got a great reaction given Microsoft heavily implied there would be no new version after 10, and that it has arguably made Windows 11 an unnecessarily difficult upgrade through new hardware security requirements. If all goes to plan, anyone wanting to keep ... (view more)

Microsoft says Russian hackers accessed its customers' emails during an attack earlier this year. It had previously only said Microsoft's own staff were victims. The company has not yet said how many customers are affected but says it has contacted ... them with details of the attack. Microsoft was breached by a group called Midnight Blizzard, believed to operate from Russia. The government there has not commented on the claims. The new revelations follow a Microsoft announcement in January that a small proportion of its corporate email accounts had been accessed by Midnight Blizzard. The attacks ... (view more)