Friday, July 26, 2024

Do we have your attention yet?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-be-hit-with-first-eu-antitrust-fine-linking-marketplace-facebook-sources-2024-07-25/

Exclusive: Meta to be hit with first EU antitrust fine for linking Marketplace and Facebook, sources say

Meta Platforms, opens new tab is set to be hit in a few weeks with its first EU antitrust fine for tying classified advertisements service Marketplace with its Facebook social network, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Meta could face a fine of as much as $13.4 billion – or 10% of its 2023 global revenue - although EU sanctions are usually much lower than that cap.





Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/about-the-insurrection-act/

About the Insurrection Act

Brennan Center – Via Reddit – “I’m Joseph Nunn, counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Ask me anything about reforming the Insurrection Act, an outdated law that gives the president near limitless power to use the U.S. military as a domestic police force. The Insurrection Act is the most dangerous law in the United States. It gives the president nearly limitless discretion to use the U.S. military as a domestic police force, and it contains no meaningful safeguards against abuse. Congress, which has not updated the law in 150 years, urgently needs to clarify and limit when the president may invoke the Insurrection Act, restrict what the military can do once deployed under this powerful authority, and create mechanisms that will allow Congress and the courts to intervene to stop abuse. Join Elizabeth Goitein, Hawa Allan, Jack L. Goldsmith, and Joseph Nunn on. Took place on July 25. Read the Q&A





Perspective.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/07/the-crowdstrike-outage-and-market-driven-brittleness.html

The CrowdStrike Outage and Market-Driven Brittleness

The brittleness of modern society isn’t confined to tech. We can see it in many parts of our infrastructure, from food to electricity, from finance to transportation. This is often a result of globalization and consolidation, but not always. In information technology, brittleness also results from the fact that hundreds of companies, none of which you’ve heard of, each perform a small but essential role in keeping the internet running. CrowdStrike is one of those companies.

This brittleness is a result of market incentives. In enterprise computing—as opposed to personal computing—a company that provides computing infrastructure to enterprise networks is incentivized to be as integral as possible, to have as deep access into their customers’ networks as possible, and to run as leanly as possible.

Redundancies are unprofitable. Being slow and careful is unprofitable. Being less embedded in and less essential and having less access to the customers’ networks and machines is unprofitable—at least in the short term, by which these companies are measured. This is true for companies like CrowdStrike. It’s also true for CrowdStrike’s customers, who also didn’t have resilience, redundancy, or backup systems in place for failures such as this because they are also an expense that affects short-term profitability.



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