"The early web was fun," Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian posted Wednesday on X.com. "It was weird. It was community-driven. It's time to rebuild that.

"Which is why Kevin Rose and I just bought back Digg."

The amount of that purchase is "undisclosed," reports CNBC: The deal is backed by venture capital firms True Ventures, where Rose is a partner, and Ohanian's Seven Seven Six.... The company said in a release that it aims to differentiate itself in the social media market by "focusing on AI innovations designed to enhance the user experience and build a human-centered alternative...." Rose said in a post on X that he and Ohanian "dreamed up features that weren't even possible with yesterday's tech."
"We're bringing more transparency and community partnership," according to Rose's post, "unlike anything you've seen, plus AI that unlocks creativity without sanitizing the human element. The timing is finally right to reimagine what's possible."

"I really disliked you for a long time," Ohanian tells Rose in their joint announcement video. (To which a cheery Rose responds, "Rightfully so.")

But in the video Ohanian also says that today "Our perspective on the world has shifted a lot. You don't want to live in the past, but now we actually have the technology to make better, healthier community experiences." ("Old Rivals, New Vision," says a post on Digg's X.com account, urging readers to "Sign up to get early access when invites go live.")

And Digg.com now just displays this teasing catchphrase. "The front page of the internet, now with superpowers." (At the top of the page there's also a link to watch Diggnation Live at SXSW.)

While valued at $160 million dollars in 2008, Digg's plummeting traffic led to its brand and web site being acquired in 2012 by tech incubator Betaworks for about $500,000, according to CNBC...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs on Security: Okta, a company that provides identity tools like multi-factor authentication and single sign-on to thousands of businesses, has suffered a security breach involving a compromise of its customer support unit, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Okta says the incident affected a "very small number" of customers, however it appears the hackers responsible had access to Okta's support platform for at least two weeks before the company fully contained the intrusion. In an advisory sent to an undisclosed number of customers on Oct. 19, Okta said it "has identified adversarial activity that leveraged access to a stolen credential to access Okta's support case management system. The threat actor was able to view files uploaded by certain Okta customers as part of recent support cases."

Okta explained that when it is troubleshooting issues with customers it will often ask for a recording of a Web browser session (a.k.a. an HTTP Archive or HAR file). These are sensitive files because in this case they include the customer's cookies and session tokens, which intruders can then use to impersonate valid users. "Okta has worked with impacted customers to investigate, and has taken measures to protect our customers, including the revocation of embedded session tokens," their notice continued. "In general, Okta recommends sanitizing all credentials and cookies/session tokens within a HAR file before sharing it."

Okta has published a blog post about this incident that includes some "indicators of compromise" that customers can use to see if they were affected. But the company stressed that "all customers who were impacted by this have been notified. If you're an Okta customer and you have not been contacted with another message or method, there is no impact to your Okta environment or your support tickets." The security firm BeyondTrust is among the Okta customers who was involved in the breach. "BeyondTrust Chief Technology Officer Marc Maiffret said that [Okta's] alert came more than two weeks after his company alerted Okta to a potential problem," reports Krebs. They have also published a blog post detailing their findings.

70% of America's movie theatres have now re-opened for business, reports NPR: "When our patrons come back, they'll see the safe environment we've provided for them," said John Fithian, president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners.

Fithian invited two medical experts and the heads of the country's biggest theater chains to launch a public awareness campaign dubbed "CinemaSafe," meant to ease moviegoer's fears. The campaign featured new industry-wide health and safety protocols, including mandatory face masks for moviegoers and employees, social distancing and regular sanitizing in theaters with better air ventilation, reduced theater capacity (most between 30% and 50%), and contact-less, electronic ticket sales.

Fithian says the protocols will be followed by more than 2,600 theater locations, including more than 30,000 screens in the U.S. The National Association of Theater Owners used guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"It's important to understand that going to the movies is not risk free," said David F. Goldsmith, an epidemiologist at George Washington University who consulted with the National Association of Theater Owners on the protocols. Still, during the announcement, he said he had not seen any medical literature evidence showing movie theaters around the world have been a venue for viral transmission of COVID-19. "Honestly, time will tell," he said.
The New York Times reports that six U.S. states say it's still too dangerous to open their movie theatres — New York, California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland and New Mexico.

But Megan Colligan, the president of Imax Entertainment, countered at a news conference Friday that "Some people go to the gym, some people go to church, some people need to go to the beach and surf, and some people really do need to go to the movies."

"The ride-hailing platform Lyft has opened an online store to sell masks and other protective gear as the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies, enraging drivers and labor organizers who say the company should be providing these free," reports the Guardian: The tech company's move to sell drivers protective gear rather than provide it resurfaces the debate of whether drivers are employees or independent contractors, and to what extent the tech giants carry responsibility for the work conditions of gig workers... The Lyft store launched on 1 June, a company spokeswoman told the Guardian, and sells the supplies "at cost", she said.

"Lyft does not make a profit on PPE," she said, adding that Lyft had distributed more than 150,000 sanitizing products and masks to drivers since the Covid-19 crisis began. "The Lyft store is a resource to provide millions of drivers across the US easy access to cleaning supplies and face masks that have consistently been difficult to find." Still, drivers complain they have shouldered much of the safety responsibilities, and cost. Eden Alva, a driver organizer in the Bay Area, said Lyft should not be charging drivers for the personal protective equipment required to work safely but instead providing it free...

"From the start they have pushed all costs, expenses and risks on to drivers while pocketing as much revenue as possible," he said. "During a crisis like coronavirus, drivers suffer even more, and there isn't any form of safety net."

At Tyson's 26,000-square-foot, multi-million dollar Manufacturing Automation Center near its headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, the company will apply the latest advances in machine learning to meat manufacturing, with the goal of eventually eliminating jobs that can be physically demanding, highly repetitive and at times dangerous. Bloomberg reports: Advances in technology are making it possible to make strides in automation. For example, machine vision is now accurate and speedy enough to apply to meat production, which is highly labor intensive compared with other food manufacturing. Also, a lot of washing and sanitizing occurs in a meat-packing plant, which has traditionally been difficult on robots, but now the machines are built to withstand that. At Tyson's new facility, a series of laboratories showcase different types of robots. Mechanical arms in glass cases use smart cameras to sort colorful objects or stack items. In another room, a larger machine called a palletizer performs stacking tasks. There's also a training space.

Many of the types of robots that a meatpacking plant would need are not on the market currently, so the company needs to innovate and collaborate with partners to create them, said Doug Foreman, a director in engineering at Tyson. But the technology is ready. The processing capabilities of cameras are "so advanced even from a few years ago," Foreman said. "Processing-speed-wise, it's there now for us."

An anonymous reader quotes the New York Times: Before the pandemic, automation had been gradually replacing human work in a range of jobs, from call centers to warehouses and grocery stores, as companies looked to cut labor costs and improve profit. But labor and robotics experts said social distancing directives, which are likely to continue in some form after the crisis subsides, could prompt more industries to accelerate their use of automation.

And long-simmering worries about job losses or a broad unease about having machines control vital aspects of daily life could dissipate as society sees the benefits of restructuring workplaces in ways that minimize close human contact. "Pre-pandemic, people might have thought we were automating too much," said Richard Pak, a professor at Clemson University who researches the psychological factors around automation. "This event is going to push people to think what more should be automated...." Brain Corp, a San Diego company that makes software used in automated floor cleaners, said retailers were using the cleaners 13% more than they were just two months ago. The "autonomous floor care robots" are doing about 8,000 hours of daily work "that otherwise would have been done by an essential worker," the company said. At supermarkets like Giant Eagle, robots are freeing up employees who previously spent time taking inventory to focus on disinfecting and sanitizing surfaces and processing deliveries to keep shelves stocked.

Retailers insist the robots are augmenting the work of employees, not replacing them. But as the panic buying ebbs and sales decline in the recession that is expected to follow, companies that reassigned workers during the crisis may no longer have a need for them.... Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies labor markets, said that with companies hurting for cash, the pressure to replace humans with machines becomes even more intense. "People become more expensive as companies' revenues decline," he said.

A new wave of automation could also mean that when companies start hiring again, they do so in smaller numbers. "This may be one of those situations when automation does substantially depress rehiring," Muro said. "You may see fewer workers when the recovery does come."
Even YouTube had said it's "temporarily" relying more heavily on machines to moderate its videos.

"This means automated systems will start removing some content without human review."

coondoggie writes: With barely enough space to um, sit, and with high capacity usage, the commercial airline toilet perhaps is an engineering marvel but little else. Boeing however is looking to that notion with a self-cleaning aircraft bathroom -- known as the Fresh Lavatory -- that the company says uses ultraviolet (UV) light to kill 99.99% of germs in the loo -- and even puts down the toilet seat lid. "We're trying to alleviate the anxiety we all face when using a restroom that gets a workout during a flight," said Jeanne Yu, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Director of Environmental Performance in a statement. "In the prototype, we position the lights throughout the lavatory so that it floods the touch surfaces like the toilet seat, sink and countertops with the UV light once a person exits the lavatory. This sanitizing even helps eliminate odors."

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft has censored Chinese-language results for Bing users in the United States as well as mainland China, according to an article in The Guardian. But this isn't the first time that Bing's run into significant controversy over the 'sanitizing' of Chinese-language search results outside of mainland China. In November 2009, Microsoft came under fire from free-speech advocates after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof accused the company of 'craven kowtowing' to the mainland Chinese government by sanitizing its Chinese-language search results for users around the world. Just as with The Guardian and other news outlets this week, Microsoft insisted at the time that a 'bug' was to blame for the sanitized search results. 'The bug identified in the web image search was indeed fixed,' a Microsoft spokesperson told me in December 2009, after I presented them with a series of screenshots suggesting that the pro-Chinese-government filter remained in effect even after Kristof's column. 'Please also note that Microsoft 'recognize[s] that we can continue to improve our relevancy and comprehensiveness in these web results and we will.' Time will tell whether anything's different this time around."

jfruhlinger writes "Deep down, most people know that the germiest thing they touch all day is the thing they're touching all day: their keyboard. But what, if anything, can be done about it? A couple of former Microsoft hardware guys have launched a keyboard that sterilizes itself via ultraviolet light. While the FDA has signed off on it, tests show that the UV only kills about two-thirds of the germs living in it, and that it still needs to be cleaned by hand."

SpuriousLogic sends this excerpt from an AP report: "The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War. The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. ... The weapon is considered dismantled when the roughly 300 pounds of high explosives inside are separated from the special nuclear material, known as the pit. The uranium pits from bombs dismantled at Pantex will be stored on an interim basis at the plant, Cunningham said. The material and components are then processed, which includes sanitizing, recycling and disposal, the National Nuclear Security Administration said last fall when it announced the Texas plant's role in the B53 dismantling."

AI writes with a story from the NY Times about a 7-month-long effort, largely successful, to keep news of a Times reporter's kidnapping off of Wikipedia. The Christian Science Monitor, the reporter David Rohde's previous employer, takes a harder look at the issues of censorship and news blackout, linking to several blogs critical of Wikipedia's actions. Rohde escaped from a Taliban compound, along with his translator, on Saturday. "For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia. ... A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia's page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing — a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping... The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times."

Michael J. Ross writes "The owners and the developers of typical Web sites face a quandary, one often unrecognized and unstated: They generally want their sites' contents and functionality to be accessible to everyone on the Internet, yet the more they open those sites, the more vulnerable they can become to attackers of all sorts. In their latest book, Securing PHP Web Applications, Tricia and William Ballad argue that PHP is an inherently insecure language, and they attempt to arm PHP programmers with the knowledge and techniques for making the sites they develop as secure as possible, short of disconnecting them from the Internet." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.

An anonymous reader writes "Some of you may recall the lawsuit brought by several Hollywood directors against companies which edit movies for sex, language, and violence. The companies would trade consumers an off-the-shelf DVD for an edited one. Well, the CBC is reporting that Judge Richard P. Matsch has found that this practice violates U.S. copyright law, and 'decreed on Thursday in Denver, Colo., that sanitizing movies to delete content that may offend some people is an "illegitimate business." [...] The judge also praised the motives of the Hollywood studios and directors behind the suit, ordering the companies that provide the service to hand over their inventories.'''

NetFiber asks: "I work as a security analyst for a large university. We have recently been tasked to scour our network in the hopes of finding and removing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and such on all publicly available web servers. Our current method of analysis is to archive all the content (which often grows over 100GB) and later parse the data with various utilities and regexes that search for patterns and other pertinent information. So far, this process has proven to be rather cumbersome and time consuming. Does anyone have any experience collecting and sanitizing large amounts of web content? If so, what procedures/utilities do you use to accomplish this?"

1up has a piece looking back at the GLBT guild mixup that happened earlier this year in World of Warcraft. From the article: "'... last summer a friend introduced me to WOW, and I really liked it, though I didn't care for remarks many of the players made, like the fact that everything is apparently so gay when it's bad. So I decided to create my own guild, which would be GLBT friendly.' Sometimes singing, other times slogging her way through WOW's exacting echelons to a formidable level 60, Andrews had big endgame plans for her developing guild--until January 12, 2006, that is, when a note from publisher Blizzard blinkered everything."

Brian the Wise asks: "For all of you with large and/or complex wireless networks out there, what tools (commercial or otherwise) do you use to keep an eye on the health and state of your network? I'm not only interested in the security/IDS side of things, but also bad packets, reflections, clients flip-flopping between APs, etc. I've looked at all the usual open source projects, and so far Kismet comes the closest to my needs, but the wireless drivers on Linux do too much sanitizing of packets so I never see the bad ones. I know the FreeBSD drivers show more, but some of the advanced stuff (ie extra info from the Cisco Aironet drivers) is not supported by tcpdump or ethereal. Is there anything I can do besides getting up close and personal with the Linux network stack and drivers?"