Source: Newser
https://www.newser.com/story/383740/dhs-pushes-tech-companies-to-identify-ice-trackers.html
The Department of Homeland Security is pressuring tech companies to disclose the identities behind social media accounts that criticize or track Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, say officials and tech employees familiar with the requests. Over the past several months, Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas, the New York Times reports. The subpoenas, which do not require a judge’s approval, have asked for names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other details tied to anonymous accounts that either post critical commentary about ICE or share information about agents’ locations. Efforts to resist have begun.
[…]
An earlier suit, from the creator of the ICEBlock warning app, argues that DHS is using its regulatory power to suppress protected speech…
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/dems-want-to-ban-surveillance-pricing-at-big-grocery-stores-2000722182
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced legislation Thursday that would ban so-called surveillance and surge pricing in grocery stores. Officially known as the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026, the Senate legislation is modeled on a 2025 bill in the House.
The new bill would require stores to disclose their use of facial recognition technology and would ban electronic shelf labels (ESL) in large grocery stores. ESLs are controversial because they allow retailers to change the price of a given item remotely, opening up the possibility that they could be tied to algorithms which raise and lower prices based on conditions in the store or who’s trying to buy something.
Hypothetically, stores can charge different prices at different times of day or rely on different inputs, right down to personalizing the price based on an individual who was looking at a given item, spotted with facial recognition tech. The concern is that factors like race, gender, and income level could be used to determine how much people are charged. A 2025 study found that Instacart was charging customers different prices for the same products, sometimes as much as 23% more. A few weeks after the study received negative press coverage, Instacart announced it was pulling the plug on its AI-powered pricing.
At least six states have seen legislation introduced to stop surge and surveillance pricing, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which has also developed a 30-second ad to spread the word on the threat.
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Subject: A Good Valentine’s Day Gift for These Nice People in the New York Times Would Be to Destroy Their Phones
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/a-good-valentines-day-gift-for-these-nice-people-in-the-new-york-times-would-be-to-destroy-their-phones-2000720913
Subject: Apple patches zero-day flaw that could let attackers take control of devices
Source: Malwarebytes
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/apple-patches-zero-day-flaw-that-could-let-attackers-take-control-of-devices
Subject: SSA needs better assessment of data-sharing costs as Treasury program saves millions, GAO says
Source: FedScoop
https://fedscoop.com/social-security-administration-death-master-file-treasury-do-not-pay/
Subject: Good Luck Banning Smart Glasses
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/good-luck-banning-smart-glasses-2000723392
Smart glasses bans are reasonable, important, and damn near impossible.If there’s one thing that has people concerned about the growing wave of smart glasses, it’s privacy. Sure, we’ve had cameras at our sides for ages now, but never on our faces in a discreet form factor that makes it hard (sometimes impossible) to recognize when someone is recording. Because of that potential shift, people are reacting accordingly to protect spaces that should remain at least relatively private. By that, I mean they’re restricting smart glasses or just banning them outright.
The latest ban comes courtesy of the cruise liner, Royal Caribbean, which now prohibits the use of any glasses that can record video and take pictures in various parts of its ships. Altogether, the partial ban sounds pretty reasonable, disallowing smart glasses from being used in “casinos, spa service areas, restrooms, locker rooms, medical facilities, security screening locations, youth facilities, during back-of-house tours, in crew areas, or anywhere there is a reasonable expectation of guest and crew privacy.” Basically, just don’t be an a**hole when you use smart glasses, and you’re good.
It’s reasonable, for sure, and also completely unenforceable.
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Cruise liners aren’t the only entities trying to ban smart glasses, either. Recently, the College Board banned wearing smart glasses while taking the SATs, which is another no-brainer. Smart glasses, especially those with AI and internet access, would be an adept cheating tool and could be used to get answers to all sorts of stuff quietly and quickly. That ban feels even more hopeless, though, if I’m being honest. As I pointed out recently, smart glasses that could be useful for cheating, like those made by Even Realities, are even harder to spot since they don’t have cameras or speakers and pass for normal glasses.
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Subject: Microsoft says bug causes Copilot to summarize confidential emails
Source: BleepingComputer
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-says-bug-causes-copilot-to-summarize-confidential-emails/
“A code issue is allowing items in the sent items and draft folders to be picked up by Copilot even though confidential labels are set in place,” Microsoft added….Tagged:
Source: Nextgov/FCW
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2026/02/us-cyber-responses-will-be-linked-adversary-actions-and-involve-industry-coordination-official-says/411525/
Future U.S. government responses in cyberspace will be “linked to adversary actions” and will involve coordination between the private sector and smaller governments, a top White House official said Thursday.
The dynamic, which will be codified in a forthcoming national cyber strategy, is meant to make clear that foreign adversaries’ actions that target U.S. networks have consequences, according to Alexandra Seymour, who serves as the principal deputy assistant national cyber director for policy in the Office of the National Cyber Director.
“To do this, we will need to coordinate closely with state and local governments and the private sector, including critical infrastructure owners and operators, who are often at the front lines of our cyberdefense,” Seymour said at CyberScoop’s CyberTalks event in Washington, D.C.
Seymour’s comments also align with details from reports last year indicating the private sector would have a degree of involvement in offensive cyber matters. It’s not entirely clear how coordination with industry would work. Private sector participation in government-backed offensive cyberattacks is hotly debated because of the potential for escalation and blurred lines between state-sponsored and private activity.
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Filed:
Subject: Chinese telecom hackers likely holding stolen data ‘in perpetuity’ for later attempts, FBI official says
Source: Nextgov/FCW
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2026/02/chinese-telecom-hackers-likely-holding-stolen-data-perpetuity-later-attempts-fbi-official-says/411528/
A Chinese state-backed hacking group that was discovered in telecom operators and other communications systems is likely holding onto pilfered data “in perpetuity” for future theft and cyber exploitation, a top FBI official said Thursday.
Salt Typhoon, as the group is widely known, accessed dozens of telecom providers around the world in a multi-year espionage campaign that was first publicly disclosed in 2024. In the U.S., the hackers targeted communications of top political officials by accessing the government’s “lawful intercept” systems that facilitate court-ordered wiretapping requests.
The breach has been widely deemed one of the worst telecom espionage intrusions in U.S. history. It remains unconfirmed whether the cyberspies have been fully purged from American networks.
“I think it’s important to say we do not know exactly what the [People’s Republic of China] intends to do with a lot of this information,” said FBI deputy assistant director for cyber intelligence Michael Machtinger at CyberScoop’s CyberTalks event. “But we have no doubt that it could be used for surveillance and certainly future exploitation.”
The notion of holding onto exfiltrated data for future hacks is not novel, and is a common talking point among cyber officials and industry executives who note that such data can be a long-term value-add for foreign adversaries who want to build exploits and hacking tools for later operations. Stolen personal data can also be used for fraud attempts.
…Filed:
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/the-us-is-working-on-a-site-to-help-europeans-bypass-content-bans-on-hate-speech-report-2000724058
The U.S. State Department is reportedly working on an online portal that would allow people in Europe and other regions to access content banned by their governments. The move comes at a time when conservative figures like Elon Musk and J.D. Vance have railed against European attempts to clamp down on hate speech, terrorist propaganda, and revenge porn.Reuters reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources, that the initiative is intended to fight censorship and could include a virtual private network (VPN) feature.
Paris prosecutors’ cybercrime unit, working alongside Europol and French national police, raided X’s offices in the country earlier this month.
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Filed: https://gizmodo.com/tech/tech-policy
Subject: As AI leaps forward, concern rises that innovation is leaving safety behind
Source: CSMonitor.com
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2026/0220/anthropic-pentagon-artificial-intelligence-safety
Why We Wrote This
Artificial intelligence is developing so rapidly that some industry insiders fear safety concerns aren’t getting enough attention. That’s sparking conversation about how to balance innovation, competition, and safeguards.
“A lot of the people who’ve been involved in the field of AI have been thinking about safety in various forms for a long time,” says Miranda Bogen, the founding director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab. “But now those conversations are happening on a much more visible stage.”
This month, researchers resigned from two major U.S. AI companies, citing inadequacies in the companies’ safeguards around things like consumer data collection. In an essay Feb. 9 titled “Something Big is Happening,” investor Matt Shumer warned that AI will not only soon threaten Americans’ jobs en masse, but that it could also start to behave in ways its creators “can’t predict or control.” The essay went viral on social media.
“We constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most,” wrote Mrinank Sharma, an AI safety researcher, in a publicly-posted resignation letter from Anthropic last week. He did not refer to a specific event that led him to resign, but warned that, “our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences.”
Katherine Elkins, an AI safety investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, says she hopes she’s wrong about some of the risks she sees, like an AI chatbot potentially using someone’s data to manipulate them. But until she’s sure, she wants safety to remain an urgent priority
Subject: I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here’s What I Actually Handed Over.
Source: THE LOCAL STACK via Brian Krebs
https://newsie.social/deck/@[email protected]/116103192901927021