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Security

Cyberattack On Listings Provider Halts US Real Estate Markets (arstechnica.com) 3

Posted by BeauHD from the real-world-consequences dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Home buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and listing websites throughout the US have been stymied for five days by a cyberattack on a California company that provides a crucial online service used to track home listings. The attack, which commenced last Wednesday, hit Rapottoni, a software and services provider that supplies Multiple Listing Services to regional real estate groups nationwide. Better known as MLS, it provides instant access to data on which homes are coming to the market, purchase offers, and sales of listed homes. MLS has become essential for connecting buyers to sellers and to the agents and listing websites serving them.

"If you're an avid online refresher on any real estate website, you may have noticed a real nosedive in activity the last couple of days," Peg King, a realty agent in California's Sonoma County, wrote in an email newsletter she sent clients on Friday. "Real estate MLS systems across the country have been unusable since Wednesday after a massive cyberattack against major MLS provider, Rapattoni Corporation. This means that real estate markets (like ours!) can't list new homes, change prices, mark homes as pending/contingent/sold, or list open houses."

While Rapattoni has referred to the incident as a cyberattack, it has been widely reported that the event is a ransomware attack, in which criminals gain unauthorized access to a victim's network, encrypt or download crucial data and demand payment in exchange for decrypting the data or promising not to publish it. Rapattoni has so far not said publicly what sort of attack shut it down or other details. Rapattoni has yet to say whether personal information has been compromised. [...] Not all regional listing services are affected because some use data vendors other than Rapattoni. The damage the outage is causing to agents, buyers, renters, and sellers could get worse unless services are restored in the next few days. On Sunday, Rapattoni wrote: "We are continuing to investigate the nature and scope of the cyberattack that has caused a system outage and we are working diligently to get systems restored as soon as possible. All technical resources at our disposal are continuing to work around the clock through the weekend until this matter is resolved. We still do not have an ETA at this time, but we will continue to update you and keep you informed of our efforts."
Businesses

Amazon's Leader On Alexa, Echo and Other Devices Plans To Leave (seattletimes.com) 1

Posted by BeauHD from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.
Dave Limp, a longtime executive at Amazon who oversees the unit that makes Echo smart speakers and the Alexa voice assistant, plans to retire "before the end of the year." The Seattle Times reports: In a note to employees, also posted on Amazon's corporate blog, Limp wrote that he'd been working in consumer electronics off and on for more than 30 years. "I love it, but I also want to look into the future through a different lens," he said. "I am not sure what that future is right now, with the notable exception that it won't be in the consumer electronics space." Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said the company would announce Limp's successor "in the coming weeks."

Limp's division was among those affected by an unprecedentedly large round of layoffs that affected 27,000 people. "I remain excited and quite optimistic about the products and services we're building in Devices and Services -- we're at the relative beginning of what's possible and what I believe these businesses will add for customers and the company," Jassy said.
The Almighty Buck

Bank of Ireland IT Blunder Allows Customers To Withdraw More Money Than What's Held In Their Accounts (independent.ie) 11

Posted by BeauHD from the it's-your-lucky-day dept.
Long lines have formed at ATMs around Ireland tonight as a cash machine glitch is allowing customers to withdraw more cash than they have in their accounts. Independent.ie reports: The fault with the online app allows people who have no money in their account to transfer up to 500 euros into a Revolut account. Some people claimed they were able to get access to 1,000 eros, but the bank insisted the daily withdrawal limit is 500 euros. Once people use their Bank of Ireland app to transfer the funds to Revolut they can then withdraw the cash from the Revoult account through any ATM.

Huge queues at ATMs in Dublin, Limerick, Dundalk and other parts of the country were reported this evening as people took advantage of the screw-up to withdraw cash from their Revolut accounts. There were reports in Dundalk of gardai (the state police force of the Irish Republic) having to control crowds at ATMs in the town. The frenzied withdrawal of cash was despite warnings on social media that there is no such thing as free cash and the money will have to be repaid. The bank said in a statement: "We are working on a technical issue that is impacting a number of our services including our mobile app and 365Online. We are working to fix this as quickly as possible and apologize to customers for any inconvenience caused."

"We would like to remind customers that if they transfer or withdraw funds -- including over their normal limits -- this money will be debited from their account," the bank added. "While we are conscious customers may not be able to check their balance at this time, they should not withdraw or transfer funds if they are likely to become overdrawn."
AI

Top Physicist Says Chatbots Are Just 'Glorified Tape Recorders' (cnn.com) 61

Posted by BeauHD from the overblown-fears dept.
In an interview with CNN, Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center, said chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT are just "glorified tape recorders." From the report: "It takes snippets of what's on the web created by a human, splices them together and passes it off as if it created these things," he said. "And people are saying, 'Oh my God, it's a human, it's humanlike.'" However, he said, chatbots cannot discern true from false: "That has to be put in by a human." According to Kaku, humanity is in its second stage of computer evolution. The first was the analog stage, "when we computed with sticks, stones, levers, gears, pulleys, string." After that, around World War II, he said, we switched to electricity-powered transistors. It made the development of the microchip possible and helped shape today's digital landscape. But this digital landscape rests on the idea of two states like "on" and "off," and uses binary notation composed of zeros and ones.

"Mother Nature would laugh at us because Mother Nature does not use zeros and ones," Kaku said. "Mother Nature computes on electrons, electron waves, waves that create molecules. And that's why we're now entering stage three." He believes the next technological stage will be in the quantum realm. Quantum computing is an emerging technology utilizing the various states of particles like electrons to vastly increase a computer's processing power. Instead of using computer chips with two states, quantum computers use various states of vibrating waves. It makes them capable of analyzing and solving problems much faster than normal computers. But beyond business applications, Kaku said quantum computing could also help advance health care. "Cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease -- these are diseases at the molecular level. We're powerless to cure these diseases because we have to learn the language of nature, which is the language of molecules and quantum electrons."
Piracy

Court Orders SportsBay To Pay Almost Half a Billion Dollars For Violating DMCA (torrentfreak.com) 10

Posted by BeauHD from the that's-a-lot-of-zeros dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In the summer of 2021, DISH Network and Sling filed a copyright lawsuit against four unlicensed sports streaming sites, among them the popular SportsBay.org. After the plaintiffs named two alleged operators of the sites, this week a court in Texas held the pair liable for almost 2.5 million violations of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and almost half a billion dollars in damages. [...] The complaint alleged that the unknown defendants circumvented (and provided technologies and services that circumvented) security measures employed by Sling and thereby provided "DISH's television programming" to users of their websites. The plaintiffs requested a permanent injunction, control of the defendants' domains, and damages of up to $2,500 for each violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.

According to DISH's first amended complaint filed in January 2022, information obtained from the third-party service providers enabled the company to identify two men responsible for operating the SportsBay sites. Juan Barcan, an individual residing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, used his PayPal account to make payments to Namecheap and GitHub. Juan Nahuel Pereyra, also of Buenos Aires, used his PayPal account to make payments to Namecheap. On January 20, 2022, DISH sent a request to the Argentine Central Authority to serve Barcan and Pereyra under the Hague Convention. On October 31, 2022, the Central Authority informed DISH that Pereyra was served in Buenos Aires on September 14, 2022. Barcan was not served so after obtaining permission from the court, DISH served Barcan via a Gmail address used to make payments to Namecheap for the Sportsbay.org, Live-nba.stream, and Freefeds.com domain names. When the defendants failed to appear, DISH sought default judgment. [...]

In his order (PDF) handed down yesterday, District Judge Charles Eskridge entered a default judgment against Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra for violations of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The defendants and anyone acting in concert with them are permanently enjoined from circumventing any technological protection measure that controls access to Sling or DISH programming, including through the use of websites or any similar internet streaming service. Then comes the award for damages. "Plaintiffs are awarded $493,850,000 in statutory damages against Defendants, jointly and severally, for Defendants' 2,469,250 violations of section 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA," the order reads.
Businesses

Tesla Says It Will Build New 'First of Its Kind' Data Centers (electrek.co) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the getting-into-the-data-center-business dept.
Tesla is hiring staff for the company's new "first of its kind" data centers. Electrek reports: Tesla has shared a new job posting for a "Sr. Engineering Program Manager, Data Center" role first spotted by Electrek last week. In the job posting, Tesla says that it will build "1st of its kind Data Centers": "This role will lead the end-to-end design and engineering of Tesla's 1st of its kind Data Centers and will be one of the key members of the factory engineering team." Tesla didn't explain how those data centers will be "1st of their kind," which is not something you'd expect in a job posting anyway.

But interestingly, the new effort comes as Tesla has been taking over data centers from Twitter. [...] The Information reported that Tesla has taken over one of the old Twitter data centers leased from NTT Data that the social media company was using in Sacramento. The report also mentions that Tesla is in talks with Prime Data Centers to use another data center that Twitter used to have in Sacramento.

Tesla is seeing its need for data processing increasing rapidly as it tries to take advantage of its growing fleet of millions of vehicles all equipped with cameras in order to improve the neural nets powering its self-driving effort. The automaker is also handling a growing number of connectivity features that it tries to sell to vehicle owners through a $10-a-month "Premium Connectivity" subscription service. On the energy side, Tesla is also handling a lot of data to operate its virtual power plant and its services to distributed energy assets, like Autobidder and Powerhub.
Firefox

Firefox Finally Outperforming Google Chrome In SunSpider (phoronix.com) 16

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: Mozilla developers are celebrating that they are now faster than Google Chrome with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, although that test has been superseded by the JetStream benchmark. Last week a new Firefox Nightly News was published that outlines that "We're now apparently beating Chrome on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark!" The provided numbers now show Firefox easily beating Chrome in this decade-old JavaScript benchmark. The benchmarks come from AreWeFastYet.com. Meanwhile for the newer and more demanding JetStream 2.0 benchmark, Google Chrome continues to win easily over Firefox. You can learn more about the latest Firefox Nightly build advancements via Firefox Nightly News.
The Internet

ISPs Complain That Listing Every Fee Is Too Hard, Urge FCC To Scrap New Rule (arstechnica.com) 108

Posted by BeauHD from the trying-to-create-loopholes dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US broadband industry is united in opposition to a requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. Five lobby groups representing cable companies, fiber and DSL providers, and mobile operators have repeatedly urged the Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the requirement before new broadband labeling rules take effect. The trade associations petitioned the FCC in January to change the rules and renewed their call last week in a filing and in a meeting with FCC officials. The requirement that ISPs list all their monthly fees "would add unnecessary complexity and burdens to the label for consumers and providers and could result in some providers having to create many labels for any given plan," the groups said in the filing on Friday.

The trade groups said the FCC should instead "require providers to include an explanatory statement that such fees may apply and that they vary by jurisdiction, similar to the Commission's treatment of government-imposed taxes," or require "the display of the maximum level of government-imposed fees that might be passed through, so that consumers would not experience bill shock with respect to such fees." The filing was submitted by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies. The NCTA's ex parte filing described a meeting with FCC officials that also included wireless industry trade group CTIA and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Frontier, and Windstream.

Comcast submitted its own filing urging the FCC to scrap the rules in June. The calls to weaken the FCC's truth-in-billing rules angered consumer advocates, as we wrote at the time. "The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Congress required the FCC to implement broadband labels with exact prices for Internet service plans in a 2021 law, but gave the FCC some leeway in how to structure the rules. The FCC adopted specific label rules in November 2022. The labels must be displayed to consumers at the point of sale and include monthly price, additional charges, speeds, data caps, additional charges for data, and other information. The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.
HP

Judge Denies HP's Plea To Throw Out All-in-One Printer Lockdown Lawsuit (theregister.com) 20

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
HP all-in-one printer owners, upset that their devices wouldn't scan or fax when low on ink, were handed a partial win in a northern California court late last week after a judge denied HP's motion to dismiss their suit. From a report: The plaintiffs argued in their amended class action complaint that HP withheld vital information by including software in its all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines that disabled non-printing functions when out of ink and not telling buyers that was the case. "It is well-documented that ink is not required in order to scan or to fax a document, and it is certainly possible to manufacture an All-in-One printer that scans or faxes when the device is out of ink," the plaintiffs argued in their complaint.

The amended complaint was filed in February this year after US federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman dismissed the suit on the grounds that it hadn't properly stated a claim. Armed with their amended complaint, lawyers for San Franciscan Gary Freund and Minneapolis resident Wayne McMath have succeeded at not only making relevant claims, but also surviving an attempt by HP to have the entire case dismissed for a second time. In the amended complaint, Freund and McMath's lawyers argue that HP's move to disable devices that were low on ink was intentional, citing HP's own comments from a support forum post in which an HP support agent told a user complaining of similar issues that their "HP printer is designed in such a way that with the empty cartridge or without the cartridge [the] printer will not function."
Security

Congressman Bacon Says His Emails Were Hacked in Campaign Linked To China (bloomberg.com) 19

Posted by msmash from the growing-concern dept.
US Representative Don Bacon said he is among those whose emails were hacked in an espionage campaign that Microsoft has attributed to China. From a report:Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and a strong advocate for US military support to Taiwan, posted on social media that the FBI had notified him that the Chinese Communist Party hacked into his personal and campaign emails over the course of a month, from May 15 to June 16. "The CCP hackers utilized a vulnerability in the Microsoft software, and this was not due to 'user error,'" he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, received an email from Microsoft indicating he may have been hacked and advising him to change his password on June 16, according to Maggie Sayers, Bacon's press secretary. She said that following subsequent notification from the FBI that he had been hacked, Bacon determined emails relating to political strategy, fundraising and personal banking information may have been breached. As a former US Air Force intelligence officer, he is careful to avoid writing sensitive emails relating to China and Taiwan, she said.
Google

Google Required To Remove Ads That Violate Trademarks, Indian Court Rules (techcrunch.com) 11

Posted by msmash from the setting-the-record dept.
The Delhi High Court has ruled that Google's Ads program falls under the purview of the country's Trademarks Act and the company must remove ads that infringe upon trademarks in a major decision that may redefine online advertising's legal landscape. From a report: The decision), delivered by a division bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Amit Mahajan last week, observed that Google was an "active participant" in the use of the trademarks of proprietors. Google's practice of suggesting competitors' trademarks as keywords to advertisers yielded significant profits for the search giant via keyword sales. This case was spurred by a complaint from logistics firm DRS, which pointed out that searches for its trademark "Agarwal Packers and Movers" returned competitor websites. DRS alleged that Google's ad mechanism exploited its trademark to divert users to rival sites. Upholding the initial order, the division bench directed Google to act on DRS's grievances and remove offending ads.
United States

US Watchdog To Announce Plans To Regulate 'Surveillance Industry' (reuters.com) 20

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
The top U.S. agency for consumer financial protection will announce plans at the White House on Tuesday to regulate companies that track and sell people's personal data, part of the Biden administration's widening scrutiny of that industry's privacy practices, officials said. From a report: Data brokers' conduct can be "particularly worrisome" because the sensitive data driving the use of artificial intelligence can be collected from military personnel, people experiencing dementia, and others, according to Rohit Chopra, director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "The CFPB will be taking steps to ensure that modern-day data brokers in the surveillance industry know that they cannot engage in illegal collection and sharing of our data," he said in a statement. President Joe Biden last year called on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to help protect the data privacy of women seeking reproductive healthcare who may face law enforcement action in some states. The FTC has also sued an Idaho company for selling mobile phone geolocation data, saying it could be traced to places like abortion clinics, churches and addiction treatment centers.
XBox (Games)

Xbox Introduces New Strike System To Curtail Bad Behavior (theverge.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
A new strike-based enforcement program is coming to Xbox today. The system is meant to clear up confusion regarding how Xbox enforces its community standards and help players keep track of enforcement actions made on their accounts. The Verge: In an interview with The Verge, Xbox player services corporate vice president Dave McCarthy explained the new enforcement system and its place in Xbox's overall community management strategy. "This is all about player transparency," McCarthy said. "We didn't have a way to show our players what their standing was in our community. And this makes it completely clear." In the new system, if a player violates the Xbox community standards, they'll receive a strike. The severity of the violation determines the number of strikes and the length of the punishment. If a player receives a total of eight strikes, their account will be banned from using Xbox services like voice chat or multiplayer for a year. The strike program starts today with everyone on the platform getting a clean strike-less slate.
Google

Google Chrome Will Summarize Entire Articles For You With Built-in Generative AI (theverge.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the PSA dept.
Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) is getting a major new feature: it will be able to summarize articles you're reading on the web, according to a Google blog post. From a report: SGE can already summarize search results for you so that you don't have to scroll forever to find what you're looking for, and this new feature is designed to take that further by helping you out after you've actually clicked a link. You probably won't see this feature, which Google is calling "SGE while browsing," right away. Google says it's a new feature that's starting to roll out Tuesday as "an early experiment" in its opt-in Search Labs program. (You'll get access to it if you already opted in to SGE, but if you haven't, you can opt in to the feature on its own.) It will be available first in the Google app on Android and iOS, and the company is bringing it to the Chrome browser on desktop "in the days ahead."
United Kingdom

Shortage of Experts and Low Pay 'Major Barriers To UK's Net Zero Future' (theguardian.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Staff shortages, a lack of specialist personnel and low pay are major barriers to achieving net zero, according to workers in the UK environment sector. From a report: The trade union Prospect, many members of which work in the climate and environment sector, received more than 500 responses to a survey on workplace trends. Widespread shortages of expert staff and reductions in specialist personnel in recent years had seriously affected workload levels, the study found. Four in 10 workers said they had seen a reduction in the numbers of expert staff in the past year, and 35% said they had experienced a significant increase in workload.

More than 100 respondents provided additional comments. "I really like the people I work with and the value of the work I do," one wrote, "but I could be paid four times as much for my skills in a different industry -- one that is bad or indifferent to the environment. We can't solve environmental problems or net zero unless we have people to do the work." The reduction in expertise has led to important tasks being assigned to inexperienced staff, according to respondents, with 36% saying specialist jobs are being allocated to untrained workers. Low pay is a significant concern across the sector, which has a large percentage of specialised and highly educated staff. Despite the skilled nature of many roles and 20% of survey participants having a PhD or equivalent, 38% of respondents report earning $38,000 or less.

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