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Submission + - Telecom Italia SpA Is Teetering On the Brink of Failure (fortune.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s not a misprint. Telecom Italia SpA, Italy’s beleaguered former telephone monopoly, once pitched a plan to buy Apple. About 25 years ago a group of executives from the carrier flew to California to meet Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, with an audacious plan to buy the tech company at a time it was struggling to make headway against rivals like International Business Machines Corp. Telecom Italia, on the other hand, was flying high, ranking as the world’s sixth-largest telephone company by sales. Worth about $100 billion, it had minimal debt, held stakes in dozens of tech groups around the world and employed more that 120,000 people.

Although Apple’s rise back from the ashes is well documented, the fate of its would-be buyer is less well known outside Italy. Today, the carrier is burdened by more than 30 billion euros in gross debt, it controls just one company outside its domestic market — Brazil’s No. 3 phone operator — and it employs only a third as many people as it did when its executives made their pitch to Jobs. Most tellingly, Telecom Italia now finds itself in the position of needing to sell off its landline network just to get its debt pile under control. The sale would be a transformational deal and, if successful, the first such divestiture for a European carrier.

In a small twist of fate, the likely buyer is a US company, though it’s not a tech giant like Apple but private equity powerhouse KKR & Co. With progress being made toward a disposal of the network, Telecom Italia’s one truly valuable asset, now seems as good a time as any to ask, what happened to this once-promising company? [...] Regardless of the outcome of the network battle, the carrier won’t look the same after the dust has settled. “Telecom Italia’s future will now be mostly linked to its capacity of being more agile and luring new customers with more profitable services,” said Laura Rovizzi, chief executive at Rome-based strategy and regulation consultant Open Gate Italia. And the carrier’s service unit, basically all that would remain of Telecom Italia after a network selloff, would itself probably need to weigh a transformational deal with a tech company to guarantee its competitive footprint, she added. With so many uncertainties ahead, there’s probably only one safe bet for Telecom Italia. The carrier won’t be trying to buy Apple again.

Submission + - JumpCloud, an IT Firm Serving 200,000 Orgs, Says It Was Hacked By Nation-State (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: JumpCloud, a cloud-based IT management service that lists Cars.com, GoFundMe, and Foursquare among its 5,000 paying customers, experienced a security breach carried out by hackers working for a nation-state, the company said last week. The attack began on June 22 as a spear-phishing campaign, the company revealed last Wednesday. As part of that incident, JumpCloud said, the “sophisticated nation-state sponsored threat actor” gained access to an unspecified part of the JumpCloud internal network. Although investigators at the time found no evidence any customers were affected, the company said it rotated account credentials, rebuilt its systems, and took other defensive measures.

On July 5, investigators discovered the breach involved “unusual activity in the commands framework for a small set of customers.” In response, the company’s security team performed a forced-rotation of all admin API keys and notified affected customers. As investigators continued their analysis, they found that the breach also involved a “data injection into the commands framework,” which the disclosure described as the “attack vector.” The disclosure didn’t explain the connection between the data injection and the access gained by the spear-phishing attack on June 22. Ars asked JumpCloud PR for details, and employees responded by sending the same disclosure post that omits such details. Investigators also found that the attack was extremely targeted and limited to specific customers, which the company didn’t name.

JumpCloud says on its website that it has a global user base of more than 200,000 organizations, with more than 5,000 paying customers. They include Cars.com, GoFundMe, Grab, ClassPass, Uplight, Beyond Finance, and Foursquare. JumpCloud has raised over $400 million from investors, including Sapphire Ventures, General Atlantic, Sands Capital, Atlassian, and CrowdStrike. The company has also published a list of IP addresses, domain names, and cryptographic hashes used by the attacker that other organizations can use to indicate if they were targeted by the same attackers. JumpCloud has yet to name the country of origin or other details about the threat group responsible.

Submission + - SpaceX Satellites Forced to Swerve Every 10 Minutes (newser.com)

Submitted by Geek_Cop
Geek_Cop writes: That's an average, based on 25K avoidance maneuvers reported in 6 months.

Space is unimaginably vast, so you'd think there would be more than enough room for whatever you want to put into orbit. SpaceX and Starlink engineers would likely tell you it's not that simple. An FCC report filed by the Elon Musk-led satellite internet provider on June 30 indicated the 4,000-plus Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit completed more than 25,000 collision avoidance maneuvers in the period between December 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023. Gizmodo explains what triggers such a movement, with SpaceX having explained that it would move its Starlink satellites if the chance of hitting space debris or another satellite exceeded 1 in 100,000.

Submission + - Cisco Systems to Face Human Rights Abuses Lawsuit (dovthelachman.com)

Submitted by dovthelachma
dovthelachma writes: Worldwide, there’s a growing need to hold firms accountable that develop tools enabling governmental repression. These tools, including large-scale surveillance systems and state-backed malware, are often used to target and abuse journalists, activists, and certain communities, infringing upon their human rights.

The Ninth Circuit has created a legal pathway for holding US tech companies, like Cisco Systems... Read More:

Submission + - AI Watches Millions of Cars and Tells Cops if You Might Be a Criminal (forbes.com)

Submitted by Geek_Cop
Geek_Cop writes: AI is being used to watch your trip habits and if you're stays are too short and you're using the route of known drug traffikers then the police are notified. A drug trafficking case in New York has uncloaked — and challenged — one of the biggest rollouts of the controversial technology to date.

Rekor’s big sell is that its software doesn’t require new cameras; it can be installed in already deployed ones, whether owned by the government, a business or a consumer. It also runs the Rekor Public Safety Network, an opt-in project that has been aggregating vehicle location data from customers for the last three years, since it launched with information from 30 states that, at the time, were reading 150 million plates per month.

Submission + - Google pestering Android users into signing into every website

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Android users now find themselves getting never ending pop-ups to "Log in with Google" when visiting many sites — those run by Google and even many third-parts sites now using Google's shared 1-click login capability. These website pop-ups occur on android even when signed-out of the browser, and even when using the browser in incognito mode — the browser mode specifically used to avoid cookies, being tracked by accounts, and to remain more anonymous while browsing.
For the past year a similar situation has existed as evidences by articles such as this one from HowToGeek explaining how to disable the "sign in with Google" prompt:
https://www.howtogeek.com/7351...

However, what is new is that Google has changed the account settings and removed the ability to op-out of receiving this pop-up if one owns an Android mobile phone. Today the Google account settings page reads: "To turn off Google prompts on a device, sign-out of your Google Account on that device" but for Android owners, being signed-in to Google is a requirement to using the phone. Users apps, contacts, calendar, and in most cases email are all tied to, and accessible only when signed in to, your google account. Logging into google is required to operate the mobile phone itself — meaning users are left with only three choices: 1) Switch to Apple, 2) Sign-in and link your Google account to any website that asks, or 3) Get pup-ups each time visiting participating websites including Google's main search.

Submission + - Slackware Linux Turns 30, Happy Birthday! (9to5linux.com)

Submitted by prisoninmate
prisoninmate writes: 9to5Linux remembers that it's been 30 years since Patrick Volkerding announced Slackware Linux 1.00 on July 16th, 1993, as the first stable release of an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution as a “complete installation system designed for systems with a 3.5 boot floppy” and what turned out to be one of the world’s oldest surviving Linux distributions.

Submission + - Hundreds of Drones Crash Into River During Display (abc.net.au)

Submitted by maxcelcat
maxcelcat writes: A fleet of some 500 drives were performing a display over Melbourne's Docklands in the lead up to the FIFA Women's World Cup. About 350 of them didn't come back and are now being fished out of the Yarra River, no doubt somewhat worse for wear.

According to the operators, the drones experienced some kind of malfunction or loss of signal, which triggered a fail safe — an automated landing. So hundreds of drones landed safely... on the surface of a river!

Submission + - Russian Officials Abandon iPhones Amid FSB Crackdown over Alleged US Espionage (dovthelachman.com) 1

Submitted by dovthelachma
dovthelachma writes: Russian authorities, suspecting US espionage, have barred thousands of officials from using iPhones and other Apple products. The trade ministry, among others, will prohibit using iPhones for work purposes, reflecting a broader anti-Apple sentiment.
Apple devices like iPhones and iPads have been banned in key institutions due to concerns over increased spying activities by US intelligence agencies. Security officials declared that iPhones are no longer safe and are seeking alternatives. Similar bans are expected in the finance and energy ministries.
This move is part of Russia’s effort to transition state institutions from foreign technology to domestically developed software by 2025. Some, however, doubt the effectiveness of this ban in alleviating concerns of Western intelligence accessing sensitive Russian information. Read More....

Submission + - Blame Big Tech for Real-life Child Abuse, Says Alleged Hacker Marty Gottesfeld. (substack.com) 1

Submitted by judoka9999
judoka9999 writes: By alleged Anonymous hacker Martin "MartyG" Gottesfeld

“Troubled” teenagers are quite literally a multibillion-dollar commodity in the United States. An entire troubled teen industry astroturfs Google, Facebook, Yelp and even sites like Psychology Today. When fearful parents go online for help handling their teens’ emotional, social, substance-abuse or other problems, the industry promises treatment to fix just about everything.

That is, for a price.

Taylor Goodridge’s parents sent her to Diamond Ranch Academy (D.R.A.), in Hurricane, Utah, for help, court documents indicate. D.R.A. charges upwards of $12,000 a month, nearly double Harvard’s full boarding cost.

The 17-year-old died five days before Christmas last year. Her family is suing D.R.A. in U.S. district court.

D.R.A.’s website boasts it is “America’s leading teen therapeutic boarding school and clinical residential program, providing a first-class, structured, and supportive campus for boys and girls struggling with emotional, social, educational, or behavioral issues.”

But reconciling D.R.A.’s website with what befell Goodridge is difficult. D.R.A., its medical director Dr. Danny Wormwood and two of D.R.A.’s nurses each breached the state’s minimum level of care, harming Goodridge, according to the Utah Division of Professional Licensing.

For over a week before Goodridge died, the teen vomited. Her blood pressure was low, her heart rate high. The D.P.L. found those symptoms required emergency care, which D.R.A. withheld. Moreover, Brooks Wiley, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and D.R.A’s assistant medical director, was “not qualified to work in an urgent care, ER, or family practice setting” and “was working beyond the scope of his license” when he treated Woodridge, the panel found.

A few hours after the panel’s report, the Utah Office of Licensing (O.L.) denied D.R.A.’s application to renew its licenses and ordered it to “discharge all of its clients on or before August 14, 2023.”

The O.L. also noted that Utah’s Child Protective Services “has a supported finding of severe physical neglect issued against” Wiley. Nonetheless, state records available here indicate no disciplinary action of any kind against Wiley’s medical licenses.

On Friday, D.R.A. announced it will close. Ricky Dias, D.R.A.’s executive director, called the O.L.’s decision “unfair.”

To some, Dias’s protest may seem ironic.

“Goodridge was placed and kept in DRA with no due process rights, [without] a conviction in a legal court that justifie[d] her presence there, with no ability to call her parents (or any other person), while Taylor’s parents were kept in the dark about her health and well-being as all communications in and out of DRA were controlled by DRA, who had a huge profit motive to keep Taylor there as long as possible,” states the relevant federal civil complaint.

The suit also states Goodridge “entered DRA in very good health and was an athlete, competing on the DRA volleyball and cheerleading teams.” But, “Unbeknownst to Plaintiffs, despite DRA’s assurances, representations and promises, children that become ill at DRA are often ignored or told that they are faking their illnesses. Many claim that they are given aspirin and water and told to ‘suck it up.’”

Goodridge’s death is not an isolated incident. The O.L. noted two other deaths at D.R.A. in recent years. Industrywide, deaths are common.

The industry has been widely investigated. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.) has catalogued many deaths under questionable circumstances. The video below, reviewing some of these incidents, is not for the faint of heart.

[Embed https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ]

And Entire Congressional hearings have been dedicated to the industry’s “deceptive marketing” practices, which principally use Google’s AdWords platform, Facebook and online review sites like Yelp, where D.R.A. has a four-star rating. Psychology Today lists industry programs as “Verified by Psychology Today.” The Better Business Bureau gives D.R.A. and many other industry programs an A+ rating.

Parents often have a hard time navigating this landscape. In 2008, Mr. Gregory Kutz, the G.A.O.’s managing director of forensic audits and special investigations, told Congress that some industry programs operate like cults and had “brainwashed many of the parents.”

[Embed https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ]

But D.R.A.’s director and many of its survivors do seem to agree on at least one thing, which Dias included in his statement to NBC News: “The State of Utah [] has consistently demonstrated its lack of concern for the safety, well-being, and treatment of youth in programs.”

For more information, see, e.g., PBS Montana’s award-winning documentary Who’s Watching the Kids?, directly below.

[Embed https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ]

Submission + - Reddit removed your chat history from before 2023 (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ‘/ An admin told users Reddit is “making new chats better.”’

“In an effort to have a smooth and quick transition to this new infrastructure, we will migrate chat messages sent from January 1, 2023 onward.”

Submission + - Automatic update without information, "Restart Firefox" (mozilla.org)

Submitted by SysEngineer
SysEngineer writes: Have you had Firefox ask "Restart Firefox" in the middle of doing something?
Ubuntu is a little better, they let you wait, And tell you wait is being updated, but trying to check the validity of the update is dubious. I can't find a single page on Ubuntu that has a database that can be sorted by date or name of the updates.
It is great that these companies keep their software updated but I would like to verify with "the source" of the update for it's validity. I take security seriously and want to be informed of the changes.

Submission + - Musks' Twitter dumpster fire just won't go out (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by sdinfoserv
sdinfoserv writes: Twitter is down to sub 2000 employees from 7500 prior to the Musk acquisition. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...
His non-stop futzing with the product has alienated vendors as add revenue drops 50%. . Despite constate layoffs and departures, the company is still bleeding cash. I predict it won't be long before Musky boy gets bored and unloads twitter at a huge loss. Couldn't happen to a more deserving oligarch.

Submission + - The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training (stackdiary.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Brave, the privacy-focused web browser, has come under scrutiny for its Brave Search API, which reportedly allows users to use copyrighted material. The company offers various API products, including "Data for AI," which claims to assign users rights to cache, store, and use search data for AI training. In a detailed analysis, the author found that Brave's "Extra alternate snippets" feature delivers generous excerpts from web content, ranging from 150 to 260 words.

While search engines traditionally sidestep copyright issues by linking to the original source as a form of attribution, Brave simply scrapes the data and then assigns "rights" on top of charging for the data, potentially violating copyright licenses. Additionally, the author notes Brave has a non-transparent web crawler that doesn't offer an option for site owners to block it specifically.

Submission + - Age of Universe Nearly Twice As Old As Previously Believed (phys.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Our universe could be twice as old as current estimates, according to a new study that challenges the dominant cosmological model and sheds new light on the so-called "impossible early galaxy problem." "Our newly-devised model stretches the galaxy formation time by a several billion years, making the universe 26.7 billion years old, and not 13.7 as previously estimated," says author Rajendra Gupta, adjunct professor of physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa.

For years, astronomers and physicists have calculated the age of our universe by measuring the time elapsed since the Big Bang and by studying the oldest stars based on the redshift of light coming from distant galaxies. In 2021, thanks to new techniques and advances in technology, the age of our universe was thus estimated at 13.797 billion years using the Lambda-CDM concordance model. However, many scientists have been puzzled by the existence of stars like the Methuselah that appear to be older than the estimated age of our universe and by the discovery of early galaxies in an advanced state of evolution made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope. These galaxies, existing a mere 300 million years or so after the Big Bang, appear to have a level of maturity and mass typically associated with billions of years of cosmic evolution. Furthermore, they're surprisingly small in size, adding another layer of mystery to the equation.

Zwicky's tired light theory proposes that the redshift of light from distant galaxies is due to the gradual loss of energy by photons over vast cosmic distances. However, it was seen to conflict with observations. Yet Gupta found that "by allowing this theory to coexist with the expanding universe, it becomes possible to reinterpret the redshift as a hybrid phenomenon, rather than purely due to expansion." In addition to Zwicky's tired light theory, Gupta introduces the idea of evolving "coupling constants," as hypothesized by Paul Dirac. Coupling constants are fundamental physical constants that govern the interactions between particles. According to Dirac, these constants might have varied over time. By allowing them to evolve, the timeframe for the formation of early galaxies observed by the Webb telescope at high redshifts can be extended from a few hundred million years to several billion years. This provides a more feasible explanation for the advanced level of development and mass observed in these ancient galaxies.

Submission + - Meta To Release Open-Source Commercial AI Model To Compete With OpenAI, Google (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is set to release a commercial version of LLaMA, its open-source large language model (LLM) that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate text, images, and code. LLaMA, which stands for Large Language Model Meta AI, was publicly announced in February as a small foundational model, and made available to researchers and academics. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that Meta is prepared to release the commercial version of the model, which would enable developers and businesses to build applications using the foundational model.

Since it's an open-source AI technology, commercial access to LLaMA gives businesses of all sizes the opportunity to adapt and improve the AI, accelerating technological innovation across various sectors and potentially leading to more robust models. Meta's LLaMA is available in 7, 13, 33, and 65 billion parameters, compared to ChatGPT's LLM, GPT-3.5, which has been confirmed to have 175 billion parameters. OpenAI hasn't said how many parameters GPT-4 has, but it's estimated to have over 1 trillion parameters — the more parameters, the better the model can understand input and generate appropriate output.

Though open-source AI models already exist, launching Meta's LLaMA commercially is still a significant step, due to it being larger than many of the available open-source LLMs on the market, and the fact that it is from one of the biggest tech companies in the world. The launch means Meta is directly competing with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google, and that competition could mean significant advancements in the AI field. Closed or proprietary software, like that used in OpenAI's ChatGPT, has drawn criticism over transparency and security.

Submission + - Ancient Lead-Covered Telephone Cables Have US Lawmakers Demanding Action (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Newly raised concerns about lead-covered telephone cables installed across the US many decades ago are putting pressure on companies like AT&T and Verizon to identify the locations of all the cables and account for any health problems potentially caused by the toxic metal. US Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to the USTelecom industry trade group this week after a Wall Street Journal investigative report titled, "America Is Wrapped in Miles of Toxic Lead Cables." The WSJ said it found evidence of more than 2,000 lead-covered cables and that there "are likely far more throughout the country."

WSJ reporters had researchers collect samples as part of their investigation. They "found that where lead contamination was present, the amount measured in the soil was highest directly under or next to the cables, and dropped within a few feet—a sign the lead was coming from the cable," the article said. Markey wrote to USTelecom, "According to the Wall Street Journal's investigation, 'AT&T, Verizon and other telecom giants have left behind a sprawling network of cables covered in toxic lead that stretches across the US, under the water, in the soil and on poles overhead... As the lead degrades, it is ending up in places where Americans live, work and play.'"

Markey wants answers to a series of questions by July 25: "Do the companies know the locations and mileage of lead-sheathed cables that they own or for which they are responsible—whether aerial, underwater, or underground? Are there maps of the locations and installations? If not, what plans do the companies have to identify the cables? Why have the companies that knew about the cables—and the potential exposure risks they pose—failed to monitor them or act?" Markey also asked what plans telcos have to address environmental and public health problems that could arise from lead cables. He asked the companies to commit to "testing for soil, water, and other contamination caused by the cables," to remediate any contamination, and warn communities of the potential hazards. Markey also asked USTelecom if the phone companies will guarantee "medical treatment and compensation to anyone harmed by lead poisoning caused by the cables."

Submission + - Nanogenerator Harvests Ocean-Wave Energy

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: A research team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed a contact-separation mode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with a simple structure for harvesting wave energy and powering marine sensors and transmitters.

Triboelectrification is the process by which two originally uncharged bodies become charged when brought into contact and then separated.

The key is a new mechanism for wave-driven energy-harvesting TENGs that can convert the low-amplitude, low-frequency ocean waves into high-frequency mechanical motion for more effective power generation. This new TENG must be able to operate and be triggered by any wave conditions, even in the middle of the ocean where waves have uniform or random low amplitude and frequency.

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