ICT news

• FBI Calls Apple's Expansion of End-To-End Encryption 'Deeply Concerning'

  08-12-2022 23:40 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple yesterday announced that end-to-end encryption is coming to even more sensitive types of iCloud data, including device backups, messages, photos, and more, meeting the longstanding demand of both users and privacy groups who have rallied for the company to take the significant step forward in user privacy. iCloud end-to-end encryption, or what Apple calls "Advanced Data Protection," encrypts users' data stored in iCloud, meaning only a tr
  
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• MPs and Peers Do Worse Than 10-Year-Olds in Maths and English Sats

  08-12-2022 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  MPs and peers tasked with completing a year 6 Sats exam have scored lower results on average than the country's 10-year-olds. From a report: MPs including Commons education select committee chair Robin Walker took part in the exams, invigilated by 11-year-olds, at a Westminster event organised by More Than A Score, who campaign for the tests to be scrapped. Only 44% of the cross-party group of parliamentarians dubbed the Westminster Class of 2022 achieved the expected standard in maths and just
  
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• Google Combines Maps and Waze Teams Amid Pressure To Cut Costs

  08-12-2022 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  Alphabet's Google plans to combine the team working on the mapping service Waze with the group overseeing the company's Maps product, as the search giant faces pressure to streamline operations and cut costs. From a report: Google plans to merge Waze's more than 500 employees with the company's Geo organization, which oversees the Maps, Earth and Street View products, beginning on Friday, according to a Google spokeswoman. Waze CEO Neha Parikh will exit her role following a transition period, th
  
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• Samsung's Android App-Signing Key Has Leaked, is Being Used To Sign Malware

  08-12-2022 21:40 via it.slashdot.org
  Lukasz Siewierski, a member of Google's Android Security Team, has a post on the Android Partner Vulnerability Initiative (AVPI) issue tracker detailing leaked platform certificate keys that are actively being used to sign malware. From a report: The post is just a list of the keys, but running each one through APKMirror or Google's VirusTotal site will put names to some of the compromised keys: Samsung, LG, and Mediatek are the heavy hitters on the list of leaked keys, along with some smaller O
  
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• South Korea To Move To Standardized, Internationally Recognized Age System

  08-12-2022 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  South Koreans are set to become one or even two years younger - at least on official paperwork. From a report: On Thursday, the South Korean parliament passed a law to scrap Korea's two traditional methods of counting age. From June 2023, the so-called "Korean Age" system will no longer be permitted on official documents. Only the standardised, internationally recognised method will remain. The government is fulfilling a campaign promise to reduce confusion by adopting the same system used in th
  
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• FTC Sues Microsoft To Block $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Acquisition

  08-12-2022 20:03 via news.slashdot.org
  The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher Activision Blizzard, charging that the massive deal would allow the Washington tech giant to suppress its competitors in gaming. Washington Post: The lawsuit represents the FTC's most significant effort to rein in consolidation in the tech industry since prominent tech critic Lina Khan (D) became the commission's chair and was expected to usher in a new era of antitrust enforcem
  
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• BlackRock Says Get Ready For a Recession Unlike Any Other

  08-12-2022 19:42 via news.slashdot.org
  A worldwide recession is just around the corner as central banks boost borrowing costs aggressively to tame inflation -- and this time, it will ignite more market turbulence than ever before, according to BlackRock, the investment giant that manages about $10 trillion. From the report: The global economy has already exited a four-decade era of stable growth and inflation to enter a period of heightened instability -- and the new regime of increased unpredictability is here to stay, according to
  
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• CISA Releases Phishing Infographic

  08-12-2022 19:07 via us-cert.cisa.gov
  Original release date: December 8, 2022
  Today, CISA published a Phishing Infographic to help protect both organizations and individuals from successful phishing operations. This infographic provides a visual summary of how threat actors execute successful phishing operations. Details include metrics that compare the likelihood of certain types of “bait” and how commonly each bait type succeeds in tricking the targeted individual. The infographic also provides detailed actions or
  
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• Chrome Gets Memory and Energy Saver Modes

  08-12-2022 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google today announced two new performance settings in its Chrome browser: Memory Saver and Energy Saver. From a report: The Memory Saver mode promises to reduce Chrome's memory usage by up to 30% by putting inactive tabs to sleep. The tabs will simply reload when you need them again. The Energy Saver mode, meanwhile, limits background activity and visual effects for sites with animations and videos when your laptop's battery level drops below 20%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• EU Sets December 28, 2024, Deadline For All New Phones To Use USB-C for Wired Charging

  08-12-2022 18:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  We finally have a final official deadline for when new phones sold in the European Union -- including future iPhones -- will have to use USB-C for wired charging: December 28th, 2024. From a report: That's because the EU's new USB-C legislation has just been published in the bloc's Official Journal, making it formally binding. Now we know the rules will officially enter into force in 20 days' time, and individual EU member states will then have a maximum of 24 months to apply them as national la
  
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• CISA Releases Three Industrial Control Advisories

  08-12-2022 18:00 via us-cert.cisa.gov
  Original release date: December 8, 2022
  CISA has released three (3) Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on 08 December 2022. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS advisories for technical details and mitigations:ICSA-22-342-01 Advantech iViewICSA-22-342-02 AVEVA InTouch Access AnywhereICSA-22-342-03 Rockwell Automation Logix Controll
  
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• FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Is Said To Face Market Manipulation Inquiry

  08-12-2022 17:41 via news.slashdot.org
  Federal prosecutors are investigating whether FTX's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, manipulated the market for two cryptocurrencies this past spring, leading to their collapse and creating a domino effect that eventually caused the implosion of his own cryptocurrency exchange last month, The New York Times reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan are examining the possibility that Mr. Bankman-Fried steered the prices of two interlinked curre
  
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• Reverse Nature's Decline or There is No Future, UN Says

  08-12-2022 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The United Nations' biodiversity chief says global talks under way in Montreal are the "last chance" to reverse the destruction of the natural world. From a report: "Biodiversity is the foundation of life. Without it, there is no life," Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told BBC Radio 4's Inside Science programme. But she is worried about the amount of work still needed for the 196 countries to reach an agreement. The Global Biodiversity Framework, if agreed, represents fundamental change. It is the nature
  
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• Pacific Island Nation of Vanuatu Has Been Knocked Offline For More Than a Month

  08-12-2022 16:22 via tech.slashdot.org
  The newly elected government in Pacific island nation of Vanuatu encountered a serious problem from the very first day of its term on Nov. 6 -- no one could use their government email accounts. But then the situation got worse. Much worse. From a report: Officials could not use any government computer services, from renewing a drivers' license to paying taxes or accessing medical and emergency information. They were forced to turn to 20th century technology -- pen and paper. That's a major probl
  
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• Coinbase CEO Sees Revenue Falling 50% or More on Crypto Rout

  08-12-2022 15:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong said the cryptocurrency exchange's revenue is set to be cut by half or more this year as declining prices and the collapse of rival FTX rattle investors' confidence. From a report: The rapid downfall of FTX capped what was already a brutal year for the cryptocurrency industry, with speculators in retreat as prices of some of the most frequently traded tokens tumbled. Coinbase's shares have fallen more than 80% in 2022 and the company's third-quart
  
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• EU To Make Crypto Companies Report Tax Details To Authorities

  08-12-2022 15:00 via slashdot.org
  The European Commission plans to make crypto companies report user holdings to tax authorities, it said Thursday -- but the European Union (EU) body says it's still working on how to enforce the measures on wallet providers or exchanges based outside the bloc. From a report: As previously reported by CoinDesk, the proposed new tax rules, known as the eighth Directive on Administrative Cooperation or DAC8, seeks to halt billions of euros in evasion by taxpayers stashing crypto abroad. "Anonymity
  
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• Former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani Sentenced To Nearly 13 Years In Prison

  08-12-2022 14:00 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Former Theranos chief operating officer and president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison Wednesday for fraud, after the unraveling of the blood-testing juggernaut prompted criminal charges in California federal court against both Balwani and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who on Nov. 18 was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.During the sentencing hearing, attorneys for Balwani attempted to pin the blame on H
  
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• Pentagon Splits $9 Billion Cloud Contract Between 4 Firms

  08-12-2022 11:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  Google, Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon will share in the Pentagon's $9 billion contract to build its cloud computing network, a year after accusations of politicization over the previously announced contract and a protracted legal battle resulted in the military starting over in its award process. The Associated Press reports: The Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability is envisioned to provide access to unclassified, secret and top-secret data to military personnel all over the globe. It is anticipated
  
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• UK Approves First Coal Mine In 30 Years

  08-12-2022 08:00 via news.slashdot.org
  A year after Britain hosted a major climate summit, the British government on Wednesday approved its first new coal mine in 30 years, stoking anger among environmental campaigners. The Washington Post reports: The new mine, approved on Wednesday by Michael Gove, Britain's levelling-up secretary, will take two years to build and will produce an estimated 2.8 tonnes of coking coal a year, which is used in the production of steel. Coal is the planet's most polluting fossil fuel, and the greenlighti
  
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• A New Global Plastics Treaty Is Coming For Your Bags and Bottles

  08-12-2022 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: The world is choking in plastic trash, and the UN wants to do something to fix it. A weeklong meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution in Punta del Este, Uruguay, ended last Friday (Dec. 2). It was a first, formal step towards a legally binding international treaty to deal with the global plastics problem. Such a pact would be the most consequential environmental treaty in years, on par with 2015's Paris Ag
  
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• Supercomputer Re-Creates One of the Most Famous Pictures of Earth

  08-12-2022 02:40 via news.slashdot.org
  sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Fifty years ago today, astronauts aboard Apollo 17, NASA's last crewed mission to the Moon, took an iconic photograph of our planet. The image became known as the Blue Marble -- the first fully illuminated picture of Earth, in color, taken by a person. Now, scientists have re-created that image during a test run of a cutting-edge digital climate model. The model can simulate climatic phenomena, such as storms and ocean eddies, at 1-kilometer re
  
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• Atari Revives Unreleased Arcade Game That Was Too Damn Hard For 1982 Players

  08-12-2022 02:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Atari is reviving Akka Arrh, a 1982 arcade game canceled because test audiences found it too difficult. Engadget reports: For the wave shooter's remake, the publisher is teaming up with developer Jeff Minter, whose psychedelic, synthwave style seems an ideal fit for what Atari describes as "a fever dream in the best way possible." The remake will be released on PC, PS5 and PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Atari VCS in early 2023. The original Akka Arrh cabinet used a trackball to target
  
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• Amazon Joins Open Invention Network

  08-12-2022 01:20 via news.slashdot.org
  Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) -- the world's largest patent non-aggression consortium. ZDNet reports: OIN has long protected Linux and Linux-related software from patent aggression by rival companies. With the recent increase in patent troll attacks, the OIN is also defending companies from these assaults. This is a natural move for Amazon. Besides relying on Linux and open-source software both for its retail and cloud businesses, Amazon has a
  
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• Meta's Behavioral Ads Will Finally Face GDPR Privacy Reckoning In January

  08-12-2022 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Major privacy complaints targeting the legality of Meta's core advertising business model in Europe have finally been settled via a dispute resolution mechanism baked into the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The complaints, which date back to May 2018, take aim at the tech giant's so-called forced consent to continue tracking and targeting users by processing their personal data to build profiles for behavioral advertising, so
  
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• Nigeria Limits ATM Cash Withdrawals To Encourage Digital Financial Transactions

  08-12-2022 00:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Nigeria has drastically reduced the amount of cash individuals and businesses can withdraw as it attempts to push its "cash-less Nigeria" policy and increase the use of the eNaira -- Nigeria's central bank digital currency (CBDC). CoinTelegraph reports: The Central Bank of Nigeria issued (PDF) the directive to financial businesses in a Dec. 6 circular, noting that individuals and businesses would now be limited to withdrawing $45 (20,000 Nigerian nairas) per day and $225 (100,000 nairas) per wee
  
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