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Spanish Lawyers Claim Police Hacking EncroChat Cryptophones Violates Human Rights Law

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The police operation to break into the EncroChat encrypted telephone network, which has led to thousands of arrests around the world, is a judicial and political scandal, Spanish lawyers have said.

Guillermo Rocafort, speaking at a conference on EncroChat is organized by the Madrid Bar Associationstated that the operation of the French police to break into the encrypted telephone network was a ruse and a violation of European law.

“The European Union is based on the rule of law, which guarantees the fundamental right to privacy of communications, criminal proceedings cannot be [exercises],” He said.

Police in France and the Netherlands jointly hacked the EncroChat network with the support of Europol and Eurojust in 2020, which led to the arrests of organized crime groups and drug dealers around the world, including the UK.

Rocafort said at a conference on “legal challenges of hacking Encrochat” organized by the Banking Law Division of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) that the operation to hack into an encrypted telephone network is against European law.

He said the EncroChat operation is akin to police receiving bulk messages from encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp or Telegram, or hacking into a Spanish phone carrier.

“It’s as if you were hacking, for example, [Spanish phone operator] Movistar system, WhatsApp system, Telegram system,” said Rocafort.

Legal sale

The lawyer said that two Spanish citizens detained by the French justice system were legally selling EncroChat phones in Spain, where selling encrypted phones is not a criminal offence.

He said that in the UK the justice system has also ruled out prosecuting sellers of EncroChat phones “because what is done with this phone is not the seller’s business.”

Europe’s highest courts have yet to rule on the legality of the new hacker operation.

V The Court of Justice of the European Union must answer preliminary questions from the Berlin District Court as to whether the EncroChat hack violates message privacy.

The European Court of Human Rights is also expected to rule on whether the EncroChat hack violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, concerning the right to respect for private and family life, following a lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs in the UK.

Francisco Javier Borrego, a former Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights judge, said Spaniards were imprisoned because of the EncroChat hack.

convicted twice

Borrego said that Spain had been convicted twice by the European Court of Human Rights for failing to respect the secrecy of communications in two criminal trials.

Lawyer Luis de las Heras said the EncroChat hack was similar to the French military’s access to post offices in Spain to intercept all letters and mail sent from France by French citizens.

De las Heras stated that the EncroChat operation represented “a new criminal Middle Ages” and “a return to the Machiavellian expression that the end justifies the means”.

Attorneys Maria Begoña Garcés García and Alberto López Orive represent Spanish citizens prosecuted in France for distributing EncroChat phones.

Garces said a French court in Lille denied him access to a CD containing hacked EncroChat messages related to the case, saying it was a “state secret”.

“All I ask of the French judiciary is to grant me access to evidence,” he said.

Alberto López said the Spanish justice system has given legitimacy to the evidence obtained from the EncroChat hack, claiming it has “documentary value.”

“They say that this is documentary evidence because these are conversations that have taken place in the past; this is because they are not produced in real time,” the lawyer said.

In the UK, the Tribunal for Investigative Powers found last week that the National Crime Agency had legally obtained a warrant to access EncroChat messages obtained from a hacking operation by the French gendarmerie and Dutch police.

But he has taken questions about the legal admissibility of EncroChat’s evidence in UK criminal trials back to the crown courts.

The IPT said it needed to determine whether the French messages were received in transit, which is not acceptable in British courts, or by hacking telephone handsets, which is legally acceptable.

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What the 14th Amendment Really Says

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Biden must pay interest on the debt or violate the US Constitution.

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LinkedIn Starts Rolling Out New Verification and Fraud Protection Features

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After previewing new verification features last month, LinkedIn is now rolling it out to give job seekers the confidence they’re dealing with real companies and jobs. At the same time, this work-focused social network has introduced warnings for posts that may look like a scam. The latter feature appears among the many fake accounts on the site, according to LinkedIn. latest transparency report.

The first type of verification tool is related to job postings, displaying information about posters and their companies. For example, it can display checks for a company page and a work job email, as well as confirmation of whether their ID has been verified by CLEAR, the same company that takes people to security lines, airports, and other places.

LinkedIn

“When you see confirmations in job postings, it means there is information that has been verified as genuine by the job posting, LinkedIn, or one of our partners,” the company wrote in a blog post. US phone number and government ID. You can also verify your employer with a verification code sent to your company email address, and some users can verify both their identity and employer through Microsoft Entra for companies enrolled in the program.

LinkedIn noted that it recently launched About this profile a feature that shows when the profile was created and last updated, and if the profile has a verified phone number and/or work email associated with the account. The goal is to get rid of fake accounts, but LinkedIn is also releasing new messages warning users of high-risk content.

LinkedIn Starts Rolling Out New Verification and Fraud Protection Features

LinkedIn

“We are now also warning you if LinkedIn posts contain high-risk content that could impact your safety. For example, we will warn you if a message asks you to move the conversation to another platform, as this can sometimes be a scam. If something seems wrong, these alerts will also give you the option to report content without telling the sender,” the company wrote.

New features follow LinkedIn. latest transparency report, which showed a large increase in fraudulent accounts. The company suspended over 58 million accounts between July and December 2022, up from 22 million in the previous six months. LinkedIn even sees profiles with fake photos created by artificial intelligence. wrote about last year. While the company said its new “deep learning-based model actively checks uploaded profile photos to determine if an image is AI-generated,” a recent study identified over 1,000 active profiles using AI-generated photos. Financial Times reported.

LinkedIn noted that job posting checks have just begun to roll out, so while you may not see them yet, the tools will become more common as the company expands access. In the meantime, he encourages you to read his advice on how to notice and avoid suspicious job postings.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team independently of our parent company. Some of our stories contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are current at the time of publication.

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Fall Guys by Epic is adding a creative mode so players can create their own levels.

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Epic Games is expanding Fall Guys – its playful battle royale populated by little gummy dudes – to make room for player creativity.

In its fourth season, which airs today, Fall Guys is adding new creative mode which invites players to design their own levels with beginner-friendly game design tools. In the new mode, anyone can create a new obstacle course filled with oversized boxing gloves, inflatable floors, and giant candy-colored mallets designed to crush the player character’s bean-like avatars.

For Fall Guys’ Epic Slots next to fortnite, offering a different flavor of the chaotic battle royale that is increasingly modeled after the company’s main multiplayer hit. Unlike Fortnite, a goofy but mechanically more traditional shooter, Fall Guys challenges players to fight to the death across a series of colorful cartoonish fields littered with danger.

As a result, Epic is turning its other games into Fortnite with different flavors this is a company knows he has a winning formula. The free Seasonal Battle Pass model, in-game cosmetic purchases, and a rich set of creative tools for player-created levels are all ingredients in a recipe that Epic continues to hone.

Epic makes big bets on original player-generated content, sometimes known as “UGC” (User Generated Content). Fortnite players spend a lot of time in the realm of player-created game modes and levels. In March, Epic announced that it would be bringing its Unreal Editor to Fortnite, promising graphics and gameplay improvements that surpass anything currently available for amateur game developers.

Along with this news, Epic announced that split 40 percent of Fortnite’s earnings with anyone doing UGC for Fortnite – a big departure from scanning the game’s existing monetization options. Everywhere, Epic is setting the stage for a seamless multiplayer gaming universe filled with endless player-created content and purchasable virtual items. The closest obvious competitor to this vision is Roblox, which looks younger but also builds the near future of online multiplayer games and digital goods (do we still call it the metaverse?).

Fall Guys last year switched to free model and launched on Nintendo Switch and Xbox, making it available just about anywhere you can play games. It’s not available on mobile yet, but then again, Fortnite isn’t available these days after Epic clashed with Apple over massive payments cuts on that company’s apps. (Eat Workaround for cloud gaming if you’re really interested in making Fortnite work on iOS.)

Epic bought Fall Guys creator Mediatonic in early 2021. The purchase came about six months after the game launched on Twitch and hit 100 million hours of streaming in August alone. This acquisition follows Epic’s purchase in 2019 indie developer Psyonixwhen the company added the popular football and racing game Rocket League to its lineup of online multiplayer games.

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