Investigators said Google owed about €1.6bn in unpaid taxes amid a wider crackdown on tax planning of big firms.

The search giant, which is part of Alphabet, pays little tax in most European countries because it reports almost all of its sales in Ireland.

In March, the EU hit Google with a €1.5bn fine for blocking rival online search advertisers and last year the European Commission levelled a record €4.3bn fine against the firm over its Android mobile operating system.

Grant and Ghannam's paper suggests that their method could quickly find the primes in question and essentially break RSA-2048 and any other semiprime-based encryption. Crown Sterling's answer to this potential crisis in encryption, called TIME AI, is something the company calls "five-dimensional" encryption, "the world's first 'non-factor' based quantum AI encryption" based on polygons, AI-composed music, Fibonacci's sequence, and various other things.

The Black Hat talk did not go smoothly. People had to be ejected from the room by security because they were heckling and booing Grant.

Brady allegedly made fraudulent takedown notices against YouTube videos from at least three well-known Minecraft streamers.

A few days after filing a counter-notice, the targeted YouTuber "announced via Twitter that he had been the victim of a swatting scheme."

YouTube's accusations against Brady appear to be in a totally different category: straight-up fraud. That could allow YouTube to score a quick victory and thereby strike some fear into the hearts of others thinking about abusing YouTube's takedown system.

Automated Transactions LLC (ATL) is a small firm known for its aggressive enforcement of broad patents related to automated teller machines. Numerous critics labeled ATL a patent troll, and in 2016 the firm sued several of them in New Hampshire state courts, arguing that the label was defamatory.

New Hampshire's Supreme Court ruled that calling someone a "troll" was just such a statement of opinion—and so it can't be defamatory.

In the 1990s, ATL founder David Barcelou invented a machine for automated gaming that made cash payouts to winners. While his invention never became commercially successful, he patented some of the underlying concepts—including patents related to the process of paying out cash to customers.

After a number of emails back and forth, WIPO eventually told me that since this database is "under formal discussion by WIPO member states at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement" in early September, WIPO felt that it was best not to comment until after it's too late for it to matter and after the member states have discussed it. That strikes me as odd.

I am quite sure that Thille thought he was being helpful here -- and, he actually was being super helpful in revealing WIPO's complete and utter disgust for basic due process on issues that impact speech and innovation.

Nobody likes auto-playing video or sites that keep scrolling away infinitely when you're just trying to reach the bottom of the page. But you probably don't hate either "feature" as much as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced a bill today to ban these and other "exploitative" practices.

Hawley's bill also seeks to ban social media gamification, including "badges and other awards linked to engagement with the platform," such as the emoji rewards Snapchat users earn for Snapstreaks.

Although the press release specifically targets Office 365, it notes that competing Apple and Google cloud suites also do not satisfy German privacy regulations for use in schools.

The Hessian commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HBDI) isn't just saying that schools would prefer not to use Microsoft, he's stating that their use of Office 365 is outright illegal.

In addition to the physical geography of the cloud, the HBDI is unhappy about telemetry in both Office 365 and Windows 10 itself. Neither can be disabled by end users or organizations, and the content of both remains undisclosed by Microsoft despite repeated inquiries.

An interior design tools startup called Mosss on Wednesday sued Google to get it to restore its data after someone at the startup accidentally deleted the firm's G Suite account.

"[W]hile clearly an urgent matter, to our dismay, our case was not escalated, and no action was taken for nearly three days!" the filing says. "From a business point of view, we had no access to emails and lost all contact with our clients and users."

Mosss (Musey) said while investors have put $1.5m into the firm, it's not seeking monetary damages.

The consumer protection agency the FTC began investigating Facebook in March 2018 following reports that Cambridge Analytica had accessed the data of tens of millions of its users.

Facebook had been expecting this. It told investors back in April that it had put aside most of the money, which means the firm won't feel much added financial strain from this penalty.

As was common with apps and games at that time, it was designed to harvest not only the user data of the person taking part in the quiz, but also the data of their friends.

A software developer employed by two different IT subcontractors participating in separate National Security Agency (NSA) contracts has pleaded guilty to submitting false claims about the number of hours he worked, according to the US Department of Justice.

Unsurprisingly, the NSA keeps track of the comings and goings of people at secure facilities. According to the plea agreement, the agency's tally of Smego's time on-site fell short of his claimed work hours.