Tag Archive for: legislature

Utah’s ‘Porn Filter’ Law Passes the State Legislature


If you work in cybersecurity, chances are you’re pretty tired by now. On the heels of Russia’s devastating Solarwinds hack that came to light in December, Chinese hackers have mounted what appears to be a full-on assault against Microsoft Exchange Servers, hitting at least 30,000 servers in the United States alone. China’s spies will whittle down the target list from there for further compromise, but this mess is still going to take a very long time to clean up.

Speaking of messes, apps in both the App Store and Google Play Store still leak too much data too much  of the time, according to a new study from mobile security firm Zimperium. Thanks to misconfigured cloud settings, tens of thousands of apps on both platforms inadvertently expose user information like financial data and medical test results. A different category of mistake was found over at far-right platform Gab, which got hacked very very thoroughly, apparently due to a coding error introduced by the platform’s CTO.

Cybersecurity entrepreneur turned man on the run John McAfee was indicted Friday for his alleged involvement in two cryptocurrency scams. Twitch released its first transparency report this week after a decade of, well, not doing that. Microsoft has started testing its decentralized IDs in the real world, if you wanted to put your college diploma on the blockchain. We took a look at how Myanmar’s citizens are dealing with a prolonged internet shutdown during that country’s military coup. And we published our sixth installment of 2034, a fictional account of a near-future war with China that feels all too real.

And there’s more! Each week we round up all the news we didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Conservative lawmakers in Utah have passed a handful of anti-pornography laws in the last few years, including the declaration of a public health crisis in 2016. Now they’ve kicked things up a few notches. Measure HB72 won approval in the state senate this week, and in the house last month, meaning it’s headed for the governor’s desk for a signature. The law would mandate that every new smartphone and tablet sold in the state would come with a…

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Bad News: Virginia Legislature Can’t Sort Out Anti-SLAPP Law; Expect More SLAPP Suits

Last month we were happy to report that both houses of the Virginia legislature had passed anti-SLAPP laws (partially in response to Rep. Devin Nunes’ use of the state for a bunch of SLAPPy libel-tourism lawsuits. As we noted at the time, the two versions that passed through each part of the legislature were somewhat different, so they needed to be reconciled.

Unfortunately, it appears they were unable to reconcile to the two bills. In response to a tweeted question from reporter Rob Pegoaro, Schuyler VanValkenburg, who had introduced the House version of the bill, admitted that they couldn’t reconcile the two, and it would need to wait until next year:

This is disappointing on many levels — especially as we keep seeing so many of these cases being filed in Virginia. Having a good anti-SLAPP bill these days is important, and plenty of damage can be done in the meantime, even if a good bill will be coming next year. This is an unfortunate opportunity lost.

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Proposed payday loans regulations hit bump – Eau Claire Leader-Telegram

MADISON – A plan to cap rates for payday lenders faces major setbacks in the Legislature as lawmakers look at other ways of regulating the industry that has lobbied and spent heavily to avoid regulation. Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville …

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