News of the Cyber World

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Apple Revenue Falls for Fourth Consecutive Quarter Due to China Woes

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple recently reported a continued slump in sales, marking the fourth successive quarter of declining revenue. The tech giant reported sales of $89.5 billion, a marginal decrease from the previous year’s figures. Despite the overall dip, Apple’s net income has surpassed expectations, reaching approximately $23 billion.

The company’s iPhone sales have shown resilience in the face of a contracting global smartphone market, with a 2.8 percent increase to $43.8 billion. This growth aligns with analyst predictions, supported by the launch of the iPhone 15 family in September, which introduced models with enhanced features such as titanium cases and advanced camera systems at high prices.

However, the company’s performance in China, Apple’s third-largest market, has been less than stellar. Sales in the region declined by 2.5 percent to $15.1 billion, falling short of analyst projections. Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri commented on the Chinese market, stating, “China has always been the most competitive market in the world and we think it will continue to be like that.” Despite the challenges, Maestri expressed confidence in the brand’s performance, noting that “the top four bestselling phones in urban China were iPhones.”

The resurgence of Huawei Technologies as a competitor has introduced new pressures in the market. The Chinese tech company has made a significant comeback with its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which boasts 5G-like wireless speeds through domestically developed technology.

FCC commissioner calls Biden equity plan for internet control 'sweeping, unprecedented, and unlawful'

Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling the Biden administration's "digital equity" plan for all internet services and infrastructure an "unlawful power grab."

"President Biden’s plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country. Never before, in the roughly 40-year history of the public Internet, has the FCC (or any federal agency for that matter) claimed this degree of control over it. Indeed, President Biden’s plan calls for the FCC to apply a far-reaching set of government controls that the agency has not applied to any technology in the modern era, including Title II common carriers," Carr said in a statement on Monday.

Carr previewed an important FCC vote next week on Nov. 15 about whether to implement the president's plan.

Next week, the FCC will vote on President Biden’s plan to give the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure.

"Congress never contemplated the sweeping regulatory regime that President Biden asked the FCC to adopt—let alone authorized the agency to implement it," he said.

Carr explained that the Biden administration's "broadband policies are failing" and the "costs of building Internet infrastructure in this country have skyrocketed" due to his economic policies. While the FCC has been looking to expand "new, 5G services," it has "needlessly blocked and delayed new broadband infrastructure builds" because of "regulatory red tape."

The commissioner said President Joe Biden has chosen to blame "the private sector and free market capitalism itself for the Administration’s own policy shortfalls" and is pushing the FCC to adopt "a one-page section of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act)," which has "new rules of breathtaking scope, all in the name of 'digital equity.'"

Meta whistleblower testifies that executives failed to react to teenage struggles

A former security engineer from Meta testified to Congress on Tuesday that the company chose not to respond to internal data indicating that more teenagers were being harmed by Instagram and Facebook than public data indicated.

Facebook whistleblower Arturo Béjar appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to provide his perspective on Meta's approach to youth safety. Béjar was featured in a Wall Street Journal piece last week in which he said that the company failed to respond to internal data regarding bullying, sexual harassment, and other negative experiences on the platform.

In his opening remarks, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) framed the hearing as a chance to illustrate the threat that Big Tech presents to teenagers and advocated a floor vote for technology reform bills, including the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that would require social media platforms to disable "addictive" product features and take additional action to prevent harmful content from being presented to underage users.

Béjar used his testimony to implore Meta to be more transparent and to change its products.

"The company was grading its own homework," Béjar said, noting that the company's definitions for what is harmful are narrowly defined. Béjar previously reviewed the company's "Bad Emotional Experience Feedback" data, which surveyed users on their experience on the platform over the last seven days. He said the review revealed a much deeper problem for teenagers than Meta had shown before.

New emails show DHS created Stanford ‘disinfo’ group that censored speech before 2020 election

New emails show officials at the Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before the 2020 election, according to a House Judiciary Committee report exclusively obtained by The Post.

The House panel’s 103-page staff interim report says never-before-seen emails and internal communications were obtained from the group, known as the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), and show how it worked with DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to flag, suppress and remove online speech in coordination with big tech companies.

One of EIP’s founding partners — the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab — described CISA’s central role in the alleged censorship effort in a July 31, 2020, email.

“I know the Council has a number of efforts on broad policy around the elections, but we just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA and are in weekly comms to debrief about disinfo,” the lab’s senior director Graham Brookie wrote.

The staff report says, “[T]he federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions.

“This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”

The “misinformation” posts were made by public officials such as former President Donald Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), media outlets such as Newsmax and the Babylon Bee and many conservative commentators.

Democrat Crime Wave: Washington DC Hands Out Apple AirTags to Help Residents Track Stolen Cars

PCMag reports that Washington DC is desperately hoping  a new tech tool can help combat the out of control problem of car theft in the city. The city has launched a pilot program to provide residents with Apple AirTags so they can track their own stolen vehicles. This initiative is part of a comprehensive strategy to tackle the recent surge in vehicle thefts across the city. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced the program as a collaborative effort to strengthen community safety and assist the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in swiftly recovering stolen vehicles.

“Last week, we introduced legislation to address recent crime trends; this week, we are equipping residents with technology that will allow MPD to address these crimes, recover vehicles, and hold people accountable,” Mayor Bowser stated, emphasizing the city’s alleged commitment to utilizing all available resources to ensure public safety.

The program targets neighborhoods that have been most affected by vehicle thefts. To participate, residents are invited to attend one of the upcoming distribution events. At these events, officers will not only install the AirTags but also guide residents through the process of setting up the tracking system on their personal devices.
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This program is not the first of its kind in D.C. The MPD has previously implemented a wheel-lock distribution program and has collaborated with Hyundai to integrate anti-theft software into over a thousand vehicles in the area, reflecting a sustained effort to deter vehicle-related crimes.