Author: Natasha Lomas

Spy on your smart home with this open source research tool Researchers at Princeton University have built a web app that lets you (and them) spy on your smart home devices to see what they’re up to. The open source tool, called IoT Inspector, is available for download here. (Currently it’s Mac OS only, with a wait list for Windows or Linux.) In a blog about the effort the researchers write that their aim is to offer a simple tool for consumers to analyze the network traffic of their Internet…

Arrested Wikileaks founder is now facing U.S. extradition In a fast-moving development since Julian Assange’s arrest inside the Ecuadorian embassy earlier today for breaching U.K. bail conditions, the Wikileaks founder has been rearrested on behalf of the U.S. — confirming that he will face extradition proceedings. In an updated statement the Met Police said: Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station. This is an extradition warrant under…

Movo grabs .5M to get more cities in LatAm scooting Madrid-based micromobility startup Movo has closed a €20 million (~$22.5M) Series A funding round to accelerate international expansion. The 2017 founded Spanish startup targets cities in its home market and in markets across LatAm, offering last mile mobility via rentable electric scooters (e-mopeds and e-scooters). It’s a subsidiary of local ride-hailing firm, Cabify, which provided the seed funding for the startup. Movo’s Series A round is led by two new investors: Insurance firm Mutua Madrileña, doubtless spying strategic investment potential…

Facebook agrees to clearer T&Cs in Europe Facebook has agreed to amend its terms and conditions under pressure from EU lawmakers. The new terms will make it plain that free access to its service is contingent on users’ data being used to profile them to target with ads, the European Commission said today. “The new terms detail what services, Facebook sells to third parties that are based on the use of their user’s data, how consumers can close their accounts and under what reasons accounts can be disabled,” it writes….

One-hour terrorist takedowns backed by EU parliament’s civil liberties committee The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (Libe) voted yesterday to back proposed legislation for a one-hour takedown rule for online terrorist content which critics argue will force websites to filter uploads. MEPs on the committee also backed big penalties for service providers that systematically and persistently fail to abide by the law — agreeing they could be sanctioned with up to 4% of their global turnover, per the Commission’s original proposal. However the committee rejected a push by the EU’s…

Europe to pilot AI ethics rules, calls for participants The European Commission has announced the launch of a pilot project intended to test draft ethical rules for developing and applying artificial intelligence technologies to ensure they can be implemented in practice. It’s also aiming to garner feedback and encourage international consensus building for what it dubs “human-centric AI” — targeting among other talking shops the forthcoming G7 and G20 meetings for increasing discussion on the topic. The Commission’s High Level Group on AI — a body comprised of 52 experts from…

UK sets out safety-focused plan to regulate Internet firms The UK government has laid out proposals to regulate online and social media platforms, setting out the substance of its long-awaited White Paper on online harms today — and kicking off a public consultation. The Online Harms White Paper is a joint proposal from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Home Office. It follows the government announcement of a policy intent last May, and a string of domestic calls for greater regulation of the Internet as politicians…

YouTube tightens restrictions on channel of UK far right activist — but no ban YouTube has placed new restrictions on the channel of a UK far right activist which are intended to make hate speech less easy to discover on its platform. Restrictions on Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s YouTube channel include removing certain of his videos from recommendations. YouTube is also taking away his ability to livestream to his now close to 390,000 YouTube channel subscribers. Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by the name ‘Tommy Robinson’ on social media, was banned from Twitter a…

Krablr nets new leadership News just in: We’re getting reports the board of Krablr has voted overwhelmingly to jettison the sole remaining founder, Wilson Poney, and install an interim CFO to take the company in a new old direction. “We’re going to make Krablr great again,” said chairman of the board, Goldie Seamann. “We’re not 100% sure what’s been going on around here but the board is unanimous in agreement that Krablr should return to its roots in the fishing industry to provide strong value to stakeholders and its ecosystem.”…

Covert data-scraping on watch as EU DPA lays down “radical” GDPR red-line An interesting decision came out of Poland’s data protection agency this week after the watchdog issued its first fine under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). On the surface the enforcement doesn’t look so remarkable: A ‘small’ ~€220K fine was handed to a Sweden-headquartered European digital marketing company, Bisnode, which has an office in Poland, after the national Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) decided the company had failed to comply with data subject rights obligations set out in…