A security researcher has exposed a critical vulnerability in the WHOIS system. Benjamin Harris, CEO of watchTowr, gained unprecedented access by registering an expired domain once used for .mobi's authoritative WHOIS server. His rogue server received millions of queries from thousands of systems, including government agencies, certificate authorities, and major tech companies. ArsTechnica adds: The humor aside, the rogue WHOIS server gave him powers he never should have had. One of the greatest was the ability to dictate the email address certificate authority GlobalSign used to determine if a party applying for a TLS certificate was the rightful owner of the domain name the certificate would apply to. Like the vast majority of its competitors, GlobalSign uses an automated process. An application for example.com, for instance, will prompt the certificate authority to send an email to the administrative email address listed in the authoritative WHOIS for that domain. If the party on the other end clicks a link, the certificate is automatically approved. When Harris generated a certificate signing request for microsoft.mobi, he promptly received an email from GlobalSign. The email gave him the option of receiving a verification link at whois@watchtowr.com. For ethical reasons, he stopped the experiment at this point. The vulnerability stems from outdated WHOIS client configurations, which underscores systemic weaknesses in internet infrastructure management.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A giant unregulated currency is undermining America's fight against arms dealers, sanctions busters and scammers. Almost as much money flowed through its network last year as through Visa cards. And it has recently minted more profit than BlackRock, with a tiny fraction of the workforce. Its name: tether. The cryptocurrency has grown into an important cog in the global financial system, with as much as $190 billion changing hands daily. In essence, tether is a digital U.S. dollar -- though one privately controlled in the British Virgin Islands by a secretive crew of owners, with its activities largely hidden from governments.

Known as a stablecoin for its 1:1 peg to the dollar, tether gained early use among crypto aficionados. But it has spread deep into the financial underworld, enabling a parallel economy that operates beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Wherever the U.S. government has restricted access to the dollar financial system -- Iran, Venezuela, Russia -- tether thrives as a sort of incognito dollar used to move money across borders. Russian oligarchs and weapons dealers shuttle tether abroad to buy property and pay suppliers for sanctioned goods. Venezuela's sanctioned state oil firm takes payment in tether for cargoes. Drug cartels, fraud rings and terrorist groups such as Hamas use it to launder income.

Yet in dysfunctional economies such as Argentina and Turkey, beset by hyperinflation and a shortage of hard currency, tether is also a lifeline for people who use it for quotidian payments and as a way to protect their savings. Tether is arguably the first successful real-world product to emerge from the cryptocurrency revolution that began over a decade ago. It has made its owners immensely rich. Tether has $120 billion in assets, mostly risk-free U.S. Treasury bills, along with positions in bitcoin and gold. Last year it generated $6.2 billion in profit, outearning BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, by $700 million.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Data Center Dynamics: Google has signed a $10 million deal to pull 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air. The company will buy direct air capture (DAC) credits from startup Holocene, to be delivered in the early 2030s. The deal is the lowest price on record for DAC, at $100 per ton -- a price the Department of Energy previously said was needed to make carbon capture mainstream. Google will provide the funds up front, but there is no guarantee that Holocene will hit that goal. Running Tide, a carbon removal company that Microsoft paid to capture 12,000 tons of CO2 in 2023, shut down in 2024. The $100 price was also made possible thanks to the US government's 45Q tax credit, which provides DAC suppliers $180 per ton of carbon removed.

Holocene passes air through a waterfall with an amino acid added to it which binds CO2. This is then mixed with guanidine to form a solid crystal mass. Next, the amino acid is sent back to the beginning of the loop, while the solid is lightly heated to release pure CO2 -- which can then be stored. The company plans to capture and store 100,000 tons of CO2 by the early 2030s. "The structure of this partnership -- providing immediate funding to achieve an ambitious but important price in the medium term -- is just one way to support carbon removal as it scales," Randy Spock, carbon credits and removals lead, said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Within the next several months, Nevada plans to launch a generative AI system powered by Google that will analyze transcripts of unemployment appeals hearings and issue recommendations to human referees about whether or not claimants should receive benefits. The system will be the first of its kind in the country and represents a significant experiment by state officials and Google in allowing generative AI to influence a high-stakes government decision -- one that could put thousands of dollars in unemployed Nevadans' pockets or take it away. Nevada officials say the Google system will speed up the appeals process -- cutting the time it takes referees to write a determination from several hours to just five minutes, in some cases -- helping the state work through a stubborn backlog of cases that have been pending since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tool will generate recommendations based on hearing transcripts and evidentiary documents, supplying its own analysis of whether a person's unemployment claim should be approved, denied, or modified. At least one human referee will then review each recommendation, said Christopher Sewell, director of the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation (DETR). If the referee agrees with the recommendation, they will sign and issue the decision. If they don't agree, the referee will revise the document and DETR will investigate the discrepancy. "There's no AI [written decisions] that are going out without having human interaction and that human review," Sewell said. "We can get decisions out quicker so that it actually helps the claimant."

Judicial scholars, a former U.S. Department of Labor official, and lawyers who represent Nevadans in appeal hearings told Gizmodo they worry the emphasis on speed could undermine any human guardrails Nevada puts in place. "The time savings they're looking for only happens if the review is very cursory," said Morgan Shah, director of community engagement for Nevada Legal Services. "If someone is reviewing something thoroughly and properly, they're really not saving that much time. At what point are you creating an environment where people are sort of being encouraged to take a shortcut?" Michele Evermore, a former deputy director for unemployment modernization policy at the Department of Labor, shared similar concerns. "If a robot's just handed you a recommendation and you just have to check a box and there's pressure to clear out a backlog, that's a little bit concerning," she said. In response to those fears about automation bias Google spokesperson Ashley Simms said "we work with our customers to identify and address any potential bias, and help them comply with federal and state requirements." "There's a level of risk we have to be willing to accept with humans and with AI," added Amy Perez, who oversaw unemployment modernization efforts in Colorado and at the U.S. Department of Labor. "We should only be putting these tools out into production if we've established it's as good as or better than a human."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over successive administrations, the U.S. government has used stiff trade restrictions to try to stifle the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. In turn, the company never misses an opportunity to show that it is still standing. Last year, at the tail end of a visit to China by Gina Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, Huawei unveiled a smartphone that was powered by an advanced semiconductor made in China. The chip was exactly the kind of technology that the United States, in an effort led by Ms. Raimondo, had tried to prevent China from developing.

The Huawei phone, called the Mate 60 Pro, was heralded in China as the triumph of a national champion over American constraints. It sold out within minutes on Chinese e-commerce platforms. Many shoppers chose to pair their purchase with a phone case emblazoned with a photo of Ms. Raimondo's face. In the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen on Tuesday, Huawei again made a bid for the spotlight with the announcement of a new device just hours after Apple introduced its iPhone 16 in California. Huawei's latest phone, the Mate XT, is heavy on novelty: It can be folded, twice [non-paywalled source].

The tablet-size device folds along two vertical seams to become the size of a typical phone. It is the first commercially available trifold smartphone. It comes in two colors, red and black, and will go on sale on Sept. 20. "It's a piece of work that everyone has thought of but never managed to create," said Richard Yu, Huawei's consumer group chairman. "I have always had a dream to put our tablet in my pocket, and we did it." The Mate XT, with a screen that measures 10.2 inches diagonally, is equipped with artificial intelligence-enabled translation, messaging and photo editing features. Mr. Yu also unveiled a thin keyboard that folds in half to the same size as the phone. He showed the audience how he carried both together in the pocket of his suit jacket. Starting at $2,800, the Mate XT is priced like a luxury product.

Malaysia's telecom regulator has abandoned a plan to block overseas DNS services a day after announcing it, following a sharp backlash and accusations of government overreach. From a report: Last Friday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) published an FAQ that stated it had instructed all ISPs to redirect traffic headed for offshore DNS servers to services operated by Malaysian ISPs -- a move it claimed would prevent access to malicious and harmful websites such as those concerning gambling, pornography, copyright infringement or scams. "No, the DNS redirection will not affect your connection speed or browsing experience for legitimate websites," the Commission promised in its FAQ.

But opposition to the plan quickly emerged, on grounds that it could amount to censorship and therefore represented government overreach. Musician turned state legislator Syed Ahmad Syed Abdul Rahman Alhadad labelled the decision "draconian" and a negative for Malaysia's digital economy. Fellow state assemblyperson Lim Yi Wei described the policy as "ill-advised," censorship, inefficient, and unsecure -- as well as counterproductive to government efforts to develop tech startups, innovation and datacenters.

A robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week mission to retrieve melted fuel debris for the first time since the 2011 disaster. The operation marks a crucial step in the decades-long process to decommission the plant and address the highly radioactive material inside three damaged reactors.

The robot, maneuvered remotely due to lethal radiation levels, will collect less than 3 grams of debris using tongs. This sample will provide vital data on the status of the reactor cores and inform future cleanup strategies. An estimated 880 tons of molten fuel remains in the three reactors, posing potential safety risks as the structures age. AP adds: Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues, underscoring the difficulty of the process. The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years, while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years.

Others are pushing for an entombment of the plant, as at Chernobyl after its 1986 explosion, to reduce radiation levels and risks for plant workers. That won't work at the seaside Fukushima plant, says Lake Barrett, who led the cleanup after the 1979 disaster at the U.S. "You're in a high seismic area, you're in a high-water area, and there are a lot of unknowns in those (reactor) buildings,â he said. "I don't think you can just entomb it and wait."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Agence France-Presse: Australia will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16, the prime minister said Tuesday, vowing to get kids off their devices and "onto the footy fields." Federal legislation to keep children off social media will be introduced this year, Anthony Albanese said, describing the impact of the sites on young people as a "scourge." The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but is expected to be between 14 and 16 years, Albanese said. The prime minister said his own preference would be a block on users aged below 16. An age verification trial to test various approaches is being conducted over the coming months, the centre-left leader said. [...]

It is not even clear that the technology exists to reliably enforce such bans, said the University of Melbourne's associate professor in computing and information technology, Toby Murray. "The government is currently trialling age assurance technology. But we already know that present age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to circumvent, or risk user privacy," he said. But the prime minister said parents expected a response to online bullying and the access social media gave to harmful material. "These social media companies think they're above everyone," he told a radio interviewer. "Well, they have a social responsibility and at the moment, they're not exercising it. And we're determined to make sure that they do," he said.

Most kitchen products use plastics that are practically unrecyclable, yet a trade group representing major brands is pressuring regulators to allow companies to label such items as "recyclable," even though they are likely to end up in landfills. Experts warn this could worsen the plastic crisis and misleading labels could further deceive consumers about the true recyclability of these products. ProPublica reports: The Consumer Brands Association believes companies should be able to stamp "recyclable" on products that are technically "capable" of being recycled, even if they're all but guaranteed to end up in a landfill. As ProPublica previously reported, the group argued for a looser definition of "recyclable" in written comments to the Federal Trade Commission as the agency revises the Green Guides -- guidelines for advertising products with sustainable attributes. [...] ProPublica contacted the 51 companies on the association's board of directors to ask if they agreed with the trade group's definition of "recyclable." Most did not respond. None said they disagreed with the definition. Nine companies referred ProPublica back to the association.

The Green Guides are meant to increase consumer trust in sustainable products. Though these guidelines are not laws, they serve as a national reference for companies and other government agencies for how to define terms like "compostable," "nontoxic" and "recyclable." [...] The current Green Guides allow companies to label products and packaging as "recyclable" if at least 60% of Americans have access to facilities that will take the material. As written, the guidelines don't specify whether it's enough for the facilities to simply collect and sort the items or if there needs to be a reasonable expectation that the material will be made into something new. "The Green Guides have long set forth that items labeled as 'recyclable' are those which are capable of being recycled," [Joseph Aquilina, the association's vice president and deputy general counsel] told ProPublica. "Any characterization suggesting Consumer Brands is pushing for a 'looser definition' is false." But the association seemed to disregard what the FTC said in a separate document released alongside the guides, which states that a truthful recyclable claim means that "a substantial majority of consumers or communities have access to facilities that will actually recycle, not accept and ultimately discard, the product."

In its comments to the FTC, the association pushed back on that idea. The U.S. recycling system is decentralized, and manufacturers have no control over economic factors that might lead a recycler to change its mind about how it handles a certain type of plastic, the association wrote, adding that it was unrealistic to force brands to predict which products will be "ultimately recycled." The association represents sellers and will naturally seek more flexibility in its positions, Jef Richards, a professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University, said in an email. The "problem with defining 'recyclable' as anything that MIGHT be recycled is that I seriously doubt that's how consumers define it." When consumer expectations fail to match what the advertiser is saying, "consumers are being deceived," he added. That deception has concrete impacts: Plastic bags that mistakenly end up at recycling centers can gum up machinery, start fires and contaminate bales of paper, which then can't be recycled. The problem could get worse if the FTC listens to the Consumer Brands Association and allows companies to market plastic bags as "recyclable."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A 41-year-old man in New Hampshire died last week after contracting a rare mosquito-borne illness called eastern equine encephalitis virus, also known as EEE or "triple E." It was New Hampshire's first human case of the disease in a decade. Four other human EEE infections have been reported this year, in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Though this outbreak is small, and triple E does not pose a risk to most people living in the United States, public health officials and researchers are concerned about the threat the deadly virus poses to the public, both this year and in future summers. There is no known cure for the disease, which can cause severe flu-like symptoms and seizures in humans four to 10 days after exposure and kills between 30 and 40 percent of the people it infects (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). Half of the people who survive a triple E infection are left with permanent neurological damage. Because of EEE's high mortality rate, state officials have begun spraying insecticide in Massachusetts, where 10 communities have been designated "critical" or "high risk" for triple E. Towns in the state shuttered their parks from dusk to dawn and warned people to stay inside after 6 pm, when mosquitoes are most active.

Like West Nile virus, another mosquito-borne illness that poses a risk to people in the US every summer, triple E is constrained by environmental factors that are changing rapidly as the planet warms. That's because mosquitoes thrive in the hotter, wetter conditions that climate change is producing. "We have seen a resurgence of activity with eastern equine encephalitis virus over the course of the past 10 or so years," said Theodore G. Andreadis, a researcher who studied mosquito-borne diseases at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, a state government research and public outreach outfit, for 35 years. "And we've seen an advancement into more northern regions where it had previously not been detected." Researchers don't know what causes the virus to surge and abate, but Andreadis said it's clear that climate change is one of the factors spurring its spread, particularly into new regions. [...]

Studies have shown that warmer air temperatures up to a certain threshold, around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, shorten the amount of time it takes for C. melanura eggs to hatch. Higher temperatures in the spring and fall extend the number of days mosquitoes have to breed and feed. And they'll feed more times in a summer season if it's warmer -- mosquitoes are ectothermic, meaning their metabolism speeds up in higher temperatures. Rainfall, too, plays a role in mosquito breeding and activity, since mosquito eggs need water to hatch. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which means that even small rainfall events dump more water today than they would have last century. The more standing water there is in roadside ditches, abandoned car tires, ponds, bogs, and potholes, the more opportunities mosquitoes have to breed. And warmer water decreases the incubation period for C. melanura eggs, leading one study to conclude that warmer-than-average water temperatures "increase the probability for amplification of EEE." Climate change isn't the only factor encouraging the spread of disease vectors like mosquitoes. The slow reforestation of areas that were clear-cut for industry and agriculture many decades ago is creating new habitat for insects. At the same time, developers are building new homes in wooded or half-wooded zones in ever larger numbers, putting humans in closer proximity to the natural world and the bugs that live in it. The report notes that the best way to prevent mosquito bites is to "wear long sleeves and pants at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most prone to biting, and regularly apply an effective mosquito spray." Local health departments can also help protect the public by "testing pools of water for mosquito larvae and conducting public awareness and insecticide spraying campaigns when triple E is detected," notes Wired.

A vaccine for the disease exists for horses, but because the illness is so rare "there is little incentive for vaccine manufacturers to develop a preventative for triple E in humans," adds the report.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Commerce Department said Monday it is proposing to require detailed reporting requirements for advanced artificial intelligence developers and cloud computing providers to ensure the technologies are safe and can withstand cyberattacks. The proposal from the department's Bureau of Industry and Security would set mandatory reporting to the federal government about development activities of "frontier" AI models and computing clusters. It would also require reporting on cybersecurity measures as well as outcomes from so-called red-teaming efforts like testing for dangerous capabilities including the ability to assist in cyberattacks or lowering barriers to entry for non-experts to develop chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. External red-teaming has been used for years in cybersecurity to identify new risks, with the term referring to U.S. Cold War simulations where the enemy was termed the "red team." [...] Commerce said the information collected under the proposal "will be vital for ensuring these technologies meet stringent standards for safety and reliability, can withstand cyberattacks, and have limited risk of misuse by foreign adversaries or non-state actors." Further reading: Biden Signs Executive Order To Oversee and Invest in AI

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For years, Google has faced complaints about how it dominates the online advertising market. Many of the concerns stem from the internet giant's suite of software known as Google Ad Manager, which websites around the world use to sell ads on their sites. The technology conducts split-second auctions to place ads each time a user loads a page. The dominance of that technology has landed Google in federal court. On Monday, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia will preside over the start of a trial in which the Department of Justice accuses the company of abusing control of its ad technology and violating antitrust law (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source).

It would be Google's second antitrust trial in less than a year. In August, a federal judge ruled in a separate case that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search, a major victory for the Justice Department. The new trial is the latest salvo by federal antitrust regulators against Big Tech, testing a century-old competition law against companies that have reshaped the way people shop, communicate and consume information. Federal regulators have also filed antitrust lawsuits against Apple,Amazon and Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, saying those companies have also abused their power. Google's vice president for regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said in a blog post on Sunday that the Justice Department was "picking winners and losers in a highly competitive industry."

"With the cost of ads going down and the number of ads sold going up, the market is working," she said. "The DOJ's case risks inefficiencies and higher prices -- the last thing that America's economy or our small businesses need right now."

Steven Levy, writing for Wired: My first story for WIRED -- yep, 31 years ago -- looked at a group of "crypto rebels" who were trying to pry strong encryption technology from the government-classified world and send it into the mainstream. Naturally I attempted to speak to someone at the National Security Agency for comment and ideally get a window into its thinking. Unsurprisingly, that was a no-go, because the NSA was famous for its reticence. Eventually we agreed that I could fax (!) a list of questions. In return I got an unsigned response in unhelpful bureaucratese that didn't address my queries. Even that represented a loosening of what once was total blackout on anything having to do with this ultra-secretive intelligence agency. For decades after its post-World War II founding, the government revealed nothing, not even the name, of this agency and its activities. Those in the know referred to it as "No Such Agency."

In recent years, the widespread adoption of encryption technology and the vital need for cybersecurity has led to more openness. Its directors began to speak in public; in 2012, NSA director Keith Alexander actually keynoted Defcon. I'd spent the entire 1990s lobbying to visit the agency for my book Crypto; in 2013, I finally crossed the threshold of its iconic Fort Meade Headquarters for an on-the-record conversation with officials, including Alexander. NSA now has social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. And there is a form on the agency website for podcasters to request guest appearances by an actual NSA-ite.

So it shouldn't be a total shock that NSA is now doing its own podcast. You don't need to be an intelligence agency to know that pods are a unique way to tell stories and hold people's attention. The first two episodes of the seven-part season dropped this week. It's called No Such Podcast, earning some self-irony points from the get-go. In keeping with the openness vibe, the NSA granted me an interview with an official in charge of the project -- one of the de facto podcast producers, a title that apparently is still not an official NSA job posting. Since NSA still gotta NSA, I can't use this person's name. But my source did point out that in the podcast itself, both the hosts and the guests -- who are past and present agency officials -- speak under their actual identities.

A month before its planned delivery after years of delay and cost growth, RTX's $7.6 billion ground network to control GPS satellites is still marred by problems that may further stall its acceptance by the US Space Force, congressional auditors said Monday. From a report: RTX's system of 17 ground stations for current and improved GPS satellites was supposed to be ready by October, when it would undergo a series of intense Space Force tests to assess whether it can be declared operational by December 2025. The system continues to draw the ire of lawmakers because it's running more than seven years late in a development phase that's about 73% costlier than initial projections.

Two rounds of testing by the company have been "marked by significant challenges that drove delays to the program's schedule," the Government Accountability Office said Monday in a broad review of the US military's GPS program, including improvements intended to block jamming by adversaries.

The Next Generation Operational Control System, known as OCX, is intended to provide improvements, including access to more secure, jam-resistant software for the military's use of the GPS navigation system, which is also depended on by civilians worldwide. "The program faces challenges from product deficiencies" that "create a risk of further delay," the Pentagon's Defense Contract Management Agency told the GAO, adding that it expects RTX at the earliest to deliver OCX by December.

U.S. Justice Department officials "are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming weapons into illegal homemade machine guns," reports the Associated Press: "Law enforcement cannot do this alone," [U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Friday] during a gathering in Washington of federal law enforcement officials, members of the 3D-printing industry and academia. "We need to engage software developers, technology experts and leaders in the 3-D-printing industry to identify solutions in this fight...."

Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a sweet sixteen party in Alabama last year... Monaco on Friday also announced several other efforts designed to crack down on the devices, including a national training initiative for law enforcement and prosecutors.

The deputy attorney general is also launching a committee designed to help spot trends and gather intelligence.

Workers get the right to request a four-day workweek under a new proposal by the U.K. government. But a professor of economics at the University of Leeds argues "There remain problems, however" — starting with the fact that "under current laws, employers can still resist the requests of workers, if they want to." There is also the problem of unevenness in the effect of the law. While workers in well-paid jobs have bargaining leverage to assert their legal rights, others in lower-paid jobs face minimal protection and risk direct exploitation... [A]dvancing the case for a four-day working week is likely to be more difficult if it is seen as benefiting only one section of society (one that already enjoys strong rights and privileges)....

Another problem is the scope for compressed hours — working a five-day week of around 40 hours in four days. Under the new proposal, workers requesting and getting a four-day working week will still be required to put in the same hours. Longer work days may be welcomed by some — for example, they may cut down on childcare costs. But they risk undermining the benefits of a shorter working week. Indeed, they may threaten the health of workers by creating heavier work days which they need longer to recover from. At worst, a three-day weekend may be needed to recover from a four-day working week with longer days.
While a four-day work week could improve the quality of life and help address climate change, the analysis argues that the government's proposal ultimately raises issues about the "purpose and potential" of a four-day working week, possibly suggesting other policy changes that may also be needed. "It is important that low wages are addressed alongside work-time reduction."

• "If the government is serious about achieving a four-day working week to raise productivity and improve employee wellbeing, it needs to encourage trials in the public sector... "

• "The government also needs to target a future date, say 2040, for the realisation of a four-day working week. This could be facilitated by establishing a partnership of unions and employers to identify barriers to a four-day working week and ways to overcome them."

"Solar farms could blanket millions of acres in the United States over the coming decades," writes the New York Times.

But "the sites that capture that energy take up land that wildlife needs to survive and thrive." "We have to address both challenges at the same exact time," said Rebecca Hernandez, a professor of ecology at the University of California, Davis, whose research focuses on how to do just that. Insects, those small animals that play a mighty role in supporting life on Earth, are facing alarming declines. Solar farms can offer them food and shelter by providing a diverse mix of native plants. Such plants can also decrease erosion, nourish the soil and store planet-warming carbon. They can also attract insects that improve pollination of nearby crops...

On a recent morning at the solar meadow in Ramsey, it was time to count insects... In solar pollinator habitat, Minnesota was an early leader among states. Since 2017, funded by the Department of Energy, Lee Walston [a landscape ecologist at Argonne National Laboratory] has been studying sites there and throughout the Midwest. "If you build it, will they come?" he asks in his research. So far, the answer is a resounding yes, if you grow the right plants. In a study published late last year, his team found that insect abundance had tripled over five years on test plots at two other Minnesota solar sites. The abundance of native bees grew twentyfold. The results come amid a global decline of wildlife that leaders are struggling to address.

Some of the most well-known insect species are in trouble: Later this year, the federal government is expected to rule on whether to place monarch butterflies on the Endangered Species List. North American birds, for their part, are down almost 30% since 1970. But at this site, called Anoka County Solar, acoustic monitoring has documented 73 species of birds, presumably attracted by the buffet of seeds and insects. Some build nests in the structures supporting the panels. Mammals are showing up, too... What makes this meadow possible is the height of the panels. A prairie restoration firm had told ENGIE, the owner and developer, that taller panels would allow for a sharp increase in native vegetation species, providing much more ecological diversity, said John Gantner, the director of engineering and delivery for ENGIE's smaller-scale sites. The price of the additional steel and the native seeds were "insignificant to the overall project cost," Gantner said. Over the life of the project, ENGIE has found, pollinator-friendly landscaping actually saves money because it needs far less mowing...

Nationwide, it's unclear what portion of solar farms include any kind of pollinator habitat. The federal project that Walston is part of has a running rough count of just under 24,000 acres. That's compared with about 600,000 acres of currently operating large-scale sites across the country, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, with a sharp increase expected over the next couple decades.
The article adds that it also helps develoipers get their projects approved "at a time when communities are increasingly wary of vast solar farms. Developers are taking note..."

Others have also suggested "agrivoltaics" — where farming land is also used for generating renewable energy.

Wired interviews America's foreign policy chief, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about U.S. digital polices, starting with a new "cybersecurity bureau" created in 2022 (which Wired previously reported includes "a crash course in cybersecurity, telecommunications, privacy, surveillance, and other digital issues.") Look, what I've seen since coming back to the State Department three and a half years ago is that everything happening in the technological world and in cyberspace is increasingly central to our foreign policy. There's almost a perfect storm that's come together over the last few years, several major developments that have really brought this to the forefront of what we're doing and what we need to do. First, we have a new generation of foundational technologies that are literally changing the world all at the same time — whether it's AI, quantum, microelectronics, biotech, telecommunications. They're having a profound impact, and increasingly they're converging and feeding off of each other.

Second, we're seeing that the line between the digital and physical worlds is evaporating, erasing. We have cars, ports, hospitals that are, in effect, huge data centers. They're big vulnerabilities. At the same time, we have increasingly rare materials that are critical to technology and fragile supply chains. In each of these areas, the State Department is taking action. We have to look at everything in terms of "stacks" — the hardware, the software, the talent, and the norms, the rules, the standards by which this technology is used.

Besides setting up an entire new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy — and the bureaus are really the building blocks in our department — we've now trained more than 200 cybersecurity and digital officers, people who are genuinely expert. Every one of our embassies around the world will have at least one person who is truly fluent in tech and digital policy. My goal is to make sure that across the entire department we have basic literacy — ideally fluency — and even, eventually, mastery. All of this to make sure that, as I said, this department is fit for purpose across the entire information and digital space.
Wired notes it was Blinken's Department that discovered China's 2023 breach of Microsoft systems. And on the emerging issue of AI, Blinken cites "incredible work done by the White House to develop basic principles with the foundational companies." The voluntary commitments that they made, the State Department has worked to internationalize those commitments. We have a G7 code of conduct — the leading democratic economies in the world — all agreeing to basic principles with a focus on safety. We managed to get the very first resolution ever on artificial intelligence through the United Nations General Assembly — 192 countries also signing up to basic principles on safety and a focus on using AI to advance sustainable development goals on things like health, education, climate. We also have more than 50 countries that have signed on to basic principles on the responsible military use of AI. The goal here is not to have a world that is bifurcated in any way. It's to try to bring everyone together.

Digital rights activists want device manufacturers to disclose a "guaranteed minimum support time" for devices — and federal regulations ensuring a product's core functionality will work even after its software updates stop.

Influential groups including Consumer Reports, EFF, the Software Freedom Conservancy, iFixit, and U.S. Pirg have now signed a letter to the head of America's Consumer Protection bureau (at the Federal Trade Commision), reports The Register: In an eight-page letter to the Commission (FTC), the activists mentioned the Google/Levis collaboration on a denim jacket that contained sensors enabling it to control an Android device through a special app. When the app was discontinued in 2023, the jacket lost that functionality. The letter also mentions the "Car Thing," an automotive infotainment device created by Spotify, which bricked the device fewer than two years after launch and didn't offer a refund...

Environmental groups and computer repair shops also signed the letter... "Consumers need a clear standard for what to expect when purchasing a connected device," stated Justin Brookman, director of technology policy at Consumer Reports and a former policy director of the FTC's Office of Technology, Research, and Investigation. "Too often, consumers are left with devices that stop functioning because companies decide to end support without little to no warning. This leaves people stranded with devices they once relied on, unable to access features or updates...."

Brookman told The Register that he believes this is the first such policy request to the FTC that asks the agency to help consumers with this dilemma. "I'm not aware of a previous effort from public interest groups to get the FTC to take action on this issue — it's still a relatively new issue with no clear established norms," he wrote in an email. "But it has certainly become an issue" that comes up more and more with device makers as they change their rules about product updates and usage.
"Both switching features to a subscription and 'bricking' a connected device purchased by a consumer in many cases are unfair and deceptive practices," the groups write, arguing that the practices "infringe on a consumer's right to own the products they buy." They're requesting clear "guidance" for manufacturers from the U.S. government. The FTC has a number of tools at its disposal to help establish standards for IoT device support. While a formal rulemaking is one possibility, the FTC also has the ability to issue more informal guidance, such as its Endorsement Guides12 and Dot Com Disclosures.13 We believe the agency should set norms...
The groups are also urging the FTC to:

• Encourage tools and methods that enable reuse if software support ends.

• Conduct an educational program to encourage manufacturers to build longevity into the design of their products.

• Protect "adversarial interoperability"... when a competitor or third-party creates a reuse or modification tool [that] adds to or converts the old device.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00K for sharing the article.

The New York Times analyzed over 3.2 million Telegram messages from 16,220 channels. Their conclusion? Telegram "offers features that enable criminals, terrorists and grifters to organize at scale and to sidestep scrutiny from the authorities" — and that Telegram "has looked the other way as illegal and extremist activities have flourished openly on the app."

Or, more succinctly: "Telegram has become a global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement, according to a four-month investigation." Look deeper, and a dark underbelly emerges. Uncut lumps of cocaine and shards of crystal meth are for sale on the app. Handguns and stolen checks are widely available. White nationalists use the platform to coordinate fight clubs and plan rallies. Hamas broadcast its Oct. 7 attack on Israel on the site... The Times investigation found 1,500 channels operated by white supremacists who coordinate activities among almost 1 million people around the world. At least two dozen channels sold weapons. In at least 22 channels with more than 70,000 followers, MDMA, cocaine, heroin and other drugs were advertised for delivery to more than 20 countries.

Hamas, the Islamic State and other militant groups have thrived on Telegram, often amassing large audiences across dozens of channels. The Times analyzed more than 40 channels associated with Hamas, which showed that average viewership surged up to 10 times after the Oct. 7 attacks, garnering more than 400 million views in October. Telegram is "the most popular place for ill-intentioned, violent actors to congregate," said Rebecca Weiner, the deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism at the New York Police Department. "If you're a bad guy, that's where you will land...." [Telegram] steadfastly ignores most requests for assistance from law enforcement agencies. An email inbox used for inquiries from government agencies is rarely checked, former employees said...
"It is easy to search and find channels selling guns, illicit narcotics, prescription drugs and fraudulent ATM cards, called clone cards..." according to the article. The Times "found at least 50 channels openly selling contraband, including guns, drugs and fraudulent debit cards." In December 2022, Hayden Espinosa began serving a 33-month sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for buying and selling illegal firearms and weapon parts he made with 3D printers. That did not stop his business. Using cellphones that had been smuggled into prison, Espinosa continued his illicit trade on a Telegram channel... Espinosa's gun market on Telegram might never have been uncovered except that one of its members was Payton Gendron, who massacred 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in 2022. Investigators scouring his life online for motives for the shooting discovered the channel, which also featured racist and extremist views he had shared.
"Operating like a stateless organization, Telegram has long behaved as if it were above the law," the article concludes — though it adds that "In many democratic countries, patience with the app is wearing thin.

"The European Union is exploring new oversight of Telegram under the Digital Services Act, a law that forces large online platforms to police their services more aggressively, two people familiar with the plans said."