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Austrian Government Agrees On Plan To Allow Monitoring of Secure Messaging

1 month 1 week ago
Austria's coalition government has agreed on a plan to enable police to monitor suspects' secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country. From a report: Because Austria lacks a legal framework for monitoring messaging services like WhatsApp, its main domestic intelligence service and police rely on allies with far more sweeping powers like Britain and the United States alerting them to chatter about planned attacks and spying. That kind of tip-off led to police unravelling what they say was a planned attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, which prompted the cancellation of all three of her planned shows there in August of last year. "The aim is to make people planning terrorist attacks in Austria feel less secure - and increase everyone else's sense of security," Joerg Leichtfried of the Social Democrats, the junior minister in charge of overseeing the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence (DSN), told a news conference.

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Napster and Sonos Sued For Millions In Unpaid Music Royalties

1 month 1 week ago
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Napster, the brand synonymous with the music piracy boom of the early 2000s, has a new copyright challenge. Together with audio giant Sonos, Napster faces a lawsuit demanding over $3.4 million in alleged unpaid copyright royalties. Filed by collective rights management organization SoundExchange, the complaint (PDF) centers on missed payments related to the "Sonos Radio" service, which until 2023 was powered by Napster's music catalog. [...] Sonos Radio launched in April 2020 with Napster as the authorized agent, submitting the required royalty reports and royalties to SoundExchange. While all went well initially, payments stopped around May 2022. At the time, Napster had been acquired by venture capital firms Hivemind and Algorand, with a focus on "web3" technologies, including cryptocurrencies and blockchain. According to the complaint, the takeover resulted in a "complete breakdown of reporting and payment for the Sonos Radio service." The alleged payment problems eventually came to light during an audit initiated by SoundExchange in 2023, which concluded that Sonos and Napster owed millions in unpaid royalties. Sonos and Napster are no longer partners in the radio service, as the audio equipment manufacturer switched to Deezer around April 2023. That appears to have solved the royalty issues, but SoundExchange still believes it is owed more than $3 million. "In total, Sonos, and its agent Napster, have failed to pay at least $3,423,844.41 comprising royalties owed for the period October 2022 to April 2023, interest, late fees, and auditor fee-shifting costs, and subtracting Sonos and Napster's payments made to date. "Late fees and interest continue to grow," SoundExchange adds, while requesting compensation in full. The complaint lists one count of "underpayment" of statutory royalties, and one count of "non-payment" of royalties, as determined by the audit. For both Copyright Act violations, SoundExchange requests damages of at least $3.4 million.

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Brain activity much lower when using AI chatbots, MIT boffins find

1 month 1 week ago
EEG and recall tests suggest people who use ChatGPT to write essays aren't learning much

Using AI chatbots actually reduces activity in the brain versus accomplishing the same tasks unaided, and may lead to poorer fact retention, according to a new preprint study out of MIT.…

Brandon Vigliarolo

Facebook Now Supports Passkeys

1 month 1 week ago
Facebook now supports passkeys for login, offering users a more secure, phishing-resistant alternative to passwords by using biometrics or a PIN stored on their device. The feature is rolling out to iOS and Android "soon," while Messenger will get the feature "in the coming months." Lifehacker reports: Meta seems pretty excited about the news -- and not just because the company happens to be a member of the FIDO Alliance, the organization that developed passkeys. Aside from logging into your Facebook account, Meta says you'll be able to use passkeys to autofill your payment info when buying things with Meta Pay. You'll also be able to use the same passkey between both Facebook and Messenger, and your passkey will act as a key to lock out your encrypted Messenger chats.

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