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Submission + - Oregon Signs Nation's First Right-To-Repair Bill That Bans Parts Pairing (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Oregon Governor Tina Kotek today signed the state's Right to Repair Act, which will push manufacturers to provide more repair options for their products than any other state so far. The law, like those passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, will require many manufacturers to provide the same parts, tools, and documentation to individuals and repair shops that they provide to their own repair teams. But Oregon's bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function. Known as parts pairing or serialization, Oregon's bill, SB 1596, is the first in the nation to target that practice. Oregon State Senator Janeen Sollman (D) and Representative Courtney Neron (D) sponsored and pushed the bill in the state senate and legislature.

Oregon's bill isn't stronger in every regard. For one, there is no set number of years for a manufacturer to support a device with repair support. Parts pairing is prohibited only on devices sold in 2025 and later. And there are carve-outs for certain kinds of electronics and devices, including video game consoles, medical devices, HVAC systems, motor vehicles, and—as with other states—"electric toothbrushes."

Submission + - Ransomware victim makes large profit recovering ransom (dw.com)

Submitted by thegarbz
thegarbz writes: In 2019 Maastricht University in the Netherlands was hit with a ransomware attack which locked 25,000 staff and students out of their research data. The university agreed to pay a ransom of €200,000 to unlock the encrypted data. It seems that a small part of the ransom has been recovered, but with a twist.

As part of an investigation into the cyberattack, Dutch police tracked down a bank account belonging to a money launderer in Ukraine, into which a relatively small amount of the ransom money — around €40,000 worth of Bitcoin — had been paid. Prosecutors were able to seize the account in 2020 and found a number of different cryptocurrencies. The authorities were then able to return the ransom back to the university after more than two years. But the value of the Bitcoin held in the Ukrainian account has increased from its then-value of €40,000 to €500,000.

Submission + - Code bloat has become astronomical (positech.co.uk) 3

Submitted by Artem S. Tashkinov
Artem S. Tashkinov writes: An indie game programmer Cliff Harris shares his concerns about the current state of compute: Code bloat sounds like something that grumpy old programmers in their fifties (like me) make a big deal out of, because we are grumpy and old and also grumpy. I get that. But us being old and grumpy means complaining when code runs 50% slower than it should, or is 50% too big. This is way, way, way beyond that. We are at the point where I honestly do believe that 99.9% of the code in files on your PC is absolutely useless and is never even executed. Its just there, in a suite of 65 DLLS, all because some coder wanted to do something trivial, like save out a bitmap and had *no idea how easy that is*, so they just imported an entire bucketful of bloatware to achieve it.

Like I say, I really should not be annoyed at young programmers doing this. Its what they learned. They have no idea what high performance or constraint-based development is. When you tell them the original game Elite had a sprawling galaxy, space combat in 3D, a career progression system, trading and thousands of planets to explore, and it was 64k, I guess they HEAR you, but they don’t REALLY understand the gap between that, and what we have now.

Computers are so fast these days that you should be able to consider them absolute magic. Everything that you could possibly imagine should happen between the 60ths of a second of the refresh rate. And yet, when I click the volume icon on my microsoft surface laptop (pretty new), there is a VISIBLE DELAY as the machine gradually builds up a new user interface element, and eventually works out what icons to draw and has them pop-in and they go live. It takes ACTUAL TIME. I suspect a half second, which in CPU time, is like a billion fucking years.

Submission + - Google App Store Replaces Permissions List with Meaningless "Data Safety" Page

Submitted by ewhac
ewhac writes: When browsing apps on the Google Play App Store, either on the Web or via the Android app, it was possible to inspect the list of system permissions the app required. This let Android users get an idea of what the app would have access to once installed on their phone (e.g. whether the app could send and/or receive SMS text messages, whether it could access local files, whether it would launch itself at boot, etc.). Further, when an update to an app added new permission requirements, the Play Store app would mark those newly added permissions on the permissions page. This system was designed to disclose to users what the app had access to, allowing the user to make a (hopefully) informed choice as to whether to install/update the app. For example, a "flashlight" app that enables/disables your camera's flash/LED probably shouldn't have access to your contact list.

As of today (on my phone at least) that permissions page has been deleted and replaced with a "Data Safety" page. This page describes in very vague terms what data on your phone the app will have access to, and how it will be treated. It sort of resembles an attempt at a standardized disclosure found in many privacy policies. However, this "data safety" declaration appears to be in a new app metadata block — which many if not most apps on the Play Store have not yet added (many apps show, "No information available") — and is completely independent of the long-standing system permissions list. The old permissions list page is nowhere to be found. In other words, it is now no longer possible to learn what permissions an app is arrogating to itself before you install it.

This appears to have been first noticed in a Reddit thread about a month ago. The comments there suggest the earlier sightings might have been a test roll-out, and the change may now be seeing wider distribution.

Submission + - GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor (cloudsek.com)

Submitted by Grokew
Grokew writes: Goodwill ransomware group propagates very unusual demands in exchange for the decryption key. The Robin Hood-like group is forcing its Victims to donate to the poor and provides financial assistance to the patients in need.

In order for the victims to obtain the decryption keys, they must provide proof of Donating to the homeless, sharing a meal with the less fortunate, and pay a debt of someone who can't afford it.

Submission + - Writing Google Reviews About Patients is Actually A HIPAA Violation (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by August Oleman
August Oleman writes: According to The Verge, health providers writing Google reviews about patients with identifiable information is a HIPAA violation:

In the past few years, the phrase 'HIPAA violation' has been thrown around a lot, often incorrectly. People have cited the law, which protects patient health information, as a reason they can’t be asked if they’re vaccinated or get a doctor’s note for an employer.

But asking someone if they’re vaccinated isn’t actually a HIPAA violation. That’s a fine and not-illegal thing for one non-doctor to ask another non-doctor. What is a HIPAA violation is what U. Phillip Igbinadolor, a dentist in North Carolina, did in September 2015, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. After a patient left an anonymous, negative Google review, he logged on and responded with his own post on the Google page, saying that the patient missed scheduled appointments. [...]

In the post, he used the patient’s full name and described, in detail, the specific dental problem he was in for: “excruciating pain” from the lower left quadrant, which resulted in a referral for a root canal.

That’s what a HIPAA violation actually looks like.

Submission + - SPAM: License plate camera shield

Submitted by finosa
finosa writes: License plate camera shield is here are many products you can use to obscure your license plate in the market. In this regard, this article exposes how to make number plates invisible to cameras. Red light cameras monitor more than red lights: many also watch for a right turn on red where the vehicle fails to halt. Same for left turns on red, and they're frequently used to generate speeding tickets as well.

Products claiming to defeat cameras fall into three classes: passive, active and radar detectors. Passive products include license plate covers. Made of clear polycarbonate, they have a thin layer of prismatic material positioned over the alphanumeric characters. Viewed at a zero-degree angle—from directly behind—the plate can be read. But as one moves to the side and the angle becomes greater, one or more of the numbers will be obscured. At least that's what the manufacturers promise.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: Russian ransomware gang exposed by Ukrainian researcher

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: Over one month into Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the focus has turned not to Ukraine's downfall, but it's unrelenting defense and ability to destroy vast quantities of Russia's military equipment and personnel. Ukraine's military has punched far above its weight while Russia's military has shown itself to be inept, incompetent and wholly unprepared for modern combat.

However, not everyone can or wants to wield a rifle. Such is the case of Danylo (name changed for his protection) who has singlehandedly exposed a notorious Russian ransomeware gang. From the story:

As Russian artillery began raining down on his homeland last month, one Ukrainian computer researcher decided to fight back the best way he knew how – by sabotaging one of the most formidable ransomware gangs in Russia.

Four days into Russia’s invasion, the researcher began publishing the biggest leak ever of files and data from Conti, a syndicate of Russian and Eastern Europe cybercriminals wanted by the FBI for conducting attacks on hundreds of US organizations and causing millions of dollars in losses.

The thousands of internal documents and communications include evidence that appears to suggest Conti operatives have contacts within the Russian government, including the FSB intelligence service. That supports a longstanding US allegation that Moscow has colluded with cybercriminals for strategic advantage.

. . .

For years, Danylo said, he quietly lurked on the hackers’ computer servers and would pass along information on the group’s operations to European law enforcement officials.

Conti ransomware has been rampant in the last two years, with the hackers claiming numerous victims a week.

In September 2020, the hackers claimed to have stolen case files from a district court in Louisiana. In March 2021, Conti ransomware was used in a hack that hobbled the computer networks of Ireland’s $25 billion public health system, disrupting a maternity ward in Dublin.

. . .

But something snapped in Danylo on February 25, 2022, when Conti operatives published a statement pledging their “full support” for the Russian government as it attacked Ukraine.

. . .

Asked again why he dumped the Conti data, Danylo said with a laugh: “To prove that they are motherf**kers.” He was exhausted from a long day navigating military checkpoints in Ukraine, on the hunt for cigarettes and looking to the sky for signs of the next air raid.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - 40,000 Chromebooks and 9,600 iPads Go Missing at Chicago Public Schools

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "When the school system [Chicago Public Schools] shifted to having students learn remotely in the spring of 2020 near the beginning of the pandemic, it lent students iPads, MacBooks and Windows computer devices so they could do school work and attend virtual classes from home," reports Frank Main in the Chicago Sun-Times. "CPS then spent about $165 million to buy Chromebook desktop computers so that every student from kindergarten through senior year in high school who needed a computer could have one. Students borrowed 161,100 Chromebooks in September 2020. By June 2021, more than 210,000 of those devices had been given out. Of them, nearly 40,000 Chromebooks have been reported lost — nearly a fifth of those that were lent. 'Schools have made repeated efforts to recover the lost devices from families without success,' according to a written statement from CPS officials in response to questions about the missing school property. Also missing are more than 9,600 iPads, 114 televisions, 1,680 printers and 1,127 audiovisual projectors, among many other items. Officials say CPS has bought new computer devices to replace the missing ones."

There were 340,658 students enrolled in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Comment So... (Score 1) 1163

by ski9826 (#41961675) Attached to: Secession Petitions Flood White House Website
Why does opposing Obama so much that you don't want to be a part of the US anymore have to have something to do with race? I'm sure this is the case for some (maybe more than some), but I would disagree with almost everything that man does and stands for, whether he was white, black, or purple polka dot.

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