Security, Spoken

The internet-wide push to encrypt more web traffic has resulted in a wave of safer, snoop-proof connections. The next challenge, though, is completing that transition from using a mixture of unencrypted HTTP and protected HTTPS to requiring that baseline protection everywhere. And over the past year, Google has been publicly offering a simple and straightforward way for websites to eliminate these subtle weak spots. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) a year ago, one of the most revolutionary aspects of the regulation was the “right to be forgotten”—an often-hyped and debated right, sometimes perceived as empowering individuals to request the erasure of their information on the internet, most commonly from search engines or social networks. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Darren Shou is vice president of research at Symantec. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Over the past 18 months, Google has pushed to improve Chrome extension security—a welcome goal given the sketchy morass of extensions that have been out there for years. But one proposed change related to this effort threatens to hobble ad blocking extensions. And the pending transition has set up a showdown between Google, ad blocker makers, and even other browsers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Radiohead owned some hackers, the T-Mobile/Sprint merger runs into some hiccups, and a Swedish mining town is being picked up and moved. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Tuesday, Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood made an announcement on Twitter and Facebook: The band had been "hacked," and the perpetrator attempted a $150,000 shakedown to prevent the public release of the files. In response? Radiohead dumped all of it online for free. You can stream it below for the next 18 days, or buy it on Bandcamp for about $23. All proceeds will go to a climate protest organization called Extinction Rebellion. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For years, countries have spoken in vague terms about creating domestic internets that could be isolated from the world at will. Now, we’re seeing some begin to execute that vision. Last month, Iran announced its national information network, or its domestic internet, is 80 percent complete. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicked off the week, bringing with it some interesting security enhancements for iOS and macOS users. The company will start offering its own single sign-on option, competing with Google and Facebook but with enhancements those two currently don't offer. And it rejiggered its Find My feature using some very clever cryptography. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Five days ago, the internet had a conniption. In broad patches around the globe, YouTube sputtered. Shopify stores shut down. Snapchat blinked out. And millions of people couldn’t access their Gmail accounts. The disruptions all stemmed from Google Cloud, which suffered an prolonged outage—which also prevented Google engineers from pushing a fix. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Russian meddling that rocked the 2016 United States presidential election gave the public a full view of something election officials and advocates have warned about for years: weak voting infrastructure and election systems around the US, and a lack of political will and funding to strengthen them. Two and a half years later, real progress has been made in key areas. But with a new presidential election less than 18 months away, glaring systemic risks remain. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Campaign finance laws prohibit businesses and even many nonprofits from directly contributing to political campaigns. They can’t even send pizza. Now, the United States Federal Election Commission may apply the same laws to block a cybersecurity firm from offering free or low cost defense services to campaigns, at a time when those protections are badly needed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices