New, by me: Google refused to say if it received a secret UK court order, like Apple did, demanding the company build a backdoor for accessing encrypted user data.
Meta said it hasn't received one. Apple said it's barred from disclosing if it had one (it has!).
Google tried to dodge the question, and refused to explicitly state if it had not received a UK backdoor demand.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/google-wont-say-if-uk-secretly-demanded-a-backdoor-for-user-data/
An iPhone app called ICEBlock, which allows anyone to lawfully and anonymously report ICE sightings and get notified about nearby ICE agents, went viral overnight after criticism from the US Attorney General.
FYI: The app doesn't collect or store user data. (I checked by doing a network traffic analysis of the app.)
New, by me: Danish cloud host CloudNordic says most of its customers have “lost all data with us” following a ransomware attack on its datacenter systems, including its backups.
CloudNordic said that it believes the hackers had access to the company’s administrative systems “from which they could encrypt entire disks.”
More: https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/23/cloudnordic-azero-cloud-host-ransomware/
Here's a fun* (*sarcasm) "on this day" memory: Three years ago during the Trump administration, the FBI came to my house, unannounced, then spent the following year trying to get me to answer questions about a story we had published about a hack involving the Mexican government, which we ultimately declined.
For the record, I'm still salty about it, and I don't know if I can ever step foot in Mexico. But I'm fortunate to work at a publication that let me write about it. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/23/legal-demands-press-freedoms/
New, by me: LetMeSpy, a spyware maker based in Poland, said it will shut down and cease operations after a hacker broke in and wiped out its servers.
Radeal CEO Rafal Lidwin, who develops the spyware, did not respond to a request for comment.
More: https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/05/letmespy-spyware-shuts-down-wiped-server/
