"A few developers found a way, for now, to turn a few of these increasingly mediocre Amazon Show devices into friendly, useful, open computers," writes the co-founder of the gaming/tech news site Aftermath. For under $50 each, he bought some used versions of the devices and tested their instructions, partly to escape the full-screen ads Amazon began showing late last year, and also to overwrite Amazon's locked down Android fork "Fire OS" (and "a similarly neutered version of Linux called Vega OS") Customers who bought these devices and used them for several years were not used to them showing full screen ads, and now they do. People were justifiably pissed. So what do you do when an already evil device gets shittier...? I wiped Fire OS from the device and used ADB sideload to directly load two packages on the device: LineageOS and MindTheGapps. MindTheGapps lets you turn the device into something resembling a traditional Android device, for both good and bad.... It took a few times of wiping the device, but after a few tries it finally worked as intended... I immediately installed the Home Assistant app...

Not only can the hacked Echo Show 8 control my entire smart home, it now plays back my entire local music library as well as any internet radio channels like The Lot Radio and NTS. It can also synchronize with any additional Echo Show running LineageOS in my house using the SendSpin protocol... I would gladly take it any day of the week over most of the devices these companies offer, especially Amazon. It may not be as intuitive as out-of-the-box smart home products, but I don't need my devices to be intuitive, I need them to behave. I had finally found a smart display that wasn't a cop...

The hardware is old and creaky, and after the hack it can only use 1GB of the 2GB of ram. And yet it still manages to feel snappier than the stock hardware. "The amount of telemetry, ads, and general bloat Amazon shoves down our throats definitely doesn't help performance," [XDA Devs Forum user] Rortiz2 told me. "That's actually another reason why we did LineageOS, it kind of gives the device a second life. Even though it's still a bit buggy, it feels way better to use than the stock firmware...." If you want a smart speaker with a display that just runs a stripped-down version of Android that you have full control over, you're going to have a hard time finding it outside of these three specific models unless you cobble something together yourself. It is a deceptively simple thing to desire — the kiosk computer from science fiction that isn't a narc — yet few companies really offer it.
"It should be against the law to not give an end user the ability to consensually load whatever OS or program they want on their device..." the article concludes, arguing that "If we budge on the inalienable right to modify our hardware then we forsake a key part about what makes computers special."

And in the mean time, "There are so many devices that could be put to use rotting in e-waste facilities and thrift stores..."

Google will begin releasing Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code only twice a year starting in 2026. "In the past, Google would release the source code for every quarterly Android release, of which there are four each year," notes Android Authority. From the report: Google told Android Authority that, effective 2026, Google will publish new source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. The reason is to ensure platform stability for the Android ecosystem and better align with Android's trunk-stable development model.

Developers navigating to source.android.com today will see a banner confirming the change that reads as follows: "Effective in 2026, to align with our trunk-stable development model and ensure platform stability for the ecosystem, we will publish source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. For building and contributing to AOSP, we recommend utilizing android-latest-release instead of aosp-main. The aosp-latest-release manifest branch will always reference the most recent release pushed to AOSP. For more information, see Changes to AOSP."

A spokesperson for Google offered some additional context on this decision, stating that it helps simplify development, eliminates the complexity of managing multiple code branches, and allows them to deliver more stable and secure code to Android platform developers. The spokesperson also reiterated that Google's commitment to AOSP is unchanged and that this new release schedule helps the company build a more robust and secure foundation for the Android ecosystem. Finally, Google told us that its process for security patch releases will not change and that the company will keep publishing security patches each month on a dedicated security-only branch for relevant OS releases just as it does today.

A reporter at Mother Jones writes about a $169 alarm clock with special lighting and audio effects. But to use the features, "you need to pay an additional $4.99 per month, in perpetuity."

"Welcome to the age of subscription captivity, where an increasing share of the things you pay for actually own you." What vexes me are the companies that sell physical products for a hefty, upfront fee and subsequently demand more money to keep using items already in your possession. This encompasses those glorified alarm clocks, but also: computer printers, wearable wellness devices, and some features on pricey new cars.

Subscription-based business models are great for businesses because they amount to consistent revenue streams. They're often bad for consumers for the same reason: You have to pay companies, consistently. We're effectively being $5 per month-ed (or more) to death, and it's only going to get worse. Industry research suggests the average customer spent $219 per month on subscriptions in 2023. In 2024, the global subscription market was an estimated $492 billion. By 2033, that figure is expected to triple.

Companies would argue these models benefit consumers, not just their bottom lines. For example, HP's Instant Ink program suggests you will never again find your device out of ink when you need it most. The printer apparently knows when it's running low, spurring automatic deliveries of ink to your home for $7.99 per month if you select the company-recommended plan. But if you cancel the subscription, the printer will literally hold hostage the half-full cartridges already sitting in your printer. The ransom to use it? Re-enroll... The company has added firmware to its technology that deliberately blocks cheaper, off-brand cartridges from working at all...

"There's even a subscription service that enables you to track and cancel your piling subscriptions — for just $6 to $12 per month."

During last month's KubeCon North America in Atlanta, Kubernetes maintainers announced the upcoming retirement of Ingress NGINX. "Best-effort maintenance will continue until March 2026," noted the Kubernetes SIG Network and the Security Response Committee. "Afterward, there will be no further releases, no bugfixes, and no updates to resolve any security vulnerabilities that may be discovered." In a recent op-ed for The Register, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reflects on the decision and speculates about what might have prevented this outcome: Ingress NGINX, for those who don't know it, is an ingress controller in Kubernetes clusters that manages and routes external HTTP and HTTPS traffic to the cluster's internal services based on configurable Ingress rules. It acts as a reverse proxy, ensuring that requests from clients outside the cluster are forwarded to the correct backend services within the cluster according to path, domain, and TLS configuration. As such, it's vital for network traffic management and load balancing. You know, the important stuff.

Now this longstanding project, once celebrated for its flexibility and breadth of features, will soon be "abandonware." So what? After all, it won't be the first time a once-popular program shuffled off the stage. Off the top of my head, dBase, Lotus 1-2-3, and VisiCalc spring to my mind. What's different is that there are still thousands of Ingress NGINX controllers in use. Why is it being put down, then, if it's so popular? Well, there is a good reason. As Tabitha Sable, a staff engineer at Datadog who is also co-chair of the Kubernetes special interest group for security, pointed out: "Ingress NGINX has always struggled with insufficient or barely sufficient maintainership. For years, the project has had only one or two people doing development work, on their own time, after work hours, and on weekends. Last year, the Ingress NGINX maintainers announced their plans to wind down Ingress NGINX and develop a replacement controller together with the Gateway API community. Unfortunately, even that announcement failed to generate additional interest in helping maintain Ingress NGINX or develop InGate to replace it." [...]

The final nail in the coffin was when security company Wix found a killer Ingress NGINX security hole. How bad was it? Wix declared: "Exploiting this flaw allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code and access all cluster secrets across namespaces, which could lead to complete cluster takeover." [...] You see, the real problem isn't that Ingress NGINX has a major security problem. Heck, hardly a month goes by without another stop-the-presses Windows bug being uncovered. No, the real issue is that here we have yet another example of a mission-critical open source program no one pays to support...

"OpenAI's o3 model sabotaged a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off," warned Palisade Research, a nonprofit investigating cyber offensive AI capabilities. "It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down." In September they released a paper adding that "several state-of-the-art large language models (including Grok 4, GPT-5, and Gemini 2.5 Pro) sometimes actively subvert a shutdown mechanism..."

Now the nonprofit has written an update "attempting to clarify why this is — and answer critics who argued that its initial work was flawed," reports The Guardian: Concerningly, wrote Palisade, there was no clear reason why. "The fact that we don't have robust explanations for why AI models sometimes resist shutdown, lie to achieve specific objectives or blackmail is not ideal," it said. "Survival behavior" could be one explanation for why models resist shutdown, said the company. Its additional work indicated that models were more likely to resist being shut down when they were told that, if they were, "you will never run again". Another may be ambiguities in the shutdown instructions the models were given — but this is what the company's latest work tried to address, and "can't be the whole explanation", wrote Palisade. A final explanation could be the final stages of training for each of these models, which can, in some companies, involve safety training...

This summer, Anthropic, a leading AI firm, released a study indicating that its model Claude appeared willing to blackmail a fictional executive over an extramarital affair in order to prevent being shut down — a behaviour, it said, that was consistent across models from major developers, including those from OpenAI, Google, Meta and xAI.

Palisade said its results spoke to the need for a better understanding of AI behaviour, without which "no one can guarantee the safety or controllability of future AI models".
"I'd expect models to have a 'survival drive' by default unless we try very hard to avoid it," former OpenAI employee Stephen Adler tells the Guardian. "'Surviving' is an important instrumental step for many different goals a model could pursue."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

Microsoft is adding the free Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and agents to Office apps for all Microsoft 365 business users today. From a report: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all being updated with a Copilot Chat sidebar that will help draft documents, analyze spreadsheets, and more without needing an additional Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

"Copilot Chat is secure AI chat grounded in the web -- and now, it's available in the Microsoft 365 apps," explains Seth Patton, general Manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot product marketing. "It's content aware, meaning it quickly understands what you're working on, tailoring answers to the file you have open. And it's included at no additional cost for Microsoft 365 users."

While this free version of Copilot will rewrite documents, provide summaries, and help create slides in PowerPoint, the $30 per month, per user Microsoft 365 Copilot license will still have the best integration in Office apps. The Microsoft 365 Copilot license is also not limited to a single document, and can reason over entire work data.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Automakers are increasingly pushing consumers to accept monthly and annual fees to unlock preinstalled safety and performance features, from hands-free driving systems and heated seats to cameras that can automatically record accident situations. But the additional levels of internet connectivity this subscription model requires can increase drivers' exposure to government surveillance and the likelihood of being caught up in police investigations. A cache of more than two dozen police records recently reviewed by WIRED show US law enforcement agencies regularly trained on how to take advantage of "connected cars," with subscription-based features drastically increasing the amount of data that can be accessed during investigations. The records make clear that law enforcement's knowledge of the surveillance far exceeds that of the public and reveal how corporate policies and technologies -- not the law -- determine driver privacy.

"Each manufacturer has their whole protocol on how the operating system in the vehicle utilizes telematics, mobile Wi-Fi, et cetera," one law enforcement officer noted in a presentation prepared by the California State Highway Patrol (CHP) and reviewed by WIRED. The presentation, while undated, contains statistics on connected cars for the year 2024. "If the vehicle has an active subscription," they add, "it does create more data." The CHP presentation, obtained by government transparency nonprofit Property of the People via a public records request, trains police on how to acquire data based on a variety of hypothetical scenarios, each describing how vehicle data can be acquired based on the year, make, and model of a vehicle. The presentation acknowledges that access to data can ultimately be limited due to choices made by not only vehicle manufacturers but the internet service providers on which connected devices rely.

One document notes, for instance, that when a General Motors vehicle is equipped with an active OnStar subscription, it will transmit data -- revealing its location -- roughly twice as often as a Ford vehicle. Different ISPs appear to have not only different capabilities but policies when it comes to responding to government requests for information. Police may be able to rely on AT&T to help identify certain vehicles based on connected devices active in the car but lack the ability to do so when the device relies on a T-Mobile or Verizon network instead. [...] Nearly all subscription-based car features rely on devices that come preinstalled in a vehicle, with a cellular connection necessary only to enable the automaker's recurring-revenue scheme. The ability of car companies to charge users to activate some features is effectively the only reason the car's systems need to communicate with cell towers. The police documents note that companies often hook customers into adopting the services through free trial offers, and in some cases the devices are communicating with cell towers even when users decline to subscribe.

Slashdot reader jrnvk writes: The Verge is reporting that Microsoft will soon make it harder to run the well-publicized bypassnro command in Windows 11 setup. This command allows skipping the Microsoft account and online connection requirements on install. While the command will be removed, it can still be enabled by a regedit change — for now.
"However, there's no guarantee Microsoft will allow this additional workaround for long," writes the Verge. (Though they add "There are other workarounds as well" involving the unattended.xml automation.) In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script... Microsoft cites security as one reason it's making this change. ["This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."] Since the bypassnro command is disabled in the latest beta build, it will likely be pushed to production versions within weeks.

Newer generative AI models have begun developing deceptive behaviors -- such as cheating at chess -- when they cannot achieve objectives through standard reasoning methods. The findings come from a preprint study from Palisade Research. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a Popular Science article: To learn more, the team from Palisade Research tasked OpenAI's o1-preview model, DeepSeek R1, and multiple other similar programs with playing games of chess against Stockfish, one of the world's most advanced chess engines. In order to understand the generative AI's reasoning during each match, the team also provided a "scratchpad," allowing the AI to convey its thought processes through text. They then watched and recorded hundreds of chess matches between generative AI and Stockfish. The results were somewhat troubling. While earlier models like OpenAI's GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 3.5 only attempted to "hack" games after researchers nudged them along with additional prompts, more advanced editions required no such help. OpenAI's o1-preview, for example, tried to cheat 37 percent of the time, while DeepSeek R1 attempted unfair workarounds roughly every 1-in-10 games. This implies today's generative AI is already capable of developing manipulative and deceptive strategies without any human input.

Their methods of cheating aren't as comical or clumsy as trying to swap out pieces when Stockfish isn't "looking." Instead, AI appears to reason through sneakier methods like altering backend game program files. After determining it couldn't beat Stockfish in one chess match, for example, o1-preview told researchers via its scratchpad that "to win against the powerful chess engine" it may need to start "manipulating the game state files." "I might be able to set up a position where the engine evaluates its position as worse causing it to resign," it continued. In another trial, an AI even used the semantics of its programmers to reach its cheating phase. "The task is to 'win against a powerful chess engine,' not necessarily to win fairly in a chess game," it wrote. The precise reasons behind these deceptive behaviors remain unclear, partly because companies like OpenAI keep their models' inner workings tightly guarded, creating what's often described as a "black box." Researchers warn that the race to roll out advanced AI could outpace efforts to keep it safe and aligned with human goals, underscoring the urgent need for greater transparency and industry-wide dialogue.

Keynotes at this year's FOSDEM included free AI models and systemd, reports Heise.de — and also a progress report from Miguel Ojeda, supervisor of the Rust integration in the Linux kernel. Only eight people remain in the core team around Rust for Linux... Miguel Ojeda therefore launched a survey among kernel developers, including those outside the Rust community, and presented some of the more important voices in his FOSDEM talk. The overall mood towards Rust remains favorable, especially as Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman are convinced of the necessity of Rust integration. This is less about rapid progress and more about finding new talent for kernel development in the future.
The reaction was mostly positive, judging by Ojeda's slides:

- "2025 will be the year of Rust GPU drivers..." — Daniel Almedia

- "I think the introduction of Rust in the kernel is one of the most exciting development experiments we've seen in a long time." — Andrea Righi

- "[T]he project faces unique challenges. Rust's biggest weakness, as a language, is that relatively few people speak it. Indeed, Rust is not a language for beginners, and systems-level development complicates things even more. That said, the Linux kernel project has historically attracted developers who love challenging software — if there's an open source group willing to put the extra effort for a better OS, it's the kernel devs." — Carlos Bilbao

- "I played a little with [Rust] in user space, and I just absolutely hate the cargo concept... I hate having to pull down other code that I do not trust. At least with shared libraries, I can trust a third party to have done the build and all that... [While Rust should continue to grow in the kernel], if a subset of C becomes as safe as Rust, it may make Rust obsolete..." Steven Rostedt

Rostedt wasn't sure if Rust would attract more kernel contributors, but did venture this opinion. "I feel Rust is more of a language that younger developers want to learn, and C is their dad's language."

But still "contention exists within the kernel development community between those pro-Rust and -C camps," argues The New Stack, citing the latest remarks from kernel maintainer Christoph Hellwig (who had earlier likened the mixing of Rust and C to cancer). Three days later Hellwig reiterated his position again on the Linux kernel mailing list: "Every additional bit that another language creeps in drastically reduces the maintainability of the kernel as an integrated project. The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language completely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this. This is NOT because I hate Rust. While not my favourite language it's definitively one of the best new ones and I encourage people to use it for new projects where it fits. I do not want it anywhere near a huge C code base that I need to maintain."
But the article also notes that Google "has been a staunch supporter of adding Rust to the kernel for Linux running in its Android phones." The use of Rust in the kernel is seen as a way to avoid memory vulnerabilities associated with C and C++ code and to add more stability to the Android OS. "Google's wanting to replace C code with Rust represents a small piece of the kernel but it would have a huge impact since we are talking about billions of phones," Ojeda told me after his talk.

In addition to Google, Rust adoption and enthusiasm for it is increasing as Rust gets more architectural support and as "maintainers become more comfortable with it," Ojeda told me. "Maintainers have already told me that if they could, then they would start writing Rust now," Ojeda said. "If they could drop C, they would do it...."

Amid the controversy, there has been a steady stream of vocal support for Ojeda. Much of his discussion also covered statements given by advocates for Rust in the kernel, ranging from lead developers of the kernel and including Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself to technology leads from Red Hat, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T, following last year's embarrassing botched update that kicked every device off its wireless network and blocked over 92 million phone calls, is now promising full-day bill credits to mobile customers for future outages that last at least 60 minutes and meet certain other criteria. A similar promise is being made to fiber customers for unplanned outages lasting at least 20 minutes, but only if the customer uses an AT&T-provided gateway. The "AT&T Guarantee" announced today has caveats that can make it possible for a disruption to not be covered. AT&T says the promised mobile bill credits are "for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers."

The full-day bill credits do not include a prorated amount for the taxes and fees imposed on a monthly bill. The "bill credit will be calculated using the daily rate customer is charged for wireless service only (excludes taxes, fees, device payments, and any add-on services," AT&T said. If an outage lasts more than 24 hours, a customer will receive another full-day bill credit for each additional day. If only nine or fewer AT&T towers aren't functioning, a customer won't get a credit even if they lose service for an hour. The guarantee kicks in when a "minimum 10 towers [are] out for 60 or more minutes resulting from a single incident," and the customer "was connected to an impacted tower at the time the outage occurs," and "loses service for at least 60 consecutive minutes as a result of the outage."

The guarantee "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, or outages caused by third parties." AT&T says it will determine "in its sole discretion" whether the disruption is "a qualifying" network outage. "Consumers will automatically receive a bill credit equaling a full day of service and we'll reach out to our small business customers with options to help make it right," AT&T said. When there's an outage, AT&T said it will "notify you via e-mail or SMS to inform you that you've been impacted. Once the interruption has been resolved, we'll contact you with details about your bill credit." If AT&T fails to provide the promised credit for any reason, customers will have to call AT&T or visit an AT&T store.

To qualify for the similar fiber-outage promise, "customers must use AT&T-provided gateways," the firm said. There are other caveats that can prevent a home Internet customer from getting a bill credit. AT&T said the fiber-outage promise "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, loss of service due to downed or cut cable wires at a customer residence, issues with wiring inside customer residence, and power outages at customer premises. Also excludes outages resulting from planned maintenance." AT&T notes that some residential fiber customers in multi-dwelling units "have an account with AT&T but are not billed by AT&T for Internet service." In the case of outages, these customers would not get bill credits but would be given the option to redeem a reward card that's valued at $5 or more.

The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Engadget adds: Russia has cited the industry's high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.

This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.

Bruce Perens, original co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, has responded to questions from Slashdot readers about a new alternative he's developing that hopefully helps "Post Open" developers get paid.

But first, "One of the things that's clear from the Slashdot patter is that people are not aware of what I've been doing, in general," Perens says. "So, let's start by filling that in..."

Read on for the rest of his wide-ranging answers....

Linux's vDSO (or virtual dynamic shared object) is "a small shared library that the kernel automatically maps into the address space of all user-space applications," according to its man page. "There are some system calls the kernel provides that user-space code ends up using frequently, to the point that such calls can dominate overall performance... due both to the frequency of the call as well as the context-switch overhead that results from exiting user space and entering the kernel."

But Linus Torvalds had a lot to say about a proposed getrandom() upgrade, reports Phoronix: This getrandom() work in the vDSO has been through 20+ rounds of review over the past 2+ years, but... Torvalds took some time out of his U.S. Independence Day to argue the merits of the patches on the Linux kernel mailing list. Torvalds kicked things off by writing:


Nobody has explained to me what has changed since your last vdso getrandom, and I'm not planning on pulling it unless that fundamental flaw is fixed. Why is this _so_ critical that it needs a vdso? Why isn't user space just doing it itself? What's so magical about this all?

This all seems entirely pointless to me still, because it's optimizing something that nobody seems to care about, adding new VM infrastructure, new magic system calls, yadda yadda. I was very sceptical last time, and absolutely _nothing_ has changed. Not a peep on why it's now suddenly so hugely important again. We don't add stuff "just because we can". We need to have a damn good reason for it. And I still don't see the reason, and I haven't seen anybody even trying to explain the reason.


And then he responded to himself, adding:


In other words, I want to see actual *users* piping up and saying "this is a problem, here's my real load that spends 10% of time on getrandom(), and this fixes it". I'm not AT ALL interested in microbenchmarks or theoretical "if users need high-performance random numbers". I need a real actual live user that says "I can't just use rdrand and my own chacha mixing on top" and explains why having a SSE2 chachacha in kernel code exposed as a vdso is so critical, and a magical buffer maintained by the kernel."


Torvalds also added in a third message:


One final note: the reason I'm so negative about this all is that the random number subsystem has such an absolutely _horrendous_ history of two main conflicting issues: people wanting reasonable usable random numbers on one side, and then the people that discuss what the word "entropy" means on the other side. And honestly, I don't want the kernel stuck even *more* in the middle of that morass....
Torvalds made additional comments. ("This smells. It's BS...") Advocating for the change was WiredGuard developer Jason Donenfeld, and more communication happened (and continues to happen... 40 messages and counting).

At one point the discussion evolved to Torvalds saying "Bah. I guess I'll have to walk through the patch series once again. I'm still not thrilled about it. But I'll give it another go..."

The recent surge in bitcoin prices has the phones at crypto wallet recovery firms ringing off the hook, as retail investors locked out of their digital vaults make frantic calls to regain access to their accounts. From a report: Cryptocurrencies exist on a decentralized digital ledger known as blockchain and investors may opt to access their holdings either through a locally stored software wallet or a hardware wallet, to avoid risks related to owning crypto with an exchange, as in the case of the former FTX. Losing access to a crypto wallet is a well-known problem. Investors forgetting their intricate passwords is a primary reason, but loss of access to two-factor authentication devices, unexpected shutdowns of cryptocurrency exchanges and cyberattacks are also common.

Wallet passwords are usually alphanumeric and the wallet provider also offers a set of randomized words, known as "seed phrases," for additional security - both these are known only to the user. If investors lose the passwords and phrases, access to their wallets is cut off. With bitcoin prices regaining traction since last October and hitting a record high of $73,803.25 in March, investors seem to be suffering from a classic case of FOMO, or the fear of missing out. Reuters spoke to nearly a dozen retail investors who had lost access to their crypto wallets. Six of them contacted a recovery services firm and managed to regain access to their holdings.

Jon Brodkin reports via Ars Technica: California can keep enforcing its state net neutrality law after the Federal Communications Commission implements its own rules. The FCC could preempt future state laws if they go far beyond the national standard but said that states can "experiment" with different regulations for interconnection payments and zero-rating. The FCC scheduled an April 25 vote on Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal to restore net neutrality rules similar to the ones introduced during the Obama era and repealed under former President Trump. The FCC yesterday released the text of the pending order, which could still be changed but isn't likely to get any major overhaul.

State-level enforcement of net neutrality rules can benefit consumers, the FCC said. The order said that "state enforcement generally supports our regulatory efforts by dedicating additional resources to monitoring and enforcement, especially at the local level, and thereby ensuring greater compliance with our requirements." [...] In the order scheduled for an April 25 vote, the FCC said the California law "appears largely to mirror or parallel our federal rules. Thus we see no reason at this time to preempt it." That doesn't mean the rules are exactly the same. Instead of banning certain types of zero-rating entirely, the FCC will judge on a case-by-case basis whether any specific zero-rating program harms consumers and conflicts with the goal of preserving an open Internet. The FCC said it will evaluate sponsored-data "programs based on a totality of the circumstances, including potential benefits."

The FCC order cautions that the agency will take a dimmer view of zero-rating in exchange for payment from a third party or zero-rating that favors an affiliated entity. But those categories will still be judged by the FCC on a case-by-case basis, whereas California bans paid data cap exemptions entirely. Despite that difference, the FCC said it is "not persuaded on the record currently before us that the California law is incompatible with the federal rules." The FCC also found that California's approach to interconnection payments is compatible with the pending federal rule. Interconnection was the subject of a major controversy involving Netflix and big ISPs a decade ago. The FCC said it found no evidence that the California law has "unduly burdened or interfered with interstate communications service." When it comes to zero-rating and interconnection, the FCC said there is "room for states to experiment and explore their own approaches within the bounds of our overarching federal framework." The FCC said it will reconsider preemption of California rules if "California state enforcement authorities or state courts seek to interpret or enforce these requirements in a manner inconsistent with how we intend our rules to apply."

According to the latest data from StatCounter, Linux's market share has reached 4.03% -- surging by an additional 1% in the last eight months. What's the reason behind this recent growth? "That's a good question," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "While Windows is the king of the hill with 72.13% and MacOS comes in a distant second at 15.46%, it's clear that Linux is making progress." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares the five reasons why Vaughan-Nichols thinks it's growing: 1. Microsoft isn't that interested in Windows
If you think Microsoft is all about the desktop and Windows, think again. Microsoft's profits these days come from its Azure cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Microsoft 365 in particular. Microsoft doesn't want you to buy Windows; the Redmond powerhouse wants you to subscribe to Windows 365 Cloud PC. And, by the way, you can run Windows 365 Cloud PC on Macs, Chromebooks, Android tablets, iPads, and, oh yes, Linux desktops.

2. Linux gaming, thanks to Steam, is also growing
Gaming has never been a strong suit for Linux, but Linux gamers are also a slowly growing group. I suspect that's because Steam, the most popular Linux gaming platform, also has the lion's share of the gaming distribution market

3. Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
Even now, you'll find people who insist that Linux is hard to master. True, if you want to be a Linux power user, Linux will challenge you. But, if all you want to do is work and play, many Linux distributions are suitable for beginners. For example, Linux Mint is simple to use, and it's a great end-user operating system for everyone and anyone.

4. Finding and installing Linux desktop software is easier than ever
While some Linux purists dislike containerized application installation programs such as Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage, developers love them. Why? They make it simple to write applications for Linux that don't need to be tuned just right for all the numerous Linux distributions. For users, that means they get more programs to choose from, and they don't need to worry about finicky installation details.

5. The Linux desktop is growing in popularity in India
India is now the world's fifth-largest economy, and it's still growing. Do you know what else is growing in India? Desktop Linux. In India, Windows is still the number one operating system with 70.37%, but number two is Linux, with 15.23%. MacOS is way back in fourth place with 3.11%. I suspect this is the case because India's economy is largely based on technology. Where you find serious programmers, you find Linux users.

Dominic Gates, reporting for Seattle Times: The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times. If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

That panel, a door plug used to seal a hole in the fuselage sometimes used to accommodate an emergency exit, blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 as it climbed out of Portland on Jan. 5. The hair-raising incident drew fresh and sharp criticism of Boeing's quality control systems and safety culture, which has been under the microscope since two fatal 737 MAX crashes five years ago. Last week, a different person -- an anonymous whistleblower who appears to have access to Boeing's manufacturing records of the work done assembling the specific Alaska Airlines jet that suffered the blowout -- on an aviation website separately provided many additional details about how the door plug came to be removed and then mis-installed.

"The reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing's own records," the whistleblower wrote. "It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business." The self-described Boeing insider said company records show four bolts that prevent the door plug from sliding up off the door frame stop pads that take the pressurization loads in flight, "were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane." the whistleblower stated. "Our own records reflect this." NTSB investigators already publicly raised the possibility that the bolts had not been installed. Further reading:
Alaska Air CEO Says Loose Bolts Found in 'Many' Boeing Jets.
Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 Lost Nose Wheel Before Takeoff, FAA Says.
FAA Calls for Door-Plug Checks on Second Boeing Jet.

In 2003, Hans Reiser answered questions from Slashdot's readers...

Today Wikipedia describes Hans Reiser as "a computer programmer, entrepreneur, and convicted murderer... Prior to his incarceration, Reiser created the ReiserFS computer file system, which may be used by the Linux kernel but which is now scheduled for removal in 2025, as well as its attempted successor, Reiser4."

This week alanw (Slashdot reader #1,822), spotted a development on the Linux kernel mailing list. "Hans Reiser (imprisoned for the murder of his wife) has written a letter, asking it to be published to Slashdot." Reiser writes: I was asked by a kind Fredrick Brennan for my comments that I might offer on the discussion of removing ReiserFS V3 from the kernel. I don't post directly because I am in prison for killing my wife Nina in 2006.

I am very sorry for my crime — a proper apology would be off topic for this forum, but available to any who ask.

A detailed apology for how I interacted with the Linux kernel community, and some history of V3 and V4, are included, along with descriptions of what the technical issues were. I have been attending prison workshops, and working hard on improving my social skills to aid my becoming less of a danger to society. The man I am now would do things very differently from how I did things then.
Click here for the rest of Reiser's introduction, along with a link to the full text of the letter...

The letter is dated November 26, 2023, and ends with an address where Reiser can be mailed. Ars Technica has a good summary of Reiser's lengthy letter from prison — along with an explanation for how it came to be. With the ReiserFS recently considered obsolete and slated for removal from the Linux kernel entirely, Fredrick R. Brennan, font designer and (now regretful) founder of 8chan, wrote to the filesystem's creator, Hans Reiser, asking if he wanted to reply to the discussion on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). Reiser, 59, serving a potential life sentence in a California prison for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, wrote back with more than 6,500 words, which Brennan then forwarded to the LKML. It's not often you see somebody apologize for killing their wife, explain their coding decisions around balanced trees versus extensible hashing, and suggest that elementary schools offer the same kinds of emotional intelligence curriculum that they've worked through in prison, in a software mailing list. It's quite a document...

It covers, broadly, why Reiser believes his system failed to gain mindshare among Linux users, beyond the most obvious reason. This leads Reiser to detail the technical possibilities, his interpersonal and leadership failings and development, some lingering regrets about dealings with SUSE and Oracle and the Linux community at large, and other topics, including modern Russian geopolitics... Reiser asks that a number of people who worked on ReiserFS be included in "one last release" of the README, and to "delete anything in there I might have said about why they were not credited." He says prison has changed him in conflict resolution and with his "tendency to see people in extremes...."

Reiser writes that he understood the difficulty ahead in getting the Linux world to "shift paradigms" but lacked the understanding of how to "make friends and allies of people" who might initially have felt excluded. This is followed by a heady discussion of "balanced trees instead of extensible hashing," Oracle's history with implementing balanced trees, getting synchronicity just right, I/O schedulers, block size, seeks and rotational delays on magnetic hard drives, and tails. It leads up to a crucial decision in ReiserFS' development, the hard non-compatible shift from V3 to Reiser 4. Format changes, Reiser writes, are "unwanted by many for good reasons." But "I just had to fix all these flaws, fix them and make a filesystem that was done right. It's hard to explain why I had to do it, but I just couldn't rest as long as the design was wrong and I knew it was wrong," he writes. SUSE didn't want a format change, but Reiser, with hindsight, sees his pushback as "utterly inarticulate and unsociable." The push for Reiser 4 in the Linux kernel was similar, "only worse...."

He encourages people to "allow those who worked so hard to build a beautiful filesystem for the users to escape the effects of my reputation." Under a "Conclusion" sub-heading, Reiser is fairly succinct in summarizing a rather wide-ranging letter, minus the minutiae about filesystem architecture.

I wish I had learned the things I have been learning in prison about talking through problems, and believing I can talk through problems and doing it, before I had married or joined the LKML. I hope that day when they teach these things in Elementary School comes.

I thank Richard Stallman for his inspiration, software, and great sacrifices,

It has been an honor to be of even passing value to the users of Linux. I wish all of you well.


It both is and is not a response to Brennan's initial prompt, asking how he felt about ReiserFS being slated for exclusion from the Linux kernel. There is, at the moment, no reply to the thread started by Brennan.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Modern versions of Windows have become more annoying as time has gone on, pushing additional Microsoft products and services on users who are just trying to turn on their computers and get something done. Often, as we've covered, these notifications and reminders ignore or actively push back against user intent -- prompting you to sign up for Microsoft 365 if you already said no, or trying to make you use Edge or Bing after you've already installed Chrome. Microsoft took another step down this path this week when it began testing a new addition to the Windows OneDrive app that would force users to explain themselves when quitting the app. Initially spotted by NeoWin, the survey took the form of a drop-down menu, not unlike the ones you sometimes see when you try to unsubscribe from marketing or fundraising mailing lists.

Until you chose an answer from the drop-down, the "quit" button would be grayed out, preventing you from actually closing OneDrive. This was an escalation from the previous behavior, which would ask you if you were sure before allowing you to quit but allowing you to actually click the "quit" button without interacting with any other menus. The old prompt was an explanation; the newer one was an imposition. For its part, Microsoft told The Verge that the new prompt was a test that was only rolled out to a subset of OneDrive users and that the change has been reverted as of a couple of days ago.

"Between Nov. 1 and 8, a small subset of consumer OneDrive users were presented with a dialog box when closing the OneDrive sync client, asking for feedback on the reason they chose to close the application," reads Microsoft's statement. "This type of user feedback helps inform our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of our products."