Comment Re: Huh. (Score 1) 128
Nicolas Cage isn't a bad choice.
Try to imagine Steven Seagal as Forrest Gump.
Submission + - Hamburg is replacing a bridge in one huge piece (tagesschau.de) 2
Qbertino writes: The northern German City of Hamburg is currently in the process of replacing one of it's bridges in one single gigantic piece. The new replacement weighs 3700 metric tons and is carefully being moved into place in the next few days over a stretch of 500 meters, requiring extreme patience and precision maneuvering. Some places leave only 40 cm of room to neighbouring buildings. The bridge is expected to be put in it's place by the end of next weekend.
German Tagesschau has an article with pics and video.
German Tagesschau has an article with pics and video.
Submission + - Ongoing cyber attacks at over 30 Minnesota water systems (fox9.com)
jrnvk writes: As reported by KMSP: "More than 30 Minnesota communities saw their water system targeted in a cyberattack that spanned two days, state officials reported on Tuesday." No other details have been shared by officials.
Comment Don't incriminate yourself (Score 3, Interesting) 22
There's a reason why the 5th amendment exists in the US, but it doesn't exist elsewhere.
Or "It's not illegal unless someone discovers it", so just keep your mouth shut.
If Google is in turn gets in target for copyright issues then this could in turn start to roll over the rest of the AI providers as well.
Submission + - AI Companies Buying Antique Books To Train Models, Then Destroying Them (futurism.com)
fjo3 writes: Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and sell books, ISBNdb now helps AI companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000 to one million books per order, according to 404.
As an added bonus, it also promises AI companies that it’ll keep their purchases under wraps — nobody wants to end up in the spotlight like Anthropic and Meta, obviously — while clearly sounding aware about how incredibly shady the practice sounds.
“The optics problem is real,” ISBNdb’s site says. “‘AI company destroys two million books’ is not a headline that generates sympathy.”
As an added bonus, it also promises AI companies that it’ll keep their purchases under wraps — nobody wants to end up in the spotlight like Anthropic and Meta, obviously — while clearly sounding aware about how incredibly shady the practice sounds.
“The optics problem is real,” ISBNdb’s site says. “‘AI company destroys two million books’ is not a headline that generates sympathy.”
Comment Re: It's just a tax on you (Score 1) 174
The tariffs eventually ends up in the pockets of Trump and his cronies.
Submission + - The Most Controversial Firefox Bug (mozilla.org)
BrendaEM writes: Mozilla/Firefox claims to honor and protect privacy, yet it collects data by default. Perhaps it's better than the rest, but with data collection on after installation, Firefox claims of privacy don't ring quite true.
Comment OT Security is hard (Score 1) 1
It doesn't matter who did deliver the system, many OT systems are on 1990's or earlier security level.
There are a considerable amount of systems running ControlNet and other solutions. Those are hard to upgrade in a live environment, and changing can be like doing a brain transplant.
Securing some OT systems is also tricky since there are PLCs that don't even know the concept of default gateway, hence you can't separate the OT network into subnets with firewalls but have to run the whole network as a single segment.
Redundancy is also not always present, so if one optical fibre is cut then you need to manually repatch or wait until you have replaced that fiber cable segment.
Add to it that many modern chips in those systems regardless of supplier goes through China.
Submission + - Donâ(TM)t wire foreign enemies into Americaâ(TM)s power grid (thehill.com) 1
alternative_right writes: America focuses on cost and convenience until dependence on foreign technology suddenly becomes a national security problem. By then, fixing it is far more difficult than preventing it in the first place. After years of allowing the purchase of cheap Chinese telecommunications devices, for example, the Federal Communications Commission estimated it would cost more than $5 billion to remove and replace them with more secure equipment.
The electric grid is becoming more digital than most Americans realize. The systems being installed now do more than move electricity; they communicate with one another, process data and help utilities manage power across entire regions in real time. Those features make the grid more efficient, but they also create new points of vulnerability.
Many Americans also may not know that Chinese government-linked hackers are already burrowing inside U.S. critical infrastructure, including power systems. U.S. officials have warned that these intrusions appear designed to give Beijing options to disrupt vital services during a future crisis. That should raise an obvious question: If China is already trying to gain access to critical systems from the outside, why would we make it easier by relying on Chinese-linked technology in the systems that help control the grid from the inside?
The electric grid is becoming more digital than most Americans realize. The systems being installed now do more than move electricity; they communicate with one another, process data and help utilities manage power across entire regions in real time. Those features make the grid more efficient, but they also create new points of vulnerability.
Many Americans also may not know that Chinese government-linked hackers are already burrowing inside U.S. critical infrastructure, including power systems. U.S. officials have warned that these intrusions appear designed to give Beijing options to disrupt vital services during a future crisis. That should raise an obvious question: If China is already trying to gain access to critical systems from the outside, why would we make it easier by relying on Chinese-linked technology in the systems that help control the grid from the inside?
Submission + - Your Cookware Got Worse On Purpose (worseonpurpose.com)
hwstar writes: Six companies, eighty-one brands own most of the cookware Americans can purchase. These brands are:
Centre Lane Partners, a private equity firm, owns Pyrex, Corelle, CorningWare, Snapware, Visions, Chicago Cutlery, Instant Pot, Anchor Hocking, Lenox, Oneida, and Reed & Barton. That is almost all of the surviving legacy American tabletop industry under one roof.
All Clad
A couple of years ago, the small All-Clad pan I fry eggs in cut me as I was pulling it out of the dishwasher. A clean slice on my index finger off the rim. I patched it up. Didn’t think much else of it. I discovered what actually happened while researching this essay, sitting in a settlement archive three years too late to file a claim.
All-Clad had been selling its American-made stainless pans as dishwasher safe. In the dishwasher, the bonded rims corroded until the exposed edge got sharp enough to easily slice through skin. The company settled in 2023, capped at $4 million for a class covering seven and a half years of national sales, a rounding error for its French owner.
What never got fixed was the pan. Nothing was re-engineered to survive a dishwasher; the words "dishwasher safe" just came off the box, and the product pages recommend handwashing now. The claims window closed in April 2023 with most of the class, me included, never knowing it existed. Nobody mailed a postcard about the metallurgy.
Pyrex
Pyrex was materials science before it was a brand. Corning invented it in 1915: borosilicate glass that shrugged off thermal shock. It is the reason three generations learned to take a dish from the freezer to the oven without a second thought.
The American Pyrex on shelves today is tempered soda-lime glass, a different material with a thermal safety margin an American Ceramic Society analysis described as borderline, roughly 55C of headroom against 183C for borosilicate. Consumer Reports collected 163 shattering incident reports, 42 of them involving injuries. European Pyrex, made by an unrelated company, is still borosilicate. The switch happened under Corning itself, decades before the buyouts. That is exactly what made the brand such a perfect acquisition: the glass had already been downgraded, the reputation had not.
In 1998 Corning sold the consumer business to an affiliate of Borden, then a KKR portfolio company, in a deal worth about $603 million. The new company borrowed $471.6 million on day one and paid Corning a $472.6 million dividend, which means it was born owing more than it had. It renamed itself World Kitchen, bought more brands with more debt, and went bankrupt by 2002. To dig out, it sold the one thing in the portfolio still growing, OXO, for $273 million.
Cornell Capital, a private equity firm founded by a former Goldman Sachs vice chairman, bought the company in 2017 and renamed it Corelle Brands. In 2019 it merged with the Canadian company behind the Instant Pot, valuing the combination at $615 million. What it actually bought is disputed to this day. More than 98 percent of the price was booked as goodwill and intangibles, and within days of closing a Cornell partner on the new board emailed the CEO to ask, "Is there fraud going on???"
The suspicion, later spelled out in court filings, was that Instant Pot's sales had been pumped up with discounts and channel stuffing before the sale. The CEO's own verdict was that he was running "the most poorly operated 'successful' business on the planet."
Cornell held on to the asset anyway, and two years later, it got its money out. On April 12, 2021, Instant Brands borrowed $450 million. On April 21, it paid a $345 million dividend, roughly $200 million of that to Cornell Capital and its co-investors. The solvency memo blessing the payout assumed new product sales would grow more than 900 percent. In the end, actual sales missed that year's projections by $157 million. In June 2023 the company filed for Chapter 11, and the lenders that were collectively owed $391 million recovered between seven and nine cents on the dollar.
The bankruptcy is how we know all of this. The court appointed a litigation trustee to claw money back for the people left holding the bag. In November 2024 he sued Cornell Capital and its founder for more than $400 million, laying out the fraud email, the solvency memo, and the dividend math in an 88-page complaint. Cornell calls the suit baseless, and the case is grinding through a New York bankruptcy court right now.
Centre Lane bought the wreckage out of the bankruptcy and folded it into Anchor Hocking, the Ohio glassmaker it already owned. Two names matter from here. Anchor Hocking is the glassmaker: the plant in Lancaster, the name on the bakeware. Centre Lane is the owner: the New York firm that decides what happens to it.
Within six months of the purchase, Anchor Hocking announced that Pyrex production would leave Charleroi, Pennsylvania, the plant that had made it since 1893, and consolidate in Lancaster. Roughly 300 people worked at Charleroi.
All Clad
A couple of years ago, the small All-Clad pan I fry eggs in cut me as I was pulling it out of the dishwasher. A clean slice on my index finger off the rim. I patched it up. Didn’t think much else of it. I discovered what actually happened while researching this essay, sitting in a settlement archive three years too late to file a claim.
All-Clad had been selling its American-made stainless pans as dishwasher safe. In the dishwasher, the bonded rims corroded until the exposed edge got sharp enough to easily slice through skin. The company settled in 2023, capped at $4 million for a class covering seven and a half years of national sales, a rounding error for its French owner.
What never got fixed was the pan. Nothing was re-engineered to survive a dishwasher; the words "dishwasher safe" just came off the box, and the product pages recommend handwashing now. The claims window closed in April 2023 with most of the class, me included, never knowing it existed. Nobody mailed a postcard about the metallurgy.
Pyrex
Pyrex was materials science before it was a brand. Corning invented it in 1915: borosilicate glass that shrugged off thermal shock. It is the reason three generations learned to take a dish from the freezer to the oven without a second thought.
The American Pyrex on shelves today is tempered soda-lime glass, a different material with a thermal safety margin an American Ceramic Society analysis described as borderline, roughly 55C of headroom against 183C for borosilicate. Consumer Reports collected 163 shattering incident reports, 42 of them involving injuries. European Pyrex, made by an unrelated company, is still borosilicate. The switch happened under Corning itself, decades before the buyouts. That is exactly what made the brand such a perfect acquisition: the glass had already been downgraded, the reputation had not.
In 1998 Corning sold the consumer business to an affiliate of Borden, then a KKR portfolio company, in a deal worth about $603 million. The new company borrowed $471.6 million on day one and paid Corning a $472.6 million dividend, which means it was born owing more than it had. It renamed itself World Kitchen, bought more brands with more debt, and went bankrupt by 2002. To dig out, it sold the one thing in the portfolio still growing, OXO, for $273 million.
Cornell Capital, a private equity firm founded by a former Goldman Sachs vice chairman, bought the company in 2017 and renamed it Corelle Brands. In 2019 it merged with the Canadian company behind the Instant Pot, valuing the combination at $615 million. What it actually bought is disputed to this day. More than 98 percent of the price was booked as goodwill and intangibles, and within days of closing a Cornell partner on the new board emailed the CEO to ask, "Is there fraud going on???"
The suspicion, later spelled out in court filings, was that Instant Pot's sales had been pumped up with discounts and channel stuffing before the sale. The CEO's own verdict was that he was running "the most poorly operated 'successful' business on the planet."
Cornell held on to the asset anyway, and two years later, it got its money out. On April 12, 2021, Instant Brands borrowed $450 million. On April 21, it paid a $345 million dividend, roughly $200 million of that to Cornell Capital and its co-investors. The solvency memo blessing the payout assumed new product sales would grow more than 900 percent. In the end, actual sales missed that year's projections by $157 million. In June 2023 the company filed for Chapter 11, and the lenders that were collectively owed $391 million recovered between seven and nine cents on the dollar.
The bankruptcy is how we know all of this. The court appointed a litigation trustee to claw money back for the people left holding the bag. In November 2024 he sued Cornell Capital and its founder for more than $400 million, laying out the fraud email, the solvency memo, and the dividend math in an 88-page complaint. Cornell calls the suit baseless, and the case is grinding through a New York bankruptcy court right now.
Centre Lane bought the wreckage out of the bankruptcy and folded it into Anchor Hocking, the Ohio glassmaker it already owned. Two names matter from here. Anchor Hocking is the glassmaker: the plant in Lancaster, the name on the bakeware. Centre Lane is the owner: the New York firm that decides what happens to it.
Within six months of the purchase, Anchor Hocking announced that Pyrex production would leave Charleroi, Pennsylvania, the plant that had made it since 1893, and consolidate in Lancaster. Roughly 300 people worked at Charleroi.
Submission + - Meta's AI rules have let bots hold 'sensual' chats with kids and an arrest
ISayWeOnlyToBePolite writes: Meta’s AI rules have let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with kids and offer false medical info.
An internal Meta Platforms document detailing policies on chatbot behavior has permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.”
These and other findings emerge from a Reuters review of the Meta document, which discusses the standards that guide its generative AI assistant, Meta AI, and chatbots available on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the company’s social-media platforms.
Meta confirmed the document’s authenticity, but said that after receiving questions earlier this month from Reuters, the company removed portions which stated it is permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children.
More details at: https://www.reuters.com/invest...
New York City engineer Josh Felker who said he created "digital experiences for kids" at social media giant Meta was busted after he admitted to trying to sext a 13-year-old during an undercover sting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/vid...
An internal Meta Platforms document detailing policies on chatbot behavior has permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.”
These and other findings emerge from a Reuters review of the Meta document, which discusses the standards that guide its generative AI assistant, Meta AI, and chatbots available on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the company’s social-media platforms.
Meta confirmed the document’s authenticity, but said that after receiving questions earlier this month from Reuters, the company removed portions which stated it is permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children.
More details at: https://www.reuters.com/invest...
New York City engineer Josh Felker who said he created "digital experiences for kids" at social media giant Meta was busted after he admitted to trying to sext a 13-year-old during an undercover sting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/vid...
Submission + - Firefox 153 was released today (firefox.com)
williamyf writes: FireFox 153 was released today. The most important user Facing Changes are changes in the Handling of PDFs (you can now merge PDF's and add images to them), and HDR video playback (on Windows, subjected to HDR being active system wide). Other changes under the hood include browser wide containers, and QWAC support. The full list is in the chage notes.
But the most important feature is that this version is an ESR, and therefore, defines the feature set of ESR for the next year. Why is being an ESR so important you ask?
1.) ESR, and not "normal (a.k.a. Rapid Release)" FireFox is the OotB browser for many important distros, like Debian, RHEL, Kali, TAILS, Suse Leap, Slackware and such.
2.) Many organizations large and small standarize on FireFox ESR as their default browser, regardless of the default browser that comes with their OS.
3.) FireFox ESR is the basis for many projects downstram, like WaterFox or KaiOS. All these projects will inherit for a year whatever ESR brings to the table today.
4.) Many ISVs and SaaS providers, if they certify their wares for FireFox at all, certify for the ESR version only.
Please notice that ESR 153 will NOT be offered as an automatic update until 2 months from now (ESR 140 will still be supported), If you want it now, you need to do a manual download and install.
Also of note, ESR 115 will be supported until march 2027. If you have unsupported versions of MacOS or Windows (like 7 or 8.x) this is the version to get, but even Mozilla themselves cautions about running a supported browser on top oh an unsupported OS:
But the most important feature is that this version is an ESR, and therefore, defines the feature set of ESR for the next year. Why is being an ESR so important you ask?
1.) ESR, and not "normal (a.k.a. Rapid Release)" FireFox is the OotB browser for many important distros, like Debian, RHEL, Kali, TAILS, Suse Leap, Slackware and such.
2.) Many organizations large and small standarize on FireFox ESR as their default browser, regardless of the default browser that comes with their OS.
3.) FireFox ESR is the basis for many projects downstram, like WaterFox or KaiOS. All these projects will inherit for a year whatever ESR brings to the table today.
4.) Many ISVs and SaaS providers, if they certify their wares for FireFox at all, certify for the ESR version only.
Please notice that ESR 153 will NOT be offered as an automatic update until 2 months from now (ESR 140 will still be supported), If you want it now, you need to do a manual download and install.
Also of note, ESR 115 will be supported until march 2027. If you have unsupported versions of MacOS or Windows (like 7 or 8.x) this is the version to get, but even Mozilla themselves cautions about running a supported browser on top oh an unsupported OS:
"Note that Microsoft ended official support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 in January 2023. Unsupported operating systems receive no security updates and have known vulnerabilities. Without official support from Microsoft, maintaining Firefox for outdated operating systems becomes costly for Mozilla and risky for users. "
Submission + - US police now armed with Israeli spy vans simulating mobile phone towers (cybernews.com)
schwit1 writes: If you thought Flock was bad check out Falconet.
Falconet from Israeli company Cognyte serves as a cell tower simulator that intercepts cell phone data from all devices within range. Police mount these systems in Tahoes so the vehicles can collect information while driving through areas without any direct interaction with targets.
This mobile approach generates ongoing records of phone locations and communications for everyone nearby rather than only suspects, which creates comprehensive movement profiles and bypasses traditional warrant requirements under the Fourth Amendment.
Cognyte sells the technology directly to U.S. agencies, as shown by the Texas Department of Public Safety purchase of four Tahoes where over three point eight million dollars went to the interception equipment. Adoption spreads through routine vehicle procurement with little external review of how the collected data is stored or shared.
Once active the systems permit warrantless collection of private cell phone data across entire communities during normal patrols, which enables potential misuse and leaves individuals with no effective way to discover or contest the surveillance.
https://x.com/JoshWalkos/statu...
Falconet from Israeli company Cognyte serves as a cell tower simulator that intercepts cell phone data from all devices within range. Police mount these systems in Tahoes so the vehicles can collect information while driving through areas without any direct interaction with targets.
This mobile approach generates ongoing records of phone locations and communications for everyone nearby rather than only suspects, which creates comprehensive movement profiles and bypasses traditional warrant requirements under the Fourth Amendment.
Cognyte sells the technology directly to U.S. agencies, as shown by the Texas Department of Public Safety purchase of four Tahoes where over three point eight million dollars went to the interception equipment. Adoption spreads through routine vehicle procurement with little external review of how the collected data is stored or shared.
Once active the systems permit warrantless collection of private cell phone data across entire communities during normal patrols, which enables potential misuse and leaves individuals with no effective way to discover or contest the surveillance.
https://x.com/JoshWalkos/statu...
Submission + - FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval fo (propublica.org)
joshuark writes: ProPublica reports that disclosures show FCC Chair Brendan Carr and Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty are among seven FCC commissioners who have accepted Kennedy gala tickets from CBS or its parent company over the last decade. Ethics experts told ProPublica this poses a blatant conflict of interest since the commission regulates the network. Carr’s previous financial statements show he has accepted tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling over $63,000 in gifts. It’s unclear if Paramount gifted Carr the premium seats because the FCC has yet to make public his financial disclosure for last year.
Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.
Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.
“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”
The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.
American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez.
The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.
Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.
An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.
“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”
Shaub called the justification outrageous.
“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”
Richard Painter, a former White House ethics attorney in the administration of George W. Bush, said while courts often defer to the government’s judgment, they also can become skeptical if a regulatory agency is shown to have violated ethics rules.
“A judge may very well say that the merger decision of the FCC isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” he said.
Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.
Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.
“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”
The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.
American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez.
The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.
Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.
An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.
“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”
Shaub called the justification outrageous.
“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”
Richard Painter, a former White House ethics attorney in the administration of George W. Bush, said while courts often defer to the government’s judgment, they also can become skeptical if a regulatory agency is shown to have violated ethics rules.
“A judge may very well say that the merger decision of the FCC isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” he said.
Submission + - Garbage trucks may soon start spying on people (msn.com) 1
fjo3 writes: Garbage trucks could soon do more than collect trash—they may also help identify code violations using artificial intelligence (AI).
Officials in Cape Coral, Florida, recently considered equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras that would photograph properties as crews complete their normal collection routes.
The system would have been designed to identify potential issues such as overgrown lawns, peeling paint, and illegal dumping, and to flag violations so the city staff can review them later before taking enforcement action.
Officials in Cape Coral, Florida, recently considered equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras that would photograph properties as crews complete their normal collection routes.
The system would have been designed to identify potential issues such as overgrown lawns, peeling paint, and illegal dumping, and to flag violations so the city staff can review them later before taking enforcement action.
