Amazon was caught red-handed, handing over Ring doorbell footage to law enforcement agencies without user permission, subpoenas, warrants, without any of the traditional legal controls which prevent liberal disclosure of non-public data to law enforcement. This disclosure was set to further ignite ongoing debates about privacy and civil liberties in relation to the tech giant’s video-sharing agreements with police departments nationwide.

Concerns over the potential impact of tech company layoffs on the integrity of the 2024 elections are being raised by three U.S. senators. Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, Peter Welch from Vermont, and Dick Durbin from Illinois are questioning whether recent workforce reductions at Meta (formerly Facebook), Alphabet (the parent company of Google), and Twitter could compromise the fight against misinformation.

Today, we’re drawing your attention to a sinister new scam flourishing on social marketplaces like Facebook’s Marketplace. This time, digital wallets are under threat, with the likes of Venmo, PayPal, and other cash transfer apps falling victim to these deceptive practices.

Welcome to another deep dive from The Internet Patrol, where we unearth the Internet’s most complex and impactful stories for your edification. In today’s exploration, we delve into a major cyber attack that has, unfortunately, compromised the security of the U.S. federal government and allies, including NATO members.

Apple Inc has vehemently denied allegations made by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that it colluded with American intelligence agencies to surveil Russian iPhone users.

Microsoft has issued a stark warning about the rising threats to the critical infrastructure of the United States. The company, based in Redmond, Washington, reported on Wednesday that it had detected “stealthy and targeted malicious activity” perpetrated by a state-sponsored actor from China.

In a landmark victory for global cybersecurity, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), alongside the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes alliance, has successfully disrupted the cyber-espionage activities of Turla, a notorious cybercrime group linked to Russia. Turla, known for its advanced cyber-espionage techniques, has been a persistent thorn in the side of international cyber defense.

According to a new report, ransomware attacks are still a major issue for organizations, and many are still choosing to pay the ransom.

Facebook enables abusers. And they know that they do it. In a world full of online stalking, cyber bullying, and intimidation of the abused and traumatized, the fact that Facebook has never given users the ability to turn off Facebook Messenger read receipts may be one of the most egregious hand-offs of power to abusers ever to be perpetrated by a social media platform.

The Facebook App can “surreptitiously” drain battery on your device, a former employee alleges in a lawsuit. This practice, known as “negative testing,” is essentially an app developer running down someone’s device battery, in the name of testing features or issues such as how fast their app runs or how an image might load, according to data scientist George Hayward.

As I write this, in 2022, I realize I used to be afraid of the dystopian state and future that humanity could find itself facing due to tech. I just turned 24, and I hardly remember a world before social media. From a young age, I saw an upcoming fork in the road. One path could lead us to an easier world, a more fair world – a world where automation grants an easier life to all, a world in which we are free to spend our time with our families, with our passions. I yearned for this path. The other path looked much, much more sinister. Mass surveillance, manufactured consent, endless propaganda, a war on truth, a war on freedom of thought, and a limited range of socially acceptable discourse and debate all seemed likely.

By now you know that your online activities are an open secret and can be tracked by various parties. While some users resort to deploying VPNs, others activate the incognito or private mode when browsing to keep their online activities away from prying eyes. So, how private is the incognito…

The Blue Whale Challenge, also known as the Blue Whale Game, is purported to be a deadly game which targets teenagers online and through social media. Said to be named after the way a blue whale will beach itself and die, Blue Whale consists of 50 challenges, increasingly harmful, photographic completion of which you send back to your handler (known as the ‘curator’ or the ‘administrator’), with the final fiftieth challenge being suicide, also broadcast via social media.

Notre Dame athletic director, Jack Swarbrick has confirmed that the school’s star football player, Manti Te’o, is a victim of an Internet hoax. Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, was a complete fabrication and reports that she died from leukemia during the 2012 football season are a lie. Initial reports had Te’o as part of the hoax, but Te’o and his family are flatly denying this, saying that Te’o is profoundly hurt and embarrassed by the entire situation.

Hunter Moore, the guy who invented revenge porn, is at it again and this time Internet hacktivist group Anonymous, specifically Kentucky Anonymous (@kyanonymous), has vowed to not let him get away with it in a campaign they’ve dubbed “Operation Hunt Hunter,” or, #OpHuntHunter. Despite the fact that he sold his original revenge porn website IsAnyoneUp.com, where users could submit naked pictures of others without consent, to an anti-bullying organization, and wrote what appeared to be a heartfelt letter apologizing for the mayhem his site caused, he told BetaBeat.com, “I literally had a half pound of cocaine on a fucking table with like 16 of my friends and we were busting up laughing taking turns writing this stupid letter.”