Militarized Police Drones Are Now Legal In North Dakota
WE’RE STILL FEELING the ripple effect from the Ashley Madison hack this week. Not only is its parent company, Avid Life Media, offering a $500K CDN reward for info on the hackers, and not only are the lawsuits rolling in, but on Friday CEO Noel Bidermen stepped down. The world’s biggest online drug marketplace Agora is on hiatus following suspicious activity that its moderators think was intended to deanonymize the site. The UN’s newly appointed privacy chief described the UK’s digital surveillance as worse than 1984. Meanwhile, a U.S. appellate court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission can regulate and fine companies for getting hacked, so long as they engaged in unfair or deceptive business practices, such as publishing a privacy policy and failing to make good on it.
But there’s more. Each week we round up the news stories that we didn’t break or cover in depth at WIRED, but which deserve your attention nonetheless. As always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted, and stay safe out there!
Militarized Drones Are Now Legal In North Dakota
Police in North Dakota can now legally fly militarized drones armed with tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray, or sound cannons, thanks to the passage of House Bill 1328. The bill was originally meant to require police officers to obtain a search warrant in order to use the drones for criminal evidence, and would have banned the use of all weapons on drones (not just the lethal ones), but then a lobbyist made some changes. A compliance committee is supposed to track and review police use of drones and keep it in check, but the group has no legal authority—and its members aren’t exactly unbiased. “Of the committee’s 18 members, six are from UND, which has a vested interest in promoting drone use. Three are members of local government, including the city planner and an assistant state’s attorney. And the rest are either current or former members of law enforcement and emergency services,” the Daily Beast’s Justin Glawe writes.
Was China Behind The DDoS Attack on GitHub?
Just months after recovering from a prolonged distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack linked to the Great Firewall of China, GitHub was hit with another DDoS attack this past Tuesday. Although the code repository hasn’t shared any details, some observers think China may shoulder the blame this time, too. That’s because Shadowsocks, a tool that Chinese hackers created to circumvent China’s censorship, apparently shut down and removed its code due to government pressure—and a similar circumvention tool, GoAgent, mysteriously removed its code from GitHub as well. It’s possible that China is targeting GitHub since Shadowsocks’ code repositories have been forked.
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http://www.wired.com/2015/08/security-news-week-oh-good-weaponized-police-drones/