the-government

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Gamers in Japan, home of Nintendo's Pokemon, are still impatiently awaiting the launch of the smash-hit Pokemon GO game but the government is already preparing for an invasion of little cartoon monsters, issuing a safety warning. The country's National Center for Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) issued nine instructions to users of the mobile game, ranging from advising them not to use their real names to warning gamers over fake apps. It is rare for NISC to issue an advisory over specific games, but Japan is just the latest government to do so over Pokemon GO, a game where users chase cuddly cartoon monsters in their real-life neighborhoods.

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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg prepares to meet conservative leaders on Wednesday to discuss allegations about political bias at the social media website, one thing he may not have to worry about is federal regulation. Although the U.S. Senate committee is investigating whether there is liberal bias in how Facebook employees select news stories for its “trending topics,” there is little chance the government will try to regulate their practices, said Republican Senator John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I don't have any reason to believe that would be necessary,” Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

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Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook plans to visit Beijing later this month to meet high-level government officials, at a time when it is facing some setbacks in its most important overseas market, a source familiar with the matter said. Cook has frequently traveled to China since taking the helm of Apple five years ago, but his latest visit comes during a critical period. Last week, billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said in an interview with cable television network CNBC that he had sold his entire stake in Apple, citing China's economic slowdown and worries about whether the government could make it very difficult for Apple to conduct business.

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U.S. prosecutors said Monday that a “third party” had presented a possible method for opening an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, a development that could bring an abrupt end to the high-stakes legal showdown between the government and Apple Inc. A federal judge in Riverside, California, late Monday agreed to the government's request to postpone a hearing scheduled for Tuesday so that prosecutors could try the newly discovered technique. The Justice Department said it would update the court on April 5. The government had insisted until Monday that it had no way to access the phone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the December massacre in San Bernardino, California, except to force Apple to write new software that would disable the password protection.

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The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday said Apple Inc's rhetoric was “false” in a high-profile fight over the government's bid to unlock an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a court order requiring Apple to write new software and take other measures to disable passcode protection and allow access to shooter Rizwan Farook's iPhone. Apple has not complied.

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(Reuters) – The U.S. government warned iPhone and iPad users on Thursday to be on the alert for hackers who may exploit a vulnerability in Apple Inc's iOS operating system that would enable them to steal sensitive data. There was the potential for hacks using a newly identified technique known as the “Masque Attack,” the government said in an online bulletin from the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Teams. …