Firefox’s New ‘Privacy’ Feature Actually Gives Your Data to Advertisers – How and Why to Disable Firefox’s ‘Privacy-Preserving’ Ad Measurements

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Firefox finds itself in a tricky position at times, because it wants to be a privacy friendly browser, but most of its funding comes from Google, whose entire business is advertising. With Firefox 128, the browser has introduced ‘privacy-preserving ad measurement,’ which is enabled by default. Despite the name, the actual implications of the feature has users upset.

What ‘privacy-preserving ad measurement’ means

In a blog post, Firefox’s parent company Mozilla has explained that this new feature is an experiment designed to shape a web standard for advertisers, one that relies less on cookies but still tracks you in some way. Mozilla says privacy-preserving ad measurement is only being used by a handful of sites at the moment, in order to tell if their ads were successful or not.

[…]

ith privacy-preserving ad measurement, sites will be able to ask Firefox if people clicked on an ad, and if they ended up doing something the ad wanted them to (such as buying a product). Firefox doesn’t give this data directly to advertisers, but encrypts it, aggregates it, and submits it anonymously. This means that your browsing activity and other data about you is hidden from the advertiser, but they can see if their campaign delivered results or not. It’s a similar feature to those in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox, although Google itself has run into regulatory issues implementing them.

Why you should disable this feature

Even though Mozilla’s intentions appear to be genuine, this feature should never have been enabled by default, as no matter its label, it still does technically give advertisers your data. When advertisers started tracking people online, there were no privacy protections, laws, or standards to follow, and the industry chose to track all the data that it could lay its hands on. No one ever asked users if they wanted to be tracked, or if they wanted to give advertisers access to their location, browser data, or personal preferences. If I’ve learned one thing from the way the online ad industry evolved, it’s that people should have a choice in whether their data is being tracked. Even if it seeks to replace even more invasive systems, Firefox should have offered people a choice to opt into ad measurement, instead of enabling it silently

[…]

To disable privacy-preserving ad measurement in Firefox 128, click the three-lines icon in the top-right corner in the browser. Then, go to Settings > Privacy & Security and scroll down to the Website Advertising Preferences section. There, disable Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement.

Source: How and Why to Disable Firefox’s ‘Privacy-Preserving’ Ad Measurements | Lifehacker

Only 5 years too late: British regulators to examine Big Tech’s digital wallets – and where is the EU?

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British regulators said on Monday they were looking into the soaring use of digital wallets offered by Big Tech firms, including whether there are any competition, consumer protection or market integrity concerns.
The Financial Conduct Authority and Payments Systems Regulator is seeking views on the benefits and risks, and will assess the impact digital wallets, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, have on competition and choice of payment options at checkout, among other things.
Digital wallets are now likely used by more than half of UK adults and have become “an increasingly important touchpoint” between Big Tech companies and UK consumers, they said in a statement.
“Digital wallets are steadily becoming a go-to payment type and while this presents exciting opportunities, there might be risks too,” said David Geale, the PSR’s managing director.
Nikhil Rathi, the FCA’s chief executive, said the growth of digital wallets represented a “seismic shift” in how people pay and regulators wanted to maximise the opportunities while “protecting against any risks this technology may present.”
Regulators and lawmakers in Europe and the United States have been examining the growing role of Big Tech in financial services.
The U.S. consumer watchdog last year proposed regulating payments and smartphone wallets, prompting criticism from the industry.
The British regulators said their review of digital wallets built on their previous work on contactless mobile payments and on the role of Big Tech firms in financial services.
After considering all feedback, the regulators provide an update on Big Tech and digital wallets by the first quarter of 2025.

Source: British regulators to examine Big Tech’s digital wallets | Reuters

Considering that people using the services generally don’t understand that they are giving their payment history to the big tech company that runs it – and is not a bank – this is way way way too late.

Linksys Velop Routers Caught Sending WiFi Creds In The Clear – alerted in November 2023 still not fixed

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A troubling report from the Belgian consumer protection group Testaankoop: several models of Velop Pro routers from Linksys were found to be sending WiFi configuration data out to a remote server during the setup process. That would be bad enough, but not only are these routers reporting private information to the mothership, they are doing it in clear text for anyone to listen in on.

Testaankoop says that while testing out the Pro WiFi 6E and Pro 7 versions of Velop routers, they discovered that unencrypted packets were being sent to a server hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). In these packets, they discovered not only the SSID of the user’s wireless network, but the encryption key necessary to join it. There were also various tokens included that could be used to identify network and user.

While the report doesn’t go into too much detail, it seems this information is being sent as part of the configuration process when using the official Linksys mobile application. If you want to avoid having your information bounced around the Internet, you can still use the router’s built-in web configuration menus from a browser on the local network — just like in the good old days.

The real kicker here is the response from Linksys, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Testaankoop says they notified them of their discovery back in November of 2023, and got no response. There’s even been firmware updates for the affected routers since then, but the issue is still unresolved.

Testaankoop ends the review by strongly recommending users avoid these particular models of Linksys Velop routers, which given the facts, sounds like solid advice to us. They also express their disappointment in how the brand, a fixture in the consumer router space for decades, has handled the situation. If you ask us, things started going downhill once they stopped running Linux on their hardware.

Source: Linksys Velop Routers Caught Sending WiFi Creds In The Clear | Hackaday

Dutch DPA gets off its’ ass, Fine of 600,000 euros for tracking cookies on Kruidvat.nl – detected in 2020

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The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has imposed a fine of 600,000 euros on the company behind the Kruidvat drugstore. Kruidvat.nl followed consumers with tracking cookies, without their knowledge or permission. AS Watson collected and used sensitive personal data from millions of website visitors against the rules.

The company behind Kruidvat collected data from website visitors and was able to create personal profiles. In addition to visitors’ location data, this included which pages they visited, which products they added to the shopping cart and purchased and which recommendations they clicked on.

That is very sensitive information, AP points out, due to the specific nature of drugstore products. Such as pregnancy tests, contraceptives or medication for all kinds of ailments. That sensitive information, linked to the location (which may be traceable via the IP address) of the unique visitor, can sketch a very specific and invasive profile of the people who visit Kruidvat.nl.

Kruidvat.nl should have asked permission to place tracking cookies on visitors’ computers. The GDPR privacy law sets a number of requirements for valid consent. These requirements are that consent must be given freely, for specific processing of personal data, on the basis of sufficient information and that there must be no doubt that consent has been given.

In the cookie banner on Kruidvat.nl, the boxes to agree to the installation of tracking software were checked by default. That’s not allowed. Visitors who still wanted to refuse the cookies had to go through many steps to achieve this. The AP has found that personal data of website visitors to Kruidvat.nl have been processed unlawfully.

At the end of 2019, the AP started an investigation into various websites, including Kruidvat.nl. The AP tested whether these websites met the requirements for placing (tracking) cookies. The AP checked whether permission for tracking cookies was asked from website visitors and, if so, how exactly this happened.

Kruidvat.nl was found not to comply in April 2020, after which the AP sent the company a letter. In 2020, the AP found that Kruidvat.nl was still not in order. The AP then started investigating this website further. This violation ended in October 2020.

There is increasing social irritation about cookies and cookie notifications, ranging from annoying and misleading banners to concerns about the secret tracking of internet users. In 2024, the AP will check more often whether websites correctly request permission for tracking cookies or other tracking software.

Source: Boete van 600.000 euro voor tracking cookies op Kruidvat.nl – Emerce

Are Intel’s i9-13900k’s and -14900k’s Crashing at a Higher Rate?

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“Intel’s problems with unstable 13th-gen and 14th-gen high-end CPUs appear to run deeper than we thought,” writes TechRadar, “and a new YouTube video diving into these gremlins will do little to calm any fears that buyers of Raptor Lake Core i9 processors (and its subsequent refresh) have.” Level1Techs is the YouTuber in question, who has explored several avenues in an effort to make more sense of the crashing issues with these Intel processors that are affecting some PC gamers and making their lives a misery — more so in some cases than others. Data taken from game developer crash logs — from two different games — clearly indicates a high prevalence of crashes with the mentioned more recent Intel Core i9 chips (13900K and 14900K).

In fact, for one particular type of error (decompression, a commonly performed operation in games), there was a total of 1,584 that occurred in the databases Level1Techs sifted through, and an alarming 1,431 of those happened with a 13900K or 14900K. Yes — that’s 90% of those decompression errors hitting just two specific CPUs. As for other processors, the third most prevalent was an old Intel Core i7 9750H (Coffee Lake laptop CPU) — which had a grand total of 11 instances. All AMD processors in total had just 4 occurrences of decompression errors in these game databases.
“In case you were thinking that AMD chips might be really underrepresented here, hence that very low figure, well, they’re not — 30% of the CPUs in the database were from Team Red…”

“The YouTuber also brings up another point here: namely that data centers are noticing these issues with Core i9s.”

More details at Digital Trends… And long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool wrote a summary of the video’s claims here.

Intel is not in a good place with these chips: After 3 Faulty CPUs & 2 RMAs, Intel Refuses to Refund a Crashing 13900K, Less than a Month Old

WTFBBQ?! Firefox Starts collecting personal ad preferences

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In a world where so much of our lives depend on the use of online services, the web browser used to access those services becomes of crucial importance. It becomes a question of whether we trust the huge corporate interests which control this software with such access to our daily lives, and it is vital that the browser world remains a playing field with many players in the game.

The mantle has traditionally fallen upon Mozilla’s Firefox browser to represent freedom from corporate ownership, but over the last couple of years even they have edged away from their open source ethos and morphed into an advertising company that happens to have a browser. We’re asking you: can we still trust Mozilla’s Firefox, when the latest version turns on ad measurement by default?

Such has been the dominance of Google’s Chromium in the browser world, that it becomes difficult to find alternatives which aren’t based on it. We can see the attraction for developers, instead of pursuing the extremely hard task of developing a new browser engine, just use one off-the-shelf upon which someone else has already done the work. As a result, once you have discounted browsers such as the venerable Netsurf or Dillo which are cool as heck but relatively useless for modern websites, the choices quickly descend into the esoteric. There are Ladybird and Servo which are both promising but still too rough around the edges for everyday use, so what’s left? Probably LibreWolf represents the best option, a version of Firefox with a focus on privacy and security.

[…]

Source: Ask Hackaday: Has Firefox Finally Gone Too Far? | Hackaday

Many comments in the thread in the source. Definitely worth looking at.

A hydrogen-powered air taxi flew 523 miles emitting only water vapor

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A flying-car-like vertical takeoff aircraft created by Joby Aviation has completed a first-of-its-kind, 523 mile test flight using hydrogen power. The aircraft, which reportedly left only a trail of water vapor in its wake, is being pitched as a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional gas powered jets for mid-range, regional travel. Though questions remain about hydrogen power’s long-term viability at scale, the test flight proves it’s possible to retrofit existing electric powered aircraft with hydrogen fuel cells to effectively extend their range.

Joby is one of several companies attempting to create an air taxi service around vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (VTOLs). Up until now Joby has focused on creating fully electric battery powered aircraft with a range of roughly 100 miles intended to transport people and products within cities or to major airports. For the new test flight, Joby took a pre-production prototype of one of its battery-electric aircraft and outfitted it with a liquid hydrogen fuel tank and fuel system. The modified, hydrogen-powered VTOL was able to complete a 523 mile flight above Marina, California with no in-flight emissions. When it landed, the aircraft still had 10% of its remaining hydrogen fuel load.

Joby accelerated its exploration of hydrogen power back in 2022 with its acquisition of hydrogen-powered aircraft startup H2Fly. That company completed the first piloted flight of a liquid-hydrogen powered electric aircraft last year. Since then, two other California startups have successfully tested hydrogen fuel sources to power propeller planes. One of those firms, Universal Hydrogen, reportedly flew as high as 10,000 feet at around 170 knots (195 mph.) Joby’s test flight, by contrast, is the first reported example of a VTOL-style aircraft completing a test flight using hydrogen power.

[…]

If all of this sounds too good to be true from an emissions stand point, that’s because it really still is. Hydrogen power is still far more expensive to produce than its electric or fossil fuel alternatives. It’s also not as environmentally friendly as it may initially seem. Though various energy sources can be technically used to release hydrogen from hydrocarbon molecules, around 95% of hydrogen currently produced in the US is made using natural gas which is itself a major source of CO2 emissions. So-called “green hydrogen” sourced from renewable resources remains relatively rare but that could change thanks to the Biden Administration initiative aiming to inject $7 billion into new hydrogen hub centers. Hydrogen power, not long ago considered a sci-fi pipe dream, is climbing closer to reality.

Hydrogen is also just one of several alternatives and options being explored by the air travel industry. Aircraft startups like Elysian are leaning on advances in battery technology to develop an electric-powered passenger plane they hope can transport 90 travelers up to 500 miles without recharging. Jet Blue, Virgin Atlantic, and other airliners are also investing in so-called “sustainable jet fuel” which would use feedstocks, waste products, and other renewable starting materials in place of fossil fuels. Some mix of all of these alternatives will likely be needed to prevent aircraft related carbon emissions from soaring in coming years, especially as passengers show no signs of cutting down on overall air travel any time soon.

Source: A hydrogen-powered air taxi flew 523 miles emitting only water vapor | Popular Science

Apple settles EU case by opening its iPhone payment system to rivals

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The EU on Thursday accepted Apple’s pledge to open its “tap to pay” iPhone payment system to rivals as a way to resolve an antitrust case and head off a potentially hefty fine.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, said it approved the commitments that Apple offered earlier this year and will make them legally binding.

Regulators had accused Apple in 2022 of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to its mobile payment technology.

Apple responded by proposing in January to allow third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers access to the contactless payment function in its iOS operating system. After Apple tweaked its proposals following testing and feedback, the commission said those “final commitments” would address its competition concerns.

“Today’s commitments end our Apple Pay investigation,” Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s executive vice-president for competition policy, told a press briefing in Brussels. “The commitments bring important changes to how Apple operates in Europe to the benefit of competitors and customers.”

Apple said in a prepared statement that it is “providing developers in the European Economic Area with an option to enable NFC [near-field communication] contactless payments and contactless transactions” for uses like car keys, corporate badges, hotel keys and concert tickets.

[…]

The EU deal promises more choice for Europeans. Vestager said iPhone users will be able to set a default wallet of their choice while mobile wallet developers will be able to use important iPhone verification functions like Face ID.

[…]

Analysts said there would be big financial incentives for companies to use their own wallets rather than letting Apple act as the middleman, resulting in savings that could trickle down to consumers. Apple charges banks 0.15% for each credit card transaction that goes through Apple Pay, according to the justice department’s lawsuit.

Apple must open up its payment system in the EU’s 27 countries plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein by 25 July.

“As of this date, developers will be able to offer a mobile wallet on the iPhone with the same ‘tap-and-go’ experience that so far has been reserved for Apple Pay,” Vestager said. The changes will remain in force for a decade and will be monitored by a trustee.

Breaches of EU competition law can draw fines worth up to 10% of a company’s annual global revenue, which in Apple’s case could have amounted to tens of billions of euros.

“The main advantage to the issuer bank of supporting an alternative to Apple Pay via iPhone is the reduction in fees incurred, which can be substantial,” said Philip Benton, a principal analyst at research and advisory firm Omdia. To encourage iPhone users to switch away from Apple Pay to another mobile wallet, “the fee reduction needs to be partially passed onto the consumer” through benefits like cashback or loyalty rewards, he said.

Banks and consumers could also benefit in other ways.

If companies use their own apps for tap-and-go payments, they would get “full visibility” of their customers’ transactions, said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. That data would allow them to “build brand loyalty and trust and offer more personalised services, rewards and promotions directly to the user”, he said.

Source: Apple settles EU case by opening its iPhone payment system to rivals | Apple | The Guardian

Note: Currently, Apple has this full visibility of your transactions. Are you sure you want to trust a company like that with your financial data?

I wonder how childishly Apple will handle this, considering how it has gone about “opening up” it’s app store and allowing home screen apps (not really at all)

Why all Chromium browsers tell Google about your CPU, GPU usage? A whitewashing bullshit explanation.

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Running a Chromium-based browser, such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge? The chances are good it’s quietly telling Google all about your CPU and GPU usage when you visit one of the search giant’s websites.

The feature is, from what we can tell, for performance monitoring and not really for tracking – Google knows who you are and what you’re doing anyway when you’re logged into and using its sites – but it does raise some antitrust concerns in light of Europe’s competition-fostering Digital Markets Act (DMA).

When visiting a *.google.com domain, the Google site can use the API to query the real-time CPU, GPU, and memory usage of your browser, as well as info about the processor you’re using, so that whatever service is being provided – such as video-conferencing with Google Meet – could, for instance, be optimized and tweaked so that it doesn’t overly tax your computer. The functionality is implemented as an API provided by an extension baked into Chromium – the browser brains primarily developed by Google and used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, and others.

Non-Chromium-based browsers – such as Mozilla’s Firefox – don’t have that extension, which puts them at a potential disadvantage. Without the API, they may offer a worse experience on Google sites than what’s possible on the same hardware with Google’s own browser, because they can’t provide that live performance info.

There is, however, nothing technically stopping Moz or other browser-engine makers implementing a similar extension itself in Firefox, if they so chose.

Crucially though, websites that compete against Google can’t access the Chromium API. This is where technical solutions start to look potentially iffy in the eyes of Europe’s DMA.

Netherlands-based developer Luca Casonato highlighted the extension’s existence this week on social media, and his findings went viral – with millions of views. We understand at least some people have known about the code for a while now – indeed, it’s all open source and can be found here in the preinstalled extension hangout_services.

That name should give you a clue to its origin. It was developed last decade to provide browser-side functionality to Google Hangouts – a product that got split into today’s Google Meet and Chat. Part of that functionality is logging for Google, upon request, stats about your browser’s use of your machine’s compute resources when visiting a *.google.com domain – such as meet.google.com.

Casonato noted that the extension can’t be disabled in Chrome, at least, and it doesn’t show up in the extension panel. He observed it’s also included in Microsoft Edge and Brave, both of which are Chromium based. We reached out to Casonato for more of his thoughts on this – though given the time differences between him in Europe and your humble vulture in the US, we didn’t immediately hear back.

Explanation

If you’ve read this far there’s probably an obvious question on your mind: What’s to say this API is malicious? We’re not saying that, and neither is Casonato. Google isn’t saying that either.

“Today, we primarily use this extension for two things: To improve the user experience by optimizing configurations for video and audio performance based on system capabilities [and] provide crash and performance issue reporting data to help Google services detect, debug, and mitigate user issues,” a Google spokesperson told us on Thursday.

“Both are important for the user experience and in both cases we follow robust data handling practices designed to safeguard user privacy,” the spokesperson added.

As we understand it, Google Meet today uses the old Hangouts extension to, for one thing, vary the quality of the video stream if the current resolution is proving too much for your PC. Other Google sites are welcome to use the thing, too.

That all said, the extension’s existence could be harmful to competition as far as the EU is concerned – and that seems to be why Casonato pointed it out this week.

Source: Why Chromium tells Google sites about your CPU, GPU usage • The Register

A lovely explanation, but the fact remains that chromium is sending personal information to a central company: Google, without informing users at all. This blanket explanation could be used to whitewash any information they send through Chromium: the contents of your memory? Improving user experience. The position of your mouse on websites? Improving user experience. It just does not wash.

AT&T says criminals stole phone records of ‘nearly all’ customers in another data breach there – also, Snowflake again

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In a statement, AT&T said that the stolen data contains phone numbers of both cellular and landline customers, as well as AT&T records of calls and text messages — such as who contacted who by phone or text — during a six-month period between May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.

AT&T said some of the stolen data includes more recent records from January 2, 2023 for a smaller but unspecified number of customers.

The stolen data also includes call records of customers with phone service from other cell carriers that rely on AT&T’s network, the company said.

AT&T said the stolen data “does not contain the content of calls or texts,” but does include calling and texting records that an AT&T phone number interacted with during the six-month period, as well as the total count of a customer’s calls and texts, and call durations — information that is often referred to as metadata. The stolen data does not include the time or date of calls or texts, AT&T said.

Some of the stolen records include cell site identification numbers associated with phone calls and text messages, information that can be used to determine the approximate location of where a call was made or text message sent.

In all, the phone giant said it will notify around 110 million AT&T customers of the data breach, company spokesperson Andrea Huguely told TechCrunch.

AT&T published a website with information for customers about the data incident. AT&T also disclosed the data breach in a filing with regulators before the market opened on Friday.

Breach linked to Snowflake

AT&T said it learned of the data breach on April 19, and that it was unrelated to its earlier security incident in March.

AT&T’s Huguely told TechCrunch that the most recent compromise of customer records were stolen from the cloud data giant Snowflake during a recent spate of data thefts targeting Snowflake’s customers.

[…]

This is the second security incident AT&T has disclosed this year. AT&T was forced to reset the account passcodes of millions of its customers after a cache of customer account information — including encrypted passcodes for accessing AT&T customer accounts — was published on a cybercrime forum. A security researcher told TechCrunch at the time that the encrypted passcodes could be easily decrypted, prompting AT&T to take precautionary action to protect customer accounts.

Source: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of ‘nearly all’ customers in new data breach | TechCrunch

Data breach exposes millions of mSpy spyware customer support tickets

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Unknown attackers stole millions of customer support tickets, including personal information, emails to support, and attachments, including personal documents, from mSpy in May 2024. While hacks of spyware purveyors are becoming increasingly common, they remain notable because of the highly sensitive personal information often included in the data, in this case about the customers who use the service.

The hack encompassed customer service records dating back to 2014, which were stolen from the spyware maker’s Zendesk-powered customer support system.

mSpy is a phone surveillance app that promotes itself as a way to track children or monitor employees. Like most spyware, it is also widely used to monitor people without their consent. These kinds of apps are also known as “stalkerware” because people in romantic relationships often use them to surveil their partner without consent or permission.

The mSpy app allows whoever planted the spyware, typically someone who previously had physical access to a victim’s phone, to remotely view the phone’s contents in real-time.

As is common with phone spyware, mSpy’s customer records include emails from people seeking help to surreptitiously track the phones of their partners, relatives, or children, according to TechCrunch’s review of the data, which we independently obtained. Some of those emails and messages include requests for customer support from several senior-ranking U.S. military personnel, a serving U.S. federal appeals court judge, a U.S. government department’s watchdog, and an Arkansas county sheriff’s office seeking a free license to trial the app.

Even after amassing several million customer service tickets, the leaked Zendesk data is thought to represent only the portion of mSpy’s overall customer base who reached out for customer support. The number of mSpy customers is likely to be far higher.

Yet more than a month after the breach, mSpy’s owners, a Ukraine-based company called Brainstack, have not acknowledged or publicly disclosed the breach.

Troy Hunt, who runs data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, obtained a copy of the full leaked dataset, adding about 2.4 million unique email addresses of mSpy customers to his site’s catalog of past data breaches.

[…]

Some of the email addresses belong to unwitting victims who were targeted by an mSpy customer. The data also shows that some journalists contacted the company for comment following the company’s last known breach in 2018. And, on several occasions, U.S. law enforcement agents filed or sought to file subpoenas and legal demands with mSpy. In one case following a brief email exchange, an mSpy representative provided the billing and address information about an mSpy customer — an alleged criminal suspect in a kidnapping and homicide case — to an FBI agent.

Each ticket in the dataset contained an array of information about the people contacting mSpy. In many cases, the data also included their approximate location based on the IP address of the sender’s device.

[…]

The emails in the leaked Zendesk data show that mSpy and its operators are acutely aware of what customers use the spyware for, including monitoring of phones without the person’s knowledge. Some of the requests cite customers asking how to remove mSpy from their partner’s phone after their spouse found out. The dataset also raises questions about the use of mSpy by U.S. government officials and agencies, police departments, and the judiciary, as it is unclear if any use of the spyware followed a legal process.

[…]

This is the third known mSpy data breach since the company began in around 2010. mSpy is one of the longest-running phone spyware operations, which is in part how it accumulated so many customers.

[…]

the data breach of mSpy’s Zendesk data exposed its parent company as a Ukrainian tech company called Brainstack.

[…]

Source: Data breach exposes millions of mSpy spyware customers | TechCrunch

India antitrust probe finds Apple abused position in apps market

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NEW DELHI, July 12 (Reuters) – An investigation by India’s antitrust body has found that Apple exploited its dominant position in the market for app stores on its iOS operating system, engaging “in abusive conduct and practices”, a confidential report seen by Reuters showed.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been investigating Apple Inc since 2021 for possibly abusing its dominant position in the apps market by forcing developers to use its proprietary in-app purchase system.

[…]

The CCI’s investigations unit, in its 142-page report which is not public but was seen by Reuters, said Apple wields “significant influence” over how digital products and services reach consumers, especially through its iOS platform and App Store.
“Apple App Store is an unavoidable trading partner for app developers, and resultantly, app developers have no choice but to adhere to Apple’s unfair terms, including the mandatory use of Apple’s proprietary billing and payment system,” the CCI unit said in the June 24 report.
“From the perspective of app developers, Apple iOS ecosystem is indispensable.”
[…]
In June, European Union antitrust regulators said Apple breached the bloc’s tech rules, which could result in a hefty fine for the iPhone maker. The company also faces an investigation into new fees imposed on app developers.
In January, in response to a new EU law called the Digital Markets Act, Apple outlined plans to allow software developers to distribute their apps to users in the European Union outside of Apple’s own App Store.
The CCI report is the most critical stage of the Indian investigation and it will now be reviewed by the watchdog’s senior officials.
[…]
The Indian case was first filed by a little-known, non-profit group called “Together We Fight Society” which argued Apple’s in-app fee of up to 30% hurts competition by raising costs for app developers and customers.
Later, a group of Indian startups, Alliance of Digital India Foundation, and Tinder-owner Match filed similar cases at the CCI against Apple, which were all heard together.
The CCI investigation team said in its report that no third-party payment processor was being permitted by Apple to provide the services for in-app purchases.
It added that in most cases the apps are also not being allowed to include any external links that direct customers to other purchasing mechanisms, violating Indian competition laws.
[…]
In its submissions to the CCI, Apple argued its market share in India is an “insignificant” 0-5%, while Google commands 90-100%. The company also argued that the in-app payment system allowed it to maintain and develop the safety of its App Store.
But the CCI said, “App stores are OS (operating system) specific and Apple’s App store is the sole App store available for reaching iOS users.”
“The payment policy of Apple adversely affects the app developers, users and other payment processors,” it said.
[…]

Source: Exclusive: India antitrust probe finds Apple abused position in apps market | Reuters

After a year of no deliveries, F-35 Deliveries Finally Cleared To Resume, New Jets Will Be Limited To Training

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A fix of a kind has been found for problems with the F-35’s vital Tech Refresh 3 software, or TR-3, which had seen production deliveries suspended for around a year. Deliveries of the stealth fighters will resume “in the near future,” clearing a backlog of jets sitting in storage, although the TR-3 is only installed in what’s described as a “truncated” form, raising questions about when the F-35 will actually be able to make full use of the long-awaited Block 4 improvements that this software underpins.

The F-35 Joint Program Office announced yesterday that Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, the F-35 program executive officer, approved the use of the “truncated” TR-3 software on July 3. This means that more than 90 (perhaps as many as 120) F-35s that had been manufactured but then put into storage at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant can be delivered. These jets are destined for both U.S. and foreign customers.

In the meantime, the TR-3 software remains in flight testing, with the aim of achieving a long-term fix.

[…]

TR-3 has suffered numerous delays that have contributed to significant cost overruns in the program. The ongoing issues meant that deliveries of these aircraft were suspended in July 2023.

As of December 2023, it was reported that the development of TR-3 would be completed sometime between April and June of 2024 — after this, the same TR-3 enhancements would have to be incorporated into the existing jets.

By January of this year, Lockheed Martin was saying it didn’t expect F-35 deliveries to resume until late this summer, but it also confirmed that thought was being given to accepting jets before then, without the fully validated TR-3 hardware and software. This is the workaround that Schmidt signed off earlier this month.

In March, when the F-35 was finally been cleared for full-rate production, 17 years after the aircraft first took to the air, customers were still not accepting new aircraft.

[…]

TR-3 has been described as the F-35’s new ‘computer backbone,’ since it promises to provide 25 times more computing power than the existing TR-2 computing system.

Some of the unclassified upgrades are expected to be part of Block 4. The exact configuration is not publicly disclosed just yet. U.S. Department of Defense

Block 4 will give the F-35 advanced new capabilities, including much-expanded processing power, new displays, enhanced cooling, new EOTS and DAS electro-optical sensors, and a range of additional weapons that will greatly help the aircraft meet its potential. A very significant aspect of Block 4 will be a new radar and electronic warfare suite.

[…]

The yearlong delivery hiatus has had a major knock-on effect on the program, both for U.S. and foreign customers.

Lockheed says it will be able to deliver F-35s at a rate of one aircraft per day, but even if it meets that target, it will take more than a year to catch up on deliveries of the stored jets. At the same time, new F-35s continue to come off the production line, making it even harder to address the backlog.

With deliveries on hold, plans to establish new squadrons, train new crews, and accelerate the replacement of older aircraft types have been impacted across the F-35 user community.

An example of these problems came to light late last month, when Denmark announced that the six F-35As it uses for training at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, will be relocated to Denmark, to help make up for the delivery shortfall of new production aircraft.

[…]

To try and keep things moving, the Joint Program Office and the U.S. military have come up with two separate TR-3 software releases.

“The first release (40P01) is a truncation of the TR-3 software at a point when the code is stable, capable, and maintainable to deliver TR-3 configured aircraft for use in combat training, but it is not until the second software release (40P02) that full combat capability is realized.”

[…]

Source: F-35 Deliveries Finally Cleared To Resume, New Jets Will Be Limited To Training

Isn’t it wonderful as a NATO country to be forced to buy American, especially when the vendors know that you are being strong armed into buying their stuff and sell you absolute lemons. See also US / EU NATO Expenditure – is the balance really so lopsided?

Lithium Ion Batteries a Growing Source of PFAS Pollution, Study Finds

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“Nature recently published an open-access article (not paywalled) that studies the lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries once they are manufactured,” writes Slashdot reader NoWayNoShapeNoForm. “The study is a ‘cradle-to-grave’ look at these batteries and certain chemicals that they contain. The University researchers that authored the study found that the electrolytes and polymers inside lithium-ion batteries contain a class of PFAS known as bis-FASI chemicals. PFAS chemicals are internationally recognized pollutants, yet they are found in consumer and industrial processes, such as non-stick coatings, surfactants, and film-forming foams. PFAS chemicals have been found in windmill coatings, semiconductors, solar collectors, and photovoltaic cells.” Phys.org reports: Texas Tech University’s Jennifer Guelfo was part of a research team that found the use of a novel sub-class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) in lithium ion batteries is a growing source of pollution in air and water. Testing by the research team further found these PFAS, called bis-perfluoroalkyl sulfonimides (bis-FASIs), demonstrate environmental persistence and ecotoxicity comparable to older notorious compounds like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The researchers sampled air, water, snow, soil and sediment near manufacturing plants in Minnesota, Kentucky, Belgium and France. The bis-FASI concentrations in these samples were commonly at very high levels. Data also suggested air emissions of bis-FASIs may facilitate long-range transport, meaning areas far from manufacturing sites may be affected as well. Analysis of several municipal landfills in the southeastern U.S. indicated these compounds can also enter the environment through disposal of products, including lithium ion batteries.

Toxicity testing demonstrated concentrations of bis-FASIs similar to those found at the sampling sites can change behavior and fundamental energy metabolic processes of aquatic organisms. Bis-FASI toxicity has not yet been studied in humans, though other, more well-studied PFAS are linked to cancer, infertility and other serious health harms. Treatability testing showed bis-FASIs did not break down during oxidation, which has also been observed for other PFAS. However, data showed concentrations of bis-FASIs in water could be reduced using granular activated carbon and ion exchange, methods already used to remove PFAS from drinking water. “Our results reveal a dilemma associated with manufacturing, disposal, and recycling of clean energy infrastructure,” said Guelfo, an associate professor of environmental engineering in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering. “Slashing carbon dioxide emissions with innovations like electric cars is critical, but it shouldn’t come with the side effect of increasing PFAS pollution. We need to facilitate technologies, manufacturing controls and recycling solutions that can fight the climate crisis without releasing highly recalcitrant pollutants.”

source: Lithium Ion Batteries a Growing Source of PFAS Pollution, Study Finds

Inputs, Outputs, and Fair Uses: Unpacking Responses to Journalists’ Copyright Lawsuits

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The complaints against OpenAI and Microsoft in New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation and Daily News, LP v. Microsoft Corporation include multiple theories––for instance, vicarious copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and improper removal of copyright information. Those theories, however, are ancillary to both complaints’ primary cause of action: direct copyright infringement. While the defendants’ motions to dismiss focus primarily on jettisoning the ancillary claims and acknowledge that “development of record evidence” is necessary for resolving the direct infringement claims, they nonetheless offer insight on how the direct infringement fight might unfurl.

Direct Infringement Via Inputs and Outputs: The Daily News plaintiffs claim that by “building training datasets containing” their copyrighted works without permission, the defendants directly infringe the plaintiffs’ copyrights. Inputting copyrighted material to train Gen AI tools, they aver, constitutes direct infringement. Regarding outputs, the Daily News plaintiffs assert that “by disseminating generative output containing copies and derivatives of the” plaintiffs’ content, the defendants’ tools also infringe the plaintiffs’ copyrights. The Daily News’s input (illicit training) and output (disseminating copies) allegations track earlier contentions of The New York Times Company.

Fair Use Inputs and “Fringe” Outputs: OpenAI’s June arguments in Daily News frame “the core issue”––one OpenAI says “is for a later stage of the litigation” because discovery must first generate a factual record––facing New York City-based federal judge Sidney Stein as “whether using copyrighted content to train a generative AI model is fair use under copyright law.” Fair use, a defense to copyright infringement, involves analyzing four statutory factors: 1) the purpose and character of the allegedly infringing use; 2) the nature of copyrighted work allegedly infringed upon; 3) the amount of the copyrighted work infringed upon and whether the amount, even if small, nonetheless goes to the heart of the work; and 4) whether the infringing use will harm the market value of (or serve as a market substitute for) the original copyrighted work.

So, how might ingesting copyrighted journalistic content––the training or input aspect of the alleged infringement––be a protected fair use? Microsoft argues in Daily News that its “and OpenAI’s tools [don’t] exploit the protected expression in the Plaintiffs’ digital content.” (emphasis added). That’s a key point because copyright law does not protect things like facts, “titles, names, short phrases, and slogans.” OpenAI asserts, in response to The New York Times Company’s lawsuit, that “no one . . . gets to monopolize facts or the rules of language.” Learning semantic rules and patterns of “language, grammar, and syntax”––predicting which words are statistically most likely to follow others––is, at bottom, the purpose of the fair use to which OpenAI and Microsoft say they’re putting newspaper articles. They’re ostensibly just leveraging copyrighted articles “internally” (emphasis in original) to identify and learn language patterns, not to reproduce the articles in which those words appear.

More fundamentally, OpenAI and Microsoft aren’t attempting to disseminate copies of what copyright law is intended to incentivize and protect––“original works of authorship” and “writings.” They aren’t, the defendants claim, trying to unfairly produce market substitutes for actual newspaper articles.

How, then, do they counter the newspapers’ output infringement allegations that the defendants’ tools sometimes produce verbatim versions of the newspapers’ copyrighted articles? OpenAI contends such regurgitative outcomes “depend on an elaborate effort [by the defendants] to coax such outputs from OpenAI’s products, in a way that violates the operative OpenAI terms of service and that no normal user would ever even attempt.” Regurgitations otherwise are “rare” and “unintended,” the company adds. Barring settlements, courts will examine the input and output infringement battles in the coming months and years.

Source: Inputs, Outputs, and Fair Uses: Unpacking Responses to Journalists’ Copyright Lawsuits | American Enterprise Institute – AEI

Sharing material used to be the norm for newspapers, and should be for LLMs

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Even though parents insist that it is good and right to share things, the copyright world has succeeded in establishing the contrary as the norm. Now, sharing is deemed a bad, possibly illegal thing. But it was not always thus, as a fascinating speech by Ryan Cordell, Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences and Department of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, underlines. In the US in the nineteenth century, newspaper material was explicitly not protected by copyright, and was routinely exchanged between titles:

Nineteenth-century editors’ attitude toward text reuse is exemplified in a selection that circulated in the last decade of the century, though often abbreviated from the version I cite here, which insists that “an editor’s selections from his contemporaries” are “quite often the best test of his editorial ability, and that the function of his scissors are not merely to fill up vacant spaces, but to reproduce the brightest and best thoughts…from all sources at the editor’s command.” While noting that sloppy or lazy selection will produce “a stupid issue,” this piece claims that just as often “the editor opens his exchanges, and finds a feast for eyes, heart and soul…that his space is inadequate to contain.” This piece ends by insisting “a newspaper’s real value is not the amount of original matter it contains, but the average quality of all the matter appearing in its columns whether original or selected.”

Material was not only copied verbatim, but modified and built upon in the process. As a result of this constant exchange, alteration and enhancement, newspaper readers in the US enjoyed a rich ecosystem of information, and a large number of titles flourished, since the cost of producing suitable material for each of them was shared and thus reduced.

That historical fact in itself is interesting. It’s also important at a time when newspaper publishers are some of the most aggressive in demanding ever stronger – and ever more disproportionate – copyright protection for their products, for example through “link taxes”. But Cordell’s speech is not simply backward looking. It goes on to make another fascinating observation, this time about large language models (LLMs):

We can see in the nineteenth-century newspaper exchanges a massive system for recycling and remediating culture. I do not wish to slip into hyperbole or anachronism, and will not claim historical newspapers as a precise analogue for twenty-first century AI or large language models. But it is striking how often metaphors drawn from earlier media appear in our attempts to understand and explain these new technologies.

The whole speech is well worth reading as a useful reminder that the current copyright panic over LLMs is in part because we have forgotten that sharing material and helping others to build on it was once the norm. And despite blinkered and selfish views to the contrary, it is still the right thing to do, just as parents continue to tell their children.

Source: Sharing material used to be the norm for newspapers, and should be for LLMs – Walled Culture

Hacking Airline WiFi The Hard Way

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[…]

[Robert Heaton] had an interesting idea. Could the limited free use of the network be coopted to access the general internet? Turns out, the answer is yes.

Admittedly, it is a terrible connection. Here’s how it works. The airline lets you get to your frequent flier account. When there, you can change information such as your name. A machine on the ground can also see that change and make changes, too. That’s all it takes.

It works like a drop box. You take TCP traffic, encode it as fake information for the account and enter it. You then watch for the response via the same channel and reconstitute the TCP traffic from the remote side. Now the network is at your fingertips.

There’s more to it, but you can read about it in the post. It is slow, unreliable, and you definitely shouldn’t be doing it. But from the point of view of a clever hack, we loved it. In fact, [Robert] didn’t do it either. He proved it would work but did all the development using GitHub gist as the drop box. While we appreciate the hack, we also appreciate the ethical behavior!

Some airlines allow free messaging, which is another way to tunnel traffic. If you can connect to something, you can probably find a way to use it as a tunnel.

Source: Hacking Airline WiFi The Hard Way | Hackaday

Report finds most subscription services manipulate customers with ‘dark patterns’

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Most subscription sites use “dark patterns” to influence customer behavior around subscriptions and personal data, according to a pair of new reports from global consumer protection groups. Dark patterns are “practices commonly found in online user interfaces [that] steer, deceive, coerce or manipulate consumers into making choices that often are not in their best interests.” The international research efforts were conducted by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) and the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN).

The ICPEN conducted the review of 642 websites and mobile apps with a subscription component. The assessment revealed one dark pattern in use at almost 76 percent of the platforms, and multiple dark patterns at play in almost 68 percent of them. One of the most common dark patterns discovered was sneaking, where a company makes potentially negative information difficult to find. ICPEN said 81 percent of the platforms with automatic subscription renewal kept the ability for a buyer to turn off auto-renewal out of the purchase flow. Other dark patterns for subscription services included interface interference, where desirable actions are easier to perform, and forced action, where customers have to provide information to access a particular function.

The companion report from GPEN examined dark patterns that could encourage users to compromise their privacy. In this review, nearly all of the more than 1,000 websites and apps surveyed used a deceptive design practice. More than 89 percent of them used complex and confusing language in their privacy policies. Interface interference was another key offender here, with 57 percent of the platforms making the least protective privacy option the easiest to choose and 42 percent using emotionally charged language that could influence users.

Even the most savvy of us can be influenced by these subtle cues to make suboptimal decisions. Those decisions might be innocuous ones, like forgetting that you’ve set a service to auto-renew, or they might put you at risk by encouraging you to reveal more personal information than needed. The reports didn’t specify whether the dark patterns were used in illicit or illegal ways, only that they were present. The dual release is a stark reminder that digital literacy is an essential skill.

Source: Report finds most subscription services manipulate customers with ‘dark patterns’

The US Supreme Court’s Contempt for Facts Is a Betrayal of Justice

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When the Supreme Court’s Ohio v. EPA decision blocked Environmental Protection Agency limits on Midwestern states polluting their downwind neighbors, a sad but telling coda came in Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion. In five instances, it confused nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that contributes to ozone formation, with nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas.

You can’t make this stuff up. This repeated mistake in the 5-4 decision exemplifies a high court not just indifferent to facts but contemptuous of them.

Public trust in the Supreme Court, already at a historic low, is now understandably plunging. In the last four years, a reliably Republican majority on the high court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has embarked on a remarkable spree against history and reality itself, ignoring or eliding facts in decisions involving school prayer, public health, homophobia, race, climate change, abortion and clean water, not to mention the laughing gas case.

The crescendo to this assault on expertise landed in June, when the majority’s Chevron decision arrogated to the courts regulatory calls that have been made by civil servant scientists, physicians and lawyers for the last 40 years. (With stunning understatement, the Associated Press called it “a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.” No kidding.) The decision enthrones the high court—an unelected majority—as a group of technically incompetent, in some cases corrupt, politicos in robes with power over matters that hinge on vital facts about pollution, medicine, employment and much else. These matters govern our lives.

The 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton School District school prayer decision hinged on a fable of a football coach offering “a quiet personal prayer,” in the words of the opinion. In reality, this coach was holding overt post-game prayer meetings on the 50-yard line, ones that an atheist player felt compelled to attend to keep off the bench. Last year’s 303 Creative v. Elenis decision, allowing a Web designer to discriminate against gay people, revolved entirely on a supposed request for a gay wedding website that never existed that (supposedly) came from a straight man who never made the request. Again, you can’t make this stuff up. Unless you are on the Supreme Court. Then it becomes law.

Summing up the Court’s term on July 1, the legal writer Chris Geidner called attention to a more profound “important and disturbing reality” of the current majority’s relationship to facts. “When it needs to decide a matter for the right, it can and does accept questionable, if not false, claims as facts. If the result would benefit the left, however, there are virtually never enough facts to reach a decision.”

The “laughing gas” decision illustrates this nicely: EPA had asked 23 states to submit a state-based plan to reduce their downwind pollution. Of those, 21 proposed to do nothing to limit their nitrogen (not nitrous) oxide emissions. Two others didn’t even respond to that extent. Instead of telling the states to cut their pollution as required by law, the Court’s majority invented a new theoretical responsibility for EPA—to account for future court cases keeping a state out of its Clean Air Act purview—and sent the case back to an appeals court.

Source: The Supreme Court’s Contempt for Facts Is a Betrayal of Justice | Scientific American

And that’s not even talking about giving sitting presidents immunity from criminal behaviour either!

Scientific articles using ‘sneaked references’ to inflate their citation numbers

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[…] A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology article by our team of academic sleuths – which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician – has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references.

Hidden manipulation

People are becoming more aware of scientific publications and how they work, including their potential flaws. Just last year more than 10,000 scientific articles were retracted. The issues around citation gaming and the harm it causes the scientific community, including damaging its credibility, are well documented.

[…]

we found through a chance encounter that some unscrupulous actors have added extra references, invisible in the text but present in the articles’ metadata, when they submitted the articles to scientific databases. The result? Citation counts for certain researchers or journals have skyrocketed, even though these references were not cited by the authors in their articles.

Chance discovery

The investigation began when Guillaume Cabanac, a professor at the University of Toulouse, wrote a post on PubPeer, a website dedicated to postpublication peer review, in which scientists discuss and analyze publications. In the post, he detailed how he had noticed an inconsistency: a Hindawi journal article that he suspected was fraudulent because it contained awkward phrases had far more citations than downloads, which is very unusual.

The post caught the attention of several sleuths who are now the authors of the JASIST article. We used a scientific search engine to look for articles citing the initial article. Google Scholar found none, but Crossref and Dimensions did find references. The difference? Google Scholar is likely to mostly rely on the article’s main text to extract the references appearing in the bibliography section, whereas Crossref and Dimensions use metadata provided by publishers.

[…]

In the journals published by Technoscience Academy, at least 9% of recorded references were “sneaked references.” These additional references were only in the metadata, distorting citation counts and giving certain authors an unfair advantage. Some legitimate references were also lost, meaning they were not present in the metadata.

In addition, when analyzing the sneaked references, we found that they highly benefited some researchers. For example, a single researcher who was associated with Technoscience Academy benefited from more than 3,000 additional illegitimate citations. Some journals from the same publisher benefited from a couple hundred additional sneaked citations.

[…]

Why is this discovery important? Citation counts heavily influence research funding, academic promotions and institutional rankings. Manipulating citations can lead to unjust decisions based on false data. More worryingly, this discovery raises questions about the integrity of scientific impact measurement systems, a concern that has been highlighted by researchers for years. These systems can be manipulated to foster unhealthy competition among researchers, tempting them to take shortcuts to publish faster or achieve more citations.

[…]

Source: When scientific citations go rogue: Uncovering ‘sneaked references’

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

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It was a big week for road safety campaigners in the European Union as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology became mandatory on all new cars.

The rules came into effect on July 7 and follow a 2019 decision by the European Commission to make ISA obligatory on all new models and types of vehicles introduced from July 2022. Two years on, and the tech must be in all new cars.

European legislators reckon that the rules will make for safer roads. However, they will also add to the ever-increasing amount of technology rolling around the continent’s highways. While EU law has no legal force in the UK, it’s hard to imagine many manufacturers making an exemption for Britain.

So how does it work? In the first instance, the speed limit on a given road can be detected by using data from a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) – such as Global Positioning System (GPS) – and a digital map to come up with a speed limit. This might be combined with physical sign recognition.

If the driver is being a little too keen, the ISA system must notify them that the limit has been exceeded but, according to the European Road Safety Charter “not to restrict his/her possibility to act in any moment during driving.”

“The driver is always in control and can easily override the ISA system.”

There are four options available to manufacturers according to the regulations. The first two, a cascaded acoustic or vibrating warning, don’t intervene, while the latter two, haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal and a speed limiter, will. The European Commission noted, “Even in the case of speed control function, where the car speed will be automatically gently reduced, the system can be smoothly overridden by the driver by pressing the accelerator pedal a little bit deeper.”

The RAC road safety spokesperson Rod Dennis said: “While it’s not currently mandated that cars sold in the UK have to be fitted with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems, we’d be surprised if manufacturers deliberately excluded the feature from those they sell in the UK as it would add unnecessary cost to production.”

This writer has driven a car equipped with the technology, and while it would be unfair to name and shame particular manufacturers, things are a little hit-and-miss. Road signs are not always interpreted correctly, and maps are not always up to date, meaning the car is occasionally convinced that the speed limit differs from reality, with various beeps and vibrations to demonstrate its belief.

Dennis cautioned, “Anyone getting a new vehicle would be well advised to familiarise themselves with ISA and how it works,” and we would have to agree.

While it is important to understand that the technology is still a driver aid and can easily be overridden, it is not hard to detect the direction of travel.

Source: Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union • The Register

Paramount Axes Decades Of Comedy Central History In Latest Round Of Brunchlord Dysfunction

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Last month we noted how the brunchlords in charge of Paramount (CBS) decided to eliminate decades of MTV News journalism history as part of their ongoing “cost saving” efforts. It was just the latest casualty in an ever-consolidating and very broken U.S. media business routinely run by some of the least competent people imaginable.

We’ve noted how with streaming growth slowing, there’s no longer money to be made goosing stock valuations via subscriber growth. So media giants (and the incompetent brunchlords that usually fail upward into positions of unearned power within them) have turned their attention to all the usual tricks: layoffs, pointless megamergers, price hikes, and more and more weird and costly consumer restrictions.

Part of that equation also involves being too cheap to preserve history, as we’ve seen countless times when a journalism or media company implodes and then immediately disappears not just staffers but decades of their hard work. Usually (and this is from my experience as a freelancer) without any warning or consideration of the impact whatsoever.

Paramount has been struggling after its ingenious strategy of making worse and worse streaming content while charging more and more money somehow hasn’t panned out. While the company looks around for merger and acquisition partners, they’ve effectively taken a hatchet to company staff and history.

First with the recent destruction of the MTV News archives and a major round of layoffs, and now with the elimination of years of Comedy Central history. Last week, as part of additional cost cutting moves, the company basically gutted the Comedy Central website, eliminating years of archived video history of numerous programs ranging from old South Park clips to episodes of the The Colbert Report.

A website message and press statement by the company informs users that they can simply head over to the Paramount+ streaming app to watch older content:

“As part of broader website changes across Paramount, we have introduced more streamlined versions of our sites, driving fans to Paramount+ to watch their favorite shows.”

Except older episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report can no longer be found on Paramount+, also due to layoffs and cost cutting efforts at the company. Paramount is roughly $14 billion in debt due to mismanagement, and a recent plan to merge with Skydance was scuttled at the last second.

Eventually Paramount will find somebody else to merge with in order to bump stock valuations, nab a fat tax cut, and justify excessive executive compensation (look at me, I’m a savvy dealmaker!). At which point, as we saw with the disastrous AT&T–>Time Warner–>Discovery series of mergers, an entirely new wave of layoffs, quality erosion, and chaos will begin as they struggle to pay off deal debt.

It’s all so profoundly pointless, and at no point does anything like product quality, customer satisfaction, employee welfare, or the preservation of history enter into it. The executives spearheading this repeated trajectory from ill-conceived business models to mindless mergers will simply be promoted to bigger and better ventures because there’s simply no financial incentive to learn from historical missteps.

The executives at the top of the heap usually make out like bandits utterly regardless of competency or outcomes, so why change anything?

Source: Paramount Axes Decades Of Comedy Central History In Latest Round Of Brunchlord Dysfunction | Techdirt

Hackers reverse-engineer Ticketmaster’s barcode system to unlock resales on other platforms

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Scalpers have used a security researcher’s findings to reverse-engineer “nontransferable” digital tickets from Ticketmaster and AXS, allowing transfers outside their apps. The workaround was revealed in a lawsuit AXS filed in May against third-party brokers adopting the practice, according to 404 Media, which first reported the news.

The saga began in February when an anonymous security researcher, going by the pseudonym Conduition, published technical details about how Ticketmaster generates its electronic tickets.

[…]

Although the companies claim the practice is strictly a security measure, it also conveniently allows them to control how and when their tickets are resold. (Yay, capitalism?)

Side-by-side phone screenshots of the Ticketmaster app showing event barcodes.
Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster and AXS create their “nontransferable” tickets using rotating barcodes that change every few seconds, preventing working screenshots or printouts. On the back end, it uses similar underlying tech similar to two-factor authentication apps. In addition, the codes are only generated shortly before an event starts, limiting the window for sharing them outside the apps. Without interference from outside parties, the platforms get to lock ticket buyers into their own resale services, giving them vertical control of the entire ecosystem.

That’s where the hackers come in. Using Conduition’s published findings, they extracted the platforms’ secret tokens that generate new tickets, using an Android phone with its Chrome browser connected to Chrome DevTools on a desktop PC. Using the tokens, they create a parallel ticketing infrastructure that regenerates genuine barcodes on other platforms, allowing them to sell working tickets on platforms Ticketmaster and AXS don’t allow. Online reports claim the parallel tickets often work at the gates.

According to 404 Media, AXS’ lawsuit accuses the defendants of selling “counterfeit” tickets (even though they usually work) to “unsuspecting customers.” The court documents allegedly describe the parallel tickets as “created, in whole or in part by one or more of the Defendants illicitly accessing and then mimicking, emulating, or copying tickets from the AXS Platform.”

[…]

404 Media’s entire story is worth reading. More technically minded folks may take an interest in Conduition’s earlier findings, which illustrate what the ticketing behemoths are doing on their back ends to keep the entire ecosystems in their clutches.

Source: Hackers reverse-engineer Ticketmaster’s barcode system to unlock resales on other platforms

European Commission probes Amazon, Temu, Shein over ad recommendation systems

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The European Commission has sent a request for information to Amazon on measures taken to comply with a landmark EU law on content moderation, the Digital Services Act (DSA), according to a Friday (5 July) press release.

It’s the latest in a barrage of similar requests, accusations, and fines from the EU executive against big tech platforms under the DSA and the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Amazon has been requested to provide information on the transparency of its recommendation systems, including data inputs, and opt-out options offered to users who don’t want to be profiled by their algorithms, by 26 July, the press release said.

The e-commerce giant is also requested to answer questions on its Amazon Store Ad Library, including a risk assessment report. The Library provides EU users “with the ability to query data related to advertisements and affiliate marketing content,” according to a company website.

The firm is “reviewing” the request and is working closely with the Commission, an Amazon spokesperson told Euractiv on Friday.

The Commission will assess its next steps based on the company’s replies. Since Amazon is designated a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), meaning that it counts over 45 million users in Europe, the consequences of which can include fines up to 6% of the company’s global annual turnover. Amazon reported $574.8 billion (€530.8 billion) in net sales in 2023.

Just one week ago, the Commission sent similar requests to e-commerce platforms Temu and Shein.

Amazon had tried to suspend its DSA obligation to make its ads repository publicly available, in the Court of Justice of the EU.  But the court decided against Amazon on 27 March.

Source: European Commission probes Amazon over recommendation systems – Euractiv

Well, it’s not like Amazon hasn’t used their marketplace data to sell their own competing products before:

Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

Bag maker Peak Design calls out Amazon for its copycat ways

European Commission charges Amazon over misuse of seller data to make copy cat products

Amazon Restricts How Rival Device Makers Buy Ads on Its Site

Amazon and Meta to stop using rivals marketplace data to undercut their products.

Amazon offers to share data, boost rivals to dodge EU antitrust fines

The list goes on and on – this is just from 2020 upwards.

Googles Enshittification hits Fitbit: You Won’t Be Able to Access Your Fitbit Web Dashboard Any More

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Today is the last day you can interact with your Fitbit health data on a big screen. Last month, Fitbit announced in a blog post that consumers will no longer have access to the tracker’s web dashboard after July 8, 2024.

Fitbit describes the move as “consolidating the dashboard into the Fitbit app.” However, the statement assumes that all of the dashboard’s functionality is on the app, and the device consumers use to log and analyze their data doesn’t matter to them, which isn’t entirely true.

In the statement Fitbit released, it attributed the decision to its parent company. “Combined with Google’s decades of being the best at making sense of data, it’s our mission to be one combined Fitbit and Google team,”

[…]

Rightfully so, consumers are not happy, and quite a few have announced their decisions to switch to a fitness-tracking alternative. Apparently, the ability to create custom meals was an option specific to the web dashboard and not available on the phone app.

Pace Charts is another feature consumers don’t see on their Fitbit mobile apps despite being promised everything the web version offers. Some users commented that they prefer the web portal for entering data, while others lamented losing a big picture overview of their stats.

[…]

Source: You Won’t Be Able to Access Your Fitbit Web Dashboard After Today