Seven open source foundations are coming together to create common specifications and standards for Europe’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), regulation adopted by the European Parliament last month.
And this is what the seven open source foundations are coming together for now.
By coming together as one, this should go some way toward treating open source software development as a single “thing” bound by the same standards and processes.
Throw into the mix other proposed regulation, including the Securing Open Source Software Act in the U.S., and it’s clear that the various foundations and “open source stewards” will come under greater scrutiny for their role in the software supply chain.
“The open source community and the broader software industry now share a common challenge: legislation has introduced an urgent need for cybersecurity process standards.
A bill threatening to ban an app beloved by half of the American population just rocketed through the House of Representatives in a week’s time.
TikTok the company and TikTok the chaotic community of creators and their followers are rightfully freaking out right now.
TikTok successfully fought back against a state-level ban on the app in Montana last year, arguing that the law was unconstitutional.
Missouri Republican Josh Hawley, who frequently sows concern about China, registered his support for a Senate version of the TikTok bill following the vote.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, another Senate Republican hawkish on China, also expressed her support for pushing a version of the House TikTok bill through.
Hundreds in the artificial intelligence community have signed an open letter calling for strict regulation of AI-generated impersonations, or deepfakes.
While this is unlikely to spur real legislation (despite the House’s new task force), it does act as a bellwether for how experts lean on this controversial issue.
Criminal penalties are called for in any case where someone creates or spreads harmful deepfakes.
As you can see, there is no shortage of reasons for those in the AI community to be out here waving their arms around and saying “maybe we should, you know, do something?
!”Whether anyone will take notice of this letter is anyone’s guess — no one really paid attention to the infamous one calling for everyone to “pause” AI development, but of course this letter is a bit more practical.
Google today issued an open letter voicing support of pending Oregon right to repair legislation.
The right to repair movement has been gaining tremendous traction over the past several years.
In October, California became the third state to pass a right to repair bill — following New York and Minnesota.
The paper cited iFixit reports, noting that some seven different parts can trigger Apple’s warning system during repair.
Companies like Google and Samsung, meanwhile, have partnered directly with third-party solutions such as iFixit, including its own home repair option for Pixel devices.
More recently, the potential use of weaponized robots by law enforcement has been a political lightning rod in places like Oakland and San Francisco.
Earlier this week, I spoke about the bill with Massachusetts state representative Lindsay Sabadosa, who filed it alongside Massachusetts state senator Michael Moore.
Does the bill apply to law enforcement as well?
And what we’ve heard from law enforcement repeatedly is that they’re often used to deescalate situations.
We haven’t had law enforcement weaponize robots, and no one has said, “We’d like to attach a gun to a robot” from law enforcement in Massachusetts.
