Techspacular @Techspacular

Unfortunately, @googlefiber (AS16591) does NOT implement BGP safely. Check out isbgpsafeyet.com to see if your ISP implements BGP in a safe way or if it leaves the Internet vulnerable to malicious route hijacks. (thank you @Cloudflare for the test)

California Law Could be a Big Step Forward for Police Transparency Government can’t be accountable unless it is transparent. Voters and taxpayers can only know whether they approve of the actions of public officials and public employees if they know wha… buff.ly/2D2Mfxa

More Bay Area Jurisdictions Adopt Civilian Control of Police Spy Tech This week, two California jurisdictions joined the growing movement to subject government surveillance technology to democratic transparency and civilian control. Each culminated a lo… buff.ly/2MwAn6i

Sony Finally Admits It Doesn’t Own Bach and It Only Took Public Pressure Here’s the thing about different people playing the same piece of music: sometimes, they’re going to sound similar. And when music is by a composer who died 268 years ago, putting … buff.ly/2NIwqzO

U.S. Mobile Giants Want to be Your Online Identity buff.ly/2xb4r1x The four major U.S. wireless carriers today detailed a new initiative that may soon let Web sites eschew passwords and instead authenticate visitors by leveraging data elements unique to each customer’s…

Patch Tuesday, September 2018 Edition buff.ly/2ObxERs Adobe and Microsoft today each released patches to fix serious security holes in their software. Adobe pushed out a new version of its beleaguered Flash Player browser plugin. Redmond issued updates to address at le…

Misguided Appeal in Grindr Case Is Latest Threat to Online Free Speech Online harassment is a serious problem, and one that defies easy solutions. As the digital world grapples with potential strategies to make online life safer, we have to also fight b… buff.ly/2x0m2ct

Not In Our Name: Why European Creators Should Oppose the EU's Proposal To Limit Linking and Censor The Internet The European Copyright Directive vote is in three days and it will be a doozy: what was once a largely uncontroversial grab bag of fixes to c… buff.ly/2O5ZYVj

Social Media Platforms Should be Accountable and Transparent About Content Removal, But DOJ's Plan to Investigate Raises Concerns The Justice Department’s announcement yesterday that it will meet with states to discuss whether social media companies are… buff.ly/2wMo8g7

The NSA Continues to Blame Technology for Breaking the Law In late June, the NSA announced a magic trick—hundreds of millions of collected call records would disappear. Its lovely assistant? Straight from the agency’s statement: “Technical irregularitie… buff.ly/2oIRQ1L

RT @BigMonocle: We loved spending time with the RNS Ambassadors and hearing their stories! It was a great weekend! buff.ly/2CjNbwX

For 2nd Time in 3 Years, Mobile Spyware Maker mSpy Leaks Millions of Sensitive Records buff.ly/2oFlXXS mSpy, the makers of a software-as-a-service product that claims to help more than a million paying customers spy on the mobile devices of their kids and partners, has…

Alleged ‘Satori’ IoT Botnet Operator Sought Media Spotlight, Got Indicted buff.ly/2wJ4RwX A 20-year-old from Vancouver, Washington was indicted last week on federal hacking charges and for allegedly operating the “Satori” botnet, a malware strain unleashed last year th…

Victory! California Passes Net Neutrality Bill California’s net neutrality bill, S.B. 822 has received a majority of votes in the Senate and is heading to the governor’s desk. In this fight, ISPs with millions of dollars to spend lost to the voice of th… buff.ly/2N4mIro

How to Roll a Strong Password with 20-Sided Dice and Fandom-Inspired Wordlists Here’s the not-so-secret recipe for strong passphrases: a random element like dice, a long list of words, and math. And as long as you have the first two, the third takes car… buff.ly/2wvPozf

Instagram’s New Security Tools are a Welcome Step, But Not Enough buff.ly/2wsg18R Instagram users should soon have more secure options for protecting their accounts against Internet bad guys.  On Tuesday, the Facebook-owned social network said it is in the process of r…

Back to School Essentials for Security Going back to school? This is a perfect time for a digital security refresh to ensure the privacy of you and your friends is protected! It’s a good time to change your passwords. The best practice is to have passw… buff.ly/2wpstGx

Sen. Wyden Confirms Cell-Site Simulators Disrupt Emergency Calls Sen. Ron Wyden has sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning disruptions to 911 emergency services caused by law enforcement’s use of cell-site simulators (CSS, also known… buff.ly/2P7W1iT

Who’s Behind the Screencam Extortion Scam? buff.ly/2BI2M9j The sextortion email scam last month that invoked a real password used by each recipient and threatened to release embarrassing Webcam videos almost certainly was not the work of one criminal or even one group …

Experts Urge Rapid Patching of ‘Struts’ Bug buff.ly/2wfEnmv In September 2017, Equifax disclosed that a failure to patch one of its Internet servers against a pervasive software flaw — in a Web component known as Apache Struts — led to a breach that exposed personal da…