Joe Biden has made it abundantly clear that he is unprincipled, untrustworthy, and unscrupulous. His faux presidency will be remembered as one of the darkest periods of American history. We can only hope that the damage he leaves behind him will not be completely irreversible. ROBERT SPENCER
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
IN OPERATION FOR OVER A HALF CENTURY!
American people deserve to know what China was up to with Joe Biden, especially when Beijing had already shelled out millions of dollars to Biden family members — including millions in set-asides for “the big guy.” What else is on that infamous Hunter Biden laptop? The conflicted Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to engage in any meaningful oversight on this issue. We need a special counsel now.
TOM FITTON - JUDICIAL WATCH
Chump Change: Google to Pay $29.5 Million Settlement in Lawsuits over Location Tracking
Tech giant Google has reportedly agreed to pay $29.5 million to settle separate lawsuits with Washington DC and Indiana over the company’s location tracking practices.
The Hill reports that Google has reached a settlement with Washington DC and Indiana, agreeing to pay a total of $29.5 million to resolve separate lawsuits regarding its location tracking practices. As part of the settlements, the tech giant has pledged not to mislead users about the collection and use of their location data in location history and web and app activity.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has announced that the state has reached a settlement with Google for $20 million to resolve a lawsuit over allegations of deceptive location-tracking practices. In a statement, Rokita said that the settlement reflects the state’s commitment to protecting consumers and holding companies accountable for their actions.
“This settlement is another manifestation of our steadfast commitment to protect Hoosiers from Big Tech’s intrusive schemes,” Rokita said. “We will continue holding these companies accountable for their improper manipulation of consumers.”
Multiple states filed lawsuits against Google after an Associated Press investigation in 2018 shed light on the extent of the company’s location-tracking practices. Despite efforts by a coalition of state attorneys general to reach a settlement with Google, negotiations ultimately failed, leading Indiana to file its own lawsuit.
In November, Google agreed to pay a settlement of nearly $392 million to 40 states to resolve the case brought by the coalition. Indiana’s recent settlement with Google for $20 million is separate from this earlier resolution.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita accused Google of using location data collected from Indiana consumers to build detailed user profiles and target ads, while also misleading users about its practices since at least 2014. Despite the allegations, the settlement reached between Indiana and Google states that the agreement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing on the part of the company.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has announced that his office has reached a settlement with Google for $9.5 million over allegations that the company used “dark patterns” to manipulate customers and gain access to their location data. Racine said that Google made it difficult for users to prevent their location from being tracked, leading his office to file a lawsuit against the company.
Under the terms of the settlement, Google will be required to clearly disclose to its customers how their location data is collected, stored, and used, and will also implement measures such as issuing a pop-up notification to users with location history enabled and maintaining a webpage outlining the company’s location tracking practices and policies.
Read more at the Hill here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
Report: Google Home Speakers Allowed Hackers to Spy on Users
According to a recent report, a bug in Google Home smart speakers allowed for the installation of a backdoor account that could be used to control the device and access its microphone feed. In short, hackers could take over Google’s devices to spy on users by listening in on their conversations.
Bleeping Computer reports that a vulnerability in Google Home smart speakers allowed the creation of a backdoor account that could be used to remotely control the device and access its microphone feed, potentially turning it into a spying tool.
The flaw was discovered by researcher Matt Kunze, who received a $107,500 reward for responsibly reporting it to Google in the previous year. Kunze published technical details and an attack scenario illustrating the exploit late last week.
During his experimentation with a Google Home Mini speaker, Kunze discovered that new accounts created using the Google Home app could remotely send commands to the device through the cloud API. In order to capture the encrypted HTTPS traffic and potentially obtain the user authorization token, the researcher used a Nmap scan to locate the port for the local HTTP API of Google Home and set up a proxy.
Kunze found that adding a new user to the target device involves two steps: obtaining the device name, certificate, and “cloud ID” from its local API. This information makes it possible to send a link request to the Google server. To add an unauthorized user to a target Google Home device, Kunze implemented the linking process in a Python script that automated the extraction of local device data and reproduced the linking request.
The researcher released three proof-of-concept scripts on GitHub that demonstrate the actions involved in the hack. However, these scripts should not be effective on Google Home devices running the latest firmware version. The proofs-of-concept go beyond simply adding an unauthorized user and also enable spying through the microphone, making arbitrary HTTP requests on the victim’s network, and reading/writing arbitrary files on the device.
Read more at Bleeping Computer here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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