Linked List: March 13, 2024

Wednesday, 13 March 2024

House Passes Bill That Requires ByteDance to Sell TikTok or Face Ban in the U.S. ★

Cristiano Lima-Strong, Jacob Bogage, and Mariana Alfaro, reporting for The Washington Post:

The House overwhelmingly passed a measure Wednesday to force TikTok to split from its parent company or face a national ban, a lightning offensive that materialized abruptly after years of unsuccessful negotiations over the platform’s fate. The legislation, approved 352 to 65, is a sweeping bipartisan rebuke of the popular video-sharing app — and an attempt to grapple with allegations that TikTok’s China-based parent, ByteDance, presents national security risks.

For years, lawmakers have been introducing proposals seeking to restrict the company’s activities in the U.S., and finding limited momentum. But these lengthy behind-the-scenes deliberations were hastened, lawmakers said, by the Biden administration’s growing support of the effort, coupled with concerns about TikTok’s potential to influence U.S. politics, which intensified after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Private briefings from national security and law enforcement officials, including a classified hearing last week, served as a “call to action” for Congress to “finally” take a stand against TikTok, said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s unclear whether these meetings with the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of the National Intelligence surfaced new evidence against the company.

It seems pretty clear those briefings did surface alarming evidence. The two concerns about TikTok are that (a) the Chinese government is using it to surveil Americans; and (b) that it serves as a powerful propaganda vehicle for the PRC. It’s the latter concern — propaganda — that has had me calling for a TikTok ban (or divestiture by ByteDance) for years.

Remember too: China itself bans all foreign social networks. Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Pinterest — none of them are available in mainland China. It’s bananas that we allow an algorithmically-driven social media app controlled by China here.

The DMA Has Crippled Google Search in the EU ★

Oliver Bethel, legal director at Google, back in January, on changes to search results in the EU:

When you are searching for something like a hotel, or something to buy, we often show information to help you find what you need, like pictures and prices, as part of our results. Sometimes this can be as part of a result for a single business like a hotel or restaurant, or sometimes it can be a featured group of relevant results. Over the coming weeks in Europe, we will be expanding our testing of a number of changes to the search results page. We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites.

Most of those comparison sites are garbage. I suspect these changes will make Google Search far less useful for hotels and shopping.

For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit.

Unreal. Google Flights is the best cross-airline search tool I’m aware of. Years ago I used Hipmunk — which was great — but, alas, they shut down in January 2020. I presume people in the EU can still go to the dedicated Google Flights page, but just typing “PHL to SFO” on Google’s homepage or in your browser’s location field is what most people expect to work.

Google’s EU Choice Screens for Android, for Default Browser and Default Search Within Chrome, Only Show Up on New Devices ★

Google:

The browser and search choice screens will begin appearing on new devices distributed in the EEA on or after March 6, 2024.

Not clear to me why Apple did this in a software update for all eligible iPhones, but Google is only doing it for newly-sold ones.

Over 15,000 Hacked Roku Accounts Sold for 50 Cents Apiece ★

Bill Toulas, writing for BleepingComputer:

Roku has disclosed a data breach impacting over 15,000 customers after hacked accounts were used to make fraudulent purchases of hardware and streaming subscriptions. However, BleepingComputer has learned there is more to this attack, with threat actors selling the stolen accounts for as little as $0.50 per account, allowing purchasers to use stored credit cards to make illegal purchases. [...]

The company says that once an account was breached, it allowed threat actors to change the information on the account, including passwords, email addresses, and shipping addresses. This effectively locked a user out of the account, allowing the threat actors to make purchases using stored credit card information without the legitimate account holder receiving order confirmation emails.

More good news for Roku users, including the fact that Roku first discovered the hack in early January, and waited until now to notify affected users.

Don Lemon Is Shocked – Shocked – That the Face-Eating Leopard Ate His Face ★

Back on January 10, Twitter/X and former CNN host Don Lemon announced a deal for Lemon to host a new show on the platform.

Last Friday Lemon interviewed Elon Musk for his first episode of the show. Not liking the questions he was asked, Musk cancelled the show the next day.

Agreeing to a deal with Musk is like agreeing to a deal with Trump. At best you’ll be paid pennies on the dollar, and probably will never see a nickel.

Help Sarah Perez ★

GoFundMe drive to help longtime (and oft-cited here at DF) TechCrunch reporter Sarah Perez and her daughter:

In the early hours of March 13th, Sarah’s world turned upside down. As the bright glare of flames illuminated her bathroom window, she was able to escape safety with her 14-year-old daughter, Josie, and their dog Princess. They escaped the engulfing inferno just in time, but not without losing everything they held dear.

The fire department’s grim assessment confirmed the extent of the devastation: severe structural damage rendered their home uninhabitable, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Sarah, a resilient single mother who has always worked tirelessly to provide for her family, now faces the task of rebuilding their lives from scratch.

A lot of people, each giving a little, can make a big difference here.

iPulse for iOS ★

Craig Hockenberry, writing at The Iconfactory blog:

We released the first version of iPulse on a new operating system called Mac OS X in 2002. Our unobtrusive and stylish system monitor showcased the features of Apple’s new OS and was a hit.

Now, two decades later, we’re happy to announce that groundbreaking product is coming to iOS and iPadOS. And just as it did with macOS, it’s taking a new approach with its user interface to get the job done. An app that can monitor your device is a great thing to have when you need it, but can get in the way when you don’t. On iOS we solved this problem by using Picture in Picture technology.

$10 one-time purchase in the App Store. That’s a great deal for a great tool.

There are zillions of “system monitor”-type apps in the App Store. Good luck finding one other than iPulse that works well, is attractive and well-designed, and has no ads.