Sam Bankman-Fried instructed his FTX cofounder Gary Wang to create a "secret" backdoor to enable his trading firm Alameda to borrow $65 billion of clients' money from the exchange without their permission, the Delaware bankruptcy court was told Wednesday. Insider reports: Wang was told to create a "backdoor, a secret way for Alameda to borrow from customers on the exchange without permission," said FTX lawyer Andrew Dietderich. "Mr. Wang created this back door by inserting a single number into millions of lines of code for the exchange, creating a line of credit from FTX to Alameda, to which customers did not consent," he added. "And we know the size of that line of credit. It was $65 billion."

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) made similar allegations when it brought charges against Wang in December. But the value of that line of credit hasn't been discussed before now. The CFTC then described it as "virtually unlimited." [...] Dietderich told the court that with the $65 billion back door, Alameda "bought planes, houses, threw parties, made political donations." Dietderich said the rest of the money went towards personal loans, sponsorships, and investments. "We know that all this has left a shortfall, in value to repay customers and creditors," he added. That amount "will depend on the size of the claims pool and our recovery efforts."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: After a week of silence amid intense backlash, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) has finally addressed its community's concerns about changes to the open gaming license. The open gaming license (OGL) has existed since 2000 and has made it possible for a diverse ecosystem of third-party creators to publish virtual tabletop software, expansion books and more. Many of these creators can make a living thanks to the OGL. But over the last week, a new version of the OGL leaked after WoTC sent it to some top creators. More than 66,000 Dungeons & Dragons fans signed an open letter under the name #OpenDnD ahead of an expected announcement, and waves of users deleted their subscriptions to D&D Beyond, WoTC's online platform. Now, WoTC admitted that "it's clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1." Or, in non-Dungeons and Dragons speak, they screwed up.

"We wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community -- not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose," the company wrote in a statement. But fans have critiqued this language, since WoTC -- a subsidiary of Hasbro -- is a "major corporation" in itself. Hasbro earned $1.68 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2022. TechCrunch spoke to content creators who had received the unpublished OGL update from WoTC. The terms of this updated OGL would force any creator making more than $50,000 to report earnings to WoTC. Creators earning over $750,000 in gross revenue would have to pay a 25% royalty. The latter creators are the closest thing that third-party Dungeons & Dragons content has to "major corporations" -- but gross revenue is not a reflection of profit, so to refer to these companies in that way is a misnomer. [...] The fan community also worried about whether WoTC would be allowed to publish and profit off of third-party work without credit to the original creator. Noah Downs, a partner at Premack Rogers and a Dungeons & Dragons livestreamer, told TechCrunch that there was a clause in the document that granted WoTC a perpetual, royalty-free sublicense to all third-party content created under the OGL.

Now, WoTC appears to be walking back both the royalty clause and the perpetual license. "What [the next OGL] will not contain is any royalty structure. It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds," WoTC wrote in a statement. "Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won't." WoTC claims that it included this language in the leaked version of the OGL to prevent creators from being able to "incorrectly allege" that WoTC stole their work. Throughout the document, WoTC refers to the document that certain creators received as a draft -- however, creators who received the document told TechCrunch that it was sent to them with the intention of getting them to sign off on it. The backlash against these terms was so severe that other tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) publishers took action. Paizo is the publisher of Pathfinder, a popular game covered under WoTC's original OGL. Paizo's owner and presidents were leaders at Wizards of the Coast at the time that the OGL was originally published in 2000, and wrote in a statement yesterday that the company was prepared to go to court over the idea that WoTC could suddenly revoke the OGL license from existing projects. Along with other publishers like Kobold Press, Chaosium and Legendary Games, Paizo announced it would release its own Open RPG Creative License (ORC). "Ultimately, the collective action of the signatures on the open letter and unsubscribing from D&D Beyond made a difference. We have seen that all they care about is profit, and we are hitting their bottom line," said Eric Silver, game master of Dungeons & Dragons podcast Join the Party. He told TechCrunch that WoTC's response on Friday is "just a PR statement."

"Until we see what they release in clear language, we can't let our foot off the gas pedal," Silver said. "The corporate playbook is wait it out until the people get bored; we can't and we won't."

Meta has filed a legal complaint against a company for allegedly creating tens of thousands of fake Facebook accounts to scrape user data and provide surveillance services for clients. From a report: The firm, Voyager Labs, bills itself as "a world leader in advanced AI-based investigation solutions." What this means in practice is analyzing social media posts en masse in order to make claims about individuals. In 2021, for example, The Guardian reported how Voyager Labs sold its services to the Los Angeles Police Department, with the company claiming to predict which individuals were likely to commit crimes in the future.

Meta announced the legal action in a blog post on January 12th, claiming that Voyager Labs violated its terms of service. According to a legal filing issued on November 11th, Meta alleges that Voyager Labs created over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts and used its surveillance software to gather data from Facebook and Instagram without authorization. Voyager Labs also collected data from sites including Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram.

All.health, a medical care startup that rose from the ashes of once-hot wearable company Jawbone, is being sued in San Francisco by one of its investors for alleged fraud, misrepresentation and breach of contract. From a report: All.health's co-founders, the former Jawbone Chief Executive Officer Hosain Rahman and Michael Luna, are also named in the complaint. While All.health, Rahman and Luna deny the claims, the dispute is an illustration of the rancor that can envelop fledgling tech companies at a suddenly volatile time for startup funding. Jawbone was a Silicon Valley darling -- most famous for its wireless earpieces -- until the startup dramatically folded in 2017 and sold off its assets. As Jawbone was disintegrating, Rahman salvaged the company's medical device business. The resulting startup, now called All.health, developed wearable monitoring hardware and technology for people with chronic illnesses like diabetes.

In a complaint filed this summer, Polymath Holdings, a Dubai-based investment company and All.health backer, claimed that the startup overpromised, took millions of dollars and under-delivered on a commitment to manufacture thousands of health-monitoring devices. The suit, which was recently largely unredacted by a San Francisco court, alleges that the startup was a "classic 'fake-it-until-you-make it' tale of fraud."

Speaking of Google, the company says in a court filing that a case before the Supreme Court challenging the liability shield protecting websites such as YouTube and Facebook could "upend the internet," resulting in both widespread censorship and a proliferation of offensive content. From a report: In a new brief filed with the high court, Google said that scaling back liability protections could lead internet giants to block more potentially offensive content -- including controversial political speech -- while also leading smaller websites to drop their filters to avoid liability that can arise from efforts to screen content. [...] The case was brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the 2015 Islamic State terrorist attack in Paris. The plaintiffs claim that YouTube, a unit of Google, aided ISIS by recommending the terrorist group's videos to users. The Gonzalez family contends that the liability shield -- enacted by Congress as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 -- has been stretched to cover actions and circumstances never envisioned by lawmakers. The plaintiffs say certain actions by platforms, such as recommending harmful content, shouldn't be protected.

Section 230 generally protects internet platforms such as YouTube, Meta's Facebook and Yelp from being sued for harmful content posted by third parties on their sites. It also gives them broad ability to police their sites without incurring liability. The Supreme Court agreed last year to hear the lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs have contended Section 230 shouldn't protect platforms when they recommend harmful content, such as terrorist videos, even if the shield law protects the platforms in publishing the harmful content. Google contends that Section 230 protects it from any liability for content posted by users on its site. It also argues that there is no way to draw a meaningful distinction between recommendation algorithms and the related algorithms that allow search engines and numerous other crucial ranking systems to work online, and says Section 230 should protect them all.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: Apple has suffered a setback in its long-running Apple Watch patent infringement battle with medical technology company Masimo. A court has ruled that Apple has indeed infringed one of Masimo's patents in the Apple Watch Series 6 and up. Masimi is seeking a US import on all current Apple Watches. If granted, this would effectively end Apple Watch sales in the US, as the company would not be allowed to bring in the devices from China.

The battle between the two companies has a long history. Back in 2013, Apple reportedly contacted Masimo to discuss a potential collaboration between the two companies. Instead, claims Masimo, Apple used the meetings to identify staff it wanted to poach. Masimo later called the meetings a "targeted effort to obtain information and expertise." Apple did indeed hire a number of Masimo staff, including the company's chief medical officer, ahead of the launch of the Apple Watch. Masimo CEO Joe Kiano later expressed concern that Apple may have been trying to steal the company's blood oxygen sensor technology. The company describes itself as "the inventors of modern pulse oximeters," and its tech is used in many hospitals.

In 2020, the company sued Apple for stealing trade secrets and infringing 10 Masimo patents. The lawsuit asked for an injunction on the sale of the Apple Watch. Apple has consistently denied the claims, and recently hit back with a counterclaim of its own, alleging that Masimo's own W1 Advanced Health Tracking Watch infringes multiple Apple patents. Reuters reports that a US court has ruled against Apple on one of the patent claims.

JPMorgan Chase is suing the 30-year-old founder of Frank, a buzzy fintech startup it acquired for $175 million, for allegedly lying about its scale and success by creating an enormous list of fake users to entice the financial giant to buy it. Forbes: Frank, founded by former CEO Charlie Javice in 2016, offers software aimed at improving the student loan application process for young Americans seeking financial aid. Her lofty goals to build the startup into "an Amazon for higher education" won support from billionaire Marc Rowan, Frank's lead investor according to Crunchbase, and prominent venture backers including Aleph, Chegg, Reach Capital, Gingerbread Capital and SWAT Equity Partners. The lawsuit, which was filed late last year in U.S. District Court in Delaware, claims that Javice pitched JP Morgan in 2021 on the "lie" that more than 4 million users had signed up to use Frank's tools to apply for federal aid.

When JP Morgan asked for proof during due diligence, Javice allegedly created an enormous roster of "fake customers -- a list of names, addresses, dates of birth, and other personal information for 4.265 million 'students' who did not actually exist." In reality, according to the suit, Frank had fewer than 300,000 customer accounts at that time. [...] Frank's chief growth officer Olivier Amar is also named in the JP Morgan complaint. It alleges that Javice and Amar first asked a top engineer at Frank to create the fake customer list; when he refused, Javice approached "a data science professor at a New York City area college" to help. Using data from some individuals who'd already started using Frank, he created 4.265 million fake customer accounts -- for which Javice paid him $18,000 -- and had it validated by a third-party vendor at her direction, JP Morgan alleges. Amar, meanwhile, spent $105,000 buying a separate data set of 4.5 million students from the firm ASL Marketing, per the complaint.

Crypto exchange FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrencies and securities, an attorney for the bankrupt company founded by Sam Bankman-Fried told a judge on Wednesday. From a report: [FTX Attorney Andy] Dietderich also said that the company plans to sell non-strategic investments that had a book value of $4.6 billion, although the company's books have been described as unreliable.

The brother of a former Coinbase product manager was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty in what U.S. prosecutors have called the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency. Reuters reports: Nikhil Wahi admitted to making trades based on confidential information from Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, when he pleaded guilty in September to a wire fraud conspiracy charge. Prosecutors said Ishan Wahi, the former product manager, shared the information with his brother and their friend Sameer Ramani about new digital assets that Coinbase was planning to let users trade. Ishan Wahi has pleaded not guilty, and Ramani is at large.

Prosecutors said Wahi made nearly $900,000 of profit by illegally trading ahead of 40 different Coinbase announcements. They recommended a 10- to 16-month sentence. At a sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said his crime was "not an isolated error in judgment." "Today's sentence makes clear that the cryptocurrency markets are not lawless," Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said in a statement. Further reading: Coinbase To Cut 20% Jobs, Abandon 'Several' Projects To Weather Downturns in Crypto Market

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has seized more than 55 million shares of Robinhood stock owned -- via a holding company -- by Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, according to a court document. The shares were worth just over $456 million based on HOOD's closing price of $8.25 on Friday. CoinDesk reports: The stock had been held at an account at U.K.-based brokerage ED&F Man. The "seized Assets constitute property involved in violations" of crimes such as money laundering and wire fraud reads the court document. Sam Bankman-Fried was formally charged with those and other crimes on Dec. 13.

The Robinhood shares were in principle owned by FTX co-founders Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang through their Emergent Fidelity Technologies holding company. FTX, now run by John Ray III, had asked a judge late last month to freeze the stock. Bankman-Fried naturally opposed the move, saying, in part, he needed the shares to help pay his legal fees. According to a report last month, Bankman-Fried borrowed over $546 million from Alameda Research to purchase a 7.6% stake of Robindhood.

Meanwhile, crypto lender BlockFi, which filed for bankruptcy like FTX, claims it was owed the rights to the Robinhood shares due to a deal Bankman-Fried made in early November. "The shares were pledged as collateral against a loan taken out by Alameda Research -- the same firm whose funds were used to purchase the shares to begin with," reports CoinDesk.

Seattle public schools have sued the tech giants behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, accusing them of creating a "mental health crisis among America's Youth." Engadget reports: The 91-page lawsuit (PDF) filed in a US district court states that tech giants exploit the addictive nature of social media, leading to rising anxiety, depression and thoughts of self-harm. "Defendants' growth is a product of choices they made to design and operate their platforms in ways that exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of their users into spending more and more time on their platforms," the complaint states. "[They] have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants' social media platforms."

Harmful content pushed to users includes extreme diet plants, encouragement of self-harm and more, according to the complaint. That has led to a 30 percent increase between 2009 and 2019 of students who report feeling "so sad or hopeless... for two weeks or more in a row that [they] stopped doing some usual activities." That in turn leads to a drop in performance in their studies, making them "less likely to attend school, more likely to engage in substance use, and to act out, all of which directly affects Seattle Public Schools' ability to fulfill its educational mission." Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act means that online platforms aren't responsible for content posted by third parties. However, the lawsuit claims that the provision doesn't protect social media companies for recommending, distributing and promoting content "in a way that causes harm."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amendments to Building Regulations 2010 were announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) on January 6th that mandate new homes constructed in England to be fitted with infrastructure and connections required to achieve gigabit internet connectivity. Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination points) and the fastest-available connection if they're unable to secure a gigabit connection within the cost cap. The UK government estimates that 98 percent of installations will fall comfortably under that cap, so it's likely been put in place to avoid spiraling chargings in remote, rural areas that need widescale line upgrades. Properties constructed in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland may be exempt from this new legislation as each country sets its own building regulations independently from England.

The new legislation was introduced on December 26th, 2022, following a 12-month technical consultation that indicated around 12 percent of 171,190 new homes constructed in England didn't have gigabit broadband access upon completion. DCMS claims that gigabit broadband is currently available in over 72 percent of UK households and is targeting full nationwide gigabit-capable broadband coverage across the UK by 2030. In order to meet that goal, another law has also been introduced to make it easier to install faster internet connections into existing flats and apartments. Previously, millions of tenants living in the UK's estimated 480,000 multi-dwelling units (MDUs) needed to obtain permission from the landowner to allow a broadband operator to install connection upgrades. Broadband companies estimate that around 40 percent of these requests are ignored by landlords, leaving tenants unable to upgrade their services even if they're unfit for use. Now, the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) allows broadband providers in England and Wales to seek access rights via court if landlords and land owners don't respond to installation requests within 35 days. "An additional 2,100 residential buildings a year are estimated to be connected to faster broadband speeds as a result of these new rules, and similar legislation is due to come into force in Scotland later this year," adds the report. "The existing appeals process that allows landlords to refuse access requests will not be affected."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let Meta's WhatsApp pursue a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug in its WhatsApp messaging app to install spy software allowing the surveillance of 1,400 people, including journalists, human rights activists and dissidents. From a report: The justices turned away NSO's appeal of a lower court's decision that the lawsuit could move forward. NSO has argued that it is immune from being sued because it was acting as an agent for unidentified foreign governments when it installed the "Pegasus" spyware.

President Joe Biden's administration had urged the justices to reject NSO's appeal, noting that the U.S. State Department had never before recognized a private entity acting as an agent of a foreign state as being entitled to immunity. WhatsApp in 2019 sued NSO seeking an injunction and damages, accusing it of accessing WhatsApp servers without permission six months earlier to install the Pegasus software on victims' mobile devices.

CNN reports that 32-year-old Katelyn McClure "has been sentenced to three years in state prison for her role in scamming more than $400,000 from GoFundMe donors, by claiming to be collecting money for a homeless man."
In 2017, McClure claimed she ran out of gas and was stranded on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. The homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., supposedly saw her and gave her his last $20 for gas. McClure and her then-boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, posted about the "good deed" on social media, including a picture of her with Bobbitt on a highway ramp. They also started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the homeless veteran, saying they wanted to pay it forward to the good Samaritan and get him off the streets.

The story went viral and made national headlines, with more than 14,000 donors contributing. The scammers netted around $367,000 after fees, according to court documents.... Bobbitt, who received $75,000 from the fundraiser, according to prosecutors, took civil action against D'Amico and McClure and the scam soon became public.... D'Amico and Bobbitt were charged in 2018 alongside McClure for concocting the scheme, prosecutors said. McClure pleaded guilty to one count of theft by deception in the second degree in 2019, according to the Burlington County prosecutor.

Bobbitt pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft by deception in 2019 and was sentenced to a five-year special probation period which includes drug treatment. D'Amico also pleaded guilty and agreed to a five-year term in New Jersey state prison, as well as restitution of GoFundMe and the donors, in 2019.
"The gas part is completely made up, but the guy isn't," McClure texted a friend (according to CNN). "I had to make something up to make people feel bad." So what happened to "the guy" from the highway ramp? Prosecutors note that if Bobbitt "fails to adhere to the tightly-structured regimen of treatment and recovery services, which includes frequent testing for drug use, he could be sentenced to five years in state prison."

And they add that the judge "also ruled that McClure, a former state Department of Transportation worker, is permanently barred from ever holding another position as a public employee."

Their statement points out that the 2017 campaign was at the time the largest fraud ever perpetrated through GoFundMe — which voluntarily reimbursed the 14,000-plus donors.

"France's data protection authority, CNIL, fined Apple €8 million (about $8.5 million) Wednesday," reports Gizmodo, "for illegally harvesting iPhone owners' data for targeted ads without proper consent." It's an unusual sanction for the iPhone maker, which has faced fewer legal penalties over privacy than its Big Tech competitors. Apple makes privacy a selling point for its devices, plastering "Privacy. That's iPhone." across 40-foot billboards across the world.... Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals," the CNIL said in a statement. The CNIL's fine calls out the search ads in Apple's App Store, specifically. A French court fined the company over $1 million in December over its commercial practices related to the App Store....

With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to protect their information. That violates EU privacy law, according to the CNIL.... The newer versions of the iPhone operating system corrected the problem, presenting users with a prompt before the advertising data was collected. Gizmodo also notes this response from an Apple spokesperson. "We are disappointed with this decision given the CNIL has previously recognized that how we serve search ads in the App Store prioritizes user privacy, and we will appeal. Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads."

Gizmodo calls France's fine "a signal that Apple may face a less friendly regulatory future in Europe."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "A new lawsuit filed by Seattle Public Schools against TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Snap, Instagram, and their parent companies alleges that the social media giants have 'successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth' for their own profit, using psychological tactics that have led to a mental health crisis in schools," reports GeekWire. "The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, seeks "the maximum statutory and civil penalties permitted by law," making the case that the companies have violated Washington state's public nuisance law."
From GeekWire's report: The district alleges that it has suffered widespread financial and operational harm from social media usage and addiction among students. The lawsuit cites factors including the resources required to provide counseling services to students in crisis, and to investigate and respond to threats made against schools and students over social media. 'This mental health crisis is no accident,' the suit says. 'It is the result of the Defendants' deliberate choices and affirmative actions to design and market their social media platforms to attract youth.'"

The lawsuit cites President Joe Biden's statement in his 2022 State of the Union address that "we must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they're conducting on our children for profit." The suit says the school district "brings this action to do just that."

CNN reports: Two men were arrested on New Year's Eve for allegedly shutting down four Washington state power substations in late December that led to power outages for thousands across Pierce County. Matthew Greenwood and Jeremy Crahan have been charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities and Greenwood faces a separate charge of possessing illegal short-barreled rifles.... The two cut off power to thousands of locals and caused at least $3 million worth of damage, according to charging documents.

Investigators identified Greenwood and Crahan almost immediately after the attacks took place by using cell phone data that allegedly showed both men in the vicinity of all four substations, according to court documents. Surveillance images cited in the court documents also showed images of one of the men and of the getaway car....

The two face up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of conspiring to attack energy facilities.
In addition, possession of an unregistered firearm is punishable by up to ten years in prison, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. But identifying the suspects was apparently pretty simple.

"When law enforcement served a search warrant on the home of the suspects, they recovered distinctive clothing pictured in the surveillance photos."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the story.

"More than half a million people who deposited money with collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network have been dealt a major blow to their hopes of recovering their funds," reports the Washington Post, "with the judge in the company's bankruptcy case ruling that the money belongs to Celsius and not to the depositors." The judge, Martin Glenn, found that Celsius's terms of use — the lengthy contracts that many websites publish but few consumers read — meant "the cryptocurrency assets became Celsius's property."

The ruling underscores the Wild West nature of the unregulated crypto industry. On Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James moved to impose a kind of order, or at least legal repercussions, on Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, whom she accused in a lawsuit of defrauding hundreds of thousands of consumers.... And while Glenn's ruling won't affect FTX, whose terms of use were different, some analysts saw the ruling as spreading beyond Celsius.

"There are many other platforms that feature terms of use that are similar to Celsius's," said Aaron Kaplan, a lawyer with the financial-focused firm of Gusrae Kaplan Nusbaum and co-founder of his own crypto company. Customers need to "understand the risks that they are taking when depositing their assets onto insufficiently regulated platforms," he said.

Slashdot has covered the legal hijinx of Malibu Media over the years. Now Ars Technica reports that the studio could be destroyed by unpaid taxes: Over the past decade, Malibu Media has emerged as a prominent so-called "copyright troll," suing thousands of "John Does" for allegedly torrenting adult content hosted on the porn studio's website, "X-Art." Whether defendants were guilty or not didn't seem to matter to Malibu, critics claimed, as much as winning as many settlements as possible. As courts became more familiar with Malibu, however, some judges grew suspicious of the studio's litigiousness. As early as 2012, a California judge described these lawsuits as "essentially an extortion scheme," and by 2013, a Wisconsin judge ordered sanctions, agreeing with critics who said that Malibu's tactics were designed to "harass and intimidate" defendants into paying Malibu thousands in settlements.

By 2016, Malibu started losing footing in this arena — and even began fighting with its own lawyer. At that point, file-sharing lawsuits became less commonplace, with critics noting a significant reduction in Malibu's lawsuits over the next few years. Now, TorrentFreak reports that Malibu's litigation machine appears to finally be running out of steam — with its corporate status suspended in California sometime between mid-2020 and early 2021 after failing to pay taxes. Last month, a Texas court said that Malibu has until January 20 to pay what's owed in back taxes and get its corporate status reinstated. If that doesn't happen over the next few weeks, one of Malibu's last lawsuits on the books will be dismissed, potentially marking the end of Malibu's long run of alleged copyright trolling.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: A program trained with the help of artificial intelligence is set to help a defendant contest his case in a U.S. court next month, New Scientist reported. Instead of addressing the court, the program, which will run on a smartphone, will supply appropriate responses through an earpiece to the defendant, who can then use them in the courtroom. [...] In a new development, a company, DoNotPay, which has been training AI, has now claimed that its program will be able to defend a speeding case that is due to be heard in a U.S. court in February 2023. Identities of the individual and the court remain under wraps, but we do know that the defendant is contesting a speeding ticket.

Since this is the AI's very first case, DoNotPay is ready to take on the burden of punishment if the AI's advice does not help the client. Since it is a speeding ticket, DoNotPay will pay for the speeding ticket. If it wins though, it will have a massive victory to its credit. The real big question, though, is whether this is legal in the court of law. CEO Joshua Browder told New Scientist that it had found a court where listening via an earpiece was within the rules, even though it might not be in the spirit of the rules.