...apart from the lawsuit I guess, and with it broader awareness.

Anime watchers and those familiar with modern japanese society will already have heard of the terms: NEET, hikikomori.
But as with many problems in japanese society that often gets picked by international media as some weird thing that must only happen in Japan, this is not by far a japanese exclusive phenomena.
https://think.iafor.org/reclus...

International media often exploit, fetishize, and even mock Japan for having these weird cultural things, often painting a picture as if it was commonplace there when it really isn't... but the truth behind this mocking of foreign countries is that more often than not, these things not only do exist back at home, but often it's worse than in Japan - only it's taboo, overlooked by press, and not selected as a subject for exposure.

So yeah... this guy is probably one of these cases. Surprise, bad stuff that happens in other societies is probably happening in sacred US of A too. And probably, a lawsuit is not the best way to deal with it too. Not that I'm ignoring the tribulation that the parents must've gone through already, but hikikomori are often unstable and should be seeking treatment and re-education, not being booted out of home.

There is a high potential of this being a case of throwing gas into the fire. Optimistic scenario, sure, the guy will leave home, get a job and reform himself. But people in the US really should not ignore the potential of someone mentally unstable becoming enraged with the situation and turning into yet another nightmare scenario that we all know pretty well by now having multiple cases a year. He could take his parents money, buy a gun, a go shoot some people plus himself.

Problem is not the numbers, it's the narrative itself.
They are effectively saying that they can't do anything, like say regular investigation jobs, if they don't have encryption to backdoors, which would effectively ease up their work on one end while exponentially raising the potential for other types of crimes like identity theft, blackmail, exploitation, stealing of corporate secrets, hacking, and whatnot.
The numbers don't matter. The stupidity of breaking encryption for an entire country does.

Rather than this unbalanced snippet.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

I'm not saying Amazon is totally right on this, specially if there are clients who were wrongfully banned... but there are plenty of reasons why Amazon would ban people for repeated returns, and the situation isn't as clear cut as this snipped is making it sound.

Basically, they have people who abuse the return system to get money from retailers in exchange for positive reviews on the product. Amazon is not the only one doing this, and it's becoming a widespread problem for online shopping.

This shouldn't be a surprise.
The guy is a pathological narcisist, so of course he'll do as he pleases. The only type of respect he has is self-respect, and fuck the rest.
He already dismisses everything that was ever done previous to his administration as errors, worst mistakes, wrong, criminal, swamp or whatever.
And it hasn't been a problem for him every single time he was proven wrong. It's either treated as a joke, or the new norm.
Nobody knew x could be so complicated. President Trump isn't at fault because he just didn't know better. It's just fake news. It's media persecution. Things we hear every freaking day on the news.
If it's content he doesn't like, it's fake news. If he does something wrong he was just unaware or it's someone else's fault. Any press that says anything wrong about him is being unfair. Any politician that raises a voice against his command is either a democrat trying to attack him, or a republican traitor. The guy acts exactly like politicians in countries like Venezuela, Phillipines and other proto-dictatorships and populist nations and people are just watching it happen.
None of this has put him out of his position up to now, leaking smartphone information also won't. At most, some fuzz will be made about it, they'll create some comitee for investigation, and some people will cry foul, but he'll still be there.
I doubt there's anything there to be leaked or hacked anyways... I mean, anything that foreign countries and whatnot don't already know. People shouldn't expect any sort of internal security from the current administration. You just have to see how many incompetent people are occupying all sorts of positions right now. Why would anyone be under some illusion that US government data isn't already being hacked, stolen, spied upon and even directly willingly sent by people on this administration? I'd believe first that the US government is already, knowingly or not, a puppet of other countries. I'd believe first that every piece of communication is already being monitored, specially around Trump. Look at the people he has surrounded himself with. There's a whole ton of people there now or that has come and gonne that I'd have no problems believing they'd just leak stuff or spy for foreign governments with either profit or because they were being blackmailed.
Foreign countries probably already have plenty of info on him, it's just more convenient to let the guy wreck havok in US international relations as this weakens US economy and gives more opportunities for foreign countries to strenghten theirs.
And should Trump do too much against other countries with access to his dirt, the information just comes in handy for blackmailing and whatnot, something I wouldn't doubt already happened anyways.
His supporters already blindly follow him. I'm willing to be that for the vast majority of them, should news come tomorrow that his phones were hacked and all the info stolen, they'd see no fault in Trump's position. It'd only be something to fuel his and his followers nationalist spew, more reason for isolationism, more fuel for immigrant persecution, more reasons for baseless accusations against foreign companies, and overall more reasons for the FUD that this administration feeds on.
When people have bought the narrative that every single mistake of the current administration is the fault of someone else, and even some of the most obvious errors and problems there is either fake or intrigue by the opposition, the country already set itself on a downward spiral. It will go on as long as it's to the benefit of those in power.
I pitty the non-supporters who are currently on this trap without any sight of getting out, but it is what it is.
And I say this as a non US citizen. I live in a country that has gone through that downward spiral. It has destroyed the entire country's economy, it has put the country as a place no foreign investors wants to deal with, it has provoked a massive runaway of scientists, researchers, technology overall, among other stuff to other countries who would receive them better, it has set the example for a culture of corruption and crime, it has left our public health system and education in shambles, and we're gonna pay for several decades to come.
And we still have a portion of the population still siding with politicians that have been arrested and proven to be actively participating in corruption schemes that have stolen billions of dollars out of public coffers.
Because that's what happens. No magic, nothing to be surprised about. When governments and politicians set themselves to work pretty much like a cult, the end is predictable.
The US has plenty of money, historical credit and whatnot to keep going relatively fine through whatever is thrown against it. But the damages of this administration will undoubtely be felt for several generations to come, make no mistake.

Media should cover Tesla accidents as long as it's fair and of public interest, and that is not something that Musk should have any right to say if it's ok or not... he should just shut the fuck up and have a better PR strategy than whinning about it being unfair, like Trump with it's "fake media" claims.
If you are gonna offer a disruptive technology that is going against traditional brands and whatnot, of course it'll get coverage, and that includes the bad stuff. I don't see Musk complaining about tech bloggers who are constantly babbling and licking his sack about Hyperloop, selling flamethrowers and other far fetched idiotic ideas.
And he'd better get used to it because when some of those plans comes crashing down, the media will cover the downfall too. Just as much as they are covering good results like SpaceX and others. You don't get to pick and choose what media will publish on your stunts, unless you are a dictator.

Confusing article with annedoctal evidence. Dismissed.

...it helps writting titles that actually do reflect studies.
Better grades is not the same as being "smarter".

On the subject, I'm a bit curious to know how patent infringement cases go in China... hard to wrap my head around.
I mean, up until decades or years ago that basically didn't exist, did it?
I'm not sure if it's the case on this one, but if it's patent trolling, how would something like this go in China?
I'm not sure if it's following a western/US model, or if things could be different.
In Brazil it follows mostly a western model, but I think this should change at some point. Patent trolls should be automatically counter suited and end up in jail for all I care.

Man, I'm f*cking tired of this shit.

Stop spreading the false myth that a new standard, biometrics, or whatever is gona "replace" passwords, or that there is a post password future, or bullshit like that.
What passwords provides is fundamentally different from what biometrics can offer.
If you can't understand this, you should not be reporting on these things, period, because you are only contributing to misinformation and misunderstandings on the very basics of security.

It's because of shitty practices like these that we are in the deep privacy end hole that we are now. There is no foreseeable "post password future". And not by a long stretch when it's relying on proprietary and closed off systems for it.

For something to completely replace passwords it needs to be something you know, that can be easily changed, and cannot be taken from you by force, when you are unconscious or something like that. If it can't, it cannot replace passwords, period. It won't end the era of passwords, it won't take it's place, and it cannot by definition, be used in several cases where passwords are required.

Biometrics and this new standard will add convenience to a form of authentication that while it can be enough for lots of things, or can be paired with passwords for added security, it does not offer the same level of security as passwords because it can be taken from you, some of them without you even knowing. They cannot be easily replaced as they are part of your identity, uniquely tied to you. And they'll be highly dependant on proprietary hardware and software schemes to maintain integrity.

And pointing out phishing as a flaw of passwords is just stupid. As soon as biometrics becomes more widespread, social engineering strategies to get what's needed to unlock them will rise. It's just the way it is. And yes, some of them might be very secure these days, but methods will arise to spoof, replicate, and just take it straight from the source. The proper way to see webauthn and biometrics is as a layer of security that is convenient, but isn't perfect and isn't impossible to bypass. You use as many layers you need, and weight the pros and cons of each for your usage. But f*cking stop saying that they'll be replacing passwords. We've been there before. Look how many biometric authentication methods were broken so far, look how many problems this assumption of replacing stuff with biometrics has already brought. Just. Stop. It.

...on the Right to Forget thing.

This isn't the right way to go about this.
If the worry is about government destroying records, what needs to be done is government being forced to conduct business using services that guarantees record keeping. Simple as that.
Gmail is not the only mail server there is out there, people have plenty of choice to use services that already have a self destruct option for years now, so it makes no sense to put the burden on Gmail or any other singular service while taking the functionality out for everyone else just because "government records". Gmail was not created to attend government needs, it was made for a bigger public. If government requires a service with specific traits, they need to have one made custom.

It's a reverse backdoor encryption thing. Just because the police wants to have easier access on potential criminals under investigation that does not justify forcing secure systems to shit all over the privacy and security of their clients.

And quite frankly, stuff like this should be obvious at this point.

"Misinformation".
Caught trying to bully people for exclusivity, products already came out to prove the dirty tactic was working, and refused to reply to questions made by costumers, people covering the subject, and whatnot.
More likely caught red handed with shady tactics to corner the market and wanted to avoid a lawsuit.
See guys, it wasn't only that nVidia was trying to put nVidia products into a separate brand than the competition, it's that they wanted exclusivity, they were shutting down access for bloggers and YouTubers for covering the subject, and the whole thing was done under threats against manufacturers and brands not being able to have access to all the benefits of a partner program if they didn't follow suit.
The very basic strategy of "do you know who we are? If you don't do this you will never work with us again".
Branding doesn't come cheap, which means most smaller manufacturers and even bigger ones didn't really want to create an entire new brand just to differentiate something that every freaking gamer worth their money already knew about. Most of the branding they've created for gamers was exactly that - to different products that were for gaming. Not to differentiate products that used x brand of graphics card.
So what it effectively does is putting an extra barrier for smaller manufacturers to offer a line with AMD cards.
And why the f*ck should nVidia be allowed to mandate desktop and laptop manufacturers to create a separate brand for their cards alone?
Should manufacturers now also create a new brand only for Intel Wi-fi chips? For y brand of Ram memory? etc etc... see, of course the specs have to be clear, but there is no reason to force manufacturers to create separate branding for each and every component on a gaming rig.
Can you imagine anyone in this particular market category being confused about desktops and laptops coming with an nVidia graphics card and an AMD one? With all the labeling and all the front page specs ads that we have?

I, for one, welcome out cows overlords
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This is great news, I hope the community comes up with great new ways of using the Switch that Nintendo isn't willing to do.
Dual booting Android, being able to backup *gasp, such a novel notion* your saves, among several other things that the Switch has the hardware to do, but it doesn't because Nintendo fears it might create a pathway for a hack or something.
Nintendo might hate it, but this could potentially make the Switch a thousand times more enticing for costumers.
And yes, pirates will make use of the exploit. But I hate the fact that Nintendo keeps stepping back on features their paying costumers want just because of the potential for exploits. If the company is going to adopt an anti-consumer posture because of fears of piracy and exploits, I'd rather they end up with an unpatchable device so they can be freed of speculative crap.

Now Nintendo, your precious Switch is already wide open. Get to working on the features we are asking for.
Signed, a paying costumer.

Yes, RCS is a replacement for SMS which is also not encrypted, but this is about Chat, the app that Google is packaging this protocol with standard in all Android phones in a near future, possibly in the next Android update.
An no, just because RCS is a protocol doesn't mean it couldn't have included encryption there.
It should have, but Google caved in to anti-privacy government and carrier demands.
So the complaint still stands and is still fair.
Stop apologizing for Google's crappy offerings.

At first, the answer is "obviously", but in this particular case things might be more complex than it looks.
Why? Because both companies are smaller than the competition.
It is a bad thing that companies like those need to merge to compete in the first place, no question about that.
Then again, this means a closer to 3rd player will result from this merger. Which could potentially bring closer competition against Verizon and AT&T. Which could bring benefits to costumers.

On the other hand it'll probably be shitty for the people working there, and the scenario for closer competition with benefits to costumers is only a possibility. Given the records, it might be a distant possibility. The other possibility is the merger resulting in yet another giant joining the mob, oligopoly to adopt the exact same shitty practices because now they have dominance over several regions.
I'm not familiar on how the current services of these companies are, but if they are as crappy as some say, I have a hard time imagining it'll get any better.

For the most part, corporations always gets shittier towards costumers the bigger they grow.