Tech companies took to social media to show support for and offer jobs to Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texan who was arrested at his high school after bringing in what his teacher thought was a bomb but actually was an electronic clock he made as part of an engineering project. Twitter tweeted support for Ahmed and offered him an internship. Mark Zuckerberg said he would love to meet Ahmed and give him a tour of Facebook. Foursquare tweeted support for Ahmed, as did several other tech companies including Google, which invited him to its online global science competition this weekend. President Barack Obama tweeted “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House?” The president’s top science adviser, John Holdren, personally invited the teen to the White House Astronomy Night Oct. 19, U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil wrote in a White House email.

Security threats to mobile networks originating from PCs and adware increased significantly in the first half of 2015, Alcatel-Lucent said in a report. A significant number of “spyphone” apps also are being detected on Android and iOS mobile devices, it said Wednesday. About 80 percent of malware infections on mobile networks during the first half of 2015 originated from Windows-based computers, up from the approximately 50-50 split between Android and Windows devices that was present in 2013 and 2014, Alcatel-Lucent said. “The modern smartphone also presents the perfect platform for corporate and personal espionage, information theft, denial of service attacks on businesses and governments, and banking and advertising scams,” said Alcatel-Lucent General Manager-Network Intelligence Patrick Tan in a news release.

Marketers of a software app for mobile devices and PCs that claimed the Ultimeyes video game app would improve a user’s vision agreed to stop making deceptive claims about the app, in a settlement with the FTC, the agency said in a news release Thursday. Carrot Neurotechnology and co-owners “also agreed to disgorge $150,000,” the release said. Health-related apps can be beneficial, “but the FTC will not hesitate to act when health-related claims are not based on sound science,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. Ads for the app, which cost between $5.99 and $9.99, said using the app would “Turn Back The Clock On Your Vision,” would improve vision for uses like sports, reading and driving, and would reduce a need for glasses and contact lenses, the release said. Ads claimed scientific research proved the success of the app, but failed to mention that the app's creator was among those who did the studies, it said. “If you’re looking for health-related apps -- or other products or services -- keep in mind that some companies may overstate claims in their advertising,” FTC Consumer Education Specialist Aditi Jhaveri wrote in a blog post on the settlement Thursday. The commission vote to issue the administrative complaint and accept the proposed consent order was unanimous, the release said. Comments are due Oct. 19, then the commission will decide whether to make the consent order final.

The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said it closed its investigation into Expedia's proposed buy of rival online travel company Orbitz, effectively giving regulatory approval to the deal. Expedia announced the $1.3 billion merger in February, prompting opposition from the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) and Consumer Watchdog over concerns the deal would result in an effective duopoly with Priceline. Several members of Congress also urged heightened scrutiny of the deal (see 1508100060). Justice “concluded that Expedia's acquisition of Orbitz is not likely to substantially lessen competition or harm US consumers," said Assistant Attorney General-Antitrust Division Bill Baer in a statement Wednesday. Justice “uncovered no evidence in our investigation that the merger is likely to result in new charges being imposed directly on consumers for using Expedia or Orbitz.” The department also “found that Orbitz is only a small source of bookings for most of these companies and thus has had no impact in recent years on the commissions Expedia charges,” Baer said. “In addition, beyond Expedia and Orbitz, travel service providers have alternative ways to attract customers and obtain bookings, including Expedia’s largest online travel agent rival, Priceline.” The investigation's evidence also “suggests that the online travel business is rapidly evolving,” including the introduction of TripAdvisor's Instant Booking service and Google's Hotel and Flight Finder, Baer said. AH&LA said it believes Justice's decision in Expedia/Orbitz “will hurt consumers and small business owners, and remove choice from the marketplace.” The deal “will result in significant negative consequences for consumers and also the large number of our members who are small businesses and independent hotels. It could lead to increased distribution costs for independent hotel owners who risk seeing booking commissions rise by double digits,” AH&LA said. Consumer Watchdog is also " " by Justice's Expedia/Orbitz decision, said Director-Privacy Project John Simpson in an email. "I think that is a huge threat to consumers."

WordPress released security updates Tuesday to address cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and a potential privilege escalation in WordPress 4.3 and prior versions that may have allowed a remote attacker to take control of an affected website, said an alert from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

As the amount of personal information shared on social media increases, so does the chance a cybercriminal can use that information to commit fraud, identity theft or social engineering, said an e-bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday. “The less information you put online about yourself and your family, the more you can minimize the chances that you will be a victim of online crime.” To protect oneself online, DHS recommends individuals remember there isn’t a delete button and even if an individual uses the strictest privacy settings available, assume everyone can see every post; not to use location or geotagging features; connect only with those an individual knows in real life and trusts; and to keep certain information completely off social networks, such as birth date, full name and address.

Let’s Encrypt, a free, automated, open-source certificate authority sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, issued its first-ever certificate Monday, EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman wrote in a blog post. Let’s Encrypt makes HTTPS implementation a “seamless, no-cost option for anyone with a domain” and puts “security in the hands of website owners,” Reitman said. EFF has worked on Let’s Encrypt for several years, Reitman said. The issuance of the first certificate marks the beginning of rolling out the service to the broader public, she said. The certificate isn't cross-signed currently so “visiting the page over HTTPS will give you an ‘untrusted’ warning unless you install the ISRG root [certificate authority] in your trust store,” Reitman said. Once the certificate is cross-signed by IdenTrust’s root in about a month, the trusted connection should work on nearly all browsers, Reitman said.

Twitter users can now donate directly to a political candidate via the social networking site, Twitter’s head of political advertising sales, Jenna Golden, said in a blog post Tuesday. Twitter partnered with Square and requires candidates to sign up for an account through Square Cash, Golden said. Once a campaign is verified, a candidate can tweet a unique URL or $Cashtag to request donations from supporters, Golden said. “The Tweet will automatically include an image with a ‘contribute’ button, making it easy for anyone to click to donate directly through the Tweet,” she said. Twitter also has developed other tools like country-specific notifications that remind users to register to vote, tweets that make email collection for campaigns easier, and real-time audience tailoring so advertisers can identify and target relevant conversations, she said.

Kevin Grooms, 23, pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend, said a news release from the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. Grooms used his cellphone to send 158 threatening messages, which included photographs, to his ex-girlfriend on Instagram and via text in an eight-hour time span, the release said. He was under a domestic violence protection order when he sent the threats. Grooms faces a sentence of up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, it said.

Six Chicago residents have filed a complaint against the city's amusement tax, which was recently interpreted to include Internet-based streaming services for audio, video and gaming including Netflix, Spotify and XBox Live, the filing said. Chicago’s comptroller ruled in June that the charges paid for accessing these streaming services would attract a 9 percent amusement tax starting Sept. 1. The complaint, filed Sept. 9, alleges the comptroller acted beyond his authority in applying the amusement tax to activities it wasn’t originally intended for. According to the complaint, new taxes can’t be imposed without a city council vote, so the tax on streaming platforms is legally invalid.