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Submission + - 'Kill Switch'—Iran Shuts Down Musk's Starlink For First Time (forbes.com)

Submitted by Thelasko
Thelasko writes: We have not seen this before. Iran’s digital blackout has now deployed military jammers, reportedly supplied by Russia, to shut down access to Starlink Internet. This is a game-changer for the Plan-B connectivity frequently used by protesters and anti-regime activists when ordinary access to the internet is stopped..

“Despite reports that tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran,” says Iran Wire, “the blackout has also reached satellite connections.” It is reported that about 30 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic was (initially) disrupted," quickly rising “to more than 80 per cent” within hours.

Submission + - Microsoft's update also breaks USB scanners (slashdot.org) 2

Submitted by shanen
shanen writes: Not requesting a dupe, but the story died too soon for me to add the data point. I don't use the scanner often enough, eh? Not sure how to revive interest, but I actually think some stories should move down the top page more slowly, and this is one that probably deserved more than the standard one-day lifetime. Not sure when I remembered that some "USB topic" had gone past on Slashdot recently...

So I searched google and for some strange reason the google didn't return any links to the horse's mouth at Microsoft. What?

That provoked me into trying Bing and then Copilot, which produced a rather hilarious and infuriating discussion. Some of it might be amusing here, but I don't need the headache of getting sued by Microsoft if I dared to quote what their AI said. Much of the discussion involved "regression testing" and how little anyone should trust Microsoft. Confessions from the jackass's mouth?

Submission + - Feds Pump the Brakes on Autonomous Trucks (reason.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: An obscure federal rule is slowing the self-driving revolution. When trucks break down, operators are required to place reflective warning cones and road flares around the truck to warn other motorists. The regulations are exacting: Within 10 minutes of stopping, three warning signals must be set in specific locations around the truck.

Aurora asked the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) to allow warning beacons to be fixed to the truck itself—and activated when a truck becomes disabled. The warning beacons would face both forward and backward, would be more visiblethan cones (particularly at night), and wouldn't burn out like road flares. Drivers of nonautonomous vehicles could also benefit from that rule change, as they would no longer have to walk into traffic to place the required safety signals.

In December 2024, however, the DOT denied Aurora's request for an exemption to the existing rules, even though regulators admitted in the Federal Register that no evidence indicated the truck-mounted beacons would be less safe.

Comment Re:I don't think so (Score 1) 53

by detritus. (#65722426) Attached to: The Pope Urges Vigilance About Who Controls AI

Peter Thiel's take is pretty much denial and projection that he himself is creating the very thing that he thinks is christ. It's bizarre he's trying to start this movement even though most Christians think the exact opposite of what he does on the matter. Luddites won't be the antichrist, it's going to be christians who have long been trained to expect and reject the mark of, and worship of, the "beast".

Submission + - A Bullet Crashed the Internet in Texas (404media.co) 2

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The outage hit cities all across the state, including Dallas, Irving, Plano, Arlington, Austin, and San Antonio. The outage affected Spectrum customers and took down their phone lines and TV services as well as the internet.

“The outage stemmed from a fiber optic cable that was damaged by a stray bullet,” Spectrum told 404 Media. “Our teams worked quickly to make the necessary repairs and get customers back online. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Spectrum told 404 Media that it didn’t have any further details to share about the incident so we have no idea how the company learned a bullet hit its equipment, where the bullet was found, and if the police are involved.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 80

Anonymity is disappearing, and it would appear MS is gearing up for this.

From what it looks like, given the recent push of monetizing AI bot scraping, when user traffic looks like bot traffic, they can charge for all traffic to "level the playing field", so users can pull out their wallets, solve captchas, etc. and continuously authenticate.

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