In-brief: Hobbled by draconian copyright restrictions from manufacturers like John Deere that make it impossible to modify or repair equipment, farmers in the U.S. have turned to unofficial software produced in countries like Ukraine to maintain their equipment.
In-brief: Proposed legislation to prevent manufacturers from denying owners and independent repair people to fix and maintain software-based products is being sidelined by opposition from private firms like equipment maker John Deere, Motherboard reports.
In-brief: Consumer Reports released a draft standard for security digital devices, calling on manufacturers to secure their products and give consumers the right to repair them.
In-brief: the apparent leak of data on owners of CloudPets connected stuffed animals underscores lax security and privacy practices that are common among connected products firms. (Updated with comment from Troy Hunt. PFR 2/28/2017.)
In brief: In a new report, Internet provider AT&T said that scans for vulnerable IoT devices spiked in the first half of 2016, months before the Mirai botnet, made up largely of IoT devices, launched denial of service attacks on DYN and other targets.
