California introduces new digital child protection law, Google accidentally sends a blogger $250,000, and Canadian law enforcement raids a hacker.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Monday, September 19, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
California has become the first U.S. state to protect children from being profiled in a harmful way using their data. According to TechXplore, A new bill introduced in the state requires companies to protect the children’s wellbeing by implementing an age-appropriate design code and requires them to submit a data protection impact assessment before issuing a new service targeted at children. Although the law is meant to do good, it isn’t without opponents, including the Entertainment Software Association, which said it could be overly inclusive, and affect more platforms than necessary.
Source: TechXplore
Google had accidentally sent a blogger $250,000 due to “human error.” The slipup was discovered in a tweet when the blogger tweeted that Google had randomly transferred $250,000 into his account. The unintended recipient kept the money safe and waited for a response from the company, which Google sent after almost a month. When asked, Google didn’t tell NPR how the error happened, only that it planned to get the money back. The blogger, who’s also a security engineer, didn’t see a connection between his job and Google, and chalked it up as a pure fluke.
Source: Business Insider
Canadian law enforcement has apparently raided a somewhat prolific hacker and seized his assets. According to Aubrey Cottle, a Canadian hacker claiming to be associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous, the Ontario Provincial Police had seized his equipment, including PCs, phones and servers. Additionally, he was evicted and is now homeless. Cottle had amassed a following on TikTok, where he shared some of his hacking activities. He had claimed responsibility for a few data breaches, including leaking the data from the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo.
Source: Cyberscoop
The video game industry experienced a major cybersecurity incident when hackers leaked early information about GTA 6, a highly anticipated video game set to be released in the future. Some considered this to be the biggest data breach in the industry’s history. Leaked details not only include gameplay, but also the game’s highly guarded source code. According to the leaker, Rockstar Games, the game’s developer, has reached out to them on social media. The alleged hackers say they’re looking to negotiate a deal.
Source: TechCrunch
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