New Jersey’s Acting Attorney General has launched a probe into Twitch and Discord to see if the platforms broke laws on hateful and extremist content following a recent mass shooting in Buffalo. In an announcement published Monday, New Jersey's Acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin wrote that the purpose of the investigation was to find out if policy or moderation failures allowed the platforms to become vectors for spreading extremist content, especially among young people. The investigation follows a similar one launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James last week.

The 18-year-old who has been charged with shooting 13 people at a Tops supermarket, killing 10—used Discord to spread his white supremacist ideology, and broadcast the attack live on Twitch. Across a swath of posts online, he credited racist memes and discussions on 4chan with inspiring him to specifically target Black people for deadly violence. Eleven of the Buffalo shooting victims were Black. The events of May 14 have been called a "hate crime" and "an act of racially motivated violent extremism," by Attorney General Merrick Garland, and are being investigated by the Department of Justice. The suspect, who Engadget is choosing not to name so as not to further add to the infamy he appeared to seek, has plead not guilty to first-degree murder.

“These social media platforms have enormous reach, especially with young people, and have shown themselves to be staging grounds for hateful and extremist content that may radicalize children and others,” said Acting AG Platkin. “New Jersey has a substantial interest in investigating how these companies moderate and prohibit content that may harm consumers. Under New Jersey law companies must deliver on their promises, and the persistence of violent extremism and hateful conduct on these platforms casts doubt on their purported content moderation and enforcement policies and practices.”

In a blog post, Discord revealed that the alleged shooter kept a diary of his plans on a private server on the platform. Roughly half an hour before the attack, he shared an invitation to the server "within a small number of other private servers and direct messages." In total, 15 users clicked on his invite, according to the company. The suspect also live-streamed the attack on Twitch with the assistance of a Go-Pro camera attached to a helmet. Twitch removed the original livestream two minutes after it was posted, and approximately 22 viewers were watching at the time of broadcasting. Copies of the footage, however, have continued to proliferate on a variety of social media platforms.

A Discord spokesperson told that the company plans to cooperate with the New Jersey attorney general’s investigation. Engadget has also reached out to Twitch for comment, which did not provide a response by the time of publication.

It’s unclear whether New York and New Jersey will coordinate their investigations. (Engadget reached out to the New Jersey attorney general’s office, and will update if we receive a response.) While New York under state executive laws that allow for investigations into "matters concerning public peace, public safety, and public justice," New Jersey is instead leveraging the state's Consumer Fraud Act. “Companies cannot advertise that they will do one thing, then do another," Cari Fais, New Jersey's Acting Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, said. "If these platforms represent that they will proactively moderate or prohibit violent extremism and hate, and then let it flourish unchecked with potentially harmful or even deadly consequences, it is unlawful.” 

The Justice Department doesn't want security researchers facing federal charges when they expose security flaws. The department has revised its policy to indicate that researchers, ethical hackers and other well-intentioned people won't be charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if they're investigating, testing or fixing vulnerabilities in "good faith." You're safe as long as you aren't hurting others and use the knowledge to bolster the security of a product, the DOJ said.

The government made clear that bad actors couldn't use research as a "free pass." They'll still face trouble if they use newly-discovered security holes for extortion or other malicious purposes, regardless of what they claim.

This revised policy is limited to federal prosecutors, and won't spare researchers from state-level charges. It does provide "clarity" that was missing in the earlier 2014 guidelines, though, and might help courts that weren't sure of how to handle ethical hacking cases.

It's also a not-so-subtle message to officials who might abuse the threat of criminal charges to silence critics. In October 2021, for instance, Missouri Governor Mike Parson threatened a reporter with prosecution for pointing out a website flaw that required no hacking whatsoever. The DOJ's new policy might not completely deter threats like Parson's, but it could make their words relatively harmless.

Earlier this week, David Harville, one of seven former eBay employees involved in a 2020 campaign to harass the creators of a newsletter critical of the e-commerce company, pleaded guilty to five federal felony charges, ending one of the most bizarre episodes in recent tech history.

In June 2020, the US Department of Justice charged six former eBay employees, including Harville, with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Of the group, Harville was the final employee to admit involvement in the harassment campaign that targeted Ina and David Steiner, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.

In 2019, the Massachusetts couple published an article in their EcommerceBytes newsletter about litigation involving eBay. Responding to what they considered negative coverage of the company, the group carried out a harassment campaign that involved, among other actions, sending the couple a preserved fetal pig, live spiders and a funeral wreath. They also created fake social media accounts to send threatening messages to the Steiners and share their home address online.

According to the Department of Justice’s original 2020 filing, part of Harville’s involvement in the campaign included a plot to install a GPS tracking device on the Steiner’s car. Harville, alongside James Baugh, one of the other former employees charged in the scheme, carried with them fake documents allegedly designed to show the two were investigating the Steiners for threatening eBay executives.

Last July, a federal judge sentenced Philip Cooke, the first of the seven former employees convicted in the scheme, to 18 months in prison. At the time, US District Judge Allison Burroughs called the entire case “just nuts.” That same summer, the Steiners sued several eBay employees, including former CEO Devin Wenig, for carrying out a conspiracy to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them.” Wenig has denied having any knowledge of the campaign.

A court in London has formally issued the order to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US. That puts his fate in the hands of UK home secretary Priti Patel, who'll be the one deciding whether Assange will be sent back to the US where he's set to face espionage charges. WikiLeaks made waves in 2010 after publishing thousands of classified documents and diplomatic cables sent to the US State Department. Assange is wanted in the US for 18 criminal charges due to those leaks, and he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted.

Assange sought refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy of London in 2012 and stayed there for years until his asylum was withdrawn in 2019. WikiLeaks claimed back then that the embassy spied on its founder and took photos, videos and audio recordings of him. He was arrested from the embassy, and the US government has been trying to get him extradited since then. 

In January 2021, a British court ruled that he shouldn't be extradited to the United States to stand trial, because "the risk to his mental and physical wellbeing was too great." However, the US government appealed and argued that he had no history of "serious and enduring mental illness." A UK appeals court reversed the previous ruling in December 2021, opening the doors for his extradition. 

Assange joined the most recent trial via video call from the Belmarsh Prison in London. The extradition order was issued by Paul Goldspring, the chief magistrate, who said during the trial: "I am duty bound to send your case to the secretary of state for a decision." According to The Guardian, Assange's side will have the chance to sway Patel's decision by sending the home secretary "serious submissions" and could also challenge issues he lost in court but haven't appealed yet. And it is possible to convince a home secretary to block extraditions — former UK home secretary Theresa May blocked Scottish hacker Gary McKinnon's extradition on human rights grounds. British activist Lauri Love also successfully convinced the UK High Court to side with him when he appealed his extradition orders. 

After arresting seven alleged members of the hacking group Lapsus$ last week, London police have charged two of them with multiple computer crimes. the teenagers aged 16 and 17 remain in police custody in connection with the investigation. 

"Both teenagers have been charged with: three counts of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of data; one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data," the City of London Police said in a news release. "The 16-year-old has also been charged with one count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program. They will both appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court this morning (April 1st)."

Lapsus$ claimed to have downloaded 37GB of Microsoft source code for key products like Bing and Cortana, along with mobile apps. They also reportedly compromised the security system of MFA company Okta, forcing the company to admit that it made a mistake in the way it handled the attack. 

One of the teens arrested was reportedly a 16-year-old Oxford resident known as "Breachbase" or "White," who has supposedly made the equivalent of $14 million in Bitcoin. London police have not released any names, however, nothing that the people charged are juveniles and that reporting any identifying information about them is prohibited. 

Citizen will reportedly test an on-demand private security service in Chicago as part of a partnership with Securitas. The crime alert app and security company may offer a check-in service (in which agents could follow up with the victim of a crime to make sure they're OK) and scheduled private security, according to Motherboard.

The app previously tested a rapid-response security service (not unlike a private police force) in Los Angeles with Citizen-branded cars. Security agents responded to calls from Citizen employees. Motherboard's sources suggested the response time was fairly slow, which may have led to the company taking a different approach in Chicago.

Citizen provides push alerts to users based on incident reports it puts together from police scanners. It also runs a $20 per month subscription service that connects users with agents who can direct emergency services to their location and notify contacts if it's not safe for them to call 911 directly.

The move suggests Citizen is still interested in offering private security despite its questionable history and stating it wouldn't run its own on-demand force (though it didn't rule out partnerships). Apple and Google removed a previous version of the app, which was called Vigilante, from their stores for encouraging vigilantism. 

Last year, it was reported that Citizen's CEO offered users a $30,000 bounty for tracking down an alleged arson suspect, but the app identified the wrong person as the culprit. Police apprehended the man but quickly released him for a lack of evidence. They later arrested another suspect in connection with the wildfires.

French authorities have charged seven individuals allegedly involved in last month’s Lupin robbery, according to the BBC. On February 25th, some 20 masked thieves broke onto the set of the popular Netflix production while it was filming in a Parisian suburb and stole approximately $330,000 worth of equipment. The perpetrators set off mortar-style fireworks to carry out the heist, but thankfully none of the cast and crew on set at the time, including star Omar Sy, were injured.

Police charged the seven individuals with armed robbery as part of an organized gang. French authorities are holding three of the accused in custody and the other four under judicial supervision. The youngest of the group is 13 years old. Police said they recovered some of the equipment stolen during the heist and are still searching for everyone involved in the incident. Lupin isn’t the only Netflix project to fall victim to a robbery this year. Just one day before, thieves made off with more than $200,000 worth of antique props after breaking into vehicles used for the production of The Crown.

Authorities in Belarus have arrested and detained Mark Bernstein, one of the top editors of Russian Wikipedia, according to local publication Zerkalo. Bernstein was reportedly accused of violating the "fake news" law Russia passed in early March by editing the Wikipedia article about the invasion of Ukraine. Under the new law, anybody found guilty of what the country deems as false information about the Ukraine invasion — remember, the Kremlin calls it a "special military operation" — could be imprisoned for up to 15 years.

It was the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of Belarus (GUBOPiK) that had arrested Bernstein, The Verge reports. The publication says his social media accounts, Wikipedia handle and workplace were shared on GUBOPiK's public Telegram channel before he was taken in. A video of his arrest was also posted on the channel, along with a photo that accuses him of "distributing fake anti-Russian information." Belarus played a key role in the invasion of Ukraine by hosting Russian troops, which deployed from the country when the attacks began. 

As The Verge notes, it's unclear what exactly Bernstein is being charged with and which of his edits broke Russia's fake news law. Bernstein has over 200,000 Wikipedia edits under what's believed to be his account, which has now been blocked indefinitely. 

Russia has been scrambling to suppress sources of information that goes against its official narrative regarding the war in Ukraine, and its new law had forced local independent media outlets to shut down. Dmitri A. Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, told The New York Times that "[e]verything that's not propaganda is being eliminated."

SEC officials do not know the whereabouts of Satish Kumbhani, the founder of crypto trading platform BitConnect, who was charged last week with defrauding investors of $2.4 billion in a Ponzi scheme. This puts the SEC in quite a bind, since they have to serve the 36-year old entrepreneur with his court papers. In a court filing from Monday, the SEC stated that they did not have an address for Kumbhani, an Indian citizen, and suspected that he likely fled to another country. 

The DOJ is charging Kumbhani with a number of offenses, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity price manipulation and conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

“Kumbhani’s location remains unknown, and the Commission remains unable to state when its efforts to locate him will be successful, if at all," wrote the SEC in its filing.

In order to buy some time, the SEC is asking the US District Court for the Southern District of New York for an extension of 90 days. Since BitConnect is an unincorporated entity and not a formal corporation, all court papers have to be served to Kumbhani himself.

First founded in 2016, BitConnect attracted a lot of attention on social media for its “Lending Program” which allowed users to lend their Bitcoin in exchange for a propriety Bitconnect cryptocoin. The program claimed it could guarantee returns by using investors’ money to trade on the volatility of the cryptocurrency markets." 

“Under this program, Kumbhani and his co-conspirators touted BitConnect’s purported proprietary technology, known as the 'BitConnect Trading Bot' and 'Volatility Software', as being able to generate substantial profits and guaranteed returns by using investors’ money to trade on the volatility of cryptocurrency exchange markets. As alleged in the indictment, however, BitConnect operated as a Ponzi scheme by paying earlier BitConnect investors with money from later investors,” wrote the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs in a press release.

After years of crypto existing in a legally murky universe, U.S. government officials are cracking down on cryptocurrency fraud and scams at an increasing rate. Last year, the DOJ launched a national cryptocurrency enforcement team to handle complex cryptocurrency investigations, and recently appointed veteran cybersecurity prosecutor Eun Young Choi as its director.

BitConnect is just one of many cryptocurrency schemes that law enforcement has pinned down in recent months. The founders of BitMex, a crypto derivatives exchange, plead guilty to skirting anti-laundering laws in the US and were ordered to pay $20 million in fines. Earlier this month, the DOJ arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, two entrepreneurs who allegedly attempted to launder more than 25,000 Bitcoins stolen from the 2016 Bitfinex hack.

Before he was apprehended by Amsterdam police, the suspect involved in Tuesday’s Apple Store hostage situation demanded a €200 million (approximately $226 million) ransom paid in cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Police say they have yet to establish a motive for the 27-year-old gunman, whose identity they didn’t share. What we know is that he was a resident of the city and had a criminal record before the event. He was also carrying explosives on his person at the time of his arrest. 

The gunman was apprehended after his hostage fled the building when a police robot delivered water to the front of the store. Police used a squad car to knock him down, causing him serious injuries. On Wednesday, he died of the injuries he sustained in his arrest. "The hostage played a heroic role by forcing a breakthrough," according to Amsterdam police chief Frank Pauw. "He acted in a split-second. Had he not done that, we could have been in for a long, nasty night."

According to Engadget’s research, Wednesday’s incident wasn’t the first time someone demanded a ransom paid in cryptocurrency to end a hostage situation. In 2017, kidnappers in Ukraine released an employee from a cryptocurrency exchange after their demand for a ransom paid in Bitcoin (valued at $1 million at the time) was met.