mspohr shares an excerpt from an article written by Cory Doctorow via The Guardian: The inequality of badly-run or corrupt states is boosted by the power of technology — but it’s also easier than ever to destabilize these states, thanks to technology. The question is: which future will prevail?” [The article discusses two sides to the issue:] Here’s the bad news: technology — specifically, surveillance technology — makes it easier to police disaffected populations, and that gives badly run, corrupt states enough stability to get themselves into real trouble. Here’s the good news: technology — specifically, networked technology — makes it easier for opposition movements to form and mobilize, even under conditions of surveillance, and to topple badly run, corrupt states. Long before the internet radically transformed the way we organize ourselves, theorists were predicting we’d use computers to achieve ambitious goals without traditional hierarchies — but it was a rare pundit who predicted that the first really successful example of this would be an operating system (GNU/Linux), and then an encyclopedia (Wikipedia). [Cory also has a new novel, Walkaway , which explores these ideas further.] The future will see a monotonic increase in the ambitions that loose-knit groups can achieve. My new novel, Walkaway, tries to signpost a territory in our future in which the catastrophes of the super-rich are transformed into something like triumphs by bohemian, anti-authoritarian “walkaways” who build housing and space programs the way we make encyclopedias today: substituting (sometimes acrimonious) discussion and (sometimes vulnerable) networks for submission to the authority of the ruling elites.

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Source: Slashdot – Technology Is Making the World More Unequal; Only Technology Can Fix This

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the FBI for records “about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people’s devices.” The lawsuit stems around an incident in 2011 where a gynecology doctor took his computer for repairs at Best Buy’s Geek Squad. The repair technician was a paid FBI informant that found child pornography on the doctor’s computer, ultimately resulting in the doctor being charged with possessing child pornography. From the EFF’s report: A federal prosecution of a doctor in California revealed that the FBI has been working for several years to cultivate informants in Best Buy’s national repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky, including reportedly paying eight Geek Squad employees as informants. According to court records in the prosecution of the doctor, Mark Rettenmaier, the scheme would work as follows: Customers with computer problems would take their devices to the Geek Squad for repair. Once Geek Squad employees had the devices, they would surreptitiously search the unallocated storage space on the devices for evidence of suspected child porn images and then report any hits to the FBI for criminal prosecution. Court records show that some Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI. At no point did the FBI get warrants based on probable cause before Geek Squad informants conducted these searches. Nor are these cases the result of Best Buy employees happening across potential illegal content on a device and alerting authorities. Rather, the FBI was apparently directing Geek Squad workers to conduct fishing expeditions on people’s devices to find evidence of criminal activity. Prosecutors would later argue, as they did in Rettenmaier’s case, that because private Geek Squad personnel conducted the searches, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. The judge in Rettenmaier’s case appeared to agree with prosecutors, ruling earlier this month that because the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squad’s search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. The court, however, threw out other evidence against Rettenmaier after ruling that FBI agents misstated key facts in the application for a warrant to search his home and smartphone. We disagree with the court’s ruling that Rettenmaier consented to a de-facto government search of his devices when he sought Best Buy’s help to repair his computer. But the court’s ruling demonstrates that law enforcement agents are potentially exploiting legal ambiguity about when private searches become government action that appears intentionally designed to try to avoid the Fourth Amendment.

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Source: Slashdot – EFF Sues FBI For Records About Paid Best Buy Geek Squad Informants

The Federal Trade Commission announced that refunds are now available for parents whose children made in-app purchases without their knowledge. Amazon dropped its appeal of last year’s ruling by a federal judge who sided with the Federal Trade Commission in the agency’s lawsuit again Amazon. According to a TechCrunch report, “the FTC’s original complaint said that Amazon should be liable for millions of dollars it charged customers, because of the way its Appstore software was designed — that is, it allowed kids to spend unlimited amounts of money in games and other apps without requiring parental consent.” CNNMoney reports: According to the FTC, more than $70 million in charges may be eligible for refunds on in-app purchases made between November 2011 and May 2016. In 2014, Apple and Google refunded customers whose children made purchases in their mobile app stores, and the companies were forced to be more explicit about in-app purchases. Both firms no longer call apps “free” when they are free to download but have upgrades you can buy. Amazon sent eligible consumers an email to receive a refund. If you didn’t get one and think you should be eligible, you can click here, or go to the Message Center to find out more information.

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Source: Slashdot – Amazon Is Refunding Up To Million In-App Purchases Made By Kids

An anonymous reader writes: “The FBI has arrested members of a motorcycle gang accused to have hacked and stolen over 150 Jeep Wranglers from Southern California, which they later crossed the border into Mexico to have stripped down for parts,” reports Bleeping Computer. What stands apart is how the gang operated. This involved gang members getting the Jeep Wrangler VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), accessing a proprietary Jeep database, and getting two codes needed to create a duplicate replacement key. Gang members used one code to cut the key, while they used the second code while stealing the car, connecting a handheld programming computer to the car, and programming the replacement key’s chip, synchronizing it to the car’s dashboard. All of this took under 2 minutes and was also possible because Jeep Wranglers allow thieves to pop the hood from the outside of the car and disable the alarm even before using their non-authenticated replacement key. Officials say that all the database queries for the stolen VIN codes came from a Jeep dealer in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Court documents don’t say if the dealer cooperated or gang members hacked its system. The motorcycle gang’s name was Hooligans and the sub-unit that stole the Jeeps was named Dirty 30.

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Source: Slashdot – Motorcycle Gang Busted For Hacking and Stealing Over 150 Jeep Wranglers

In what appears to be a first, a court in Switzerland has fined a man the equivalent of over $4,000 just for clicking the “like” button on what a judge said were defamatory Facebook comments. From a report: The court in Zurich found that the man indirectly endorsed and further distributed the comments by using the ubiquitous Facebook “like” button. The man, who was not named in the court’s statement, “liked” several posts written by a third party that accused an animal rights activist of antisemitism, racism and fascism. In court, the man was not able to prove that the claims were accurate or could reasonably be held to be true. “The defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own,” a statement from the court said. The court fined the man a total of 4,000 Swiss francs ($4,100). He has the right to appeal his sentence. Facebook said the case had “no direct link” to the company, and a spokesperson declined to comment.

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Source: Slashdot – Man Fined ,000 For ‘Liking’ Defamatory Posts on Facebook

OutOnARock quotes a report from Yahoo: Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet marketplace known as Silk Road, has lost his appeal of a 2015 conviction that has him serving a life sentence on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, according to a federal appeals court decision released Wednesday morning. Ulbricht argued that the district court that convicted him violated the Fourth Amendment — which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures — by wrongly denying his motion to suppress evidence, and that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial. “On the day of Ulbricht’s arrest, the government obtained a warrant to seize Ulbricht’s laptop and search it for a wide variety of information related to Silk Road and information that would identify Ulbricht as Dread Pirate Roberts,” states the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Downtown Manhattan. “Ulbricht moved to suppress the large quantity of evidence obtained from his laptop, challenging the constitutionality of that search warrant.”

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Source: Slashdot – Silk Road Founder Loses Appeal and Will Serve Life