News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Sen. Durbin Puts Consumer Data at Risk

A coalition of businesses published this article to warn you about the senator's plan to change which networks wil get access to your payment data and / or purchases.

Financial services businesses are especially vulnerable and experience up to 300 times more cyber-attacks per year than other firms. Due to the heightened risk, banks and financial firms have invested considerable sums in data security.

Yet all of this is at stake thanks to a new bill being considered in Washington, DC. The “Credit Card Competition Act” introduced by Sen. Durbin (D-IL) this past summer aims to give the Federal Reserve the power to control how payments on credit cards are routed. These new routing mandates on credit cards will shift billions in consumer spending to higher-risk payment networks. Doing so will weaken America’s payment system and put everyday consumers like you at significant risk of fraud. This is because your personal and financial data will be run over foreign, less secure networks.

Big-box stores are pushing for this bill heavily. The likes of Walmart, Target, and Amazon stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if they can cut their processing costs by using cheap overseas networks. Unfortunately, they will do this at your expense. Cheaper networks offer little or no credit card rewards and have not invested in 21st century fraud prevention. But big-box stores know they won’t be on the hook if fraud occurs. Your bank or credit union has guaranteed payment to the retailer, and it’s these financial institutions that will be hurt when fraud skyrockets further.

This will especially hurt small credit unions who don’t have the deeper pockets of multinational corporations. Not only will they have to cover the cost of fraudulent purchases, they will also lose revenue as they see the interchange fees they normal get during purchases plummet. Interchange fees are a critical component of America’s current payment infrastructure. By effectively capping them, Congress would put big retailers’ profits before Americans’ financial security.

Gov. Kathy Hochul: NY Collecting Data from ‘Surveillance Efforts’ on Social Media

Hochul announced that the state is “very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts [and] what’s being said on social media platforms,” admitting to government surveillance. What is more, Hochul said they have “launched an effort to be able to counter some of the negativity and reach out to people” when they see what they deem to be “hate speech being spoken about on online platforms.”

That remains a danger, as individuals tend to have very different definitions of what constitutes “hate speech” based on their political ideology. For instance, many conservatives have been accused of “hate speech” for simply voicing concerns about biological men using women’s changing rooms or rest rooms.

Nevertheless, Hochul said the state’s social media analysis unit “has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence [and] direct threats to others.”

“And all of this is in response to our desire, our strong commitment, to ensure that not only do New Yorkers be [sic] safe, but they also feel safe,” she said, adding that “personal security is about everything for them.”

“As I said, no one walking down the street or in a subway can feel they have to hide any indications of what their religious beliefs are. We expect to see people celebrating their lives, walking out freely, and that is no longer the case because people are living in fear. They have a right to do whatever they want here in the state of New York,” she added.

You know, that would not be necessary if sanctuary cities cease to exist in the US and started deporting illegal Middle Eastern invaders that are threatening many people and especially Jews in America. And mayor Adams could make sure that all alleged criminals are forced to pay their bails instead of just being released right after an appearance before a  court.

NewsGuard Boasted of Government Ties in Censorship Pitch to Twitter

According to a report by Lee Fang in Real Clear Wire, NewsGuard pitched Twitter (pre-Musk purchase) on integrating its blacklist into the social media platform’s content moderation system. NewsGuard co-founder L. Gordon Crovitz told Twitter his company had developed an AI tool that could screen hashtags and search terms for blacklisted content.

According to the report, NewsGuard promised that its product would help direct users to official government sources on topics like coronavirus, and boasted of the organization’s ties to “intelligence and national security officials” as well as “government agencies.”

...Other content-moderation allies, Crovitz’s pitch noted, include “intelligence and national security officials,” “reputation management providers,” and “government agencies,” which contract with the firm to identify misinformation trends. Instead of only fact-checking individual forms of incorrect information, NewsGuard, in its proposal, touted the ability to rate the “overall reliability of websites” and “’prebunk’ COVID-19 misinformation from hundreds of popular websites.”

Twitter ultimately declined to use NewsGuard’s services, but the pitch — and its heavy emphasis on government involvement — is significant, given that the company is currently facing a lawsuit alleging that the company is acting as a surrogate of the U.S. government to shut down First Amendment protected online speech.

The lawsuit was filed by Consortium News, a news website founded by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, which has been branded a purveyor of disinformation and false content by NewsGuard.

Consortium’s lawsuit points to NewsGuard’s $750,000 contract from the Pentagon to “known hoaxes, falsehoods and misinformation narratives that are spreading online” as evidence of its status as a government-funded entity. NewsGuard’s inclusion of its ties to national security officials and federal agencies in its pitch to Twitter may be seen as further evidence of its ties to the government.

IBM, EU Suspend Advertising on Elon Musk’s X/Twitter over Antisemitism Allegations

AP News reports that IBM and the EUrecently made the decision to withdraw their advertising from X/Twitter owned by billionaire Elon Musk. This significant move comes in response to growing concerns about the presence of pro-Nazi content and other forms of hate speech on the platform, which have been highlighted by Musk’s own controversial tweets that the organizations view as endorsing antisemitic conspiracy theories.
...
An X/Twitter user appeared to push the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Jewish communities “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
...
Musk responded to this post writing, “You have said the actual truth.”

IBM’s decision was triggered by a report revealing that its advertisements were being displayed alongside material praising Nazis. This marks a significant setback for the platform as it attempts to regain the trust of major brands and secure crucial advertising revenue. In a statement, IBM said: “IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”
...
In contrast, X/Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has emphasized the platform’s commitment to combating antisemitism and discrimination, stating there is no place for such content in the world.