Techdirt

Make enough bad choices and, sooner or later, those decisions are going to come back to haunt you. Or, at least, haunt the 50 or so employees you've laid off because your past performance has made it all but impossible to pitch your tech to US government agencies. That's the case here, as reported by [...]

This 4-In-1 Apple Watch & iPhone Charging Cable will allow you to charge up to 4 devices at the same time while saving space. It comes with 2 Lightning, 1 USB-C & 1 Watch charger ports, and the watch port is magnetic. It's a perfect cable to carry when traveling or just to keep around [...]

We've highlighted in great detail how KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act), sponsored by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, which currently has an astounding 46 cosponsors, will be used to stifle LGBTQ voices. We know this because Republicans keep telling us that's exactly how they plan to use it. But, that's not the only [...]

Back in 2019 the cable industry, envious of all the attention 5G wireless was getting, pulled a new marketing term completely out of its ass. It simply started calling ordinary cable broadband upgrades 10G, based on absolutely no real-world standards or definitions. It was a hollow attempt to capitalize on wireless 5G hype because these [...]

The trend continues. One of the things we've noticed more frequently as of late has been larger companies attempting to use trademark law as some kind of cudgel against employee unions. This has taken several forms, from Wal-Mart attempting to shut down a union website for accurately calling itself a union of Wal-Mart employees, Medieval [...]

By any means necessary" has been determined to be the same thing as minimal intrusion" by far too many courts. When cops are searching for suspects, they're pretty much free to destroy anything that stands between them and their (wanted) man, even if it means a wholly innocent house gets leveled in the process. It's [...]

For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk's Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations areharming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimedwould never happen in the first placeis making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can bemitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. Now [...]

Do you all remember Ricky Schroder? He is a former child actor who became prominent thanks to TV series like Silver Spoonsand NYPD Blue. While I could reminisce about old TV for hours, it is worth noting that Ricky Schroder has become a darling for the far-right. You might remember himfrom his greatest hits of [...]

Florida's legislative bigots have already been told twice. I guess they need to hear a third time. The state passed a law that outlawed drag shows, resulting in it being sued by a venue that often hosted drag shows, Hamburger Mary's. The lawsuit claimed the new law violated several rights, first and foremost being the [...]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the most popular enterprise cloud computing solutions, used by businesses around the world to manage data, promote effective communication, secure proprietary information, and more. Professionals who can work and manage AWS platforms are always in high demand, and the Amazon Web Services Technical Training course aims to make [...]

This course of events was all too predictable. In May of 2022, while Elon was still in the trying to buy Twitter" stage, we pointed out the absolute ridiculousness of him meeting with the EU's Thierry Breton and saying that he fully endorsed the EU's DSA approach. As we noted at the time, the whole [...]

As noted last month, the Biden FCC is finally getting ready to restore net neutrality rules stripped away during the Trump administration amidst a lot of bullshit and fraud. And unpopular telecom giants, with the usual support of the GOP, are already busy trying to undermine the effort with a whole new list of manufactured [...]

As the American market continues to expand on rights for Americans to enjoy being super high on cannabis, the industry around those rights are expanding quickly as well. And, in a way that is somewhat akin to the craft beer explosion that occurred last decade, more and more trademark scuffles are popping up as these [...]

Last week, we kicked off our Error 402 series on the history (and hopefully future) of web monetization, by talking about much of the framing of what this series will be about. I started it out by noting that it has been 30 years since I first got online in 1993. That also happened to [...]

Elon Musk keeps insisting that stopping spam bots is a huge priority. After all, he said he'd either stop them or die trying. And, apparently one way to try to stop spam is to stop allowing people to report spam. I'm guessing this is just a mistake on a site that has massive errors pretty [...]

His heart is probably in the right place. That's the best thing I can say about Berkeley professor Dr. Hany Farid, who has spent the last couple of years being wrong about CSAM (child sexual abuse material) detection. That he's been wrong has done little to shut him up. But he appears to deeply feel [...]

The Complete Photoshop Master Class Bundle has 6 courses to teach you what you need to know to create amazing projects. It's no secret that Photoshop can be a bit dense when you're first getting your feet wet with it. That's why it pays to have an expert instructor show you the ropes. Led by [...]

You will recall that, last month, Elon Musk mentioned in passing that he'd decided the only way to stop bots and spam on Twitter (which he'd already claimed to have stopped a few times earlier) was to paywall the entire site with a small monthly payment for use of the X system." This statement apparently [...]

Once a year like clockwork, the telecom industry trade association releases a study claiming that if you squint just right-broadband prices have dropped year after year. It's their annual attempt to pretend (and to help the politicians that coddle them pretend) that the U.S. broadband market isn't heavily monopolized and woefully uncompetitive. Last week, AT&T-backed [...]

ShotSpotter may consider itself to be a solid contributor to the fight against crime, but the facts don't really bear that out. What it is capable of doing is sending cops to any place a gunshot is (possibly) detected, but that hasn't really shown to have any meaningful impact on solving gun-related crimes, much less [...]

One of the copyright world's key weapons is a constant barrage of propaganda about the alleged benefits of this intellectual monopoly, and of the supposed horrors of its infringement. This is typically conducted through massive lobbying of politicians, funded using the copyright companies' generous profits that could have been distributed to the poorly paid creators [...]

Over the last year, we've covered a whole bunch of truly ridiculous, vexatious, bullshit lawsuits filed by school districts against social media companies, blaming them for the fact that the school boards don't know how to teach students (the one thing they're supposed to specialize in!) how to use the internet properly. Instead of realizing [...]

Plenty of legislators and law enforcement officials seem to believe there's only one acceptable solution to the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) problem: breaking encryption. They may state some support for encryption, but when it comes to this particular problem, many of these officials seem to believe everyone's security should be compromised just so a [...]

Think about the things you lose most often. Your keys and your phone, right? Well the Nut Find 3 was built to resolve that little forgetfulness issue. Thanks to Bluetooth 4.0 and Smart Anti-Loss, you won't be anxious about your losing or misplacing your stuff. Just attach the tiny, portable Nut to whatever you lose [...]

Play Trust & Safety Tycoon in your browser on desktop or mobile Today we're super excited to launch Trust & Safety Tycoon, a video game simulating what it's like to run a trust & safety team at a fictitious, rapidly scaling social media company called Yapper*. If you've ever wanted to see how you'd [...]

Last week T-Mobile annoyed customers everywhere by not only informing them they'd soon be facing a steep price hike, but by pretending it wasn't actually a price hike. The company announced it would be moving customers to a more expensive plan unless they opted out (hoping that users wouldn't notice the change). Leaked support docs [...]

Back in February, a copyright case that somehow made it past me, but embedded below, was filed by BMG against MGA Entertainment over a song the latter used for one of its toys. That song was called My Poops" and is a parody of The Blackeyed Peas' My Humps." You can go hear the song, [...]

This case contains multitudes. Let me explain. There's an exception to the Fourth Amendment known as inevitable discovery." That theory says the evidence obtained by possibly unlawful means would still have been discovered by lawful means. That means the evidence is still usable. The most common source of inevitable discovery" is the inventory search." If [...]

Landmark Technology's U.S. Patent No.7,010,508, and its predecessor, are very likely two of the most-abused patents in U.S. history. These patents, under two different owners, have been used to threaten thousands of small businesses since 2001. In just one 18-month period, the 508 patent was the subject of more than 1,800 patent demand letters sent [...]

Way back in 2016, Ken White posted a lawsplainer" about opening up our libel laws,' as Donald Trump had promised on the campaign trail. In it, he noted that unlike (for example...) Roe v. Wade, there was no decades-long effort by the Federalist Society to undermine 1st Amendment principles, such as those established by the [...]

Minors attending public schools may find their rights are limited, due to a variety of factors: school safety, access to learning, etc. But they're not nonexistent. This much courts have made clear, including the top court in the land. Nevertheless, school administrators seem to feel students should be treated as suspects until proven otherwise. In [...]

With its intuitive, immersive training method, Rosetta Stone will have you reading, writing, and speaking new languages like a natural in no time. You'll start by matching words with images just like when you learned your native language as a child. Then you'll move onto interactive lessons where speech recognition technology works to evaluate and [...]

It seemed pretty blatantly obvious that a state can't just ban a popular app used for speech, but Montana insisted otherwise earlier this year, and gleefully passed a law banning TikTok. The law was immediately challenged, and there's been a lot of back and forth on the docket, including a ridiculous amicus brief from Virginia [...]

Groups like the National Digital Inclusion Alliance have consistently released studies showing that telecom giants like AT&T, despitebillions in subsidiesandtax breaks, routinely avoid upgrading minority and low income neighborhoodsto fiber. Not only that, the group has documented how users in those neighborhoods even struggle to have their existing (older and slower) DSL lines repaired. Regional [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about disinformation and censorship on ExTwitter: Anyone remember Musk happily censoring content for Modi instead of challenging the censorship order as Dorsi would have? His justification was that he believes in free speech up to, but not beyond, the law (and [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a federal court dumped another lawsuit accusing Twitter of contributing to worldwide terrorism, a law firm made the stupid decision to threaten Somthing Awful over a hot-linked picture, and it appeared that Epic Games DMCA'd its own Fortnite trailer. Washington State laughed at the federal attack on net [...]

It is a deal that has been two years in the making, but Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been completed. If you haven't followed along for the full play by play of this saga, you can go back and look at all the posts we've done on the topic. But the primer on this [...]

Body cameras can't possibly solve all the problems of current US law enforcement. No single thing can. But even though body cameras have so far proven more useful to prosecutors than lawsuit litigants and accountability efforts, that doesn't mean they're mostly useless. They're still capable of creating incontrovertible evidence. That's why prosecutors love them, even [...]

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been on a bit of a tear lately vetoing bills that successfully pass the state legislature, including an effort to legalize psychedelics, an attempt to provide free condoms to high school students, an effort to cap insulin prices at $35, an attempt to provide severance to grocery store workers laid [...]

There's an interesting story on Wired about functional music" - things likewhite noiseandbrown noise- which is widely available on music streaming platforms. These kind of streams are causing a problem that arises from the fact that the money earned by streaming platforms is allotted in a rather odd way. All the revenues are put together, [...]

Elon Musk has made it clear that he's no fan of the media. And while he seems to whine and pout when big media sites leave exTwitter, he keeps insisting that exTwitter doesn't need journalists, because the his view of citizen journalism will magically be so much better. Of course, at the same time, he [...]

The 7-Day Android Pie App Bootcamp will give brand-new programmers all of the skills that they need to create an app and submit it to the Google Play store! Other mega courses online offer 40+ hours of video content, but this course that specially created to be more manageable for beginners, without the fluff.You'll learn [...]

Alt-right semi-personality Laura Loomer just can't win. And she shouldn't! She's ridiculous. She's perhaps most famous for treating her own unwillingness to perform routine car maintenance as an act of anti-Loomer terrorism. When you think your decaying tires are somehow evidence of Islamic violence, it's probably time for you to get off the internet (or, [...]

For decades now, cable TV has been plagued by programming contract feuds that routinelyend with users losing access to TV programming they pay for. Basically, media companies will demand a rate hike in new content negotiations, the cable TV provider will balk, and then each side blames the other guy for failing to strike a [...]

We've talked about this sort of thing before, but here we go again, I guess. For the last decade or so, video games have gotten realistic enough in terms of how they visually depict wartime scenarios that misinformation utilizing video game footage has become a somewhat regular thing. Regular enough that the larger world has [...]

As we're all painfully aware by now, former Israeli intelligence analysts are capable of producing private sector malware companies faster than the CIA can produce successful coups. While both are capable of handing over inordinate amounts of power to truly terrible people, only the Israeli companies have been formally asked by the US federal government [...]

A month ago, we explained how California bill AB 1394, kind of a mini-FOSTA for California, was so problematic, and was likely to be found unconstitutional, just like last year's Age Appropriate Design Code." AB 1394 is yet another of those but think of the children" laws that California loves these days, and it passed [...]

Conservatives are making the rounds again, placing op-eds and analytical pieces explaining how book bans aren't really book bans. For example, Education Weekpublished a columnby a pair of authors from the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation trying to justify laws across the country that restrict and even remove certain texts from many public [...]

It never ends with these moral-panic-driven, blatantly unconstitutional state bills for the children." The latest, from New York state Senator Andrew Goundardes and Assemblymember Nily Rozic was announced this week with direct support from NY Governor Kathy Hochul (who has been pushing for such unconstitutional bills for a while now, mainly to redirect attention away [...]

The Premium (ISC) SSCP And CISSP Training Bundle has 2 courses with 67 hours of instruction to help you learn about cybersecurity. The CISSP course is crafted around eight pivotal domains of information security, encompassing everything from risk management to software development security. This ensures that candidates emerge with a holistic understanding of the cybersecurity [...]