The Courts

Lawsuit Accuses Troubled Crypto Lender Celsius Network of Fraud (reuters.com) 32

A former investment manager at Celsius Network sued the crypto lender on Thursday, saying it used customer deposits to rig the price of its own crypto token and failed to properly hedge risk, causing it to freeze customer assets. From a report: The complaint said Celsius ran a Ponzi scheme to benefit itself through "gross mismanagement of customer deposits," and defrauded the plaintiff KeyFi Inc, run by the former manager Jason Stone, into providing services worth millions of dollars and refusing to pay for them.
Apple

IDC: 'All Eyes Will Be On Apple' As Meta's VR Strategy 'Isn't Sustainable' (arstechnica.com) 78

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A recent media release from market research firm IDC predicts that Meta (the parent company of Facebook) may not be able to compete in the mixed-reality business in the long run if its strategy remains unchanged. The media release offers a bird's-eye view of the virtual reality hardware marketplace. In the release, IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said that, while "Meta continues to pour dollars into developing the metaverse, [the company's] strategy of promoting low-cost hardware at the expense of profitability isn't sustainable in the long run."

A similar concern was raised by tech industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo late last month. Kuo predicted that Meta would make moves to scale down investment in virtual reality, creating an opening for Apple and other competitors. He also wrote that Meta's practice of selling VR headsets at a loss is unsustainable. Currently, Meta owns 90 percent of the VR headset market, according to the IDC release. In distant second is ByteDance's Pico, at just 4.5 percent. Overall, VR headset shipments jumped 241.6 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2022. But the industry faced significant supply issues in Q1 2021, contributing to "a favorable comparison" for this year's Q1.

Like Kuo a couple of weeks ago, IDC research director Ramon Llamas said that "all eyes will be on Apple as it launches its first headset next year." Apple's headset is expected to be much more expensive than Meta's offerings, driving up the average unit price for the product category across the board, and Llamas believes Apple's offering "will appeal primarily to a small audience of early adopters and Apple fans." In other words, don't expect the first Apple headset to ship vastly more units than Meta's Oculus Quest 2 right out of the gate. It's just a first step in a long-term plan to own the mixed-reality market.

Transportation

After Reports of Mid-Air Emergencies, US Will Audit Boeing's Oversight of 737 Max (abc.net.au) 119

"Boeing's troubled 737 MAX planes — which have twice crashed, killing 346 people — have experienced at least six mid-air emergencies and dozens of groundings in the year after an extensive probe cleared them to fly," reports Australia's public broadcaster ABC News: The incidents, pulled from U.S. government air safety databases, are among more than 60 mid-flight problems reported by pilots in the 12 months after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recertified the plane's airworthiness in late 2020. Former employees of both Boeing and the FAA characterised the reports — which included engine shutdowns and pilots losing partial control of the plane — as serious and with the potential to end in tragedy.

In one incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot declared a mayday after the system controlling the pitch and altitude of the plane started malfunctioning...

The MAX's flight control system also failed on 22 separate flights, a problem which became the primary focus of the FAA's 20-month recertification effort after the two fatal crashes. More than 42 incidents involved equipment malfunctions, and on more than 40 occasions, flight crews chose to ground the affected aircraft while problems were fixed.... Some planes also had a multitude of problems. One Alaskan Airlines MAX-9 was grounded seven times over five months due to malfunctions with its navigation or communication equipment.

A Boeing spokeswoman told the ABC, "none of the reports indicate a trend".

"In fact, the in-service reliability of the 737 MAX is consistent with other commercial airplane models," the spokeswoman said. "Since November 2020, the 737 MAX has flown more than 1.5 million flight hours in more than 580,000 revenue flights. The overwhelming majority of these flights have been conducted without any incident."

Former senior Boeing manager Ed Pierson — who worked at the 737 MAX factory in Seattle between 2015 and 2018 — told ABC "There are a lot of similarities between what we're seeing in some of the reports with what happened during these two crashes."

The article also reports that America's Federal Aviation Administration "has now confirmed it did not investigate Boeing's alleged production problems after the crashes."

Later the article adds that the U.S. government "will announce a new audit examining Boeing's production oversight of the 737 MAX planes."
AI

'The Batting Lab': the Bad News Bears Meet AI? (sas.com) 2

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Back in the day, my Little League coach used some techniques one might expect to see in The Bad News Bears, like holding batting practices at an amusement park instead of on a baseball field, giving each kid a roll of coins and sending them into the batting cages to experience faster pitching than they'd see from 9-12-year-olds (it was surprisingly effective training).

So how might kids improve their hitting in the era of AI, ML, and Data Science? Well, as part of their data literacy initiatives, SAS worked with North Carolina State University's softball and baseball teams to collect data on the key moments of an elite player's swing and used that data to help youth players improve their swings in The Batting Lab (Today show video), an AI and IOT take on the traditional batting cage.

As one 11-year-old explained to the Today show, "There's diagrams and charts and graphs to show us what part of our swing has the most room for improvement.... I would say that they are tricking us to do some math, a little bit."

But later in the same video, one SAS manager explains that "We don't need students to grow up to be data scientists. We need them to be data believers — people who believe that if they're going to strategically solve a problem, that data is a component of that."
Chrome

Google Consolidates Its Chrome and Android Password Managers (techcrunch.com) 6

Google today announced an update to its password manager that will finally introduce a consistent look-and-feel across the service's Chrome and Android implementations. From a report: Users will soon see a new unified user experience that will automatically group multiple passwords for the same sites or apps together, as well as a new shortcut on the Android home screen to get access to these passwords. In addition to this, Google is also now adding a new password-related feature to Chrome on iOS, which can now generate strong passwords for you (once you set Chrome as an autofill provider). Meanwhile, on Android, Google's password check can now also flag weak and re-used passwords and help you to automatically change them, while Chrome users across platforms will now see compromised password warnings.
Open Source

Linus Torvalds Is Cautiously Optimistic About Bringing Rust Into Linux Kernel's Next Release (zdnet.com) 123

slack_justyb shares a report from ZDNet: For over three decades, Linux has been written in the C programming language. Indeed, Linux is C's most outstanding accomplishment. But the last few years have seen a growing momentum to make the Rust programming language Linux's second Linux language. At the recent Open Source Summit in Austin, Texas, Linux creator Linus Torvald said he could see Rust making it into the Linux kernel as soon as the next major release. "I'd like to see the Rust infrastructure merging to be started in the next release, but we'll see." Linux said after the summit. "I won't force it, and it's not like it's going to be doing anything really meaningful at that point -- it would basically be the starting point. So, no promises."

Now, you may ask: "Why are they adding Rust at all?" Rust lends itself more easily to writing secure software. Samartha Chandrashekar, an AWS product manager, said it "helps ensure thread safety and prevent memory-related errors, such as buffer overflows that can lead to security vulnerabilities." Many other developers agree with Chandrashekar. Torvalds also agrees and likes that Rust is more memory-safe. "There are real technical reasons like memory safety and why Rust is good to get in the kernel." Mind you, no one is going to be rewriting the entire 30 or so million lines of the Linux kernel into Rust. As Linux developer Nelson Elhage said in his summary of the 2020 Linux Plumber's meeting on Rust in Linux: "They're not proposing a rewrite of the Linux kernel into Rust; they are focused only on moving toward a world where new code may be written in Rust." The three areas of potential concern for Rust support are making use of the existing APIs in the kernel, architecture support, and dealing with application binary interface (ABI) compatibility between Rust and C.

Space

Satellites are Sinking Faster Toward Earth. Scientists Blame Solar Wind (space.com) 30

"In late 2021, operators of the European Space Agency's Swarm constellation noticed something worrying," reports Space.com. "The satellites, which measure the magnetic field around Earth, started sinking toward the atmosphere at an unusually fast rate — up to 10 times faster than before.

"The change coincided with the onset of the new solar cycle, and experts think it might be the beginning of some difficult years for spacecraft orbiting our planet." "In the last five, six years, the satellites were sinking about two and a half kilometers [1.5 miles] a year," Anja Stromme, ESA's Swarm mission manager, told Space.com. "But since December last year, they have been virtually diving. The sink rate between December and April has been 20 kilometers [12 miles] per year."

Satellites orbiting close to Earth always face the drag of the residual atmosphere, which gradually slows the spacecraft and eventually makes them fall back to the planet. (They usually don't survive this so-called re-entry and burn up in the atmosphere.) This atmospheric drag forces the International Space Station's controllers to perform regular "reboost" maneuvers to maintain the station's orbit of 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. This drag also helps clean up the near-Earth environment from space junk.

Scientists know that the intensity of this drag depends on solar activity — the amount of solar wind spewed by the sun, which varies depending on the 11-year solar cycle.... [S]ince last fall, the star has been waking up, spewing more and more solar wind and generating sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections at a growing rate. And the Earth's upper atmosphere has felt the effects. "There is a lot of complex physics that we still don't fully understand going on in the upper layers of the atmosphere where it interacts with the solar wind," Stromme said. "We know that this interaction causes an upwelling of the atmosphere. That means that the denser air shifts upwards to higher altitudes."

Denser air means higher drag for the satellites. Even though this density is still incredibly low 250 miles above Earth, the increase caused by the upwelling atmosphere is enough to virtually send some of the low-orbiting satellites plummeting. "It's almost like running with the wind against you," Stromme said. "It's harder, it's drag — so it slows the satellites down, and when they slow down, they sink...." The lower the orbit of the satellites when the solar storm hits, the higher the risk of the spacecraft not being able to recover, leaving operators helplessly watching as the craft fall to their demise in the atmosphere....

All spacecraft around the 250-mile altitude are bound to have problems, Stromme said. That includes the International Space Station, which will have to perform more frequent reboost maneuvers to keep afloat, but also the hundreds of cubesats and small satellites that have populated low Earth orbit in the past decade.... "Many of these [new satellites] don't have propulsion systems," Stromme said. "They don't have ways to get up. That basically means that they will have a shorter lifetime in orbit. They will reenter sooner than they would during the solar minimum."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article!
Open Source

New Linux Foundation Podcast: 'Untold Stories of Open Source' (linuxfoundation.org) 13

The nonprofit Linux Foundation pays Linus Torvalds' salary and supports many other open source projects. But they also launched a new podcast series this week covering "The Untold Stories of Open Source."

"Each week we explore the people who are supporting Open Source projects, how they became involved with it, and the problems they faced along the way," explains the podcast's GitHub page (where you can put in a pull request to suggest future episodes or track the project's progress.)

The podcast is available on its official web page, as well as on Spotify, Apple, Google, or "wherever you listen to your podcasts," according to an announcement from the Linux Foundation. An introductory page says the podcast will be "used to inform the Linux and Open Source communities as to the current state in development of open source initiatives and Linux Foundation Projects. It is vendor neutral, with no interviews of commercial product vendors or sales teams."

Here's the first four episodes:
  • Balancing Priorities at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, with Priyanka Sharma, general manager
  • A Life in Open Source, with Brian Behlendorf, general manager at Open Source Security Foundation
  • A New Model for Technical Training, with Clyde Seepersad, senior vice president of the Linux Foundation's training/certification project
  • The Business Side of Open Source, with Patrick Debois, "godfather of DevOps"

NASA

NASA Declares Megarocket Rehearsal Complete, Setting Stage For Inaugural Launch (gizmodo.com) 44

The fourth and most recent attempt at a full launch rehearsal of NASA's Space Launch System went reasonably well, and despite some lingering issues and uncertainties, the agency is sending the rocket back to the hangar for final preparations in advance of its first flight. That inaugural launch will represent Artemis 1, the first mission in NASA's Artemis lunar program. Gizmodo reports: In a press release today, NASA -- to my surprise -- said it is done testing SLS after reviewing data from the recent launch rehearsal. That another full-blown rehearsal would be required seemed likely to me on account of an unresolved hydrogen leak linked to a faulty quick-connect fitting, which subsequently prevented ground teams from practicing the fully scheduled launch countdown on Monday. The goal was to reach T-10 seconds, but the launch controllers decided to quit the rehearsal at T-29 seconds for safety reasons. "NASA plans to return SLS and Orion to the pad for launch in late August," says the release. "NASA will set a specific target launch date after replacing hardware associated with the leak."

Despite the hydrogen leak and the incomplete countdown, Monday's wet dress did appear to go well. The ground teams finally managed to fully load SLS with propellants. Upwards of 755,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen were supplied to the rocket's two stages, which the teams had failed to do during the first three attempts. What's more, all of the issues experienced during the first three wet dress rehearsals appear to have been resolved. The Orion spacecraft, currently sitting atop the rocket, also performed well during the test. Said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA's exploration systems manager, during a media teleconference on Tuesday: "We think that we had a really successful rehearsal," adding that there is "relative risk" is running a fifth wet dress, with the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket standing fully exposed on the launch pad.

Firefox

Is Firefox OK? (wired.com) 225

At the end of 2008, Firefox was flying high. Twenty percent of the 1.5 billion people online were using Mozilla's browser to navigate the web. In Indonesia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, more than half of everyone going online was using Firefox. "Our market share in the regions above has been growing like crazy," Ken Kovash, Mozilla's data analytics team manager at the time, wrote in a blog post. Almost 15 years later, things aren't so rosy. From a report: Across all devices, the browser has slid to less than 4 percent of the market -- on mobile it's a measly half a percent. "Looking back five years and looking at our market share and our own numbers that we publish, there's no denying the decline," says Selena Deckelmann, senior vice president of Firefox. Mozilla's own statistics show a drop of around 30 million monthly active users from the start of 2019 to the start of 2022. "In the last couple years, what we've seen is actually a pretty substantial flattening," Deckelmann adds.

In the two decades since Firefox launched from the shadows of Netscape, it has been key to shaping the web's privacy and security, with staff pushing for more openness online and better standards. But its market share decline was accompanied by two rounds of layoffs at Mozilla during 2020. Next year, its lucrative search deal with Google -- responsible for the vast majority of its revenue -- is set to expire. A spate of privacy-focused browsers now compete on its turf, while new-feature misfires have threatened to alienate its base. All that has left industry analysts and former employees concerned about Firefox's future. Its fate also has larger implications for the web as a whole. For years, it was the best contender for keeping Google Chrome in check, offering a privacy-forward alternative to the world's most dominant browser.

Bitcoin

Crypto Market Sinks Below $1 Trillion (bloomberg.com) 201

Bitcoin plunged to the lowest in about 18 months after the freezing of withdrawals by the Celsius lending platform added to concern that systemic risk in the crypto ecosystem will accelerate the digital-asset market meltdown. From a report: The world's largest digital token tumbled as much as 17% to $22,603 -- its lowest since December 2020. Other cryptocurrencies also declined as a broader sell-off continued. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 100 Index, which measures 100 of the top tokens, dropped as much as 17%. And the total market value, which topped $3 trillion in November, dropped below $1 trillion as of 10:54 a.m. New York time on Monday, according to CoinGecko. "The fundamentals to support stabilization and recovery just aren't there," said Steven McClurg, co-founder and CIO at crypto fund manager Valkyrie Investments. "Things can and likely will get worse before they get better."
IT

Two Tech CEOs Wanted Every Worker to Have a Permanent, Publicly-Available Job Performance File (vice.com) 153

"Two CEOs on a podcast casually proposed a shareable database of worker performance that would follow them between companies, forever, and encouraged listeners to create one," writes Slashdot reader merauder128 , summarizing a recent article on Vice.

"HR professionals say it's a terrible idea."

Vice points out the podcast both the host and guest were CEOs of "data harvesters that package and resell data to other parties." Through one lens, it was a mundane musing between two CEOs of data companies talking about how awesome it would be to have more data on something. But in the context of experiments occurring in the tech industry around hiring practices, it was two influential CEOs encouraging other entrepreneurs to create a business that would be an absolute nightmare for workers, a type of credit score for workers that could be a permanent HR file that follows workers from one job to the next, and where a worker who struggles at one job may have trouble getting another....

It is also in line with a growing trend among tech companies that, spurred by work-from-home and hybrid work, are increasingly interested in quantifying employee performance. The most prominent example is Coinbase introducing an app so employees can constantly rate each other's performances, a scenario even the normally cheery TechCrunch said "sounds rough."

Over the last several years, there has been a boom in employee management software solutions such as Workday, Lattice, CultureAmp that are used across thousands of companies for performance reviews and other sensitive HR tasks. Technologically speaking, what Youakim and Hoffman are talking about is opening those confidential resources — or some condensed version of them that can be easily digested and analyzed — up to everyone.

None of these HR software companies have indicated that they have any intention of doing this.

The article warns that experts who have studied hiring extensively believe a permanent database database "would allow this complete, random mess to follow workers their entire careers, affecting their job prospects, earning potential, and their broader lives." And the article summarizes a reaction to the idea from John Hausknecht, a professor of human resources at Cornell University. "It assumes people don't change, that jobs require similar attributes, that a person's experience at one company is relevant to another where they will be in a different environment with a different manager and different company culture....

"Or, to put it a different way, 'Just because we can track it, collect it, and ask about it,' Hausknecht said, 'doesn't necessarily mean we should.'"
Operating Systems

'I Love the Linux Desktop, But That Doesn't Mean I Don't See Its Problems All Too Well' (theregister.com) 197

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an opinion piece via The Register, written by longtime technology reporter and Linux enthusiast Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Recently, The Register's Liam Proven wrote tongue in cheek about the most annoying desktop Linux distros. He inspired me to do another take. Proven pointed out that Distrowatch currently lists 270 -- count 'em -- Linux distros. Of course, no one can look at all of those. But, having covered the Linux desktop since the big interface debate was between Bash and zsh rather than GNOME vs KDE, and being the editor-in-chief of a now-departed publication called Linux Desktop, I think I've used more of them than anyone else who also has a life beyond the PC. In short, I love the Linux desktop. Many Linux desktop distros are great. I've been a big Linux Mint fan for years now. I'm also fond, in no particular order, of Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and MX Linux. But you know what? That's a problem right there. We have many excellent Linux desktop distros, which means none of them can gain enough market share to make any real dent in the overall market.
[...]
Besides over 200 distros, there are 21 different desktop interfaces and over half-a-dozen different major ways to install software such as the Debian Package Management System (DPKG), Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), Pacman, Zypper, and all too many others. Then there are all the newer containerized ways to install programs including Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage. I can barely keep them all straight and that's part of my job! How can you expect ordinary users to make sense of it all? You can't. None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE -- really care about the Linux desktop. Sure, they have them. They're also major desktop influencers. But their cash comes from servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The desktop? Please. We should just be glad they spend as many resources as they do on them.

Now, all this said, I don't want you to get the impression that I don't think the conventional Linux desktop is important. I do. In fact, I think it's critical. Microsoft, you see, is abandoning the traditional PC-based desktop. In its crystal ball, Microsoft sees Azure-based Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) as its future. [...] That means that the future of a true desktop operating system will lie in the hands of Apple with macOS and us with Linux. As someone who remembers the transition from centrally controlled mainframes and minicomputers to individually empowered PCs, I do not want to return to a world where all power belongs to Microsoft or any other company.
"The Linux desktop will never be as big as Windows once was," writes Vaughan-Nichols in closing. "Between DaaS's rise and the fall of the desktop to smartphones, it can't be. But it may yet, by default, become the most popular true conventional desktop."
IOS

iOS 16 Supports Nintendo's Switch Pro and Joy-Con Controllers (theverge.com) 15

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple is adding native support for the Nintendo Switch Pro and Joy-Con controllers in iOS 16. Riley Testut, one of the iOS developers behind AltStore, discovered the new controller support in a developer beta of iOS 16 that was released yesterday. The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller works "perfectly" according to Testut, and both Joy-Con controllers show up as a single device for apps and games to take advantage of. Nat Brown, an engineering manager at Apple, has confirmed the new controller support and even revealed there's a neat method to switch how the Joy-Cons work in iOS 16. You can dynamically switch between using both Joy-Cons as a single controller or two separate ones by holding the screenshot and home buttons for a few seconds.
Security

LastPass No Longer Requires a Password To Access Your Vault (engadget.com) 29

LastPass says they're now the first password manager with a passwordless sign-in feature. Engadget reports: Grant permission through the LastPass Authenticator mobile app and you can update account info on the web without entering your master password. The approach relies on FIDO-compliant password-free technology. The feature is available to both personal and business users. LastPass is also promising options beyond the Authenticator app in the future, such as relying on biometric scans or hardware security keys.
Apple

Apple's Finally Making the iPad More Like a Mac (For Multitasking, at Least) (cnet.com) 15

Apple brought its iPad tablet a bit closer to the Mac computers in spirit on Monday at WWDC 2022, announcing new features for its iPadOS 16 software that add better multitasking features. From a report: The new changes to the iPad represent another key shift to the device, aiming to advance the "pro" capabilities of Apple's tablets. While Apple's added to the power and capabilities of its iPads, the software has been criticized by many reviewers, including us at CNET, for not offering enough functionality. [...] Apple also has a collaborative workspace app called Freeform, coming later this year, that will work like a giant whiteboard. Invited collaborators could can start adding stuff at the same time.

iPadOS 16 is also aiming to make better use of more advanced iPads that feature Apple's M1 chip. Metal 3 promises better graphics, but Apple's also aiming to add more desktop-like features in apps: Some will have customizable toolbars, and the Files app looks like it's finally getting a little more versatile for file management. M1 iPads are getting display scaling to create an effectively larger-feeling display, allowing more app screen space (but with smaller text and images). There's also free-form window resizing, along with external display support. Both features have been overdue on iPadOS. Stage Manager, a MacOS feature that's coming later this year, is also on iPadOS. The result looks to be windows that can overlap and be different sizes, just like a Mac.

Desktops (Apple)

Apple Announces macOS 13 Ventura, the Next Major Software Update for the Mac (arstechnica.com) 60

As expected, Apple has used the stage at its WWDC 2022 keynote to reveal the features and changes coming to macOS in the next major software update for the platform, macOS 13 Ventura. From a report: Ventura's headlining feature is a new multitasking interface called Stage Manager. It's being billed as a way to fight window clutter on a busy desktop -- enter Stage Manager mode, and one of your windows floats to the center of the screen, pushing your other windows into a compressed navigation column on the left of the screen. Click a different app window on the left, and it will fly to the center of the screen, knocking the app you were using before into the navigation column. Spotlight also gets some handy quality-of-life updates, adding the ability to Quick Look search results directly from the Spotlight window, and the ability to run Shortcuts from within Spotlight.

Safari picks up the ability to share groups of tabs with other users, letting all users add and remove tabs. The browser is also adding a FIDO-compliant security technology called PassKeys, which aim to replace passwords with cryptographically generated keys that sync between devices using iCloud Keychain. Sites that support PassKeys can be opened using TouchID or FaceID. Apple's cross-device Continuity features were also updated. FaceTime calls can be handed off seamlessly between different Macs and iDevices, while Continuity Camera allows you to use an iPhone as a webcam (your iPhone's LED can even be used as a makeshift ring light). Continuity Camera supports Center Stage and Portrait Mode effects, too, though presumably they will require newer iPhones with hardware that supports those features.

Government

Is Insider Trading 'Common' in NFTs? (And is It Really Insider Trading?) (vice.com) 44

What happened after U.S. prosecutors indicted an NFT marketplace's product manager for insider trading? Vice reports: The reaction among crypto investors was largely characterized by surprise, and an acknowledgement that trading on insider information (considered by some to be A-OK in private markets) is rampant in the space. "Bro they are prosecuting insider trading on NFTs. we're all fucked," said one pseudonymous user in reply to a tweet about the case by Steven Zheng, director of research at The Block. "This is pretty shocking. I can't imagine any NFT or DeFi developer doesn't somehow profit from insider trading," said another.

Of course, not every NFT investor sees this kind of activity as acceptable. Traders themselves first brought Chastain's activity to light in September using blockchain records. A pseudonymous NFT trader, who goes by Zuwu, pointed out those trades, which were easily traceable to Chastain's publicly-known Etheruem address.

Unlike Chastain, other NFT traders involved in potential insider trades are often too careful to leave traces. When they do, blockchain sleuths are quick to uncover those signs of unsavory behavior and call them out — a recent phenomenon that attempts to bring some justice to an otherwise permissive market.

As a result, that surprise move by the U.S. Department of Justice has NFT traders wondering what's on the horizon for this largely unregulated industry. "Insider trading is a pretty common problem in the NFT space, especially in the case of hyped-up NFT collections as lots of stuff on the market is being driven by FOMO," Fedor Linnik, an NFT trader and creator, told Motherboard.

The article also explores the question of whether the NFT marketplace falls under same restrictions as stock trading, with a professor of securities law calling it "somewhat misleading" to label this an "insider trading" case.

Even to call it a wire fraud case is a stretch, the professor tells them, adding "If it goes to a jury they will wonder why they should care whether someone traded jpegs ahead of them being moved around on a webpage."
Printer

Canon Wireless Printers Are Getting Stuck In Reboot Loops (theverge.com) 85

Over the last day or two, there have been a growing number of reports by people who own certain Canon Pixma printers that the devices either won't turn on at all or, once turned on, get stuck in a reboot loop, cycling on and off as long as they're plugged in. The Verge reports: Verge reader Jamie pointed us to posts on Reddit about the problem and Canon's own support forum, citing problems with models including the MX490, MX492, MB2010, and MG7520. Some believe their problem is due to a software update Canon pushed to the printers, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. In response to an inquiry from The Verge, corporate communications senior director and general manager Christine Sedlacek said, "We are currently investigating this issue and hope to bring resolution shortly as customer satisfaction is our highest priority."

Until there is an official update or fix, some people in the forums have found that disconnecting the printers from the internet is enough to keep them from rebooting, with control still possible via USB. To get the printers to work while maintaining your connection to the internet and their connection to local network devices, one reply from a customer on Canon's support forum suggests a method that many people report has worked for them.

United States

OpenSea Employee Charged With Insider Trading in NFTs (reuters.com) 60

U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan on Wednesday unveiled an indictment accusing a product manager at OpenSea, the largest online marketplace for non-fungible tokens, of insider trading. From a report: Nathaniel Chastain was accused of secretly buying 45 NFTs based on confidential information that they would soon be featured on OpenSea's home page, and later selling them at a profit, typically two to five times what he paid. According to an indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, the scheme ran from June to September 2021, and Chastain transacted through anonymous digital currency wallets and accounts at OpenSea. Chastain was arrested this morning in New York, New York and will be presented today in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He is charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

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