Author: Cyrus Farivar

Over a month after a prominent staffer at the Tor Project left the organization amid public accusations of sexual misconduct, the project has shaken up its entire seven-person board of directors, replacing the seven who have left as of Wednesday with six new members.

The Tor Project is the Massachusetts-based nonprofit that maintains Tor, the well-known open-source online anonymity tool.

In June 2016, Jacob Appelbaum, one of Tor’s most public-facing developers and a member of the "Core Team," denounced the accusations as a "calculated and targeted attack has been launched to spread vicious and spurious allegations against me."

On Thursday, a federal judge in New York delivered a crucial rebuke to the government’s warrantless use of stingrays.

In a 14-page opinion, the judge ruled that the government could not use its stingray to locate a drug suspect, asleep in his apartment. As a result of the ruling, the judge suppressed the evidence found in the man’s bedroom—a kilogram of cocaine—likely effectively ending the case.

In March 2016, a state appeals court in Maryland reached a similar finding, but this is believed to be the first federal ruling of its kind.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday largely in favor of a defunct social networking company—finding that the forgotten startup did not violate an anti-spam statute. However, the court affirmed that Power Ventures did violate an anti-hacking law when it tried to circumvent Facebook’s IP block several years ago as part of a promotional campaign.

A lower court had previously ruled in favor of Facebook, which brought the original case against Power Ventures and its Power.com website and issued an award of $3 million to the social network giant. Power Ventures then appealed that up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, the appellate court sent the case back down to the District Court for further consideration and a likely reduction of damages.

As Ars reported last year, the case, Facebook v. Power Ventures, revolves around a site known as Power.com, which had tried to be a one-stop shop for social networking—its users could post to Facebook and other sites all in one place.

Morning! Playing #PokemonGO? Don't catch & drive! Wait, park & then #Pokemon Go. #GottaCatchEmAll but safely! #LESM pic.twitter.com/cVCBKf1zd9

— SarasotaPD (@sarasotapd) July 11, 2016

Law enforcement agencies around the globe are reminding citizens to obey trespassing laws and follow common sense when playing Pokémon Go.

The new crazy-popular mobile game has lead to some frightening results in recent days, such as the location of a dead body and robberies of players in Missouri.

On Monday, San Francisco Police Department Captain Raj Vaswani warned in one online posting for players to “obey traffic laws, please.”

On Sunday, the families of several terrorist victims sued Facebook under an American anti-terrorism law. The victims died in multiple terrorist attacks in Israel in 2015 and 2016, and the families are seeking at least $1 billion in damages.

The plaintiffs allege that the social networking giant is liable as it provides “material support” to Hamas—which the United States government considers a terrorist group—by allowing its leaders and followers to openly use the service.

The case, known as Force v. Facebook, is the latest example of families attempting to use terrorism statutes as a way to shut down objectionable speech online and gain a monetary benefit for their deceased loved ones from social networks. None of the other efforts so far have been successful.

A concerned parent has sued mobile app Snapchat on behalf of her unnamed 14-year-old son, who was easily able to access adult-themed content on “Snapchat Discover.” This section of the mobile app is run by various media companies, including BuzzFeed.

In the Thursday lawsuit, the woman’s lawyer, Ben Mieselas, wrote that because Snapchat does not provide the adequate warnings it is required to do under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it is liable to pay $50,000 per violation. That's $50,000 every time a minor viewed such content.

In the 32-page civil complaint, Mieselas details how the boy, referred to as “John Doe,” came across numerous “Snapchat Discover” stories with titles like: “10 Things He Thinks When He Can’t Make You Orgasm” and “I Got High, Blown, and Robbed When I Was A Pizza Delivery Guy.”

Early Friday morning, after being attacked by gunmen who had already killed five police officers and injured several other officers along with two civilians in the wake of a protest, the Dallas Police Department deployed a bomb disposal robot.

However, the robot was not used to disarm a bomb. This time, it was used to deliver the bomb that killed one of the shooters—likely an unprecedented move in American policing.

For now, it remains unknown exactly what type of robot or what kind of explosive was used. Authorities have named the dead shooter as Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old Army veteran from a nearby suburb.

Federal investigators have asked a judge in California to force Facebook to open up its financial and business records for 2010—the year that the social networking giant established a subsidiary in Ireland, largely for tax reasons.

According to a Wednesday affidavit by Internal Revenue Service agent Nina Wu Stone, Facebook failed to produce a host of documentation last month that the agency needed to understand the 2010 deal. Facebook’s move across the Atlantic was likely done in order to take advantage of a form of tax trickery known as the "Double Irish," a quirky Irish tax law arrangement that allows organizations to incorporate in Ireland but legally route money through other jurisdictions such as the Netherlands.

Facebook and many other tech firms have recently come under increased scrutiny for using this method to drastically—and legally—reduce tax burdens. The "Double Irish" was phased out in early 2015, but companies already using it have until 2020 to transition to something else.

Federal prosecutors in Kentucky have formally indicted the man who revealed himself as “KYAnonymous” more than three years ago.

On Thursday, Deric Lostutter was charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the notorious anti-hacking statute that dates back to the 1980s, among other accusations.

As Ars reported previously, in late 2012, after The New York Times published an account of a horrific rape against a teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, an online vigilante campaign began against a few local officials believed to be too close to the suspects, some of whom were high school football players.

Medical testing company Theranos announced late Thursday evening that its founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, has been banned from operating a blood-testing lab by a federal health care agency for at least two years.

According to a press release, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a government health agency, also revoked the company’s CLIA certificate for its Newark, California lab. The CMS conducted an investigation of the Newark lab in 2015 after media reports began questioning the efficacy of Theranos' methods.

As Ars has reported, in recent months, Theranos has been slammed by media reports and federal inspections that say its blood testing devices don’t work. Amid the revelations, the company’s president stepped down, Theranos voided or corrected tens of thousands of blood test results, and Walgreens dumped its arrangement. Theranos now faces hefty federal sanctions, criminal charges, and several lawsuits from ex-customers. It has seen its valuation drop from $9 billion to just $800 million.