Category: TECHNOLOGY
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Insurance industry faces scrutiny over possible indirect racial bias
Regulators are to investigate the insurance industry for potential racial bias and discrimination over the data that companies use to set their prices.
The Financial Conduct Authority said that while it had found no evidence of “direct discrimination”, insurers were using information within their pricing models that may implicitly or potentially explicitly relate to race or ethnicity, so there was a “risk of discriminating against consumers”.
Announcing a study of the £78bn general insurance industry, which will look at whether certain groups of consumers are paying too much, the FCA also floated the idea of a specific day or week in the year when all consumers would renew or switch their insurance.
A report published by the regulator indicated that many loyal, older home insurance customers were being overcharged for their cover so firms could offer artificially low prices to new customers.
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The regulator said it was “concerned that general insurance pricing practices have the potential to cause harm to consumers, particularly those who are vulnerable”. It revealed that some companies had potentially broken its rules and could face a crackdown.
For years, insurers have often been accused of unfairly overcharging their most loyal customers – in particular by repeatedly raising the premiums of those who allow their cover to be renewed automatically. This has been called a “loyalty penalty” and the FCA has tried to tackle this by bringing in a requirement last year that renewal letters must inform customers of rises.
However, the issue has continued to cause controversy: in September, Citizen’s Advice lodged a “super-complaint” with the competition watchdog, saying loyal customers of home insurers, banks, mortgage lenders, mobile phone companies and broadband operators were being ripped off to the tune of £4bn a year, or as much as £877 per person.
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On home insurance, the regulator said one of its main concerns was “the potential use of data based on race/ethnicity within firms’ pricing models to produce different offered prices”.It added that companies were asked how they reassured themselves that the third-party data they used did not discriminate against certain customers, and that many could not immediately provide this assurance.
Possible links between insurance and ethnicity have been highlighted before: in 2016, a report co-written by the former equality commissioner Trevor Phillips claimed that millions of people living in areas with a high density of minority ethnic households were paying an “ethnic penalty” of up to £450 a year each in higher car insurance premiums.
The FCA also highlighted price differentiation relating to customers who had been with the same insurer for many years and allowed their cover to renew automatically. Some of these people “are on average paying prices significantly above the cost of provision”. The FCA said “potential losers” included people aged over 65.
By contrast, there is intense price competition when it came to signing up new customers. New home insurance policies were often priced as much as 30% below the cost of providing the cover, the FCA said.
While some customers would switch after the first year, many others would stay, and companies would make their money by implementing “sharp premium increases” during the second and third years.
The regulator said some firms may be guilty of not complying with its rules on transparency at renewal, and that where it had concerns, “it will explore all options to address this using the full range of its powers”.
Noting that Hungary used to have a nationwide insurance renewal period once a year, the FCA said: “Having a specific day or week in the year where consumers are able to renew or switch their providers could in principle help.”
Gareth Shaw, a money expert at the consumer body Which?, said the market study was long overdue. “For years, loyal policyholders have been exploited by insurance providers, punished by excessive premiums and have had to battle with unclear pricing,” he added.
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Kavanaugh impartiality to be tested in blue state lawsuits
Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court has put a spotlight on the dozens of federal cases pitting the Trump administration against Democratic-leaning states, on issues including auto
Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court has put a spotlight on the dozens of federal cases pitting the Trump administration against Democratic-leaning states, on issues including auto emission standards, immigration and a free-flowing internet.
He lashed out against “left-wing opposition groups” and others during the recent Senate hearing over a high school-era sexual assault allegation, raising questions about whether he can be impartial deciding cases that revolve around Democratic policies or that directly involve Democratic officials.
Kavanaugh already was known as a conservative judge. But his partisan rhetoric created new worries for some who will bring or support cases that eventually could come before the nation’s highest court.
“I have even greater concerns about his judicial temperament and his ability to independently weigh cases that may involve the Trump administration,” said Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat who has joined more than a dozen lawsuits against the administration.
Democratic states are in scores of legal battles with the Trump administration over health care, the environment, consumer protections, immigration and other issues. Marquette University political scientist Paul Nolette has tallied 61 times that states have banded together in lawsuits against the Trump administration.
Trump’s Department of Justice also has initiated legal action against blue states. Most recently, the department sued California just hours after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law requiring internet neutrality that runs counter to actions taken by the administration.
Questions about Kavanaugh’s ability to remain impartial and give a fair hearing to such cases escalated after his defiant statement Sept. 27 to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He railed against the sexual assault accusations as being orchestrated by Democrats, saying: “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
Kavanaugh, who denied the assault allegation, also said that “in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around” – a statement some observers took to be a threat. But Kavanaugh also said he would not be “swayed by public or political pressure.”
Since then, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “an independent and impartial judiciary is essential” and that he will “keep an open mind in every case.”
Lawsuits between the states and the Trump administration could test that.
Pat Gallagher, director of the legal program at the Sierra Club, said he expects Kavanaugh would oppose environmental regulation regardless of who calls for it – as he has often done as an appeals court judge.
With his confirmation, Gallagher said, “we’re going to have to find ways to keep cases away from the Supreme Court.”
Despite questions about Kavanaugh’s objectivity, many of the lawsuits involving blue states do not align neatly with partisan ideology. The core question is who has the power to regulate in that area – the federal government or the states?
California’s newly signed internet neutrality law is a prime example. It prohibits internet service providers from favoring specific websites or online content by cutting access or charging more for some than others. The state adopted the law last month in response to a Federal Communications Commission policy change earlier this year that ended a similar federal requirement.
“The California legislature has enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement announcing a lawsuit against the state.
California has sued – and been sued – multiple times since Trump took office. Its attorney general, Democrat Xavier Becerra, declined to comment, as did several other attorneys general involved in lawsuits against the administration.
Similar questions over state vs. federal authority are in play in the Trump administration challenge of a law that set up California as a “sanctuary state” unwilling to cooperate with federal authorities in certain immigration matters.
Thomas Saenz, president of MALDEF, a Latino civil rights organization, said Kavanaugh’s hearing reinforced what he believed after studying the judge’s previous rulings that touched on immigration.
“The concern is that partisan ideology came first and then judicial philosophy, rather than the other way around,” he said.
The group is involved in legal battles over immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Legal experts said it makes sense for blue states to keep pushing back against the administration, in part because not every case will reach the Supreme Court. Lawsuits can delay federal policies or force compromise.
Both happened with the Trump administration’s ban on travel to the U.S. from a group of Muslim-majority countries. After lower courts knocked it back and forced delays, the administration modified the policy. A ban is now in effect and has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but it’s not as tough as Trump’s first version.
Some advocates have suggested that Kavanaugh should step aside on cases involving the administration and those he criticized during his confirmation hearing. Doing so is rare, though.
“Justices don’t recuse themselves simply because they’ve taken ideological or partisan positions in the past that might favor one side or the other,” said Anthony Johnstone, a University of Montana law professor and former state solicitor. “Part of what presidents get with their Supreme Court nominations is their views.”
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DHS says China-linked hackers behind active espionage campaign targeting critical U.S. sectors
Critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. and abroad have been targeted by an active cyber-espionage campaign previously traced by private security researchers to China, the Trump administration sai
Critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. and abroad have been targeted by an active cyber-espionage campaign previously traced by private security researchers to China, the Trump administration said Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security warned that actors associated with an advanced persistent threat, or APT – a label applied to sophisticated, typically state-sponsored hacking groups – have set their sights on potential victims in the U.S. information technology, energy, healthcare, communications and critical manufacturing sectors.
Known by names such as APT10 and “MenuPass,” the group was the subject of a previous alert issued by DHS in April 2017 that warned of an emerging, sophisticated hacking campaign that had compromised victims including IT service providers, putting its perpetrators in place to possible leverage that access for subsequent attacks.
Eighteen months later, DHS said in a pair of advisories that the same hacking group is conducting an ongoing campaign specifically targeting global managed service providers (MSPs), or companies that offer online cloud-based services, and that it was actively using stolen credentials to “expand unauthorized access, maintain persistence and exfiltrate data from targeted organizations.”
“Given the increasingly important role that managed services providers play in supporting business processes and operations in today’s business environment, a threat affecting one entity can have cascading effects across many sectors,” said Christopher Krebs, the National Protection and Programs Directorate undersecretary in charge of NCCIC.
“These cyber threat actors are still active and we strongly encourage our partners in government and industry to work together to defend against this threat,” he said in a statement.
The campaign is being conducted specifically for the purposes of cyber espionage and intellectual property theft, and DHS is aware of a limited number of U.S. victims, the agency said.
According to DHS, APT10 hackers can remain undetected after breaching targets including global IT networks by using legitimate credentials to masquerade their activity. Once inside, the hackers can then implant malware or use other means to exfiltrate data.
“By using compromised legitimate MSP credentials (e.g., administration, domain, user), APT actors can move bidirectionally between an MSP and its customers’ shared networks,” said one of the advisories. “Bidirectional movement between networks allows APT actors to easily obfuscate detection measures and maintain a presence on victims’ networks.”
Following publication of the initial DHS report in 2017, security researchers for companies including Accenture, FireEye, PwC and BAE Systems connected the hacking group to China. CrowdStrike, a Silicon Valley company that reached a similar conclusion, previously linked APT10 to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, a foreign intelligence agency akin to the U.S. National Security Agency.
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Facebook’s fact-checkers flag satire as fake news
Facebook on Friday said it mistakenly threatened to demonetize a satirical website’s social networking account after one of its articles, “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News B
Facebook on Friday said it mistakenly threatened to demonetize a satirical website’s social networking account after one of its articles, “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication,” was debunked by Snopes, the fact-checking site used to help counter the platform’s fake news problem.
“A page you admin (The Babylon Bee) recently posted the link (CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication) that contains info disputed by (Snopes.com), an independent fact checker,” Facebook wrote in a message sent Thursday to The Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford. “Repeat offenders will see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetize and advertised removed,” the message said.
The blatantly satirical article should not have been flagged as fake news, Facebook conceded Friday.
“There’s a difference between false news and satire,” Facebook said in a statement. “This was a mistake and should not have been rated false in our system. It’s since been corrected and won’t count against the domain in any way.”
According to the Snopes, the article’s satirical nature wasn’t immediately apparent among everyone who read it.
“Although it should have been obvious that the Babylon Bee piece was just a spoof of the ongoing political brouhaha over alleged news media ‘bias’ and ‘fake news,’ some readers missed that aspect of the article and interpreted it literally,” Snopes said.
The Babylon Bee brands itself as “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.” Nonetheless, Snopes has debunked 13 of its articles since 2016, including write-ups with titles including “Southern Baptist Convention Purchases Chick-Fil-A For $5.5 Billion” and “Is Playing Christmas Music Before Thanksgiving Now a Federal Crime?”
“This is the first time Facebook has used that to threaten us with reduced reach and demonetization,” Mr. Ford told PJ Media after receiving the initial warning Thursday. “Also it seems that anyone who clicked on the article got a notice that it was ‘disputed.’”
Established in 1995, Snopes partnered with Facebook in 2016 to help fact-check a flood of fake news stories being shared among its users.
“Our goal is to help empower Facebook users to better control and enhance their own online experience, and we believe that increasing the flow and visibility of accurate, vetted information is one of the best ways to do that,” Snopes said at the time.
More recently, the Department of Justice last month filed criminal charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies accused of using Facebook to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
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4 charged in fake ID operation that netted $4.7M in bitcoin
Four people accused of operating a large-scale fake ID operation that netted investigators $4.7 million in bitcoin have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio.
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Four people accused of operating a large-scale fake ID operation that netted investigators $4.7 million in bitcoin have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio.
The four from the Toledo area are facing federal charges announced Thursday that include making false identification documents and possessing document-making equipment.
The group was arrested in early February after investigators seized electronic bitcoin wallets, computers, printers and gold and silver bars inside a Toledo home.
Ohio authorities began investigating in 2015 after receiving several fake ID cards from a bar in Springfield. A college student told investigators his friends bought IDs from Reddit.
Documents say buyers had to follow specific instructions to hide the transactions and use bitcoins, digital money that isn’t tied to a bank or government.
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Internet giant great penalty!
The Indian Competition Authority (CCI) has fined money on the grounds that Google’s search engine, widely used in the country, has been biased in favor of its services and partners. Google has been given $ 1.36 billion (about $ 21 million) in fines for allegedly abusing market dominance over internet-borne searches.
In the description, it also warned Google to avoid unfair practices. The website “Matrimony.com” and the CUTS, a consumer advocacy group, reported that the institution had reviewed Google after complaining in 2012. Complaints allege that Google manipulated search results to promote its own and its partners’ services. Last year, India filed a lawsuit against Google, which showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “the world’s most dumb leader” in search results. Previously, in the visual search results, Google, which denoted Modi as “the top 10 criminals in India”, apologized in 2015 for this mistake.
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Apple verified! iPhone source codes leaked
In the past days, a user at GitHub posted the iPhone’s source code. The case was confirmed by the Apple side when it was alleged that the code belonged to the pre-boot section of iOS called iBoot.
“The security of the iOS architecture is not tied to the confidentiality of the source code, and our products have many layers of hardware and software protection.” saying, “iPhone users watered the heart of the water. Having removed the codes immediately, Apple shared the information that the published code was incomplete and that the iBoot code could not be completed. Authorities noted that operating system updates should be done in a timely fashion to reach a full level of security on the iPhone.
“Many people think Apple’s code will work for Apple, but Apple is using security in many different places, so iBoot codes do not represent a risk,” Will Strafach, a cyber security researcher, told TechCrunch in an interview. said.