government

Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract valued at nearly $1 billion to develop a hypersonic missile for the US Air Force. According to the Department of Defense, Air Force Life Cycle Management received three offers to develop the technology, though it didn't reveal the two other entities. The agency also revealed a second contract for nearly $12 million awarded to Applied Technology for a ground-based EO/IR direct imaging system.

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Today is the deadline to file your 2017 taxes, and that makes the IRS's Direct Pay and e-filing system outages a problem. The agency's systems went down today, with the IRS confirming that it is having problems accepting electronically filed taxes, such as the kind submitted through services like TurboTax, as well as accepting payments online through Direct Pay.

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It's a big day here in the US, as many Americans need to have their tax returns filed with the IRS by the time the clock strikes midnight. It's a day of dread and stress for many of those filers, and unfortunately, problems with the IRS website aren't making the day go by any smoother. Crucial parts of the IRS website have gone today, preventing some people from successfully submitting a return or paying what they owe.

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It would appear that there's a new best way to break into a locked iPhone as of this February. Back in February of this year, the startup known as Grayshift sent out an announcement of a new sort of device they'd whipped up. They had a device that apparently unlocked an iPhone - any iPhone - so that said iPhone could be rummaged through and utilized by law enforcement. Or, say, less-than-reputable persons. Of course, they'd never say they were all about such things at Grayshift.

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Today Mark Zuckerberg publicly denied knowledge of the term "Shadow Profile" at a congressional hearing. Zuckerberg did not deny knowledge of the definition of Facebook's shadow profiles, but he did attempt to cut ties between the definition and the commonly-known name for the subject. Today we've got a quick primer on the Facebook-made Shadow Profile.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to several congressional boards this week on privacy and public use of Facebook. Today we're running down the many questions which seemed to make Zuckerberg nervous or otherwise ended up with an answer by Zuckerberg that could've been called "dodging the question." The judgements I and we make here are subjective - keep that in mind whilst perusing the list.

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The FTC brought out the rule hammer this week in a letter to 6 companies about their stickers. Those stickers you've got on the insides of your smartphone and the outside of your gaming console - the ones you're not supposed to remove. Yeah, those are illegal. This isn't a new ruling by the FTC, it's a warning from the FTC to companies under their jurisdiction that these stickers are not enforceable.

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Oregon has taken the latest step in its effort to maintain an open Internet. On Monday, Governor Kate Brown signed the state's net neutrality bill, which passed the Oregon House in February and was sent to Brown in early March. The bill prohibits state entities from doing business with Internet service providers that don't follow net neutrality principles.

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Multiple United States Federal government agencies have seized the classifieds website Backpage.com. Anyone who attempts to visit the website will see an alert stating that the domain and its affiliated websites have been seized. The shutdown was performed as part of an "enforcement action" that involved the US Postal Inspection Service, the FBI, and the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division. The Joint Regional Intelligence Center provided analytical assistance.

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California has proposed legislation that, if passed, would require Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms to disclose bots to users. The system would have to ID the bots, alerting users to the non-human behind the post and the potential propaganda it may be spreading. The proposal follows Facebook's discovery of Russia propaganda on its platform, one mirrored later on by Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr.

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Back in November of 2017 we took a look at a bit of legislation from the FCC that'd all but destroy the program called Lifeline. Lifeline was created all the way back during the Reagan administration to help the poor afford telephone service. The FCC during the W Bush administration updated Lifeline to include wireless internet, then the FCC during Obama's presidency updated Lifeline to include broadband. Now the Trump FCC wants to gut Lifeline like a fish.

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The EPA plans to roll back the Obama Administration's standards on car emissions, setting the auto industry - and the Trump government - on a collision course with California. Describing the previous standards as having been made "with politically charged expediency," US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt argued that the emissions limits were "too high."

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