Security News for the Week Ending January 19, 2024

Regulators Going After Crypto Firms

A number of crypto firms have felt the sting of regulators recently. The most recent one is Genesis Global Trading. New York’s DFS fined them $8 million and required them to surrender their license for failure to comply with money laundering and other laws. Of course, a key purpose for doing crypto trading (besides speculating) is money laundering, so this is not a big surprise. Credit: The Record

New York’s DFS Taken Out Back to the Woodshed

The Albany Times Union is reporting that the New York State Comptroller found deficiencies in the DFS audit practices of BitLicense (Crypto services) holders. I suspect that DFS is not used to the shoe being on the other foot. The Comptroller said there were problems with both initial audits and periodic audits. It seems like the DFS Superintendent acknowledged the problems and has fixed some of them and is working on others. Credit: Times Union

EU Lawmakers in Bed With Tech Maker

The EU is trying very hard to force tech companies to apply surveillance technologies like client side scanning for material they object to, such as kiddie porn (but likely to be applied to other content they don’t like). The EU Commission’s ombudsman published details of the Commission’s decision to not release information about documents sent to them by American tech maker Thorn, who claims to make software to detect objectionable material. The Ombudsman urged the Commission to release the documents. Transparency in politics – only when convenient. Credit: Tech Crunch

FTC Whacks Another Data Broker Over Selling Precise Location Data

Last week we reported that the FTC enjoined a data broker for selling personally identifiable precise location data. This week the FTC went after InMarket, based in Texas, who collects and sells sensitive location data, purchasing history and demographic information to companies that use it for targeted marketing. Like in last week’s consent order, the FTC says that InMarket did not obtain consumers’ permission. The FTC says that what they do disclose contains misleading half-truths. It seems that the FTC is trying to clamp down on the sale of sensitive consumer data. Credit: Tech Crunch

Zuckerberg Says Meta is Working on AI Now, Not So Much on the Metaverse

Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions on a hunch that little people with no legs would be the next big thing. Apparently, that was not true. Now he is betting on AI, which seems like a much safer bet. To save face he is talking about using the metaverse to take advantage of AI, so he continues to invest there too. Perhaps he needs to talk to Microsoft and OpenAI, because they seem to be doing quite well without the metaverse. As an also-ran in the AI game, he is now playing catch up. The World Economic Forum in Davos said that the global metaverse market, will be worth between $6 and $13 trillion by 2030. Apparently, that includes everything VR and AR and probably a lot of other things, so that is definitely possible. Credit: Cybernews

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