Slashdot

New submitter cj9er writes: Considering all the privacy issues in today's online climate (all the issues with Meta right now), what is the best high-end smartphone to select? Apple: No way they don't sell your data... Sure, they have privacy for third-party apps, but what about the data they collect from the phone itself? Consider what the revenue is on a single smartphone (say $150), how do you think they have all that cash on hand? Google: Yeah right, Pixel is probably collecting [data] 24/7 considering their main business is selling ads on Search. They have developed the Pixel line because they probably realized they were missing out on the direct collection of data from their own hardware (cut out the middle players using Android). Samsung: Their TVs even collect and sell data on you. I don't really understand the price premium on Galaxy phones anyways. I have kept my data and Wi-Fi turned off on my phones for years. Initially it was for battery reasons but now add in data collection. Ultimately, if we could turn off the GPS feature at will on our phones, maybe we could prevent all tracking (except for cellular triangulation). If we then think about safety, GPS is great and now with satellite-tracking on Apple phones, even better. But then what is going on behind the scenes 99.99% of the rest of the time when you don't require those options for safety reasons? What phone manufacturer can be trusted?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: When researchers discovered a vulnerability in the ubiquitous open-source log4j system last year that could've affected hundreds of millions of devices, the executive branch snapped into action and major tech companies huddled with the White House. Now, leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are introducing legislation to help secure open-source software, first reported by The Cybersecurity 202. Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and top ranking Republican Rob Portman (Ohio) plan to hold a vote next week on the bill they're co-sponsoring. The Peters/Portman legislation would direct the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to develop a way to evaluate and reduce risk in systems that rely on open-source software. Later, CISA would study how that framework could apply to critical infrastructure. The log4j "incident presented a serious threat to federal systems and critical infrastructure companies -- including banks, hospitals, and utilities -- that Americans rely on each and every day for essential services," Peters said in a written statement. "This common-sense, bipartisan legislation will help secure open source software and further fortify our cybersecurity defenses against cybercriminals and foreign adversaries who launch incessant attacks on networks across the nation." Here's how the Peters-Portman legislation works, as outlined in the report: - It directs CISA to hire open-source experts "to the greatest extent practicable."- It gives the agency a year to publish a framework on open-source code risk. A year later and periodically thereafter, CISA would perform an assessment of open-source code components that federal agencies commonly use.- Also, two years after publishing the initial framework, CISA would have to study whether it could be used in critical infrastructure outside the government and potentially work with one or more critical infrastructure sectors to voluntarily test the idea.- Other agencies would have roles as well, such as the Office of Management and Budget publishing guidance to federal chief information officers on secure use of open-source software.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AmiMoJo shares a report from Neowin: Anti-malware solutions maker Malwarebytes has recently uncovered a campaign which is serving tech support scams via malicious ads in Microsoft Edge's 'My Feed' section. They provided an image that shows a screenshot of a malvertising campaign where a fake browser locker page is displayed to dupe potential victims. The adware is smart in the way it operates as Malwarebytes has found that the malicious ad banner redirects only potential targets to the tech support scam page. Meanwhile bots, VPNs and geo-locations are shown the actual ad page powered by the Taboola ad network. The firm notes that the differentiation is made with a help of a base64-encoded JavaScript string. In the span of just 24 hours, Malwarebytes managed to collect over 200 different hostnames. Somewhat unsurprisingly perhaps, one of the associated domains is linked to an individual who appears to be the director of a software company operating in Delhi, India. You can find more details about this malvertising campaign on Malwarebytes' blog post about the topic.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase is being sued by Veritaseum Capital LLC, which alleges that the crypto exchange has infringed on a patent awarded to Veritaseum founder Reggie Middleton. CoinDesk reports: According to Veritaseum, Coinbase has used the patent for some of its blockchain infrastructure, and the company is seeking at least $350 million in damages. Middleton and Veritaseum in 2019 settled a case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), paying nearly $9.5 million over charges surrounding the initial coin offering (ICO) for the company's VERI token/ "Veritaseum's website says it 'builds blockchain-based, peer-to-peer capital markets as software on a global scale,'" adds Reuters, which first reported the lawsuit. "Thursday's lawsuit accuses Coinbase features including its website, mobile app and Coinbase Cloud, Pay, and Wallet services of infringing a patent covering a secure method for processing digital-currency transactions." "Veritaseum Capital's attorney Carl Brundidge of Brundidge Stanger said Friday that Coinbase was 'uncooperative' when they tried to settle out of court."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In January this year, an undersea volcano in Tonga produced a massive eruption, the largest so far this century. The mixing of hot volcanic material and cool ocean water created an explosion that sent an atmospheric shockwave across the planet and triggered a tsunami that devastated local communities and reached as far as Japan. The only part of the crater's rim that extended above water was reduced in size and separated into two islands. A plume of material was blasted straight through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere, over 50 km above the Earth's surface. We've taken a good look at a number of past volcanic eruptions and studied how they influence the climate. But those eruptions (most notably that of Mount Pinatubo) all came from volcanoes on land. Hunga Tonga may be the largest eruption we've ever documented that took place under water, and the eruption plume contained unusual amounts of water vapor -- so much of it that it actually got in the way of satellite observations at some wavelengths. Now, researchers have used weather balloon data to reconstruct the plume and follow its progress during two circuits around the globe. Your vocabulary word of the day is radiosonde, which is a small instrument package and transmitter that can be carried into the atmosphere by a weather balloon. There are networks of sites where radiosondes are launched as part of weather forecasting services; the most relevant ones for Hunga Tonga are in Fiji and Eastern Australia. A balloon from Fiji was the first to take instruments into the eruption plume, doing so less than 24 hours after Hunga Tonga exploded. That radiosonde saw increasing levels of water as it climbed through the stratosphere from 19 to 28 kilometers of altitude. The water levels had reached the highest yet measured at the top of that range when the balloon burst, bringing an end to the measurements. But shortly after, the plume started showing up along the east coast of Australia, which again registered very high levels of water vapor. Again, water reached to 28 km in altitude but gradually settled to lower heights over the next 24 hours. The striking thing was how much of it there was. Compared to normal background levels of stratospheric water vapor, these radiosondes were registering 580 times as much water even two days after the eruption, after the plume had some time to spread out. There was so much there that it still stood out as the plume drifted over South America. The researchers were able to track it for a total of six weeks, following it as it spread out while circling the Earth twice. Using some of these readings, the researchers estimated the total volume of the water vapor plume and then used the levels of water present to come up with a total amount of water put into the stratosphere by the eruption. They came up with 50 billion kilograms. And that's a low estimate, because, as mentioned above, there was still water above the altitudes where some of the measurements stopped. The recent findings appear in a new study published in the journal Science.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is launching a podcast called "The Langley Files." As the agency explains, "The mission of 'The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast' is to educate and connect with the general public, sharing insight into the Agency's core mission, capabilities and agility as an intelligence leader... and to share some interesting stories along the way!" Variety reports: The podcast features suspenseful intro music and a narrator explaining that CIA will be "sharing what we can" with stories that go "beyond those of Hollywood scripts and shadowed whispers." CIA Director Bill Burns is the featured guest on Episode 1 of "The Langley Files." "We do usually operate in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind," Burns said in the premiere. However, he continued, "in our democracy, where trust in institutions is in such short supply... it's important to try to explain ourselves the best we can and to demystify a little bit of what we do." According to Burns, one of the biggest misconceptions people have about the CIA stems from Hollywood's depictions of intelligence field agents. Many people think CIA is a "glamorous world" of "heroic individuals who drive fast cars and defuse bombs and solve world crises all on their own" -- a la Jason Bourne, James Bond and Jack Ryan. (Bond is a British spy, but you get the drift.) On the podcast, Burns shared that he drives a 2013 Subaru Outback "at posted speed limits." [...] The CIA says each episode of the podcast will be about 15-30 minutes long and will "feature our hosts leading conversations with a range of special guests." The series is distributed on major audio platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and Player.fm. "From all of us here at CIA -- we'll be seeing you," said one of the hosts before signing off the inaugural episode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A pair of researchers who previously identified what may be the first known interstellar meteor to impact Earth have now presented evidence of a second object that could have originated beyond the solar system, before it burned up in our planet's skies and potentially fell to the surface, according to a new study. Motherboard reports: Amir Siraj, a student in astrophysics at Harvard University, and astronomer Avi Loeb, who serves as Harvard's Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science, suggest that a fast-moving meteor that burst into a fireball hundreds of miles off the coast of Portugal on March 9, 2017, is an "additional interstellar object candidate" that they call interstellar meteor 2 (IM2) in a study posted to the preprint server arXiv this week. The paper has not been peer-reviewed. In addition to their potential origin beyond the solar system, these objects appear to be extraordinarily robust, as they rank as the first- and third-highest meteors in material strength in a NASA catalog that has collected data about hundreds of fireballs. "We don't have a large enough sample to say how much stronger interstellar objects are than solar system objects, but we can say that they are stronger," Siraj said in an email. "The odds of randomly drawing two objects in the top 3 out of 273 is 1 in 10 thousand. And when we look at the specific numbers relative to the distribution of objects, we find that the Gaussian odds are more like 1 in a million." This makes IM2 "an outlier in material strength," Loeb added in a follow-up call with Siraj. "To us, it means that the source is different from planetary systems like the solar system." Loeb has attracted widespread attention in recent years over his speculation that the first interstellar object ever identified, known as 'Oumuamua, was an artifact of alien technology. Spotted in 2017, 'Oumuamua sped through the solar system and was up to a quarter-mile in scale, making it much larger than the interstellar meteor candidates identified by Siraj and Loeb, which are a few feet across. Loeb's claims of an artificial origin for 'Oumuamua have provoked substantial pushback from many scientists who do not consider a technological explanation to be likely. Loeb also thinks these interstellar meteor candidates could be alien artifacts, though he and Siraj present a mind-boggling natural explanation for the strangely robust objects in the study: The meteors may be a kind of interstellar shrapnel produced by the explosions of large stars, called supernovae. [...] Loeb, of course, is keeping his mind open. "We don't say, necessarily, that it is artificial," Loeb said in the call, referring to the supernovae explanation. But, he added, "obviously, there is a possibility that a spacecraft was designed to sustain such harsh conditions as passing through the Earth's atmosphere, so we should allow for that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Vultures are hard birds for humans to love. They are an obligate scavenger, meaning they get all their food from already dead prey -- and that association has cast them as a harbinger of death since ancient times. But in reality, vultures are nature's flying sanitation crew. And new research adds to that positive picture by detailing these birds' role in a surprising process: mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. With their impressive vision and the range they can cover in their long, soaring flights, the 22 species of vultures found around the world are often the first scavengers to discover and feed on a carcass. This cleanup provides a vital service to both ecosystems and humans: it keeps nutrients cycling and controls pathogens that could otherwise spread from dead animals to living ones. Decaying animal bodies release greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane. But most of these emissions can be prevented if vultures get to the remains first, a new study in Ecosystem Services shows. It calculates that an individual vulture eats between 0.2 and one kilogram (kg) of carcass per day, depending on the vulture species. Left uneaten, each kg of naturally decomposing carcass emits about 0.86 kg of CO2 equivalent. This estimate assumes that carcasses not eaten by vultures are left to decay. But many carcasses are composted or buried by humans, which result in more emissions than natural decay, so vulture consumption can avert even more emissions when replacing those methods. The avoided emissions may not sound like much, but multiply those estimates by the estimated 134 million to 140 million vultures around the world, and the number becomes more impressive: tens of millions of metric tons of emissions avoided per year. But this ecosystem service is not evenly distributed around the world. It occurs mostly in the Americas, says the study's lead author Pablo Plaza, a biologist at the National University of Comahue in Argentina. Three species found only in the Americas -- the Black, Turkey and Yellow-headed vultures -- are responsible for 96 percent of all vulture-related emissions mitigation worldwide, Plaza and his colleagues found. Collectively, vultures in the Americas keep about 12 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent out of the atmosphere annually. Using estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that is akin to taking 2.6 million cars off the road each year. The situation outside of the Americas stands in stark contrast. "The decline in vulture populations in many regions of the world, such as Africa and Asia, has produced a concomitant loss of the ecosystem services vultures produce," Plaza says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A couple of climate tech startups plan to suck a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide out of the air and trap it underground in Wyoming. The Verge reports: The goal of the new endeavor, called Project Bison, is to build a new facility capable of drawing down 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030. The CO2 can then be stored deep within the Earth, keeping it out of the atmosphere, where it would have continued to heat up the planet. A Los Angeles-based company called CarbonCapture is building the facility, called a direct air capture (DAC) plant, that is expected to start operations as early as next year. It'll start small and work up to 5 million metric tons a year. If all goes smoothly by 2030, the operation will be orders of magnitude larger than existing direct air capture projects. CarbonCapture's equipment is modular, which is what the company says makes the technology easy to scale up. The plant itself will be made of modules that look like stacks of shipping containers with vents that air passes through. At first, the modules used for Project Bison will be made at CarbonCapture's headquarters in Los Angeles. In the first phase of the project, expected to be completed next year, around 25 modules will be deployed in Wyoming. Those modules will collectively have the capacity to remove about 12,000 tons of CO2 a year from the air. The plan is to deploy more modules in Wyoming over time and potentially manufacture the modules there one day, too. Inside each of the 40-foot modules are about 16 "reactors" with "sorbent cartridges" that essentially act as filters that attract CO2. The filters capture about 75 percent of the CO2 from the air that passes over them. Within about 30 to 40 minutes, the filters have absorbed all the CO2 they can. Once the filters are fully saturated, the reactor goes offline so that the filters can be heated up to separate out the CO2. There are many reactors within one module, each running at its own pace so that they're constantly collecting CO2. Together, they generate concentrated streams of CO2 that can then be compressed and sent straight to underground wells for storage. DAC is still very expensive -- it can cost upwards of $600 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide. That figure is expected to come down with time as the technology advances. But for now, it takes a lot of energy to run DAC plants, which contributes to the big price tag. The filters need to reach around 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit) for a few minutes, and getting to those kinds of high temperature for DAC plants can get pretty energy-intensive. Eventually, [...] Bison plans to get enough power from new wind and solar installations. When the project is running at its full capacity in 2030, it's expected to use the equivalent of about 2GW of solar energy per year. For comparison, about 3 million photovoltaic panels together generate a gigawatt of solar energy, according to the Department of Energy. But initially, the energy used by Project Bison might have to come from natural gas, according to Corless. So Bison would first need to capture enough CO2 to cancel out the amount of emissions it generates by burning through that gas before it can go on to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. "The geology in Wyoming allows Project Bison to store the captured CO2 on-site near the modules," adds The Verge. "Project Bison plans to permanently store the CO2 it captures underground. Specifically, project leaders are looking at stowing it 12,000 feet underground in 'saline aquifers' -- areas of rock that are saturated with salt water."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A 36-year-old Russian man recently identified by KrebsOnSecurity as the likely proprietor of the massive RSOCKS botnet has been arrested in Bulgaria at the request of U.S. authorities. At a court hearing in Bulgaria this month, the accused hacker requested and was granted extradition to the United States, reportedly telling the judge, "America is looking for me because I have enormous information and they need it." From the report: On June 22, KrebsOnSecurity published Meet the Administrators of the RSOCKS Proxy Botnet, which identified Denis Kloster, a.k.a. Denis Emelyantsev, as the apparent owner of RSOCKS, a collection of millions of hacked devices that were sold as "proxies" to cybercriminals looking for ways to route their malicious traffic through someone else's computer. A native of Omsk, Russia, Kloster came into focus after KrebsOnSecurity followed clues from the RSOCKS botnet master's identity on the cybercrime forums to Kloster's personal blog, which featured musings on the challenges of running a company that sells "security and anonymity services to customers around the world." Kloster's blog even included a group photo of RSOCKS employees. The Bulgarian news outlet 24Chasa.bg reports that Kloster was arrested in June at a co-working space in the southwestern ski resort town of Bansko, and that the accused asked to be handed over to the American authorities. "I have hired a lawyer there and I want you to send me as quickly as possible to clear these baseless charges," Kloster reportedly told the Bulgarian court this week. "I am not a criminal and I will prove it in an American court." 24Chasa said the defendant's surname is Emelyantsev and that he only recently adopted the last name Kloster, which is his mother's maiden name. As KrebsOnSecurity reported in June, Kloster also appears to be a major player in the Russian email spam industry. [...] Kloster turned 36 while awaiting his extradition hearing, and may soon be facing charges that carry punishments of up to 20 years in prison.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Compute North, one of the largest operators of crypto-mining data centers, filed for bankruptcy and revealed that its CEO stepped down as the rout in cryptocurrency prices weighs on the industry. CoinDesk reports: The company filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas and owed as much as $500 million to at least 200 creditors, according to a filing. Compute North in February announced a capital raise of $385 million, consisting of an $85 million Series C equity round and $300 million in debt financing. But it fell into bankruptcy as miners struggle to survive amid slumping bitcoin (BTC) prices, rising power costs and record difficulty in mining bitcoin. The filing is likely to have negative implications for the industry. Compute North is one of the largest data center providers for miners, and has multiple deals with other larger mining companies. "The Company has initiated voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings to provide the company with the opportunity to stabilize its business and implement a comprehensive restructuring process that will enable us to continue servicing our customers and partners and make the necessary investments to achieve our strategic objectives," a spokesperson told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. CEO Dave Perrill stepped down earlier this month but will continue to serve on the board, the spokesperson added. Drake Harvey, who has been chief operating officer for the last year, has taken the role of president at Compute North, the spokesperson said. Compute North has four facilities in the U.S. -- two in Texas and one in both South Dakota and Nebraska, according to its website.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A major new survey from Microsoft shows that bosses and workers fundamentally disagree about productivity when working from home. Bosses worry about whether working from home is as productive as being in the office. While 87% of workers felt they worked as, or more, efficiently from home, 80% of managers disagreed. The survey questioned more than 20,000 staff across 11 countries. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella told the BBC this tension needed to be resolved as workplaces were unlikely to ever return to pre-pandemic work habits. "We have to get past what we describe as 'productivity paranoia,' because all of the data we have that shows that 80% plus of the individual people feel they're very productive -- except their management thinks that they're not productive. That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel." Both Mr Nadella and Ryan Roslansky, the boss of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, said employers were grappling with perhaps the biggest shift in working patterns in history. The number of fully-remote jobs advertised on LinkedIn soared during the pandemic but Mr Roslansky said data suggested that type of role might have peaked. He told the BBC that of some 14 or 15 million job listings that are typically live on LinkedIn, about 2% of those involved remote working before the pandemic. Some months ago, that stood at 20%, and it has since come down to 15% this month. At a time of acute labour shortages, employers are having to work harder to recruit, enthuse and retain staff. That even includes Microsoft itself, according to Mr Nadella. "We had 70,000 people who joined Microsoft during the pandemic, they sort of saw Microsoft through the lens of the pandemic. And now when we think about the next phase, you need to re-energize them, re-recruit them, help them form social connections." An unprecedented number of people have also changed jobs since the start of the pandemic. A phenomenon Microsoft has dubbed "the great reshuffle", sees workers born after 1997 (so-called Generation Z) nearly twice as likely to switch jobs. "At the peak of our 'great reshuffle' we saw a year-on-year increase of 50% of LinkedIn members changing jobs. Gen Z was at 90%," the report said. By 2030, Generation Z will make up about 30% of the entire workforce so managers need to understand them, according to LinkedIn's boss.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New Fitbit users will be required to sign-up with a Google account, from next year, while it also appears one will be needed to access some of the new features in years to come. Trusted Reviews reports: Google has been slowly integrating Fitbit into the fold since buying the company back in November 2019. Indeed, the latest products are now known as "Fitbit by Google." However, as it currently stands, device owners have been able to maintain separate accounts for Google and Fitbit accounts. Google has now revealed it is bringing Google Accounts to Fitbit in 2023, enabling a single login for both services. From that point on, all new sign ups will be through Google. Fitbit accounts will only be supported until 2025. From that point on, a Google account will be the only way to go. To aid the transition, once the introduction of Google accounts begins, it'll be possible to move existing devices over while maintaining all of the recorded data.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGate: In a 7-4 vote on Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to test Mayor London Breed's controversial plan to overhaul the city's surveillance practices, which will allow police to access private security cameras in real time. Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Aaron Peskin, Gordon Mar, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman and Ahsha Safai voted to approve the trial run, while Connie Chan, Dean Preston, Hillary Ronen and Shamann Walton voted in dissent. Under the new policy, police can access up to 24 hours of live video of outdoor footage from private surveillance cameras owned by individuals or businesses without a warrant as long as the camera's owner allows it. Police must meet one of three outlined criteria to use their newfound power: they must be responding to a life-threatening emergency, deciding how to deploy officers in response to a large public event or conducting a criminal investigation that was approved in writing by a captain or higher-ranking police official. The trial will last 15 months. If supervisors wish to extend or revise the policy, they must take a second vote. "I know the thought process is, 'Just trust us, just trust the police department.' But the reality is people have been violating civil liberties since my ancestors were brought here from an entirely, completely different continent," Walton, the board president and District 10 representative, said. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins added: "I believe this policy can help address the existence of open-air drug markets fueling the sale of the deadly drug fentanyl. Drug dealers are destroying people's lives and wreaking havoc on neighborhoods like the Tenderloin. Mass organized retail theft, like we saw in Union Square last year, or targeted neighborhood efforts like we've seen in Chinatown is another area where the proposed policy can help."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York, home of the largest rapid transit system in the country, will install surveillance cameras in every New York City subway car by 2025, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced earlier this week. From a report: The move is aimed at increasing riders' confidence in subway safety, Hochul said, as ridership numbers are still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. It also follows several highly publicized crimes that have occurred in the transit system, including the rape of a tourist on a subway platform this month; a mass shooting on a subway car in Brooklyn in April that left 10 passengers wounded; and the fatal shooting of a Goldman Sachs employee on a train in May. But the decision to install cameras on subway cars worries some privacy advocates, who say it will increase the level of surveillance of New Yorkers without necessarily making the subway safer. Subway stations in the city already have surveillance cameras. "It's awful. This just seems like a terrible surveillance PR stunt just to boost ridership," said Albert Fox Cahn, the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a nonprofit aimed at reigning in digital surveillance in New York. "We have no idea how they would be sharing the data with federal and out-of-state partners," Fox Cahn said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Elon Musk announced that he was activating Starlink in response to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's tweet announcing the issuing of a General License to provide the Iranian people with access to digital communications. Teslarati reports: Currently, in Iran, massive protests are happening as a result of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police for her head scarf not being properly worn. Although she had no known heart-related health problems, the police said she suddenly died of heart failure. Eyewitnesses said that she was beaten and her head hit the side of a police car. This along with leaked medical scans suggested cerebral hemorrhage and stroke. In response to her death, there have been several large-scale protests across Iran that received international support from world leaders, celebrities, and organizations. The Iranian government sided with the morality police and has been suppressing the protests, shooting protestors with metal pellets and birdshot, and deploying tear gas and water cannons. The government also blocked access to many apps including Instagram and WhatsApp and limited internet access to prevent protestors from organizing. This is where Starlink comes in. A few days ago, Elon Musk said that Starlink would seek exemption from Iranian sanctions. This was in response to @Erfankasraie who asked if Elon could provide Starlink to the Iranian people. "It could be a game changer for the future." Elon also responded, "OK," to @agusantonetti who asked if he could do the same for other countries under a dictatorship such as Cuba. Further reading: As Unrest Grows, Iran Restricts Access To Instagram, WhatsAppRead more of this story at Slashdot.

A growing body of evidence suggests that pro-Russian hackers and online activists are working with the country's military intelligence agency, according to researchers at Google. From a report: Western officials and security experts are interested in the possible Kremlin links because it would help explain Moscow's intentions both inside and outside Ukraine despite recent military setbacks that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to announce a mobilization push. Officials in the U.S. and Europe have warned throughout the war that Russian hackers could lash out against Ukraine's allies by targeting critical infrastructure and governments with cyberattacks, but so far that has largely failed to materialize. Over the past few months, Google's Mandiant cybersecurity group has observed apparent coordination between pro-Russian hacking groups -- ostensibly comprising patriotic citizen hackers -- and cyber break-ins by Russia's military intelligence agency, or GRU. In four instances, Mandiant says it observed hacking activity linked to the GRU in which malicious "wiper" software was installed on a victim's network. The initial wiper software caused disruption by destroying computer systems across the organization. Then, the hacktivists entered the picture. After each of these hacks -- within 24 hours of the wiping -- the hacktivist organizations have published data stolen from the same organizations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adobe executives think there's a lot that critics of its $20 billion purchase of Figma are missing. From a report: In a meeting with Axios, Adobe general counsel Dana Rao defended the deal's price tag and highlighted why Adobe believes it needs Figma to help shape the design-software giant's broader future. Adobe XD just wasn't cutting it. It was a product designed for a single user sitting at a PC in a world that wants cloud-based tools for real-time multi-user collaboration. After seven years of investment, Adobe XD was bringing in just $15 million in annual recurring revenue on a standalone basis -- a minuscule fraction of Figma's $400 million annual recurring revenue. (That, in turn, is a minuscule fraction of Adobe's overall annual revenue of $17 billion.) Adobe has essentially put XD on ice, assigning just 20 employees to the product in what it sees as "maintenance mode." Figma has more than 800 people. Adobe needs a rethink for the cloud era. Its current efforts have been about bringing its existing tools to the web. The Figma deal offers help with the longer-term challenge of "reimagining the whole thing," in Rao's words. Adobe Express is an early homegrown attempt, but Rao said Figma will help the company fully reinvent itself for the next era of design. Rao said over time Figma customers will benefit from Adobe's other resources, including its troves of fonts and stock imagery.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wildfire smoke now exposes millions of Americans each year to dangerous levels of fine particulate matter, lofting enough soot across parts of the West in recent years to erase much of the air quality gains made over the last two decades. From a report: Those are among the findings of a new Stanford University study published Sept. 22 in Environmental Science & Technology that focuses on a type of particle pollution known as PM2.5, which can lodge deep in our lungs and even get into our bloodstream. Using statistical modeling and artificial intelligence techniques, the researchers estimated concentrations of PM2.5 specifically from wildfire smoke in sharp enough detail to reveal variations within individual counties and individual smoke events from coast to coast from 2006 to 2020. "We found that people are being exposed to more days with wildfire smoke and more extreme days with high levels of fine particulate matter from smoke," said lead study author Marissa Childs, who worked on the research as a PhD student in Stanford's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER). Unlike other major pollutant sources, wildfire smoke is considered an 'eexceptional event' under the Clean Air Act, she explained, "which means an increasing portion of the particulate matter that people are exposed to is unregulated."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Corporate employees at Amazon got emails about promotions and raises. Then they got emails saying the raises weren't quite what they thought. From a report: A one-time bonus that was part of their compensation package had been miscalculated due to a software error and would be lower than what they had been told, according to an email sent on Thursday and viewed by Insider. The bonuses had initially been calculated using older, higher stock prices, according to Insider, and about 40% of promoted employees this quarter were affected by the error. "We identified and immediately corrected an issue with some newly promoted employees' compensation communications," an Amazon spokesperson told Fortune. We are working with employees to ensure they understand their updated compensation." Compensation has been a major issue across the tech sector this year as a strong labor market heats up competition for workers. Earlier this year, Amazon announced its plan to double its maximum base salary to $350,000 to attract talent, something that workers at Google cited after the company's annual internal survey revealed their dissatisfaction with pay.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old suspected hacker. Reports suggest the arrest is connected to the Rockstar Games hack that led to a major Grand Theft Auto VI leak. The individual may have been involved with an intrusion on Uber as well. From a report: According to journalist Matthew Keys' sources, the arrest is the result of an investigation involving the City of London Police, the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit and the FBI. Keys noted that the police and/or the FBI will reveal more details about the arrest later today. The City of London Police told Engadget it had "no further information to share at this stage." The GTA VI leak is unquestionably one of the biggest in video game history. Last weekend, the hacker shared a trove of footage from a test build of the game, which is one of the most hotly anticipated titles around. Rockstar, which tends to keep a tight lid on its development process, confirmed on Monday that the leak was legitimate. It said the incident won't impact work on the game and that it will "properly introduce" fans to the next title in the blockbuster series once it's ready.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang's remarks about Moore's Law from earlier this week: "Moore's Law's dead," Huang said, referring to the standard that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. "And the ability for Moore's Law to deliver twice the performance at the same cost, or at the same performance, half the cost, every year and a half, is over. It's completely over, and so the idea that a chip is going to go down in cost over time, unfortunately, is a story of the past." He added: "Computing is a not a chip problem, it's a software and chip problem."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang's remarks about Moore's Law from earlier this week: "Moore's Law's dead," Huang said, referring to the standard that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. "And the ability for Moore's Law to deliver twice the performance at the same cost, or at the same performance, half the cost, every year and a half, is over. It's completely over, and so the idea that a chip is going to go down in cost over time, unfortunately, is a story of the past." He added: "Computing is a not a chip problem, it's a software and chip problem."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An increasing number of scientists and engineers of Chinese descent are giving up tenured positions at top-tier American universities to leave for China or elsewhere, in a sign of the U.S.'s fading appeal for a group that has been a driver of innovation. From a report: The trend, driven in part by what many of the scholars describe as an increasingly hostile political and racial environment, has caused the Biden administration to work with scholars of Chinese descent to address concerns. More than 1,400 U.S.-trained Chinese scientists dropped their U.S. academic or corporate affiliation for a Chinese one in 2021, a 22% jump from the previous year, according to data gathered by researchers from Princeton University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The data, to be published by the advocacy group Asian American Scholar Forum on Friday, is based on changes to the addresses listed under authors' names in academic journals. Chinese scientists trained in the U.S. have returned to China in increasing numbers over the past two decades as the country has grown more affluent and gained stature as a center of scientific research. In the past decade, China has tried to recruit top researchers through talent programs, but historically the majority elected to stay in the U.S. Departures from the U.S. rose sharply starting in 2020, however, when the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with an increase in criminal cases filed against academics under the China Initiative, a Trump-era Justice Department program intended to counter national security threats from China. President Biden's Justice Department said it would stop pursuing new cases under the China Initiative in February, following a series of failed prosecutions and complaints of racial profiling, but some scientists of Chinese descent said they still feel as though suspicions are being directed toward them and fear that will continue as long as relations between the U.S. and China remain tense.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The military's innovation office is launching a sweeping review of cryptocurrencies to assess threats to national security and law enforcement posed by the rise of digital assets, the Washington Post reported Friday. From the report: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- better known as DARPA, the office that developed the earliest technology undergirding the internet -- has hired crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital to conduct the year-long project. The company will develop tools that give the Pentagon a granular view of crypto markets' inner workings, in part to help authorities crack down on illicit uses of digital assets. "The program underway here involves mapping out the cryptocurrency universe in some detail," Mark Flood, a program manager with the agency, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Beyond fighting illicit finance, the office aims to use the data for insights into dynamics shaping traditional financial markets, where detailed information is harder to gather. The deal is the latest evidence that federal agencies are ramping up efforts to thwart rogue regimes, terrorists and other criminal actors using crypto to fund their operations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a first, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued a decentralized autonomous organization, including the holders of governance tokens. From a report: The CFTC unveiled late Thursday a $250,000 penalty and settlement with bZeroX, LLC and its founders, Kyle Kistner and Tom Bean. The two oversaw the development of the bZx protocol, a protocol for decentralized lending and other activities. The bZx protocol drew headlines in 2020 after suffering code exploits, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars with of crypto. But the CFTC's action today including the filing of a lawsuit against Ooki DAO, which in 2021 was used to govern the protocol as part of a decentralization effort, could have the broader impact.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost-cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive. From a report: At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity, and potential layoffs, according to audio obtained by CNBC. Pichai was asked, in a question that was highly rated by staffers on Google's internal Dory system, why the company is "nickel-and-diming employees" by slashing travel and swag budgets at a time when "Google has record profits and huge cash reserves," as it did coming out of the Covid pandemic. "How do I say it?" Pichai began his measured response. "Look, I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. The fact that you know, we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade, I think it's important that as a company, we pull together to get through moments like this."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Australia's second-largest telecommunications company, Optus, has reported a cyber-attack. The breach exposed customers' names, dates of birth, phone numbers and email addresses. From a report: The company - which has more than ten million subscribers - says it has shut down the attack but not before other details such as driver's licences and passport numbers were hacked. Optus says payment data and account passwords were not compromised. The company said it would notify those at "heightened risk" but all customers should check their accounts. Chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin apologised to its customers, on ABC TV. She said names, dates of birth and contact details had been accessed, "in some cases" the driving licence number, and in "a rare number of cases the passport and the mailing address" had also been exposed. The company had notified the Australian Federal Police after noticing "unusual activity." And investigators were trying "to understand who has been accessing the data and for what purpose."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France plans to impose a minimum delivery fee of 3 euros ($2.93) for online book orders of less than 35 euros to level the playing field for independent bookstores struggling to compete against e-commerce giants, the government said on Friday. From a report: A 2014 French law already prohibits free book deliveries, but Amazon and other vendors such as Fnac have circumvented this by charging a token 1 cent per delivery. Local book stores typically charge up to 7 euros for shipping a book. Legislation was passed in December 2021 to close the one-cent loophole through a minimum shipping fee, but the law could not take effect until the government had decided on the size of that fee. "This will adapt the book industry to the digital era by restoring an equilibrium between large e-commerce platforms, which offer virtually free delivery for books whatever the order size, and bookstores that cannot match these delivery prices," the culture and finance ministries said in a joint statement. They added that France will notify the European Commission of its plan and the minimum delivery fee will take effect six months after the EU grants approval.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Meta was sued for allegedly building a secret work-around to safeguards that Apple launched last year to protect iPhone users from having their internet activity tracked. In a proposed class-action complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, two Facebook users accused the company of skirting Apple's 2021 privacy rules and violating state and federal laws limiting the unauthorized collection of personal data. A similar complaint was filed in the same court last week. The suits are based on a report by data privacy researcher Felix Krause, who said that Meta's Facebook and Instagram apps for Apple's iOS inject JavaScript code onto websites visited by users. Krause said the code allowed the apps to track "anything you do on any website," including typing passwords. According to the suits, Meta's collection of user data from the Facebook app helps it circumvent rules instituted by Apple in 2021 requiring all third-party apps to obtain consent from users before tracking their activities, online or off. Meta has said it expected to miss out on $10 billion in ad revenue in 2022 because of Apple's changes. The Facebook app gets around Apple privacy rules by opening web links in an in-app browser, rather than the user's default browser, according to Wednesday's complaint. "This allows Meta to intercept, monitor and record its users' interactions and communications with third parties, providing data to Meta that it aggregates, analyzes, and uses to boost its advertising revenue," according to the suit. A Meta spokesperson said the allegations are "without merit" and the company will defend itself. "We have designed our in-app browser to respect users' privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads," the company said in an emailed statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Specks of dust that a Japanese space probe retrieved from an asteroid about 186 million miles (300m kilometers) from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water. The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space. The Guardian reports: The findings are in the latest research to be published from analysis of 5.4 grammes of stones and dust that the Hayabusa-2 probe gathered from the asteroid Ryugu. "This drop of water has great meaning," the lead scientist, Tomoki Nakamura of Tohoku University, told reporters before publication of the research in the journal Science on Friday. "Many researchers believe that water was brought [from outer space], but we actually discovered water in Ryugu, an asteroid near Earth, for the first time." Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 on its mission to Ryugu, and returned to Earth's orbit two years ago to drop off a capsule containing the sample. The precious cargo has already yielded several insights, including organic material that showed some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have been formed in space. The team's latest discovery was a drop of fluid in the Ryugu sample "which was carbonated water containing salt and organic matter," Nakamura said. That bolsters the theory that asteroids such as Ryugu, or its larger parent asteroid, could have "provided water, which contains salt and organic matter" in collisions with Earth, he said. "We have discovered evidence that this may have been directly linked to, for example, the origin of the oceans or organic matter on Earth." "The fact that water was discovered in the sample itself is surprising," given its fragility and the chances of it being destroyed in outer space, said Kensei Kobayashi, an astrobiology expert and professor emeritus at Yokohama National University. "It does suggest that the asteroid contained water, in the form of fluid and not just ice, and organic matter may have been generated in that water."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maarten Schmidt, who in 1963 became the first astronomer to identify a quasar, a small, intensely bright object several billion light years away, and in the process upended standard descriptions of the universe and revolutionized ideas about its evolution, died on Sept. 17 at his home in Fresno, Calif. He was 92. The New York Times reports: Dr. Schmidt's discovery of what was then among the farthest known objects in the universe answered one of the great conundrums of postwar astronomy, and like all great breakthroughs it opened the door to a whole host of new questions. Advances in radio technology during World War II allowed scientists in the 1950s to probe deeper into the universe than they could with traditional optical telescopes. But in doing so they picked up radio signals from a plethora of faint or even invisible, but intensely energetic, objects that did not fit with any conventional category of celestial body. Researchers called them "quasi-stellar radio sources," or quasars, for short -- even though no one could figure out what a quasar was. Many thought they were small, dense stars nearby, within the Milky Way. In 1962, two scientists in Australia, Cyril Hazard and John Bolton, finally managed to pinpoint the precise position of one of these, called 3C 273. They shared the data with several researchers, including Dr. Schmidt, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. Using the enormous 200-inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory, in rural San Diego County, Dr. Schmidt was able to hone in on what appeared to be a faint blue star. He then plotted its light signature on a graph, showing where its constituent elements appeared in the spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared. What he found was, at first, puzzling. The signatures, or spectral lines, did not resemble those of any known elements. He stared at the graphs for weeks, pacing his living room floor, until he realized: The expected elements were all there, but they had shifted toward the red end of the spectrum -- an indication that the object was moving away from Earth, and fast. And once he knew the speed -- 30,000 miles a second -- Dr. Schmidt could calculate the object's distance. His jaw dropped. At about 2.4 billion light years away, 3C 273 was one of the most distant objects in the universe from Earth. That distance meant that it was also unbelievably luminous: If it were placed at the position of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth, it would outshine the sun. Dr. Schmidt shared his results with his colleagues, and then in a paper in the journal Nature -- and not without trepidation, knowing how disruptive his findings would be. [...] The revelation shocked the astronomy world, and for a time made Dr. Schmidt something of a celebrity. Time magazine put him on its cover in 1966, with a fawning profile that compared him to Galileo. "The 17th century Italian startled scientists and theologians alike; the 20th century Dutchman has had an equally jarring effect on his own contemporaries," Time wrote, a bit breathlessly but not inaccurately. [...] For their work on quasars, in 2008 Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Lynden-Bell shared the prestigious Kavli Prize in Astrophysics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Chess's top-ranked player, Magnus Carlsen, has finally spoken about the ongoing alleged cheating scandal that has rocked the chess world for the last several weeks and was reignited when Carlsen resigned in protest after making one move against Hans Niemann. Niemann, of course, was accused of cheating against Carlsen earlier this month, but no one has been able to prove this, nor has a mechanism for the supposed cheating been proven. "I think the whole world is wondering, what is the reason you withdrew [against Niemann]?" a newscaster with Chess24 asked. "Unfortunately I cannot particularly speak on that," Carlsen said. "But, you know, people can draw their own conclusion and they certainly have. I have to say I'm very impressed by Niemann's play, and I think his mentor Maxine Dlugy must be doing a great job." "I will not comment on that," he added when asked if he was accusing Niemann of cheating. He was then asked if he was accusing Dlugy, who is a chess grandmaster, of helping Niemann cheat: "No, I will not say more about that subject ... I hope to say a little bit more after the tournament." Carlsen was then asked if he thought cheating was a problem in chess. "I think individual people will answer the question differently depending on their own experiences. Regardless of whether it's a massive problem or not, it's, I think, fairly easy to cheat. On a general basis, cheaters in the future, it should not be taken lightly neither online nor over the board." Chess watchers believe that by namedropping Maxine Dlugy, Carlsen is putting down more breadcrumbs. Dlugy is is a Russian-born, American chess grandmaster who currently operates the Chess Max Academy in Manhattan. In July, Dlugy posted a photo with "my student Hans Niemann," congratulating him on "becoming a top 50 player in the world! Go Hans!" After Niemann beat Carlsen earlier this month, Dlugy posted a congratulatory message: "Just 16 months ago or so, I recommended to Hans to really focus on endings. He devoted a lot of time to this pivotal part of the game and today I am proud to say that his endgame play is sufficient to beat the reigning World Champion from a better position. That's powerful! Hans Niemann -- Chess speaks for itself!" Redditors were quick to point out, however, that Dlugy has his own controversy. Dlugy has been removed twice from a weekly Chess.com tournament called Titled Tuesday, in 2017 and 2020. Benjamin Bok, a chess grandmaster and Twitch streamer, for example, made a whole segment delving into some of Dlugy's old Chess.com matches and pointing out that Dlugy was suddenly removed from Chess.com with no explanation: "Generally that only means one thing," Bok said, not elaborating on what it means, but heavily implying that it means he was caught cheating. "Draw your own conclusions. Draw your own conclusions. That's all I'm going to say." "Question becomes: Is perhaps Dlugy Hans' accomplice, in case Hans is cheating? We'll have to wait and see," Bok says. "But the fact that Magnus makes that statement and drops his name, it means that he knows something we don't know. You can't just drop someone's name in there without really knowing stuff. I feel like he knows something really big."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Japan will allow visa-free, independent tourism and abolish a daily arrival cap as of Oct. 11, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday, marking a major policy shift after nearly 2 1/2 years of strict COVID-19 restrictions. The government will also launch a nationwide travel discount program, which had been shelved due to the spread of COVID-19 infections. The Japan Times reports: Kishida made the long-awaited announcement during his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. "I hope many people will utilize it," Kishida said at a news conference. "I want to support the travel, entertainment and other industries that have been struggling during the coronavirus pandemic." Japan has been allowing tourists since June, starting with people on guided tours. On Sept. 7, the government allowed those on nonguided tours who had booked their flights and hotels through registered travel agencies. But those measures have been unpopular with many foreign tourists who want greater freedom during their trips. Tourists will need to be vaccinated three times or submit a negative COVID-19 test result ahead of their trip, Kyodo News reported, citing government sources. A nationwide domestic travel program offering discounts for travel, entry to theme parks, and for sporting events and concerts is also set to start on Oct. 11. People who have been vaccinated three times or submit a negative test result will be eligible for the discounts, according to the report. The program offers financial assistance of up to $77 per person for a one-night stay. The moves will be welcomed by the nation's tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. "In 2019, a record 31.88 million foreign travelers visited Japan, but the figure plummeted to about 250,000 in 2021 due to the closed borders," notes the report. "The daily arrival cap has been raised gradually over the past six months, first to 5,000 on March 1 and eventually to the current 50,000."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Five luxury cars, including two BMWs, two McLarens, and a Lamborghini, have been seized from 23-year-old Aiden Pleterski, the self-described "crypto king" of Canada, during bankruptcy proceedings according to a new report from the CBC. But those cars are only worth a fraction of the $35 million that Pleterski allegedly took from investors who thought he'd make them rich in the cryptocurrency market, and it's not clear whether they'll ever see their money again. Gizmodo reports: Pleterski and his company AP Private Equity Limited are facing at least two civil lawsuits after 140 people have come forward to say they invested a combined $35 million with Pleterski. Those people believed they were investing in cryptocurrency, and Pleterski's online presence -- including photos of the 23-year-old on private jets and next to luxury cars-- helped create the image that he knew what he was doing. Pleterski's YouTube channel and Instagram account have been deleted but it appears he purchased articles on websites like Forbes.mc (the top level domain for Monaco) and the far-right news outlet Daily Caller to get his name associated with success in crypto investment. The Daily Caller article from December 2021 includes a photo of Pleterski looking at his phone in what appears to be a private jet. Notably, December 2021 was a time when cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum were trading near all-time highs. The headline reads, "Aiden Pleterski: Meet the Young Canadian Investor Who Is Taking the World of Crypto By Storm." The question remains whether Pleterski actually invested any of the money in crypto to begin with, and speaks to just how strange the crypto market has been over the past year. For all anyone knows, Pleterski may have actually invested the money and lost it like so many others since the peak of November 2021. Bitcoin is down 56% since its price a year ago, while ethereum is down 57%. Pleterski insists he invested the money but that he's just bad with record-keeping. But some investors suspect Pleterski didn't even bother investing the money, instead pocketing it for himself, according to people who spoke with the CBC. Investors are trying to get their money back through the bankruptcy court and two civil lawsuits, but criminal charges haven't been pursued, even though some have reported their incidents to Toronto police, according to the CBC.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Protocol: Google is gunning for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision: The company is looking to introduce two new media formats to offer HDR video and 3D audio under a new consumer-recognizable brand without the licensing fees hardware manufacturers currently have to pay Dolby. Google shared plans for the media formats, which are internally known as Project Caviar, at a closed-door event with hardware manufacturers earlier this year. In a video of the presentation that was leaked to Protocol, group product manager Roshan Baliga describes the goal of the project as building "a healthier, broader ecosystem" for premium media experiences. The company's primary focus for Project Caviar is YouTube, which does not currently support Dolby Atmos or Dolby Vision. However, Google also aims to bring other industry players on board, including device manufacturers and service providers. This makes Project Caviar one of Google's most ambitious pushes for open media formats since the company began working on royalty-free video codecs over a decade ago. Google's open media efforts have until now primarily focused on the development of codecs. The company acquired video codec maker On2 in 2009 to open source some of its technology; it has also played a significant role in the foundation of the Alliance for Open Media, an industry consortium that is overseeing the royalty-free AV1 video codec. Project Caviar is different from those efforts in that it is not another codec. Instead, the project focuses on 3D audio and HDR video formats that make use of existing codecs but allow for more rich and immersive media playback experiences, much like Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision do. Baliga didn't mention Dolby by name during his presentation, but he still made it abundantly clear that the company was looking to establish alternatives to the Atmos and Vision formats. "We realized that there are premium media experiences where there aren't any great royalty-free solutions," he said, adding that the licensing costs for premium HDR video and 3D audio "can hurt manufacturers and consumers." Dolby makes most of its money through licensing fees from hardware manufacturers. The company charges TV manufacturers $2 to $3 to license Dolby Vision, according to its Cloud Media Solutions SVP Giles Baker. Dolby hasn't publicly disclosed licensing fees for Atmos; it charges consumers who want to add immersive audio to their Xbox consoles $15 per license, but the fee hardware manufacturers have to pay is said to be significantly lower. Still, in an industry that long has struggled with razor-thin margins, every extra dollar matters. That's especially true because Dolby already charges virtually all device makers a licensing fee for its legacy audio codecs. A manufacturer of streaming boxes that wholesale for $50 has to pay around $2 per unit for Dolby Vision and Dolby Digital, according to a document an industry insider shared with Protocol. "For lower-cost living room devices, the cost may be prohibitive," Baliga said during his presentation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A U.S. intelligence agency gained access to China's telecommunications network after hacking a university, Chinese state media claimed Thursday. CNBC reports: The U.S. National Security Agency used phishing -- a hacking technique where a malicious link is included in an email -- to gain access to the government funded Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Global Times alleged, citing an unnamed source. American hackers stole "core technology data including key network equipment configuration, network management data, and core operational data," and other files, according to the Global Times. As part of the NSA's hack, the agency infiltrated Chinese telecommunications operators so that the U.S. could "control the country's infrastructure," the Global Times alleged. The Global Times, citing its unnamed source, reported that more details about the attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University will be released soon. China first disclosed the alleged attack on the Northwestern Polytechnical University earlier this month. "The agency also accused the U.S. of engaging in 'tens of thousands' of cyberattacks on Chinese targets," adds CNBC.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iran curbed access on Wednesday to Instagram and WhatsApp, two of the last remaining social networks in the country, amid protests over the death of a woman in police custody, residents and internet watchdog NetBlocks said. Reuters reports: Last week's death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for "unsuitable attire," has unleashed anger over issues including freedom in the Islamic Republic and an economy reeling from sanctions. NetBlocks also reported a "nation-scale loss of connectivity" on Iran's mail mobile telephone provider and another company's network. WhatsApp's servers have been disrupted on multiple internet providers, hours after Instagram's services were blocked, London-based NetBlocks said. The group's data shows a near-total disruption to internet service in parts of Kurdistan province in west Iran since Monday, while the capital city of Tehran and other parts of the country have also faced disruptions since Friday when protests first broke out. Two residents in Tehran and southern Iran said they could only send text and not pictures on WhatsApp and that Instagram appeared to be completely blocked.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Boeing agreed to pay $200 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that the company and its former Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg failed to properly disclose safety issues with its 737 Max jetliner. The settlement, which was announced by the SEC on Thursday, follows a probe by the regulator's enforcement division. Investigators examined whether Boeing was adequately forthcoming to shareholders about material problems with its jetliner that crashed in 2018 and 2019. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Boeing and Muilenburg consented to cease-and-desist orders that include penalties of $200 million and $1 million, respectively. The twin tragedies killed 346 people and prompted one of the longest groundings in aviation history. The SEC enforcement action is one of the last remaining government investigations. Boeing had cautioned in its most recently quarterly filing that the "outcome of which may be material." Boeing paid a $243.3 million fine as part of a $2.5 billion settlement with the US Justice Department to end a criminal investigation in January 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix already lost 1.2 million subscribers in the first two quarters of 2022. While the company hopes to add one million new users with its new ad-supported tier, a survey shows that 1 in 4 Netflix users are planning to cancel their subscriptions this year. From a report: Here's what this could mean to other streaming services, such as Apple TV+. Reviews surveyed 1,000 Americans to gauge their streaming habits in 2022. According to the report, the average American is subscribed to four streaming platforms. Netflix is still the most popular streaming service with nearly 4 out of 5 (77%) Americans currently subscribed to the platform. In addition, 70% say they use Netflix the most, followed by: HBO Max: 9.91%; Disney+: 6.18%; Peacock: 4.25%; Hulu: 3.86%; Apple TV+: 2.70%; Paramount+: 2.70%. That said, of all the Netflix subscribers, 25% are planning to cancel their subscriptions. Of those who plan to leave the streaming service, two-thirds say increasing costs is one of the reasons. According to the survey, Netflix has the highest average plan cost among the eight more popular streaming services in the US. The other big complaint from Netflix users is two-fold: 1 in 3 respondents said Netflix no longer has the shows they want to watch; 30% said that they use other streaming services more.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DocuSign shares rose almost 5% in extended trading after the electronic signature software maker announced it has hired an Alphabet executive, Allan Thygesen, to be its next CEO. CNBC reports: The announcement comes three month after DocuSign said its CEO for the past five years, Dan Springer, was stepping down. Like other cloud software companies, DocuSign enjoyed a wave of greater interest among investors during the Covid pandemic as consumers and corporate workers became more reliant on digital ways to sign documents. But the interest has died down. Notwithstanding the after-hours move, DocuSign shares have fallen 64% so far this year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As antitrust regulators around the world dial up scrutiny of platform power, Mozilla has published a piece of research digging into the at times subtle yet always insidious ways operating systems exert influence to keep consumers locked to using their own-brand browsers rather than seeking out and switching to independent options -- while simultaneously warning that competition in the browser market is vital to ensure innovation and choice for consumers and, more broadly, protect the vitality of the open web against the commercial giants trying to wall it up. TechCrunch: "Billions of people across the globe are dependent on operating systems from the largest technology companies. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta each provide their own browser on their operating systems and each of them uses their gatekeeper position provider to preference their own browsers over independent rivals. Whether it is Microsoft pushing Firefox users to switch their default on Windows computers, Apple restricting the functionality of rival browsers on iOS smartphones or Google failing to apply default browser settings across Android, there are countless examples of independent browsers being inhibited by the operating systems on which they are dependent," Mozilla writes in a summary of its findings. "This matters because American consumers and society as a whole suffer. Not only do people lose the ability to determine their own online experiences but they also receive less innovative and lower quality products. In addition, they can be forced to accept poorer privacy outcomes and even unfair contracts. By contrast, competition from independent browsers can help to drive new features, as well as innovation in areas like privacy and security."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jamie Dimon didn't mince words when a US lawmaker mentioned the executive's history of criticizing cryptocurrencies. From a report: "I'm a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like Bitcoin," the JPMorgan Chase chief executive officer said in congressional testimony Wednesday. "They are decentralized Ponzi schemes." Stablecoins -- digital assets tied to the value of the US dollar or other currencies -- wouldn't be problematic with the proper regulation, and JPMorgan is active in blockchain, Dimon said. The comments represent the latest criticism leveled against digital currencies by Dimon, who once called Bitcoin "a fraud" before eventually saying he regretted the comments.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Food and Drug Administration is warning people not to abuse nonprescription drugs as part of social-media challenges, including cooking chicken in NyQuil. From a report: The regulator issued a warning cautioning the public that social-media challenges where people misuse nonprescription medications can be dangerous or even fatal. It pointed to a recent challenge where people cook chicken in NyQuil or similar medications. The agency says that boiling a medication can make the drug more concentrated and that inhaling a medicine's vapors while cooking with it could cause a person to ingest a high amount of the drug. In the case of the NyQuil-chicken challenge, the FDA says a person could hurt their lungs. "The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing -- and it is," the FDA said. "But it could also be very unsafe."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than 70 companies in Britain are undergoing a six-month experiment in which their employees get a paid day off each week. So far, most companies say it's going well. SpzToid shares a report: Most of the companies participating in a four-day workweek pilot program in Britain said they had seen no loss of productivity during the experiment, and in some cases had seen a significant improvement, according to a survey of participants published on Wednesday. Nearly halfway into the six-month trial, in which employees at 73 companies get a paid day off weekly, 35 of the 41 companies that responded to a survey said they were "likely" or "extremely likely" to consider continuing the four-day workweek beyond the end of the trial in late November. All but two of the 41 companies said productivity was either the same or had improved. Remarkably, six companies said productivity had significantly improved. Talk of a four-day workweek has been around for decades. In 1956, then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon said he foresaw it in the "not too distant future," though it has not materialized on any large scale. But changes in the workplace over the coronavirus pandemic around remote and hybrid work have given momentum to questions about other aspects of work. Are we working five days a week just because we have done it that way for more than a century, or is it really the best way? Some leaders of companies in the trial said the four-day week had given employees more time to exercise, cook, spend time with their families and take up hobbies, boosting their well-being and making them more energized and productive when they were on the clock. Critics, however, worried about added costs and reduced competitiveness, especially when many European companies are already lagging rivals in other regions. More than 3,300 workers in banks, marketing, health care, financial services, retail, hospitality and other industries in Britain are taking part in the pilot, which is one of the largest studies to date, according to Jack Kellam, a researcher at Autonomy, a think tank that is one of the organizers of the trial.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he's confident the company can gain regulatory approval for its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard even in the face of an in-depth regulatory probe in the UK. From a report: "Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny, but we feel very, very confident that we'll come out," he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Nadella's prediction puts him at odds with investors' skepticism about the deal. While Activision rose Thursday, outperforming a slump in tech stocks, Wednesday's close of $75.32 still left the company more than 20% below the offer price -- a signal of massive doubt that Microsoft will ever be able to consummate the transaction. Microsoft is either the No. 4 or No. 5 competitor in the video game industry, depending on how you count, Nadella said. And the No. 1 player, Sony Group, has made several recent acquisitions. "So if this is about competition, let us have competition," he said. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority said earlier this month that it decided to kick-start a longer review, a move that was expected after the CMA flagged concerns that the deal could lessen competition in the markets for consoles, subscriptions and cloud gaming. The combination with Activision -- which owns franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero -- will make Microsoft the world's third-largest gaming company. Nadella also expressed optimism that Microsoft can cope with a weaker economy and rising inflation -- and help its customers endure as well. "The constraints are real -- inflation is definitely all around us," he said. "I always go back to the point that in an uncertain time, in an inflationary time, software is the deflationary force."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A cache of nearly 160,000 files from Russia's powerful internet regulator provides a rare glimpse inside Vladimir V. Putin's digital crackdown. The New York Times: Four days into the war in Ukraine, Russia's expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus was already hard at work. Roughly 800 miles east of Moscow, authorities in the Republic of Bashkortostan, one of Russia's 85 regions, were busy tabulating the mood of comments in social media messages. They marked down YouTube posts that they said criticized the Russian government. They noted the reaction to a local protest. Then they compiled their findings. One report about the "destabilization of Russian society" pointed to an editorial from a news site deemed "oppositional" to the government that said President Vladimir V. Putin was pursuing his own self-interest by invading Ukraine. A dossier elsewhere on file detailed who owned the site and where they lived. Another Feb. 28 dispatch, titled "Presence of Protest Moods," warned that some had expressed support for demonstrators and "spoke about the need to stop the war." The report was among nearly 160,000 records from the Bashkortostan office of Russia's powerful internet regulator, Roskomnadzor. Together the documents detail the inner workings of a critical facet of Mr. Putin's surveillance and censorship system, which his government uses to find and track opponents, squash dissent and suppress independent information even in the country's furthest reaches. The leak of the agency's documents "is just like a small keyhole look into the actual scale of the censorship and internet surveillance in Russia," said Leonid Volkov, who is named in the records and is the chief of staff for the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. "It's much bigger," he said. Roskomnadzor's activities have catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression. Since the agency was established in 2008, Mr. Putin has turned it into an essential lever to tighten his grip on power as he has transformed Russia into an even more authoritarian state. The internet regulator is part of a larger tech apparatus that Mr. Putin has built over the years, which also includes a domestic spying system that intercepts phone calls and internet traffic, online disinformation campaigns and the hacking of other nations' government systems. The agency's role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as "pro-government," "anti-government" or "apolitical." Roskomnadzor has also worked to unmask and surveil people behind anti-government accounts and provided detailed information on critics' online activities to security agencies, according to the documents. That has supplemented real-world actions, with those surveilled coming under attack for speaking out online. Some have then been arrested by the police and held for months. Others have fled Russia for fear of prosecution. The files reveal a particular obsession with Mr. Navalny and show what happens when the weight of Russia's security state is placed on one target. The system is built to control outbursts like the one this week, when protesters across Russia rallied against a new policy that would press roughly 300,000 people into military service for the war in Ukraine. At least 1,200 people have already been detained for demonstrating. More than 700 gigabytes of records from Roskomnadzor's Bashkortostan branch were made publicly available online in March by DDoSecrets, a group that publishes hacked documents.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Weeks after Twitter's ex-security chief accused the company of cybersecurity mismanagement, Twitter has now informed its users of a bug that didn't close all of a user's active logged-in sessions on Android and iOS after an account's password was reset. From a report: This issue could have implications for those who had reset their password because they believed their Twitter account could be at risk, perhaps because of a lost or stolen device, for instance. Assuming whoever had possession of the device could access its apps, they would have had full access to the impacted user's Twitter account. In a blog post, Twitter explains that it had learned of the bug that had allowed "some" accounts to stay logged in on multiple devices after a user reset their password voluntarily. Typically, when a password reset occurs, the session token that keeps a user logged into the app is also revoked -- but that didn't take place on mobile devices, Twitter says. Web sessions, however, were not impacted and were closed appropriately, it noted.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase Global has been searching for new ways to make money. One business it flirted with was controversial: using its own money to speculate on cryptocurrencies. WSJ: Last year, Coinbase -- which operates a large cryptocurrency exchange that handles bitcoin and other digital coins -- hired at least four senior Wall Street traders and launched a group to generate profit, in part, by using the company's cash to trade and "stake," or lock up, cryptocurrencies, according to people close to the matter. The activity was described as "proprietary" trading by the people at the company. Earlier this year, the team completed a $100 million transaction that the group viewed as a test trade of the new effort, according to the people. The transaction came after Coinbase executives testified to members of Congress last year that the company didn't buy and sell digital currencies for its own account. The monthslong effort to launch the Coinbase Risk Solutions group underscores how Coinbase, which has seen its shares tumble about 70% over the past year, has entertained more aggressive strategies as it tries to develop new businesses. Coinbase says some at the company examined pursuing proprietary trading but decided against it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former President Donald Trump could be allowed back on Facebook once a suspension of his account expires in 2023, Nick Clegg of parent company Meta Platforms, said Thursday at an exclusive Semafor Exchange event in Washington, DC. From the report: As the company makes its decision, it will talk to experts, weigh the risk of real world harm and act proportionally, he said. It's the first time Clegg, who, as president of global affairs is charged with deciding whether to lift the limit, has publicly discussed his thinking. Trump was prohibited from posting on several online platforms after the January 2021 riots at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., with Facebook, sister app Instagram, Twitter and Google's YouTube citing his role in inciting the violence. "When you make a decision that affects the public realm, you need to act with great caution," Clegg told Semafor editor-at-large Steve Clemons. "You shouldn't throw your weight about."Read more of this story at Slashdot.