Author: Jennifer Baker

The value of bitcoins plummeted 20 percent after almost 120,000 units of the digital currency were stolen from Bitfinex, a major Bitcoin exchange.

The Hong Kong-based exchange said it had discovered a security breach late Tuesday, and has suspended all transactions.

“We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their Bitcoins stolen. We are undertaking a review to determine which users have been affected by the breach. While we conduct this initial investigation and secure our environment, bitfinex.com will be taken down and the maintenance page will be left up,” said the company on its website.

(credit: BBC)

Briton Lauri Love is expected to learn on September 16 whether a judge will rule in favour of his extradition to the US to face charges of alleged hacking, Westminster Magistrates' Court has heard.

According to his legal representative, Love—who faces charges of hacking as part of the Anonymous collective in 2013—could serve up to 99 years in prison in the US. He is accused of using a security flaw in ColdFusion to gain administrator-level access to servers.

Love is alleged to have been involved in the hack known as #OpLastResort, which targeted the US Army, the US Federal Reserve, the FBI, NASA, and the Missile Defense Agency in retaliation over the suicide, while awaiting trial, of Aaron Swartz.

Pokémon Go heralds a new dystopian age that we should all be fretting about, film director Oliver Stone has warned.

Speaking at Comic Con on Thursday to promote his new movie about US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, Stone described the data-slurping tactics of the freakishly successful game as “a new level of invasion.”

The panel—also featuring Snowden stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, and Zachary Quinto—was asked about the surveillance potential of the game.

(credit: Shawn Campbell)

Twitter confirmed it will allow all of its users to apply for "verified account" status on the same day that it permanently booted an outspoken conservative from its site amid claims of abusive tweets.

Up to now, the coveted blue tick badge was the preserve of celebrities, journalists, and high-profile users—some of whom run the risk of parody or fake accounts in their name.

However, while the online form to request verification on Twitter is now available to anyone, the micro-blogging site said that only accounts “determined to be of public interest” will receive the badge of honour.

BRUSSELS—A coalition of nearly 20 telcos including BT, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Hutchison, Nokia, Orange, Telefonica, Telenor, and Vodafone have drawn up what they call their 5G Manifesto—outlining what they want from governments in order to deliver 5G coverage across Europe.

The 3,000-word document also makes certain promises: signatories have committed to starting large-scale demonstrations of 5G technology by 2018, and launching 5G commercially in at least one city in every EU country by 2020.

However, there is a caveat: in exchange, the telcos want net neutrality rules to be watered down and warn of the "danger" of strict regulation. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should treat all data the same, by not discriminating or applying different charges regardless of type of content or user. The manifesto says:

Civil liberties MEPs on Monday night approved plans to create a law that will block terrorist content online.

The counter terrorism directive also deals with terrorism training and financing as well as “Internet propaganda, and the misuse of the Internet for terrorist purposes." It was passed by 41 votes to four, with 10 abstentions meaning that the parliament’s chief negotiator, German MEP Monika Hohlmeier, can now start talks with the European ministers for justice and home affairs on a final text.

The initial draft proposal contained no reference to online activity, but Hohlmeier introduced two new sections taken in part from the EU law against child sex abuse. Under the latest wording, national authorities must take measures to ensure the prompt removal of illegal content hosted from within their territory that constitutes public incitement to commit a terrorist offence. If this is not feasible, they may take the necessary measures to block access to such content “while adhering to transparent procedure, adequate safeguards, and subject to judicial review.”

A massive coalition of tech and telco companies have called for the EU’s so-called cookie law to be repealed.

Ars reported yesterday that the European Commission was working to overhaul the current ePrivacy Directive, and had held a public consultation soliciting feedback. But a group of 12 trade bodies has now called for it to be scrapped altogether. The coalition includes the European Telecommunications and Network Operators association (ETNO), the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), the GSMA representing mobile operators, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), IAB, the interactive advertising bureau, and DigitalEurope.

“We believe that simplifying and streamlining regulation will benefit consumers by ensuring they are provided with a simple, consistent, and meaningful set of rules designed to protect their personal data," said the group. "At the same time, it will encourage innovation across the digital value chain and drive new growth and social opportunities. This is critical at a time when digital companies are striving to launch new innovative services and working to build a 5G Europe."

Europol’s Internet Referral Unit (IRU) celebrated its first birthday at the weekend, but civil liberties organisations are worried that it goes too far in its efforts to keep the Web free from extremist propaganda.

The IRU has been up and running since July 2015 as part of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in the Hague. The unit is charged with monitoring the Internet for extremist propaganda and referring “relevant online content towards concerned Internet service providers” in particular social media. Much was made of how the IRU could "contact social network service provider Facebook directly to ask it to delete a Web page run by ISIS or request details of other pages that might be run by the same user."

Although companies are not required to take down the content, European Commission figures from April 2016 show that the IRU had an effective removal rate of 91 percent. At that time it had assessed more than 4,700 posts across 45 platforms and sent over 3,200 referrals for Internet companies to remove content. The totals now are closer to 8,000 and 7,000, and Europol told Ars it will publish full details in the coming days.

After two days of evidence, Lauri Love still does not know whether he will be extradited to the United States.

In hearings at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the Judge heard from 15 witnesses for the defence, but none from the prosecution. Lauri Love, 31, of Stradishall, has been accused by the US authorities of hacking into the US Federal Reserve, NASA, the FBI, and the Missile Defence Agency.

He was first arrested by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) in October 2013 and was released on bail in July 2014. US prosecutors claim that Love’s alleged offences were not politically motivated and were instead designed to “to disrupt the operations and infrastructure of the US government” by stealing classified data and personally identifying information of government and military personnel.

Electronic books should be treated just like physical books for the purposes of lending, an advisor to Europe's top court has said.

Maciej Szpunar, advocate general to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), said that public libraries should be allowed to lend e-books so long as the author is fairly compensated.

A 2006 EU directive says that the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit rentals and loans belongs to the author of the work, however countries may opt out of this rule for the purposes of “public lending,” provided that authors obtain fair remuneration.