Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

A bug has been discovered in popular chat tool WhatsApp that completely undermines the blocking feature.

The idea behind blocking people on WhatsApp -- just like any other app or service -- is to prevent them from contacting you, and to stop them from viewing your activity. But the bug means that blocked users are still able to send messages to people who have blocked them, as well as viewing statuses and profile details.

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Donald Trump's use of Twitter has long been controversial, and he has developed something of a penchant for blocking people who dare to question or criticize him. Earlier this year a judge suggested that he should make use of the mute option instead of blocking Twitter users, and now another judge has ruled that blocking critics is unconstitutional.

Judge Naomi Buchwald said that Trump's use of the block feature is a violation of people's right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The Department of Justice has indicated that it disagrees and is considering what to do next.

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Following on from a trial in Australia, Facebook is rolling out anti-revenge porn measures to the UK. In order that it can protect British users from failing victim to revenge porn, the social network is asking them to send in naked photos of themselves.

The basic premise of the idea is: send us nudes, and we'll stop others from seeing them.

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If you've ever been curious about just what data Apple has gathered and stored about you over the years, now you can find out -- if you're in Europe, at least.

The iPhone-maker has just launched a new Data and Privacy portal in order to comply with GDPR which comes into force across the EU from Friday. The website lets you download pretty much every piece of data that Apple has collected about you.

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A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shows that Amazon has started selling facial recognition software to at least two US law enforcement agencies.

A report published by the ACLU shows that the online retailer has been advertising its facial recognition system -- known as Amazon Rekognition, and described as "deep learning-based image and video analysis" -- to numerous states. Testimonials from the Orlando, Florida Police Department and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon suggest that the system is already in use.

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Yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in front of members of the European Parliament to answer questions and to address concerns that the EU has about the social network in general, and its use of private data in particular -- thanks largely to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

At least that was the idea. What actually happened was nothing short of a farce, with Zuckerberg smugly sitting back and choosing which questions to answer, neatly avoiding any he was uncomfortable with. It was little more than a PR-cum-damage-limitation exercise for the Facebook founder... and it didn't really go very well.

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Trend Micro has a new privacy-focused mobile browser for iOS users called Zero Browser. It has been designed specifically to block a range of tracking techniques, including the invasive activity-recording "session replay" method.

The company says that the browser was created to overcome the shortcomings of existing "incognito" browsing modes and brings an extra level of privacy to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.

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The clock is ticking for the arrival of GDPR (or General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe. As of May 25 -- this Friday -- new regulations will give people greater access to the data companies store about them and the right to have it deleted.

Microsoft is among the global technology firms that will have to comply with the laws in Europe and -- pointing out how it appreciates "the strong leadership by the European Union on these important issues" -- the company says that it will also roll out some of the benefits of the privacy legislation on a global basis. It will be known as Data Subject Rights.

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Security researchers have discovered a bug in the Comcast website that makes it possible to gather information about Xfinity users. As well as customer data such as home addresses, it is also possible to access wireless network details including passwords.

The bug was reported by Karan Saini and Ryan Stevenson after they found it was possible to use the Xfinity activation website to access customer data using nothing more than a customer account ID and that customer's house or apartment number.

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It's only a couple of week until Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, and it's looking as though we could be getting a new voice for Siri -- and possibly a new HomePod.

This is not just idle speculation or the usual industry rumor mill working overtime -- this time around it is Siri itself providing the clues. Ask Siri what to expect from WWDC next month, and the digital assistant starts to drop hints.

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As news of yet another chip vulnerability creeps out, computer users, businesses and organizations around the world are trying to assess how the latest bug affects them. To help its users and others to understand what the Speculative Store Bypass/Variant 4 vulnerability means, Red Hat has issued advisories and an explanatory video.

The company also reveals exactly which of its Linux builds are affected by the security flaw and what steps can be taken as mitigation. In addition to this, Red Hat has put together a number of resources that help to "provide more context around this vulnerability from an open source technology perspective".

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Just when you thought you could forget about the Spectre and Meltdown chip vulnerabilities, yet another variant has been discovered. Known as Speculative Store Bypass, the vulnerability affects chips from AMD and Intel, as well as Power 8, Power 9 and System z processors.

The vulnerability has been assigned CVE-2018-3639, and successful exploitation would mean that an attacker could gain access to data. The attack can be carried out through a "language-based runtime environment" such as JavaScript. Some patches exist while others are in development, and they include the same performance hit associated with patches for the previous vulnerabilities.

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At its SharePoint Virtual Summit, Microsoft today unveiled SharePoint spaces, a way to bring SharePoint into virtual reality and mixed reality environments.

Microsoft says that SharePoint spaces adds a third dimension to company intranets, and allows people to engage and interact with documents, data, and video in new and more immersive ways. The company envisions the technology being used by businesses to create interactive welcome environments for new employees, interactive product databases, training experiences, and much more.

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Having previously refused to answer questions in the UK, last week Mark Zuckerberg agreed to appear in front of the EU parliament to speak about Facebook's use of data.

The Facebook chief is due to appear in front of MEPs tomorrow, Tuesday, and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani has announced that the appearance will be livestreamed. So, if you fancy tuning in to see what Zuckerberg has to say and how he is able to "clarify issues related to the use of personal data", you will be able to do just that.

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Apple has bowed to pressure from China and started to remove apps from the App Store that use the CallKit framework.

There are strict cybersecurity laws in place in China which has already see VPN tools banned and led to a brief suspension of the popular WeChat app. While no specific reason has been given for the crackdown on the CallKit framework, it is suspected to be related to VoIP functionality.

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