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 Cryptocurrency Titan Coinbase Providing 'Geo Tracking Data' To ICE
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is selling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement a suite of features used to track and identify cryptocurrency users, according to contract documents shared with The Intercept. From a report: In August 2021, Coinbase sold a single analytics software license to ICE for $29,000, followed by a software purchase potentially worth $1.36 million the next month, but details of exactly what capabilities would be offered to the agency's c
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FTX Closes in on a Deal To Buy Embattled Crypto Lender BlockFi for $25 Million in a Fire Sale
FTX is swooping in to buy crypto lender BlockFi for pennies on the dollar, CNBC reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter. From a report: The term sheet is almost over the finish line and expected to be signed by the end of the week, according to one source, who asked not to be named because the deal discussions were confidential. FTX will pay roughly $25 million -- 99% below BlockFi's last private valuation. Jersey City, New Jersey-based BlockFi was last valued at $4.8 billion,
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Russians Are Searching For Pirated Microsoft Products and Switching To Linux
Nkwe writes: Russians are searching for pirated Microsoft software online after the US tech giant halted sales in the country over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant newspaper reported earlier this week. Russia-based web searches for pirated Microsoft software have surged by as much as 250% after the company suspended new sales on March 4, according to Kommersant. In June so far, there's been a 650% surge in searches for Excel downloads, the media outlet added. Microsoft said earlier this m
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How Mercenary Hackers Sway Litigation Battles
A trove of thousands of email records uncovered by Reuters reveals Indian cyber mercenaries hacking parties involved in lawsuits around the world -- showing how hired spies have become the secret weapon of litigants seeking an edge.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Couple Bought Home in Seattle, Then Learned Comcast Internet Would Cost $27,000
An anonymous reader shares a report: When Zachary Cohn and his wife bought a house in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, they didn't expect any trouble getting home Internet service. It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news. "All six neighbors I share a property line with are wired for Comcast, but our house never was," Cohn told Ars. Comcast's predecessor company had wired up the neighborhood with cable decades earlier and the ISP provid
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Apple Lets Apps in South Korea Use Third-Party Payment Systems
Developers of apps released in Apple's South Korean App Store no longer have to use the company's own in-app payment system, the iPhone maker has announced in a developer update. Instead, developers will be able to take payments using the third-party service providers pre-approved by Apple. From a report: The change comes in response to an amendment to South Korea's Telecommunications Business Act passed last year, which prevents large platform holders like Apple and Google from forcing develope
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US Supreme Court Says EPA Can't Regulate Carbon Pollution Under Clean Air Act
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to regulate carbon pollution from existing power plants. From a report: The 6-3 decision, with the three liberal justices dissenting, makes it increasingly likely that an act of Congress will be required to create regulations to rein in planet-warming emissions. "Congress did not grant EPA in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shi
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Employee Shared OpenSea User Email Addresses With an 'Unauthorized' Party
An employee working for OpenSea's email delivery vendor misused their customer data access to download and share email addresses with an "unauthorized external party," the NFT marketplace wrote in a company blog post Wednesday. The employee worked for Customer.io. From a report: OpenSea said customers who have shared their emails in the past "should assume" they were affected and will receive an email from opensea.io with more information. Customer.io launched an investigation into the issue, an
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AI Could Improve Welfare of Farmed Chickens By Listening To Their Squawks
Artificial intelligence that could improve the welfare of farmed chickens by eavesdropping on their squawks could become available within five years, researchers say. From a report: The technology, which detects and quantifies distress calls made by chickens housed in huge indoor sheds, correctly distinguished distress calls from other barn noises with 97% accuracy, new research suggests. A similar approach could eventually be used to drive up welfare standards in other farmed animals. Each year
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China Ponders Nuclear-Powered 2030 Mission To Neptune
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Scientists at top universities in China propose sending a spacecraft powered by nuclear fission to orbit Neptune -- the outermost planet in our solar system -- in 2030. Astronomers have not yet been able to look at Uranus and Neptune in much detail. The best data collected so far comes from NASA's Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to have flown by the big blue orbs way back in 1986 and 1989. [...] The challenges involved are considerable. The o
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Construction Begins On 'Mammoth' Direct Air Capture Plant
Swiss climate tech company Climeworks announced yesterday that it has broken ground on its biggest facility yet for capturing carbon dioxide from the air. The Verge reports: The new Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant, named Mammoth, will significantly scale up the company's operations in Hellisheioi, Iceland. That's where Climeworks built Orca, which was the largest DAC plant in the world when it came online last September. Orca can capture up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly equivale
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MIT Proposes Brazil-Sized Fleet of 'Space Bubbles' To Cool the Earth
A group of MIT researchers is exploring a radical idea for reversing global warming: using a raft of "space bubbles" to reflect sunlight away from our planet. Freethink reports: The copious amounts of greenhouse gasses humans have been releasing into the air ever since the Industrial Revolution are forming a sort of blanket around our planet, trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing global temperatures to creep ever higher. [...] Instead of injecting particles into Earth's atmosphere to cool
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AI Could Improve Welfare of Farmed Chickens By Listening To Their Squawks
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Artificial intelligence that could improve the welfare of farmed chickens by eavesdropping on their squawks could become available within five years, researchers say. The technology, which detects and quantifies distress calls made by chickens housed in huge indoor sheds, correctly distinguished distress calls from other barn noises with 97% accuracy, new research suggests. A similar approach could eventually be used to drive up welfare stan
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Extreme Temperatures In Major Latin American Cities Could Be Linked To Nearly 1 Million Deaths
Rodrigo Perez Ortega writes via Science Magazine: With climate change, heat waves and cold fronts are worsening and taking lives worldwide: about 5 million in the past 20 years, according to at least one study. In a new study published today in Nature Medicine, an international team of researchers estimates that almost 900,000 deaths in the years between 2002 and 2015 could be attributable to extreme temperatures alone in major Latin American cities. This is the most detailed estimate in Latin A
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California's Attempt To Protect Kids Online Could End Adults' Internet Anonymity
Thomas Claburn writes via The Register: California lawmakers met in Sacramento today to discuss, among other things, proposed legislation to protect children online. The bill, AB2273, known as The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, would require websites to verify the ages of visitors. Critics of the legislation contend this requirement threatens the privacy of adults and the ability to use the internet anonymously, in California and likely elsewhere, because of the role the Golden Stat
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Brazil Is Also Considering Making USB-C Chargers Mandatory For iPhones
Brazil's telecoms regulator Anatel has launched a public consultation on a proposal to make USB-C chargers mandatory for all smartphones sold in the country. The Verge reports: It's the latest example of lawmakers and regulators turning to USB-C as a common charging standard for phones. The EU passed a law on the matter earlier this month, making USB-C mandatory for a range of electronic gadgets (including smartphones) by the end of 2024, and in the US some Democrat politicians are pushing for s
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Unity Laying Off Hundreds of Staffers
Unity, the company behind the popular game development engine of the same name, has recently laid off hundreds of staffers, multiple sources tell Kotaku. From the report: Founded in the mid-2000s, Unity is used by thousands of developers; you've almost certainly seen its logo pop up in the loading screens for some of your favorite -- or least-favorite -- games. In 2014, former EA head John Riccitiello took over as CEO. (In 2020, Riccitiello reportedly saw his compensation jump by 160 percent to
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Meta Sparks Anger By Charging For VR Apps
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Meta is facing a growing backlash for the charges imposed on apps created for its virtual reality headsets, as developers complain about the commercial terms set around futuristic devices that the company hopes will help create a multibillion-dollar consumer market. [...] But several developers told the Financial Times of their frustration that Meta, which is seen as having an early lead in a nascent market, has insisted on a charging
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FCC Commissioner Wants Apple, Google To Remove TikTok From App Stores
A leader of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said he has asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over China-related data security concerns. CNBC reports: The wildly popular short video app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which faced U.S. scrutiny under President Donald Trump. Brendan Carr, one of the FCC's commissioners, shared via Twitter a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. The letter pointed to reports and other developments tha
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Substack Is Laying Off 14% of Its Staff
Substack, the newsletter start-up that has attracted prominent writers including George Saunders and Salman Rushdie, laid off 13 of its 90 employees on Wednesday, part of an effort to conserve cash amid an industrywide funding crunch for start-ups. The New York Times reports: Substack's chief executive, Chris Best, told employees that the cuts affected staff members responsible for human resources and writer support functions, among others, according to a person familiar with the discussion. The
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Kim Dotcom Not Happy, Says 'Mega Mass Piracy Report' Is On the Way
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom does not seem like a happy man right now. After accusing two of his former colleagues [Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk] of facilitating Chinese spying, Dotcom says that a report is being produced to show that mass infringement is taking place on Mega, a company he co-founded. Surprisingly, he says it will include live pirate links to content posted by Mega users. [...] Turning his attention to former colle
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Crypto Tax Cheats Likely to Get Relief as US Crackdown Hits Snag
The US government's bid to collect billions of dollars in taxes is hitting a snag, with the Biden administration poised to delay when crypto brokers and exchanges must start gathering detailed information on their clients' trading. From a report: The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service are likely to push off a January date for the firms to begin tracking data such as customers' capital gains and losses, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named becau
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A Wide Range of Routers Are Under Attack By New, Unusually Sophisticated Malware
An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on Tuesday. From a report: So far, researchers from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs say they've identified at least 80 targets infected by the stealthy malware, infecting routers made by Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and DrayTek. Dubbed ZuoRAT, the remote access T
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A Pro-China Online Influence Campaign is Targeting the Rare-Earths Industry
Disinformation operatives seek to undermine firms in the Western world as China fights to maintain near-monopoly power. From a report: An online influence campaign carried out by a group that promotes China's political interests is targeting Western companies that mine and process rare-earth elements, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Mandiant. The campaign, which is playing out in Facebook groups and micro-targeted tweets, is trying to stoke environmentalist protests against the
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Firefox Can Now Automatically Remove Tracking From URLs
Mozilla's latest Firefox browser release has a new feature that prevents sites like Facebook from tracking you across websites. Called Query Parameter Stripping, it automatically removes strings of characters added to the end of an URL.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Apple Promises 'White Glove Experiences' For Its Most Helpful Community Members
Apple is rewarding the most active and helpful members of its support forums with its new Community Plus program. The invite-only program gives these "high-level" Support Community members access to exclusive perks and experiences. From a report: Apple's Support Community members can already earn points based on their activity, granting them access to rewards as they level up. This includes the ability to upload a custom avatar as well as participate in conference calls with the Apple Support Co
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Gmail's Redesigned Interface, Featuring Chat and Meet, Now the New Default
Gmail is now rolling out a new user interface that will show Chat and Meet sections on the side pane by default. From a report: Google introduced this new integrated view earlier this year through opt-in options, so you had to manually enable Chat and Meet panes. However, as the new phase of the rollout is starting, the company will force you to opt out if you want the classic Gmail view. Google says the change is rolling out to Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts
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Crypto Hedge Fund Three Arrows Set for Court-Ordered Liquidation
A British Virgin Islands court ordered the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, the crypto hedge fund that bet big on everything from Bitcoin to the ill-fated Luna tokens and then succumbed to a $2 trillion wipeout of the digital-asset markets. From a report: The court, which made the order on Monday, has appointed two partners at consulting and advisory firm Teneo to handle the liquidation, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the information is
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Windows 10's 22H2 Update Might Not Actually Do Much of Anything
The Windows 11 22H2 update is working its way through Microsoft's Windows Insider testing channels, and we'd expect it to begin rolling out to Windows 11 PCs at some point in the next few weeks or months. But Microsoft has had almost nothing to say about the next major update to Windows 10 beyond the fact that the operating system will keep getting yearly updates for the foreseeable future. From a report: And the Windows 10 22H2 update is actually already out there for those who know how to inst
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TSMC To Customers: It's Time To Stop Using Older Nodes and Move to 28nm
AnandTech: We tend to discuss leading-edge nodes and the most advanced chips made using them, but there are thousands of chip designs developed years ago that are made using what are now mature process technologies that are still widely employed by the industry. On the execution side of matters, those chips still do their jobs as perfectly as the day the first chip was fabbed which is why product manufacturers keep building more and more using them. But on the manufacturing side of matters there
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Cyber Pirates Prowling Ship Controls Threaten Another Big Shock
An anonymous reader shares a report: In February 2019, a large container ship sailing for New York identified a cyber intrusion on board that startled the US Coast Guard. Though the malware attack never controlled the vessel's movement, authorities concluded that weak defenses exposed critical functions to "significant vulnerabilities." A maritime disaster didn't happen that day, but a warning flare rose over an emerging threat to global trade: cyber piracy able to penetrate on-board technology
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Bitcoin is the Only Coin the SEC Chair Will Call a Commodity
The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, said on CNBC's Squawk Box that the only token he would lump in with commodities was bitcoin. From a report: Gensler pointedly declined to name any cryptocurrency other than the original one, notable because the market has been operating under the assumption that there is a sort of wink-and-nod understanding that ether is also not a security. "Many of these financial assets, crypto assets, have the key attributes of
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Behind the Celsius Sales Pitch Was a Crypto Firm Built on Risk
Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky built his cryptocurrency lender into a giant on a pitch that it was less risky than a bank with better returns for customers. But investor documents show the lender carried far more risk than a traditional bank. From a report: The lender issued numerous large loans backed by little collateral, according to Celsius investor documents from 2021 reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The documents show that Celsius had little cushion in the event of a downturn, and
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Ford Says You Can Never Own Leased EVs
schwit1 shares a report from The Truth About Cars: Ford Motor Co. will be suspending end-of-lease buyout options for customers driving all-electric vehicles, provided they took possession of the model after June 15, 2022. Those who nabbed their Mach-E beforehand will still have the option of purchasing the automobile once their lease ends. However, there are some states that won't be abiding by the updated rules until the end of the year, not that it matters when customers are almost guaranteed
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Gmail's New Look Is About To Become Opt-Out Instead of Opt-In
Google started rolling out an updated user interface for Gmail in February that pulls Meet, Chat, and Spaces closer and applies more of its Material You styling effects. Starting today, it's becoming opt-out instead of opt-in, so your account will switch over to the new view by default pretty soon. The Verge reports: If you can't tell what's different here, the updated UI collects buttons for Mail, Meet, Spaces, and Chat into one list at the top of the left rail instead of showing several conver
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