News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Amazon’s $1.7 Billion Deal to Buy
Roomba Maker iRobot Gets UK Approval

The Competition and Markets Authority said it decided not to escalate its initial investigation because it concluded that the deal would not result in a “substantial lessening of competition” within the United Kingdom.

Amazon said it was pleased with the result.
...
Consumer groups have voiced concerns that Amazon’s purchase of Bedford, Massachusetts-based iRobot, which makes the popular Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, would widen the e-commerce giant’s dominance in the smart home market.

The acquisition is still facing a review in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission amid worries about Amazon’s growing market power. It’s also under scrutiny by the European Union’s executive arm, which opened a review of the deal this month.

The UK watchdog said in its decision that robot vacuum cleaners and the data they collect aren’t generally considered an important gateway to the emerging market for smart home devices.

Meta’s Facebook, Instagram Down for Thousands of Users, Says Downdetector

Meta Platforms on Friday said it was aware of issues with its Ads Manager, its advertising tool that lets brands buy and create Facebook ads.
...
More than 15,000 users in total said they were having trouble accessing Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to Downdetector.
...
Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage may be affecting a larger number of users.

Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira
Indicted on 6 Charges, Faces Prison

Former Air National Guardsman and accused Pentagon top secret document leaker Jack Teixeira has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Massachusetts on six felony counts, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The indictment, released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 15, accuses the 21-year-old Teixeira of willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to national defense.

Teixeira stands accused of committing one of the most serious U.S. security breaches since the infamous WikiLeaks fiasco in 2010, in which over 700,000 documents, videos, and diplomatic cables were leaked to the public.
...
The leaked documents contained top-secret details about both allies and foes, covering topics from Ukraine’s air defenses amidst the Russian invasion to Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
...
Teixeira was arrested in April after allegedly posting the highly classified materials on the messaging app Discord, sparking concerns about how a low-level airman could have access to Pentagon secrets.

President Joe Biden has ordered an investigation into why he was privy to such sensitive information, while two commanders in Teixeira’s unit were later suspended pending a probe.

I still  think it's extremely weird for a young guy like him to get some proper clearance to all of those classified or top secret documents as if he were just reading a simple menu at a restaurant.
It'd have been different if a colonel or general or a high level IT guy was involved somehow in this case.

Rep. Jim Jordan Threatens White House
With Subpoenas Over Social Media Censorship

Jordan made the demand in a June 15 letter (pdf) to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, asking him to turn over records on how the White House “coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”

The request comes as the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that Jordan chairs has been probing allegations that the Biden administration pressured Big Tech to suppress dissenting views.

Jordan’s panel asked the White House in April to hand over information on its relationships with private sector entities in context of the probe, but Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, declined, according to the letter.

The reason provided by Sauber was that the panel should first seek the information from executive branch agencies, but Jordan dismissed this argument as “unpersuasive” because some of the materials sought are unique to the Executive Office of the President (EOP).
...
He gave Zients until June 29 to comply with the records request, threatening to get them by subpoena if necessary.

Bankman-Fried to Get 2nd Trial on Bank Fraud, Bribery Counts

A U.S. judge on Thursday granted a request from prosecutors to try some of their charges against Sam Bankman-Fried in a second trial next year separate from his scheduled Oct. 2 trial over the collapse of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Bankman-Fried, 31, will be tried on March 11, 2024, on five counts, including bank fraud and bribing Chinese officials, that federal prosecutors in Manhattan brought after he was extradited from the Bahamas in December, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in a written order. FTX was based in the Caribbean nation.

The onetime billionaire has pleaded not guilty to 13 fraud and conspiracy charges. An initial eight-count indictment filed in December accused him of stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund, lying to investors and lenders, and violating U.S. campaign finance laws.

Bankman-Fried has acknowledged inadequate risk management at FTX, but has denied stealing funds.

He had asked Kaplan to dismiss the five post-extradition charges, along with the campaign finance charge, because the Bahamas did not consent to them. Alternatively, he suggested they be tried separately.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said they would support a separate trial for the post-extradition charges because it was not clear when the Bahamas would grant its consent, as is required under an extradition treaty between the two countries.