Thailand's military-appointed parliament on Thursday passed a controversial cybersecurity law that gives sweeping powers to state cyber agencies, despite concerns from businesses and activists over judicial oversight and potential abuse of power. From a report: The Cybersecurity Act, approved unanimously, is the latest in a wave of new laws in Asian countries that assert government control over the internet. Civil liberties advocates, internet companies and business groups have protested the legislation, saying it would sacrifice privacy and the rule of law, and warning compliance burdens could drive foreign businesses out of Thailand. The military government has pushed for several laws it said would support the country's digital economy, including an amendment to the Computer Crime Act in 2017, which has been used to crack down on dissent.

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft are planning to give some drivers money to buy stock in their initial public offerings, WSJ reported Thursday [The link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: Both Uber and Lyft's IPOs will include programs that would give some of their most-active or longest-serving drivers a cash award with an option to put it toward stock in the IPOs, according to people familiar with the matter. It is typically hard for an ordinary investor to buy a company's stock at its IPO price before it begins trading on an exchange, so this move would give drivers access they likely wouldn't have had otherwise.

Uber is working out the details of a program expected to be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars that would give a significant portion of its 3 million active drivers and couriers globally either a cash bonus or the option to use that cash to purchase shares at the IPO price, people familiar with the matter said. These awards will be tiered based on a sliding scale related to the driver's length of service and number of trips or deliveries, these people said.

An office that's responsible for enforcing European data privacy laws against many of the biggest U.S. tech firms is spending much of its time on one company: Facebook. From a report: The Ireland Data Protection Commission said in a report that as of Dec. 31 it had 15 ongoing investigations of multinational tech companies. Ten of the investigations were about Facebook or its subsidiaries, Instagram and WhatsApp. One of the investigations into Facebook is especially wide-ranging, examining whether the social network has met its obligations "to secure and safeguard the personal data of its users." Twitter faces a similar probe, the report says. The report, released early on Thursday on Dublin time, underscores how much Facebook's handling of sensitive personal data is dominating legal and policy debates about privacy -- and how much potential regulatory danger the social network faces in Europe, where privacy laws are more strict than in the U.S.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: As many as 1 in 5 people today are mooching off of someone else's account when streaming video from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Video, according to a new study from CordCutting.com. Of these, Netflix tends to be pirated for the longest period -- 26 months, compared with 16 months for Amazon Prime Video or 11 months for Hulu. That could be because Netflix freeloaders often mooch off their family instead of a friend -- 48 percent use their parents' login, while another 14 percent use their sister or brother's credentials, the firm found. At a base price of $7.99 per month (the study was performed before Netflix's January 2019 price increase), freeloading users could save $207.74 over a 26-month period. At scale, these losses can add up, the study claims.

The report estimates Netflix could be losing $192 million in monthly revenue from piracy -- more than either Amazon or Hulu, at $45 million per month and $40 million per month, respectively. Millennials, not surprisingly, account for much of the freeloading. They're the largest demographic pirating Netflix (18 percent) and Hulu's service (20 percent). But oddly, it was Baby Boomers who were more likely to borrow someone else's account to access Amazon Prime Video. According to the study, 59.3 percent said they would pay for Netflix (or around 14 million people), contributing at least $112 million in monthly revenue, if they lost access. And 37.8 percent, or 2 million, said they'd pay for Hulu; 27.6 percent, or 1 million people, said they'd pay for Prime Video.

BlackBerry has set its sights on Twitter in a new patent infringement lawsuit, accusing the social media company of illegally using technology in its mobile messaging apps that had been developed by the former smartphone maker. Reuters reports: The lawsuit said Twitter wrongly sought to compensate for being a "relative latecomer" to mobile messaging by co-opting Blackberry's inventions for such services as the main Twitter application and Twitter Ads, infringing six of the company's patents. Twitter "succeeded in diverting consumers away from BlackBerry's products and services" and toward its own by misappropriating features that made BlackBerry "a critical and commercial success in the first place," the complaint said.

The lawsuit resembles patent infringement cases that BlackBerry filed there last March and April against Facebook and Snap. Last August, U.S. District Judge George Wu allowed BlackBerry to pursue most of its infringement claims in those lawsuits, which according to court records remain pending. Wu may be assigned the case against San Francisco-based Twitter because federal courts often assign cases deemed "related" to a single judge. The Facebook and Snap lawsuits were deemed related.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Police, social services, and health workers in Canada are using shared databases to track the behavior of vulnerable people -- including minors and people experiencing homelessness -- with little oversight and often without consent. Documents obtained by Motherboard from Ontario's Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS) through an access to information request show that at least two provinces -- Ontario and Saskatchewan -- maintain a "Risk-driven Tracking Database" that is used to amass highly sensitive information about people's lives. Information in the database includes whether a person uses drugs, has been the victim of an assault, or lives in a "negative neighborhood."

The Risk-driven Tracking Database (RTD) is part of a collaborative approach to policing called the Hub model that partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government. Information about people believed to be "at risk" of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels. Interventions can range from a door knock and a chat to forced hospitalization or arrest. Data from the RTD is analyzed to identify trends -- for example, a spike in drug use in a particular area -- with the goal of producing planning data to deploy resources effectively, and create "community profiles" that could accelerate interventions under the Hub model, according to a 2015 Public Safety Canada report. Saskatchewan and Ontario officials say the data in the database is "de-identified" by removing details such as people's names and birthdates, but experts Motherboard spoke to say that scrubbing data so it may never be used to identify an individual is difficult if not impossible.

The company behind TikTok, the popular short-form video app that incorporated Musical.ly last year, has agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it illegally collected personal info from children. "According to the FTC, it's the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the agency in a children's privacy case," reports Variety. From the report: The FTC's complaint, filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the commission, alleges that Musical.ly violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires websites and online services aimed at kids to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. Under the terms of the settlement, TikTok is also required to remove all videos from the app posted by children under the age of 13 and also must comply with COPPA going forward.

In the wake of the FTC fine, TikTok announced in a blog post that on Feb. 27 it is launching a new app environment for users under 13 that does not permit the sharing of personal information and "puts extensive limitations on content and user interaction." Both current and new TikTok users will be directed to the age-appropriate app experience, beginning Wednesday. In the post, TikTok said in part: "While we've always seen TikTok as a place for everyone, we understand the concerns that arise around younger users. In working with the FTC and in conjunction with today's agreement, we've now implemented changes to accommodate younger U.S. users in a limited, separate app experience that introduces additional safety and privacy protections designed specifically for this audience."

FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a statement: "This record penalty should be a reminder to all online services and websites that target children: We take enforcement of COPPA very seriously, and we will not tolerate companies that flagrantly ignore the law."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Reddit is experimenting with tipping users, starting with the shittymorph subreddit, a group dedicated to the man who has memorably bamboozled many a reader with sneaky comments ending in a reference to a famous pro-wrestling match called Hell in a Cell. A Reddit admin with the username "internetmallcop" posted a thread on Tuesday announcing the experiment, calling it a "new feature to support u/shittymorph." Anyone in the group can now tip shittymorph for content he posts in his own subreddit.

A "tip" option appears below shittymorph's content. Clicking on it opens a window with suggested $3, $5 or $10 tips, or the choice to select another amount. You can input your credit card number directly into the window. The payments are handled by processor Stripe. Shittymorph responded to the admin post by saying he is "super grateful and honored" to be picked for the launch and beta testing. As of this writing Wednesday morning, the comment shows a $75.00 tip total in green above it. Internetmallcop explained in a comment how the tipping breaks out: "If you were to tip $100, about $78.5 goes to u/shittymorph, $18.5 to Reddit, and $3 to Stripe." It's unclear if Reddit plans to expand tipping beyond this experiment, and if it might extend to all users, or just certain content creators. As for why Shittymorph was chosen to test the feature, it "may be due in part to the Hell in a Cell writer's infamy and extensive fan base on the site," reports CNET. "Shittymorph's intriguing backstory to his creative Reddit comment efforts stem from the tragic loss of his father. He's also known for occasionally posting about his rescue dog Scooby."

Slashdot reader technology_dude writes in response to an Engadget report about Boeing's plans to develop an autonomous fighter jet: In Season 1, Episode 23 of Star Trek, the Enterprise visits two worlds that are at continuous war. The war is ran via computers, and people that are victims in a "hit" report to a facility to be terminated. Kirk tells the world's leaders that there can be no peace if there is no cost to the war. We avoid war because of its cost and ugliness. Remove that and you remove the reason to stop. It looks like we may need the Captain to intervene here on planet earth. We seem hellbent on automating our militaries. The report says Boeing's recently unveiled autonomous fighter jet, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, is expected to arrive as soon as 2020. "The aircraft is designed to fly alongside crewed jets during combat, performing early warning tests, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance," reports Engadget. The company says the jets will cost a "fraction" of a manned fighter.

Mark Wilson shares a report from BetaNews: Security researchers from Dojo by Bullguard have discovered a vulnerability in Amazon's Ring doorbell that leaves it prone to man-in-the-middle attacks. As well as enabling a hacker to access audio and video feeds in a severe violation of both privacy and security, the vulnerability also means that an attacker could replace a feed with footage of their own. Revealing the security flaw at Mobile World Congress, Yossi Atias from Dojo, demonstrated how a feed could be hijacked and injected with counterfeit video. The vulnerability poses a number of risks. The ability to spy on audio and video feeds has obvious privacy implications, but it could also enable a hacker to monitor comings and goings to determine when a house will be empty. Using easily-available tools, it is possible to intercept Ring's RTP stream and extract a viewable MPEG video.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: When Y Combinator accidentally admitted 15,000 people to its 3,000-person Startup School online program last summer due to an almost funny technical glitch, it was an embarrassing moment for one of Silicon Valley's marquee brands, and a rollercoaster of an experience for emotionally vulnerable startup founders. Suffice it to say, mistakes like this don't typically happen in the well-to-do, perfectly manicured world of Silicon Valley startups. But this all offered a chance to test a big question: Does Silicon Valley only work if there is some exclusion, some selectivity, and some prestige? Or can access to what makes a startup a success -- the right connections, the right money, the right know-how -- be available to everyone who signs up? The answer -- in YC's eyes -- is: Yes, it can. So from the chaos of those accidental admissions and rejections, YC is now going to make this same "mistake" on purpose.

The accelerator program is discarding the application for its Startup School program, YC told Recode, effectively turning a selective program into a massive open online course. This is different from YC's core accelerator program -- the well-known training program that has birthed companies like Airbnb and Stripe -- which remains selective for now. Startup School is a relatively new 10-week program run by YC in which founders watch online lectures, submit status reports on their companies, and participate in discussion groups with other entrepreneurs trying to make it. While YC has more work to do to diversify its core, highly selective accelerator program batches, Startup School draws about half of its participants from overseas. YC thinks the new, bigger startup school program worked -- at least if you look at the program's completion rate. YC says that when 3,000 startups started the program in 2017, half of them completed it. And when 10,500 started the program in 2018, about half of them still completed it. So maybe Silicon Valley success does scale! But then again, about 4,500 of the 15,000 people dropped out of the program this year before it even began. "YC coped with the surprise 10,500 participants by running two programs -- assigning a successful startup founder to advise each of the 3,000 startups that it meant to accept, as it normally does, and then requiring the other 7,500 to nominate a leader internally to serve as the sherpa," Recode reports. "The latter situation didn't exactly always work, YC admits."

"Those groups were chaotic. Not a lot of people followed up or stayed engaged," said Olive Allen, a startup CEO who was accidentally admitted. Her advising group of about a dozen dwindled to three by the end of the program, she said. "Then again, not much can be done to engage all 15,000 people. It's always on you as an entrepreneur at the end of the day." "Some of the 3,000 founders who were correctly admitted said their experience seemed pretty normal," the report adds. "But when 12,000 rejects are earning the same credential, that rubs some folks the wrong way."

Chrome is going to get a big speed boost -- at least for web pages you've recently visited. CNET: With a feature called bfcache -- backward-forward cache -- Google's web browser will store a website's state as you navigate to a new page. If you then go back to that page, Chrome will reconstitute it rapidly instead of having to reconstruct it from scratch. Then, if you retrace your steps forward again, Chrome will likewise rapidly pull that web page out of its memory cache. The speed boost doesn't help when visiting new websites. But this kind of navigation is very common: Going back accounts for 19 percent of pages viewed on Chrome for Android and 10 percent on Chrome for personal computers, Google said. With bfcache, that becomes "extremely fast."

Okian Warrior writes: Free speech social network Gab has launched a new comments platform, Dissenter, which allows users to make comments on every single website on the Internet without fear of censorship or banning. The Dissenter platform, which integrates with Gab as either a website or a browser extension, allows users to comment on any web page in the world, with the ability to upvote, downvote, and reply to other comments.

"A free, open-source utility that allows people to dissent from orthodoxy and express what they are really thinking, without fear of reprisal, is essential in order to wrest control of the Internet and public discourse from Silicon Valley tech giants," said Gab founder Andrew Torba. "Gab.com and dissenter.com lead the way in keeping the Internet free. All people are welcome to use our products to express themselves freely." One example of recent comment censorship was review website Rotten Tomatoes' removal of comments for unreleased movies this week, which the review website claimed was due to "trolling."

Coinhive, an in-browser Monero cryptocurrency miner famous for being abused by malware gangs, announced this week its intention to shut down all operations next month, on March 8, 2019. From a report: The service cited multiple reasons for its decision in a blog post published yesterday. "The drop in hash rate (over 50%) after the last Monero hard fork hit us hard," the company said. "So did the 'crash' of the crypto currency market with the value of XMR depreciating over 85% within a year." "This and the announced hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network on March 9 has lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue Coinhive," the company said. Coinhive said all in-browser Monero mining will stop working after March 8, and registered users will have until April 30 to withdraw funds from their accounts. The service, which launched in mid-September 2017, promoted itself as an alternative to classic banner ads. In its heyday, the site was making around $250,000 per month, according to some estimates.

Samsung today said it's started mass producing 512GB mobile-focused flash memory with over twice the read speed and 1.5 times the write speed of the previous leader, the 1TB module announced last month at CES. From a report: The V-NAND (PDF) memory is based on its embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 spec -- the 1TB is eUFS 2.1. Samsung says the 512GB memory can hit read speeds up to 2,100 megabytes per second compared with 1,000MB/sec of the 1TB flash; sequential write can hit 410MB/sec versus 260MB/sec. The eUFS 3.0 1TB memory is slated to arrive in the second half of 2019.

FedEx is the latest company to join the delivery robot craze. The company said Wednesday it will test a six-wheeled, autonomous robot called the SameDay Bot in Memphis, Tenn. this summer and plans to expand to more cities. From a report: It's partnering with major brands, including Walmart, Target, Pizza Hut and AutoZone, to understand how delivery robots could help other businesses. FedEx's interest highlights how businesses are increasingly focused on automating deliveries. It also raises concerns about the impact on cities and employment, as robots crowd sidewalks and delivery jobs are automated. FedEx's robot has a top speed of 10 mph and can carry about 100 pounds. A company spokesman said its typical speed would vary depending on the route. The robot relies on sensors typically used on self-driving cars to identify and avoid pedestrians.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Coinomi wallet app sends user passwords to Google's spellchecking service in clear text, exposing users' accounts and their funds to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks during which attackers can log passwords and later empty accounts. The issue came to light yesterday after an angry write-up by Oman-based programmer Warith Al Maawali who discovered it while investigating the mysterious theft of 90 percent of his funds. Al Maawali says that during the Coinomi wallet setup, when users select a password (passphrase), Coinomi app grabs the user's input inside the passphrase textbox and silently sends it to Google's Spellcheck API service. [...] Coinomi, which offers a multi-cryptocurrency wallet app for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, and Windows, did not respond to a request for comment.

An anonymous reader writes: D-Wave Systems, one of the handful firms that is building a quantum computer, today unveiled the roadmap for its 5,000-qubit quantum computer. Components of D-Wave's next-generation quantum computing platform will come to market between now and mid-2020 via ongoing quantum processing unit (QPU) and cloud-delivered software updates. The complete system will be available through cloud access and for on-premise installation in mid-2020.

A pair of Hewlett Packard Enterprise servers sent up to the International Space Station in August 2017 as an experiment have still not come back to Earth, three months after their intended return. From a report: Together they make up the Spaceborne Computer, a Linux system that has supercomputer processing power. They were sent up to see how durable they would be in space with minimal specialist treatment. After 530 days, they are still working. Their return flight was postponed after a Russian rocket failed in October 2018. HPE senior content architect Adrian Kasbergen said they may return in June 2019 if there is space on a flight but "right now they haven't got a ticket." The company is working with Nasa to be "computer-ready" for the first manned Mars flight, estimated to take place in about 2030. The company is also working with Elon Musk's SpaceX.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) asked whether Equifax CEO Mark Begor would be willing to share his address, birth date, and Social Security number publicly at the hearing. Begor declined, citing the risk of "identity theft," letting Porter criticize Equifax's legal response to the 2017 security breach that exposed almost 150 million people's data of that sort to an unknown intruder. The company had unsuccessfully asked a judge presiding over a class-action suit over the breach to dismiss it, saying the plaintiffs hadn't "sufficiently alleged injury and proximate causation" to bring suit, as Yahoo Finance reported late last month.