Kalakshar US

Microsoft and the UK’s antitrust regulator have conditionally been granted a two-month pause on their legal battle as the company looks to resolve the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) concerns over its proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Judge Marcus Smith of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which hears appeals on the CMA’s decisions, wants proof from the watchdog that this is the right course of action, but still paused the legal battle for now.

Smith wants the CMA to justify its adjournment application by providing evidence that shows a material change in circumstances or “special reasons” for delaying the litigation. He also wants the regulator to detail any new consultation process it plans to undertake “so that everybody is clear as to how it will work,” according to Reuters. The judge asked the CMA to submit evidence on Thursday.

Microsoft appealed the CMA’s decision in April to block the merger over cloud gaming concerns. The CAT was due to hear that case starting on July 28th. However, shortly after the Federal Trade Commission lost an attempt to stall the acquisition in the US last week, the CMA said it would consider a modified merger agreement from Microsoft. The CMA, Microsoft and Activision all asked the CAT for more time and the tribunal has granted the request.

CMA lawyer David Bailey told the CAT that the FTC’s court loss “formed no part of the CMA’s thinking” in terms of its willingness to review a new proposal from Microsoft. “Based upon the discussion to date, both sides — Microsoft and the CMA — have confidence that Microsoft notifying a restructured transaction is capable of addressing the concerns that the CMA has identified,” he said.

It emerged during Monday’s hearing that Microsoft has yet to submit an amended proposal to the CMA, even though the deadline for the merger is tomorrow, July 18th. It seems unlikely that everything will be resolved by then. If not, Microsoft and Activision will either have to agree to an extension of their current agreement (the most likely outcome given how eager they are to get the deal over the line) or renegotiate terms. Otherwise, Activision can walk away from the deal with a fat $3 billion breakup check from Microsoft in its pocket.

Reports have suggested Microsoft may sell some cloud gaming rights in the UK to satisfy the CMA’s concerns. Microsoft has signed deals with third-party cloud gaming companies to offer its games on their platforms, which was enough for the European Union to approve the merger.

Meanwhile, the FTC is still slated to hold its own evidentiary hearing over the acquisition starting on August 2nd. The agency sued to block the merger and it sought a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from closing the deal until it could bring the case to trial, but it was unsuccessful.

As such, Microsoft and Activision will surely be eager to seal things up by the beginning of August. There were suggestions that they’d try to close the merger by the initial deadline despite the CMA dispute and find a workaround to keep doing business in the UK, but with all parties willing to find an amicable resolution, that seems unlikely at this point. The CMA has given itself an extra six weeks, until August 29th, to make a final decision on the case.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-and-a-uk-regulator-have-been-granted-more-time-to-resolve-activision-merger-issues-191354797.html?src=rss 

A typo has reportedly routed millions of US military emails — some containing highly sensitive information — to Mali. The problem stems from entering .ML instead of .MIL for the receiving email address domain. As reported by the Financial Times, the one-letter mistake has exposed data like “diplomatic documents, tax returns, passwords and the travel details of top officers” — and much more. Although the misdirected emails have (so far) landed with a contractor tasked with managing Mali’s country domain, control of .ML will soon revert to Mali’s government, which has ties to Russia.

The “typo leak” was exposed by Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch contractor managing Mali’s country domain. Zuurbier says he made numerous attempts to warn the United States about the issue — beginning in 2014 — urging it to take it seriously; he says he hasn’t had any luck. He claims he started collecting the email this year as his contract’s expiration date (and handover of the domain, including the misfired emails, to the Malian government) approaches, as a last-ditch attempt to persuade the US to act with urgency. In a letter to the US in early July, Zuurbier wrote, “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US.” He says he has collected around 117,00 emails, and nearly 1,000 more arrived last Wednesday alone.

Although Zuurbier says none of the messages were marked as classified, they still contain sensitive data about US military personnel, contractors and families. Reported contents include the travel plans for a May trip by US Army Chief of Staff, General James McConville, for a May trip to Indonesia. Other exposed information includes maps of installations, photos of bases, identity documents (including passport numbers), crew lists of ships, tax and financial records, medical data, ships’ crew lists, naval inspection reports, contracts, criminal complaints against personnel, internal bullying investigations and bookings. One email from an FBI agent included a Turkish diplomatic letter to the US, warning about possible operations by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“If you have this kind of sustained access, you can generate intelligence even just from unclassified information,” former NSA head and retired four-star US Navy Admiral Mike Rogers told FT. Rogers says this isn’t uncommon, noting that people making mistakes isn’t out of the norm. However, he adds, “The question is the scale, the duration and the sensitivity of the information.”

Lt. Cmdr Tim Gorman, speaking for the Pentagon, told FT that the Department of Defense “is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorised disclosures of controlled national security information or controlled unclassified information seriously.” He said emails sent from .MIL to .ML address “are blocked before they leave the .mil domain and the sender is notified that they must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients,” which suggests the misdirected emails may have come from US military workers’ personal accounts.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/an-email-typo-has-reportedly-sent-millions-of-us-military-messages-to-mali-193515052.html?src=rss