The NHTSA is investigating a software update Tesla shipped earlier this year that was meant to address a few reports of battery fires. "Some owners have said the update, released in May, noticeably decreased the ultimate range of their Teslas," reports The Verge. "A few have even sued the company for alleged fraud over the issue." From the report: The NHTSA received a "defect petition" in September from a lawyer who represents some of these customers. He requested that the NHTSA investigate the software update in order to figure out if Tesla was hiding a defect in its cars that could have caused the reported fires earlier this year. "Tesla is using over-the-air software updates to mask and cover-up a potentially widespread and dangerous issue with the batteries in their vehicles," he wrote. Defect petitions require more information than the typical complaints the NHTSA receives. Crucially, they also force the agency to act more conclusively: following the investigation, the NHTSA has to either issue a recall for cars affected by the alleged defects, or else publish its findings on the federal register explaining the decision not to. The NHTSA will now attempt to put a finer point on this issue by trying to figure out precisely what Tesla did with that May software update. The petition that the NHTSA is reviewing specifically claims that Tesla should have recalled 2,000 Model S and Model X vehicles because of the issue.

At the time when Tesla issued the May update, the company said the update was out of an "abundance of caution" and that it would affect charge and thermal management settings.

An anonymous reader writes: "DDoS-for-hire services, also known as DDoS booters, or DDoS stressors, are abusing macOS systems to launch DDoS attacks," reports ZDNet. "These attacks are leveraging macOS systems where the Apple Remote Desktop feature has been enabled, and the computer is accessible from the internet, without being located inside a local network, or protected by a firewall. More specifically, the attackers are leveraging the Apple Remote Management Service (ARMS) that is a part of the Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) feature. When users enable the Remote Desktop capability on their macOS systems, the ARMS service starts on port 3283 and listens for incoming commands meant for the remote Mac." Hackers have figured out a way to bounce traffic off these ports and carry out DDoS attacks with the help of internet connected Macs. Nearly 40,000 macOS systems are currently connected online and can be used to send out DDoS attacks.

Dave Knott writes: A Montreal legal firm has requested authorization to launch a class-action lawsuit against Epic Games, makers of the widely-popular video game Fortnite. The legal notice, filed on behalf of two minors, likens the effect of the game to cocaine, saying it releases the chemical dopamine to the brain of vulnerable young people who can become dependent on playing. Much of the suit is based on a 2015 Quebec Superior Court ruling that determined tobacco companies didn't warn their customers about the dangers of smoking. Jean-Philippe Caron, a lawyer at Calex, said the firm was contacted by several parents whose kids had become addicted to the game.

Last year, the World Health Organization classified addiction to video games as a disease. It defined the disorder as "a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increased priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences." According to Caron, Fortnite was designed by psychologists to make it more addictive. "They knew that their game was very attractive, yet they did not divulge the risks to the population. It's a little like tobacco."

Disney is banning advertising from Netflix across its entertainment TV networks, according the The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. It's "a sign that the marketing wars over streaming-video are escalating as media giants battle each other for subscribers," the report says. From the report: Disney, Comcast and AT&T are set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising over the next year to attract consumers to their new streaming-video services as they look to compete with industry juggernaut Netflix. Netflix spent $1.8 billion on advertising last year and will be playing defense against Hollywood's new entrants. Disney, whose properties include ABC and Freeform, earlier this year put out an edict to staffers that it wouldn't accept ads from any rival streaming services, but later reversed course and found a compromise with nearly every company, the people familiar with the situation said. The exception was Netflix.

In making its decision, Disney evaluated whether it had a mutual business or advertising relationship with the companies, one of the people said. Netflix doesn't show ads in its programs. In a statement, Disney said the subscription streaming-video business has evolved, "with many more entrants looking to advertise in traditional television, and across our portfolio of networks." The company said it re-evaluated its initial blanket ban on streaming ads "to reflect the comprehensive business relationships we have with many of these companies."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Alphabet's cloud business alone is now worth $225 billion, Deutsche Bank analysts led by Lloyd Walmsley wrote in a note. The unit could report compound annual growth of 55% between 2018 and 2022, and reach annual sales of about $38 billion by 2025, the analysts wrote. The value ascribed by Deutsche Bank to Google Cloud is nearly twice the market value of IBM, which reported cloud revenue of $19.2 billion in 2018, at the close of trading on Wednesday, Bloomberg data show.

The US and UK signed an agreement this week that will allow law enforcement officials in both countries to demand tech companies in the other's country to furnish electronic evidence for use in criminal investigations. The agreement is the first approved under the controversial CLOUD Act passed by Congress last year. From a report: The agreement between the two counties "will dramatically speed up investigations by removing legal barriers to timely and effective collection of electronic evidence," the US Justice Department said in a statement. The pact will allow investigators to gain access to data on serious crimes such as terrorism, child sexual abuse and cybercrime without encountering legal obstacles. "Only by addressing the problem of timely access to electronic evidence of crime committed in one country that is stored in another, can we hope to keep pace with 21st Century threats," US Attorney General William Barr said. The CLOUD Act, which stands for Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, updated the rules for criminal investigators who want to see emails, documents and other communications stored on the internet. It also lets the US enter into agreements to send information from US servers to criminal investigators in other countries with limited case-by-case review of requests.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Hackers with likely ties to Egypt's government used Google's official Play Store to distribute spyware in a campaign that targeted journalists, lawyers, and opposition politicians in that country, researchers from Check Point Technologies have found. The app, called IndexY, posed as a means for looking up details about phone numbers. It claimed to tap into a database of more than 160 million Arabic numbers. One of the permissions it required was access to a user's call history and contacts. Despite the sensitivity of that data, those permissions were understandable, given the the app's focus on phone numbers. It had about 5,000 installations before Google removed it from Play in August. Check Point doesn't know when IndexY first became available in Play.

Behind the scenes, IndexY logged whether each call was incoming, outgoing, or missed as well as its date and duration. Publicly accessible files left on indexy[.]org, a domain hardcoded into the app, showed not only that the data was collected but that the developers actively analyzed and inspected that information. Analysis included the number of users per country, call-log details, and lists of calls made from one country to another. IndexY was one piece of a broad and far-ranging surveillance campaign that was first documented in March by Amnesty International. It targeted people who played adversarial roles to Egypt's government and prompted warnings from Google to some of those targeted that "government-backed attackers are trying to steal your password." Check Point found that, at the same time, Google was playing a key supporting role in the campaign. According to Lotem Finkelshtein, Check Point's threat intelligence group manager, one of the ways the attackers evaded Google vetting of the app was that the analysis and inspection of the data happened on the attacker-designated server and not on an infected phone itself. "Google couldn't see the info that was collected," he said.

IndexY was one of at least three pieces of Android malware that Check Point tied to the campaign. "A different app purported to increase the volume of devices, even though it had no such capability," reports Ars Technica. "Called iLoud 200%, it collected location data as soon as it was started. In the event it stopped running, iLoud was able to restart itself. Finkelshtein said that that app was distributed on third-party sites and was installed an unknown number of times." v1.apk was another app that communicated with the domain drivebackup[.]co and appeared to be in an early testing phase.

Intel and Brown University have started work on a DARPA-backed Intelligent Spine Interface project that would use AI to restore movement and bladder control for those with serious spinal cord injuries. Engadget reports: The two-year effort will have scientists capture motor and sensory signals from the spinal cord, while surgeons will implant electrodes on both ends of an injury to create an "intelligent bypass." From there, neural networks running on Intel tools will (hopefully) learn how to communicate motor commands through the bypass and restore functions lost to severed nerves. The initial interface will use external computing hardware to interpret spine signals. In the long term, the collaborators would like a wholly implanted system to make the connection.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) have reached an agreement with Los Angeles law enforcement agencies under which the police and sheriff's departments will turn over license plate data they indiscriminately collected on millions of law-abiding drivers in Southern California. The data, which has been deidentified to protect drivers' privacy, will allow EFF and ACLU SoCal to learn how the agencies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems throughout the city and county of Los Angeles and educate the public on the privacy risks posed by this intrusive technology. A weeks' worth of data, composed of nearly 3 million data points, will be examined.

ALPR systems include cameras mounted on police cars and at fixed locations that scan every license plate that comes into view -- up to 1,800 plates per minute. They record data on each plate, including the precise time, date, and place it was encountered. The two Los Angeles agencies scan about 3 million plates every week and store the data for years at a time. Using this data, police can learn where we were in the past and infer intimate details of our daily lives such as where we work and live, who our friends are, what religious or political activities we attend, and much more. EFF and ACLU SoCal reached the agreement with the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff's Departments after winning a precedent-setting decision in 2017 from the California Supreme Court in our public records lawsuit against the two agencies. The court held that the data are not investigative records under the California Public Records Act that law enforcement can keep secret. "After six years of litigation, EFF and ACLU SoCal are finally getting access to millions of ALPR scans that will shed light on how the technology is being used, where it's being used, and how it affects people's privacy," said EFF Surveillance Litigation Director Jennifer Lynch. "We persevered and won a tough battle against law enforcement agencies that wanted to keep this information from the public. We have a right to information about how government agencies are using high-tech systems to track our locations, surveil our neighborhoods, and collect private information without our knowledge and consent."

People can now type nearly as fast on a screen as they can on a keyboard. "Researchers made the discovery during a study of typing skills in which more than 37,000 volunteers from 160 countries took a speed and accuracy test on their mobile phones," reports The Guardian. From the report: People who tapped out messages with a single finger managed on average only 29 words per minute (wpm), but those who mastered the two-thumb technique hit a blistering 38wpm, only 25% slower than an average typer on a full-sized Qwerty keyboard. One volunteer thumbed out sentences on their mobile phone at a blur-inducing 85wpm, far exceeding the 52wpm that people typically reach on a standard keyboard. While the study involved participants from around the world, the majority were women in their 20s and about half were Americans. People who could remember when mobile phones were only good for phone calls were considerably slower than younger users, the study suggested. Teenagers tapped out sentences at an average of about 40wpm, while those in their 40s and 50s managed only 29wpm and 26wpm.

From a report: In July, Google admitted it has employees pounding the pavement in a variety of US cities, looking for people willing to sell their facial data for a $5 gift certificate to help improve the Pixel 4's face unlock system. But the New York Daily News reports that a Google contractor may be using some questionable methods to get those facial scans, including targeting groups of homeless people and tricking college students who didn't know they were being recorded. According to several sources who allegedly worked on the project, a contracting agency named Randstad sent teams to Atlanta explicitly to target homeless people and those with dark skin, often without saying they were working for Google, and without letting on that they were actually recording people's faces. Google wasn't necessarily aware that Randstad was going after homeless people, but a Google manager reportedly did instruct the group to target people with darker skin, one source told the Daily News.

According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is expected to launch the next version of the iPhone SE 2 in the first quarter of 2020. "The new phone will be more affordable than the rest of the Apple iPhone lineup and feature newer internals, like an A13 processor with 3GB RAM, in a familiar iPhone 8 chassis," reports 9to5Mac. From the report: Kuo says that most of the new iPhone SE's hardware specification will mirror the iPhone 8. The analyst predicts Apple will sell 30-40 million units across 2020. The Q1 timeframe lines up with a previous report from Nikkei, which said to expect a cheaper iPhone with iPhone 8-esque design in the spring. This would mean it would feature a 4.7-inch LCD display and Touch ID home button. Kuo does not predict an exact price for the new phone. Before the 4-inch iPhone SE was discontinued, Apple sold it for $349 in a 32 GB storage configuration.

The current iPhone product range at Apple stores spans the iPhone 11 series, iPhone XR and the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. The 4.7-inch iPhone 8 is currently on sale for $449 for 64 GB. Presumably, when the new SE launches, Apple will stop selling the iPhone 8 altogether. Given the current pricing of the 8, you could easily see how Apple could sell an iPhone SE 2 32 GB for around the same price as the old SE, in the $349-$399 range.

The Seattle Times: Seven weeks after the second fatal crash of a 737 MAX in March, a Boeing engineer submitted a scathing internal ethics complaint alleging that management -- determined to keep down costs for airline customers -- had blocked significant safety improvements during the jet's development. The ethics charge, filed by 33-year-old engineer Curtis Ewbank, whose job involved studying past crashes and using that information to make new planes safer, describes how around 2014 his group presented to managers and senior executives a proposal to add various safety upgrades to the MAX. The complaint, a copy of which was reviewed by The Seattle Times, suggests that one of the proposed systems could have potentially prevented the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people. Three of Ewbank's former colleagues interviewed for this story concurred.

The details revealed in the ethics complaint raise new questions about the culture at Boeing and whether the long-held imperative that safety must be the overarching priority was compromised on the MAX by business considerations and management's focus on schedule and cost. Managers twice rejected adding the new system on the basis of "cost and potential (pilot) training impact," the complaint states. It was then raised a third time in a meeting with 737 MAX chief project engineer, Michael Teal, who cited the same objections as he killed the proposal.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: New safety features being rolled out by auto makers to keep drivers from hitting pedestrians don't work at times in some of the most dangerous situations and frequently fail at night, according to a new study by AAA. Testing performed by the association found that pedestrian-detection technology offered in four different models performed inconsistently and didn't activate properly after dark, when many roadway deaths occur. The uneven performance highlights the challenges the auto industry faces as it looks to automate more of the car's driving functions and roll out new crash-avoidance technologies that rely on sensors and software to detect road hazards.

For the AAA study, testers picked four sedan models -- the Chevrolet Malibu, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Tesla Model 3 -- and put the cars through scenarios meant to replicate some of the most dangerous situations for pedestrians. One test, for instance, simulates a child darting out from between parked cars, and another involves an adult crossing the road as the vehicle turns right. At 20 miles an hour, the cars struggled with each test, AAA found. The child was struck 89% of the time, and all of the cars hit the pedestrian dummy after making a right turn. The systems were generally ineffective if the car was going 30 mph. The systems were also completely ineffective at night, Mr. Brannon said, the deadliest time for pedestrians. Three-quarters of all pedestrian fatalities occur after dark, according to AAA. When testers drove the cars directly at a dummy crossing the road in the dark, however, the system failed not only to stop or slow the car but also to provide any alert of a pedestrian's presence before a collision. "Pedestrian fatalities are really becoming a crisis," said Greg Brannon, AAA's director of automotive engineering. While such pedestrian-detection systems have the potential to save lives, drivers shouldn't become overly reliant on them to prevent accidents, Mr. Brannon said.

"It's going to be a little while before the effectiveness of the system catches up with the marketing, unfortunately," AAA's Mr. Brannon said.

New submitter sysrammer writes: "The European Union's highest court ruled Thursday that individual member countries can force Facebook to remove what they regard as unlawful material from the social network all over the world -- a decision experts say could hinder free speech online and put a heavy burden on tech companies," reports The Associated Press. "The ruling essentially allows one country or region to decide what Internet users around the world can say and what information they can access," said CCIA Europe senior manager Victoria de Posson. "What might be considered defamatory comments about someone in one country will likely be considered constitutional free speech in another. Few hosting platforms, especially startups, will have the resources to implement elaborate monitoring systems." Another turn of the screw in the interaction between privacy and free speech.

Attorney General Bill Barr, along with officials from the United Kingdom and Australia, is set to publish an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking the company to delay plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce public safety. From a report: A draft of the letter, dated Oct. 4, is set to be released alongside the announcement of a new data-sharing agreement between law enforcement in the US and the UK; it was obtained by BuzzFeed News ahead of its publication. Signed by Barr, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, acting US Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, the letter raises concerns that Facebook's plan to build end-to-end encryption into its messaging apps will prevent law enforcement agencies from finding illegal activity conducted through Facebook, including child sexual exploitation, terrorism, and election meddling.

"Security enhancements to the virtual world should not make us more vulnerable in the physical world," the letter reads. "Companies should not deliberately design their systems to preclude any form of access to content, even for preventing or investigating the most serious crimes." The letter calls on Facebook to prioritize public safety in designing its encryption by enabling law enforcement to gain access to illegal content in a manageable format and by consulting with governments ahead of time to ensure the changes will allow this access. While the letter acknowledges that Facebook, which owns Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content through its own systems, it also notes that "mere numbers cannot capture the significance of the harm to children."

At a roundtable event in Dallas, Tex. Thursday alongside Ivanka Trump, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced new job training opportunities through a White House initiative. From a report: Google will sign the "Pledge to America's Workers," a White House initiative that calls on employers to expand education programs for American workers, Pichai said in a statement prior to the event. As part of the commitment, Pichai said the company provide 250,000 training opportunities for Americans in technology skills over five years. Google had previously signed the pledge through its membership in the trade group the Internet Association, but Thursday's announcement further strengthens that commitment. Google already has a national skills training program called "Grow with Google," which provides free resources to learn various online skills. In a blog post Thursday, Google announced plans to expand that program to 100 community colleges in the U.S. by 2020. At the roundtable, Trump said the pledge is meant to fill job opportunities with young workers as well as help reskill workers later in their careers.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the past month or so, about 20 volunteer moderators out of about 600 have distanced themselves from Stack Exchange, the online network of Q&A communities, to protest corporate policy changes and the removal of a moderator, Monica Cellio, over alleged violations of as-yet unpublished Code of Conduct changes. Cellio on Friday posted her account of what happened, claiming that her moderator status had been revoked by a Stack Exchange employee on the assumption Cellio "will in the future violate a thoughtcrime-style provision of a Code of Conduct change that hasn't been made yet." Cellio raised concerns that the Q&A site's revised Code of Conduct would require people to use other people's preferred gender pronouns -- a phrase that advocacy group Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education (GLSEN) says should be simply "pronouns" to assert that their chosen pronouns are mandatory and not optional.

Caleb Maclennan, a Stack Exchange moderator who resigned in protest of Cellio's treatment, offered his own take on the dust-up. He suggests Stack Exchange intends to treat refusal to use a person's designated pronouns as a code of conduct violation. In a post on Monday evening, Cellio offered more details about what happened to complement Maclennan's account. "In January a mod asked a discussion question on the mod team: should we require that people use preferred pronouns?" she explains. "My answer said we must not call people what they don't want to be called, but there are multiple ways to avoid misgendering and we should not require a specific one. Under some pressure I said I don't use singular they or words like chairwoman but solve the problem other ways (with examples)." She said the moderator linked to her question and called her a bigot. Things went downhill from there. In response to an email from The Register, Stack Exchange director of community Sara Chipps said, "On Friday, we revoked privileges for one Stack Exchange moderator when they refused to abide by our Code of Conduct (CoC) after being asked to change their behavior multiple times. The disagreement stemmed from an interpretation of a certain policy, but our CoC is not up for debate."

Ride-hailing firm Uber said it launched an app called Uber Works to connect temporary workers looking to work shifts with businesses trying to plug gaps in their rosters. From a report: The app, made available only in Chicago for now, will show workers the available shifts in a certain area and help businesses that struggle to staff up during peak demand, and with missed shifts and high turnover, Uber said in a blog post. "Uber Works has a business dashboard and we connect directly with businesses, including restaurants and others, to assist them with filling empty shifts," a company spokesman told Reuters. The move to diversify its core business comes at a time when Uber's main ride hailing operations face competition in Asia, while the U.S. company is also facing regulatory scrutiny for classifying its drivers as independent contractors. Last month, a driver with Uber sued the company after California legislators voted to help thousands of those workers become employees and enjoy associated benefits. A new California law designed to limit the use of "gig" workers goes into effect on Jan. 1.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Samsung has ended mobile telephone production in China, it said on Wednesday, hurt by intensifying competition from domestic rivals in the world's biggest smartphone market. The shutdown of Samsung's last China phone factory comes after it cut production at the plant in the southern city of Huizhou in June and suspended another factory late last year, underscoring stiff competition in the country. The South Korean tech giant's ceased phone production in China follows other manufacturers shifting production from China due to rising labor costs and the economic slowdown. Sony also said it was closing its Beijing smartphone plant and would only make smartphones in Thailand. Samsung, the world's top smartphone maker, said it had taken the difficult decision in a bid to boost efficiency. It added it would however continue sales in China "The production equipment will be re-allocated to other global manufacturing sites, depending on our global production strategy based on market needs," Samsung said in a statement.