Government

So now Oracle is appealing the Pentagon's award to Amazon of its $10 billion JEDI contract to provide cloud computing solutions. "The Court of Federal Claims opinion in the JEDI bid protest describes the JEDI procurement as unlawful, notwithstanding dismissal of the protest solely on the legal techn...

Chinese government-affiliated hackers have been making a concerted effort to steal medical research, particularly cancer research, from U.S. institutions. The step-up in medical research theft appears to be linked to China's growing concern over cancer mortality rates and increasing healthcare costs...

Google, Mozilla and Apple have blocked a fake root certificate issued by Kazakhstan's government to spy on its citizens' online activities. The government instructed citizens to install the certificate on all of their devices, and it provided separate instructions for Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, ...

The $11 billion export component of the business American companies do with Chinese electronics giant Huawei is safe for at least 90 days. The U.S. Commerce Department has extended the Temporary General License for Huawei and its non-U.S. affiliates to buy goods from American companies. The license ...

The T-Mobile-Sprint merger looked like it was pretty much a done deal a couple of weeks ago, when DoJ gave its approval. It now looks like there won't be a final answer until 2020. This will go down in history as one of the longest corporate merger attempts. The delay will be hardest on Sprint and D...

The DoJ is opening antitrust investigations into some of the biggest tech companies around, including Facebook, Google, Amazon and others. This is nothing that either the public or the companies involved should fret about. It is part of the evolution of the tech sector. We've been through this kind ...

The DoJ has announced an antitrust probe into big tech, following several months of rumors that it was about to do so. The DoJ plans to review how the leading online platforms achieved market power and whether they have engaged in practices that reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise ...

The FTC announced that Equifax has agreed to pay a minimum of $575 million as part of a global settlement of claims against it arising from a 2017 data breach that affected 147 million Americans. The settlement with the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 states and territories pot...

The Federal Trade Commission this week announced its approval of a $5 billion settlement with Facebook, ending a long-running investigation into the company's privacy practices. The commission's 3-2 vote was along party lines.

The U.S. Treasury Department has "very serious concerns" about Facebook's new Libra cryptocurrency, according to Secretary Steve Mnuchin. "Libra could be misused by money launderers and terrorist financiers. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have been exploited to support billions of dollars of ill...

State motor vehicle departments have become a rich source of facial recognition data for and FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Researchers at Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology reportedly used public records requests to gather a cache of documents that show the age...

Over time, it's likely that we will develop new AI technology to identify and label deepfakes, but until then, we are on our own.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee recently heard expert testimony on the growing threat posed by "deepfakes" -- altered videos and other artificial intelligence-generated false information -- and what it could mean for the 2020 general elections, as well as the country's national security overal...