LinkedIn scanning users' browser extensions sparks controversy and two lawsuits

LinkedIn scanning users' browser extensions sparks controversy and two lawsuits

fivenewscrypto    avril 10, 2026   

LinkedIn is facing two lawsuits over its practice of scanning users' browsers to determine which extensions they're running. Two class action complaints were filed by different law firms on behalf of different plaintiffs Monday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Each complaint has one named plaintiff and seeks to represent a proposed class including all LinkedIn users in the US. The complaints seem to rely heavily on the recent "BrowserGate" report by a German entity called Fairlinked, which describes itself as a trade association and advocacy group for commercial LinkedIn users.

Fairlinked appears to be run by the same people behind Teamfluence, an Estonian software company that sued LinkedIn in Munich in January. LinkedIn says Teamfluence distributed a browser extension that scraped LinkedIn user data in violation of the user agreement and that its LinkedIn accounts were suspended.

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Iran-linked hackers disrupt operations at US critical infrastructure sites

Iran-linked hackers disrupt operations at US critical infrastructure sites

fivenewscrypto    avril 10, 2026   

Hackers working on behalf of the Iranian government are disrupting operations at multiple US critical infrastructure sites, likely in response to the country's ongoing war with the US, a half-dozen government agencies are warning.

In an advisory published Tuesday, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and US Cyber Command “urgently" warned that the APT, or advanced persistent threat group, is targeting PLCs, short for programmable logic controllers. These devices, typically the size of a toaster, sit in factories, water treatment centers, oil refineries, and other industrial settings, often in remote locations. They provide an interface between computers used for automation and physical machinery.

Operational disruption and financial loss

“Since at least March 2026, the authoring agencies identified (through engagements with victim organizations) an Iranian-affiliated APT-group that disrupted the function of PLCs,” the advisory stated. “These PLCs were deployed across multiple US critical infrastructure sectors (including Government Services and Facilities, Waste Water Systems (WWS), and Energy sectors) within a wide variety of industrial automation processes. Some of the victims experienced operational disruption and financial loss.”

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Meta's Superintelligence Lab unveils its first public model, Muse Spark

Meta's Superintelligence Lab unveils its first public model, Muse Spark

fivenewscrypto    avril 09, 2026   

Meta on Wednesday announced Spark, the first AI model in the Muse family that it says represents "a ground-up overhaul of our AI efforts."

Muse Spark is the first release of Meta's Superintelligence Labs, formed a little less than a year ago with the grandiose goal of "deliver[ing] on the promise of personal superintelligence for everyone." The release represents a clean break from Meta's previous work on the open source Llama model family, which has received a middling reaction both from users and on independent LLM rankings. And while Spark will be a proprietary model, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads that the Muse family will "includ[e] new open source models" in the future.

Meta said that Muse Spark will take advantage of content posted across platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, much as xAI's Grok is integrated with content posted on X. Currently, this means Muse Spark can link to public posts related to a location or trending topic that you ask about, for instance. In the future, Meta says this will expand to "new features that cite recommendations and content people share" and "Reels, photos, and posts woven directly into your answers, with credit back to the content creators."

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How our digital devices are putting our right to privacy at risk

How our digital devices are putting our right to privacy at risk

fivenewscrypto    avril 09, 2026   

We live in a digitally connected world that has brought undeniable personal benefits. I can barely recall the pre-Google Maps era, but it was far less convenient to navigate unfamiliar places without a Siri-enabled smart phone (and/or Apple Car Play). We use fitness tracking apps, our home appliances are increasingly digitally connected, and many homes have security systems like Nest cameras or home assistants like Alexa or Amazon Echo. But what are we giving up for all this digital convenience? We are creating a huge amount of private personal data on a daily basis and yet, legally, it's unclear when and how that data can be turned against us by law enforcement and the judicial system.

George Washington University law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson tackles that knotty question in his new book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance. Ferguson is an expert on the emergence of new surveillance technologies, policing, and criminal justice. His 2018 book, The Rise of Big Data Policing, covered the first real experiments with data-driven policing, predictive policing, and what were then new forms of camera surveillance. For this latest work, Ferguson wanted to focus specifically on what he calls self-surveillance: how the data we create potentially exposes us to incrimination, because there are so few laws in place to regulate how police and prosecutors can access and use that data.

"I liken this sort of police-driven self-surveillance to democratically mediated self-surveillance," Ferguson told Ars. "It's still self-surveillance with our tax dollars and everything else, but we are also creating nets of smart devices and surveillance devices in our homes, in our cars, in our worlds. And I don't think we've really processed how all of that information is available as evidence and can be used against us for good or bad, depending on the sort of political wins and whims of who's in charge. We're seeing today how that vulnerability can be weaponized by a government that wants to use it."

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Motorola suddenly raises budget phone prices up to 50%—you can probably thank AI

Motorola suddenly raises budget phone prices up to 50%—you can probably thank AI

fivenewscrypto    avril 09, 2026   

Motorola announced a new mid-range phone yesterday, the 2026 Moto G Stylus. It's not exactly a game changer unless you demand a stylus with your smartphone. Despite little in the way of upgrades, the new G Stylus will debut at $500, which is $100 more than last year's version. It's now clear that higher pricing will be a trend in Moto's lineup. Without so much as a peep, Motorola has enacted price increases of up to 50 percent on the rest of its 2026 Moto G lineup.

Prior to the G Stylus announcement, Moto had three 2026 G-series phones—the Moto G Play, Moto G, and Moto G Power. They used to sell for $180, $200, and $300, respectively. In the past day, the Moto G Play rose to $250, which is a 38 percent increase. The 2026 Moto G went to $300—a whopping 50 percent price bump. Finally, the top model in Moto's budget lineup, the Moto G Power, is now $400. That's a 33 percent jump, putting it close to Samsung's latest mid-range phones and $100 shy of the new Moto G Stylus.

Seeing a higher price tag on the new Moto G Stylus wasn't a surprise given current hardware conditions, and the phone does have a few small upgrades. The battery capacity is slightly larger, and the stylus has basic pressure sensitivity support now. However, that hardly justifies a $100 increase over last year's model, which had the same display and memory. It makes more sense in the context of an across-the-board price increase for Moto's budget lineup.

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To beat Altman in court, Musk offers to give all damages to OpenAI nonprofit

To beat Altman in court, Musk offers to give all damages to OpenAI nonprofit

fivenewscrypto    avril 09, 2026   

On Tuesday, Elon Musk amended his lawsuit that accuses OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, of abandoning its mission, clarifying that any ill-gotten gains recovered should be returned to the AI firm's charitable nonprofit arm, not to Musk.

Musk "is not seeking a single dollar for himself," according to his lawyer, Marc Toberoff.

Toberoff told The Wall Street Journal that the new remedies that Musk is seeking strip away distracting claims from OpenAI that the lawsuit is intended to harass and harm the AI firm that Musk helped co-found but today is one of his biggest rivals.

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No big trucks for little roads: American OEMs say EU is blocking imports

No big trucks for little roads: American OEMs say EU is blocking imports

fivenewscrypto    avril 09, 2026   

As the European Union and the US try to negotiate a satisfactory resolution to the trade war President Trump started last year, a new complication has emerged. It seems the American auto industry is not happy about pending changes to EU vehicle regulations that could make it impossible for Detroit to export its full-size pickups across the Atlantic. Restricting the flow of F-150s to the continent "could breach the spirit of the trade deal," according to US negotiators, the Financial Times reported this morning.

No, I won't take your word for it

Bringing a new vehicle to market is a rather different process in the EU than in the US. Here, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration practices something called self-certification. Essentially, an OEM tells NHTSA that its new car or truck complies with all the relevant federal motor vehicle safety statutes, then NHTSA takes that company at its word and the car goes on sale. Should that vehicle later turn out to have a defect, NHTSA can order a recall to remedy it. But there's no pre-approval process by the government before sales can begin.

As you might imagine, self-certification is great for companies but less great for consumer safety.

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