Predators on Roblox & Switzerland goes Open Source (Issue 35, 2024)
Also, Google Unsurprisingly Reverts Tracking Cookie Removal and Australian Customs Copies Your Phone Data...
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In this edition:
Roblox Actively Used by Predators
AT&T Breach Triggers Questions from US Senators
Google Reverses Stance on Removing Tracking Cookies
Australian Customs Copied Phone Data from 25% of Stopped People
Adobe Upsets Users with New Terms of Service
EU to Roll Out Universal Digital Identity System
Switzerland Goes Open Source with new Requirement for Software
Encrochat Phone Network Opens Door to Mass Surveillance
Roblox Actively Used by Predators
Released to the public in 2006, the massively popular online gaming platform Roblox boasts over 18 million daily active users who are under the age of 13. Recently however, Roblox has come under scrutiny due to public reporting that has evidenced child predators using the platform to access children.
With nearly 50,000 chat messages sent every second, Roblox earned $3.5 Billion in revenue for 2023 across a variety of user-created content. According to Roblox, moderation of all these chats (including audio) is performed by “a combination of artificial intelligence technology and human workers.”
The number of human moderators for Roblox totals only 3,000 people however, and when compared to Tiktok’s 40,000 human mods, Roblox’s system appears inadequate in preventing predatory behavior towards children. In the United States alone, since 2018, police have arrested at least two dozen people accused of abducting or abusing victims they’d met or groomed using Roblox.
Recent interviews with current and former Roblox employees revealed that at least one of the moderator teams “received hundreds of escalated reports involving child safety every day, far too many for her team to clear.” Compounding this issue is Roblox CEO David Baszucki’s goal of growing the platform to 1 billion daily users, causing eight current and former trust and safety workers to state that “User growth at Roblox takes priority over child safety.”
AT&T Breach Triggers Questions from US Senators
In early July of this year AT&T suffered a large data breach related to the compromise of a 3rd party vendor. The undermined vendor was Snowflake, a cloud hosting service provider that we previously reported on. In a public statement, AT&T said "Customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace” and added that the breach included “files containing AT&T records of calls and texts of nearly all of AT&T's cellular customers."
The severity of the breach prompted US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law to question AT&T’s approach when handling customer data. Their letter directly asked, “Why had AT&T retained months of detailed records of customer communication for an extended amount of time and why had AT&T uploaded that sensitive information onto a third party analytics platform?”
Adding to the Senators’ consternation is the fact that Ticketmaster customer data, which was also breached via the Snowflake compromise, is already being leaked. In an attempt to stave off a similar outcome, AT&T reportedly paid the hackers $370,000 to delete the records. Despite this, the Senators still argued that, "There is no reason to believe that AT&T's sensitive data will not also be auctioned and fall into the hands of criminals and foreign intelligence agencies.”
Google Reverses Stance on Removing Tracking Cookies
In a response to years of criticism and pressure from privacy advocates, Google announced in 2023 that it would be phasing out 3rd party tracking cookies from their popular Chrome web browser and would began offering the “Privacy Sandbox” as a more privacy-conscious alternative. It now appears that this decision has been reversed, with a recent blog from the tech giant stating, “Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice.”
Conjecture around Google’s decision to keep tracking cookies has primarily focused on controversy related to Privacy Sandbox. Noyb, a European non-profit focused on digital rights, states that Google is using “dark patterns” to trick users into enabling tracking within Privacy Sandbox. To remain compliant with GDPR Google is required to obtain consent for tracking, and for Privacy Sandbox that consent comes via a button labelled “Turn on privacy ad features.”
A quote from Max Schrems, Honorary Chairman of noyb stated, “Google has simply lied to its users. People thought they were agreeing to a privacy feature, but were tricked into accepting Google’s first-party ad tracking. Consent has to be informed, transparent and fair to be legal. Google has done the exact opposite.”
Australian Customs Copied Phone Data from 25% of Stopped People
For the past two years, the Australian Border Force (ABF) has been ramping up phone searches of people crossing the Australian border. For those stopped by the ABF, about 1 in 4 had data copied from their phones, totaling nearly 10,000 people over the past 24 months. Surprisingly, ABF data shows that 94% of these folks willingly gave their passwords and login information to ABF agents, even though there is no legal requirement to do so.
Citing concerns that the ABF may be exceeding its lawful authority, Kieran Pender from the Human Rights Law Centre has called for more transparency into how ABF’s powers are used. “The Human Rights Law Centre has consistently raised concerns around the lack of transparency, safeguards and oversight of ABF’s extraordinary powers to seize electronic devices at borders,” Kieran said. “We are particularly concerned at ABF’s apparent use of coercive tactics to get around its lack of lawful power to compel passwords from travellers.”
In addition to the issue of transparency, the Human Rights Law Centre also stated that the ABF’s potentially unlawful coercions could affect journalists, whistleblowers, and lawyers, causing legal conflicts related to confidentiality safeguards.
Adobe Upsets Users with New Terms of Service
During the earlier part of June this year, Adobe Photoshop users received a notification to accept a new “Terms of Service” (ToS) agreement while attempting to login to the widely used media editing software. Hidden amongst the legal jargon were significant changes that had many professional creatives up in arms.
The specific changes related to this controversy stemmed from the new ToS giving Adobe the right to access customers’ content through “automated or manual methods”. In a statement responding to user push-back, Adobe said that they are, “committed to transparency” and “protecting the rights of creators”. They added that they do not train their generative AI model Firefly on users’ content, and would not assume any ownership of their [users] work.
Unfortunately, this did little to quell some users concerns, including professionals under client NDA’s, worried the new policy could have legal ramifications for them and their proprietary work.
EU to Roll Out Universal Digital Identity System
A European Union policy from 2015 aiming to establish a “Digital Single Market” across the bloc is behind the recent push for an EU Universal Digital Identity System. With the recent adoption of a key legal framework, it is likely that late 2026 will see the first EU Digital Identity Wallets being issued.
EU politicians are promoting the Universal Digital Identity System as putting power back into lawmakers’ hands and removing it from the commercial giants controlling mainstream mobile technology infrastructure. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic Apple and Google were responsible for setting the rules on how exposure notification data could be exchanged, and in some cases their rules overrode governments’ directly stated preferences.
Contrasting politicians’ enthusiasm however is a letter signed by over 500 “cybersecurity experts, researchers, and civil society organizations from across the globe” that maintains this digital ID regulation will reduce citizens' digital security.
Switzerland Goes Open Source with new Requirement for Software
A new piece of legislation passed in Switzerland will require all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them (unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it). The new law is a mouthful, and is known as the Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks or EMBAG.
Proponents of EMBAG are touting its benefits, stating that, “it reduces vendor lock-in for the public sector, allows companies to expand their digital business solutions, and potentially leads to reduced IT costs and improved services for taxpayers.”
Additionally, the Swiss law will establish “Open Government Data” or OGD comprised of “non-personal and non-security-sensitive government data” that will be disclosed to the public.
Encrochat Phone Network Opens Door to Mass Surveillance
A ruling by the UK’s Investigative Powers Tribunal (IPT) from 2023 is being appealed due to concerns that the precedent set would “mean that any messaging platform, such as WhatsApp or Signal, could be the subject of a wholesale thematic equipment interference warrant.”
The 2023 ruling found that the National Crime Agency (NCA) lawfully obtained warrants authorizing French authorities to seize records of Encrochat phone users in the UK. Subsequently 60,000 people using Encrochat had about 3.3 million encrypted messages harvested via a software “implant” (aka malware) that allowed law enforcement to copy the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messages and calls provided by the phone service.
Referring to the implications of the appeal, defense lawyers stated that if this appeal was not granted, that, “It will have drastic effects on law enforcement because it will send a clear message that, from now on, bulk [surveillance requirements] of the Investigatory Powers Act can be ignored.”
That concludes this edition of Your Worldwide INTERNET REPORT!
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This issue of Your Worldwide INTERNET REPORT was written by Matt Millen of WillenRimer; Edited by Suzie Dawson and Sean O’Brien; Graphics by K4t4rt; with production support by Beth Bracken.
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