The Saudi-based group OurMine took over Facebook's Twitter account on Friday, then pointed Facebook's 13.4 million followers to their own web site, reports NBC News: "Well even Facebook is hackable but at least their security is better than Twitter," the hackers tweeted just before 7 p.m. They said businesses interested in improving online security should visit OurMine's website.

The tweet was quickly taken down. Facebook later tweeted that it had regained control of the account. OurMine said in an email that the tweet was up for about 15 minutes...

While OurMine is usually described as a group of hackers, it said its security services are "for profit." Its social media takeovers have received widespread attention... "We have no bad intentions and only care about the security and privacy of your accounts and network," it said on its website.
OurMine is the same group that took over the Twitter accounts of several American football teams in January, posting "We are here to show people that everything is hackable,"

mikeebbbd shares a report from Los Angeles Times: The $3.8-trillion municipal-bond market has found a new tool in its effort to understand the effects of climate change: satellites orbiting Earth. Assessing climate risks is a particularly vexing problem given that U.S. state and local governments tend to give investors information that's too little or just too late. But the use of geospatial data and information from sources such as Google Earth could help municipal bond investors evaluate and price the risks posed from a warming climate, rising sea levels and natural disasters.

The deployment of spatial technology in the municipal market advanced in January when credit rating company S&P Global Ratings completed an analysis of U.S. water utilities using data from NASA satellite missions. Other investment firms say they're starting to focus on geospatial information as a way to evaluate climate risks as well. [...] S&P, one of three big U.S. credit rating companies, used information from NASA satellites to examine whether the location of public water utilities had anything to do with their financial strength. They found that utilities located in ecosystems that foster better water quality, such as evergreen forests, were associated with better debt metrics. "The article goes on to describe uses that analysts make of satellite data and GIS analysis," adds Slashdot reader mikeebbbd. "Is there a risk that this could create a modern version of 'redlining?'"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Communications Commission will pay a group of satellite companies billions of dollars to upend their operations so a valuable swath of the radio spectrum can be used for cellphone service (Source: paywalled; alternative source), FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. The telecom regulator said he plans to propose $3 billion to $5 billion of compensation for reasonable relocation costs and another $9.7 billion of accelerated payments to incumbent operators in the C-Band section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Private companies that bid for the frequency licenses in a future auction would foot the bill, Mr. Pai said.

Existing satellite companies, which include Intelsat SA and SES SA, serve television broadcasters and cable-network operators in the U.S. with video feeds that could be interrupted by cellphone service unless the companies modify their satellite systems. "We need to align the satellite companies' private interests with the public interest," Mr. Pai said Thursday in a speech hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington telecom policy group. The chairman's plan, which would free up the lower 280 megahertz of C-Band spectrum, is a proposal and must be approved by the five-member commission at its next meeting. If the proposal is approved, Mr. Pai said he plans to start a federal auction of the radio frequencies on Dec. 8.

little1973 shares a report from The Verge: Tesla has remotely disabled driver assistance features on a used Model S after it was sold to a customer. The company now claims that the owner of the car, who purchased it from a third-party dealer -- a dealer who bought it at an auction held by Tesla itself -- "did not pay" for the features and therefore is not eligible to use them. The features were enabled when the dealer bought the car, and they were advertised as part of the package when the car was sold to its owner.

The owner in question, who Jalopnik refers to as Alec, purchased the car last December. The dealer bought the car a month earlier from a Tesla auction, with both "Enhanced Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving Mode" features intact, according to Jalopnik, which reviewed documents related to the car's ownership and sale. The dealer then listed the Model S, advertising both features. However, unbeknownst to the dealer, Tesla had independently conducted a software "audit" of the car after selling it, and disabled those features in a December update. The end result: when Alec picked up the car on December 20th, he did not have access to all its advertised features. Here's what a Tesla customer support representative told Alec: "Tesla has recent identified instances of customers being incorrectly configured for Autopilot versions that they did not pay for. Since, there was an audit done to correct these instances. Your vehicle is one of the vehicles that was incorrectly configured for Autopilot. We looked back at your purchase history and unfortunately Full-Self Driving was not a feature that you had paid for. We apologize for the confusion. If you are still interested in having those additional features we can begin the process to purchase the upgrade."

The report notes that the value of the self-driving features comes out to about $8,000.

The semiconductor industry last year suffered its worst annual slump in almost two decades, hurt by a trade war between the largest chip producer, the U.S., and the largest consumer, China. Bloomberg reports: Revenue fell 12% to $412 billion in 2019, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday in a statement. That's the biggest drop since 2001, when industry sales slumped 32% as the dot-com bubble burst. The rate of decline last year abated with sales growing slightly in the fourth quarter from the preceding three-month period, the industry association said. For that to continue, China and the U.S. need to build on the phase one trade agreement announced last month.

Memory chips were the hardest hit. Prices of those commodity chips fell as production outran demand. Memory revenue dropped 33% from 2018 led by declines in computer memory. All regions experienced a decline in demand. Sales in China, whose consumers and factories that supply finished products to the rest of the world account for more than one-third of global consumption of the electronic components, fell 8.7%, according to the SIA. Sales in the Americas dropped the most of any region at 24%.

New submitter em1ly writes: A source familiar with the Nevada version of the error-ridden Iowa caucus app spoke to Motherboard about even more issues with the app. From the report: "After logging into the app, users were presented with a dashboard letting them submit how many caucus attendees they wished to add for each candidate, according to the app. A pop-up then asked, 'Are you sure you want to submit the first alignment? Please ensure all in-person participant counts are correct before confirming.' But submitting the counts for the first alignment did not work, according to a source. Motherboard granted the source anonymity to speak candidly about a technical issue. 'Error,' a second pop-up reads. 'Could not submit alignment.'" A Shadow spokesperson told Motherboard that "Because the deadline for the Nevada app was later, Shadow's Nevada app was still in beta testing, and that testing identified some errors that were being fixed." They also said that the app was on track for a "successful rollout" with the Nevada Democratic Party.

"There was a new release ready to test in Nevada following the Iowa caucuses. That version wasn't ready for use and has not been, and will not be released," they added.

Nevada Democrats have already said they will not use the app.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The British government is helping a controversial Israeli spyware company to market its surveillance technologies at a secretive trade fair visited by repressive regimes, the Guardian can reveal. The government will host the NSO Group, which sells technology that has allegedly been used by autocratic regimes to spy on the private messages of journalists and human rights activists, at the closed Security and Policing trade fair in Hampshire next month. The NSO Group is due to be an exhibitor at the three-day fair, where police and security officials from abroad can browse commercial stalls selling surveillance and crowd-control equipment.

Around 60 foreign delegations are typically hosted by the British government to the fair. In the last four years they have included countries whose human rights records have been criticized such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Hong Kong. The identities of this year's delegations are not known as they are usually announced on the opening day of the fair. NSO has faced allegations that its technology is used to target human rights activists and reporters around the world. At least three UK residents are among those who are alleged to have been targeted using spyware sold by NSO. Among them is a prominent London-based satirist who is suing Saudi Arabia in the UK courts alleging that the Riyadh regime targeted him using malware developed by the firm. The closed Security and Policing trade fair will take place on March 3 at the Farnborough airport exhibition center.

Starting in March 2020, public transport in Luxembourg will be free of charge. Primarily a social measure, this policy will also be implemented to decrease congestion in the capital region. From a report: Luxembourg's public transportation system is already heavily subsidized as fares in the country are as low as $2.2 per two hours. Even so, the country has the highest car ownership per person in Europe. This is mainly because citizens and out-of-country commuters argue that Luxembourg's public transportation is more time consuming compared to driving. Additionally, its unique position between France, Belgium, and Germany, draws lots of commuters across its borders every day. Therefore, the investment and legislation for free public transportation will be complemented by improving the country's network, but also for raising the minimum wage, pension adjustments, and financial aid for higher education. For out-of-country commuters, a parallel policy will allow workers to deduct travel expenses from their annual tax bill. However, many citizens argue that the money spent on free transportation and modernising the system can be better spent on rent subsidies or social housing.

A U.S. appeals court said late on Thursday it will not reconsider an October ruling that largely upheld the repeal of landmark net neutrality rules, rejecting requests by 15 U.S. states, and tech and advocacy groups. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission in December 2017 reversed Obama-era rules prohibiting internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes, a blow to large tech companies and consumer groups that had championed the level playing field of net neutrality. In orders issued Thursday, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declined without comment to rehear the decision, as did the three-judge panel that issued the ruling in October. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who had proposed and championed the repeal, was pleased with the decision, a spokeswoman for him said. "The internet has remained free and open, consumers have been protected, speeds have increased, and more and more Americans have gotten access to broadband," she said.

Microsoft's PowerToys utilities have always proved popular, and the arrival of a Windows 10 version was met with huge excitement. New utilities have been released over the last few months, and now there is news of a new addition: Keyboard Shortcut Manager. From a report: Despite the name, Keyboard Shortcut Manager does much more than give you control over keyboard shortcuts. On top of this, the PowerToy can be used to remap keys -- something that will be welcomed by power users, developers and people switching from macOS or Linux to Windows. At the moment, Keyboard Shortcut Manager is still in development, and it's not quite clear when there will be a version to download. But judging by how quickly the existing PowerToys have moved from embryonic ideas into fully fledged products, it shouldn't be too long before an installable version appears. When it does, it could be known simply as Keyboard Manager.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Google has patched this week a critical security flaw in Android's Bluetooth component. If left unpatched, the vulnerability can be exploited without any user interaction and can even be used to create self-spreading Bluetooth worms. Researchers said that exploiting the bug requires no user interaction. All that is required is that the user has Bluetooth enabled on his device. However, while this requirement would have limited the attack surface in past years, it does not today since modern Android OS versions ship with Bluetooth enabled by default and many Android users use Bluetooth-based headphones meaning the Bluetooth service is likely to be enabled on many handsets. The bug can lead to remote code execution and the hijacking of a device. Fixes for the bug are available via the Android February 2020 Security Bulletin, which has been available for download starting this week. Android 9 and earlier are impacted.

ItsJustAPseudonym writes: "The number of Texas school districts with esports programs has exploded this school year, growing from about 20 to more than 300 in the span of a few months," reports KXAN-TV, citing the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA). "'It's been in colleges for the last few years, and now it's starting to move down into the high schools and in the middle schools,' said TCEA's executive director, Lori Gracey. 'Teamwork, cooperation, planning, problem-solving, thinking quickly,' Gracey explained, 'all of those are things we want our kids to be able to do. And you can do that through video games.'"

And, for the collegiate perspective on this: "High school is a really, really exciting place for esports to take root," said Austin Espinoza, president of Longhorn Gaming at the University of Texas at Austin. "Eventually, that's just going to trickle upwards into the college world." Yes, yes, it's VERY exciting. I'm sure the effect on grades will be *nothing* but positive, right? On the other hand, esports provides an opportunity for college students to earn some money to pay down their college debts, so that's a potential upside. Will colleges start recruiting and offering scholarships to esports competitors?

A second software problem during a CST-100 Starliner test flight is prompting a NASA safety panel to recommend a review of Boeing's software verification processes. Space News reports: That new software problem, not previously discussed by NASA or Boeing, was discussed during a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that examined the December uncrewed test flight of Starliner that was cut short by a timer error. That anomaly was discovered during ground testing while the spacecraft was in orbit, panel member Paul Hill said. "While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure," he said.

The exact cause of the failure remains under investigation by Boeing and NASA, who are also still examining the timer failure previously reported. Those problems, Hill said, suggested broader issues with how Boeing develops and tests the software used by the spacecraft. "The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing's verification processes," he said. The panel called for reviews of Boeing's flight software integration and testing processes. "Further, with confidence at risk for a spacecraft that is intended to carry humans in space, the panel recommends an even broader Boeing assessment of, and corrective actions in, Boeing's [systems engineering and integration] processes and verification testing." The panel added that all those investigations and reviews be completed as "required input for a formal NASA review to determine flight readiness for either another uncrewed flight test or proceeding directly to a crewed test flight."

schwit1 shares a report from Quartz: Face masks are mandatory in at least two provinces in China, including the city of Wuhan. In an effort to contain the coronavirus strain that has caused nearly 500 deaths, the government is insisting that millions of residents wear protective face covering when they go out in public. As millions don masks across the country, the Chinese are discovering an unexpected consequence to covering their faces. It turns out that face masks trip up facial recognition-based functions, a technology necessary for many routine transactions in China. Suddenly, certain mobile phones, condominium doors, and bank accounts won't unlock with a glance.

Complaints are plentiful in the popular Chinese blogging platform Weibo, reports Abacus, the Hong Kong-based technology news outlet. "[I've] been wearing a mask everyday recently and I just want to throw away this phone with face unlock," laments one user. "Fingerprint payment is still better," writes another. "All I want is to pay and quickly run." [...] Biometrics, including facial recognition, are essential to daily life in China, on a scale beyond other nations. It's used to do everything from ordering fast food meals to scheduling medical appointments to boarding a plane in more than 200 airports across the country. Facial recognition is even used in restrooms to prevent an occupant from taking too much toilet paper. And beyond quotidian transactions, the technology is a linchpin in the Chinese government's scheme to police its 1.4 billion citizens. In other facial recognition news, the European parliament said it has no plans to introduce the tech following an outcry in response to a leaked security memo discussing its use.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google and Facebook seem to have resigned themselves to losing part of the longest and highest profile internet cable they have invested in to date. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week, the two companies requested permission to activate the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) between the US and the Philippines and Taiwan, leaving its controversial Hong Kong and Chinese sections dormant. Globally, around 380 submarine cables carry over 99.5 percent of all transoceanic data traffic. Every time you visit a foreign website or send an email abroad, you are using a fiber-optic cable on the seabed. Satellites, even large planned networks like SpaceX's Starlink system, cannot move data as quickly and cheaply as underwater cables.

When it was announced in 2017, the 13,000-kilometer PLCN was touted as the first subsea cable directly connecting Hong Kong and the United States, allowing Google and Facebook to connect speedily and securely with data centers in Asia and unlock new markets. The 120 terabit-per-second cable was due to begin commercial operation in the summer of 2018. Instead, it has been PLCN itself that has been disrupted, by an ongoing regulatory battle in the US that has become politicized by trade and technology spats with China.

Thelasko shares a report from Bloomberg: Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to spin out and pursue a public offering of its budding space-internet business Starlink, giving investors a chance to buy into one of the most promising operations within the closely held company. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has already launched more than 240 satellites to build out Starlink, which will start delivering internet services to customers from space this summer, President Gwynne Shotwell said Thursday at a private investor event hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Miami. "Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public," said Shotwell, SpaceX's chief operating officer. "That particular piece is an element of the business that we are likely to spin out and go public."

Investors have to this point had limited ways to own a piece of SpaceX, which has become one of the most richly valued venture-backed companies in the U.S. by dominating the commercial rocket industry. It flies satellites into orbit for customers including the U.S. military, carries cargo to the International Space Station and aims to start flying NASA astronauts and high-paying tourists soon. But the rocket-launch business remains competitive and tough. Starlink and its ability to provide high-speed internet across the globe has helped private investors in SpaceX justify a roughly $33 billion valuation. Musk has long maintained that the parent is unlikely to go public until it is regularly ferrying people to Mars.

Netflix announced today that subscribers will now be able to disable the autoplay functionality that occurs on its homepage. The Verge reports: People can choose to disable autoplay in two different formats: one that automatically starts the next episode in a series and one that autoplays previews while browsing. Netflix rolled out an option to disable autoplay with episodes in a series way back in 2014, but this new setting specifically relates to the autoplay previews on the homepage.

Both features have amassed tons of complaints from subscribers and creators. Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out director Rian Johnson tweeted his "current favorite console game: navigating Netflix without triggering autoplay promos." There are Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and, of course, tweets from angry customers who have asked Netflix to please, for the love of all that's good in the world, stop with the annoying autoplay features. One person was so frustrated that they created an entire Twitter account just to ask Netflix to please stop. Users can visit an updated help page on Netflix's website to learn how to disable the function.

A security firm consulted by ProPublica found that the "IowaReporter" app used to count and report votes from individual precincts in the Iowa Democratic caucuses was vulnerable to hacking. From the report: The IowaReporterApp was so insecure that vote totals, passwords and other sensitive information could have been intercepted or even changed, according to officials at Massachusetts-based Veracode, a security firm that reviewed the software at ProPublica's request. Because of a lack of safeguards, transmissions to and from the phone were left largely unprotected. Chris Wysopal, Veracode's chief technology officer, said the problems were elementary. He called it a "poor decision" to release the software without first fixing them. "It is important for all mobile apps that deal with sensitive data to have adequate security testing, and have any vulnerabilities fixed before being released for use," he said.

There's no evidence that hackers intercepted or tampered with caucus results. An attack would have required some degree of sophistication, but it would have been much easier to pull off had a precinct worker used an open Wi-Fi hotspot to report votes instead of a cell data plan. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security offered to test the app for the Iowa Democratic Party, but the party never took the government up on it, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly. The official said the party did participate in a dry run, known as a tabletop exercise. The party did not respond to requests for comment on this issue. Gerard Niemira, Shadow's CEO, said in a statement to ProPublica that "we are committed to the security of our products, including the app used during the Iowa caucuses. While there were reporting delays, what was most important is that the data was accurate and the caucus reporting process remained secure throughout."

"Our app underwent multiple, rigorous tests by a third party, but we learned today that a researcher found a vulnerability in our app. As with all software, sometimes vulnerabilities are discovered after they are released." He added that no "hack or intrusion" occurred during the caucuses, and that "the integrity of the vote in Iowa was not compromised in any way." The app is not currently in use, he said.

NBC News is also reporting that the phone number used to report Iowa caucus results was posted on 4chan on Monday night "along with encouragement to 'clog the lines,' an indication that jammed phone lines that left some caucus managers on hold for hours may have in part been due to prank calls."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Boeing Co. engineers have discovered a new software problem on the grounded 737 Max that must be patched before the plane can return to service, Federal Aviation Administration chief Steve Dickson said. A light indicating that the stabilizer trim system wasn't working properly "had been staying on for longer than a desired period," Dickson said, without providing more detail. The issue involves an alert designed to warn when the so-called trim system, which helps raise and lower the plane's nose, isn't working properly, according to two people familiar with the issue who weren't authorized to comment on it.

It's not clear how much of a delay, if any, the issue will create as Boeing finalizes numerous fixes required to get its best-selling plane back into service. One of the people familiar with the trim alert problem said it's not likely to change Boeing's projection of returning the plane to service by mid-2020 because the company had built padding into its schedule. The trim alert issue resulted from Boeing's redesign of the two flight computers that control the 737 Max to make them more resilient to failure, the two people said.

mikeebbbd writes: U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Thursday stressed the threat posed by China's Huawei Technologies and said the United States and its allies should consider investing in Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson, or both firms, to counter Huawei's dominance in next generation 5G telecoms technology.