Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news
Alabama ponders compulsory porn filters
Internet users in Alabama might find themselves having to pay $20 to turn off mandatory filters and view adult entertainment if a bill being considered by the state’s lawmakers goes ahead.
The bill is virtually identical to similar bills proposed in North Dakota and South Carolina, reported The Register. If it goes ahead, any internet-capable device will, as of January 1 2018, have to block a range of content, most of it legal adult entertainment, by default.
In practical terms, that means a cellphone, computer or tablet. As The Register points out, the broad definition also includes IoT devices, though it seems unlikely a smart doorbell, for example, would be required to have the filters.
Failure to comply could see the seller of a device in jail for up to 10 years.
Samsung launches Galaxy S8
Just in case you aren’t juggling enough virtual assistants, another one joined the swelling ranks of AI-driven assistants today as Samsung launched Bixby on its Galaxy S8 device in events in London and New York.
Samsung is hoping that the new Galaxy S8, “the sexiest phone ever made“, according to Tom’s Hardware (YMMV), will erase memories of the Galaxy Note 7 and its exploding batteries, which was first suspended and then finally withdrawn from sale in October last year.
However, the Note 7 lives to fight another day: Samsung said on Tuesday that it’s hoping to refurbish 2.5m of the devices and resell them – if it can get agreement from all the local authorities, who might be reluctant to risk a repeat of the battery fires, and from the carriers.
Cat loses one of her Instagram nine lives
Nobody is safe from having their Instagram account hacked, it seems – not even a cat.
Choupette, the white fluffball cat belonging to fashion king Karl Lagerfeld, who has nearly 97,000 followers, announced via her amanuensis, Ashley Tschudin, last week, that someone had “hacked my Instagram & changed the PW”.
Choupette and Tschudin lost access to the account for a week, but luckily for Choupette, nothing unauthorised was posted. It’s not known how it happened, but here at Naked Security, we’d advise everyone, even cats, to make sure they’ve got two-factor authentication enabled. Choupette might also like to ask Tschudin to check out our other tips on keeping your Instagram account safe, too.
Catch up with all of today’s stories on Naked Security
Mahhn
Alternate description:
-Alabama desperate for morals and state revenue, puts $20 tax on all internet accessible devices under the “for the children” excuse, by taxing “the ability” to access porn over the internet. Toaster, Car, Computer, and yes even that blue toothed vibrator (that failed penetration testing)….
-Samsung releases its version 8 phone, as most version 7 have completed their missions and are now sitting in heaven with their 72 V-mobile phones…. The rest are going the other way once their innards have been replaced…
-Cat learns to use a phone for 2FA after nearly loosing control of Instagram account. Now learning to read English to study IT security guidelines provided for free by Sophos.
Meow things are looking good (Super Troopers).
Steve
Looks like a bug has infested the author link at the bottom of the article.
Kate Bevan
It’s fine here. What kind of bug?
Paul Ducklin
There was a missing HTML closing dooberry after the Twitter widgets. I added it in, should be OK now :-)
Kate Bevan
Ah, thank you, Duck!
jkwilborn
Pretty typical, with all the hype on freedom in America by our representatives here they go making moral laws (again) that are doomed to fail. The US has less than 5% of the world population and we house over 22% of the prisoners? Sounds free does it not? This will also create a ‘dirty’ database of names of people who just with to live their lives and view adult information.
They always pull the ‘children’ card on these, just like they did to get alcohol prohibition passed, then pulled them out again to get it removed when it became obvious that it just got more people addicted and a rise in the criminal element.
Too bad we haven’t learned from it. :)