After four months of relative quiet from the special counsel's office, Robert Mueller Friday indicted a dozen Russians[1] for their role in hacking the DNC, DCCC, and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. It's unlikely they'll ever actually get arrested, but it's safe to say we know a lot more about Russian intelligence than we did last week.
And speaking of Russian intelligence, this week it also became apparent that Facebook gave Russian internet giant Mail.ru[2] a two-week extension on curtailing its invasive data practices back in 2015. Facebook says it hasn't found any misuse by Mail.ru, but, you know. Not ideal.
There was impactful news stateside as well; 3-D gun pioneer Cody Wilson won a long-gestating lawsuit[3] against the US, meaning he's now allowed to distribute his designs freely. Human Rights Watch dug into how the US has distributed so-called spy phones[4] to suspects that are either preloaded with surveillance malware, or that have encryption keys that law enforcement hangs onto.
Apple, meanwhile, messed up its China-friendly censorship[5] of the Taiwanese flag emoji, crashing at least one iPhone owner's phone every time she tapped it or received it in a message. And while we're talking Apple, here are all the ways iOS 12 will make you and your iPhone safer[6]. You're going to need them, if the second half of 2018 has cybersecurity failures half as bad as the year has seen so far[7]. Let's hope none of them will be traced back to China likely having a heads up about Meltdown and Spectre before the US government did.
There's more! As always, we’ve rounded up all the news we didn’t break or cover in depth this