ICT news

• New Group Attacking iPhone Encryption Backed By US Political Dark-Money Network

  03-10-2023 23:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from The Intercept: The Heat Initiative, a nonprofit child safety advocacy group, was formed earlier this year to campaign against some of the strong privacy protections Apple provides customers. The group says these protections help enable child exploitation, objecting to the fact that pedophiles can encrypt their personal data just like everyone else. When Apple launched its new iPhone this September, the Heat Initiative seized on the occasion,
  
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• OpenCore Legacy Patcher Project Brings macOS Sonoma Support To 16-Year-Old Macs

  03-10-2023 22:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When Apple decides to end update support for your Mac, you can either try to install another OS or you can trick macOS into installing on your hardware anyway. That's the entire point of the OpenCore Legacy Patcher, a community-driven project that supports old Macs by combining some repurposed Hackintosh projects with older system files extracted from past macOS versions. Yesterday, the OCLP team announced version 1.0.0 of the software, the
  
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• Disney VFX Workers Vote Unanimously To Unionize

  03-10-2023 22:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Jazz Tangcay writes via Variety: Visual effects workers at Walt Disney Pictures have voted unanimously in favor of unionizing with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) in an election held by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The 13-0 vote comes just weeks after VFX workers at Marvel Studios voted to unionize with IATSE and comes amid the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, as the guilds continue to seek fair contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Te
  
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• Google Mandates Unsubscribe Button in Emails For Those Sending Over 5,000 Daily Messages

  03-10-2023 21:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google plans to make it harder for spammers to send messages to Gmail users. From a report: The company said it will require emailers who send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail users to offer a one-click unsubscribe button in their messages. It will also require them to authenticate their email address, configuring their systems so they prove they own their domain name and aren't spoofing IP addresses. Alphabet-owned Google says it may not deliver messages from senders whose emails are f
  
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• Microsoft CEO Says Tech Giants Battling For Content To Build AI

  03-10-2023 20:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said Monday tech giants were competing for vast troves of content needed to train artificial intelligence, and complained Google was locking up content with expensive and exclusive deals with publishers. From a report: Testifying in a landmark U.S. trial against its rival Google, the first major antitrust case brought by the U.S. since it sued Microsoft in 1998, Nadella testified the tech giants' efforts to build content libraries to train their large lang
  
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• Microsoft Kills Its Classic Azure DaaS, Because It Isn't Really Azure

  03-10-2023 20:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft will deprecate the classic edition of its Azure Virtual Desktop desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) and has given customers three years to keep using the service before they'll need to find an alternative. From a report: The software giant seems to have spent years trying to confuse cloudy DaaS users, as it has offered two products called Azure Virtual Desktop, with varying degrees of integration with Azure.
  The "classic" service has a management GUI that's not part of the Azure Portal and isn
  
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• Apple Will No Longer Fix the $17,000 Gold Apple Watch

  03-10-2023 19:20 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: It was never clear who the $10,000 to $17,000 18-karat gold Apple Watch was for, beyond celebrities and the ultrarich, but I hope whoever bought one way back in 2015 expected Apple to stop supporting them at some point. That day has come. Apple has now internally listed all first-gen Apple Watch models, including the solid-gold Edition, as "obsolete," MacRumors reports.
  Apple's obsolete label doesn't just mean the end of software support. That ship has sailed
  
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• Report Claiming Net Zero Will Cost UK Trillions Retracted Due To 'Factual Errors'

  03-10-2023 18:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A report that hugely overestimated the cost to the UK of reaching net zero emissions has been retracted by the thinktank that published it. From a report: The Civitas pamphlet published on Thursday claimed to offer a "realistic" estimate of the cost -- $5.4tn -- and said "the government needs to be honest with the British people." However, factual errors were quickly pointed out after publication. The most serious error was the confusion by the report's author, Ewen Stewart, between power capaci
  
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• Meta Plans To Charge $14 a Month for Ad-Free Instagram or Facebook

  03-10-2023 18:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Would people pay nearly $14 a month to use Instagram on their phones without ads? How about nearly $17 a month for Instagram plus Facebook -- but on desktop? That is what Meta wants to charge Europeans for monthly subscriptions if they don't agree to let the company use their digital activity to target ads, according to a proposal the social-media giant has made in recent weeks to regulators. The proposal is a gambit by Meta to navigate European Union rules t
  
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• Apple Enforces New Check on Apps in China as Beijing Tightens Oversight

  03-10-2023 17:20 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has started requiring new apps to show proof of a Chinese government licence before their release on its China App Store, joining local rivals years that had adopted the policy years earlier to meet tightening state regulations. From a report: Apple began last Friday requiring app developers to submit the "internet content provider (ICP) filing" when they publish new apps on its App Store, it said on its website for developers. An ICP filing is a longtime registration system, required for
  
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• Netflix Plans To Raise Prices After Actors Strike Ends

  03-10-2023 16:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Netflix plans to raise the price of its ad-free service a few months after the continuing Hollywood actors strike ends, the latest in a series of recent price increases by the country's largest streaming platforms. From a report: The streaming service is discussing raising prices in several markets globally, but will likely begin with the U.S. and Canada, according to people familiar with the matter. It couldn't be learned how much Netflix will raise prices by or when exactly the new prices will
  
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• Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded To 3 Scientists for Illuminating How Electrons Move

  03-10-2023 16:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier on Tuesday for their experiments that "have given humanity new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and molecules." From a report: Electrons move at a whopping 43 miles a second. This speed long made them impossible to study. The new experimental techniques created by the three scientist-laureates use short light pulses to capture an electron's movement at a single moment in time. Thin
  
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• An Emergency Alert Test Will Sound On All US Cellphones, TVs and Radios On Wednesday

  03-10-2023 15:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Your electronic devices may alarm you on Wednesday afternoon — but there's a reason for that. A nationwide test of the federal emergency alert system will be broadcast at approximately 2:20 p.m. EDT to cellphones, televisions and radios across the United States at around the same time. Most Americans with wireless cellular devices will receive an emergency alert message, as will most whose televisions or radios are on when the test occurs.
  
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• James Webb Space Telescope's First Spectrum of a TRAPPIST-1 Planet

  03-10-2023 12:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Tablizer shares a report from Space.com: In a solar system called TRAPPIST-1, 40 light years from the sun, seven Earth-sized planets revolve around a cold star. Astronomers obtained new data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on TRAPPIST-1 b, the planet in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system closest to its star. These new observations offer insights into how its star can affect observations of exoplanets in the habitable zone of cool stars. In the habitable zone, liquid water can still exist on
  
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• Dish Dealt First-Ever Space-Debris Fine For Misparking Satellite

  03-10-2023 09:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Todd Shields and Loren Grush reporting via Bloomberg: Dish Network Corp. was fined $150,000 by US regulators for leaving a retired satellite parked in the wrong place in space, reflecting official concern over the growing amount of debris orbiting Earth and the potential for mishaps. The Federal Communications Commission called the action its first to enforce safeguards against orbital debris. "This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capa
  
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• Vulnerable Arm GPU Drivers Under Active Exploitation, Patches May Not Be Available

  03-10-2023 05:30 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Arm warned on Monday of active ongoing attacks targeting a vulnerability in device drivers for its Mali line of GPUs, which run on a host of devices, including Google Pixels and other Android handsets, Chromebooks, and hardware running Linux. "A local non-privileged user can make improper GPU memory processing operations to gain access to already freed memory," Arm officials wrote in an advisory. "This issue is fixed in Bifrost, Valhall and
  
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• Spotify Is Adding Auto-Generated Transcripts To Millions of Podcasts

  03-10-2023 04:02 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Mia Sato writes via The Verge: Spotify is rolling out auto-generated podcast transcripts to more creators in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday. The text transcripts will also be time-synced so listeners can visually follow along as a podcast episode progresses. Transcripts are available by scrolling down below the podcast player and tapping into a "read along" section. A transcription of a show makes the podcast more accessible to users and allows listeners to skip around and skim
  
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• Federal Judge Gives Man 8-Year Sentence For Running Unlicensed Bitcoin Exchange

  03-10-2023 03:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Ian Freeman, a New Hampshire man in his 40s, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for running an unlicensed bitcoin exchange business. He will also be fined at least $40,000, although the exact amount still has to be determined in a hearing. The Associated Press reports: Ian Freeman was taken away in handcuffs following his sentencing in U.S. District Court in Concord. Prosecutors said Freeman, a libertarian activist and radio show host, created a business that catered to fraudsters who t
  
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• Supreme Court Rejects IT Worker Challenge of OPT Program

  03-10-2023 02:45 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  dcblogs writes: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge against the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which allows STEM graduates to work in the U.S. for up to three years on a student F-1 visa. John Miano, the attorney representing WashTech, the labor group that brought the appeal, called the decision "staggering." He said it "strips Congress of the ability to control nonimmigrant programs," such as OPT, the H-1B program, and other programs designed to provide temporary gue
  
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• UK Passport Images Database Could Be Used To Catch Shoplifters

  03-10-2023 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Britain's passport database could be used to catch shoplifters, burglars and other criminals under urgent plans to curb crime, the policing minister has said. Chris Philp said he planned to integrate data from the police national database (PND), the Passport Office and other national databases to help police find a match with the "click of one button." But civil liberty campaigners have warned the plans would be an "Orwellian nightmare" that
  
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• YouTuber Jailed For Large-Scale Cable Piracy Scheme

  03-10-2023 01:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Bill Omar Carrasquillo, better known by his YouTube name Omi In a Hellcat, has been arrested after the feds found Carrasquillo had amassed a $30 million fortune with a large-scale piracy scheme in which he was buying and reselling copyrighted material from cable TV. Jalopnik reports: He was sentenced to five years in prison for "piracy of cable TV, access device fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of copyright infringement," along with having to forfeit his
  
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• SBF Considered Paying Trump $5 Billion Not To Run For President

  03-10-2023 00:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  MacKenzie Sigalos writes via CNBC: Sam Bankman-Fried, the alleged crypto criminal who stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history, was considering paying Donald Trump $5 billion not to run for president, according to best-selling author Michael Lewis. In an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday, Lewis said the FTX founder wanted to put a stop to a Trump White House run in 2024 over fears that the former president was a threat to democracy.
  
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• Dead Grandma Locket Request Tricks Bing Chat's AI Into Solving Security Puzzle

  03-10-2023 00:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Saturday, X-user Denis Shiryaev devised a visual jailbreak that circumvents Bing Chat's CAPTCHA filter by tricking it into reading the inscription on his imaginary deceased grandmother's locket. In his X post, Shiryaev first shared a screenshot of Bing Chat refusing to solve the CAPTCHA when it was shared as a simple image. Next, Shiryaev pasted that image into another image of a pair of hands holding an open locket. In the message to Bin
  
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