When Coding is Criminal

When Coding Is Criminal

Opinion: Programmers whose code is used to commit a crime face new and perilous legal threats.

A federal district court in Illinois recently dismissed the US government’s case against Jitesh Thakkar, a computer programmer who was accused of writing code that someone else used to commit a crime. But programmers at large are hardly off the legal hook. Expect more cases against them in the not-too-distant future.

Thakkar was one of seven individuals whom the U.S. Justice Department last January charged with the crime of “spoofing”—that is, in this instance, using an algorithm to trick a market. Thakkar was accused of creating an algorithm that enabled a London trader to artificially overstate demand for stock market futures. Aided by another developer’s software, this tactic sparked the 2010 “flash crash” that saw the US stock market lose $1 trillion in value in just 36 minutes.

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Here’s our first look at Google Chrome’s new design for Windows 11

Google has finally started testing a new design for Chrome on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and more details on the visual overhaul are now available.

Google is apparently using Microsoft Edge-like Windows 11 menu to bring the browser in line with the new operating system. The first glimpse of what Google Chrome may look like on Windows 11 is provided in the latest build of Canary, but you’ll need to turn a new experimental flag to see the improvements.

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