News of the Week; November 22, 2017

GAMES

  1. Russian Foreign Ministry Accuses America Of Supporting ISIS With Video Game Footage
  2. Clicker Heroes developer drops free-to-play model over ethical concerns: “We really don’t like making money off players who are in denial of their addiction,” says Playsaurus
  3. Citing ethics and better game design, Clicker Heroes 2 dev forgoes free-to-play: “The mere existence of real-money purchases puts an ugly cloud over the player’s experience, with the persistent nagging feeling of ‘My game could be so much better if I just spent a few dollars.’ That alone feels terrible”
  4. When F2P goes wrong: NCSoft gave latest game five months before pulling plug – Refunds for some MxM players; in-game coins for all (which won’t matter by Jan. 31).
  5. It’s Only A Game. Or Is It? Advergaming In The Digital Age 
  6. Star Wars Battlefront II Is Less A Game Than A Value Proposition
  7. Star Wars: Battlefront II review: Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope: Even if EA fulfills promises, this game may still be too far gone to the Dark Side.
  8. After fan outcry, EA kicks real-money purchases out of Battlefront II: Feature will return, but “only after we’ve made changes to the game.”
  9. “Nothing should feel unattainable”: DICE responds to Star Wars loot box backlash: Battlefront II developer hosts Reddit AMA, “deeply saddened” by negative response
  10. Belgian Gambling Commission targets EA and Blizzard over loot boxes: “The crate mechanics of Star Wars Battlefront II are not gambling,” says EA
  11. Belgian officials say they’d like lootboxes banned, but investigation continues
  12. Belgium Aims To Ban Loot Boxes In Europe
  13. Star Wars Battlefront II: This Is What $100 Could Get You Before Microtransactions Were Disabled
  14. Battlefront II dev temporarily turns off all microtransactions
  15. EA suspends microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II hours before game launch: “Sorry we didn’t get this right,” says DICE general manager
  16. Star Wars Battlefront II: Will EA’s concession hurt sales?: Analysts debate the impact of EA’s last-minute move to pull microtransactions from the title
  17. Star Wars Battlefront loot boxes investigation continues, say Belgian authorities: Hawaii also considers legislation against “Star Wars-themed online casino”
  18. Hawaiian representative wants to clamp down on ‘predatory’ loot boxes
  19. Wall Street is freaking out as EA caves again to social media outrage over its ‘Star Wars’ game: Investors are now worried the controversy over Electronic Arts’ “Star Wars Battlefront II” in-game monetization model will hurt the video game’s sales. – “The escalation of EA concessions over the past month are a potential negative indicator of pre-order sales trends and overall unit confidence,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post writes.” – EA’s stock is down 7 percent month to date through Thursday compared with the S&P 500’s 0.4 percent gain.
  20. EA tells investors turning off Battlefront 2’s microtransactions will not affect earnings
  21. EA share price dips following loot box debacle: Also, Need for Speed Payback retools loot boxes following “community feedback”
  22. Star Wars: Battlefront II debacle points the way forward – EA’s approach to microtransactions has been a complete disaster, but it may have stumbled upon a model other publishers should consider emulating
  23. Did Disney push for EA’s Battlefront microtransaction decision?: Off-the-record “concerns” and official “support.”
  24. Disney pressured EA to pull Star Wars microtransactions – Report: Online outrage had licensing partner concerned the Battlefront II reception could tarnish the Star Wars brand
  25. UK boxed charts: Disappointing debut for Star Wars Battlefront II: EA’s blockbuster shooter down 50% compared with Battlefield 1
  26. After Battlefront 2 Backlash, Need For Speed: Payback Alters Progression System
  27. EA Devs Dial Down Microtransaction Pressure In Latest Need For Speed
  28. Devs promise to change Battlefront II until players are happy: “We will be looking at data continually and make adjustments…”
  29. Loot boxes are not bad game design, say devs: Star Wars aside, loot boxes are here to stay; “It’s just us dinosaurs that remember buying a game once for a fixed price and getting a set experience”
  30. Applying ‘players first’ logic to loot boxes and other mechanics in Hearthstone
  31. Economics Of Microtransactions In Video Games
  32. Video Game Monetization Strategies
  33. FCC is about to dismantle net neutrality: Gamers who rely on equal access to the internet may no longer have any such guarantee
  34. When Will Video Game Software Need to Meet FCC Accessibility Requirements?
  35. Video Game Software Industry Seeks a Final Disabilities Access Waiver Extension 
  36. Marvel Heroes players chasing add-on refunds after short-lived console launch
  37. The survival of GAME: Why the retailer is feeling defiant in the face of digital dominance
  38. 11 years after launch, Titan Quest gets a new expansion pack
  39. “It’s not Hitman without IO”: Why Square Enix set the franchise free – President and CEO Yosuke Matsuda tells GamesIndustry.biz the reasons behind the surprise split with IO Interactive
  40. Steam overhauls user reviews to counter spam bots: Platform holder seeks to take power away from accounts that rate an “excessive number of reviews”
  41. Publishers are “the most valuable piece of the puzzle” right now: We Are Fuzzy’s Maxx Burman offers a not-so-fuzzy view of indie development in 2017 as he readies his first project, Sleep Tigh
  42. NCsoft will shut down Master X Master just months after launch
  43. Tiny Metal director accused of funding game with money from another Kickstarter
  44. Marvel Heroes Players Are Demanding Refunds For In-Game Purchases
  45. Marvel Heroes players chasing add-on refunds after short-lived console launch
  46. Marvel Heroes to close down as Disney terminates Gazillion partnership: Future remains uncertain for Marvel Heroes staff
  47. Gazillion faces surge of refund requests after Marvel Heroes closure news: Players frustrated after spending hundreds of dollars on in-game microtransactions
  48. Chasing the local optimum: Data-led strategies have left many companies trying to squeeze revenue from the same small but lucrative market segment – it’s not an approach with a bright future
  49. Twitch: “We’re almost ready to go full-blown Hunger Games” – Co-founder Kevin Lin is excited for a new age of games development where streaming audiences can interact with the players
  50. How Ninja Theory proved independent AAA has a future: “Smaller indie teams that want to make that step up in production values can adopt this kind of model”
  51. Mario can’t prevent US game sales from falling 11% in October: Nintendo had a great month, but that was offset by an overall decline in software spending
  52. Super Mario Odyssey tops US charts for October: Nintendo all over the NPD charts as Switch and Super NES Classic take top two spots on hardware side
  53. Nintendo Switch is dominated by physical sales – GAME: Publishers says physical tie-ratio for Switch is almost identical to Wii
  54. GAME: In UK and Spain, Switch attach rates are matching the Wii’s
  55. GameStop’s earnings rise thanks to demand for new games and Nintendo’s Switch
  56. Nintendo Switch drives GameStop global sales to just shy of $2bn for latest quarter: Hardware and software demand counters slight decline in pre-owned sales
  57. Nintendo’s Switch and SNES Classic topped U.S. game hardware sales last month
  58. Square Enix says its games are a good fit for the Switch, get buried on Steam
  59. Vivendi holding off on Ubisoft takeover plans for six months
  60. Vivendi: No plans for Ubisoft takeover for six months – French media giant still has aspirations to grow in gaming, but says it will limit stake in Assassin’s Creed publisher for now
  61. Jon Shafer leaves Paradox over creative differences: Civilisation V designer moves on after just six months with new employer
  62. Xbox One X launch sales well behind competition in Japan: Brand new super-powered console outsold by six-year-old handheld PlayStation Vita
  63. The world of Skyrim is thrilling and flawed in VR: A nice place to visit, but I’m not sure about spending 100 hours.
  64. “Life doesn’t wait for you, and neither does VR”: Baobab discusses the difficulty of directing player attention, and why we need new terms for virtual reality experiences
  65. Wargaming’s symbiotic relationship with education and marketing: Director of special projects Tracy Spaight explores the applications for AR and VR outside of gaming
  66. Riot Games Is Trying To Turn League Of Legends Into A Collegiate Esport
  67. Why NCAA Involvement In Esports May Not Be Such A Bad Thing
  68. What I learned visiting my first live eSports tournament: Just watching on Twitch isn’t the same as being immersed in the crowd.
  69. You Can Now Hire Professional Gamers To Play Call Of Duty For You
  70. Brooklyn Soccer Leagues To Replicate FIFA Video Game ‘In Real Life’
  71. Wanted: Loving home for Boeing 737 cockpit and flight simulator
  72. It’s A Living: Meet One Of New York’s Best Professional D&D Dungeon Masters
  73. The rise of D&D liveplay is changing how fans approach roleplaying: From Stranger Things’ Dungeons & Dragons obsession to the YouTube and Twitch players becoming online celebrities, role-playing games are becoming public entertainment
  74. South Australian government launches $2M digital games investment fund
  75. Opinion: South Australia’s $2 million AUD investment in game devs
  76. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild leads Golden Joystick award winners
  77. The McLaren Formula 1 team just hired the World’s Fastest Gamer: The F1 team wanted a new simulator driver. Now it has found one—through gaming.
  78. During The Holiday Season, Home Is Where The Games Are
  79. Axiom Verge Publisher Donating 75 Percent Of Its Share To Developer’s Son’s Healthcare

DIGITAL

  1. Music Canada Data Confirms Huge Increase in Streaming Revenues and Sharp Decline of Music Listening from Pirated Sources (Michael Geist)
  2. SOCAN Financial Data Highlights How Internet Music Streaming is Paying Off for Creators (Michael Geist)
  3. Judge Halts Copyright Troll’s Lawsuit Against A Now-Deceased Elderly Man With Dementia And An IP Address
  4. EFF Wins Over Patent Troll Trying To Silence EFF Calling Its Patent Stupid
  5. Microsoft facing lawsuit over alleged HoloLens patent infringement
  6. Microsoft sued over HoloLens patent infringement: Connecticut-based HoloTouch claims that HoloLens actually infringes two of its patents
  7. Google plans to ‘de-rank’ Russia Today and Sputnik to combat misinformation: Alphabet chief executive Eric Schmidt says Google and other tech companies must act against state-run Russian news agencies to stop spread of falsehoods
  8. US court thumbs its nose at Supreme Court of Canada: Google v Equustek (Barry Sookman)
  9. Monopoly Leveraging & Equal Treatment: the EU Commission’s Google Shopping Decision
  10. NSW Supreme Court considers jurisdictional issues in an online contract: Gonzalez v Agoda Company Pty Ltd [2017] NSWSC 1133
  11. Closed by Default: Why is Prime Minister Trudeau Using Restrictive Terms for Flickr Image Use? (Michael Geist)
  12. Inside Google’s Struggle to Filter Lies from Breaking News: The company is revamping the way it displays breaking news search results
  13. YouTube Terminates Controversial Kids Channel With Over 8.5 Million Subscribers
  14. YouTube’s Purge Of Inappropriate Content Aimed At Kids Spans Tens Of Billions Of Views
  15. What makes YouTube’s surreal kids’ videos so creepy?
  16. ‘This is not TV’: A growing number of advertisers feel duped by YouTube
  17. The Professional Friends of YouTube: The platform and its young celebrities have built a self-contained universe of political cluelessness
  18. YouTube Is Addressing Its Massive Child Exploitation Problem: After BuzzFeed News provided YouTube with dozens of examples of videos — with millions of views — that depict children in disturbing and abusive situations, the company is cracking down.
  19. Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal: Inside the web of conspiracy theorists, Russian operatives, Trump campaigners and Twitter bots who manufactured the ‘news’ that Hillary Clinton ran a pizza-restaurant child-sex ring
  20. Surveillance Fans Angry Journalist Used Metadata, Contact Chaining To Out Comey’s Secret Twitter Account
  21. By year’s end, you’ll know if you liked a Kremlin-created Facebook page: “This tool will be available for use by the end of the year in the Facebook Help Center.”
  22. One Of The Biggest Alternative Media Networks In Italy Is Spreading Anti-Immigrant News And Misinformation On Facebook: The network sheds light on the overlap between the fringe underbelly of the Catholic world, Italy’s nationalist movements, and for-profit clickbait.
  23. We’ll Be Paying For Mark Halperin’s Sins For Years To Come: Reports of sexual harassment destroyed his reputation and his career. But I want to talk about the deeper, subtler, more insidious effect Mark Halperin had on our politics.
  24. The policy that the US porn industry has and Facebook needs
  25. In her new book, ‘The Uterus Is a Feature, Not a Bug,’ Sarah Lacy says women should fight back, not ‘lean in’: Amusingly, Lacy says Facebook — whose COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote “Lean In” — rejected ads for the book because of the word “uterus.”
  26. The Education of Mark Zuckerberg: The Facebook founder has discussed “community” more than 150 times in public. A close reading reveals his road map for the platform’s future.
  27. Facebook Launches Creator-Focused App With Content Production And Analytics Tools
  28. Facebook Acquires Exclusive Rights to 47 College Basketball Games From Smaller Conferences
  29. Athens Court of Appeal applies CJEU GS Media linking decision and interprets ‘profit-making intention’ restrictively
  30. Vice Forms Advisory Committee With Gloria Steinem Following Sexual Harassment Claims
  31. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo Tenders Investment In News Startup Axios
  32. Chinese students claim they worked illegal overtime making the iPhone X: Teens say a school made them intern at Foxconn, but Apple says it was voluntary.
  33. The Hidden Cost of Bitcoin? Our Environment.
  34. A Virtual Reality Film Experience Just Received the First Oscar for VR
  35. Inside The Race To Hack The Human Brain
  36. This Man Is Leading an AI Revolution in Silicon Valley—And He’s Just Getting Started: The cofounder and CEO of semiconductor and software maker Nvidia saw the future of computing more than a decade ago, and began developing products that could power the artificial intelligence era. Thanks to that vision, and relentless execution, his chipmaker today is perhaps the hottest company in Silicon Valley. And it may just be getting started.
  37. China Challenges Nvidia’s Hold On Artificial Intelligence Chips
  38. For the First Time, a Robot Passed a Medical Licensing Exam: Chinese AI-powered robot Xiaoyi took the country’s medical licensing examinations and passed, according to local reports. Xiaoyi is just one example of how much China is keen on using AI to make a number of industries more efficient.
  39. Experts: Artificial Intelligence Could Hijack Brain-Computer Interfaces
  40. Has The Silicon Valley Hype Cycle Run Its Course?: The social media boom, powered by the growth of mobile computing, is over. And while a glittering new technological age of artificial intelligence beckons, the current cycle seems bloated and fatigued. It’s no wonder venture capitalists are looking elsewhere.
  41. iOS 11 Is Killing Me
  42. Report: Apple Acquired VR Headset Startup Vrvana for $30 Million
  43. Amazon Secures Rights To Stream ATP World Tour In U.K., Ireland
  44. Amazon’s Last Mile: Who delivers Amazon orders? Increasingly, it’s plainclothes contractors with few labor protections, driving their own cars, competing for shifts on the company’s own Uber-like platform. Though it’s deployed in dozens of cities and associated with one of the world’s biggest companies, government agencies and customers alike are nearly oblivious to the program’s existence.
  45. The Uber CEO Who Arrived In The Us With Nothing
  46. Colorado fines Uber $8.9M for allowing dozens of unauthorized drivers: Colorado found many drivers with “suspended, revoked, or cancelled driver’s licenses.”
  47. Hackers hit Uber in 2016: data on 57 million riders, drivers stolen – CEO: “You may be asking why we are just talking about this now, a year later.”
  48. Uber Hid Security Breach Impacting 57 Million People, Paid Off Hackers
  49. Jeffrey Tambor To Depart ‘Transparent’ Amid Sexual Harassment Claims: The actor Jeffrey Tambor will depart Transparent — one of Amazon’s most synonymous original shows — following accusations of sexual harassment by two women involved in the Emmy-winning production.
  50. We’ll Be Paying For Mark Halperin’s Sins For Years To Come: Reports of sexual harassment destroyed his reputation and his career. But I want to talk about the deeper, subtler, more insidious effect Mark Halperin had on our politics.
  51. The Washington Post Is A Software Company Now: The newspaper created a platform to tackle its own challenges. Then, with Amazon-like spirit, it realized there was a business in helping other publishers do the same.
  52. This Amazon seller lost $400,000 in sales after being attacked by self-proclaimed ‘virus of Amazon’
  53. Tencent crosses $500 billion market cap milestone: Gaming giant is the first Chinese tech company to cross that financial mark
  54. Tencent and Bluehole partner to bring Battlegrounds to China
  55. Tencent to publish PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China: Bluehole’s new partner obliterates any notion on a ban in PUBG’s biggest market
  56. IGN, PCMag, AskMen Owner Acquires Mashable For $50 Million
  57. Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion: Two more chipmakers come together to try to compete with Intel, Broadcom.
  58. BuzzFeed IPO Dreams Fizzle as Company Said to Miss 2017 Revenue Target
  59. Univision Seeking to Sell Minority Stake in Fusion Media Group
  60. Archivist Leslie Berlin Tackles Silicon Valley’s Past In ‘Troublemakers’
  61. The media industry has suddenly become a ‘Game of Thrones’-like battle for power

CREATIVITY

  1. Judge: EFF’s “Stupid Patent of the Month” clearly protected by Constitution – GEMSA, which has sued dozens of US tech firms, never responded to EFF’s lawsuit.
  2. Good Ruling: Court Affirms Fox’s Victory In Trademark Suit From Empire Distribution Over Its Hit Show ‘Empire’
  3. The Monkey Selfie Strikes Back (Andres Guadamuz)
  4. The Sad Legacy Of Copyright: Locking Up Scientific Knowledge And Impeding Progress
  5. Ninth Circuit: Let’s Talk About Comic-Con
  6. Twentieth Century Fox Television v. Empire Distribution, Inc.
  7. Gucci “Wrongfully Claims a Monopoly” on Stripes, per Forever 21 Complaint
  8. Nobel Prize Winning Economist Says Non-US Countries Have Unique Opportunity To Reform Intellectual Property
  9. Trial Set To Start For Journalist Facing Decades In Prison For Covering Inauguration Day Protests 
  10. Roy Moore’s Threat Letter To Sue The Press Is An Artform In Bad Lawyering
  11. Alabama Media Group Isn’t Messing Around With Roy Moore’s Silly Threat
  12. Israeli court addresses relationship between design protection and copyright
  13. Zack Snyder Fans Petition For The Release of His Cut of Justice League As Deleted Scenes Leak Online
  14. Ben Affleck Stole Some Batarangs From the Justice League Set
  15. Justice League, Rotten Tomatoes, And DC Fans’ Persecution Complex
  16. Kaye v. Cartoon Network, Inc.
  17. Harvey Weinstein’s Secret Settlements: The mogul used money from his brother and elaborate legal agreements to hide allegations of predation for decades.
  18. What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?
  19. Broadcaster Leeann Tweeden Accuses Sen. Al Franken of Assault
  20. Trump Mocks Al Franken On Twitter, Blows It
  21. Twitter, It’s Time to End Your Anything-Goes Paradise
  22. The Soft Racism of Apu from “The Simpsons”
  23. Rashida Jones And Writing Partner Dropped Out Of Toy Story 4 Over “Philosophical Differences” With Pixar: “It is a culture where women and people of color do not have an equal creative voice.”
  24. The Female Supercomputer Designer Who Inspired Steve Jobs: The designer and artist Tamiko Thiel gets her due in a new show at MoMA.
  25. The Rope: The Forgotten History of Segregated Rock & Roll Concerts – The Platters, the Flamingos, and other pioneering performers share stories of divided audiences, Jim Crow absurdities and harrowing violence
  26. How culinary propaganda from a women’s magazine made Thanksgiving a thing
  27. Life After ESPN: In April, around 100 employees of the Worldwide Leader in Sports were laid off. Since leaving the mothership, some have found new work, new homes, and new careers—while others are still searching for their next chapter.

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY 

  1.  Canada and the U.S. stand divided at the crossroads of net neutrality (Michael Geist)
  2. Bell insider reveals high-pressure sales tactics required on every single call: Bell says allegations are ‘completely unfounded and untrue’
  3. Trump administration files suit to block AT&T/Time Warner merger: $108 billion merger would raise TV bills and prices for AT&T rivals, DOJ said.
  4. The Right Choice For The Wrong Reasons? DOJ Sues To Kill The AT&T Time Warner Merger
  5. Why Mergers Like the AT&T-Time Warner Deal Should Go Through
  6. A ‘Supernatural’ Profits Fight, and the AT&T-TW Merger Issue That Few Are Discussing: Warner Bros. has been battling the creator of one of the longest-running television shows in an arbitration that addresses the fairness of media consolidation and the very mechanism to resolve disputes with those who feel shortchanged.
  7. Why The Government Is Right To Block The AT&T-Time Warner Merger
  8. The Economic Case Against an A.T. & T.-Time Warner Merger
  9. FCC Releases Net Neutrality Killing Order, Hopes You’re Too Busy Cooking Turkey To Read It
  10. FCC Moves To Gut Rules Protecting Broadband Users Telcos No Longer Want
  11. FCC Head Ajit Pai: Killing Net Neutrality Will Set the Internet Free
  12. An Open Letter to the FCC:
  13. FCC Plans To Gut Net Neutrality, Allow Internet ‘Fast Lanes’
  14. FCC will also order states to scrap plans for their own net neutrality laws – Double win for ISPs: No more net neutrality, and state laws will be preempted.
  15. I’m on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality
  16. Here’s How The End Of Net Neutrality Will Change The Internet
  17. Welcome to 2018. There’s No Net Neutrality. We Made Dystopia a Reality.
  18. Will Your TV Watch You? FCC Green Lights Targeted Advertising in Next Gen TV Broadcasting Standard 
  19. Sorry, poor people: The FCC is coming after your broadband plans: 70% of low-income wireless subscribers in Lifeline could have to find new ISPs.
  20. Here’s the FCC’s Plan to Kill Net Neutrality
  21. The FCC Is Trying To Destroy The Internet
  22. Why Are People Celebrating Al Franken’s Incomprehensible Speech About The Internet?
  23. Republicans Finally Set a Date to Kill Net Neutrality
  24. The End Of Net Neutrality As We Know It
  25. FCC stonewalled investigation of net neutrality comment fraud, NY AG says: Net neutrality fraudsters likely impersonated “hundreds of thousands” of people.
  26. Who is Ajit Pai, the “Trump soldier” remaking America’s internet?
  27. FCC will also order states to scrap plans for their own net neutrality laws – Double win for ISPs: No more net neutrality, and state laws will be preempted.
  28. FCC Finds the Case for Broadcast Ownership Deregulation Compelling 
  29. Disgusted With Charter Spectrum Merger, Lexington To Build Entirely New Fiber Network
  30. Robocalls from spoofed Caller IDs may soon be blocked by phone companies: FCC authorizes aggressive blocking of spoofed and invalid numbers.
  31. The Robocall Nightmare Is Only Getting Worse—But Help Is Here
  32. Verizon may sign new deal with NFL to expand game streaming rights: Increasing the number of devices to which Verizon can stream football games.
  33. Shaw undercuts Big Three on iPhone pricing, Freedom Mobile to sell iPhone X for $0 upfront: Freedom’s steep discount comes with the caveat that its network only covers major centres in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, meaning consumers may face additional roaming charges outside those zones 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Apple formally asked to release Texas shooter’s iCloud data: Texas judge also signs off on search of shooter’s iPhone SE, LG dumbphone.
  2. Court Denies Government’s Demasking Demands In Inauguration Protest Case
  3. New York Court Says NYPD Must Get Warrants To Deploy Stingrays
  4. Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them – Moscow-based AV provider challenges claims it helped Russian spies.
  5. Dozens Of Tech Experts Tell DHS & ICE That Its Social Media Surveillance And Extreme Vetting Should Be Stopped
  6. Intel Chip Flaws Leave Millions Of Devices Exposed
  7. Defense Department Spied On Social Media, Left All Its Collected Data Exposed To Anyone
  8. Investigation Finds Google Collected Location Data Even With Location Services Turned Off
  9. No, you’re not being paranoid. Sites really are watching your every move: Sites log your keystrokes and mouse movements in real time, before you click submit.
  10. New Study Finds Poorly Secured Smart Toys Lets Attackers Listen In On Your Kids
  11. Court Says Glassdoor Must Disclose Anonymous Reviewers’ Information in Grand Jury Proceedings
  12. Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA
  13. Man gets threats—not bug bounty—after finding DJI customer data in public view: A bug bounty hunter shared evidence; DJI called him a hacker and threatened with CFAA.
  14. Pentagon contractor leaves social media spy archive wide open on Amazon: Trove included more than 1.8 billion posts spanning eight years, many from US people.
  15. Infosec star accused of sexual assault booted from professional affiliations: Morgan Marquis-Boire resigned from Citizen Lab back in September 2017.
  16. Iconic hacker booted from conferences after sexual misconduct claims surface: Professor, reporter say meetings with Draper years ago turned inappropriate
  17. Skype is the latest messaging app to disappear from Chinese app stores: Skype falls victim to China’s strict cybersecurity laws and Internet regulations.
  18. DOJ names Iranian as hacker who stole unaired episodes from HBO: “Those hiding behind keyboards in countries far away—eventually, winter will come.”
  19. New “Quad9” DNS service blocks malicious domains for everyone: Set DNS server to 9.9.9.9, and (known) malware and phishes won’t be able to phone home.
  20. Should I Confess My Internet Stalking To My Date?
  21. Thirty years later, “Max Headroom” TV pirate remains at large: Whoever was behind 1987 Chicago “broadcast intrusion” is the D.B. Cooper of media 

Jon