America may finally be saying farewell to its long, failed War on Drugs, but that doesn't mean we can't have a long, failed war on something! How about hackers? Hanni Farouki writes that despite reforms to 80s-era computer misuse laws, prospects are grim: "The growing recognition of the powerful capabilities of modern computing and networking has resulted in a "cyber panic" in legislatures and prosecutor offices across the country. Instead of reexamination, we've seen aggressive charges and excessive punishment."
The growing war on hackers
Elderly woman hit with recurring subscription after asking voice assistant to say the Hail Mary
An old lady in England got a voice assistant as a gift. A devout Catholic, she asked it to say the Hail Mary. Delighted when it did so, she made it a daily habit. And Amazon was charging her for it, writes Patrick Collinson, her son. She had "unwittingly ordered" a subscription for an app… READ THE REST
California's net neutrality law survives courtroom challenge
As Ars Technica puts it, "ISPs can't find any judges who will block California's Net Neutrality law", and it's not like they haven't been shopping hard. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who voted for federal net neutrality rules in 2015 and opposed their repeal in 2017, applauded yesterday's court decision."This is big. Because when the FCC… READ THE REST
The mystery of ⍼, a Unicode character of unknown purpose
⍼, "RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW", is a Unicode character of uncertain origin. It may be summoned as the HTML entity ⍼. Jonathan Chan set out to uncover its mysterious purpose, a journey that led way back to Unicode's own antecedents. The meaning of ⍼ will be whatever meaning is assigned by whoever uses… READ THE REST
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We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. Nothing's worse than trying to find that random image someone sent you, however many months back, frantically searching through email threads for something that looks familiar. Not only is that stressful, but it's… READ THE REST
Study for a perfect score and help kids in need by purchasing this portable monitor
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. Studying has become incredibly unconventional, starting with doing everything online and continuing with giving textbooks the axe. So if you're ditching the stacks for a more modern way to focus on your… READ THE REST
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We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. There are a ton of different hurdles, making getting an education from home difficult. Besides the apparent distractions, you don't have as many tools as you would find in the stacks. Bulk… READ THE REST
