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Submission + - CISA's Censorship And Election Interference (thefederalist.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner last month eviscerated the Big Brother censorship operation known as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“When we have our own federal agencies lying to the American people, that’s the most insidious thing that we can do in elections,” the election integrity champion told officials from the FBI and CISA on a panel at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) in Washington, D.C., according to Wired’s Eric Geller.

Submission + - Scientists Grow Whole Model of Human Embryo, Without Sperm or Egg (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have grown an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo, without using sperm, eggs or a womb. The Weizmann Institute team say their "embryo model", made using stem cells, looks like a textbook example of a real 14-day-old embryo. It even released hormones that turned a pregnancy test positive in the lab. The ambition for embryo models is to provide an ethical way of understanding the earliest moments of our lives. This research, published in the journal Nature, is described by the Israeli team as the first "complete" embryo model for mimicking all the key structures that emerge in the early embryo.

Instead of a sperm and egg, the starting material was naive stem cells which were reprogrammed to gain the potential to become any type of tissue in the body. Chemicals were then used to coax these stem cells into becoming four types of cell found in the earliest stages of the human embryo: epiblast cells, which become the embryo proper (or foetus); trophoblast cells, which become the placenta; hypoblast cells, which become the supportive yolk sac; and extraembryonic mesoderm cells. A total of 120 of these cells were mixed in a precise ratio — and then, the scientists step back and watch.

About 1% of the mixture began the journey of spontaneously assembling themselves into a structure that resembles, but is not identical to, a human embryo. The embryo models were allowed to grow and develop until they were comparable to an embryo 14 days after fertilisation. In many countries, this is the legal cut-off for normal embryo research. The hope is embryo models can help scientists explain how different types of cell emerge, witness the earliest steps in building the body's organs or understand inherited or genetic diseases. Already, this study shows other parts of the embryo will not form unless the early placenta cells can surround it. There is even talk of improving in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates by helping to understand why some embryos fail or using the models to test whether medicines are safe during pregnancy.

Submission + - UK government blinks first over encryption ban threats (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: 'WhatsApp and Signal have threatened to quit the UK over a provision in the online safety bill that allows Ofcom to order a messaging service to use “accredited technology” to look for and take down child sexual abuse material.

'The companies and privacy advocates have argued that the clause is a threat to end-to-end encryption, a technology that means only the sender and recipient of a message can see it.

The minister for arts and heritage, Stephen Parkinson, said Ofcom would only be able to intervene if scanning content was “technically feasible” and if the process met minimum standards of privacy and accuracy.

Submission + - University of Michigan Halts Internet During First Week of Classes (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by regoli
regoli writes: The University of Michigan cut off internet access and online services across all three of its campuses early this week to ward off a potential cyberattack, leaving students and faculty in digital limbo during the first week of classes. According to the story from Inside Higher Ed, "The FBI’s Detroit field office would not confirm the existence of an investigation into the attack, but the FBI is aware of the outage and prepared to provide assistance if U-M requests it, said Mara Schneider, public affairs officer at the Detroit FBI office."

Submission + - Climate scientist gets published in Nature by omitting key details (thefp.com) 2

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: [[Note to editors: This is an important topic that should be discussed on slashdot, and there is no better place for this discussion. You don't need to suppress opposing viewpoints if you are on the right side of an argument, that's not something the good guys do.]]

Climate scientist reports on getting a paper published in Nature:
"I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work."
"So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it. "

Submission + - Harvard Now Ranks Dead Last on Free Speech

Submitted by christoban
christoban writes: This year, Harvard has finally been ranked as America’s worst college for free speech by The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The Ivy League university's approach has been labelled 'abysmal,' with a rating of 0.00, down from 55.5 in 2021-22 and 34.5 last year. The university was the only one to receive the lowest possible score. According to the article, the real figure is “more than six standard deviations below the average” and was based in part on nine deplatforming attempts at Harvard since 2019. The report sampled over 50,000 undergraduate students nationwide.

Submission + - The $53,000 Connection: The High Cost of High-Speed Internet for Everyone (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes:

Nebraska’s Winnebago Tribe has long been stuck with sluggish internet service. The federal government plans to fix that by crisscrossing the reservation with fiber-optic cable—at an average cost of $53,000 for each household and workplace connected.

That amount exceeds the assessed value of some of the homes getting hookups, property records show. While most connections will cost far less, the expense to reach some remote communities has triggered concerns over the ultimate price tag for ensuring every rural home, business, school and workplace in America has the same internet that city dwellers enjoy.

“The problem is, money is not infinite,” said Blair Levin, a senior communications policy official in the Clinton and Obama administrations who is now an equity research analyst. “If you’re spending $50,000 to connect a very remote location, you have to ask yourself, would we be better off spending that same amount of money to connect [more] families?”

The U.S. has committed more than $60 billion for what the Biden administration calls the “Internet for All” program, the latest in a series of sometimes troubled efforts to bring high-speed internet to rural areas.

Plus: "In Montana, laying fiber-optic cable to some remote locations could cost more than $300,000 per connection, said Misty Ann Giles, director of Montana’s Department of Administration. Building to those places would empty the state’s coffers, she said: 'That’s when we might not reach everyone.'"

Ya think?

Private Enterprise: Rural users in most places in the US can get Starlink up and running for $599 in hardware, do-it-yourself installation in most cases, and $120 a month for high-speed service.

Submission + - In Its First Monopoly Trial of Modern Internet Era, U.S. Sets Sights on Google (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Justice Department has spent three years over two presidential administrations building the case that Google illegally abused its power over online search to throttle competition. To defend itself, Google has enlisted hundreds of employees and three powerful law firms and spent millions of dollars on legal fees and lobbyists.

On Tuesday, a judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will begin considering their arguments at a trial that cuts to the heart of a long-simmering question: Did today’s tech giants become dominant by breaking the law?

Apple execs lose bid to block testimony at Google antitrust trial

Submission + - Experts Fear Crooks are Cracking Keys Stolen in LastPass Breach (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: In November 2022, the password manager service LastPass disclosed a breach in which hackers stole password vaults containing both encrypted and plaintext data for more than 25 million users. Since then, a steady trickle of six-figure cryptocurrency heists targeting security-conscious people throughout the tech industry has led some security experts to conclude that crooks likely have succeeded at cracking open some of the stolen LastPass vaults.

Taylor Monahan is founder and CEO of MetaMask, a popular software cryptocurrency wallet used to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. Since late December 2022, Monahan and other researchers have identified a highly reliable set of clues that they say connect recent thefts targeting more than 150 people, Collectively, these individuals have been robbed of more than $35 million worth of crypto.

Submission + - SPAM: "Grammarly Considered Harmful" 1

Submitted by Tesseractic
Tesseractic writes: I recently checked with DuckDuckGo and found _No Instances_ of the phrase "grammarly considered harmful" on the (searchable) web. I've made that search before and found nothing then, either.

You've probably seen their ads — the thing is supposed to improve your writing — spelling, grammar and style. What they don't tell you is that it doesn't necessarily work well, and that it may be harmful to you or your business' privacy and security.

Some years ago I read a posting from an editor of a website devoted to English grammar where he reported signing up for Grammarly's service and testing it against a number of common grammatical errors. Grammarly failed miserably and the decision was made to reject Grammarly's advertising on that grammar website. Grammarly's efficacy may have improved since then, but to me it seemed like they were using a "fake it until you make it" business model. Whether that's still the case I don't know. They may be using AI and getting better at it.

Quite apart from the issue of efficacy are the privacy and security issues. I recall that in at least one instance someone found what appeared to be a complete transcript of a Grammarly user's data from signup to learning, to substantial use on real business data. Imagine the harm that a rival could do to you if they got hold of _your_ data, or that of your employees. All it takes is one disgruntled Grammarly employee who wants to make some money on the side, and a shady data broker, and your confidential text data is up for sale.

That's assuming that there's no attack from any Black Hats.

There are some alternatives to Grammarly — discuss them in the comments. You might start with [spam URL stripped]...

Submission + - As Hurricane Idalia caused flooding, some EVs exposed to saltwater caught fire (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Floridians battered by Hurricane Idalia this week may not have expected another threat — that floodwaters could cause their cars to suddenly burst into flames.

Yet that's exactly what happened when two electric vehicles caught fire after being submerged in saltwater churned up by the storm. Firefighters in Palm Harbor, Florida, cited the incidents, both of which involved Teslas, in warning owners that their rechargeable car batteries could combust if exposed to saltwater.

"If you own a hybrid or electric vehicle that has come into contact with saltwater due to recent flooding within the last 24 hours, it is crucial to relocate the vehicle from your garage without delay," the department said in a Facebook post. "Saltwater exposure can trigger combustion in lithium-ion batteries. If possible, transfer your vehicle to higher ground."

The warning also applies to electric golf carts, scooters and bicycles, with lithium-ion batteries potentially sparking a fire when they get wet. More specifically, salt residue remains after the water dries out and can create "bridges" between the battery's cells, potentially creating electrical connections that can spark a fire.

Submission + - Jeff Bezos and Amazon Sued for Hating On Elon Musk in Space Launch Deal 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Ars Technica reports: "Shareholders of a pension fund that includes Amazon stock have sued the company, its founder Jeff Bezos, and its board of directors for 'breaching their fiduciary duty' as part of a contract to acquire launch services for the Project Kuiper megaconstellation. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday and first reported by the Delaware Business Court Insider, alleges that in purchasing launches for Kuiper, Amazon failed to consider SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. This was the only prudent choice that would have enabled Amazon to launch half of its constellation by a 2026 deadline, the lawsuit states."

"The plaintiffs say that the Falcon 9 costs less than its competitors and has other advantages, such as being available now. Nevertheless, the lawsuit alleges, SpaceX was never considered due to an intense and personal rivalry between that launch company's founder, Elon Musk, and Bezos, who has a competing rocket company in Blue Origin. 'Given these factors, Amazon’s persistent refusal to even consider SpaceX—and the Board’s failure to question its exclusion—lays bare the extent to which Bezos’ personal rivalry influenced Amazon’s procurement process,' the lawsuit states."

Interestingly, Slashdot readers discussed the multibillion-dollar contract in a lengthy April 2022 Why didn't they contract with SpaceX? discussion thread.

Submission + - US bans sale of top Nvidia and AMD AI chips to the Middle East (techspot.com) 1

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: The US government has limited the sale of Nvidia's and AMD's high-end AI chips to certain Middle Eastern countries to prevent their resale to China. From the report:

Nvidia wrote in a regulatory filing that the US government had informed the company of a licensing requirement for a subset of A100 and H100 products destined for certain customers and regions, including some countries in the Middle East. It wasn't specified which countries in the area would be affected by the restrictions, and Nvidia said the controls would not "affect a meaningful portion of our revenue."

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters that AMD also received a letter informing the company of similar restrictions. Team Red said that the move has no material impact on its revenue.

Submission + - IPCC Summary Reports whitewashed to remove mentions of nuclear power. (titansofnuclear.com)

Submitted by Stonefish
Stonefish writes: Karl Hausker (Ph.D) provides an insight into the machinations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the politics of creating the "Summary for Policymakers" reports. The reports are 2000-3000 pages long and each has a technical summary of about 100 pages and then finally there is a Summary for Policymakers (SPM) which is 30-50 pages, he describes this a 3 layer cake. While the reports and technical summary rely heavily on Nuclear as a clean energy source for climate change mitigation, the SPM has virtually no mention of Nuclear due to the lobbying efforts of a couple of countries against it inclusion.
Given that policymakers read these documents rather than the in depth reports it's likely that Governments are going to make poorly informed decisions relating to effective mitigation strategies.

Submission + - Leaked Government Document Shows Spain Wants to Ban End-to-End Encryption (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Spain has advocated banning encryption for hundreds of millions of people within the European Union, according to a leaked document obtained by WIRED that reveals strong support among EU member states for proposals to scan private messages for illegal content. The document, a European Council survey of member countries’ views on encryption regulation, offered officials’ behind-the-scenes opinions on how to craft a highly controversial law to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in Europe. The proposed law would require tech companies to scan their platforms, including users’ private messages, to find illegal material. However, the proposal from Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner in charge of home affairs, has drawn ire from cryptographers, technologists, and privacy advocates for its potential impact on end-to-end encryption.

For years, EU states have debated whether end-to-end encrypted communication platforms, such as WhatsApp and Signal, should be protected as a way for Europeans to exercise a fundamental right to privacy—or weakened to keep criminals from being able to communicate outside the reach of law enforcement. Experts who reviewed the document at WIRED’s request say it provides important insight into which EU countries plan to support a proposal that threatens to reshape encryption and the future of online privacy. Of the 20 EU countries represented in the document leaked to WIRED, the majority said they are in favor of some form of scanning of encrypted messages, with Spain’s position emerging as the most extreme. “Ideally, in our view, it would be desirable to legislatively prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption,” Spanish representatives said in the document. The source of the document declined to comment and requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share it.

In its response, Spain said it is “imperative that we have access to the data” and suggests that it should be possible for encrypted communications to be decrypted. Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has been outspoken about what he considers the threat posted by encryption. When reached for comment about the leaked document, Daniel Campos de Diego, a spokesperson for Spain’s Ministry of Interior, says the country’s position on this matter is widely known and has been publicly disseminated on several occasions. Edging close to Spain, Poland advocated in the leaked document for mechanisms through which encryption could be lifted by court order and for parents to have the power to decrypt children’s communications.

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UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker

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