Articles by Stephen Warwick

The app can’t see any of your personal data or your location.

What you need to know

Scotland has released its ‘Protect Scotland’ contact tracing app.
It’s built on Apple and Google’s exposure notification system.
It can alert you if you’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 but can’t see any of your data or location.

NHS Scotland has today released its Protect Scotland contact tracing app to the public.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the app’s release this morning in a Tweet stating:

There’s a new way to help fight COVID in Scotland. ‘Protect Scotland’ – our confidential contact tracing app – will anonymously notify app users you’ve been in close contact with, should you test positive. Please download, and let’s all protect Scotland

The app is built on Apple and Google’s exposure notification API and uses Bluetooth handshakes to determine if you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. If one of …

It may file the suit as early as Monday…

What you need to know

TikTok is preparing a legal challenge to President Trump.
It comes after the President issued an executive order effectively banning the app in the U.S.
TikTok’s employees are reportedly preparing their own suit.

A new report says TikTok may mount its legal challenge against a recent executive order from President Trump as early as Monday, August 24.

According to Reuters:

TikTok is preparing to mount a legal challenge as early as Monday to President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, according to people familiar with the matter.

The report says that TikTok plans to challenge the first of two executive orders, issued August 6, banning transactions between U.S. businesses and individuals, and the app. The first order gave parent company ByteDance a window of 45 days to divest TikTok to any potential buyer, the second effec…

“Epic’s complaints are very well-crafted, but the hurdle for establishing an antitrust violation is high”

No doubt by now, most of you are aware of two huge lawsuits filed against Apple and Google by Epic Games over their respective software policies and guidelines, their 30% cut, and what Epic calls an unfair monopoly on the distribution of mobile software. The lawsuits themselves are complex, and there have already been several major developments in the case against Apple. We sat down (virtually, of course) with Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents to discuss the lawsuits, how Epic got the ball rolling, its basic demands, and of course, the comparison between the two. We also chatted about the context of antitrust complaints like those of Spotify, and what this all means for everyday consumers.

Mueller has been covering smartphone patent and antitrust litigation for over 10 years at FOSS Patents including heavyweight cases such as Apple v. Samsung, Oracle v. Google, and the FTC v. Qua…

“There’s a New Way to Message on Instagram”

What you need to know

Facebook making big changes to messaging on Instagram.
It seems that Instagram and Messenger chats are starting to merge
The update was spotted by several editors at The Verge.

A new update for Instagram appears to suggest that Facebook has started merging chats on the app with its Facebook Messenger service.

As The Verge reports:

Facebook appears to flipping the switch on integrating the chat systems for Instagram and Messenger. On Friday evening, several editors at The Verge across the country — on both iOS and Android devices — noticed an update screen popped up in Instagram’s mobile app with the message “There’s a New Way to Message on Instagram” with a list of features including a “new colorful look for your chats,” more emoji reactions, swipe-to-reply, and the big one: “chat with friends who use Facebook.”

The new update seems to replace the Instagram DM icon with a new Facebook Messenger Logo, wi…

The now-fixed bug was discovered by security researcher Saugat Pokharel.

What you need to know

A worrying bug was discovered on Instagram’s servers.
Security researcher Saugat Pokharel discovered deleted Instagram photos and messages were kept by Instagram long after he deleted them.
He found data that had been stored for more than a year.

A security researcher discovered a now-fixed Instagram bug that meant removed photos and messages were kept for more than a year after they were deleted.

According to TechCrunch:

A security researcher was awarded a $6,000 bug bounty payout after he found Instagram retained photos and private direct messages on its servers long after he deleted them.

Independent security researcher Saugat Pokharel found that when he downloaded his data from Instagram, a feature it launched in 2018 to comply with new European data rules, his downloaded data contained photos and private messages with other users that he had previously deleted.

As th…

We caught up with three creators who’s channels were crippled during a recent YouTube hack.

If you’ve been keeping up with tech news this week, you’ve likely heard about, or seen first-hand, how several YouTube channels have succumbed to a widespread cyberattack. Over the course of the last week or so, many channels have had their security compromised by attackers, who have taken to broadcasting fake live streams advertising Bitcoin scams. In many ways, the attack echoes a recent breach on Twitter which generated thousands of dollars in scammed Bitcoin after a Twitter employee was paid off to give hackers access.

Whilst the details of the hacks themselves vary slightly, one core theme remains. All of them feel totally let down by YouTube.

Yet the YouTube saga is very different from the recent Twitter breach in a number of ways, most significantly in YouTube’s seemingly lax response to the problem. We caught up with three major YouTube creators to find out exactly what happened…

“According to internal discussions, Facebook removed “strikes” so that conservative pages were not penalized for violations of misinformation policies.”

What you need to know

A new report says Facebook relaxed rules about misinformation for conservative pages.
News outlets and personalities were allowed to spread misinformation and had strikes removed.
Employees say this was done to stop negative publicity and complaints about bias.

A new NBC News report says that Facebook relaxed misinformation policies and let pages spread fake news in order to avoid accusations of anti-conservative bias.

Facebook has allowed conservative news outlets and personalities to repeatedly spread false information without facing any of the company’s stated penalties, according to leaked materials reviewed by NBC News.

The report says that “according to internal discussions in the last six months”, Facebook relaxed rules for conservative pages including ” Breitbart, former Fox News personalitie…

“An investigation is underway related to a series of vandalized communities”

What you need to know

A number of popular subreddits have been vandalized with Trump 2020 messaging.
Reddit says an investigation is underway “related to a series of vandalized communities.”
It appears compromised moderators may be the source of the attacks.

Reddit is investigating a number of hacked subreddits that were vandalized with pro-Trump messaging.

As reported by The Verge:

A number of subreddits were taken over and vandalized on Friday, possibly as part of a coordinated campaign. Hackers reportedly posted messages or changed a subreddit’s design in support of President Donald Trump.

A spokesperson from Reddit told The Verge that it was investigating “a series of vandalized communities.” According to the statement, Reddit believes the source of the attacks “were compromised moderator accounts” and is “working to lock down those accounts and restore impacted communities.”

As the report n…

A scathing WSJ report has the details…

What you need to know

As U.S. government contractor embedded tracking software in numerous mobile apps.
That’s according to a new WSJ report.
It says that hundreds of millions of users were tracked worldwide as a result.

A damning new WSJ report says a small U.S. government contractor embedded software in over 500 apps, tracking millions of people worldwide.

According to the report:

A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Anomaly Six LLC is the company in question, apparently boasting in marketing material that it was “able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications” from its own software development kit, embedded directly in some apps:

Anomaly Six says it emb…

“Number 10 is concerned that iPhones will not always detect each other because of a restriction Apple has imposed on apps that do not adopt its model.”

What you need to know

The UK is still not ruling out switching its contact tracing app to Apple and Google’s framework.
Its current, centralized system is bogged down with issues in testing.
Bluetooth handshakes are far less effective without support from Apple and Google for background operation.

The UK’s NHS contact tracing app continues to be plighted by technological issues, and reports suggest that ministers are still considering the possibility of using Apple and Google’s framework instead.

From the BBC:

Concerns about the risks of deploying a go-it-alone UK coronavirus contact-tracing app are causing further delays.

A second version of the smartphone software was due to have begun testing on the Isle of Wight on Tuesday, but the government decided to postpone the trial.

Ministers are considering switching t…