Netflix’s password crackdown is already confusing, California’s Right to Repair bill fails to pass, and Australia’s digital driver’s license is hackable.
 |
 |
 |
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, June 1, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown is already running into issues in the three Latin American countries where it’s taken effect in. The company began testing a stricter enforcement policy in March to stop users from sharing passwords with people outside their “household” in Costa Rica, Chile, and Peru. According to a Rest of World report, Netflix subscribers in Peru said the messaging around the policy change was confusing, and that they weren’t subjected to any surcharges for sharing passwords. Under Netflix’s new policy, subscribers are supposed to be charged $2.99 for every person outside their household sharing their account. According to Business Insider, Rest of World reported that an anonymous Netflix customer-service representative said she and other customer-service reps were confused about what to tell account holders when asked about the new policy.
Source: Rest of World, Business Insider
The California Senate Appropriations committee failed to pass the Right to Repair bill, which could have expanded Californians’ access to the parts, tools, and service information needed to fix consumer electronics. This was the furthest any Right to Repair bill for consumer electronics has come to becoming an actual law. The policy had support with 75 per cent of Californians and majorities of both parties supporting the Right to Repair bill. The bill, which passed through the judiciary committee with only a single opposing vote, experienced a similar outcome to the popular medical Right to Repair bill that was introduced in 2021.
Source: Calprig
An Australian digital driver’s license implementation, or DDL, that officials claimed is more secure than a physical license has been shown to be easily defaced. New South Wales, Australia launched its DDL program in 2019, and since last year, officials said that more than half of the state’s eight million people use the DDL’s companion app to access government services. However, according to a report from The Register, a security researcher has claimed he was able to brute force his way into the app with nothing but a Python script and a consumer laptop. Once he got in, he found many security flaws that made it easy to alter the DDL stored in the app. The researcher also found five other design flaws discovered within the app.
Source: The Register
On Monday, French officials continued their long battle to preserve the French language, overhauling the rules for using English video game jargon. Some expressions have simple translations such as the phrase “pro-gamer” becoming “joueur professionnel”. But others seem more strained, as the word “streamer” changes to “joueur-animateur en direct”, The Guardian reported. The culture ministry, which is involved in the process, said the video game sector was filled with anglicisms that could act as “a barrier to understanding” for non-gamers. The ministry said experts had searched video game websites and magazines to see if any French terms already existed. The overall idea, said the ministry, was to allow the population to communicate more easily with one another.
Source: The Guardian
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.