Linux fréttir

Terms and conditions 'not transparent or fair', High Court judge says

The High Court of England and Wales has ruled that bookmaker Betfred must pay a Lincolnshire blackjack player £1.7m ($2.3m) in winnings that the betting site withheld because of a supposed software glitch.…

Wait... what? Strap in for the story of an Australian rare earth miner, partly owned by China, and worries about uranium dust

The future of a China-backed rare-earth mining operation in southern Greenland has become uncertain following an election in which one of the winning party's key policies was opposition to an Australian mining company.…

Working to improve 'cyberwalls', but for now swift recovery is main strategy

Video The highest-ranked officer in India’s armed forces has admitted that China has cyber-war capabilities that can overwhelm his nation’s defenses and suggested that only cross-forces collaboration will get India to parity with its giant neighbor.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Live-streaming service Twitch will ban users for offenses such as hate-group membership or credible threats of mass violence that occur entirely away from the site, in a new approach to moderating the platform, the company said on Wednesday. The Amazon-owned platform, which is popular among video gamers, said under its new rules it would take enforcement actions against offline offenses that posed a "substantial safety risk" to its community. It said examples of this "severe misconduct" include terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault and threatening Twitch or its staff. "Taking action against misconduct that occurs entirely off our service is a novel approach for both Twitch and the industry at large, but it's one we believe -- and hear from you -- is crucial to get right," the company said in a blog post. The company said users will be able to report such behaviors but it may also investigate cases proactively, for instance if there is a verified news report that a user has been arrested. Twitch said it would rely more heavily on law enforcement in "off-service" cases and is partnering with an investigative law firm to support its internal team. It declined to name the firm. The new standards will apply even if the target of the offline behaviors is not a Twitch user or if the perpetrator was not a user when they committed the acts. Perpetrators would also be banned from registering a Twitch account, it said. Twitch said it would take action only when there was evidence, such as screen shots, videos of off-Twitch behavior or police filings, verified by its internal team or third-party investigators. Users who submit a large amount of frivolous reports will face suspension. The company said in cases where the behavior happened in the distant past, users had gone through rehabilitation such as time in a correctional facility, and they no longer presented a danger to the community, it might not take action or might reinstate users on appeal. It said it would share updates with the involved parties but would not share public updates about actions under this policy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And ponders whether to let itself be bought by private equiteer CVC for $20bn

Toshiba has received an offer to go private.…

According to a new report, YouTube has dethroned Facebook to become the most popular social media platform. Engadget reports: According to the report, YouTube and Facebook are the most widely used platforms. But of the two, only YouTube is still growing, increasing its share of users from 73 percent of adults in 2019, to 81 percent in 2021. Facebook's numbers, meanwhile, remained unchanged from 2019 at 69 percent. "Facebook's growth has leveled off over the last five years, but it remains one of the most widely used social media sites among adults in the United States," Pew writes in its report. Flat growth wasn't unique to just Facebook, either. According to Pew, the only other platform to see "statistically significant" growth since 2019 was Reddit, which grew from 11 percent in 2019 to 18 percent in 2021. "This represents a broader trend that extends beyond the past two years in which the rapid adoption of most of these sites and apps seen in the last decade has slowed," Pew says. The report also found that 49 percent of Facebook users say they check the site multiple times a day, compared to just over a third of YouTube users visiting the platform more frequently than once a day. Another interesting insight is that YouTube is the most dominant platform among 18 to 29-year-olds at 95 percent, followed by Instagram with 71 percent, Facebook at 70 percent, Snapchat with 65 percent, and TikTok at 48 percent.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

innocent_white_lamb writes: The Saskatchewan government will implement a new tax for passenger electric vehicles. The announcement was made Tuesday. The new $150 annual tax on passenger electric vehicles (EVs) will take effect Oct. 1, 2021. The government said the reason for this tax is that EVs do not contribute to highway maintenance through the provincial fuel tax. The new tax will be collected when the vehicle is registered. The province says it will continue to examine the future potential for expanding the EV tax to commercial vehicles and inter-jurisdictional trucking. The province will also consider options to apply a tax at EV charging stations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Let's see what the regulators say

Shareholders in AMD and Xilinx on Wednesday approved their massive proposed merger.…

The NBA expects all arenas to be at full capacity next season, thanks to increased COVID-19 testing and more vaccines being administered. Another key aspect toward that effort is the NBA's new multiyear leaguewide partnership with Clear, a biometric screening company known for its expedited security process at hundreds of airports worldwide. ESPN reports: The partnership makes Clear's COVID-19 health screening technology available to all 30 teams in their NBA arenas, and it's expected to help facilitate more fans returning to games, though it's up to each team how to use the technology. Conversations for a leaguewide partnership began in early September. This is Clear's first leaguewide partnership with a professional sports league, but the company has been working with teams in MLS, MLB, NHL and the NFL. Clear first rolled out this program in a leaguewide format with the NHL's bubble season across two cities in Canada last year. As it pertains to attendance, fans can download the Clear app and upload an identifying document along with a selfie. To link their COVID-19 test results, fans log into their testing account through the app, and results will be linked to their health pass. Before entering the venue, fans can open the app, verify their identity with another selfie and then answer health survey questions. (There are also expected to be an unspecified number of Clear kiosks where fans receive a temperature check and scan their QR code.) Fans are issued a red or green notification depending on their COVID-related health information. A Clear spokesperson noted that the arenas only receive information about whether a fan has passed the requirements for access and not any private health information from the individual. They said that the Clear program is scalable, and could facilitate thousands of fans entering arenas.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: The company behind the UseCrypt Messenger encrypted instant messaging application filed a lawsuit last month against a Polish security researcher for publishing an article that exposed a vulnerability in the app's user invite mechanism. The lawsuit targets Tomasz Zieliski, the editor of Informatyk Zakadowy, a Polish blog dedicated to IT topics, and denounces one of the site's articles, published in October 2020. The article describes how Zielinski found that in some cases, when UseCrypt Messenger users wanted to invite a friend to the app, the application used an insecure domain (autofwd.com) to send out user invitations. Zielinski found that besides running on an insecure HTTP connection, the AutoFWD.com website was also vulnerable to SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities that would have allowed anyone to hijack the site and then read or tamper with UseCrypt invitations. But while the authors of the AutoFWD.com website admitted to the security weaknesses in their service and shut down their website, Zieliski received a firm rebuttal of his research from V440 SA, the legal entity behind the UseCrypt Messenger. In a message the company sent Zieliski a day after his blog post went live, they claimed his research contained "false information." In a message the company sent Zieliski a day after his blog post went live, they claimed his research contained "false information." V440 SA said their app did not use the AutoFWD.com service to handle user invitations but instead relied on an in-house solution hosted on the get.usecryptmessenger.com domain. But in a subsequent update, Zieliski claims that the UseCrypt team was lying and that, in reality, they silently patched their app to remove the AutoFWD.com from its user invite mechanism after his research was posted online and were merely trying to dismiss his findings, even after he notified them in advance of his research. To make matters worse, V440 SA had reportedly filed criminal complaints against not only Zielinksi's blog but also against Niebezpiecznik and Zaufana Trzecia Strona, two other Polish IT security blogs, claiming that the three were working as part of an "organized criminal group." "Requests to remove articles, requests for apologies and other letters from law firms addressed to our editors will not make us stop being interested in a certain issue," the editors of the Polish blogs said in a joint statement. It's currently unknown if there is actually a criminal investigation underway against the three sites or if this is just an intimidation tactic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The trick is to get buddies to decline low-paying jobs and check old code

DoorDash drivers are encouraging one another to turn down food delivery jobs below a minimum threshold of $7 in an attempt to game the company’s in-app payment algorithm.…

schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems has filed a complaint against Google in France alleging that the US tech giant is illegally tracking users on Android phones without their consent. Android phones generate unique advertising codes, similar to Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), that allow Google and third parties to track users' browsing behavior in order to better target them with advertising. In a complaint filed on Wednesday, Schrems' campaign group Noyb argued that in creating and storing these codes without first obtaining explicit permission from users, Google was engaging in "illegal operations" that violate EU privacy laws. Noyb urged France's data privacy regulator to launch a probe into Google's tracking practices and to force the company to comply with privacy rules. It argued that fines should be imposed on the tech giant if the watchdog finds evidence of wrongdoing. "Through these hidden identifiers on your phone, Google and third parties can track users without their consent," said Stefano Rossetti, privacy lawyer at Noyb. "It is like having powder on your hands and feet, leaving a trace of everything you do on your phone -- from whether you swiped right or left to the song you downloaded." Last year, Schrems won a landmark case at Europe's highest court that ruled a transatlantic agreement on transferring data between the bloc and the US used by thousands of corporations did not protect EU citizens' privacy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Best Buy is piloting a new paid membership service that would provide exclusive perks, including concierge-style tech support and exclusive pricing. The subscription service, which will cost $200 a year or $180 if you have a Best Buy credit card, bears similarities with Amazon's Prime subscription as Best Buy looks to expand its services outside the sale of consumer tech products. The new membership, called Best Buy Beta, grants members access to a slew of benefits, including free standard shipping, unlimited Geek Squad technical support, exclusive member pricing, and a 60-day extended return window. Best Buy confirmed that Beta members will also have 24/7 access to a concierge team, which they can contact by phone, email, chat, or through the Best Buy mobile app. The retailer is piloting the new Beta membership in three states: Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma, with plans to expand the annual subscription to select stores in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Tennessee sometime this month.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook did not notify the more than 530 million users whose details were obtained through the misuse of a feature before 2019 and recently made public in a database, and does not currently have plans to do so, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. Reuters: Business Insider reported last week that phone numbers and other details from user profiles were available in a public database. Facebook said in a blog post on Tuesday that "malicious actors" had obtained the data prior to September 2019 by "scraping" profiles using a vulnerability in the platform's tool for synching contacts. The Facebook spokesman said the social media company was not confident it had full visibility on which users would need to be notified. He said it also took into account that users could not fix the issue and that the data was publicly available in deciding not to notify users. Facebook has said it plugged the hole after identifying the problem at the time. Further reading: Facebook Says It's Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Broadband use surged 30% to 40% during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, and even reached 60% in some areas, an industry group has concluded. CNET reports: The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group released data this week that it gathered from internet service providers, broadband analytics firms, and networking companies that help deliver data. We all consumed more downstream data -- the flow from the internet to the home -- but upstream use grew faster. That's an important consideration given that most cable and DSL services offer much higher downstream capacity. All those videoconferences for work meetings and online schooling likely were involved in the upstream data traffic. "Some networks saw more than 300% increase in the amount of video conferencing traffic from February to October 2020," the report said. Though the internet itself held up well overall, there are problems. "Rural and low-income households have struggled" with broadband access to online services, the report said, and some households suffered with older equipment that couldn't handle heavy traffic or the increase in networked devices in the home. If you're having problems at home, you should consider an Ethernet cable connection to your network router, upgrading to a mesh network with multiple network access points, upgrading your PC or phone, or paying for a faster internet connection if it's available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitter held talks in recent months to acquire Clubhouse, the buzzy audio-based social network, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The companies discussed a potential valuation of roughly $4 billion for Clubhouse, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Discussions are no longer ongoing, and it's unclear why they stalled, the people added. [...] Clubhouse is barely a year old but has drawn appearances from some of the biggest names in business and Hollywood. Established social media companies have quickly gone to work on their own versions of Clubhouse, including Twitter. Facebook is exploring one, too, and Microsoft's LinkedIn and Slack have also said they're working on similar features for their networks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Software nasty also 'persists after a factory reset'

Android smartphones from Gigaset have been infected by malware direct from the manufacturer in what appears to be a supply-chain attack.…

The joint international and Chinese mission organized by the World Health Organization on the origins of Covid released its report last week suggesting that for almost every topic it covered, more study was needed. What kind of study and who will do it is the question. From a report: The report suggested pursuing multiple lines of inquiry, focused on the likely origin of the coronavirus in bats. It concluded that the most likely route to humans was through an intermediate animal, perhaps at a wildlife farm. Among future efforts could be surveys of blood banks to look for cases that could have appeared before December 2019 and tracking down potential animal sources of the virus in wildlife farms, the team proposed. Critics of the report have sought more consideration of the possibility that a laboratory incident in Wuhan could have led to the first human infection. A loosely organized group of scientists and others who have been meeting virtually to discuss the possibility of a lab leak released an open letter this week, detailing several ways to conduct a thorough investigation. It called for further action, arguing that "critical records and biological samples that could provide essential insights into pandemic origins remain inaccessible." Much of the letter echoes an earlier release from the same group detailing what it saw as the failures of the W.H.O. mission. This second letter is more specific in the kind of future investigations it proposes. The group is seeking a new inquiry that would include biosecurity and biosafety experts, one that could involve the W.H.O. or a separate multination effort to set up a different process to explore the beginnings of the pandemic and its origins in China. Jamie Metzl, an author, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, an international policy think tank and signer of the scientists' letter, said the renewed calls for a more thorough investigation reflected the need for greater monitoring of and restrictions on what viruses can be studied in labs around the world. "This is not about ganging up on China," Mr. Metzl said. Mr. Metzl's group was among those disappointed by the report issued last week, as it dismissed out of hand the possibility of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, calling it extremely unlikely. Further reading: Data Withheld From WHO Team Probing COVID-19 Origins in China: Tedros.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trade-in provider Gazelle exited the online trade-in business back in February, and now the company says it's changing its mind. From a report: Gazelle is back to accepting online trade-ins of iPhones, Samsung phones, Google Pixel devices, and iPads and other tablets on its website, the company confirms to The Verge. The program resumed accepting new offers on April 5th, a Gazelle representative clarified. "Earlier this year, we announced that we will no longer be offering our trade-in option on Gazelle. After careful consideration, including feedback from customers like you, we have decided to keep Gazelle Trade-In going. Today, we are happy to say, 'We're back, baby!'" reads an email Gazelle sent to prospective customers. "Gazelle Trade-In is a pioneer of the electronics trade-in space and we are happy to continue building on our legacy by offering a simple process and immediate payouts for those unwanted devices." Gazelle emerged as one of the leading trade-in providers of the smartphone era. But its business model didn't fare as well when the US mobile phone business underwent major shifts away from two-year contracts and outright device purchases and toward phone leasing and carrier and device maker trade-in programs like Apple's.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Or the cost triples, which is one way to encourage concise programming

AWS has declared Python support in its automated code review system CodeGuru production ready, as well as reducing the price by "up to 90 per cent."…