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Elon Musk accuses the SEC of leaking information against him
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or leaking information about a federal probe to retaliate against him
Senate Republicans vote to subpoena Facebook and Twitter CEOs
Senate Republicans voted to subpoena Facebook and Twitter CEOs to testify about their alleged blocking of a controversial New York Post article.
DOJ and SEC subpoena Snap over allegedly misleading investors
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have subpoenaed Snap Inc. requesting information about its March 2017 initial public offering. In a statement to Reuters, Snap said it has responded to a government subpoena and believes that the SEC is "investigating issues related to the previously disclosed allegations asserted in a class action about our IPO disclosures."
Subpoenaing Discord may reveal identities of Charlottesville neo-Nazis
The white supremacist Charlottesville marchers who used Discord to prepare for violence might not remain anonymous for much longer. A chief magistrate judge has shot down an attempt by one of the neo-Nazis to dismiss a subpoena for Discord that would identify her and roughly 30 other users who reportedly relied on the chat app ahead of the event last year. She maintained that exposing her identity would violate her First Amendment rights to "anonymous speech" and put her in danger, but the judge disagreed. The plaintiffs' interest in identifying her as a possible perpetrator or witness outweighed her anonymity, according to the magistrate.
Democrats aim to subpoena Apple, Twitter over private chats
The House of Representatives' investigation into Russia's election interference may have ended, but Democrats are still discussing what they'd like to do if and when they regain a House majority -- and it could have significant repercussions for the tech industry. Their recently published memo in the aftermath of the investigation calls on the House Intelligence Committee to subpoena Apple, Twitter and WhatsApp for info regarding encrypted chat apps and private messages. The Democrats want to know which apps key actors in the 2016 US election used, and what they said.
DOJ demands Twitter account info following discussion of an agent
Law enforcement is often eager to protect its own, but it might have overstepped its boundaries in an online case. The Department of Justice has sent a subpoena to Twitter demanding complete account info for @popehat (Ken White), @pogowasright (Dissent Doe), @dawg8u (Mike Honcho), @abtnatural (Virgil) and @associatesmind (Keith Lee) after security researcher Justin Shafer mentioned them in a tweet. While the post itself is a single smiling emoji, the DOJ believes they support cyber stalking allegations against Shafer over his response to a questionable FBI raid on his home. It's a bit complicated, so we'll elaborate.
Apple saw a jump in security requests at the end of 2016
Transparency reports are the main way that tech companies can tell us that the authorities have been asking to look at user data. In its report for the second half of 2016, Apple said that the number of national security requests spiked considerably. Between January and June, the company received around 3,000 of the requests, but between July and December, that number had leapt to closer to 6,000.
Cloudflare's transparency report reveals secret FBI subpoena
Tech titans like Google and Apple aren't the only ones that receive government requests for customer information -- lesser-known companies like Cloudflare get them, as well. The service, which makes websites load faster, has revealed that it's been fighting a national security letter (NSL) from the FBI since 2013 in its latest transparency report. NSLs are subpoenas the government hands out when it wants to gather information for national security purposes. It also comes with a gag order, which is why the company wasn't able to include the information in previous transparency reports.
Google begins releasing its secret FBI subpoenas
Back in October, Google stated that the FBI lifted a gag order, allowing them to officially disclose they'd been served one National Security Letter (NSL), a type of secret subpoena, by the FBI. This was news because every company is restricted from revealing more than a very broad range of NSLs it has received. But a 2015 Congressional act requires the government to periodically check whether each request's non-disclosure agreement is still necessary. After several of these limits were lifted, today Google confirmed and released several NSL requests to shed light on what kind of user information the FBI requests in the name of national security.
Apple logs your iMessage contacts and could share them with police
Apple's iMessage had a few security holes in March and April that potentially leaked photos and contacts, respectively. Though quickly patched, they are a reminder that the company faces a never-ending arms race to shore up its security to keep malicious hackers and government agencies out. But that doesn't mean they will always be able to keep it private. A report from The Intercept states that iMessage conversation metadata gets logged in Apple's servers, which the company could be compelled to turn over to law enforcement by court order. While the content of those messages remains encrypted and out of the police's hands, these records list time, date, frequency of contact and limited location information.
Airbnb pulls over 2,000 sketchy New York City rental listings
Airbnb is clearly tired of getting grief from cities that say its customers' short-term rentals are frequently illegal or otherwise a drain on the community. The company has revealed that it's in the midst of removing more than 2,000 New York City listings that aren't "providing a quality, local experience to guests." While Airbnb hasn't said exactly what that means, the move comes as the state Attorney General filed an affidavit in support of a subpoena for Airbnb customer info. The filing claims that two thirds of NYC rentals break the law by subletting an entire apartment without the official tenants being present, and it named and shamed 17 hosts that are allegedly the biggest abusers.
Mt. Gox reportedly subpoenaed by the feds, CEO confirms leaked proposal was legit
The strange days of (former?) Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox continue. In a conversation with an industry consultant posted by Fox Business, its CEO Mark Karpeles confirmed that a PDF leaked by The Two Bit Idiot is "more or less" legitimate. According to Karpeles, it was a "bunch of proposals to deal with the issue at hand, not things that are actually planned and/or done." The Wall Street Journal reports its sources confirm that federal prosecutors sent a subpoena to Mt. Gox earlier this month, requiring it to preserve documents. Since the exchange turned out the lights last night, the price of Bitcoin has actually risen again, and is currently showing a buy price of $581 on Coinbase. While the digital currency itself seems to be moving on, what's next for Mt. Gox is unclear. Karpeles sent an email to Reuters indicating an official statement will come "soonish," -- not too soon, we expect, for those waiting to find out what's happened to their funds.
140 characters to the clink: Occupy Wall Street protester loses battle to block Twitter subpoena
In a decision that's sure to be lost on this generation of over-sharers, Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris, arrested this past October during a Brooklyn Bridge demonstration, has just lost a legal battle to block prosecutors' attempts to subpoena three month's worth of his tweets. Chalking the ruling up to Twitter's terms of service, Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. concluded that the posted updates belong to the social networking company under license and, therefore, are fair game for use in the case "given their relevance." Harris, as expected, is in the process of filing a motion to reargue, but let this be a fair warning to our open online culture: what happens on the internet, stays on the internet forever. So you better watch what you tweet.
Report: Sony subpoenaed by New York Attorney General
According to a report published by Bloomberg, an anonymous source have revealed the latest entity to whom Sony Corp. must answer regarding last month's PlayStation Network security breach: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The source says Schneiderman has subpoenaed Sony to gather information about the breach, specifically regarding Sony's six-day delay in telling PSN users about the exposure. The reported request sounds a heck of a lot like the inquiry filed by the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, which a Sony representative has already responded to. We suggest they save time with a quick copy/paste, and then get back to making it so we can play Portal 2 online again. Papa's got an itch for science.
App developers could face US privacy investigation
Hey app, did you just send my personal data or my phone's unique electronic identification number over the internet without my permission? Federal prosecutors in New Jersey are trying to answer this question in an ongoing investigation, the Wall Street Journal reports. The federal probe aims to discover if any apps built for iOS, Android or other smartphones are illegally collecting or transmitting personally identifying information, such as the phone's unique device identifier (UDID), to app makers or third parties without consent from end users. Gathering information that can be used to personally identify an individual without adequately disclosing what data will be collected and how it will be used could violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act designed to prosecute hackers. The investigation, which could continue for months, appears to be in a preliminary phase. In a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, the online music service Pandora revealed it had been "served with a subpoena to produce documents in connection with a federal grand jury, which we believe was convened to investigate the information sharing processes of certain popular applications that run on the Apple and Android mobile platforms." The Oakland, CA, company added that it's "not a specific target of the investigation" and believes the subpoenas were issued "on an industry-wide basis to the publishers of numerous other smartphone applications."
Judge in Sony vs. Geohot orders YouTube and others to give up users' personal info
Remember when Sony sued Geohot and demanded that YouTube hand over the user info of all the folks who posted comments to Geohot's PS3 jailbreak video? Well, score a victory for SCEA, as the judge overseeing the case's jurisdictional discovery process has ruled that Sony can get what it wanted -- information from: Bluehost (who hosts Geohot's website) regarding who downloaded the jailbreak, Twitter regarding any tweets made by Hotz, Google Blogspot regarding comments made on his blog, and the aforementioned YouTube user data. Keep in mind that Sony's getting this information to show that many of the downloaders and commenters are from Northern California and that Hotz's hacking efforts were aimed at Californians -- meaning the case should remain in the Bay Area instead of moving to New Jersey where Geohot hacked his PS3. With this new information at its disposal, Sony's better equipped to oppose Hotz's motion to dismiss in a hearing early next month, but this doesn't mean the company will succeed in its bid to keep the litigation a West Coast affair. We'll have to wait and see if this latest victory helps Sony win the war. Stay tuned.
Hitachi and Toshiba subpoenaed in DOJ optical drive price fixing probe
We kinda knew that there couldn't be any antitrust smoke without the fire of market collusion, and sure enough, Sony Optiarc has been joined on the naughty step by Hitachi-LG Data Storage and Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp. As the names should tell you, these are joint ventures involving some of the world's biggest electronics manufacturers, whose American optical drive divisions appear to be under suspicion of fixing prices. We'd have expected Hitachi and LG to wise up after paying out fines for LCD price fixing recently, but when you look at Hitachi's stock trading up after this news -- with traders confident any forthcoming fines will be too small to dent the company's bottom line -- maybe "by hook or by crook" is actually a viable business plan?
Sumner Redstone appeals Midway sale subpoena, delays deposition
Yesterday, Sumner Redstone was due in a Manhattan court to speak in regards to the sale of Midway to Mark Thomas. That never happened, but Sumner and business partner Robert Steele's attornies did appear in a Bankruptcy court in Delaware on Friday in an attempt to get out of the scheduled deposition, Game Politics reports. As a result, Sumner will now be required to appear this upcoming Friday.Curious is the lack of his daughter, Shari, in any of the proceedings on Friday. She was due to appear in Manhattan last Thursday, March 19th, for her deposition.
LCD price-fixing probe targets LG.Philips, Sharp, Samsung
A number of TFT LCD manufacturers are under investigation by government regulators in Asia and the US for possible price-fixing. LG.Philips was subpoenaed by American, Japanese and Korean authorities on Monday, while Samsung was hit with legal papers on Tuesday. Further, Sharp was "contacted" by the Japan Fair Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice, though it's unclear if that meant it got a subpoena too. But the fun doesn't stop there, reports IDG News Service, with the European Commission now getting in on the act, too -- the EC said that it was trying to "ascertain whether there is evidence of a cartel agreement and related practices concerning price fixing." Of course, this comes hot on the heels of that video card investigation we heard about recently, as well as the RAM price-fixing fiasco that Mitsubishi (and previously Samsung) were involved in. We'll keep you posted if other display makers get swept up into this.[Via Slashdot]
For AMD, NVIDIA, nothing says "holiday greetings" like federal subpoenas
You can color us ignorant here, but we sort of figured that after all those regulatory hoops AMD jumped through in the process of getting approval for its ATI acquisition, the DOJ would've wrapped up any antitrust reservations it might have before the $5.4 billion deal went down. But for whatever reason, the Justice Department picked late Thursday to slap AMD with a federal subpoena regarding an investigation into possible antitrust violations in the graphics card biz. As if this wasn't weird enough, we just got word that NVIDIA has been slapped with a similar subpoena, with just as little explanation as to why. Shares are down for each company, both of which hold about 25 percent of the graphics card market, with Intel managing the rest. Intel apparently hasn't received a subpoena yet, but a spokesman said he was checking with the company lawyers just to make sure. According to analyst Nicholas Aberle, "It's a bit of a headscratcher. I don't know exactly what the angle is from the DOJ." We're just as much in the dark, but we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the situation.Read - AMD Receives Federal SubpoenaRead - AMD, NVIDIA hit by graphics chip probe